Inhabited - chapter 18 (with images) (Patreon)

The radiator bangs at five in the morning. She lies in the dark and listens to it. The room is cold anyway, the iron pipes still too cold to touch. The lower back ache moves around when she shifts position, settling into a different place along the lumbar, not going anywhere.

She picks up the phone from the floor. Screen brightness stings her eyes.

Ros hasn’t replied.

She taps the text field. Her instinct is to correct the record. The way to fix this is to explain to Ros what she’s missing, and then it stops being a problem. She almost types: I’m sorry about last night. Can we talk today? You misunderstood the text. It wasn’t about you or me and Brigid. I want to explain.

She sits with her thumbs over the glass for a moment. Then sends exactly that and immediately knows it is wrong.

She gets up and goes to the bathroom. Floor tiles ice under her feet. She turns her head too fast toward the window and gets a half-second of something behind her eyes - a flash, a flicker, like a bad bulb in a fixture she isn’t looking at directly. It fades immediately. She stands still for a moment before she moves again.

She turns on the shower and stands under the hot water for a long time, letting it work at the muscles in her neck and shoulders. The discharge on the pantyliner is less than yesterday. She is probably past the window, or nearly. She changes to a fresh one. Dresses quickly in a thick navy cardigan and gray trousers.

The phone is lit when she comes back to the bedroom.

Ros: I have a deadline today. I don’t really need a logistical breakdown of a text message, Maren. I saw it.

She stares at it. Something rises in her chest that is larger than the situation warrants - a hot, sudden pressure behind her sternum, almost like grief. It passes in a few seconds. She tosses the phone onto the unmade bed.

She packs the binder into the bag and leaves.

The walk to the school is brutally cold. Wind biting at her face. She teaches period one and period two on autopilot. The body knows the pacing - knows how to stand near a desk when a kid is looking at a phone under the table, the proximity doing the work without her having to stop talking. The classroom smells of floor wax and the dry bite of whiteboard markers.

By the second period the fatigue is a hum behind her eyes.

The schedule runs short today. A schoolwide activity that Maren’s prep period covers. PATH into the city, then the L to the G. Off at Nassau.

The café. The damp wool smell. The espresso machine hissing. Brigid is already at the last table - black turtleneck under her coat, a crumpled pastry wrapper pushed to the edge of the marble. Half-empty mug.

She sits. The chair scrapes.

Brigid doesn’t say hello. She pushes a small slip of paper across the table.

“I talked to someone who knows the secondary routing,“ Brigid says, low. Strictly business. “If you have the legacy admin credential, the spoofing script is simple. The syntax is right there.“

She reads the code in Brigid’s sharp blocky handwriting. The logic clicks.

“This works. We just need a name with clearance who left the company.“

“I’m working on the name.“ Brigid traces the rim of the mug. Doesn’t take a sip. Looks up. “You look terrible.“

“I didn’t sleep.“

“I can tell.“ Brigid sets her hand flat on the marble. “Is the body crashing?“

“The body is fine.“ She puts the paper in her coat pocket. The hard wooden chair is unforgiving against her back. The café is too loud suddenly, the espresso machine and the low conversations all at the same volume. She blinks. It levels out. “I broke her relationship.“

Brigid stops moving.

The espresso machine and the clatter of cups seem to fall back. Brigid stares at her. Dark eyes tracking across Maren’s cheekbones, down to the mouth, back up. Sitting across from her estranged wife. Talking to the stranger piloting her. Listening to the stranger describe the woman her wife has been sleeping with after the separation.

“You broke it,“ Brigid says. Flat.

“She saw your text last night. Does she know anything. About Elise.“

“And she thought it was about her.“

“Yes. Thought we were talking about her, evaluating her. She got up and left.“

Brigid reaches out and pulls a sugar packet from the small ceramic dish. Tears the corner off. Pours the raw sugar into a small brown pile on the marble. She is angry. Not at Ros.

“Did you explain it to her?“

“I texted her this morning that she misunderstood the facts.“

Brigid looks up. The look is withering. “You told her she misunderstood the facts.“

“She did.“

“You are an idiot.“ She doesn’t raise her voice. “You’re operating my wife’s body and you’re arguing logistics with a woman who feels like she’s being erased.“

“I didn’t know what else to say. I don’t know the relationship.“

“It doesn’t matter if you know the relationship.“ Brigid sweeps the pile of sugar into her hand and dumps it onto the pastry wrapper. “She doesn’t want to hear that you didn’t do anything wrong. She wants to know that you see why she felt sick when she read it. You tried to fix it like a guy who got caught in a lie.“

“How do I fix it?“

“You don’t text her explanations.“ Brigid wipes her hand on a paper napkin. “You take the blame for the feeling, not the text. Give me the phone.“

She reaches into her coat pocket and hands it across the marble.

Brigid looks at the screen. Her thumbs move over the glass without hesitation. The barista calls out a drink. The espresso machine. Brigid types for maybe forty seconds.

Brigid slides the phone back.

I was defensive last night. I made you feel crazy in my own apartment and you didn’t deserve it. I’m bringing dinner to your place at seven. If you don’t want to see me, tell me to leave and I will. But I’d rather apologize in the room with you.

“Will this work?“

“If she likes Maren, it will work.“ Brigid picks up her coffee mug. “Bring something she actually wants to eat. Not whatever you ate yesterday.“

“She brought Pad Thai.“

“Maren hates Pad Thai,“ Brigid says simply. She takes a sip of the black coffee. “Get her the dumplings from that place on Newark Avenue. The ones with the chili oil.“

She looks at Brigid. The small daily knowledge of Maren’s life keeps falling out of her, casual and unguarded.

“Thank you,“ she says.

“Don’t thank me.“ Brigid looks out the window. “Just don’t leave a mess in her life when you go.“

She buys the dumplings.

The place on Newark Avenue is a hole in the wall. Windows fogged with steam. A paper sign in the door listing the dumplings by number. She carries the paper bag through the freezing streets of Jersey City. Ros’s apartment is a third-floor walkup, a brick building that leans, the stairs dark and the wood worn smooth at the center of each step.

She buzzes at seven exactly.

The intercom crackles. No voice, just a buzz as the door unlocks.

She climbs the stairs. The lower back ache has settled into a solid block. Third-floor landing. Ros’s door is cracked open.

She pushes it and steps inside.

The apartment is everything Maren’s isn’t. Plants in macramé hangers from the ceiling. A thick rug, colorful. Framed prints on every wall - drawings, photographs, a couple of pieces that look original. A space someone has put themselves into.

Ros stands in the kitchen. Socks and large sweatpants, dark hair down around her shoulders.

She walks over and sets the bag on the counter. Chili oil and steamed dough filling the small space.

“You brought food,“ Ros says. Guarded.

“Dumplings. Pork and shrimp. They’re fantastic.“

Ros looks at the bag. Then at Maren’s face. Crosses her arms over her chest.

Brigid’s instructions. Don’t argue the facts.

“I was awful yesterday,“ she says. Maren’s voice, but she pushes the sincerity into it from the real guilt she feels for hijacking this woman’s life. “You came over trying to take care of me, and I shut you out. And then I made you feel crazy for reacting to a text from my ex-wife.“

Ros’s shoulders drop a fraction.

“It wasn’t about you,“ she continues, keeping her hands at her sides. “The text. I swear to God. But it doesn’t matter what it was about. I handled it horribly.“

The silence stretches. The refrigerator hums.

“I just felt like an idiot,“ Ros says quietly. “Sitting there on your couch while you talked to her.“

“You aren’t an idiot. I’m the idiot.“

Ros lets out a breath. Uncrosses her arms. Leans against the counter. “Did you really get dumplings?“

“Yes.“

“Okay. Grab plates.“

They eat sitting on the floor of the living room, the coffee table between them, takeout cartons open. The dumplings are exactly right - wrappers thin, the chili oil peppercorn-rich and numbing around the edges of the mouth, the filling dense and hot. She eats carefully, watching Ros. Ros eats slow, the way she does when she is still unsettled. Maren would know this. Maren would pace herself to match. She slows down.

The tension bleeds out slowly. Not a clean slate. The crisis defused. Ros talks about her deadline - the logo design, a client who keeps requesting revisions that undo every previous revision, a brief that has been rewritten so many times it is just a list of contradictions now. She listens and asks the right questions: what was the original concept, what does the client say they want versus what the logo is actually doing, is there a conversation to have about scope. She doesn’t let her mind drift back to the routing script in her coat pocket. She stays in the room. Ros looks at her at some point and something in her face shifts, just slightly. Like she is remembering why she is here.

When they finish, Ros gathers the empty cartons and takes them to the kitchen. She comes back and sits on the floor again. Not pulling her legs up. Just sitting close.

Ros reaches out and touches the side of Maren’s neck.

The response comes slowly this time. Not an ambush.

Her breath changes before anything else - an involuntary deepening, the chest expanding, the way you breathe when you’re letting something down. Ros’s fingers are at the pulse point on her neck, which isn’t sexual, not exactly, but the body reads it as meaningful and starts orienting toward her. A warmth, gathering low. Not the spike of last night’s kiss. Something slower. The fertile warmth that has run in her body all day is still there underneath it, an undertow more than a wave.

Ros leans in and kisses her. Slow this time.

She opens her mouth. The taste of chili oil and mint, Ros’s warmth after a long day of cold and difficulty. Ros’s hand slides around to the back of Maren’s neck, fingers in the hair. The pull of it is the feeling of setting something down she’s been carrying.

She kisses back. Lets her mind step back and lets Maren’s hands find Ros, and tries not to manage it from outside.

Ros pulls back a little. Her eyes are dark. “You want to move to the bed?“

“Yes,“ she says.

They stand. The bedroom is dark, a streetlamp outside the window making a column of gray through the curtains.

Ros reaches around her and gets the bra hooks in one try. The band comes free. Ros pushes the t-shirt over her head and looks at her, runs a hand across her chest, her lips passing over the nipple - and the breath she didn’t know she was holding goes out of her. She makes a small sound she doesn’t recognize.

She helps Ros pull the oversized sweater over her head. Ros wears a soft bralette. Pushes it up. Skin on skin.

They fall onto the mattress.

Ros’s mouth on her neck, then lower. Lips on her breast, the slow pull of them, and the sensation does not stay where it starts. It travels - down through her ribs, into her belly, lower. She buries her hands in Ros's hair and arches up and lets her eyes close. Her hips shift, small, before she decides to move them. The hands know what to do without her. She lets them.

She reaches down between them. Finds Ros and finds the rhythm, Maren’s hands knowing what they are doing without her, the muscle memory carrying it. Ros lets out a low shuddering breath against her collarbone. Presses closer.

This isn’t Anthony in Diane’s body. That cold performance. This is a real thing two people made together over months. She is inside it without permission, but knowing that doesn't make it less.

Ros’s leg comes over her thigh. The press of Ros’s body against her own. There is a heat between her legs that has been gathering all day and is now claiming its own territory. The slick of it surprises her - more than any of the previous bodies, the fertile body’s open generosity. Ros’s hand moves down and finds her, two fingers tracing, finding the wet, settling in.

Her breath catches.

It isn’t pressure building. It is attention gathering. The day’s accumulated weight - the classroom, the lie about the headache, the conference room, Brigid’s face across the marble, the dumplings on the floor - all of it pulls in toward one place and quiets there.

Ros moves down.

She grips the sheets in both hands.

What happens isn't a peak. Her body is opening, wider and then wider, and she stops following it. Her body tightens, releases, tightens. She makes a sound low in her throat. The noise surprises her, comes from somewhere not quite in her mouth. Her hips lift. Her thighs press in around Ros’s shoulders. There is a moment where her attention, which had been narrowed to a single hot point, expands all the way out, fills the room and the dark and the smell of Ros’s skin and her own breath, and then-

The room thins.

The smell of chili oil. Old paper and dust under the bed. Ros’s weight against her.

Then nothing.

She hangs there for a beat that doesn’t end.

Then gravity comes back.

Different weight. Different shape. The mattress under her is significantly softer. The air is warm. Old paper smell, dust, something else - perfume that has been in a room a long time. She opens her eyes.