The role required that she shave her head, which gave Janet pause, but ultimately wasn’t an obstacle. This is my chance, she thought. My opportunity to make it big. Her hair would grow back, she reasoned. It would grow long, and return to her. Her chance, however, to join the cast of a popular science fiction show, to work alongside celebrities like Spencer Hall and Taylor Grace Robinson; it would present itself now, and nevermore.
Okay. So the role required that she shave her head. Fine. No problem. Janet accepted this, agreeing that Yes, it is worth it. She had come to terms with the loss, that she will shed her rust-red curls which spiral down to the small of her back. It was part of the price to landing the fantastic role. That’s showbiz. It’s the nature of the beast. To join the stars, becoming a member of the cast, a new arrival to a beloved, ragtag space crew, Janet would have to make sacrifices. There’s no such thing as a free lunch, even if the contract detailed that lunch is included on set, that it is, in fact, free.
But there was more to consider. Further requirements. Subsequent demands. The coveted part had stipulations, conditions that necessitated she go to the gym, that for Janet to fulfill her contract she was required to gain weight in the form of muscle.
“Just a little bit,” the casting director assured her. “We want you toned,” they said. “We want you tough. But make no mistake, we don’t want you butch. I won’t mince words,” they leveled with her. “Your role is for sex appeal. You’re here because you’re beautiful. You’re here for the male viewers.”
Janet smiled. She nodded. She played with her hair, something she always did when she was nervous or preoccupied with misgivings and nagging thoughts, a habit she would no longer be capable of after she sheared her hair down to the scalp. “Perhaps, then,” Janet wanted to suggest, “you should allow me to keep my hair. You know, to avoid seeming butch. If only for the male viewers.” In her mind, she heard the words, facetious and bold. But she did not voice her proposal. Instead, she continued to smile. She proceeded to nod. She played with her hair and savored each twirl between her fingers, knowing that soon she would be as bald as an egg.
Three months later, having spent twelve hours a week in the gym, Janet was fifteen pounds heavier, and shaped like a bona fide athlete. The emaciated frame and malnourished look that had earned her so many of her modelling jobs was replaced with a solid core, defined abs, and strong pectorals. Whereas before, she had daintily floated across the room, a ghost or a fairy on spider legs, now, by contrast, she took confident strides, resembling a surefooted warrior with iron thighs and full, rounded calves. Often, when people saw her baldness, they told her that she looked amazing, that the chemo hadn’t managed to slow her down. Everyone loves a cancer survivor story, so Janet didn’t correct them. She’d tell them thanks, then flex her muscles, and declare “I beat the shit out of cancer.”
When the filming for season two of A Cosmic Affair began, the makeup artist gave Janet a canister of shaving cream and a fresh razor.
“I’ve shaved this morning,” Janet explained, and removed her hat to show off her smooth scalp. “I’ve been wearing my head bald for weeks,” she told the makeup artist, who was lithe and effeminate, but decidedly a man, bald, like herself, but in the natural way. “It’s smooth as a cue ball,” Janet declared, putting up her hands to the razor, the canister of shaving cream.
The makeup artist chuckled, shaking his head, and put one hand on his hip. Leaning forward, he failed to stifle his amusement as he offered Janet a pointed look that said Girl, you missed a spot. Janet smiled back, and held her peace. She waited, and withheld her instinct to flinch as the makeup artist reached toward her face, tracing her eyebrows, one after the other, with his outstretched pinky finger.
“The caterpillars have got to go, Honey.” Much more than his words, the message that they carried, it was his voice which had been surprising: rich, raspy, and deep as an ocean trench. It transformed the man, small and frail, wispy even, like gauze, into a solid mass, a dominant presence.
“Caterpillars?” Janet reached up to trace her own eyebrows and inadvertently grazed the makeup artist’s fingers. The silver rings that he wore were cold as ice, but his hands were warm, and soft as velvet.
“Your brows, Darling. They’ve got to go. Those big brown bears have to go hibernating now.”
Janet strained to hold her smile. She could feel the muscles in her face fighting against a frown. And there they were: misgivings and nagging thoughts. She would pacify her doubts with a lifelong habit. She reached for the back of her head, but found there was no hair to play with. Caterpillars. She thought. Brown bears. She felt herself blushing.
The makeup artist waggled a finger. “None of that, now.” He clucked his tongue, and tsk-tsked. “You are my canvas, Honey. And red does not become you.”
Janet doubted very much that she had the mental capacity to will her blushing away, but when the makeup artist handed her the shaving cream canister and the fresh razor, she willingly took them up, accepting that caterpillars and brown bears had zero place among the stars. She shook the canister and donned the blade. She shaved away her humanity, clearing the path for the infinite demands of A Cosmic Affair. She would become an alien woman. But first, she would embody a blank slate, an unblemished canvas to be colored and made anew.
***
Manuel Ruiz Rivera was a makeup artist by trade, but if you were to peruse the catalogue of his work, the many before and after photos of various models, actors, and himself --faces, bodies, souls, transformed into a wide array of unrecognizable horrors, beauties, completely different visages-- you would see for yourself that his exceptional talent, his nuance and deft touch to manipulate a human face, a body, a soul, elevates him beyond a mere makeup artist. It would be fair, one would no doubt agree after seeing his work, to consider Manuel Ruiz Rivera a magician, an illusionist, a miracle worker. A god with a pencil and brush. A wizard of wigs and prosthetics.
He was a chronic gum chewer, and this could be forgiven. Forgiven, because when he leaned in to paint a face, to apply a caustic glue, to dab one’s eyelids or stencil their lips, his outward breath smelled sweet and fresh. Cinnamon. Always cinnamon.
Janet would learn to love the smell, and forgive Manuel his constant chewing, smacking, and occasional bubble blowing. Before their work began in earnest, Manuel insisted that Janet, too, chew gum. “After all,” he stated, “Your breath, as much as mine, is shared between us when I lean in close. And Honey, I know firsthand you like those red onions on your Subway, don’t even try to deny it.”
Janet laughed, and when she did, her amusement carried the incendiary tinge of red onion --but no longer. “Never again,” Manuel professed. He offered her several packets of gum, and told her to get more, that she would need it for the many hours that each makeup session would require of them both. “I will transform your face,” he declared. “It is no problem: I will transform your breath as well.”
Again, Janet laughed, but this time her amusement carried the wintry bite of menthol and mint. Why hadn’t she been given cinnamon, Janet wanted to know. “Cinnamon is for me,” Manuel told her. “I am fire. You are ice.”
Janet shook her head and chuckled at his theatrics, his eccentric humor. “Now hold still,” he commanded. “Hold still, Janet Watson, human from Earth.” He pinched her jaw and leaned in with his sponge and paints. “Hold still, and be patient.” Each word was a waft of cinnamon. “When you move from this chair you will emerge a changed woman. You will leave Janet behind, and arise as Xania Bitaal, a Minervian anarchist from planet Wex.”
“I see you’ve read the script,” Janet was surprised.
Manuel shook his head. “I have no time for scripts,” he told her. “Janet Watson, your mind is an open book. It was easy enough to read.”
Manuel locked eyes with Janet, and held her stare in silence. For several seconds their serious faces held firm before melting into great, gaping smiles and heartfelt laughter. Their amusement filled the studio with mingling wafts of cinnamon and menthol.
***
Minervians are bipedal humanoids, which one may expect, as they are cast by human actors, and very few working actors have three or more legs, or one, or none. Without the aid or crutch of computer graphics to simulate a character or creature, it is simplest for the actors, the artists, for the production in general, to design and play the part of those creatures based upon a general human mold. And so, while cranial tentacles or a ridged brow, a third eye or vampire teeth, pointy ears or excessive hair or sharp claws may accompany the features of many human-acted, alien creatures in various sci-fi shows, one will rarely witness serpentine bodies, fish fins, numerous limbs, or any other shapes, sizes, or features that stray too far from your basic, run-of-the-mill, humanoid character.
There are always exceptions, of course, but these come with expense, trade-offs, and encumbrances: a graphics team whose skills demand a substantially larger budget; puppets or animatronics that are physically real, but lack a soul; body suits that limit movements and expression; the price that comes with trading in genuine, real faces and bodies with flimsy, green-screen magic and the improving-all-the-time but still unavoidable issue of uncanny valley --it’s almost real, almost human. But as far as A Cosmic Affair is concerned, almost doesn’t cut it.
Minervians are bipedal humanoids, which makes it easier on everyone, not least of all, Janet, who is expected to become one. Minervian women are blue-skinned with white and purple highlights. Men are commonly red, likewise with white and purple highlights. Both sexes are bald, with the exception of the High Priestess and high-ranking clerics of the Astral Order. Why and how these distinguished members of Minervian society are capable of growing hair (which is always stark white) is unknown, unexplained, and by popular opinion among viewers, totally unimportant. “It looks cool.” “It’s neat.” “Why not?” These are the common responses and comments on message boards and Twitter and social media. And really, the fans are being rather suitable to brush off the whole hair thing without undue attention --after all, the High Priestess has about ninety seconds of screen time in one, early episode, with hardly any speaking parts. As to the high-ranking clerics, they incessantly chant in the background, but that is hardly what anyone would call a speaking part in the first place.
“If only your parents had enrolled you in the priesthood, pushing you toward the teachings of the Astral Order,” Manuel had joked. “You may have become the High Priestess by now, and more importantly, been allowed to keep your gorgeous hair.”
“I had no parents, Manny,” Janet pointed out. “Didn’t you know? Xania was an orphan. A runaway and a rogue.”
“Roughing it out on the mean streets of Wex?”
“Exactly.”
“No wonder you’ve become an anarchist.”
“Well, I almost became a makeup artist, but I found it exceptionally dull,” Janet winked slyly at Manuel, who grabbed her by the shoulders and shook her playfully, filling the small studio with his deep laughter.
With his arms around her neck, he leaned in from behind, looking at Janet in the mirror. “Rogue, indeed.”For several seconds, a certain chemistry was shared between the makeup artist and actor. A certain intimacy stretched between them, from eye to eye, interrupted only by the mirror.
Manuel was the first to blink, to turn away. “Come now, Xania. We have much work to do.”
***
Manuel would wash her face with a wet, hot towel, and sometimes shave her clean when necessary. His hands would rest on her bare scalp, rings cold, palms and fingers warm. Next, he’d apply the wet, cold towel. “Fire and ice,” he’d always say, which reminded Janet of the two contrasting gum flavors that they tirelessly chewed, the wafts of two distinct aromas that mingled to fill the space that they shared.
The dry towel came last, applied firmly to her face and, sometimes, even a little roughly. Janet would flail her arms in mock panic, unleash an artificial scream. Manuel would make the joke about how he was applying the chloroform so he could knock Janet out and apply her makeup without her many jittery movements, her constant shifting. “We’d both save some time, you know?” He’d say, and sometimes took the joke too far, holding the towel over her face too long or too hard, and Janet’s panic became genuine, if only a small percentage. But the moment any real fear ever began to arise within her, Manuel would release the cloth from Janet’s face, his own with a great joyful smile greeting her in the mirror.
It took hours. Three, sometimes four. There were steps, so many steps, in transforming a human actor into a Minervian anarchist. It began with the cotton and latex which was sculpted to extend her earlobe to join with her lower jaw. Then there was the airbrushing and pencil work, stencils and shading for lizard-like scales and all those defining shadows, angles, contours, tricks of the trade to enhance the appearance of breast size, accentuate cleavage, and heighten sex appeal.
And while they listened to the radio at times, podcasts or eBooks, for the majority of their time together, Janet and Manuel conversed, talking about trivial things at first: what shows they were watching, books they were reading, restaurants they swore by, bucket lists, favorite movies, desired travel destinations, and the age old question, “cats or dogs?” But over time, triviality crossed over into the personal realm --ex lovers, family problems, insecurities, and private desires-- and with so many hours to spend together in the same small space, Janet and Manuel became genuine friends and intimate confidants.
The studio sessions took a long time, but with cinnamon on the wind and the pleasant feeling of cold rings, warm hands on her face, her head, her neck, collarbone, and chest, the gentle kiss of an airbrush on her skin, and deep conversation, the time passed quickly, and sometimes left Janet wanting more. The makeup sessions, she found, were more intoxicating, by far, than the actual acting, the filming of A Cosmic Affair. Her time with Manuel was more stimulating, more enriching, than whatever steamy scenes she would be forced to play out with Captain Magnus O’Reilly, actor Spencer Hall, who turned out to be a vapid, egotistical bastard who was a womanizer at best, a misogynist at worst, and a general “pigheaded cunt,”as Science Officer Mila Verović, actress Taylor Grace Robinson, sometimes referred to him. Of course, Taylor herself was no picnic, using her razor wit and superior intelligence to justify being a mega bitch to just about everyone, even if she did put Spencer Hall in his place.
Leading up to her role, acting among the stars, Janet had expected so much more. Now, she didn’t know where she stood, but was grateful, in any case, for a job that paid her well and, more importantly, gained her exposure in a cutthroat business. More than the job itself, far more than landing a major role in a widely popular science fiction show, Janet was grateful to slip into the skin of Xania, who was beginning to feel more like her genuine self than the skin she was born in. Most of all, however, her gratitude was directed at the process of transformation. She enjoyed the hours it took being molded from a Human Earthling into a Minervian from planet Wex.
Sometimes, lying in bed at night, Janet would pretend she was Xania, not an anarchist or part of a ragtag space crew, but Xania, a Minervian woman who lived a normal life with a human lover who possessed a deft touch. She would imagine cold rings on her skin, warm hands over her body. She would reach to tussle hair from a bald scalp and come up empty handed. She would press a pillow over her face and pretend it was a towel held firmly against her will. She would reach down and touch herself and scream, loud but muffled. The name, Manuel, would echo in the darkness.
***
On occasion, the makeup procedure would exceed the standard three hours, as in the instance of season two, episode six, Jungle Boogie, when the crew was forced to abandon the leisure of its much-needed shore leave to track down a sentient virus that was infecting the biological components of their starship. When the heat of the jungle compounded with raging fever induced by the virus, the crew members stripped down to tank tops and shorts, desperate to reduce their rising temperatures. In the end, they kill the virus, save the day (as usual), but not before the Captain and his crew are down to their knickers and briefs. More hours, more makeup, was required for Xania’s legs, with intricate, scaled patterns stenciled as far up as her mid thigh. More hours, more makeup, too, for her upper arms, her shoulders, and midriff, each rounded peak and valley of her gym-built six pack. All of these alluring contours, they had to be painted, too.
There were other occasions that required elongated makeup sessions, such as in season two, episode eleven, When You're Hot, You’re Hot, when the proximity of a dead star and the strange, misty debris that haloed its core threw off the computer systems of the Mantis, their living, insect ship, causing the temperature control unit to malfunction, suffusing the atmosphere with undue warmth, temperatures to a point beyond discomfort, to the point of detriment, which, ultimately, became A Cosmic Affair’s sexiest episode to date, when the crew members, in a tizzy, removed layer after layer of their clothing to stay cool, eventually prancing around, drenched in sweat, delirious, in nothing but their underclothes.
There was some backlash regarding its similarities to a prior episode, Jungle Boogie, how it was yet another example of a puerile, baseless excuse to strip the cast of beautiful actors, to appease the mentally numb and sex-obsessed to garner increased viewership. But the backlash was a gentle wave that came and went, whereas the outrageous popularity of the episode was a typhoon that laid waste to all other science fiction shows, all other shows, full stop.
For several months, A Cosmic Affair was America’s favorite television program. Janet had been a part of that. Her face, her body, her bright colors and alien scales, her gym build and sex appeal, the many hours in the makeup studio that served to entertain a nation.
Most days, the makeup would take all morning. But here and there the odd episode or scene demanded less clothing, more surface area of exposed skin, and makeup to cover it. By the end, these special scenes, these unusual episodes, seemed as common as the regular ones. There were the shower scenes. The sex scenes. The swimming scenes. The scenes in season three, episode five, On the Rocks, which had Xania masquerading as a prostitute to gain intel on the dreaded asteroid pirates. The scenes in which she actually had to show her nipples, expose her bottom, even the edge of her pubic region, which was well below the hairline --but, of course, there was no hair to be seen as Janet had been required to shave it clean.
In these instances, which became more and more commonplace, makeup occupied the majority of Janet’s day. It was a marathon process. It was boring, tedious, and tortuous, but it could also be relaxing, sometimes even meditative and, on occasion, therapeutic; the times when Manuel would open up, share of himself, and pick Janet’s brain, ask her questions about herself, and when he did, my-oh-my! how well he listened to her, keeping silent when silence was called for, interjecting with comments, counterarguments, or assurances at the perfect time, in the perfect way, without sparing an ounce of what needed to be said, yet withholding what may have been an ounce too much, over-applied opinions and critique. As it were, his judgements were well-balanced, neither heavy-handed nor light. His touch with the brush, with the sponge, with the tips of his fingers, was delicate, deliberate, and artful, much like his counsel, his concern, his gossip, his effortless bavardage. Hours would turn to minutes as Janet listened to Manuel, who balanced on the minute pinnacle of an expert conversationalist.
Janet would enter the small makeup studio as a woman with burdens, with baggage, with misgivings and nagging thoughts. Four hours later, which felt like 30 minutes, she would leave the room as an alien heroine, no longer Janet, but Xania, a lighter, freer, fiercer version of herself. Janet’s makeup sessions were long, it could not be denied, and yet they were precious. If truth be told, with increasing regularity, they had become sensuous, if not romantic.
***
After season three, when the scriptwriters conspired to stab Janet in the back, Xania was killed off by asteroid pirates marauding in the Kuiper Belt. After saving Captain Magnus O’Reilly, who, in the previous episode, scorned her for her general lack of decorum while on board his ship, her flippant attitude and overt sex appeal --this, despite his own flirtatious signals and inviting body language, his own lack of decorum on plenty of occasions, including his hot temper and an overactive trigger finger that had led to more than a few undeserving deaths-- Xania is abducted by the Astral Vikings, cyborg pirates and galactic misfits who are notorious for their barbarism and heartless cruelty. In Xania’s final scene, she is forced onto her knees, and told to eat the laser pistol which Kol’Doro, the Buccaneer King, has thrust in front of her blue-green face, its barrel resting between her wide, lilac eyes. There is needless, sexual violence incorporated into the scene, gratuitously included in the moments that precede the pirate’s pulling of the trigger. Xania’s death is heard, not seen, as the camera pans away to the ceiling, and there, focused on the glimmering rock of an ice-laden asteroid, a single, muffled laser pistol shot can be heard over the music-free, soundless credits.
When Janet lost her role, she felt, too, like she had lost her identity. She felt like she had lost Xania, her alter ego and, even more than that, as if she had undergone the demise of her true self, the forfeiture of her soul. Her heart ached in the aftermath, those long days and tortuous weeks that followed the severing of her physical body from her authentic spiritual self. She mourned for the deep link, now shattered, that had once bonded her to Xania, the version of herself that she had begun to prefer towards the end of her time as an active cast member on A Cosmic Affair. Janet grieved for the death of the alien misfit that she believed --knew-- resided in her soul, the anarchist Minervian from planet Wex, the blue orphan runaway that she was certain was the real, actual Janet, the iteration of herself she aspired to become.
Janet felt lost, for certain, but angry, also, and confused. Perhaps most of all, she felt lonely. She didn’t miss Spencer Hall, the man as himself, or as his character, Captain Magnus O’Reilly. She did not miss the way he eyed her up and down with a leer between scenes, as if the philanderer in his headstrong character followed the actor after the cut. She did not miss the way he “accidentally” brushed her breast, or touched her thigh, grazed her lips with his thumb as he supposedly reached for a spider in the corner in the coffee lounge, the way he studied her through the steam of his cappuccino as if contemplating conquests of sexual enterprise.
No, Janet did not miss Spencer, nor did she miss Taylor Grace Robinson, the fiery, American actress who was as merciless as she was vulgar, a venomous wordsmith that didn’t take shit from anyone, not even Captain Magnus, or the Asteroid Pirates when they boarded Mantis in season three, episode nineteen, Argh, Me Mateys! Janet reserved a small measure of favor for Taylor’s character, the brainy, soviet science officer she portrayed on A Cosmic Affair, but would not go so far as to say she missed her. And while it was certainly true, Janet did like the way Robinson made Spencer lose his cool, stumbling aimlessly for words which might amount to an adequate comeback after she more or less tore him a new asshole with eloquent sermons of fire, articulate speeches of slander and acid, even so, it didn’t make up for the fact: Taylor Grace Robinson was no better than Spencer Hall. And if you asked Janet, she’d tell you without reservation: her crew mates were cunts, one as bad as the other.
It goes without saying, Janet did not miss the space pirates, least of all their leader, Kol’Doro, the Buccaneer King, who humiliated Xania with the barrel of his laser pistol before pulling the trigger, who forced the Minervian heroine to perform fellatio on his firearm before killing her anyways. Sometimes Janet was more angry than lonely. Sometimes she wanted to procure a real gun, not some phoney stage prop, and fill Kol’Doro with lead bullets, not bullshit lasers. Sometimes Janet wanted to set fire to the film studio, to the cast and crew while they acted out whatever plot was unfolding in season four. Sometimes Janet wanted to scream, shout out so impossibly loud that the frequency and volume of her agony split the world like a cracked egg, or a bludgeoned, bald skull.
But stronger than her anger, even deeper than her sorrow, it was Janet’s loneliness that loomed over everything else. Her loneliness in being Janet, the human woman whose own skin no longer served as her rightful avatar. The out-of-work actress who dreamed of being an out-of-this-world girl. But not while resorting to acting, not pretending at all, not restricted to the studio. No, Janet wanted to actually become extra terrestrial. She wanted to experience everyday life; grocery shopping, walking the streets, living out her days as a true-blue alien. Janet from another planet.
And yet, despite Janet’s alien envy, it was the human side of her that spoke loudest and plainest of all. What Janet missed the most wasn’t her job, her role, the fame or salary that came with it. It wasn’t even the blue alien anarchist that had lent her both confidence and power. In her raw and vulnerable honesty she’d tell you what she missed most of all --who she missed. Janet missed that human connection, her warm and real relationship with Manuel Ruiz Rivera.
***
Many of Janet’s friends counseled her to abstain from reaching out to her old makeup artist. They advised against her inclination to profess her desire to reconnect with Manuel, unanimously expressing that it was unprofessional, and a little bit weird. Janet’s friends were more like acquaintances --buzzing little bees, she thought of them-- and the only thing she valued less than acquaintances was dog shit on her doorstep or untraceable venereal diseases. In the end, she took her “friends’” advice and neatly disposed of their counsel.
She lathered her head in foam and shaved her head. She opened a packet of Winterfresh gum and chewed several pieces. She placed a towel over her bare scalp, her face with no eyebrows. She felt the wash of hot, then cold. Fire and ice. Lastly, she held the dry towel firmly over her face, but Janet found the process flawed, a certain edge altogether lacking.
Manuel, she began to text. It’s Xania. I miss you…
Janet set down her phone and waited. Half a bag of potato chips and a glass of wine later, it vibrated on the glass table.
Xania, Honey, how are you Darling? Getting soft and fat? I can smell the red onions from here. But jokes aside, I miss you.
Janet sat up, holding her phone like it was the holy grail, like it was the lost artifact that orbited the third moon of the reptile planet in season two, episode seven, Relic Among the Rocks. Oh Manny, I miss you too! She typed. And I’ll have you know… I smell of menthol. I smell of mint, even now.
I got you hooked on gum, did I?
You are fire. I am ice.
Haha. Yes, Darling. I am fire, you are ice. A cold bitch! LOL. But really, blue suits you. Baldness too.
OMG, guess what?
What?
I still shave my head!
You’re still bald?
Yes!
With your beautiful red hair? Are you mad?
Maybe… Mad about you.
…
Come on, I miss you.
I miss you too.
Are you busy?
I am watching reality TV.
Me neither. Want to meet me at the studio? Paint me blue for old times’ sake?
The studio?! Crazy woman! That would be illegal, even if you were on the show. Even if you were Xania.
Am Xania. Always Xania.
LOL. Okay, Xania. Blue girl. Have it your way.
So… meet me at the studio? Paint me one last time?
Reruns of Real House Wives is pretty fucking boring. Okay. But not the studio. Come to my place.
Manuel texted his address and Janet ran to her car, driving way above the speed limit while chewing several pieces of Winterfresh gum.
***
After their hugs at the door, the appropriate noises, exchange of compliments, and declarations that life has not been the same without the other in their lives, Manuel invited Janet in and directed her to the bar, pouring them both drinks. Janet watched Manuel fix himself a bourbon, then, switching bottles, make her a vodka on the rocks.
“Whatever happened to choose your poison?” She asked.
Manuel clucked his tongue, tsk-tsked his guest. “I am fire. You are ice.”
They clinked their glasses and drank, Janet wincing before setting hers down. “Okay, fire and ice. Whatever. Look, Manuel. You got any wine? Red wine?”
Manuel finished his bourbon. Finished Janet’s vodka, too. He looked at her and smiled, then laughing, said “You know something? You’re not the pushover that I first met.”
“Manny, believe me when I say it: I am not even the same woman.”
In silence, they looked at each from across the bar and held each other’s gaze with subtle expressions, measuring, perhaps, who was dominant among them. Manuel was the first to move, to speak, which he did with a wide smile, chuckling in submission to Janet’s request. “Red wine. Coming right up. As you wish, Darling.”
Janet nodded to herself and remembered what Manuel had told her long ago, when Janet was Janet, not Xania, how he had declared that red does not become her. Now, she accepted her glass of merlot and stared down Manuel as he handed her the beverage. He flinched, seeing something in her eye, and began to blush. Red, Janet mused, becomes Manuel very much.
She removed her denim jacket, her denim trousers, too. She let them fall to the floor, shedding layers from her body like molted skin. She peeled off her socks, and pulled her tank top over her head. She reached behind her back and unclasped her bra, bending over to tug her underwear down her gym-built thighs and rounded calves, shapely ankles. She kicked her panties across the living room. Naked, she swirled her wine glass, sipping her merlot.
Manuel continued to stare at her, his face the same color as her wine. “Janet, what--”
“Xania,” She corrected. “My name is Xania.”
“So, like, Xania… is this a booty call?”
“Manuel?”
“Um, yeah?”
“Shut the fuck up and paint me.”
***
It took nine hours to paint both of them. Four hours each, with a break in the middle to watch the newest episode of A Cosmic Affair, season four, episode one, The New Girl, which introduced Xania’s replacement, an ex Disney kid fresh from a long haul in rehab, jump starting her broken down career by barely dressing before undressing on a science fiction show that was losing popularity by the season. She was Minervian, same as Xania, but younger, prettier, seemingly less intelligent but somehow carrying more clout among the crew.
“Well, that was a waste of fucking time.” Janet was angry. Janet was jealous. Janet was blue with white and purple highlights, head to toe, top of her scalp to the soles of her feet. Janet wasn’t Janet anymore. Janet was Xania. “Now you, Manny. Your turn. Red. You are fire, I am ice.”
So, Manny got to work, and four hours later, he set down his tools and emerged, a male Minervian. His eyes were burning, both from sustained focus and from their sensitivity to the alcohol-based paints. He looked at the cotton and latex molded under his ears, the airbrushed, crimson skin that covered his face, his chest, his entire body. He marveled at the stenciled scales, the highlights of white and purple that accentuated his natural contours, making Manuel, somehow, even more Manuel, an enhanced version of himself.
“It feels good, doesn't it?” For the first time in hours, Manuel became aware of Janet --of Xania-- who had been quietly watching him perform his transformation. The sight of her naked --blue, scaled, hairless, highlighted in paint, festooned in prosthetic flourishes-- sparked a lust and desire within him that gave rise to a lively fire.
She walked backwards to the edge of the bed. She beckoned with her finger. “I am ice.”
“I am fire.”
Their love making was many times quicker than their application of makeup, which, Manuel realized, was the most elaborate act of foreplay he had ever been a part of. The five to ten minutes of energetic, passionate sex had proved more steamy, more sexy, than any racy, risqué scene aired on A Cosmic Affair.
Afterwards, two Minervians from Planet Wex lay sprawled out, spent and sweaty, across the ruffled bed sheets that were wet with paint and body fluids. On their backs, the aliens heaved long, satisfied breaths, their front sides smeared purple with the mingled pigments, blue and red. They laughed and cuddled, entwining their limbs, and chewed gum --cinnamon and Winterfresh.
When their stamina rebounded they performed an encore, which was even more lively than the previous episode. Had it been two seasons of a show, the follow-up would have received even better reviews than the celebrated first.
Now, truly exhausted, Manuel got up to use the toilet, splashing his face with water at the sink, and returning to the bed with a bath towel for the two of them to clean themselves with. Janet squirmed and moaned, wanting more love, cooing in a sultry growl, “Xania is hungry for more.” But Manuel shook his head, explaining that he is only human, that he has used up the last of his energy after a nine-hour makeup session and two raucous rounds of lovemaking. Ignoring Janet’s demands for more, Manuel wiped the makeup off his face and threw the towel over to Janet for her to do the same.
When he saw that Janet sulked, spat out her Winterfresh gum onto the carpet and turned her blue back on him, he crawled over her and tickled her sides, wishing to arouse her cheer, if not her insatiable sexual needs. Janet was not amused, and pushed Manuel off, but he clucked his tongue and tsk-tsked his newfound lover. He pressed the towel over her face and held it firmly, his roughness right on the edge, and perhaps, in the end, over the edge, too long and too hard.
But when he finally released the towel from Janet’s face she was smiling, laughing even, wide-eyed and full of vigor. Her nipples were stiff and her fists were clenched so hard that they had become white, despite being covered in blue.
“Sorry, Janet.” Manuel apologized, quickly crawling off of her. “That was too much.”
“No,” she told him. “No, that was perfect,” she assured him, though did not bother to correct him, to explain that while it may have been too much for Janet, it was just right for Xania.
She turned over to regard Manuel and smiled, half her face blue, the other half pale. Manuel’s face was almost clean, except the tip of his nose, which remained bright red. “You missed a spot,” Xania told her lover, then, taking the towel, she leaned over the side of the bed to grab something among the heap of her discarded clothes. She fished into a denim pocket and took out a small, brown bottle, unscrewing its silver top and applying a generous amount of its liquid contents over the towel.
“Come here, Darling,” she said. Darling --it was usually his pet name for her. “There is red on your nose. Let me put out your fire.” She crawled over Manuel and straddled his small body with her gym-built frame. Then, with all the force she could muster, Janet forcefully held the towel over Manuel's nose and mouth while pinning his arms and legs to the bed. Even at arm's length, Janet could smell the chloroform as Manual struggled, slowed, then stopped fighting back, lying still as the grave, as the stardust on a frozen hull of a derelict spacecraft.
Janet retained her position atop Manuel for many minutes, then reached over for the little brown bottle and poured the remaining contents to saturate the towel covering his face. Even as he stopped breathing, Janet felt more alive than ever. She felt transformed, truly becoming, at long last, the wild Minervian runaway anarchist she always believed herself to be.
Xania reclined on the purple-stained bed sheets and imagined what it must be like to die, how it must have felt for Manuel as he journeyed into an unknown realm. She envisioned his passing --her own doing-- how, for her lover, everything has now fallen silent, having faded to black. Death, she imagined, must be so much quieter, so much emptier, darker even than the boundless void of a cold, unrelenting cosmos.
-- James Callan is the author of the novel A Transcendental Habit (Queer Space, 2023). His fiction has appeared or is upcoming in Barzakh Magazine, BULL, Carte Blanche, Hawaii Pacific Review, Mystery Tribune, and elsewhere. He lives on the Kāpiti Coast, Aotearoa New Zealand. Find him at jamescallanauthor.com