The Loneliness of Distant Beings

Chapter Seven

I am just running past the swimming pool on morning circuit when I see him, smiling at me so that I smile at him but still pass, having too much momentum to slow or stop fast enough.

Domingo Suarez.

I turn back and pull my earphones out. And then we are standing there and watching each other, covering the distance between us in a few short paces and I am thinking that here we are again next to water, almost like there is something elemental in it, in the way I draw him to me, me to him, however it works, but who cares anyway because he's standing there and I swear I am so busy looking at him that I can't think of a single thing to say. Especially because I am totally sweaty and gross in my rec uniform of standard-issue grey vest and shorts, and he is, well look, you have to know this guy always looks amazing, even when he's on his way home from shift and has the arms of his overalls tied round his waist and his T-shirt all dirty and whatever, he is just one of those people. So he is standing there and he is hitting every point on the spectrum of male beauty and I am sweaty as heck and yet in a weird way I am forgetting it more and more with every moment, what with the way he looks at me.

'It's you again,' he says, smiling on the side so that this one dimple appears.

'I could say the same thing.'

'You could indeed.'

'But I won't, because, you know, that would be boring.'

He nods. 'That would actually be incredibly boring.'

He watches me a minute, and neither of us stop smiling even a little, to the point that my ears almost start to ring.

'How are you?' he asks.

'Now who's being boring?'

He laughs. 'OK, you're right.' He pushes his hands into his hair before looking back up at me. 'I'm under pressure here.'

'True.' I laugh, still panting from the running and not doing that well at bringing it under control while I watch the way the blue light from under the pool plays across his skin and wish there weren't hundreds of people milling past on change of shift.

'I guess you need to get back to your run?' he says, but it's a question, and so I'm left wondering whether I should say yes or no, and which answer he wants me to give. It must be all there on my face as I look at him, look at the flow of everyone passing, and back at him again and all I say is, 'Well, I . . . maybe we could take a walk around the swimming pool?'

'A walk around the swimming pool?' he echoes, and we both look at it then, at the way the water puckers a little because of the vibration of the ship, something I guess we aren't even able to feel. 'Well . . . um . . . I guess . . . yeah, we can do that.'

At first it's kind of awkward with the way we both walk super slow and it seems like there are so many things to say that neither of us even knows where to start. There's also this added complication in that when he looks at me I forget everything, like this wave of amnesia just washes everything away except him, and when he smiles I do too, completely against my will, and then he says, 'So I haven't seen you since the whole Huxley-3 thing.'

'I know, right?' I say, accidentally getting a little loud. 'Man, what I wouldn't give to be a flyboy right now.'

He makes a face. 'And most of them won't even appreciate it.'

'EXACTLY,' I say, turning to him and holding his eye. 'It is so utterly wasted on them, I can hardly even bear it.' As I am shaking my head I am suddenly becoming deeply, intensely aware of the eye contact, turning away a little so I can even out my breathing again. 'What about if it's safe though? Think they'll let us go down there?'