Slow River

She walked into the living room. “What do you think?”

Spanner turned after a moment. Said nothing.

“What’s the matter?”

“I’m not sure brown is the right color.”

Lore flushed. “I don’t understand.”

“Come into the bathroom with me.” Spanner positioned Lore in front of the mirror, hands on her shoulders. Lore did not like the possessive feel of those hands, but it was Spanner’s bathroom, Spanner’s mirror. “Now, take a look at yourself, a really good look. Then look at me.”

Lore studied herself. Brown hair, straight brown eyebrows, clear gray eyes, skin a little paler than usual but still tight-pored and healthy. Thinner than she used to be. Even teeth. She thought she looked remarkably good, considering what she had been through. “I think I look fine.”

“Now look at me.”

Spanner’s skin was big-pored over her nose and cheek-bones. There was a tiny scar by her mouth. Her teeth were uneven, her neck thin. Her complexion had a grayish tinge, like meat left just a little too long. Lore thought she looked a lot better than Spanner.

Spanner was nodding at her in the mirror. “Exactly. You see the difference? You’re too damn… glossy. Like a race-horse. Look at your eyes, and your teeth. They’re perfect. And your skin: not a single pimple and no scars. Everything’s symmetrical. You’re bursting with health. Go out in this neighborhood, even in rags, and you’ll shine like a lighthouse.”

Lore looked at herself again. It was true. Eighteen years of uninterrupted health care and nutritious food on top of three generations of good breeding had given her that unmistakable sheen of the hereditary rich. She was suddenly aware of the cold tile under her feet, of the cracks she could feel between her toes. It was not yet winter. She wondered what it would be like to be cold involuntarily. She touched her eyebrows, her nose. How strange to discover something about oneself in a stranger’s bathroom. “I assume it can be fixed.”

Spanner dipped her hand into a pocket and pulled out a stubby buzz razor. Lore backed away from the flickering hum of its blade, remembering blood, the plasthene sheet. Spanner laughed, lightly enough, but Lore heard the cruelty in it: Spanner knew Lore had been scared, and enjoyed it. “It’s for your eyebrows. Cut them a bit, make them uneven.” Lore took the sleek black razor, not taking her eyes off Spanner. “I’m going to get a different dye, one that doesn’t suit you as much..”

Spanner brought back red dye and some peroxide. “And here.” Spanner gave her a tube of depilatory cream. “Get rid of the rest of your body hair, unless you want to dye it strand by strand.”

In the shower, her hair and the cream washed away in gelatinous clumps, leaving Lore as smooth and bare as a baby. Naked in a new way.

Spanner wiped the mirror free of condensation and Lore, still dripping, looked at her new self. The red hair made her face pale, pinched and hungry as a fox. Spanner stood behind her and stroked her hair. “Red was the right choice,” she whispered, and kissed Lore’s left shoulder blade. Her hand ran down Lore’s ribs, over her hip, up her belly. “So smooth.”

She kissed the back of her neck. “Lift your arms.”

Spanner ran her palms over the hairless armpits, down over the hairless breasts. Lore could feel Spanner’s nipples pebbling through her shirt up against her shoulder blades. Condensation ran in streaks down the mirror. Lore watched Spanner’s hand reach down and cup her naked vulva. She closed her eyes, listened to Spanner’s hoarse breath in her ear.

I am hairless and newly born.

It did not matter that Spanner might have seen her helpless and naked on the newstanks, because this was not the real Lore. This was someone different, someone’s creation. A construct. One she could hide behind. One that would make her safe. Just as she thought she had been with her father, Oster. Only this time, she was aware.

She opened her eyes again and watched.

* * *

Cherry Magyar turned out to be young, about twenty-three, with hair as thick and wiry as a wolfhound’s, and hard brown eyes with a hint of epicanthic fold. Her skinny was deep green. Her thigh-high waders, fastened with webbing straps and Velcro cuffs over her hips and waist, were black. The six-inch-wide stomach and back support was bright red.

“We’re three shorthanded, so I hope you learn fast.”

Her voice was coarse and vivid.

“Yes.”

“Well, we’ll see.”

I had to work at not wrinkling my face at the smell down here: raw sewage, volatile hydrocarbons, and something acrid that I couldn’t place. If there were any air strippers installed, they were not working. I was not surprised. The space was at least as big as a city block, and sixty feet high or more. I couldn’t even see the far wall. But the wall nearest to me was brilliant with safety equipment: the bright yellow of emergency showers, drench hoses, and eye baths every thirty yards; fire-engine-red metal poles that were in reality fire-blanket dispensers; the green-and-white-checkered first-aid stations; hard aquamarine for breathing gear…