The Edifice

21. Thirst and Clubbing

OLIVIA

"You'll need to be dressed up to get in where we're going," Lee had said earlier and I now do the best I can in front of his bathroom mirror while he changes downstairs.

We'd gone to what he called "Magic Target" for spare provisions earlier for spare clothes and toiletries. I'd found out it was just a regular Target when we arrived, albeit filled with a more unusual collection of stock. Lee's begun using "Magic" as a prefix for everything here, as though there were any possible way that I could forget that I wasn't on Earth anymore.

I can't blame him for trying to caution my recklessness though, after my behavior over the last few days.

Somewhere between "Magic Sushi Train" and "Magic Dollar Tree" though, I'd begun to enjoy falling into the rhythms of Lee's company. Not everything is the exact same as Earth, he'd schooled me as I'd enquired after a 'Magic Bed, Bath and Beyond".

Earth and the Edifice may be inextricably linked through time and space, but there was significant leeway for their own different paths of progression. Most events were static and shared, however.

The Edifice too, had shared two major world wars in the last hundred years, though for different reasons. Through magic, electricity had been a resource for thousands of years, but only in the last decade had they applied it through digital technology. I guess science is on a bit of a backburner when you can just spell anything you want into existence.

Humans are to blame too; Lee had informed me sternly. Eight years ago, there'd been a huge boom in art, technology and culture smuggled across from Earth. Until of course the Edifice had been forced to crack down on it as a form of insider trading.

What he doesn't mention is how he came to be as knowledgeable he is on exactly which items were smuggled and when. Or exactly how close that time-frame aligns with his travel here from Earth. Or how exactly how he came to own such a nice home just by doing psychic readings. I'm too polite to ask, of course.

"You decent?" Lee raps his knuckles on the bathroom door, snapping me out of my reverie.

"Uh, yeah!" I stutter back, pulling my dress down self-consciously.

It's a slinky black thing, pulled from the depths of the lost-and-found pile in Lee's hook-up drawer. All spaghetti straps and thigh slits, the minidress is several sizes too big for me, but I tuck it underneath the shimmering jacket Otis stole until it's unnoticeable. So long as you ignore the cheap Target heels, I could almost see the outfit blending with the strange, elegant fashion of Otis and his friends.

Lee nudges in beside me in front of the mirror and attempts to slick back his unruly curls with pomade.

It's difficult to tear my eyes away from him, even as every glance I sneak draws a hot, infernal blush to my cheeks.

He's forgone his all-black aesthetic in favour of a deep, royal purple undershirt, undone just one button past indecent. It tugs up past the waist of his dark jeans as he fixes his hair, showing a stretch of stomach and the shadow of hipbones. He is close enough that I can feel his body heat against my side and can't help but breathe in his aftershave. Inches away.

I strain to keep my hands from trembling as I apply a tentative coat of mascara. Lee's far more liberal with the makeup beside me, smudging eyeliner in practiced swipes like his eyes weren't already bruised enough with tiredness. He leans over me, oblivious to the wild fervour his proximity instils in me.

"Liv, your dress," he says lightly as he finally pulls back from behind me. I twist in the mirror to see what he means and to my horror realise why the thin straps keep falling off me. Among the volumes of black silk of his ex's dress I'd missed a long zipper, undone almost to the base of my spine.