Page 1 of Across The Stars
1: Innifer
Well, this is pathetic, I thought to myself, dancing my night away on a stage for smelly, drunk men to gawk at. There was a tinted blue barrier between me and the onlookers and on it, I could see the tips scrolling along the side every time one of them swiped his credit card. I could also see myself in the blueish reflection and it sickened me a little. Out of all the things I could have done, I’d somehow gotten stuck with my tits out.
Vivid blue hair hung in straight locks over my shoulders to my breasts, which were covered in a shiny, purple bra. My breasts weren’t my greatest asset. Although, every time I showed my ass, *beep*, another tip. Figured. I had a nice ass, but I rolled my eyes every time I looked away. I had hazel eyes that were just the right shade to look caramel in the sun, which I refused tochange despite my manager’s suggestions to enhance or alter the color completely. Plenty of the girls had neon eyes. Eye color in entertainment spanned across the rainbow and then some, but not mine. My eyes were my father’s and they were staying the color they were.
My skin was my mother’s. A pale, creamy complexion that somehow darkened fast in the sun. Of course, for that to happen, I’d have to see the sun, but most of my time was spent working or sleeping. Shame.
This is not my life.
I went to school for language and danced the nights away then, too, just to pay for an education I never finished. The fact that I dropped out after two years and tried my hand at kickboxing to blow off some steam made me tighten my jaw. That was where I met Jason, the love of my life. He was the exotic type. Curly black hair and a bronze complexion that oozed sex appeal. If only he’d get in bed with me, but he was a big believer in proximity rules and every time we got close to anything physical, he pulled out a simulator. Not that simulated sex wasn’t great, but I felt a distance between us even if we were in the same room. A distance I couldn’t quite explain. It wasn’t as if proximity rules were a new thing, but a natural need to be close to someone always made me feel incomplete.
I jammed my heel into the floor beneath me, imagining it was the face of one of my onlookers. Sure, the money was alright, but damn did I hate those hungry stares. I knew every one of them probably had a family at home. A family that was thinking they didn’t care enough to see them.
I could relate.
The only reason I was in that sweaty club was because my temper had flared... again... at the wrong time. I had just been fired from my desk job after I slapped the loud-mouthed Sallysour-face for throwing candy wrappers on my desk and went right back to dancing.
This is not my life,I chanted to myself.But just get through tonight.
Jason was supposed to meet me at my apartment after my shift and take me out to eat for our one-year anniversary. I was dead set on breaking some boundaries and kissing him that night, without a virtual wall between us. I had it all planned and the anticipation was making my lips curl. The sweaty men thought the smile was for them and my stomach turned, but it got me a few more credits at least.
After racking up about three hundred in tips for the night, I slipped on a shapeless, white t-shirt dress and headed out. I much preferred my combat boots over high heels and sighed with relief as soon as I was free of my dance shoes. I wrapped my hair up in a ponytail and held my black shoulder bag in one hand. It had my essentials. A switch blade, my ID, and a thousand pens because I could never find any if there weren’t at least a thousand in my purse.
Outside, the city smelled like asphalt and sour garbage. It had just rained and that just made the gunk thicker on the streets. I threw on my vinyl jacket and walked briskly through crowds of pedestrians, ignoring their grumpy, judgmental stares. Judgment was a staple of human society and you really couldn’t do anything without being outwardly hated by one group or another. The strong ones learned to ignore the parts of the world they didn’t like. So, essentially, I ignored just about everything.
I marched toward the tram station, putting on my most powerful bitch-face. I was good at it. I was born with a bitch face and when I was actually trying, I looked downright menacing. It was my most affective defense mechanism.
I took the first transport I could catch through the city, absently watching lit-up billboards, holographic commercials, and the colors of nightlife whizz past me outside the windows. One of the billboards actually grabbed me long enough for me to read the words. It read, “The Nexus Needs You.” Behind the words was a photo of a man and woman in sleek uniforms standing on a deck with all of space behind them. The beautiful, black, star-dotted expanse was what I imagined real freedom looking like. No walls. No crowds. Nexus adverts were about the only things that caught my eye when I traveled through the city.
I imagined, for a split second, what it would be like to go to the Nexus and leave all the bullshit behind. But I wasn’t “essential.” I was just a stripper…
Aside from the Nexus billboard, everything was terribly uninteresting. It was all the same. Boring. Loud. Bright. It was Earth. An overpopulated globe where people frowned on physical relationships over virtual ones. Where people had kids despite the population problems. Where people’s lives were often so pathetic, they dedicating themselves to making other people more miserable just so they’d feel better for a few minutes every day. Where people couldn’t find work or simply didn’t want to work and instead filled their heads with narcotics to forget the fact that they had to eat.
But I digress. Life hadn’t exactly given me any handouts and I suppose I was turning into a bitter old woman at the ripe age of thirty.
Shit, I was becoming my mother.
No one sat by me on the tram. Despite the plastic shields dividing every seat, people looked at me and saw no VR implant. No computer glasses. No phone in my lap. That concerned a lot of people. If you were technically off the social grid, you were suspect. I didn’t care because I couldn’t stand most of them anyway. They were all in their virtual worlds most of the time,completely disconnected from reality. Not that I could entirely blame them. The real world sucked. People didn’t like to admit it when they had false worlds to escape to, but I saw it every day. How could I not notice how bad it was?
When I reached my stop, I stepped off of the tram and walked a few blocks through a residential district to my apartment building. It was the oldest one on the street. There weren’t even elevators and I quite liked that fact. Walking up four flights of stairs every day was a calming two minutes.
It's the little things that count.
I stopped on my floor and I felt my cell vibrating in my jacket pocket. I fished it out and tapped the little glass screen awake to see Jason's name and his gorgeous profile picture lit up in front of me. I smiled and opened the message blinking beside his head.
Sorry,it read.I met someone. She takes my mental health seriously and she says she’ll support my modeling. I don’t feel comfortable with someone who isn’t going anywhere and has no aspirations. Don’t contact me. It hurts too much.
My hand shook. My smile flattened and I felt my heart shrivel up in my chest like a raisin. I blinked a few times, unsure why there were no tears. Maybe I was just too stunned, but if I read the message right, Jason had just broken my heart.
After I’d been the one to give him an allowance from my own earnings to pursue his damn “modeling.” After I’d canceled plans to help him navigate the complicated tram systems to his auditions. After I’d gone a whole year without physical contact because he was a prude!
A little squeak rose to my lips and I covered my mouth to suppress it. Quite frankly, I didn’t know what I was feeling or how to react. I wasn’t even sure how long I was standing in the hall before I finally started walking again.
I was at a job that made me hate myself. Single. Degraded. Entering my thirties with nothing to show for it. Lost in a sea of people that I didn’t fit in with. I was... yup... I was going to lose it.
As I approached my door, I could already hear Sam cursing and stomping from outside our apartment. I scanned my key on the lock outside and stepped in to see my roommate pacing nervously in the front room. She spun around with a start, her pink and blond hair fanning out around her round face.
Sam was a bit shorter than me and her breastswereher greatest asset. She was biting her nails, which she only did when she was in a really bad situation. I sighed and shifted my weight dramatically to one leg.
