He places a finger on a completely unremarkable piece of marble wall and a door swings open. He holds the towel out behind him and I grab it awkwardly. I wait for him to leave, but he pauses another moment and admits, “I was only laughing because I think I was nervous.”
Once he’s gone, I contemplate how pathetic my life is—that awkward, accidental moment was probably one of the most intimate of my life.
Luke
After the bathroom debacle, she stands outside on the balcony. I consider joining her, but decide to give her a few moments alone. That balcony is cathartic, and she may need that after today.
I concentrate on cooking, but for once it’s not enough to stop my mind from wandering. Specifically to Josephine’s naked body. I actually believe that I will think about that body for the rest of my goddamn life. I mean, she’s thin and covered in bruises, but … Christ. I can’t think straight. I should be ashamed—she’s a child, for god’s sake. She didn’t look like one though. And she doesn’t act like one.
I turn off the stove and open the door to the balcony. Outside it’s a calm night. An inky black sky is splashed through with stars that are dim compared to the brilliant lights of the thousands of buildings around us. She was in the tub for so long that she missed the sunset.
“What are we having for dinner?” she asks softly. She smells like soap and something prettier, something that is just her.
“Poison.”
“Again? Jeez, use your imagination.” After a moment she says, “It’s nice out here.”
“Does that mean you’ll move in?” I don’t know why I’m pressing this—she clearly doesn’t want to, and I would probably go crazy thinking about her in the bath every day, but I just can’t stand the thought of her going back to that bubonic plague-infested shithole.
“I don’t know,” she sighs, leaning forward to rest her elbows on the railing. She looks at all the windows around us. “So many people. Every one of those lights is another life. And all of them broken.”
“That’s life though, isn’t it?” I mutter.
She doesn’t reply.
“Do you wish I wasn’t cured?”
Josephine shrugs. “I don’t wish anything at all about you, Luke.”
“No need to be blunt.”
Her mouth quirks. “Okay, I guess I wish you weren’t so stubborn. Does that make you feel better?”
“Over the moon,” I reply wryly and she gives me a real smile this time. Damn, it’s a good smile.
“What do you think they’re doing out there?” she asks me.
“Who?”
“Anyone.”
I crack my knuckles. “Making wishes.”
*
Josephine is a good dinner guest. She oohs and ahs and says everything is delicious. It makes me want to cook for her all the time. Once she’s finished eating she says she wants to pick something up from her house.
“Like what?”
“Just … something. I don’t have much, Luke, but if I’m going to move in, then I need my meager belongings.”
I stand up. “Really?”
“Yes, really.” She rolls her eyes. “But don’t get all weird. I just like your bath.”
Despite her prickly exterior, it’s pretty easy to see that she’s desperate for the company.
I drive her home and wait for her to grab her stuff. She’s not in there long, but when she comes out she’s carrying a big black bag in an odd shape—a musical instrument case. She puts it carefully in the back seat and then won’t answer any questions about it until we get home. Dumping her bag in the bedroom furthest from mine, she comes back into the living room and looks at me.
“There need to be some ground rules if I’m going to live here. Firstly, I’ll pay rent. Secondly, we share the chores. Thirdly, if anything starts to get weird then I’m gone, and you don’t get to ask any questions.”
“What would get weird?”
Her eyebrows arch pointedly. “My left, not yours?”
“That won’t happen again,” I promise with a grin. “We’re just going to work together and share an apartment, like friends.”
“Like friends, but not friends?”
I roll my eyes. “What’s in the bag?”
Josephine retrieves the case and unzips it to reveal a beautiful old cello.
“Just when I thought you couldn’t get any more interesting, you show me a thing like this.”
Musical instruments have become more and more uncommon, which means they’re expensive. This is the last thing I ever expected Josephine to own. She looks at it fondly for a moment then starts to zip it up again.
“You have to play something!” I protest quickly.
“No way.”
“Stop zipping that bag,” I order so firmly that she freezes. “I have a rule of my own. Your rent is payable only in music. Every night you sleep here costs a song. Sometimes more, depending on how difficult you’re being.”
She stares at me, her mouth open slightly.
“You’d better get started or it’s a long walk home.”
Josephine looks outraged, and frowns while she deliberates. “Fine,” she eventually snaps, then sits down on the edge of the couch. “But I might play badly just to annoy you.”
She plucks a few strings to hear if it’s in tune. I get comfortable on the opposite couch and watch as she prepares herself. Then her face gets this faraway look, and all of a sudden my house is filled with deep, wonderful notes that resonate through my bones and my mind, and make me understand, at last, the nature of loneliness.
I don’t think I knew how much was missing from my life until I met this strange, impossible girl and heard her play the cello.
Chapter Five
October 13th, 2063
Josephine
The lights of the casino are so glary and false that they make my eyes throb. There’s no way to get away from the noise. Nowhere to hide except the ladies’ room, but I’m only allowed two bathroom breaks per shift.
I carry drinks to rich businessmen who leer at the other waitresses, but not at me. None of them look at me, nor do they tip me. I am safe because when people look at me they see someone strange. I don’t want to work in a place where you only get tipped because you dress like a tramp, or a place with so many drones, but I will not live at Luke’s house without contributing rent money, and this is the only job I’ve been able to get with my fake ID.
I place a tray of shots that burn with a blue fire in the middle of a large table. These men are in the middle of a poker game, and by the looks of the tally screen, they are bidding in the thousands. They’re drunk and careless and crude, which is why I offered to serve them, since they’d be groping at the other waitresses in their short skirts.
Once the drinks have been delivered, I turn to leave but feel a large, meaty hand grab my arm and pinch. My head whips around in shock and I jerk my arm away from the man who touched me. He is a huge beast, overweight and balding, with expensive glasses and a beautiful suit. “Your eyes,” he says to me.
I stare, shocked at the fact that he noticed me, let alone touched me.
“They’re creepy.”
I try not to frown. “Excuse me, sir.”
“Wait,” he grunts, playing his hand and laughing with a wheeze as he wins. “Wait. I want to look at you.”
Edging away, I cover my revulsion with a bland smile. “I need to get back to work, sir.” I turn and hurry back toward the bar. I feel sorry for the girls who have to put up with this crap every night.
I’m waiting for Jen to pour my next order of drinks when I feel the same huge hand descend onto my shoulder.
“Why don’t you take your break now?” He smiles lecherously.
“I can’t. Excuse me,” I say more firmly. He’s disgusting, with his red cheeks and wheezy breathing. I quickly flee to the bathroom and splash some water onto my face. I can’t wait to get home.
I check the phone in my pocket—the one that Luke forced me to buy. Th
ere’s a text message waiting. You should leave work sick. I just made the best Peking Duck anyone has ever made. I smile, shaking my head. He hates that I have a job. He seems to just want me to lie around on the couch all day long and do nothing. Actually, he did imply that I should be going to college, but I ignored that, since he has no concept of how much it costs and how easily my lack of brain-altering cures would be discovered there.
I’m just about to head back out when the door to the ladies’ bathroom swings open and the fat businessman enters. I freeze. “Sir, you shouldn’t be in here.”
“You shouldn’t have ignored me. You’re an employee—I could buy you three times over with the change in my pocket.”
“How charming, but I’m not a whore,” I tell him crisply. “Now get out before I call security.”
He doesn’t go anywhere. He smiles and beneath the glasses I see that his eyes are dead. I try to get past him, feeling repulsed and furious, but he grabs me by the shoulder and pushes me against the wall.
“What are you doing?” I ask quickly. I try to think of something that will get through to a drone, but I can see in his face that he’s lost any sense of rational behavior, overcome by a dark and violent lust. I push against him, but he’s strong—a lot of his substantial bulk must come from muscle.
This is bad. My mind is going to places I don’t let it go anymore. Places that have existed all my life, from before even the blood moon, before I became a monster myself. Nightmare places, nightmare memories. But it has been years since I’ve let myself get hurt. I’m stronger now. I can solve this.
Except that his hands are so strong, and he has me pinned roughly against the wall, a hand around my throat, long feminine fingernails dragging through my skin and I’m struggling wildly but I can’t get free I can barely move or breathe and there’s a sickness rising up from my stomach threading my veins with a tremble of terror I need to get free I must get free—
A scream of rage tears from my mouth and I twist my head to bite down on his fleshy hand. He yelps, loosening his hold enough that I can pull free and dash for the door. Pain knifes through my skull as he grabs my hair and yanks me backwards, clutching me around the throat and slamming me onto the ground. The air is sucked from me and panic bursts to life in my chest—it’s much harder to get free from the ground; he has all of his weight on me. I stop struggling and he grins with triumph, reaching down to my thighs and pressing them apart. I use his momentary distraction to jam a knee into his groin and he shrieks, doubling over in pain.
The sound alerts one of the other waitresses and she pokes her head in curiously. She stares at the scene before her with mild interest.
“Help!” I cry, scrabbling to my feet. She leaves without a word. It was foolish to hope she would help. The man’s hand is around my ankle and I turn and kick him savagely in the face. “You piece of shit,” I yell. “How dare you?”
He is squinting at me in shock and I realize I must run.
*
I walk through a square of concrete that was once a child’s park, but is now a crack den. My feet pick up speed as a group of men catch sight of me. One of them heads my way and I burst into a sprint, dashing out of the square before they can be bothered to follow. I feel sick to my stomach. I should have called Luke to pick me up but I can’t manage the sight of him tonight, knowing that he is just another drone and has the capacity to lose it like that at any moment. I don’t know why I’m stupid enough to live with him—the idea, in this moment, is terrifying.
My skin crawls and my head is full of vile memories as I walk through the night. I feel like weeping but I don’t. I don’t cry, not ever. I will never give myself permission for self-pity.
When I get home it is late enough that I hope Luke is asleep.
He’s not. He’s lying on the couch watching a movie. There’s a larger than life couple kissing in the middle of the room. “Hey,” he says. “I thought you were going to call me for a ride when you finished.”
I don’t speak because I can’t. I kick off my shoes and sink into the couch beside him.
“How was work?”
The onscreen couple pulls apart and they smile at each other, speaking words I’m too distracted to hear.
“Josi?” Luke leans forward suddenly. “What the fuck happened to your neck? That’s a scratch mark!”
I flinch away, putting my hand over the wounds. “I’m fine.”
“Who did that to you?” he asks, and his voice has a sudden chilling quality to it.
“No one! Leave me alone.”
“Tell me what happened.”
“A psycho drone, all right?” I hiss. “That’s what happened. I handled it, so drop it, Luke.”
“Was it at the casino?” he asks, still in that same creepy monotone. “Describe him.”
“Let it go!”
Luke stares at me strangely. Eventually he heads for the bathroom and returns with a first-aid box, gently slathering my neck with disinfectant and covering it with a white bandage. Once this is done he grabs his jacket and heads out without a word.
I sit alone in the dark and watch as the man and woman onscreen pretend they still have the ability to understand what love is.
October 16th, 2063
Josephine
Luke and I are walking down the street when I see it. There on the side of a building is a news bulletin about someone getting arrested. It’s an unusual bulletin—the government doesn’t want its citizens to think about crime, not after all of their futile attempts at ceasing it, so they don’t normally show this sort of thing. The drones around us seem to think the same, as many stop to watch the bulletin as we have done. A few of them are, weirdly, laughing. One man weeps as if he himself is being arrested.
I freeze when I see the real criminal’s face. When I see his ruddy red cheeks and steel-rimmed glasses. His huge girth and beady dead eyes. He is being led out of his office building and into a Blood vehicle, hands cuffed, contained by the terrifying men in black. There are tears coursing down his face, and dark bruises around both his eyes and mouth.
Luke stares at the bulletin with me. He is expressionless. I think of him disappearing that night after he put the bandage on my neck. I touch the white pad again now. He’s been changing it for me twice a day since.
“Did you … I didn’t even …”
Luke looks at me but he doesn’t say anything. He watches my eyes, waiting for my response, like he so often does. I feel like he makes so many decisions based on the severity of my reactions to things. In this moment he is waiting to see if I’ll work it out, but I don’t know what to say, how to ask.
Eventually I just say, “Did you make this happen?” It’s an absurd question. There is no possible way he could have, and yet it’s there in the air between us, reminding me of how little I know about him.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Luke Townsend replies with careful delicacy. And then he walks on.
October 24th, 2063
Josephine
“Why green?”
I shrug. “Why not green?” The paint’s a beautiful shade of jungle green, but now that we’ve started painting I think it might be too dark. My eyes move from the paint to Luke’s hand as it slides back and forth, painting along the bottom of the cornice. He’s so tall he hardly needs to stand on the stool. It’s only natural that my eyes move down his arm, along the strong forearm and over his hard bicep and shoulder … I can see every line and every muscle because he’s only dressed in a singlet.
“I don’t hear much painting happening,” he comments.
I jump, startled out of my daze, and walk straight into a can of paint, spilling it all over the floor.
Luke peers over his shoulder and laughs in disbelief. “Good god. Do you have any hand–eye coordination?”
I blush. The truth is, Luke makes me uncomfortable. I’ve never spent any time with a guy like him, or any guy. And when I look at him like this, imagining things I shouldn’t … I can’
t help but think about a lot of other things, awful things, things that include my recent encounter with an incarcerated politician, for one.
I don’t know where to put these thoughts. I hate them.
“You’re cleaning that up,” he tells me. I don’t say anything so he sighs and mutters, “Fine, I’ll clean it up.”
I climb into the bath. “I’m sick of this now.”
“We’ve only done one wall! And you did about a two percent portion of it.”
“Maybe it could be a feature wall.” I feel tired, suddenly. Really tired. Lying in the bath is nice; the ceramic is cool and smooth against my skin.
“If you want,” Luke is saying. “I was starting to think it might end up too dark anyway …”
I close my eyes, too exhausted to keep them open any longer. Luke keeps talking, and the sound of his voice is soothing, like a breeze against my skin.
*
I open my eyes to the familiar walls of the guest bedroom. My bedroom. There’s a cup of tea next to the bed, and by the looks of the steam rising off the top it was put there recently. I sit up and take the cup between my hands, using it to warm the chill in the air. I’m on top of the covers but a soft blanket has been spread over my legs. I have no idea what time it is, but I feel heavy and groggy so after a while I go back to sleep.
October 25th, 2063
Josephine
There’s a warm hand stroking my hair. A big hand. I wake slowly, wary of this hand. I have never woken to a gentle touch before.
“She wakes,” a deep voice says by my ear. I twist my head around and it all comes back to me. Luke.
I sigh sleepily, rubbing my eyes.
“You need to eat something, Josi,” he tells me. “I brought you some toast.”
“I might just go back to sleep for a while.”
“No, you need to wake up and eat something.” There’s a firm edge to his voice.
I roll away from him. “Can you get off the bed?” I don’t like having him so close. I’ve got no space, no room to breathe.
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