Self-Care in Space

Roland Ruiz stood from his cluttered desk and wandered to the window in his office. Night on Earth always enchanted him in a way he couldn’t quite put to words. The city was alive with colour and light; though it was nearly three A.M., people emerged from other buildings and gleefully lit up their devices in neon green and orange in order to call transportation towards them. Other offices flicked on their own lights across the street, ready to begin a morning call in another solar system—or they shut off their computers and florescent lights, leaving nothing but the red glow of exit signs in their wake. The cars snaked their way between the cross-streets and through the tunnels, beeping and sputtering exhausts ten floors below Roland. When he finally looked up, and over the tall sky scrapers, he saw the moon. More planets, now visible through their own artificial illumination, were visible beyond the moon’s calming half-quarter glow. Roland remembered what life was like on some of these planets. Then he didn’t want to look out the window anymore. He turned towards his desk and sat back down. His knees ached as he did. So did his chest, and his scars burned as if he’d just undergone the knife. When the pain persisted, he even unbuttoned his dress shirt and glanced down, expecting to find raw wounds. But no, there was no blood. His body was healthy, as far as he could tell. This pain was just…pain. No rhyme or reason, so he tried to sort through the loose files—why did they still have loose files?—on his desk. When the migraine started ten minutes later, and the lights of the city he loved so much made his forehead flare with pain, he realized he’d have to leave his office. Just for some pills at the drugstore, he told himself. Maybe around the corner to the bodega, too, so he could get a sandwich or maybe even a moon muffin. The thought of the moon made his forehead flare again. He sighed. A sandwich it was. Roland kept his eyes closed as he stepped into the elevator. The lights hurt him less this way, and he’d been in this office so much the last six months that he knew it like his own body, the scars, and the stories the doctors had once made him tell about his gender transition. He shoved that thought away, too, as the elevator dinged. He stepped out squinting and nearly ran into a large body. “Roland?” “Donovan?” Roland opened his eyes and saw his law partner, Donovan Bailey. Their firm also included a third partner, Michael Sullivan, though Roland still insisted that three people couldn’t be partners. Partners were for twos. You sort of used to be another person, Donovan said. So you’re your own partner. Roland had laughed at the joke then. He thought it made him one of the guys. But now he felt the ache of his body as he looked into Donovan’s sceptical gaze. “What are you doing here so late?” “I could ask you the same question, couldn’t I?” Roland tried to be nonchalant, but it was hard with his head in a cloudburst of pain. There was also the fact that Donovan was dressed in club clothing. His shirt was as bright as the damn sun and radiated iridescent light in his face. Donovan was not here for work. He was here to get something from his office after the parties he’d gone to, and so, Roland wasn’t surprised when a blonde woman spilled out of the women’s bathroom on the first floor. Her dress was short, barely to her mid-thighs, and was a shade of teal. “Julie, come here and say hello.” Donovan held out an arm and the woman went under it right away. She smiled with straightened teeth at Roland as if she expected him. Her eyes were the size of dinner plates. Her nostrils flared from a foreign substance. “This is my partner, Roland.” “Nice to meet you. I didn’t know he had another partner. I already met Michael.” “Of course. I’m two people,” Roland said. The joke was flat. It hurt his head. He winced and clutched at his forehead. “Your third eye hurts,” Julie said. “Your second sight.” “What now?” “It’s from the fluoride in the water,” Julie deadpanned. “Your pineal gland is calcified, so you don’t know who you are anymore. That’s why it hurts.” “I think I know who I am, thanks.” Roland huffed and turned away from Julie. “I gotta go, Don, my head is throbbing.” “Julie, dear,” Donovan said, his voice taking on the commanding tone he used in the court room. “Give this man some help.” “No thank you,” Roland said. “I don’t need that kind of help.” “You do,” Donovan challenged. “But that’s not what I meant. Julie. You’re a lady. Surely you have some Advil on you?” “Oh!” Julie grasped her barely pocket-book sized purse and pulled back the flap. Something glowed inside. Roland knew the light source as a common compound used for sedation; he knew what its presence meant, as if her eyes and nose hadn’t already given it away. Though he knew that Julie was consenting, Roland still wanted to retch. Not everyone who encountered that chemical came away so lucky. “Here you go,” Julie said as she handed over Advil into his palm. It had been from a plastic bottle, passed the drug in her purse. Roland accepted it with a murmured thanks. He moved towards the water fountain in front of the washrooms. “You should really consider getting a filter,” Julie said. “You know. I bet your headaches’ll go away.” Roland ignored her. How many others had been fooled the same way? He chugged the water, the pills, and then realized his hunger had taken him over. He righted his stance on the side of the fountain, ready to go to the convenience store. Donovan blocked his way. “Julie, you take the elevator up. I’ll be right with you.” Roland tensed. He didn’t want to do this. Not right now. He couldn’t move without feeling dizzy, and Donovan was more than determined to speak his mind. “You need any help tonight?” he asked once the elevator doors had dinged. The only thing that remained from Julie was the scent of honeysuckle. “From your s*x worker? No, no thank you. I would have thought that after this case…” “That I’d never set foot inside The Electric Lady again? No, Roland. I’m human. And I have needs, just like you.” Roland didn’t say anything. His balance was getting better, and he could feel the pain in his head ease thanks to the basement bargain Advil. He almost wished he was still distracted by the migraine. That way he wouldn’t have to think about their last case. Their s*x trafficking case, where almost all the s*x workers they’d found had those stupid glowing chemicals on them as part sedation and part tracking devices, so their pimps could find them when they were on the clock. Their s*x trafficking case where almost all the girls on the stand really were girls, girls that should not have been there, and how they had been there for years before the ring was finally busted in a takedown. Their s*x trafficking case where, in spite of everything, Roland had screwed up the whole thing. Their lost case. Their lost sense of justice. Roland didn’t want to think of it at all. He wanted to chastise Donovan for acting the way he had back then and the way he was now, but Roland couldn’t. He’d been the one to do the lead arguments. He’d been the one that confused the jury, and then, he’d been the one who didn’t address that mistake in his closing. Everything that he was feeling right now was his own damn fault. Calcified pineal gland or not. “Look,” Donovan said after the tension between them reached unknown levels. Not since they bickered over their two-point difference on their Law School Admission Test scores had Roland felt this much rivalry between them. “You know what you like. I know what I like. Why not just get what we want to blow off steam? Don’t be a prude.” “I’m not a prude. I’m just ethical, unlike you.” “So ethical you forget to cross?” Donovan shot back. “So ethical you forget basic legal terms?” Roland wanted to throw up. Donovan seemed to see this and put a hand on his shoulder, his temper cooling. “Look, I’m sorry. I said we’d leave this behind us, we’d move on, and—” “Then you bring it back to the office.” “Her. She has a name. Jennifer.” “Julie.” “Right.” Donovan let out a low laugh. “I’m a mess too, you know. We all lost the trial. We all felt the wave of sadness in that room. This is my way of dealing with it.” When Roland still didn’t talk, Donovan explained where he’d found Julie, how he’d gone into The Electric Lady and made sure that everyone who worked there was happy and free. “This isn’t exactly legal yet, sure, but it’s getting there. You know the minute it’s legal, the cases like we had don’t exist anymore. And Rosa, too. I—” “Don’t talk about her.” “Okay. We don’t have to. But I still think that by legalizing—” “I don’t buy that,” Roland said. “Just because something is legal doesn’t mean people stop abusing the system. It just means they get cleverer, and use that system as justification to their own actions. No matter what happens with your so-called happy whorehouse, we will still have trafficking cases.” “Sure, sure. I understand. Perhaps this is not the best debate to have right now, but I think you should consider the fact that if s*x work is legal, then the public understands the rules. And we, as lawyers, make less assumptions that cost us the trial.” Roland wanted to argue. He wanted to say it was not worth anything like that being legal on Earth, especially when they brought in younger people from other solar systems, where it was legal. He wanted to think in legal cases, debate in codes and legalese, but he was tired. He touched his forehead. “Maybe there was something to Julie’s suggestion,” Donovan said. “Maybe your third eye is closed.” “Of course it’s closed. It’s not real. I had a migraine. Now I’m getting food, if you’ll excuse me.” “Are you heading back tonight?” Roland sighed. “Why? You want to f**k in my office?” Donovan’s face was impassive, nonreactive. “No. I’m asking because I think you should go home. And I think tomorrow you should get on the Vacation Station.” “What?” “Go on vacation, Roland. You’re…struggling.” “I’m—” Roland started to say, but Donovan silenced him with a held-up hand. “Consider it an order as a partner. Take time off. At least a week, you know? Jump on that Vacation Station,” Donovan said, humming the tune that often accompanied the commercial liner that went to the vacation moons of Jupiter. “And be sure to rub up against the stars while you’re on Io and Callisto. Oh, and maybe the Mechanical Planet, and remember what fun is.” “The s*x toy planet?” Roland said, then doubled back to correct himself. “Or moon, really. I have no idea why they call it a planet—” “That’s because if you plan it, you get to jump on the Vacation Station and visit all their planets.” Donovan was practically belting the lyrics to the jingle now. He only stopped when he got to the lines about the Mechanical Planet. “Europa’s been transformed. Now we are rated R for robots and other such thrills meant for after dark. You see?” Donovan winked. “Not just s*x toys there. The bots will suit you well. It’s a lot of fun. And I promise, none of them is there against their will.” “They have no will. They’re machines.” “Exactly! No one to harm.” Roland considered the gleaming metal, along with the swell of a perpetual motion engine as it did what it was supposed to do. At least with these devices, there would be no one like Rosa. Maybe Donovan was right. But like with legalization, Roland reminded himself, using bots didn’t mean that s*x trafficking didn’t happen. Going to the f**k planet was a mere diversion, not actually something he wanted to do. “That’s a nice thought, but it’s not really vacation for me. I have some stuff stored up for the winter season—” “They have a Winter Planet there. And a Summer Planet, too. No matter the season here, you should go.” “I’m fine. Just need a sandwich, then I’m going to get a jump start on—” “You should go.” Donovan raised his brows. He was no longer jovial and singing, but stern. He was almost a foot taller than Roland, something he never truly felt until moments like this. He was older too—by five years, making him edge towards forty while Roland still had the looks of youth and a number on his driver’s license that was still hovering in his early thirties. Roland had always been the smarter one, overriding him, but now he could not rest on those meagre two points from the LCAT. Now, he’d worked himself into a hopeless mess. Donovan said as much. “I love you, as a friend, you know that, right? Because I do. This command has nothing to do with me as a partner. It has everything to do with me as a friend.” “And Michael feels the same way, I bet.” Donovan tilted his head, not wishing to speak ill of their third partner, Donovan’s older half-brother. Roland didn’t need to hear it, anyway. “Fine,” he said. “I’ll take the week off. Catch up on sleep. Just let me grab my things from my office.” “I got it. Don’t worry. I’ll mail it to you when I also mail you the ticket for the Vacation Station.” “I just want to sleep,” Roland argued. “Then rest up tonight. In the morning, you will be off for a grand adventure.” Roland nodded. He extended his hand to Donovan in a gesture of thanks, and was surprised when he was pulled into a tight hug. His scars hurt during the action, but it soon faded as Donovan rubbed a hand over his back. “You’re like a brother to me, you know?” “You too, buddy. Have fun tonight.” Donovan winked once again. “Oh, I will.” At the convenience store, Roland picked up a sandwich. He noticed the moon muffin with chocolate chips that practically formed a face. He swore it was staring him down. Though he wanted to taste the confectionary, just to see what the big deal was about, he figured he’d have lots of time to try new things. Especially now. He winced. A week. Seven days. He shuddered and rubbed his forehead. Still too long. He added another bottle of Advil to his purchases, and hoped it would be enough.