by Iris Astres
Dinah checked to make sure there was water in the kettle, put it on the range, and lit the gas. “They relocated all the Bods to private residences,” she explained, pulling food out of the fridge. “Because of Earth First and its roadblocks, raids, and ambushes, there’s no way anyone can go to one of Amin’s compounds in the north, so they took all of you south, straight into enemy territory. You’re being hidden in the Outlands, right under Earth First’s noses. Clever right?”
She watched him take this in. When his attention shifted back to her, his scrutiny played on her skin like wind after an icy dip into a stream. “Clever? I’m not certain I agree.” He paced the room, examining the doors and windows. She almost mentioned he was free to leave, but would he do it? Stride off naked, God knew where? That would be horrible.
“I understand what you’ve just said about the roadblocks and the Outlands, but why this place? “ He gestured at the four walls of her cabin. “Why bring me here?”
“Because I said they could,” she answered. “I volunteered. I joined the Citizen’s Brigade against Earth First. Actually”—she spooned coffee into the pot— “they’re not calling it Citizen’s Brigade anymore. I’ve heard lots of replacement names suggested: Heart First, Head First, Open Earth. I don’t know which of those they’re going with, if any. Whatever it’s called, I agreed to hide you here until the roads into the city are secure and they can get you home again.”
“Home?” His voice was dull, the question hollow, and she would have hugged him if she could. That’s what had been good about him being out of it in bed. It had made it a lot easier to express her outraged sympathy for him. As reasons for a dark mood went, she had to say he had some pretty good ones: targeted for what, not who, he was and witness to a blind, unthinking hate that cost innocent lives. It was a horrible injustice, and she was pleased to have some minor way to stand against it.
“What is it?”
“What is what?” She shrugged the urge to paw at him away and cracked some eggs into a bowl. Next, she started slicing bread. Scrambled eggs and toast: her favorite feel-good meal.
“They may have found a new location for the Body House already,” she said. “In fact, it could be halfway built. Things go so fast these days. I’m sure it won’t be long before you’re back with all your friends.”
“The roads aren’t secure?”
“What?”
He sat down on the bench at the foot of the bed and stared at her. It was quite something to be watched by him. He had a patient focus that got right under her skin. She was glad they were on the same side, because those eyes could make a woman give up all resistance in a hurry. “I asked you if the roads were still impassable.”
Dinah watched her eggs and did her best to reconstruct what she’d been told. “Impassable, no. Dangerous, yes. The organized assault on aliens seems to be over. But there are still random attacks. You could message someone to come get you, but anyone who did would risk his life.”
“So I should stay here and risk yours. Is that the plan?” Clearly he was voting no on that idea.
Dinah lowered the heat underneath the pan and turned to win him over with her genuinely unworried expression. “You’re not risking my life. I’m fine.” She spread her arms to demonstrate the fact. “I’m making breakfast in my kitchen, just like always. There’s no way anyone could know you’re here.”
“What if they find out?” He leaned toward her, blue eyes coaxing information from her in a way she found unfair. “Imagine. Earth First discovers you’ve joined some impromptu force against them. Hidden a supposed foe. A group of them come knocking at your door when I’m long gone and you’re alone here? What happens then? Do you think I could bear to know you’d suffered repercussions for my presence here? I couldn’t. If there’s a chance of that, I won’t stay, whether someone comes for me or not.”
Dinah considered this. Considered him. Abruptly she dismissed it all, jabbing her spatula into the eggs. “Fuck Earth First,” she said. “It’s just a new name for the same old dickheads I grew up with. I wasn’t afraid of them when I was ten, and it’s not because the pricks have joined some fucked-up club to hunt down aliens that I’m going to start trembling around them now. I was born in 2032. Just in time for the cybermeltdown to freak everyone out. Then there was that little Second Civil War, so this is hardly my first whiff of danger. Don’t worry about me.”
“I’m sorry, but that isn’t possible.” He did look sorry, actually. “I have enemies. You’ve involved yourself. Ergo, you’ve become my chief concern.”
Dinah turned off the heat and took a step toward him. Their gazes locked, exchanging speaking glances of the mutually unrelenting kind.
“That’s very sweet, and I can understand why you’re concerned after what happened at the Body House,” she said. “But I’ll be fine. Let me take care of me if you don’t mind.”
He minded. His silent resistance to the notion could not be missed: blank face, squared shoulders, and an unrelenting glint in those amazing eyes.
Stalemate.
“Will you sit down and eat something? Or can you only worry for no reason on an empty stomach?”
“I’ll eat,” he said.
“Good!” She dished some eggs out, buttered up the toast, and pulled a few more brunchy things out of the fridge: sliced oranges from her trees, fresh tomato salsa, clotted cream with chives. She fished some silverware out of the drawer. Steam from the kettle made her stop halfway into setting the table to pour hot water over the dark coffee. The rich, nutty fragrance rose around her, making her mouth water as she brought the glass pot to the table, beckoning for him to join her. “Sit,” she said.
He sat. She took the other chair.
And just like that, the two of them were having brunch. She and a naked superman from outer space.
“You mentioned Amin,” Malcolm said. “Where is he?”
“Amin Clay? I’ve no idea.” Dinah shrugged a brief apology, although in truth she also didn’t care. She never got why people made such a big deal about that man. Because he had broad shoulders, lots of money, and a pretty wife? So what?
“The last I heard,” Dinah said, focusing, “Amin was vacationing with his wife.” She took a bite of bread slathered with butter, awakening her own extremely healthy appetite. “Yum,” she said and started eating, hoping he’d follow her lead. In truth, he looked a little thin for an Adonis. Two weeks in a coma had a tendency to do that to a man. “There’s a lot of speculation about that, of course—the fact that Amin Clay was out of town. It’s all a little too convenient for conspiracy lovers not to salivate over. Some people say the Clays came back immediately. I don’t know. I doubt they’re making too many public announcements at the moment.”
“Was their home damaged?” Malcolm had picked up a slice of bread, which he put down again. His posture changed. She saw new tension. New concern.
“It was attacked,” Dinah said, studying him, “but I don’t think they made much of a dent in the place.”
“You’re sure no one was hurt?”
“I’m sure.” She blinked and then remembered. “There was a Bod there, right? A married Bod they said. Was he a friend of yours?”
“A friend,” Malcolm agreed.
“And are there really married Bods?” Married sex workers from outer space?
He shook his head, picked up his fork. “Not Bods,” he said. “One Bod. His name is Raj. He was the first in history to ever fall in love. It’s never happened once on Backus.”
“Maybe it’s Earth’s atmosphere.” That was a joke, but he appeared to give it full consideration.
“Perhaps,” he said, his blue eyes flickering as he perused her face.
Dinah poured the coffee and tried to find the thread of what their conversation was about. “Well,” she said, “whatever system Amin Clay used to protect his home would have come in handy at the Body House. Some of his bricks were chipped. You lost half your building.”
Malcolm pushed his p
late away and swallowed hard. Dinah closed her eyes and felt like shit. She’d always been a blurter, and sometimes that really sucked about her.
“I’m so sorry,” she said, wiping her mouth with a napkin.
He waved the signs of her remorse away. “We were working on security. Days away from having everything in place.” She watched his gaze move over the small room. Assessing what? The nonexistent safety features? He turned back to her, ran his hand distractedly over the soft bristle of hair, and frowned. “How long have I been ill?”
“Two weeks, I think. Today’s March third. You were in urgent care since the attack. Along with many of your friends.”
“How many?”
They exchanged a look acknowledging a mutual regret that this was what they had to talk about.
“Eight killed,” she said. “Four of them were Bods and two were clients. The other two were from Earth First. About twenty more were injured. All but one’s expected to recover fully.”
“A woman?”
“What?”
“The one in danger of dying.”
Dinah sat back, looking at him. In all the infos she’d just read, they hadn’t mentioned anything about the gender of the victims. “I don’t know.”
“A woman,” he predicted miserably. “Why?” The question was philosophy more than complaint, some small attempt to probe the darkness that had fallen over him.
Dinah lifted one bare foot onto the chair and leaned toward him. Small talk was something she hated. Big talk, on the other hand—sharing views about the things that mattered—that she’d always loved.
“Those men who joined Earth First were very angry when the Second Civil War began. They wanted to express that anger. Some might even say they needed to express it. The leaders of the rich and powerful north, however, were not about to get down in the dirt with all those rednecks, so they just gave in. You want to be your own state—go ahead. Make yourselves the kings of Shitville. Since that time, most of the men around here have been stewing in their angry juices, looking for that fight the north denied them. Enter the men of Backus. Alien invaders. A new sacred cause.”
He nodded. “That’s what Amin said. More or less. Do you see any way out?”
“Well.” Something in his eyes made her stop talking. He was listening to her like she was a friend, an equal. So far it was what she liked best about him, which was saying quite a lot. “I think we can rule out reasoning with them. Negotiating too. The north hopes they’ll get bored and come back to the fold of their free will.” Dinah shook her head, dismissing this. “Not this generation. Their children’s children maybe. It’ll either be the waiting game or force. I don’t see any other way.”
“And in the meantime people will be killed. Innocents.”
“There’s always danger,” she said, sitting back. “This is nothing new.”
The comment didn’t seem to satisfy him.
“You’re a hero,” she reminded him. “The hero. Without you, the death toll would have been closer to eighty. I read all the reports. They all say the same thing. How did you know in time?” That was the mystery embedded in the story.
“I could see it in his eyes.” Malcolm took a sip of coffee. After which, he started eating, moving through what she’d put on his plate. “There was the car as well, of course. Amin’s security officers always use company cars. This man drove up in a blue truck with rust patches by the wheels. He gave some excuse about a roadblock, but I knew as soon as I looked at his face. I still had to kill him before I could get to the alarm, and that took time, unfortunately.”
Dinah fit this into what she’d read. Malcolm had been unarmed but somehow managed it with only strength and speed. For his bravery he’d been the last out of the blast zone, which meant he’d been thrown backward through a glass partition onto a stone floor. “You saved nearly eighty lives and almost lost your own. You shouldn’t take this on yourself. But I am sorry.” Dinah touched his hand. She wanted to touch all of him. “I’m sorry for the violence and hate. It’s awful.”
He closed his fingers over hers and raised them to his mouth. The touch of his lips had her rigid with sensation. “Thank you,” he said. In silence, both of them went back to eating.
“Why did you do it?” he asked when he’d finished off the last bite of his toast.
“Do what?”
“Agree to hide me here.”
She was chewing, which was good. It gave her time to think.
She could say she was committed to the pro-alien cause, but that would make her sound more passionate about interplanetary politics than anyone should think was true. Despite what he might think, she wasn’t sacrificing anything to have him here.
She could tell him it was for the company, but that would make her sound pathetic. She was lonely sometimes, sure. She also loved the independent life she had.
“I did it to get laid,” she said. There wasn’t any “but” attached to that.
He leaned back in his chair and studied her. For one weird second she thought she could feel him reach into her brain and weigh that thought for its truth content. It must have passed inspection, because he turned his sexy on full force and almost knocked her over.
“Do you want to?” Dinah smiled at him.
“Yes.” His answer was immediate and charming.
“Of course you do. It’s fuck or die for you guys, isn’t it?”
“Well,” he said, eyes shifting to the far side of the room. “I won’t die for a few minutes, at least. We can definitely drink our coffee.”
“How long can you live without sex?” She had more than a passing curiosity about Backusians and all their fascinating quirks.
“I’ve no idea how long I personally could live. Some men are very ill after a day or two. Some resist for longer. There are men on Backus who abstain successfully for months, but no one is particularly interested in following their lead.”
“They don’t make it look like fun?”
“They make it look like being sucked dry in a spider’s web.”
“Ew.” Dinah recoiled at the image. “How many women have you had sex with?”
He shrugged. “As many as the days I’ve been a man. A few thousand, I suppose.”
“A thousand different women?”
“Thousands,” he corrected. “Yes.”
“How is that even possible?” Dinah tried to get her head around it. Failed completely. He seemed at a greater loss to understand what was confusing to her.
“To have sex with a woman you have to at least meet her,” she explained. “How do you meet a different available woman every day?”
His eyes rounded, suggesting it was obvious. “I work at the Body House. They come to me and introduce themselves.”
“Convenient,” she acknowledged. “But the Body House is Amin Clay’s invention. You’ve only been on Earth three years.”
“Before that, I worked in a similar place at home.”
“Well you must have been having my share of sex too. I’ve been alone and painfully deprived for two years.”
That had him at attention. He rolled his shoulders back, torso straightening with interest.
“Relax,” she said. “I’m not a Bod. I’m not going to die without it. Are lady Backusians called Bods?”
“I shouldn’t think so,” said her guest. “Only men provide sex on demand on Backus.”
“Sex on demand.” She blinked at that. “Isn’t that a lot of pressure?”
“No.” He laughed as though it was a very funny thought.
“I’ve already slept with you,” she said, bragging a little.
“When?” His brows raised with confusion, tinged with interest.
“Last night.”
“We slept together?” The idea seemed to titillate him. “That’s a serious taboo you know. I’m not supposed to sleep with women.”
She thought that was a joke, but he corrected her misapprehension. “Not sleep,” he explained. “Drifting off in a woman’s p
resence is discouraged at the Body House. On Backus too, of course.”
“Why?”
His chin tilted a little to the right. “Better to remain alert and tend the lady’s needs.”
“That’s too bad.” Dinah tossed a flirty glance at him. “Sleeping next to someone can be nice.”
“Was it nice?”
“Yeah.” It definitely was.
“Would you like to take a nap?”
“What?”
“If it’s something you enjoy, we could lie down in that bed right there and doze off, you and I.” He gestured to the place this might be done, a devilish expression on his face.
Dinah felt a crazy tidal wave of sexual interest roll over her body, hot and thick and bubbling. Everything about him seemed to turn on like a switch, zap, his powers of seduction all lit up.
“You just said sleeping with a woman was forbidden. Would you break the rules for me?”
“A thousand times.” His sexy smile bloomed, then disappeared. The powers of seduction dimmed. “I’ll break every rule but one: I won’t agree to risk your safety. You didn’t answer me before. Are you in danger with me here?”
“No more than usual.” Dinah shrugged and made to clear the empty plates.
His chair creaked, and the air around him seemed to still. When she turned, his eyes were fixed on her: a tractor beam in blue.
“I said, have I put you in danger?”
“No,” Dinah assured him. It was true. The danger in her life was nothing new or anything to do with him. Any unclaimed woman under eighty had to watch herself in neighborhoods like these. Now that Cy was dead, she spent each day one horny drunk away from absolute disaster. So far so good, but every time she went to market, dressed in her dead husband’s clothes, as big a crazy mess as she could be, she felt the stares and knew her days in paradise might well be numbered. There was no use telling him any of that.
“Does this really look dangerous to you?” she asked, glancing at the home she loved so much. “There’s no one here. Not for miles and miles. We’re alone. Just you and me.”
