Ripple Effects

by Laura J. Mixon

  The wait staff were clearing the tables, cleaning them, and stacking the chairs. The showroom had mostly emptied of tourists. “There’s a much simpler explanation. The well dried up. I ran out of ideas.”

  “Sure. Whatever you say.” Her tone was light, but he caught a hint of exasperation in it. “You are probably one of the most easygoing people I’ve met, John. You’re downright sweet. And smart and funny and gorgeous. If I was into monogamy, I’d snap you right up off the meat market—company rules be damned.” She tapped her fingernails on the glass and looked at him with her beautiful big dark eyes, and he shifted to ease the pressure of another erection. Dammit.

  She leaned forward and tapped his temple. “Now, I don’t know what you have locked in there, but it wants out. And someday, if you don’t uncage it, it’s going to eat you up inside, and do real harm. To you or to the people you care about.” She sat back. “And now I’m done.”

  “Thank God.” John waved her incipient objection away. “I know, I know. I asked for it.”

  Up on stage, the musicians had finished with their instruments, and the physical security guys were gathering nearby. He stood. “Come on. Time for us to put trumpet-baby back in its cradle. It’s your turn to babysit tonight.”

  “No slack for a woman just getting over a tummy bug?”

  “Nope. I’ve taken the last three graveyard shifts in a row because of that bug, and you’ve clearly recovered.”

  “Hey! I thought you said no reprisals.”

  “I have a date with a hot blond. Besides …” He turned on his mic and motioned the security team up. “Rank hath its privileges.”

  “That it does,” she said with a smile. “That it does.”

  * * *

  At precisely 1:30 a.m. came the knock. John opened the deck-side door.

  Rip said, “I thought I’d take you up on that drink.”

  “By all means.” John gestured for him to come in.

  Rip hadn’t changed: he still wore a green button-down shirt with rolled-up sleeves, khaki shorts, and sandals. But he’d shaved and used some product in his hair. He smelled good, too; hair gel and something else—aftershave or deodorant. Nice.

  He caught Rip checking him out as well.

  John had changed to a black T-shirt, a little on the snug side. (His musculature was more long and lean than bulked up, but he worked out regularly, so he had decent pecs and abs. And he thought the shirt showed his biceps off nicely.) He was barefoot, freshly shaved and showered, and had on his favorite pair of button-up jeans. No briefs. He had laid out a few condoms in an array of sizes and types on the bedside table, as well as massage oil. Rip noticed them.

  “Make yourself comfortable.” John went to the dresser to pour them each a couple fingers of scotch. If Rip sat in the chair near the door, he hadn’t made up his mind yet; if on the bed, anchors aweigh and full steam ahead. “How do you take it? Rocks or neat?”

  “However I can get it,” Rip replied, so close behind him that his breath tickled John’s neck. He slipped an arm around John’s waist.

  OK, option three: this guy wants to get right down to business.

  John turned and handed Rip a glass. Rip downed its contents in one go, set the glass on the dresser, and entangled his fingers in John’s hair and pulled him close. They looked at each other for a second. Those green eyes. Wow. This guy was really doing it for him. John slid his hands around Rip’s nape, too, and pressed his lips to Rip’s. He flicked his tongue across Rip’s teeth. Rip moaned.

  After a moment, John pulled back and ran a finger along Rip’s jawline. “You don’t waste time.”

  “Making good use of time is my specialty.”

  Rip pressed his hand against John’s crotch, over his jeans, and then shoved him up against the wall, causing John to spill his drink. “Packing a nice load, I see.”

  John winced—Rip’s fondling was a bit much; the buttons of his jeans were pressing into a very sensitive area. “Easy, friend.” He laid his hand over Rip’s and peeled his fingers back. “Not that I don’t appreciate the attention, but the equipment only feels like it’s made of titanium.”

  Rip wasn’t listening. He shoved John against the wall again, hard enough to knock John’s drink from his hand, forced John’s mouth open with his hand, and pushed his tongue deep inside.

  Enough of this.

  John shoved Rip away, and when Rip came for him he moved off to the side, grabbed Rip’s wrist from behind, and gripped his collar. With a twist from the hips, he flung the other man across the room. Rip stumbled, banging his shin on the bed frame with a curse, and went to his knees on the floor. John landed on top of him before he could rise, grabbed Rip in a half nelson, and bore down with all his strength. Rip fought, but went down onto his belly.

  John sat up. He gripped the base of Rip’s neck with one hand and pinned the man’s arms with his knees.

  This had sure taken a weird turn. Did he think this was rough play, or was it a fight? He was struggling silently, lurching hard enough to nearly buck John off.

  “Would you calm down?” John said. “Take a breather.”

  At that, the other man stopped fighting. It sounded like he laughed. "All right,” His head was to the side and John could see he was grinning. “Better?”

  John planted a hand next to Rip’s head to brace himself. “You know, I like a bit of rough-and-tumble as much as the next guy, but we need to talk about our safe words.”

  As John spoke, Rip slammed his head back and pain exploded in John’s face. He felt the bones of his nose go crunch. “Ow!”

  “Fuck!” He shoved himself backward over the bed, rolled, and came up on his knees on one side of the bed. He put his hands to his nose and then looked at them: blood filled his palms. He’d left a trail of blood spatters across the bedcover as well. Rip came up onto the other side of the bed. John rose to his feet, staggered back, and smacked against the door. Rip stood, too, breathing heavily.

  John shook his head. “You do know you’re picking a fight with an ace, right?”

  Rip grinned. “Just friendly foreplay.”

  The pain radiating across John’s face was causing yellow flames to gather near him at the other place. He displayed his bloodied palms to Rip. “This? Not my definition of friendly.” He twisted away to harvest a gout of yellow flame and a clot of blue. Returning, he ignited both hands—one yellow, one blue—then shoved them to a spot above Rip’s head. The resulting flash-hiss-BOOM! came complete with a miniature thunderclap, lightning flash, and raindrop microburst.

  Rip wiped water from his face. He chuckled. “What’s the matter, can’t take a little roughhousing?” He walked around the edge of the bed. “You’re what I call a cloacal ace. You’re nothing but chicken shit.”

  John rolled his eyes. “Haha. How old are you, ten?”

  “Your flames look impressive, all right. Bright and shiny. So sexy. So gay. But they’re all for show.” Rip jabbed a finger. “You were a loser on American Hero. You were a loser as an artist. What is this, your third job in seven years?”

  “Odd that you would know that … ”

  “And what kind of an ace name is ‘the Candle,’ anyway? It sounds like someone should light some incense or toke a doobie or something.”

  “Maybe someone should explain to you how this works.” John called up more flame and juggled the different colors. “They call me the Candle, but you’re the one who ends up as a human torch. Or a corpsicle. Or a lightning rod. Fortunately for you, I’d never do that. Not without extreme provocation.” He flexed his hands. “But you know … I’m starting to feel just a little provoked.”

  “Yeah? Go ahead, then. Hit me with all you’ve got.” Rip edged closer and slapped his chest with both hands. “Pussy. Faggot. Mangina.”

  “‘Mangina?’ John couldn’t help it; he laughed. He clapped, and his flames snuffed out. “You were the one who stuck his tongue down my throat, darling.”

  Rip went white with rage and lunged. John twisted
away again, and the pain of his broken nose faded with the sound of his heartbeat. He wound through roaring towers of conflagration. Purple or black? Either would do. OK, then … whichever I see first.

  He found and harvested a jagged bouquet of black flame. It crackled in along his spinal cord and through his somatic nerves, making his muscles twitch and jump. He turned back there again, and summoned a batch of green flames.

  As he reached the threshold to his body this time, he saw something he’d never seen before. He saw movement in the gap that separated inferno-world and his own.

  In his own world, his first heartbeat was ending, and Rip had moved perceptibly nearer. But he could afford another half beat. He returned his focus to the threshold’s edge. And saw light—but not flame. Something else. Something that shifted and spun, like a coin spinning. It was another world.

  It unfolded under his scrutiny beyond this edge, yet another world—like nothing he’d ever seen back home, nor like inferno-world, either. Beyond the crack were many two-dimensional versions of scenes from his life—as if Flatland itself had broken into a million fragments. Or a castle of vast mirrors in a strobe light, all in black and white. Beyond the threshold, planar worlds splayed out in constant motion, in fans and branches. There were far too many to count and more every instant; new ones appeared as the older ones receded, as if each moment were shedding its past and generating new possible futures. These snapshots stacked up on one another at impossible angles, overlapping, spinning around, and spreading out and away in an endless procession.

  He caught glimpses of the images nearest the gap. Strangely, the images were of him—but not the moment he’d left just now; rather, they were of a moment earlier in the evening, with him and Rashida, right before Rip had entered the showroom.

  Which reminds me …

  He did a half-twist again and the threshold to his own body came into view. The green had already begun to course through his lymphatic vessels to settle in his adenoids, tonsils, thymus, and spleen. He slid back into his body, pointed his right forefinger and middle finger at Rip, and drew the black from his spinal column. Dark agonies rippled along his nerves and John screamed as the power shot out with a crack, smelling of ozone. The black fireball (it wasn’t truly black, but there wasn’t a better word for what it looked like) caught Rip in the chest, mid-lunge. Now it was his turn to scream. He smashed into John’s midriff, stiff as a plank, and slammed him against the wall.

  John caught him and lowered him to the floor—not as carefully as he might have. Pain makes a person cranky. He stared down at Rip—breathing hard, dripping blood onto the other man’s shirt. What the fucking fuck? Rip stared up, panting as well. His heart still beat, of course; black fire attacked only the somatic nerves, which controlled voluntary muscles. So he was locked in.

  John allowed himself an instant of vindictive glee. You’ll be sore as hell later, and it serves you right. He pulled out his phone and snapped a photo. Then he swiped over to video, made it selfie mode with the time-date-location stamp visible, and hit Record.

  “This is Johd Bodtadyo, recordi’g evidedce of ad assault od be, just seco’ds ago by”—he flipped the camera around—“this persod, who goes by the dabe Rip. I idvited hib to by roob for codsedsual sex. But he decided to attack be idstead. I’ve disabled hib, id self-defedse.”

  He transmitted the photo and video to his work server, then tucked his phone away. He was still dripping blood on the carpet and the pain in his face was making his eyes water. You’re a mess, Juanma. He pressed fingers against the pressure points in his jaw and temples to staunch the flow of blood and stepped into the bathroom.

  His face was straight out of a horror movie.

  John pulled the green up into the flesh behind his face, tilting his head back. Emerald healing passed in waves across his face, first burning, then feeling the way mint tastes, and casting an interference pattern on the ceiling as it did its work. In its tingling wake came a massaging, bone-cracking pressure. “Ow! Ow! Fuck!”

  He gripped the counter and bent over, stamping a foot to distract himself from the agony while the blood vessels and tissue in his face mended, torn flesh melded, and bones knitted themselves together.

  Green healed fast, but it didn’t come with Novocain.

  Finally he straightened, as the green glow under his skin ebbed and flickered out. He turned his head to both sides and checked his reflection, pressing his fingers against his nose, orbital sockets, and cheeks. Though he still looked a fright from all the blood, the nose had returned to its own shape and he had no swelling or tissue damage. Not even tenderness.

  John sighed with a nod. We loves our green fire; yes, we does. He washed up, came out, and changed his T-shirt. Then he squatted next to the Pinocchio-stiff man on the floor. “You did quite a number on me,” John said. “The question now is, what am I going to do with you?”

  Rip’s gaze tracked him. From the subtle movements in his facial muscles, John guessed he’d begun to regain voluntary control. Small sparks and embers of black fire still surfaced on and submerged in his exposed flesh, but with less intensity than before. Most people would stay immobile for another ten or fifteen minutes, but it varied, and Rip seemed like the type to play possum. Best not to take chances.

  John worked his arms under Rip’s armpits and with a grunt, dragged him over and levered him up into the easy chair. He shoved Rip in the midsection, and the other man bent into an L shape. Then John twisted away to inferno-world to harvest more green and black. He socked the flames away on the other side and pulled the desk chair over.

  “Way to ruin a perfectly good roll in the sack, dude. I gave you every chance to bow out gracefully.” John reversed the chair and sat, leaning his arms on the chair’s back. “The big question now is, are you just some rando homophobe? Or is this a professional visit?

  “As you’ve discovered, my black causes your muscles to seize up. Its effects can take a while to wear off. Think of it as a fifteen-minute plank. But we haven’t got all night—we’ll be docking in New York City in a couple of hours and I’ve got other fish to fry. So I’m going to wake your body up now, to have a little chat before I turn you over to Captain Leemans.” As he spoke, John drew out the green. It coursed into his right hand, slithered over his knuckles, and blanketed his arm in a gauntlet of gouts and rivulets of lime-dark fire. He played with it, rolling it back and forth over his hand and arm, holding Rip’s gaze.

  “The green fire will return muscular control, and help ease some of the soreness you’re going to have. But in case you’re feeling the need to get frisky again”—he drew out the black and swirled it around his left hand—“I’ve got more black waiting. And I have a few other tricks up my sleeve as well, because as you have probably guessed by now, this isn’t my first circus and you’re not my first monkey. But I’m hoping we can dispense with further primate threat displays and have an adult conversation instead. What do you say?”

  John tucked the black flame away again and spread the green between his two hands, weaving a mesh of fire, and cast it over Rip like a fisherman’s net. As it settled over the big man, his eyes went wide. Luminous green traced patterns beneath his skin, dispersing the black. Rip’s shoulders dropped. He closed his eyes and drew a long, shuddering breath.

  The last of the flames exited the top of his head in a flash of lime and a puff of smoke. He sat up and tested movement in his legs, arms, and hands. Then he wiped the spittle from his chin. The look he gave John could have fried him from low Earth orbit.

  “So,” John said. “You want to tell me what you’re really doing here?”

  At that, Rip burst into laughter. “You still don’t recognize me, do you, Juanma?”

  John managed to keep his jaw from falling open. Barely. His answering laugh sounded hollow even to his own ears. “The name’s John, friend. Not—whatever it was you called me. I think you must have me confused with some other brown guy.”

  Rip smiled. “So you’re disavowing
your mother’s Irish blood now, Juanma? For shame.” He tsked. “What would she say, if she knew?”

  The words fell like one ton bricks. Okay, so he’s not guessing.

  Rip stood, and so did he. “She’s still alive, you know,” Rip said. “Your mom. Still in Southie. She remarried, and you have a half sister now, who just turned ten. But you probably knew that.” John stared. His fists clenched. Fury waged with terror in him.

  “I visited them a while back. I thought you might have been secretly in touch. But nope, she still thinks you’re dead. She’s even built a cute little shrine for you in the living room, next to your dad’s. So touching. If she only knew what a nasty piece of work Juan Maria Montoya Cavanagh turned out to be. She probably suspected it, though, the first time you got arrested at fourteen.” Rip’s lips skinned back over his teeth. “What would she say, knowing her prodigal son is alive and well, hiding in plain sight? The big ace celebrity! While his family is barely scraping by. Would she forgive you? Or would she know you for the selfish prick you are?”

  While Rip spoke, John’s thoughts were racing. Play dumb? Or blast the shit out of this fucker and dump him into the sea? John shook his head and unclenched his hands. Nah. He had plenty of options for dealing with this asshole. Just be patient, Juanma. Find out as much as you can. He forced himself to relax, and leaned against the wall. “You’ve built up quite a delusion to go along with your homophobia,” John said. “But do go on. I love a good story.”

  “I admit,” Rip said, “your appearance is different enough now that it took me a long time to recognize you. Nice handiwork.” He scrutinized John’s face. “No scarring at all, not even up close. I’d assumed it was multiple plastic surgeries. But it must have been your green fire that healed you and changed you. Wasn’t it?”

  Both, actually. “Sorry. Not a clue what you’re talking about.” Meanwhile he was racking his brains for a connection. Everyone from his boyhood in Boston thought he was dead. No body, but the supposed death-by-wild-card made that not an issue. And there was a death certificate and a gravestone and everything.