Confessions, Part 2

(Confessions, cont'd)

23:30 hrs, ship's time

        Time has little meaning on a ship. It’s constantly changing to match the local hours at every port of call and rarely is it consistent from one landfall to the next. One simply conforms to the clock dirtside, regardless of the time already spent awake prior to landing. It’s easy to say but hard to do, and I’ve pulled sleepless stints past twenty-four hours on more than one occasion.
        It’s only during the long stretches between ports that there’s some semblance of a diurnal rhythm. Crews divvy up duties between night and day shifts, set their watches to ship’s time, and carry on. So it was that evening after dinner that I grabbed my kit bag and took myself off to the crew head to shower. I’d just spent an hour whaling the shit out of the punching bag in the aft lounge, working up a good sweat and bolstering my resolve to make good on the deal I’d struck with Christian earlier. My knuckles burned. Inspecting them, I saw they’d been skinned raw by the bag as I’d pummeled it. I turned the shower on, and put up with the sting as the water hit the broken skin. A little pain would be salutary, given my current frame of mind.
        Lather, rinse, repeat.
        I dried off quickly, pulled a fresh change on and quit the head toweling my hair dry. It had been nearly a year since I’d last put barbers’ shears to it and it swung to my shoulders. A bother. Maybe I’d take care of it wherever STT sent us next. Assuming we survived Potemkin once we arrived on Bernadette.
        “Rina.”
        I heard my name and turned, and saw Christian in the corridor. I pulled off the towel and raked my fingers through my hair to settle it.
        “I’ll just be a minute,” I said. Christian nodded and leant against his door, and I ducked into my quarters to dress. I pulled open my locker and tossed my kit bag on the shelf and dithered: dress up or down? I stood in nothing but a clean jog bra and leggings. Dressing down wasn’t an option. Up, then. I shrugged into a fresh tee-shirt and padded barefoot to my door. I stuck my head out and waved Christian over.
        “Coast’s clear.”
        “Oh, good,” Christian said, smiling. “I’d hate to see your breasts. They must be hideous, so perfectly shaped and well-sized.” He walked into my quarters as if he belonged there and I resisted the urge to swat him on his blue-jeaned ass for his remark as he passed me.
        “A good bra is a girl’s best friend,” I said and waved him to the furnishings. “Hell, Christian, yours are probably better than mine. Have a seat.”
        “More expensive, anyway,” Christian admitted, settling on my bed. “One of these days I’ll have to put on a nice dress. It’s been ages since I’ve cross-dressed.”
        I took the chair at my desk and tucked a leg under me. Too late, I realized my leggings fell short of my shins and inwardly winced. I hated my scars and normally kept them covered. If he asks, he asks. It was bound to come up sooner or later.
        “I’m sorry if I kept you waiting. I forgot the time.” I ran my fingers through my hair again, hit a snag and pulled a comb from my desk drawer. I worked the knot out and spoke. “So where were we? You were going to tell me why you aren’t in the Life anymore.”
        “You know why I left,” he said, paying no attention to my shins. I silently thanked him for it. He kept his eyes on mine and continued. “You asked why I didn’t go back. I told you I’d talk about this if you told me why you said no to Mike. Quid pro quo, remember?”
        He smiled a small smile and I nodded.
        “Fair enough.” I tossed the comb back in the drawer and shut it, then tipped my head back and regarded the ceiling. I sighed. Here we go. “What do you want to know? Something general or something more specific?”
        “You know Mike didn’t intend to raise sheep or farm. And you want to be with him. So why didn’t you call his bluff and say yes?”
        “Good question.” I lowered my gaze and looked at him. “The fact that he phrased his proposal as he’d done….look, it’s complicated. Tell me something, Christian. Name something that if someone offered you a lifetime doing it, it would make you run the hell away.”
        He considered it.
        “I see what you mean,” he said. “He picked the thing that would most repel you.” He paused. Then: “And if he could do that…could try to push you away like that…then you couldn’t be with him. He had to be ready.”
        “You almost got it right. He didn’t frame it the way he did to find out what I’d say. He already knew. That’s why he framed it the way he did—to give us both an out. He’s going somewhere he doesn’t want me to follow. Whether it’s a matter of pride or operational security isn’t the point. The fact that he chose that method to make me back off was. And to understand that, you need to know a little more about us.”
        “Are you ready to tell me that?” Christian asked, his voice soft. “You’ve answered my question. I’m fine with leaving it there.”
        “Another good question.” I bit my lip, debating. Companions don’t kiss and tell. But is he a Companion right now? Or crew? Honesty warred with discretion, the need for friendship urged me toward confidences while ingrained habit warned me to say nothing. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to be a tease, Christian, but what I say next depends on what you do with it.”
        “Then you have to wait.”
        Christian stood up and bent down to brush his lips against my cheek.
        “Until you’re sure,” he said, his breath tickling my ear. “To core of your being, that you can trust me. When that day comes, I’ll listen to everything you have to tell me.”
        I froze at his touch and then grabbed his arms and firmly pushed him back a step.
        “Don’t.” I said evenly, and released him. “If you want me to trust you, Christian, you’ll have to leave your Companion tricks at the door. I want to know that I’m dealing with the person, not the training. Can you do that?”
        Christian smiled but I caught a touch of sadness in his expression, nonetheless.
        “The training is part of who I am, Rina. I can’t stop that any more than you can stop being a mechanic. As for that, I asked the Guild to reinstate my license, before we landed on Angel.” He moved to the door and opened it, then paused on the threshold and looked at me. “I meant what I said, Rina. When I have your trust, I’ll listen, but you shouldn’t tell me until you’re sure. Giving away pieces of yourself should only happen with people you truly feel bonded to.”
        It was good advice but it didn’t hide the fact the man was skipping out on me.
        “Not so fast, Mister. Park your ass back on that bed and deliver your half of the bargain. I didn’t ask you if you were going back to the Guild. I asked you why you left. And it’s not because you had to take out some ruttin’ pizda bliad in self-defense. I’m sure it happens often enough that the Guild has training for that, too. Your leaving wasn’t business, it was personal. Why?”
        Christian laughed, returned to my bunk and sat down, and I realized what he’d just done.
        Stick to your guns. Keep him honest. Don’t give in.
        “Okay,” he said, sobering.
        It’s how he plays the game.
        I watched him marshal his thoughts and choose his words. I gave him the time he needed. It was how the game was played, after all.
        “I left because I felt guilty,” he finally said. “I had killed a man. Worse, I had done so in a sacred space, during a sacred time.”
        Sacred? Well, I’ll be damned….
        “Just when I think I have you figured out,” I murmured after a long minute. Keep him honest. “So…sex is sacred to you?”
        “No,” he said. “Sex isn’t. The time a Companion spends with his or her client is. It starts with a ritual and it ends with one. We consecrate the place where the union is performed.”
        “Then I think that’s where you and I may have to differ,” I said slowly, and meant it. “For me, it’s the sex that’s sacred, that sanctifies the time and place, not the other way around. Sharing your soul and baring it is a sacrament and it deserves respect. Bringing money into it….” I sighed, uncertain I could make him understand. “There’s a reason Jesus swept the moneychangers from the Temple, Christian.”
        I realized how it sounded and held up a hand to forestall him.
        “I’m not arguing your profession or your morals. I’m not here for that. You felt guilty for sullying something sacred and you put yourself in…what? purgatory, to expiate yourself for your sin, is that it?”
        “Something like that, yes.”
        “Was it required? What did the Guild demand you do?”
        “The Guild didn’t demand anything of me,” he said. “The incident happened, they were satisfied it was self-defense. They dealt with it. I left for my own reasons. I thought at the time it was because I had dishonored the Guild. I’ve come to realize I left because I thought I deserved the punishment of leaving my family. Luckily, I found a new family and they taught me that I had been an idiot.”
        He grinned then, and I breathed a laugh.
        “Every family has one,” I said. I drew my knees up and hugged them. “Where do you go from here?”
        “I sent in a petition for reinstatement. Now, I wait to see what it says. After that, hopefully they’ll give me a loan to fix up one of the cargo containers to work from. I’ll sleep in my room, work from the container.”
        “Sounds like you’re settling down for the long haul then, even though I know there were at least two times you were close to leaving. I know I may not show it well, Christian, but I’m glad you decided to stay.”
        “In the past.” Christian waved a hand aft. “This is my home, now. Where else would I want to be? Well…maybe on a nicer ship. I know Nika wants one with more cargo space.”
        “‘A man’s dreams should exceed his grasp/Else what is a Heaven for?’”
        “Exactly,” Christian agreed. “And considering our debt after Potemkin’s little present…we need all the dreams we can get.”
        “Christian,” I said quietly. “Have you ever lost yours?”
        “Yes,” he said. “You helped me find it again.”
        “I?” That threw me. “How?”
        “You taught me how to understand myself better,” he said softly. “You taught me there are things worth fighting for. Even worth killing for. And you taught me that family is there to help each other, to share the burdens so no one is alone.”
        And there it was: the opening I needed. Dare I take it? I looked at him sitting on my bunk looking at me, and made up my mind.


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