B16 Soap (Patreon)

Here's an Executioner's Gambit scene that I shamelessly pilfered from my buddy, @DingoWilliam. Thanks tons, man!

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Tori found her mate talking to the neighbor outside his apartment, and before she could say more than, “Hello, Biiz,” he’d already pulled a chair out into the corridor for her to rest in.

“You okay, hon?” asked Druka.

She gave her mate a smile and touched his paw. “Yeah, just stressed,” she told him. And then turning to the neighbor, she explained to Biiz, “I need to meet with the commissioner tomorrow and ask for permission to get surgery.”

“Decided against blackmailing the doctor?” asked Biiz’s best friend.

Tori’s ears perked, and she turned to find the white geroo emerging from the crowd. His ears smiled weakly, the mischievous glimmer missing from his pink eye. She raised a paw in surprise and covered her lips with her fingertips. “Thojy? Are you okay?” asked Tori. “What happened to your eye?”

“Nothing,” muttered the white-pelted male.

Biiz rushed inside the apartment and returned a moment later with some ice wrapped in a dishtowel. Thojy accepted the bundle with little more than a nod and pressed it to the side of his face.

“What do you mean, ‘Nothing’?” asked Tori. “Your face is so swollen; you can barely open your eye!”

Thojy shrugged and leaned back against the wall. After a moment of hesitation, he added just, “Got slapped.”

“Slapped?” She’d expected more than a two-word answer, some color and humor, a long-winded tale that hopped the line between improbable and impossible. But today he was quieter, far more reserved than she’d seen him.

He shrugged once more, adding only, “Well, punched.”

The electrician took the ice pack from his face for a moment to adjust his grip, and when he opened his eye, Tori gasped. In that one eye, his sclera was bright red and bloodshot. She peeped, “Punched?”

“Well, kicked,” he said before pressing the ice back to his face.

“Who kicked you?” asked Biiz.

Thojy sighed. “It was my own fault,” he muttered, not looking at the others. But when the conversation didn’t restart, he offered, “You see, I’d gotten filthy at work running a new power cable, so I was in the shower, singing. I’d just finished composing an opera that would rival any from the most famous kyacaotl composers, when my mate came home. I wasn’t expecting to hear her calling, and she startled me. I squeezed the soap so hard that it popped from my paw and shot off like a rocket.”

The other three stared at him in silence, and only the usual hustle and bustle of geroo returning home from work filled the corridor. Eventually, Thojy added, “The soap flew across the bathroom, out the open door, and into the living room before it even bounced off the deck. Without thinking, I chased after it, my mate screaming as I bolted across the living room—soaking wet.”

Biiz rolled his eyes at the thought, but Thojy explained, “Besho hadn’t closed the front door yet, and the soap flew out into the corridor, so I chased after it.”

“Without stopping to put on your bracelet?” gasped Tori. Commonly, geroo wore only three adornments: a necklace, a holster for their strand, and a bracelet around their tail. Some wore protective boots if they worked in hazardous areas, and Tori wore a sash to hide the worst of her disfigurements, but geroo considered themselves naked without their holsters and especially their bracelets.

“I was in a rush! Didn’t really think about it,” said Thojy defensively. “And my current apartment isn’t in the greatest location. Although convenient—and inexpensive—living across the corridor from the gravity wells means it’s noisy all the time.”

Druka covered his eyes. “Not the gravity well!”

“Yup, that wet bar of soap slid right across the deck and into the up-well,” said Thojy. “If I’d been thinking, I’d have let it go, but instead, I dove in after it.”

Thojy stood in silence for a moment, one eye watching geroo shuffle by. “I emerged on Level 15 to find chaos. The soap had hit some poor guy in the back of head, sending him sprawling. The box he’d been carrying must have split open when it hit the deck, and a million ball bearings had flown everywhere. Geroo were slipping and sliding on them, struggling, trying to keep their balance.”

He explained, “If I’d been smart, I’d have turned back around and pretended the soap wasn’t mine, but instead, I went on after it.” He grinned. “My mate chased me, strand holster in one paw and my bracelet in the other.”

Now, this was the sort of story that Tori had come to expect from Thojy. “And then, what happened?” she asked, curious how this could have led to him getting kicked.

“Then, I was sliding out of control, just trying to keep my paws under me, when I spied Ukush from work.”

“Oh yeah, Ukush,” said Biiz. “Good guy.”

“Absolutely!” agreed Thojy. “He’s elbow-deep in an open electrical panel, and as I’m sliding by, I’m all, ‘Hey, Ukush.’ And he’s all, ‘Good to see you, Thojy. How’s that son of yours?’ And I’m all, ‘Good. Good. He just won a spelling bee yesterday.’”

“He did?” asked Biiz.

“Yeah, he did,” said Thojy. “Takes after his mom. But then my tail smacks poor Ukush right behind the knees, in the … kneepits, I guess?”

Druka nodded. “Sure, kneepits. Gotcha.”

“Well, whatever they’re called, Ukush’s paws go flying out from under him,” said Thojy. “He’s trying to hold onto whatever it was he was working on, but he must have yanked out something important.”

“Not the lights!” groaned Biiz.

“Worse,” said Thojy, “gravity generators. Then, everyone’s sliding sideways, back into the up well.”

Tori groaned.

“When I popped out of the well, I’m looking all around for the soap,” Thojy explained, “but I didn’t have to search long, because my heel came right down on it. The geroo tumbling from the well shoved me, and I’m zooming naked down the corridor of Level 14. My arms are pinwheeling like mad, and my mate is right behind me yelling, ‘Thojy! Stop, Thojy!’”

Druka covered his eyes, and shaking his head, he tried not to laugh.

“But despite my acrobat-like grace, I couldn’t keep my balance long atop that bar of soap,” sighed Thojy. “My paw slips out from under me, I go down on my tail—hard—and the soap shoots out more down the corridor.”

“Of course, it does,” sighed Tori without surprise.

“And at this point, I really think I would have given up and hopped back down two decks to finish my shower with a fresh bar of soap,” Thojy explained, “well, when everyone cleared the way, that is, but there’s this gal standing not three meters in front of me, and she’s got one of those…”

When the words trailed off, Tori stared. She asked, “One of those … what?”

Thojy grimaced and readjusted the ice pack once more, clearly uncomfortable. “I’m not judging,” said the electrician, “but you know those shy sorts of cubs where they’re hesitant to leave the pouch?”

The other three nodded in unison. Most cubs started climbing from the pouch the moment their legs were strong enough to hold them upright, but there was always those few who were in no hurry…

“Well, her son was huge,” said Thojy, “and bless her patience, but she was in danger of rubbing a bald spot against the deck when she walked. This cub looked like he was getting ready to graduate.”

Tori rolled her eyes in silence.

“Anyhow, that just happens to be the precise moment for this big cub to make his grand exit,” explained Thojy. “He plops out onto the deck, sprawling, and his poor mom’s pouch—after carrying this big cub around for so long—has clearly lost a bit of its … shall we say, elasticity?”

Tori groaned, “No. It didn’t.”

“Oh, I’m afraid it did,” said Thojy. “Perfect shot. Bar of soap flies straight in without touching the rim.”

Tori glared at him. “And she kicked you … for that?” she asked with no small tone of disbelief in her voice.

“No, no, no, of course not,” said Thojy. “But jeez was it awkward. It’s not like it was her fault that the cub stayed in the pouch so long, stretching it all out. And I felt terrible, like my accident was pointing out what everyone could easily see.”

Nobody looked at Thojy. Everyone studied their paws, the walls, the deck…

“Well, it was very awkward,” repeated Thojy. “I’m not sure why I thought it would be less awkward if I retrieved the soap myself rather than asking her to do it. I should have told her to just keep it.”

Tori covered her eyes with both paws. She groaned. “And she kicked you for that?” she asked from behind her paws. “It is awful rude, but kicking you in the face…?”

“Oh, no, no,” Thojy reassured her. “No, she didn’t do that. In fact, she was all frozen up like a statue. She didn’t move at all.”

A long moment of silence stretched. Tori spread her fingers and peeked out. “But your eye…?”

Thojy frowned. “Yes, well, you see, when I reached in to retrieve my soap,” he explained, “my mate had finally caught up with me and was standing right there.”

———

Reviewer's link: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1CYJoSFpg4qFnrUz7BGIvaleFwCHjV4pIhVPCxGEJ5qo/edit?usp=sharing

Thoughts?