Octavia drew a puff of smoke from the bedside waterpipe. Cottony cosmic energy shimmered through the radiation-shielded porthole. Brilliant beams danced off the burbling pipe’s purple pearlescent glass, mingling plum-like with the cream-colored bedspread. Dense, heady air crept its way through Octavia’s lungs— it tasted of peaches and menthol. She held her breath; but that was a mistake. After a moment, she exploded into a coughing fit. Her hacking and retching sent Dr. Howard howling.
The doctor barked his next words, between breaths. Saliva dribbled onto the sheets. Octavia shifted in his embrace, looking up at the balding man’s head, thrown back with vermillion delight. “HAAAhahaha!” You wanna know the best part of this job is for me? “Nah” She choked, ejecting spittle and phlegm onto his chest” She admired the pipe’s mouthpiece, drawing circles within the dissipating smoke cloud once her lungs had settled.
“Oh, Octavia. Silly, silly girl.”
Silly Girl.
Suppressing his laughter like a child about to tell a bad joke, Dr. Howard replied to himself with a shrill voice: “Can’t get served divorce papers across the solar system!”
Octavia lowered the mouthpiece, but a violent tremor, large enough to shake the entire space station, gave her pause. “Fucking hell, Howard, did we lose another lifeline?” She shuffled her way out from his gangly arms. He never stopped laughing. She stared at him, and shouted, “You’re a dumbass!”
Octavia was younger than her colleague, sure. But silly was reserved for children and stories; the void was no place for such things. Here was someone doing work that mattered: she promised herself once she escaped that wicked corporate solar farm, she’d be living life on her own terms. Wasn’t she doing that already? Then again, how free are you really when you’re doing research for someone else’s passion project?
The isolation got to me; she thought. How was I supposed to know the prick was married? Where was the ring? The wedding photos in his wallet? Hell, even a credit card with some else’s name would do! All the cheesy shit people that age did with to show they at least pretended to know how to love someone other than themself? Sleeping with your boss. Sleeping with your married boss on a space station in the middle of bum-fuck space.
“Tell me Howard, what are you going to tell your wife when you get back to the colony? You gonna tell her what we do with each other up here? How much we enjoy it? Huh? What are you gonna tell her?”
That got him to stop laughing, at least.
“That’s easy,” he said, high and nasally, “I’ll walk up to my precious bitch’s face and tell her ‘Honey, I’m home!” Smoke dissolved within Octavia’s lungs. Her heart began beating with adrenal haste; her eyes were welling up with tears.
“I hope she’s happy…You’re SUCH a charmer.”
Octavia wanted to claw her eyes out. Her throat burned, from the nicotine and hate. Precious bitch? Bitch face? Who does he think he is?
“I can’t believe someone with a god complex as big as yours could be called a husbandlet alone a professional. You see that piss-colored rock out there?” She motioned to the window- “I’m here because this space station was supposed to give me the life I dreamed of. Fuck, Howard, I’m living that dream right now, and now I…I…how can I enjoy this because of what you’ve done?”
At least, she thought she was speaking. “Octavia,” He interrupted, taking her hand and placing it on his chest- “don’t spoil our fun because you can’t handle the business. Just think of it! You know, when the Journal of Colonial Science interviews us when my data gets published, I think we should really ham up the theatrics. Get playful with it, you know? And you know what, for your simply stellar work today, I’m willing to share the headline with you. You’re gonna be famous, too!”
Howard sat up, resting his head casually on a mountain of velvet pillows. Octavia turned to face the window. He was foul. There were words swimming inside her mind, harsh words, that must be uttered with care. She considered how they might move this naked beast before her, perhaps to repent, to prostrate at her feet in supplication; but that would be a waste- listening seemed, for him, an afterthought.
From the corner of her eye, a comet’s trail briefly blazed, and the emergency klaxons blared. All the color drained from her face. Maybe it was impacting flotsam from the station’s heat shields, peeling off in layers, adding to the debris cluster. Perhaps the last energy tether had broken free. When did this all happen? Was it while Howard was still begging for more! More!
“You know Octavia, once we’re back at the colony and I divorce my wife, we should get hitched. Married, you know? It would really sell the whole joint-discovery narrative. Think of the doors it’ll open for your career. Think of the FUN we could have together!”
Octavia felt cold and wished to be alone, but the Doctor held her captive as the alarm sirens wailed. She wanted nothing more than for that window to shatter into a thousand, razor-sharp pieces; for the vacuum of space to mangle them to shreds over the sharp, jagged edges of double-reinforced glass and to take back the shame that now consumed her. Instead, she’ll be a dizzy corpse, gently drifting into the void.
A layer of hoarfrost began to rime the porthole’s glass, spreading spiderweb-like across the carpet and the walls. Octavia’s breath crystallized across the threshold of purplish lips. “The Sun Sets the same, and You’ll always be an idiot,” Octavia whispered, resolved to inaction. The porthole was covered in a sheet of ice, growing thicker by the moment. A computerized voice interrupted the alarms to announce, “imminent cabin depressurization in fifteen, fourteen, thirteen…”
Octavia sat up, and inquired with a smile, “got anything stronger, Howard?”
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