Once in a Lifetime
See disclaimer in Part 1
Nausea was a clenched fist in Lisa's abdomen when she took her first blank, groggy blinks of light that morning.
Feeling the roll and surge of her stomach, she thought bleakly, Not again, and wriggled from beneath her still-sleeping client to the wastebasket in the corner of the bare room.
Black thoughts festered in her still-murky mind as she retched and choked. This had to be the third time that week that she'd awakened to an unexplainable feeling of sickness; sometimes it happened during the day, too. Now what? It wasn't enough that she'd lost everything and now lived the most despicable life possible, but she was getting sick as well? That was just all she needed.
"Are you alright?"
The unfamiliar voice first made her flinch, but she relaxed when she realized that it must be her client. She'd wakened him. More fun.
She flinched again as his hands found her shoulders, steadying her, and pulled back her hair from her face. "Have you been drinking?"
Lisa gave him an evil look from behind the glaze of loss, then heaved again.
"Right..." Awkwardly, he shrugged; though she wasn't looking, she could feel his movement. "Ah. I'm... Colin Byrne. I'm visiting my cousin here from Europe."
So he was a foreigner. Well, his Japanese couldn't be faulted. "Lisa Heartbreaker," she replied shallowly, before she had to duck over the wastebasket again.
"Listen, if there's something you need..." Colin Byrne said hesitantly, letting the sentence trail.
"No," Lisa rasped, trying to force the bile back down her throat.
"Lie down," the European visitor insisted, leading her back to the bed and recovering his boxer shorts along the way. "I'll go see if I can get you help..."
"No," Lisa protested weakly, then swallowed hard. Colin Byrne was already out of the room.
Damn.
How much worse could this morning get?
---
Apparently far worse, she discovered as an angry Fuuko slammed into the room.
The woman was alone, thank the gods that Lisa had lost faith in. Apparently Mr. Colin Byrne had taken his holier-than-thou self off. But just one of Fuuko was bad enough.
Nailing Lisa with a glare far more evil than any she'd been nailed with for quite some time, she waved a rectangular white box beneath the black-haired woman's nose. Although it was trembling along with Fuuko in her rage, Lisa could still read the print along the side. It said PREGNANCY TEST.
"How long have you been having morning sickness?" Fuuko demanded.
"It's... just a stomach cold..." Lisa said softly, but Fuuko glowered and she fell silent, knowing it was no use.
"Stomach flu, my ass. If it was stomach flu, you would be too incapacitated to work! Don't you know what a CONDOM is for! The kami give me patience, girl, you are a piece of work and a half!"
Lisa gave Fuuko a look that stated quite firmly that she did not go against company policy, thank you very much. All customers were handed condoms when they walked in, just in case they wanted to hire a dancer out afterwards.
"Have you been having unprotected sex lately, then?"
Lisa stared. What in the world was Fuuko thinking? It wasn't as if she had a personal life at all... she never even left the...
Oh.
Fuuko was asking about before.
Come to think of it, neither she nor Kaze had used any protection.
So yes, she'd had unprotected sex "lately".
She'd had a lot of unprotected sex "lately".
Seeing the look on Lisa's normally apathic face, Fuuko held out the test. "You go and do this right this minute, and I want to see it when you're done. And I mean now. This is important."
Knowing there would be no getting out of this, Lisa sighed, took the thin cardboard box between two fingers, and trudged off to the nearest bathroom.
Once your life started going down the drain, it never seemed to stop.
---
Just thinking about the little red dot made her want to die.
Fuuko had commiserated, told her that she'd have a maternity leave, of course. But a leave to go where? To do what?
The only income she had was brought in by selling her own body. And if she couldn't do that...
Then she would be right back where she'd started, roaming the streets without any idea as to where to go or what to do.
At first she had thought she would abort the baby, but...
Just thinking of Kaze had made her decide against it. This human life forming inside her was all she would have of him now. How could she not want, need, to keep it? She would do her best, try to do right by him.
She would fail, but she would try.
She could only hope that she would have Fuuko's help with her in this as well.
Two months ago, it was Fuuko who had found her, wandering the streets, a frail, starving waif in such a state of despair that she had seemed only inches from death. It was Fuuko who had moulded the broken soul of Lisa Pacifist into the tougher, less emotional shell of Lisa Heartbreaker, Fuuko who had brought her into the field of prostitution. Fuuko was the reason she was alive.
A meager life it was, but she was alive.
Without Fuuko's guidance, Kaze's loss would surely have killed her.
What with Kaze's battle-dependent nature, she should've known it would be inevitable, but the truth was, she herself had come to depend on him. She trusted him. She ached for him. At first she had tried to tell herself that it was just the sex, but after the first few weeks, she'd broken down and admitted it: She loved him. And he had sacrificed himself, he had died, right in front of her.
The resulting burst of energy had somehow propelled her back to the streets of Sadogashima, where she lived out her bleak existence now.
As for the others, who knew? Ai and Yu, their parents... perhaps they'd gotten out of Wonderland, perhaps not. The members of the Comodeen had all been murdered by Chaos, before they'd been captured; little Lou was dead, had died in her arms. Brave, gentle, tragic Makenshi had met his horrific fate with Kaze, right in the end of everything.
Almost everyone was dead.
And the Hayakawas? Even if they'd made it back, they wouldn't recognize her anymore. Lisa Pacifist was long gone... yet another victim in the battle against Chaos.
So here she was, a whore in a shabby room, nothing to her name but Kaze's silver earring, pregnant, almost penniless, wanting to break down and sob but completely unable, lost to the world.
The knock at her door startled her, but she rasped "come in" anyway.
Fuuko peeked inside. "You have a client tonight," she said, sounding amused. "Apparently you made a great hit with him before. A Mr. Colin Byrne bought you out again."
The foreigner, features blurred as always, headed in meekly; Fuuko closed the door behind him.
"Hello," he said awkwardly.
She simply stared at him, nonplussed.
"I was a little concerned for you," he continued. "Are you really sure you're al--"
Sighing, Lisa swung herself up, yanked off her shirt, and walked up to him, yanking the fly of his pants open when they were nose-to-nose.
"You're serious about this, aren't you?" he asked, laughing nervously as her blank eyes roved over his face.
"It would cost me my job," she stated simply.
"Alright, alright, we'll talk later," he said, clearly uneasy with where her hands were going.
As he took her to the bed, the images came again, vivid and lifelike as ever.
On the second night, as Miles was down in the engine room performing a round of all-night maintenance with Cid and some of the others, Kaze came to her.
He was a masterful lover, seeming to know every nuance of her body even better than she did. The feel of his lips and tongue on her throat and breasts never failed to make her squirm with pleasure. And he clearly wanted her as badly as she did him. The rush of his breath, the rapid rise and fall of his ribcage as he loved her told her that much, and her heart soared with bliss when he was inside her.
They slept entwined beneath the soiled sheets of her bed, his arm tight around her shoulders as hers were around him, her nose buried in his hair, the stains of his semen drying on her thighs. Somehow, he managed to be back in the main hall before Miles arrived. Lisa offered to do the laundry that day, to make sure the others wouldn't find out.
After that, they would meet as they could. If Miles was in her room, Lisa would go to him, and they would make love in the openness of the empty chamber, their only audience the schools of bright bizarre fish that populated Wonderland's oceans. If not, Kaze would come for her, and they would explore each other's bodies in the warm darkness between the innocent white sheets of her bed.
As she had found out quite by mistake on their first night together, Kaze was extraordinarily sensitive about the Magun. He could feel through its metal, it seemed, just as easily as he could feel through his own skin; his reactions when she touched it were wide and varied. If he was in a "romantic" mood, his response was almost always heavy, near-painful arousal; if not, he could possibly shy away, closing himself off, hiding behind his emotionless shell. It always amazed her how he trembled when she touched him--she could feel the gravity of it, and it made her heart glow with warmth; by letting her do so, he was placing himself in her hands, showing almost reluctantly how he trusted her.
The Magun might be the source of his inexorable strength in battle, but when they were in bed together, it was his greatest weakness. She knew it as well as he did, and didn't exploit it; rather, she tried to use it to please him, gently grazing her fingertips along the strangely warm metal, relishing the uncontrollable shaking of his body and the low, almost whimpering moans her actions drew.
Once they had wordlessly worked out their erratic routine and adjusted to it, Lisa found an ease, a comfort in their heated coupling. No matter what the pains of the day brought, Kaze would be there for her in the darkness, waiting.
About a week after they had first stumbled into their relationship, Lisa found herself telling him things she had never been able to tell anyone before.
She had no idea what made him so easy to talk to. She had no idea why she had begun to speak softly to him through the silken blackness of midnight; she only knew that something about the eternal blue of his patient, understanding cerulean eyes continued to encourage her. Once the dam broke, there was no holding back, either.
She didn't have to smile around him. Somehow, she knew--she just didn't need to hide.
And so, she could tell him. She could tell him why she had to pretend.
He just watched her in silent sympathy, held her as it all came undone. And as she sobbed into the firmness of his chest, she felt his chin come to rest against the top of her head, felt his grip on her shift to become more supportive, tighter without being painful.
He made efforts on her behalf, even though by now she was used to his silence. Eventually, she found the courage to ask him the questions she had always wanted the answers to.
"Where did you get this?"
Gently, she tapped the dangling silver droplet at his left earlobe.
Her playfulness evaporated as his eyes darkened and his grip on her tightened.
"My sister." He would not meet her gaze. "Each of us had one."
"What happened to her?" she asked softly, pressing her cheek to his.
"Died." A blunt but husky whisper, saturated with pain. "Long ago."
And several nights later, when the waiting had become too much for her: "Why do you hate Makenshi so much?"
A pause; then he replied. "I think... he killed my sister."
Shock; nestling closer, she probed more deeply. "You think?"
"Can't remember it all. But... he was the one..."
"So, why say you think, then?"
Another pause. "Sometimes... the way he speaks to me..." Kaze fell silent again; Lisa let him retreat, knowing he would tell her more when he needed to.
Some nights, there would be no speech; he would come in a rush, then collapse into her arms, shaking violently, silent tears running down his face. She never knew why--she never asked. She held him, and kissed the shining tracks, trying to ease the silent sobs that were so much a part of Kaze's mystery.
Perhaps she reminded him of someone he'd known.
Before she knew it, she was in love with him.
"You're beautiful."
It was Colin Byrne's voice, so she knew the waking dream had ended.
"The other woman... Fuuko, is it... she told me you were having a hard time."
Lisa didn't answer. Trust Fuuko to spill to a stranger who seemed worried if she thought it might prod her into action. Typical.
"And if... you know, you need to get out of this place. You should come with me. I can give you a life... a place where you don't need to sell yourself to survive..."
She couldn't believe what she was hearing.
"You don't need to give me an answer right away. I'll come back tomorrow, to give you time to think. I mean..."
So this was Fuuko's brilliant plan to get her somewhere to go on maternity leave.
To live with a complete and total stranger.
Wonderful.
Sighing as she listened to Colin Byrne babbling, Lisa privately wished for the millionth time that day that the rest of her had died along with Lisa Pacifist two months ago.
(TBC)