Burning Bright

They walked on in silence, through the dimly lit streets, passing from the pool of light that marked each intersection to the brief edge of almost-dark where the first light ended and the next did not quite reach, then into the light again. The neighborhood was not very different from the one where Shadows lay, the same flat-fronted, oddly decorated, anonymous buildings that could be shops or houses or factories; the same tiny parks and gardens, half hidden behind grillwork and brick walls; the same sudden bridges arching over an all-but-invisible canal. Lioe found herself concentrating on them anyway, trying to drown her sudden awareness of Roscha walking next to her. The cold, blank walls with their cryptic patterns, bands of lighter stone against the dark main body, were no help at all; she imagined she could feel the heat of the other woman’s body, a subtle radiance in the night air. She looked up, looking for the stars, for that distraction, but the star field was drowned in the city lights. A moon showed briefly over her right shoulder, an imperfect oval just past or not quite full; ahead—to the north, beyond the Straight and the Junction Pools—a shuttle rose like a firework from Newfields, a familiar and comforting flare of light and almost invisible cloud. She was not surprised when Roscha’s hand brushed her own.

She closed her hand around Roscha’s fingers, felt calluses under her touch, calluses across Roscha’s palm and on three of the fingertips, all sensed in a single rush of sensation, and then she slipped her hand, still awkwardly twined with Roscha’s, into the pocket of her trousers. Roscha’s knuckles rested against her thigh; the sudden movement pulled Roscha sideways a little, so that she stumbled, and made a small noise like a laugh, and their shoulders touched. Lioe smiled, said nothing, too aware of the warmth and weight of the other’s touch to speak. Then Roscha’s hand wriggled in hers, loosened and shifted its grip to shape a familiar code. Sex? the shifting fingers asked, and Lioe moved her own hand to answer, Yes.

Plain or fancy?

Either.

Latex?

Nothing oral without it. Lioe felt Roscha pull away slightly, knew her own answer had come too quickly, and looked sideways to see Roscha looking at her with an expression that hovered between amusement and irritation. “Well, you don’t know where I’ve been, either,” she said aloud, and Roscha’s anger dissolved in a shout of laughter. She flung her head back, the light from the intersection gleaming in her hair, and Lioe couldn’t help laughing with her.

“Your place or mine?” Roscha asked, after a moment, and Lioe shrugged.

“I’m staying in a hostel in the Ghetto,” she said. “You’re welcome, but it’s a long way.”

Roscha laughed again, more quietly. “I live on my boat. I drive a john-boat for C/B Cie., deliveries and stuff. The tie-up’s not far—as long as you don’t mind a boat.”

“Your place, then,” Lioe said, and they walked on. Roscha freed her hand from Lioe’s pocket, slipped it around the other woman’s waist; a heartbeat later, Lioe did the same. She was very aware of the gentle pressure of Roscha’s hand against her skin, and at the same time the texture of Roscha’s stiff jerkin under her hand. It felt a little like thick leather, but the surface was oddly patterned, like scales. She squeezed Roscha’s waist, trying to feel her body under the jerkin, and felt Roscha’s fingers tighten in answer against her shirt. It was not satisfactory, to be touched, and to feel so little in return; she squeezed Roscha’s waist again, and then released her, sliding her hand and arm up under the skirts of the jerkin so that her hand now rested directly against the thin shirt. Its weave was loose; she prodded experimentally at it, working one finger into the fabric so that she could feel warm skin, and Roscha jerked and gave a stifled giggle.

“That tickles.”

“Sorry,” Lioe said, and stopped poking, but she did not take her hand away.