15. Frankenstein's Successor (13)
The door to the steam-filled public bath swung open, and a seventeen-year-old girl with cropped short hair strode inside, setting off an immediate uproar. She had just walked into the men's bath.
Far from showing any embarrassment, she cut through the crowd of naked men with a look of utter indifference, stepping briskly along.
"Dicks away, gentlemen. Lady coming through."
"Agh, Karen!"
"Hey— you— what the hell!"
The men's reaction was too over-the-top to put down to simple male modesty at being seen naked by a woman. Nor was it because their sense of decency differed from ordinary people's. The girl who had walked in was just as naked as they were. She had not even made a pretense of covering herself up.
The older men, long accustomed to her ways, simply went on with what they were doing and pretended not to notice. The younger ones, by contrast, either yelped in panic or scrambled into the nearest tub, frantically trying to shield their eyes.
"Ah, K-Karen, seriously...! A woman your age, acting like—!"
A boy five years her junior, his head shaved close, shouted at her, his face blazing red. He had flung himself into the cold bath to escape her and was now shivering all over. She glanced at him and let out a soft, amused snort.
"Still shy? Get used to it. We rub up against each other in tights every damn day—what's so special about this?"
"Y-you're doing this on p-purpose to mess with us, aren't you? E-even what you said when you walked in..."
"Oh, that. I was just telling those guys by the door to move it because they were standing there with their dicks swinging around."
The two men in their twenties who had been doing warm-up exercises by the bath entrance coughed awkwardly. They had known Karen for years too, but they had never quite gotten used to this attitude of hers.
Hobbs, leader of the Papael Circus—a troupe composed entirely of male ground acrobats, save for one exception—sat soaking in the hottest bath, watching his half-sister trade barbs with the youngest member. He let out a weary sigh.
Thirteen years had passed since he had grabbed her and fled their home. With an age gap close to twenty years, he had raised her practically like a daughter. She was nearly eighteen now. Any normal guardian would be worrying about her future.
Acrobatics was all he himself had ever learned, so he had had no choice but to raise her as a street performer too. Yet seeing her casually trade insults with the men, mixing with them without the slightest reserve, made him wonder if he ought to let things continue this way. Wouldn't teaching her a little more feminine decorum help her chances of finding a husband someday?
"There you go again, looking at me with those eyes. Hey, worry about yourself? I'm not even an adult yet, dipshit. How about sparing a thought for your poor little sister, who's stressed out because her brother's pushing forty and still can't get married? Just who's worrying about who here?"
Karen plunged into the tub where he was soaking with a splash. The water was hot enough to scald flesh. Her skin flushed as red as her hair in an instant. She did not so much as let out a whimper. Endurance was the cardinal virtue demanded by Ground Acrobatics.
She stretched out her legs and propped her feet on Hobbs' thighs. He pushed them aside, frowning as he retorted.
"Why are you worrying about my marriage?"
"Right back at you? What are you, my dad? Trying to manage every little thing."
"I'm someone who's dedicated his life to perfecting Ground Acrobatics..."
"Oh, quit your shit. Excuses. Wait—hold on. You aren't into men too, are you?"
The question had slipped out as Wonderstein's situation crossed her mind, but Karen knew perfectly well her brother was not like that. Hobbs was simply unlucky in love; he liked spending time with women well enough. He never missed the entertainment district in any city they stopped in.
Hobbs, for his part, did not take the question as genuine suspicion. Instead of probing her intent, he zeroed in on a single word she had used.
"'Too'? Hold on—are you saying someone among us actually has those sorts of tastes?"
Hobbs' exclamation instantly stilled the boisterous bathhouse. The members of the Papael Circus who had been enjoying their soak suddenly turned to eye one another with open wariness. They frequently found themselves in awkward proximity, bodies pressed together in their tights. If any of them had actually been entertaining ulterior motives all along...
As distrust rippled through the ranks, the shaven-headed boy who had been arguing with Karen moments ago shouted out.
"Troupe Leader, Karen didn't mean 'too' like that! She meant that she herself likes women— ack!"
A basket came flying at him, and he ducked out of the way just in time.
"You wanna die? Where do you get off spouting that nonsense, you little shit—!"
"It's not nonsense! I saw it! Karen yesterday with that pale woman—"
"Shut your mouth!"
Chaos erupted. Karen lunged at the boy who had just slandered(?) her, grappled him to the ground, and locked her legs around his neck in a crossed choke.
"Ghk... ghk... I s-surrender...! Surrender! I-I made it up... I said I made it up..."
"Enough. You'll kill him."
"Kill him, my ass. I'm barely squeezing. Look at the theatrics."
Karen really was not putting much strength into her legs. The reason the boy's face had gone red to the point of bursting was that she had put him in a joint lock while stark naked. He wore the expression of someone about to burst into tears from sheer embarrassment and shame.
"Tch. What a thing to do to a kid. Anyway... hey, what about you, though? Do you actually like women?"
"Didn't you hear the brat? He said he made it up!"
Karen denied it vehemently, but she could not stop the memory of the previous day—the very thing the youngest had claimed to witness—from surfacing. Yesterday afternoon, Maya had come to the Papael Circus alone.
"You want me to do the Carrying Your Wife Race?"
"Yeah."
Karen looked at her friend, sitting demurely like a doll, and felt her face heat up. The two of them, paired up for the race? Could this actually be an opening? With the Troupe Leader out of the picture now, was Maya moving on to her?
She had made playful physical advances toward Maya before, but she had never intended to try anything against the other's will. That would not just be a breach of friendship—she was not even sure yet whether she actually liked women.
The flutter she felt now might easily just be the sort of curiosity adolescent boys harbor toward unfamiliar sexuality. That was why she had kept a careful distance all this time... but if Maya was offering her a chance...
The explanation that followed, however, made Karen realize Maya was not asking her to be her own partner.
"Huh? Me, with Troupe Leader Wonderstein? Why me? Wouldn't it be better if you did it?"
The person scheduled to go out with Wonderstein on the day of the Carrying Your Wife Race was Maya herself. Competition among the female troupe members for that day had been fierce, but the fact that the event involved carrying someone gave priority to Maya, whose legs were impaired.
The date was tomorrow. Maya's proposal was to hand that opportunity over to her.
"I've been getting massages from the Troupe Leader for three whole months and still couldn't seduce him."
Karen stared at her friend with a fascinated expression as she dropped a word like "seduce" with a perfectly straight face. So this girl really did have a depraved little gremlin living in her head, appearances be damned.
"We both know the reason for that."
"Right. But why does that mean I should be the one entering?"
"Because you're like a boy, Karen."
"...Bitch."
Maya wanted to know whether Wonderstein exclusively liked men, or liked both men and women but had a type restricted to pretty, delicate-looking men. And she intended to test that hypothesis using Karen.
Hearing her friend's plan, Karen understood at last that all the rumors she had heard about mages were true. These crazy, eccentric researchers.
"And if it turns out to be the latter?"
"Then I'll cut my hair short and start wearing pants too."
At that moment, contrary to her friend's wishes, a desire suddenly surged up inside Karen that the result would be the former. It would be too much of a waste for a girl this doll-like to go around dressed as a man.
"The Carrying Your Wife Race... I've heard the one being carried has a pretty tough time too..."
Karen grumbled, but in any case, she intended to accept her friend's proposal. She had been unable to eat for days after learning Wonderstein was homosexual. If a glimmer of hope for her love was visible now, she was happy to cooperate.
Maya, however, interpreted this as a demand for some form of compensation. She floated up with her telekinesis and approached Karen.
Maya recalled how her friend, whenever asked for a favor, would jokingly fire back with "Give me a kiss on the cheek, then!" She had never once indulged that request—it was exactly the kind of thing her father would say, the sort of demand only creepy old men made. This time, though, given the nature of the matter, Maya had made up her mind otherwise.
"Will this do?"
"Ah."
Maya's lips brushed lightly against her friend's cheek and then pulled away. Karen shook her head vigorously, trying not to recall what sort of reaction she had shown in that moment. Remembering it felt even hotter than the scalding bath she had just been soaking in.
Once out of the bath, Karen dressed herself in the closest approximation of an average man's attire she could manage with the clothes she had on hand: jeans, a long-sleeved shirt under a leather jacket, sneakers, and finally a flat cap with a short brim pulled low over her head.
As an outfit for a girl getting ready for a date, it was a failing grade. Judged as a boy, however, she had dressed passably well.
She had never intended to look good for the Troupe Leader as a woman anyway. All that mattered was satisfying Maya's experimental condition.
She had never once felt her heart race over a man. Wonderstein's case was no exception.
Of course, she did hold some fondness for him as the leader of her friend Maya's circus, and as a teacher who had counseled her through her troubles. But that was all. The two of them had never really held a deep conversation since their first meeting.
That very attitude was probably why Maya had been able to readily yield her spot to her. Among the people around Wonderstein, she was the only woman who treated him with that kind of uncomplicated detachment.
Even Natasha, Nika's handmaiden who had joined less than a month ago, naturally smiled with her eyes whenever she faced him. It might have been a social technique trained into her as an intelligence operative, but the fact that she did not do it with other men made it obvious she already harbored some romantic interest in him.
Even with a full day of clinging and pressing their bodies together looming ahead, Karen's attitude remained unchanged. For someone who spent every day in physical contact with men, being carried meant nothing. Preparations complete, she stepped out of the lodging.
***
The rules of the Carrying Your Wife Race varied slightly from region to region, but the fact that fewer than one in a hundred participants finished the course anywhere made it clear just how punishing a competition it was.
In bygone days, thieves who abducted maidens had to endure every imaginable hardship—scrambling up steep mountain paths, fording rivers—all to shake off the bride's family and other pursuers. In that respect, the race was an impressively faithful reenactment of the ordeal those ancestors must have suffered.
Mickey's years as a pickpocket in the back alleys of Vegas had sharpened his talent for digging up information. He was not as skilled as Clara when it came to collecting rumors themselves, but unlike her, he could also gather material that never passed by word of mouth.
In competitions like this, a cheat sheet always existed. No matter how much security was tightened, when a contest was held in the same region with the same theme year after year, the pool of possible test questions was ultimately finite. Relying on that, he had drilled the two of them—today's contestants—into the ground.
"Nika, what are you doing! We've gotta leave!"
Umon shouted toward the tent. Nika had gone in to change more than thirty minutes ago and still showed no sign of emerging. Whenever the two of them, losing patience, tried to enter, he would shriek at them that he was almost dressed and to get out.
Was cross-dressing really giving him that much trouble? His handmaiden was supposed to have taught him how to dress properly...
I would have liked to ask one of the other female members for help, but they had all gone out, so there was no one to call on. As time continued slipping away and the race start drew perilously close, Umon, at the end of his patience, made to storm into the tent. At that very moment, the entrance flap lifted and Nika emerged.