Posted: 2008-01-28 01:57pm
I was wondering why I always post these updates in lots of two. I think it's because if I do one, it feels way too short, but I have not the patience to wait for more. Maybe next update I'll give you three, what with the updates coming more slowly anyway.
---
Doctor Brückner was turned away while Emily was getting dressed, partly out of a peculiarly old-fashioned sense of modesty for a woman who just had her fingers inside Emily's vagina, and partly to save time, reviewing the lists of entries in Emily's examination record on her laptop. It suited Emily either way – she was grateful for the moment out of sight to lose her composure completely. How anyone found a speculum arousing was entirely beyond her comprehension, despite having seen more than one person insist on its use.
As Emily finished, Brückner turned back. “You remain entirely too healthy for a high risk woman, I'm happy to say. Your blood pressure is one of the lowest I've ever seen without hypotension, no signs of cancer or STDs. If you were anyone else I wouldn't have you come in for another two years. You are in what is probably the healthiest part of a human life.” Emily nodded as Brückner ran down the list of normal and healthy results from the examination.
“The lab work on your Pap smear is probably going to take at least three or four days – the lab we use is undergoing equipment upgrades. If you need the STD check turned in before then you probably can get a blood test done before you leave.”
Emily shifted on the chair where she had settled down. She had been avoiding the topic throughout the examination given where it was inevitably going to end up. “Actually Doctor, that won't be necessary. This last one's just to make sure I'm clean, but after that I'm letting my license expire.”
“That's good news.” Brückner's tone had a questioning note for it, and for all she was smiling, Emily imagined there was a sharp look in her eye. Brückner was as aware as she was that ending a period as a licensed prostitute was at least as likely to end in unlicensed prostitution as any other profession. Best to get it all out before Brückner got too many bad ideas.
“Yes, well, I have a girlfriend now, and she's been helping me out.” Emily pinked saying that out loud. She was endlessly grateful to Srihevana for having all but bought her out of slavery, but her dependence was hardly inspiring when put that way. Brückner did not seem to share that opinion, her expression easing.
“That's very decent of her.”
Emily nodded, smiling at the remembered the look of a maddened cavalier on Srihevana's face as she settled the remaining few of Emily's debts and set up an expense account to see Emily through till a place had been set up that was large enough for both of them.
“It was. But I had a question.” Emily's flush deepened enough so as to be noticeable. Not that she expected Brückner to be anything but professional about the questions she had about an interspecies relationship, but it was still something that was socially unacceptable enough that even Emily was uncomfortable about admitting it around anyone other than Srihevana herself. Brückner motioned for her to continue.
“Well. My girlfriend is a Taloran. And I wanted to know if there was anything I should know about them, physically, before I found out by embarrassing myself.”
That got Brückner's attention. She was, as Emily expected, entirely polite about it, but she did not even bother to conceal the keen interest she now took. “Physically speaking? Beyond of course their height and other immediate visible features, their biochemistry is markedly different from our own. Disease isn't a problem usually, although there are more cases of bacterial and viral afflictions crossing species the longer we are in contact. I could point you to a number of good works on it that do not require extensive biochemistry backgrounds to understand if you're interested in all the details.
“Sexually,” Brückner spoke in a way that left no doubt that she knew that this was the sort of information Emily was after. “Talorans are compatible with us for the most part, insofar as sexual intercourse is possible and enjoyable cross-species, although not reproductively fruitful. Their saliva does contain significant quantities of acetic acid, making it between hundreds and thousands of times more acidic than ours, albeit dependant on a great many factors. Kissing her will not quite be like gargling vinegar, but rinsing your mouth afterwards would probably be wise, and be sure to brush often. The fluoridation process makes your enamel more resistant to acid.
“Their external genitalia is reversed ordered compared to us. Instead of clitoris, urethra, vagina—“ Brückner punctuated her explanation with a top, middle, bottom gesture for illustration. “—their genitalia arranged vagina, clitoris, urethra..” She repeated the gesture to emphasise the point. “Along with the height difference, it will almost certainly take some practise to find positioning that is comfortable and pleasant to you both, along with making different elements of intercourse more attractive. For instance, the position of Taloran clitorises makes penetrative sex more enjoyable for them and so on.”
Doctor Brückner paused for a moment, turning something over in her mind before asking, “Emily, if you do not mind sharing the information, who did you start dating?”
Shaking her head, Emily answered, “Of course not. Srihevana Uxohliu.”
“I see.” A most peculiarly calm expression came over the doctor as she again sat in thought, this time for a considerably longer period. “And you are fully aware of the nature of the relationship that Srihevana is interested in?”
The words stopped Emily cold. Either Brückner was a secret racist, which seemed vanishingly unlikely for the educated and cosmopolitan woman, or she knew something of Srihevana personally, maybe even the entire truth about her sexuality. “I think I do, Doctor.” Emily danced around saying anything compromising outright on the off-chance that Brückner was referring to something else entirely.
Brückner smiled wryly as she guessed what Emily was doing. “I assure you, Emily, that speaking as her physician, there is nothing that you could tell me about Srihevana that would come as a shock to me.”
Emily's eyes widened in surprise. “You're the doctor that removed her ovaries?”
The anxious undertone to Brückner's posture left her, and she leaned back in her chair to a more comfortable position. “Yes and no. I was not the surgeon who actually removed her reproductive system, but I was the one who ordered it done. I assume then that you are aware that Srihevana's sexual preferences are exclusively limited to children of her own species?” Emily nodded. Brückner did know.
There was a silence as Brückner looked Emily over appraisingly. “I can see where she might find similarity. Do you intend to dye your hair?”
“Yeah.” Emily nodded in assent. “I don't know which colour yet, but she's called brown drab before, so I'm not going to be keeping it this way.”
“She would call it that. Green, blue or something similar would be appropriate if you have in mind making yourself more attractive by her standards. You might consider finding a guidebook on rainforest birds for ideas. The way they use their plumage as advertisement for mates is very much like how Talorans use hair colour.”
Brückner glanced down at her computer's clock, frowning. Pulling out a sheet of paper, she scribbled down a number on it and passed it to Emily. “My cell number should you need to contact me. Srihevana is one of my oldest and most interesting patients, and I would appreciate it a great deal if you would keep in touch with me regarding her. She is an incredibly difficult person, as I'm sure you'll find out if you don't know already.” Brückner sighed in frustration. “But be patient with her regardless. Everyone is granted the most invaluable gift in having been born. It is a blessing that most take for granted in a supreme arrogance birthed of our assumption that it was inevitable that we are here existing.”
She placed a hand on Emily's shoulder, looking deep into her eyes. “Srihevana is one of the extremely rare people who has earned her right to be alive, and at enormous personal cost. She deserves something to be happy about. Please, be careful.”
“I promise, Doctor.” Emily was a little overawed by the gravity of Brückner's words. Trying to remember exactly how long the two had known each other, she wondered how deeply the relationship between the two ran. Clearly it was more than just the casual friendship that Srihevana had intimated earlier.
“Good. I unfortunately have to attend a staff meeting shortly and don't have much more time if you don't have any further questions.” Brückner glanced at Emily who shook her head no. “Your test results should be back with you within a week or less. If they don't, or if you have any other concerns, get in touch with me.”
Doctor Brückner stood and clasped Emily's hand. “It's always a pleasure to see you, and I hope to be hearing from you again soon.”
Emily flashed her a grateful smile. “Thank you very much, Doctor. I'll be sure to keep in touch.”
---
The swirls of colour moving through the basin were a bright, vibrant red, diluting as they approached the drain into streamers of lighter shades. It did not look at all like blood. That annoyed Emily for some obscure reason she couldn't quite fathom. She had seen blood in her basin before at her old apartment for a variety of reasons, but always when she was feeling her very worst. Staring at the streaks of crimson had become a comfort to her, a reminder that she was not dead yet. The excess dye now being rinsed out of her hair just did not measure up.
It wasn't even something she felt should be annoying her, but with hair that fell midway down her back, it had taken a considerable amount of time to rinse it completely. Now, as the water finally ran clear, she turned off the tap, wrung out as much water as she could with her hands, and wrapped the entire mess up into a towel, not bothering even to check if the dye job had been a disaster or not. It wouldn't like right until it was dry anyhow, not with this severe a change.
Securing the towel with a hair clip, she tottered out into the main part of the hotel suite in search of a shirt. It was a more difficult task than it at first seemed. She did not have many shirts left after she had thrown out all of the trashiest ones she had previously worn to work, and most of the rest she couldn't fit over the mass of towel and hair.
Finally she retrieved a camisole that she managed to pull on, the spaghetti straps widely spaced enough to allow her to wiggle into it. In retrospect it would have been easier to just put on a shirt before drying her hair, but that would have left it wet, and possibly stained.
Emily collapsed back onto the bed, letting out a long breath as she hit the surface, sinking in to it ever so slightly. It was perhaps the nicest bed she had slept in since she was twelve, clean and well-maintained by the rather expensive hotel she was now staying in.
She had blanched when she realised that it cost more per night than her apartment had per month, but Srihevana had insistied, refusing to let her stay in her old room after having seen Emily's accommodations in person. And she was only going to spend one more night there, or two at the longest, just enough time for Srihevana to finish making the arrangements for the new place she had appropriated for them.
She was awoken from her light doze some time later by a frantic knocking on the door. She considered ignoring it – Srihevana would have called before coming she suspected, and she did not particularly want whatever the hotel staff was trying to sell her – before reluctantly rolling out of bed. She let out a shriek of surprise as she fell nearly a metre to the floor, saved from barking her knees painfully only by the deep carpet. It was the third or fourth time she had done it as well, unused as she was to having a bed higher than a cot. She sighed as she pushed herself up. She was either going to have to stop getting out of bed that way, or get a whole lot better at catching herself before she hit the ground.
A second round of knocking followed, although Emily could not tell if it was inspired either by her yelp or simple impatience. She adjusted the towel – it was only lightly damp, feeling as though it had sucked all the water it could from her hair, and then released it again into the air. Still, it was better to leave it on than to look like a bedraggled swamp monster, especially before checking the colour herself.
A third flurry of taps exploded even as Emily was reaching for the latch, causing her to pause for a moment. It definitely wasn't Srihevana – she couldn't imagine the staid woman beating down a door in any but exceptional circumstances, and the staff were far too polite for that either. Curious now, she opened the door.
“Aislin!” Emily started in surprise, as she opened the door wide enough to let the girl enter. Aislin looked like someone had beaten her soundly with a trout: A mixture of dishevelled looks and a stunned expression it was hard to do justice to. Her mascara had run and her hair was mussed, and although she had clearly tried to clean up a bit, it was an imperfect job done with tissues and fingers that ironically made her look even more unkempt than if she had left it alone. The clothes she wore were clean, but gave the impression that she had been through a hurricane with them on and never stopped to straighten them.
All that alone was cause enough for alarm, but what made Emily pull Aislin in, squeezing the girl in a hug so soon as the door was closed was the look on her face. The girl looked lost. It was a miracle the hotel staff hadn't intercepted her on the way in and tossed her out as a vagrant.
“Sweet Jesus, Aislin, are you okay?”
Emily could feel Aislin's mouth open to speak, only to dissolve into a strained, hiccuping laugh. Finally, she managed a soft, “I don't know.”
Breaking apart, Emily tugged the unresisting Aislin into the lavatory, seating her on the commode. ”Well, let's get you cleaned up anyhow.” Pushing aside the mess she had left from her earlier dying, she dampened a cloth and set about dabbing Aislin's face, scouring it free of the now ruined make-up. It worked, and by the time Emily she had moved from cleaning her face to brushing out her hair, Aislin seemed to have regained most of her composure.
A faint, somewhat rueful smile appeared on the girl's lips. “Thanks. I didn't mean to barge in like that. I just, I just didn't know where else to go.”
“Well,” Emily said, a hint of exasperation creeping into her voice. “I'm flattered I was your first thought, but what in the world happened?”
Aislin did not answer, instead grabbing her purse from where it had fallen unnoticed, and retrieved from it a slip of paper and passed it to Emily. It was slightly crumpled, and had a few crinkled spots that looked like dry tears, or perhaps ocean spray. It was otherwise a very neat and formal document, a bank draught for sixty-five hundred Taloran rialas.
Emily had to be very careful not to drop it. It was not quite as much as the expense account that Srihevana had opened in her name, but it was still probably more money than Aislin had ever possessed put together. Gingerly, she smoothed out the paper, and placed it carefully back in the purse.
“It was from Srihevana,” Aislin said as she watched the draught disappear, although Emily had already guessed that. “For being kind to her beloved.”
An image of Srihevana saying almost exactly that drifted through Emily's mind, prompting to her despite having caught a glimpse of the letter that had accompanied the money. It was a very believable image, although that Srihevana could drop that much money on a prostitute she was only cursorily familiar with simply because she had been nice a few times made Emily wonder how wealthy her new girlfriend was. And, with a twinge of guilt, how much she had passed up in turning down Srihevana's offer to be a concubine paid half her salary.
Turning the thought aside, she focused again on Aislin. “So, what are you going to do with it.”
Aislin shook her head. “I don't know. I don't know what I can do with it.” She looked abashed now. “I don't even know if I can deposit it.”
A quirk of amusement twitched over Emily at how hopeless Aislin looked over it. “Well, it's got your name on it.” Aislin went a deep cherry red. “It doesn't?” Emily reached back to the purse to check again, only to have Aislin's hand shoot out to hold her wrist back.
“No! It is. I mean, sort of.” Her gaze was pleading. “My name is Aislin Malory. Just, not legally. I couldn't afford to get it changed. But it's on my documentation, most of it, and I do want it changed. I just needed to eat first, and then there was the weeklies, so it had to wait. But then—“
Emily raised a hand, placing it on Aislin to forestall the girl's babble. “So what is your r– legal name?” She caught herself before she said your real name. Aislin did not seem to notice the slip.
“Aislin Saunders.”
“I'll just send Srihevana a note telling her to have the bank cancel that draught and have a new one made in that name, then.”
Aislin seemed to collapse where she sat, looking up at Emily with a wondrous relief, on the verge of breaking down in tears. Emily moved to head them off, skipping for the moment asking why it was that Aislin wanted to change her name. Instead, she pulled Aislin to her feet. “Help me with my hair?”
“What?”
With a grin, Emily finally pulled off the concealing towel, letting her still slightly damp and very tangled hair fall free. Aislin gawked.
“It's pink.”
Emily raised her eyebrows and picked up a strand with forefinger and thumb, making a show of inspecting it carefully. “So you're right. Well spotted.”It was a well done pink, too. Apparently the dye job had gone off as seamlessly as she had hoped. It was not professional by any means, and she would have to redo it regularly to avoid having her roots become very noticeable, but it was a very even shade of bubblegum pink.
“But why is it pink?” Aislin rephrased her implicit question.
“Well, if I'm going to be a professional trophy wife, or something close enough, I ought to be attractive to my beloved, shouldn't I? She's all but called my hair drab and lifeless before.”
Minutes later they were ensconced on the bed, Aislin having kicked off her heels and overly tight pants so she could curl herself up behind Emily, where she ran the brush through the long pink strands with practised care.
“What are you going to do with it, anyway? A legal change of name can't cost that much.” Emily was more than a little concerned now that the shock had worn off. She doubted Aislin had the fiscal sense to use it wisely and pull herself out of prostitution—the girl was simply too young to be expected to be that mature, for all the lack of silliness she had displayed so far.
“I don't know yet. I haven't thought much about it yet. I haven't thought much about anything today.”
Not surprising. Emily started from the beginning. “Did you ever finish school?” Emily had not believed until that moment that someone could blush so hard you could hear it. “If you live simply, and study hard enough to win a few scholarships, that could put you all the way through university.”
“I guess.” Aislin sounded ambivalent to the idea, although followed it with a harsher rap on Emily's head as Emily turned around took at her, pulling her hair aside as she did so.
“Not an academic sort, are you?”
Aislin shrugged, pausing from her work for a moment. “Maybe. I never really gave it much thought. Back when I lived with Da, well, we never had too much, and I was going to look for work when I got old enough to help out a little. I don't know what I'd do at university.”
“Singing lessons?” Emily offered, prompting a laugh from Aislin.
“I'm not a bad singer, but I wouldn't want to do it professionally.” She smiled wistfully. “I remember one of the girls in my neighbourhood, her father was an inspector at the rail yard, checked the tracks and cars for safety, I think. I always said that I was going to be one too, because he made more money than anyone else around, and so every Sunday at church she had a dress on that was a year newer and half as threadbare than mine. Not something that needs a degree, though.”
“How very blue-collar of you. You never had aspirations above your class?”
Aislin made a non-committal gesture, and returned to combing Emily's hair. “I dreamt of being a lost princess who had been hidden away for my own safety while my kingdom was ruled by a usurper. Does that count?”
“That makes you female, not a social climber.” Emily sighed. “Look, how old are you?”
“Seventeen.”
That was two years younger than Emily when she had started working as a prostitute. “Just go to college, then. You can afford an extra year or two to figure out what you want to do, or find a technical school or something like that. If it's too much, drop out after a few years and work data entry. Just do something. I worked at the Stardust for over four years. A life of unfulfilled dreams and dreary monotony is a far better thing than that. You've just been handed a way out. Don't let it sit there till it disappears. ”
Aislin was quiet as she listened to Emily, the only sound that indicated she was still there the methodical rasp of the brush.
---
Doctor Brückner was turned away while Emily was getting dressed, partly out of a peculiarly old-fashioned sense of modesty for a woman who just had her fingers inside Emily's vagina, and partly to save time, reviewing the lists of entries in Emily's examination record on her laptop. It suited Emily either way – she was grateful for the moment out of sight to lose her composure completely. How anyone found a speculum arousing was entirely beyond her comprehension, despite having seen more than one person insist on its use.
As Emily finished, Brückner turned back. “You remain entirely too healthy for a high risk woman, I'm happy to say. Your blood pressure is one of the lowest I've ever seen without hypotension, no signs of cancer or STDs. If you were anyone else I wouldn't have you come in for another two years. You are in what is probably the healthiest part of a human life.” Emily nodded as Brückner ran down the list of normal and healthy results from the examination.
“The lab work on your Pap smear is probably going to take at least three or four days – the lab we use is undergoing equipment upgrades. If you need the STD check turned in before then you probably can get a blood test done before you leave.”
Emily shifted on the chair where she had settled down. She had been avoiding the topic throughout the examination given where it was inevitably going to end up. “Actually Doctor, that won't be necessary. This last one's just to make sure I'm clean, but after that I'm letting my license expire.”
“That's good news.” Brückner's tone had a questioning note for it, and for all she was smiling, Emily imagined there was a sharp look in her eye. Brückner was as aware as she was that ending a period as a licensed prostitute was at least as likely to end in unlicensed prostitution as any other profession. Best to get it all out before Brückner got too many bad ideas.
“Yes, well, I have a girlfriend now, and she's been helping me out.” Emily pinked saying that out loud. She was endlessly grateful to Srihevana for having all but bought her out of slavery, but her dependence was hardly inspiring when put that way. Brückner did not seem to share that opinion, her expression easing.
“That's very decent of her.”
Emily nodded, smiling at the remembered the look of a maddened cavalier on Srihevana's face as she settled the remaining few of Emily's debts and set up an expense account to see Emily through till a place had been set up that was large enough for both of them.
“It was. But I had a question.” Emily's flush deepened enough so as to be noticeable. Not that she expected Brückner to be anything but professional about the questions she had about an interspecies relationship, but it was still something that was socially unacceptable enough that even Emily was uncomfortable about admitting it around anyone other than Srihevana herself. Brückner motioned for her to continue.
“Well. My girlfriend is a Taloran. And I wanted to know if there was anything I should know about them, physically, before I found out by embarrassing myself.”
That got Brückner's attention. She was, as Emily expected, entirely polite about it, but she did not even bother to conceal the keen interest she now took. “Physically speaking? Beyond of course their height and other immediate visible features, their biochemistry is markedly different from our own. Disease isn't a problem usually, although there are more cases of bacterial and viral afflictions crossing species the longer we are in contact. I could point you to a number of good works on it that do not require extensive biochemistry backgrounds to understand if you're interested in all the details.
“Sexually,” Brückner spoke in a way that left no doubt that she knew that this was the sort of information Emily was after. “Talorans are compatible with us for the most part, insofar as sexual intercourse is possible and enjoyable cross-species, although not reproductively fruitful. Their saliva does contain significant quantities of acetic acid, making it between hundreds and thousands of times more acidic than ours, albeit dependant on a great many factors. Kissing her will not quite be like gargling vinegar, but rinsing your mouth afterwards would probably be wise, and be sure to brush often. The fluoridation process makes your enamel more resistant to acid.
“Their external genitalia is reversed ordered compared to us. Instead of clitoris, urethra, vagina—“ Brückner punctuated her explanation with a top, middle, bottom gesture for illustration. “—their genitalia arranged vagina, clitoris, urethra..” She repeated the gesture to emphasise the point. “Along with the height difference, it will almost certainly take some practise to find positioning that is comfortable and pleasant to you both, along with making different elements of intercourse more attractive. For instance, the position of Taloran clitorises makes penetrative sex more enjoyable for them and so on.”
Doctor Brückner paused for a moment, turning something over in her mind before asking, “Emily, if you do not mind sharing the information, who did you start dating?”
Shaking her head, Emily answered, “Of course not. Srihevana Uxohliu.”
“I see.” A most peculiarly calm expression came over the doctor as she again sat in thought, this time for a considerably longer period. “And you are fully aware of the nature of the relationship that Srihevana is interested in?”
The words stopped Emily cold. Either Brückner was a secret racist, which seemed vanishingly unlikely for the educated and cosmopolitan woman, or she knew something of Srihevana personally, maybe even the entire truth about her sexuality. “I think I do, Doctor.” Emily danced around saying anything compromising outright on the off-chance that Brückner was referring to something else entirely.
Brückner smiled wryly as she guessed what Emily was doing. “I assure you, Emily, that speaking as her physician, there is nothing that you could tell me about Srihevana that would come as a shock to me.”
Emily's eyes widened in surprise. “You're the doctor that removed her ovaries?”
The anxious undertone to Brückner's posture left her, and she leaned back in her chair to a more comfortable position. “Yes and no. I was not the surgeon who actually removed her reproductive system, but I was the one who ordered it done. I assume then that you are aware that Srihevana's sexual preferences are exclusively limited to children of her own species?” Emily nodded. Brückner did know.
There was a silence as Brückner looked Emily over appraisingly. “I can see where she might find similarity. Do you intend to dye your hair?”
“Yeah.” Emily nodded in assent. “I don't know which colour yet, but she's called brown drab before, so I'm not going to be keeping it this way.”
“She would call it that. Green, blue or something similar would be appropriate if you have in mind making yourself more attractive by her standards. You might consider finding a guidebook on rainforest birds for ideas. The way they use their plumage as advertisement for mates is very much like how Talorans use hair colour.”
Brückner glanced down at her computer's clock, frowning. Pulling out a sheet of paper, she scribbled down a number on it and passed it to Emily. “My cell number should you need to contact me. Srihevana is one of my oldest and most interesting patients, and I would appreciate it a great deal if you would keep in touch with me regarding her. She is an incredibly difficult person, as I'm sure you'll find out if you don't know already.” Brückner sighed in frustration. “But be patient with her regardless. Everyone is granted the most invaluable gift in having been born. It is a blessing that most take for granted in a supreme arrogance birthed of our assumption that it was inevitable that we are here existing.”
She placed a hand on Emily's shoulder, looking deep into her eyes. “Srihevana is one of the extremely rare people who has earned her right to be alive, and at enormous personal cost. She deserves something to be happy about. Please, be careful.”
“I promise, Doctor.” Emily was a little overawed by the gravity of Brückner's words. Trying to remember exactly how long the two had known each other, she wondered how deeply the relationship between the two ran. Clearly it was more than just the casual friendship that Srihevana had intimated earlier.
“Good. I unfortunately have to attend a staff meeting shortly and don't have much more time if you don't have any further questions.” Brückner glanced at Emily who shook her head no. “Your test results should be back with you within a week or less. If they don't, or if you have any other concerns, get in touch with me.”
Doctor Brückner stood and clasped Emily's hand. “It's always a pleasure to see you, and I hope to be hearing from you again soon.”
Emily flashed her a grateful smile. “Thank you very much, Doctor. I'll be sure to keep in touch.”
---
The swirls of colour moving through the basin were a bright, vibrant red, diluting as they approached the drain into streamers of lighter shades. It did not look at all like blood. That annoyed Emily for some obscure reason she couldn't quite fathom. She had seen blood in her basin before at her old apartment for a variety of reasons, but always when she was feeling her very worst. Staring at the streaks of crimson had become a comfort to her, a reminder that she was not dead yet. The excess dye now being rinsed out of her hair just did not measure up.
It wasn't even something she felt should be annoying her, but with hair that fell midway down her back, it had taken a considerable amount of time to rinse it completely. Now, as the water finally ran clear, she turned off the tap, wrung out as much water as she could with her hands, and wrapped the entire mess up into a towel, not bothering even to check if the dye job had been a disaster or not. It wouldn't like right until it was dry anyhow, not with this severe a change.
Securing the towel with a hair clip, she tottered out into the main part of the hotel suite in search of a shirt. It was a more difficult task than it at first seemed. She did not have many shirts left after she had thrown out all of the trashiest ones she had previously worn to work, and most of the rest she couldn't fit over the mass of towel and hair.
Finally she retrieved a camisole that she managed to pull on, the spaghetti straps widely spaced enough to allow her to wiggle into it. In retrospect it would have been easier to just put on a shirt before drying her hair, but that would have left it wet, and possibly stained.
Emily collapsed back onto the bed, letting out a long breath as she hit the surface, sinking in to it ever so slightly. It was perhaps the nicest bed she had slept in since she was twelve, clean and well-maintained by the rather expensive hotel she was now staying in.
She had blanched when she realised that it cost more per night than her apartment had per month, but Srihevana had insistied, refusing to let her stay in her old room after having seen Emily's accommodations in person. And she was only going to spend one more night there, or two at the longest, just enough time for Srihevana to finish making the arrangements for the new place she had appropriated for them.
She was awoken from her light doze some time later by a frantic knocking on the door. She considered ignoring it – Srihevana would have called before coming she suspected, and she did not particularly want whatever the hotel staff was trying to sell her – before reluctantly rolling out of bed. She let out a shriek of surprise as she fell nearly a metre to the floor, saved from barking her knees painfully only by the deep carpet. It was the third or fourth time she had done it as well, unused as she was to having a bed higher than a cot. She sighed as she pushed herself up. She was either going to have to stop getting out of bed that way, or get a whole lot better at catching herself before she hit the ground.
A second round of knocking followed, although Emily could not tell if it was inspired either by her yelp or simple impatience. She adjusted the towel – it was only lightly damp, feeling as though it had sucked all the water it could from her hair, and then released it again into the air. Still, it was better to leave it on than to look like a bedraggled swamp monster, especially before checking the colour herself.
A third flurry of taps exploded even as Emily was reaching for the latch, causing her to pause for a moment. It definitely wasn't Srihevana – she couldn't imagine the staid woman beating down a door in any but exceptional circumstances, and the staff were far too polite for that either. Curious now, she opened the door.
“Aislin!” Emily started in surprise, as she opened the door wide enough to let the girl enter. Aislin looked like someone had beaten her soundly with a trout: A mixture of dishevelled looks and a stunned expression it was hard to do justice to. Her mascara had run and her hair was mussed, and although she had clearly tried to clean up a bit, it was an imperfect job done with tissues and fingers that ironically made her look even more unkempt than if she had left it alone. The clothes she wore were clean, but gave the impression that she had been through a hurricane with them on and never stopped to straighten them.
All that alone was cause enough for alarm, but what made Emily pull Aislin in, squeezing the girl in a hug so soon as the door was closed was the look on her face. The girl looked lost. It was a miracle the hotel staff hadn't intercepted her on the way in and tossed her out as a vagrant.
“Sweet Jesus, Aislin, are you okay?”
Emily could feel Aislin's mouth open to speak, only to dissolve into a strained, hiccuping laugh. Finally, she managed a soft, “I don't know.”
Breaking apart, Emily tugged the unresisting Aislin into the lavatory, seating her on the commode. ”Well, let's get you cleaned up anyhow.” Pushing aside the mess she had left from her earlier dying, she dampened a cloth and set about dabbing Aislin's face, scouring it free of the now ruined make-up. It worked, and by the time Emily she had moved from cleaning her face to brushing out her hair, Aislin seemed to have regained most of her composure.
A faint, somewhat rueful smile appeared on the girl's lips. “Thanks. I didn't mean to barge in like that. I just, I just didn't know where else to go.”
“Well,” Emily said, a hint of exasperation creeping into her voice. “I'm flattered I was your first thought, but what in the world happened?”
Aislin did not answer, instead grabbing her purse from where it had fallen unnoticed, and retrieved from it a slip of paper and passed it to Emily. It was slightly crumpled, and had a few crinkled spots that looked like dry tears, or perhaps ocean spray. It was otherwise a very neat and formal document, a bank draught for sixty-five hundred Taloran rialas.
Emily had to be very careful not to drop it. It was not quite as much as the expense account that Srihevana had opened in her name, but it was still probably more money than Aislin had ever possessed put together. Gingerly, she smoothed out the paper, and placed it carefully back in the purse.
“It was from Srihevana,” Aislin said as she watched the draught disappear, although Emily had already guessed that. “For being kind to her beloved.”
An image of Srihevana saying almost exactly that drifted through Emily's mind, prompting to her despite having caught a glimpse of the letter that had accompanied the money. It was a very believable image, although that Srihevana could drop that much money on a prostitute she was only cursorily familiar with simply because she had been nice a few times made Emily wonder how wealthy her new girlfriend was. And, with a twinge of guilt, how much she had passed up in turning down Srihevana's offer to be a concubine paid half her salary.
Turning the thought aside, she focused again on Aislin. “So, what are you going to do with it.”
Aislin shook her head. “I don't know. I don't know what I can do with it.” She looked abashed now. “I don't even know if I can deposit it.”
A quirk of amusement twitched over Emily at how hopeless Aislin looked over it. “Well, it's got your name on it.” Aislin went a deep cherry red. “It doesn't?” Emily reached back to the purse to check again, only to have Aislin's hand shoot out to hold her wrist back.
“No! It is. I mean, sort of.” Her gaze was pleading. “My name is Aislin Malory. Just, not legally. I couldn't afford to get it changed. But it's on my documentation, most of it, and I do want it changed. I just needed to eat first, and then there was the weeklies, so it had to wait. But then—“
Emily raised a hand, placing it on Aislin to forestall the girl's babble. “So what is your r– legal name?” She caught herself before she said your real name. Aislin did not seem to notice the slip.
“Aislin Saunders.”
“I'll just send Srihevana a note telling her to have the bank cancel that draught and have a new one made in that name, then.”
Aislin seemed to collapse where she sat, looking up at Emily with a wondrous relief, on the verge of breaking down in tears. Emily moved to head them off, skipping for the moment asking why it was that Aislin wanted to change her name. Instead, she pulled Aislin to her feet. “Help me with my hair?”
“What?”
With a grin, Emily finally pulled off the concealing towel, letting her still slightly damp and very tangled hair fall free. Aislin gawked.
“It's pink.”
Emily raised her eyebrows and picked up a strand with forefinger and thumb, making a show of inspecting it carefully. “So you're right. Well spotted.”It was a well done pink, too. Apparently the dye job had gone off as seamlessly as she had hoped. It was not professional by any means, and she would have to redo it regularly to avoid having her roots become very noticeable, but it was a very even shade of bubblegum pink.
“But why is it pink?” Aislin rephrased her implicit question.
“Well, if I'm going to be a professional trophy wife, or something close enough, I ought to be attractive to my beloved, shouldn't I? She's all but called my hair drab and lifeless before.”
Minutes later they were ensconced on the bed, Aislin having kicked off her heels and overly tight pants so she could curl herself up behind Emily, where she ran the brush through the long pink strands with practised care.
“What are you going to do with it, anyway? A legal change of name can't cost that much.” Emily was more than a little concerned now that the shock had worn off. She doubted Aislin had the fiscal sense to use it wisely and pull herself out of prostitution—the girl was simply too young to be expected to be that mature, for all the lack of silliness she had displayed so far.
“I don't know yet. I haven't thought much about it yet. I haven't thought much about anything today.”
Not surprising. Emily started from the beginning. “Did you ever finish school?” Emily had not believed until that moment that someone could blush so hard you could hear it. “If you live simply, and study hard enough to win a few scholarships, that could put you all the way through university.”
“I guess.” Aislin sounded ambivalent to the idea, although followed it with a harsher rap on Emily's head as Emily turned around took at her, pulling her hair aside as she did so.
“Not an academic sort, are you?”
Aislin shrugged, pausing from her work for a moment. “Maybe. I never really gave it much thought. Back when I lived with Da, well, we never had too much, and I was going to look for work when I got old enough to help out a little. I don't know what I'd do at university.”
“Singing lessons?” Emily offered, prompting a laugh from Aislin.
“I'm not a bad singer, but I wouldn't want to do it professionally.” She smiled wistfully. “I remember one of the girls in my neighbourhood, her father was an inspector at the rail yard, checked the tracks and cars for safety, I think. I always said that I was going to be one too, because he made more money than anyone else around, and so every Sunday at church she had a dress on that was a year newer and half as threadbare than mine. Not something that needs a degree, though.”
“How very blue-collar of you. You never had aspirations above your class?”
Aislin made a non-committal gesture, and returned to combing Emily's hair. “I dreamt of being a lost princess who had been hidden away for my own safety while my kingdom was ruled by a usurper. Does that count?”
“That makes you female, not a social climber.” Emily sighed. “Look, how old are you?”
“Seventeen.”
That was two years younger than Emily when she had started working as a prostitute. “Just go to college, then. You can afford an extra year or two to figure out what you want to do, or find a technical school or something like that. If it's too much, drop out after a few years and work data entry. Just do something. I worked at the Stardust for over four years. A life of unfulfilled dreams and dreary monotony is a far better thing than that. You've just been handed a way out. Don't let it sit there till it disappears. ”
Aislin was quiet as she listened to Emily, the only sound that indicated she was still there the methodical rasp of the brush.
Crazy Kuj strikes again...