The night sky was clear but the ground was still wet from the drizzle they’d had all day. It made Zara and Jack take short, mincing steps down the hill toward the water. Their bodies were still warm from the food and their balance a little off from the drink, so they giggled as they made their descent, and groped each other for support when they slipped.
“This walking thing is hard,” Jack said. “I don’t get why people like it so much.”
“Maybe people like hard things,” Zara said, giggling.
“Oh really,” Jack said. “Are you one of them?”
Zara slipped a little and grabbed Jack to steady herself. “Maybe,” she said.
The ease of this silly banter was relaxing for Zara, and she thought about how difficult even the most basic interaction with Asseem was, and how her parents always questioned her motives, her ideas, her executions, always layering their interpretations with personal, social, existential implications until Zara felt not only connected to everything, but tethered to it. What Jack didn’t take at face value, he turned into a joke.
“The park is on the other side of the train tracks,” Zara said, and pointed ahead a couple of blocks.
“Looks like we won’t have much of a view,” Jack said.
Zara looked farther out, onto the bay, and saw was Jack must have meant: a low, thick fog curling toward the shore. It looked like the fog they’d had the day before, that she and Asseem had fought in; it looked even thicker.
“Damn that stuff,” Zara said.
“You know what? I actually like it.”
“You like the crazy weather, huh?”
“Yeah, I don’t know, it just seems…” Jack clearly didn’t know what he meant.
Zara wasn’t paying much attention anyway. She was preoccupied with the business she’d been roped into. What was Asseem’s angle? She wished she’d pressed him for more information, but she’d been too happy about the trade she’d negotiated to worry about the particulars of her role in the arrangement. Because she knew what Street Cred was paid to do, she assumed he’d be conducting some sort of scene involving Jack. But what sort of scene was it going to be?
Zara suddenly wondered if it mattered so much whether or not Asseem showed up to see her dance. Yes, she’d told her mother he’d be there, but what was it worth? After all, her mother had been right about Asseem. That he’d agreed to come in no way indicated his support, and her mother probably knew it. Her mother probably knew that he supported her stripping about as much as he supported anything, which is to say, only if it served his purposes. The fog clawed closer and closer to the shore as they closed in on it from the opposite direction. It looked like they’d meet it right at the edge of the water.
“I gotta pee,” Jack said, and walked off to some nearby bushes cautiously climbing their way up the side of a slightly dilapidated apartment building.
The area, just north of downtown, was one of the first to be cleaned in The Brightening, and the streets shone, their newly uncovered asphalt wet and reflecting the light of the newly lit street lamps. Since the buildings were slated for demolition, however, those remained untouched, unremodeled, reminders that the city had work left to do. Zara waited for Jack, and watched the fog. Because of his pit stop it had beaten them to the water’s edge, and was slowly creeping up over the bulkhead, swallowing the bay view benches, and spreading out into the parking lot at the other side of which they stood. She thought about Jack’s appreciation of the strange weather. She thought about his inability to articulate it. Both things were endearing.
She thought about Asseem.
“You know what?” she said over her shoulder. “Let’s scram.”
Jack jogged up behind her. The fog was crawling across the lot, still mostly carless, and was set to reach them soon.
“Doesn’t look like we’d have much of a view,” he said. “And babe, I like looking atcha.”
Zara smiled. What a simple thing, to be liked. She turned around, grabbed Jack’s face, and pulled it toward hers, kissing him hard on the mouth.
“Yo!” they heard from a distance. “What the fuck you think you doin’?”
The fog, low to the ground in front, began parting around their legs. The voice had come from the direction of the water, and they couldn’t see its owner but Zara knew who it belonged to.
“Let’s go, Jack,” Zara said. “Let’s get the heck out of here.”
Jack resisted.
“What’s it look like?” he called into the fog, defiant. “How about minding your own business?”
“Zara get the fuck outta here,” Asseem said. “We’s gonna take care a diss.” He was closer, but still consumed by fog, and his voice, though angry, was muffled by the thick mist. It seemed small.
“You’ve got the wrong gal, pal,” Jack said. He looked at Zara and winked.
“Nigga you got the wrong face, and I’mma help you out wit it.”
Zara tugged on Jack’s arm. “Jack, really, I’m impressed, okay? I’m impressed, and I think I’d rather not see anyone hurt on our first date.”
He pulled his arm back a bit, but not enough to loosen Zara’s grip. “Helen I’m not going to stand here and be insulted. Besides,” he flexed his bicep, “whoever it is out there, I don’t think he knows who he’s dealing with.”
It occurred to Zara that if she just told Jack the truth she’d probably be able to prevent any violence. But Jack would never forgive her for lying. She began to hear footsteps, which could only mean Asseem was closing in, and she pulled on Jack’s arm again, stepping up on tiptoe to whisper in his ear.
“If you ever want to fuck me,” she whispered, “take me home right now.”
They were almost entirely eclipsed by fog.
Jack turned to face her, and they looked each other in the eyes until the fog crept up over their heads and was all they could see.
“Deal,” he said.
He took her arm and, in a move Helen would later call brilliant, plunged them both deeper into the white, wet abyss. They ran off to the south across the lot, and though unable to see anything at all, managed to avoid contact with anything hard or sharp.
“Zara!” Asseem screamed into the whiteness. “Zara, you bitch! You’re mine! Just wait! I’ll get you back, I swear on my life!”
Helen wanted to hurl a couple of insults of her own, but instead kept silent by finding Jack’s face again and plugging her mouth up with his tongue. They kissed blindly, and she felt Jack exploring her back, move on to her ass, and finally brave the damp terrain between her legs. The combined intensity of dodging Asseem and the strange thrill of complete anonymity caused by the fog pushed Helen’s legs farther open and ground her crotch into Jack’s hand. She wrapped her arms around his shoulders and climbed up his sturdy body until her chest was in his face and she could feel his bestial growl vibrate through the soft fabric of her dress and tickle her stiff, throbbing nipples. He dug one finger into her, than two, than more until she lost count, and he gently pressed the inside arch of his thumb against her clit until she felt a slow, building pressure in her legs that boiled up and swirled around in her gut as she clutched his back and drove herself harder into his hands until, in a shattering series of accumulating lunges and jolts she came. And came. And came. And she wondered what her face had looked like, and she wondered what Jack’s face looked like, and with weakened knees she slid down his long body slowly until she could feel the zipper at his crotch kiss her lips. She bit the little brass tab and pulled.
Helen didn’t stand back up until the fog had begun to thin.
Chapter 38 at Birkensnake ⋅ Chapter 40 at Matt Bell
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