Page 23 of Throwing Fire

“Yeah, sure, g.” Alb shrugs.

“Good. You mind coming down to the water’s edge? Tide’s out so I was going to spin in the water.”

Alb nods and follows Kez mutely out of the ring. She moves swiftly down the beach, the quickness of her steps betraying the tension behind her casual exterior. She’s feigning nonchalance aboutthe tag. She’s never had to live with one before that I know of, certainly not the way I have.

I fall into step with Alb. Say low, so my voice doesn’t carry, “You heard about the price on Kez’s head?”

He glances at me. Nods. Then his eyes skitter away.

“Kez wants to spin, so that’s what we’re gonna do. Then you and me are gonna have a little talk about this tag,” I tell him.

“Okay. Just, you know, don’t shoot the messenger.”

“You’re a friend of Kez’s?” At his nod, I continue, “Then you got nothing to worry about.”

He doesn’t relax at all. If anything, his shoulders get tighter. He and I are definitely going to talk.

At the water’s edge, Kez shucks off her boots and leggings so she’s just wearing her tiny dress. I hope she’s got something on under it. Seeing that she plans to get into the water, I follow suit, stripping off my leather pants and shirt and folding them in a neat pile on top of my boots, so I’m just in my skivvies. Glad I’ve worn some. Then I fold Kez’s discarded clothes. For someone who likes clothes as much as Kez does, she’s surprisingly careless with them. But, then, she’s an orphan, so she never had anyone telling her to tidy up, and unlike me, she never had the discipline of the military.

Kez takes her backpack from me, opens it and hands me a bottle of oil. After we burned the hair off my arms a few times, she got this non-flammable oil for me. That it makes the muscles of my chest and shoulders glisten in the firelight is, she says, just a bonus. I oil up while Kez wraps a scarf around her head and unpacks her poi from a fire-proof bag.

A few of the gawkers lingering after Slip’s show have followed us down the sand, and more gather while Kez and I are getting ready. Alb picks a spot a meter back from the pile of our clothes and Slip begins working his way up and down the crowd, forming them into a loose semi-circle.

“Ready?” Kez asks me.

“Whenever you are.”

With a nod to Alb, she leads me into the water, which is cool but not cold. It’s a long, shallow beach, so by the time we’re two meters out, we’re still only up to our ankles. Kuseros’s oceans have some fearsome silicate reefs, but the seabed here is just hard sand.

Kez stops and shakes her hands, dropping the poi to the length of their chains. Her poi are hand-made: cellulose knots the size of my fist, bolted to ceramsteel chains the length of Kez’s arms. I know from experience that it’s not the poi that burn you; it’s the chains. Some spinners use monofilament and spare themselves the scars, but Kez is a purist when it comes to throwing fire. She wears the few, pale, stripey scars she has from the chains with pride.

I take position behind her, resting my hands lightly on her waist so she knows where I am. She begins swinging the poi, just gently back and forth in front of her. Warming up. And letting the crowd warm up. They’re standing two deep already. They’ll be five deep by the time Kez’s is done.

She knocks the poi together. Once, twice, three times, and they flare, catch fire. Ripples of light spread across the water. Flicker across Kez’s pale skin, my deep gold. The play of firelight on skin makes an already beautiful art all the more beautiful, which is why Kez insists that we throw fire half-naked, despite the audience.

Kez begins with an hourglass move. Both arms in front. Barely moving more than her wrists. Dropping and lifting the balls so they trace a burning figure-eight in front of her. It’s a slow, repetitive move, but a crowd pleaser if the signs and gasps from the shore are any indication. It gives us time to learn Alb’s beat. Once Kez does, she begins to move. Small steps to each side, with her arms extended so the balls whirl around us at a distance. Big, impressive circles of whooshing flame which reflect off the water at our feet. As Alb’s beat increases, Kez begins to pull her elbows in, so the fireballs spin closer and closer to our bodies, casting blinding patterns of light and shadow over our skins.

Kez warms to the dance. Her skin sheens with sweat. The balls spin faster, describing burning shapes in the air. Interlinked circles.The wings of a butterfly. A figure-eight. They’re all around us, above our heads, behind my back, a constellation of fire.

I settle deeper and deeper into Kez’s sinuous, sexy dance. We dance like this every couple of nights. I’ve learned her rhythms; I’ve learned to let go and move with her. Match my steps to hers. Let my body bend and sway with hers. Follow the cadence of her swinging arms. When we’re in step and the fireballs are twirling around us faster than I can see but always, always, I can feel where they are, it’s the closest thing to perfect peace that I’ve ever felt other than that moment right after orgasm when I’m still inside her and we’re one.

Tonight, there’s the added element of Alb’s drumming. At first, it’s a distraction, tugging at me as I try to lose myself in the moment. But Kez’s moves are familiar, the whush and hiss of the poi are familiar, and soon the drumming just becomes part of our dance. By the time Kez starts throwing infinity loops around our outstretched arms, I’m anticipating where Alb’s beat is going and when Kez begins to turn and leap, wheeling the poi between our legs with a hiss, I’m right with her.

Kez doesn’t talk while she spins. She’s too focused. But if she’s going to do a particularly complex move, she gives me a word of warning. This time it’s, “kick-over,” just before she throws herself into the air. I follow her and feel the Catherine-wheel of fire singe the air where my knees were a moment before.

That move’s a real crowd-pleaser and the thickening crowd on the shore breaks into cheers. That could be the climax of our dance, but I know Kez has another in mind. We’ve been practicing it this past week. It’s a move we’ve had to practice, because it’s so likely to burn me. When she turns so we’re ninety-degrees to the beach, I know it’s coming. I move in close behind her. Wait for the five-beat weave she’s doing to come in nice and tight, then arch my body over hers.

I feel the warmth of the poi as they touch my lower back. The crowd begins to clap and howl as Kez draws the poi slowly up my back. The oil on my skin sizzles. Smoke billows off me in a cloud. Thelines of fire slip over my shoulders. Kez flings her hands forward and the poi snap to the length of their chains, back into a three-beat weave. I straighten in a haze of smoke to wild cheers from the shore.

My back’s hot but not burned. I pat Kez’s hips to let her know that I’m okay and she moves into the finale of the dance, a series of moves that she calls ‘the rings.’ She spins the poi at oblique angles to each other, so one ball makes a wide circle, the other a tight loop. I can’t see it from within the dance, but she says that it looks like a planet and its rings. Since the beauty of ringed planets takes my breath away every time I see them, I think it’s a fitting finale. The crowd on shore certainly seems to like it. They’re cheering and calling for more. But they’re going to have to wait for another night. I want to talk to Alb. Kez has had a long day and performing tires her out more than a casual spin, so it ain’t gonna be long before she’s ready for bed. Besides, first rule of showmanship is to always leave them wanting more.

Kez turns in my arms, spinning the poi in overlapping circles behind her back. This is the way we always end our dances now. She lets the poi drop, first one then the other, to her sides, and then into the water to extinguish with a sizzle. She goes up on her toes, and I close my arms around her, lower my head to hers and give her a deep kiss.

CHAPTER 10

When I let her go, she turns and walks ashore to wild applause.

Slip walks along the edge of the crowd, plying his hat. I follow Kez to where she’s left her backpack. Help her pack up the smoking poi. She draws her leggings back on but stuffs her boots into her bag. I pull on my pants and boots. After a moment’s thought, I tuck the shirt into the backpack. It’s too nice to ruin with the oil and soot on my skin.

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