Soul(s) (5 page)

“
We don’t even know where
the bathrooms are,” I reminded him.

“
Deductive reasoning, dear
Watson,” Keegan said. It was the weird accent he’d used to say the
sentence that made me laugh and not the words he’d said. I had a
feeling I was missing the actual punch line.

“
Where is that from?” I
asked smiling as I followed him up the stairs.

“
Another book maybe? I
think Watson was a sidekick to someone brilliant, and since
you’re
my
sidekick I figured it would be a fitting
nickname.”

I cut him off right there. “If anything,
you’d be my sidekick.”

“
Well excuse me, Wats. How
is it that I’ve already saved you your life but I’m
your
sidekick?”

“
I’m sure I’ll get my
chance,” I said as I playfully booty bumped as we cleared the last
few stairs. At the top, the hallway opened up to a small loft
reading space and then there were three doors. I twisted the handle
of the middle door and it swung back. It was large with one big
rectangular sink. The floor was the same dark wood material as the
door and at the end of the room it rose up in steps to a double
sized tub. Clearly this room was meant to be shared.

“
Where’s the toilet?”
Keegan asked suddenly.

“
Maybe we pee in the
pool?” I joked, and then I realized, I’d just remembered something
from First-Plane.

“
Disgusting,” he said, the
word rolled over his tongue in stretched out syllables. He made a
disapproving click at me, faking distaste at my joke.

“
I don’t think we actually
use bathroom in this plane. I haven’t had the urge to pee yet and
we’ve been here for hours now,” I added.

“
But we still have all of
our bits,” Keegan said winking at me mischievously.

I felt myself blushing at
the word
bits.
“I
imagine you were very outgoing in First-Plane.

“
Maybe I was, maybe I
wasn’t,” he said ambiguously. “Ladies first; you can bathe and when
you’re done, come find me. I’m sure one of these other rooms has a
bed.”

At the sound of my sharp inhale he added
quickly: “Napping.”

He turned to leave, but stopped suddenly.
Without looking at me he said, “Sariah, you do like me a little
right?”

“
Of course,” I told him,
surprised at his question and the premature emotion in my words. I
hadn’t known him very long but it felt long enough to know that I
liked him.

“
Even though this world
has thrown us together we don’t
have
to be together.” He turned a
little, making eye contact over his shoulder as he continued, “I
have this feeling though that I’d be yours even if we’d met on
First-Plane.”

I felt my skin prickle at his words.

He swept a hand through his curls, ruffling
them like springy feathers as he sighed.

“
We have this
connection
and I could
easily just go with my instincts, but I can feel that your
personality isn’t quite so impulsive as mine. You’re passionate,
but you hold back. You play it safe. You wait. You think things
through and then you react. Which is fine,” he added, with a slight
twinge of nervousness in his voice.

I realized he was afraid of offending
me.

“
You know,” he continued
on rambling a little awkwardly as he tried to express himself, “I
didn’t start what was happening between us in the cave, but I
wanted it. What I’m trying to say is, I want this to develop
naturally between us. Just come get me when it’s my turn to
shower.”

He closed the door softly behind him. Even
though he was gone the energy of his words still buzzed in the
room.

I loved the sound of the water piling on top
of itself. I’d eased down into the tub early before it was even a
fourth of the way full. I’d spent a long time just soaking. It’d
taken a while to fill the tub, but I didn’t mind. It was so large
that I felt like a mermaid and I have to admit, I did splash a bit
like one.

There was some kind of soap that had a light
flower smell and I scrubbed myself down quickly. It was as if the
water was seeping directly into my pores and it was exhilarating. I
felt stronger and any fatigue I had was gone. I closed my eyes
leaning back. My mind drifted and before I knew it I caught the
tail end of Keegan’s thoughts.

I hope she chooses me in the end.

Even though I knew I could have pried more.
There was something about my relationship with Keegan that made me
not want to do it. I quickly pulled myself back and put
up—figuratively—a barrier blocking me from diving into his mind. If
he wanted to talk to me telepathically, then we would, but I had to
have some sort of boundaries. I didn’t want to have an advantage
over him by being able to read his mind. He had said he wanted us
to grow together organically in to being venku, well, respecting
his mind was the first step.

When the water started to cool I got out and
automatically searched for a towel. Then I realized I was dry and
didn’t need one. My body had sucked in all the droplets of water
when I’d gotten out of the tub. I thought about putting back on the
same body suit, but it felt weird since I was clean now and it
wasn’t. Or was it? I didn’t know how that worked. Maybe it
self-cleaned. Maybe neither of us was even dirty to begin with.
That could just be another imprint from First-Plane. Either way, I
wanted to wear something else.

Keegan,
I thought-called to him.

Yeah?
His voice rang in my head.

Are there any clothes for us to change
into?

I found loose pants and a Flash Dance kind
of off the shoulder sweater top.

A what?
I asked.

There was no reply. I could hear him walking
across the hallway towards the bathroom. He tapped lightly on the
door and I cracked it open just enough to expose my face but not my
body.

“
Here,” he said offering
me the folded clothes in his hand.

“
How did you know it was
off the shoulder,” I teased, “did you try it on?”

He scoffed back amused, “Wats,” he said,
playfully reusing the nickname from earlier. “Unless you have been
hiding the fact that you have beefed up man shoulders, then the
collar size is way too large. It will therefore drape deliciously
down on one side, exposing the lovely curve of your shoulder.”

“
Lovely,” I said echoing
him. I attempted to pull the clothes out of his hands but he didn’t
let them go.

“
Well,” emphasizing my
words with a firm tug that freed the clothes, “maybe I’ll let you
see both shoulders.”

“
Calm it down now,” he
said whistling.

I closed the door, grinning to myself I
dressed quickly. The pants were loose and comfortable with a
drawstring I could use to secure them and—he was right—the shirt
did hang loosely off of one shoulder. When I opened the door he was
still there.

“
All yours,” I
said.

“
Finally,” he murmured.
His eyes darkened as I walked past him. He caught my hand, stopping
me from moving by. I felt a heat rivet from his palm through mine,
careening through my limbs down over my body. My heart skipped. I
caught myself licking my lips in anticipation. What an affect we
had on each other. It was almost too much, almost but just not
quite. He pulled me close to him wrapping my arm around his waist.
We were just inches away from each other.

But the kiss never came.

“
I see your one shoulder,
but you promised me both,” he said to me.

He lifted his hand and with just the tips of
his fingers pulled the fabric down. I felt the right side material
drag up and the left side brush down. He traced the outline of my
shoulder with his fingers. What he said next I wasn’t sure he meant
for me to hear escaping his lips.

“
Waiting will be harder
than I thought.”

“
Will it,” I said teasing
him. I wasn’t sure where that confidence came from but I went with
it. It was better than constantly being mute and
blushing.

Removing his fingers from my shoulder,
Keegan began pulling down his own bodysuit. His eyes flashed
playfully.

“
You want to see my
shoulders?” He said huskily.

“
I’ve already seen more
than your shoulders,” I replied back. Turning, I walked away with
what I hoped was a confident sashay. I couldn’t be sure what
exactly that was or if I’d done it right.

08: KEEGAN

After I finished bathing, I streaked to the
bedroom hoping to catch Sariah off guard and win another one of
those charming blushes, but she wasn’t in the room. I grabbed a
similar outfit to what I’d found for her. They must have pre-fitted
the apartments for different Venku combinations—male-female,
female-female, male-male—because ours clearly seemed to have items
styled for Sariah and for myself. There was a slight flicker in my
mind that some of those combinations were provocative, but because
we were all souls I couldn’t’ remember why.

I shrugged it off, if it was something
important, I was sure I’d remember it.

I was about to head
downstairs to find Sariah, when a flicker of light caught my eye
from the other door way. It wasn’t coming from the bathroom; it was
the
other
room we
hadn’t explored. I walked over to it, pushing the door the rest of
the way open.

Sariah was sitting cross-legged on the floor
with a round globe spinning slowly in front of her. She wasn’t
touching it, but regions were lighting up and information—maps,
pictures, data filled graphs—projected into the air around us. I
recognized the shape of the planet immediately.

“
That’s Earth,” I told her
as I came fully into the room.

“
Hit the lights. Close the
door,” Sariah instructed. She was fully engrossed in what she was
looking at. I realized she was using her telekinesis to control
it.

“
You’re getting better at
using your powers,” I said as I took a seat next to her on the
floor.

“
Yeah,” she mumbled to me.
She was looking for something, scanning over various countries as
if she were looking for a particular place. Finally it stopped and
the state of New York projected in front of us. Data started
flickering quickly on the screen. Too fast for me to read, but I
knew she was absorbing it all.

“
You’re like a machine
connected to that thing,” I said. I wasn’t sure what type of awe I
was experiencing: fear or amazement. I was beginning to feel as if
we were just tapping into the scope of our power. I wondered how
strong we really were, and how dangerous we could
become.

“
That’s the state of New
York, particularly New York City, you’re reading about.”

“
How do you know?” she
asked, her attention fully leaving the globe and turning to
me.

“
Must have been there in
First-Plane,” I theorized.

“
I was drawn to that spot
on the globe. While you were in the shower, I remembered we hadn’t
gone into this room yet. It’s like a mini library. It must connect
to the Archive, Iris showed us on our tour. Everything they know
about First-Plane is in here. How’d they get all this
data?”

“
That’s a good question.
There are a lot of souls here, maybe they have strong imprints of
places they’ve lived, facts they’ve learned.”

“
I don’t know why I was
drawn to this spot. Anyway, I shouldn’t explore too much in any
given area. What if they’re monitoring what we do? We have no way
of knowing who we can trust.”

“
We can trust each other,”
I promised.

Her energy was tense and I reacted by taking
her hand. I brushed a light kiss on her knuckles.

We’ll be fine Sariah. They don’t seem like
bad people.

Bad people never seem like
bad people,
she thought back.

I’ll keep you safe,
I thought back. Aloud I added, “Come on, let’s go
to the Abstract. We’ll have time to read up on First-Plane
later.”

We sauntered through town. It all looked
pretty normal. Little vendors dabbled along the streets. No cars,
just people moving together in clumps of traffic through the
city.

Sariah stopped at a cart that looked like it
was selling some type of bracelet or jewelry.

“
You like this piece?”
asked the vendor, following Sariah’s gaze to the item.

“
Yes, it’s lovely.”
Sariah’s fingers danced over the stones embedded in a curving metal
design.

“
It’s for your hair. Here,
let me show you.”

The vendor gathered up her hair sweeping it
into a twist off the nape of her neck. She put the clasp in the
center and clipped it. She produced a mirror to show off her handy
work. Sariah smiled with approval.

“
That’s perfect,” she
said. “My hair is so heavy and thick. I get irritated with it down
all the time.”

“
I like it down,” I told
her smiling.

“
Well, you’re not lugging
it around,” she shot back teasingly.