Self-Care in Space

By Eve Morton

Roland Ruiz isn't very good at taking time for himself. When he loses a big intergalactic trafficking case at his legal firm, his boss tells him to take the Vacation Station travel liner and visit the vacation moons of Jupiter. What should be fun ends up feeling more like exile, especially as Roland is left unimpressed by the first moon he visits and is snubbed by the locals. Everything changes when a beautiful scientist working on Io shows him the dynamic chemicals that go into synthetic snow, which keeps the vacation ski lodge up and running in the most drastic of space climates.

Martha Carpenter has been working hard her entire life and with very little credit. It's only when her ex wins a prestigious grant, however, that she begins to feel resentment creep into her daily life of making weather conditions for some of the Jupiter’s vacation moons. In an effort to stay positive, she turns to her old routine of self-care, and soon meets trans man and disgraced lawyer Roland, who could benefit from her many lessons.

As Roland and Martha grow closer, she must decide if being invisible in the workplace is worth the cost to her self-esteem, while Roland must reconcile his failure with his hopeful future. Together they both realize it is far better to be recognized by one person than to be rewarded by many, and that recovery is just as thrilling as discovery.

• Language: English
• Publisher: JMS Books LLC
• Release date: Sep 29, 2020
• ISBN: 9781646564408

Book preview

Self-Care in Space

By Eve Morton

Published by JMS Books LLC at Smashwords

Visit jms-books.com for more information.

Copyright 2020 Eve Morton

ISBN 9781646564408

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Cover Design: Written Ink Designs | written-ink.com

Image(s) used under a Standard Royalty-Free License.

All rights reserved.

WARNING: This book is not transferable. It is for your own personal use. If it is sold, shared, or given away, it is an infringement of the copyright of this work and violators will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

No portion of this book may be transmitted or reproduced in any form, or by any means, without permission in writing from the publisher, with the exception of brief excerpts used for the purposes of review.

This book is for ADULT AUDIENCES ONLY. It may contain sexually explicit scenes and graphic language which might be considered offensive by some readers. Please store your files where they cannot be accessed by minors.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are solely the product of the author’s imagination and/or are used fictitiously, though reference may be made to actual historical events or existing locations. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Published in the United States of America.

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Self-Care in Space

By Eve Morton

Chapter 1

Roland Ruiz stood from his cluttered desk and wandered to the window in his office. Night on Earth always enchanted him in a way he couldn’t quite put to words. The city was alive with colour and light; though it was nearly three A.M., people emerged from other buildings and gleefully lit up their devices in neon green and orange in order to call transportation towards them. Other offices flicked on their own lights across the street, ready to begin a morning call in another solar system—or they shut off their computers and florescent lights, leaving nothing but the red glow of exit signs in their wake. The cars snaked their way between the cross-streets and through the tunnels, beeping and sputtering exhausts ten floors below Roland. When he finally looked up, and over the tall sky scrapers, he saw the moon. More planets, now visible through their own artificial illumination, were visible beyond the moon’s calming half-quarter glow. Roland remembered what life was like on some of these planets.

Then he didn’t want to look out the window anymore.

He turned towards his desk and sat back down. His knees ached as he did. So did his chest, and his scars burned as if he’d just undergone the knife. When the pain persisted, he even unbuttoned his dress shirt and glanced down, expecting to find raw wounds. But no, there was no blood. His body was healthy, as far as he could tell. This pain was just…pain. No rhyme or reason, so he tried to sort through the loose files—why did they still have loose files?—on his desk. When the migraine started ten minutes later, and the lights of the city he loved so much made his forehead flare with pain, he realized he’d have to leave his office.

Just for some pills at the drugstore, he told himself. Maybe around the corner to the bodega, too, so he could get a sandwich or maybe even a moon muffin. The thought of the moon made his forehead flare again. He sighed.

A sandwich it was.

Roland kept his eyes closed as he stepped into the elevator. The lights hurt him less this way, and he’d been in this office so much the last six months that he knew it like his own body, the scars, and the stories the doctors had once made him tell about his gender transition. He shoved that thought away, too, as the elevator dinged. He stepped out squinting and nearly ran into a large body.

Roland?

Donovan?

Roland opened his eyes and saw his law partner, Donovan Bailey. Their firm also included a third partner, Michael Sullivan, though Roland still insisted that three people couldn’t be partners. Partners were for twos. You sort of used to be another person, Donovan said. So you’re your own partner. Roland had laughed at the joke then. He thought it made him one of the guys. But now he felt the ache of his body as he looked into Donovan’s sceptical gaze.

What are you doing here so late?

I could ask you the same question, couldn’t I?

Roland tried to be nonchalant, but it was hard with his head in a cloudburst of pain. There was also the fact that Donovan was dressed in club clothing. His shirt was as bright as the damn sun and radiated iridescent light in his face. Donovan was not here for work. He was here to get something from his office after the parties he’d gone to, and so, Roland wasn’t surprised when a blonde woman spilled out of the women’s bathroom on the first floor. Her dress was short, barely to her mid-thighs, and was a shade of teal.

Julie, come here and say hello. Donovan held out an arm and the woman went under it right away. She smiled with straightened teeth at Roland as if she expected him. Her eyes were the size of dinner plates. Her nostrils flared from a foreign substance. This is my partner, Roland.

Nice to meet you. I didn’t know he had another partner. I already met Michael.

Of course. I’m two people, Roland said. The joke was flat. It hurt his head. He winced and clutched at his forehead.

Your third eye hurts, Julie said. Your second sight.

What now?

It’s from the fluoride in the water, Julie deadpanned. Your pineal gland is calcified, so you don’t know who you are anymore. That’s why it hurts.

I think I know who I am, thanks. Roland huffed and turned away from Julie. I gotta go, Don, my head is throbbing.

Julie, dear, Donovan said, his voice taking on the commanding tone he used in the court room. Give this man some help.

No thank you, Roland said. I don’t need that kind of help.

You do, Donovan challenged. But that’s not what I meant. Julie. You’re a lady. Surely you have some Advil on you?

Oh! Julie grasped her barely pocket-book sized purse and pulled back the flap. Something glowed inside. Roland knew the light source as a common compound used for sedation; he knew what its presence meant, as if her eyes and nose hadn’t already given it away. Though he knew that Julie was consenting, Roland still wanted to retch. Not everyone who encountered that chemical came away so lucky.

Here you go, Julie said as she handed over Advil into his palm. It had been from a plastic bottle, passed the drug in her purse. Roland accepted it with a murmured thanks. He moved towards the water fountain in front of the washrooms.

You should really consider getting a filter, Julie said. You know. I bet your headaches’ll go away.

Roland ignored her. How many others had been fooled the same way? He chugged the water, the pills, and then realized his hunger had taken him over. He righted his stance on the side of the fountain, ready to go to the convenience store. Donovan blocked his way.

Julie, you take the elevator up. I’ll be right with you.

Roland tensed. He didn’t want to do this. Not right now. He couldn’t move without feeling dizzy, and Donovan was more than determined to speak his mind. You need any help tonight? he asked once the elevator doors had dinged. The only thing that remained from Julie was the scent of honeysuckle.

From your sex worker? No, no thank you. I would have thought that after this case…

That I’d never set foot inside The Electric Lady again? No, Roland. I’m human. And I have needs, just like you.

Roland didn’t say anything. His balance was getting better, and he could feel the pain in his head ease thanks to the basement bargain Advil. He almost wished he was still distracted by the migraine. That way he wouldn’t have to think about their last case. Their sex trafficking case, where almost all the sex workers they’d found had those stupid glowing chemicals on them as part sedation and part tracking devices, so their pimps could find them when they were on the clock. Their sex trafficking case where almost all the girls on the stand really were girls, girls that should not have been there, and how they had been there for years before the ring was finally busted in a takedown. Their sex trafficking case where, in spite of everything, Roland had screwed up the whole thing. Their lost case. Their lost sense of justice. Roland didn’t want to think of it at all. He wanted to chastise Donovan for acting the way he had back then and the way he was now, but Roland couldn’t. He’d been the one to do the lead arguments. He’d been the one that confused the jury, and then, he’d been the one who didn’t address that mistake in his closing.

Everything that he was feeling right now was his own damn fault. Calcified pineal gland or not.

Look, Donovan said after the tension between them reached unknown levels. Not since they bickered over their two-point difference on their Law School Admission Test scores had Roland felt this much rivalry between them. You know what you like. I know what I like. Why not just get what we want to blow off steam? Don’t be a prude.

I’m not a prude. I’m just ethical, unlike you.

So ethical you forget to cross? Donovan shot back. So ethical you forget basic legal terms?

Roland wanted to throw