pool,” she objected. “But I’m not floating or anything.”
“Oh, the anti-grav field is only around the water itself,” J’are explained. “So when you jump in, gravity pulls you down into it and then you swim through it.”
“What happens when you want to get out?” Imani asked.
“You swim to the bottom and drop down to the bounce floor,” J’are told her. “Then you take the lift back up to the changing rooms—or the spa if you want a treatment. Or you can just take the ramp back to here and dive in again.” He nodded at the pink ocean below them. “Are you ready?”
Imani wanted to point out that it seemed awfully high up but just then two little girls ran past them, holding hands and giggling. They poised on the edge of the ledge for a moment and chanted in unison,
“One, two, three!”
With a peal of laughter, the two of them launched themselves out as far as they could into midair. Imani watched, her heart in her throat, as they dropped into the swirling pink water below.
“See—they’re fine.” J’are had evidently been watching her watch the girls. “Are you ready now?”
After seeing the two little girls jump in so fearlessly, Imani didn’t feel like she could admit to a fear of heights herself.
“Okay.” She held out her hand to J’are. “On three?”
“You count,” he agreed.
They walked to the edge.
“Okay.” Imani took a deep breath.
“One…two…three!” she exclaimed, and she and J’are jumped.
Her heart nearly stopped as they leaped and gravity dragged them downwards. Their momentum carried them directly into the swirling pink water below, but the moment they slid into the liquid, Imani felt a strange sense of weightlessness.
Of course, one always felt somewhat weightless when suspended in water, but this was more pronounced—nothing weighed anything at all. She could see her long black braids floating in every direction around her head like a dark starburst and though she could feel the water surrounding her, she encountered no resistance when she waved her arms to push herself through it.
It was more like flying or floating than swimming, Imani thought as she and J’are glided through the pink liquid. Of course, because of the zero G, they would never have gotten anywhere without something to pull or push off of. Suspended in the pink water at intervals were puffy blue and green cushions. They were soft enough so that if someone ran into one, they wouldn’t be hurt, but firm enough to grab onto and push off from.
Imani thought later that as long as she lived, she would never forget the experience of swimming in an anti-grav pool. It was magical—gliding through the clear pink water with its swirls of emerald and cerulean and violet while holding hands with J’are and pushing off the green and blue cushions to go deeper and deeper into the pool.
There were little clusters of kids playing at the top level of the pool but lower down it appeared to be reserved for adults. There were a few Mistresses and bodyslaves swimming but even further down it seemed that she and J’are had the place to themselves.
Imani could see the perimeters of the pool—it was a vast pink cube, seemingly floating in midair—a cube that was almost five stories high and five stories wide. She saw the people sitting and chatting on the ledges that overlooked it at various levels, but inside the pink liquid there was only the soft rushing of the water in her ears and the gentle, cool caress of it on her mostly bare skin.
It was both soothing and invigorating and not nearly as tiring as swimming in a pool with gravity. She felt like she could go on floating like this forever but at last J’are pointed to the watch on her arm and she saw that they now had only two and a half hours until court. Maybe it was time to start getting out.
She nodded at him and he nodded back and began to lead the way downward. Looking down, Imani saw the bottom surface of the vast, floating cube of water. Far under it—another ten or fifteen feet—was a blue surface.
As she watched, a bodyslave whose blond hair was floating all around his head, grabbed onto one of the stationary blue cushions and pushed his way out of the pool. Gravity took hold of him once more and he dropped like a rock.
Imani’s heart rate doubled as she watched, wondering if he was going to smash to pieces on