Page 69 of Why Cruise

“Closed does not mean off limits.” I grasped the handle and pushed the door open. I’d gladly leave fingerprints behind for her. The room was lined with precisely marked 10 by 10 squares. Some had little more than a folding table with a stretchy tablecloth. Big vendors had their own lighting and took up two or three spaces.

He wandered by the first table showcasing a scent neutralizer company. She picked up a spray bottle and gave it a sniff, wrinkling her nose.

“Fragrance free my ass,” she said, putting it back down.

The next booth featured pack jewelry. Matching necklaces, bracelets, rings with all your pack’s birthstones in it. She ran her fingers through the necklace display, the charms clinking together. She picked up a ring, inspected it with a wrinkled nose ,and put it back down. It didn’t pass. I traced the ring on my thumb. Omegas had bite marks. Alphas had nothing to show who they belonged to.

“I thought you’d be off on adventures today with Theo?” I asked. I was utterly fascinated by watching her browse. She moved to the next table, touch just as active as sight.

“That costs money.” She shrugged and picked up a blanket and brought it to her nose to test it. The sign above it read “Super absorbent and FUZZY!” like it was hard to make those two characteristics go together.

I was about to remind her that Justice would have paid, but something nagged at me, shutting me up.

In my experience, omegas didn’t usually worry about money. They had packs or alphas who took care of them. Some had jobs. All omegas got a stipend from the government. We, as a society, had decided it was not advantageous to have financially desperate omegas running around making bad decisions to keep roofs over their nests. Not that that didn’t happen anyway, but universal basic income for omegas soothed our collective conscience, which made it easier to overlook the other darker shit that happened. Like, oh I don’t know, an alpha hooking up with a fourteen-year-old and waiting for her to perfume.

There was that squeezing feeling in my chest. Rage bringing itself online and powering up. There was something… unsettling here. Her questions about breakfast and barks. The money thing. She didn’t have bite marks. She was with an alpha for over 10 years and he didn’t bite her, bond with her. There was something sinister about that, but I couldn’t put my finger on it.

Another booth across the room caught her eye. The blanket trailed after her like it felt so nice, her fingers wouldn’t let go.

“What is it?” She pushed on the contraption that was held up by a tripod and a long extension arm.

“A swing.”

“It’s too big for a swing. Are you supposed to lay down on it? And what are these for?” She examined one of the stirrup foot rests.

I took her by the waist and boosted her onto the edge of the swing, and hooked her feet into the stirrups. She looked at herself in the set up, not quite getting it yet. I jerked the support ropes and bumped her into my thigh twice. It wasn’t at the right height for this to be completely obscene.

“Oh! OH!” Mackenzie sat up, figuring it out. “People have these in their nests?”

“You can have anything you want in your nest.”

I unhooked her feet and stepped out from between her legs. With a toe that just touched the floor, she pushed and swung gently.

“What do you think it feels like to…” She flashed me a look. “Nevermind.”

I smirked as she wiggled out of the sex swing and moved on to the next booth. “Functional Pillows, LLC” was written in block letters right above a sign that read “Step on up and feel the difference.” The booth was huge. It took up three spaces. There was a round platform right in the center made out of their “patent pending high density foam”, much like the round beds some omegas favored for their nests.

Mackenzie kicked off her flip-flops and crawled up on the surface on hands and knees. I climbed on after her and stretched out on my side, one knee up and leaning on my elbow. The dense foam gave under pressure so it felt soft, but was still really supportive. Mackenzie stood and jumped, testing it out.It didn’t have any bounce. The space was littered with pillows of all shapes and sizes. Each was embroidered with the cutesy name that described the pillow’s function. She picked up “The Squisher” first. It was a long oval, extra fat in the center, perfect for squishing, I presumed. She hugged it and then set it down with a “hm” sound. I didn’t know if that passed her inspection, either.

“Of course I’ve seen ‘Nest Builder’ and ‘Pimp my Nest’, I never really thought about what other omegas put in their nests. I just have a mattress on the floor and a mountain of stuffed animals.”

The stranglehold of rage got just a wee bit tighter.

I had my own Justice trauma and that was the trigger. The mattress.

We were maybe 11. He hadn’t been on the bus. I had taken some kid’s bike, it hadn’t even been locked up. It had been cold, really cold. All the doors were locked. We had just watched a McFearson movie, where he broke into a house with a credit card. A gift card from my parents’ restaurant worked just as well. I had never been inside. The house was shabby. A tear in the sofa. Chairs held together with duct tape. The first bedroom was empty. The second was locked. The third was wide open.

It had a mattress on the floor and a milk crate to hold an alarm clock. Perfectly folded, neat stacks of clothes lined the floor against the far wall. Movement had caught my eye. I’d thought a mouse, maybe. Fingers. Fingers wiggling from under the closet door. There were two sliding bolts. I could barely reach the top one. He had been lying at an awkward angle so he could keep his face pressed to the crack between the floor and the door. His eyes were open, blinking, but he wasn’t there. I had dragged him by the arm onto the mattress and wrapped myself around him until he came back to me.

I cracked my neck and breathed through the impotent rage. Justice got panic attacks, I got rage I could do nothing about.

I drank Mackenzie in like her loveliness could extinguish all that. She swept her long brown hair over one shoulder. She was prone to playing with the tips of it, twisting a lock around her finger or just testing the cut edge with her index finger. She did that. Justice pinched his bottom lip. Theo clenched his fists in his pockets. And I played with my ring. We all had our self-soothing stims.

She grabbed another pillow, hugged it and dropped it with an “ew.”

“Why ew?” I stretched for it and pulled over to me. It had “The Booster” written on it in that blocky font.

“It’s too hard.” She knelt and pulled a different pillow to her and kneaded it like a kitten. “Do you think flings work?”

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