"Addictions" by Emma Kathryn McDonald

Addictions

Gerda stood on the dock, leaning against a steel pillar, enjoying the last drag of her final cigarette.  She only ever smoked when he was gone.  Granted, that could be for months at a time.  She didn’t even like the taste.  It was just a way of replacing one addiction with another.

            Flicking the dying embers of the butt into the waters, she stuffed her hands into the pockets of her black cargo pants.  The wind around the dock was an icy chill from the north.  He should be carried on that wind, she thought to herself, digging the toe of her boot into the sand, which layered the steel dock and screeched under her weight.  Pulling her hand, with its fingerless gloves, from her pocket, she forced her short, violet hair away from her pale face, watching the fog carefully.

It was getting late.

Hooking up her internal servers to the city NetScape, which she almost never did, she queried the docking schedule again.  His ship, Valhalla, was due to arrive over an hour ago.  Yet still, on the display before her mind’s eye, the status remained as it had done this last hour: DELAYED.

With a grumble of “Damn it,” she lit up another cigarette.  Hell, she might as well enjoy her time alone.  A sailor passed, tilting his face a full ninety degrees to get a good look at her, with her long leather coat curving smoothly over her breasts.  He wolf-whistled her crudely, which she promptly responded to with a raised middle-finger.  Gods, she hated this city.  Maybe next time she’d leave with him.

A warning rang out in her ears and she stood up straight to receive its message, which was now scrolling out in her mind.

SHIP: Valhalla

STATUS CHANGING…

NEW STATUS: Incoming

Now Entering Eden

The final Final Cigarette was stubbed out and, from her back pocket, she produced a stick of gum and a tiny bottle of Intoxication: For Her.  Her hair, throat and wrists were doused in the spray, eliminating the smoky odour of her vice.  For a moment, she stopped, thinking to herself.  Then another spritz was sent down her shirt.  Then another button of said shirt was undone, revealing a little more cleavage than before.

Finally, in the distance, the longboat appeared from the night fog.  Moving closer to the edge as it approached, she waited.  If she were a praying woman, she would have been praying for his safety right now.  Praying that he was alive and still hers.

As the great ship came to port, she placed her hands back into her cargo pants pockets, trying her best to seem casual.  Suddenly, she remembered her gum and swiftly turned her head to the side and spat it over the edge of the dock.

The first of the crew began to clamber off the ship, men and women dragging crates and boxes between them as they did.  Drifting off in a daze, her eyes followed two men who carried a long casket between them and, for a moment, her eyes thought it to be a coffin.

“Thought you’d have at least said hello,” a voice said, suddenly at her side.  As she turned her head, there he was.  Long blonde hair, tied back into a tight ponytail, as she remembered.  Impenetrable eyes, swallowing her up, as she remembered.  Thin, pointed face, with that wide, ripping smile, as she remembered.  All that was different was a new fur cloak, which hung around his shoulders.

“Freyr,” she greeted him with a simple nod, keeping her hands in her pockets.

“Gerda,” he replied, returning the nod.

“Had your fill of sea-wenches then?” she asked bitingly.  “Decided to come back after all?”  Freyr smiled widely again.

“Thought it was only fair to give you a little while longer with your man-whores,” he quipped smoothly.  A smile twitched at the corner of her dark-lipped mouth.  “Still smoking, I see,” he stated, eyebrow raised.

“Only if you’re still drinking,” she challenged, voice cool and calm.  He kept smiling and, for a second, they stood quiet amid the cacophony of the now busy docks.

“I’ve got a car ready, if you want to get out of here,” Gerda said, breathing a little more erratically as her heartbeat got away from her.  Freyr held her gaze, months of planning how this meeting would play out.

“I’d love to.”  He wouldn’t have had it any other way.