Fear No More The Heat Of The Sun
Kerr was asleep when the door banging open woke her up. And then a familiar tongue moved around her mouth. “I’m sorry.” Lips formed the words against hers “I’m an arsehole.”
“I kind of like the idea of being thrown around, but I’d prefer to feel it, yeah?”
Lusa laughed, only half-breaking the kiss. Sniffing as the tears fell until she fell asleep on Kerr’s chest.
Streaming sunlight and a stiff neck later, Mackenzie and Jenni filed in. Jenni seemed only mildly surprised at Lusa’s presence and she knew better than to mention it.
“If I do this, what happens after?” Kerr tried to make eye contact with Jenni.
Jenni looked to Mackenzie. “I’ll coach you through how your new body works. We’ll eat biscuits and drink tea, or whatever you do in this backwater.”
Lusa curled her lip.
“You know? Gossip? Paint nails? Do girl shit?” Lusa was about to tell her off, but Mackenzie continued. “Well,” she put a thumb to her lip. “Maybe not girl shit. If this works, you’ll be the new template for men.” She waved it off. “You’ll figure out new social roles for yourselves anyway.”
Jenni suddenly looked concerned. “And if it doesn’t work?”
“Nothing too bad. She’ll just be sterile. Not like she wasn’t already.” Mackenzie spread her hands toward Kerr’s motionless body. “The alternative is this.”
“I meant, where do I go after?” Kerr looked to Lusa. “Where do I fit?” Talia had insinuated that she would be welcome here, but she didn’t want to pressure Lusa.
Lusa chewed her bottom lip. Did that mean she didn’t want Kerr to stay or that she didn’t want her to feel pressured either? She turned toward a noise from the hallway.
“She’s living with me until she decides.” Cat stood in the door. “I know there are security concerns, and we argued about them all last night, but when this is done, she’ll be just as vulnerable as the rest of the ghosts. That gives her the right to at least make the decision herself.”
“Himself,” Mackenzie corrected.
“I’m still she, thank you very much.” Kerr glared at Mackenzie.
“You don’t have to choose.” Sparx’s male voice came through the hall. “Also, I printed that thing you wanted.”
“Is everyone here?” Lusa squeezed her fists, clearly uncomfortable with what she probably thought would be a more private moment.
“Not everyone. Sesi is securing the area around the vault with Tornit, Talia and Siku are prepping the secondary transport.” Callie’s voice replied from the hall. “Alana and Cam are here, though,” she added, as if Lusa’s question hadn’t been rhetorical.
Lusa inhaled sharply, visibly shaking. Kerr worried she might lose control, but Lusa had grown up around these people. Surely, they knew how to handle her? Jenni’s hand found her back. They looked at the ground together.
“This is a big moment for everyone. Not just you.” Lusa nodded, swallowing whatever irritant she’d been carrying.
The tiny glimpse into Lusa’s struggles should have sent her running, but all Kerr wanted was to possess every passionate drop of her. Dark and dangerous, no wonder she believed she was unlovable. Kerr would happily take it all.
“I still have a belly button.” Kerr’s fingers found her navel.
And then she realised her fingers were no longer ceramic composite.
“Is it strange that I forgot my arm would be meat again?” She held her fingers splayed out before her.
Holding the largest, warmest-looking towel, was the woman she was besotted with.
Lusa wrapped her tightly, bringing her mouth close to the shell of her ear. “I’ll miss the self-cleaning function.”
Kerr bit her lip and blushed. Mackenzie poked her head from behind the terminal. “I can hear you, you know.” She started toward them. “Let me show you how to attune your new ears.”
Lusa shooed her off. “Later. Let her sleep first.”
“The belly button is superfluous anyway,” Mackenzie muttered, sulking behind the terminal. “I have to recalibrate this for Pinga’s arm.”
“I think Pinga’s having too much fun with her old arm to want a new one.” Lusa helped Kerr take a few steps with her new legs. “And you should be getting ready to unlock that vault before you try to make her your guinea pig as well.”
Approaching the exit, Kerr realised she had no footwear.
Reading her mind, Lusa scooped her up like she was nothing.
Kerr squealed, tumbling against her chest. Allowing herself a few moments to steep in the romance of it couldn’t hurt, could it?
The big decisions could wait. Under a dazzling array of microscopic lights in an infinite sky above, a few moments stretched into too many more.
The night breeze played with strands of hair, unbuffered by her non-existent Thermabulle.
She flexed her eye muscles out of habit to check her hormone levels, only to find nothing.
The terrifying and exhilarating possibility of experiencing life raw and unfiltered, with no way to go back was overwhelming, but solace hid in the hollow of Lusa’s neck.
Unknown only days ago, the scent of her skin brought too much comfort. Too much familiarity to let it go.
Warm light spilled from Cat’s house, the door opening before they’d even set foot on the porch. “I’ll give you a better tour in the morning, but for now, the lav is just across the hall from your bedroom.”
Lusa set Kerr down gently, but left her arm around her shoulders. “It’s a little different than your flat,” she said apologetically.
Kerr kept her thoughts to herself until she saw the room. The bed looked like a giant pillow and furs covered nearly every surface. If warmth could look like something, this would be it.
“Is this okay?” Tiny lines stretched across Lusa’s forehead.
Kerr brought a hand to her eye, wiping away a hot tear. She wasn’t used to feeling skin from that hand. “This is too much.” The words came out shakier than she had intended.
“It’s different than what you’re used to, I’m sure, but you’ll get sick of it.
Nothing ever really changes here.” Lusa thought of the limited dating pool.
The same training runs. The same trap lines.
Her mothers’ ever-present concern. Her sisters’ constant need for attention.
A future so clearly defined, yet so far away that she would never grasp it.
“I changed.” Kerr took her hand. Her fingers felt too soft. Too new.
Lusa’s eyes turned inquisitive and then relaxed. Like she wanted to ask a question but decided she wasn’t ready to hear the answer.
Kerr pulled her face close. “What are you worried about?”
A long pause. Lusa avoided Kerr’s eyes, searching for the words that might be hiding under the furs.
On the floor. Beyond the window. But Kerr wouldn’t give up.
She’d learned enough about Lusa to know that the most dangerous person here needed time to believe she was safe.
“I’m worried that you’ll get bored here. ”
“I might.” Kerr ran her thumb along Lusa’s cheek. “But I think I could use some boredom after everything.”
It did little to assuage her. Even if the words were sweet, like sugar, they held no water. Non-committal answers when she knew Lusa wanted something concrete. Lusa took a deep breath and swallowed another question.
“I can’t promise I won’t break your heart.” Kerr knew the reaction she would provoke and she was ready for it. She held Lusa’s face tightly, forcing her to look her in the eye. “Though your mom has already warned me about that.”
A soft chuckle. Kerr was grateful for the slight release of tension. “I can’t promise you won’t break mine either. We haven’t earned that sort of certainty yet.”
That seemed to break through Lusa’s defences. Certainty wasn’t there, but it was on the table. She wasn’t being used. Love was a tangible possibility.
“I understand you have quite the fan club,” Kerr continued. Lusa rolled her eyes, but the lopsided smile said she enjoyed the validation. “I can’t promise I won’t get jealous.”
The muscles in her neck tightened under Kerr’s fingertips. “I would never…”
“I know,” Kerr said. “It’s not you. It’s me.
I need to work on that.” The unspoken part – that Lusa could step away from the edge, that her guard could relax, that her heart would be treated with care, was found in the deep brown of her eyes.
They could both work for each other, and whatever happened, come out better people on the other side.
“Will you stay with me?” Kerr’s voice sounded small in the overly plush room.
“It’s my grandma’s house.” Lusa shifted uncomfortably. “That would be kind of weird.”
“Just sleep, I mean.” Kerr trailed her fingers up Lusa’s forearm. “Please?”
Lusa acquiesced and turned to make the bed.
“Remember that time you told me to turn off my cyberware so you could show me what it was like to be cold and then warm?” Kerr found herself reflexively focusing to access her control panel. She wondered how long it would take her to stop doing that.
“You mean two days ago?” Lusa had removed her clothes and nestled under the covers. She held the edge of the blanket open.
Kerr slipped inside. Cyberware taking the edge off of every experience hadn’t spared her discomfort, but only now did she understand why old writers opined about small pleasures.”
She sunk into the mattress, too big with Lusa’s too strong arms pulling her into her crescent body that felt too perfect against skin too soft.
For long minutes in the darkness, absent the din and ever-present neon of the city, Lusa’s breath trickled across the back of her neck. Deep and controlled, Lusa couldn’t even let something as simple as sleep master her.
“Lusa?”
A flutter of eyelashes flitted against the back of Kerr’s neck.
“Can you call me Caoimhe?”
“Of course.” Lusa rubbed her thumb across her elbow, where the seam of her artificial arm used to be.
Lusa hadn’t understood. “I can’t be Kerr anymore. To anyone. Kerr doesn’t fit anymore.”
Silence, and then, “Okay.” Lusa held her tighter and Caoimhe dared to dream.
In the cool night air, Caoimhe slipped out of bed. Lusa didn’t stir. She found the towel she’d worn and made her way to the lav.
A light, faint, but inviting, came from the hall. Caoimhe followed it to the kitchen. She found Cat, along with two large steaming mugs.
“There’s a housecoat on the chair.” She gestured with her chin.
Caoimhe moved to pick it up, but stopped short. Cat smirked, fine lines framing it, her age mocking modesty. She looked away. Caoimhe wrestled herself into the house coat.
Cat didn’t ask if she had finished. She simply turned around, unbothered after six granddaughters to worry about the possibility of seeing another nipple. “Sit.” She tapped the back of a solid-looking chair. Caoimhe did as she was told.
Cat seated herself and pushed a mug toward her. “Spruce tip tea,” she explained. “It’s odd at first, but you get used to it.”
Caoimhe picked up the mug, radiating warmth like everything else in this house. The tea had a light, fresh taste. Other things she didn’t have the vocabulary for. Strange, bordering on unpleasant, but she kept her expression in check under Cat’s watchful eyes.
“So, you fell for Lusa, huh?”
Caoimhe set the mug down before she choked. “Are you always this direct?”
“It’s a learned behaviour. Otherwise, the only things I would find out about my daughter would be from Sparx.” Cat laced her fingers around her mug. “I worried that one would never find anyone. Most people think she’s dangerous.”
“The first thing Alana did was ask if I’d been abused.”
“Typical.” Cat’s tone suggested she didn’t much care for Alana. “Some things got exaggerated. But there were bruises and bite marks on her first girlfriend. More than normal for two teenagers discovering bodies for the first time.”
The thought of Lusa with someone else prodded her jealousy. She quelled it with a large gulp of tea. It burned on the way down – a sufficient distraction. “Why are you telling me this?”
“Because you’re the first person she’s really connected with.” Cat set her mug down with an air of severity. “Sometimes I think our reaction to what happened made her the way she is. Walled off. She chose control over happiness.” Cat sighed. “We probably made it worse.”
“I don’t get what you want me to do.” Caoimhe said.
“I don’t want you to do anything. I want you to know that it’s going to take time.” She took an audible sip of her tea. “Which is why I had them put up a MobilePod for you. Their plan was to stick you in Lusa’s. Instead, you’re with me until it’s ready. If you want it.”
A million thoughts raced through Caoimhe’s head. They wanted her here. She wanted to see Lusa’s MobilePod. What would happen if her and Lusa broke up? Where would she go? Could she go? “This is… a lot.”
“Uh huh.” Cat finished the rest of her tea. She set the mug down and took Kerr’s hand. “Be careful with my Lusa. She’s a lot more fragile than she looks.” Cat stood up to put her mug in the sink. “You’re with me in the potato fields, after a physical. Jenni’s orders.”
“Thank you.” Caoimhe said quietly.
“And,” Cat lowered her head, looking at her from under her brows. “You can stay here. Regardless of what happens.”