Watcher's Web

Watcher's Web Chapter 9

Bathed and smelling of mint, Jessica followed Ikay and her Amazons back into the main hall. A mass of people gathered, talking and waiting around steaming pots. The white in their skin patterns showed up brightly, as if the light had a strong ultraviolet component. Large eyes glinted. Jessica felt vulnerable. After coming out of the water, Ikay had given her a thin belt to wear around her waist, so there was nowhere to hide. She was so tall, and her skin was so white it almost glowed. People stared—they always did. A seventeen year old girl in the body of an adolescent boy. No curves, no femininity.

Hands, tails and other body parts slithered past her as she struggled to keep up with Ikay. Air stroked her skin in places normally well-covered. Drops of water ran from her still-wet hair down her spine into her bum-crack, leaving her with the uncomfortable feeling she had pissed herself.

She scanned the ever-moving crowd for a sign of her clothes, but there were so many bodies and with their stripes and spots it was hard even to tell them apart.

Under the first floor gallery, a group of older males sat amongst bowls of white and black paint, using fine brushes to accentuate skin patterns on the backs of those seated before them. Others threaded beads into each other’s hair.

Ikay pushed Jessica down on pillows amongst the group. With a chatter of vowel-deprived words, two males crawled over to apply black paint to her shoulders, one using his tail, while the other passed her a bowl from which rose a rich spicy smell. Finally, food. Jessica was so hungry she gulped the fishy balls and gooey sauce without wondering if they might contain poisons her body couldn’t digest.

She gave the empty bowl to a young boy who walked past collecting them. Ikay and her Amazons had disappeared.

Jessica tried to get up, but a wave of dizziness came over her. She stumbled; the belch welling up from her stomach tasted of rancid fish and acid.

Sweat broke out all over her body. God—she wasn’t going to spew, was she? What would she do? Over the heads of Pengali she identified two emergency exits: the main entrance, but it was guarded by two sentries, and an archway into a dark room on the other side, where a steady stream of people came and went.

In the middle of the hall, a couple of youths dragged out drums and an impromptu dance started. Males and females lined up to meet on the floor. Under loud cheering, each couple so formed danced together before moving aside for the next couple. Jessica was jostled to join in. Onlookers brayed laughter, pointing at her fake skin patterns.

She shuffled in the heaving mass of bodies smelling of the gunk that came from the bottom of her mother’s outdoor fish pond. Thinking of what to do when her stomach would no longer obey her orders, of what to do when she got to the end of the line and was supposed to dance. And the line before her kept getting shorter.

On the floor, a leopard-spotted male met a young giggling girl, took her by the hands in a whirling dance. The girl, eyes wide, laughed clear like crystal. Then the man stopped, put his hands on her hips and kissed her. The onlookers cheered.

The grey-haired Amazon, Maire, who took the floor next, wasted no time in getting herself into the arms of the handsome young male fate dealt her. Sharing passionate kisses, they moved as one across the floor, their tails intertwined, curling around their hips rocking in time to the drumbeats. When the onlookers cheered, the young male grabbed Maire’s hand and pulled her after him through the crowd.

The next couple took the floor. Jessica panicked, felt bile rise in her throat. Hands pushed her forward. No, she would not throw up. At least not here.

Between the mass of bodies, she glimpsed Maire on a pillow near a tree trunk, her unmistakable leopard spotted back undulating in slow rhythmic movements, her tail curling around hands that gripped her sides.