Penumbra

by Dan Ackerman

Arden wrapped himself around the other man, squeezing him tight. He buried his face in Rhys’s shirt, against his shoulder. “I really want to get drunk.”

  “You’re already drunk.”

  “Like absolutely blackout wasted.”

  “Tomorrow.”

  Arden snorted. “Promise?”

  “Sure.”

  Arden tightened his grip, then stood. He took Rhys by the hand and pulled him to bed. He threw his clothes on the nearest piece of furniture, then curled himself around Rhys, who’d undressed as well.

  He wrapped them in blankets and twined his legs with Rhys’s. He knew a few ways they could get closer to each other, but those all seemed unnecessary. He skimmed his fingers over various parts of the other man, careful to avoid anything too intimate.

  And to avoid the barely-there scars on his arms.

  Maybe it was too obvious to avoid them.

  Maybe it would make Rhys uncomfortable, maybe it would make him think Arden found the marks disturbing.

  Rhys took Arden’s hand and stopped his fingers from wandering. “You should get some sleep. Early morning.”

  Arden kissed his cheek and loosened his grip so they could both get comfortable. He fell asleep quickly but woke throughout the night. Most times he found Rhys nearby or still in his arms, but the third or fourth time, he found him not at all.

  He glanced around the room. No Rhys, but his clothes hadn’t left. He pulled on a robe and headed out to search for him.

  He found him in front of the window, also wearing a robe.

  Arden’s nicest robe, one made of warm, black velvet.

  Arden cleared his throat.

  Rhys looked over. He grimaced. “Sorry.”

  Arden shrugged.

  “I couldn’t sleep.” He pulled the robe a little closer. “I didn’t think you’d mind…”

  “I don’t. Do you want something to help you sleep?”

  Rhys shook his head.

  Arden came to sit beside him. “Are you sure? I know a couple good ways to tire you out.”

  Rhys sighed. “No.”

  Arden placed his head on Rhys’s shoulder. He didn’t say anything else for a while. Rhys didn’t seem to have appreciated his offers or his jokes. He wondered if he’d wanted to get away from Arden.

  Quietly, after a while, he said, “It’s a beautiful view, isn’t it?”

  “Mmm.”

  “Sometimes I can’t look away. I sit here for hours and hours and I think about how big everything and how small we are and how…how nothing matters but somehow everything matters.”

  Rhys shifted a little.

  “When I was really little, uh…” he trailed off. He felt stupid all of a sudden. Rhys didn’t care about Arden’s stories.

  “Go ahead,” Rhys urged gently.

  Arden sighed. “I, uh, I just…I used to get so scared of things. Of the whole world. Everything is so cold and hard and big and I would just…I would cry sometimes just so I wouldn’t have to leave my room. It’s…it’s so awful that we’re up here, floating in this…this awful thing my family built. It frightens me and I feel so stupid for being afraid.”

  Rhys started to say something, then swallowed. He twisted himself to rest his chin on the top of Arden’s head. “I was never frightened of anything, not my parents or teachers, or the peers, or the big kids…I was always angry. And, then, uh…then I found something out and I got this hideous cold feeling all over me. Like my guts had gotten stirred up and yanked up to the back of my throat.”

  “Twelve smooths things out,” Arden murmured. “What are you afraid of?”

  Rhys shook his head. “Don’t worry about it.”

  Arden didn’t press. He took Rhys’s hand. He kissed his knuckles, then he nestled his cheek against Rhys’s palm. “I hated being afraid.”

  “I liked being angry. I lived for it. I showed it off, how angry I was. I wanted everyone to know that…”

  “That something hurt?” Arden guessed.

  A sad smile played on Rhys’s face. “Yeah.”

  Arden smiled back, just as sad. He wanted to cry.

  He really wanted to cry. He let go of Rhys’s hand and it dropped away from his face. Arden rubbed his eyes. He sniffled.

  “Are you okay?”

  “I don’t know. I…” He pressed his lips together. “I’m fine. I am. I’ll…Come back to bed.”

  “Okay.”

  Arden went to the bathroom first. He blew his nose and splashed his face with cold water. Once he settled down, he crawled back into bed with Rhys. “Sorry,” he mumbled.

  Rhys put an arm around him and nestled close to him.

  Arden didn’t sleep at all for the rest of the night. He didn’t think Rhys did either. Neither of them spoke or moved, they just lay together, eyes closed, waiting for the morning.

  Arden couldn’t eat breakfast.

  Rhys could. He tucked away a healthy portion and bounced between excited and nervous, but always collected.

  Arden stayed calm, but he had help. He called for a half-shot of Twelve, better for an empty stomach, and dressed in his nicest plain outfit. He had to look put together but more approachable than he usually did at public appearances.

  Rhys started to pull on the same clothes he’d worn yesterday.

  Arden shook his head. “Don’t wear that.”

  Rhys raised an eyebrow.

  Arden pulled him towards the closet. “I, uh. I thought you might need something.” He ran his hand over a set of clothes he’d ordered a few weeks ago. Tidy and plain, not vastly different from what Rhys usually wore, but finer fabrics and deeper, richer colors. Rust and sage, instead of washed-out browns.

  The colors would complement the pale brown of his skin and warm his dark eyes. They’d glow just like they did in the light. He’d look put together and approachable. He’d stand out from peers and thralls.

  And he would look handsome.

  He always looked handsome, really, but the clothes would help.

  Rhys rubbed the fabric of the shirt between his fingers. “I…”

  Arden shrugged. “Don’t say anything, just wear them.”

  Rhys smirked. “Yes, Your Eminence.”

  Arden snorted and left him in the closet. He sat on the bed and waited for him to emerge. When he did, he let out a sharp whistle.

  Rhys scowled.

  “You look good.”

  “Thank you.” Rhys smoothed his clothes.

  Arden grinned at him. “Ready?”

  He nodded. “You?”

  “No. I’m terrified.”

  Rhys chuckled. “You know, if the rest of Eden knew you were such a baby, no one would be afraid of you anymore.”

  “They’ll be afraid of me as long as I have direct control over the entire economy,” Arden reminded.

  Rhys made a face, an odd, reticent sort of grimace.

  “It’s fucked up, isn’t it? I didn’t even get good grades,” Arden agreed gamely.

  He strode out the door, trying to prepare himself for the day.

  He spent hours at the polling station, circling through the crowds, but finding his way back towards Rhys every hour or so. He didn’t do it intentionally and normally he wouldn’t have come back to the same person so many times, but Rhys was the only person he knew. At parties, he liked to bounce between different friends, or better yet, find a comfortable chair in a slightly secluded corner.

  This wasn’t a party, he reminded himself.

  The day almost had the air of a party, but it was too anxious and almost solemn. Somewhere between a funeral and the nerves before a particularly tough handball match. It felt, he realized, like walking into surgery, desperate for the results but afraid of the process.

  He reflexively touched his chest.

  He pulled his hands down and turned his mind away from memories of hours of his childhood spent in front of the mirror trying to figure out what it was that felt so strange about the way he looked. Not wrong or bad, just…not his own.


  Arden had been eight when things had clicked. He’d put on a program just for noise while he played, all his toys spread over the living room carpet. An interview with a dancer, who’d mentioned she’d missed a few performances recovering from surgery.

  He didn’t remember her name or her troupe, but he recalled the confident, sweet cadence of her voice when she’d said, “It was part of my transition to make my body more comfortable for me to live in.”

  Comfortable. Arden had clung to that idea, that he could be comfortable.

  Gene therapy, a few surgeries spanning a few years of his life, and he didn’t know how much money, but here he stood on the other side, comfortable.

  He looked out over the lines of people waiting to vote, the crowds milling around, their voices sometimes spiking in frustration or excitement.

  How many of these people couldn’t have what he did? Not just because of their gender, but on any level.

  Had a thrall ever been comfortable on Eden?

  And there were so many of them.

  Thousands of the awful, squirming worms, pushing towards him, wanting to vote, their grubby hands grabbing at the small scrap of hope he’d dangled before them.

  He saw it in his head, so many hands reaching towards the filthy tatter he held out. Reaching, touching, closing around him.

  Pulling him down.

  Shit.

  Fuck.

  He sucked in an unsteady breath.

  He found Rhys and hovered beside him without saying anything.

  Eventually, Rhys must have sensed his presence or caught a glimpse out of the corner of his eye. He turned away from his conversation. “Did, um…Do you need something, Your Eminence?”

  He swallowed. “I think I’m about to freak out. Do you have a quiet room somewhere?”

  Rhys frowned.

  “Please,” Arden rasped, his throat dry, his lips sticky.

  “This way.”

  Arden followed Rhys to a small room that he eventually recognized as a bathroom. He voiced the concern.

  Rhys answered, “You seem like you might be used to crying in bathrooms at parties.”

  Arden normally would have scolded him or pinched him, or at the very least called him rude. Instead, he pressed his lips together and blinked back a few tears.

  “This is where I come to cry at work,” Rhys offered with helpful cheer.

  Arden could not imagine Rhys crying.

  “Why cry at home when you can get paid to cry at work?”

  Arden let out a horrible gurgling chuckle. He ground his knuckles into his eyes.

  Rhys remained in the doorway of the bathroom for a few seconds, then said, “I’ll…I’ll leave you to it.”

  “Twelve,” he demanded, then slammed the door in Rhys’s face. He crouched in the cleanest corner of the bathroom and allowed himself a few piteous sobs into his hands before he tried to pull himself together in earnest.

  He didn’t know what had bothered him so much, the throng of people or how he’d routinely failed them for years.

  Both, probably. He hated people, crowds, strangers, and he hated the thought of Eden falling to ruin under his rule.

  And it would, fuck it really would. He was smearing liquid bandage over gaping wounds and dabbing rubbing alcohol over festering sores.

  He didn’t have much luck gathering himself.

  He wished he’d stayed home.

  He wiped away his tears as soon as they came and tried to hold back the worst of the crying. It didn’t work.

  Rhys let himself in a while later with a half-shot held carefully in one hand. “Sorry it took a while, no one’s, uh, no one’s working today. Anywhere.” He crouched in the doorway and held it out to Arden.

  He took the shot from Rhys and nearly dropped it, a little bit of slippery liquid sliding down his fingers and wrist.

  If he’d dropped it, he would have lapped it off the floor.

  He threw it back and waited, eyes closed.

  It rolled through him, smoothed the world for him. Numbed the sandpaper sorrow grinding at his throat and eyes. He had to sit for a while before he had control of his limbs again.

  Rhys still crouched in the doorway. He watched Arden.

  If he didn’t stop, Arden might start crying again.

  “You okay?”

  “I guess.”

  “What happened?”

  “I don’t know. Too many people.”

  Rhys took Arden’s hand. “You really meant it when you said you were scared.”

  He nodded.

  Rhys pressed his lips together. “Are you ready to come back out?”

  Arden nodded, even though he wasn’t ready. He washed his face with cold water and patted it dry.

  He asked, “Presentable?”

  “You look like you’ve been crying.”

  “Well, I have been crying.”

  Rhys stepped into the bathroom. He put his arms around Arden and held him wordlessly for much longer than Arden expected. He held him until he felt better. He stepped back, didn’t say anything, and gave a nod back towards the polling area. “Twenty minutes, then you can leave for lunch. Check in a few other places. Come back in a few hours.”

  Arden tried to smile, but it came out thin and ungrateful. He did what Rhys had advised. He kept himself together for the rest of the night.

  When the polls closed and every thrall of eligible age had voted, Arden presented the poll workers with a bottle of fizzy wine, which most of them regarded warily.

  “Open it. Someone get glasses!” Arden insisted.

  They scurried to obey.

  No one sipped it even once they had a mug or cup in hand. Not proper drinkware, but whatever they’d scrounged from their office.

  Someone had found a gaudy chalice that Arden assumed had been part of some play or costume party.

  They’d given it to him.

  He frowned at it.

  Rhys grinned at him. At the glass in his hand.

  A lot of people seemed to find the chalice amusing, a joke Arden didn’t get.

  Arden handed it over to him and took the plain mug meant for Rhys.

  The thrall passing out glasses exchanged looks with another one.

  When everyone had liquid in their cup, be it wine or something soft, Arden said, “Someone should say something.” He looked at Rhys.

  The thralls shifted uncomfortably. A few sniggered.

  Rhys looked into the chalice and didn’t meet Arden’s eyes.

  “Good work, all of you. It’s…things are changing. And that can only be good.” He raised his cup.

  Everyone sipped. A few people mumbled in agreement.

  Arden excused himself from the office building but didn’t go far enough that he couldn’t see what happened as soon as he left. Through the display window of the former storefront, he watched as someone elbowed Rhys, goaded him.

  Rhys shook his head. He handed the cup to someone else.

  The thrall who took it changed their posture, exaggeratedly snooty and sort of mincing. She said something Arden couldn’t catch. She raised her cup.

  Arden heard the room erupt with laughter.

  He recognized what had happened. It didn’t hurt. He understood that the thralls did not love the peerage.

  Rhys had a smile on his face.

  That did hurt.

  Their eyes met through the display glass.

  Arden hurried away.

  Other people walked the streets, bottles and glasses in hand, waiting to celebrate the election results. They’d be calculated and posted on the big screens around Eden before midnight. Further celebration would come when Arden confirmed members a little while later.

  Rhys caught up with him. “Arden.”

  Arden stopped and turned towards him. He raised an eyebrow minimally.

  “Did you still want to get drunk?”

  His insides hurt.

  “You don’t have to do this.”

  “No, I—”

  “So don’t if
you don’t want to,” Arden insisted, trying to sound firm, but feeling desperate.

  “Eulie was just making a joke. It wasn’t…it wasn’t even mean, not really.”

  “I’m sure it was a good impression.”

  Rhys started to smile. “It was, uh, it was what she said, really, that made me laugh.”

  “And that was…?”

  Rhys rubbed his nose, reined in his smile, and said, “She, uh, she said, ‘well, as uncomfortable as this has made you, I promise it’s been much worse for me. Now, I’ve got bigger and better bathrooms to cry in at much nicer parties.’”

  “And that’s funny because…?”

  “Because it’s exactly something you’d say.”

  “I guess my subjects know me better than I give them credit for,” Arden said, “Or they’ve been getting really good material directly from the source.”

  Rhys turned red.

  Arden could see it even in the dim light of the artificial night. “Don’t do this if you don’t want to.”

  “Listen, people…you know, they figured out pretty quick how I ended up the first worker to pay off their debt. And how I got this job. And how I got them all their jobs. It was really funny to them, that I was the one who finally bent over for the right peer after years, and Arden, I really mean years of being much less subtle about how I felt than I’ve ever been with you.”

  “Ah.”

  “And you weren’t there and I was and I don’t like it when people laugh at me. So, yeah, I found something else for them to laugh at.”

  Arden wanted to be angry, but he’d be a liar if he said he hadn’t hurt other people to make himself feel better. It still stung. He sighed. “Nothing a few drinks won’t fix, I guess. Come on.”

  They walked together.

  “Where are we going?”

  “The Big Room,” Arden said.

  Rhys eyed him.

  “It’s, uh, I think it’s actually called the Bex Torre Recreation and Dance Hall, but it’s just…a big empty room.”

  “I know what it is. Is this a party?”

  “Of course. It’s an election. And I have confirmations to give out.”

  “Am I allowed to be there?”

  “You followed me into the Public Chamber without asking. You’re worried about a party?”

  “I followed you into the Public Chamber without you noticing,” Rhys pointed out.

  Arden couldn’t help but smile. “Well, people will notice you tonight. If anyone’s rude, tell them to fuck off. Or get me, and I’ll tell them to fuck off.”