Chapter Nine #2
I clap my jaw shut and continue to stare at her.
How the hell do I respond to that? I take inventory of the new facts I’ve been provided and try to discern what any of this information—the shapeshifting, the unconventional (and technically illegal) career choice—changes in terms of how I should interact with her.
I mean, I was ready to overlook the tax evasion, and that’s arguably worse than the nature of the work she’s doing.
She’s not hurting anybody, and, Jesus, sixty percent?
“Are you going to turn me in, Mister Witchfinder?”
Her tone is toying with me, but I can hear something hesitant under the surface of it, wiggling in her voice like a fish out of water, and I realize I’ve been standing here gawking at her in dumbfounded silence for who knows how long. I make a decision.
“Not really my jurisdiction,” I say with a shrug.
She cocks her head at me. “Isn’t your Bureau a branch of the FBI?”
“Not my jurisdiction,” I say again, allowing some levity back into my voice.
She keeps looking at me curiously for a few seconds, then goes back to cleaning.
I’m not sure if she really has that much more to clean, or if she’s just performing a task because she’s like me in that way: someone who finds discomfort in stagnation.
“And before you ask what I know you’re about to,” she says, “my mother has no opinion on my work because she’s been buried for several centuries now, and she wouldn’t have minded anyway. ”
“I wasn’t gonna ask that,” I say, and it’s a little hard not to laugh.
“Oh?” she says, with that coquettish tone creeping in again. “What were you going to ask, then?”
There are all sorts of things I want to ask. Do you think this table could hold both our weight at the same time? is the first that comes to mind, but I’m sure there are others.
“Are there a lot of you?” I ask instead.
“Of me?”
“Collective you.”
“Witches? I believe you have those numbers, Sir. You’ve cited them to me several times now.”
“No, I mean the… other thing.” Why is this so awkward? Why am I letting this make her intimidating? “The energy work. Are there a lot of Witches doing it?”
She shrugs. “I really don’t know.”
“Does that mean you don’t know, or that you won’t tell me?”
She throws me an exasperated look that makes me feel a little stupid and a little enamored. “I’m a sex worker, not a bloody psychic. It means I don’t know.”
“So as far as the resort’s concerned,” I continue, unwilling to end the conversation just yet, “you’re performing reiki treatments in here?”
“I am performing reiki treatments in here. Not every client gets specialized services.”
“Okay, well if you’re an employee—”
“A contractor.”
“If you’re a contracted employee, then why all the…” I trail off, gesturing vaguely as I look for the right word to describe everything I’m looking at. “...gender?”
I shouldn’t be worried about offending her, really, given the circumstances. But I admit I’m relieved when she looks amused by my choice of phrasing. “Because this way, I get treated like an employee while I’m working and a paying guest while I’m not. I believe they call it a ‘work-life balance.’”
“‘Work-life balance?’” I say incredulously. “You gave yourself tits for ‘work-life balance?’”
“Certainly not the only reason, but the rest I don’t feel a need to explain. I don’t think you have to understand the entire gender spectrum in order to be respectful about how I choose to utilize it.”
I feel myself flush a little. There are few things that can fluster me more than being accused—even indirectly—of intolerance. “So, what do I call you, then?” I ask.
A playful expression blooms on the Witch’s face, like she’s having a lot more fun with me than I realize, which only makes me blush harder. “I didn’t know you were planning on calling me.”
“I mean pronouns,” I say sternly. “You like to… switch it up, so, what? He? She? They? Something in Gaelic?”
The Witch flickers her— their eyes over me as though they’re sizing up my sincerity. “Anything you like,” they say after a moment, then tuck their bottle of sanitizing spray back into a cupboard.
“Anything?” I repeat. “So, what, you don’t care if someone calls you ‘it?’”
“Wouldn’t be the worst thing I’ve been called.”
“You don’t have anything you prefer?”
They shrug. “Not as such. It’s all a bit of a wash, really…
my mother named me a boy, the neighborhood boys called me a girl, neither one of ‘em was right nor wrong, and I’ve enjoyed confusing the lot of you ever since.
” They smile sweetly at me, then pull some towels out of a basket and begin folding them.
Another task to keep busy, to keep moving.
I study them for a moment. The uniform—a monogrammed shirt and work slacks—were probably the least flattering thing a person could be dressed in.
The tattoos (if they still have them in this…
format) aren’t visible, the rings nowhere to be seen, and the sensible ponytail and minimal make-up are a stark contrast to all the things I was drawn to about them in the first place.
And yet, I feel myself being pulled along by desire and intrigue, undeniably attracted to the confident, pretty brunette in Dickies and a gray polo as they tidy their workspace with rebellious politeness but still haven’t asked me to leave.
My blush hasn’t died down. I take a step toward them.
“Do you still use the name your mother gave you?” I ask.
A millisecond of a pause before answering. “I do.”
I take another step closer. “And what name was that?”
They look up at me, calculating green eyes still on guard but softer than they were before.
“Senán,” they say, with just a hint of a smile.
“Ryder,” I reply with a nod.
They look mildly surprised. “My mother? Might be difficult, her bones are a bit brittle these days—”
“My name is Ryder,” I interrupt, closing my eyes to keep from rolling them.
“I know what you meant,” they say dismissively. “Good lord, don’t Agents have jokes down there at the BS Co?”
“Not about our dead mothers, no.”
“No wonder you’re so uptight. You know, you ought to unwind a bit—ever thought about booking a reiki session?”
They’re smiling at me more now. Their posture is more open, their eyes more playful.
I can feel the proximity warming my skin, and the now-familiar smell of lavender and herbs fill the air as they look at me like there’s a new challenge on the table, a whole new game to be played with much more complicated and interesting rules.
“Somehow I get the feeling that might just wind me up more,” I say, and I can’t find it in myself to feel self-conscious over how breathy my voice sounds.
The Witch steps in close, making my skin sizzle. “That might not be so bad, either.”
My breath hitches in my chest. My fingers burn. “Senán,” I say quietly, letting it roll off my tongue. “It’s nice. Nicer than you, anyway.”
“Oh, come now, when have I not been nice?”
“When you were throwing me against a wall and threatening me, maybe?”
“As if you didn’t enjoy it.” They cock their head at me again, examining and deciphering my every move, as always. “Although, I am starting to think you don’t enjoy this version of me quite as much as the last.”
I make a show of looking them over before I respond. “About the same, actually.”
Senán reaches into the scant space between us to run their fingers across the collar of my shirt. “I’m not convinced,” they whisper.
I almost close the distance between us entirely.
It would be so easy to do, to feel their skin against mine, to lift their lithe form onto the treatment table, to tear off their frumpy uniform and mess up their sensible ponytail, to see if the sounds they make in this body are any different than they were yesterday echoing off the cold tile and cement of the men’s room walls.
It would be so easy to do everything I want with Senán, right here and now.
Thing is, I’ve never really liked “easy.”
“Stay out of trouble,” I tell them in a low voice, then step away, backing towards the door so I don’t have to stop looking at them yet.
“I don’t even know the meaning of the word,” they purr.
I chuckle and leave, heading toward the hotel gym to work off some steam.
Senán.
Never a dull moment with Senán.