Sequela

by Cleland Smith

  -o-

  'They're not bothered at all!' Kester said as the door to his office closed behind them.

  He touched his Book, misting up the walls and blocking out the vista of white-coated industry. Looking up, he caught Alexis smiling at him. She was pleased to have been right again.

  'I told you so,' she said. 'We made clear in their contracts that commissioned exchange might be a possibility. And they don't see it as a paid part of their job anyway – it's a bonus shag with a celebrity once they've done their bit on the catwalk. You've got to remember that a lot of them are professional models, or aspiring ones – especially the first tranche – they do it all the time. Ever been to London Fashion Week?'

  Kester made a face. Of course he hadn't been to London Fashion Week.

  'No. God, what a relief!' He slumped down in his chair. A smile built up to a grin, which built up to a laugh. 'It'll be so good!'

  'We've certainly worked our arses off to make sure everyone's excited about it.' Alexis grinned.

  'Well, you know how passionate I am about raising the profile of science, darling.' Kester grinned back at her and stopped his capering.

  Alexis drew a deep breath and walked over to the window.

  'The show's going to be the event of the summer,' she said. 'While we're away Yule's team are going to be talking to some high profile wearers, setting interviews up. You packed for our little trip yet?'

  Kester watched her as she looked down into the square below. He hadn't packed yet. He hated packing. The light from the window defined the silhouette of her body within her light tunic top and made her blonde hair glow. Smiling to himself, he reached under his desk and brought out what looked like a small tub of paint.

  'Here.'

  Alexis turned and looked to see what he had, then raised her eyebrows. 'What is it?'

  'A pot of procrastination. Take your shirt off.'

  'What?'

  'Shy? Come through next door then. I've got something for you. You'll like it.'

  Farrell walked ahead of Kester back through to his quarters.

  'Take your shirt off,' he repeated in his best commanding voice. He had been practising this tone for a while now. He was convinced that she quite liked it. No-one ever told her what to do and it must be a relief to allow herself just to follow instructions for a change. Not that she would ever admit it. He wouldn't dare speak to her like that outside of their private quarters and the exchange booths.

  'Yes, sir.' Alexis smirked. She whipped her tunic top up over her head and flicked open her bra.

  'Did I say your bra?'

  'You didn't have to, darling.' Alexis smiled saucily and squeezed one of her breasts, staring him right in the eye.

  'It's unnecessary, but I won't say it's not a bonus.' Kester laughed to himself as he unscrewed the lid of the paint pot, set it down on his coffee table and started looking in his labcoat pocket for something. 'It gives me more to work with.'

  'I like this.'

  Alexis had found Kester's new recliner, made in the same apple-green leather as his Bauhaus suite. He'd had it specially made, having seen one in someone else's office. The colour made it look a little like a dentist's chair, but Kester kind of liked that. Alexis laid herself down on it. The waistband of her culottes tweaked the flesh of her midriff as she settled herself luxuriously, as if preparing to nap.

  'Where do you want me, Kester.' She still kicked out his name like a spitting cat.

  'Actually, that's ideal. Stay where you are.'

  He had found what he was looking for: a long-handled paintbrush.

  'I gave you a gift a few days ago,' Kester said.

  'I don't remember.'

  'No, that's because you weren't aware of it.'

  'You slipped me one while I was sleeping?'

  'Lex, I'm pretty sure even you couldn't sleep through that.' Kester glanced down at his crotch, failing to keep a straight face. 'Besides which, everybody knows you don't sleep.'

  'Really? They know that?'

  'No machine needs to sleep. Not even a sex machine.'

  'Kester, that's dreadful.' Alexis rolled her eyes.

  He couldn't be annoyed with her about Helena, he decided. Helena was sweet, but for some reason she had reminded him what it was like to be embarrassed about sex, ashamed even. With Alexis it could be businesslike, intimidating, fun, but never embarrassing.

  'So this gift,' Alexis said.

  Kester suddenly looked round at his bedside table.

  'Wait,' he said and dashed over there, returning with a plain black blindfold in one hand. 'Now hold still.'

  He pumped his foot repeatedly on the height control of the recliner, bringing the seat up to waist level. Alexis laughed as it jerked her higher into the air.

  'Jesus, Kester, don't you have an electronic control on this thing.'

  'No! I had it made this way. It's low-tech chic.'

  'A little inappropriate, don't you think.'

  'These are my private quarters.'

  'And what you do with your private quarters is your own business.'

  'And what you do with my private quarters…'

  Alexis cried out, off-guard, as Kester pushed the recline lever, sending her jerking backwards a notch, so that she was lying almost flat, breasts falling into soft ovals. He pulled over a tall bar stool, perched beside her like a dentist and proceeded to blindfold her.

  'This isn't very scientific, Doctor Lowe.'

  'This is all very important. Now shut up and stay still.'

  A little smile on Alexis' lips showed Kester that he had judged her right today. Taking the slender brush in one hand and the pot in the other, he began.

  -o-

  Alexis allowed the darkness of the blindfold to become the room. She loved the feeling of complete darkness. It was like floating, like being dead. It made it impossible to think about the world; it wiped your mind clean. The seat shuddered as Kester leaned over her, the tail end of his breath and then, at regular intervals, the air-con sweeping over her bare chest. She felt a tingling twist at the centre of each breast as her nipples tightened with the cold. The first touch of the brush made her flinch and giggle uncharacteristically, a small cold tongue licking her. He was painting her. When the air-con came, the paint cooled again, as if fresh. She opened her mouth to ask again what he was doing and then changed her mind. No talking.

  'No talking,' he said, as if he had read her mind. His voice was low and close and it gave her a tight feeling in her throat, a miniature thrill.

  The more he painted, the more she could feel what the marks were – swirls, dots, long thin stems of cool slithering down her flanks – as if her sense of touch was focusing. Her culottes were softly undone, let fall away to the side, ceased to exist. The cold licks moved downwards, making her belly shudder. Everything was magnified. She became aware of her viruses. The gold in her eyes shone through her eyelids, through the blindfold, burned a glow-edged hole through the ceiling above, the floor above that, upwards, through more floors, more ceilings, melted through metal, glass, stone, out through the clouds, through the atmosphere, into the sun; the sun was her projection in the sky. And about her body, her glowing lymph nodes cast a blue-white light contrasting the gold, bathed the room outside her in light. She imagined Kester's hard-concentrating face made pale, cool.

  The sound of footsteps receding flicked her out of her focus. When had the painting stopped? She couldn't say. Couldn't say how long she had been lying there. The footsteps came back towards her and then there was cool air pushing down on her, light fabric landing on her skin. Kester's hands pressed the gauze softly onto her body, palm over palm, moving methodically from neck down to waistline. He was mummifying her. Then, starting at the neck again, she felt the gauze peeling away – not mummifying; blotting.

  'OK,' Kester said. 'Now you need to dry for ten minutes. I'm going to fix some drinks.'

  Alexis listened to the clinking of ice and glass as she waited to dry. The wet scrape of a bottle-
cap twisting open, soft glugging, scraping shut again. Now a deeper scrape, a different container. Then the soft pad of feet across the room, the crack and tumble of ice once, twice, three times, filling up a metal container. Feet padding again, pouring, then a sound she had never realised she loved so much: the sound of metal slotting together, ice and liquid being shaken. The sound of the ice was softened by the liquid as it hit the glasses. By the time the glass arrived on the table beside her she was dying for a drink, but didn't dare reach out for it.

  'You can have that after your shower,' Kester said. 'Now stand up for me.'

  His hand slipped carefully under hers. She grabbed it and pulled herself up, stiff, not wanting to let her body crease, though not really sure why, or what Kester had done to her.

  'Shower is this way.'

  His hands were on her shoulders, pointing her in the right direction, pushing her ahead of him. Then they fell away and she was walking blind on her own.

  'Wait,' his voice came and she stopped.

  There it was again, the cool lick, this time on her right buttock. She snickered to herself. Kester giggled back. The spell was breaking; she was coming back to reality. He pressed what felt like a square of gauze to her buttock and then peeled it away.

  'Let me guess,' Alexis said. 'Ten more minutes.'

  'Yes,' Kester said. 'Maybe a little less. I'll let you know.'

  She reached up to her blindfold.

  'Not yet,' Kester said and grabbed her wrist. 'I can keep you occupied for ten minutes I think.'

  When her ten minutes were up, Alexis showered with the blindfold on, soaping up hard and pressing her fingers firmly across her flesh, trying to feel for something – what, she wasn't sure. Something was different. There was a roughness, a change.

  'OK,' Kester said when she had rinsed off. He guided her to the full-length mirror and pulled off the blindfold.

  It took a moment for Alexis' eyes to adjust to the light. She was covered in patterns, like a primitive warrior, growing outward from her navel.

  'Paint,' she said.

  'Virus. KL05.'

  'Virus?' She felt sleepy, unable to reply fully.

  'Better than a virus, in fact. A virus that you have to buy a pot of this with.' Kester indicated his unmarked paint pot. 'The virus induces sensitivity to the chemicals in the paint. It's a sort of biological tattoo.'

  'And it heals.'

  'It's a minute rash. And yes, it heals over the course of about twelve hours. You choose your own patterning.'

  'Like makeup, body paint.'

  'Better than makeup – it's textured, it won't run, it won't sweat off or smudge. Of course the best way to test whether it's the real thing or not is to make someone sweat. And did you enjoy that?'

  Alexis turned and kissed him. She smiled, satisfied, and then turned to look at her back. On her buttock, where she had expected more of the same exotic motif, was a childish scrawl – Kester is my favourite.

  'Kester!' she shrieked, hurled out of her trance, cold water thrown on her warm satisfaction. 'What if someone sees that?'

  'I've got to mark my territory somehow.'

  Alexis snorted a laugh and gave him a gentle slap. She wasn't sure whether she wanted it to hurt or not.

  'Touché baby.'

  'Touché.' Kester smiled and stroked the markings on her front.

  Chapter 13

  The plane banked subtly, as if trying to tip its passengers out onto the vast bed of cloud that stretched beneath them. Kester allowed the falling feeling to take him. The clouds were luminous white as if lit from inside, soft and solid at the same time, perfectly walk-on-able. They weren't flying high; they were flying low to an unformed, unpainted landscape.

  Travelling on a private jet wasn't something that Kester had ever expected to do. Even during the planning for their trip he had imagined that he and Alexis would travel on a commercial service. In business class, perhaps, maybe even first, but this? He grinned and took it all in.

  Classical music filled the cabin: Peer Gynt. Everything was shades of beige. Even the smell was beige – soft milky air-conditioned tannins. It was a calming environment for someone so used to being barraged with logos and ads. Past Kester's raised feet, about two metres in front of him, was the door to the pilot's cabin. On either side of the door, the wall was given over to screen space. His side currently showed a live feed from the nose of the plane with a large-scale map of their route superimposed. The plane was moving swiftly, intersecting the dotted lines of other services from time to time, skiffing across the North Sea and heading towards the south-west coast of Sweden. Alexis' side was on silent, but showed a montage of news channels.

  Their two mesh fully-reclining chairs were the main fittings in the spacious cabin. Each was served with a decent sized swivelling table and by a central table that rose up out of the floor when required, allowing them to turn their chairs to face one another to eat or share papers. At the back of the cabin, a semi-circle of banquette seating was interrupted by the door to the kitchens and staff areas. The two unused seats between them and the back of the cabin were folded up to the side, creating extra space for…Kester wasn't sure what for. For dancing. He smirked to himself and glanced up at the ceiling to check that there wasn't a rack of disco lights. There wasn't. Still, with enough alcohol at high altitude, who needed lights to dance?

  He and Alexis were the only passengers, but they were accompanied by a small staff: a hostess to take care of their safety and comfort needs, a chef, who was behind the scenes somewhere tidying away their lunch things, and a beauty therapist who was working on Alexis as they flew. Alexis looked asleep. Her chair was fully reclined. The beautician was performing a slow facial massage and Kester could see that Alexis' head was giving to every push and pull. Her arm was resting just on the edge of the seat, perilously close to falling and shattering her rest.

  Kester reached out to his table and picked up his Book. Flicking it to widescreen he brought up their itinerary again. Flight times, destinations, hotel names, meeting times – boringly straightforward. He tried to see in the lines of times and names the colour and luxury and excitement that Alexis had promised him.

  'Cabin crew: ten minutes to landing.' The Captain's voice was beige.

  The beauty therapist stepped back from Alexis and the two chairs manoeuvred themselves into upright positions in synch. Alexis stirred. Kester looked away. Waking was such a personal moment. It was one thing watching it occur when you were in bed with the person; elsewhere it seemed like an intrusion. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Alexis stretching her neck back and forth.

  'There already?' she asked, eventually.

  When Kester looked round the therapist had gone. Alexis was rooting in her bag for her makeup.

  'Ten minutes,' he said.

  By the time Alexis had touched up her makeup and smoothed her hair, they had landed. Her preening left Kester feeling unprepared. He checked his tie and ruffled his hair.

  'OK?' he asked Alexis.

  'Gorgeous,' she replied with a fresh blood smile, unclipping her seatbelt.

  Picking up the small black case that sat next to her legs, she handed it to Kester. As she did so, there was a clank. Hanging down one side, clipped to the handle, was a pair of handcuffs.

  'You're to carry this,' she said. 'Every arrival from now on. Cuff it to your wrist.'

  Kester took it from her. It had a pleasing weight to it.

  'What is it?'

  'It's a little piece of theatre. Gaunt's idea. Give the press something to talk about. Let's go.'

  Kester stood up and pulled his clothes back into order, then walked to the exit which had just been opened by the flight attendant. Stepping out onto the open-air staircase, Kester was hit with the cold. He pulled his collar up. Looking down, he was surprised to see just tarmac, a man in a yellow jacket, a small trailer onto which their bags were already being loaded. All the talk of the press had left him expecting a sea of cordoned-off fans, flashbulbs
and trench coats. Of course security would never allow it. He laughed to himself. Waiting for Alexis at the bottom of the stairs, he offered her an arm in a gesture that made him think of Gerald. She reached over and grasped it with her far hand, slid the other up his back to squeeze his shoulder, then let it settle between his shoulder blades, propelling him forward towards the entrance to the gate. In seconds she transformed herself from his glamorous date into his security detail.

  'Don't worry.' She leaned in close as they walked. 'They'll be waiting at arrivals.'

  -o-

  'This compensate for the meetings?' Alexis shouted.

  Their engagement at V Stockholm had been short. A meet-and-greet affair as they'd been promised. The invitation to Rysa had come through a conversation at dinner later in the evening. Somebody knew somebody knew somebody – they always did. Alexis looked over at Kester. His form was picked out in shifting brightly coloured lights and disco-ball pinpricks, tiny diamonds shivering across his bare skin. He caught her eye. He had heard her speak, but showed no sign of understanding what she had said, just grinned. Laid back, propped up on both elbows by the side of the Jacuzzi-sized lube pit, he looked like he was lounging by the pool. That would make Will, the young man working Kester's groin, an overenthusiastic pool boy. And the naked woman in the lube pit? Alexis smirked to herself.

  She turned away and shuffled forward on her knees to the large two-way mirror that fronted the suite, allowing a private view of the scene unfolding on the dance floor below: self-conscious writhing and grinding, joyful bobbing, arms punching the air on and off beat, more flesh than cloth, all glistening with sweat. This was where the journey through Rysa ended. Customers sated their appetites in the sparse Michelin-starred restaurant on the first floor, loosened their bodies in the brown velveteen lounge bar on the ground floor, and then laid bare their intentions on the dance floor in the basement. But it was here, in the private exchange suites, that the real dance began.

  Alexis put her forearms up against the cooled glass. The heat left her skin and then the flesh below. She forced herself to ride out the nip of the cold. The cooled blood from her wrists would flow on, ice crystals forming in a wake through her body as it branched on and out through her veins. Closing her eyes, she let the shifting lights become the aurora borealis and the warm air enveloping her body a fur.