Do You Dream of Terra-Two?

The holographic stars cast a spotlight on the clearing. It was an empty stage now, before the curtain, and Juno’s nerves felt like ice. Noah lunged clumsily forward, and rolled on top of her, and then his clammy hands were everywhere, in her hair, between her thighs, pushing under the wired cradle of her bra. Juno willed herself to feel the same desire, for just a second. But as Noah continued kissing her face, her neck, urgent and dumb, the blood drained from her. He was made repulsive by his need, his heavy breathing, the sourness of his breath and the fullness in his jeans.

Pins and needles prickled up her fingers. ‘Noah…’ She twisted away from his sloppy mouth. Nettles in the bumpy undergrowth were sharp against Juno’s spine. As her muscles went slack she became more aware of the weight of Noah’s chest bearing down on hers so hard she could only take in shallow gasps. ‘Get off me.’

He didn’t.

She looked around wildly, flailing for words to describe her distress.

‘Noah… please. Get off me!’ It was too much. She didn’t want the weight of him, she didn’t want his hands or his lips or any part of his strange body on hers. She shoved him, leapt to her feet in one fluid movement and stood shaking at the edge of the clearing.

There was an awful quiet between them while Juno choked back the acrid tide of nausea in her throat.

‘Juno…?’ Noah’s voice trembled. ‘Did I hurt you?’

‘No.’ She looked away, blinking back tears. ‘No. I’m sorry. It’s me. I can’t – I don’t know why. It doesn’t feel good. It never feels good.’

‘You can. It does. You’re just… not letting yourself, that’s all.’

‘That’s not true.’

‘It is. I mean, we love each other. And you know, we’re basically adults and stuff…’

‘But—’

He grabbed her arm and looked at her seriously,

‘You know, Juno, there are worse things in the world than… doing this. People do worse things all the time.’

‘When did you decide that?’ she said, then regretted it.

Noah clenched his fists. Juno watched his knuckles turning white.

‘I don’t know what you want from me. I can’t help it. Loving you… wanting you. It’s all the same thing for me. And sometimes I really feel like you want to as well, but you’re stopping yourself. I think that you’re scared of not having control all the time.’

‘That’s not true,’ Juno hissed. ‘I’m not scared. I just don’t want to.’

‘Really? You don’t feel anything at all? Because sometimes you—’

‘I don’t. Feel anything. That’s the truth, Noah. When you’re on top of me, I don’t feel anything at all. Not one bit of affection, not one soupçon of desire. Not for you. Not for anyone. It’s not that I’m scared. It’s just that… sex is repulsive.

‘I don’t understand why it’s such a big deal. I don’t understand why you think about it all the time. It’s just your body. It doesn’t have to control you.’

As Noah got up off the ground she caught a flash of green boxers through his jeans. He zipped them up, fingers still unsteady. ‘I can’t take this,’ he said quietly, as he turned to go. ‘Maybe everybody’s right and there really is something wrong with you.’

Juno felt the blood rise up in her face – hot with shame and fury and regret.

She called out, ‘I don’t know what it would change. It won’t change anything at all. You’ll feel okay for an hour and then you’ll feel rotten and I’ll still be leaving.’

‘Maybe that’s what it comes down to,’ he said, with a quiet rage. ‘I love you too much to ever leave you.’

‘I wish you loved me too much to ask me to stay.’

Before he disappeared into the darkness between the silver birch trees he said, ‘Don’t you realize? I always have.’

^{T-MINUS 22 HOURS}

SHE WAS ALONE FOR a long time before someone came to find her. It was the public affairs officer, and when she did the phone in her hand was lit up. Juno thought she could hear the sound of sirens hiss through the speakers. Poppy emerged from behind her, her face streaked with tears. ‘Juno!’ she shouted, ‘Something terrible’s happened!’

ASTRID

^{T-MINUS 22 HOURS}

SHE HAD DONE IT once before.

Once, in the gilded foodhall of Harrods department store, Astrid stole a handful of sugared almonds. She had wandered the aisles, her heart clenched with longing, and gazed at the silver fish gutted on shelves of ice, scales resplendent under the chandeliers. Towers of sherbet-coloured macarons. Strawberry truffles. White-chocolate bonbons. Glittering bowls overflowing with crystalized fruit. Astrid had glanced around – uniformed shop assistant temporarily distracted by a demanding customer – and then grabbed a handful of sugared almonds, the size and blue of robin’s eggs, and then run, past the guards at the front door, past the throngs of tourists and all the way out into the glare of the midday sun. It had been an easy thing, a little thing, a swift combination of muscle contractions that comprised the theft, all, in themselves, innocuous. Astrid and Ara stole that delicious hour of freedom just as easily.