Chapter Text
("Do you ever imagine your life without me in it?")
A lump of crushed eggs, avocado, and toast forms at the back of Carol's throat, shoved down her stomach with a wave of bitter orange. She opens her jaw wide and takes a bigger bite of the improvised sandwich.
"So, what is next on your grand list of adventures?"
"Hm, I'll probably stick around some more, move my stuff out of your… royal chambers." Carol studies the remaining half of her breakfast, assesses the color of the juice, ignores the paused chewing punctuating their shared silence. "I thought I could join your next survivor Zoom meeting from here, sit next to you while you figure out a way to make the others pick an apple or kill a fucking spider."
Koumba clears his throat. "I would have to mention this change of plans to our friends, but I'm sure if you were to show some... progress in your attitude toward the rest of humanity, they could be open to adding you to the list of guests."
"A bunch of brainwashed aliens are not what I'd call humanity, but-" Carol swallows down a sigh, nods as if shaking her head will blur the nightmare, magic-wand it into a dream. "Thanks. For pleading my case."
The orange juice makes her a little sick, so fresh the pulp gets stuck between her teeth and forms a barrier at the back of her throat. She scans the counter in search of water, notices the eyes avoiding her side of the table.
"Carol, if I may be honest with you..."
"Go on, have fun doing it."
"Unless you find a way to get the others to forgive you and come back, the chances of that happening are, well, rather low."
Molars dig into her tongue. "How low?"
"No chance low?" he forces through his teeth. "I have made great friends in them, true friends, even, that refuse to come back because of your presence, and I do very poorly with isolation. I do not wish to remain alone in such a beautiful, lively city like Vegas. Call me dependent if you will."
Not her preferred word choice, but Carol must thank her body for its hold on her mouth, keeping her from speaking yet another insult to the last human accessible without alien intervention. If she is to save the world, Carol thinks, she must start by convincing the world - and its twelve other survivors - that it needs saving. Clearly, cooperating has yielded them more information than her little detective escapades. This may be her last chance. This may be her only choice.
"So, what, do you suggest I kneel outside and scream at the sky for the aliens to forgive me and fly their spaceships back to your front step?"
Not even her body could siphon the sarcasm out of her voice, this time.
"I'm sure a sorry please come back will be enough."
Carol abandons her breakfast. The crumbs on her plate drift with her sigh.
-
"Hello, Carol. This is a recording. At the tone, you can leave a message to request anything you might need. We'll do our best to provide it. Our feelings for you haven't changed, Carol. But after everything that's happened, we just need a little space."
The beep bounces off the walls, hits the marble toilet, tickles the crystals hanging off the chandelier, and lands like an arrow thrown without aim. Carol doesn't have to do this.
("The others miss you, Carol. They don't want to be away, they're just waiting for a sign that you're willing to accept them for who they are.")
She picks up the phone from the toilet seat and glares at the ceiling.
"Hey, mhm, it's me, as you probably already know. Do you have mics in here? God, I hope not."
What is a little hurt pride in the face of a global extinction? As much as she likes to pretend otherwise, she herself does not do very well with isolation. The last week has proved it. The last forty years of her existence have done more than prove it.
"Anyway, I... I meant to say sorry. For what happened. Stealing Zosia from her hospital room and making all of you - cry, upset, whatever you felt. And also for the grenade thing, but we both know you and I share the burden there." This is not a good apology, but it is on track to become her greatest. Carol has never been good at these. Probably because no one's ever taught her to apologize when she was old enough to collect fashion magazines and blush through lingerie boutiques, but too young to be treated like a person with feelings. "I can't promise not to do it again, the anger thing is a little - no, a lot justified, in my opinion. But I'll make an effort. Now that we've established you can't turn me into one of you, I guess we're gonna have to live together."
("Zosia misses you.")
"So, please, come back. Just - come back."
-
We missed you, Carol, the tower reads.
She doesn't glance at her watch, but she's willing to bet the city comes back to life no more than a hundred and twenty heartbeats after her call. Cars crawl through an empty Vegas, slot machines click their antennas in excitement, ice cubes shake in amber traps. Koumba opens his arms to her. A line of sparkling women rushes by her shoulder to fill his embrace.
Her suitcase gets thrown to the ground, her gun thrown over her shoulder. A shadow covers the sun, burns in the stead of her flesh. Zosia does not smile until their eyes have met.
(Carol had not noticed the poisonous air of silence until life swirled back in to drown the world.)
-
Embarking on high blood pressure missions to save the world turns out to be an easier fit for Carol than gaining social skills to coax it into letting her save humanity overnight.
With the tolerance of her presence relying entirely on Koumba trusting her not to send the others back into hiding and cowering at the mere sight of her, Carol understands she cannot perform a repeat experience of mixing drugs with anger, or grab the first doll she passes in the hallway to shake them into disconnecting from outer space. Applying that rationale is where the limits emerge, popping like glass barriers to reflect her own promise to herself ahead of making many mistakes.
Ignoring them is as impossible as ignoring the world ending before her eyes, and a tad bit harder than ignoring the itch tingling in her fingers, jerking as if crawling into the dirt keeping her wife hidden from the sky. Carol chooses to observe them from afar, follows a path of beeping machines to cover her footsteps, presses her nose to the window to watch them blissfully unaware of her curiosity, all the way up from the smallest room one can find on the twentieth floor of a Vegas hotel. She learns little, jots down a lot in an improvised notebook of paper towels.
The others communicate entirely wordlessly, except for the occasional greeting wave. Pairs are made up, separated, and made up again into new groups regardless of a specific rhythm or obvious preference. Whether fixing a failing pool light under crackling heat or dancing to elevator music, the same mask covers their faces unless prompted otherwise - empty of life, full of thoughts.
Zosia is never far, ahead rather than behind: filling an empty bottle at the crystal mermaid water fountain right as Carol's throat itched in thirst; pulling a lever right when the whiskey pushed her to try the shiniest slot machine of the lot; watching the tiny Eiffel tower as Carol recalled her latest Paris book-signing, somehow missing the refreshing lackluster excitement of the French as they spelled out names for her to write. Carol doesn't ever really look at her.
(Her eyes simply get dragged to Zosia on their own, and she shoves her head away every time she catches those traitors betraying the human race for a pretty face.)
Koumba is a different entity entirely.
"We're having a party at the Caesars tonight, Céline was free for a special show. Will you be joining us?"
"I don't know, is that one going to end in another orgy, or was that just the plan for the first two?"
Koumba laughs, taking her insults for unserious humor. She doesn't dare correct him. "You really need to let yourself get surprised more, Carol."
Carol likes him as much as one likes their least favorite surviving cat: it’s always shitting in the middle of the garage and got every neighborhood pet pregnant in the span of a year, but he's all that's left, and he's never been a mean biter anyway.
They share one meal a day if she's secure enough in her ability not to throw all her efforts out the window at the sight of his parading harem; one meal every three days once she learns to abide by that rule religiously. Koumba has a few redeeming qualities, among which are his patience and ability to turn Carol down without stomping on her chest, sharp little kicks softened by his genuine regrets.
Carol thinks she could go on like this for a while longer.
(Carol thinks about Helen a lot less in Vegas. It must be the lights, red and orange and white. Never brown, like soil, or pathetic wet eyes.)
-
Room 250 becomes a sanctuary.
The meager change of clothes she'd brought in from Albuquerque is rotated every two days, plaid shirts hugging a chair and white sneakers never planted at the same angle by the couch. Carol hates the big windows, keeps all the curtains closed except for one natural light source, shifts into a reinvigorated vampire after every dark nap. She's alone most of the time, but never quite lonely. She's alone in the morning, especially, trusting coffee to appease her nightmares, convince their traces to disappear.
That is, until a week into her stay, when knocking stops her from pressing the on button of the coffee machine.
"Who's there?"
"Carol, hi. It's your dear friend, Koumba."
The two locks turn. Koumba shakes his palms in a festive greeting, one step away from the doorframe. "What do you want?"
"Only your presence, if you would honor me with it."
Carol glances down at her pajamas: silk, midnight blue, rougher than the day she retrieved them from a perfectly packaged wrap with starred pines. "You're gonna have to tell me more to get me out of here so early."
"I thought we could share breakfast in my room," he announces, proud if not a little jumpy. "I cooked. Just like last time."
Carol makes sure to grab a fluffy hotel robe before following him to the elevator, a must to rise ten floors above her own. Hands shoved in the robe's pockets, Carol avoids their metallic reflection, answers with bitter pleasantries and half-hearted questions at Koumba's inquiries about her stay in Vegas.
"I know the city is a little... too much. But it has its charm, I assure you. You must go to Mandalay Bay if you haven't already, get a swim in." The doors split open, marble opening to marble. "We're not planning to go this week, if you truly want the full experience, all alone in the water."
"That's - thanks, I'll think about checking it out. Soon."
"I recommend going at night. What do Americans call it? Skinny dipping. Yes, that's fun."
"Sure." Carol cannot contain a grimace from splitting her face into four distinct shapes. "Just, is this breakfast affair a group thing as well, or is that just the two of us?"
"Oh, no," Koumba smiles, opens the way for Carol, and motions for her to pass before him into the room she used as a temporary bedroom upon her arrival. "Just the two of us. And Zosia."
"Hello, Carol. We hope you slept well. Is the hotel to your liking?"
Carol stops so abruptly that she nearly loses a slipper.
And Zosia.
Not any Zosia. The same smile, so soft it provokes her heart into stronger beats, dries her tongue of every speck of saliva, empties the creases her teeth dig into her mouth. The same hair, but different; strands broken from the mass, see-through curtains before her eyes, caught by the window light. The same posture, tall legs like deadly needles, hands clasped and loose, pressing into the throbbing blue of a silk robe. A sash of the same color hugs her hips, the same pigments in Carol's eyes. The unsettling sight of a Zosia who's clearly just gotten out of bed.
In Koumba's suite.
(Carol doesn’t punish her eyes for looking, this time.)
"What's she doing here?"
Plates click over her shoulder. Carol wonders if she could get her hand on a knife before that, too, is pulled out of her reach.
"I thought you would be happy to see your dear companion, so I invited her."
"You thought I'd be happy to see the creepy lady I almost killed that keeps following me around, so you what? Graciously offered her to join one of your little pool parties? How selfless of you. Fucking generous, really."
"We have shared several happy moments with Mr. Diabaté, yes."
Carol nods, lips pursed. That knife looks more appealing by the second, if only Carol could figure out what to do with a weapon; who to aim for if not herself. She has shocking ease imagining it unfolding: Zosia, eager to please, joining the group of blonde sheep that follows after him, standing out from the flock with her brown hair and brown eyes, letting herself be carried into bed - worse, walking there herself, one leg after the other, one step further from Carol every second.
"That's - really good to hear. I'm so glad you interrupted my morning yoga for this."
Koumba pauses in his plating of scrambled eggs. "You do yoga in the morning?"
"I do yoga, drink some of that grass-looking tea, and even throw in some seeds in my zero percent sugar yogurt. Something's not right with that?"
"No, I suppose I am just a little surprised," he chuckles, emptying the pan. "Zosia, I know you're not supposed to eat these, so I made you a salad."
Carol had forgotten about the vegetarian-with-a-human-exception diet. "Happy to see you two have bonded so well."
"Oh, quit it, Carol. Zosia didn't join in on the fun last night. She was only here to make sure we didn't set fire to the pool. I've discovered it is more likely to happen than you think." Koumba brushes her off, handing them both a fork. Zosia picks it with endless grace, sits on the stool effortlessly, and Carol is left to wonder if her perfume is the natural scent of her skin or some luxury soap Koumba must have requested for his suite. "She slept in one of the rooms we hadn't... tried just yet. Don't worry, Carol, I know how you feel about sharing. It isn't for you. It is only for me."
"Zosia's free to do whatever she wants." Carol stabs her breakfast, startles even herself with the sound. "It's not for me to decide what she does with her own time, especially if she - if you want to have... fun with him."
"We would also like to spend time with you, Carol."
Egg-stuffed cheeks chew harder. "I'm not sure that'd be quite as interesting as whatever Koumba there is offering."
Zosia smiles over her smile, lets it reach her eyes. "We believe otherwise."
Carol nods, picking docility instead of another fight. Eager to get back to her room, far away from the couple of lovebirds who apparently understand each other with mere looks of complicity, she reaches for the glass Koumba filled with juice. Apple, this time, she can only guess, as her hand misses the glass altogether and sends it tumbling to the floor.
"Fuck - shit."
Juice drips off the counter and forms a puddle around the broken glass. Carol wonders if this will have the reverse effect of breaking a mirror and end her years of bad luck.
"Oops," Koumba chuckles.
Naked feet expertly avoid the mess, and Zosia comes back with paper towels and a brand-new, unused sponge. "It's alright, Carol. Motion tends to be difficult in the morning, especially if you do not tend to get enough sleep."
"I can take care of it."
Zosia shakes her head, kneels by her stool, and picks the glass pieces carefully. "We'd rather do it ourselves," she insists, shaking her head to free her eyes from the strands of silky brown caressing her face.
The sash of her robe soaks in apple juice, sliding off her waist in need of retying. Bent over at her feet, the fabric of her nightgown, virgin white, pressed into tan skin, is pulled forward by what Carol assumes must be her eyes, ruling out entirely the concept of gravity. Zosia drags the towels in the mess, drags herself forward until the shadows of her chest attract light from the chandelier, nipples a softer brown even than her eyes-
Koumba clears his throat and throws Carol an amused wink.
"Here,” she winces, gets off her own stool, “let me get it, just - go back to your human salad."
Zosia pulls back, kneels on her ankles. "Of course, Carol. We'll get rid of the glass for you."
Carol takes the space Zosia abandons in search of a trashcan only once it has been deserted. Her perfume lingers in her nostrils. An image sears its contours into her brain. Her hand jerks around the sponge as if holding flesh, reaching for the short-lived memory.
Koumba laughs. "What a wonderful morning this has been."
-
Carol walks out with Zosia.
"Do you not have a room in this place?"
Zosia smiles, happy to even be talked to. "We go where we are wanted, Carol."
"Right."
"Would you like us to get a room of our own in this hotel?"
Carol shrugs. "I mean, that sounds better than hoping Koumba won't be relocating his next strip-poker night in your current bed, so... sure."
Zosia sways a little, hips first, hands clasped in front of her. The sash of her robe dances with her waist, and Carol’s hands twitch by her sides - imagine holding it like a leash, or weaving the silk under her flesh.
"Okay."
-
Carol had never been to a beach before Helen.
Her first book tour was improvised in the few independent libraries that replied to her shaky emails, her writing skills infinitely better deposited on lone paper than directed at another person. Helen only took over as her manager after the success of the first book, unexpected by the publishing house, absolutely unbelievable to Carol's low self-esteem. That one took them around the country, in the cities Carol once dreamed of breathing in, where all can exist, and none can be unique; in the shitty hotels she's grown fond of, belonging to another life, innocent at best, unaware at worst.
One had a direct view of the sea, champagne leaking on the terrace, and windows blurred from panting heat.
(Carol had not been much before Helen, really.)
The beaches here are not real; nothing is anymore, not even the hunger that occasionally attempts to rumble in the pits of her stomach. When Carol bends her knees to dive into the pool, she wonders if her head will meet blue-painted concrete in place of water; takes the jump anyway and breathes fifty yards later.
Her muscles ache after the first lap, threaten to slide off her bones after the second, and cramp into petrified flesh after the last. She hasn't felt so good in two weeks.
A tall man wearing uncomfortably tight swimming shorts waves her by when she walks past the now-occupied beach area, dripping on the ground, towels left in her room. "We hope you enjoy the swimming facilities, Carol."
It doesn't last, and the next morning, Carol finds herself chasing the high again.
She's never been one for group sports. Got into golf because of Helen and never looked back, beating her wife at her own game. Perhaps that's where her love for swimming comes from, chasing after her shadow in the pool, tapping her limits with strong feet and invisible bruises, plastic sucking her face, more mermaid than man until her lungs beg.
Every day, Carol wakes up, downs coffee, neutralizes her scowl, and jumps. She begins to meet the same people, as if robots, too, have routines of their own: Jacob waves her goodbye, a redhead lady sweeps the sand, a group of five pretend to throw a ball in the air and catch it, smile when they succeed, smile when they lose it. Most days, Koumba stays away, otherwise occupied with exciting activities, and Carol knows her presence here cannot be justified if she does not truly attempt to befriend him, but she finds that it is much easier when they do not share the same timetable.
She gets there so early one morning, the sun forgets to rise.
And that's when Carol sees her through the dripping filter of her goggles. Grace follows her into the water, the diving techniques of Olympic athletes and glistening dolphins fueling her calves. Carol closes her eyes at the splash. Not even a drop of water lands on her side of the pool. She opens them so fast that the wave would have hit her face anyway, watches the shadow fly away, then come back.
Zosia grips the edge of the pool with unsurprising ease, stains the blue with wet brown, inhabits the water with legs waving in the shape of a tail.
"Hello, Carol," she greets, lungs running out of air. The exertion does not show in her smile. Carol wonders what it would take to watch it break into something else, tries to remember what Zosia looked like, bleeding out under her palms. Remembers her tears and swallows a brick of guilt.
"You can have the place to yourself," Carol mutters, pushing her goggles off - realizing what a mistake that is when Zosia takes full shape, one piece swimsuit dipping low down her back, the line of her spine moving like a snake singing to another reptile, her chest hidden against the pool wall. Not that Carol notices any of it.
"Oh, you don't have to leave, Carol. We like being here with you." Zosia only holds herself out of the water with one hand, turning to face Carol. She doesn't swim closer, yet Carol feels the air close in around them - realizes she's the culprit and stops her feet from kicking her into Zosia's orbit. "Would you rather we leave you alone?"
She would rather Zosia be sent away and replaced by that one fan in her book club who thinks being a man in a group of sexually frustrated middle-aged women will erase his lack of facial hair and overall poor hygiene. The only problem with that trail of thoughts, Carol knows, is that all it would take for Zosia's honest smiles, pathetic lack of response to her provocations, unfairly long legs, and beautiful fucking symmetrical face to never appear in her vicinity again is for her to make a simple request.
Wet hair sticks to her shoulders, pulled back to free her ears. Zosia's smile would probably contort into something else if Carol swallowed it with her lips, bit into her neck to watch her skin bloom with human-made markings.
(She knows why she'll never send her away. Begging for Zosia to come back would probably be more humiliating than having to watch her go with a neutral face.)
"No, it’s fine, I was done for today. Take a swim if you want to."
"Do you mind if we do?"
Pulling herself out by the strength of her arms, Carol nearly trips on her way out, like the water doesn't want to let her go, grabbing her ankles and burning her knees on the deck.
"Not at all."
She brews another coffee in her room, tries to counter her jumpiness with more caffeine. Asks room service for a loaf of bread and sinks her teeth into it, slathered with butter that does not at all remind her of the perpetual shine on Zosia's skin. Perhaps her next book should introduce a vampire character, and she'd bleed Raban dry to elope with Lucasia and end this stupid series for good.
Zosia comes back the next day, emerges with the sun just like Carol expected. Carol hallucinates a familiar Hello, Carol while her ears fight off water pressure. She's only completed about two and a half laps, nowhere near what she needs for her mind to disconnect from the pain in her mind, but the idea of sharing water with Zosia feels so intimate her bones vibrate with more than manmade waves.
But Zosia doesn't jump, this time. Carol emerges once to see her spread a towel two loungers away from her own, dips back under water and comes out to spy long legs spread on their entire length, thick black glasses making their way through gentle brown curls, a book resting on burning thighs; sinks, and considers gripping the pool floor until an invisible tide drags her back to the shore.
Curiosity pulls her back to the surface in a deep breath.
"What are you reading?"
Zosia raises her gaze from dry paper. "Book two of The Tides series. We finished the first one yesterday."
Pulled to the edge of the pool, Carol rests on her elbows, feet keeping her floating. "The Tides? You mean, the pirate series?"
"It is more about mermaids, but yes, this one. Do you know it?"
Carol scoffs. "If I know it? Yeah, it's basically a rip-off of mine. Fucking hate that author, Jennyfer Lucifer or some other stupid pen name."
Zosia smiles fondly. "Well, if it's of any relief, Jennyfer did not plagiarize the Wycaro series. She had plans for her first book back in fifth grade, and found her notes during a trip back to her parents' house before moving cities for her graduate studies. You had yet to publish your story back then."
"What? No, I'm sure she copied my stories, and from the first book," Carol insists. "Take Raban's fake eyepatch, and how he fooled the Emperor by burning his pupils blue with snake fire. She basically ripped that off, but changed the snake to a dragon. A dragon, of all fucking things."
"Jennyfer wrote down this idea before you published-"
"So, wait a second, you're telling me you like her books? Since when do you people even read?"
Zosia smiles sheepishly. "We are made up of people with all of the world's tastes. Disliking the book is not exactly in our capacity, but..."
"But?" Carol hurries her to finish her sentence.
"While the series is not plagiarized, Jennyfer herself recognized this was your genre. None of the books in the series, except perhaps this one, came close to yours. The stakes were always too low, and you were always ahead when it came to coming up with creative ideas. Even your prose-"
"She thought that my prose was better?"
Zosia nods, glasses catching the sun and hiding the full brown of her eyes. "She did. And we believe so as well, Carol."
"Right."
That is definitely yet another attempt at pleasing her, Carol thinks, as she watches Zosia go back to the book and turn to the next page. And if that's the case, then it is damn well working.
Her heart pumps blood faster into her system. Carol looks to blame the sun, then realizes she's almost too excited at the idea of her literary enemy acknowledging her superiority. Zosia shifts, raises one leg and lowers another, but all Carol sees is the book, and the glasses that progressively slide down her nose, skin wet with heat.
Helen used to have glasses just like these, about fifteen years ago.
(Carol would always take them off her face when she fell asleep in bed, a book on her lap, some British classic she struggled through not to appear lost at industry dinners, the TV running a reality show with rich people whining about their too small yachts in the background.)
"What's your prescription?"
Carol motions at her eyes when Zosia glances up at her. "Oh, these are just for reading. Our eyes get tired."
(If Carol wants to scream at a woman who wears her dead wife's glasses, is she screaming at her dead wife?)
"Do you want us to take them off, Carol?"
(If Carol wants to fuck the woman who wears her dead wife's glasses and acknowledges her superior prose, is she really dishonoring her memory?)
Carol pushes herself off the edge, freezes her feet's tapping, and lets herself sink.
-
Fingers clutching a pool towel, Carol presses an ear to the wall.
Humming vibrates on the other side, happy chirping noises a bird could only hope to sing through its beak. This is the first sign of her insanity that she is deciding to take seriously. Split against spotless wallpaper, her ear rings without inside sounds, and Carol decides, crazy or not, this is an investigation she must take to its last round.
She abandons the towel on the sofa so her hands are free to knock on her neighbor's door.
"Fucking hundred rooms to choose from and I've got to deal with a fucker thinking they can sing me into-"
Her fist knocks into empty space, quickly filled with a familiar shape that forces her head just a bit higher.
"Good morning, Carol. Are you heading to the pool area?"
The same bright blue robe, so similar in shade to the airplane dress Carol must squint its hallucination out of her eyeballs. Long fingers grip the doorframe, breaching the limits of Zosia's suite to tickle Carol's senses. Silk looks so natural on her frame, one would think the worms spin directly under her flesh, salivating shiny fabric tailored to her skin, draping it across her shoulders to forbid Carol from what she only sees in slurred dreams.
Carol sighs, one short heavy breath. "You're... the neighbor."
Zosia nods, smile carving gentle lines in her cheeks. "You suggested we move into a room of our own. This one fit all of our criteria."
"Your criteria being? Stalking me? Counting down how long I take in the shower for the hot water to run out? Singing me into fucking insanity?"
"No, none of that, although we did wish to be close to you. Was the singing bothering you, Carol? We'll cease immediately."
One thing does not make sense. No, several things make no sense, but one in particular hits Carol: why a being devoid of true humanity would choose to hum random melodies to drink her morning human juice. Art does not matter to these people, preferences do not exist. Unless that is the proof of some form of personality, some fucked up opening in the goo keeping her individuality trapped and docile.
Zosia sings. Zosia reads. Zosia exists.
"No." Carol frowns, abandons the silk to search inside her eyes; finds no worm or dried moth, but a bottomless well. She wonders if tasting Zosia's tears would reveal what hides at the end of it. "No, you're free to sing, just - try to avoid the early mornings. I don't get enough sleep as it is."
Carol licks her lips, and walks away.
-
There is no current in the pool, no wave to drag her around. Carol creates them with her own legs, sitting on the deck, drags them forward and back, forward and back, hits the pool wall and tightens her grip on the wood.
Zosia shifts over her shoulder, the towel wet under her body, water pooling inside of her belly button, the book as intact as a newborn library.
"Would you like some sunscreen, Carol?"
Her foot kicks a little too hard, and the wave crashes before its birth. She shifts to take Zosia in, raised bottle in hand, flushed with heat absorbed directly from the pounding sun. The more she drinks from it, the more Carol looks at her, a doomed sunflower. Her image is slightly altered from how Carol remembered her ten minutes ago, the top straps of her two-piece now hanging from her sides, shoulders bared to her eyes, lying half on her thighs like a stranded sea creature. A beautiful stranded sea creature.
"Your shoulders look a little red, and we advise against a sunburn. Persisting exposition to the sun can produce skin pain and severe swelling, as well as dehydration and confusing headaches." She ends her sentence with a smile, like she isn't describing pure torture Carol is seriously considering. Anything but having to pretend Zosia herself doesn't make her sick.
"Nope. Don't need any."
"Our belief is that you do, Carol."
"Then I don't want it. What do your beliefs say about that?"
Zosia tilts her head, a resigned Virgin Mary. "Okay."
She turns back to the water, decides to get her breathing back to normal - why is her breathing not fucking normal? - before leaving Zosia alone with her alien friends here. Three kicked waves later, Carol starts feeling bad. She has several reasons to feel that way, starting with her dead wife, whom she's abandoned all the way back home for a break in Las Vegas of all places. Hurting the others' feelings should not be on the list; Hurting Zosia's feelings even less. Dread sinks in her chest anyway, like an arrow shot to a mirror, and Carol shifts again, watches Zosia in the corner of an eye, rubbing lotion from the top of her thighs to the tip of her feet.
She clears her throat, and Zosia pauses, hands locked around a calf, to make eye contact.
"Do you need help?" she mumbles under her breath, knee shaking on the deck. "With your back, do you need a hand?"
And Zosia fucking beams, top row of teeth sparkling, hair bobbing with her head as she nods eagerly and reaches for the bottle again. "If you don't mind, we would appreciate it, yes."
Carol isn't going to be awkward about this, she thinks - or repeats, really, trying to manifest the last bits of her sanity - when she abandons the safety of water to reach Zosia's lounger, and jitters with the bottle in hand, undecided between standing there like a decaying tree, sitting on the edge of the lounger and risking contact be made skin-to-skin, or running away to face her regrets and leaving a confused, disappointed Zosia here.
Zosia chooses for her, turning to her stomach and patting a spot next to her hips. "Thank you, Carol. You can sit here for your own comfort."
Her body takes the order, and Carol plops her ass next to Zosia's hips, her back bending in unruly shapes to avoid touching her skin. She realizes, after glancing down at the silver clasp of her swimwear, that touching her skin is the entire fucking point of offering to slather sunscreen on someone's back.
Carol is meticulous about it; it is either that, or letting herself be submerged by the primal need to wrap her arms around Zosia's waist and shove her face into her drying hair. She squirts the sunscreen in one beat, hovers above her back on the next one, and bites two indents into her bottom lip when her palms make contact with sun-kissed skin.
(The last person whose skin she properly touched was her wife's dead body. It wasn't entirely cold, the last drops of life drying in her veins. It wasn’t warm like Zosia.)
Zosia sighs, bares her neck when Carol swipes across her shoulders, flexes her fingers in empty air when Carol follows the silent order, if only to remember this body is alive even if its mind is disconnected from the flesh parting under her thumbs. This is a body that breathes; it exhales when Carol pulls away with shaky hands, inhales when she fails to control her strength and sinks a nail into a rib. This is a body Carol has hurt, a body Carol watched heal. A body that left, and came back to her. A body inhabited by a spirit that feels somewhat familiar; not entirely human, never quite anything else.
The lotion sticks to her palms, skin sticks to the lotion. Zosia shines, two uneven marks left by the straps of her swimwear breaking through the unblemished picture, joined by a lighter patch of ridged skin Carol has placed there, right under her flesh, a dead scar Zosia's back will forever carry. Her chest presses into the lounger, and Carol bites her lips absent-mindedly when Zosia appears to bare herself further for the sun, shifting to the side.
"Is that-" Carol brushes her hands together, wipes the last of the lotion, "-is that good?"
"Yes," Zosia says, voice muffled by her towel, deeper than Carol would remember, would she be capable of remembering anything. "Very good, Carol. Thank you."
(And Zosia keeps saying her name like that. Hello, Carol. Thank you, Carol. Of course, Carol. What must she do to get a Please, Carol, again?)
"Great. Well, there you go. No sunburn for you, hopefully."
Zosia shifts, and the earth moves with her back, new mountain chains piercing through the ground. She presses her other cheek to the lounger and blinks slowly at her. Like a cat. Cats were Helen's thing, but she's sure the slow blinking meant something positive. Thank you for feeding me the same wet food every day during my past three lives, it must say. Or something.
"Can we do something for you, Carol?"
Flushed cheeks, soft lines. Carol wonders if she could come up with an excuse to hold Zosia's face between her palms, press her face to her chest, pull a thigh around her back, trace the white lines on her shoulders with her lips. Remembers she probably doesn't need one, that Zosia would do anything she asks, give her everything she requests - perhaps even what she does not.
"Nope," Carol gulps down the temptation to ask anyway. "I'll be out of your hair."
-
Zosia lingers.
In the casino grand hall, a velvet suit dancing with her steps. Over the horizon, head encircled by an orange sun. On that same lounger, right before Carol hurries away, right before she can ask for sunscreen again.
(On her palms, the lotion sticking to her hands even after a shower. In her bed, the phantom memory of two silk-smooth breasts fulfilled by an abused pillow. All the way to her dreams, where Carol tastes more than she touches, and blinks between her wife’s familiar lips and a woman that should have never come alive.)
-
"Carol, you do consider me a friend, don't you?"
Redirecting her gaze from the three suited men waiting to clear their plates out for the next round, Carol watches Koumba, surprised. She has had too few friends to deliver a thought-out response. What she knows is that the friendships she's written went nothing like this.
"Do you?"
Koumba laughs, wiping his fingers clean on white tissue. It bleeds lobster red. "I would like to, but I fear you're not exactly letting me."
"Does that mean it's still a no for me to join your little Zoom meetings?"
"Yes, that's indeed what it means." Carol slumps in her chair, forces another piece of perfectly-cooked steak, and chews herself into silence. "But I have pleaded your case, and they've been getting more receptive to the idea. I've noted your efforts to share your space with the others, and Zosia tells me you two have been bonding. That was nice to hear."
(Five fingers pressing into bronze, creasing the metal, watching it come alive.)
"Zosia's more tolerable than most people I've had the displeasure of knowing throughout my life, so - she doesn't exactly make it hard," Carol concedes, washing the steak down with a sip of wine. "Except for the smiling thing. Don't you miss when people were mean to you? I think I do."
"I'm sure Zosia could be mean to you if you ask. I managed to make a mean enemy of Amber after I beat her at the last Diabaté Poker Night. I'm just waiting for the right moment to make up with her," he punctuates with a wink. Carol's neutral smile - which is more of a scowl, really - hardens. "Talking about Poker Night, are you free this evening? I know you were busy for the past five ones, but I would really hate for you to leave Vegas without getting a little taste of what it does best."
"Rob people of their savings?"
Koumba laughs, shrugs her off. "Give you the exhilaration of winning."
"If you insist."
"It would please me, let's say. I'm sure our exceptional friends will love hearing about our night of fun."
Carol wears her whitest shirt, her loosest pants, and the single pair of sneakers she packed. She's terrifyingly underdressed, and although this was the purpose, an uncomfortable itch tickles a spot deep in her stomach, punishing her for forgoing wearing one of the dresses she keeps in her events closet.
Koumba sits opposite her, sparkling suit no whiter than his teeth. On both sides are four strangers, each so unique that Carol momentarily forgot they are characters in a big play, pretending to be other people, stealing identities to mask their uniformity.
Carol is rapidly losing.
"Your turn, ma'am."
"Right." Carol reaches for her stack of chips, turns them around to decipher what the color amounts to. Money she could just as easily ask be served to her on a platter instead of putting up with this pretend game. Throws a few forward while trying to remember the rules of poker. "Done."
Koumba laughs in his fist, and Carol supposes humiliating herself in front of the entire world will at least gain her some sympathy with one of the few remaining humans.
"Three cards coming."
Carol is still losing when she sees her, the crowd parting like air making space for sea. It appears Zosia is addicted to a grand entrance, unless her entrances are simply made grand by Carol's ill-placed wishes.
Dark lace covers skin Carol knows more intimately than she should, a triangle of skin freeing subtle collarbones and a straight line she is tempted to follow down to Zosia's belly button. The fabric sweeps across the spotless floor, low heels visible only when the slit parts for a leg, then another, and the intermittent see-through lace erases all of the low scoring cards in Carol's hand to turn them into straight aces.
She has always been more of a suit person, likes the sharp lines and the dominant femininity, the too-big collars and threaded empowerment. Helen was never one for dresses, hated even the thought of going shopping for skirts with Carol before business dinners and charity galas. Zosia isn't dressed for her.
(Zosia is dressed for the one traitor thought she'd had throughout her life, watching other women perform femininity with the ease of breathing, young and yearning for the same blessing, older and yearning for a taste as divine.)
"Ma'am, we're waiting on you."
Zosia comes to stand right behind her chair, doesn't touch her like Koumba gets embraced.
"How is the game, Carol?"
Carol blinks, clears her throat. "I think I made about... minus ten thousand dollars for now."
"Impressive."
Carol turns away from her cards and stares at Zosia with an open mouth. "Was that sarcasm?"
Zosia smiles, picks up Carol's glass, and refills it with a bottle stolen from a passing tray. "Of course not, Carol."
She bets her last chip without a single face card in her hand, hoping to bring an end to this charade. Koumba shakes her hand when she leaves the table, pleased with her. Winning doesn't do much for her if she's the only one to witness it anyway. It may not even be considered winning anymore, like how two dolls held by different hands attached to the same body cannot exist separately.
Her sneakers take her to the bar, drink in hand, and Zosia follows after her, heels punctuating their silence.
"Did you have fun, then?"
The stool requires effort for her to settle on that Zosia bypasses with her height, and those same long legs cross under her nose, parting the fabric like rose petals coaxed into spreading open.
"Get me ten more of those and I might answer that question positively. That, or puke on your nice shoes, I'm not sure yet."
Zosia chuckles, and Carol thinks, new Zosia sound unlocked. She doesn't like that thought much. "We'd rather avoid that. Vomit is rather difficult to clean out of these carpets, especially when induced by alcohol."
"Wow. Maybe go back to the fun facts, it was all a lot less - morbid."
"Sure. What do you want to know about, Carol?"
"Hmm, let me think about that." Carol raises a finger and catches the bartender's attention. She raises another ten minutes later, and another after five, and doesn't need to call on him anymore, her glass perpetually refilled. Zosia doesn't drink, only watches her gulp down every glass, and answers Carol's every question about the world's secrets, except for the one she does not ask.
"Did my first girlfriend really break up with me because she wanted to focus on her mental health, or was there another reason for her abandoning our place?"
Life-altering matters, really.
Zosia hesitates. "Do you truly want to know?"
"I mean, more than seven billion people already do. What's one more person?"
"She was a little... bored, per her feelings at the time. You were very entranced by your writing, and she - she did not find you very available to her. Not emotionally connected."
"Hmm. Makes sense. She used to fall asleep in the middle of sex. And I was truly giving her all I had," Carol sighs, frowning at her drink. "What does that say about me?"
"Well, if it's of any relief to you, none of your other sexual partners had any complaints regarding your performance."
"It isn't. But thank you, Zosia. I'll make sure to add that review to my Goodreads profile." All of it seems so far away: the cycle of planning a book, writing a book, breaking her coffee machine editing the book, turning her life purple to promote the book, forcing Helen to read her reviews out loud while her stomach turned at the sight of her first seven breakfasts post-release. Helen. "What did she think about me?"
"Your first girlfriend?"
Carol shakes her head, stares straight ahead. "Helen. Was I - was I good enough for her? Did she like... did she like what I did for her?"
Sex wasn't at the center of their relationship, but it never strayed far from the limits. Carol knew she could get difficult at times, and while Helen took most of it without flinching, her complaining at times got too personal; her sour mood attracted loud clouds. Apologizing was an acquired talent her parents' education did not raise, and Carol did the next best thing: show her remorse without the need to even open her lips. Well, not to speak, anyway.
She'd severely underestimated how that process of fight-fuck-forget contributed to her daily functioning. Carol has been fighting the world for weeks, shouting her anger at a soundproof wall, and made to feel so terrible about it that there is not one moment in her day where forgetting is an allowed privilege. She'd give a lot to go back and fight with her wife again. She'd give a lot to forget.
Zosia caresses her own thigh, dragging the fabric higher up her leg. Carol knows, because her eyes have drifted there. "We did like it a lot, yes."
Carol looks straight into innocent brown eyes. "What do you mean you did?"
"As we told you, and we apologize if you do not wish to be reminded, Helen's memories are an integral part of us. Her feelings for you are ours. We cannot be separated."
Nausea doesn't heat her throat, but her body warms on the same wave. Zosia looks at her like she's seen everything there is to know about Carol, the people she's let down, the fans she's mocked, the one book she's left unfinished, the coffee she poured murderously down Helen's favorite plant, the car she crushed in a blur, the pills she pretended to down, the baby she's wanted, the babies she's killed, the money she's wasted, the graves she hasn't visited - like she's peered at what blinked under the eyepatch, and wants nothing more than to kiss the scar breaking the pupil apart.
Carol lets her lip go before blood breaks out down her chin. "Does that mean you think you love me? Or, worse - does that mean you've got a stupid crush on me like my wife did before you killed her? Does that mean you want me?"
Zosia inclines her head, bares her neck in offering, hoping Carol will move her bite to real flesh. "Wanting you is as natural to us as breathing, Carol."
Her head moves with her glass, sliding forward on the counter, sliding forward until Zosia's perfume hits her nostrils, clouds her head, fills her mouth with eager saliva. Zosia blinks and smiles. Stares straight ahead into Carol's eyes like Helen always did, kissing with her eyes open, fucking without detaching her attention, and Carol - Carol cannot do this.
"Goddamnit," she groans under her breath, taking her head and her glass back, burning her throat to wash down the phantom feeling of another around her gum.
Zosia doesn't flinch. "What do you feel, Carol?"
"Nothing. Something. It's - I don't want to think about it."
"Avoiding your feelings is not likely to yield positive results."
"Avoiding my feelings is the most sensible thing I could be doing right now."
"What would you be doing otherwise?"
Carol forces her eyes shut as her chin angles itself toward the enchanting voice of the siren. She's not underwater, yet her lungs scream in louder agony. Just like the sun burns what it does not see, Zosia radiates her beauty all the way behind Carol's tightly shut eyelids, transmits her own image right at the center of her brain, pools saliva on Carol's tongue she spreads on her teeth not to drool on the carpet.
Even that proximity must not satisfy them, even living inside of her mind, a parasite consuming her thoughts and replacing them with desire must not suffice, and Zosia places a hand on her shoulder, palm curving around the muscle, fingers caressing skin melting cotton with body heat. Carol thinks back on the grenade, hears a tick inside her chest, and considers throwing Zosia to the floor with herself. She's not sure they would come out of that explosion alive.
"Something bad," Carol grits through her teeth, sees the bartender approach. "Something - hey, could I get another drink? Whatever's the strongest in your bar. With ice."
The hand disappears, leaves sparkles in its wake.
"If your feelings are genuine, they cannot be bad, Carol. You're not bad."
The next two drinks are what Helen would refer to as drowning her feelings so deep she can only end up stuck with them. It's too bad, she supposes, that the woman nudging the drink in her hand is responsible for the death of the only person in the world who'd have glared at her until she gave up on the idea.
Zosia doesn't speak again, lets her drink herself into misery. Koumba blurs by, pats her back, winks at her drinking partner before disappearing upstairs. The game is over, but Carol feels she's still being played, still losing and emptying her pockets.
Helen must possess more than Zosia's feelings, because a hand taps the counter when her head starts to turn, and along with it the room and lights, and Zosia speaks softly into her ear, "Carol, may we suggest taking you back to your room?"
It's much too late for this.
Carol laughs, something sharp and unamused. "You wanna be my hot babysitter so bad, don't you? I had one just like you back then, she was - some neighbor's daughter. Had this massive crush on her for fucking years," Carol mumbles around a paper straw, bright lights burning her pupils. "Think she was my first one, really. So much's changed since then, so much's... gone back to the same."
"We do not consider ourselves your babysitter," Zosia clarifies, briefly looking down - ashamed. "But we would be anything for you, Carol. We wish to take care of you."
Carol chuckles. "Do you? What would you do for me, Zosia? If I asked you, what would you do for me?"
Zosia inches closer, brings her hand forward. Carol fights against closing her eyes, cheeks tingling at the idea of being stroked with elegant fingers, left bare from paint, cut short and clean. The glass is tugged out of her hand, and Zosia throws back the end of it into her mouth, throat bobbing slowly.
"You would have to ask us for it first, Carol."
Before her body can make a mistake her mind encourages, Zosia stands from her stool and gently tugs Carol from her own. She follows so obediently that the fingers clasped around her wrists blur into a leash, a bell ringing in her ears with every step they take to the elevator.
Zosia presses the button to her floor, doesn't retreat to her side of the elevator, only leans back against the wall, as if holding herself against it will not tempt Carol into pushing her even further into the surface. She leaves one leg forward, like she expects this is what Carol wants to look at; the soft curve of her knee, the tight muscle of her calf, a shadowed thigh flexing with the piano music Koumba required the hotel turn back on in all shared spaces.
"Carol?"
"Yes."
"We've arrived at your floor."
(You would have to ask us for it first, Carol.)
-
Carol wonders if this whole joining thing means her babysitter is also in love with her now. She hasn't seen her in a while, probably not since she stopped being her babysitter and left the state for a shinier, fancier university. If her numbers are correct, she'd probably be in her fifties now.
She wonders how old Zosia is.
"Carol, would you sit here for us?"
Probably around her age. Perhaps a bit younger. It's a hazardous guess, because Zosia is closer to an immortal mermaid than human in her mind. A mermaid born from a vampire father and a sailing mother. Probably had her mother drowned when she was born, and emptied her father's blood to absorb the world's beauty. Something like that, at least.
Her feet move on their own, sneakers sliding off, socks tugged from toe nails she should remember to clip soon. Helen dealt with the sour moods without issue, but the ankle scratches were an unforgivable limit. It doesn't matter now; Zosia wouldn't mind, her toes can't be worse than shrapnel.
"May we suggest taking this off, Carol?"
Zosia would probably even like it. Carol keeps hurting her, and she keeps coming back. Kind of like a puppy, but without the nice leather collar. She should recommend adding one to her suit rotations, some simple Italian leather, brown to match her eyes, or maybe blue to match her own. Carol has never had a pet herself, but she could learn to use a leash for a good enough reason. She's no expert, but holding Zosia so close she can never go again sounds like a good enough reason.
"Carol, can you hear us?"
"Mmh. How could I not? All you do is talk, talk, talk. Hello, Carol. Have a good day, Carol? Carol this, Carol that - we want to make you happy, Carol. We didn't mean to kill your wife, Carol. Oopsie."
Zosia hovers above her, and all Carol sees is her face. She searches for the pointed vampire fangs, only finds pity. Carol pushes Zosia's hands off her chest and undoes the buttons of her shirt one by one. Well, she tries to, but her efforts fail on the first one, and it keeps slipping from her fingers, like she's got sausages growing from her palms, and all the oil in the pan made them really slippery, and-
"We've got you, Carol."
The shirt slips from her shoulders, leaving Carol in a white tank top she hasn't washed in two weeks. It used to smell like Helen. It now smells like cold cigarette.
"Come on, time for bed."
Zosia lets go, Carol falls, and the mattress catches her. Instincts kick in on their own, her body turning to face the other side of the bed, arm reaching for the pillow she's gotten used to hugging to sleep. She can't imagine a world where she manages to fall asleep tonight. Up until recently, she didn't even know there was a world outside of the bubble Helen kept her floating in.
"Zosia?"
The clicking noises stop, grow closer again. "Yes, Carol?"
"My pillow's wet."
Closer again, a hand on her forehead, pushing hair out of her eyes. "We believe that is the result of your crying. Would you like a new one?"
"I want you - I'd like it if you wanted to join me in here," Carol speaks into the pillow, each word too slow for her lips to utter perfectly. "I don't wanna be alone, tonight."
"Of course, Carol. Would you like us to take this dress off? We can retrieve sleepwear from our room."
Carol frowns, blinks until Helen's cold, dead body disappears, replaced by Zosia's patient smile. "No, just - don't get your shoes on my bed. I don't like that."
Zosia bends to put her shoes away, probably pushes them into a polite little corner of the room, and it drives Carol mad with sudden desire: to see her unraveled, alive, inhabited by exasperation Carol only accepted from her wife, rolling her eyes to the sky with a grin. The bed dips, a pillow separating their bodies. Carol throws it at her feet and watches how the mermaid breathes out of the sea.
"What do you want from me?"
Zosia lies on her back, shifts her head, but keeps her eyes on the ceiling. "We only want you to be happy, Carol."
"Not what I asked. Not - it would make me really happy to know... what you want."
Zosia appears to think about the answer, unless that's just her expression when she's talking to every other human being on the planet in her head. Carol settles on the first option.
"We want you to like us." Zosia gulps down part of the truth, spits it back in her next breath. "We want you to want us."
And isn't that funny? How much Carol wants, how they've gotten everything they wanted from her already? How she lost the game with every second she yearned to play with one of them, with every thought she's had about Zosia that strayed from hatred without ever quite abandoning it. How she's about to lose the war entirely, running to the other side of the battlefield to embrace the enemy, weep against its chainmail.
"Would you like a hug, Carol?"
Carol opens her eyes to Zosia's attentive gaze and nods her head forward. "Turn. Around, turn around."
Her arm wraps around a waist smaller than it is used to holding, fabric more uncomfortable than her palm had memorized. Her hips flush with another shape, square against triangle, white absorbed into darkness. It is so much more familiar than a pillow warmed by toothpaste breath. Her nose buries itself in brown curls. Carol breathes in perfume she knows but cannot name, presses into flesh that dips not like a doll but living human flesh.
(Zosia sings. Zosia reads. Zosia breathes. Zosia wants, and before she knew loving, Carol had only ever known wanting).
"You're really warm."
Zosia smiles. Carol doesn't see it, but it is just as easy to imagine. "We are likely warm because of you."
"You, or Zosia?"
"Zosia... Zosia is us, Carol."
"I know, I know, forget I even - I know."
Zosia's skin is soft, slathered in lotion that doesn't stick to her fingers, but shines all the way up to her neck. It smells like chemical vanilla, the cheap stuff you'd find in any supermarket aisle, the brand too popular to even need marketing. The simplicity is what makes it so familiar. Anyone who's ever licked ice cream melted on their fingers, put their nose a little too close to a candle, or tried a good bourbon would know the taste. Carol has done all three. There is only one thing her mouth has not kissed.
Carol only touches with her nose, keeps her hand above the lace of Zosia's dress, under the gentle slope of her breasts. Draws wider and wider circles on her stomach. Notices the gulps Zosia takes, the shifting hips, and imagines herself a month younger, awaking her wife with gentle kisses that quickly turned desperate, seeking to cover the scent of newly printed books perpetually stained in her nostrils.
("Do you ever imagine life without me in it?")
"Carol... Do you want-"
"Don't say it."
Zosia's gulp travels under her nose, washes into her ears. A hand grabs her wrist, lowers it - across the gentle slope of a covered stomach, through a slit whose lock Carol should not breach, between the wet heat of two parted thighs.
"Would you like us to take care of this, Carol?"
Carol takes her hand away, brings it back to Zosia's chest, over her heart. "Is that what you want?"
Zosia nods, eager little thing Carol holds in the center of her palm, possessing the world in the curve of her hand more literally than it has ever been the case. If she let it sink into Zosia's chest, would her heartbeat revive Helen's?
"Give me your hand."
The order is obeyed so fast, if Carol were sane, she would wonder once again if the others can read her mind, but she's too busy grabbing Zosia's wrist to suck one, then two, then three fingers into her mouth, too eager herself to forget the weight of her wife's dead body by learning the shape of its reincarnation. The message is clear; Carol doesn't need to say it aloud for Zosia to understand.
Take them. Take me.
"Go on, now," she nearly begs, the tiger soaked into a cat, her own underwear wet with need, her voice trembling like it always does in bed, control slipping in and out of her hands. "Do it, do it, please, Zosia."
Zosia barely turns back around, simply spreads her legs, moving one thigh forward, and shoves the three glistening digits under her dress, under the lace Carol could not stand touching and will not allow herself to see. Her scent shifts, perfume chased away by their combined heaving lungs, air filled with hot arousal.
She brings her hand back to her heart, listens with her skin. Carol watches Zosia fuck herself in her arms, the soft lines tightening around her eyes, the freckles under the strap of her dress, slipping down her shoulder as her hips grind back into Carol's front. It's a little hard to believe this is real after all of the dreams. It's even harder to shut down her desire to push Zosia on her back and shove her face between her legs, search for the taste of chlorine and sunscreen in the wet folds of her cunts, drown with the world muted by two deadly thighs.
Zosia looks nothing like someone Carol has ever had in her bed. Carol closes her eyes, attempts to keep the need at bay, pretends the guilt isn't eating it away, consuming the tip of the cigarette.
"Carol, we-"
"Shh, don't - don't speak."
Keeping her eyes closed works until the strain of her eyelids forces them open, and she cannot hope to ever force them shut again. Zosia squirms against her front, neck spread to the ceiling, lips trembling with every shortened breath that pushes past her lips.
"Carol."
It is dark, the light breaking into the bedroom from the lamp next to the sofa in the living room, but Carol can guess everything she cannot see; hears the noises of Zosia's cunt around her own flexing fingers, the sharp little moans that vibrate against her nose, feels the flexing muscles of her stomach and the stuttering of her hips against her leg, the blood rushing between her thighs and pumping the heart alive under her palm.
"Don't speak," Carol chants against her skin, licking her dried lips and getting an involuntary taste of hot flesh, earning a deeper, breathless melody that sinks her body into Zosia's, melts their desires into the same puddle as a sea readies for its birth. "I want to hear you. Don't want to think, I just want to hear you."
Life blinks, passes by, and Zosia is still grinding on her thigh, but the melody is different - choked off, shaking directly into the lines on her palm, tingling down her fingers. Her hand has left Zosia's heart, switched to the neck she so prettily presented to her mouth, and Carol doesn't press into it, only holds her closer, only gives her the collar she so desperately deserves.
The world isn't in her hand, this time. Only Zosia, who loves her more than Helen ever did, erases the flaws that ate her alive and disappeared with her wife into the ground.
What does it say about the world that it moans every time her nails sink a little deeper, that it cries when she moves her hips harder against the soaked lace staining her pants?
"Zosia."
She has never had to wait so long for Zosia to answer, lips shaking through her trademark, "Yes, Carol?"
What does it say about Carol that, for a moment, she forgets it is even the world singing in her ear?
"Say please."
"Please, may we-"
"Yes."
Her fingers tighten on their own, like they're trying to recreate the phantom feeling of being inside of Zosia. Clenching around her neck does not trap its moans in. For a moment, they are both underwater, screaming at each other; Zosia in utter bliss, hand still between her thighs, and Carol in relief, emptying her lungs of polluted air for fresh water.
Carol counts every breath it takes for Zosia's chest to regain its normal rhythm. Every thirty-five of them. That's how long it takes before she shifts in her arms, turning around to face Carol with a pleased, serene smile.
"Would you like to taste us, Carol?"
"Please."
The hand she crushed between her thighs rises to her mouth. Carol seizes it like she's starved, pushes the three soaked digits past her lips and closes her eyes to cement the memory on her taste buds, around her teeth, inside the cuts on her gum.
Zosia smiles brighter.
Carol takes her fingers out of her mouth, and the room is draped in a veil of cold that takes Carol back years before, in the freezing winter of Norway.
("I'm scared for you sometimes."
"Scared? What for? I barely get out of the house, can't drive anymore, write - famously riskless job, if not mentally then physically - and eat so slowly my chances of choking on a piece of broccoli are below average."
Helen rubs her back, willing warmth back into her muscles before Carol can mutter another complaint about the ice bed.
"Do you ever imagine your life without me in it?"
"Is this your way of suggesting a divorce? Because I'm not doing this right now."
"No, I fear we're stuck together forever on that front. The paperwork would kill you before it'd get signed. But forever isn't a choice, Carol. We're both mortals, one of us will go one day-"
"Mhm, nope."
"One of us will go one day and it could very well be me. I've been a smoker since I learned to steal cash from my mother's purse. It's likely," Helen stresses, ignoring her wife's rolled eyes. "And, darling, I'm sorry to say this, but you don't know how to exist without me.")
"Zosia."
"Yes, Carol," she answers, the puppy crawling back in an instant, even without a hand around its throat, lungs still affected by the pleasure that ripped through her bones.
"Get out of here."