The Cupid Touch

The Cupid Touch Chapter 20 - Touching Distance

I mentioned already how rare it is for me to stay until morning. Even the few times a relationship lasted longer than a month, I would usually wake out with my heart pounding in the night, certain I was about to make it happen all over again. And then I'd dress, and I'd leave, and have to pretend it was all part of the cool-and-distant Helena. 

 So waking up slowly, with daylight in my eyes and Joe-Moe slumped unconscious half over me, was both disorientating and delicious. I twisted a little so I could look at him, asleep and unaware and slack-jawed, with just a little bit of dried drool on his chin. He was still perfect. It made me ache. 

 And then I sat up, quickly and with my heart pounding, as I felt a flutter of that magnetic power.

 "Enough," I whispered to myself, and picked up my phone. I knew I needed a distraction before that thinking went any further. I sort-of hate the constant connectivity of cell-phones with email, but there's no denying that they're good for taking your mind off things. Within five seconds of loading up my web browser, I can have forgotten what I was logging on for, and only surface an hour later. 

I usually start with email. I like to see my inbox show a batch of new messages, which I know will mostly be from crappy mailing lists I signed up to without knowing, or in order to enter some prize draw I've forgotten about. Every few months I try and do a purge of unsubscribing but it never seems to make the problem go away. 

 Today, there were twelve new messages, and the first one I locked onto was from my Mom, who was asking for the third time what I wanted for Christmas. I guessed I'd better reply today. She'd gotten to the stage of using capital letters for emphasis. And were there really only three shopping days left? 

I scrolled up, and zipped past three offers from restaurants I hadn't enjoyed that much the first time. I almost didn't stop on the one from admin@nasacareers.org, but then the words sunk in and I was suddenly a million miles from Joe-Moe. 

We are pleased to offer you an interview on January 3rd... 

They wanted to interview me. NASA wanted to actually talk to me. Despite the thousands of applications and the tiny chance of success, I was down to the final fifty candidates. I sat staring at it for a good few minutes without moving, and then, more as something to do than because I particularly cared about other messages, I clicked onwards. 

 "Fuck," I said, and it was loud enough to wake Joe-Moe up. 

 "Is that an order?" he murmured, and squinted at me. 

 "It's - I've had an email. Look." I held my cell-phone out to him with a hand that shook, and he blinked at it. 

 "OK. You're going to have to read it out to me. My eyes don't work before eight am." 

 I wasn't quite sure that I could, but I tried to paraphrase it. 

 "It's from the Mars mission. They - they want me for the second phase. Even if I don't get into NASA, they want me." 

"Sorry, what?" he asked, and sat up, adjusting a couple of pillows so he was no longer horizontal and then tugging at my arm until I sat back next to him. The way his arm went around me felt like the easiest, most natural thing in the world. 

 "The Mars mission," I said again. "I applied for it. They're going to send two people every two years, to start a colony there. They take applicants from all over the world. I applied six months ago and didn't hear anything so I figured... but I'm first choice for the second phase. So in five years I could be - I could be on Mars." 

 Joe-Moe went very still. I could hear his heart through his chest, and it was thumping as hard as mine was. 

 "You want to go to Mars?" he said at last. "For real?" "I always wanted to," I said, not quite answering the question. "This colony," he went on, slowly. "It's a one-way trip, isn't it? They can't fund bringing anyone back, no matter what. So that would be it. In five years, goodbye earth."