And All the Stars (26 page)

"That would be on level two," Nash murmured. He was not recovering as quickly as Pan, but
his finely-moulded features had lit with quiet amusement. "A two-day celebration, I think. Today for living, tomorrow a
not-fully-surprising birthday, and then we will be serious again."

"Hey, you told them!" Pan only succeeded in looking gratified. "Do I get cake? Can we dress up?"

His enthusiasm bubbled over them, and though they decided
partying would need to be postponed until they'd established escape routes,
checked for ways to detect and avoid any alarms, and seen to preserving their
food supply, it was hard not to enjoy the idea of a 6 star hotel as a hideout.

As they discussed what needed to be done, Madeleine spent her
time watching Fisher, who was watching her in return. A silent shared awareness of a first step
already taken, of something which had moved on to a question of when.

Later.

ooOoo

Two men fought, the music flaring into dramatic highlights as
they danced across the deck of a ship under sail. Madeleine watched with vague interest,
studying poses, but most of her attention captured by the warm fingers tangled
with her own.

A strange dissonance cut through the music and Fisher's hand
tightened, then let her go. "Spire
song."

"Stupid Moths." Pan fumbled for the controls and paused his movie mid swordfight so they
could better hear the eerie sound, distant yet penetrating. "What are they up to now?"

"Sending the Greens back to whatever they were doing
before the Challenge, I guess." Noi
stood and stretched. "Let's see if
we can spot any movement, and finish the movie after dinner. Maybe it will have shut up by then."

After some debate about the wisdom of taking rooms close
enough to the ground to be able to shield-jump out the windows, they'd given in
to the view and settled into the most palatial suites, high on the Harbour side
of the hotel. These not only offered
tiny cinemas where a world of movies could be dialled on demand, they could be
opened up into a single, enormous apartment by the unlocking of cleverly
concealed sliding walls. One floor down
from
Open Sky
, the top floor restaurant, they had plentiful food,
carefully planned escape routes, and a number of rules about turning lights on
and off at night. An added sense of
security had been provided by the discovery of the keys to the fire escapes and
elevators, giving them in effect a drawbridge to raise when they went to bed.

It was late afternoon, and sunset crept up while they pitched
in to prepare their meal, so they chose a table to best take advantage of the
spectacular vista. But despite a view
which stretched from Darling Harbour across the sweep of the North Shore, and
past the Bridge to glimpses of the Opera House, Madeleine found she didn't like
eating in the restaurant, where the array of empty tables only served to remind
her of a city quietly rotting.

"Crimson skies and thunderclouds on the
horizon." Noi stared out to toward
the headlands, but there was no sign of the navy ships. "I could wish it had rained on them
yesterday, but even then I have to think of their hosts, and whether they feel
everything the Moths do."

"Yeah." Pan's smile had faded. "It
takes the fun out of planning to smash their faces in."

The pervasive song of the Spire filled every gap in the
conversation, eerie and oppressive, but they pressed on, forcing bright
chatter, watching the approaching storm as the colour faded from the sky.

As they were constructing elaborate ice cream sundaes, Fisher
disappeared downstairs and returned holding the binoculars. "Come look at this."

"Movement?" Noi crossed quickly to stand with him at the windows.

"Not quite. Look
at the hull of that overturned yacht just off Headland Park."

Frowning, Noi obeyed, seemed only puzzled as she peered into
the growing twilight, then suddenly snorted. She waved the binoculars. "Millie, check this out."

The younger girl's reaction to this mystery view was to gasp
and say: "Oh, it can't be! I don't
believe it."

"Will you lot quit with the commentary and just tell us
what you're looking at?" Min asked, exasperated.

"Glowing eyes," Noi said. "There's eyes painted on the hull. Must be some kind of phosphorescent
paint."

"We ran away from a boat?" Pan grabbed the binoculars and, after a
pause, burst out laughing. "Shit, I
feel like such a dick."

This discovery provided a counterbalance to the song of the
Spire, and they were able to revive the light good humour they'd been so
deliberately maintaining, to talk party plans over their dessert, to clean up
in good humour and take pleasure in their return to their enormous suite.

"Guess we can check the news while we wait for the Spire
to shut up," Pan said, and they clustered toward one of the lounge
areas. Madeleine, struggling with the
weight of the continued song, excused herself and headed to her room on the far
left of the interconnected set of suites to run a bath.

During their explorations they'd discovered storage rooms
full of items intended for the suites, from robes and kettles to some very
up-market varieties of miniature soap, bath salts, and hair product. Madeleine programmed the room's stereo system
with a selection of her favourite jazz singers and Ella Fitzgerald began to
croon, the music loud enough that the Spire song was drowned. Stars blurred by steaming, scented water,
Madeleine could finally allow herself to think of thirty people who had paid
the price of her freedom. Guilt over the
actions of the Moths was stupid, but that wouldn't stop her.

The Spire song faded before her fingers had turned to prunes
and, clean and warmly wrapped in one of the robes, she drifted out to the lamp-lit
lounge room and stood finger-combing her damp hair, listening to the stereo and
watching rain beat against the windows.

"Feeling better?"

"Now that it's stopped." She turned as Fisher rose from one of the
chairs and crossed to her. He'd
obviously bathed as well, and his dark mop was damp and almost tamed, while his
expression was the closest to anxious she'd ever seen from him. "My cousin – the last time I spoke to
him, just before we went to Bondi – was talking about wordplay, bad puns on
song titles. I was just thinking that
I'm feeling Blue right now. Not sad,
just...particularly when I've had a bath or shower I end up extremely aware of
the velvety sensation. It makes me feel
like I don't belong in my own skin."

"If it's any help, I think the velvet is a kind of
field." His gaze dropped to the
point where the robe crossed beneath the start of the stain on her chest and
the tips of his ears gave away the line of his thoughts, but he forged on in
his most neutral tone. "Your skin
isn't velvet at all. But it's storing or
generating power. Imagine touching a
million microscopic lightning bolts. Or
how it feels holding the like polarities of two magnets together. It's a sensation not inherent in the object,
but produced by what is generated from it."

Giving up on talking, he lifted a hand, fingers hovering just
before the patch around her eye, then brushed his thumb delicately over the
unstained skin below. When was becoming
now, and Madeleine caught at his hand as he lowered it, clasped it firmly, then
moved toward her room

Eyes wide but sure, Fisher followed, then hesitated at the
door. "Protection," he
murmured, looking in the direction of his own room.

"Bedside drawer." Later she would have to thank Noi for insisting on practicality.

He pushed the door closed behind them, the room lit only by
the light spilling from the bathroom, and there was an awkward moment, so she
filled it by reaching up to kiss him. Tentative at first, with soft touches of hands to his back. He was wearing loose sports pants and a
T-shirt and as their kisses deepened she found herself bold with impatience and
drew back to lift the shirt over his head.

Coat-hanger shoulders, and a chest still filling out, striped
like a barber's pole with bright diagonal streaks of stars.

"You've got comets."

He made a face, said: "Please, I'm feeling awkward
enough," and self-consciously shucked his pants and underwear, becoming a
naked boy gleaming with light, lifting his eyes to meet hers.

He was already partially erect, and later perhaps she would
be amused that his penis was striped as well, and that he visibly swelled as
she pulled loose the cord of her robe, letting it gape open. Stepping forward, he raised hands to her
shoulders and smoothed them back so the robe fell around her feet, and then,
breathing deeply, he took his time looking at her, bringing back to her years
of feeling inadequate, of needing a bra to give herself breasts rather than
hold them up, and never would she have thought someone would gaze down at her
barely A-cups so reverently, or shake as he slid his hands forward and down to
cover them.

Madeleine inhaled sharply, the sensation surpassing anything
she'd anticipated, and she found she was standing up straighter, pushing into
his touch. She had no idea how much the
velvet of the stain was contributing to what she felt, though there was
definitely an added tingle created by the shift between the stained and
unstained skin of his palms as he slid his hands down further, exploring with
his fingers.

The kiss which followed was clumsy, Fisher losing a great
deal of his poise to eagerness, and they pressed together, exploring with hands
and mouths, hard erection prodding her. He became urgent, steering her to the bed, fumbling for the box of
condoms and tearing it open only to sprinkle packets in every direction. Madeleine opened one and, remembering the
thoughtful instruction of many a glossy magazine, tentatively moved to try and
put it on him.

He took it off her with a gusty cough of laughter. "You're seriously overestimating my
self-control."

"Sorry."

He smiled, and kissed her, but she had lost some of her certainty,
felt tense and nervous as he moved over her. She tried to relax by touching his face and hair, and took small,
uncertain breaths as they fumbled themselves into alignment. Fisher was shaking with effort, trying to
hold himself to the slowest of paces, checking her reaction as he moved
forward. The motion brought a little stinging
at the very start, but a surprising lack of pain.

"Velvet," Fisher gasped, and lost his careful
restraint entirely, plunging against her, a rushed, spasmodic motion which
bounced them on the well-sprung mattress. Overwhelmed, Madeleine clutched at his shoulders, but already he was collapsing,
his weight heavy on her, breath hot against her throat.

"Hell." He
moved, shifted to lay beside her. "I didn't – sorry, I didn't think I'd be quite that
pathetic." He propped himself up
and looked at her worriedly, his hair ruffled, face flushed. "Did I hurt you?"

"No." Feeling less overcome, Madeleine touched his shoulder. "It's okay. Though I'd like it if you spent some more
time doing things to my breasts. They've
never felt quite so real before."

He spluttered into laughter, and they held each other and
shook, helpless hilarity. That turned to
enthusiastic kissing, pressed together, legs tangling, then relaxing back to
take a breath.

"I had pictured this very romantic," Fisher
said. "Slow, and measured
and...well, lasting longer. Magical, not
farcical." Chagrin competed with
amusement. "I would be very glad to
continue to prove the existence of your breasts. And I am, if nothing else, an extremely good
study."

ooOoo

Madeleine slid out of the bed and paused to move a couple of
condom wrappers from the floor to the bin, adding to the detritus of a night's
diligent practice. Glancing out
floor-to-ceiling windows at early morning sun and the grand curve of the
Bridge, she picked Tyler's koi robe off the back of a chair and slipped it
on. Her Blue metabolism worked against
long, lazy sleep-ins, and she followed the call of her stomach to the plentiful
supply of snacks she'd stocked yesterday morning. Once the edge of her hunger had been dulled,
and she'd cleaned herself up and managed to unknot her hair a little, she returned
to look at the boy sleeping in her bed.

Comets. Stars which
streaked across ribs, a bellybutton which glimmered above a trail of dark hair
leading down to a thicker swatch. Long
arms and legs, their impression of length increased by his overall skinniness. Head resting at an angle, tangled half-curls
swept back from the brow, wide mouth relaxed. The position of his hands was somehow graceful, one bony wrist exposed,
and she entirely forgot her intention to fetch them a hot breakfast and instead
positioned a chair to take advantage of the light, fetched her biggest
sketchpad and backing board, and lost herself in capturing him.

She'd moved on from the main figure to work on the fall of
the sheeting to the floor when a peaceful voice said: "Is it okay for me
to get up?"

"Mm. Try not to
mess the line of the sheets."

After he'd carefully rolled off the bed and crossed to look
at the sketch, it filtered through to her that this was probably not the most
lover-like way to act on their first morning together. Blushing, she looked up, but he kissed her on
the forehead and said, "I love the way you are when you draw. And you really should sketch how you look
right now because it's definitely something worth waking up to."

"A little impracticable," she said, but Fisher
simply smiled and moved a standing mirror from the far side of the bed, then
headed into the bathroom while she studied her reflection.

He was right. Sitting
with one foot tucked up, sketchbook balanced on her lap, the gold and black of
the koi robe spilling around blue and stars, the slight curve of one breast, a
length of glimmering thigh, crinkling brown hair waving loose. She turned to a new page and began outlining,
and when Fisher emerged, damp and wrapped in a towel, said: "Can you get the
case of coloured pencils from that table?"