Skin (7 page)

“
I’ve
been looking for someone special,” she whispered. “And I think I
have found you.”

She pulled on
my shirt, lifting it over my head and went directly for my shorts,
stripping me clean in seconds. Sweat trickled over skin,
tantalising and tickling, our bodies wet and hot where they
touched. I kissed her on the mouth, I was hungry, I needed to
devour her and the more of her my hands touched, her face, her
thighs, her breasts, the more I felt like I could not hold her
close enough, like there was not enough of me to take all of her
in.

Sveta lead me
to the sauna bench and told me to sit, I obediently sat and she
straddled me, obviously the part of the game where I was leading
was well over. She moved on top of me and I felt as if I might go
right then in seconds like a gawky teenager. I closed my eyes and
steadied my breath, trying to centre myself to prolong the pleasure
as much as I could.

Sveta sighed
deeply, her breath matching the rhythm of our bodies together, slow
and even and escalating in perfect unity. It was not ecstasy that
took us, it was magic and it was primal. Two bodies doing perfectly
what two bodies were meant to do. Sveta orgasmed breathless, quiet
and I did the same. She stayed on top of me, stroking the back of
my sweat drenched neck with the tips of her fingernails.

“
Now,”
she said. She kissed the top of my head. “If you’ll allow to me to
treat you to another show, I’d like you to come and watch the
performance in my arena.”

Had she
screwed me to get me onside and agreeing to come into this game?
The thought flashed through my head more than once as Sveta led me
by the hand out of her office.

The gym floor
was bustling with people, Natural and Animus, all standing around
chatting and waiting. Sveta lead me through the crowd. Cato caught
my eye and winked, giving me an enthusiastic thumbs up. I felt a
twinge of embarrassment, but there was also pride. I was a man,
after all. And Sveta was a rare prize.

She led me
through the big double doors at the end of the main room and we
walked slowly along a downward spiralling ramp, our steps falling
in rhythm. The walkway entered a cavernous expanse of a room.

The
floor and walls were concrete. The roof was hung with a complex
lighting system. It might have been exactly the arena
I
’d spent my childhood in, watching my mother on
stage, beating the snot out of whatever unfortunate had landed as
her opponent that week, occasionally getting beaten back in
return.

The
seating was arranged in a basic amphitheatre and on one side, a
narrow, platform rose above where the crowd would be. Sveta
unlocked the door at the bottom of the platform and lead me up the
iron stairs. This was her
throne.

“
I can
feel you are nervous,” she said, resting her hand on my
knee.

In the centre
of the room, a stage glowed beneath spotlights. It was shaped like
a cross, raised six foot above the arena floor and surrounded by a
tall wire mesh net.

It was
not long before a crowd filled the seats below us, two hundred
people give or take. The air buzzed with a happy anticipation I
didn
’t share.

Imogen
took a seat near Sveta
’s private dais. She gave me a
small round of exaggerated silent applause. I didn’t like it,
whatever it was meant to mean.

The overhead
lights went off with a heavy shunting sound and the hall lit up
with a series of sharp spotlights from overhead. The crowd began to
clap in unison, a slow marching beat. Sveta rested her hand on the
top of mine and sat back comfortably in her seat with a small
satisfied smile of a queen surveying her domain.

Two
trapdoors opened on opposite ends of the cross stage and two
figures wearing leather, Oriental inspired armour over otherwise
bare muscled skin emerged onto the platform, marching to the rhythm
of the crowd
’s applause. They met in the centre of the
cross and bowed, touching their staves. One had a long tail, like a
monkey’s, curled up to his back. The other looked wholly
human.

“
These
are the Guardians,” Sveta whispered.

The Guardians
stayed locked into position and the crowd continued its clap.
Another trapdoor opened on another end of the cross. A thin man
emerged with a casual stride, a complete contrast to the theatrics
of the soldiers. He wore only a small pair of shorts. He was tall
and lean, with a skinny sunken belly and built, wiry chest. Black
eyes stared out of a fur covered face, masked like a raccoon. He
stretched his mouth open to reveal a bank of needle-like fangs and
howled, a thin cry that made my skin tingle like it was blistering
and shrinking.

The crowd
cheered, breaking their rhythmic clap into a riot of cheering
applause. The raccoon man took to his knee in a crouch at his end
of the cross and waited. The applause subsided and returned to the
beat.

A murmur rose
out of the crowd which turned into a name, chanted over and over
like a summoning spell. Darius. Darius. Darius.

Another
trapdoor opened at the opposite end of the stage to where the
raccoon had emerged and the crowd erupted into a furious cheer. A
man bigger than any I had ever seen, moved onto the stage with his
arms held aloft. He was a giant. Bigger than any Mech
I
’d known. His arms bulged like two battering rams,
his chest heaved, his pecs looked more like boulders than anything
human. His legs were like tree trunks. A short smear of grey hair
bristled on top of a head that was too small for the rest of him,
like a shrunken voodoo head.

“
Are you
ready?” Sveta whispered. Her breath was hot and her skin still bore
the lingering salty smell of the sauna.

“
For
what?” I whispered back, but she didn’t answer me.

The
Guardians issued an echoing shout and moved to the ends of the
cross where they
’d come from, standing like sentinel
guards as the two others came to meet in the centre. I would have
thought man and beast but with the size of this Darius, I could not
conceive that he too wasn’t some kind of beast.

They circled
one another but neither moved to make an attack. Another door
opened above their heads and some mechanics deep in the roof
shunted to life. A long tube-like cage was lowered to the cross and
my breath caught in my chest.

The crowd
whooped and whistled as the cage sides lowered. A werewolf sloped
its hunched and hairy body onto the cross.

Like
everyone else in Guessing, I had heard stories of the creatures but
I had only actually seen a werewolf once before. It was late, well
after midnight and I was out running. I hadn
’t long
been living in the city but had a vague idea of where not to be. I
hadn’t really been paying attention to where my feet were leading
me and I found myself down on the south bank near the Guessing
wharves.

The
thing was trailing a girl in a coat too heavy for the weather. I
had considered going to help her, or at least warn her the thing
was close, but when I saw the coat flick, revealing a long cat like
tail, I
’d turned and kept running in the opposite
direction.

This
thing on the stage looked like that first dog. It was a roughly
human body covered in black, wiry fur, a grossly elongated snout
stretched to show off its slathering fangs. It was crouched and
ready to kill but the way it blinked in the light, looking around
over the crowd to the roof, the mass of spectators, it was nervous,
scared. I wasn
’t sure what was coming but with all the
revulsion that thing inspired in me, I still felt sorry for the
animal.

The Guardians
held their lances aloft and called out a unified wordless cry.
Darius and the raccoon man moved toward the wolf with deadly
caution. The beast growled and bristled, trying to back away but in
the centre of the cross, it had nowhere to go.

The raccoon
moved first. A leap so high it made me wonder if it might have been
part Mech with some kind of spring loaded legs. It landed on the
mesh and flipped, somersaulting backward and clipping the werewolf
on the top of its head with long, clawed fingers. The wolf swatted
at it like it was a pesky fly buzzing about. Darius moved forward
while the thing was distracted with the raccoon, leaping back and
forth between the sides of the caged stage. He swung a treelike arm
and it connected with the beast, knocking it flat out and skidding
across the floor. It was disgusting.

“
What is
this all about?” I said to Sveta who was surveying the tournament
with a disinterested detachment.

“
They
work together to bring down a common enemy,” she explained. “It’s
always the first act.”

“
And
then what?”

“
And
then they attempt to conquer one another. Don’t worry, darling,
it’s not a fight to the death. It’s theatrical, symbolic. I
would’ve thought you would appreciate that sort of
thing.”

“
And the
werewolf?”

“
It
dies. Obviously. Rev, I am the first one to stand up for the love
of all animals, you know that about me surely. But there’s no
injustice here, the wolves are a scourge on this town. It’s just
doing Guessing a favour. Besides, Darius' death blows are always
merciful.”

I watched
grimly and saw the pattern emerge in the ghoulish dance that was
driving the crowd wild. Raccoon slipped this way and that,
confusing the creature, and stinging with his fast, sharp swipes
while the brute Darius bludgeoned the thing. Around and around they
went until the werewolf was barely able to stand. It staggered and
swayed, panting hard.

“
This
thing never had a chance,” I said.

“
It’s a
werewolf, Rev, not a helpless puppy.” Sveta whispered. There was a
peevish edge on her tone and I didn’t care.

At that
same time the crowd cheered and I saw the wolf, its head held
between Darius
’ monster hands. With a slight flick, he
snapped the dog’s neck and it fell, limp and lifeless at his feet.
Darius held his arms aloft, grinning and drinking in the adoration
of the people. Raccoon skittered past him and they shared a high
five, I thought made the entire distasteful spectacle even more
tacky than it already was.

Spotlights
flashed like lasers, cutting the air and the crowd was in a frenzy
of excitement. Below our platform, Imogen clapped her hands above
her head, jumping up and down and squealing, literally squealing,
in happiness. I could only shake my head.

The Guardians
lifted their lances and cried out again. The sweeping lights went
still and Darius and Raccoon made a show of bowing to one another
in the middle of the cross before returning to their opposite
sides.

The
chant started again. Darius. Darius. Darius. Soft and sinister. I
thought about leaving. I wanted to. But even if Sveta
hadn
’t held the key that would let me off of this
platform, there was still something in me that wanted to stay and
not only for Sveta. I had to see what happened on the
cross.

I sat back and
Sveta smiled, thinking I was relaxing into enjoy the show instead
of resigning myself to stay, to bear it out until the end.

Darius
and Raccoon were back in the centre of the cross. Darius was going
after the smaller man, if that
’s what he was, with
wide sweeps of his tree arms while he leaped and darted out of the
way. Raccoon skidded underneath Darius’ legs and climbed up on the
giant’s back to take a strangle hold about his neck. The crowd
laughed. Some of them, Imogen included, booed like they were
watching and old fashioned pantomime and Raccoon was the bad
guy.

Darius threw
himself to the mat, landing heavily on his back. It was a move that
would have crushed the little raccoon had he not been spry enough
to leap away just in time and whip his body upward to come landing
on Darius’ gorilla chest. The whole thing was a grotesque
choreography, it was probably decided from the beginning who would
win.

I heard
my mother
’s voice as if she were right there, speaking
directly to me.

“
People
do all sorts of things to display their personal power. Everyone
has a side that no one else sees and most of us want to put that on
display. It just comes out in different way.”

It was a
speech I’d heard my mother give more than once. It was only when I
was older and she was gone that I wondered if the repetition was
her way of reconfirming what she was saying, to make herself
believe the same thing she was trying to teach everyone
else.
Is that all this was? A way for Darius and for
whoever else was in that ring, to display that special part of
themselves? Was this Sveta
’s way of displaying
herself?

The
raccoon flew at the giant and leaped, legs pointed like arrows at
the big man
’s head. Heel connected with face and
Darius faltered, staggering backward and I thought he was going
down. In an instant he righted himself and grabbed, using the
momentum of the raccoon’s lunge to pull him through, slamming him
hard, face first into the floor.

The
fight was over. Raccoon peeled himself off the mat, swaying as he
struggled to stand next to the victor. They both grinned like they
were drunk. The crowd cheered as if they were too. The Guardians
escorted them to the end of the cross and with one last wave to the
crowd, the four figures descended back into the depths of the stage
and a single spotlight picked up the werewolf
’s
corpse, forgotten as the crowd began to file out of the
arena.