Paralax - The Dipole Series science fiction adventure

 

 

He stepped out of the shower and almost bumped into Mona Lisa.

She stopped in the middle of the corridor, inches away from his still damp skin and stared up at him with oversized eyes.

“Jesus, Bat,” she breathed.
He could look down and see the flush of her cheeks, the hint of color creeping up her neck.
Her eyes dilated, her breath came in short quick pants as her eyes drifted over his bare torso.

It looked like it had been carved from some tan colored stone, etched by an artist who admired Michelangelo but insisted on a more comic book interpretation of the male form.

All the muscles were massive, packed and sheathed under thin skin, like a soft from anatomy map.

Everything was oversized, from his biceps to pectorals, to sloping muscles down his back to where they tapered to a trim waist hidden in a towel that looked too small.

“They were designed like that,” Junebug announced from the speaker.

“Stop watching me,” Mona Lisa answered.

“I am the ship,” the AI stated. “I can not help but watch.”

“I can take the shower watch,” Tinker’s voice crackled next to the AI’s.

“I mean, not Bat’s, obviously. But I can watch you shower. It’d be like when I watch you sleep, only with more suds.”

“You watch me sleep?”

“What?”

“You said you watch me sleep,” Mona Lisa didn’t take her eyes off Bat.

And he didn’t move either.

Just stood in front of her like a wall of massive flesh, breathing in her scent drifting up to him.

“Did I say that?” Tinker said. “Can’t trust what comes out of my mouth when I’ve been drinking. Because watching you while you sleep-,”

“Would be weird,” she finished for him.

“That’s what I was going to say,” he slurred. “It would be weird.”

“So you’re not going to do it.”

“Right.”

“Say it.”

“I did. I said right.”

“Say, you’re not going to watch me sleep anymore.”

“You’re not going to watch me sleep any more.”

“You know what I mean!” she snapped at the speaker in the wall above the alcove doorway.

She shook her mane of curly hair at Bat, as if to say see what we have to put up with?

“I’m not going to watch you sleep,” Tinker finished.

“Junebug?”

“Yes?”

“Can you cut the feed to whatever monitor he’s looking at so he can’t perve it out?”

“Hey!” Tinker complained. “I’m the pilot of this ship. I have to have eyes on everything.”

“You can keep your eyes to yourself,” Mona Lisa told him. “And Junebug?”

“Yes?”

“Can you cut the shower feed while you’re at it? There’s no reason anyone needs to see anyone else in there.”

“Don’t you want to watch Bat?”

“What?” No,” the pretty woman stammered. “Why would I watch him cleaning up?”

“Your elevated heart rate and heat signature indicate that his proximity is stimulating your pleasure centers,” the AI explained. “I extrapolated that you might derive that same feeling from observation of him in the act of showering.”

“Nobody cares about my pleasure centers,” Tinker whined through the speaker.

“No!” Mona Lisa said. “I do not want to watch him shower.”

“Are you certain?”

“Just cut the feed, okay?”

“The feed is cut.”

She nibbled on her lower lip and cast her eyes up at the big man, gave a small shake of her head.

“Can you believe that?” she sighed.

“Yes.”

“You can?”

“Yeah,” Bat said and stepped closer so he could pass by.

The corridor was too narrow and they had to turn sideways to pass each other.

Mona Lisa had to put a hand out to keep her balance, and felt the heat of his fresh washed skin near her face as he went by.

“Besides,” said Bat as he slipped the common room the whole crew shared. “You bite your lip when you lie.”

“I do not,” she said to his back as he disappeared.

She pushed her lip out just to show him, just to be sure, but he was gone.

Then she took a deep breath.

She could still smell him.

Mona Lisa shook her head and stood there, waiting for it to go away.