by Rachel Gold
That day, weeks ago, Cypher had asked Zeno, “You keep patterns of lots of forms, right? Can you do that with any living creature? Can you copy me?”
“We can, but should we?”
“Might come in handy,” Cypher pointed out.
“You’ll find it unsettling.”
Cypher laughed. “Can’t be the worst I’ve been through. Does it hurt?”
“It’s painless, but it will be very strange to see us as you.”
“I think I can handle it.”
Zeno raised her hand and pointed her fingers at Cypher. The air around her fingertips seemed to shimmer, but Cypher wondered if that was the effect of her expectations. No one could see nanites, could they? Not unless the swarmed en masse.
“Do I need to do anything?” she asked.
“No, we’re sending a few of us to ride through your body. It’ll take minutes to measure everything, read your DNA and the epigenetic factors in play. When they come back to me, we’ll have the pattern.”
“How do they get back?” Cypher asked.
“They fly, same as they went.”
“They’ll probably be tired from all that work, maybe we should shorten the trip.”
Zeno’s eyebrows went up. Cypher leaned forward and kissed her. Zeno tasted like heat and exotic metal, like Cypher imagined tungsten tasted.
I pushed away from my computer. There was no way I could post that. I’d have to rewrite it, maybe keep the beginning part and make the conversation a lot more strategic. Maybe as an infomancer, Cypher had a notion that she was going to be kidnapped. Not the details, but a premonition, and so she asked Zeno to copy her.
I could rewrite it later. I didn’t want to have to change the image of Cypher kissing Zeno just yet.
Chapter Twenty-Five
I can’t say little enough about the Garden Show. It happened. With flowers, and people, and photographers, and more people. Oh and dresses.
My father stood next to me, resting his hand on my shoulder in that classical “proud father” pose. We looked amazing and like utter, steaming bullshit.
I had to listen to him going on about how this was all my idea and my project and I’d put so much work into it. He built up this image of me for everyone: the dutiful, wonderful daughter who loved flowers and pretty things but who was also smart and capable and never in a bad mood. She’d outgrow her lesbian phase and be a great wife someday, and a pretty good corporate whatever in the time left over from having three children and caring for her super successful husband.
I’m queer, I said in my head as I plastered on a fake smile and shook hands. I’m super queer. I have sex with girls. Girls plural; more than one girl. And I hate flowers, especially roses. And I don’t want to be a corporate drone.
But I couldn’t say any of that. And this time I almost persuaded myself I didn’t care. I just wanted to get away.
After the Garden Show, I had a couple of days of cleaning up but then I could finally drive down to the Cities. My father was busy with summer parties and events and back to not caring what I did. He’d apparently gotten his fill of me because he got to stand next to me while people flooded through the garden with compliments.
I planned ten days in the Cities in late July. After that I was flying out east to spend two-and-a-half weeks with Mom and Isaac in a rented house on the beach in southern Maine. I drove down and fell into bed with Sierra and tried to feel anything for her. I didn’t.
On the surface, our relationship appeared normal. When we weren’t kissing or having sex, there was pizza and cuddling on the couch and watching movies. But it wasn’t the same. I was gray inside. Touching her felt good physically, but there was a gulf between us. Had I done that when I had sex with Blake?
Or had Blake done that when she gave me the pen, the infinity pin, and the book? When she listened to me and didn’t give me advice? When she talked to me about feeling things and breathing? When she reacted to how I felt, not to some ideal in her head—not to what she wanted, but to me?
Thinking about seeing her was the only time any sensation pushed through the dullness inside me. Then I was burning, but I couldn’t tell if that was warm affection, or embarrassment, or lust, or shame. How did she keep track of more than one feeling at a time? I wanted to ask her, but I was afraid.
Since I was staying at Sierra’s place, I played it cool. But I had to see Blake.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Friday evening, a few days after I got to the Cities, Dustin invited us over for pizza at his place. Dustin’s apartment was taupe and brown (with accent colors ranging from ash gray to pewter gray).
It did have a big living room that opened into a kitchen, kind of like the cabin-mansion but not nearly as well-constructed. The whole living room space could fit a dozen people easily, but there weren’t that many there. He had a bunch of pizzas spread out on the island in the kitchen, plus pop, juice, vodka and rum.
There was a couch, tan leather and not very broken in. Dustin sat at one end, with Gabby in the middle and Roy on her other side. Bear was sitting on the floor, leaning against the wall opposite the couch.
Perpendicular to them was an armchair with Blake in it. Kordell sat on the floor, resting back against Blake’s legs. She looked darkly luminous in her midnight jeans and black button-down shirt. Compared to her, Kordell seemed coated in matte finish.
My heart expanded out and crushed in on itself at the same time, like a star exploding and collapsing into a black hole. I stepped into the kitchen area and spent a long time with my back to Blake, getting pop and deciding which pizza to eat.
When I turned back to the living room, Sierra had dragged a chair over and was sitting next to Blake. Sierra caught my eye and patted the front of the chair. I went over and settled on the floor between her knees, next to Kordell. Sierra played with my curls but I wasn’t going to remind her that this would only make my hair frizzier.
I glanced at Kordell and he shook his head at me with a smile. “Bitches be crazy,” he deadpanned.
“You call me a bitch like it’s a bad thing,” Blake said and I almost glanced up at her but I stopped myself. I didn’t want Sierra to see that Blake had my attention.
I focused on the pizza slice in my lap, but I was grinning and I hoped Blake could see the side of my face. What she’d said was the title of a Halestorm song. She wasn’t kidding that she’d been listening to them.
Sierra’s legs pressed on the outside of my arms, but couldn’t block out the stronger sense of gravity pulling me toward Blake. I decided I was an ass for telling Sierra to be exclusive with me, to not hook up with Dustin, because I was starting to see that this could be way more complicated than I’d suspected.
“I bet you’re wondering why I’ve called you all here tonight,” Dustin said to the group at large. “I’m proposing that we put Gabby in as the Queen of Love and have her character break with Lady Death and Lord Ocean to join forces with me and the Queen of Rogues.”
“Can she bust in as a queen like that?” Roy asked. “She’s super new.”
“You did as Lord Solar,” Sierra told him.
“No, you made me kill the old Lord Solar, even though that wasn’t a real person. It took a while, remember. But hey, if that’s what you guys want.”
Roy shrugged and put a huge bite of pizza in his mouth to keep himself from saying more. He was leaning into the corner of the couch so he could partly face Gabby and Dustin, and he had his legs too far open like guys do.
This had to be a sucky place to be single with three couples sitting around the room. (Though Bear seemed to not give a shit about her dating status.) Or two couples and whatever Blake and Kordell were. I leaned more into Sierra’s legs and she rested her hand on my shoulder.
“Seems fine to me if Gabby wants to be the Queen of Love,” Sierra said. “We can always use more people.”
“I’m just here for the pizza,” Kordell remarked.
Dustin looked around the room and must have gotten enough
nods that he said, “Okay, that’s done. Where are we with the Cypher rescue and she turns traitor plot line?”
Sierra said, “I think too many plot threads involve Cypher. She’s supposed to find a universe with a weapon to destroy the High God, but she’s also supposed to locate where in the future the High God’s locus is hidden. Maybe someone else should do that.”
“We could say that love transcends time,” Bear suggested. “Gabby could search in the future for the thing. It’s easier to be new if you have a job to do.”
“Love transcends time?” Roy said to her, leering.
“I will kick you,” she replied.
Dustin turned to Gabby. “Do you like that? Maybe the locus of the High God is in a time without love.”
She said, “Oh that’s neat. But I can’t write. Will you write it for me?”
“Of course,” he said, all gallant.
Kordell rolled his eyes, but since he was at floor level with me, most of the room didn’t see it. Bear caught it and smirked. I half listened to the rest of it (maybe less than half). I worried about what I’d say if anyone brought up the party at Bear’s parents’ house. I didn’t think Blake would gossip about hooking up with me, but Sierra might.
When Dustin ended the general story conversation, Kordell went to get himself and Blake more pizza. Bear went to refill her drink. Roy excused himself to the bathroom and Dustin went on talking intently to Gabby about the Queen of Love plot line. This side of the room held only me, Blake and Sierra.
Sierra turned to Blake. I held my breath.
“I’m not mad at you,” Sierra said, her voice cool and light.
I twisted sideways to see them better. Sierra’s upturned mouth and expressionless eyes were too composed. Blake’s eyes were wide enough to show the full round circles of her irises, flint gray in this lighting.
“That’s good,” Blake said, the second word almost, not quite, a question.
“I know you can’t help doing things you don’t mean to,” Sierra said.
Blake flinched back in her chair and crossed her arms high on her chest. “Don’t.”
“I know you hate to be reminded of your disorder in front of our friends, but I’m trying to tell you that I forgive you,” Sierra said. “I know you didn’t mean to do it. You couldn’t help it.”
“That’s not…it’s not like that,” Blake said. She was looking from Sierra to me and back again, the flashing sense of wings moving in her gaze, the bird trapped, beating against the glassy surface of her eyes.
Sierra went on talking, her voice lower now and colder. “Do you want me to believe you had sex with my girlfriend on purpose? I know you don’t like to admit how you are, but you need to face up to this. Have you told your therapist about it? You really need to tell him.”
“No,” Blake told her. “You don’t get to tell me how I am. Back off.”
Sierra held up her hands. “You’re being so irritable. I’m simply trying to get everything back to normal.”
Blake surged up from the chair and stood next to it, shifting from one foot to another, like she couldn’t decide if she was going to walk away or not. If it hadn’t been a heavy armchair, would Blake have lifted it over her head and threatened to hit Sierra with it? (Would I want her to?)
I stood up. Height isn’t great for everything, but it sure helps when you’re trying to stop people from getting into a fight. I was shaking inside.
I told Sierra, “It was me. I kissed her first. I started it.”
Not entirely true. Blake sitting there naked definitely contributed, but Sierra didn’t need to know that. She needed to stop picking on Blake.
Sierra rose to her feet, even though that left her a half-foot shorter than me. She opened her mouth, took in breath like she was going to let me have it, but then stalked out of the apartment, slamming the door behind her.
Addressing Sierra’s empty chair, Blake said, “You don’t get to say that about me…”
“Hey,” I started but I didn’t know what else to say or do. Would she want me to touch her? And if I did draw her into my arms, would that be the exact moment Sierra returned? (Of course it would.)
Kordell came back with pizza plates. Blake looked up at him, tears spilling out of her eyes. He put the plates down on the coffee table. She tucked herself into his arms, face pressed against his chest.
He caught my eye over her quivering shoulder and asked, “What did Sierra say?”
“Something about Blake doing stuff she doesn’t mean to.”
Blake pushed a half-step away from Kordell and brushed her sleeve across her face, smearing her tears more than wiping them away. Her eyes were wet, still crying.
Face half-turned to me but angled down, Blake said, “She was saying I had sex with you because I’m hypersexual and I can’t control myself. Like I don’t have my own mind. Like being bipolar turns me into some kind of stupid…stupid.”
“Dearest, her bullshit does not have to be your bullshit,” Kordell said. He had an arm around her and he hugged her close.
Blake pressed her face into the inner curve his shoulder. She was laughing darkly or crying harder or both.
“I’ll talk to Sierra,” I said. “I’ll make sure she knows that’s not cool.”
Kordell said, “Oh, she knows. That’s why she said it. She’s pissed that you two hooked up. But you put out for her so she’s not going to go after you.”
The bluntness of his words struck me. “I don’t—” I started to say but had no legit protest to make. Was that how it looked to Kordell?
Was that how it looked to me?
“Why aren’t you upset?” I asked Kordell.
“It’s not my thing,” he said with a one-shouldered shrug.
Was he trying to be the cool boyfriend…or whatever they were? What if our roles were reversed? What if I was with Blake and she hooked up with someone else while I was out of town with my family?
But if she was totally upfront about it, like she was, and I’d agreed. I couldn’t compare it to the situation with Sierra and Dustin.
Blake went into the bathroom, Kordell settled into the armchair with his pizza plate, and I took Sierra’s chair. When Blake came back, she sat in his lap, leaning against the arm. Her legs extended over the other arm and her feet rested on my thigh so that she was sitting across both of our laps. Kordell didn’t seem to care.
I didn’t either. It made sense that she was in Kordell’s lap though I wanted her to be more in mine.
When the doorknob turned, Blake drew her feet away and leaned more fully into Kordell. Sierra went into the kitchen. I went after her. I didn’t want Sierra near Blake again.
“Maybe we should go,” she said when I stepped through the doorway, even though she was pouring vodka into a half-glass of Izze Blueberry Soda.
“Yeah,” I said.
“You don’t have to stand up for her. She has Kordell. And I wasn’t saying anything that bad. She does need to talk to her therapist. Being hypersexual is a sign that she could be going manic.”
The words sounded reasonable, but they stirred a pool of disgust in my gut. The way Sierra used that information was deeply wrong. Like when my father would argue a case and say all the true things to paint a compelling picture that was, in essence, a lie.
I didn’t know how to challenge it. I didn’t know that much about bipolar. And around the sick feeling, I was shaky. I got that relationships weren’t all smooth and you had fights and stuff—but not like this.
“Can we go home?” I asked.
Sierra brightened when I said the word “home.” She put down the cup she’d filled, took my hand and drew me toward the door. We said our goodbyes on the way. I looked at Blake sitting in Kordell’s lap, his arms around her protectively, her eyes shadowed and somehow still shining.
I let Sierra pull me away.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
In the morning, Sierra left for an extra shift she’d picked up at work and I sat at the dining room table d
rinking coffee. I couldn’t stop wondering if Sierra was partly right about Blake.
I went online and read stuff about bipolar disorder that made my thinking 100% worse. What if Blake did have sex with me because she was in a manic, hypersexual state? One study said, “Twice as many women as men reported sexual intensity as ‘very much increased’ during hypomania.”
What the hell was hypomania? I was barely figuring out what mania was and I couldn’t remember what the “hypo-” prefix meant: more or less? Could you be more manic? Or if you were less manic, was that better or worse?
I couldn’t stop thinking about sex with Blake. About being on the floor together and how fast her first orgasm was—did that come from her disorder? What if it did and I was thinking it had to do with me? Like I thought she was profoundly into me, but all along it was this disorder?
I remembered how bold she was in bed. I’d liked that. Would it go away? What if the things I liked most in her were only there part of the time? Would she someday get depressed and decide she didn’t even like me?
But she and Kordell had been hanging around together for almost two years. Sierra told me that when she was giving me the scoop on everyone. If Blake changed her mind with her moods like that, there’s no way she’d be with same guy for two years. She’d said they weren’t really together, but they acted like it. They seemed to like each other a lot. They were always laughing together and touching each other, pretty much like any boyfriend/girlfriend relationship I’d ever seen.
He’d been so quick to close his arms around her last night when she was crying. What was it like to be able to cry like that? She felt hurt and she cried as if it was so simple. I could never do that. Maybe the key was having someone who would put their arms around you. Even if I had that, I didn’t think I could. It made me too weak.
I could’ve been thinking about it wrong, putting myself in Blake’s place when in truth I was more like Kordell. (Minus the sense of style and ability to win at Mystics.)