by Alex White
The static grew louder. Loxley tried to cry out, but the words wouldn’t come. She scrabbled forward as best she could, clawing at the short carpet, but the ghost took hold of her hair and wrenched her head backward. The ghost’s palm pressed into her spine, and Loxley arched her back, unable to move. For a moment, she became weightless, lifted into the air by death’s freezing hands.
Her breath came in ragged gasps, and she tried to hold onto it, but it sputtered out of her in agonized screams. Her fingers curled under and spasms locked her arms into place. Loxley’s world began to dissolve around her, consumed by the rush of static. She was losing control of herself. She was going to die here.
And with a harsh silence, the touches stopped. The far wall rushed to meet Loxley like a freight train.
Chapter Four
How It Was
NORA SLICKED BACK a tendril of hair as she mounted Jack. She moaned softly as she ground him into her, savoring the feeling of their bodies against one another. He leaned up to bury his face in her breasts, pressing them into his cheeks with his hands and breathing deeply of her. She couldn’t stifle her chuckle.
He fell back to the bed, smiling. “What’s so funny?”
“Again with the tits,” she replied, without stopping the rhythm of their lovemaking. “I can’t persuade you to sit still, can I?”
He caressed her nipples. “It’s a nice view.”
She pressed her palm into his chest. “Then relax and enjoy it from back there.”
Because you’re better when you’re fast. Jack Grady wasn’t a terrible partner, but he wasn’t all that helpful, leaving Nora to do all the work. And if she didn’t do everything for him, he’d take all goddamned night. She enjoyed some of it, but he was pretty lackluster on the whole. She only climaxed during foreplay, which was a rarity. He wasn’t much to look at, either, with pale skin and a lumpy body. She could only imagine how scared he must be to come down to the seventh ring without the armed guard he got at the plastic factory – he looked like an engineer, right down to the dopey shirts he wore.
Nora leaned back and pushed her cleavage together. “Was this what you were looking for, honey?”
He swelled inside her, and she let out a surprised groan. He took hold of her hips, digging into her skin with his fingernails. His arms gained a strength she hadn’t felt before. She pinched her nipples and bit her lip, and he went even crazier, his eyes locked on her chest. At first, she’d only meant to flatter him with little sighs and moans, but as he continued, she found herself actually wanting more.
For the first time, they came together. She wouldn’t hold her breath for that to happen again.
She slid off him and fell to the sheets, panting. When she glanced to Jack, he looked like he’d sprinted a few miles. His eyes were wide, and he gulped the air as he lay flat on his back. He certainly wasn’t a typical factory boy – soft body, soft hands and all the physical prowess of a lazy dog. She took a swig from the glass of water on the nightstand and coughed. She offered him some, but he refused. She tucked a towel between her legs and sat on the edge of the bed.
Nora opened her nightstand drawer, grabbed a joint and lit up. She sat and smoked for a few minutes, wondering when Jack was going to get up and join her. His breathing came to rest in the darkness, a steady in and out. Deep relaxation spread through her body with the bittersweet smoke.
She took a huge lungful and held it before breathing out. “I heard from the other girls that there were going to be lay-offs. Is that true?”
“I don’t see how it’s their business,” he mumbled, half-asleep.
She curled up under his arm and put the joint to his lips. “I figure their jobs are their business. A lot of those girls are my friends.”
“You figured wrong. You ever managed people, baby?” He placed a hand to his brow. “It’s fucking unbearable.”
About a million replies coursed through Nora’s head. “Yeah. I can only imagine. It must be tough to decide who stays and who goes.”
“Look, if they wanted to be doing my job, maybe they should have gone to college,” he said. “I mean, no offense or anything.”
“It’s fine, baby. I don’t think I could have hacked college.” Not without rich parents or a decent upbringing. Not when there’d always been a desperate need to bring food into the house. Luckily, both of Nora’s parents had stopped being a burden on her when they’d died young. She’d sometimes imagined attending the Baptist university on the first ring, but she couldn’t ever scrape up the application fee, much less tuition. She took a long drag and pressed the joint to Jack’s lips again.
He sucked upon the offering. “Seriously, you’d hate it. You’ve got the right idea just hanging out and getting high.”
“I work pretty hard.”
“No doubt, darling. You’re probably my best.”
She ran her fingers through his sweaty chest hairs. “For a multitude of reasons.”
He looked down at her. “You know what the boys upstairs would say if they knew about us?”
“They’d say, ‘Good job, Grady. Let me introduce you to my mistress, Heidi. Keep that shit under wraps and you’ll go far here.’”
He chortled. “Yeah. You’re probably right. I know for a fact most of them are getting tail on the side.”
“See? It ain’t so bad to be the boss.”
He reached down and rubbed her nipple. “It’s got its perks.” He sat up, sliding back against the headboard and leaving her head resting on his naked lap.
She wasn’t sure what he was expecting, but she certainly wasn’t about to entertain him for another round. He pushed her hair aside to see her lips, and Nora did everything she could not to roll her eyes. She looked at him, and his eyes darted to his groin expectantly. She wrapped her fingers around his member and sat up to kiss him, squeezing tightly. Their lips parted and she leaned into his ear.
“You’ve got to be kidding, Jack. You want to go again after the performance you just put on?”
“You could get him going,” he cooed.
“Maybe I want him to get some rest.” Because maybe once is enough for tonight. Because I’m high as shit right now, and I don’t want you trying to break my damned hips again. Because I’m sick of your high-horse attitude. “Because I want a real fucking in the morning.”
“Suit yourself, gorgeous.” He took the joint from her and pulled a massive drag off it before stubbing out the remains in the ash tray. “This shit is good. Where do you get it?”
“Little girl down in Vulcan’s Bazaar.”
“You want to pick up some more of it for tomorrow night?”
“It ain’t cheap.” Nora was lying. Loxley was pretty fair.
“Yeah, yeah. I’ll give you a couple of bucks in the morning.” Jack got up and shambled into the bathroom to piss. Nora heard him hock up a wad of spit to deposit into the toilet before he wandered back to bed, flopping onto his stomach.
She took her towel and dabbed at the sweat covering her stomach. Without a second thought, he’d come inside her. She wondered what would happen if he made her pregnant. He’d probably want to have it aborted, but what if he didn’t? Would he take care of her? As she stared at his back, any sort of life together seemed fairly unlikely. Did he have any real feelings for her at all? No. If she got pregnant, he would fire her from her job and send her away. She’d be more trouble than she was worth.
It wasn’t unusual for engineers like him to maintain stables of women. Young, single fellows who managed the factory had an easy time convincing themselves they had a right to fuck anything that moved. They’d go into town to look for women willing to work the factory floor, women who were half-starved already, and they’d expect a return on that favor. In most girls’ cases, they might end up streetwalking without their jobs, so it was an easy choice to make. Nora felt lucky that Jack had developed a strong sexual attachment to her.
Of course, some of the engineers didn’t care about getting laid every five minutes. Those men
, inevitably, hired other men, mostly white boys and muscular blacks, never women like Nora. She couldn’t imagine being hired for her actual skills.
At least the factory was better than the farms. She’d heard dark rumors about those places: that they ate you up and spat you out a worthless husk; that you were never allowed to come home. The Consortium operated all transports to and from the farms, and they would send trucks out at five am to pick people up, and four pm to take people back to the city. Problem was, quitting time was at five, and the rides were expensive, too. Once they had a person staying in the on-site housing, they’d deduct all kinds of things from a paycheck. They had booze to keep people stupid and lots of stranded women to spend money on. Men would pay to have the women stay the night with them. All the girls from the farms took to the streets when they came back – it was a life they knew too well.
Loxley wanted to buy a farm, not like the big Consortium tracts, but a small patch of land to call her own. How stupid was that? The Con owned half of most cities and all the land between. Loxley would be surrounded by desperate folk who worked the nearby land, subsisting on company cash. They’d rob her blind every chance they got. And if the Con decided they wanted her land, they could just steamroll her and be done with it, because they always got what they wanted, sooner or later. No man or government could tell them no. If her house caught fire, it would burn to the ground. If God scoured it off the earth with a tornado, she’d be lost and forgotten. No help would come for little Loxley.
Maybe help was what she needed, though. There would be robbers, hucksters and all manner of people out to get her. People in the Bazaar were always trying to trick her on account of her condition, and it would only get worse the further away they got from the law.
If she asked, Nora might actually follow her out there. Sure, Loxley was strange, but she’d basically memorized that one book on farming. Nora couldn’t remember the last time she’d read a book at all.
Jack’s breath had settled to a whisper, and Nora looked sidelong at him – dead asleep after a roll in the hay. They’d been at it for a few months, ever since he made a pass at her on his first day. How long would he keep this up? Until he got tired of her? Until she needed something from him? Their relationship held a malignant equilibrium, a delicate tension that threatened her way of life if it ever broke. He’d never hit her or asked for anything weird, so at least she had that comfort. There were other, prettier girls who worked in the kitting area. Maybe he’d jump into bed with one of them and all his clemency would disappear.
Life with Jack was reality. Life with Loxley was a stupid, girlish fantasy. She’d have to find a way to make it last with her boss, at least through this round of layoffs.
She curled up next to him, waiting for him to fall even deeper into slumber. She’d sneak out in time, because she didn’t feel like waking up to his face in the morning.
Business Opportunities
NORA SLAMMED THE blade across the spool of blanks and wiped the sweat from her brow before pulling the spent tube and throwing it into a nearby bin. Her bonnet itched terribly, as it often did when she didn’t get a shower. Her building had lost power that morning, a relatively common occurrence in her neighborhood, and the water had been icy from the winter’s chill. She could still smell Jack’s musk on her, mingled with the solvent stench of the factory.
She went to heft another roll of blanks onto the spool rod, and her hips complained. The stupid thing had to weigh a hundred pounds, and she’d overdone it the night before. She set it down, and it thudded against the concrete.
Loxley would be setting up in the Bazaar right about now. She had the right idea, with a cozy apothecary job and her tidy gardening income. Some people had all the luck.
“Nora!” She heard Jack’s voice over the droning of machines.
He stood on a catwalk above her. She waved to him. He wasn’t smiling, but then again, he never smiled.
“Come see me in my office,” he called, and clomped away in the direction of the corner office.
“Oh, for God’s sake,” she mumbled, looking around for another worker. She spotted Elizabeth walking toward her and flagged her down. “Hey, Bettie!”
Her coworker looked over the machine. “Jammed again?”
“No, no. Jack wants to have a chat with me. Can I get you to re-spool it? I’d shut it down, but I don’t want to hear Starla’s bitching when I get behind.”
“Jack wants to chat, huh? Going to keep your pants on?”
Nora snorted. “Not like that.”
“Sure thing. Just don’t let him close the blinds or I’ll never get you back here.” Bettie winked.
“Nah. I’d be back in five minutes,” she said, slapping her on the back. “Thanks, sugar.”
Nora rushed upstairs and into Jack’s office, shutting the door behind her. The cacophony outside drained away, leaving blank silence.
“Have a seat, if you don’t mind,” he said.
Jack’s place wasn’t nice by any stretch. It had a rolled steel desk, beige, with rusty chips in the paint, and a single bookshelf, which contained five or six textbooks. She’d never seen Jack crack one open.
“What’s the scoop, baby?”
He raised a finger. “Just a second.” He picked up the phone and spun the rotary a few times. “Yeah. She’s here. She can wait.”
As soon as he hung up, Nora spoke. “I can’t wait. I’ve got Bettie working the spool.”
“You know you’re supposed to shut it down when you’re not at your station.”
“Yeah, but then I get behind on the kitting later.”
Jack sighed. “Bettie has her own job to do.”
“All right. You want me to go tell her to shut it down?”
“No. It’s fine.”
She leaned back and folded her arms. He did the same. A good five minutes passed between them, counted on the beats of the factory. It wasn’t the steady march of the steelworks, but an allegro dance, whirring between the conveyors and knives. She watched Jack, and he watched the factory floor from his window.
“What’s this about?” she asked.
He took a deep breath. “Don’t make a scene, and I’ll help you out afterward.”
That caused a knot in her throat. She began to wonder about all of the possibilities. She’d only begun to open her mouth to speak when the office door swung open. A tall, white-haired man in a cream suit breezed into the room, a smile on his face that didn’t rise to his eyes. Only rich folks wore light colors in the Hole – too tough to keep clothes clean without money. Well coifed, nice teeth... important.
“Herb,” said Jack, standing and returning the business smile.
“Is this her?” asked Herb, looking Nora over.
She stood, compelled by his inspection. His eyes lingered on her breasts, and the corner of his mouth twitched ever so slightly. Whoever he was, he was only a man, after all.
“Nora Vickers,” she said, extending a hand.
“I know,” he said. “Herb Duncan.” He pressed his palm to hers, and his smooth skin surprised her. She’d never shaken hands with such a well-heeled creep. A quick squeeze, and he withdrew. “I can see why he likes you.”
She swallowed. “I’m sorry?”
“Miss Vickers, are you familiar with Duke Wallace?”
Everybody knew Duke. The man was a Consortium vice-president, and a legend in his own right. He basically ran the Hole, as well as half the businesses in town. He built schools and houses, soup kitchens, hospitals, roads and bridges. They had a big, bronze statue of him on the fifth ring, and the man wasn’t even dead yet.
“Yes, sir,” she said.
“He just bought our little plastics company. We’re a Consortium operation now.”
Just like the rest of the damned Hole. Hell, just like the rest of the country. And why wouldn’t the Con buy the factory? It was big and profitable, and some of the employees looked halfway happy. At least the buyout carried one big benefit: stability. If she could
work, she could eat, and if she were willing to eat Con food, that paycheck would go a long way.
“Congratulations, sir.” She looked to Jack, who put his hands in his pockets.
Herb smoothed an eyebrow with his thumb. “Mister Wallace is a decent man, Miss Vickers. A godly man. He runs things differently than I do, and one of the things he does not tolerate is managers having relations with their employees. Now I’m just as culpable as anyone, having turned a blind eye to it for years, but it’s a new day around here.”
“Excuse me, sir?”
“I’d rather you didn’t play dumb. And before you get the urge to go making accusations, it doesn’t matter how I found out.” He turned to face Jack. “What matters is that you knew good and well that this was immoral, and you did it anyway.”
Jack froze under Herb’s icy stare like a cornered rabbit. The older man raised an eyebrow, prompting a response, but the engineer had nothing to say back to him.
“Do you understand how disappointed I am right now, Grady?” said Herb, striding to the window. “You’ve only just gotten on board, and already we’re having these kinds of talks. That’s just silly. Don’t you think that’s silly?”
Nora stepped forward. “Mister Duncan, perhaps it’s not fair to take it out on Jack. I mean, Mister Grady. He was just –”
Herb cut her off with a look, then went back to observing the workers below. “It may not be fair, but Mister Grady needs to understand that people pay the price for his foolishness. Now that he’s gone and done what he did, I can expect him to do it again, can’t I?”
“I don’t understand,” she said.
“You’re fired, Miss Vickers,” he replied, sharper than a knife’s edge. He turned and made for the door, his crisp movements belying self-righteous anger.
“Wait, what?” She didn’t mean to shout.
“Mister Grady will take you by your locker, then show you out. Next time, keep your legs shut, ma’am.”
