JACKAL
Female Topi antelopes are only fertile one day a year, and during that twenty-four-hour period they hound the male antelopes to the point of exhaustion.
My mother once told me that I had an unnatural taste for the forbidden. She said it casually as she folded a pair of my boxers into a neat little square. I was fourteen and watching her from the living room floor, recovering from a hangover after drinking two bottles of stolen communion wine. She’d already delivered her punishment by then, ten belt whips to the back of my knees. She was a religious woman, never missing a church service, and so I took her assessment of my personality as a curse. In a world where you’re given everything, the thing they tell you not to want is what you want the most.
Phoenix is at the party. I spot her in a crowd wearing a dress the color of lemons, so vivid against the hues of blues and greens around her that she looks like a misplaced splotch of paint. It’s impossible to see anything but her, or maybe that’s just me. I smile to myself, but the smile is short-lived. She is standing next to Sean, chatting with a group. The governor’s hand rests possessively on her lower back, an anchor of ownership. I bristle. I have a habit of thinking something is mine before it is. It’s not the first time I’ve seen them together. Before I can walk their way, the lady of the house approaches me with a fresh drink. It’s the fourth drink she’s hand-delivered tonight. An upper-crust party, there can be only one thing she wants. She’s trying to get me drunk; I’m at my best when drunk. Phoenix was right about one thing: I’m known for turning a respectable party into an orgy. They don’t outright tell me that’s what they want: get your dick out and swing it at anyone who’s bent over. But I have buttons, and if you push them, that’s what I’ll do. It’s been years of conditioning. I don’t stay, even though her mouth is opening to say something. I head for the stairs and for Phoenix, the ice rattling in my glass.
“Jackal.” She gives me a sidelong glance.
Sean hears my name and smiles in my direction before resuming his conversation. I take her arm, my fingers curling around her bicep.
“A moment?” I say into her ear.
Her lips tighten, but she allows me to lead her away. Up close, the yellow of her dress is so luscious against her skin I can see why she chose it.
“You look edible,” I say.
“And yet no one eats me…”
I look at her in surprise. “Not even Sean?”
Her face turns pink. “I didn’t mean it that way.”
“Of course not.” I smile. “Though I can arrange a room for us if you’d like to be—”
She stares at me, her mouth ajar. “You really feel like you have the right to everyone, don’t you?”
“On the contrary, little thief, everyone feels they have the right to me.”
I hook her arm through mine and steer her through the crowd.
“Everyone is watching us,” she says through her teeth. “If you single a woman out like this, people will think you have a special interest.”
“I do,” I say.
We’re on the dance floor. She gives me a cursory glance before stepping into my arms.
“So, you and Sean,” I say.
“Me and Sean what?”
“He wants you.”
“So do you,” she says, “and how well has that worked out for you?”
I laugh and she bites the insides of her cheeks to keep from laughing too.
“You won’t let yourself do anything you want to do, Phoenix. Why is that?”
She raises her eyebrows, surprised. “I don’t know what you mean. I’m living the exact life I want to live. In case you haven’t noticed, I do fairly well as the Region’s prima ballerina. I have everything I could ever want.”
“That’s right,” I say. “Because you certainly don’t want a baby like everyone else.”
“No, I don’t,” she says cautiously. “That’s not unheard of for a dancer.”
What she’s saying may be true, but there’s something else in the way she says it, something that makes me wonder if that’s the only reason.
“You’re a quiet rebel though, aren’t you. That’s why you steal from the rich and give to the poor. And all that interest in Gwen Allison…”
I feel her stiffen in my arms—a little rod of anger. Outwardly, she is pure talent and grit, a respected artist who keeps the world at arm’s length so no one can know her. We are all like that a little bit, putting on the mask that people like the most, hoping no one will ask us to take it off.
“You know what you are?” she asks.
I wait for her to fill me in. I’m dying to know. “What?” I bite the inside of my lower lip. When she doesn’t answer, I scowl at her. “What were you going to say? What am I?”
“Why should I tell you?”
“You brought it up!”
She sighs. “I’m not a rebel. I was simply commenting on something in the news, curious about what’s happening in the Regions.”
“Maybe. But I don’t think so.”
She looks at the other couples dancing around us. They’re all watching us, but when Phoenix looks their way, they suddenly become distracted by their partners.
“You think that because you have a degree in psychology that you can—”
“A master’s,” I interrupt.
“—A master’s—that you can possibly know who I am?”
“The master’s is just a technicality; reading people is a gift.”
The song has changed. I pull her closer so she’s pressed against me. She blinks hard a few times but doesn’t complain.
“Okay then, read me,” she challenges. She has to dip her head back to look me in the eyes. I’m tempted to bend down and kiss the dip in her shoulder.
“There. What you just did. I make you uncomfortable, but you refuse to show it. Reacting is a weakness.”
She says nothing, but I see the effect of my words cross over her eyes.
“Is that because of your profession or upbringing?”
There’s a long pause, during which I watch her struggle with her answer. She doesn’t want me to be right, but I am. Finally she says— “Both.”
I can see the regret on her face as soon as the word is out of her mouth. Her lips make a little O shape as if she’s wanting to suck it back in.
“You don’t like anyone to know who you really are because you don’t want to get hurt.”
“Who’s going to hurt me?” she challenges. “No one has that power.”
“That’s sad.”
She draws back as if I’ve slapped her, and then she laughs, her eyebrows creasing together.
“Sad? That’s ridiculous. Who wants to get hurt?”
“Without the risk of getting hurt, there is no probability of falling in love,” I tell her. “Vulnerability and love go hand in hand.”
“That must be why all the men are gone.” She smirks. “With that sort of logic, it’s no wonder.”
I take her in—smooth, honey skin that smells like apples, the broad bridge of her nose and arched nostrils. I don’t know how to tell her that back then men were not the romantics. The things we had left of the past: the movies, and the books, and the stories, were things hoped for, not seen.
I lean close so that my mouth is next to her ear, my lips brushing her skin.
“There is no logic in love, little thief. It starts small and grows into something very big and endless. Something you’re willing to die for. Don’t you long to feel something like that? Instead of all the emptiness you’re so used to…”
She pulls back and stares me right in the face. I can’t help myself. The quirky little corner of her mouth is raised like she’s mocking me, probably not the best time to kiss a woman. But I drop my head anyway and kiss her, letting my tongue softly graze her bottom lip. She pauses, her breath sucking in, and then she pushes away from me. For a moment, it’s just the two of us facing each other on the dance floor, the cider lights speckling our faces, and then as abruptly as she pulled away, she turns on her heel and leaves. I smile as I watch her go, her steps unsure like she’s dizzy.
“Dancers don’t get dizzy,” I call after her.
I’m drunk. After Phoenix leaves me on the dance floor, I’m cornered by a pack of moms and have to dance my way through four songs before one of them takes pity on me and cuts me loose. Through the endless bodies swathed in color, I see only one yellow dress. Flashes of canary taunt me from across the room—a graceful shoulder, her raven hair. I find myself looking for her even when I am engaged in conversation with someone. Sean seeks her out as much as I do, only he gets to touch her. I notice that Phoenix never shies away from his hand on her arm or back. They’re comfortable together...familiar.
“Jackal.” Someone calls my name. The lady of the house. Her arm snakes through mine.
“You’re wanted in the library,” she says.
That can really only mean one thing. How untimely. I don’t have time to fuck a room full of women; I’m in the middle of pursuing Phoenix. I cast one more glance in Phoenix’s direction before following the woman out.