Disclaimer: Usual applies
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Their hotel was as spare inside as it was done-up outside. As many core cities on the colonies had been fashioned in the architectural styles of Europe in the eighteenth to nineteenth century, one could imagine themselves on Earth but for the darker shell of sky above. If only for slight adjustments - concrete and marble were so expensive the exportation of them to Space had been prohibited unless in slight amounts, and wood had been replaced by an indoor-version of the synthetic wood making up park benches - the buildings were complete in their look and feel of an old, untouched, richly-fattened city. Mrs. Darlian had commented on one on their way to their hotel - a bank she thought modeled after a hotel she once saw in Baden-Baden.
The outwardly appearances of these buildings were startling when compared to their white-walled, minimalist, concrete and metal-worked insides. The style had been quickly taken up by several colonies; it only seemed natural that a strong modern art movement had taken root in some of these cities.
Relena wondered at their little suite. The furniture itself was an adventure, clean lines and little else. Their couch - the only couch in the room, but a behemoth of a couch that stretched seven feet long - had no arm rests, a dun color. Bookshelves painted black, set at various heights on the each of the walls, held some pottery done by local artists.
Relena ventured into what would be their bedrooms. Raised futons on black frames, squat nightstands with rounded sides like teapots on legs. A gauzy rug crossed the space between the futons.
"I don't think we have a closet." Relena called over her shoulder, shifting the weight of her suitcase to ease the ache in her shoulder.
"Check the walls, they might be built in."
"Oh." Relena set her luggage down and lay both palms on the wall. Pressed. Pressed again. Moving on. Pressed. POP. A deepset booth built into the wall, complete with hangers and drawers, appeared. "Found it."
"Oh good - the telecom set up was in one of those out here, too..." POP.
"There's two - plenty of space, really..."
"Interesting, isn't it?" Mrs. Darlian joined her daughter in their bedroom and reeled around at the size of their window. "'Heavens!" Relena began unpacking.
"The bathroom has a skylight, have you seen it?"
"Oh my." Despite the doubt in her tone Mrs. Darlian looked flushed, relaxed. "It's such a little place..."
"They pack us into whatever's available, really."
"I remember...."
Relena straightened up, surveyed the folded sweater sets, suits on hangers, the three pairs of shoes she had brought from Earth. "I'm going to take a - they don't have baths here....." Water conservation laws and related restraints kept water usage at an inconspicuous, relatively untroubling level. Hygiene sprays were still used widely in all but the best of hotels - one had to pay a tax on day-to-day water in a private home.
Mrs. Darlian paused at the window. "How much shower time do we have?"
"Fifteen minutes." Relena plucked a towel from a pile on the futon mattress. "I'm off."
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A light-metal case in box form, set upright and into a corner of the room, with enough room for her to turn full circle with both elbows held out at her sides. A wide faucet head operated by square knobs, a gadge measuring the temperature, a lever controlling how much water was let off and in what form - mist, droplets, etc. It took five minutes alone for Relena to set the gadgets at a level she was comfortable with.
Hopping in, she hurriedly soaped up, lathered on the shampoo, scrubbed. She wondered if one of the features of this futuristic shower stall included roll-over shower minutes - wouldn't that be nice?
Damn it, they had a timer! Why would one need a reminder of - oh no, eight minutes left...
The last bath she had was last night. Relena's thoughts fled from the textured surface of the stall floor to the three-quarters full tub in her private bathroom on Earth - the circulation of water that kept the temperature of the water even for an hour. She had her hair twisted as high up on her head as she could make it go, engaged with several unsharpened pencils. As nothing faced the window of that bathroom other than several lonely acres of grass, she felt the delightful audacity to leave the window drapes open. The hiss she'd made at making contact with the water, sinking her body, submerged to just below her collar bone. Ginger and strawberry-tainted water. Violin music floated from downstairs; her mother, listening to the radio.
Out of the shower, rub rub rub with the towel. The bathroom was bare but for the absolute essentials - sink, toilet, spacepod-shower stall. She found a compartment for toiletries above the sink, in another compartment in the wall.
Wrapping the towel securely about her body Relena left to tell her mother the bathroom was free. Mrs. Darlian lay facing the wall on the futon, a blanket thrown over her legs. A clock ticked off the minutes of a half hour.
"Shuttle flights still tire her out, then." Relena murmured to herself.
She turned away from her mother and, in the shade of the closed blinds her mother had drawn before she went to sleep, dressed quickly. She hadn't been in this area of the colony before and it intrigued her.
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They had needed help with the equipment and offered money to passerbyers to lug it in. Heero needed the money, motels and travel having worn down on what funds he had at his disposal, and volunteered. In the hour it took to finish he found it hard to tear himself bodily away - people grabbed, groped, reached for whoever had anything to do with the bands playing, the excitement that comes of being in a crowd upward of three hundred bodies gives a person spreading, heightening - brawls broke out with the leaders ending in a heap, laughing and shaking hands; a girl reached out and brazenly grabbed a stranger's crotch, but he didn't yelp, simply looked down at her hand in a dazed way - a trio of girls crowded another of their group with a video camera, cackling - someone had grappled their way onto another's shoulders and was advertising beer, though it was prohibited.
In the end, Heero did not leave, the promise of more money at the end of the show and something to do for the next five hours more appealing than sitting in his motel room with a helmet. Leaving would have been difficult anyway, at least two hundred people blocking him on the one side of the room where there was an exit. He to the left wing backstage, looking out at the teeming, happy mass with a mix of reserve and curiosity. One of the performers approached him, a scrawny thing of a nineteen year old. He motioned to the crowd with his chin.
"Nice. This is nice." He waited but Heero didn't pick up the lead. He licked his lips and Heero thought he might be nervous, really nervous. Or just fidgety. "Uh, I'm part of the introduction. You know, like, the band that comes before all the ones people want to see?" He shuffled about so as to lean against the wall next to Heero. "Yeah, this is, like, the second-biggest show we've had. We performed in Calomen, you know, on Colony 14R-GH? It's...it's a half hour from here..."
"What's your name?"
"Jerred, you?"
"No, your band."
"Oh, Jag Lees." Jerred wasn't sure what to do about Heero's lack of eye contact, something he didn't practice in a conversation himself but that he was used to receiving.
"So, uh, what are you - what - " Heero took the moment to turn his head and stare.
"I helped bring in the sound equipment."
"Ah." A girl approached Jerred, someone in red leather, a loose sweatshirt with rips in the sleeves. "We're on in ten minutes, where've you been?" Jerred shrugged, tilting his head in Heero's direction. The girl glanced at him, then up and down, quick and casual, a spark of interest replaced quickly by indifference. "Yeah, well, you're ready then?"
"Yeah, yeah, don't worry. Andy, this is - uh...?" Heero's gaze slid away from the pair but he gave them his name. "Yeah, Heero, this is Andrea - percussion." She nodded at him.
"We've got to go set up, okay?" Drawing an arm through Jerred's she glanced back at Heero. "Nice meeting you. Enjoy the show."
Heero nodded. He watched them leave and was oddly taken with Andrea's walk - she pushed forward aggressively but advanced with the heels of her feet, which, in high heels such as the pair she wore that evening, gave the effect of sharply swinging hips, an attractive, fierce walk.
He'd remember little of the show in the future and enjoyed it minimally. Andrea's walk was more memorable than her solo, and Jerred was still being broken in. The bands after them were more experienced. The crowd thought much of it and brawled and screamed their appreciation. Near the end, once a great many had left because they had heard what they'd come for, when the ground was clear enough to move around in, Heero took a walk, the booming of the base at his back. He found a stool around what had been a makeshift bar, perhaps where those from earlier had given people beer.
Someone approached him; a girl, roughly twenty years old, hair a startling white blond, dark roots just barely beginning to show - the hair hung down to her waist, plastered to her neck and forehead, the skin at her cheekbones tinged red with activity.
"Hey." She didn't wait for an invitation but perched herself on the arm of a comfy chair with most of the stuffing missing from the seat. "Haven't seen you before at a 'Showdown Central' concert."
This was an invitation of sorts, Heero understood. She waited for a moment.
"Yeah, well, it was okay. My little sister dragged me along - did you see the people giving out beer here?" She paused. "Or were they selling it...I can't remember."
"They were giving it away."
"Oh. My little sister - she's over there, no, by the stairs, see? - screaming red hair, can't miss it - she knows one of the performers. I'm here on vacation." Again, an invitation, she waited, Heero didn't take up on the cue, she skipped his lack of response and plowed ahead. "The university's trash right now, all the papers have something to do with the war being over. Everyone's got their own opinion on it but the teachers mess with it anyway." Heero absorbed this, mulled it over.
"Where do you study?"
"Allengoreharen University. Heard of it? No? Well, it's small. Do you go to - wait, how old are you?...never mind. Anyway, they say take risks, but what risks do they mean, they prod us like things in a cage and when they get a real reaction out of us they're not happy with the results, you know what I mean?" Heero made a vague nod. "I mean, it's enough to make me get some sort of student's union together - 'Give us different requirements for term papers, or else!', something like that, with pins and confetti at initations." She grinned - she had a very symmetrical grin. "I study political philosophy, though, so that's almost part of the curriculum - one teacher's overthrown in a mutiny every year, it seems natural."
She laughed; she had a very throaty laugh, like someone who smoke alot - but nothing of her smelled of cigarrettes.
"Besides...it was a funny war....I mean, there were clear sides, clear good guys and bad guys, but then things blurred every so often, you know? Oh, moving on, that's stupid." She eyed him, perhaps for a hint as to where the conversation would swing to. "What are you doing here, anyway?"
"I helped move the equipment in."
"Ah. Well, I think they're taking it to the vans out back now, do you have to go?" He stood up, ran a hand over the side of his face.
"Yeah, I do."
"I'll see you out there, then." She left and he went for the stage.
They paid him a comfortable amount and he indeed met the girl in the parking lot. She grinned again, the action making her face perfect in its proportions.
"By the way, I'm Alice."A girl joined them, Heero recognized her as the sister. Hair the shade of Mardi Gras. She gave a quick, acknowledging smile.
"Alice, I'm going home with Daniel. Here're the keys to the car."
"Thanks, see you later." Alice cuffed her at the jaw bone, the touch obviously gentle. Once her sister left Alice looked back at Heero; light from the streetlights caused her eyes to glint in the dark, throwing rounded shadows over the planes of her face. "Feel like going somewhere?" He shrugged. "You never told me your name." She pointed out.
"Heero."
"Ah." She motioned for him to follow her; they soon stood beside a car cramped with age. "We have lots of choices - there's a bar that has purple lights, pretty good drinks. Ever heard of it? 'Adam's'? No? Good, it'll be an adventure." She unlocked the door to the driver's seat, slid in, and reached over to unlock the passenger's side. With only the slightest hesitation Heero walked around the car and took his seat beside Alice. There was only enough space in the car for two people and some groceries, at best.
He was aware of the time - just after midnight - and felt a shiver take hold of him; he was recklessly leaving the Zero alone and unguarded in his motel room. It felt good.
"So, Heero, what do you do?"
"Do?"
"Yeah, for fun, as a job, you know." He shrugged, noncommittal.
"I'm taking a break."
"Sounds good. Sounds great, actually." Her stare lay riveted on the road ahead. "I wish I could, but I'm in the thick end of my third year. What else?" He considered this but remained silent. "Alright..." She sounded annoyed, gave a small curse at passing a red light. "...I hope they didn't have one of those cameras there, this wouldn't qualify as an intersection, right...." Heero couldn't remember having seen a camera on the side of the road, and they hadn't gone fast enough to attract the attention of one immediately anyway.
"What're you doing around here, Heero?"
"Checking it out."
"Why?"
"I needed to get out." She laughed.
"Okay, I get that." Hair wrapped around her shoulders in a heavy, moist mass - streetlights cast an odd sheen to the sweat on her face and patch of collar bone at her shirt.
"Aren't you warm?"
"'Uh? Oh, yeah. But, I really like long hair - and I finally got it to act normal. It's such a pain right after I bleach it, 'takes weeks to look good. Anyway, I felt like showing it off." She shook her head sharply in an effort to lift some of its weight from her neck, but it simply fell back in place. "Uggh, I didn't know it was going to be so humid, what are they doing with the air up there?..." They pulled into a parking lot tight with cars. Alice wriggled their way into an acceptable spot. There was no space to get out through the car doors so they left by way of the trunk.
At approaching the doors, Thena swatted at Heero's shoulder.
"Just look like you're nineteen, alright?" The security guards they passed made no motion to stop them, looking them over with a trained air of suspicion. Heero met the stare of one and instinctively narrowed his eyes at recognizing a possible threat. The guard gave no reaction, but Heero detected a facial twitch in passing.
The atmosphere was buzzing but low-key, the bartender chatting up a trio of women at one corner of the bar. It took the smack of Alice's palm against the countertop to get his attention. He excused himself, wandered over and took their orders.
"I'm not a fan of alcohol, but this is part of the let loose experience, right?" Alice shot Heero a grin - perfect, everything measured up - and, propping her elbow on the counter, set her chin in her hand and stared at him. "Man, I saw you try to stare those guards down, out there - why would you do that? I've seen security kick people out for laughing in their direction." When she received no response she let it drop. "God, what time is it? Wow, so late already! Oh well. My parents - I stay with them when I'm here - not really part of the of the let loose deal, but..you know - never expect me home before four. I mean, I don't party, right? But there's so much to do here - Mikhail Arish exhibitions, graffiti tours, and, oh, these garden things, like a dinner party in a garden, but only with drinks." Pause. "Hey, have you ever been to a Quarter-night Art Exhibition?" Heero shook his head and she gave a real gasp. "That's crazy! You're practically a native of this area living here a week, even people from Earth come to these, complaining about jet lag - do you like art, Heero?"
"Generally." He said after a long silence. She nodded eagerly, though some part of her kept a physically reserved manner in that she hardly moved from the chin in hand, elbow on the counter-position.
"Do you like modern translational, specifically? I mean, the movement of this century, so accurately that'd be the revolutionary modern translational art movement, or Remta for us remtaists." That flash of a grin appeared, died down. "Like, Mikhail Arish, Lucy Mac, Aruth and Dame Marge Meenk?"
"No."
"You're kidding!" She gulped down the last third of her drink and coughed raspingly. "Well, it's about time. When do you want to be home, Heero?" He shrugged. "I mean, I just don't want to get you in trouble, you know, staying up late. Well, there's an exhibition in a half hour, if we go now we'll get there in time for the last tour, free admission. How about it?" She grinned and Heero saw the pink of her tongue at the back of her mouth. She held her glass to her forehead, the ice cubes making little noises as they shifted around at the bottom of her glass (clinkclink). She cocked her head back at him, eyeing Heero challengingly. "C'mon, I know you'll like it."
No, she really didn't, but it intrigued Heero for her to say that. He gave a shrug and half-nod.
"Great! Just let me clean up, so - freeze." She rushed off, the coloured lights of the club falling on her hair, turning it dark blue, neon green....
Heero looked around, straightening. He rubbed his palms on the tops of his thighs, stared at his drink, glanced around. There weren't all that many people around. None even looked drunk, as he thought most late-night club guests would be. He brushed the fingers of one hand against the hot, sweaty skin of his forehead. He wiped at the back of his neck, the moistened hair at the base of his skull clinging to his knuckles before he brushed them out of the way. Next, he wiped his hands, back and front, on his pants again. He shook out his shoulders to loosen the sleeves from his armpits. To keep himself occupied he swallowed the rest of his drink, something that smelled of alcohol more than it actually consisted of alcohol. The bartender came by and Heero, unsure of what to do without the glass even as the man across from him tossed them into the sink, paid him. He dragged the dry skin of the inside of his wrists across his face and felt he was getting the littlest bit tired.
When she came back her hair was pulled back in a braid. Sweat made the hair around her face glisten a little.
"Alright, ready? Good, let's go." Alice waved at the security guards in passing, playing the role of the coquettish femme fatale until they got to the car and she found she was lacking her keys. She rummaged about in all the pockets of her clothing, the little bag she had with her. "Where did they go? Where did they go? Where did they go?" She kept muttering.
Heero held them out to her, having found them to have dropped behind one of the tires.
Grinning, she snatched them and toppled into the car, pulling herself over the tiny back seat and into the front. Heero followed, shutting the trunk behind him. They squeezed out of the parking lot.
"I wasn't planning on going tonight, but - oh, no no, I'd love to, don't worry, this won't inconvenience me a bit - ugh, I can't remember who it is, who's showing tonight, who's showing tonight, damn it, I knew this just five hours ago! Let's see, someone oriental, I think - Kangpi, that's the name, what is that, I think she's from Taiwan, originally. Oh yeah, Kangpi, Lan, moved to Space, like, eighteen years ago." Alice laughed abruptly. "I saw a picture of her, in the newspaper, just last week! She was quoted in an article about - I don't know, politics, economic principles, something like that. She's a whiz, really. And she looks older than she actually is, I think she's only forty." They made a sharp turn into a residential street. "I mean, like, she doesn't take care of her skin, and out here, SPF 80 is a must. Left or right....oh, and she does that warbling singing they do in Taiwan, you ever heard it? She's not supposed to be really good, but she can carry a note for a while...damn, I need to make a u-turn, hold on..."
The Quarter-night art exhibitions, to which Kangpi's exhibition that night belonged to, apparently, was held at a two-story building on the outskirts of the downtown area. Two levels that an artist could play with, used for all mediums - as Alice recalled, one exhibition had been entirely of mobiles made of origami and thin steel wires and multicolored christmas lights, the kind strung about trees during the holidays. A jolly crowd had gathered in the first level, about to proceed to the second, when they arrived. They were ushered in to the sight of quality calligraphy on all manner of material - blocks of concrete fashioned into geometric blocks, usually balanced on a point; splatter-painted canvases each in the shape of a hand, strung together to make a patchwork quilt of sorts; clay modeled to look like rumpled clothing lying in hampers that were damaged. What looked like a series of magazines lying on the floor in various degrees of usage was actually one large painting fitted into the floor, under glass.
Alice wound her arm through the crook of Heero's elbow, using that link to lead him around the building she was so familiar with. She loved it, she could not move from the spot when they stood above the painting of the magazines, she insisted on seeing the six-by-nine-foot canvas from each corner until satsifed she knew its meaning. When they came to a piece displaying ornamental trees powdered with soot and chalk dust, chunks of concrete and twisted steel around their bases, she oggled it with a nervous, wistful laugh - only Heero seemd to be able to depict the scene it held in his mind with accuracy, as the artist had intended. The impression it gave him was that he was standing in a parking lot, next to a large park, pressing the detonation button in one fist again and watching a series of buildings collapse in an explosive heap. The leap back into that life rocked him - it made him want to retch. The display was little more than five feet wide and barey reached past his head, but it held him. He couldn't breath for a moment, he felt his ears clog up.
The unexcusable, sudden intrusion of his past on his present put Heero in a cold sweat. If Alice had at all wanted to move she would not have been able to move him with her - he was frozen, regarding each detail of Kangpi's piece until he had it memorized, horror widening at his eyes. Later, when they left the exhibition, Heero bought a pack of postcards with Kangpi's pieces on the cover of each.
Some of the exhibitions were lighthearted, some not. One showed a box in the middle of a little, empty room - the box was bursting with red and pink paper cut-out hearts, fluttering out into the room, some supported by thin plastic wire, others jumping out of the books on tiny, near-transparent stalks.
They did not know anyone there. Kangpi herself had left two hours ago, after the second showing that night (there were usually four in one night, one held in the early evening to accomodate the people that stayed out no later than eleven). Alice held onto Heero's arm the whole time - when he was not staring at a display or a painting so realistic it hurt to watch without touching, he was confronted with Alice's perfect, excited smile, so close that he could see the spit shining on her teeth after she licked them in thought. It was a turbulent ride, more wild than Alice's driving, more brusque than the concert had been. Is this what people do these days? Is this what I'm supposed to do? Supposed to do, what is that, these thoughts....Heero turned them over like a witch her tarot cards, quickly without dwelling on them until they lay out in front of him, a full array of confusion, choas, enjoyment. Years later he would not have made up his mind on whether he liked Kangpi or not - all he would allow himself is that her work moved him greatly in a shocking, unintended way.
Alice drove him home. It was the first time he had let anyone know the near-vicinity of where he lived. She dropped him off at a drugstore, depositing him on the curb like someone taking a child from a horse's back and setting it on the ground - "Alright, you're turn's over, there's your mommy." The drugstore was open twentyfour-seven and he remembered, he needed some things there, medicinal supplies having gotten low the past few days, but he still felt the tornado of unwanted, unexpected things making his mind tremble with the force of its take-over.
"Did you like that, Heero?" He glanced at her, his hand on the door, just about to push it open and let himself out. He nodded, if only to satisfy her. She seemed to preen herself, happy. She seemed very satisfied. A thoughtful pause crossed out conversation and he felt he should wait until she said goodnight - that would be the definitive end to this night.
She stared at him, comfortable with the otherwise awkward quiet, and slowly reached back to undo her hair. He could read the vanity and care she stored in that length of hair, a rope of white-blond, still rough and coarse from a dye-job, the ends recently cut. She hadn't been as happy with it in a braid, contained all evening. Alice had wanted people to see it, to stretch their necks to catch a glimpse of her hips when her hair finally moved aside for those few seconds it took to turn, or hop, or bound up stairs. She left it semi-tangled down her back.
"I hope I'm not going to get a ticket for parking on the curb." She chuckled, stretching an arm along the back of her seat.
"The police only come by at three, then they're away until five thirty."
"Ah. How do you know that?"
"I watched them."
"From where?" He shrugged.
She grinned again, but this time her grin was awfully close. He looked down, saw the white skin of her throat stretching as she brought her face to his in a quick movement. She managed to lean across both their seats, her mouth whispering into his. He could feel the texture of her lips, and he tasted the last of her gloss (odd). Her mouth was a little rough, but she wetted the lips and he felt the wet-rough of her tongue when she flicked it. She took his mouth quickly, losing no time in introducing a deeper version of the first encounter. Pulling back, she dragged her lips across his, barely touching, kissing the corner of his mouth. One hand on the wheel, one hand on the back of his seat, Alice hung over Heero like a blonde panther. He felt no sign of a grin when she kissed him again, dipping her tongue into his mouth, tilting his head back without a guide. Heero felt one hand curl around the side of his neck and felt his guard go up for a moment, but the loose hold of her fingers gave him no reason to object to the treatment he received.
She crouched closer until he could feel her knees jab lightly into his thigh. He brought one hand up to her face, and the skin was unusually cool. The kneading, altering pressure of her mouth and rustling movement of their clothes called for all his attention. He decisively suspended his thoughts of how odd this was.
She kissed in an all-absorbing way, never teasing, just giving. Her weight on his lap, shifting, darkening the light from the streetlights, gave substance to the experience, ensuring him that this was not an illusion. She kissed him along his jaw line, and his adam's apple. He found she had a full upper lip, a slender bottom lip. Close up, her face was like the moon seen from earth, but with defined cheekbones and a smooth, small nose. She chewed his bottom lip, delved deeper into his mouth (what did that taste like?). She tasted nothing like the alcohol or appetizers she'd had at the art show, she tasted warm, a little like fruit - raspberry, perhaps.
As he had said, no police bothered them. Alice was sure of herself - nothing went farther than that - and Heero let himself out onto that curb while she waved good-bye. But in the meantime between the initial good-byes and his feet on the sidewalk of that curb stood a moment rendered by the calligraphy pen of Kangpi herself - a terrible, private, vulnerable moment.
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Please, please, please review. More than that - thank you for waiting, and being so patient. It's been difficult, here. - Becca-W
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Their hotel was as spare inside as it was done-up outside. As many core cities on the colonies had been fashioned in the architectural styles of Europe in the eighteenth to nineteenth century, one could imagine themselves on Earth but for the darker shell of sky above. If only for slight adjustments - concrete and marble were so expensive the exportation of them to Space had been prohibited unless in slight amounts, and wood had been replaced by an indoor-version of the synthetic wood making up park benches - the buildings were complete in their look and feel of an old, untouched, richly-fattened city. Mrs. Darlian had commented on one on their way to their hotel - a bank she thought modeled after a hotel she once saw in Baden-Baden.
The outwardly appearances of these buildings were startling when compared to their white-walled, minimalist, concrete and metal-worked insides. The style had been quickly taken up by several colonies; it only seemed natural that a strong modern art movement had taken root in some of these cities.
Relena wondered at their little suite. The furniture itself was an adventure, clean lines and little else. Their couch - the only couch in the room, but a behemoth of a couch that stretched seven feet long - had no arm rests, a dun color. Bookshelves painted black, set at various heights on the each of the walls, held some pottery done by local artists.
Relena ventured into what would be their bedrooms. Raised futons on black frames, squat nightstands with rounded sides like teapots on legs. A gauzy rug crossed the space between the futons.
"I don't think we have a closet." Relena called over her shoulder, shifting the weight of her suitcase to ease the ache in her shoulder.
"Check the walls, they might be built in."
"Oh." Relena set her luggage down and lay both palms on the wall. Pressed. Pressed again. Moving on. Pressed. POP. A deepset booth built into the wall, complete with hangers and drawers, appeared. "Found it."
"Oh good - the telecom set up was in one of those out here, too..." POP.
"There's two - plenty of space, really..."
"Interesting, isn't it?" Mrs. Darlian joined her daughter in their bedroom and reeled around at the size of their window. "'Heavens!" Relena began unpacking.
"The bathroom has a skylight, have you seen it?"
"Oh my." Despite the doubt in her tone Mrs. Darlian looked flushed, relaxed. "It's such a little place..."
"They pack us into whatever's available, really."
"I remember...."
Relena straightened up, surveyed the folded sweater sets, suits on hangers, the three pairs of shoes she had brought from Earth. "I'm going to take a - they don't have baths here....." Water conservation laws and related restraints kept water usage at an inconspicuous, relatively untroubling level. Hygiene sprays were still used widely in all but the best of hotels - one had to pay a tax on day-to-day water in a private home.
Mrs. Darlian paused at the window. "How much shower time do we have?"
"Fifteen minutes." Relena plucked a towel from a pile on the futon mattress. "I'm off."
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A light-metal case in box form, set upright and into a corner of the room, with enough room for her to turn full circle with both elbows held out at her sides. A wide faucet head operated by square knobs, a gadge measuring the temperature, a lever controlling how much water was let off and in what form - mist, droplets, etc. It took five minutes alone for Relena to set the gadgets at a level she was comfortable with.
Hopping in, she hurriedly soaped up, lathered on the shampoo, scrubbed. She wondered if one of the features of this futuristic shower stall included roll-over shower minutes - wouldn't that be nice?
Damn it, they had a timer! Why would one need a reminder of - oh no, eight minutes left...
The last bath she had was last night. Relena's thoughts fled from the textured surface of the stall floor to the three-quarters full tub in her private bathroom on Earth - the circulation of water that kept the temperature of the water even for an hour. She had her hair twisted as high up on her head as she could make it go, engaged with several unsharpened pencils. As nothing faced the window of that bathroom other than several lonely acres of grass, she felt the delightful audacity to leave the window drapes open. The hiss she'd made at making contact with the water, sinking her body, submerged to just below her collar bone. Ginger and strawberry-tainted water. Violin music floated from downstairs; her mother, listening to the radio.
Out of the shower, rub rub rub with the towel. The bathroom was bare but for the absolute essentials - sink, toilet, spacepod-shower stall. She found a compartment for toiletries above the sink, in another compartment in the wall.
Wrapping the towel securely about her body Relena left to tell her mother the bathroom was free. Mrs. Darlian lay facing the wall on the futon, a blanket thrown over her legs. A clock ticked off the minutes of a half hour.
"Shuttle flights still tire her out, then." Relena murmured to herself.
She turned away from her mother and, in the shade of the closed blinds her mother had drawn before she went to sleep, dressed quickly. She hadn't been in this area of the colony before and it intrigued her.
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They had needed help with the equipment and offered money to passerbyers to lug it in. Heero needed the money, motels and travel having worn down on what funds he had at his disposal, and volunteered. In the hour it took to finish he found it hard to tear himself bodily away - people grabbed, groped, reached for whoever had anything to do with the bands playing, the excitement that comes of being in a crowd upward of three hundred bodies gives a person spreading, heightening - brawls broke out with the leaders ending in a heap, laughing and shaking hands; a girl reached out and brazenly grabbed a stranger's crotch, but he didn't yelp, simply looked down at her hand in a dazed way - a trio of girls crowded another of their group with a video camera, cackling - someone had grappled their way onto another's shoulders and was advertising beer, though it was prohibited.
In the end, Heero did not leave, the promise of more money at the end of the show and something to do for the next five hours more appealing than sitting in his motel room with a helmet. Leaving would have been difficult anyway, at least two hundred people blocking him on the one side of the room where there was an exit. He to the left wing backstage, looking out at the teeming, happy mass with a mix of reserve and curiosity. One of the performers approached him, a scrawny thing of a nineteen year old. He motioned to the crowd with his chin.
"Nice. This is nice." He waited but Heero didn't pick up the lead. He licked his lips and Heero thought he might be nervous, really nervous. Or just fidgety. "Uh, I'm part of the introduction. You know, like, the band that comes before all the ones people want to see?" He shuffled about so as to lean against the wall next to Heero. "Yeah, this is, like, the second-biggest show we've had. We performed in Calomen, you know, on Colony 14R-GH? It's...it's a half hour from here..."
"What's your name?"
"Jerred, you?"
"No, your band."
"Oh, Jag Lees." Jerred wasn't sure what to do about Heero's lack of eye contact, something he didn't practice in a conversation himself but that he was used to receiving.
"So, uh, what are you - what - " Heero took the moment to turn his head and stare.
"I helped bring in the sound equipment."
"Ah." A girl approached Jerred, someone in red leather, a loose sweatshirt with rips in the sleeves. "We're on in ten minutes, where've you been?" Jerred shrugged, tilting his head in Heero's direction. The girl glanced at him, then up and down, quick and casual, a spark of interest replaced quickly by indifference. "Yeah, well, you're ready then?"
"Yeah, yeah, don't worry. Andy, this is - uh...?" Heero's gaze slid away from the pair but he gave them his name. "Yeah, Heero, this is Andrea - percussion." She nodded at him.
"We've got to go set up, okay?" Drawing an arm through Jerred's she glanced back at Heero. "Nice meeting you. Enjoy the show."
Heero nodded. He watched them leave and was oddly taken with Andrea's walk - she pushed forward aggressively but advanced with the heels of her feet, which, in high heels such as the pair she wore that evening, gave the effect of sharply swinging hips, an attractive, fierce walk.
He'd remember little of the show in the future and enjoyed it minimally. Andrea's walk was more memorable than her solo, and Jerred was still being broken in. The bands after them were more experienced. The crowd thought much of it and brawled and screamed their appreciation. Near the end, once a great many had left because they had heard what they'd come for, when the ground was clear enough to move around in, Heero took a walk, the booming of the base at his back. He found a stool around what had been a makeshift bar, perhaps where those from earlier had given people beer.
Someone approached him; a girl, roughly twenty years old, hair a startling white blond, dark roots just barely beginning to show - the hair hung down to her waist, plastered to her neck and forehead, the skin at her cheekbones tinged red with activity.
"Hey." She didn't wait for an invitation but perched herself on the arm of a comfy chair with most of the stuffing missing from the seat. "Haven't seen you before at a 'Showdown Central' concert."
This was an invitation of sorts, Heero understood. She waited for a moment.
"Yeah, well, it was okay. My little sister dragged me along - did you see the people giving out beer here?" She paused. "Or were they selling it...I can't remember."
"They were giving it away."
"Oh. My little sister - she's over there, no, by the stairs, see? - screaming red hair, can't miss it - she knows one of the performers. I'm here on vacation." Again, an invitation, she waited, Heero didn't take up on the cue, she skipped his lack of response and plowed ahead. "The university's trash right now, all the papers have something to do with the war being over. Everyone's got their own opinion on it but the teachers mess with it anyway." Heero absorbed this, mulled it over.
"Where do you study?"
"Allengoreharen University. Heard of it? No? Well, it's small. Do you go to - wait, how old are you?...never mind. Anyway, they say take risks, but what risks do they mean, they prod us like things in a cage and when they get a real reaction out of us they're not happy with the results, you know what I mean?" Heero made a vague nod. "I mean, it's enough to make me get some sort of student's union together - 'Give us different requirements for term papers, or else!', something like that, with pins and confetti at initations." She grinned - she had a very symmetrical grin. "I study political philosophy, though, so that's almost part of the curriculum - one teacher's overthrown in a mutiny every year, it seems natural."
She laughed; she had a very throaty laugh, like someone who smoke alot - but nothing of her smelled of cigarrettes.
"Besides...it was a funny war....I mean, there were clear sides, clear good guys and bad guys, but then things blurred every so often, you know? Oh, moving on, that's stupid." She eyed him, perhaps for a hint as to where the conversation would swing to. "What are you doing here, anyway?"
"I helped move the equipment in."
"Ah. Well, I think they're taking it to the vans out back now, do you have to go?" He stood up, ran a hand over the side of his face.
"Yeah, I do."
"I'll see you out there, then." She left and he went for the stage.
They paid him a comfortable amount and he indeed met the girl in the parking lot. She grinned again, the action making her face perfect in its proportions.
"By the way, I'm Alice."A girl joined them, Heero recognized her as the sister. Hair the shade of Mardi Gras. She gave a quick, acknowledging smile.
"Alice, I'm going home with Daniel. Here're the keys to the car."
"Thanks, see you later." Alice cuffed her at the jaw bone, the touch obviously gentle. Once her sister left Alice looked back at Heero; light from the streetlights caused her eyes to glint in the dark, throwing rounded shadows over the planes of her face. "Feel like going somewhere?" He shrugged. "You never told me your name." She pointed out.
"Heero."
"Ah." She motioned for him to follow her; they soon stood beside a car cramped with age. "We have lots of choices - there's a bar that has purple lights, pretty good drinks. Ever heard of it? 'Adam's'? No? Good, it'll be an adventure." She unlocked the door to the driver's seat, slid in, and reached over to unlock the passenger's side. With only the slightest hesitation Heero walked around the car and took his seat beside Alice. There was only enough space in the car for two people and some groceries, at best.
He was aware of the time - just after midnight - and felt a shiver take hold of him; he was recklessly leaving the Zero alone and unguarded in his motel room. It felt good.
"So, Heero, what do you do?"
"Do?"
"Yeah, for fun, as a job, you know." He shrugged, noncommittal.
"I'm taking a break."
"Sounds good. Sounds great, actually." Her stare lay riveted on the road ahead. "I wish I could, but I'm in the thick end of my third year. What else?" He considered this but remained silent. "Alright..." She sounded annoyed, gave a small curse at passing a red light. "...I hope they didn't have one of those cameras there, this wouldn't qualify as an intersection, right...." Heero couldn't remember having seen a camera on the side of the road, and they hadn't gone fast enough to attract the attention of one immediately anyway.
"What're you doing around here, Heero?"
"Checking it out."
"Why?"
"I needed to get out." She laughed.
"Okay, I get that." Hair wrapped around her shoulders in a heavy, moist mass - streetlights cast an odd sheen to the sweat on her face and patch of collar bone at her shirt.
"Aren't you warm?"
"'Uh? Oh, yeah. But, I really like long hair - and I finally got it to act normal. It's such a pain right after I bleach it, 'takes weeks to look good. Anyway, I felt like showing it off." She shook her head sharply in an effort to lift some of its weight from her neck, but it simply fell back in place. "Uggh, I didn't know it was going to be so humid, what are they doing with the air up there?..." They pulled into a parking lot tight with cars. Alice wriggled their way into an acceptable spot. There was no space to get out through the car doors so they left by way of the trunk.
At approaching the doors, Thena swatted at Heero's shoulder.
"Just look like you're nineteen, alright?" The security guards they passed made no motion to stop them, looking them over with a trained air of suspicion. Heero met the stare of one and instinctively narrowed his eyes at recognizing a possible threat. The guard gave no reaction, but Heero detected a facial twitch in passing.
The atmosphere was buzzing but low-key, the bartender chatting up a trio of women at one corner of the bar. It took the smack of Alice's palm against the countertop to get his attention. He excused himself, wandered over and took their orders.
"I'm not a fan of alcohol, but this is part of the let loose experience, right?" Alice shot Heero a grin - perfect, everything measured up - and, propping her elbow on the counter, set her chin in her hand and stared at him. "Man, I saw you try to stare those guards down, out there - why would you do that? I've seen security kick people out for laughing in their direction." When she received no response she let it drop. "God, what time is it? Wow, so late already! Oh well. My parents - I stay with them when I'm here - not really part of the of the let loose deal, but..you know - never expect me home before four. I mean, I don't party, right? But there's so much to do here - Mikhail Arish exhibitions, graffiti tours, and, oh, these garden things, like a dinner party in a garden, but only with drinks." Pause. "Hey, have you ever been to a Quarter-night Art Exhibition?" Heero shook his head and she gave a real gasp. "That's crazy! You're practically a native of this area living here a week, even people from Earth come to these, complaining about jet lag - do you like art, Heero?"
"Generally." He said after a long silence. She nodded eagerly, though some part of her kept a physically reserved manner in that she hardly moved from the chin in hand, elbow on the counter-position.
"Do you like modern translational, specifically? I mean, the movement of this century, so accurately that'd be the revolutionary modern translational art movement, or Remta for us remtaists." That flash of a grin appeared, died down. "Like, Mikhail Arish, Lucy Mac, Aruth and Dame Marge Meenk?"
"No."
"You're kidding!" She gulped down the last third of her drink and coughed raspingly. "Well, it's about time. When do you want to be home, Heero?" He shrugged. "I mean, I just don't want to get you in trouble, you know, staying up late. Well, there's an exhibition in a half hour, if we go now we'll get there in time for the last tour, free admission. How about it?" She grinned and Heero saw the pink of her tongue at the back of her mouth. She held her glass to her forehead, the ice cubes making little noises as they shifted around at the bottom of her glass (clinkclink). She cocked her head back at him, eyeing Heero challengingly. "C'mon, I know you'll like it."
No, she really didn't, but it intrigued Heero for her to say that. He gave a shrug and half-nod.
"Great! Just let me clean up, so - freeze." She rushed off, the coloured lights of the club falling on her hair, turning it dark blue, neon green....
Heero looked around, straightening. He rubbed his palms on the tops of his thighs, stared at his drink, glanced around. There weren't all that many people around. None even looked drunk, as he thought most late-night club guests would be. He brushed the fingers of one hand against the hot, sweaty skin of his forehead. He wiped at the back of his neck, the moistened hair at the base of his skull clinging to his knuckles before he brushed them out of the way. Next, he wiped his hands, back and front, on his pants again. He shook out his shoulders to loosen the sleeves from his armpits. To keep himself occupied he swallowed the rest of his drink, something that smelled of alcohol more than it actually consisted of alcohol. The bartender came by and Heero, unsure of what to do without the glass even as the man across from him tossed them into the sink, paid him. He dragged the dry skin of the inside of his wrists across his face and felt he was getting the littlest bit tired.
When she came back her hair was pulled back in a braid. Sweat made the hair around her face glisten a little.
"Alright, ready? Good, let's go." Alice waved at the security guards in passing, playing the role of the coquettish femme fatale until they got to the car and she found she was lacking her keys. She rummaged about in all the pockets of her clothing, the little bag she had with her. "Where did they go? Where did they go? Where did they go?" She kept muttering.
Heero held them out to her, having found them to have dropped behind one of the tires.
Grinning, she snatched them and toppled into the car, pulling herself over the tiny back seat and into the front. Heero followed, shutting the trunk behind him. They squeezed out of the parking lot.
"I wasn't planning on going tonight, but - oh, no no, I'd love to, don't worry, this won't inconvenience me a bit - ugh, I can't remember who it is, who's showing tonight, who's showing tonight, damn it, I knew this just five hours ago! Let's see, someone oriental, I think - Kangpi, that's the name, what is that, I think she's from Taiwan, originally. Oh yeah, Kangpi, Lan, moved to Space, like, eighteen years ago." Alice laughed abruptly. "I saw a picture of her, in the newspaper, just last week! She was quoted in an article about - I don't know, politics, economic principles, something like that. She's a whiz, really. And she looks older than she actually is, I think she's only forty." They made a sharp turn into a residential street. "I mean, like, she doesn't take care of her skin, and out here, SPF 80 is a must. Left or right....oh, and she does that warbling singing they do in Taiwan, you ever heard it? She's not supposed to be really good, but she can carry a note for a while...damn, I need to make a u-turn, hold on..."
The Quarter-night art exhibitions, to which Kangpi's exhibition that night belonged to, apparently, was held at a two-story building on the outskirts of the downtown area. Two levels that an artist could play with, used for all mediums - as Alice recalled, one exhibition had been entirely of mobiles made of origami and thin steel wires and multicolored christmas lights, the kind strung about trees during the holidays. A jolly crowd had gathered in the first level, about to proceed to the second, when they arrived. They were ushered in to the sight of quality calligraphy on all manner of material - blocks of concrete fashioned into geometric blocks, usually balanced on a point; splatter-painted canvases each in the shape of a hand, strung together to make a patchwork quilt of sorts; clay modeled to look like rumpled clothing lying in hampers that were damaged. What looked like a series of magazines lying on the floor in various degrees of usage was actually one large painting fitted into the floor, under glass.
Alice wound her arm through the crook of Heero's elbow, using that link to lead him around the building she was so familiar with. She loved it, she could not move from the spot when they stood above the painting of the magazines, she insisted on seeing the six-by-nine-foot canvas from each corner until satsifed she knew its meaning. When they came to a piece displaying ornamental trees powdered with soot and chalk dust, chunks of concrete and twisted steel around their bases, she oggled it with a nervous, wistful laugh - only Heero seemd to be able to depict the scene it held in his mind with accuracy, as the artist had intended. The impression it gave him was that he was standing in a parking lot, next to a large park, pressing the detonation button in one fist again and watching a series of buildings collapse in an explosive heap. The leap back into that life rocked him - it made him want to retch. The display was little more than five feet wide and barey reached past his head, but it held him. He couldn't breath for a moment, he felt his ears clog up.
The unexcusable, sudden intrusion of his past on his present put Heero in a cold sweat. If Alice had at all wanted to move she would not have been able to move him with her - he was frozen, regarding each detail of Kangpi's piece until he had it memorized, horror widening at his eyes. Later, when they left the exhibition, Heero bought a pack of postcards with Kangpi's pieces on the cover of each.
Some of the exhibitions were lighthearted, some not. One showed a box in the middle of a little, empty room - the box was bursting with red and pink paper cut-out hearts, fluttering out into the room, some supported by thin plastic wire, others jumping out of the books on tiny, near-transparent stalks.
They did not know anyone there. Kangpi herself had left two hours ago, after the second showing that night (there were usually four in one night, one held in the early evening to accomodate the people that stayed out no later than eleven). Alice held onto Heero's arm the whole time - when he was not staring at a display or a painting so realistic it hurt to watch without touching, he was confronted with Alice's perfect, excited smile, so close that he could see the spit shining on her teeth after she licked them in thought. It was a turbulent ride, more wild than Alice's driving, more brusque than the concert had been. Is this what people do these days? Is this what I'm supposed to do? Supposed to do, what is that, these thoughts....Heero turned them over like a witch her tarot cards, quickly without dwelling on them until they lay out in front of him, a full array of confusion, choas, enjoyment. Years later he would not have made up his mind on whether he liked Kangpi or not - all he would allow himself is that her work moved him greatly in a shocking, unintended way.
Alice drove him home. It was the first time he had let anyone know the near-vicinity of where he lived. She dropped him off at a drugstore, depositing him on the curb like someone taking a child from a horse's back and setting it on the ground - "Alright, you're turn's over, there's your mommy." The drugstore was open twentyfour-seven and he remembered, he needed some things there, medicinal supplies having gotten low the past few days, but he still felt the tornado of unwanted, unexpected things making his mind tremble with the force of its take-over.
"Did you like that, Heero?" He glanced at her, his hand on the door, just about to push it open and let himself out. He nodded, if only to satisfy her. She seemed to preen herself, happy. She seemed very satisfied. A thoughtful pause crossed out conversation and he felt he should wait until she said goodnight - that would be the definitive end to this night.
She stared at him, comfortable with the otherwise awkward quiet, and slowly reached back to undo her hair. He could read the vanity and care she stored in that length of hair, a rope of white-blond, still rough and coarse from a dye-job, the ends recently cut. She hadn't been as happy with it in a braid, contained all evening. Alice had wanted people to see it, to stretch their necks to catch a glimpse of her hips when her hair finally moved aside for those few seconds it took to turn, or hop, or bound up stairs. She left it semi-tangled down her back.
"I hope I'm not going to get a ticket for parking on the curb." She chuckled, stretching an arm along the back of her seat.
"The police only come by at three, then they're away until five thirty."
"Ah. How do you know that?"
"I watched them."
"From where?" He shrugged.
She grinned again, but this time her grin was awfully close. He looked down, saw the white skin of her throat stretching as she brought her face to his in a quick movement. She managed to lean across both their seats, her mouth whispering into his. He could feel the texture of her lips, and he tasted the last of her gloss (odd). Her mouth was a little rough, but she wetted the lips and he felt the wet-rough of her tongue when she flicked it. She took his mouth quickly, losing no time in introducing a deeper version of the first encounter. Pulling back, she dragged her lips across his, barely touching, kissing the corner of his mouth. One hand on the wheel, one hand on the back of his seat, Alice hung over Heero like a blonde panther. He felt no sign of a grin when she kissed him again, dipping her tongue into his mouth, tilting his head back without a guide. Heero felt one hand curl around the side of his neck and felt his guard go up for a moment, but the loose hold of her fingers gave him no reason to object to the treatment he received.
She crouched closer until he could feel her knees jab lightly into his thigh. He brought one hand up to her face, and the skin was unusually cool. The kneading, altering pressure of her mouth and rustling movement of their clothes called for all his attention. He decisively suspended his thoughts of how odd this was.
She kissed in an all-absorbing way, never teasing, just giving. Her weight on his lap, shifting, darkening the light from the streetlights, gave substance to the experience, ensuring him that this was not an illusion. She kissed him along his jaw line, and his adam's apple. He found she had a full upper lip, a slender bottom lip. Close up, her face was like the moon seen from earth, but with defined cheekbones and a smooth, small nose. She chewed his bottom lip, delved deeper into his mouth (what did that taste like?). She tasted nothing like the alcohol or appetizers she'd had at the art show, she tasted warm, a little like fruit - raspberry, perhaps.
As he had said, no police bothered them. Alice was sure of herself - nothing went farther than that - and Heero let himself out onto that curb while she waved good-bye. But in the meantime between the initial good-byes and his feet on the sidewalk of that curb stood a moment rendered by the calligraphy pen of Kangpi herself - a terrible, private, vulnerable moment.
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Please, please, please review. More than that - thank you for waiting, and being so patient. It's been difficult, here. - Becca-W