Skin by Kathe Koja Read Free Book Online Page A

sere and brief in her conversation, apparently the troupe had become intolerable.
        "Some director," chewing at her lip, sharp little teeth. Head wrapped in black like a mourning mother. "He's just a drug addict, he's hardly ever there anymore and when he is he's so fucked up he can barely watch the show. We had a big fight about it. Again." Silence. "I want to break away; it's time." More silence. One leg swinging back and forth, tight metronomic motion. "And I'm taking those guys with me.
        Nailgun in hand, sunlight in long rows across the concrete. A curious resin smell here, as if the space had recently been used to store wood. "Who?"
        "Rae and Sandrine. And Paul. And you."
        "What?" Gracelessly loud, pivoting gun in hand to stare at her; saying it again, what?
        "I want you to come with us." Crossing to the worktable, one hand in a stop-sign gesture: "Wait, I know, I know what you're going to say. But see, it doesn't matter if you're not a dancer. I don't want to just dance anymore, it's a dead end. It's empty," fists opened to show nothing but the retreat of clenched blood. "I'm sick of being empty, Tess. I want to do my own work, and I want us to work together. As partners."
        Confused, gazing down like a child abashed, the nailgun hanging from her hand like a bizarre prosthetic. On some dry level unsurprised, there was buildup aplenty and the offer made sense: Bibi's drive was surely her own, ambition expressed through another medium like blood through a sister vein. But Tess had never worked with anyone else, distrusting collaboration, suspicious of the inherent sublimation. In theory, two wills worked unto symbiosis, creating a third independent; but what if both wills were very strong?
        Gray marble eyes staring at her, a muscle jittering slow a tempo in the length of that long thigh. Ambulance noises through the window, the endless barking reminiscent of the keno machines. Bibi, waiting for an answer; Tess knew she would not ask more than once.
        Two strong wills.
        The sensation of motion. Bibi juggernaut, that colliding body; and steel: what collision might it make?
        "Okay," and Bibi's widest smile, bright feral teeth and hugging Tess one-armed, "I knew it, I knew it! I saw your face, I saw the way you were in the bar. You had the idea then, didn't you," not a question and Tess gave no answer, shrugging with the gun, smiling in tandem with Bibi's exhilaration, already plans, plans. "We'll start today, tonight-I'll call you," and gone, and Tess, smiling, not sorry but curiously regretful, raising up the nailgun, hollow thump into the framing wood of her new worktable, nails counterpoint and the stately movement of the sun across the floor, gentle as flowing water, slow as flowing blood.
        
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        Partnership: Tess had not known it would mean Bibi moving in, but: two months' rent already paid, gripbag and toothy smile. Boxes, the long splintery bed, heavy black garbage sacks trussed full of clothes, piles of magazines and books like blocks to build a city of their own. Tess had not had a roommate since Peter, but that was different, they had been lovers. Now half the living area was partitioned off, for now with crude cardboard walls that Bibi herself did not strictly respect, moving quick and silent in the mornings past Tess on her couch-bed, the shower's blurry sound the static border between sleep and consciousness, head still heavy with dreams of the night before, their talk, plans like scaffolding blended with the images they aroused: Bibi a long fierce spider, made of metal and moist rag, herself crouched on some swaying catwalk, blackbox in hand and some demanding vision etched just beyond waking memory's reach. They talked late, sketching, planning, no idea too complicated or grotesque: "It's all seeds," Bibi's nod, "just seeds, we'll see what grows." We. It was fun, talking to Bibi, planning; there was no one