Sabre Dance

The lightbulbs that framed Ani’s make-up mirror sizzled and sparked. Last week her false eyelashes had caught on fire; tonight she stayed well back as she applied her powder.

She glanced at the atomic clock and sighed. It seemed like forever before Lala rushed in, accompanied by the techno-beat of Salty Sal’s Privates of the Caribbean. As the door closed behind her, the music faded, but only to a slightly less deafening boom.

Ani slapped her puff onto the dressing table and scowled at her twin. “You’re late.”

Lala flashed an apologetic smile. “Sorry.”

Ani rose, wincing as pain arced through her left hip, the way it always did when she stood up by herself. She hooked a thumb into their conjoined G-string and stretched it toward Lala. It was black satin, studded with CoRoT-7b crystals, strategically placed. They glinted in the harsh light.

Without a word, Lala stripped off multiple layers of insulated clothes. She climbed into her half of the thong, leaning on Ani’s shoulder for support. Lala’s hand was icy, but Ani snuggled into her sister anyway, at long last feeling whole again. With hip clinging to hip, the way nature had created them, bliss supplanted pain.

Ani peeped over her shoulder at their reflection. For the moment, the scars from their childhood separation were obscured. The procedure had taken place so long ago, but the sadness never went away.

Goggling Bob poked his bald head into the dressing room, taking a moment to check them out, his many eyes unreadable. “You’re next,” he said, before moving on.

Lala slid an arm around Ani, giving her a sideways hug. “You okay?”

Ani nodded. “But I don’t know how much longer …”

They turned toward each other and embraced in their three-quarter way. Ani’s left breast squashed her sister’s right. The zing of flesh on flesh was exhilarating.

“How was the Market today?” Ani asked, as they picked their way along the dusty hallway toward the wings. Even in five inch heels, their footsteps were fairy-light.

“Interesting,” Lala said. “Tell you about it in a minute.”

The jaunty nautical music ended, followed by a few seconds of jarring silence. From somewhere beyond the footlights, a lone fan whistled and stomped. Salty Sal, stripped down to her ironic codpiece and eyepatch, brushed past, fluttering a slim fistful of bills.

An amped-up disco version of Khachaturian’s Sabre Dance began to thump. If only they could perform to something—anything—else; they’d tried, but this musical salute to their earthly heritage remained their only surefire money-maker. They arched their eyebrows at each other before twining their way onto the stage, hips united but arms sinuous and free.

 “Take it off,” an octoman yelled. He flapped a swollen tentacle onto the stage.

Ani stepped over it. This was their act. She’d take it off when she damn well pleased.

“So, fill me in,” Ani whispered in her sister’s ear. She ran her tongue down Lala’s neck and was rewarded with a lusty groan from the audience. Someone out there must be a robotoman—there seemed to be gears grinding in rhythm with their music.

“One sec.” Lala peek-a-booed one of Ani’s nipples and pretended to bite it. That earned them a smattering of applause.

Ani extended her neck back to its fullest extent, simulating rhapsody. “Go on.”

 “Oh, yeah. Well, SpaceX’s up—way up. Can you believe it?” Lala stroked the small of Ani’s back.

Ani gyrated, pulling her sister along for the ride. “Good for you. You called it.”

More applause sounded, and some half-enthusiastic ululations from an aquivarian, too. Maybe the evening wouldn’t be a bust after all.

“We’ve made ten grand—in two days!” Lala breathed heavily. Money always had that effect on her.

Cymbals smashed, and the music abruptly ended, as Ani and Lala deftly unhooked each other’s bras and dangled their breasts at the mildly stimulated audience. Two earth men held up cash and the sisters sashayed over to accept it. The octoman pointed at his crotch. His fly was open and a serious stash of bills was poking out, along with a bent half-erection. Ani and Lala smiled at each other, then dipped gracefully and nibbled out their earnings, to the accompaniment of his bubbling moans.

As they made their way to the dressing room, Lala counted their tips. “Not bad. I’ll add to our position in SpaceX first thing tomorrow.”

“Keep picking winners. We need to retire,” Ani said.

She pushed her body firmly against Lala’s, feeling their scarred hips meld and their pulses throb as one. When Lala started to wiggle her way out of their shared G-string, Ani grabbed her sister’s hands and stopped her. In the end, when Lala shook her off, Ani’s heart contracted with sorrow.

Outside, bundled against the cold, the twins separated, Lala boarding the eastbound con-vehicle, like it was natural for a body to split apart and wave goodbye to itself. Tears froze to Ani’s cheeks, as she limped toward the basement apartment, where she lived her half-life as a half-person. On this sterile street, as snowflakes drifted down, she wept—mourning her mutilation and her loneliness.

“Maybe we’ll have enough soon to buy a condo,” she whispered, and clung to the thought, the way a shipwrecked Salty Sal might cling to some jetsam. “I can’t keep stripping for all the jerks in the galaxy.”

Upstairs, the noisy marsupialien students were knocking around, probably leaping in and out of each other’s pockets like the idiots they were. Disgusting little creatures, but at least they understood the importance of togetherness.

Ani’s deformed hip screamed a protest, as she fell to her knees. She raised her linked hands in prayer. “Save us from cosmic filth. Deliver us into prosperity.” She lowered her forehead to the floor in utter obeisance. “And most crucial of all: reunite us, Universe—please.”