I don't know exactly what happens after that. I know I punch something and begin coughing, and I know I slam the door to the computer room behind me without even clicking out of the database which is tremendously stupid, just as the school bell rings. I weave around pre-teens as they mill around in the hallway, desperate to get out of here. Many of these kids are doomed, many of them will have tests which will show dangerous markers or worthless skills and end up just like me. And they're still happy and laughing and complaining about class and homework and I can't take it. I think I push one of them out of my way and only give a faint "sorry" as I run outside into the fresh air. I want to scream at somebody, but my legs find their own way around cobble stone streets, past silly people deemed benign by a stupid test. I fall over a curb somewhere and somebody asks me if I'm alright, but I ignore them. Somehow, I make it to the market square by total luck, but it's obvious this is the place Hera talked about. There are flea markets with tents and parasols for the setting sun lined up all through the pedestrian street, food trucks and stands selling pretty homemade dolls and other knick-knacks nobody really cares about. My breath is ragged to my own ears and I get a few funny looks, probably because I look like a psychopath on medication in the middle of a panic attack – I sure feel like it. I have no idea how to breathe properly and there's this tightening in my chest, much like when I was on my drug withdrawal, which makes me certain I'm going to die.
And then I notice a red building with the number eleven in brass on the front. It takes me forever to locate P. Saito which has to be Paula the medic friend between the door phone names, and when I finally do I press it long and hard and multiple times. A slightly annoyed female voice with a heavy accent, apparent even through the scratchy connection, answers.
"Who is this?" it says.
"I need to talk to Anton," I all but yell into the door. There is a moment's pause.
"There's no Anton here," it says. "You have the wrong apartment."
"Please," I say. "Tell him it's Noah."
There is another, way too long silence which drags on for forever, but then the door buzzes and I crash into it and stumble into the foyer, leaving the sunny market square behind. I scramble upward and fall several times on the steps until I reach the floor where a petite Japanese woman with raven-black hair the length of her jaw and heavy dark eye-makeup. She looks about ready to head out with her hat and her purse and shoes. Behind her, I can see Anton peeking out behind his glasses, his auburn hair as floppy and messy as always. He's wearing a long-sleeved shirt which is hanging on him and baggy jeans two sizes too big.
"Yes, it's him," Anton says and Paula takes a second look at me. Then snorts, packs a gun into her purse and steps aside for me to enter. I rush inside and fling myself at Anton who stumbles back a step as his arms go around me.
"Don't ruin anything," Paula says and then I hear the door close behind her with a loud slam.
"Noah," Anton says and pulls my arms away from him so he can hold me out to look at me. I feel big fat hot tears roll down my cheeks, drowning my taste buds in salt and water. I shake my head and begin gasping for air, which only makes Anton's eyes grow even more worried. "What happened?"
"Your mother," I gasp, "Where is she?"
"My mum?" he asks perplexed and takes my hand which I only now realize is bleeding from whatever I hit in the school. "She's in a meeting with somebody who wants her to publicly talk about her time in the White House, Noah what's going on?"
"I can't breathe," I quack and grab at my jacket to tear it off and fling it into a vase with flowers which wobbles and falls on the floor, smashing to a thousand pieces. Then I kick the table it was standing on out of good measure.
"What are you doing, stop it," Anton says as the table clutters against the wall, one leg breaking off with a satisfying crack. I can't find out if it's the room shaking or me.
"No!" I shout and fight off his hands as he tries to grab me. "Get off me!"
"You're having a panic attack," Anton says and wrestles me to the floor. "You need to breathe."
I don't believe Anton has a violent bone in his body, but he's stronger than me and I can already feel the rush I got from my anger ebb and my vision clearing. He pins me to the floor, hands on my wrists, and uses his legs to keep mine down though I kick and scramble underneath him.
"Breathe!" Anton says, and I do – forcing myself to take deep breaths until I have to admit I'm calming down. "What the Hell happened?" Anton then demands. Somehow his glasses have come off in the fight. Part of me is weirdly aware that I can't roll over them – he'd never forgive me.
"They killed her," I manage to get out and can feel my own face flare with hatred. "The test, the Government killed her because the frikken Middle School test told them so!" And it's because of me, I want to yell, but a wave of sobs interrupts me.
I see Anton's face thaw in comprehension. His grasp on my arms loosen but he doesn't let go. Of course, his mum has told him too. How could she not? A brief part of me wonder what Anton's test scores said, with all the speeches he's been giving lately about peace they must have shown something. But maybe being the Potentate's son the test was different for him, or maybe, if he was deemed dangerous, it was buried deeply in nepotism. Maybe that's why the world state was kept from him for all of his life.
"My sister died so those bastards can keep raping pigs," I say, but my fight is gone. I lie on the floor, feeling air rush in and out of my body which is heavy as a stone. Anton's face is contorted in pain, something so far off his usual smile, and he looks more tired than I've ever seen him before. If the Potentate really was his father I might want to hurt him just for being related to that monster, but he's not and I can't bear Anton in pain. But of course, he is already. He's blaming himself like he always does for everything. If there is a kid with a scraped knee in Africa, Anton will find a way to guilt himself into believing it's his fault.
"I'm sorry," he whispers.
"No," I sneer forcefully, and suddenly I'm also angry at Potentate Thelonious for putting his adopted son in this position. "It's not your fault. You're not the Potentate, you're so much better and kinder, and if you'd known what was going on you'd have stopped it."
"But it's still happening," Anton croaks and sucks in a breath through his teeth, letting go of my hands to support himself against the floor. "My mum told me about the test," he says with a wobbly voice. "She didn't tell me about your sister though, I am so sorry Noah. My dad killed her. He killed your flesh and blood while I loved him."
And then his eyes fill up and then there's two of us, crying in the middle of the floor. What can I say to him? I can only come up with lies.
"He's your father," I say gently with my voice still thin and forever hoarse. I sit up to take his face in my hands. It's wet and hot and his freckles have absolutely multiplied, forming new unexplored constellations. "Of course, you loved him. He," I swallow as a sob goes through his body. "We'll figure it out, okay? We'll find a way to make it alright again. You don't have to carry all of these burdens alone."
He looks at me for a long time, and I try for a smile I know never reaches my eyes. I don't know who moves first, I just know that we crash together like colliding stars. He kisses me as if he hasn't learned the meaning of oxygen, as if I'm all that's keeping him together. I kiss him back, ferociously, repeatedly. My whole body awakens, responds to him in a way it has never responded to anyone else. His lips move with mine, crush them, open up to allow me everything I've ever wanted it seems. The hesitation which has been with us every night in the White House is nowhere to be found. There is only Anton – his smell and his touch and it's intoxicating.
"We can't," he growls and breaks the kiss. His whole face is flushed, complementing his hair. I nod and lick my lips, still trying to figure out how my lungs work.
"Sorry," I gasp.
"No," Anton says, his eyes wide and alive despite the bags underneath them. "I meant not in the living room. Aunt Paula could walk in, or my mum, but I, I have my own room."
He's doing that cute thing where he stumbles for words, and there it is again: In the middle of all the grief and hollow promises and guilt, that unsatisfiable want to be as close to him as I can get.
"Show me," I say. Anton presses his lips together in determination before pulling me up with him. We're both trembling, shaking as he leads me through a pair of doors and into a small white room with a desk piled with papers of half-finished notes and a pad charging. There's a window but the curtains are taped shut over it, a precaution I imagine, so nobody will notice the Potentate's son. There isn't much else except a turned down picture on a dresser and a bed with blue sheets. Anton is still shaking when I turn to him, enough it worries me.
"Anton, we don't have to do anything," I say.
"I know," he says and closes the door before he takes a step towards me and gently touches my chin. "But chances are there's going to be a revolution, and there's no telling what will happen. And I love you, and I want you. And I think those are pretty good reasons."
"I love you too," I say and touch his hand. Then I lean my head against his and I feel him take a deep breath. "If I do anything wrong," I whisper. "Tell me to stop, okay?"
Anton nods against my forehead, and then I cup his face and kiss him. Want immediately flares up again inside of me, a want so primitive it can only be satiated one way. Anton kisses me back with an unexpected ferocity and I feel the hairs on his arms rise at my touch. I pull him with me down on the bed which smells just like him, determined to make it every bit as enjoyable for him as I can. I kiss his cheek and his jaw and his throat, and he gasps as I move to his collarbone where I begin dragging his shirt upwards. He helps me get it up over his head and I toss off my own. Anton's eyes darken as he looks at me, and I relish in it. He reaches up and lightly touches the puzzle necklace around my throat, but if he knows of its significance as a symbol he doesn't say so. He's too busy trying to figure out whether he's allowed to touch the rest of me, and I understand him. We've never had this much skin to skin contact before, there's always been layers of clothing separating us. It's a whole unexplored ocean figuring out how to be together without those layers, but I want to dive head first into it – God do I want to. I want to learn every line of his body, know his most intimate parts. I want to be more familiar with his body than I am my own. And I want it now.
With a customer I'd go slower, make them savor every sensory input. With Anton 'slow' isn't an option. It's frenzied and hurried and filled with sparking electricity short-circuiting my nerves. I can hear Anton's heart pound in his chest, blood flush in his veins as I kiss my way down his chest, his naval. He hides his face in his hands as I begin unbuckling his belt, which makes me laugh.
"Do you want a blindfold or something?" I ask, half-expecting him to stop me as he's done a few times before in the White House when the nights weren't ours alone.
"No," he groans muffled against his palms. "And stop laughing at me," which makes me laugh even more. I crawl up on top of him again and he looks out through his fingers.
"I love you," I whisper, which makes him take a shaky breath and move his hands away from his face. I take the chance to kiss him, keeping his mouth occupied as I unbuckle his belt and my own and we both kick off our jeans and I my shoes and socks. I feel my way downwards until I reach him. When I do, Anton gasps and his whole body tightens, and I smile at him and keep telling him I love him and he keeps kissing me, and when he comes, he shudders and pulls me close to dig his fingernails into my back like he never intends to let go.
When he opens his eyes again, his pupils are dilated and active. Still feeling the remnants of the orgasm, we lie down side by side, breathing hard. Outside the twilight is bathing the room in the colors from the curtain and sets fire to Anton's hair. For a moment, none of us speak. I feel an odd sort of pride rushing my system, at being able to do what I did to his body. At rendering him speechless like this. At the awe in his face when he looks at me and licks his lips.
"Is it always like that?" he whispers, afraid to disturb our bubble I imagine.
"No," I say and shake my head, snuggling closer to him. As close as I can get. "Most people last a lot longer."
"God," Anton says and squeezes his eyes together, but he's smiling.
"I'm kidding," I say and wrap my arms around him, happy when he reciprocates my embrace. Before I met Anton, I'd never been much for smells. Food smells are always good at making my stomach realize it's hungry, and of course I know how Garmen smells of pink drinks, but the Cave always bears a smoky and flowery scent which overrides everything. Lying here, enveloped in Anton's arms and able to smell his shampoo and his skin and the leftovers of what we've just done, I can't believe I ever dismissed smell as an insignificant sense.
I'm about to say something about it when I hear a faint snore coming from Anton's chest. I look up and see that his eyes are closed, and then I lightly touch his jaw and the faint stubble which is beginning to adorn him. He's going to make a handsome man one day, freckles and all, but he still looks so young in his sleep. I gently move my fingertips up underneath his eyes and touch the dark lines. Then I pull the blanked up over both of us and close my own eyes, rocking to sleep by Anton's breathing and his warmth.