Attached

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In everything they do together, Jupiter takes the lead.

It didn't reveal itself to her until someone pointed it out. And it wasn't meant for her hearing: a hushed exchange, a titter of laughter over the the sigh of robes and crystal glasses. They say horrible hings, she's well aware, and has become more practised in filtering it out. But it stays with her, this one, until it expands like a horizon over her days and nights, until it's all she can see.

Balem, acquiescing to her at court or in the forum. Balem, recognising her authority in the board room and public houses. He follows her so closely, yet always a step behind, knitted to her heels like a shadow. They go to dinner when she is hungry, and they retire to bed when she wants rest. She initiates intimacy when they are alone, and guides his hands, now here, now there, though he is not unwilling. He keeps his thoughts to himself, mostly, so that she must tease them out of him with artfully posed questions-if she pushes too much and touches something tender, he could shut up or lash out. Usually, though, he merely shrugs-no, not shrugs, Balem Abrasax doesn't shrug-but otherwise indicates a deference to her and her wishes.

How can she not have noticed before? It is not as though he is a splice, designed and conditioned for servitude; nor even a dog like Caine, loyal and willing to sacrifice. (Sweet Caine, quite literally puppy love.) On the contrary, Balem is deliberately engineered to be optimal at every level: a super-man the likes of which Nietzche could never dream. His very pores seep with privilege; one could touch it like a sheet of glass. A universe existing for its own sake without him? Beyond his imagination.

I create life. And I destroy it.

So somehow, she missed it; some time after their bargain. She'd been hyper-focused on just keeping balance, walking the political tight ropes so as not to drown in the shark tank. Ever alert. Her mind's eye flickering back and forth from problem to solution (like a gorgon, as soon as one's snuffed, two more rise up to take its place) even when her body's eye shut for sleep. Because-and she can hardly grasp it, the meaning and weight of it-she is First Primary now. And she is working as quickly and efficiently as she could manage. It is imperative that fail-safes be put in place in the case of her eventual death; so that, when the inheritance inevitably goes back to him, Balem's freedom for movement, within the framework of the intergalactic free market, will be wildly restricted. She intends to craft something for him as fit and fitted as the collar around his neck.

Still, he knows capitalism as a native language, so that it wouldn't do for her not to consult with him and keep him; especially now, when he is behaving himself. He is too precious a resource to dispense with. So she'd never considered it.

Her severe disinclination to temper tantrums cause him to search for more palatable outlets. Lately, he's retreated to swimming, floating for hours at a time in the water globe, what she calls a swimming pool. It is lovely, and sterile, like everything manufactured here. When she goes into him, there are two attendants, a man and a woman, and she can see through the rippling layers of water that Balem is naked. Shameless, she thinks, somewhere between annoyance and bewilderment. He holds his breath suspended in the watery sphere, held in place by the delicate claw that is anti-gravity. Jupiter moves closer with measured deliberateness, not quite able to unspool herself in the presence of strangers. His head breaks through the surface of the sphere with a hoarse gasp-how long has he been holding his breath?-and deftly grasping at the extraction platform as it floats in orbit, he pulls himself out of the water. He is at an awkward angle, so he rides the platform as it rotates for a few seconds until he finds it convenient to alight onto the marble below. The male attendant moves toward him with a drying cloth, and the female holds out his robe.

He slips this on absently, while greeting her. "Jupiter."

She traces the edge of her nail, over and over again, and his eyes skitter down to notice-of course he notices-and back up to her face.

"Shall we?" he says, so that she doesn't have to speak first. She nods, grateful. He shrugs off the attendants as effortlessly as he shrugged on the robe, and she follows him off of the deck into the adjoining room. The door slides shut behind them, even as window panels open to the flood of starlight, and they are alone.

They don't speak. Balem goes about his business unperturbed, pouring a drink, holding up the glass, growing bored with it before it reaches his lips. He clicks his fingers on the table, picking up a sheaf and setting it down, settling on a different one and finally sitting himself on the chaise lounge at the foot of the bed. This suits Jupiter fine, as she is trying to gather her thoughts like discarded garments, still worrying her thumbnail. She paces, finding some reprieve while her back is to him, then wading back into discomfort as she faces him again: his arm thrown over the back of the lounge, not looking at her, because he doesn't need to, he knows what she's doing.

There is a small noise from his throat, alerting her that he is about to speak. His hushed words expand and fill the cavity of the room. "The refinery on T1-32 is finding production transition rocky; something I've warned expressly. There have been more than the expected number of setbacks, strikes, even a terrorist attack, despite promised recompense." He pauses. "You don't like to send in the manpower, but I'm running out of ways to handle this with the kind of tact you require."

Jupiter is not with his words, and this he observes immediately. Because it is ever on her tongue, in her mind, the de-profitization of REGEN-X and the research into alternative and synthetic forms with similar effects. (It was easy to get Aegis on board with her agenda; for once, the Abrasax corporation slid over to allow them room for jurisdiction.) Balem lowers the sheaf down to peer at Jupiter with the permanent frown of his brow. She licks her lips and trains her eyes to different elements in the room: the comms by the door, dim starlight sprinkled over the ceiling, and the curtains moving to an invisible current, which couldn't possibly be wind; but not at him. "You don't want to talk about this." He sets the sheaf aside.

"No," she says, voice tainted.

He folds his hands into his lap and waits.

"I've...been thinking," she starts, and it sounds so immature that her cheeks heat. She's going to stutter, she knows it, so she has to get it out, before she butchers the message beyond understanding, or worse-changes her mind. "You-we-we're always together, you know?" She paces, so she doesn't have to see his brows twitch. "I mean, it's probably not good. I feel like I-like I probably influence you a lot-too much. I don't feel right about that. I don't feel," she swerves her body to face him but keeps her eyes on the ceiling, as if she can read her mind there, "I don't feel there's an equal power balance here."

Before he can indicate the profound disagreement she expects of this last confession, she hurries on. "I think it'd be better, for a while, if you went away."

With the words out she feels her courage congealing. She dares a look at him. "Yes. I think we ought to separate for a while. Give you some space. Room to be your own person," she says. There. But the feeling of incrementally increasing gravity does not leave her.

He is looking at her steadily in that too-calm way-the way that warns of storms brewing beneath tranquil waters. The muscles on his face tighten, not the way they do when he is trying for a smile. This is a different thing.

He lifts his chin with closed eyes, curving his head around like cat stretching. His eyes snap open. "You want to send me away," he repeats, voice lower than low, "from you."

Whatever she was about to says evaporates under his fixing stare. She nods.

He appears to consider this, then glances away; dismisses it. "No. No," he says, "I don't think I will."

Jupiter has not even considered such a response as a possibility, so it leaves her without footing, the ground sinking away from her. What is she to say now? She tightens her resolve. "It'll be fine. You can report to me every third cycle via telecom and - listen-," she is growing desperate, "you won't even have to go anywhere-I'll leave. I've wanted to take a tour with Aegis for a while now, and I'll be able to get a good look at my properties outside of Europa." She turns in full to him, with a supplicant kind of posture. "It will be good for us-for you-I don't like the the way I've been with you, either, it's like I'm your-"she stops there, voice catching.

"I don't want to control you," she adds, and it is so so gentle, a tremor in the starlight.

"Anyway, it's decided. Tomorrow we'll smooth out the details. I'll-I'll give you some space tonight."

Three strides from the chair. He has crossed to her so abruptly that she hardly registers. But he grasps her with those long, treacherous fingers, tight as a vice. The flames in his eyes lick at their corners and the trembling of his voice sparks, electricity in a vacuum.

She is dizzy, but she hears him loud and clear. "You are not. My Goddman. Mother."

The overwhelming sense of him, the passion roiling beneath his skin, keeps her mute for a small eternity. Then, they lock onto each other, two vessels lost at sea. "No," she breaths. "No, I'm not."

He exhales, the tension all that kept him standing. It evaporates like steam from a pressure-cooker, and he folds in on himself, so that his face is on her chest and she's half-supporting him while he slumps into her.

"No, I'm not," she says again. Her hands hover momentarily, then settle to cradle his head.

"Don't send me away from you."

"No. I won't send you away."

This final reassurance clicks into place, lock and key, and something opens. This time it is Balem who is kissing her, crushing her, drinking her in like so many delayed breaths.