Skin (8 page)

I ran a
finger along the edge of the bookshelf in Sveta
’s
office. It was well after midnight and Sanctuary was silent
again.

I had wanted
to leave straight away after the fight finished but she urged me to
stay. The memory of her touch still ran hot on my skin and I
couldn’t object.

We’d been in
her office for almost an hour and the promise of sex seemed an
impossibility. It even seemed an impossible idea to think that just
hours ago, we’d been behind that door in the steam room doing those
things to each other, with each other. Now we were separate.

Sveta
was curled into one of her beanbag chairs, flicking through an
old
National Geographic
magazine but not actually reading it. I knew she was waiting
for me to talk. What would I say? I was horrified? I was offended
she thought I would be into this thing? I
’d already
told her essentially that. I had known her all of five minutes and
already knew that Sveta was not the girl whose mind was easily
changed by the opinions of others. What was the point of explaining
myself anymore?

More to
the point, I
’d known her all of five minutes, we’d had
sex once. This was far too soon to be falling into one of these
stupid peevish arguments like the ones Victoria was always trapping
me into.

Victoria. I
hadn’t thought of her since I left Novo on her birthday. It was
strange to think of her here. What would she say if she knew where
I was? Who I was with and what we were doing?

“
I know
who your mother was,” Sveta said casually, snapping my attention
back to the room. She didn’t look up from her magazine.

“
What?”
It was the last thing I had expected her to say.

“
Your
mother, Gretchen Knight. She was a world class fighter. What was
it? Twenty years ago?”

“
What’s
any of this got to do with any of that?” I said. I didn’t bother
asking how she found out. This was the information age. It was also
the complete lack of privacy and the inability to forget any aspect
of one’s past age. How did everything make its way onto the
Internet?

“
You
would have grown up in arenas, watching her on the
stage?”

I
nodded.
“It was hardly the same thing as what you’ve
got going on here though. That was a display. This is…”

“…
a
display,” she finished.

“
It’s
different,” I said.

“
But
your mother got sick, didn’t she? Please, forgive me for prying,
Rev. I’m just curious to know what happened to her after the career
she had.”

“
Why
don’t you look it up online?” I snapped.

“
I did,”
she said. She me with those snake eyes and I started to hate the
powerlessness they brought down on me.

“
Yeah,
she got sick. Brain cancer. That’s what happens when you pump
yourself full of plastic and chemicals. You get sick and rot away
to nothing, and then you die and leave the world like it didn’t
even matter one bit that you were ever in it.”

“
She
took steroids? I had no idea.”

“
It
wasn’t steroids. It was those Prime Life powders. Health
supplements they call it. In less than a year she went from a
warrior goddess to nothing and then dead. Wasted, limp and soft,
old and weak before her time.”

I
hadn
’t spoken of my mother like this before, even
though these thoughts still went through my head almost daily. Her
illness was a betrayal and I’d long stopped trying to forgive her
for it. And now it was a betrayal that Sveta was using her story to
try to convince me that what she put on here behind the facade of
Sanctuary was the same thing as the shows my mother had excelled
in, the championships of those perfect humans that I had grown up
worshipping. It was not the same thing. It wasn’t even
close.

Sveta lifted
herself out of the cushion in a smooth, effortless movement and
stood by me, stroking her hand along the side of me head. I hated
that it felt so good.

“
I’m
sorry,” she cooed in my ear. I turned my face to kiss her lips. I
didn’t want her to talk anymore.

A soft knock
sounded through the door. Sveta pulled away and straightened her
dress from where I had pulled it up her thigh as we kissed.

“
Come
in,” she said.

The door
opened slowly, cautiously and the champion, Darius, stepped into
the room. He was even bigger up close, and even though he was now
dressed, his bulk heaved visibly, muscles sliding over muscles with
even the slightest movement. I puffed out my chest, an involuntary
movement that made me feel silly and all the smaller. His dark eyes
met mine with a cold glance and he turned his attention entirely to
Sveta.

“
You
summoned me?” he said. His voice was a gravely baritone.

“
Come
in, Darius. I would like you to meet Rev.”

Darius held
out his hand, a giant paw that looked like a side of beef. I shook,
expecting my own hand to be crushed. He kept his eyes locked on
Sveta.

“
You did
well tonight, darling. It was a perfect show for Rev to see as his
first. Congratulations.”

“
Thank
you,” Darius growled. He turned to me, his entire shoulder needed
to shift in order for his tiny head to swivel. His sausage fingers
tapped at the side of his leg in a frantic compulsion I doubted he
was even aware of. “When is your first cross?”

“
Never.
That’s not my scene, I mean, it’s not for me, that is,” I tripped
over my words. “I’m just a spectator.”

Darius
huffed like a bull.
“It takes a special man,” he said.
And then added, shifting his bulk back to face Sveta. “Or
woman.”

“
Rev is
a clean Natural, just like you, Darius,” Sveta said lightly.
“That’s why I thought you two would have so much in common, you
could be good friends.”

She smiled
warmly at us both, her hands clasped in front of her chest in a
strange prayer position.

“
If
you’ll excuse me for a minute, gentlemen. There’s a matter I need
to see through.” She left us alone in the room together.

She was
trying to set us up? I almost marvelled at her, a puppet master,
walking into my life, pulling my strings and trying to make me
dance. That was one of her mistakes. The other was thinking a man
could get to the size of Darius while staying clean. I had seen my
fair share of juicers. A voice as deep as hell, the jittery
movements. The guy was obviously paranoid, threatened straight off
by me, some kind of macho possessiveness over Sveta,
she
’d probably had in in the steam room a few times
too—if he could manage to get anything up under all of that juice.
And then of course there was his uncanny size. Darius was on
buckets of steroids no doubt.

The
realisation relaxed me. This guy was huge, yes. But he was still
nothing no matter how many times anyone called him a champion.

“
Clean
and Natural, eh?” Darius said, looking me up and down. “In that
case I’d certainly be interested to see what you’ve got out
there.”

“
You can
see what I’ve got in here,” I said. “I lift, that’s all I’m here
for.”

“
Not how
the game works. You’re not the first one to call himself just a
spectator. Everyone takes their turn on the cross eventually.
That’s where you really see what your power is. Any monkey can heft
a barbell. It says nothing. You’re not the first to come behind
these doors, either, but I think you know that by now. It doesn’t
make you special, only the cross does.”

Darius was
challenging me. Had Sveta put him up to this? A plea to my
masculinity to get him to agree to go onto the cross?

“
I
lift.” I said it slowly, keeping my voice deliberately low and
looking the giant dead in the eye. “That’s all I’m here
for.”

Morning
was well into day when the front door intercom woke me up. I
scrambled out of bed, expecting to hear Sveta
’s voice
through the tinny speaker. It was Victoria. I buzzed her
in.

“
Hey,” I
said as I opened the door. I tried to make a show of being
flustered and too rushed to stop and talk. “Sorry, but I’m really
late. I overslept."

“
Hey
yourself,” she said. She wrapped her arms around my neck and kissed
my cheek. There was something wrong with her if she didn’t notice I
didn’t return the slightest affection.

“
I just
went to Saturn’s. Or Prime Fit, as I should call it now. Why aren’t
you at work already?”

“
I’ve
got a new job,” I said, hurrying into the bathroom.

“
You
didn’t tell me that,” she called after me.

“
I’m
telling you now,” I said. I closed the door so I wouldn’t have to
talk anymore. She stayed on the other side and kept
talking.

“
Just
another thing, I guess. You’ve been really absent from this whole
relationship lately.”

I turned
on the water and hoped she
’d go away. She opened the
door and kept talking.

“
Rev.
I’m starting to worry about you.”

“
You
don’t need to worry about anything, Vicky.” I said, turning on more
heat, wanting the shower glass to fog so she couldn’t see me naked.
“I’ve just been a bit off lately, stressed out from this Prime Fit
crap and now a new job, maybe picked up a bug or something
somewhere. It’s all very distracting. Pass me a towel
please.”

I
dripped out of the shower with the towel around my waist. Why
couldn
’t she just get the idea that I didn’t want to
talk, that I didn’t want her there, and leave. Victoria was not a
dumb woman. So why was she being so stupid? She followed me into my
bedroom and fished around in her handbag, producing a small plastic
jar of green pills. She tossed it onto the bed between
us.

“
Here,
take these,” she said. “Don’t worry, it’s totally natural. It’s the
new OE product I was telling you about. Primal Mass we’re going to
call it. The multivitamins will help you deal with all the stress,
the unique protein devices will help your injuries
heal.”

She sounded
like a brochure. How could she even fathom to think I would take
anything that came out of the Prime Life labs?

“
Great,
thanks.” I said. “I’ll take them, I swear. But now I’ve really got
to keep getting ready. Are we going to meet tonight?”

“
How
about Novo? I’ll book us in for eight.”

“
Sounds
awesome,” I said. I went back past her into the lounge room and
opened the door to let her out.

“
Eight
o’clock,” she reminded me.

I pecked
her on the cheek.
“I’ll meet you there,” I
lied.

I closed the
door in her face and sighed deeply.

Moments
later the buzzer rang again. Why was she coming back? It was Sveta.
She and Victoria would have passed each other. My belly locked in
guilt. Sveta knew who Victoria was, she
’d seen her
photos online. With her leaving my house in the morning, she going
to think I had been sleeping with her.

I opened the
door and pulled her immediately into a deep kiss, the touch of her
skin instantly wiping any thought of Victoria out of the
universe.

“
Do you
always answer the door wrapped in a towel?” she said.

“
Only
for you.”

“
And not
for Victoria? That was her coming out of the elevator,
yes?”

“
It’s
not what you think?” my cheeked burned red.

“
I think
you are taking private steam rooms with a woman who is not your
girlfriend,” she said. “Don’t fret, Rev. I know men can take some
time to adjust to new changes. And you’ve had a lot lately.
Speaking of one change, you are late for work. Again. I should fire
you.”

“
I think
I’ll be OK. My boss is quite understanding. She’s a very remarkable
woman.” I said. I held her close, looking down into her face and
just wanting to kiss it for the rest of the day.

“
If you
left from my house, you’d never be late,” she said.

“
But I’d
have to come here anyway to get my stuff.”

“
Not if
your stuff was at my house.”

“
You
want me to move in with you?”

“
Why
not?” She tugged at the towel. I let it fall to the
floor.

“
Why
not?” I said, doing a terrible job of trying to ignore the fact I
was completely naked and getting hard. “How about because I’m well
aware I’m just the latest in a line of play things for
you?”

“
It’s
not like that,” she said. She hadn’t moved any closer, hadn’t tried
to touch me or respond in any way to the fact she’d just stripped
me. “I’ll admit, you’re not the first man I’ve become involved with
who I have met through my enterprise. Or woman, if we’re going for
complete transparency here. But it’s different with you, Rev.
You’re really special to me.”