Seoul Survivors

by Naomi Foyle

  He was touching her; Johnny didn’t have to be there to see it. English’s fingers were wiping away the teardrops, stroking the fine down on her cheeks, murmuring, coaxing, trying to get Sydney to spill the secrets he, Johnny Sandman, had spent the best part of three years protecting. Would the slut fall for it, or was she playing some deep game of her own?

  “I keep trying to be strong,” Sydney whimpered, “to think about the future, everything Da Mi’s promised me, but yesterday, after you left, I felt so bad. Even if you took the money, I didn’t know if I could look you in the eye.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “You’ll be angry.”

  “No, I won’t. It’s Da Mi, isn’t it? For some weird reason, she’s making you bring me to her?”

  “Oh, Damien,” Sydney wheedled, “Da Mi’s a great person, honestly. Maybe she did have a hand in your arrest, I don’t know, but she’s been so nice to me; I can’t tell you. I don’t want to desert her; I just feel bad lying to you. And besides, if you knew the truth, maybe you would want to help her out.”

  “The truth?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Okay, shoot.”

  Sydney took a deep breath. “All this stuff with the ProxyBods, it’s just scratching the surface of what Da Mi can do. She does want our skin-tone for the avatars, but I’m also the egg donor for a massive new project, way more exciting and important. And Da Mi needs your sperm to follow it through.”

  “For something more fucked-up than the ProxyBods?”

  “No! It’s way better: she wants to clone our children and bring them up to inspire people—”

  Damien cut her off. “So she does want to clone our children?”

  “Wait, let me finish—” There was a slight shift in sound quality, a swallowed consonant, then Sydney’s voice came clear again: “It’s such a beautiful vision. They’ll all live at VirtuWorld, they’ll be totally safe. But it’s top secret right now, and because Da Mi’s been screwed around so much by other sperm donors, she thought it would be better to ask you to donate for the ProxyBods instead.”

  Johnny couldn’t believe it. He had to press “pause” and “rewind” again. “Screwed around by other sperm donors”? Yeah, well, that would be Kim describing how she fired him. And if the Doc thought he couldn’t hear when she was editing a sound file, she was dumber than Pebbles unplugged. Still, no matter what Kim was trying to hide from him, the fact remained that that stupid little piece of trailer-trash had finally overstepped the mark. Her big, glossy, cock-sucking mouth was now posing a serious threat to the viability of the entire project. And as ConGlam and GRIP had discussed from the very beginning, there was only way to contain and eliminate that threat. Kim was going to have to order it, and Johnny would deliver. Then that über-bitch doctor would have to thank him—and she would, oh, yes, she would indeed, on bended knee, right in front of his royal throne.

  He resumed the file. The nightclub music squiggled and bleeped. Koreans were talking. A girl laughed.

  “So let me get this straight.” Damien’s voice was tight. “All the time you’ve known me you’ve been trying to hijack my sperm to create a GM breed of designer humanoids? Didn’t you ever think there was something wrong with that, Sydney?”

  “You said you wouldn’t be angry!”

  Picturing her outrage, Johnny laughed until his eyes were wet.

  “That was before you told me our whole relationship was a lie!”

  “I’m sorry, Damien,” Sydney pleaded. “I thought what you didn’t know wouldn’t hurt you. But now I know that was wrong, because I’ve changed—because of all the meditations I’ve been doing. I’m telling you now, aren’t I?”

  “Probably because Da Mi told you to.” English wasn’t kissing her now, Johnny chuckled to himself. His own cock was getting hard again though: power was an aphrodisiac, they said, and at long last power was flowing back into Johnny Sandman’s loins.

  “She’d kill me if she knew—and anyway, don’t be mad. Can’t you be flattered we want you? You’re great, Damien: so smart, and sexy.”

  “Yeah, a prime English specimen,” Damien said scathingly. “Perfect for marketing in Korea.”

  “You’re twisting everything I say! Maybe Da Mi does just care about your looks, but I don’t. I mean, you’re one of my best friends in Korea—you know that’s true, Damien.”

  There was another poignant pause. Then English caved in. “I like you too,” he confessed.

  “Do you?” There was that coquettish voice again, and the small sounds of movement. She was stroking something right now, and it wasn’t a cat.

  Abruptly, the file ended. Johnny stubbed out his butt and drained his whiskey glass. Blood was swimming behind his eyes and his cock was bursting at the seams. She thought she’d got away with it, didn’t she? It was time to call Kim and discuss exactly how to stop Sydney and her mealy-mouthed little boy toy in their tracks.

  Damien awoke with a start. His mouth was full of hair and Sydney was clinging to him like a mermaid who’d failed her swimming badge. Gently, he freed his arm and without waking her, guided her head back onto the pillow. She gurgled and rolled over, drawing her knees up to her chest. Sunlight was streaming through the window, imbuing her skin with a pale wintery glow. But as he admired her gleaming spine, last night’s conversation and the very peculiar events of the last few days came creeping back to him on spiky little heels. Go now, a little voice in his head insisted. Vanish. Close the door without saying goodbye.

  But where would he go? To the Immigration office? The thought of it made his guts shrink. Shit, shit, shit. He rubbed his temples, tried to get some blood circulating in his brain. What he really wanted to do was get out of the country today. If only Jake and Sam had found him a tenant. Then he could pick up his new passport, grab his bag from his flat and head to the airport. He could wait in Japan until Sam wired him the hagwon money; then buy his ticket to Canada.

  What the fuck time was it? His trousers were lying on the floor beside the bed. Reaching over, he dug out his MoPho. Eight a.m.—and yes! A text message from Jake:

  No luck yet. Still trying. Don’t give up.

  He’d sent it late last night; he wouldn’t be up yet, so no point texting back. Damien slipped the MoPho back in his jeans and slumped back down beneath the sheets.

  It was all too much to think about. So much easier just to lie beside Sydney, suspended in indecision and her faint scent of honey and vanilla. He slid his arm around the sleeping girl, nuzzled her fine hair. As his breathing slowed to match hers, his cock began to swell. Da Mi’s conniving, Sydney’s torturous thought processes, Jake and Sam’s lists of homeless foreigners, the prospect of a hundred mini-Damiens becoming child-slaves or new Messiahs: all of that seemed as distant and surreal as a late-night schlock DVD.

  He nestled Sydney’s bottom in his lap. Maybe this was seriously wrong—sick, even. Just a few months ago he’d thought this girl was his dead sister come back to life. But whether it was the thought of prison or a combination of Sydney’s wild story and helpless tears, some barrier inside him—taboo, reluctance, fear, whatever—had collapsed in the nightclub last night.

  She stirred, reached for his hand and pulled it up to her chest. As he cupped her breast, memories of last night flooded his mind: pinning her against the wall, tugging at her thong, inhaling the silk of her skin; letting her push him onto the bed, unzip his jeans, gnaw at his chest as he lunged for the deepest, tightest, most private part of her; splitting her open, feeling her loosen, accept him, pour over him, crying out for him, her screaming silently for what seemed like minutes, her white body arching above his before grinding him into what felt like the molten center of the earth. No, it hadn’t been foolish or pervy getting together with Sydney. It had been like making a promise to himself.

  Stiff again, he slid his cock into the cleft of her bum and she shifted, responded with pressure of her own. He gripped her hip-bone, rocked her back and forth, while his other hand roamed her body, stroking
her curves, squeezing her nipples, flicking her small, nubby clit. With a small throaty noise, she lifted herself up on her elbow, her backbone curving like a ladder before him. Then she slid back down, and turned toward him moaning, “Please fuck me . . .” She smiled and fluttered her eyelashes. “Fuck my cunt—”

  He grinned. She was laughing at him, at his proper British politeness during their languid post-coital conversation: So, what do you call your vagina? he’d asked, idly twirling her pubes. Er, Gina? she’d whipped back. Then they’d giggled through the ridiculous ones, from “Foofy Bird” to “Under-Dimple” and in the end she’d said she liked “pussy” to get her in the mood, and “cunt” when she was raging wet. Though she’d also agreed “quim” was cute.

  Her quim was the cutest pink seashell he’d ever smelt. Groaning, he resisted the urgent need to enter her right now. He reached over to the lacquered box she’d introduced him to last night, pushed away her fancy Gotcha and fumbled for another condom. She twisted toward him and watched with shining eyes as he unrolled it, then parted her legs with her hands.

  Later, the latex sheath drooped off his limp cock, pendulous with his sperm.

  Sydney ran her hands over his chest, her eyes sparkling like bits of green and gold glass. “We should go on holiday,” she whispered.

  And at last the kaleidoscope of the last few days stopped spinning.

  Da Mi was a creep, and her Peonies and ProxyBods were about as wrong as anything could get. But he’d been working flat-out, on the run, for months—for years. And now he had the chance to make some serious money and get to Canada for the Solstice, exactly like he’d been planning. It was ridiculous to hem and haw. Maybe Sydney hadn’t exactly been one hundred percent honest with him, but she’d meant well, and she was more than making up for it now, wasn’t she? He’d slept on it, screwed on it—twice—and now he knew exactly what to do. He wasn’t going to jail, and he wasn’t going to hide in Jake’s gym bag, waiting to escape out of the country owing a huge debt to his mate. He was going to sail down to Azitoo with the Full Monty, buy those fake papers and leave Korea with sacks of cash—and, who knows, maybe a date to hook up with Sydney in Vancouver one day. All he had to do first was set aside some woolly moral principles and a knee-jerk first reaction, then cock-sneeze into a test tube. Big deal. If the world went down the toilet, so would Da Mi and her Nazi experiments. But he’d be fucked if Damien Meadows was going to be her first victim.

  He slipped off the condom, tied it in a knot and dangled it between them. “Here’s a deposit on the flight.”

  “Yergh!” Sydney pushed his arm away, then gaped at him in astonishment as the penny dropped. “You mean you want to help out? Really?”

  Damien placed the blobby latex on top of last night’s effort, in the ashtray beside the bed-mat. “Yeah. Why not?” He stretched. “I still don’t trust your friend, mind, but as long as she coughs up the cash, I won’t quiz her too hard about her recruitment methods.”

  Sydney propped herself up against her pillow. “You’ve got her all wrong, Damien; she’s really nice. Once we can tell her you know about the park, she’ll probably let you have a share of the profits.”

  “Christ, don’t do that,” he said in alarm. “She can’t know I know, Sydney. I don’t want to play any part in her new master race.”

  Her face crumpled slightly and she turned away from him. “How many times do I have to tell you? The Peonies aren’t a master race they’re here to help people.”

  “Good. Let them help people.” He snuggled up behind her. Her teddy was stuffed between the yo and the wall. He grabbed it, made it do a little dance on the pillow in front of her, then kissed her nose with it. She laughed, and he whispered in her ear, “All I want is to get together again sometime with you.”

  “Yeah?” She wriggled round and hugged him.

  “Yeah.” Holding her close was like bathing in warm milk. He stroked her hair and kissed her forehead, hummed into her ear and pressed her to him until her necklace dug into his chest.

  “Ouch.” She pulled away, sat up. “I’m starving. Want some breakfast?”

  “Sure, what’s on the menu?”

  Sydney picked up the tied condom and scrambled to her feet. “Oh, the usual: dried sperm flakes and hard-boiled eggs.”

  She flounced over to the kitchen and put the condom in the fridge. He jumped up after her, pinched her bum.

  “I was fourteen, she was twelve—” he sang.

  “Wha—?” She turned to him, giggling.

  He placed his finger on her lips. “Father traveled, hers as well . . . Europa . . .”

  His voice was a little thin at first, but he hit all the notes, and he remembered the whole thing, word for word. Sydney smiled and laughed as he swept her round the flat, waltzing to Thomas Dolby’s epic tale of childhood lovers, cruelly parted by the vagaries of war and the demands of the three-minute pop song: Europa, who disappeared, became a famous model and film star, and then vanished again as her bodyguards dragged the narrator away from her car . . .

  By the end, he was full-throated, and Sydney was roaring along to the chorus “We’ll be the pirate twins again . . . EUROPA!”

  “Yeah?” she asked as he finished, pulling him back down onto the bed mat.

  “Yeah.” Burying his face in her hair, he tumbled after her.

  After Damien left, Sydney put on the new Burned Forest CD. Damien had taken the refrigerated condom down to the lab, so she chucked out the one in the ashtray, then filled the kitchen sink and washed the breakfast dishes in a haze of cello, chainsaws and birdsong. What a night. What a morning. Gorgeous sex. More gorgeous sex. Damien singing that funny song—she’d thought he’d written it for her, but he’d said no, it was by some British guy, had been a hit when he was a kid. She’d asked if he was a good singer then too, hoping to hear about the choir, but he’d shrugged, said “nothing special,” and then changed the subject back to breakfast. That had been fun too: they’d made rice and pine nut porridge from a packet and then he’d stewed some plums she’d thought were too hard to eat. His mum used to make stewed fruit, he’d said. It was easy; he’d just added water and a bit of sugar. She’d suggested Da Mi’s honey, but he didn’t like it. Usually he ate toast and Marmite with cucumber in the mornings, which sounded horrible, but he’d called that anti-British prejudice. He’d promised to make her some one day, and then she’d never eat peanut butter and jelly sandwiches again.

  She put the leftover stewed plums in a bowl in the fridge, then she made another pot of coffee, sat by the window and lit a cigarette. Jin Sok had left a pack in the flat, and she liked to smoke one occasionally. Outside it was windy, gray and cold. Inside, she was enclosed in a warm bubble all her own.

  Telling Damien must have been the right thing to do. Of course, she hadn’t mentioned Hugh Grant; that might have offended him. No, her strategy had been perfect: he had ended up donating, and she was feeling happier than she could ever remember—better than the calm glow she experienced after a session in the Chair. She was more tingly, more promising. Maybe the Chair had helped her relax enough to go with the flow with Damien, but still, no matter what Da Mi said, there was no substitute for real-time, real-life, real-body pleasure.

  She hoped he did want to take a holiday. They could go somewhere warm, Vietnam or Thailand, maybe. Her mind drifted with the cigarette smoke into thoughts of sun, sand and sex, but as she took the final drag she shivered, and not from cold.

  It was stupid to pretend that everything was hunky-dory. Pretty soon she’d have to face Da Mi, having broken the very first promise she’d ever made to her. And if she didn’t have the guts to confess, she would have to keep on lying, or at least not telling the truth, and that would be a real strain.

  She stubbed out the butt. Everything had happened so quickly, she told herself sternly; no wonder she felt mixed-up. After all, it had never been her intention to tell Damien about VirtuWorld, never—but she hadn’t expected his refusal to play along, even when backed
into a corner; and she hadn’t expected to feel guilty about misleading him.

  Maybe she should have told Da Mi she was feeling queasy; she could have had a few sessions in the Chair to help her keep to the plan. But if she’d confessed her doubts, Da Mi might have given up on her; to be honest, after that scene with Jae Ho she was amazed Da Mi still wanted her on the project at all. No, it was much better that she’d kept quiet, wasn’t it? Shouldn’t she be allowed a secret of her own?

  But having a secret from Da Mi felt . . . wrong, somehow. She wished Damien would hurry up and come back. Now he was gone, everything felt infected with uncertainty.

  Her coffee tasted bitter now; maybe she should have a honey drink. She wasn’t very good at having two a day. It’s funny, she thought, how when something’s bad for you, jangles your nerves or destroys your lungs, you want it all the time, but when something’s good for you, you just use it ’til you feel okay, then you coast along until you feel like shit again and you’re desperate for a fix.

  The CD ended and the sound of traffic reared up from the street. Across the road, the branches of a ginkgo tree were scraping against each other in the wind. With a bouncy burble, her MoPho startled her out of her trance. Private number? Who could that be?

  “Yoboseyo?”

  “Sy-duh-nee?”

  With a weird thrill, she recognized the coarse, lilting voice. “Jae Ho?”

  “I am fine.” He laughed. “How are you?”

  “Very good, thanks,” she replied coolly, though her pulse was racing. Why was Jae Ho calling her?

  She opened her mouth to reel off a list of all the great things that were happening for her, but he cut in crisply, “Sy-duh-nee, I finish new painting. Painting of Canada supermodel. I want you see. You come today?”

  A painting of her? She should just tell him to fuck off.

  But why let him think he could still upset her? “You can invite me to the opening,” she said.

  “No, no. Opening many months. I want you see now.” His voice softened. “Is my sorry, Sydney. I make you very beautiful, big meaning in picture. Best painting. My masterpiece.”