It takes quite some effort to bite back the silly grin I want to give them. I shake my head and gesture for us to keep walking so as to cover it up. “I interrupted. You were saying about Taylor, and Jessica.”
“Yeah, Taylor and Jessica. They’re close… really close. They, you know, they like each other.” Loncey falls in step with me as we walk at a slow pace.
“Like,likeeach other?”
“Yeah. And I don’t… I don’t know if that’s such a great idea.”
“Why not?”
“My sister… she can’t get close to too many people. Her risk of infection is much higher than for those of us who don’t have CF. I just can’t help worrying that if she starts fooling around with someone, it could put her at more risk of getting sick. I know that’s fucked up but I just can’t help it.”
“But maybe it’s not sexual?” I offer, only too aware of the heat prickling up my back. It’s the same hot defensive feeling I have when people just assume that all relationships are sexual. “Maybe they just have deep romantic feelings for each other.”
“Does it make me a wimp if I say I don’t want to know that about my sister?”
“Yes, definitely.” I nod assertively. “Does she know what kind of work you do?”
“Yeah,” they reply with a wince, which tells me they know what point I am trying to make. “I’ve always been honest with my mom and with Jessica.”
“Then I think your sister can cope with you asking her if she’s going to take extra precautions should she start a sexual relationship with Taylor. And also, you told me you were raised to be a feminist. This is not very feminist of you, trying to prevent your adult sister from entering into a possible relationship with someone who clearly cares about her.”
They shake their head and rub at their brow. “Fuck, you’re right.”
“I have my moments,” I give them one of my famous MaeBae’s hair tosses. “Why don’t you tell me what you’re really worried about?
They blink slowly and when their eyes open there’s a new vulnerability there. “Aside from infection risk, I just think it will make things so much more… complicated. Harder. For Jessica.Taylor lives this totally normal life of work and going out and socialising and doing, you know, all the normal kind of things a twenty-six-year-old does. My sister, she doesn’t live like that. Shecan’tlive like that. It can’t last, Jessica and Taylor. It just can’t. Then their friendship will be over. And all this will do is cause my sister pain and I don’t want her to have any more pain in her life.”
I want to open my mouth and tell them that if they both feel the same way about each other, however that may be – sexual, romantic, platonic, or one of the many other ways we experience attraction – then Loncey needs to get out of their sister’s way. They need to know how rare it is for two people to feel the same way about each other.
But I second guess myself. Would they even understand? They have sex with strangers for a living. They must think that intimacy and sex and fuck, even relationships must drop out of the sky whenever you want one. They probably have no clue how hard it is for some of us to find someone who wants to connect in the same way you want to connect with them.
No, not hard. Impossible. At least it is for me. Because who would want to be in a sexless relationship? Who would want to live their life missing out on one of the most ‘natural’ and ‘human’ parts of life? Who would want to love someone who will never be able to make love with them?
The beginnings of tears start to warm my eyes and I blink them away.
“I should go back to the hotel,” I say, turning abruptly and setting off in the opposite direction.
“Wait, what?” Loncey has to skip to catch up with me. “Um, I was actually going to get some food on the way back. We could grab a bite together, if you like.”
I do like. I haven’t eaten anything but mini-bar nuts and aeroplane food since yesterday. I’m hungry and I don’t want tojust eat yet another depressing room service meal alone. Even with all that aside, part of me really wants to go for food with Loncey to spend some more time talking with them. They’re so easy to have a conversation with, and I feel like I’m learning a lot just by listening to what they have to say, absorbing how they see the world. But I’m also feeling emotional and low and lonely. And the only reason I feel all those yucky things is because I’m so very, very tired. Despite my nap, jetlag has kicked in, bringing with it that sagging feeling in my bones and the sensation like I’m walking, thinking, breathing through mud.
And there’s something else. Something about their proximity that makes me feel on edge. Like I shouldn’t fully relax even though their conversation, their presence, their company feels easy and a lot more natural than I could have ever imagined.
I wish I knew what it was that made me feel a little alert, a little alarmed, but I’m too tired to make any sense of it. I’m too tired to make much sense of anything.
I’m too tired and I’m too emotional, all because of a fucking musical water fountain.
“Rain check?” I ask, turning my head to them.
They smile at me. “It never rains in Vegas.”
I don’t know why those words and their sad little smile after delivering them pain me, but they do. But I cover it up with one of my famous Mae smiles.
“Then I guess I’ll just see you tomorrow at the shoot,” I say, and we walk the rest of the way back to the hotel in silence.
Chapter Twenty
Loncey
