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Sevika could, if she wanted, break her brain trying to figure out how she ended up here; she could waste her time digging where there’s no profit and no point. Take the brat for a wash, that’s clear enough, and Jinx will agree to anything if it will get on Sevika’s nerves. That’s the simplest answer, and the simplest answer’s usually the right one.
So Sevika’s stuck trying to find something of interest in this shitty room, while Jinx splashes from one end of the tub to the other, practically sending whole waves over the side and onto the floor. The only chair is uncomfortable, and there’s nowhere to sit in it that doesn’t put her in annoying proximity to Jinx, but Sevika has started on a good cigar and settled in to make the best of it.
Her eyes wander diagonally down the wall in front of her, over plaster garlands and chipped mint paint, an array of magazine pictures in shaky gilt frames. She’s looking at a tinted photo of an actress, vaguely wondering if the smudge behind her is a scarf or a sausage, when there’s the growl of the drain, and then the tap runs lavishly, once, twice.
Sevika snaps to attention, fixes Jinx with a glare. “Cut it out, I only paid for one bath.”
Jinx makes that sugar-sucking face Silco loves so much. “And I’m only having one bath.”
Sevika stubs her cigar out on a little tin plate provided for the purpose, right on the enameled arms of the Piltover Council. She puts one hand firmly over the tap. “That water’s gotta come from somewhere, and I’m not letting you freeze some other poor bastard out.”
Jinx floats forward in her thick net of hair, and Sevika thinks of all the smooth, hungry things that are supposed to live in the canals and cave pools, the things they scare kids with. Jinx puts one long-nailed hand on the edge of the tub, next to Sevika’s knee; beads of water roll off her skin and speckle Sevika’s pants.
She glances sidewise at Sevika’s left arm. “I wonder how it would hold up if it got, you know, really, really wet.”
Deliberately, Sevika sits back, thumbs her watch out of her vest pocket. “You have an hour and ten. You’re not done by then, I’ll throw you bare-assed into the street.” She folds her arms and refuses to look away.
There’s a stillness that sometimes falls over Jinx, the kind that bounces the whole world off it. She blinks, slowly, shows a row of teeth and then closes her mouth again. This stillness might be a fortress wall; it might be a cover rigged over a pit. She grins for real, and glides to the opposite corner.
“Well, if you can do all that, I guess it’s fine.”
Obediently, she begins to wash her hair, loading it with some shampoo that has the cat-piss reek of jasmine. She ducks under the water, over and over, then settles in her corner, quietly dividing her hair into sections and wringing it out. It’s almost funny to see her act so finicky.
Sevika checks the end of her cigar to see if it’s salvageable, relights it and exhales at the ceiling, then just rests against the back of the chair and breathes until the smoke turns to clean breath. When she lowers her head, Jinx is regarding her, fixedly, like she’s been doing it for a while. Jinx pulls the lock of hair she’s holding behind her shoulder, revealing the hollow above her collarbone, one bee-sting tit, a sliver of pallid belly. “Wanna help?”
Sevika can’t even appear to give in. She draws on her cigar and blows a cloud of smoke right in Jinx’s face. Jinx drops, not precisely as if she’s been hit. She stays under for a long moment, and another. If she doesn’t come up soon, Sevika will have to haul her out.
Sevika gets up and kicks the tub. “All right, mermaid.” The water ripples, but Jinx doesn’t move. Sevika kicks the tub again, harder. “All right!”
She looks at the outline of Jinx’s sleek, motionless form beneath the skin of the water’s surface and thinks, It’d take a lot more than that to kill you. But she’s keenly aware that it would cost more than she’s worth to let Silco’s pet drown herself. And Jinx already seems half a corpse, drained of color and closed in on her own secrets, wrapped in her drifting hair. Sevika’s watch ticks heavily against her ribs.
Jinx stands up suddenly and shakes like a dog, flinging water everywhere. Already wide-eyed and ready to ignore any surprise, she says to Sevika, “Wha-at?” She draws the word out like she’s stretching a string of taffy between her finger and her lips.
“What,” Sevika repeats, flatly.
Jinx is so scrawny, breakable. Drag her over the edge of the tub, pull her arm out of the socket, put a leg behind hers and dislodge the knee, force her head under the water and wait. But she’s tougher than that, and it would be stupid to forget it. She steps onto the floor and stumbles forward, throws herself towards Sevika.
Her arms are around Sevika’s neck, there’s an enveloping fog of humidity, she’s soaking Sevika’s shirtfront. She slides down Sevika’s body, ends with her cheek against Sevika’s hipbone, while the damp trail she’s left quickly cools.
“How about it?” She says. “I’m really good at it.”
Sevika, startled, blurts out a laugh. “Like hell you are.”
Jinx digs her nails into the backs of Sevika’s thighs. Her expression is calm, and the pain is blunted by the fabric of Sevika’s pants. “Oh, don’t you like it? Or did something nasty happen to you?”
Sevika forces herself to do nothing but rest her hand on the top of Jinx’s head. “Okay, if it’ll shut you up.”
Jinx automatically tilts her face up and does this thing with her eyes, a little like a plea and a little like nobody’s home. For a few seconds, she stays frozen, looking and not looking at Sevika. Her eyelashes are very long; her presence is like a light behind frosted glass.
She drops her hands, sits back on her heels and considers Sevika from the cold distance she’s created. Sevika hooks a couple fingers beneath her belt, bumps the buckle. “Well?”
Jinx seems to come back to herself and rolls onto her knees, gives all her attention to undoing Sevika’s belt buckle and unbuttoning her fly. Jinx’s hair is dragging on the floor and, without thinking, Sevika begins to wind it around one hand.
Jinx mutters, “It’d be easier if you were lying down.” The words are a soft percussion on Sevika’s bared skin. Sevika widens her stance, but otherwise does nothing else to help. Jinx pulls her pants down, awkwardly leaves them mid-thigh. She falls against Sevika, clutching, and Sevika lets her nuzzle and lick, aimlessly, ineffectually.
There’s no distraction in it. Sevika wonders, not for the first time, what Silco’s getting out of his questionable investment, other than a perverse thrill that disaster has so far landed on everyone but him. And maybe that’s something more than chance, maybe he really has something to be proud of, but either way it’d be a mistake to say to Silco outright that he’s been a fool.
Sevika grips her handful of hair, peels Jinx off of her. “You get that out of your system?”
Jinx is wobbly, unfocused, her lips pink and smeary. Either she really was affected a little, or she’s good at faking it. Without the weird makeup, and with a flush warming up her cheeks, she’s actually kind of pretty. But then she opens her mouth, and the showy sneer in her voice ruins it. “That was fast. Oh no, was I too much for you?”
Sevika, without consulting her watch, says, “You have thirty minutes now.”
Jinx pushes, even when it won’t shift anything. “Are we going to see who can get off first?”
Her arms are still around Sevika’s legs, Sevika’s hand is still in her hair, and Jinx is radiating smug triumph. Sevika pulls her hand away, levers Jinx to her feet, pivots and sets her in the chair. As punctuation, she fastens her own pants summarily.
Jinx’s tactics are childish ones: she can make silence as sharp as a slap, she can make her body heavy with refusal. Sevika doesn’t give her the satisfaction of sighing; she just locates the skimpy towel and, sitting down on the edge of the tub, picks up one of Jinx’s legs. She dries off the foot and all the way up to the calf, then takes care of the other one, without comment. Jinx just sits stubbornly, her eyes cut to the right and her bottom lip thrust out.
Sevika dries Jinx off, slowly and methodically, maneuvering the limp body around where she wants it. Eventually, she has to lean closer–-the lingering heat raising the faint scent of flowers–-so she can bundle Jinx up in the towel. She traps Jinx's arms and scrubs, briskly and randomly.
Jinx is quiet and manageable, until she isn’t. Without warning, she plants a foot in the middle of Sevika’s chest, exerts pressure. Sevika clasps her ankle, carefully, and tries to lower Jinx’s leg, put her foot flat against the floor again. But Jinx is still moving, twisting and thrashing, creating a scuffle where there wasn’t one before.
Sevika stands up, Jinx whips towards her and their feet tangle, they fall together. Sevika rolls so that only her shoulder and hip hit the tile, and Jinx, clinging to her, ends up on top of her, cushioned from the fall. She’s blocking out the light from the one narrow window, her face is in shadow. She says, consideringly, “I could tell Silco that you made me.” She could, and Silco might believe her, but Sevika’s willing to take those odds, especially if it’ll hurry Jinx through this mood she’s in.
She’s full of tension, always full of tension, anybody’s guess which way all that pent-up energy will explode. She grips Sevika’s arms, rubs on her thigh stickily, only comes close to bite or press their faces together in what passes for a kiss. Her tongue is muscular, her mouth sloppy. She’s twice as heavy with her mass of hair.
Sevika tries to imagine a more desirable scene: a soft bed, a soft body, subtle perfume, and a cascade of lace slipping away. A dream woman will sigh and surrender; Jinx is angular and brittle, almost too stiff to hold. Sevika tries putting a hand on Jinx’s hip and isn’t rebuffed. She runs the other hand over Jinx’s shoulder and down her arm, but Jinx just keeps thrusting against her, absently. Sevika searches out the soft places on Jinx’s body: beneath her breasts, in the curve of her lower belly, the insides of her thighs.
Jinx doesn’t relax, exactly, but her breath speeds up, she begins to move with Sevika, and Sevika can suddenly feel her focus. Without warning, she leans up, grabs Sevika’s hand, and pushes it between her legs. She’s wetter than Sevika would have expected, she’s a bubble of warmth in the cooling room, she’s tumbling forward, she’s kissing Sevika with plush lips, easy and present.
A shard of alarm reminds her that Jinx shouldn’t be this easy, she’s never this easy; Sevika sinks her fingers in, because after all, what the hell. She works Jinx, gently and steadily, and Jinx ripples on top of her, whimpers, keeps on smothering her with kisses. Sevika lets herself fall into it, the rhythm of someone else’s body, the dizzying rush of blood. Jinx is flowing all around her, slick skin and flossy hair and a sweet pulse.
Footsteps break through the haze, there are several sharp raps on the door. “Five minutes!” Then the click of heels drifts away again. Sevika rides Jinx’s agitation as it rises, keeps hold of her, catches her, over and over, and Jinx hisses, and gasps, and lets go.
----
"You tell Silco about this and--"
"And I'm dead meat, I know!"
Sevika, burdened with an armful of Jinx's clothes, watches Jinx swagger off in her coat, dragging the hem through the muck.
"Dead, dead, dead," the word becomes a needle of a song, piercing the sudden fog. "Dead, dead, hahaha."