Eternal Love
by Cerys du Lys and Jessika Fevrier
Published by Cerys du Lys, 2013.
This is a work of fiction. Similarities to real people, places, or events are entirely coincidental.
ETERNAL LOVE
First edition. July 4, 2013.
Copyright © 2013 Cerys du Lys and Jessika Fevrier.
Written by Cerys du Lys and Jessika Fevrier.
Table of Contents
Eternal Love
A Note from the Editor
Other Writing by Cerys du Lys
About the Author
Afterwords
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The phone rang.
Misa twisted the water knob, bringing a halt to her shower. Pulling a towel from the curtain rod, she wrapped it around her body, then stepped out from behind the curtain.
The phone rang again.
Towel-clad, she swung open the door of the bathroom, scampered down the hallway, and lifted up the cordless phone, checking the caller's number.
The phone rang once more. The caller's name showed as unavailable on the LCD.
She pressed the talk button. "Hello?"
"Hello," a man said. "Is Robert Thorns available?"
"May I ask who's calling?"
"Is this Mrs. Thorns?"
"Yes. Who is this?" She worried. The man sounded like a debt collector. Robert always said he paid their bills on time, but sometimes she wondered how he could.
"Mrs. Thorns, I'm calling on behalf of the Cancer Research Institute. We're wondering if you or Mr. Thorns would like to become senescence donors. Our records indicate you have a transference hook-up in your home. I could direct you in its use over the phone. A day could mean the difference between the life or death of hundreds. A week, even more. Your time goes directly to our lead scientists so they can continue their research."
The hot water from her shower had all but cooled. The remnants, soaking through her towel and dampening her hair, chilled her shoulders and brought shivers to her skin. She had the urge to hang up and return to the bathroom and dip into a warm bath.
"Mrs. Thorns? Are you there?"
She swallowed hard. "Yes. I'm here. I don't think we'll be donating. I'm sorry."
"Are you sure? The average person lives about seventy eight years, discounting senescence transactions. One week is an infinitesimal amount of time in comparison. Also, It's tax deductible and the good that—"
She hung up before he finished. Putting the phone back on its base, she walked down the hallway in a daze, intent on returning to her shower. She checked a clock on the wall as she passed. Robert should be coming home soon. Maybe he'd like to take her to a restaurant for dinner, something special where they could dress up.
When she returned to the bathroom, the phone rang again. She switched on the bathtub radio they owned, turned the volume dial until it drowned out the sound of anything else, and twisted the water knob to resume her shower.
...
The disgustingly crisp and pure surgical smell of the hospital room pervaded her senses. In her drug induced state, she felt detached from the world as if she were watching herself on video years later. Her head pounded. She wanted to vomit. The doctor kept demanding things from her.
"Push."
Misa pushed. What more did he want? She was pushing as best she could and she pushed every time he asked, but he kept ordering her to do it again and again.
"Almost there," he said. "A little more."
Hadn't he said this before? How long had she been in here? She couldn't remember.
Though to be fair, she didn't think she should be here at all. She loved Dalton, she did, but they were too young to be experiencing this. She was only sixteen and in high school; or had been until the weight of pregnancy kept her too exhausted to continue.
Dalton said it would be alright, though. He would get a job. Another job. He'd get lots of jobs and everything would be fine and he'd take care of her forever and their son(they would have a son! That's what the ultrasounds showed) would grow up with loving parents.
She loved the idea, it sounded romantic, but everyone disagreed. It will be difficult, they said. She would lose opportunities. How could she care for a child and continue school? High school might work, but college? She didn't know those answers. She only knew she liked Dalton quite a bit, maybe she loved him a lot, and he told her it would be alright.
Something between her legs cried. The doctor hefted up a small, fleshy bundle and showed it to her. She loved it, she knew that, but it reminded her of a hairless, overgrown rat. She laughed, wondering if anyone had thought this before.
"It's a boy," the doctor said, triumphantly. "Do you have a name for him?"
Dalton had hidden in a corner after she'd screamed at him too many times for his incompetence, but he hurried back now. "What do you think, babe?"
She smiled. "You liked Nathan, didn't you?"
"Yeah, but you wanted to name him after your granddad?"
"No," she said. She had wanted to do that, but not now. "Nathan suits him."
...
Robert phoned to tell her he'd be home from work late. She'd been reluctant to pick up the phone, but the display showed his work number so it couldn't be too bad. He agreed wholeheartedly with her plan to go on a dinner date. She'd dress up, she said. He chuckled and asked if she might dress down later. Through the phone she imagined his silly smirk.
Maybe, she said, if he was good. Oh, he'd be good, he told her. Very good.
Maybe he would, maybe he wouldn't? They would have to see.
He drove her in his sedan to their favorite Thai restaurant. It scared her to drive because she'd never properly learned how and everything seemed unfamiliar and daunting. She knew to stop at red lights, but she also knew some people didn't bother to do the same. Robert drove with confidence, though. He made her feel safe.
She waited after they parked while he hustled over to open her door.
"M'lady," he said, extending his hand.
She took his hand in hers, enjoying the difference between her petite fingers and his large palm. "M'lord Thorns, you're such a gentleman."
It was a game they played sometimes, acting out parts from times far past while living in the advanced present. Computers and technology and politics might suit others, but sometimes it was nice to forget all that and contemplate art and castles and chivalry.
Robert helped her from the car and brought her hand to his arm, tucking it around his elbow. "Shall we?" he asked.
"Let's."
The restaurant's concierge greeted them with a smile. "Hello, sir and madame. Do you have a reservation?"
Robert nodded, reciting his information. He'd called on his way home and made sure of the restaurant's availability. She liked that about him; his foresight.
"This way," the concierge said. "We've kept your table waiting."
Seating them, the man left to inquire about their waiter and get them drinks. She smiled, glancing around the room and taking it all in. A string quartet played songs on a small stage, and a handful of couples danced to a slow tune. Robert would ask her to dance later, she knew, and of course she'd say yes.
"Misa, look. They've gotten new fish since last time." Robert pointed to the extravagant fish tank built into the wall.
Like a child, she jumped to peek and look. They did, they had new fish. Only a few—a bright one with purple fins and one with o
range stripes—but they were new. They swam back and forth, making the checkered glass of the fish tank look like an ever-changing multicolored stained glass mosaic.
"Do you know what you want to eat?" Robert asked.
She thought about it for a moment. "I'd like that mango with sticky rice they serve."
"I meant for dinner!" He laughed. "We'll definitely get that for dessert, though."
...
Dalton left after high school. He said he wasn't ready. He couldn't handle it. Of course he would pay child support, though, and he'd like to visit Nathan sometimes.
He paid child support; sixty dollars a week. He never visited.
He went to college somewhere, she didn't know where. She didn't care much, either. He'd left her and she had her hands full with Nathan. Her parents helped and they weren't as critical about her life as they'd been during her pregnancy. She met an older man in his late twenties, too.
Gaige was something alright. That's what her father said. He dressed in fashionable leathers, and with his black hair he looked like he could pass as a vampire on one of those hit shows on the premium channels.
He also did drugs and enjoyed partying. She never told her parents about that part. While she didn't do drugs herself and didn't necessarily enjoy partying, she liked Gaige asking her to go with him. It was a shared activity between them, a closeness they could bond over.
When they went to one party he knew of in an abandoned warehouse, he had her wear a dress that showed far too much of her cleavage and probably all of her butt. Her father wouldn't like it, but her father wasn't going. That's how she rationalized it. Gaige didn't rationalize; he groped and made out with her.
At the party, he left her alone. She stood in the supply room of the dusty warehouse with a horde of party-goers, wondering how anyone could like this. Someone had brought a radio and blared trance music. She recognized some songs and moved back and forth, catching the rhythm but too shy to do it in full force because of her wardrobe's inadequacy.
Later, a long time after Gaige left, someone attached strobe lights to a metal walkway hanging above the makeshift dancing floor. The lights flickered and flashed, blinding her sometimes and highlighting different dancers at others. Men tried to dance with her but she shook her head and shooed them away.
Gaige returned, eyes bloodshot and covered in haze. He didn't look like he could see, let alone recognize her, but he did.
"Hey baby," he said, sidling close and wrapping her in his arms. "How you doing?"
"Gaige!" She laughed when he tipped her backwards into a mockery of a formal dance move. "Stop that! Everyone will see me. You're drunk, aren't you?"
"No way," he said. He twirled her around and she went with it. "Had a pick me up. You want one? Just a—" He pinched the underside of her elbow. "—nip and you'll feel happy like a cloud."
"No, I'm fine. Dance with me."
They danced.
Later, they fooled around in the back seat of his car. "I love you," she said after he spent himself. She knew he would have said "I love you" back, but he'd fallen asleep.
...
Robert woke early for work. She lounged in bed, listening to the buzz of his electric razor. She liked when he gave her a good morning kiss afterwards and the scent of aftershave was fresh on his cheeks.
She rolled in the blankets, twisting, tying, and untying herself from within them. Robert came in and searched his closet for the suit he wanted to wear. This was all nice, the situation idyllic for her. Smiling as she watched him, it amused her to see him trying not to look her way while getting ready.
When he finished, he knelt by the bed and kissed her cheek. She smelled his aftershave then, fresh, like peppermint. He opened a drawer in their bedside table and took out his portable senescence machine. She knew what it was for and what he would do, and she hoped he knew he didn't have to.
"I woke an hour early," he said. No earlier than he usually woke up, she thought. "I think you deserve an extra hour for sleep, don't you?"
She murmured, neither agreement nor disagreement. She worried if she said too much, he might not like it, that he might think her ungracious. He smiled and patted her cheek. Pulling two cords from the machine, he attached the alligator clips of one to his finger and the other to one of hers. She laughed the first time she'd seen this kind of machine since it reminded her of a pair of jumper cables. She didn't laugh now, only waited to see if he would change his mind. She wouldn't mind if he did, but he didn't.
The machine whirred. A zip of energy pricked her finger. It stung, then vanished. Robert looked tired afterwards and she felt sorry for him. On the contrary, she felt refreshed. Not the best feeling for sleeping, but she would try to because she didn't want to waste the time he'd given her.
He kissed her again before unclipping the cords and putting the machine back.
"I'll be back tonight," he said. "Have a good day, alright?"
She nodded, lazily. "I'll miss you."
"I'll miss you, too." He blew her a kiss, then turned off the lights and left her alone in their bedroom.
...
Dalton hadn't paid child support in months. He never paid a lot, so he didn't owe much, but she needed something to support Nathan. That's what her parents said, anyways. In truth, they housed her, fed her and gave her most anything she required, but they disliked her child's father shirking his responsibilities.
He arrived one day while Nathan was sleeping. Her father interrupted her while she was reading a book to tell her someone was waiting for her on the porch, and by the way he said it and the flare of his nostrils she could guess who. Dalton stood there, hands in his pockets, rocking back and forth, heel to toe.
"Hey," he said.
"Hi," she said.
"I don't have a lot of money." His new button down shirt seemed to contradict this statement.
"I never asked for a lot of money." She hadn't. He was the one who said he'd support them. He was the one who said everything would be alright. "You need to support Nathan, though. He's your son, too."
"I know." Dalton stared at the floor. "I'm sorry."
"It's fine." It wasn't, not according to her parents, but she said it anyways.
They stood in silence, neither knowing what to say or do. All of a sudden he blurted out, "Have you heard of that new thing they have?"
"What new thing?" Before, when they dated, she might have understood him without clarification, but now she felt like she barely knew him. New things came out every day, didn't they?
"That machine. The one where you give someone time. Senescence transfusion. Like a bank transfer. I could transfer a day of my life to you, and you'd live a day longer."
"I've heard of it." She didn't know if she believed in it, though news reports said it was a scientific breakthrough. Time was life's most precious commodity, they said, so dealing directly in it was amazing. Sensationalistic journalism never appealed to her.
"I was thinking," he said. "My dad works at the bank, he's a loan consultant." She already knew this. "They're testing it out for when someone can't make payments. People pay pretty well and there's a big market for buying right now, so you transfer a couple days and it sets your loans straight depending on how much you owe."
She didn't know what this had to do with her. "And?"
"Well." He shrugged. "I could do that. I'll give you a week. It's worth a lot. More than I owe. You can keep it or sell it or do whatever you want. I don't know how it works but my dad can explain it in his office. What do you think?"
"Why don't you sell it yourself and give me the money?"
"There's procedures to follow to sell at any reputable place. Banks can do it because they've already got your information. I could do it but it'd take awhile since there's wait lists and lines. It's new and really popular. It'd take a few months before I could pay you."
Her parents wouldn't wait a few months. They'd pester and harass her and bother her to bother Dalton and in the end he wouldn't have t
o deal with it, she would. How fair was that? He owed her money, but she got hassled for it? "Fine," she said. "It sounds illegal, though. Won't your dad get in trouble?"
"Nah. No one will know. I'll tell him I'm trying to be responsible."
...
Robert paced around their home, pondering something to himself, refusing to talk to her about it. She'd tried cajoling him into telling her, but he wouldn't budge. She wouldn't like it, he'd said. Well, she thought, if she wouldn't like it then why was he thinking about it in the first place?
She went into the kitchen to make a piece of toast with strawberry jam while he worried over something insensible. As she sat down at the breakfast table to eat, she heard him talking on the phone. Mumbled words shuffled down the hallway, becoming garbled nonsense by the time they reached her ears. She nibbled on the corners of her toast, licking jam from her lips, and waited.
He walked into the kitchen then sat in the chair next to her. "We're going on vacation," he said.
"Is that what you were worried about?" she asked. "Where do you want to go? We can visit your mother. It's nice there."
"No, no." He wiped a smear of jam from the corner of her mouth. "I thought we could go on a real vacation, to an island. There's one in the Caribbean called Saint Kitts. It's nice. I've been doing research."
"Can we afford that?" Robert had a job, a decent one at that, but she didn't. He insisted she didn't have to work, which suited her fine. It wasn't that she was lazy, but he seemed happiest when he could take care of her, and she liked seeing him happy.
"I talked to my broker on the phone. There's good rates for senescence in the market. He has buyers lined up, so I transferred a couple weeks. It should be more than enough to cover the vacation, spending money, and extra for new clothes."
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