Chapter 11 #2
“Two a day. I wasn’t sure what the limits were.”
“I sent a case to the outpost. You take as much as you need to feel comfortable, got it?”
“Yeah. And thanks.”
“Don’t think my motives are pure. I’ve seen the way you look at those poles.”
“I don’t plan on coming to work for you. Three will be plenty for me.” I can’t imagine wanting more, but I’m very glad those who want it can have it.
“I wasn’t going to hire you to dance… Though, that is always available if you want the stage slots. I had planned to ask you to give some workshops.”
“What’s going on?” Ochi asks, eyes narrowed as she looks back and forth between us.
“Little miss acrobat here used to teach pole dance classes, among other things, back on Earth.”
“Acrobat?” Leah’s brows pinch. “I think the only one brave enough for acrobatics right now is Kimba.”
“Not right now,” Sari corrects her. “Not for several months at least.”
“I taught little kids tumbling and a little bit of trapeze, adult dance and yoga, and yes, pole classes all the way up to senior citizens, so I can definitely work things out based on skill and comfort level.”
“I want a demonstration!” Hannah claps her hands once and stands up, holding them out to me. “Nothing crazy, just gimmie something fun.”
I almost tell them that I’ll do it next time, but they all look so excited…
“I’m going to have to shed a layer to hang onto that.”
“No one in this room is going to feel weird if you need to take your pants off.”
Margot and I are the only ones wearing pants.
“Alright. You asked for it.” But I hesitate again… Then decide not to make a big deal about it.
I slip off my long sleeve and shimmy out of my pants, and someone whistles.
“Holy shit. Is there any tattoo ink left on Earth?” Hazel asks.
“Yeah, but only the color.”
“It is a shame you don’t want to work here,” Leah says. “There are plenty of big spenders who’d salivate at the idea of half as many tattoos.”
“I’m good with who I have salivating over me, thank you very much.”
None of them mention the bruises.
I grab hold of the flying pole and consider it, but whisper, “next time,” to myself. It’s been a while, so all they get today is my warm up routine.
“Do you need music?” Margot asks when I walk around the pole, getting a feel for its diameter and speed.
“Honestly?” I hop up onto the pole and get a better idea. “I usually work to the sound of whatever’s going on in the gym next door. So I’m not too worried about it.”
The warm up isn’t hard and it isn’t long, but it’s not simple, either.
I let their appreciative murmurs and soft questions to each other fade out, and focus on making sure my hand lands where I need it to and my leg catches the pole correctly.
Movement is the only thing that distracts me.
Arc steps inside quietly.
I’m probably the only one who notices. But I don’t stop the demonstration. I want him to watch too.
I always want him to watch.
Up and down and around and back and forth… the warm up is more cirque than seduction, but that’s okay.
And I end with a slow spiral down with my back to the pole.
I’m already tired and sore.
Maybe I should ask the guys to get me one of my own for home.
Maybe I’m still sluggish from the drugs.
The girls clap a little too hard, but I don’t think it’s sarcastic.
“Thank you, thank you.” I give them a deep bow, and when I pop upright again, I know that was a bad idea.
Black spots form at the edges of my vision and the last thing I think is… thank the saints there’s padding.
ARC
I hear the “oh no” in her thoughts with barely enough time, but I race across the room to catch her before she actually hits the mats.
Her eyes flicker open. “I just stood up too fast,” she assures me… or anyone else within hearing.
But she’s questioning the sedatives, and I don’t blame her. “We’ll check when we get home,” I say softly before the others have a chance to join us.
“Well,” Margot says with an unhappy sigh. “Looks like you lied. She wasn’t safe with me after all.”
Exhaling and wondering if she’ll be okay to stand, Chrys says, “How were you supposed to know that I’d stand up too fast and nearly black out?”
She did black out. It was for a half second, but that momentary silence from her thoughts was terrifying.
I’m okay. I promise.
I know she believes it. I’m not sure I do.
Hannah comes over with her clothes and crouches down too. “Do you think it’s the air mix?” she asks Margot.
Neither of them do, but they don’t have an answer either.
“We’ll get her in the med unit when we get home.” I help Chrys to stay upright while she pulls her pants back on. “I want the previous data to compare this to,” I say before Margot can argue that they have one on site.
“Sometimes, I think you can read my mind,” she says, watching me carefully. And we both know you can. So you take her home and you get this figured out, or I will be a problem.
I don’t acknowledge what she’s thought, and Hannah doesn’t notice the pause in the spoken conversation. She’s too busy taking care of Chrys. She asks about the drink Margot made.
“I didn’t even take a sip of it. I had coffee before this, so I didn’t need it.”
When I pick Chrys up, she makes a tiny noise of objection.
“I know you can walk, but you’ll humor me this time.”
She sighs and says “fine” and tucks her head against my shoulder.
I focus on Margot’s suspicion because Hannah’s thoughts are too often colored by grief. Shock and even Risk try to avoid her for different reasons.
Margot tells me to drive safe as Chrys says goodbye to the other women watching us from the other side of the room.
Their thoughts are a cacophony of worry, surprise and… approval.
I’m grateful when we step into the lift and it’s just the two of us again.
Chrys’ hand curls in the front of my shirt and her thoughts bounce from spaghetti to a seventh birthday party to Jessica’s lab homework on her bed.
“I am so tired of sleeping,” she says with a sigh as we step back out into the daylight.
Her position in my arms gets a few pointed looks from men heading inside, but they all mentally agree that Margot wouldn’t have let me leave if it was a problem. They ignore us and move on.
A song I’ve never heard pops into Chrys’ mind behind what I assume is Earth math, but it could be one of the thousands of languages on her planet.
When I set her down in the car seat, I softly tap on her forehead. “It’s noisy in there.”
“Yeah… that’s just how it is sometimes.”
“No wonder you’re always tired. Your mind doesn’t stop.”
“Jess likes to say I never learned how to rest.” She laughs when she says it, but it’s not a happy memory.
“Jess doesn’t always know what she’s talking about.”
This time, her laugh is genuine. I get in the car beside her and pull the cover down over us.
“Let’s get you home and see what’s going on.”
Chrys falls asleep right after we pass the city limits. Her dream thoughts are quiet, but they meander the same way her waking thoughts do.
A hundred connections made in moments… I don’t think she would be asleep if she wasn’t still affected by the sedatives.
The car beeps at me every few seconds, reminding me that I’m speeding—I never put the wiring back together.
I ignore it. The sooner we get home, the better.
When I ease the car into its charging point, she takes a deep breath and stretches… like she wasn’t actually asleep at all, just resting her eyes.
And she doesn’t think she slept…
Kissu meets us at the door, and as soon as she has her coat off, she scritches between his ears, eliciting a deep, rumbling purr.
“I talked to a woman today who wants to meet you.”
He looks up at me. Why want wiffan?
“He wants to know why.”
“She works at a zurgle cafe.” She pauses to card her fingers through his ruff. “When she found out about you, well… I don’t think she believed me.”
No? Sisan no want. Kissu doesn’t look up at me, but I know he’s telling me, not Chrys.
“I think maybe we should worry about that after we know what’s going on with you, okay?”
“Fine.” She sticks her tongue out at me and then shivers. “I don’t know how to get there, so someone is going to have to lead the way.”
Risk is the one who picks her up this time.
The lower levels are even colder, and she took off her shoes.
I let them go ahead of us, Kissu trailing close behind and pause to tell Shock, “She passed out at Margot’s.”
His brow ridges pinch. “I didn’t see that. It’s probably nothing,” Shock says, but he doesn’t think about ignoring it. Even if it isn't anything, that doesn’t mean that we aren’t going to check.
Risk sets her down in the upright diagnostic compartment. She looks tiny inside it, but she was not about to let him put her down on “that operating table.”
The system runs its checks, burbling and beeping away, but there’s nothing abnormal. Just lingering traces of whatever unknown drug…
“Shouldn’t that be out of her system by now?”
Risk shrugs. “I don’t know.”
He glares at the screen, reading and rereading the data, and an ugly memory slithers across my mind.
“Hey.” I wait for him to look up at me. “It’s okay to not know.”
When his shoulders drop and he stretches his neck muscles, I hear him curse in his mind. Because it used to not be okay. Not knowing used to be defiance. Defiance used to be met with punishment.
And sometimes, we forget to leave those things in the past.