The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year-Volume Four

by Jonathan Strahan

  And somehow, with his clap on the back, the letter in her laptop case and the sun on her face while she waited for the car for her trip to the airport, she started to forget her confusion. She'd had great sex, she'd built the foundations of a profitable working relationship, she was thirty-one and about to be a vice president, and she didn't even have a hangover.

  The car came and she climbed into the cool, green-tinted interior.

  She let the outside world glide by for ten minutes before she got out the letter of intent. She read it twice. Beautifully phrased. Strong signature. Wonderful row of zeroes before the decimal point. If everything stayed on track, this one contract would keep their heads above water until they could develop a few more income streams. And she had done it. No one else. Damn she was good! Someone should buy her a great dinner to celebrate.

  She got out her phone, turned it on. The signal meter wavered as the car crossed from cell to cell. Who should she call? No one in their right mind would want to have dinner with Vince. Richard would only want all the details, and she didn't want to talk about those details yet; he was in the Carolinas, anyway. Asshole.

  The signal suddenly cleared, and her phone bleeped: one message.

  "Hey. This is Cookie. I know you don't go until the afternoon. If you . . . I know this is weird but last night was . . . Shit. Look, maybe you won't believe me but I can't stop thinking about you. I want to see you, okay? I'll be in the park, the one I told you about. Piedmont. On one of the benches by the lake. I'm going there now, and I'll wait. I hope you come. I'll bring doughnuts. Do you like doughnuts? I'll be waiting. Please."

  Oooh, you're different, ooh, you're so special, ooh, give it to me baby, just pay another thousand dollars and I'll love you forever. Sure. But Cookie's voice sounded so soft, so uncertain, as though she really meant it. But of course it would. That was her living: playing pretend. Using people.

  Cody's face prickled. Be honest, she told herself: who really used who, here? Who got the big contract, who got to have exactly what she wanted: great sex with no complications, and on the expense account no less?

  It was too confusing. She was too tired. She was leaving. It was all too late anyhow, she thought, as the car moved smoothly onto the interstate.

  A woman sitting on her own on a bench, maybe getting hot, maybe getting thirsty, wanting to use the bathroom. Afraid to get up and go pee because she might miss the one she was waiting for. Maybe the hot sweet scent of the doughnuts reminded her she was hungry, but she wouldn't eat them because she wanted to present them in their round-dozen perfection to her sweetie, see her smile of delight. She would pick at the paint peeling on the wooden bench and look up every time someone like Cody walked past; every time, she'd be disappointed. This one magical thing had happened in her life, something very like a miracle, but as the hot fat sun sinks lower she understands that this miracle, this dream is going to die because the person she's resting all her hopes on is worried she might look like a fool. Or doesn't want to admit she had used a woman for sex and then thrown her away.

  Cody blinked, looked at her watch. She leaned forward, cleared her throat.

  The driver looked at her in his mirror. "Ma'am?"

  "Where is Piedmont park?"

  "Northeast of downtown."

  "Do we pass it on the way to the airport?"

  "No, ma'am."

  She was crazy. But all that waited for her at home was a tankful of fish. "Take me there."

  Without the hat and boots, wearing jeans and sandals and the kind of tank top Cody herself might have picked, Cookie looked young. So did her body language. Her hair was in a braid. She was flipping it from shoulder to shoulder, twisting on the bench to look to one side, behind her, the other side. When she saw Cody, her face opened in a big smile that was naked and utterly vulnerable.

  "How old are you?" Cody blurted.

  The face closed. "Twenty-six. How old are you?"

  "Thirty-one." Cody didn't sit down.

  They stared at each other. "Dirt on my face?"

  "No. Sorry. It looks . . . you look different."

  "You expect me to dress like that on my day off, too?"

  "No! No." But part of her had. "So. You get a lot of days off?"

  A short laugh. "Can't afford it. No expense accounts for me. No insurance, no 401(k), no paid vacation."

  Cody flushed. "Earning two thousand bucks a night isn't exactly a hard luck story."

  "Was I worth it?"

  Her smell filled Cody's mouth. Yes! she wanted to shout. Yes, a hundred times over. But that made no sense, so she just stood there.

  "You paid twenty-two hundred. The house takes sixty percent off the top. Out of my eight eighty, Danny takes another twenty percent and, no, he's a bouncer, not a pimp, and I've never done that before last night. And, no, I don't expect you to believe me. Then there's costumes, hair, waxing, make up . . . " She leaned back, draped both arms along the back of the bench. "You tell me. Would fucking a complete stranger for three hours be worth five hundred dollars?"

  Her mouth stretched in a hard smile but her eyes glistened. She put one ankle up on the other knee.

  "Does your ankle still hurt?" It just popped out.

  Cookie turned away, blinked a couple of times. Cody found herself kneeling before the bench.

  "Cookie? Cookie, don't cry."

  "Susana," she said, still turned away.

  "What?"

  "Susana. It's my real name. Susana Herrera." She turned to Cody, and her face was fierce. "I am Susana Herrera. I'm a dancer, I'm not a whore, and I want to know what you've done to me."

  "What I've . . . ?"

  "I dance. I tease, I hint. It makes you feel good, you give me money, which makes me feel good. Sometimes I give a lapdance, but always by the rules: hands on the armrest, clothes on, a little bump and grind, because I need the extra tips. I dance, you pay. It's my job. But this, this isn't a job! I don't know what it is. It's crazy. I let you—" Her cheeks darkened. "And I would do it again, for no money. For nothing. It's crazy. I feel . . . It's like . . . I don't even know how to say it! I want to talk to you, listen to you talk about your business. I want to see your house. I didn't sleep last night. I thought about you: your smile, your hands, how strong it made me feel to give you pleasure, how warm I felt when you wrapped your arms around me. And I'm afraid."

  "Me too," Cody said, and she was, very, because she was beginning to get an idea what was wrong with them and it felt like a very bad joke.

  "You're not afraid." Susana folded her arms, turned her face again.

  "I am. Cook—Susana, do you suppose . . . Shit. I feel ridiculous even saying this. Look at me. Please. Thank you. Do you suppose this is what I—"

  She couldn't say it. She didn't believe it.

  After a very long pause, Susana said, "Dancers don't fall in love with the marks."

  That cut. "Marks don't fall in love with whores."

  "I'm not a—"

  "Neither am I."

  They stared at each other. Cody's phone rang. She thumbed it off without looking. "My full name is Candice Marcinko. I have to fly back to San Francisco this afternoon but I could come back to Atlanta at the end of the week. We could, you know, talk, go to the movies, walk in the park." Jesus, had she left any stereotype unturned? She tried again. "I want to meet your, your cat."

  "I don't have a cat."

  "Or your dog," she said. Stop babbling. But she couldn't. "I want to learn how long you've lived in Atlanta and what kind of food you like and whether you think the Braves will win tonight and how you feel when you sleep in my arms." She felt like an idiot.

  Susana looked at her for a while, then picked up the box at her side. "Do you like Krispy Kreme?"

  When Cody turned her phone on again at the airport, there was a message from Richard: Call me, it's important. But she had to run for her plane.

  In the air she leaned her head against the window and listened to the drone of the engines.

  Susana, si
tting on the bench while the sun went down, thinking, Love, love is for rich people.

  A cream labrador runs by, head turned to watch its owner, running alongside. Its tongue lolls, happy and pink. Dogs love. Dogs are owned.

  She tears the last three doughnuts to pieces and throws them to the ducks.

  On Thursday, Vince and the executive team toasted her with champagne. She took the opportunity to ask for Friday and two days next week off. Vince couldn't say no without looking chintzy, so he told her VPs didn't have to ask permission.

  VP. She grinned hard and for a minute she felt almost normal. VP. Top dog.

  Friday morning she had just got out of the shower when the doorbell rang. She was so surprised she barely remembered to pull on a robe before she opened the door.

  "Well, that's a sight for sore eyes."

  "Richard!"

  "Not that I don't appreciate the gesture but could you please tighten that belt, at least until we've had coffee? Here you go, quad grande, two percent."

  She went to get dressed. When she emerged, drying her hair with a towel, he was sitting comfortably on the couch, ankle crossed at the knee, just like Susana in the park.

  "I envy you that dyke rub-and-go convenience."

  She draped the towel round her neck, sat, and sipped the latte. "To paraphrase you, it's not that I don't appreciate the coffee, but . . . why the fuck are you here?"

  He put his phone on the table next to her latte. "Remember this?"

  "It's your phone?"

  He took a thumbdrive from his laptop case and gave it, then her, a significant look.

  "Richard, I've had a real weird few days and I'm on a plane in four hours. Maybe." Maybe she was crazy, maybe she should cancel . . . "Anyhow, could you please just get to the point?"

  "Drink your coffee. You're going to need it. And tell me what happened on Tuesday night." He held up his hand. "Just tell me. Because my guess is you had a hell of a night with a lovely young thing called Cookie."

  She didn't say anything for a long, long time. "Susana," she said finally.

  "Ah. You got that far? Susana Herrera, aged twenty-four—"

  "Twenty-six."

  "Twenty-four. Trust me. Mother Antonia Herrera, father unknown. Dunwoody community college, degree in business administration—oh, the look on your face—and one previous arrest for possession of a controlled substance. Healthy as an ox. Not currently taking any medication except contraceptive pills."

  "The pill?"

  "What's the matter?"

  "Nothing. Go on."

  "No known allergies to pharmaceuticals, though a surprising tolerance to certain compounds, for example sodium thiopental and terpazine hydrochloride."

  Cody seized on something that made sense. "Wait. I know that drug. It's—"

  "RU486 for the mind. That's the one."

  "Oh, Jesus, Richard, you didn't give her that! You didn't make her forget what happened!"

  "Not what happened Tuesday."

  Cody, confused, said nothing.

  He plugged the thumbdrive into his laptop and turned the screen so she could see the sound file icons. "It will all make sense when you've listened to these."

  "But I don't have time. I have a plane—"

  "You'll want to cancel that, if it's to Atlanta. Just listen. Then I'll answer questions."

  He tapped play.

  " . . . ever happens, I promise no one will ever hear what goes on this tape except you."

  "Cue ominous music."

  She jumped at the sound of her own voice. "What—"

  "Shh."

  "—more an, um, an ethics thing."

  "Jesus, Richard. You're such a drama queen." Pause. Clink.

  "I've done my research, too. Like you, I'm pretty sure what will happen after you've made your presentations to Boone."

  "The Golden Key."

  "—but what I need to know from you is whether or not you can authorize out-of-pocket expenses in the high five figures to win this contract."

  He touched pause. "Ring any bells?"

  "No." Cody's esophagus had clamped shut. She could hardly swallow her own spit, never mind the latte. But the cardboard was warm and smooth in her hand, comforting, and behind Richard her fish swam serenely back and forth.

  "Terpazine is a good drug. We managed to calculate your dosage beautifully. Susana's was a bit more of a challenge. Incredible metabolism."

  "You said you didn't give her—"

  "Not in the last couple of weeks. But you've had it six times, and she seven. Now keep listening."

  Six times?

  "—the exploration of memory and its retrieval. So exciting. A perfect dovetail with the work I've been doing on how people form attachments. It's all about familiarity. You let someone in deep enough, or enough times, then your brain actually rewires to recognize that person as friend, or family."

  Pause.

  "There are ways to make it easier for someone to let you in."

  Clink of bottle on glass.

  "I've told you about those studies that show it's as simple as having Person A anticipate Person B's needs and fulfill them."

  "So don't tell me again."

  She sounded so sure of herself, bored even. A woman who had never thought to use the world love.

  "—jumpstart the familiarization process. For example, person A works in a bookshop and is lonely, and when she's lonely chocolate makes her feel better. And one day person B arrives mid-afternoon with some chocolate, says Hey, you look sorta miserable, when I'm miserable chocolate makes me feel better, would you like one? and A eats a chocolate and thinks, Wow, this B person is very thoughtful and empathic and must be just like me, and therefore gets slotted immediately into the almost-friend category. It's easy to set something like that up. You just have to know enough about person A."

  Know enough.

  Cody pushed the laptop from her. "I don't believe this."

  "No?"

  Cody didn't say anything.

  "You sat in that Seattle bar, and you listened, and then you signed a temporary waiver." He placed a piece of paper on the table by her hand. It was her signature at the bottom—a little sloppy, but hers. "Then you took some terpazine and forgot all about it."

  "I wouldn't forget something like this."

  He held up his hand. Reached with his other and nudged the sound file slider to the right.

  "Take the pill."

  "Alright, alright." Pause. Tinkle of ice cubes. "Jesus. That tastes vile."

  "Next time we'll put it in a capsule. Just be grateful it's not the vasopressin. It would make you gag. I speak from experience."

  He tapped the file to silence. "It really does. Anyhow, a week after Seattle I came here and you signed a more robust set of papers." He handed her a thick, bound document. "Believe me, they're bombproof."

  "Wait." She dropped the document on her lap without looking. "You came here? To my apartment?"

  "I did. I played the recording you've just heard, showed you the initial waiver. Gave you that." He nodded at her lap. "You signed. I gave you the sodium thiopental, we had our first session. You took another terpazine."

  "I don't remember." He shrugged. "It happened." He tapped the paper in her lap. "There's a signed waiver for every session."

  "How many did you say?"

  "Six. Four here, twice in North Carolina."

  "But I don't remember!" The fish in her tank swam back and forth, back and forth. She closed her eyes. Opened them. The fish were still there. Richard was still there. She could still remember the weight of Susana's breasts in her hands.

  "You'd better listen to the rest. And read everything over."

  He tapped play.

  "Okay. Think about what it would be like if you knew enough about someone and then you met: you'd know things about her and she'd know things about you, but all you'd know is that you recognize and trust this person and you feel connected. Now imagine what might happen if you add sex to the equation."

&nbs
p; "Good sex, I hope."

  "The best. There are hundreds of studies that show how powerful sex bonding can be, especially for women. If a woman has an orgasm in the presence of another person, her hormonal output for the next few days is sensitized to her lover: every time they walk in the room, her system floods with chemical messengers like oxytocin saying Friend! Friend! This is even with people you know, consciously, aren't good for you. You put that together with someone compatible, who fits—whether they really fit or just seem to fit—and it's a chemical bond with the potential to be human superglue. That's what love is: a bond that's renewed every few days until the brain is utterly rewired. So I wanted to know what would happen if you put together two sexually compatible people who magically knew exactly—exactly!—what the other wanted in bed but had no memory of how they'd acquired that knowledge . . . "

  It took Cody a moment to pause the sound. "Love," she said. "Love? What the fuck have you done to me?"

  "You did it to yourself. Keep listening."

  And she did. After she had listened for an hour, she accepted the sheaf of transcripts Richard handed her from his case.

  She looked at the clock.

  "Still thinking about that plane?"

  Cody didn't know what she was thinking.

  "Is it refundable?" he said. "The flight?"

  Cody nodded.

  "Give me the ticket. I'll cancel for you. You can always rebook for tomorrow. But you need to read."

  She watched, paralyzed, as Richard picked up the phone and dialed. He turned to her while he was on hold, mouthed Read, and turned away again.

  So she began to read, only vaguely aware of Richard arguing his way up the airline hierarchy.

  After the first hundred pages of Subject C and Subject S, he brought her fresh coffee. She paused at one section, appalled.