by Kyle Harris
Chaz stopped in the grass. So did the android. “I got something to ask you,” she said, sidestepping to evade a ballistic-missile kid and his screaming mother in close pursuit.
The android blinked. “I will answer it to the best of my knowledge.”
Chaz leaned in closer to pass the question safely in a whisper. “How do you fucking know, huh?”
“What is it that I know?”
“I mean, I get the rest of it—you take a gander at my face, and now you’re browsing through my fucking porn history to see what gets my loins cooking. Except my internet rap sheet is blank, because I’m smart.” She squeezed the android’s arm. “So why in the fuck are you trying to sell me girls? Huh? How do you know?”
Composedly, the android said, “Because Charlene McCune is sexually attracted to girls.”
Chaz looked around. She saw Libby about twenty meters away, waving and coming toward her. “The other bitches did the same, so it’s not just you. I’m marked as a lesbian in your company’s database. Wanna tell me why?”
“I have no knowledge of how that information is acquired. If you wish to contact our support team, I will put a priority request through immediately.”
“Can I leave feedback?”
“Absolutely. If you say it to me, it will be passed along to the appropriate department.”
“Okay.” Chaz thought for a bit. “Here’s what I want to say: go fuck yourselves.”
“I am unable to communicate feedback that contains profanity. Please try again.”
She shoved the android out of her way. It took the hint and wandered off without having to be told to; maybe that database also included Chaz’s history of violence against its siblings.
She had barely set her feet in the right direction again, and arms came swooping around her like enormous pincers. Something in her spine popped.
“Chaz! Are you okay?” Libby was out of breath, like she had sprinted across the whole park.
“Yeah.” Chaz returned the hug, trying to remember the last time someone had been so enthusiastic to see her alive. Curly blonde hair tickled her nose. “I’m okay. It’s all good.”
“I know you weren’t away for long, but these cruel pictures entered my head. I saw the rope, and it was you instead of Jake, and I couldn’t handle the thought of…”
“I’m here, Libby. Those fucks can’t get rid of me that easily.”
Still hugging. Libby sniffled a few times.
“The police are going to take care of it?”
“Yeah. Already have. They arrested them all.”
They separated. Libby said, “Are you going to be in trouble?”
Chaz shook her head. “No way. The self-defense card keeps me out of cuffs.”
“I’m glad.”
The police angle wasn’t a thought-out lie, but Libby never saw far past her own nose. Then again, there was always the possibility she might rejoice after hearing that the Begotten Sons were dead meat. The criminal justice system seemed more Christian-friendly, though.
“Is everyone else all right?” asked Chaz. “All your friends?”
“Yeah. Because of you, Chaz.” The sun was peeking out, but the glow on her face came from within. “I don’t dare imagine what was in the minds of those heartless people who attacked you, or why they believed sadism and torture are God’s will. God is not those things.”
“God is love.”
“God is love,” agreed Libby. “And God is you.”
Chaz staved off a quick retort. “Murder’s kind of bad, though. Wasn’t there a commandment about that? Thou shall not murder?”
“Yes. But in Leviticus, it is said that whoever takes a human life shall lose their own. In Genesis, whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed. And while you are not a man”—she smiled hugely—“I believe God would understand your actions. But if you ever feel the need to speak to Him, to seek forgiveness…”
“Nah. I’m good.”
Libby kissed her. “Come on. I’m starving.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
With the Christian lynch mob now fly food, the next couple weeks blazed by.
Nothing floated down the airwaves from Okocha besides a surveillance request: she had to ID a brothel owner who was rumored to be sharing a slice of the pie with some crooked cops. According to the file, Mr. Sultan was using his buddies in law enforcement to bully his competition—one of which was a cathouse that also doubled as a dope distribution center for Okocha’s clientele. It was an easy five hundred bucks for five minutes of work. Typing the fucking report of her findings took longer than gathering the actual evidence.
In her other life, the extra free time was great.
The homeless shelter was fast taking shape. Chaz’s unofficial role in its coming together was the strong arms, helping haul in the big shit like mattresses. Each enclosure also received plenty of pillows, sheets, and blankets. Libby’s humanitarian deed wasn’t just a secret between them, either; Chaz started seeing other faces from the Methodist church who came to pitch in. Apparently word was traveling around that helping out with the shelter counted as volunteer work, which was a monthly requirement for all members. Suddenly between five and ten people were showing up every day.
Lorenna, a tattoo artist, painted the interior stucco walls with a splash of kick-ass murals—a different Earth city skyline behind each bed. She talked of her great-uncle architect, whose company had designed skyscrapers in more than twenty major cities.
One afternoon, over sharing a cigarette and admiring the half-finished cityscape of a place called Denver, Chaz asked Lorenna about her parents.
“Hopefully lying dead in a wheat field like the ones around where we lived, the birds pecking their eyes out as their corpses bake in the autumn sun.” She said it mirthlessly, as if it were a tragic passage in a novel.
Chaz arched an eyebrow as she passed the cigarette back. “Is that your next painting? After Denver?”
Lorenna’s smile tugged on her snakebite piercings. “I might paint it, but not here. I don’t think homeless people would understand the meaning. And they probably don’t want to be reminded of death, since so many are on the doorstep already.” She looked over at Chaz. “That’s something Libby should know too. You can put down a bed and give them food, but those won’t help a terminal illness. Some will die in here, no matter what you do. The bodies will have to be removed.”
“I’ll tell her.” A moment of quiet passed, the cigarette again exchanging hands. Then Chaz asked, “What’s the meaning?”
“What?”
“The painting of your dead parents with their eyes—whatever. You said the homeless people wouldn’t understand the meaning. What is it?”
“It’s a metaphor.” Lorenna continued to paint as she talked. “When I was thirteen, I wanted more than anything for my parents to die. That’s how I found religion, by asking God to kill them for me.” She laughed, softly. “When you’re young, God is just a mysterious force that doesn’t grant wishes. But after wishing for those things, I thought I was fucked up. What kid wants their own parents to die, right? Unless they sexually abuse you or something, which they didn’t. They weren’t like that.
“When I started dating, I met so many girls with the dead parents. And here too.” She took the cigarette and pointed around at the shelter. “So many of these people have dead parents. It was more than just me. And I realized we’re the only community like that.”
“Hold on.” Chaz raised her hand as if to put the brakes on the conversation. It was getting fucking weird. “Gay people are more likely to have dead parents?”
“No, Chaz.” Lorenna smiled again and shook her head. “Like I said, it’s a metaphor. When I say the parents are dead, I don’t mean they are literally ash in an urn somewhere. Or corpses rotting in a wheat field. They’re dead because we want to be emotionally cut off from them. When we speak of them, we might say they’re someplace else, they’re back on Earth, or they’re just really far awa
y. Or maybe we’ll say they’re dead. Because it’s easier than talking about them.”
Chaz said nothing.
“When I came to this planet, I knew I would probably never see them again, so I focused really hard on their corpses lying in a wheat field, the birds pecking at their eyes, the awful smell.” She passed the cigarette back. “Whether they’re really dead or not doesn’t matter. We just have to believe they are. Because the death of our parents is the only way people like us can be free.”
Chaz puffed on the cigarette once more and then smashed it out under her boot.
Over the following days, the task of converting the tanning salon became a regular assemblage of the gays. It was like Libby’s generosity—Chaz later learned the proper term for it was grace; it was one of those Christian things—had mutated and become this contagious sense of charity, and now everyone was infected with it.
They even held service there—prayers and sermon and hymns and all, everyone sitting cross-legged—on a dark Wednesday evening, which Chaz observed safely from the sidelines. It was the first time she’d seen the ritual in person. The topic of discourse eventually arrived on Jake Wurman and the other victims of the Begotten Sons: “God shall never be a justification for cruelty, pain, or hate. He is only endless love.” Then more prayers and verses. She quietly smoked the rest of her pack of Pall Malls while watching the odd spectacle.
By the second week, the shelter was drawing a large turnout. Carlos, an electrician whose job had been nulled during industry consolidation, wired the place up at no charge. Emily’s father was a plumber who revamped the entire bathroom area to include a shower—a fucking awesome idea, because this place sure as shit wasn’t going to smell like flowers after fifty dirty-ass bums started crashing here. And there was Rohit, who cut a deal with some pals of his in a catering company to schedule twice-daily deliveries of warm meals. And Colin, a tax adviser who walked Libby through the paperwork of registering the shelter as a nonprofit corporation, obtaining a proper business license, buying insurance, and all that other legal mumbo jumbo. Transforming a tanning salon into a homeless shelter required a lot of fucking signatures, it turned out.
Even Alysia Fowler dropped by with totes full of worn-and-torn Bibles and other communal reading material. “You inspire so many of us with your boundless devotion,” she told Libby on her visit. “May God’s love continue to shine through you.” She swung a glare at Chaz. “And all of His creatures.”
When Chaz and Libby weren’t giving the homeless shelter the final touches, they were around the corner, stuffing their faces with cold-cut sandwiches at the Potbellied Pig. The owner, Mr. Turley, could whip up a mean mint chocolate shake, Chaz found out. If not that, they were catching a movie just down the street or partaking in the tried-and-true dating custom of aimlessly walking around and talking about whatever came to mind. Libby even succeeded in dragging Chaz to see the Sunday evening showing of an Alice in Wonderland theater production. It was okay. Too much fucking singing and dancing, though.
Under the snow flurries after the play was over, Libby gave Chaz a lengthy kiss on the lips—which she usually wasn’t so enthusiastic about doing in public. Then, after she’d pulled away but her mouth not leaving the smooch zone yet: “I want to be closer with you, Chaz. Closer. If you understand what I’m saying.”
Chaz did. It was a signal she’d never had trouble seeing. “Okay. But you might want to look at the clock, Libs. Unless Mommy and Daddy cut you off the leash, you’ll have to tell—”
“No.” Libby shook her head, almost vehemently. Fat flakes of snow fell off her hair. “Not your apartment. I’m sorry, but I can’t go into that space again. If I do, I won’t be able to think of anything but those awful guys that tried to…” Chaz felt her shiver. “I wouldn’t have the right mindset for it. If that makes any sense.”
Chaz nodded. “I read you.” To be honest, she wasn’t fond of her own apartment right now either. Okocha’s cleaning service had disposed of the garbage, but there were still dark stains on the floor from where blood had pooled. And there was Don Quillxote’s empty cage. She hadn’t decided what to do with it yet. “Well. You can put your dough down on a hotel room. A nice one. With a spa. We can try out those water jets.”
“I already test my relationship with God by using my father’s money to pay for the shelter. I must only use it for benevolence.”
“Oh, there will be lots of benevolence. Trust me.”
Libby smiled, and red blossomed in her cheeks. “I hope you never stop that.”
“Stop what?”
“Just being you. Saying something to make me smile.” She drew in a breath and sighed. “But I would feel more comfortable in my own bedroom.”
Chaz immediately opened her mouth to voice disagreement.
“We won’t be bothered,” said Libby, promptly. “I promise.”
After lunch the next day, Chaz took the Metro to the Platinum Regal building. Libby had the timing all figured out: Fuckturd slaved in his office down at the Pruitt Financial headquarters during the day, and Juliet attended yoga classes three times a week. On every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, there was always a two-hour window when the apartment was fascist-free.
Before riding the elevator up to the fifty-third floor, Chaz slapped one of her Renell cameras to a section of porcelain wall shadowed by an artificial fern. The angle allowed the facial-rec software to get a bead on everyone entering and exiting the elevators. If it identified any members belonging to the Pruitt diarchy—thanks to facial-rec profiles made with FACE-MAPΔ—it would push an instant alert to Chaz’s tasker. From there, she would have a little over a minute to make a quick getaway to the stairwell.
The funniest part? The camera was Libby’s idea.
“No, no, Chaz. No, stop. It hurts when you do that. I’m not feeling—stop, I can’t do it.”
Chaz’s fingers slipped out. They’d only been at it for two minutes. Three, tops. It had crossed her mind that Libby might be hiding a celibate dark side. Despite her eagerness to part the pink sea, she was Christian, and Christian nutcases thought that ripping open the vagina before marriage would void their fucking warranty or something. Chaz pictured a sticker on the membrane—PROPERTY OF GOD. ACCEPTANCE INTO HEAVEN VOID IF TORN BEFORE WEDLOCK. It was funny. But there were teenage girls out there who fully believed that shit all thanks to what their parents were spoon-feeding them.
But Libby wasn’t a virgin, and it wasn’t supposed to hurt like she was saying it was. Chaz had even remembered to clip her fingernails. But it was like Libby’s pussy had been programmed ass-backwards or something.
“I’m sorry,” she said, rolling away like she was now ashamed of her nudity. She scratched the back of her neck. Chaz reached for one of Libby’s breasts, but she tensed up. The cause was lost. “I’ve ruined it, haven’t I? I didn’t mean to. I thought it would be different with you. I thought it would feel good.”
“I’ll just go slow,” said Chaz, lying beside her. “Just stop me if it hurts.”
She ran her hand along the girl’s side, into the curve of the waist and up the swelling hip, letting her fingertips describe the terrain. Then the hand fell across her navel, to her valley, to a tangle of soft, dense hair. But no farther than that.
Usually everyone came equipped with the same buttons, and being gay meant you knew exactly where they were. But sometimes the road map was laid out a little differently: for instance, Beverly had been into having her feet rubbed. You could have spent a fucking hour on her nipples and not one drop of moisture would emerge from the tap, but a few minutes of massaging her toes precipitated a goddamn cloudburst.
Maybe it was like that for Libby; Chaz just had to find the right zones. Might take a little searching, though, but she didn’t want to leave Libby emptyhanded. Guys had the actual nuts, but girls could have blue balls too. And it sucked.
It didn’t matter. After a few minutes of this soft massaging without venturing into the danger areas, Libby yelped like sh
e’d been stabbed with a needle. Chaz removed her hand. She had barely been touching her at all.
“I’m sorry,” said Libby, again. She sounded like she was holding back tears. “I don’t know why there’s pain, but it’s always been that way. Every time.”
“It always hurts?” asked Chaz. She maintained a buffer of bed space between their bodies.
“Yes. Always.” Libby spoke very quietly. “It hurt when I was with Aida. And with Joyce. With you. It hurts even when I try to do it with no one else.”
“Have you seen a doctor?”
“No. I would be too embarrassed.” She scratched the back of her neck again. “I wouldn’t even know what to say.”
“Libby.” Chaz reached out to touch her on the shoulder, show support. She remembered the pain, and the hand stopped and withdrew.
Libby’s head turned up a little. “It’s not supposed to hurt, right?”
“No. It definitely doesn’t hurt.”
“I wish I could feel what you do. I’ve never had a…” Her voice drifted off, and Chaz wasn’t sure if Libby finished the sentence or not. She didn’t need to. Then she rolled to her back. Her small breasts wobbled, both nipples reaching for the sky despite whatever blockage was going on. Then: “Tell me what it feels like, Chaz. When you have one.”
“Um. I’m not really the best with words.”
“But you’ve had one.”
“Uh-huh.”
Libby looked down at her body, frowning a little. “I want to imagine.”
“Okay. Here goes.” It didn’t hold a candle to Shakespeare, but Chaz described it as best she could: “It’s a burst of pleasure. And it happens right here.” She laid her hand on her tummy below her belly button. “Kind of. It starts there, but it doesn’t stay there. It takes over your whole body. And you feel it coming too. You feel tingles when it’s coming, but it takes a while. You keep going, and there’s more. And more. And more. Until you feel like you’re gonna fucking explode at the middle.” She looked over at Libby. “But there’s never any pain.”