Luna: New Moon

‘What was that about drowning looking shit on your death cert?’

‘Worse than a VTO moonship landing on you?’

‘You.’ She flicks water at him again. He can’t or won’t dodge. Oh you man, you are so cute when you’re tired and stinky and stubbly and hurting and I could so do you now and you’re right in front of me, touching my knees, my shins, my feet and if I moved my hand just a few centimetres there and you moved your hand a few centimetres here we would, but I won’t because I’m a wreck and you’re a wreck and you’re still my boss and a Dragon and Dragons have always scared me, but most of all because we are like twins in a womb, curled up next to each other in this warm water and that would be prenatal incest.

She shuffles next to him and they lean comfortably, painfully against each other, like old people, skin to skin, enjoying each other’s weight and presence. A long-limbed teen Sun – Marina can’t make out their gender beyond skinny-gangly – ducks through the low door to serve Blue Moons. Laughter, pop music, children yelling, the burr of machinery, resound through the tunnels as it they were the pipes of a great musical instrument.

‘Corta Hélio.’ A toast.

‘Sea of Snakes. If I do nod off …’

‘I’ll watch out for you,’ Carlinhos says.

‘And I’ll watch out for you.’

The sex always begins the same way. One glass, cold-dewed. One measure chilled gin. Three drops of blue Curacao from a glass pipette. No music. Music distracts Ariel Corta from sex. Tonight she wears an exquisite Rappi ballerina-length dress with petticoats, a New Look Dior straw platter hat and gloves. Her lips are Revlon Fire and Ice red, and pursed in small concentration as she releases the drops of Curacao one at a time from the pipe. Tonight she uses the ten-botanical Dilma Filmus gave her. When the last drop has sent its ripples across the surface of the martini glass Ariel Corta steps out of her dress. Brassieres are unknown in lunar gravity and she eschews other underwear. Gloves, hat, lace-top hold-up stockings, Roger Vivier five-inch heels. Ariel Corta lifts the martini in her gloved hand and takes a sip.

The boys brought it home. Vidhya Rao’s tip was sound. Ariel’s short, secure conversation through private encryption with Lucas has proved three things. To Rafa, that she too has power. To her mother, that the Cortas truly are the Fifth Dragon. To Lucas, that she is always a Corta. We want to buy you, Vidhya Rao had said. Not bought; fee-ed. Hired, not owned. That is the difference between the trader and the consultant. You’ve triumphed. Ariel Corta raises a toast to herself and to all her clients and contractees and coterie. She takes another sip from her Blue Moon. Beijaflor shows Ariel herself through discreet cameras. Ariel poses to better admire her body. She is magnificent. Magnificent.

Before undressing she vapes a capsule of Solo. The Chemical Sisters, narco-designers to society, print it for bespoke, for these sessions. Hat on padded stand, gloves and stockings patiently and carefully rolled off. Ariel enters the sex room. Her skin, her nipples, her lips and vulva and anus crackle with sexual desire. Walls and floor are softly padded white faux-leather. The apparel awaits her, laid out in careful order, made to measure in white faux-leather. The boots first; high and tight and laced tighter still; tightest yet as she tugs in the lacing. She paces around the small room letting her thighs brush against each other, the tickle of the laces against her ass and vulva. She kneels, thrilling in the dig of the eyes and heels against her buttocks. Then the gloves, shoulder length and laced; pulled tight. She spreads her fingers, encased in tight white leather. The stiff, high collar. Ariel gasps as the laces tighten and she surrenders mobility and freedom. Last of all, the corset. A ritual, this; the exhalations, the carefully timed drawings-in of the laces until she can barely breathe. Her small breasts are proud and pert.

At age thirteen Ariel Corta orgasmed after pulling on a sasuit. She hasn’t worn one since but its tightness, its unforgiving constriction and control of the body has permanently shaped her sex play. Ariel Corta has never told a soul about the sasuit come.