Nico & Tucker

by Rachel Gold

  “Is that your girlfriend?” a middle-aged Klingon woman asked from the wall next to me.

  “Maybe,” I said. “I mean, I hope so.”

  She laughed. “Ah, young love. Glad I’m done with that.”

  I didn’t know what to say to that. I asked, “How did you become a Klingon?”

  Her story was cool: mother of three, bookkeeper, met some of the other Klingons when she took a Russian Kettlebell class at the local gym and realized it was way more fun to try to get in shape as part of an interstellar warrior culture.

  I finished my drink. Nico was still dancing. I wanted to be closer to her. Maybe it didn’t matter if I looked like a malfunctioning robot on the dance floor. She grinned at me when I stepped out there and danced around me.

  When the music slowed, she stepped in and put her arms around my neck. We danced together.

  “I need some water,” she said. “Let’s find another room.”

  We went back into the hall and through a few more rooms. Nico picked up a bottle of water and I accepted a cup of purple punch that also turned out to have alcohol in it, but by that point I didn’t care.

  “What do you want to do next?” Nico asked after we’d poked our heads into every open room on the second floor.

  I was buzzed and without thinking about it, I said, “You know you can kiss me any time, not just when guys hit on us.”

  “Really?”

  Nico pushed me into the wall and kissed me. We went from zero to sixty in about five seconds: mouths open, her pressing into me, me pulling her even closer.

  Someone yelled, “Cylon-lover!” down the hall.

  Another voice said, “Get a room!”

  Nico pulled away enough to say, “You know, we have a room,” three inches from my ear.

  “Why aren’t we there?”

  We ran down the stairs and across the street. Nico got the keycard from a side pocket and managed it into the lock despite the fact that I was kissing the side of her neck. We stumbled into the room. I fell onto the nearest bed and kicked my bag onto the floor. Nico dropped down next to me and we started kissing again.

  The flight suits had adjustable belts that we’d both cinched tight. Nico tugged my zipper down until it hit the belt. I shrugged out of the top of the suit so I was in a T-shirt and bra with the upper half of the suit folded down around my waist.

  I got Nico’s zipper halfway down and she helped with the rest, shucking the top of her suit much faster than I had with mine. I touched the strap of Nico’s gray and white Battlestar Galactica tank top.

  “How can the costumes be both weird and hot?”

  “Do you want to slow down?” she asked.

  I shook my head. Nico took my hand and put it over her breast.

  “Come here, Starbuck,” she said.

  I shoved up the bottom edge of her tank top until I could get her nipple in my mouth. Her hands knotted in the loose top of my flight suit where it hung around my waist and made the fake leather creak. I spent a long time on her breasts and then kissed all over her flat belly, ridged with muscle.

  She tugged on my T-shirt. I pulled it off over my head and threw it somewhere, followed by the bra. She played with my breasts until I was wriggling with the need for more. I reached for her belt at the same time that she reached under mine. Her fingers slid over my boxers, teasing, amazing, and then as she moved down further, I felt the fear, sudden and jagged.

  I grabbed her wrist hard. Too hard, from the flash of alarm in her eyes. The off-balance feeling from the alcohol mixed with the pressure of her hand and my body flipped from hot to ice cold.

  She used her free hand to pry my fingers off her wrist.

  “You can say no,” she told me.

  I couldn’t. I mean, I didn’t want to say no.

  But I didn’t want to go where we were going.

  Except that I did—but without the fear. How could I get there without the fear?

  “Look at me,” Nico said.

  I did. Her face so familiar even with the long hair and makeup, even looking like a girl, still always Nico.

  “Are you okay?” she asked.

  “I think so.”

  “Do you want this?”

  There was an echo of desire, but the fear shoved it aside.

  “Maybe?” I said.

  She shook her head. “There are no maybes in sex. There’s no and yes—maybe is always no.”

  I twisted the belt of my uniform around my fingers. I had words in there somewhere but far away from being able to say them. I didn’t want to say no to Nico. I was saying it to Lindy, over and over again: no, no, no! Not that she’d ever hear me, not even the shard of her stuck in my brain.

  I had to stop thinking about that. Blinking hard, I focused on Nico, sitting back on her heels, watching me. The flight suit had gathered around her hips, the white edge of her briefs crisp against her skin. I wanted to get closer again.

  I wanted her to push the fear out of my head like Quin had.

  “Can I—?” I gestured at her belt area.

  “No,” she said. “Not tonight.”

  “Fuck.”

  I sat up too fast and the room tipped. I put my hands to my head to hold it steady.

  “Tucker, how much did you drink?”

  “Three maybe,” I said. “Unless the Klingon ones count double.”

  Nico went into the bathroom and came back to press a glass of water into my hand. “I’m going down the hall to get you a bag of chips. Drink that.”

  She climbed out of bed, dropped the rest of the flight suit and carefully pulled off the wig—and Athena was gone.

  I watched Nico’s lean, muscled, curvy, angular, beautiful body as yo pulled on jeans and a sweatshirt. I wanted to get up and take all that off again. But the room was wobbly and Nico had said “Not tonight.”

  I focused on sipping the water. And, when Nico came back, eating a bag of chips.

  “You don’t drink?” I asked because I was starting to feel stupid.

  “Nah.” Nico peered sideways at me, shrugged. “I’m eighteen.”

  “You could. Tonight nobody was checking.”

  “It never seems like a good idea. And, okay don’t laugh at me—Mom would worry. And I like that she trusts me.”

  “Why would I laugh? That’s sweet.”

  “Uh-huh,” Nico said, like I was humoring yo.

  “In my family, nobody gives a crap,” I said, and it came out way sadder than I wanted it to. Everything was too sad now.

  “Do you want me to sit with you?” Nico asked. “Arm around you sort of thing?”

  I shook my head. I wanted to want that, but I didn’t. I felt the covering of filth over me again, sickness in my gut, layers of awful. I didn’t want Nico to touch that.

  “Do you want to get up and move around?” yo asked.

  “No.” If I moved too much I was going to puke.

  “Tell me if you need anything else?”

  “Yeah,” I said.

  Nico turned on the bedside light and clicked off the overhead. Yo moved around in the bathroom making splashy, washy sounds, and came out in a T-shirt and boxer briefs. I eventually levered myself up, stripped off the rest of the flight suit, found my T-shirt, took my turn in the bathroom.

  I came back to a highly normal hotel room. Nico was tucked into the other bed, a tablet propped on yos knees. I didn’t know what to say, so I got into the empty bed and rolled onto my side. I tried to work out what I could’ve done to keep things from going wrong again. After a while I heard Nico switch off the light and rustle against the sheets and pillows.

  “Good night, Starbuck,” Nico said.

  I wanted to reply, to say everything, but my throat was frozen and aching. Minutes passed and Nico’s side of the room stopped rustling. I heard one long, soft breath and another.

  I pressed the heels of my hands against my eyes. Teeth clenched, body tightened. Tears forced their way out through the creases where I couldn’t shut my eyes hard enough
.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Tucker

  In the morning, we got breakfast at the hotel. We talked about all the funny things from the night before and none of the weird things. We seemed provisionally okay. I would have worried about it more if I hadn’t had a skull-cracking headache.

  In the car, on the way back to Freytag, the sun blazed at me and I kept my eyes closed. What should I say about last night? What were we going to do if I couldn’t let Nico touch me and Nico didn’t want me to touch yo?

  It reminded me of Ella freaking out about Shen before they had sex the first time and I laughed.

  “What?” Nico asked.

  “I should never have teased Ella so much about all her fussing over sex with Shen.”

  “Hey, they worked it out.”

  I wanted to ask if Nico thought we would too, but I was afraid of the answer, so instead I said, “Ella told me you were very…helpful.”

  “I’ve been reading sex education books since I was like twelve. My brother left his stash when he moved to our dad’s because our dad is a lot more old fashioned about that.”

  “Was the stash any good?”

  “It scared the daylights out of me at first,” Nico said. “But the best thing was that I realized you can learn about sex. People don’t talk about it and you don’t get anything decent in school—but if you’re trying to figure something out, you can. Oh and I did end up with a copy of the kama sutra, so I am an encyclopedia of sex positions.”

  I sat up straighter and stared at Nico.

  “I’m not saying I can do most of them,” Nico said. Yo had a hint of a smile on, eyes crinkling with humor.

  “Do you think Ella and Shen can?” I asked.

  “Nobody needs all of them. Only the ones that work for them.”

  I wanted to ask, “What works for you?” but I chickened out.

  Nico said, “You know, I should name some positions after Battlestar Galactica elements, like ‘Viper-on-the-track,’ ‘the Cylon reincarnation,’ and so on.”

  “What’s that second one?”

  “You need a bathtub and a lot of Jell-O.”

  I hadn’t seen enough of the show to know what that was a reference to, but the image made me laugh. We went back to talking about nothing in particular and got to campus mid-afternoon. Nico texted Ella, who said she was over at the Union with the crew.

  “I’m going to go say hi,” Nico said. “Want to come?”

  “Yeah, sure. But I need to get the rest of the fluorescent booze taste out of my mouth. I’ll meet you there.”

  Nico headed for the Union and I went back to my room to brush my teeth six times and change into a shirt that didn’t stink of alcohol sweat. Could I ask Nico if yo wanted to stay over tonight in my room? My bed wasn’t that big, but we could sleep curled up together. I wanted to put my arms around Nico and feel yos body against mine. Maybe even try some of that other stuff again.

  I walked to the Union working on a way to ask that didn’t involve the phrase “sleep over,” like I was twelve.

  Ella, Shen, Cal and Tesh were all at our usual table, listening to Nico tell a story. Cal sat at the end of the table, leaning back, with Shen and Ella on one side. Shen pointed avidly toward Nico and Ella beamed. Tesh sat on the other bench, wearing a dark charcoal shirt that deepened the blue of Tesh’s hair.

  Nico was saying, “…and then this little girl stands up straight and salutes Tucker and Tucker saluted back like she does that every day.”

  “Adorable,” Tesh declared.

  I paused at the foot of the table. Nico and Shen were geeking out about cylon number eight. Maybe Ella and I could set up a double date.

  I felt someone come up next to me and turned to see Quin. She was in a tight athletic shirt and running pants, hair pulled back. I had guilt vertigo. Like being pulled toward her but being pushed away harder. I crossed my arms to keep my balance, but that seemed too closed off, like I was being a jerk, so I uncrossed them. Then my arms felt weird just hanging off my shoulders.

  “Hey, how’s it going?” I tried to sound casual.

  “Good, usual. You?”

  “Good. Just got back to campus,” I added in case she was about to do a “why didn’t you call me” sort of thing.

  “What’s going on with you. With us?” she asked. “I thought we were going to get together this weekend.”

  “I had stuff I had to do,” I said.

  That went across like the evasive bullshit it was. Quin’s face hardened.

  “If all that was crap in your room, if you’re not into me, just say it,” she said. “But don’t disrespect me like this. I hear you’re dating some guy and then you run off to spend the weekend with him and won’t even tell me.”

  “Fuck no. I don’t date guys. What are you talking about?”

  Icy cold lightning went along all my nerves as I realized what I’d just said in front of Nico. Did Nico think “fuck no” was my response to anything between us? I caught a flash of pain in Nico’s eyes before the mask came down.

  Nico pushed up from the table. “I should head back.”

  Yo gave the group a quick nod, turned away and headed for the door to the quad. Ella jumped up and dashed after Nico. Cal turned from face to face, working it out.

  I stared at the doors to the union and wondered how you went after a person you’d made a total ass of yourself in front of.

  Tesh met my eyes. “Go after Nico.”

  Beside me, Quin said, “That’s Nico? That’s who you were with? Aw, shit.”

  Only one person on campus was tapped into the gossip lines enough to know I was out of town with Nico—and mean enough to tell Quin I was dating a guy. “I’m going to kill Summer,” I snarled.

  As if my use of her name called her forth, I saw Summer standing in line at the food counter. How long had she been there? Had she seen Nico walk out?

  She’d probably put herself there to watch this scene. She looked like she was gloating. I darted around the tables to the food line, grabbed her arm and pulled her out of line.

  “What the hell? Why are you trying to fuck up my life? I didn’t go around spreading rumors about you and you know I could—so why are you doing it to me?”

  “Oh, does it mess up your life if people know you’re dating a guy?” She braced her feet and crossed her arms, making her body seem very solid.

  “Nico isn’t a guy, Nico’s a person,” I said.

  “Screw that, everybody’s got something going on.” She uncrossed her arms and started counting off points on her fingers. “First Nico wears a chest binder but said maybe that’s to throw people off, okay that could go either way, but then Nico said, and I quote ‘everyone is bangable,’ and only a bi guy would say that ’cause you have to be into anal—”

  I grabbed the front of her shirt in my fists, my arms shaking.

  “When did you become such an ignorant shit?” I hissed in her face.

  Cal put his arms around me from behind and pulled me so I had to let go of Summer or drag her with us. I jerked against Cal’s grip but he held tighter.

  “Admit it,” Summer said. “You’re dating a guy. You like dick.”

  “That’s disgusting. And what the fuck do you care? You need to shut your mouth.”

  Quin and Tesh came up on either side of Summer. Tesh put a hand on her arm, like if Summer took a step toward me they’d try to hold her back, which in Tesh’s case wouldn’t be nearly as effective as Cal restraining me.

  “Are you going to shut it for me?” Summer sneered at me.

  “Both of you shut it,” Cal said. “One more word and you’re banned from my house for the rest of the year.”

  It was a strong enough threat for Summer—she loved his parties and they were the nexus of her campus manipulations. She spun on her heel and stalked away.

  When she was out of sight, I said, “Thanks, Cal.”

  He let go of my arms, grim-faced. He nodded in the direction of the doors. Ella and Nico were standin
g inside; they’d been coming back in. How much had they heard?

  How much had Nico heard?

  I walked slowly toward them, hands out, open, fingers spread. “I’m sorry,” I said when I was close enough to be heard over the general noise of the room without shouting.

  Nico shook yos head. “Don’t.”

  Ella put her hand on the front of my shoulder. I stared down at her little, fine-boned fingers, confused.

  With a sinking feeling of horror I realized she was trying to keep me away from Nico.

  “Nico,” I called over her shoulder. “It’s not…I didn’t mean…”

  “No. I don’t care what you meant. Don’t call me.” Nico walked away.

  Ella gave me a push in the direction of Cal, so light my shoulder didn’t even move, but for Ella that was a huge gesture. It kept me rooted in place as she followed Nico out of the Union.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Nico

  I drove away from Freytag with Tucker’s emphatic “fuck no. I don’t date guys” and “that’s disgusting” replaying in my head a hundred thousand times. That was her response to being accused of dating a guy? Yeah we were great together as Starbuck and Athena, but my constellation of gender also included being a guy.

  The last two days, part of me had been thinking I could play Athena forever. I enjoyed being a girl in a science fiction future. I’d been wondering if I could do “woman” in a way that showed that current gender roles for women were crap.

  I’d been thinking that I could take that option in the upcoming surgery. Do that for Tucker—turn myself into a girl. Be only a woman for the rest of my life. That showed me how deep I was with Tucker, how stupidly much I liked her. No, loved her. Frakking stupid love.

  I hadn’t loved anyone since Ella. Even then it wasn’t the same because I figured we’d never last. Once she got all her surgeries, I wasn’t right for her anymore. We worked when we were both outside of cultural gender boxes. But Ella got all up inside my heart and it wrecked me every time she pulled away.