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Nobody who knew Juno Steel would ever accuse him of being an optimist. They’d say he was scarred, he was prickly, and he didn’t know when to shut his mouth. But if they stopped to think they might consider it took a certain level of optimism to believe you could change anything for the better. Especially in this cesspool of a city.
My name’s Juno Steel. I’m a private eye. And it’s been years since I’ve stepped into Billi’s Bar and Boutique. Just then I was nursing a glass of whisky and perusing a row of lipsticks in every shade you could imagine, and some you probably couldn’t. I was waiting for Billi to finish fleecing their latest mark. I mean--helping their latest customer.
“I know, too good to be true, right?” They laughed, like they’d made a joke. “But that’s why they call it a miracle cure. It’ll suck those wrinkles right back up into your skin.”
I couldn’t help smiling. Wasn’t too long ago that Billi Price was turning that charm on me. They were another optimist--thinking that someone like me might be worth their time.
I took a sniff of one of the specialty perfumes on the rack and had to suppress a sneeze. Billi carried stuff from all over the galaxy--really wild stuff, too. Whether you wanted to smell like a rose garden or cat pheromones, they had you covered.
I listened to them finish up their sale, the little old lady leaving four hundred creds poorer but a hell of a lot happier. At least until she realized that gunk in the bottle Billi sold her was just your basic hand lotion with a little rendered animal fat to give it a shimmer.
“Well, hey there stranger.” Billi hopped up onto the glass fronted counter. It groaned slightly, but what did I care if the damn thing broke. It was their counter. “You here to freshen up your look? It’s a little stale.”
“My sell-by date isn’t any of your business, Billi.”
Billi laughed. “God, what happened to you, Juno? You used to be fun.”
Damn, did I wish people would stop asking me that. Used to be didn’t matter. I used to have a gun and a badge and I used to have a reason to get up in the morning. I used to have a brother.
I told Billi about my lead on the mystery drug that had showed up on the market a couple weeks ago and left a whole mess of people in a semi-catatonic state. The only thing any of them had in common was a recent transaction at Billi’s boutique, so here I was. While I talked, Billi messed around with some brushes and a makeup palette, humming every few seconds to show they were still listening.
“Close your eye.” They interrupted me mid-sentence.
“What—? Which one?”
“Either. Both. Pick your favorite.”
I kept talking and they painted my left eyelid silver. “You really could do with a little highlighter, darling. You have such lovely bone structure. Switch.”
I closed my other eye. “I don’t need my bones to do anything besides keep my organs dry, Billi. Thanks, though.”
Billi chuckled and then paused the makeover/interrogation to go help a customer.
I kept myself busy with perfumes as Billi grifted another poor bastard afraid of aging and too damn broke to afford any of the pricy longevity treatments everyone had been talking about on the streams recently.
I opened another bottle and--memories flooded me like a straight shot of whisky. Soft lips, warm eyes, a lithe body pressed up against mine. They say smell is most closely linked up to sense memory, and right then I knew they were right. He could have been in the room with me.
“Steel. Mars to Juno Steel.”
I jerked back to the present, and to Billi, who was hovering next to me with another pot of eye shadow. Purple this time. They were waiting for me to keep talking, and here I was daydreaming like a schoolboy.
“This cologne—where does it come from?” I asked it before my brain could catch up to my mouth.
Billi looked from the bottle, to me, and back again. “It doesn’t come from anywhere. Just some brand you can buy in any boutique like mine. Not that there’s any boutiques like mine.” They laugh. “Ain’t cheap, though.”
I finished the interview, but I was way off my game. In the end I ended up with a free makeover but not much more info than I started with. And now I smelled like him.
I didn’t have a chance to shower any of it off until later that night, plenty of time to hear the echo of his soft laugh in the back of my mind, and for Rita to lean in and take a deep sniff. “Ooh, boss! That’s nice!”
I took way longer in the shower than my water bill could handle, and only after I had a drink my hand did I finally let myself slide into the memory of him.
And that was what pissed me off more than anything. I barely had any memories to slide into. I’d known him for less than 24 hours, and in that time he was pretending to be someone else. I was losing sleep over a man who was a cocktail of an alias, the phrase “intergalactic thief”, and a fox’s smile—shaken and poured over one very, very good kiss.
We worked well together, but that could have just been because he needed me. And he wanted me, but only to get close to the mask. And even if his offer to sweep me off into a grand tour of the galaxy was genuine, well. He’d wanted the Juno Steel he saw at the Kanegawa house. Effective and in his element. Rubbing elbows with the heirs of criminal empires and cracking jokes while leaping into the jaws of death. He definitely didn’t want the Juno Steel who spent most nights drinking himself into a stupor, or who woke up most mornings twisted in sweaty sheets after nightmares of all the people he’d let down.
It had never been a genuine possibility. You didn’t just get to run away from your life into the void with a gorgeous man promising you the universe. At least I didn’t. But…when I was drunk I let myself wonder what would have happened if I’d said yes. Yes, take me away. Steal me instead of the mask.
Of course he might just have hit me over the head and I’d just have ended up where I am now, but with an added concussion. But…and this was always the but. He gave me his name. And if it really was his name, all I’d have to do was give it to Rita and I would have…everything
Age, birthday, planet of origin, whatever tragic backstory had made a guy that charming and good-looking end up a cat burglar. Instead, I sat around and thought about that kiss. It was stupid, but there was nobody inside my head but me. I pressed the cool glass against my temple and imagined him pressing his mouth there instead.
Sometimes I played through scenarios—the heists we would run, ripping off Northstar execs and toppling crime bosses. Hey, it was my fantasy, so I could decide we only stole from people who deserved it. Other times I just went straight for the climax. So to speak. Nureyev looked like the kind of guy who could treat a lady right. At least the Nureyev in my brain did.
I used that bender to get him out of my system, and the hangover the next day was worth it. Until I came home after a truly exhausting day of stakeouts and fistfights and Rita, to find a pear-shaped crystal bottle sitting on my table, along with a note from Billi. I knew a bribe when I saw one, but if they thought I could be bought by a bottle of fancy cologne then they obviously didn’t know me as well as they thought they did. Maybe it had just been too long.
I held the bottle over the sink, poised to pour it out. In the end I decided to keep it. You never know when you might need a nice gift. Besides, I didn’t think my liver could handle my apartment smelling like him for another week.
Months later, when he stood close to me in a dark hotel room, hands finally (finally) sliding underneath my shirt, he murmured, “Did you think about me when you wore it?”
I buried my embarrassment in his neck, because of course I opened the damn bottle, and of course he went through my things. “Wasn’t the same.”
After the initial shock of smelling it, it became abundantly clear that it wasn’t just the cologne I liked. It was him. Jeez, it was corny as hell, but I liked the way he smelled, even when he wasn’t wearing the damn stuff.
“There are better ways to make sure you smell like me,” he assured me. And hell if he wasn’t right.