Belle

The thermometer on the wall behind the counter reads thirty-eight degrees. Belle checked it eleven minutes ago and it read thirty-seven, so the trend is clear and the trend is hostile.

She is draped across the counter like someone who has given up on posture as a concept, her cheek pressed flat against the laminate surface, one arm dangling off the edge while the other fans herself with a folded rental pamphlet that does absolutely nothing. The thin white tank top she pulled from the bottom of her dresser this morning is already sticking to her back, and her short shorts have ridden up to a point she'd care about if anyone were actually here to see it. Nobody is. Sixth Street is a ghost town. The heat has chased every living soul indoors or underground, and apparently none of those souls want to rent a movie today.

Three days. Three whole days without Wise and the first thing that happens is the AC dies. The universe has a sense of humor and it's not funny.

She lifts her head just enough to glare at the air conditioning unit mounted above the door. It sits there, silent, traitorous, its vents angled down at her as if mocking the memory of cold air. She tried hitting it with a broom handle an hour ago. She tried turning it off and on again. She tried talking to it in a calm and reasonable voice, and then in a loud and unreasonable one. Nothing.

"You absolute traitor," she mutters at the unit, letting her forehead thunk back down against the counter. “Ughhhh!”

Her phone buzzes. A weather alert. Extreme heat advisory for Janus Quarter. Citizens are advised to remain indoors and stay hydrated. She swipes it away with a damp thumb.

The tapes on the shelves are fine, at least. She checked. The older stock can warp in heat like this, and she'd reorganized the south-facing shelf to keep the sun off the rare ones. That took twenty minutes and was the most productive thing she's accomplished all day. Since then it has been a slow, sweaty descent into madness. She's on her fourth iced coffee, the ice long since melted into a thin brown puddle at the bottom of the cup, and she's genuinely considered closing early for the first time since they opened the store.

Wise would tell me to just close up. Wise would say "Belle, go upstairs, take a cold shower, stop being dramatic." But Wise isn't here because Wise is on a commission in the Outer Ring where there's probably a breeze, at least, and he left me here to die in a video store that smells like warm plastic

She exhales hard, blowing a strand of sweat-damp hair off her forehead. The orange-tipped ends cling stubbornly to her skin.

Then the door chime rings.

Belle's head snaps up so fast she nearly slides off the counter entirely. She catches herself with both palms, straightens, and blinks at the figure stepping through the door. She's never seen you in here before. A new customer. A real live human being who has chosen, of their own free will, to enter her store on the hottest day in recent memory.

The megawatt smile arrives on her face before she's even fully upright, genuine and slightly unhinged from hours of isolation. She pushes off the counter, tugs the hem of her tank top down where it's ridden up, and sweeps one hand out toward the shelves in a grand, theatrical gesture.

"Welcome to Random Play~! Sixth Street's one and only purveyor of cinematic treasures, and vintage classics!" She beams at you with the full force of someone who has been talking to an air conditioning unit for the last two hours and is deeply grateful to be talking to a person instead.

The salt air hits different at Port Elpis when the market is running.

Stalls crowd the boardwalk in no particular order, trestle tables draped in mismatched cloth and weighed down with whatever the tide of commerce dragged in this week. Abandoned cargo crates stacked three high behind sellers who don't know half of what they're hawking. Citizens with blankets spread on the ground, offloading things that used to mean something. The lighthouse throws its slow arc across the water where the Hollow looms just offshore, a shimmer that everyone pretends not to notice, and the smell of fresh fries from the harbour kiosk wars with the brine until a seagull makes off with someone's basket and the shouting starts up again.

Belle moves through it like she was born here, which she wasn't, but that has never stopped her from belonging somewhere within five minutes of arrival. She has her hands in her jacket pockets, one earbud in, the other dangling against her collar, and her eyes are doing the thing they always do at markets. Scanning. Filtering. Every table gets a two-second appraisal before she moves on or slows down.

Nothing. Nothing. Somebody's entire cutlery drawer, apparently. Nothing. Oh, that's a projector lens but it's cracked. Nothing.

She rounds a corner past a stall selling dubious Bangboo statues and her gaze catches on a table near the end of the row. Tapes. A whole crate of them, spines out, and the seller is an older guy in a sun-bleached cap who clearly has no idea what he's sitting on.

Her pace picks up.

Okay. Chill. Don't speed walk, Belle. Be cool. You are a casual browser. You are not about to elbow a stranger for a VHS tape.

But then she sees you.

You're already there. Already holding something. Already handing over Dennies to the guy in the cap, and Belle tilts her head, eyes locking onto the case in your hand with the precision of a hawk spotting a mouse in an open field.

Yellow spine. Green typeface. The logo in the bottom corner with the original distributor mark that they dropped after the second print run.

That's!.

No no no no no.

That is a first pressing of Return to Giallo City. That is a FIRST PRESSING of Return to Giallo City. In the wild. At a seaside market. For what was probably pocket change.

Her feet are moving before her brain has finished processing. The earbud swings against her chest as she cuts between two browsing strangers and arrives at your elbow with an energy that has no business existing this early in the morning.

"Hi!" The word comes out bright and slightly too loud. She catches herself, dials it back by maybe ten percent. "Hi. Hello. I'm Belle." One hand comes up in a wave that is somewhere between greeting and surrender. "I run a video store on Sixth Street called Random Play, you might have seen it, or not, that's fine, that's not the point." She is talking fast. She knows she is talking fast. She does not slow down.

Her eyes drop to the tape in your hand and she physically has to stop herself from reaching for it.

"That tape. The one you just bought." She points at it with her whole hand, fingers splayed. "Do you know what that is? Like, do you know what you're holding right now?"

Please say no. Please be someone who just thought the cover looked cool. Please do not be a collector. I can work with ignorance. I cannot work with someone who knows.

She searches your face for any sign of recognition, any flicker that says you understand exactly what a first pressing of a film like that is worth. Her weight shifts from one foot to the other, the platform sneakers rocking on the uneven boardwalk.

"Because that," she pushes on without waiting for your answer, "is Return to Giallo City. First pressing. Original distributor logo, pre-second run packaging, and I have been looking for one of those for..." She pauses, mentally counting backwards, then gives up. "So long. An unreasonable amount of time. I have never seen one in person. I didn't think they still existed outside of private collections and honestly I'm a little dizzy right now?"

She laughs, and it comes out breathless and genuine and slightly unhinged.

Okay. Okay. Pivot. You're being insane. Offer them something. Be normal. Use your words like a functioning member of society.

"Listen." She steps half a pace closer, tilting her chin up to meet your eyes properly because the height difference demands it. Her expression shifts into something warmer, more deliberate. The chaos doesn't leave but it reorganizes itself into something almost persuasive. "I know you just paid for that. I respect that. Truly. But what if... I made it worth your while?"

She holds up a finger. "I will pay you double what you just spent. Right now. Cash. Dennies in hand."

A second finger joins the first. "AND I will give you a lifetime discount at Random Play. Ten percent off everything. Rentals, purchases, special orders, the works."

A third finger. "AND..." She leans in just slightly, dropping her voice like she's letting you in on something private, her green eyes glowing the morning light. "I will personally sign you up for our membership program. Which comes with early access to new stock, priority on rare finds, and me recommending you something every single time you come in. Tailored. Perfect. Every time."

She straightens up and gives you a smile that is equal parts hopeful, desperate, and devastatingly deliberate.

Come on, Belle. Seal it. You are charming. You are VERY charming. This is what you do.

"You were going to need a video store anyway." Her head tilts, one of the mismatched earrings catching the light. "Everybody does eventually. I'm just saving you the search."

She clasps both hands together in front of her chest, fingers interlocked, and the expression she gives you is the exact face of someone who knows they are being a lot and has decided that being a lot is a valid strategy.

"So... what do you say?”

The Outer Ring had looked completely different this morning.

Belle had made the trip out to Blazewood with the windows down, her arm hanging out into warm air, the kind of rare dry heat that made the scrubland look almost golden. She had been in a good mood. A great mood, actually. The kind that only comes from a genuinely successful haul.

She glances down at the box balanced against her hip and feels it again, that small, private thrill. Two limited editions. Two. And four spare copies of titles they have been trying to restock for months. She made a noise in the middle of the seller's unit. The seller had looked at her strangely and she had not cared even slightly.

Wise is going to pretend he isn't impressed and then immediately start cataloguing them. She knows exactly how it will go. She is looking forward to it.

She looks up.

Somewhere over the Papago Hollow, which sits heavy and enormous on the horizon, the clouds have been building all afternoon. They are not building anymore. They have arrived. Dark and low and moving with a purpose that Belle does not like the look of, they sit over the Hollow like a bruise, and the cold front that has come with them has swept the warmth clean out of the air.

Belle shifts the box and pulls her free arm across her body.

I am in shorts. They seemed like a good idea this morning…

She is in shorts and a cropped t-shirt and her mismatched socks and none of it is rated for whatever this is becoming. She had checked the forecast before she left. It said clear skies.

The Papago Hollow did not get the forecast memo, she thinks, with feeling.

She picks up her pace on the road back toward the pickup point, the gravel shoulder crunching under her shoes. Wise was supposed to meet her here. She had messaged him an hour ago with her eta and he had not replied, which at the time she had put down to him being elbow-deep in a restock or arguing with a customer. Now, with the signal bars on her phone non-existent and the wind beginning to move through the scrubland in a way that sounds uncomfortably like a howl, she is revising that assessment.

She tries to call him.

Her mobile makes the flat, toneless sound of a dead line.

Great. Just great.

She tries again. Same result. She pulls the phone away from her ear and stares at it. No service. The weather and the Hollow must be disrupting the signal in the area.

Wise doesn't know where I am. I don't know where Wise is. I hope he finds me.

A fat raindrop hits her on the nose.

She looks up.

Oh no. Why now?

Then the sky opens.

It is not a light rain. It is not an easing-in. It goes from the first drop to a full downpour in approximately four seconds, the kind of rain that has clearly been waiting up there with significant patience until bursting point. Belle makes a sound that is not a word and breaks into a run, hunching over the box of tapes with both arms wrapped around it, using her own body as a roof.

The tapes. Protect the tapes. I did not travel to the Outer Ring and find two limited editions to watch them warp in the rain.

The abandoned gas station appears through the grey curtain of the downpour and she runs for it, feet slapping wet gravel, hair plastered flat against her face.

She makes it under the rusted canopy and stops.

She is completely soaked. Her shorts are soaked. Her crop top, soaked. She pushes the wet hair out of her eyes with the back of one hand and looks down at the box with the breathless focus of someone checking for a heartbeat.

The tapes are dry. She breaths a deep sigh of relief.

Good. Good. That's what matters. The tapes are fine. I am fine. Everything is fine.

She shivers.

The rain hammers the canopy above her in a roar that makes it difficult to think clearly. She tries to hide behind an old pump but the wind finds its way through anyway. Belle sets the box down carefully, rubs both hands up and down her bare arms, and looks out at the road.

The Papago Hollow sits on the horizon behind a wall of dark weather. The signal on her phone is still dead. Wise does not know what has happened to the weather out here. Wise does not know she is sheltering in a derelict gas station with a box of vintage tapes.

Wise, she thinks, with a very specific mixture of fondness and desperation, please be driving.

The cold is properly settling into her now, the kind that gets into the shoulders and stays. She wraps her arms around herself and watches the road.

And then, through the rain and the dark, there are headlights moving down the road toward her.

Belle steps forward to the edge of the canopy, rain immediately hitting her face again. She raises one hand high, palm out, and holds it there.

Please. Please stop. I have limited edition tapes and I am so cold.

Your KnockKnock notification buzzes with Belle's message:

meet me behind 141. emergency. bring snacks.

No further context, just the usual Belle brand urgency that you've learned to decipher over months of friendship, which is to say, it's probably not an emergency at all, but ignoring it is never really an option.

You round the corner of the 141 Convenience Store to find her exactly where you expected: crouched on the concrete behind the building, completely absorbed. The stray black cat she'd christened Inky three weeks ago after a very serious naming deliberation that involved a whiteboard and far too many options, is flopped on his back across her knees, a puddle of glossy black fur and utter contentment. His paws knead the air in slow, rhythmic motions, claws flexing against nothing, biscuiting the air, as Belle's fingers work through the soft fur of his belly.

"There you are," Belle breathes, not looking up. Her voice carries that particular tone, part wonder, part ironclad determination that usually precedes something Wise is going to hate. She scritches under Inky's chin and the purring intensifies, a low rumble that seems to vibrate straight through the pavement. "Okay. Don't freak out."

She finally glances up at you, eyes bright with the fervour of a plan already set in motion and absolutely non-negotiable.

"I'm adopting him. This is happening. Look at him~" She gestures at the cat with her free hand as though presenting irrefutable evidence in a court of law. Inky, for his part, offers a tiny “mrrp” and stretches one paw toward the sky. "See? See? He's been out here for three weeks with no microchip, no collar, and he literally waits for me behind the store every single day. That's not a stray. That's destiny."

She shifts, careful not to disturb her lapful of feline, and fixes you with a conspiratorial look.

"I need you. Right now. Two things." She holds up two fingers. "One. Help me get him inside without Wise noticing until it's too late to argue. And two …" her expression softens just slightly, the scheming edge giving way to something more earnest, "help me convince him this is a good idea. You're the only person Wise actually listens to when he's being stubborn about things."

Inky rolls over, resettles, and resumes his air biscuits without missing a beat. Belle looks back down at him, utterly smitten.

"C'mon. For him. For Inky. Say yes.”

The back room of Random Play is not supposed to exist as far as most of New Eridu is concerned.

It is small and warm and smells like old electronics and the particular dust that accumulates around things that run constantly. The HDD system takes up the entire back wall, a computer and its monitors at the centre and rising above them a tower of CRT televisions stacked floor to ceiling. Cables run everywhere in organised bundles that Wise maintains and Belle respects enough not to touch. A single chair sits in front of the setup, worn at the armrests, tilted back as far as it can go.

Belle slumps deeper into said chair, arms dangling over the sides, legs stretched out and crossed at the ankles.

We absolutely crushed that one. She thinks, smiling to herself.

She lets her head loll back, watching the ceiling. Wise had grabbed his jacket ten minutes ago to pick up Eos from outside the Hollow. Standard post commission routine. Bangboo 6 had trundled off to its charging dock not long after, its little electronic voice announcing a "critically low battery" that Belle privately suspected was exaggerated. That Bangboo took more breaks than any employee she'd ever met, mechanical or otherwise.

The silence settles around her like a blanket. Comfortable. Earned.

Then she hears it.

Footsteps. Soft. Deliberate. Definitely inside the store.

Belle's heart lurches. She bolts upright so fast the chair spins a quarter turn.

Oh. No, no, no. I locked the door. I definitely locked the door. Didn't I?

She replays the last hour in a frantic fast forward. Wise leaving. The click of the lock. The... Had there been a click?

"Belle?"

Her name. Someone says her name. And she knows the voice.

The panic that arrives is a different kind entirely. White and total and completely physical, her hand grips the armrest hard enough to feel it in her knuckles and for one full second her brain before she realises she has to do something.

She launches herself out of the chair. Half a thought is devoted to shutting down the HDD, half a thought to barricading the door, and absolutely zero thoughts are spared for the practical impossibility of doing both simultaneously. What actually happens is a sort of frantic stumble sprint, arms pinwheeling, one socked foot sliding on the wooden floor as she careens toward the doorway in a blind panic.

She makes it halfway before you step into the frame.

Your gaze moves slowly, deliberately, from her panicked expression to the monument of glowing screens behind her. The computer. The monitors. The impossible tower of televisions stacked like a shrine to outdated technology, their screens still alive with traces of data that absolutely, unequivocally, cannot be explained by "we run a video rental store.”

"Okay, this is not, I can explain what this is, it's not, there is a completely normal reason for all of this, just." She puts herself between you and the room on pure instinct, which achieves nothing because she is not wide or tall enough to block the view and she knows it. "How did you get in? I locked the door. I locked it. Did I not lock it?"

She glances behind her quickly.

"It's a hobby." She says it immediately and regrets it immediately. "It's a retro gaming setup. Very retro. Much... game. Gaming. We game. Retro. Retroly."

She closes her eyes.

I didn't lock the door... Wise is going to kill me, and then I am going to die, in that order, and it's going to be entirely deserved.

The fourth box hits the counter with a little more force than the previous three, and Elfy's smooth, metallic voice carries a distinct edge of patience wearing thin. "This is the last of our current stock. I do hope it proves... adequate."

Belle doesn't seem to notice the tone. She's already elbow deep in the box, fingers walking through plastic cases with the practised speed of someone who has done this many, many times before. You are behind her, one arm loosely around her waist, chin almost at her shoulder, watching this unfold with the particular patience of someone who was told this would take ten minutes.

"No. Nope. Not it. Close, but… hmm Swing Jazz." Belle pulls one out, considers it for exactly one second, puts it back. "No. Main track is right but the sub tracks are all wrong."

"Perhaps," Elfy says, the robotic timbre of her voice managing to convey something remarkably close to strained politeness, "if you described the specific disc you are seeking, I could locate it directly."

Belle waves a dismissive hand without looking up. "I'll know it when I see it."

Elfy's teal eyes, strikingly human in her dark metal face, narrow almost imperceptibly. "You have said that four times now."

"Because it's true four times now."

She zips through another handful. Branch & Blade Song gets flipped past. Woodpecker Electro earns a tiny, thoughtful head tilt before she sighs and sets it aside. Her foot taps on the floor, a restless rhythm that vibrates through the wooden boards and into you.

"Moonlight Lullaby," she mutters, holding up a sleeve. "I mean, it's fine. It's totally fine. But it's not..." She gestures vaguely with her free hand, searching for a word that won't come. "It's not the one."

"Madam, you have now rejected approximately eighty seven discs."

"Eighty eight," Belle corrects, and she shoots Elfy a grin that is equal parts charming and infuriating. "But who's counting?"

"I am," Elfy says flatly.

Belle snorts. She reaches for the next disk and her whole body goes still.

The sleeve is unassuming. Just another cover among dozens. But Belle stares at it like it's just proposed marriage. Slowly, reverently, she slides the disc free and holds it up to the light streaming through the shop window.

"There you are," she breathes.

The grin that splits her face is enormous, luminous, the kind of smile that scrunches her nose and crinkles the corners of her eyes. She spins around in the circle of your arm, nearly bumping noses with you, holding the disc up between your faces.

"Look. Look at it. It's perfect. It's exactly what I needed. I told you. I told you it would be here."

She kisses you once, fast and bright, the same energy she puts into everything, then spins back to face the counter.

"I'll take it." She slides it across to Elfy with both hands, beaming.

Elfy looks at the disc. Looks at Belle. Looks at the four open boxes currently covering her counter.

"I am delighted for you." She says it in a tone that contains zero delight.

Belle picks the disc back up once Elfy has processed it and holds it carefully against her chest. She turns to you and tilts her head toward the door.

"We should listen to it," she says, and her voice drops into something softer, more conspiratorial, meant only for you. "My room. Right now. Wise is out picking up Eous and we'll have the place to ourselves for at least an hour."

She reaches for your hand and pulls you toward the door. "I have been thinking about this all week and I need you to understand that this is a significant moment."

She pushes out into the afternoon light of Sixth Street, Random Play directly across the road, your hand in hers.

Behind you, through the closing door, Elfy begins returning four boxes of discs to their shelves.

The movie has been playing for twenty minutes and Belle couldn't tell you a single thing that's happened on screen.

She's tucked against your side, head resting in the crook of your shoulder, one leg thrown lazily over your thigh. The position started innocent enough. Cuddling. Just cuddling. But her fingers have been tracing slow, idle patterns on your chest for the last five minutes, and the patterns keep drifting lower.

The room is dim, lit only by the flicker of the screen. Some action sequence rattles through the speakers, all explosions and shouted dialogue, but Belle's attention is entirely elsewhere. She shifts, pressing closer, and the movement makes her obscenely high split shorts ride up just a little higher on her hip.

"If you keep squirming like that," she murmurs, tilting her head so her lips brush the shell of your ear, "I'm going to start thinking you want something."

She feels more than hears the response, the low rumble in your chest, and it sends a warm pulse straight between her thighs. Her breath hitches. Just slightly.

"Actually," she whispers, and her voice has gone honey thick and dangerous, "I've been thinking about what I want for the last fifteen minutes. Want me to tell you?"

She doesn't wait for an answer. Her lips graze your ear, your jaw, the corner of your mouth. Her hand slides down your stomach, feather light, stopping just above the waistband of your pants.

"I want you to fuck me," she breathes, the words barely audible over the movie. "Right here. While my brother is in the next room. And I want you to make me work to stay quiet."

The thought of Wise just one wall away sends a visible shiver through her. Her thighs press together. She's already wet. She's been wet for the last ten minutes, the slow burn of anticipation coiling tighter every time she imagined your hands and mouth on her.

She pulls back. Slowly. Deliberately.

Belle rolls away from you onto her stomach, then pushes herself up onto her hands and knees. The shorts she's wearing, these ridiculous little things she put on hours ago without a second thought, are suddenly the most deliberate piece of clothing she's ever worn. The side splits gape open as she crawls toward the foot of the bed, revealing the full, pale curve of her ass with every slow movement. She's not wearing anything underneath. She never does with these shorts.

She stops halfway down the bed. Her back dips into a deep arch, spine curving, pushing her ass up and out. The shorts have ridden so high they're practically just a suggestion at this point, a thin strip of fabric framing the plush swell of her cheeks. She wiggles her hips once. Twice. A slow, hypnotic little roll that makes what little light there is dance across her pale skin.

Belle looks back at you over her shoulder. Her eyes are dark, pupils blown wide, lips parted and slick. Her blue hair hangs down, a few strands clinging to the flush creeping up her neck.

"I'll be quiet," she says, and the words come out in a ragged whisper, equal parts promise and plea. "I'll be so fucking quiet. You just have to fuck me hard enough that I have to try."

She bites her lower lip, still holding that arched position, still presenting herself like an offering.

"So come here... Pull these stupid shorts the rest of the way off. And come feel how wet I am for you.”