Kate Day - In the Quick

We’re not done, I said. Not even close.

No. Not done. We’ll keep going.

But we’ll sleep first.

Yes. Sleep.

We got up and walked down the corridor together until we reached the central module. To the left was his bunk, to the right mine. I didn’t want to go to my bunk but I moved that way. His eyes were like two pinpricks on my back but he didn’t say anything, didn’t follow me, and when I got to the end of the corridor and turned, he was gone.

My room was freezing. We’d been functioning on low power for several days because of windstorms disrupting the solar grid, but I hadn’t felt the cold until now. There were rings of frost in the portholes; an icicle hung from the faucet in the sink. My teeth chattered and I grabbed an extra blanket, turned off the light, and lay down. My body was heavy in the bed and my feet ached with relief. But when I shut my eyes I saw James, his tousled hair and dark eyes. His scarred hands. I rubbed my feet together. I turned to my right, to my left. It was impossible. I sat up.

The vents overhead whirred softly; the wind whistled faintly outside. I pulled on an extra pair of socks and left my bunk. In the corridor my heartbeat was loud and thick in my throat and my breath made clouds in the air. Time seemed to spread out and each step took longer than the one before, but I didn’t turn back.

The runner lights outside James’s bunk glowed blue at my feet, and the button for the airlock was flat and cold under my fingers. The lock opened with a suck and a hiss. His back was a gray hump in the bed; it rose up, down. His face was one shadowy cheek, one closed eye. His breath was a roar. He was sleeping—I couldn’t believe he was sleeping. Anger squeezed my body, and the squeezing felt good and bad.

His eye opened. He sat up and his chest was dark with woolly hair. What’s the matter?

I felt cold, and hot. My body was trembling but I moved toward the bed. I sat down. My back was to him, my hands flat against my thighs. The room still smelled of smoke and also something else, the slightly feral smell of his skin and hair.

Nothing happened.

Then, the pressure of his warm hand flat against my back. The feeling of his strong fingers inching their way up the notches of my spine, until they reached the base of my neck and he pulled me down.

I held my body stiff and straight and I shut my eyes.

We can just lie next to each other, he said.

I don’t want that, I said. I took a breath. I want something else.

Another minute passed and I felt his warm breath on my cheek. He pressed his mouth along my jaw and his beard scratched my skin. He lifted my shirt and my stomach shook and I pushed his hands away. He kissed my ears—softly—and my nose. The crook of my arm. My breath slowed; my limbs relaxed, a little. He went back to my stomach, kissed it. He tugged my tights down, moved his mouth over the sweep of my hip. He held my thigh tight in his hands.

He took hold of my ankle with his teeth and shook it, like it was a bone. I liked it. I didn’t like it. My laugh came out like a cry.

When he let go of my ankle, his mouth traveled upward again. But slower, softer, until it was only breath on my thighs. My chest expanded. I shivered but wasn’t cold. His breath grew hot again. His tongue parted my legs. I held my hand over my mouth and felt I would laugh or weep or sneeze! My heels pedaled against the sheets. He put his hand flat on my stomach and his tongue was warm and rough and moved slowly, rhythmically, like it was following a silent beat. Then it changed, and oh! My head was so hot, as if my scalp had caught fire—

I fell against the bed, shivering and sweating, and pressed my hand between my legs until the pulsing slowed.

I lay still next to him for a long time. His breath slowed and his arm rested heavy on my chest. He seemed to be dozing. But I didn’t feel sleepy at all; my arms and legs were restless, my face too hot. Behind my eyes the fuel cell worked with a buzzing hum. Worked and worked. I pushed his arm off me and opened my eyes.

Are you sleeping? I asked in the darkness.

I see that damn cell when I close my eyes, he said.

I hear its vents in my ears, I said.

He turned and I felt the heat of his limbs next to mine.

His face hovered; his curls brushed my face. You need another sound, he said, and blew in my ear.

I laughed and shivered.

He wrapped his arms around me tightly, pressed his whole body against mine.

When I woke he was moving around the room. He was naked, but in the gloom his body was full of shadows. There were distinct shapes: the muscles in his abdomen, shoulders, thighs. But also the softness of his cheeks and the hair on his chest. He seemed natural in this state. He didn’t grab a robe or a towel, and I had a strange picture of him like this, unclothed, just skin and hair and bone, not in a room but outside the station on the rocky pink surface. Nothing between him and the salty air. I thought the idea was funny.

Why are you smiling? he asked.

A picture in my head, I said.

Of what?

You.

I’m glad I amuse you.

He came closer, leaned over me. His breath was slightly sour. I didn’t care.

He kissed me, gently, tugging at my lips with his.

I want to see that picture, he said.

He kissed me again, harder this time.

I don’t know if I want to see what’s inside your head, I said, and put my hands in his hair, which smelled like the wool blanket on his bed and also faintly like…what? A soldering iron. I wrapped my fingers around his head, felt his skull underneath. What’s in it?

A bad temper.

That’s all?

He rubbed his beard against my cheek, rough and scratchy, little hairs dragging against my skin. That’s all.

I hope there’s a picture of a modified cell in there, I said. One that can withstand more than a year of vibration.

He squinted, looked up at the ceiling, and then frowned. No.

He got up, pulled on a pair of shorts. I lay back against the pillow, watched him walk around the room. An image drifted into my mind—black lines waving in an expanse of white, like the painting that used to hang in my bedroom at my aunt’s house. Then I saw the fuel cell, just one, outside its stack. No fixed hardware or sealant. Its interior parts floating freely in the air.

I sat up. What we’ve been working on, I said. It’s a good start. But—

I know. It’s not enough.

What if we go back to the beginning? I asked. To what a fuel cell is. What it does.

He shrugged and pulled a shirt over his head. It transforms one kind of energy into another. Chemical energy to electrical energy.

So that an explorer can use that electricity to power its engines and systems.

Are we just going to say things we already know to each other?

Yes, I said. I pulled on my tights and T-shirt and started looking for my socks.

Okay. He opened a drawer under the sink and pulled out a toothbrush. The generation of energy creates vibration. Vibration will always be a problem when an object is in a fixed space—

He held his toothbrush in the air.

I looked at him.

Who says it has to be in a fixed space? we said together.

We didn’t finish dressing. We went to the workshop, picked up all the parts on the table, and dumped them onto the shelves behind us. He grabbed paper and a marker.

It needs to be— I made a movement with my hands. So it’s free to move—

—the way it wants to move, he said.

He drew and I talked and gestured. Then he talked and I drew. We hauled the pieces of the cell back onto the table and took it apart again.

We didn’t stop to explain ourselves. We just said what was in our minds—a shape, a movement. A feeling. A sound. We stood close and reached over each other for tools and parts. It was different than before. It didn’t feel like we were two bodies, two minds anymore. We had a hold of something, a growing, pulsing idea. It had a charge like electricity. It was like a great sparking cloud above us, a tiny electrical storm.