Byron smiled and stood up as Hazel walked into the room. So this is how it feels to have someone be really happy to see you, she thought. “You look stunning,” Byron said. “Don’t you love these clothes?”
“I’ve never felt anything like them!” Hazel exclaimed. “They make me hate my skin for not being made out of this material. And the comfort level of these shoes. My feet feel totally seduced. Every time I take a step I expect the shoes to start whispering dirty things to me in French.”
Byron was very pleased. “We’re on the same page. I’m curious to know—what do you think of the house?”
His smile was beaming, anticipatory. Hazel realized that he wanted her to continue the statements of awe. Her performance of being dazzled was her ticket of admission.
“I’m just trying not to hyperventilate,” Hazel said. “I won’t move my head to the right or the left because I’m already overwhelmed. If I indulged my peripheral vision too I would probably faint.” She swallowed and decided to make a risky move. “I missed you,” she added.
Byron’s face went blank and Hazel chided herself for overreaching. But after a moment he said, “There’s something I should tell you.”
Hazel felt her cheeks flush. She’d pushed too far, too soon. Or had she?
“I feel the same way, Hazel,” he said. “I think you and I should talk about the future.”
“I’d love that,” Hazel said, a placeholder phrase to conceal her shock. The future? Why focus on the negative? her father would say anytime she brought up her future. Or her past, or her present. What did he mean? “This is embarrassing,” she said, “I think it’s my excitement, being here. . . . Do you have a bathroom?”
Byron winked. “Wait till you see. Here, Fiffany will take you.” Byron pressed some sort of button inside the egg and a female worker appeared. “Are you menstruating?” she asked Hazel in a low whisper. “Only select facilities are calibrated for this possibility.”
“I doubt it,” Hazel answered. She was a bit of a denier when it came to her cycles; all her underwear were stained. Unless she was bleeding profusely, she took a very laissez-faire position on the whole thing. She felt that giving her period the cold shoulder made it end more quickly each month than rolling out an assortment of absorbent products to give it the grand welcome.
The woman’s eyebrow rose. “Right this way.”
“Are there any vending machines or anything?” Hazel asked, hoping for some charity. She didn’t have any money, and hadn’t brought any credit cards. If a tech millionaire couldn’t pick up the tab for a snack, who could?
“We’re more into vitamin packing.” The woman reached down to her pant leg and produced a small wrapped package of pills, seemingly from a fold in the cloth, like a magic trick. Hazel blinked.
“These are drugs?” Hazel asked, hopeful.
“Bioengineered kelp,” the woman corrected. “Let me give you a second packet. They might help you sober up a bit.”
“Oh good,” Hazel said, although this immediately made her decide she’d pretend to take them but not swallow. “Do you have any water?”
The woman held open a door and rolled her eyes. “They dissolve. Sublingual.” At Hazel’s blank stare, she rolled her eyes again. “You put them under your tongue.”
Hazel stepped into the room. It was pitch-black until the door closed, then a single beam of light shot down from the ceiling to illuminate a toilet. It looked like the toilet was floating in the middle of outer space. Squinting, Hazel walked over and sat down on it, disturbed to find her pee didn’t make a sound; what did make a sound was a whoosh and a rush of heat between her legs upon her urine stream’s conclusion. Like she’d just been wiped dry by a sunbeam.
The light turned off and another light illuminated a sink across the room. She stood and pulled up her pants then tried to feel in the dark for a button to push to flush, but the entire toilet seemed to have disappeared. “This place is wild,” Hazel said aloud. Just that morning she’d been considering either purchasing a used toaster at Goodwill or doing a series of intentional Dumpster dives in search of one.
Led back to Byron, Hazel entered to find him pointing a determined finger at the wall, sorting through supersize projections of her. There were various images from throughout her life—yearbook photos, theme park pictures taken of her during a roller coaster’s descent. “Do you know how interesting you are to me, Hazel?”
She giggled a little. Part of her had the urge to run from the house or compound or whatever it was—what the hell was going on here, after all?—but a larger part of her felt curious and lucky. Jenny would be dying right now. Already Hazel imagined telling her: Giant pictures of my face!
“I’m going to be direct,” he said. “Efficiency is important. My schedule and lifestyle largely prohibit traditional dating, so here it is: I’d like to pursue a romantic relationship with you. The connection we have is undeniable. I was thinking we could agree on an initial six-month commitment? What do you say?”
“Commitment?” Hazel asked. It was one of those words she’d of course seen in advertisements and books that held great meaning for others but had no application to her own life, words such as “vacation” or “insurance” or “long-term goals.” Certain parts of the English vocabulary had always existed in the margins for her that way, like a religion that she didn’t believe in but appreciated knowing about.
“Nothing legally binding, of course. We have to establish trust, so I’ll take you at your word. But I ask that for the next six months, we date exclusively. Then we’ll evaluate our relationship.”
“Evaluate?”
“Decide where we want to take things. If the relationship should advance, maintain, or . . . well, as we say in business, dissolve.”
“Under our tongues,” Hazel said absentmindedly, recalling the kelp packet. “Oh,” she said, looking up to find Byron’s full attention directed upon her, a nascent smile upending his wide mouth. “Sorry, I was thinking of something else.”
“Is that your way of accepting?” Byron asked, suddenly looking both aroused and amused. “Are you suggesting that we kiss?”
She hadn’t been. But then he was upon her with hot, delicate lips that seemed to insist she needn’t notice him kissing her—it was the kiss equivalent of a late-night waiter discreetly sweeping up around the table as guests finished eating. For just a second her mouth flowered open and his wet tongue slid its width across hers, and then she was being guided from the room, suddenly in the arms of the escort. So quick was this transfer, she asked the handler just to verify. “I kissed Byron a moment ago, right? Not you?” She also wanted to ask, What about dinner?