Sunshine

Mel used to laugh, sometimes, right after he came, in this gentle, surprised way, as if he’d never expected to be this happy, and then he’d kiss me, thoughtfully, and I’d hang on to him and hope that I was reading the signs right. That afternoon was one of those times. He’d wound up on top, which, I admit, I had slightly engineered, since there was a bit of an autumnal breeze snaking around and it was nice and warm under Mel’s body. His breath smelled of coffee and cinnamon. We lay there some time afterward—I loved that butterfly-wings feeling of a hard-on getting unhard inside me—and while we lay there I was all right and the world was all right and everything that might not be all right was on hold. And it was daylight and with my treacherous eyes shut I could just lie there and feel the sunshine on my face.

After a comfortable, rather dreamy lunch he went downstairs to take apart or put together some motorcycle and I went off to the library. I wanted to talk to Aimil.

She looked up from her desk, smiled faintly and said, “I have a break in, uh, forty minutes,” and went back to whatever she was doing.

I had a pass through the NEW shelves where there was a book hysterically titled The Scourge of the Other. It was a good two inches thick. I considered stealing it and putting it through the meat grinder at Charlie’s, but the library would only buy another one and the detritus of ink and binding glue probably wouldn’t do the quality of Charlie’s meatloaf any good. I knew without picking it up that the chapters would have rabble-rousing headings like “The Demon Menace” and “The Curse of the Were.” I wasn’t going to guess what noun was desperate enough for vampires. Four months ago I would have just scowled. Today it gave me a hard-knot-in-pit-of-stomach feeling. It was turning out I had a lot of Other friends. And Con, of course, whatever he was. Con, are you all right?

My tea was already steeping when I went back to the tiny staff kitchen to find Aimil. “So, how did it happen?” I said.

She didn’t bother to ask how did what happen. “I knew about your SOFs at Charlie’s because you told me about them.”

“I told you so you wouldn’t stop speaking to me because I seemed to like some guys who wore khaki and navy blue.”

“That they were SOF was supposed to help?”

“They told the best Other stories.”

“I guess. I could have done without the one…never mind. Anyway, so I recognized them when they came here. One day Pat and Jesse asked if I’d come by the SOF office some day for a chat—I hadn’t realized you could feel surrounded by two people, you know?—and what was I going to say, no? So I said yes. And then they asked me if I’d be interested in doing a little work for SOF and of course I said no, and then they started working around to telling me they weren’t so interested that I was a reference librarian as they were interested in what I was doing with Otherwatch and Beware. They seemed to know what I was doing at home too, and before I totally freaked Pat held his breath and turned blue. I said, what’s to prevent me reporting you? And he said, because you’re another one…I have no idea how they found out.” Aimil stopped, but she didn’t stop like end-of-the-story stop.

“And?” I said.

She sighed. “Rae, I’m sorry. They also said, because you’re a friend of Sunshine’s.”

There was no window in the little library staff kitchen. I wanted sunlight. What had my friendship to do with anything? She’d been working for SOF for almost two years. “And you didn’t tell me.”

Aimil walked over to the door and closed it gently. I didn’t want anyone to hear us either, but my spine started prickling with claustrophobia, or dark-o-phobia anyway. “I’m sorry,” said Aimil. “It’s only been since I’ve been working for them that I’ve started…have been able to start thinking of myself as Other. As a partblood. The best way to pass is to believe in the role, you know? My parents know, of course, but they haven’t made any attempt to find out where it comes from. None of my brothers had anything weird happen to them, and so far as I know they don’t know about me. I haven’t told my family I’m SOF, and I haven’t—hadn’t—told anyone I’m partblood. Who was I going to tell? Why? The only person who would have a right to know is the father of my children, and I’m not going to have children and pass this on. I hope none of my brothers’ kids…well. Because I’d have to tell them then.”

I didn’t say anything right away. “When did you find out?”

“Yeah,” said Aimil. “Right about the time I met you. You looked as lost as I felt. And then it turned out we got along, and…”

“Did everyone but my mother and me assume that who my dad was was public knowledge?”

“It wasn’t quite that bad.”

I looked at her.