Delete that. Don't think about it. DO NOT add that to the filing system.
Too late. It's filed. It's filed under "Things That Are Going to Ruin My Life" right next to "His forearms" and "How he whispered 'not the hands'" and the file is getting very full and I need a bigger cabinet.
I work in silence. He lies in silence. The ship hums beneath us and the heated floor is warm under my feet and the cedarwood fills the room and I think: this is the most intimate thing I've ever done with another person and we haven't exchanged a word and he doesn't even know my name.
That thought makes me sad in a small, specific way. Not heartbroken, not dramatic, just... the particular ache of holding something beautiful that doesn't belong to you and knowing you have to set it back on the velvet. He's a ninety-minute appointment on Thursday evenings, and I'm a pair of hands attached to a girl he's never asked anything about, and that should be fine because that's what professional means, but it's not fine, it's the opposite of fine, and I'm finishing the closingsequence with a lump in my throat that has no business being there.
My fingers trail off his shoulder. I step back.
"I'll step out while you dress."
"Wait."
I stop. My hand is on the door. My heart is suddenly in my throat, which is very crowded because the lump is also still there, and I turn around because he just asked me towaitand his voice, even face-down, even muffled by the face cradle, even at practically a whisper, goes through me like someone just ran a tuning fork down my spine.
He turns his head. Just enough. One dark eye, half his jaw, the edge of his mouth.
"What is your name?"
And oh, how he asks. Not offhand, not tossed over a shoulder while putting shoes back on. He asks it carefully, like requesting something precious from a high shelf, something breakable, and he wants to make sure his hands are ready to catch it.
My brain does a frantic inventory.He's asking your name. This is a normal question. People ask their therapists' names all the time. This is completely unremarkable. SAY YOUR NAME, STAR. OPEN YOUR MOUTH AND SAY—-
"Star," I manage. "Star Thornton."
A pause. Long enough for me to hear the hum of the ship. Long enough for the cedarwood to fill the silence. Long enough for me to contemplate, briefly and wildly, whether I should have given a fake name so he couldn't use it to destroy me later.
"Star," he repeats.
Just that. My name. One syllable. He says it low, and he says it like he's tasting it, rolling it across his tongue to see if the flavour matches what he expected, and apparently it does because the corner of his mouth does something. Not a smile. Not even close. Just a movement, barely there, the ghost of an expression that a less attentive person would miss entirely, and I'm not a less attentive person, I'm a person whose entire career is built on noticing micro-movements, and what I'm noticing right now is that Artem Almazov just almost-smiled at my name and I need to leave this room immediately or I'm going to do something unforgivable like smile back.
"Goodnight, Star," he murmurs.
Oh no. Oh no no no. He cannot just... he can't just say my name like THAT and then put "goodnight" in front of it as if those two things belong together and that's not a direct attack on my cardiovascular system—-
"Goodnight, Mr. Almazov," I reply, and my voice comes out approximately normal, which is the greatest achievement of my twenty years on this planet, greater than my practical scores, greater than Madame Gilles's recommendation, greater than getting hired on the fourteenth ship, because I just pronounced his surname without wobbling when what I wanted to say wasArtemand what I wanted to do was stay and what I wanted to know was everything.
I leave. Close the door. Walk to the staff corridor and press my back to the wall and put my hand over my mouth because a sound is trying to come out and I don't know what kind of sound it is, a laugh or a whimper or something in between, something that doesn't have a name yet because I've never made it before,because no one has ever spoken my name like that before, like it was a word he'd been waiting to learn.
Okay. Okay. Let me just... let me check the planner. Six-thirty prep. Seven o'clock first client. Eight-thirty Mrs. Dumont. Thursday 8 PM, recurring: Artem Almazov says my name and I die. Duration: the rest of my natural life. Flag: red. Status: CRITICAL.
People ask their therapists' names all the time.
But people don't say them like that. People don't hold one syllable in their mouth like they're deciding whether they want more. People don't almost-smile at a word they've never heard before, like it's a sound they've been missing.
I am so far past trouble I can't even see trouble from here. Trouble is a dot on the horizon. Trouble sent me a postcard weeks ago reading "wish you were here" and I've sailed right past it into open water with no land in sight and my planner is useless and my hands still smell like cedarwood and his skin and I should go eat dinner.
I should definitely go eat dinner and not stand in a corridor with my hand over my mouth replaying how he saidStar, like it was the first interesting thing he'd heard in years.
THE STAFF MESS AT NINE-thirty is loud, crowded, the air thick with garlic and conversation. I take my tray to the back corner where there's a single open seat at the end of a long table, and I'm halfway through my pasta when someone drops into the chair across from me like he was launched from a cannon.
"Hey. You're the new masseuse, right?"
He's young. My age, maybe a year older. Brown skin, wide smile, a mop of curly dark hair that's slightly too long and falls across his forehead in a way that he clearly knows is charming because he doesn't push it back. He's wearing the same spa uniform I am, except his actually fits, the buttons are all fastened correctly, and the trousers are the right length, and I immediately resent him for it in the fondest possible way.
"Star," I offer. "Hi."
"Curtis." He reaches across the table and shakes my hand, which is a funny, old-fashioned thing to do, and his grip is firm and warm and completely uncomplicated. No hidden textures. No almost-fists. No fingers settling over the exact imprint of mine on a water glass. Just a handshake. "I'm the other masseuse. Well, one of them. I've been here four months, so I'm basically ancient. Elder statesman. Veteran of a thousand Swedish massages and one very memorable incident involving a hot stone and a woman's Hermès bag."
