Chapter 200: Chapter 200- Comparing Boobies

Everyone watched.

Gia crossed the space between her stone and his stone with the specific, committed stride of someone who has been collecting information for three days and has made a decision and is executing it before the part of herself that runs on caution can countermand it.

She sat down on his lap.

Not beside him. On him. Her weight settling over his thighs, her back to his chest, the specific, audacious position of someone who has chosen a location that is not ambiguous.

“’GIA—’” Aisha’s voice.

“’WHAT—’” Meijin’s voice.

“’Are you—’” Preet’s voice, pitched somewhere between shock and something else.

Even Nara turned. The specific, involuntary head turn of someone who had not seen this coming and is taking a second to reprocess.

Celia stood up.

“’What the hell are you doing,’” she said.

Gia’s face was — pink. The specific, deep pink of someone who has done something extremely bold and is now sitting in the consequences of the extremely bold thing with everyone watching.

“’I’m helping,’” she said. Her voice aimed for light. Landing somewhere adjacent to light. “’He helps us constantly. I’m just — it’s a reciprocal gesture. I’m—’”

“’Sitting on his lap,’” Aisha said.

“’Yes.’”

“’Gia—’”

“’He helps us,’” she said. The repetition of the sentence she’d prepared. “’Shouldn’t we help him a little? That’s just — that’s basic—’”

His arms.

She felt them before she heard him. Both of his arms coming around from behind her, hands finding her hips. Not removing her. The specific, warm, securing grip of someone who has received an unexpected thing and has decided to keep it.

His chin at her shoulder.

His face, against her hair. The specific, deliberate nuzzle of it — his nose at the crown of her head, the warm exhale through her hair, his jaw resting on her shoulder with the comfortable ease of someone who is claiming a territory.

The women around the fire made sounds.

Nara’s was specific.

The specific, involuntary sound of a woman who has claimed a position and has just watched someone else occupy it without asking permission.

Preet’s was different — the specific, quiet, barely-sound of someone who had expected something and had seen it be redirected.

“’Yeah,’” he said. Against her hair. To the group. To her. To no one specifically. “’Thanks for relieving my stress.’”

His hands.

She felt them move.

The specific, deliberate direction of them — not her waist, not her shoulders, not the neutral, unchallenging locations. Up. Under the hem of her blouse. The immediate, cool-then-warm sensation of his hands against her bare skin at the ribs. Moving up.

Finding the underwire.

Moving above it.

His hands closing over her breasts with the specific, filling pressure of someone who had found the place they were looking for and was applying themselves to it.

She made a sound.

Not loud. The specific, involuntary sound of a body that has been touched in a place it had been running heat all day and was not prepared for the touch despite expecting the touch.

“’WHAT,’” Aisha.

“’STOP—’” Meijin.

“’You—’” Celia’s voice finding its flat, controlled register. “’You complete pervert, what are you—’”

His thumbs.

Circling. The specific, deliberate circling of someone who knows where the peak is and is applying themselves to it through the fabric of her bra.

“’HNGH—’”

The sound came out of Gia before she could contain it.

She pressed her lips together. Too late.

From the other side of the fire: Preet and Nara, who had looked at each other, looked at him, looked at Gia — the specific, synchronized assessment of two women doing the same calculation.

“’He helps us,’” Preet said. Her voice slightly above the fire sounds.

“’He does,’” Nara said.

“’Shouldn’t we—’”

“’Probably.’”

The fire.

“’We can’t just,’” Celia said. Her voice finding the register that was past anger and had arrived at something rawer. “’We can’t just — he’s sitting there and he’s—’”

“’He keeps us alive,’” Nara said. The same sentence from the shelter. The same sentence she’d been using since the beginning. The specific, structural sentence she returned to because it was load-bearing and she knew it.

“’That doesn’t mean—’”

“’Celia,’” Preet said.

She looked at Preet.

Preet, whose body had been shaped by the last night in ways that were still visible — the hickeys at her shoulder, the careful way she sat, the specific, changed quality of someone who had been somewhere and come back from it. Who had cried this morning and been held and had said ’I know I didn’t do anything wrong.’

Who was now sitting close to the man who had done it and was doing the specific, honest thing of not pretending she didn’t want to be close to him.

“’I can’t—’” Celia said.

“’Then don’t,’” Nara said.

“’I cannot BEAR—’”

“’Then go,’” Nara said.

The fire.

Something in Celia’s chest. The specific, compressed, long-held something that had been accumulating since the first night on the ship, since the corridor, since the body count, since the beach, since the treeline where she had stood for four hours with her hand where she kept removing it from and returning it to.

“’Fine,’” she said.

She stood.

“’I’ll go,’” she said. She looked at Aisha. At Meijin. “’Come on.’”

Aisha stood. The specific, immediate response of someone whose decision-making had been made for them by someone else’s conviction, which was sometimes the only way decisions got made.

Meijin stood. Looked at the fire, at him, at the three women on the stone. Folded her arms. Stood with Celia.

“’There’s a clearing twenty feet back,’” Celia said. “’We’ll make our own fire.’”

Nobody argued.

She moved.

Aisha and Meijin behind her, gathering the things they needed — the wrapped fish portions, the palm-woven basket Meijin had been working on, the firestarting materials he’d left in a pile near the main fire because he planned ahead for things.

They moved into the forest.

Twenty feet.

Close enough to see the fire of the main camp through the trees. Close enough to hear, if sounds were loud enough. Not close enough to be in it.

Celia built the fire.

Not as fast as him. Not with the same ease. But she had been watching for three days and she had the materials and she had the specific, driven focus of someone who needs to accomplish a thing because accomplishing a thing is the only way to manage what is otherwise unmanageable.

The fire took. The small, reliable warmth of it.

She sat.

Aisha sat.

Meijin sat, with her basket, and resumed weaving.

They could see the main camp through the trees. The fire. The figures around it.

On the stone, the three of them.

Nara had moved. The specific, filling-in of a space that had been vacated — she had shifted along the flat rock, closing the distance, her hip against his. Preet on the other side of Gia. The specific, three-woman arrangement on one man on one stone that had arrived at itself without a planning meeting.

His hands were still under Gia’s blouse.

He had not been asked to stop.

Gia was breathing in the specific, careful way of someone who is trying to maintain a posture of composure while their nervous system has received new information and is distributing the impact of it through every available channel.

“’Her boobs are soft,’” he said.

To no one. To both of them. The specific, observational register of someone noting a material property.

Nara’s jaw set.

She pressed closer. Her arm finding the gap between his ribs and his elbow, her body against his side, the specific geometry of someone inserting themselves into a space.

“’And mine,’” she said.

Not a question. An instruction.

His elbow adjusted. Making room. The specific, easy accommodation of someone who has space to give and is giving it.

His hand — one hand — extracted itself from under Gia’s blouse. Found Nara’s at his side. Guided it. Not her hand — her breast, through the fabric. The specific, proprietary guidance.

Nara made a sound. Low.

“’What about mine,’” Preet said.

She had not planned to say this.

The words had come from a place she hadn’t been monitoring — the place that had been on this stone for the last hour and had been watching him and had the specific, warm, accumulated claim of someone who had been first.

He turned his head toward her.

She was already there.

Her blouse pressed against his arm as she leaned in, the full, soft weight of her against his side, the specific, uncomplicated directness of someone who had stopped running the calculation and was stating a position.

“’What about yours,’” he said.

He reached.

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