by Jill Smith
B’s body gets stiff. Imms senses he’s done something wrong but isn’t sure what.
“We’ll have to get NRCSE’s approval,” B says.
“What, he has to get his permission slip signed each time he wants to go anywhere?” Bridique asks.
“Right now I’m the only one authorized to take him places. And yes, I’m supposed to check first.”
“Well, get me authorized, too. Imms’ll kill himself if he has to spend every minute with you.”
It’s a joke, Imms knows. He’d never shut off. He wants to spend time with B.
“Do you like big cats?” Imms asks B.
B throws an arm around his shoulder and kisses him quickly, unexpectedly, on the lips. “Sure. I’m just looking out for you.”
Imms can tell by the way Mary and Bridique stare that B has kissed him in order to make them stare this way. Mary’s expression shifts from surprise to a look Imms can’t quite place. Bridique looks shocked for a moment, then like she’s trying not to laugh.
Mary suggests B help her with the dishes while Bridique and Imms go into the living room and relax.
“I can do dishes,” Imms says. “I’m good at it.”
“That’s sweet of you,” Mary says. “B and I will manage.”
Imms follows Bridique into the living room. It has green carpet and two bookcases built into the walls, little sculptures and framed photographs on the shelves as well as books. The curtains are thin and lacy.
Bridique flops on the couch. “Sit.”
Imms sits in a rose-colored armchair.
“So spill,” Bridique says.
“Spill what?”
“What’s the deal with you and my brother?”
Imms doesn’t know what the deal is, so he keeps quiet.
“Are you guys a thing?”
“A thing?”
“You do a lot of kissing?”
“Um…”
“Fucking?”
Imms isn’t supposed to talk about fucking. But maybe it’s okay, since Bridique is B’s sister. “We used to on my planet. But now only sometimes.”
Bridique stares at him for a long moment. He thinks maybe she’s angry, because B is human and Imms is a Silver. But she says, “It’s okay to talk about these things, you know. I had a therapist last year who said ninety percent of sexual hang-ups can be cured by communicating.”
“Why?”
Bridique doesn’t seem to hear him. “My first husband didn’t think we should communicate about anything. Sex, money… certainly not the kid.”
“Oh.”
“And he’s got her now, even though he knows about as much about being a father as I know about being grand vizier to the Ottoman sultan. What do you think? Do I look old enough to have been through two husbands?”
“I don’t know.”
“You’ll like the cat sanctuary.” She cradles one foot in her hands. “Do you hate me?”
He remembers Joele asking him the same question.
“No.”
“Of course not,” Bridique says. “You can’t get pissed off. Right? That’s what B says.”
Imms nods.
“What if someone came up and socked you in the gut?”
“No.”
“Do you have kids? What if someone socked your kid in the gut?”
“I don’t have kids.”
Bridique looks at the ceiling. “If I couldn’t get pissed, I don’t know what’d be left of me.”
“It’s how they stayed warm on the Silver Planet,” Imms says, not sure why he’s telling her, or if she’ll understand. “B and the other humans. Being mad kept them warm.”
Bridique rotates her ankle. “You let him boss you around? Tell you what to do?”
“He knows what to do.”
“My brother?” Bridique shakes her head. “He doesn’t know shit.”
“What happened to your husbands?”
“They left. They got sick of me and left. Who can blame them? I talk all the time.”
“That’s not bad.”
“Well, thank you, but with all due respect, you’re from another planet. I sometimes think—” she sighs. “I’m not for anybody. And nobody’s for me.”
B comes in a minute later, his expression strained. “We should head out,” he says.
Imms tries to shake Mary’s hand, but she pulls him close and squeezes him. He offers his hand to Bridique. She slaps his palm. “Up top, bro.”
He jerks his hand back. The slap didn’t really hurt. She grins.
“You come back again soon,” Mary says to them.
B nods.
In bed that night, B unexpectedly defers to Imms. “What do you want to do?” he asks. “Anything. Tell me how to make you feel good.”
At first, Imms is relieved. He can tell B that what he wants is to be held, to curl against B until he falls asleep. Then he realizes that the desperate alertness he senses in B will grow worse if it’s given no outlet. Imms will spend the night counting B’s jolting, staticky breaths. So he says he wants B inside him. He says B can be a little rough, because B likes that, and sometimes Imms does, too—likes the way something they both want can hurt only one of them, and the way he can keep that pain a secret, pretend it’s something else.
Chapter Sixteen
B takes Imms to NRCSE the next day, and Imms talks to the NRCSuckers—Imms is only allowed to call them that with B, never to their faces—in charge of his integration into human society. They ask him how he is adjusting, how his lungs and stomach feel, whether he misses the Silver Planet, and whether anyone has tried to talk to him or take his picture. They tell him that for now he has to stay in the city with B. He can’t travel to other parts of the country. Dr. Hwong, who examined Imms when Imms arrived on Earth, does another blood test. The needle doesn’t hurt, but it’s hard for Imms to hold still knowing the bite is coming.
“Why do they keep asking me the same questions?” Imms asks B on the way home.
“They don’t know what to do with you. Whether they should give me a license to keep you or issue you a green card.”
“I don’t like the doctor.”
“Me neither. We’ll find someone else.”
“I have to keep going to doctors?”
“Only when you’re sick. If you’re sick.” He pauses. “Can you get sick?”
“I don’t know.”
“There’s a lot here your body’s not used to. I’m surprised—we’re all surprised—by how well you’ve done.”
“The doctor wouldn’t stop watching my heart.”
“He’s never seen anything like it.”
After a moment Imms asks, “Can we go to the park tonight?”
“I don’t think the entourage likes us going out at night.”
“Fuck ’em, though, right? You said you hate them following us around.”
“I do. But we need them.”
It’s strange to see B so worried about doing what other people tell him to do. On the Silver Planet, he was the captain, the one in charge.
“What would humans do to me? If I wasn’t protected? Besides take my picture.”
“Hound you with questions. Stick microphones in your face.”
“Would they hurt me?”
“Most of them, probably not. Not on purpose. But you never know.”
Imms turns on the radio. He scans for a song he knows. Can’t find one. He settles back and listens to one he’s never heard before.
It goes:
Your love is all kinds of poisonous,
Your touch, the rush of heat
On this night,
It’s right,
My body’s lit with the delight of us.
You’re all kinds of poisonous.
“Can we please listen to something else?” B asks.
“Why?”
“Because this is god-awful.”
“I like it.”
“You like it because I don’t. Turn it.”
“No,” Imms says.
The song ends and another starts. Imms thinks it’s no wonder humans can’t concentrate on anything for very long. Their lives are made up of snippets of sound, bursts of color. Three-minute songs, thirty-second TV ads. Billboards, supermarkets. B has tried to show Imms how to use the computer, but Imms hates it.
“You can read on it,” B says. “You can learn about anything you want.”
Imms doesn’t trust it.
B turns off the radio. Imms wishes he’d turned it to a song B likes, because sometimes B sings, and Imms loves the sound of his voice. But if Imms asks him to sing, B won’t. It has to be B’s idea.
They arrive home, and Imms has a strange sensation he hasn’t had before. At least, not so strongly that he’s noticed it. He feels like he’s entering a place he can’t get out of. Like Tin Star in the jail.
“Can we work on reading?” he asks B.
B comes up behind him, winds his arms around him. Kisses his neck. “You sure that’s what you want to do right now?”
Imms squirms. “I need to get better at it.”
“There’ll be time for that later.” The stubble that used to be B’s beard scratches Imms’s neck. Imms laughs. “Right now, school’s out.”
B turns Imms to face him, and they kiss. It is almost like the first time they kissed on the Byzantine, like something neither of them expected to happen. Imms imagines they’re in a competition to see whose lips can swallow whose first.
B undoes the buttons of Imms’s shirt. Imms’s heart glows so brightly it turns B’s chin gold. B keeps his mouth over Imms’s, moving his hand between Imms’s legs. Imms feels his organ start to descend. Then it stops. This happens sometimes, and it usually upsets B. “What’s the problem?” he’ll ask.
B doesn’t mind this time. He doesn’t stop kissing Imms, and he moves his fingers back and forth very softly over the fabric of Imms’s pants. The sensation makes Imms gasp. His organ comes out. Cock. He’s supposed to call it his cock. B moves his hand to Imms’s back and pulls Imms against him. He moves his body up and down slightly, so that their cocks rub through their pants. B grabs Imms’s thighs, squeezing, digging his nails in. Imms whimpers into B’s mouth.
It’s over fast. B lets go, panting. Imms staggers to the sofa, sits down. His legs ripple like water.
They don’t speak.
*
B returns to work later that week. He leaves a set of instructions for Imms: Don’t go out alone. If you need something, call Mary or Bridique. If you cook something on the stove or in the oven, TURN THE STOVE/OVEN OFF when you’re done. Call my cell for emergencies. DON’T answer the door.
Imms follows these instructions for three days. He stays in the house, soaking in a cool bath. It’s hard to keep his skin from drying. The clear, thin water of Earth is ineffectual and sometimes seems to make things worse, but B has introduced him to lotion. It’s slimy, but it helps. He listens to audiobooks and reads what he can of B’s newspapers and magazines. He watches TV. His favorite is the local news with Elise Fischer. She talks about Imms a lot, but not in a bad way. Not like she’s scared.
On the fourth day, he’s so bored that he sleeps until B gets home. B is tired, too, and they curl up together and don’t fuck, just doze.
The fifth day, Bridique shows up carrying a purse with a picture of a lion on it and the words: IT’S A ROARING GOOD TIME AT ROSE SANCTUARY. “You like movies?” she asks.
“Yeah.”
“I brought some.”
A couple of the movies are animated, which means they’re made of paintings. Others have real people. They watch Blue Valentine, which Imms doesn’t like. He knows that humans argue a lot, but it still doesn’t make sense to him. Bridique’s eyes are red by the end, but she doesn’t cry. “That’s what happened to me,” she says. “My first marriage. I was so in love, and then it just collapsed.”
“Why?” Imms asks.
“I don’t know,” she says. “I used to think it was his fault. He couldn’t be happy anywhere, doing any one thing. Then I started thinking it was me. I didn’t give him enough freedom, enough support. Now I think it was both of us. We were both idiots.”
“Are you mad at him?”
She shrugs. “Not anymore.”
“Where’s your other husband?”
“I don’t know. We’re still married, technically. Just…don’t know where he is and don’t care.”
They watch Pocahontas next. Imms loves this one. “They don’t show the end of the story,” Brid says. “Pocahontas was a real person. She went with John Smith to England. She got sick and died of some disease.” Bridique watches his reaction carefully. Imms thinks he knows why she showed him this movie, and it gives him a rubbery feeling in his stomach, the way she’s looking at him.
“Could she really talk to animals?” Imms asks.
“I’m sure she could, but I doubt they talked back.” Bridique stands. “You wanna go see the big cats?”
“Now?”
“Yeah.”
“I can’t leave the house without B.”
“Oh for Christ’s sake, he’s such a—look, Imms. You can do whatever you want. You’re a free soul.”
“Free soul?”
“You’ve got as much right as anyone on this planet to go out and enjoy yourself.”
“I can’t go anywhere without the entourage.”
“We are definitely not taking your goons. We’ll slip out undetected.”
They go out the side window in the den, which opens almost right into the hedge that separates B’s yard from the neighbors’. Instead of going around to the front yard, they go through the hedge, across the neighbor’s lawn, and to the street, where Bridique’s car is parked. “Well done,” she says, offering her palm for Imms to slap. He does, hesitantly. She shakes her head. “Hit it.”
He slaps harder.
“Better.”
Bridique drives differently from B, as though it is her own body sleekly cutting the air, not the car’s. She keeps her eyes straight ahead. She goes fast.
“I’m really curious about what fucking’s like for you and my brother,” she says. “Not in a gross way. I used to want to be a sex therapist. I like learning about stuff like this.”
“Oh.”
“I mean, did you have to learn anything different?”
“Not really. Just—I think there’s more to it, with humans.”
“What do you mean?”
“Silvers just do it to breed. Humans do it—for what?” he asks.
“For pleasure,” Brid says. “For revenge. To make-up. To dispel tension. To reproduce. To boost or destroy a reputation. To pass the time.” Bridique drums her fingers on the wheel. “Did you have a…boyfriend? Girlfriend? Back on your planet?”
“No.”
“How come?”
“One pair of Silvers is selected to breed once a month. I was never chosen.” They pass a tall building with a familiar logo. “What’s that place?”
Bridique glances at the building. “Local news headquarters. Bullshit central. ‘Did you know your baby‘s pacifier could cause it to immaculately conceive? More at eleven.’”
“The news talks about me a lot.”
“No shit. You are the news, big guy.”
Brid has music playing, but it’s very soft, and not the kind of music Imms would expect to hear in her car. No voices, just instruments.
“I guess I should thank you,” she says.
“Why?”
“For saving my brother’s life.”
Something in Imms tightens. Pretending to be a hero to NRCSE is one thing. Pretending to Bridique is another.
Brid glances at him. “You ever sorry you pulled him out of the fire?”
Imms shakes his head violently. “No.”
“I’m kidding. He’s a good guy. He can be. He wants to be. He fucks it up sometimes.” She pauses. “I should talk.”
They arrive at the sanctuary. Bridique rolls down her window and waves her badge next to a machi
ne. The light turns green, and the gate in front of them lifts. They drive into a lot with a sign that says: RESERVED PARKING ONLY.
“Most of the cats here can never be released back into the wild,” she explains as they make their way to the entrance. “They’re too used to captivity. They wouldn’t be able to survive. We’ve got two lions, a Bengal tiger, and a bobcat. And a liger. That’s a lion-tiger mix.”
Imms knows that different species on Earth are not supposed to breed. But sometimes, if the species are similar enough, they can mix. Like donkeys and horses. Lions and tigers. Dogs and wolves. It doesn’t happen naturally, B told him. Usually humans have to create the hybrids.
Bridique greets a man at the entrance booth, and they chat for a minute. At the top of the gate, in letters that look like they’re made out of sticks are the words: ROSE BIG CAT SANCTUARY. Down the path, Imms sees a chain link fence.
“Holy shit,” the man in the booth says loudly. “Hey!”
Imms is wearing a sweatshirt with the hood up, and has his hands in his pockets, just like B taught him. He turns to the man, meets his eyes then quickly looks at the ground.
“Holy shit. Holy shit.”
“Josh,” Brid warns.
“No, this is…I can’t… Okay,” the man says. “Okay. Can he talk?”
“Yes, but—”
Josh addresses Imms. “What d’ya think about Earth so far?”
Bridique rolls her eyes. “Shut up, Josh.”
“Well, I wanna know! It’s not every day you—”
“Come on, Imms.” Bridique takes Imms’s arm and tosses a wave back at Josh.
She leads Imms to the first enclosure. It’s big, not like the jail cell Tin Star was kept in. It contains grass and rocks and a small pool. Two animals drowse by the pool. “The lionesses,” Bridique says. One gets up and walks lazily to the fence. The other follows a moment later.
“Kaya and Kaylee,” Brid says, “meet Imms.”
The animals have cake-colored fur and sharp amber eyes. Imms starts to put his hand to the fence.
“Uh-uh.” Brid says. “Wild animals, dude.”
Imms drops his hand. “Are you friends with them?”
“I guess so. As much as humans and lions can be friends. The bigger one, Kaya, she’ll jump up and give me a hug if I go in there. Kaylee’s shyer. They each eat eleven pounds of meat a day. Spend about eighteen hours sleeping.”