Sequela (27 page)

'Not at all – thank you,' he replied. 'You had a good point and it's great that you can help out. And please, call me Kester.'

'Kester, right.' Cherry smiled. 'So where are you going for three whole weeks, Kester? Sunning yourself while we get on with the hard work?'

'Hardly. I'm V's prize show pony. Farrell's taking me off round the world on a whistlestop tour to all the V offices. So don't worry – I won't be having too much fun. Unless you think presenting to the boards of all the regional offices sounds like fun.'

'Hm.' Cherry couldn't think of anything worse. Hard to believe that this was what he was actually going to be doing, considering the massive smile that had come to his face earlier. There must be some perks to the trip. 'Well, good luck.'

'Thanks,' Doctor Lowe said with a smile. 'I guess I'll see you when I get back. Hope you get on well with this lot.' He nodded to the training team, who had arranged themselves in the corner, leaning at angles, heads tipped back, watching the room clear.

'Sure I will,' Cherry replied. She may as well chance her arm. 'You taking the show viruses with you, Doctor Lowe?' she asked. 'Letting the big dogs have first dibs?'

Doctor Lowe stepped backwards shaking his head and touching his nose with a smile.

'Top secret, I'm afraid!'

Cherry's Book buzzed. She took it half out of her pocket and glanced at it. It was an unknown number. This was it.
Yes
, was all the message said.

-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.'