Andrea Höst - And All the Stars

A strange dissonance cut through the music and Fisher’s hand tightened, then let her go. "Spire song."

"Stupid Moths." Pan fumbled for the controls and paused his movie mid swordfight so they could better hear the eerie sound, distant yet penetrating. "What are they up to now?"

"Sending the Greens back to whatever they were doing before the Challenge, I guess." Noi stood and stretched. "Let’s see if we can spot any movement, and finish the movie after dinner. Maybe it will have shut up by then."

After some debate about the wisdom of taking rooms close enough to the ground to be able to shield-jump out the windows, they’d given in to the view and settled into the most palatial suites, high on the Harbour side of the hotel. These not only offered tiny cinemas where a world of movies could be dialled on demand, they could be opened up into a single, enormous apartment by the unlocking of cleverly concealed sliding walls. One floor down from Open Sky , the top floor restaurant, they had plentiful food, carefully planned escape routes, and a number of rules about turning lights on and off at night. An added sense of security had been provided by the discovery of the keys to the fire escapes and elevators, giving them in effect a drawbridge to raise when they went to bed.

It was late afternoon, and sunset crept up while they pitched in to prepare their meal, so they chose a table to best take advantage of the spectacular vista. But despite a view which stretched from Darling Harbour across the sweep of the North Shore, and past the Bridge to glimpses of the Opera House, Madeleine found she didn’t like eating in the restaurant, where the array of empty tables only served to remind her of a city quietly rotting.

"Crimson skies and thunderclouds on the horizon." Noi stared out to toward the headlands, but there was no sign of the navy ships. "I could wish it had rained on them yesterday, but even then I have to think of their hosts, and whether they feel everything the Moths do."

"Yeah." Pan’s smile had faded. "It takes the fun out of planning to smash their faces in."

The pervasive song of the Spire filled every gap in the conversation, eerie and oppressive, but they pressed on, forcing bright chatter, watching the approaching storm as the colour faded from the sky.

As they were constructing elaborate ice cream sundaes, Fisher disappeared downstairs and returned holding the binoculars. "Come look at this."

"Movement?" Noi crossed quickly to stand with him at the windows.

"Not quite. Look at the hull of that overturned yacht just off Headland Park."

Frowning, Noi obeyed, seemed only puzzled as she peered into the growing twilight, then suddenly snorted. She waved the binoculars. "Millie, check this out."

The younger girl’s reaction to this mystery view was to gasp and say: "Oh, it can’t be! I don’t believe it."

"Will you lot quit with the commentary and just tell us what you’re looking at?" Min asked, exasperated.

"Glowing eyes," Noi said. "There’s eyes painted on the hull. Must be some kind of phosphorescent paint."

"We ran away from a boat?" Pan grabbed the binoculars and, after a pause, burst out laughing. "Shit, I feel like such a dick."

This discovery provided a counterbalance to the song of the Spire, and they were able to revive the light good humour they’d been so deliberately maintaining, to talk party plans over their dessert, to clean up in good humour and take pleasure in their return to their enormous suite.

"Guess we can check the news while we wait for the Spire to shut up," Pan said, and they clustered toward one of the lounge areas. Madeleine, struggling with the weight of the continued song, excused herself and headed to her room on the far left of the interconnected set of suites to run a bath.

During their explorations they’d discovered storage rooms full of items intended for the suites, from robes and kettles to some very up-market varieties of miniature soap, bath salts, and hair product. Madeleine programmed the room’s stereo system with a selection of her favourite jazz singers and Ella Fitzgerald began to croon, the music loud enough that the Spire song was drowned. Stars blurred by steaming, scented water, Madeleine could finally allow herself to think of thirty people who had paid the price of her freedom. Guilt over the actions of the Moths was stupid, but that wouldn’t stop her.

The Spire song faded before her fingers had turned to prunes and, clean and warmly wrapped in one of the robes, she drifted out to the lamp-lit lounge room and stood finger-combing her damp hair, listening to the stereo and watching rain beat against the windows.

"Feeling better?"

"Now that it’s stopped." She turned as Fisher rose from one of the chairs and crossed to her. He’d obviously bathed as well, and his dark mop was damp and almost tamed, while his expression was the closest to anxious she’d ever seen from him. "My cousin – the last time I spoke to him, just before we went to Bondi – was talking about wordplay, bad puns on song titles. I was just thinking that I’m feeling Blue right now. Not sad, just…particularly when I’ve had a bath or shower I end up extremely aware of the velvety sensation. It makes me feel like I don’t belong in my own skin."

"If it’s any help, I think the velvet is a kind of field." His gaze dropped to the point where the robe crossed beneath the start of the stain on her chest and the tips of his ears gave away the line of his thoughts, but he forged on in his most neutral tone. "Your skin isn’t velvet at all. But it’s storing or generating power. Imagine touching a million microscopic lightning bolts. Or how it feels holding the like polarities of two magnets together. It’s a sensation not inherent in the object, but produced by what is generated from it."

Giving up on talking, he lifted a hand, fingers hovering just before the patch around her eye, then brushed his thumb delicately over the unstained skin below. When was becoming now, and Madeleine caught at his hand as he lowered it, clasped it firmly, then moved toward her room

Eyes wide but sure, Fisher followed, then hesitated at the door. "Protection," he murmured, looking in the direction of his own room.

"Bedside drawer." Later she would have to thank Noi for insisting on practicality.

He pushed the door closed behind them, the room lit only by the light spilling from the bathroom, and there was an awkward moment, so she filled it by reaching up to kiss him. Tentative at first, with soft touches of hands to his back. He was wearing loose sports pants and a T-shirt and as their kisses deepened she found herself bold with impatience and drew back to lift the shirt over his head.

Coat-hanger shoulders, and a chest still filling out, striped like a barber’s pole with bright diagonal streaks of stars.

"You’ve got comets."

He made a face, said: "Please, I’m feeling awkward enough," and self-consciously shucked his pants and underwear, becoming a naked boy gleaming with light, lifting his eyes to meet hers.

He was already partially erect, and later perhaps she would be amused that his penis was striped as well, and that he visibly swelled as she pulled loose the cord of her robe, letting it gape open. Stepping forward, he raised hands to her shoulders and smoothed them back so the robe fell around her feet, and then, breathing deeply, he took his time looking at her, bringing back to her years of feeling inadequate, of needing a bra to give herself breasts rather than hold them up, and never would she have thought someone would gaze down at her barely A-cups so reverently, or shake as he slid his hands forward and down to cover them.

Madeleine inhaled sharply, the sensation surpassing anything she’d anticipated, and she found she was standing up straighter, pushing into his touch. She had no idea how much the velvet of the stain was contributing to what she felt, though there was definitely an added tingle created by the shift between the stained and unstained skin of his palms as he slid his hands down further, exploring with his fingers.