Each Step Like Knives (10 page)

"You go ahead and get in. I'm going to put a pan of
muffins in the oven first. Go on. Make sure to turn the water off
when it gets to the top of the tub, or else it will overflow."

She left him with a flutter of her hands toward the
tub. She wanted him to immerse himself? Jeenai did so, and
gladly.

The water felt different on his skin. He felt less
buoyant. He settled onto the bottom of the tub and felt cold metal
against his spine. The water itself was warm like the temperate
seas farther to the south.

He stared up through the water to the white ceiling.
He could hear little but the sound of his own heart beating and the
rush of water flowing into the big basin. The tub, she'd called it.
This water was different from the ocean, and even different than
the river he'd once explored during his youthquest.

He'd followed that ribbon of water all the way to an
inland lake, where he'd challenged the mals and shared the fuck
with the fems who lived there. They did not call themselves
Carrageenai, and they did not share genetic ancestry with the ocean
mammals as his own people did. Those folk were related more closely
to the eels that populated the brackish water of the region. Still,
he'd had a good time there and made many friends. His penis rose at
the memory of the revels he'd shared there.

The water rose over his belly and chest, then up his
throat and cheeks. It covered his lips, and the hollow places of
his eyes. Then it covered his nose. The weight of it soothed
him.

He took a deep breath, wanting to smell and taste
the water. Instant agony assaulted him. He could not breathe. He
had forgotten his gill slits did not work. He opened his mouth to
gasp and choke, and more water flooded into his throat and chest.
He flailed, his hands banging on the tub's hard side. He struggled
to sit, but his body wracked with coughing and choking he couldn't
control.

Helena's face, twisted with terror, appeared above
him. She reached for his shoulders and grabbed him up out of the
water.

"...doing?" she cried.

Jeenai coughed and coughed some more until at last,
air filled his body instead of water. Tears stung his eyes from the
pain and effort. He tried to explain he'd been resting as she'd
expected, but her grip prevented him from speaking with his
hands.

"I thought you were drowning!" She laughed without
humor. "But, of course, you can't drown, can you? You're a fish,
right?"

Jeenai coughed to clear his throat again, then tried
to gather her into his arms and comfort her, but Helena pushed him
away. She backed away from the tub and crossed her arms in front of
herself. Her tears had turned her lovely blue eyes red.

"I thought you'd be able to breathe water," she
said."

"I do, yes. Such is the way of my people." He
paused, his throat and chest still raw with coughing. "But not
here."

She watched him, silent, then reached to brush away
some hair that had fallen over his forehead. "I wish I knew for
sure what you're saying. I wish I could tell for certain
who...what...you are."

"I'm a man," Jeenai told her as simply as he could.
"And I love you."

She shook her head, watching the slow, simple
pattern of his hands. She reached out and touched his cheek, let
her finger trail across his lips, down his chin, his throat, to his
chest. She pulled her hand back quickly, as though his damp, cool
skin had somehow hurt her.

"I think I need to be alone for a little while to
think," she told him. Her lovely voice had gone coarse.

"I don't understand." He used infant-hands, and her
eyes followed the slower gestures more readily, but she still
didn't seem to grasp his meaning. "Helena, I came a long way to be
with you. I want to be with you--"

"Just stop!" she cried and clapped her hands over
her eyes. "I need some time to think, Johnny. This is freaking me
out. I'm sorry. But...this is all too strange." She looked at him
through the crack in her fingers. "I need you to go away for a
while."

He stood in the water at her words, every one of
which he understood completely. A pain split his heart and he put a
hand there to quell it. She could not love him.

"The sex has been fantastic," Helena was saying,
"but the rest of it... Johnny, this isn't going to work."

He got out of the tub and stood, dripping, on her
tile floor. He noted with pride the way her eyes swept over his
naked body and her nipples tightened. He was pleasing to her, and
she couldn't deny it.

Yet he had learned that for humans, merely being
pleasing to the eye was not enough. It didn't mean love. If she
didn't love him, he would die.

"I will go, if you want me to leave." His hands
moved slowly with grief. He shivered, suddenly chilled though the
room was warm.

She grabbed up a towel and wrapped herself in one.
Hiding herself from his gaze. Now Jeenai felt horribly exposed in
front of her and he grabbed a towel for himself.

"I think that would be best." She looked toward the
window and the glimpse of ocean outside. She blinked and more
silver jewels slipped from her eyes to paint glistening trials in
her cheeks. "Yes, I think...just go. Please."

He pushed past her and into the room to which she
had first brought him. Where would he go? Back to the sea? He had
no other choice. He had no need of a towel there, but kept it
tucked around his hips. It was something that made him human, this
wearing of clothes, and all at once Jeenai discovered he wanted to
remain human as long as he could.

He heard a muffled noise behind him and knew she was
expressing her grief. She sent him away, though it sorrowed her to
do it? He shook his head. He would never understand humans.

He took another step. Pain sliced his legs and made
him stumble. He caught himself against the back of a chair. His
heart pounded and swelled with an equal pain. His hands shook. He
moved toward the door and each step took an effort he wasn't sure
he could repeat until he managed it.

Would it hurt to become sea foam? No more than this
agony in his heart, his lungs, his legs. It might be better than
this, Jeenai thought, his hand on the doorknob. It might be a
relief to die.

Helena
slipped a sleeveless sundress over her head and hung the towel up.
She heard Johnny moving around in the living room. She waited for
the sound of the door closing that meant he'd gone. A sob escaped
her, though she tried to bite it back.

He couldn't really love her. Love was a pretty word
to describe an emotion Helena wasn't really certain could truly
exist. Damn it, she wanted it to exist. She didn't want to let what
had happened with Howard color the rest of her life. She didn't
want him to have ruined her that way. He wasn't worth it.

But could she believe Johnny loved her? He wasn't
even human! The sight of him, eyes closed, bubbles gently escaping
from what were unmistakably gills on the sides of his throat...
Gills! She choked at the thought. He had blue skin, he had webs
between his fingers, and he had a shark's sharp teeth. He'd had a
tail, if what he told her was true! He wasn't a man...he was an
animal!

Yet even as she slapped a comb through her tangled
hair and twisted it on top of her head, Helena could not convince
herself that Johnny was a beast. He expressed himself with elegant,
fluid grace through the movements of his hands. He looked at her
with an intelligence she'd never seen in Howard. And he made love
to her like he'd been born for the sole purpose of bringing her
pleasure.

She heard the sound of the front door opening and
she whirled to go after him. She stopped herself in the doorway. He
came from the sea. Could there really be a life for him above the
water?

Maybe she would wake up and find this all really had
been just a strange and wonderful dream. Another sob ripped from
her throat at the thought. She didn't want it to be a dream.

"Johnny!"

Helena ran to the living room, but what she saw
there stopped her cold. Two men stood in the doorway. She put her
hand to her mouth to hold back her exclamation of surprise.

"Hello, Helena." Howard looked over at Johnny, who
still wore only a towel. "If I'd known you had company, I wouldn't
have bothered to come all the way down here."

"There's nothing stopping you from turning around
and leaving." The words sounded cruel, even to her, but Helena made
no effort to soften them.

Howard looked resigned. "I've left a hundred
messages for you, Helena. You never answered them. When I called,
you hung up on me. I decided I'd drive down and see you in
person."

"It's only been sixty-eight messages," Helena said.
"And I told you this morning not to call here again. Didn't you
assume that would mean I didn't want you to show up either?"

Johnny looked back and forth from her to Howard. His
long, dark hair had dried in waves around his shoulders. His bare
chest gleamed with the odd, almost pearlescent blue color. Johnny's
hands spoke, and surprisingly, she understood.

"This is Howard, the one I told you about," she
answered.

"This is the man who hurt you?" He spoke with the
lowering of his brows, the baring of his teeth, the clenching of
his fists.

Howard grimaced. "What the hell is this, Helena? Who
is this clown?"

Helena went to Johnny and looped her arm through
his. With his warmth beside her, she suddenly felt strong. "This is
Johnny. He's my--" She balked at the word boyfriend or lover.
"Friend."

Howard was almost as good as Johnny at expressing
himself with a look. Now he shook his head and gave a derogatory
laugh. "I can see that. What's the matter with him? What's with the
body glitter?"

"He doesn't talk. He's got a medical condition." The
explanation tripped from her tongue without effort.

Howard gave another nasty laugh and reached for her
arm. "C'mon, Helena. Get rid of this joker and talk to me."

She felt Johnny tense beside her. He moved between
her and Howard. She couldn't see all his gestures, but they must
have come across to Howard as threatening because her ex-fiancé
raised his fists.

"Don't threaten me, buddy," he warned. "I can kick
your ass from here to next week."

He could do it, too. Howard had always prided
himself on being physically fit. Now he gave a grin that could only
be called taunting.

"Stop it, both of you." Helena pushed from behind
Johnny. "Howard, just go, okay?"

He put on the pouty face she had always hated.
"C'mon, Helena. I drove for-frigging-ever to get here. I understand
if you don't want to see me, but can't you at least give me
something to drink? Let me use the bathroom?"

More than anything, she wanted to say no.

Howard sighed, and for the first time, sounded
sincere enough for her to soften toward him slightly.

"Please, Helena. I know I screwed up. And if I could
take it all back, I would. But I can't, and if you're determined
not to have me in your life anymore, then I'll let you go. I just
wanted to see you for myself, even if it was for only one last
time."

Her resolve broke. She sighed. "Fine. You can use
the bathroom and have something to drink. But it's not going to
change anything."

He nodded, his gaze focused on her and ignoring
everything else. "I know."

She pointed. "It's through there."

"Thanks." He apparently couldn't resist shooting a
triumphant grin at Johnny as he passed, but that was a man for you.
Up to his balls in testosterone when he felt his territory being
threatened.

When Howard left the room, Johnny turned to Helena.
"I will go now, as you wished."

She watched him get all the way to the door before
she called after him. "Johnny, wait!"

He stopped, his hand on the knob. His head turned.
She watched the curve of his ear, the sleek line of his jaw, the
smoothness of his cheek and lips. She didn't want him to go, but
she couldn't beg him to stay.

He faced her in the only way he could speak to her.
His hands and fingers painted a perfect picture, one she could
easily understand this time.

"You don't have to leave," she said in response.
"Johnny, I don't know what is going to happen. But I don't want you
to go."

He touched the sides of his throat, which now
appeared no different than any human man's. He moved his fingers
over his body, tapped his thighs, then stared at her with a
question burning in his dark eyes. He wanted to know if his
differences still upset her. Helena tried to speak, but couldn't
find the words.

She heard Howard clear his throat from behind her
and gave Johnny a shrug. "I don't know, Johnny."

For one awful instant, she thought Johnny would
simply turn and walk out the door anyway. His eyes flickered from
her to Howard and back again. Then he lifted his hands.

"Don't leave on my account."

Helena looked at Howard. "He's not."