Silk - Caitlin R. Kiernan [128]
“I don’t drink coffee.”
“Never mind then,” and now her head was under the shirt, making Mr. Fiend’s face bulge way out like he was pulling himself free of the cloth and silkscreen ink. Niki’s mouth, warm and wet around her left nipple, teasing tongue, tooth play, and Spyder kissed the top of her head through the shirt.
Niki sucked her nipple harder, wrapped both arms around firm muscle and the little bit of fat on Spyder’s belly. Spyder let her own hands wander down Niki’s back, no shirt in the way, just a bra strap before the small of her back, skin like satin, so much softer than Robin, no hard edges, no bones showing through.
And instead of the bottomless feeling, Spyder felt something else, something almost like the way she’d once felt with them all here around her, like things might be all right, if she could be sane a little while, careful, and then Niki’s fingers were inside her boxers, tangling themselves in her thick pubic hair, her sex cupped in Niki’s hand like fruit. Aching tingle when Niki’s middle finger brushed her labia, velvet probe, and then slipped inside. Spyder shivered and there was simply no way to hold Niki close enough, to take her in and bind that sense of security, of oneness and belonging, so it wouldn’t bleed away, wouldn’t desert her, leave her dangling between the nowheres above and below and within when it was over, soon, when Niki pulled her hand away, pulled her head from under the shirt and went to make coffee. Everything was always already over before it began.
Niki laughed beneath the bulgy shirt and switched to Spyder’s right nipple.
“Niki,” Spyder said, “you’re not gonna leave, when you get tired of the sex, or…” and then she didn’t say anything more, wished she’d kept her mouth shut. Niki’s tongue had stopped, and she pulled her head out, didn’t take her hand away from Spyder’s crotch, though. Her hair stuck out all over, static and bedhair, her dark, deep eyes, not hurt or pissed, wide and a little sleepy and no deceit in there that Spyder could see.
“I wasn’t planning on it,” she said and pretended to frown.
And Spyder looked back up at the sun on the wall, an inch or two lower, maybe, like the hand of a clock, sand in glass, nothing left behind as it passed. Except a cooling place if she put her fingers to the wall above it.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I know you’re not thinking about going anywhere. Everyone always acts like it’s gonna be forever, but nobody ever thinks about forever. We were gonna be together forever, Niki. I mean, me and Robin and Byron and Walter, like a family. Like a tribe…”
“I’m okay, Spyder,” Niki said, and the way she said it, Spyder could almost believe she knew what she was talking about. “We’re gonna be okay, too.”
“I want to tell you some things,” and now Niki’s hand did move away, left Spyder empty and damp between the legs, but she kept talking. “Not yet, but maybe tomorrow. Maybe soon. They’re not good things, but maybe if we both know them…” and then she was too afraid to say any more, and so she just stared at the sun on the wall, slipping down, like the world was slipping down. Falling, like the world was falling.
“Anytime,” Niki said. “Anytime you’re ready, I’ll listen. And I’ll still be here when you’re done.”
“We shouldn’t make promises,” Spyder said. “It’s bad luck, I think.”
The second time Spyder woke up, the sun was down, twilight tuned down almost to night, and she could smell Red Diamond coffee and something cooking. She reached for Niki, but found she was alone in the bed, and the spot on the sheets where Niki had lain curled next to her was cold. Like nothing could be left behind but body heat and the vaguest impression of arms and legs and heads in pillows. Spyder crawled out of bed and pulled on a pair of old Levi’s, one of the buttonholes on the fly busted so her plaid boxers showed underneath.
She found Niki sitting cross-legged