I think about sex a lot. Objectively, the idea is kind of disgusting – especially when you start learning about STDs and fissures and enemas. I get kissing – I understand that. I’ve kissed the back of my hand, and it seems kind of pleasant, so yeah. That makes sense. But … sex? I just can’t figure it out.
I can’t decide whether all the gross parts would fade away if you’re with someone you really love, or whether you’d still notice things like smells and noises and stickiness, but the emotions overwhelm it all. I want to know a lot of things like that about sex, and I don’t have anyone to ask.
I never thought it would matter to me anyway. It wasn’t like I was ever going to have sex with anyone. But now … there’s J.
J makes my heart feel like it’s purring in my chest. I’ve been sending him the most honest, truthful secrets I have, and he still likes me. He might even like me enough to one day have sex with me.
In just over three months, we’ll be meeting in person, face to face. I need to start getting ready so I look like the girls in films, all smooth and beautiful. I don’t want to disgust him with my hairy eyebrows and legs and armpits. I want him to like me. I want him to see me as a woman.
I research how to pluck my eyebrows using beauty guru tutorials from decades ago. For the first time ever, I stand in front of the mirror, eyes watering, and pull hairs from my skin.
Copying a picture of Lyra Loch, I try to sculpt my brows into elegant arches, but all I manage to do is make myself look permanently surprised. I’m glad I started early, so I have time to practise.
Next, I shave my legs, and only nick myself three times. My legs feel smooth for a day, and then start to itch. It surprises me how quickly the hair grows back; sharp and blacker than before.
Even though he isn’t here to see it, after my next shower I’m going to divide my wet hair into thin clumps and plait each one, so that it’ll dry curly. I wish that I had make-up, so I could contour my cheekbones and extend my eyelashes with mascara.
I’ve used the fabric from the stores to make three skirts, two dresses and one nightdress. My favourite is a dress I designed based on the one that Lyra wears in the episode where she and Jayden have to pretend to be married for a case.
It’s beautiful. Every time I try it on, my stomach does flips. I keep picturing the way that Jayden looked at Lyra when she wore that dress. His jaw dropped, a pink flush tinging the tips of his ears as he ran a hand through his hair.
It’s the way I’ve always wanted someone to look at me – with eyes full of awe and a smile that tries to hide it. When I imagine J seeing me wearing the dress, I can feel the fluttering pump of my heart against my ribs, lighter than air, and the rush I usually only get from reading cute fics fills my stomach.
I should make more clothes; a whole wardrobe of outfits for him to see me in. I have the time. When The Eternity arrives, I’ll be ready.
DAYS UNTIL THE ETERNITY ARRIVES:
100
From: UPR Sent: 15/02/2066
To: The Infinity Received: 17/11/2067
Subject: For Attention of The Infinity
Attachment: Lighting-schedule.exe [30 KB]
Commander Silvers,
Following previous communications to undertake improvements to The Infinity, please reduce the vessel’s temperature by one degree centigrade in all habitation areas, from 24°C to 23°C. This will save heating resources.
Please also limit light by 50 per cent by installation of the attached lighting scheduling software to ensure optimum efficiency.
Thank you for your cooperation.
All hail the UPR! May the King live long and vigorously!
I stare at my model farmhouse, which in the last few months has grown into a whole town made out of dinner packets. As well as my origami farm animals, I’ve populated it with people: a tiny Romy with a cutting of my hair glued on to a spoon head and ballpoint pen freckles, a J with cardboard limbs and a miniscule set of juggling balls, and a dozen children of different ages.
Model J is showing Model Romy how to plant seedlings outside the building. Near by a tissue-paper dog is digging up apple pip pebbles from the soil. A little boy is looking adoringly up at J, holding on to one trouser leg. There’s a tiny cotton-wool baby in Model Romy’s arms.
I’ve spent hours carefully building up my dream life. I’ve put all my hopes and desires and love into the model, wishing with every tin foil or string addition that one day it will come true.
Right now it feels like it will never happen. I thought a year would fly by, every day bringing me closer to J. Instead, time has slowed down, turning to tar that keeps me trapped here away from him. It’s an effort to get through a day.
I don’t know how much longer I can keep waiting.
There’s an ache, a throbbing in my skull, telling me that I’m cursed: by my mother, by the dead astronauts, by the UPR, by this ancient, failing ship.
They want me to turn off the lights for an extra four hours a day. The very idea makes me want to cry. I’ll be cornered, alone and awake, waiting until my designated daylight hours begin. Anything could creep up on me and I’d have no idea.
I’m not going to do it. I’m going to ignore them. The UPR are light years away – they can’t force me to do it.
My brain doesn’t seem to be listening. It skitters away from my insistence that I’m safe. Without any warning, I’m on the edge of a panic attack. I push my head into my sweaty palms, trying desperately to stop myself from doing this. My lungs seize up like there’s a strap around my chest. I can hear myself making thick wheezing noises.
I won’t do what they’ve asked. But even as I tell myself I won’t, I know that I will. I’m the commander. I have to do anything it takes, even if it’s a sacrifice, to look after my ship.
I’m going to have to turn off the lights.
My horror is so large it fills the room, pressing into every corner until there’s no air left for me. There’s no space to move. I can’t breathe, can’t make my limbs bend, can’t even blink. I’m drowning.
I’m not strong enough to do this. Why couldn’t someone else be here, in charge of this ship?
Anyone would be better than me.
That night I turn off the lights two hours earlier than usual and lie in my bunk, unable to sleep, straining my eyes to make out any traces of the ceiling in the black.
After an hour, the creeping panic gets too much for me and I fall into a fitful sleep.
DAYS UNTIL THE ETERNITY ARRIVES:
99
I wake up too early and can’t make myself go back to sleep because I’m desperate for the toilet. I’ve been getting into the habit of turning on the lights while I run to the bathroom, then turning them off again until the extra hours of assigned power saving are up.