#new junon

He stepped away. There was a hitch in his breathing. I ran my tongue over the teeth-marks he’d left in my lower lip. 

“I didn’t say to stop,” I said to Tseng, but he wouldn’t meet my eyes. 

“I don’t know,” he said, “if this is even—if this is what you want.” 

And how was I going to explain to him what I saw when I closed my eyes? Him in his suit, standing in the doorway, backlit; a figure that dwelled on a threshold, waiting. And yes, I was afraid. 

“If you’re talking about lust or sex or whatever,” I told him, “I mean, I get the impression you think I—“ 

How the hell to carry on?

“You think I’m kind of just out there, fucking people,” I said finally. “And you think—“ hard, hard to put this in words—“you think it’s kind of an empty gesture, right? You suspect I don’t actually, like, care about sex. And you’re wondering what I do care about. Did I get that right?” I had just courage enough to spare a quick glance at his face. 

Tseng’s expression unsettled me; I couldn’t make out where the bitterness ended and the amusement began. 

“I’m transparent, then, I guess,” he said. “I did wonder.”

“You,” I said. 

I didn’t dare look at him straight. I stood beside him as the elevator descended, and waited for his assessment. 

“What would you like?” 

“Huh?”

“What should we do? Where should we go? What can I—“ he choked for a second—“I don’t even have a room—“ 

“I have a room,” I told him. 

—

I walked into that room with Tseng, no longer my Ops Supervisor; and no plan whatsoever. 

“I’m not expecting,” he said, wavering in the doorway. 

“Me either,” I said. “Come in. I’ll put the heat on.”

The room was mostly taken up by a pair of big beds covered in unattractive fire-retardant spreads—not like I expected to need both, but it was all I could get at the last minute. The curtains were open and the white railing on the balcony glimmered faintly where the moonlight hit it. Tseng had come in for a landing in front of the mirrored door of the closet in the tiny entryway. I flicked on the thermostat, and leaned on the wall; I felt like my legs were going to give out. 

“You don’t have to stay,” I said. “It’s not the greatest room.” 

“Two beds,” Tseng said.

“Not my idea.”

“I thought,” Tseng said, and fell silent. I walked to the sliding glass doors, and closed the curtains. The lamplight was reddish. Tseng’s face was mostly in shadow.

“You thought,” I said finally, “what I said, before. You thought I had company.  Even here.” I very deliberately sat at the edge of the bed. “You can stay there or come over here,” I said. “The point is, you were trying not to railroad me. And you’re still not sure if maybe you’re railroading me right now.”

“Or asking for special favors,” he said suddenly, his voice rough. I decided I had to meet his eyes at some point, and now was a good time. 

“It’s okay,” I told him. “I’ll say it. Sit down over here.” Tseng put his hand to his face, pinching the bridge of his nose as if he was in pain; then he came across the room and sat down, facing a little away from me, on the other side of the bed. 

“That works,” I said. “Okay. I’ll tell you what I think you’re trying to say.” I slid out of my shoes and peeled off my socks, watching goose bumps rise on my naked ankles. “You weren’t exactly wrong about me. I wasn’t, you know, selling myself. I—hah! I had other much more marketable skills. Even back then.” I began unbuttoning my cuffs. “It was more—it was a question of loyalty. What I wouldn’t give, wouldn’t do. You know?” 

“What I know is that Amber was your employer, and she took advantage of you,” Tseng said, nothing showing in his voice. “She needed the tribute. And the question of what you wanted—what you preferred—got sidelined.”

“Yeah,” I said. “Maybe. Not quite that simple.” 

“Do you… do you want me to do that? Test your loyalty?” 

I closed my eyes, so I could take in the sound of his voice. 

“You already know,” I said finally, “everything there is to know about my loyalty.” I let myself fall back on the pillows. My shirt was partly unbuttoned; I helped it along, and let it slide open. 

“I don’t require that kind of demonstration,” Tseng said gently, sounding almost like himself. 

This was the end-point, the moment the story in my head always led to. I could never get past this point, even in dreams: this bone-dry humor, like armor; the way that Tseng of the Turks refrained. What else could he ever do? 

“You were too amenable,” he said at last. “Too willing to barter yourself. A technique for survival. It’s… let’s just say I recognized it.”

“I was your right hand,” I whispered. 

“And then some,” he said. 

“At the same time, I was someone,” I murmured, “you couldn’t trust to tell you, to say no…”

“That’s right.” 

“So you did it for me,” I said, stretching my leg so it rested against his side. “It was… it was like an article of faith, right? It was your promise to me, it was how you were gonna explain to me that I didn’t need to…”

“You don’t need to,” he said then. “You never did, you never will.” 

He was starting to shake.