Page 17 of Spread Me
“You have to talk me through what you’re doing,” they say. “Slowly.”
She waits for them to add more. When they don’t, she shrugs. “Okay.”
They grin, give a sinuous little writhe. “Take whatever you want.”
Mads becomes brisk after that. “Great. We’ve got consent. Let’s get this over with. Open a fresh swab, the one you opened a second ago has probably dried out by now. And try to stop touching everything, would you?”
Kinsey tries to see the person on the lab table in front of her as just another specimen. She imagines that she’s explaining her actions to a student, a grad student maybe, who needs to learn the process. “I’m going to sterilize the surface of the skin with alcohol.” She reaches for Domino with a fresh square of damp cotton. She’s not sure where to start—they don’t have eyes or mouths on their body anymore, and she isn’t totally confident that she remembers where those things were located before.
Domino notices her hesitation, points to their armpit. “I’ll always show you where to take what you want from me,” they whisper, their gaze locked onto her.
Kinsey swabs the area, uncomfortably grateful for the guidance. The building shivers around her again, and this time it doesn’t stop.
The wind isn’t coming in gusts anymore. The storm is here in earnest.
It’s only on the second pass with the swab that she notices something odd. There’s no hair in their armpit. Domino usually shaves their body hair, which is why Kinsey didn’t notice anything strange at first. But now, upon closer inspection, she realizes: there are no razor bumps, no stubble. There are no creases. Domino’s underarm is as smooth as a doll’s.
“I’m going to let the alcohol dry a little,” she says a little too loudly. “Then I’ll insert the needle, uh—”
“You’re doing great,” Mads murmurs through the earpiece. “You’ll put the needle in by about a half inch, then take it out again, easy peasy. If you’d listened to me about getting the supplies for a punch biopsy, we could have—”
“Mads.”
“Right. Never mind. Look, you’ll just be punching out a sample for us to look at. Like taking a core sample from a tree. Or maybe more like a hole punch, at that depth. Don’t say hole punch, though, it’ll freak them out.”
Kinsey nods to show them she’s got it. “I’ll insert the needle, then remove it again. Like a tree.” Her voice is shaking. She clears her throat. “Like taking a core sample from a tree. Okay?”
“What are you doing?” Domino asks.
Kinsey freezes. “I’m taking tissue samples, so we can—”
They reach out and touch her wrist. Gentle. Solicitous. “No, I mean—look. I know I’ve come on strong. Maybe I’m still over the line. But—” They study her face with wide, worried eyes. “I only want this if you want it. If you’re sure. You don’t seem sure. You seem nervous. Are you nervous?”
Of course she’s nervous. She’s about to jam a needleinto her coworker’s armpit. But she shakes her head. “Not nervous,” she says in a low voice. “Excited.”
“You’re sure?”
She can’t bring herself to say yes, so she just nods instead.
“Okay.” Domino reaches up with their opposite hand, gently takes her wrist. “If it’s just nerves, that’s fine. I can help. Let’s do it together.”
She lets them guide her. They go slowly, their eyes flicking back and forth between Kinsey’s eyes and her hand in theirs. They pull her wrist toward their underarm, pausing only when the tip of the needle is just barely denting the skin.
“Are you ready?” they ask. The lights flicker overhead as the wind outside picks up, a little at a time, hitting faster and harder every few seconds.
All Kinsey can feel—all she can think about—is the feel of their fingers on her wrist. She takes a deep breath, then nods.
Domino pulls on her wrist, angling the needle up toward their collarbone. She lets her arm move with them, sliding the needle into the taut skin of their too-smooth armpit. They don’t flinch, but they do draw in a slow, steady breath. Their chest expands on the inhale, seems to engulf the needle.
“Wait,” Kinsey says. “Wait, don’t breathe so deep. I don’t want to go in too far, Mads said I could hit an artery if I’m not careful.”
“I want you to go in farther,” Domino whispers. “I want to take you deeper.”
“Kinsey?” Mads asks through the earpiece. “What’s going on? Can you move so I can see Domino? Rememberwhat I said about the axillary artery, you really don’t want to hit that.”
Kinsey realizes that she’s got her back to the observation window. She tries to shuffle to one side, but Domino holds her wrist tight. “Don’t go,” they breathe. “Give me more.”
“I can’t,” Kinsey says. “I’ll hurt you.”
