Promises Made

Virgil walked behind Arsene as they navigated a narrow set of stairs deep in the bowels of Jardin. Arsene had Robin slung over their shoulders, who had passed out seconds after returning from the veil.

Virgil wasn’t entirely sure how she and Arsene were still inside of Jardin. The building took up a corner of a dockside block on the Strip and was only three stories tall, but Virgil felt like she and Arsene had walked enough corridors to be Downtown by now and that was without wondering how exactly these stairs seemed to still be going up.

Virgil was pretty sure she saw a door and lights off in the distance. Virgil couldn’t figure out what were the color of the lights that were peeking out of the cracks of the unreachable portal. The lights always seemed to change just when Virgil thought she caught a glint of red or purple or orange.

Virgil hadn’t had a clear idea of where exactly she planned on taking Robin after she broke Todd’s wrist, but Virgil wanted to be well clear of the Strip before cops showed up. Arsene had assured her the pigs wouldn’t be a problem.

“Don’t you worry your head, little ghost. You and your friend are in no danger here.” Virgil could not place Arsene’s accent although she was fairly certain it wasn’t French or Laotian.

Arsene had walked towards Robin and Virgil slowly and with their hands up and then picked Robin up like she was a sleeping kitten and gently laid her over their shoulders. Arsene was still in their mod girl outfit. Arsene’s face was lined and their hair was starting to gray, but their tan, muscular shoulders carried Robin without noticeable burden.

Arsene didn’t even wrinkle their dress.

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June 20th, 2009 – Part 2

Virgil assured herself that she’d had honorable intentions when she’d first shown up at Robin’s apartment.

Virgil knew where things were heading. This was becoming a relationship. Virgil was 86 years old, and she’d never been in a relationship before. She’d never been able to stay solid for this long.

Virgil had flings. She’d been a regular at Jardin for decades, but she had never had an honest-to-god girlfriend before.

Virgil knew that Robin wasn’t her girlfriend yet but she also knew that a relationship was what Robin was starting to want. It was what Virgil wanted too. Before Robin got anymore attached, Virgil had to tell her the truth. She had to tell Robin that she was dead.

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June 20th, 2009

[Author’s Note: This chapter of Orchid was initially scheduled to go up on October 28th. Nic and I decided to delay publication of this part of our story after the shooting at the synagogue in Pittsburgh out of respect to the victims and family of that horrific tragedy.

If you’ve been reading Orchid from the beginning, you may remember that one of our heroines, Robin Goldberg, is a young Jewish woman living in Squirrel Hill, Pittsburgh’s historically Jewish neighborhood. This chapter was going to be our first return to Robin’s part of the story since the second chapter. Like myself, Robin is a secular, non-practicing Jew who still takes great pride in her cultural heritage. However, as this chapter deals with contemporary anti-Semitism and how white nationalists use the internet as a platform to intimidate Jews and queer folks and people of color, Nic and I felt it was appropriate to let ourselves and others continue to grieve over the loss in Pittsburgh before we told a story about our own experiences with modern anti-Semitic violence.]

Robin brushed her hair as she got ready for her fourth date with Virgil.

A relationship had not been in Robin’s day planner for that summer. She was done with school. Robin had a summer to herself before she started teaching full time. She had thought maybe she’d make another movie. Robin had an idea for this low-budget home invasion thriller. Robin still wanted to talk to some friends about financing, but the only part of her life she seemed to be able to actually think or talk about anymore was Virgil.

Relationship… Jesus. You’ve hung out three times.

Robin stopped brushing her hair. Her futile attempts to straighten her mane only seemed to be making it curlier.

Virgil and Robin had danced their second night at Jardin. Virgil ran her hands through Robin’s hair, lavishing attention on seemingly every curl as they danced and leaned against each other on the dance floor. Virgil had signed to Robin how beautiful her hair was. Virgil massaged Robin’s scalp as Robin danced with her back to Virgil’s chest and Virgil’s other hand traced endless, icy circles on Robin’s exposed midriff.

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Not Quite Midnight in the Jardin of Arsene and Virgil

Stuttering percussion and icy synths reverberated across the surging dance floor, and Jardin‘s swelling patronage was being swept up in the triphop’s intoxicating physicality. The shuffling, arrhythmic beats pulsing through the bar sent waves of color that folded in on themselves and back out, unfurling and blooming, each permutation an aftershock of the endless reflections.

From her high bar stool, just off the disco’s center, on a little diamond of the labyrinthine, elevated walkway, Virgil scanned the club for familiar faces.

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May 16th, 2009

Robin Goldberg met Virgil Keller the night that Robin graduated from Hodges University.

Robin was wearing a royal purple one-piece bathing suit. She’d ordered the swimwear from the official Omikron Epsilon Delta merch catalogue. Robin didn’t like how most swimsuits looked on her pale skin, but dark purples brought out the chestnut in her hair. The collegiate gear felt appropriate since her Brothers and Sisters were the ones that had brought her out to celebrate in the first place.

That evening was Robin’s first trip to Jardin, and the disco throbbed in lavender and rose eternity. The nightclub’s walls were mirrored, and the mirrors had built in strobes. The lights were arranged as blooming, lush flowers. The night was just finding its own rhythm, and the lights embedded in the walls were creeping up to a frantic pace. Jardin‘s ceiling and floor were also mirrored as were all sides of the elevated bar seating that crisscrossed the dance floor in a spider-web of reflection. Fractal, electric Kool-Aid lighting suffused every molecule of the room, and getting stoned for the light show and tunes at Jardin had been a burner rite of passage for decades.

On Jardin‘s more architecturally conventional evenings, a large dance floor dominated the center of the club. A cozy, plush red bar rotated in the middle of the dance floor. Arsene liked to call the bar their Rosebud. Most of the lesbians that haunted the place called it “the Clit” instead. Arsene had never corrected them.

The evening that Robin started to fall in love with Virgil, Jardin had embraced an aquatic décor. The polyamorous, pansexual party traded in dresses and suits for speedos and bikinis… and less if you weren’t shy. Few were by the time they left Jardin.

The dance floor had been replaced with sprawling hot tubs and more raised, glass walkways between the tubs. There were open areas of blanketed glass with pillows, lubricants, and prophylactics, of course.

The tubs were steaming. Between the mist and the reality-shifting haze of pure color, Robin’s slow descent into disassociation was, perhaps, understandable.

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