Opening the door to the bathroom, I figure I’ll just have to treat him extra nicely once I smell a bit better.
The shower itself is a stainless steel box. Showerheads are all lined up at varying points in the wall, like it was made to spray as large a surface area as possible.
I look at the panel of buttons and try my best to figure out what works what. Eventually, after blasting myself with a gust of cold air and maybe activating the self-cleaning function, I figure out which button supplies the hot water.
I pull the weird little zipper at the neck of my jumpsuit, the whole thing unlatching as soon as I touch it. The jumpsuit drops to the ground, so oversized on my body, it has nothing to anchor itself on like it would on the body of the fi’len.
The first blast of hot water hits my skin and makes me shiver with pleasure. I’d always been a shower girly back on Earth.
The blast of warmth makes me long for my fruity smelling body washes and scrubs. I literally had a shower playlist for the hour-long, almost too hot, showers I would take on lazy days. I missed it all, except for the removable showerhead—Ke’ain more than made up for that.
I close the glass door and lean up against the back of the metal stall. Pushing my back up against the line of jets, I let them work on one of the many knots my hips had acquired. I wondered if we really held trauma in our hips like my yoga teacher used to preach. Even if we don’t, the pressure feels amazing.
Eventually I figure out what button on the shower’s panel provides soap. It doesn’t smell like passion fruit, unfortunately. It does remind me of hospital soap and seems to be more antibacterial than a feast for the senses.
Somehow I’m not surprised that a world that thinks cinnamon is worth dying for doesn’t have many exciting scents.
For a moment I imagine Ke’ain’s face if I gave him a bite of pineapple. It would literally blow that bland little alien's poor mind.
?KE’AIN
Opal hums in the water closet, her melodic little voice drifting through the crack in the door. The jets of warm water fog the doors to the shower unit. My cousin, per protocol, has given us his own quarters for the journey. The room is overdone, gilt in gold, and pretentious. It is Ref’ere incarnate. I don’t know why I can’t help hating him—he’s done much for me today. He’s come to our rescue, and now he’s bringing us back to the capital, to my coronation.
I raise my eyes to the six-foot-tall painting of Ref’ere in his royal suit.Nope, I still can’t stand him.He’s the kind of person who commissions an oil painting of himself for his own room. His shoulders are broader and his face more handsome in the painting, but the scarring along his jaw is smoothed.
I should be kinder, more diplomatic, more reserved in my distaste for him. Especially since my family's numbers have dwindled today.My parents are gone.
I wonder when the grief will hit, and if it ever will. I am sad, but somehow I am not overwhelmed. Parts of my heart, mostly for my mother, are broken. Even though her austere demeanor rarely dropped, I saw flashes of the mother she might have been. Like how she knew I hated the food served at state banquets and would secretly pass me sq’aurks under the table. She never truly felt like my mother. My wet nurse, Tro’kip, cared for me in that way—and she died years ago. I grieved Tro’kip like she had given birth to me herself. I think my mother resented me for it.
I gave up on my father long ago. There was no secret kindness between us. I was tasked with marrying well and bringing him a large dowry. He didn't care for me besides that.
I always had Al’frind, though. He had given me more fatherly advice in a single night than my father had given me in an entire lifetime. I won’t pretend that the sadness of their deaths didn’t sting. It was like the pricking tentacle of a poke’en, its sting quickly turning to an ache. I couldn’t help feeling as though Ishouldbe sadder. Would I be coerced to put on a more sorrowful facade for the sake of the monarchy?
A wail from the water closet breaks me from my melancholy. Opal’s slightly off pitched but enthusiastic singing fills the room.
I wonder if this is some folk song from Earth. Rising from the bed, I pad over to the slightly cracked door. I push it wide with one finger, and a blast of steam hits me.
Opal’s body faces away from me, the jets sluicing water down the beautiful curves and rolls of her back. She turns her head and mimes singing into an imaginary microphone, her face warped with passion as she performs unknowingly for an audience of one. The rows of water jets hit her on the left side of her body, the nozzles in a vertical line all along the stainless steel wall.
She throws her head back, her wet hair whipping over her shoulder. “Dah dah do do dah do dah!” Her pink skin is flushed red from the warm water. I can’t help myself and start a slow clap.
Opal peeks open one eye over her shoulder, spotting me, her posture going from triumphant to meek immediately.
“Oh shit, I’m sorry Ke’ain… I just haven’t had a real shower since I was taken, and god have I missed them.” She bites her swollen lip. “I should be taking care of you instead of hosting my own private karaoke session.”
I don’t ask what a karaoke session is. I’m speechless as she faces me. Her bountiful breasts are flushed pink from the warm water, her nipples stand at attention as she moves from the jets’ spray.
“What can I do to help?” she asks as I watch the water bead over her body.
Only for a second do I let my mind wander and imagine what I would feel if I lost Opal today. I feel the sharp bite of grief as it gnaws at my heart almost instantly. The pain burning my chest before I shove it back down.
Opal is here, with me.
“Don’t apologize on my behalf,” I say as I activate the fastener on my waistband. My trousers drop at record speed.
Opal arches an eyebrow as she appraises my intent, but her countenance is caring. “It’s okay to not be okay, you know.”
“I’m okay as long as I’m with you.”
