Page 9 of Spread Me
She doesn’t bother trying to hide her what’s-wrong-with-you reaction to Domino’s question. “There’s been a corpse in here for days, is why. And you’re being weirdly casual about this whole mystery virus. Why aren’t you more worried?”
She double-layers her gloves, reaches inside the disposable gown box where she only finds a startled daddy longlegs. Debates whether it’s necessary to bother with a mask. Decides, with a flirtatious flush of rebellious impulsivity, against. What does it matter if she leaves her mouth nude, once she’s already kissed the contaminated air?
“Don’t call it that.”
“What?” Kinsey turns to find Domino looking at her with startling vulnerability.
“Don’t call it a corpse. It was alive when we brought it inside. It might still be alive now.”
Kinsey turns to regard the specimen. It lies limp on the tarp, precisely where she left it. Its segmented body has a wasp-narrow waist, the barrel chest and wide pelvis on either side of that waist forming a stark hourglass. It’s on its side, all six of its long multi-jointed legs tangled together, its coyote-head lolling at an ecstatic angle.
It looks like a dead saint, Kinsey thinks. Operative word:dead. It’s not moving, not breathing, not turning to fix her with a hypnotizing eyeless gaze.
But if Domino doesn’t want her using the C word, so be it. “What would you prefer me to call the specimen? A body?”
“You could call it by a name, if you wanted. You could call it anything,” Domino says. “It really is safe to be inhere, Kinsey. You can feel that, can’t you? It wouldn’t hurt you.”
They seem serious enough that Kinsey doesn’t know how to react. She doesn’t want to go along with the joke, but now she’s not sure that it actuallyisa joke, and she doesn’t know how to ask. “Did Weatherman indicate a break in the storm anytime soon? Maybe we can just take this thing back outside.” She doesn’t want to take it back outside.
“Nah,” Domino replies lightly. “We should keep it in here. And we should all stay inside just in case, too. Do you need me to take notes?”
Kinsey gives herself a shake, tells herself not to worry. “Yeah, that’d be great. Do you want a laptop or a notebook or… anything?”
Domino shakes their head. “I’ll remember. I remember everything you do, Boss.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I pay close attention. I love watching you work,” they add, their gaze flicking down over her body. “What are you going to do to the specimen?”
Kinsey has spent her entire adult life ignoring her instincts. She knows better than to listen to her body when it tells her what it wants, what it needs, what it yearns for. But it’s screaming at her now, too loud to ignore. Something is happening that she doesn’t like. Something in the way Domino is looking at her, something in the way they’re talking to her.
When she asks herself if she needs to do something about it, she finds no clear answers. There’s discomfort, yes, and confusion—but also something she’s never felt toward another human before. A muted, distant sense of desire.
She turns away from Domino so fast that she stumbles, catching herself on the edge of the exam table. The tarpcrinkles under her palm. “I’m going to examine it,” she snaps. “That’s what we’re here to do.”
“Do you like it?” Domino asks. Their voice comes from just behind her left ear, their breath warm on her neck. Kinsey glances sideways to find their face just inches from hers. “Do you like how it looks, I mean?”
“Yes,” Kinsey answers without thinking, turning back to the specimen. “It’s fascinating.” She reaches one gloved hand toward it, strokes the bristly fur on its flank. Sand rains down out of its coat, falling onto the tarp with a soft patter that sounds just like the earliest wind of the sandstorm against Kinsey’s bedroom wall.
“What do you like about it?”
Kinsey still doesn’t trust this—doesn’t trust Domino’s warmth against her back or the frank seduction in their voice—but she doesn’t tell them to stop, either. She looks over the specimen, studies the shape of it. “It’s unique,” she says. “It’s ours.”
“Ours,” Domino repeats. She feels light pressure at her waist and looks down to see their hands resting on her hips.
“D,” she says, her hand still resting on the specimen. “Don’t.”
“Don’t what?” they breathe, so close she can taste their teeth.
“Don’t. I mean it,” she says, even though for the first time in her life, she’s not entirely sure that shedoesmean it. It must be the specimen, she tells herself, the anxiety of proximity to the thing, combined with the residual crotch-ache that comes with three days of nonstop masturbation. She tells herself that she’s confused. Of course she doesn’t want Domino.
They tug on one of her hips, spinning her slowly aroundto face them. They look down at her with puzzled, wounded eyes. “You don’t, though. You don’t mean it.”
“I can and I do. Let go of me,” she says. She tries to put force behind the words, tries to will away the bizarre frisson of desire that keeps stirring in her.
But Domino doesn’t let go. “I know you like me,” they insist. “Why are you acting like you don’t?”
“I don’t like you, not… not like this.” She raises her hands to their chest, intending to push them away—but stops. Something under their shirt is moving. “What—”
