“Persephone,” he murmured her name as though he wanted to caress her with his voice.
“Jed,” she replied, but her voice cracked on the single syllable. Already she wanted him to touch her again. She was trembling when she laid a hand on his bare forearm to guide him in the direction of the car-park. She hadn’t touched a man since she’d said goodbye to her father at the Cedars-Sinai Clinic so many years before.
“Did you have a good flight?” she asked banally. She wanted to hear him talk more too. She hadn’t got an idea of his accent yet.
“It was bearable,” he told her. “But I had to fill out a load of paperwork before they would let me disembark. I thought at one point they were going to send me back. They must have cross-referenced my visa-number with the entire Los Angeles telephone directory.”
“But you got the right stamp,” Persephone panicked.
“Indefinite leave to remain,” he reassured her. “Though I can’t think why they’re so precious about letting people in here,” he added now that they were outside the terminal. “Looking out of the window on the way over, I couldn’t see anything but dust.”
“Over some of the finest mineral deposits in the world,” Persephone laughed. “But I hear it’s pretty green where you come from.”
“For the rich.”
“It’s green for the rich here too. I can’t wait to show you where we’re going to live,” she began to babble. “You’ll love it. I have a pool. Oh, look, there’s my car. The New Generation Ferrari. Picked it up this morning. I haven’t got used to it yet. I was still looking for the old Ford. Silly girl!”
Jed smiled appreciatively. “You’re a woman of great taste.”
Persephone shivered at the compliment.
“You can drive it, if you like.” She thrust the keys into his hand. The Ferrari held no real appeal for her, but watching Jed’s face as she handed it over was something special. Angela had been right about men and cars.
He settled himself into the driver’s seat and adjusted the rear-view mirror. “Pity it’s automatic,” he flirted. “A gearstick would have given me an excuse to touch your knee.” He touched it anyway, and the warmth of his hand flooded Persephone’s body. She giggled. It was a strange laugh that had never passed her lips when she flirted with potential female lovers. She could see already what Serena had meant when she said that being with a man was different. Her tongue was tied. She couldn’t think of anything intelligent to say. That never happened when she was out with a girl.
“You ready to go home?” he asked her, with a sparkling wink.
“I can’t wait,” she replied. “We can’t get there soon enough for me.” However, when Jed started to rev the powerful engine, Persephone managed to restrain her excitement just enough to tell him: “Jed, I’m afraid the speed limit’s twelve miles an hour.”
~ * ~
It was understood from the start that Jed would move into Persephone’s apartment with her and that she would give him an allowance. It was in the terms of the introduction agency’s agreement, exactly as she had been warned. But Persephone didn’t regret it for one second. Even though Jed’s allowance, including the agency’s ongoing commission, was double all her other outgoings, she was sure that she had got a bargain. Jed fitted into her life so perfectly, it was as though he had always been there. And the little things that he did! Enchanting. Like the first time she saw him use a spoon to eat dessert. That was so cute. As was the way he pronounced the ‘h’ in herbal.
Persephone started to work from home much more often than before. Lots of people did, of course, since commuting was hell and, despite the predictions of the technophobes, tele-working still didn’t require you to change out of your pijamas. But, living alone as she did, Persephone had always preferred the occasional human interface of the office.
Now she didn’t need it. Now she had human contact on a plate. She would wake up every morning and still gasp in surprise when she realised that her hand was lying gently on the warm waist of a real living, breathing creature. When she could finally make time to have a glass of wine with her neglected best friend, Persephone swore to Angela that there were nerve cells in her body that had never been used before Jed stepped off that plane.
Other parts of Persephone too were being activated for the very first time. As Jed was sleeping, she would look at his face and wonder how those people on the other side of the Pacific Ocean could possibly be leaving tiny babies to starve to death when they might one day grow up to be as lovely as Jed. Whereas before she had been pretty much indifferent to the bleating of the television campaigners for human rights, she began to see their point and even sent a cheque for half a million. Surely an economy as great as California’s could afford to carry a few more supremely decorative angels like the one she had adopted for herself? They didn’t have to take up valuable jobs if they were placed with women who would pay for them. They didn’t even have to go to school. Persephone began to fondly daydream that she might one day be rich enough to damn the Gaians and have a son.
~ * ~
A few weeks after Jed arrived in Los Angeles, Serena threw a party. Everyone who was anyone was there. Persephone and Jed drove the short distance to Serena’s house in the Ferrari. They wanted to make an entrance—it was the first time they had been out together in public, since immigration laws required that Jed stay within the grounds of his American sponsor’s house until he had been vaccinated and checked out by a state doctor. He had been passed the day before the party after an examination that had seemed to take forever, with the doctor lingering, most unnecessarily Persephone thought, over the birthmark on Jed’s left buttock. Now, with that trauma firmly behind her, Persephone was particularly looking forward to seeing Angela again. More specifically, to seeing Angela’s face take on the pallor of a green-lipped mussel when she saw what she could have got for the money she had spent on a RIMMER.
Angela’s solar-powered eco-pod was already parked up outside Serena’s house. Serena’s boy Peter was standing at the door, ready to relieve the guests of their coats as they arrived. Persephone squeezed Jed’s hand tightly as he helped her out of the car. At the door, Peter greeted them excitedly, snatching Jed’s hands and then hugging him tightly as though they were long-lost brothers. Persephone remained more composed, though her chest was heaving with anticipation. They walked into the sitting room. People who had been deep in conversation moved apart to let them pass. Surreptitious hands reached out to touch the hair on Jed’s bare arms, the shirt-covered muscles of his back.
Serena and Angela were standing by the pool. Serena turned and widened her eyes in delight.
“Isn’t he just perfect!” she purred as she ruffled Jed’s golden mop. Jed stared straight past her to where Angela stood nursing a coke.
“Hello, Jed,” she said quietly. Persephone couldn’t help feeling pleased at Angela’s response. She had even blushed. Though Angela would never admit it, she was obviously impressed.
“Oh,” Serena was squawking. “You must bring him over here, to the shade. I’ve got some beer in specially. I know how much they like it. And later on he and Peter can go off and play together. I’m sure they’ll get on so well. He has had his inoculations now, hasn’t he?”
Jed was pushed down into a seat deep with cushions. Persephone and Serena took up positions on either side of him and talked across his well-muscled chest. Persephone had her hand firmly on his left thigh. Serena contented herself with stroking his still-pale arm.
“Angela doesn’t look very happy,” Persephone observed after a while, when Jed had wriggled away to procure some drinks.
“Mmm,” laughed Serena. “Neither would I with nothing but a RIMMER for company. She’s split from that Jennifer girl and it’s put her in a foul mood. I told her she should get herself a nice malleable man like we have instead. She could afford it. No temper tantrums once a month, I told her. No rowing because you’ve both turned up to some party wearing the same dress. She told me that if I thoug
ht I’d chosen the trouble-free option, she wanted to be around for my rude awakening.”
“What did she mean?”
“She said that even a ‘sweet thing’ like my Peter would ‘revert to type’ given half a chance. Said I should keep him away from your Jed if I didn’t want any trouble. Something about the pack instinct. Can you believe that?”
Jed had forgotten the drinks. Instead, he and Peter were taking it in turns to jump off the little springboard into the deep end of the pool. Serena and Persephone watched them appreciatively.
“I tell you, Persephone, Angela’s lost it. Must have had the voltage on her RIMMER up too high,” Serena concluded. “Valeria, can you make sure they’re getting enough canapés over by the pool?”
Valeria the house-girl sashayed across the garden with a tray in each hand. Persephone wondered if she was exaggerating the swing of her narrow hips even more than usual as she sauntered past the boys. Peter jumped up to relieve Valeria of one of the trays. Jed followed suit. Which just showed how well-bred he was, thought Persephone.
~ * ~
When Serena next had a pool party, almost two months later, things were very different. Peter stood at the door again to take the coats, but when Jed bounded up to him, Peter welcomed his friend into the house with the enthusiasm of a sloth for a half-marathon. Serena too seemed out of sorts. She was grey around the eyes. Valeria had gone, to be replaced by an older woman who could just about manage one tray at a time.
Persephone greeted Serena with a kiss on each cheek. “Darling, we haven’t seen you for ages. What’s been going on?”
“You mean Angela hasn’t told you?” Serena said dryly.
“I don’t see as much of her as I used to,” Persephone said. “I’ve been busy around the house, as I’m sure you can imagine.”
“That’s all I can do. Imagine.”
Angela was sitting by the pool already. She looked different too. Though in her case, there was a marked improvement to her usually pinched-up face. Persephone looked at her questioningly. “I won’t say I told you so,” Angela began. “But it seems that after we were last here, young Peter got a whiff of the hormones. Serena found him wasting himself on Valeria.”
“I’ve been in therapy ever since,” Serena sighed.
“But I thought he was totally faithful to you,” Persephone said in surprise.
“You can never be sure that the urge is out of them,” Angela said.
“But what did you do?” Persephone asked. “I mean, you got rid of her, obviously. But are you sure you can trust him now?”
Peter and Jed were dangling their feet in the pool. Peter began to peel his shirt off. He was thicker-waisted than Persephone remembered. The fine muscle tone she had envied in him before getting Jed was being dissolved into flabby curves.
“Oh, yes,” said Serena bitterly. “I think I can trust him now.”
Angela left shortly after that. It was clear that Serena had no more time for her prophecies. With Angela gone, Persephone turned her attention to comforting her hostess. Peter was still almost the man she had been so fond of, wasn’t he? And couldn’t she almost be thankful for the fact that he had lost his tendency to be a tad aggressive sometimes, along with his joie de vivre?
Jed returned from the poolside, looking a little drained.
“I’m feeling a bit sick,” he told Persephone. “I think I’d like to go home.” She felt his forehead and offered to go back to the apartment with him, but he wouldn’t have that. He said that he didn’t want to spoil Serena’s party by taking away one of her favourite guests.
Persephone handed over the car keys and promised that she wouldn’t cut her partying short on his account, but after a while she found she couldn’t concentrate on Serena’s meaningless chatter anymore. She punched Jed’s number into her phone and waited nervously while it rang and rang at the other end until eventually she was passed on to an answering service.
While the pre-recorded voice asked for her message, Persephone had a sudden vision of Jed lying helpless on the bed, able to hear the phone but not able to reach it. Hadn’t the Parvo started with the victims feeling just “a little sick”? He could be gasping his last while Persephone listened to Serena wondering aloud whether a state-of-the-art music system would have been enough to stop Peter from straying.
Persephone made her excuses.
~ * ~
Persephone crept into the house. If Jed hadn’t answered her call because he was simply asleep, she didn’t want to wake him. But as she took off her shoes so that she could walk silently across the tiled floor, she heard an unearthly howl from the bedroom.
Persephone panicked. Only a week before, one of her business associates had been strangled in her own bath. Fully aware that, despite her hours in the gym, she was hardly in a position to defend Jed or herself against a maniac, Persephone hurried outside again. In the locked shed she found the rifle that her grandmother had used to kill the pet Labrador all those years before.
But the scene which greeted her when she quietly pushed open the bedroom door was worse to Persephone than murder. Jed’s naked buttocks humping comically. Angela’s small white feet pointing towards the door. Neither heard her step inside. She let them continue until first he came, then Angela, moments later. They were squeaking. Grunting. Animal noises.
Persephone raised the barrel of the gun and put her eye to the sights. She focused on the back of Jed’s head and felt her finger tense. But Jed collapsed upon Angela’s shivering body in postcoital bliss before Persephone could bring herself to squeeze the trigger. She lowered the gun silently.
“You’ve got to help me get out of here.” Jed had raised himself up on his elbows and looked down at Angela, who stroked his back soothingly in reply. Persephone felt a layer of ice form over her heart as she remembered the first time he had looked down at her like that, as if he held the world in his arms. “I can’t stay here any longer, knowing what could happen if I stepped out of line.”
“Persephone wouldn’t do that to you, Jed,” Angela said softly. “Trust me, sweetheart, I’ve known her for years. She’s my—“
“Best friend?” Persephone completed the sentence.
Jed and Angela turned suddenly towards the door, their eyes widening in horror as they realised that the shadow in Persephone’s hand was her gun. “I think you can put that in the past tense, Angela.”
“No, Persephone. You don’t understand...”
The lovers scrambled apart. Angela covered herself as best she could with a discarded shirt, since Jed had snatched up all the bedclothes to defend his genitals.
“All that bullshit about not wanting a man,” Persephone spat. “All that earnest advice you gave Serena about the trouble with having a lover who’s a slave to his hormones.”
“I couldn’t help it. I meant everything I said to Serena about men, but Jed was different. I didn’t want it to be like this, I swear. It just sort of happened. You’re not going to shoot me, are you? Say you’re not going to shoot me, Perse?”
Persephone raised the gun again.
“Don’t do it, please. Please, Persephone.”
It was Jed, pleading from beneath the duvet.
“Beg for me,” said Persephone. “Beg.”
~ * ~
There wasn’t much that Jed could do but agree to dig the hole. Persephone had him out in the garden as soon as darkness fell, on his hands and knees in the dirt, scrabbling away without a shovel. As he was digging, she knew that Jed would be planning his escape. But where would he go? Back to England to face the Gaians and almost certain death?
No, she thought almost sadly. He would stay. He probably wouldn’t even have the guts to leave her house.
Persephone had no doubt that there were plenty of women out there in the vast sprawl of Los Angeles who would gladly take Jed in, but once he stepped outside her gate without the safety of the car, it was more likely that some mutant veteran from the African wars would get to him first. She had made sure
it was well-known from the day Jed arrived in America that there were at least two of those crazy creatures in the canyon below her house, just lying in wait for a man to pass while they laboured under the bizarre notion that fresh sperm would give them back the humanity they had lost to chemical warfare.
“Come inside, Jed,” she commanded, when the hole had been filled and smoothed over. Jed sat in the corner of the vast cool lounge, never taking his eyes off Persephone as she sat in her chair, mobile phone in lap, pondering what to do next.
She had not asked Serena what she’d had done to Peter after finding him with the house-girl. For once, Serena hadn’t been bursting to boast about the qualifications of the surgeon or the astronomical cost, as she had done after each of her cosmetic ops. Jed’s face seemed to register a brief flicker of fear as Persephone picked up the phone and asked for Serena now. He couldn’t know, could he? Sometimes it was as though he were telepathic.
New Worlds Page 26