Page 71 of Monarch
“What do you need from me?” Xe asks.
I’m so perplexed by this change in Lex’s personality that I don’t have the composure to reply ‘for you to go fuck yourself.’ Roos’ reply is quicker anyway.
“I just want to relax a bit,” she says, leaning her elbows on her knees. “I’m kind of tired. And I have this headache I can’t get rid of. Maybe I need to take a shower. Lie down for a while.”
“Okay.” Lex nods and surveys the room like xe is making plans to facilitate all that. But then xe looks at me. “And you?”
I stare at xem, hoping my expression gives xem my answer, that I don’t need anything from xem.
“Let me take care of you too, Mari,” xe says, softer, and then xe sits back, resting xir backside on the heels of xir feet.
“I want to shower with Roos,” I say eventually because I do. I want us to have that moment.
“Good, okay.” Lex gets up. Xe goes to the walk-in shower area, switches the water on, and returns to us with a pile of fluffy red towels. “Let’s do this.”
Roos stands and strips like it’s the most natural thing for her to do in this moment.
I remain seated and tighten the belt of my robe because I outright refuse to let Lex see me naked.
But xe already has. Xe already did, tonight, just an hour ago.
“I will look away if you prefer,” Lex says, and fuck xem for reading my mind again.
Roos has already removed her wig and is making her way to the shower.
I narrow my eyes on xem and have a striking thought. Maybe my power is not in hiding myself from Lex. Maybe my power is showing xem who I am, and what xe can’t have.
Without saying a word and still holding Lex’s stare, I stand and undo my dressing gown. I let it drop to the ground, and then I grab the last towel Lex is holding. I follow Roos into the shower, feeling the heat of Lex’s stare on the back of my body.
Standing under the rainfall shower head, Roos smiles shyly at me as I approach. It’s a smile that poses an invitation, an opportunity to forget about Lex, to pretend that it’s only me and Roos in this room. That tonight is still about us.
“Are you okay?” I ask in a low voice as I join her under the spray. She makes room for me, and our bodies brush together, sending gentle electric shocks all over me.
“I’m okay,” she says. “Do you hate me?”
I frown at her deeply. “No, why?”
“For inviting Lex to join us. I know you don’t really want xem here.”
I open my mouth but stop the words I plan on saying, namely ‘I don’t know what I want’ because that feels too revealing, too inconclusive, too unhelpful right now, for her and for me.
“I’m okay with it,” I say instead. “I don’t hate you.”
“Good,” she says, and her smile has more to it now. “Turn around. I want to wash your hair.”
“Okay,” I say, and I give her my back. She angles my body under the water, and it flows over my head, into my eyes, and down my back. A few seconds later, I hear the click of a bottle and then Roos is moving me again, positioning me to one side.
“God, that feels good,” I say as she starts to massage shampoo into my hair. It smells of vanilla and coconut, and I inhale deeply.
“Did you know I wanted to be a hairdresser when I was a kid?” Roos tells me, and I can hear her smile is still there.
“Really?”
“Yeah,” she says. “I was obsessed with hair. Mostly with growing my own, even though my mum always cut it short. I also think it was because I didn’t actually go to a hairdresser until I was in my teens and transitioning. Before that, it was my dad and his clippers and our bathroom mirror. I only had references on TV or in films. And it always looked so fun. And not just because of the transformations hairdressers did, making people look completely different and yet more like themselves – yeah, you can understand why I was obsessed with hairdressers when I say it like that – but I also loved how the hair salons on TV and in movies were often also the centre of little communities. Hairdressers didn’t just look after people’s hair, they looked afterpeople. They talked all day long to people. They asked questions. They cared. I think that really appealed to me, too.”
“When you put it like that,” I say, as Roos moves me back under the spray, “your current job isn’t so different.”
“What do you mean?” she asks, and I think it’s working. It’s just us. I’m forgetting all about Lex.
