While Laki was slipping into a delicious stupor, Se-se was entering the Velvet Stretch for the first time. Her last three messages to Laki had returned undelivered. The only place Laki could be where Se-se’s message globes couldn’t reach was the Velvet Stretch.
“No registration on record,” the concierge stated.
“First time,” Se-se said with what she hoped was a charming smile.
“No rendezvous?” the concierge asked, without even bothering to acknowledge Se-se’s friendliness.
Se-se shook her head.
“You only have clearance for the rendezvous-less zone; that’s right past the entrance here. There are some basic rules and regulations.” The concierge stopped speaking long enough to pluck a message globe at Se-se. The globe floated through the walls of her pod and hovered near her shoulder while the concierge finished his speech. “People who violate these guidelines may be barred from the Velvet Stretch. Any questions?”
Se-se did have a question—where is my sister?—but she knew better than to draw attention to Laki. She opened her hand to receive the message globe.
“You have been cleared.”
As Se-se floated into the Velvet Stretch, she learned that it was bad etiquette to spy on people. Pod walls were transparent for regulatory purposes and were intended to support mutual consent, not to invite voyeurism. She was instructed on the preferred protocol when approaching a potential rendezvous: hover at a distance until the person you are interested in sees you. Once seen, you may approach slowly, so that the person has the opportunity to accept or reject your advances.
Se-se tried following the protocols as she searched the rendezvous-less zone, but the process was too slow. She wasn’t looking for a rendezvous; she was looking for her sister. Stopping a respectful distance away from pods made it difficult to be certain Laki was not inside. In a burst of frustration, Se-se put politeness aside. She swooped in close and peered inside the pods she encountered. She forgave her behavior by telling herself that people would excuse her sudden and aggressive appearance outside their pods if they understood the urgent nature of her search.
After Se-se had peeked into all the solitary and conjoined pods in the rendezvous-less zone, she came to a halt. She looked around and considered her options. Leaving without Laki was out of the question. If Laki was not in the rendezvous-less zone, Se-se would be stuck. The righteousness of her mission had given her the courage to enter the Velvet Stretch, but she wasn’t so emboldened that she’d sneak into other levels without permission.
While she was mulling over her next steps, a few pods whizzed past her. She snapped into action, jerking forward to follow them, but before she could catch up with them, they disappeared. She bobbed in place, bewildered. She was looking around for the pods that had disappeared when a few more pods rushed past her. Watching them closely, she saw that, after traveling a short distance, the pods dipped down, then disappeared. She sped after them, determined not to lose them, but her pod rammed into something solid, and she was knocked to the floor.
She regained her footing and nudged her pod forward, but it would not move. What had looked like open space was clearly a wall of some sort. She backed up and pushed at the wall again, but it was rigid and wouldn’t give way.
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the bouncing lights of two pods. They drifted right up to the wall, stopped suddenly, then plunged downward and disappeared. Plunging down through the rendezvous-less zone was not an appealing thought, but she reminded herself of her promise to not be deterred. She took a deep breath and directed her pod to drop downward. Every few seconds, she pitched forward, searching for the end of the wall.
When Se-se finally got to the bottom of the screen, her pod shot forward and she found herself underneath a gathering of pods that created a room bigger than her and Laki’s rooms combined. Above her the party pulsed with music that she couldn’t hear. She could see the bottoms of people’s feet and the backs of bodies pressed against the floor of the pods.
She navigated her pod up around the side of the conjoined pods. Through the transparent walls she could see bodies everywhere—arms thrashing, hips rotating, heads flung back with abandon. She edged around the perimeter of the party, trying to drown out the voice that was warning her that it was dangerous to fuse with so many pods at once. After looking for Laki from the safety of her pod, Se-se accused herself of stalling. She closed her eyes and guided her pod forward to join with the party.
When she stepped into the party, she felt as if it had consumed her. The air was thick and hazy with an overwhelming wet heat. There was no personal space—everyone was skin to skin. She moved forward slowly, pausing periodically to step over arms and legs and dodge people who were splayed across the floor. She had thought searching people’s pods was embarrassing, now here she was, sticking her face close to people who were kissing and caressing, interrupting intimacies, in search of Laki.
Having determined that she would not find Laki underfoot, Se-se turned her attention to the dance floor. Finding Laki among the dancers would not be easy. As she was scanning the dance floor, trying to formulate a method to locate Laki, a pair of long dark arms rose up in the air and extended above the crowd.
Without hesitation, Se-se plunged into the throng of dancers. It was hard going at first. The dance floor was densely packed, and every space was jealously guarded. After being jabbed by knees and elbows, she reached the middle of the dance floor. There, at the center of the party, whirling around a clearing, was Laki. She was bare-breasted and disrobed, enrapturing her guests with the undulating contortions of her body. Even as she wondered how Laki could be comfortable without her clothes, Se-se found herself mildly spellbound. This was not the bitter, tortured Laki who Se-se had spent so much time pacifying and cajoling in the past year. This was the Laki of legend, the Laki who had conjured up a social life that was a work of art and called the Velvet Stretch her second home.
As Laki’s limbs writhed with furious motion, the marriage belt—radiant and gleaming—added to her otherworldly appearance. On her naked sweaty torso, it looked like a mark of divinity. Se-se was mesmerized by the fascinating contrast Laki’s smooth dark skin brought to the belt, yet she knew that the belt’s opulence was awe-inspiring all on its own.
The first time Se-se had seen the belt, it had rendered her speechless. Laki had been out all night, and Se-se had spent most of the day popping into the launching room hoping to see Laki return. Meals passed, and Laki did not come home. Se-se blew off invitations from friends, helped the mothers, and practiced her debates while waiting for Laki to return. She had watched her brothers and sisters leave home one by one, but Laki’s maturation was different.
When Se-se had learned that Laki was promised to a mother-unit, she launched a concerted effort to save her sister. The closer Laki got to maturation, the more wound up and frenzied Se-se became. She knew that her efforts sometimes spiraled into a mania, but she was powerless to stop herself.
When the roof of the landing room finally slid open in the early evening, Se-se had been waiting in the shadows. She had watched Laki’s pod land on the launching pad. She had remained silent as Laki created a small opening at the base of the pod and wriggled out.
“Sister…” Se-se had said as soon as Laki stood up.
But Laki hadn’t heard her. She stood there gazing up at the sky through the opening in the roof.
“Sister!” Se-se had yelled.
Laki’s head had jerked to look over to where Se-se stood. When she saw her sister waiting for her, Laki crossed her arms and pinched her mouth tight. She stole a glance at her deflating pod, then turned back to Se-se.
Se-se barreled toward her. “We’ve already eaten twice. You sent no messages. You’ve missed your trainings…” It was then that Se-se had seen the belt. She stopped short. She reached for Laki’s waist.
“Where did you find this?” she finally whispered.
Laki had looked down as if she did not know there was
a very heavy marriage belt wrapped around her waist, a marriage belt she had not been wearing the previous day when she left home.
“Can’t get it off,” Laki had said, shrugging.
Se-se had surprised herself by murmuring, “It outshines even mine.”
Laki had grinned and kissed Se-se’s cheek. “Don’t worry, sweet Se-se, yours is more true.”
Se-se had put her hand to her cheek as if to hold the kiss there. She felt as if her mind would explode. Laki wearing a marriage belt?! Se-se had masterminded several meticulously planned campaigns to get Laki paired up with a mate. Laki had stubbornly refused each plan. Her excuses ran the gamut from bad breath to inadequate personality to insufficient height. Nothing Se-se had said could sway her. Not even her most logical arguments proposing marriage to several of Laki’s friends. Laki was adamant that marriage should be reserved for magical connections. Anything less would not be entertained.
Se-se had followed Laki around the landing room, pestering her as Laki closed the entrance in the roof and flattened then folded her deflated pod.
“Who gave it to you? It must have come from Embankment 5, or Embankment 7 at least.”
Laki had paused. She looked down to inspect the belt as if considering its worth. Then she had shaken off Se-se’s question and stalked out of the pod landing room.
Se-se had followed, undeterred. “Sisterrrrrrr, who is he?”
Laki had walked to her room and unsealed it without answering.
“Two days to maturation,” the voice had said when Laki entered her room.
Se-se had entered behind her and sat on the floor. “Come on, what’s his name? Maybe I can find him. You met him in the rendezvous-less stretch, didn’t you?”
Laki had bent over to unbutton her boots. “It’s called the rendezvous-less zone.”
“I bet you don’t know anything about him. Did you at least get his name? You still have one more day, don’t you think you should…”
“Stop talking and help me get this thing off.”
Se-se had stood and walked over to Laki. She leaned over and started fumbling with the belt’s knot.
“Is he a friend of yours?”
Laki had sighed. Se-se’s persistence was unextinguishable. “No, I met him by accident.”
“Do you think he likes you?”
“I think he likes women. Are you getting anywhere with that?”
The knot was so tiny that Se-se had trouble holding on to it. No matter how firmly she tugged at it, it refused to come apart for her fingers.
“Did you even get his name?”
Laki had slapped Se-se’s hand. “That’s enough. I guess I’ll have to cut it off.”
Se-se had gasped. “But then it’ll be destroyed.”
“Who cares? He’s a rebel. He doesn’t care about marriage; he doesn’t care about rules. It’s just a belt to him.”
Laki had thrown off her clothing and stepped into the bathing module. She was still wearing the belt.
“Maybe it won’t come off for a reason,” Se-se had said.
But Laki hadn’t answered. The sound of water flowing had been her only reply.
As soon as Laki had stepped out of the bathing module, a tinkling sound had wafted into the room. Both Se-se and Laki had frozen. Panic flared across Laki’s face as she grabbed at her discarded cloths. She had picked up one of the cloths and hurriedly attempted to reconfigure it into a loose robe. Se-se tried to help, but she couldn’t undo the seams on Laki’s cloths. After Laki had succeeded at making the cloth flat again, she threw it over her shoulders, but it barely covered her torso.
Head-mother squeezed through the entrance of Laki’s room. Se-se and Laki kneeled. With their heads bowed, neither of them saw five other mothers enter the room after head-mother. But they had heard them. Thousands of tiny bells sewn to the mother-unit’s cloths rang out as a shimmering veil pulled them into Laki’s room. The mother-unit stood in the middle of the room, bound together by a veil that cloaked their bodies and distorted their features. Each individual woman was unidentifiable, but the force of their presence was unmistakable. The air swelled with powerful emanations of love.
No one had spoken as each of the mothers surveyed different corners of the room. Within seconds, the mother-unit could step into a room and dissect the situation that had been unfolding. The sensation of being deeply seen, disrobed of all pretenses, was so overwhelming that Laki was on the verge of swooning and Se-se began to cry.
“Stand up, children,” the mother-unit had hummed.
One mother had moved forward and embraced Se-se.
“Mothers, I am sorry for missing my training today. I know I have a lot to learn about the cloak, but….” Laki had stopped to gulp down the quivering in her voice.
“What is this around your waist?” the mother-unit had sung.
Head-mother had glided toward Laki from her position in the center of the room. The tiny bells tinkled as the other mothers moved with her in one undulating ripple.
Laki had fingered the belt without looking at it. “It is a marriage belt, but it was given to me as a gift, not as a proposition.”
“A thoughtless gift to a girl who is two days from maturation.”
Head-mother had reached out, every move an orchestra of tinkling. She palmed the belt with cloaked hands, testing its weight.
“Quite heavy, the young man is from Embankment 5?”
Se-se had perked up, thinking she might finally learn something about the mysterious giver of marriage belts. Laki was silent.
“La-Laki,” a mother had sung, “Head-mother has asked you a question.”
“Mothers, I don’t know where he lives. I only know that his name is Fogo.”
“You can’t bring a marriage belt with you into your mother-unit,” hummed another mother.
“You must return the belt,” a third mother sang, “We wouldn’t want his family coming for it.”
“You have a way to return it?” head-mother sang.
Laki had fallen silent. She remembered Fogo’s face, blank and disoriented, after their rendezvous. She’d had to remind him who she was. Why he had wanted to see her again was unclear to her, but he’d refused to take the marriage belt off her waist. He told her it was his insurance that she’d meet up with him again. Laki had no plans to renew their encounter. Marriage belt or not, she didn’t enjoy the indignity of being inconsequential, and she wouldn’t spend any time courting a repeat of the morning after.
“You must find a way to return the belt,” head-mother had sung.
On that signal, one of the mothers had waved her hand over Laki’s wardrobe portal, and her cloths had shot out on their rod. In a blur of twelve hands, Laki was quickly dressed in an outfit reminiscent of the mothers’ clothing.
As the mothers had led Laki out of the room, Se-se had run behind Laki, grasped her sister’s hand, and whispered, “I’m going to find him.”
The Laki flashing her hips and flirting with the crowd at her goodbye party was completely different from the Laki glumly heading to training in her mother-unit whites. Laki had looked ghostly and ashen in her training cloths. On the dance floor, Laki was blindingly vibrant and unmistakably alive.
Se-se was still rousing herself from memory when Laki spun around and threw herself into someone’s arms. She pressed against him quickly then wandered off the dance floor. Se-se lurched forward, afraid that she would lose Laki in the throng of revelers. As she rushed after Laki, Se-se’s foot slipped and she lost her balance. She grabbed wildly at the nearest person to keep herself upright. When she regained her balance, she realized she was draped on a stranger’s chest.
The stranger wrapped his arms around her, holding her tighter and longer than necessary.
“Don’t you smell good,” he laughed.
Se-se untangled herself, gave a grateful giggle, and turned to leave.
“Wait, is this yours?” the stranger asked, thrusting a black cloth at her. “You tripped on it.”
“Thanks,” Se-se said. She grabbed the cloth and nudged her way through the crowd. When she reached the edge of the party, she saw Laki reclining on the floor, draped across a few pillows. Se-se kneeled in front of her sister and leaned toward her. When Laki saw Se-se, she broke into a wide smile. She took Se-se’s face in her hands and kissed her on the cheek. Se-se handed Laki the cloth. Laki wiped her face and sweaty torso with it.
“Don’t bathe with it, put it on.”
“What is it?” Laki asked, stretching the cloth out to see it better.
“Your cloth.”
Laki laughed. “Thanks, sis.”
“Are you going to put it on?”
Laki wrapped it around her neck like a scarf and threw one end over her shoulder. “Are you here to parent me or to party?”
“I’m here to save you.”
Laki rolled her eyes.
Se-se grasped Laki’s shoulder. “I found Fogo.”
Laki did not react. Her expression didn’t show surprise, fear, or joy. Her face locked out all emotion and refused to even hint at her feelings. Someone stumbled over Se-se, and she crawled forward to sit next to her sister.
“Did you hear me?”
“Is he coming for his belt?” Laki asked coolly.
“No, but there’s someone I want you to meet.”
Laki sighed. “Se-se, I don’t need another belt.”
“It’s not like that. Where’s your pod?”
“Why?”
“I told you, I want you to meet someone.”
“And leave my party? No way!”
Laki reached out and grabbed a woman’s leg. The woman kneeled, then yelled Laki’s name. Within seconds, Laki and her friend were cuddling and giggling.
“We don’t have time for this,” Se-se said before standing up and looking around. She had never been inside Laki’s pod and didn’t know how long it would take to check all the labels on the gathered pods to find Laki’s. She looked down at her sister, whose hands were now roaming over her friend’s body. You’ve come this far, she said to herself. Laki’s worth it, keep going.
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