Wendy and Kathy embraced each other in a slow dance that bore no relation to the music. Lee slid down, kneeling until her nose was just above the water, and watched them. Kathy's shoulders were beautifully wet, muscular, and tensed. Her olive tank top had turned black from the water. She stood a head shorter than Wendy, who had curly hair. Their kisses fell indiscriminately on neck, shoulders, forehead, mouth. Lee felt suddenly tired. Her wrist hurt, and it felt like something had been sucked out of her palm. She closed her eyes, like a child hiding her face to disappear. Kathy's and Wendy's embrace, the scene, the music, and the night . . . scattered. She took a tiny measure of control, making herself shed a few tears to get the clean rush that follows a good cry. The tears mixed indifferently with the over chlorinated water. She felt clarity returning.
When Bonita had touched her by the wall, something had rung a strange alarm in her. In her drunken randiness, it had excited her and overwhelmed her, but her initial response had been a warning from deep inside. She searched her memory for a similar feeling, but there was none. In this bar, she'd had dozens of encounters - casual, fleeting, and very safe. They had always left her with a sense of sisterhood, with rushes of delight, with the unfamiliar warmth of belonging. But there was something wrong.
When she opened her eyes, Bonita was in the pool across from her, also submerged to the chin. Her hair was wet, and clung tightly to her head. She looked different. There was no way to place the change; cheekbones, neck muscles, eyes all were slightly adjusted. It was so subtle only Lee's sharp eye for physiognomy could have noticed. Bonita's eyes registered as Lee's stare became aware. The shock of recognition passed between them.
************************************
A long time before, Lee had gone to Florida with a rich man she had known for a few weeks. The six days out of state had been awful. The sterile hotel, the insipid tourist nightlife, the plodding boredom of a single identity and a single lover had left her desperate to return to New York. There had been an ugly scene at the airport. She arrived home in the middle of the night. As she pulled her bag from the taxi's trunk, she recognized a passerby, and shouted to him. She had trained herself never to show recognition, but the familiar face brought tears to her eyes. She couldn't really remember who he was (just a local bartender) but the sense of being home was as overwhelming as if he had been a long, lost friend.
Now, meeting Bonita's eyes, she had the same feeling. There was the shock of seeing someone whom she felt she knew intimately. But it wasn't the moment of playful sex beside the speakers that bound her to Bonita, it was something deeper. There was the excitement of a new friend but also an overwhelming sense of being home. Then Bonita smiled, half friendly and half evil, and she was positive.
Bonita was another polymorph.
There was someone else like her.
Lee's vision clouded, and she thought for a moment that she had slipped underwater. The fumes of the chlorine burned like sulfur in her lungs. The music lost its volume as blood rushed to her head. The bright reflections of track lights on the water's tempest surface turned red. A thousand lives, spent alone, fell away.
When her vision cleared, Bonita was approaching slowly, gliding forward, only her head above the water. Their eyes were locked. There was no doubt that she also knew. Bonita took Lee under the arms and lifted her from the pool. She was very strong. She remained on her knees in the water and reached up to Lee's face. As Bonita's hand brushed her cheek, Lee felt a kiss from the palm, small moist lips surrounding the nip of a tiny set of teeth. She jerked her head back and saw the mouth resolve itself back into Bonita's palm. Bonita smiled up with her half-evil smile. She lay her head on Lee's lap.
In the relative cold outside the pool, in her fear (of Bonita's too-sudden morph, of having been seen for what she herself was), and in her sudden relief at being unique no longer, Lee shuddered. She leaned forward, cradling Bonita's head. She stroked Bonita's shoulders, wet and naked, and looked for the first time at another authored body. The ribs of Bonita's thin, arched back showed clearly, as did the sharp sternal muscles. The shoulders were as broad as a man's, and Lee saw how Bonita had arranged the leverage in her thin body to maximize its strength. Bonita leaned back, her arms still around the small of Lee's back. Lee saw how small Bonita's breasts were, as sharp and taut as tensed muscles. Her jaw seemed too wide and firm for her narrow neck, and it threw off her feminine, Italian beauty. In the bright track lights, the uncanny green eyes were stunning.
Bonita stood. In the shallow pool, her face was level with Lee's. Her forearms rested on Lee's shoulders. Her knowing smile hadn't wavered. Lee felt exhausted, but Bonita seemed sure of herself, almost casual. Their faces, their lips, were very close.
"I've been looking for you," said Bonita.
The possible meanings of the statement swirled in Lee's head. All she could muster was a questioning look. She wanted to say Please explain this. Explain everything. Explain who we are. But she knew instinctively that to do so would put her at Bonita's mercy. As overwhelmed as she was, Lee still held back her trust. Lodged fast in her throat was a kernel of fear, sustained by the mental image of the mouth she had seen disappear into Bonita's palm. She didn't trust the imagination that had formed that apparition just for the sake of a gesture. And there was another caveat, hovering at the edge of awareness. Lee had spent her whole life hidden. She couldn't bring herself to trust anyone who could see her for what she was. Not yet.
Bonita tilted her head, leaned forward so that her lips were inches from Lee's ear. "You're alone. Am I right?"
Slowly but surely, it dawned on Lee. The question had been quietly rising in her from the first second she had realized Bonita was a polymorph. In her initial confusion, it had been impossible to think about the question clearly. But it was inherent in the existence of another body-changer: Were there still more? Now Bonita had given her the answer. It was the source of Bonita's confidence, her surety. She had used the word alone to describe Lee because she, Bonita, was not alone.
There was no hiding that Bonita had the advantage. She leaned her head to Bonita's ear and spoke just above the music.
"There are more of us, aren't there?"
Bonita smiled her evil smile and said nothing. Lee despaired of simple answers.
Bonita's dropped an arm from Lee's shoulder and stroked her half-submerged calf. "Didn't you ever consider that you might not be the only one?"