Persephone Astrid's YarrJournal

Persephone Astrid tapped the wall-mounted panel which activated the sliding doorway into The Fighting and Drinking Pub. She recognized many of the regulars in the mid-afternoon crowd as she crossed the floor to her favorite bar stool and pulled it back from beneath the bar. It had been a week since her last visit; she had spent the preceding week sedated in the space station’s medical center.

“Well welcome back, Persephone! I’m glad you pulled through,” Hap greeted her from behind the bar. He started to reach for an acrylic mug, then stopped short. He looked her up and down with one eyebrow raised. “That’s a new look for you.” Persephone wore a white tee-shirt tucked into baggy combat trousers, which were in turn tucked into laced-up combat boots. Her bobbed black hair was pulled back to the nape of her neck and bound into a stubby ponytail which pointed down her neck.

“Glad to be back, thank you,” Persephone replied, plopping into the bar stool. “I’m trying something different with this style. I’ll tell you all about it. But first, can I try something other than the usual?”

“Of course,” Hap replied. “What’ll it be?”

“I want to try a smart bomb,” Persephone replied decisively.

Hap almost choked. “A smart bomb? Seriously?”

“F’real,” Persephone nodded.

“Well, okay,” Hap replied, opening a red steel cabinet beneath the bar with a bold white FLAMMABLE placard on its face. He poured grain alcohol from a bottle which sported a flame arrestor into a small glass and added a dash of grenadine, and set it on the bar in front of Persephone, next to a shot of whiskey. (A smart bomb is served with a whiskey chaser to soothe the palate.)

Persephone reached for the shot of flavored grain alcohol, but then paused as Hap gestured for her attention.

“Too soon?” she asked.

“I just want to ask before you incapacitate yourself,” Hap chuckled. “What’s with the outfit and the sudden interest in explosive beverages?”

“Oh, you’re not going to believe it,” Persephone began matter-of-factly. “I’m not sure I believe it myself. I’ve been out for a week, right? I was in the medical center the whole time, well parts of me anyway.”

“I knew some of that,” Hap replied, nodding. “You had a pretty nasty brush with perma-death I heard. They barely got you put back together. So you’ve decided to change your life as a result, is that it?”

“Hm? Oh, no, not like that,” Persephone replied, gesturing as if to shoo that idea away. “When they were putting my brain back into my– well, my mind back into my brain, it turned out that there was a bit of damage from the near miss with death, so the only way they could make it fit properly was to make a few alterations.”

“What kind of alterations?” Hap asked with curiosity. He looked Persephone over once more. She didn’t look brain-damaged to him.

“Apparently,” Persephone said, then paused. She frowned briefly. How should I tell him? Just say it I guess. “So I have a guy’s brain now. I mean, I’m the same old me, but there’s some gland in my brain that’s going to make me want to be a guy. How weird is that?”

“That’s especially weird all right,” Hap said, glancing up and down the bar and hoping nobody had overheard. He spoke quietly: “You’re not playing a joke on me, are you?”

“Cross my heart,” Persephone replied, leaning forward. “Since I came to, I’ve had all kinds of weird urges, and I’m not gonna lie: I don’t think I’ve ever been so horny in my entire life, it’s like it never ends. How do you guys stand it?”

“Why do you think men fight all the time?” Hap asked, smirking. “It gets better around forty or so, anyway.” He glanced around the bar, verifying that he was still in reality and not in some kind of phantasmal dream world. “Okay, so let’s assume you’re stuck with a male brain. What’s your plan from here?”

“I guess I’ll follow my instincts,” Persephone replied. “You can’t fight that, can you?”

“I suppose not,” Hap replied. He considered a potential problem that might arise. “You’ve talked to Mynxee, right?”

“Not yet,” Persephone replied with a long sigh as she looked down at her hands. “I came straight here from the medical center. I guess I won’t fit in well in an all-female corporation anymore, will I?” When she looked up again, Hap was not where she expected. Instead, he was angrily striding the length of his bar toward the entryway.

“Hey you, you’re not welcome here,” Hap said firmly to the newcomer who stood framed in the open doorway wearing a baggy capsuleer’s jumpsuit. Persephone looked to the newcomer and recognized him from his pilot’s license photo as Icer Xx, the would-be suitor who had stalked her in Evati for nearly a month.

“Hap,” she called out. “Hang on a second, please?”

Hap looked over his shoulder at Persephone for a long moment, then relented with a nod. “All right.” He pointed at Icer. “You, come in, sit there.” He pointed at the stool next to Persephone’s. Icer approached the designated bar stool warily, aware that every eye in the pub was following his progress. Once he sat, the murmur of a dozen conversations resumed.

“Some welcome,” He said to Persephone, laying eyes on her in person for the first time. He looked her over, comparing the woman seated next to him to her license photo. “Hey, you look a lot different on your license.”

“Yeah, I’m trying something new,” she replied vaguely, evaluating Icer in person as well. He smelled faintly of a popular body spray, and his jumpsuit’s collar was popped jauntily.

Icer looked toward Hap, who glowered down at him with his permanently-bloodshot eyes like a hawk. “Bourbon and Quafe?” Icer asked, his eyebrows arched as if to say what’s your fucking problem?

“Say please.” Hap said flatly, his arms crossed.

“Please,” Icer said, bobbing his head in frustration. “Look, I’m not here for trouble.”

“You don’t need to tell me that,” Hap said matter-of-factly as he poured the mixed drink. He set the drink on the bar in front of Icer, but kept his hand on the glass. Hap resumed glaring at Icer and he waited with elaborate patience. After a pause, Icer realized what Hap wanted and fished in the pocket of his coveralls for a bank card, which he placed flat on the mahogany and then slid across the bar. Hap picked up the card, swiped it in a plastic reader mounted to the bar, then slid it back, leaving it in front of Icer again. He released his grip on the drink and turned away to tend to his other patrons.

“What’s up with that?” Icer asked, eyeing Hap’s back. He took a sip from his drink and tried not to think about what Hap had probably just charged him for it.

“You’re not popular around here,” Persephone replied with a shrug. “I’m not sure why I spoke up for you.”

“Oh come on,” Icer smiled, turning to face Persephone. Seemingly from nowhere he turned on the charm, and smiled confidently. “You know why you did that.”

Oh dear God, Persephone thought. He’s still in love with me. Persephone raised her hand, palm toward Icer. “Before you start,” she said. “There’s something I need to ask you.” She watched his eyes closely.

“Oh? What’s that?” he replied, intrigued. His eyes glimmered.

“Could you love a man?”

Icer stared, motionless. The glimmer vanished.

“What?” he asked, the WH- sound whistled as he said it.

“Could you love a man?” Persephone repeated, spacing the words out for emphasis, gesturing with both hands as she tried to explain the peculiar situation. “I’m, uh, going through some changes.”

Icer stared at Persephone, then looked down at his drink. He took a long pull on it, halfway draining the glass. “You could have just said ‘no’ or something,” he said sullenly. “God, you’re weird.”

“It’s not a dodge,” Persephone tried to explain. “I’m just as confused about this as you are.”

Icer stood from his bar stool and picked up his glass. He gestured at Persephone with it, accusingly. “No, no. You’re confused. I’m fine,” he said. He pointed at an empty booth on the other side of the pub. “I’m going to sit over there now.”

Persephone sighed and watched him go.

“That could have gone better,” she mumbled.

“Is he gone yet?” Hap asked archly as he returned from the other end of the bar. He sighed. “Look, I have an errand to run just as soon as Rayford gets here. I called him in early tonight.” Rayford usually handled the evening and overnight shift in the pub.

“Oh okay,” Persephone replied. “What’s up?”

“Just business matters, nothing important,” Hap lied. Mentally he was already sorting though a long list of possible questions he would ask the doctors at the medical center, such as ‘What kind of quack bullshit is this?’ or ‘How could you bungle your job up so badly that you’ve turned Persephone into a man?’ or even ‘How would you like it if I shoved this blaster rifle up your arse and gave you an antimatter enema, you twisted fucks?’

To Hap, the last entry on the list seemed the most satisfying, but would probably be the least productive.

“Just need to talk to some people about some things,” Hap said dismissively. “Totally routine.”

To be continued.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 27th, 2009 at 9:23 pm and is filed under IC Fiction. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.