Love Is Strange (A Paranormal Romance)

by Bruce Sterling

  “That’s a very sweet thing to say, but I’m feeling a little weird about keeping this statue here in a hotel room,” said Gavin. “It’s not practical, it doesn’t make sense. I love this Futurist hotel, but... what if Brazilian intelligence agents decided to search our room? I mean, that door lock is just a cheap computer chip. Those clerks downstairs can make thousands of pass-cards.”

  “We should put the Cosmic Cupid in the hotel safe, maybe?” said Farfalla, bright-eyed with sudden worry.

  “Same issue there, really,” said Gavin. “This hotel has a safe — but why is the safe, ‘safe’ from the hotel itself?”

  “Oh my God! You always have such a smart way of putting things!” said Farfalla, jumping to her feet. “What if we lost the statue, like everyone else lost it? We would never forgive ourselves!”

  “You’re right,” Gavin agreed. “We really have to think this through logically. Let me get my notebook.”

  “Gavin, you would never believe who had this statue in the past hundred years! I know the Church had It. I know that the Mafia had It.”

  “Very interesting,” nodded Gavin. “Maybe they had some kind of rental time-share.”

  Farfalla found her slender heritage wristwatch, examined its face, shook it limply and held it to her ear. “You won’t believe how clever I was to find it.”

  “Cookie, trust me, I believe every word of how clever you are.”

  “First, I had to scan all the old American photographs in that Capri museum,” said Farfalla, putting her watch aside. “You wouldn’t believe how much sexy nudity there was in those hundred-year-old pictures.”

  “You don’t say,” said Gavin, raising his brows.

  “Which shoes should I wear? These, or these?”

  “Wear the sexier ones,” Gavin judged.

  “She was the wife of a painter,” Farfalla said. “So, even though she was a novelist, he always needed a model. His wife was just sitting there writing her novels. So they made a hundred nudes. Maybe a thousand. Everybody always says they will clean up the old photographs. But people get busy, they get bored.”

  “They had photographs of the...” Gavin inclined his head sideways. “It?”

  “Oh yes. Many pictures with It.”

  “Nude photographs with It?”

  “Those were no use to me,” said Farfalla, slipping into her shoes. “I had to use the photographs where I could identify the locations. The locations from a hundred years ago.”

  “A location-sensitive photo-sharing service on the Web?” Gavin suggested.

  “FlickR.”

  “Great minds think alike,” nodded Gavin. “You are the Internet witch-queen.”

  “The collective intelligence in FlickR found the locations for me,” said Farfalla, “but that was just the start of my quest. That part was easy. For the rest, I had to suffer.”

  “Cookie, you’re always ‘suffering.’”

  Farfalla thought this over. “Yes. I guess I am. I love you and I’m happy with our marriage, but I do have a dark side. I’m Cassandra, I suffer, I worry, I fret. I can’t let it go.”

  Gavin rooted around in his shoulder-bag. “’Sottozero,’” he told her.

  Farfalla smiled.

  “Less ‘suffering,’ cookie, and more Sottozero supervanilla. Sottozero Brazilian-Italian ice-cream gelato. Two scoops in a big waffle cone. Just for my little darling.”

  He deftly produced a laptop security cable. Gavin slid the cable through the leg of a bed, through a hole in the tarnished bulk of the Cosmic Cupid, and into the security slot of his laptop. He slid the entire bulk under the bed and disguised it by smoothing the bedspread.

  “That’ll do for now,” he said. “Practical problem solved. Let’s go.”

  They strolled, tenderly, arm in arm, to the hotel elevator. They shuttled down the floors.

  Farfalla’s brow wrinkled as the number-lights flashed by. She looked up at him. “Gavin, do you love me?”

  “What?”

  “What we just did. In the bed. Do you even like me?”

  “Baby, I still don’t get it.”

  “My body! I gave you my body! In bed.”

  “What the hell are you talking about? Your ‘body’? You don’t even have ‘a body.’ That was my body. Mine, mine, mine.”

  The elevator doors opened. They walked across the chilly golden gilt of the hotel lobby. The female desk clerk gave Farfalla a womanly, hateful stare. So. Sleazy girl. Up in the room with that American tourist. I hope he paid you well.

  Farfalla stopped in her tracks. She grabbed at Gavin’s arm. She looked up at him in panic.

  “Sometimes,” Gavin admitted. “I’m a little slow to catch on. What the hell just happened to us?”

  Farfalla said nothing.

  “It’s that cosmic thing up there,” said Gavin. “What is with that statue? What a trick of fate!”

  Farfalla began to sob.

  “Did we just have sex together with that statue of Cupid in our room? Oh my god we did!”

  Farfalla wailed in dismay.

  “I was calling you ‘cookie’ when I was up there,” Gavin mused. “I never called you ‘cookie’ before.”

  “What do you mean?” said Farfalla, staring up at him.

  “’Cookie,’ you know, a cookie is like ‘biscotti.’ It’s a sweet handy thing that you eat.”

  “That doesn’t sound very dignified,” sniffed Farfalla.

  “You don’t like being my ‘cookie’?”

  “I never thought about it,” said Farfalla. “I never heard you say ‘cookie’ to me before.” She thought it over. “It sounds so funny... I think I like it! Yes, I love being your ‘cookie.’”

  “You know what?” said Gavin. “I think I know what happened just now! We experienced our future. We were living in the future, up there, just then. I mean, just now. In the past, whatever. Because that was us, the two of us, maybe eight or ten years in our future. In a hotel room, as married people. You were my wife, and I think we even had kids! And of course, we had sex. It was sweet. It was easy. I loved it! It was just what I like.”

  Farfalla scowled. “You found me in the street here, and you took me up to your hotel room, and then, you had sex with me.”

  “Get over yourself, cookie. You were on top.”

  Farfalla stared at the carpet and glowered.

  “Stop that! Knock it off with that shame and blame story, stop doing that,” said Gavin. “I refuse to feel bad about us being married and loving each other! You know what? We have had a prophetic vision! Us, both of us, together, as a couple! We were granted a vision of futurity! And you know what else? We were happy in our vision. In our future, we were living happily ever after. In our future, we were together and happy, and that’s true, and I know that is true.”

  “It felt true… I don’t know. It’s too strange to be good.”

  “But it was true! I mean, sure, maybe we were kind of busy in our lives, obviously, we were up to some business together… But that was us, that was really and truly us. We were living together as a happy married couple.”

  “Why is this happening ? It’s scary! I don’t like it.”

  “Well, you’re the one who dragged the Cosmic Cupid from Italy to Brazil. That Cosmic Cupid has the mojo, cookie. The Cosmic Cupid is bigger than both of us.”

  “It is like a curse.”

  “I’m thinking that its curse is more like a promise,” said Gavin. “On some deep level of philosophy, maybe every promise is a curse, but since I just experienced this great vision... Well, I believe in my vision. I’m a man, and it’s my vision! I’m a man and I am willing to work for my vision. My beautiful vision! My vision of happiness with the only woman I love!” His face was alight.

  “But what about me?” sulked Farfalla. “That is your stupid, man’s, happy love story! Where is my romance story? Where is my Big Kiss? Where are my magic words from my One?”

  “Oh, come on, not that old business again.”

  “But,
that is my story! Where are my fireworks and my ecstasies? I’m in a hotel room with some guy and I had sex with him with a wet towel on my head!”

  “Oh, come on, relax! You looked cute.”

  “We didn’t even use any protection!”

  Gavin narrowed his eyes. “Whoa. That could get a little weird.”

  Farfalla’s eyes went round. “Are you sick? Do you have syphilis, herpes, AIDS?”

  “Look, knock it off with that, Cassandra! Just stop that right now! Put the kibosh on the mourning and panicking! You always see the future in the worst possible light!” Gavin rubbed his chin, guiltily. “Although... Yeah. There should have been a lot more violins and mood music for the first time we ever made love. Where is our first kiss? That wasn’t our first kiss, obviously. Those kisses up there were like our millionth kisses. What gives with that? That’s kind of messed-up! Should I apologize to you? I’m confused.”

  Gavin turned on his heel. “Let’s go right back to our hotel room right now, and try that all over again. Let’s try it again from the beginning.”

  “No! We can’t do that! It is up there.”

  “That’s true, but... whoa. Why did we ever leave that room in the first place? We’ll never get back to that future time and space where we’re happy and married... Not unless we... Wait a minute. How did we get up there in the first place?”

  “I’m afraid of your hotel room! It has a magic idol in it with paranormal powers.”

  “Well, we have to go back to our own room at some point. I mean, all our travel stuff is in that room. Our passports are there.”

  “That’s not my room, that’s your room. I didn’t come to Sao Paulo to sleep with you in a hotel room.”

  “Well you did, and it was great. Why did we ever leave?”

  “You said you would get me a Sottozero supervanilla.”

  “What is that?” said Gavin.

  “It’s this very sweet, nice... never mind, come on, I’ll show you.”

  They left the Futurist hotel. They walked down the tree-lined avenida, and entered a mercado. Farfalla spoke to the gelato vendor at his glassy case. She bought them two waffle-cones.

  Farfalla took a few well-considered licks. “I just can’t be unhappy when I eat a supervanilla,” she said. “They just make life so good! I used to eat these when I was five years old!”

  “They’re okay if you like sweets,” said Gavin, shaking melted ice cream from his fingers.

  “I feel much better now,” Farfalla admitted. “I can’t even say that I’m sorry that I had sex with you. I mean, at least that part is over and done now! Now that I’m your girlfriend, I can face the future. I’ve betrayed Pancrazio. Also, your beautiful blonde ex-girlfriend is my enemy forever. And also, you have to tell your family all about me now. Also, I may be pregnant.”

  “You really are a handful,” said Gavin.

  “What?”

  “Even my goddamn vanilla ice cream has a cloud of black pepper when you are around!” Gavin lifted a forestalling hand. “Never mind, never mind! I’m sure after five or six years of being your guy, this will become second-nature to me.”

  “Anything would be all right, if you were my One. But Gavin, you’re not my One. You can’t be. The real One would have told me his special words before any of this ever happened to me.”

  Gavin’s sweating face began to redden in the summer heat. He looked from side to side in the jostling sidewalk crowd. “Look,” he said, “I love you and it’s great that we’re really together now, but let’s get one thing straight, between you and me, now and forever, okay? It doesn’t matter to me if I am your One. I don’t want to be your One. That’s not what my story’s about! I don’t believe I am this One guy, and I’ve heard too much of him from you, and I’m starting to get mad at him! It’s insulting that you keep comparing me to him! You think there’s some sacred guy in your broom closet who’s gonna put up with all your witchy crap? He doesn’t exist!”

  “He exists here in Sao Paulo,” said Farfalla, boldly. “This is the town where they told me that my One existed. He is real. He is as real as we are.”

  “So, what am I supposed to do about that? This magic fairy creep of yours! Am I suppose to just hand you over to him? There’s no way! I’m going to kick his ass. I’m going to break his tiny magic elf bones.”

  “You can’t do that. Because he is my fate. I belong to him, because he is the One I truly love.”

  “You don’t love me, then?”

  “Well,” said Farfalla slowly, “of course this feels like it’s love, and I feel very happy with you, but if you are not my One, then there must be some other kind of love. Not the love we have, but more like the love in grand operas.”

  “That sure figures,” Gavin said. “I always knew that you were Italian, but I didn’t know you were Italian. Look, I don’t want some crazy stage diva in my life! No sobbing, screaming, snake-handing sorceress! My spouse should sort my socks!”

  Farfalla blinked.

  “I can’t believe I just said something so poetic,” said Gavin, pulling at his lower lip. “I never talk like that to anybody else but you. I’m growing by this experience. It really opens emotional doors.”

  Farfalla said nothing.

  “When I said that, that was just like my speech in Capri,” said Gavin. “I never make speeches like that! Not by myself. You see, that proves something. Even if I’m not the man of your fate — because I’m not like, this, rainbow fairy, romantic wimp you are destined to be with — well, whenever we’re together, we’ve got one king-hell future. That is the truth. Maybe you and I don’t exactly get along all the time, but we can sure totally wreak havoc on other people. When we are together, we can break clocks and turn this world right on its head.”

  “It’s true that you can make a very strong speech when you want to,” said Farfalla. “I believe you. I am almost forced to believe you.”

  “We should stay together, Farfalla. Not just for my sake, or your sake, but because — we have paranormal power. I have some insight, and you have some foresight, but when we’re together, we have terrific power. We should look after each other. It would be wrong for us to part, and look for other people to love us. That would be immoral and bad. Because you and I could easily make two innocent people very, very unhappy.”

  “In other words,” said Farfalla, “I should sleep with you, even if you’re not the man I truly love.”

  Gavin shrugged. “Yeah. I guess that’s what I’m trying to tell you.”

  “Men are the worst.”

  “Look, we’re both being stupid now, because we both know, in the future, we’re happy!” Gavin said. “I don’t want to stand here bickering with you! Time will prove me right, and in the meantime, I have a business meeting lined up today. I came here to Sao Paulo to work!”

  “You’re working today?”

  “Why not? You’re not supposed to be here, so of course I planned to work. I planned a meeting with one of my father’s associates. He’s some weird, old geezer from my dad’s days at Boeing — but I told him that I could meet him tonight. It’s a courtesy call on a family friend. I need to do it.”

  “You want me to go with you?”

  “You don’t have to. He’s speaks perfect English.”

  “You have to go. You have to leave me. In the street like this.”

  “Why is that my fault? You are supposed to be in Seattle! With your boyfriend, the Italian super-geek! I just made up this meeting with this Brazilian industrialist, so I’d have something to do here in the wrong side of the world! I mean, sure — there’s that big Futurist conference going on over in the Hotel Valor Econômico. But there’s no way I’m going over there.”

  “I am coming with you,” said Farfalla, narrowing her eyes. “But later, boy, you have to come with me.”

  “Okay. Sure. Great.”

  “I came here to work, too. So I want to show you to old friends of mine. My special friends. In a special place.” Farfalla drew a breath.
“Their world is not like the silly world of yours. They live in the favela. It’s poor. It’s violent. It’s dangerous.”

  “Hey, witch-girl, I am totally cool with that. I’m keen to see more of this town. End of discussion.”

  An armored limo was waiting for them at the Futurist hotel. The imposing car seemed to have been lurking there for quite some time. Gavin and Farfalla hurried into its padded, chamois-leather back seat.

  “Please apologize to these local dudes, for us keeping them waiting,” said Gavin to Farfalla. “Tell them that we had a mix-up.”

  Farfalla leaned forward and spoke in Portuguese through the cruel little grill-holes in the bulletproof glass. The driver and his associate, in their linen suits, sunglasses and Bluetooth earpieces, scarcely turned their close-cropped heads.

  “Our new friends here are some kinda bruisers,” said Gavin, leaning back into the plush leather.

  “There’s a lot of gangster kidnapping here in Sao Paulo,” said Farfalla darkly. “The favela gangsters steal rich people. Sometimes, they send people back without their ears or fingers.”

  “I’m not real thrilled at our lack of interior door-handles.” Gavin examined the smoky, mirror-colored limo windows. “Well, at least we’ve got a lot of personal privacy inside here. And to judge by this endless traffic jam, we’ve got some time on our hands now.”

  “Oh, that’s good! Now I can tell you the whole story of how I found the Cosmic Cupid,” said Farfalla happily. “It’s a really good story. I found him in Naples.”

  “Okay,” said Gavin, steepling his fingers and leaning back in the seat. “Your big story about Cupid. It must be time for that. Let me have it.”

  “Cupid was in a police evidence room.”

  “You’re kidding me.”

  “I’m skipping ahead now, to the end of my story.”

  “That’s all right,” said Gavin kindly. “We both do a lot of that ‘skipping ahead’ business. We seem to do more of it every time we meet! I mean, I have a story, and you have a story, but when we’re both together in the same story, we kind of... bend narrative reality.”