“To us.”
“Yes, to us!”
The glasses rose before they clinked together. This evening, the cocktails kept coming.
Tess and her companions had met at the Red Light to celebrate their victory. They had established a new record. Their perfect run was now inscribed in letters of gold in the agency’s annals.
“Hell, I thought we’d never pull it off,” said Tess as she set down her glass.
She’d drunk too much and she knew it, but it was so good to chill out. She felt light-headed, euphoric, like a kid who’d just won a medal in a sporting event.
“You guys really rocked,” she continued. “And the girls too.” She looked over at Dominika. “Not forgetting…” she turned toward Rr’naal, “the aliens!”
She burst out laughing. The others had never seen her like this. She raised an arm to hail a waiter. “Hey, innkeeper, we’ll have another round!”
James looked at the waiter, wagging his finger negatively.
“Thank you, but we’re fine here,” he said.
“Huh? But why?” protested Tess.
“You’ve had enough,” Dominika grumbled.
Tess turned to the Ganymedian. Always a good sport, Rr’naal usually gave her his unreserved support.
“They’re right,” the extraterrestrial said in an apologetic tone.
“No, but just listen to yourselves! What a bunch of party poopers!”
She pointed at James before turning toward the two others. “Coming from him, I’m not surprised… But from you two?”
Dominika stood up. Her hand closed on Tess’s arm. Her grip was gentle but firm. “Come on, I’ll walk you back to your cabin.”
“But… I want to have fun tonight!”
“We’ll have some fun another time…”
“Damn, as buzzkills go, you guys really take the cake!”
“We need to get up early tomorrow,” Rr’naal pleaded. “Just because we succeeded in doing a no-fault run today doesn’t mean the agency is going to allow us a holiday any time soon.”
Tess hiccupped and looked like she was about to throw up, but instead said in disgust, “Just look at you three! Like you’re attending a funeral. We aced it today!”
“And now we have a reputation to maintain,” said James. “Go on, Dominika, take her back to her room… In any case, we’ll be leaving soon too.”
He tapped his index finger against his almost empty glass.
“I can manage on my own!” Tess bellowed.
She knocked into the table as she suddenly stood up. The glasses teetered without tipping over, but Tess was staggering dangerously. Dominika caught her before she fell to one side.
“Whoa!” she said. “Easy there!”
Tess freed herself from the other woman’s grasp. “I’ll make it, damn it. I’m OK…”
She headed off in the direction of the exit. Dominika immediately went after her. As every night, the dance floor was crowded and the music deafening. The club’s customers parted before Tess, who advanced with her head down and fists clenched, looking ornery. From time to time, one of the dancers gave her a congratulatory thumbs up. Others applauded as she passed or patted her on the shoulder. News of the “perfect run” had made the rounds of the station in a few hours, and the members of Tess’s team now enjoyed the status of local heroes. Missions successfully completed on the very first try were rare; they could be counted on the fingers of two (human) hands…
Dominika was not far behind her friend. She also received signs of admiration, to which she responded with an almost embarrassed smile, as Tess continued to barge through the crowd, her jaws clenched. She picked up the pace in the hope of shaking off her teammate, but the Russian hung on her tail.
“Leave me alone!” Tess yelled over the music. “I don’t need a nanny. I told you I could look after myself!”
“I’m not so sure of that…”
The two women emerged from the club. Dominika followed Tess to a bank of elevators. They got into the first cabin available. Dominika pressed the touchscreen. They both lived on the twelfth level. There was complete silence except for the quiet vibrato of the elevator. Then, suddenly, the Russian pressed halt.
“Wha–?” said Tess, surprised.
Her shock went up a notch when her colleague pressed her up against the wall and placed her lips against Tess’s. For a moment, Tess couldn’t believe this was really happening. She felt Dominika’s tongue slipping between her teeth and turning around in her mouth. Tess’s head was turning too. She was on the point of letting herself be carried away by this mad waltz, but–
“No!” With a sudden start, she pushed her friend away. “What’s gotten into you? Are you mad?”
Dominika was short of breath. She had trouble meeting Tess’s gaze and looked down. “Sorry… It’s… I… It’s just that I’ve been wanting to do that for a long time.”
Tess was stunned. She didn’t know what to think. Especially since, as surprising as it had been, the kiss had not been unpleasant. Far from it.
God, what’s happening to me? Tess thought.
The world around her was humming and it wasn’t coming from the elevator, which was still not moving. The beating of her heart made her veins quiver. She had never been especially attracted to girls. At least consciously. But being kissed… Arms embracing you… Holding someone tight… It was good to feel free of constraints and to be available. How long had it been since that had happened? She searched her memories and had a flashback. She saw herself with her last boyfriend. Homeless like her, a rather good-looking kid. His difficult life had not yet damaged him much, physically speaking. His hygiene left something to be desired, and their couplings were hurried, fleeting, and frankly, rarely satisfactory. But it had been better than nothing.
Dominika looked pale.
“Excuse me,” she mumbled. “It won’t happen again.”
She was about to release the elevator, when Tess intercepted her hand halfway to the touchscreen.
What am I doing?
Tess recalled reading an article in a women’s magazine claiming that “ninety percent of people are bisexual, but most of them prefer to ignore the fact.” She remembered snorting derisively, sure of her choices, her tastes, her orientation.
But now…
Her heart was pounding furiously. Her body seemed to be boiling, just like her brain. The atmosphere within the elevator cabin was saturated with pheromones.
She sensed she was doing something stupid. She knew it for sure.
But it did not stop her from kissing Dominika squarely on the mouth.
The next morning, waking was difficult (to say the least), due to Tess’s hangover.
She had a headache, of course, which throbbed painfully in her temples. It reminded her of the atrocious migraines suffered by Tess’s first receptacle, on Hitler’s train. Plus the disagreeable sensation that her palate was covered by a doormat.
But that wasn’t all.
Tess looked at the woman still asleep beside her in the bed.
The woman!
When she had opened her eyes, she couldn’t remember anything, or at least not very much: the Red Light, the cocktails, the beginning of an argument with her friends…
But after that, there was a fog, a black hole, or rather a “whiteout,” like when the minds of agents found themselves together in the ether, between two runs, accompanied by Bob’s voice, often raised in anger…
Then her memory started to return in bits and pieces, entwined like the two bodies making love. The images hammered at the doors of her skull, synchronized with the jabs of her headache.
Goddammit…
Her thoughts fanned her pain like the bellows of a forge.
She looked around the room. Items of feminine clothing were scattered on the floor made of plastec, or solido, or some other damn material of the future. A metallic skirt, T-shirts, panties too… The way in which these clothes had been discarded clearly indicated the urgency, the fever that had devoured their owners.
Tess dredged up the courage to turn back to Dominika, and her gaze landed like a caress upon the sleeping body, half-hidden by the sheet.
They had made love for a good part of the night.
And it had been good!
So why had this liberating sensation now been replaced by a growing awkwardness, not to say shame?
Dominika opened an eye.
‘Hi…”
“Hi.”
The Russian woman sat up, venturing a timid smile. She touched her finger to her temple while pointing her chin toward Tess. “Head hurts, huh?”
“Yeah. Pretty bad…”
A silence fell, betraying the women’s unease.
“Are you having regrets?” asked Dominika.
“What?”
“About last night…”
“Oh, that? No, it’s just…”
Tess left her sentence dangling. She felt idiotic. And embarrassed. And upset.
“‘That?’” repeated Dominika in a wounded tone.
Visibly, “that” was of some importance to her.
Tess stood up, gathered her clothes, and started to get dressed in an attempt to regain a sense of dignity.
“I’m afraid that this will complicate everything,” she said. “You know their stupid regulations, don’t you?” The agency did not forbid relationships between teammates, but it frowned upon them heavily. “Mixing work and… and other stuff. I don’t know if it’s a good idea.”
“Yes, of course,” nodded Dominika.
Her timid smile upon waking had faded to the point of vanishing completely. She was obviously feeling the blow. It was troubling to see this woman who was ordinarily so strong suddenly become so vulnerable. She was as white as the sheet that partially covered her.
“I’m going to leave now,” said Dominika, rising from the bed to collect her own clothes. “In any case, we have training this morning, right?”
“Yeah.”
The words were hurried, the gestures clumsy. The two women avoided brushing against one another, much less any actual touching. Tess was angry at herself for being so cold and hard. She felt contemptible and hated herself.
“We’ll keep this to ourselves, right?” she asked.
“Yes, of course. No problem.”
It was what one said in such circumstances, between consenting adults, acknowledging mistakes and accepting the consequences without complaint.
Except that Dominika, the big woman, the proud Russian, the former sniper, and nemesis of the Nazis, was standing there with eyes glistening a little too brightly.
She left the room without saying another word. Tess’s heart felt squeezed by her feeling of guilt. But right now, she wanted only one thing: the burning spray of a steaming shower.
And an aspirin for her headache.