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“Jaaaaaaane?”
My eyelids were so reluctant to open that it couldn't possibly be morning yet. But why did my neck pinch so much? Why was the pillow beneath my head so uncomfortable? And if it wasn't morning, why was Kirti in the hall calling for me?
“Jaaaaaaane!”
Had I overslept for the first time in my teaching career? Impossible. My habits were too true and steady to allow for such a crime. Besides, I was so very tired that it couldn't be time to wake up yet. I had to be dreaming, I decided. I rolled over, hoping to fall back asleep.
“Ouch,” I said when my head dropped from the pillow upon which it had been resting. I finally coaxed my eyes open, and all was still dark. See? If it really were morning, the PLED screens would be showing the sun's rays. Instead, the only illumination was a thin, cold dash of dingy light: error.
It was then I remembered that I was in Thorne's room, in Thorne's bed, with Thorne as my pillow. I shrieked a gasp.
“You're awake, then?” His voice. The bed shifted as he leaned over in the darkness and turned on the light.
I looked over at Thorne, heretofore referred to as “pillow,” as he righted himself and leaned back against the headboard. I expected to find checked laughter on his face, but instead he looked quite somber, his eyes mellow in the scant light coming from the bedside table.
I took a second to find my voice. “I'm not sure I want to know, but what time is it?”
“Not quite half-ten,” Thorne said just above a whisper.
“In the morning!”
Before Thorne finished his first amused nod, I gasped again and hopped from the bed, clutching closed the oversized bathrobe I still wore.
I was brought up short by Thorne's staying hand on my forearm, pulling me back to him. “Where're you going?”
“To work, for which I'm horribly late. Kirti has no idea where I—”
I lifted my free hand to my face just in time to feel remorse heat my cheek. Kirti did not yet know where I was, but she would soon find out. And what on earth would she think? She would see me, her teacher, crawling from her boss's room dressed in nothing but his bathrobe, hair askew, the hour quite late... What kind of lesson would that be to a little girl only now regaining the innocence a nine-year old should have?
But Thorne was still holding my arm, reining me back to the bed's edge. “Kirti can take care of herself,” he said, taking my other arm in his other hand. “Don't worry about work anymore.”
“How could you let me sleep this long?”
“How could I not? It was my first real chance in person to watch you sleep. You didn't sleep well—”
He worked his fingers up to my wrists, and then he folded my hands together before bringing the interlocked fingertips to his lips. “God, you're beautiful when you sleep, but right after you wake up... look at you. It's not just the braid, is it? You have naturally wavy hair.”
I nodded.
“I never knew. You always have it up. But down like this, still a little damp from the rain... when the light hits it in the right places it's like gold.”
Gold? I thought to myself. Now who's colorblind? There was about as much gold in my brown hair as could be found in a chunk of mud.
“Never put it up again.” Thorne smiled on. “I wonder what I get to learn about you next.”
As he kissed each pair of my fingers in turn, I held myself immobile, afraid to move and break this spell. Thoughts of Kirti, duty and responsibility dissipated, replaced with the heart-swelling feeling of being adored, even worshipped. The feeling was so unbelievable that it did not take long for doubt to supplant my joy, doubt that manifested on my face.
Thorne looked back up at my face. “What's wrong?”
“Forgive me,” I said. “The phrase 'too good to be true' keeps coming to mind.”
He touched his fingertips to my jaw line and raised my lowered face back to his. “Don't worry,” he said. “I plan on spending the rest of my life convincing you that this is better than true.”
He reached to pull me back to his side, but again I hesitated.
He raised his eyebrows. “Still don't believe?”
“I can't help thinking of all the women who've been in this place before me. That makes me wonder how much longer I'll be here before someone else comes along.”
“Jane!”
“It shouldn't be long—”
“You'll be here forever. This place is yours and yours alone, and no one else has ever been here before.”
“That's not what you've told me before, sir.”
“Jane! Stop calling me 'sir!' That's an order!”
“I'm not sure my relationship with you has changed enough to allow that sort of intimacy.”
“You don't—Jaysis!” He rolled his eyes, shaking his head. I watched his shoulder muscles draw taut. “Jane, I know you think my bedroom has a revolving door—”
“Of course I do, s—” I stopped myself. “You told me so. Blanca, Kirti's mother, the woman responsible for your last re-keying—”
“As soon as I realized they were all empty shells, it was over.”
“And how do you know I'm not just another empty shell to be used and thrown away?”
“Because!” He was clenching his hands at me now, his face pained. “Because I know you. Christ, Jane, I'm running out of ways to tell you that you are not like other women. Even your self-doubt must have its limits. What can I do right now to make you trust me?”
I felt as if we were standing with a one-way mirror between us, with Thorne able to see me clearly but not vice-versa. “You can explain a few things.”
Fear struck a low spark in his eyes. “Like?”
“Like,” I began, “prior to last night, I had been under the impression that you were already 'taken,' if you understand the expression.”
His eyes narrowed, and his grip on my hands increased. “What led you to that belief?”
“Perhaps the first hint was the scantily clad porn star you let hang all over you while I watched helplessly.”
His injured smile healed itself, and his laughter was too sharp to be inspired by anything but relief. “La Blanca again? I wouldn't have pegged you for the jealous type.”
“So you were deliberately trying to make me jealous?”
“No! God, no! Or—” He stopped, frowning with self-critical wonder. “At least, not on purpose. Huh. Maybe subconsciously that's what I was trying to do.”
“But consciously?” I prompted.
He gestured for me to join him back on the bed. I leaned beside him, sitting tentatively on the edge.
“Consciously,” he replied, “all I knew was that you deserve better than me. I don't even deserve to be in the same room as you, much less touch you.”
“If you're trying to charm me into changing the subject, it won't work. I'll have the truth either from you or in spite of you.”
“Jane, I'm seriously telling you what was—still is going through my mind. That first night I came back here from the re-keying, I was running from Blanca to begin with. She'd been pestering me for weeks. She was the reason Shelly—the girl who caused the re-keying—broke up with me. I was about to break it off anyway, but Blanca's stalking made it that much easier. Anyway, I came here to hide from women, and I found you. You were nothing like anyone I'd ever known before, but whenever I made any kind of advance towards you, you brushed me off.”
“Brushed you off, sir! When?”
He gave me a firm-mouthed look of exasperation. “Let me count the ways. The worst was the night of the fire, when you literally ran away from me. By that point you'd done that sort of thing enough for me to give up any hope you could ever care about the likes of me. So, when I was convinced that you'd have nothing with me besides a cold, professional relationship, I brought Blanca here, the only kind of person I could ever deserve.”
“I see. So, you stopped having those sorts of feelings for me when La Blanca returned to you.”
“Try the opposite. Comparing the two of you side-by-side only made things worse. It only made me realize that you had been made for me. Made me almost believe in God again.”
I felt another blasted blush dissolve into my cheeks. If I were to avoid giving in to his charm tactics, I needed to keep to my current strategy: keep him on the defensive. “So why, before you returned with La Blanca in tow, did Mrs. Fairfacs say that I was to give you your privacy?”
He answered readily, without blinking once. “I wanted to convince us both that I would not be pursuing you. I didn't want to make an arse of myself any more than I already had.”
“Did La Blanca come to you, though?”
Again, his face was focused directly, honestly on me. “When she did, I ended up turning her away. Trying to settle for her when you were just a hall's-breadth away and still totally beyond my reach—made me sick to my stomach. When the subtle approach didn't work to get her to stop trying, I tried making myself less appealing.”
“How did you do that, if you think she was so desperate to be with you?”
“Ah.” He smiled again. “This is much better: seeing you peeved instead of sad.”
“If you want to see me more peeved, then please, continue evading my questions.”
Bowing his head with mock humility, he began, “Señorita Hoffstaedter only wanted me because it might have given her a smidgen of professional respectability to be connected with live performance art instead of porn acties. Remember the fortuneteller? Did you see how angry Blanca was after she played hers? As soon as Cleo told Blanca that the man she was pursuing had been thrown out of clown college—”
Even I had to laugh, though it was the dry, mirthless laugh of the shocked. “Clown college! I find that hard to believe!”
“You might,” he said, shaking his head and grinning at his joke, “but that was all I needed to get Blanca to think that maybe my dark and moody reputation wasn't so tasteful after all. So, that and a warning—in a sucky accent—that 'Meestah Torne was gon' lose 'is fortune een de stocks—'“
“So she lost interest.”
“And my interest she never really had. She may be beautiful and famous, but you, Janee—-you're real. You outshine her in everything that makes a person matter to me.”
“But if you cared about me so much, why did you have to flaunt her? Why all the games?”
Here he once again permitted himself a self-deprecating smile. “I'm not sure you've noticed, Jane, but I'm rather fond of my pride.”
“I had made that observation, yes.”
Then he arched his eyebrows back at me. “And if anyone can understand, you should be able to. Just a few minutes ago you asked if I was deliberately trying to make you jealous.”
“And?”
“Were you jealous?”
I felt myself blushing again. “I wasn't happy having to watch all that, no.”
“Then why didn't you just say something?”
“I told you not to change the subject.”
“We haven't changed the subject at all. We're talking about who's been 'playing games.'“
“I wasn't playing a game, Mr. Thorne. I was protecting myself.”
“And I wasn't? This soul-crushing kind of total love is new to me, too.” When I responded by lowering my eyes, Thorne added, “See? In many ways, you and I are very much alike.”
“Perhaps.” I raised my eyes to his once more. I grew quiet. “Only—I had more to lose.”
“You think?” He frowned, shaking his head. He reached for me, took my face in his hands, his left thumb grazing my bottom lip. “C'mere,” he said.
As he tucked my head beneath his chin, I wondered how being held by him could make me feel both powerful and weak at the same time. I sighed deeply, and as I exhaled I felt myself shrink further into Thorne's embrace. I'd always hated being so short up until that point; the smaller I was, the more coddled, sheltered and cherished I felt. It was like my veins were suddenly full of that poteen Thorne used to drink.
“Go to your room,” Thorne said. “Get dressed, and meet me back here as soon as you're finished. I'm taking you out.”
I looked up at him. “Where?”
A small smile spread slowly across his face. “If I tell you, it won't be a surprise.”
When one second I had melted into him, now I froze against him. “In my life, surprises have been unpleasant things.”
“That was your old life.” Thorne released me and helped me to the floor. Standing before me, cupping my jaw and lifting my face to his once more, he said, “I will use everything within my power to change all that for you—to change everything.”
***
I stalked back to my room, wearing only Thorne's robe. When I shut the door behind myself, I was brought up short by the PLED screen window. This, too, said, “error.” A power surge from the storm must have damaged the electronics.
I washed and dressed, and as my hair was drying, a flicker of light caught my image in the mirror. Was Thorne actually right? When my hair was just this side of damp, there really were some highlights visible. Why had I never seen them before? I took a closer look at my face. My cheeks were redder than usual—I seemed to be trapped in a perpetual blush—which made my eyes look a cleaner shade of gray-hazel-green. Perhaps Thorne's attraction to me wasn't as improbable as I'd thought.
And nothing was going to dissipate that blush any time soon, I realized. I was facing so many unknowns, in both the immediate and farther future. Thorne wanted to surprise me with something, but what? What was I to wear? I hoped to God he wasn't taking me anywhere with some misguided notion of showing me off. I might have accepted that Thorne might think me pretty, but no one else was likely to agree. I grew nervous to the point of nausea.
I wished I'd had someone to ask for advice on how to dress, how to behave. What would and would not be out of line? Whenever I thought of sources of guidance, inevitably I remembered Aidann. What would she have advised? Then again, asking Aidann if I were behaving properly would have been as fruitful as asking Mrs. Fairfacs; neither would have the kind of information I sought. Why bother asking? I was on my own.
Preferring to be overdressed than the opposite, I put on my nicest outfit—the black velvet lengha and choli I'd worn the first night of La Blanca's appearance. I picked up an elastic band with which to bind the end of my braid, but I hesitated. Tie it up per habit or leave it down for Thorne? A loud, insistent knocking on the door broke me out of my decision-making process.
THUMPTHUMPTHUMPTHUMP! “Jaaaaaaane!” THUMPTHUMP!
“Kirti!” I snapped loudly enough to be heard through the door. “Take some coolant! I'll be right there.”
Either she hadn't heard me or she did not want to act like she had; she didn't stop banging on my door until I opened it. Her lower lip stuck out and she was glowering worse than ever Thorne had.
“Where have you been!” she demanded. “I've been looking for you all morning!”
She was in her exercise clothes, and her hair flew about her face in wisps worked free by frantic pacing of the halls—in search of the missing me.
I was at a loss for words. What could I tell her that wouldn't confuse her? Sorry I'm late, Kirti. I was sleeping with my boss. The last thing I wanted to teach her was that sleeping with one's employer is okay. I bit my lip. Lucky Victorians, I remember thinking. They had rules to warn them of the consequences of their decisions. Instead, unprepared, I was facing these consequences head-on, in the person of easily corrupted Kirti. How ironic. I'd spent so much time designing experiential learning activities for Kirti, and now I was the one learning by experience that my behavior might affect more than just Thorne and myself.
“I am sorry, Kirti,” I said, knowing at least that was the truth. “I was just getting ready to go somewhere with—Mr. Thorne.” True as well.
This bit of news turned Kirti's disappointment into plaintive wheedling. “Why didn't you tell me? Where are you going? Can I come, too? Please, Jane! Please please please!”
“I don't know, Kirti. Maybe you should ask—”
Just then, Thorne's door opened with near-violent speed. He boomed, “Who wants to go where with who?”
“Thooorne!” Kirti ran over to her guardian, her feet making the loudest possible stomping noises against the tiles. “I want to go, too!”
Appearing in the hall, he squared his shoulders. “You can't always get what you want.”
“Sir, please!” I exclaimed.
A mix of confusion and irritation colored his eyes. Striding towards me, while Kirti followed at his heels like a puppy, he said, “I don't want her tagging along!”
“She has been out of this place even less than I have, sir,” I protested, and Kirti clapped her hands with delight. “An excursion would do her good.”
He bristled. “There's only room for two on the Mesrour. What do you want me to do? Tie her to the back and drag her?”
Kirti's eyes and smile widened and glittered. “We're going on the Mesrour? Shavaa!”
“No, we are going on the Mesrour,” Thorne said, pointing to me then to himself. He bent down so he and Kirti were almost eye-to-eye. “You're staying here and playing with dolls or something. I don't want some rugrat chaperone hanging about.”
Kirti scrunched up her face and turned to me. “What's a chaperone?”
Thorne pointed in the direction of her room. “Look it up!”
More irritated than frightened by her guardian's outburst, Kirti shot Thorne a dirty look before dragging her feet back to her room, each footfall a heavy protest. During this plodding trip, she kept looking at us over her shoulder with—I could have sworn—much suspicion.
I waited until she'd disappeared and her door had closed. “Maybe she should come with us, sir,” I said, folding my hands and casting my glance floorward.
“How are we supposed to have any quality time if we're looking after a child?”
“It is my job to look after her.”
“Didn't I fire you? And before you go all insecure on me again—now that we're on the same page, you're not going to New Jersey. That was just a contingency plan, in case things hadn't ended this way.”
“Then what about Kirti's education?”
“Boarding schools galore.”
My stomach tightened. “I don't know if that's the best thing for her, sir.”
“Why not?”
“In my professional opinion, she's just beginning to bond—to form attachments in a way her previous life did not permit. To break these attachments at this time could be harmful.”
He grimaced. “I don't need lectures from you. I took a semester of developmental psych, too, you know.”
“Then I'm sure you can see my point, sir.”
“I can see that you're still acting like the homeschooler when you don't need to. Now that you're mine, you won't have to work another day in your life.”
Mine? I belonged to someone. This should have returned me to bliss. Instead, a chill rode up my backbone with alarming speed.
My face must have revealed my troubled state of mind. Thorne came closer to me. “It's back again,” he said.
“What is?”
“Whenever you're worried you get this knot right here.” He brushed the two knuckles of his right hand against the space between my eyebrows. “What's wrong?”
I began to say, “Nothing,” but he was gazing at me with such concern—and I could fight anything but care. With a quavering sigh, I confessed, “I'm afraid.”
He frowned. “Of?”
“Scandalizing Kirti. I don't want her to watch us and think that it's okay to run off with your boss.”
“Is that all?” He smiled. “Come on! She'll understand! That child has seen too much of the world through her mother's eyes to be scandalized, especially by my tokebi.”
“But isn't that why you took her away from that world and brought her here?”
Knowing he was cornered, he clenched his jaw and hands equally before venturing his next protest. “You don't even know where we're going today. How do you know that Kirti won't be incredibly bored? Have you ever seen a bored Kirti?”
“Of course I have! You pay me to bore Kirti!”
This latest allusion to my being on his payroll brought the scowl back to his face. “Anyway, exactly how would letting Kirti join us today prevent further damage to her allegedly fragile psyche?”
I didn't quite know the answer myself. I only felt Kirti's presence and her antics would form a sort of buffer between Thorne and me, her two adults. I was having a difficult time knowing how to act now that my role in the Emhain Macha dynamic had changed so drastically—literally overnight. How could I express this to Thorne without stirring up any more of that self-doubt of his?
It was Thorne himself who spared me further angst. “You look so terrified. Would the knot disappear if I said the tagalong could tag along?”
Down the hall, Kirti's face popped out of her doorway. She'd been listening. I couldn't help it; the look of bright joy on her face made my worry lines turn into a smile.
“Well,” Thorne said, “I guess that answers my question.”
“I'm already dressed!” Kirti shouted. She came running back down the hall to us in her stocking feet, clutching one shoe in each hand, her duppetta slung hurriedly over one shoulder. “Let's go!”
“Wait!” Thorne said. “If you come along, Little Miss Kaur, there's not enough room for all of us to leave now. We'll need to call for a flight, and that means waiting.”
Dropping the contents of her arms to the floor, she ran up and grabbed Thorne's hand. Falling to one knee, she pleaded. “I can be patient when I want to. Please please please please please I'll be good! I won't even get bored, I promise!”
This was a strange play to watch—Kirti promising Thorne good behavior and lack of boredom just as Thorne had done to me this morning in bed. Discomfort weighed upon my shoulders like a too-big overcoat.
Finally, Thorne relented, although his disdainful expression made apparent his distrust of Kirti's solemn vow. Throughout the rest of the day, an image of his expression burned a snapshot into my imagination and nagged at my own skepticism regarding Thorne's recent professions towards me.
Thorne summoned Mrs. Fairfacs, who summoned a taxi. During our wait, we had brunch, and then we took the brief flight to a nearby city. During the trip, the pilot had music by some old lounge singer playing over the sound system. Thorne remarked that he hadn't heard this piece in a while, and did I know who it was? I did not. Neither did Kirti, who had placed herself gleefully between her two adults.
Thorne declared us the victims of youthful ignorance. As the song neared its end, just under his breath, Thorne began to sing along. One line said something about being locked in an embrace. Locked. My mind seized on the word. Suddenly the taxi's cabin seemed incredibly small, getting smaller by the second. Sweat beads began sprinting down my back.
At last the buildings became the opposite of “few and far between,” and we landed on the roof of one of the tallest. The winds up there were still cruel with the desert heat, making my chest feel as if it were about to implode. I could not breathe out, and I did not want to breathe in. I clung to Kirti's hand as Thorne perksed the fare and led us through the entryway. Gleaming glass and chrome marked it as the T_______ Center for the Biological Arts.
“We're going to the doctor?” Kirti said, wrinkling her nose once we'd made it into the climate-controlled chill.
“Told you she'd be bored,” Thorne said, taking my arm and steering me towards a bay of brass elevator doors.
“I thought we were going shopping!” Kirti cried, struggling to keep up with us, her slippers making soft slapping sounds against the polished brown marble.
“Shopping?” Thorne wrinkled his nose right back at her. “What gave you that idea?”
Kirti shrugged, eying my hand clutched against her guardian's arm. “That's what you always do when you have a new jindh mahi. You take her shopping.”
Thorne turned to me. “Translation?”
My hand went cold against his arm, but he only clutched it more tightly. I replied, “Jindh mahi means 'love of my life.'“
Thorne's voice went tight and angry. “I've never had a jindh mahi before, Kirti. Not like this.”
“What are we doing here, sir?” I asked.
He repeated, “If I tell you, it won't be a surprise.”
“Thorne,” Kirti asked, reaching over me to tap on his wrist, “isn't this where you get re-keyed?”
My eyes flew to his face. “Re-keyed?”
Thorne was smiling with closed-mouthed smugness. “Surprise.”
The elevator swallowed us, spitting us back out onto a floor dedicated entirely to the clinical offices of the somatic therapy division. The suite had been designed to simulate a garden. The walls and ceiling were sky-blue, clouds scudding across. Exotic birdsong and a fine mist filled the air, and dappled natural light fell on the mossy carpeting of the waiting room. One wall was a miniature waterfall, complete with mossy rocks. The seating looked like oversized knobs of bark molded into armchair shapes. Kirti wasted no time finding three that were unoccupied. She threw herself into the middle seat and began kicking her heels against it.
A blond-coiffed, blue-eyed receptionist greeted us. Her skin had somehow reached that elusive state between neither too pale nor dangerously tan. She had to have been fresh from high school. She recognized and cheerfully greeted our small group's leader simply as, “Thorne!” I peeked into the vine-lined hall behind the desk. Every staff member was clad in unbleached cotton, which managed to look both flowing and flawlessly crisp at the same time.
The whole place had a dreamy quality. The faces seemed more defined, more precise than your normal, run-of-the-mill faces. I felt like a damned soul let into some indoor version of paradise due to an administrative error. However, the smell was too clean: not the coffee-smell of fertile soil but the pickled clean of health care.
“Stop that,” Thorne snapped to Kirti, in reference to her kicking. “Move over one.”
Sulking, Kirti obeyed, and I soon found myself sitting between them again. I managed to become even more nervous. When the reception goddess invited us to help ourselves to some seats, saying that the doctor would be ready for us in a few minutes, Thorne slouched into his chair, stretching his legs out before him just as he would have done at home.
“Remember that first night you and I talked in the study?” he asked.
I thought back and nodded. “I told you I was colorblind. You told me to get re-keyed.”
“And you laughed at me. You said I hadn't given you enough sick days, and you didn't have INGO health insurance to take care of a job like this.”
“I still don't understand how this is going to work.”
“If you're expecting me to explain the science behind it, can't help you there. All I know is that, once it works for you, you'll never have to cover your eyes again. You'll be able to look in the mirror and see what I see when I look at you.”
“I meant, I don't understand how I'm going to afford this.”
He made a dismissive gesture. “Don't worry about that. The first visit is just a consultation. They take a few tissue samples—and that might hurt—”
“That's not what concerns me.”
“Of course not. Anyway, by the time they have the bacteria ready with your new DNA sig, you'll be on my insurance.”
“But you'll get sick,” Kirti supplied helpfully.
“And I'll take care of you when that happens,” Thorne added. “Recovery goes much more quickly when someone you love is around. I found that out for myself last time.”
His meaningful grin did not ease my prematurely queasy stomach. “But I'm not on your insurance now,” I said. “How am I supposed to pay for today's appointment?”
Thorne shrugged. “I said, don't worry about it.”
“Thorne! Good to see you again!”
Thorne stood and shook hand with the doctor approaching us, an older gentleman who was a walking advertisement for the Distinguished Aging Process. His face was creased with age lines that seemed to be distributed according to some very precise formula, and the placement of gray in his hair seemed to be dictated by some beautiful fractal.
“Doctor Lee,” Thorne said, “thanks for seeing us on such short notice.”
“And you must be Jane.” Doctor Lee extended his hand to me, his handshake warm and vigorous. “I've heard good things.”
“Thank you, sir,” I replied. “Pleased to meet you.”
Doctor Lee beckoned for to follow him into the jungle. “Normally, our patients meet with one of our trainees before I see them, but we make exceptions for frequent customers.”
I looked to Thorne to gauge his reaction to this surprisingly warm welcome. His face was as blank as the white stucco in the halls of Emhain Macha.
The exam rooms were more like exam niches: little clearings in the forest with curtains of vines for doors. Bamboo and unbleached cotton duck formed desk, table, chairs. Making notes in his HandRight, Dr. Lee took my history, brief as it was; I hadn't seen a doctor since the checkup given to all the Naomi girls after the Kamchatkan incident.
“Excellent,” he said when I was finished. His eyes crinkled in a smile. “It sounds like your health has been robust in the face of many risks. You should have no problems with the therapy.”
“See?” Thorne said, looking up to me at my perch on the exam table. “Nothing to worry about.”
“You've been saying that a lot,” Kirti remarked.
Dr. Lee left and was replaced by a technician who drew a vial of blood the size of my pinky.
“I also need to get a sample of some adipose tissue,” she told my two companions.
“What's that?” Kirti asked.
“That might be impossible,” Thorne said. “She doesn't have much.”
The tech smiled back. “Everybody has some. Even you.”
“'Adipose?'“ I asked, since no one had answered Kirti's question.
“Fat,” the tech explained.
“Fat,” I echoed woodenly.
“'Adipose' is far more poetic,” Thorne drawled.
The tech nodded. “We need some stem cells. Most adults have some in their adipose tissue, but patients usually don't like hearing that we're harvesting their fat.”
She looked me up and down. “We'll have to take it from the glute, I think. Maybe the thigh. Would you like your family to step outside, or is it okay if they stay?”
I blurted, “I'm not their—”
Thorne immediately looked wounded. He opened his mouth to speak, but Kirti cut him off. “What's a glute?”
I eyed Thorne. “Could you please take her outside?”
“Nooo!” Kirti wailed. “I wanna stay!”
“She'll be out in a minute, chook,” the smiling tech soothed.
“Come on,” Thorne said, dragging his feet as much as his ward. “Jane needs privacy.”
Kirti immediately grabbed his hand and followed, looking over her shoulder at me as long as the vine door would let her.
The tech was right; the procedure was brief. Soon I met them back out in the waiting room. Thorne was nodding at the receptionist, leaning against the log that served as the counter.
Kirti ran from his side to me. “Did it hurt?”
“Just a pinch,” I said, acutely aware of the glue coalescing over the incision site.
“So, thirty days.” Thorne was saying.
The receptionist nodded, smiling with her perfect teeth. “That's how far back your insurance will allow for pre-existing conditions. That might seem like a while, but many policies won't cover them at all.”
“Hm.”
“And you're lucky because your policy doesn't tack on a waiting period on for new members through marriage.” Here the receptionist stopped to eye me dubiously. Back to Thorne, she said, “Can I go ahead and schedule the appointment, then?”
“Sure.” He had his thinking face on.
“Can I be a bridesmaid?” Kirti asked me, pulling me back to Thorne.
I gave her the same glare that Thorne gave her when she accidentally spoke in Punjabi in front of him and he wasn't wearing his translator.
“Probably not,” Thorne said, looking down at her. “There isn't much time to plan the royal wedding Jane deserves.”
My stomach quavered. I turned pleading eyes to Thorne. “Can we not talk about this here, please?”
Looking from one to the other of us, Thorne seemed not to know what to say. “Okay, so what do you want to do?”
Kirti gasped. “Now can we go shopping?”
“Jane?”
I did not feel up to being dragged around to any more unknown places. “Can we please just go home?”
He was scowling again. “It's back,” he said, pointing to the worry-knot between my eyebrows. “What's wrong?”
“At home,” I murmured, pointing my chin meaningfully at Kirti.
Thorne kept frowning. Absently, he turned back to the receptionist. “Let's make that appointment for thirty days from now.”
“And the patient's name?”
“By then? Jane Thorne,” he said.
“Okay, and how will you be paying for today's visit? She can't be covered by your insurance yet.”
“Today's out of pocket. My treat.” Thorne gave her his perks. He was paying for this just like he had paid for so many other things for how many other women before me?
He turned to me and smiled. I wanted to smile back. I simply couldn't.
***
I did not speak during the ride home. I didn't listen much, either. New pilot, new musical selection, and new bickering between Kirti and Thorne: I blocked it all out. My mind was too busy trying to accept the fast happenings falling around me. Was I hearing correctly that one month from now Jane E would cease to exist, replaced by Jane Thorne? No, less than that: I had to be married and on Thorne's insurance by the day of my re-keying appointment. I closed my eyes and put my hand on the seat to steady myself, but when Thorne took my fingers in his, I gave quite a start—enough to startle Kirti, too.
For the first time in my life, a person loved me back and was trying very hard to pamper me. According to him, I wouldn't need to work anymore. I never would need to wear my PLED glasses again. I could see things as normal people saw them. I would be surrounded by luxury and passionate devotion. I only needed to stand still and watch comfort come to me. I should have been delighted, ecstatic, content. Instead I was uneasy. I was losing the one thing I'd fought my whole life to gain: control.
In retrospect I realize that Thorne knew only one way to show his affections, and that was by spending. Thorne believed he was making my life easier by surprising me with a “free” re-keying. However, I was used to relying on no one but myself. Before, I'd earned the food I ate and the room I had at Emhain Macha. Now I was just getting these things by virtue of Thorne's good graces, which I was having a hard time trusting, thanks to reminders from Kirti of Thorne's history with women.
On top of all this, in spite of Thorne's kisses and compliments, the specter of self-doubt loomed heavily over my heart. Why didn't he take me shopping like the other women before me? Why re-keying instead? Because I wasn't good enough for him as is? Did it make him feel powerful to mold me into his idea of perfection, of which I could only fall hopelessly short? And what could I do about any of this? If I was no longer working, I had no significant money of my own and had to rely on Thorne for everything.
Or did I? I thought of Mrs. VanDeer's deathbed confession. There was a settlement with my name on it somewhere, supposedly.
As soon as we returned home, I excused myself and headed straight for my terminal. Once there, I sought and found the Second Chance administrative address and sent them a text message. In it I stated my identity, attached a file with my DNA signature, and stated that the information they'd received from Mrs. VanDeer was incorrect. I also indicated that my text addy might change within the next month, for there were plans for me to marry one Parker Garfield (a. k. a. Padráic Gadhra) Thorne. This event, I wrote, might add a few letters to both my last name and my text addy. Therefore, I would keep them updated as to how to contact me as I awaited their reply.
No sooner had I sent this message than another came from Mrs. Fairfacs.
“Miss Jane, Mr. Thorne is asking for you in his room, dear.”
I froze. “Please tell Mr. Thorne that I would be happy to meet him in the study.”
“But, Miss Jane, dear, Mr. Thorne said—”
“Please tell Mr. Thorne that I would be happy to meet him in the study. Thank you. That will be all, Mrs. Fairfacs.”
She bowed, disappeared. I logged out, took a moment to compose myself in the blank shell of my terminal's darkness, then I emerged. I went into the bathroom and took brush in hand, keeping pins and elastic band within sight. I set about returning my hair to its customary knot. I kept the bathroom door open so I could hear Thorne's knock on the door.
“Jane?”
I didn't answer.
“Jane!”
I let him knock a few more times, then listened to his footsteps retreating towards the study. I waited a few more seconds before I proceeded there after him, forcing myself to a slow pace.
As I approached the study, I could hear a just-familiar tune being played over the sound system in there. As soon as I heard the first lyric, I recognized it as the song we'd heard on the way to the doctors' office this morning. There was that word “locked” again, then something about “the day that you’re mine.”
Suddenly I hated English more than ever. Not only was “mine” an indicator of possession, but it was also indicated a hidden explosive, particularly good at staying hidden and forgotten until it destroyed the innocent wanderer. Instead of softening me or making me dewy-eyed, the lyrics stoked the fire under my cauldron of helplessness. I marched into the study.
Thorne looked up at me. A lazy frown spread across his face. “Where have you been?”
Ignoring him, I announced in a clear voice, “There are a lot of possessive pronouns in that song, sir.”
He smiled lazily, his eyes alight. “I thought women liked possessive pronouns.”
I lifted my nose. “Not this one.”
His smile clutched into a frown. “What happened to your hair?”
“Nothing that I'm aware of,” I replied.
“It's up.”
“Well, I am aware of that, of course.”
“Why?”
“Because I did it myself. What a silly question.”
“I mean,” Thorne whined with mock petulance, “that I told you I like it better down.”
“Because you don't have to live with it in your way all the time.” I recalled the teacher's sharpest weapon: the forced choice. “Either I put it up or chop it off. Pick one.”
“Don't even joke like that! I will personally take an axe to the hand that ever takes scissors to your hair.”
I gave a little snort. “I didn't know you were such a romantic, sir.”
“Neither did I. I'm becoming quite the doddard in my old age. Now watch this: I was going to ask if you wanted to go out to dinner.”
“No, thank you, sir. I'm not hungry.”
“Would you like to eat here?”
“The locale will not change the fact that I am not hungry.”
“If I didn't know better, I'd say that you're brushing me off again.”
“Not at all.” I took my usual place on the opposite side of the sofa. “I'm spending time with you, aren't I?”
“Yeah, but with your armor back up. What put it there?”
“I don't know what you're talking about.”
“Yes, you do. Enough evasion. You've never lied to me yet. Don't start now.” He looked straight into my eyes, straight into my center. “You're having second thoughts.”
I bit my lip and tried to win the moment's staring match. In this as in all things, Thorne was merciless and would not give in. I felt my resolve melt. I lowered my gaze, lowered my voice, admitting, “This is all happening so fast. Too fast.”
I heard him breathe heavily, heard him shift. He slid across the couch to me and took my face in his hands. “You want to slow down?”
“I think we should,” I answered, my voice damnably aquiver. I strengthened myself with another breath and turned my face from his fingers. “I don't even know if you know what you're getting into with me. I don't want you to wake up one day and realize... that I'm not the level you were looking for.”
“'My level'?” He scowled and pulled his hands back into fists. “You have quite a memory if you can recall that early conversation of ours so well.”
I glanced at him from the corner of my eye. “You remember it, too, I see.”
Thorne winched his eyes. “Jane, you are not other women.”
“I know that. Do you?”
He made a disgusted face. “Of course I do. If I didn't, I wouldn't have asked you to marry me.”
“If I recall, you never really asked me to marry you. It was merely implied.”
“You want me down on one knee? Pull a ring from my pocket and all that?”
“I don't want a ring, sir.”
“Then what do you want? A floofy white dress? A thousand guests eating finger sandwiches and lobster tail?”
“Certainly not. I wouldn't have anyone to invite.”
“Good. You need to be on my health insurance in five weeks, which means we'll be married in a month—not enough time to throw together all that traditional frou-frou, anyway.”
Which reminded me of another sticking point. “Why do you want me re-keyed, sir?” I asked quietly.
“I thought you wanted to be.”
“Did I ever ask for it?” My voice held more edge than I'd intended.
“It's just something you'd never be able to do without me, isn't it?”
“Everything is being planned for me,” I protested, dropping my hands in my lap. “I'm getting no say at all.”
He hesitated. “I—I just wanted to surprise you.” His face softened. “You're making me a better man. I just wanted—”
“—to return the favor by making me a better woman?”
“By giving you health that was not available to you before.” He lowered his eyes, then raised them to mine again, challenging, “Is that such a sin?”
I had to look away. “I am grateful...”
Over my trail of silence, he finished for me, “But you are having second thoughts.”
“I'm afraid that, given enough time and exposure to who I really am, you'll be the one with second thoughts.”
“You don't trust me,” he said.
“I don't want you to lose faith in me,” I clarified.
“Who is more likely to lose faith? Me, who's seen the enough of the world to prove that you are the one I've been waiting for—?”
I cut him off. “I was under the impression that you've done precious little waiting in your 'seeing enough of the world.'“
He stopped short, his eyes narrowing in that way that never failed to make me self-conscious—because that face meant he was about to say something not even I knew about myself.
“You want me to prove myself.” He folded his arms across his chest. “Okay. I can do that. I have no doubt. Soon neither will you. Name your rules, Lady Tokebi. I am at your whims and will show myself worthy. Rule Number One?”
After I took thirty seconds to recover from my shock at his acquiescence, I spoke. “No more sleeping together.”
He blinked. “Okay,” he said, cautious.
“Or dining together,” I said, gaining momentum, “or doing anything other than activities we enjoyed in each other's company prior to the events of last night.”
He loosened the knot of his arms and advanced on me. “Wait just one bloody minute. You mean—?”
I folded my own arms. “Rule Number Two—”
“I can't even kiss you anymore?”
“Rule Number Two—”
“We can't even hold hands?”
“Rule Number Two: I keep my job.”
“Jane! Now you're being ridiculous!”
I pulled my arms more tightly to my middle. “If we are shoring up the foundation of our friendship, then I need to have some occupation other than 'Thorne's Love Slave.'“
That epithet made him flinch—but only for a second. “However,” he said, eyes glinting, “you and I already have a relationship more intimate than that of employer-employee. Isn't working for me inappropriate?”
He thought he had me. He'd thought wrong. I answered. “That's why our relationship will go back to that of employer-employee.”
He rolled his eyes. “For how long?”
“Until the wedding that leads to my re-keying, which leads to my becoming the whole, genetically perfect woman that you want me to be.”
“I'm not trying to make you perfect!” Thorne growled. “I'm just trying to be good to you!”
“Then you can do so by making what matrimonial arrangements you like over the next month and letting me do my job as Kirti's homeschooler.”
“Until when?”
“Until the happy day that binds me to you until one of us kicks the proverbial bucket.”
He studied me, his eyes narrowed, for an interminable space of time. I returned his stare, lifting my chin in what I imagined was an expression of dignified resolution. Finally, he sighed and dropped his head into his hands.
“Four more weeks of just friends?” he asked through his fingers. “And then what?”
“And then...” My voice dissipated as I looked at his hair. I lost my focus, having to retrain my concentration into not running my fingers through Thorne's lightly salted black locks.
Head still lowered, he prompted, “And then?”
“Forever,” I said so softly I wasn't sure he would hear me over the ventilation.
He looked up at me. He was holding his breath. So was I. His mouth was pushed off slightly to one side. “I love you, but you are so stubborn.”
I found myself fighting not to smile. “As you have said, in many ways, you and I are very much alike.”
“So you won't yield on this?” he asked. Before I could even shake my head, however, he answered his own question. “Of course not. You've given your word.”
“I firmly believe this is for our own good,” I said. “Although I will enjoy it less than you will.”
He snorted with irony. “Somehow I doubt that. Approaching this like it's the courtship leading up to an arranged marriage is not my idea of fun.”
“All marriages are arranged, sir, whether by outside parties or the participants themselves. World history itself bears witness to the fact that a marriage is less likely to end in divorce when arranged by persons other than the couple in question.”
I've never seen another human being's demeanor change more quickly than Thorne's did at that moment. It was like watching a time-elapse movie of the comet hitting the earth. Thorne's face was the point of impact; the devastation flared from there. His whole body roiled with rage. His white, tightened fist even made a thoughtless air-punch toward the end table next to him, but he stopped himself just in time to prevent the impact.
I was so surprised that I started back with a stifled cry. What had I said? What had I done? This didn't make sense. There was no context for such an outburst, was there? A sickening dread dredged my insides and brought up a jumble of feelings. I wanted to run: my childhood training had taught me only how to escape danger. I wanted to stay: no one had ever loved me like this before, so surely this behavior could not be about me, and nothing had ever given me the same completeness as to see Thorne soothed by something I said or did.
As I crunched my fingers together and sought my mind for something to give Thorne solace, he seemed to be trying to control himself. He hastily brought his fist back to his side and stood. He turned from me and began to pace the room.
“You don't know what you're saying,” he said, more to himself than to me. “You don't know what you're saying—and I hope to keep it that way.”
Holding myself terribly still, I whispered, “I don't understand.”
He ground his jaw for a moment, staring down at the carpet's horror vacuuii pattern. Finally, he nodded.
“Your rules, Jane,” he said, still not looking at me. “I'm glad you made them. I'm glad you reminded me.”
My head was starting to ache and spin. “Reminded you of what, sir?”
His face became tombstone grim. “That your approach to this is the safest thing—for everyone involved.”
I began to move towards him but stopped myself. Instead, I tried reaching for him with words. “Sir, I still don't understand.”
He lifted his eyes to mine, and I could feel the ice in them from across the room.
“Good,” he said.
***
This was indeed a strange beginning to what Thorne aptly called our “courtship,” but it characterized the remaining four weeks. He kept his word: no more kisses, no more invitations to dinner or to bed. I kept my word. I returned to schooling Kirti by day, and I continued schooling him by night.
During our evening talks in the study I presented him with the less polite self that I'd kept mostly hidden from him up until then. He returned the favor by re-becoming the surly, jaded man I'd encountered trapped in the doggie door that first night. He continued to lend me books, and we continued to discuss them, but this time, instead of using literature as a bridge between us, I found every reason I could to mock his choices for me. Hopkins? Too religious—outright sedition, if you asked me. Hesse? Dear God, could you possibly get any more paternalistic? And was Tolkien paid by the word or something?
For his part, Thorne took my abuse but not with good nature. No longer was I Lady Tokebi, and no more was I “that nameless grace.” He argued back that I was too ignorant to have any real appreciation of anything. One night after one such argument he growled, “I can't wait until this is over!”
“And then?” I challenged.
“And then I can break these rules and unlock all that armor of yours.”
He said this with anger, but it took my breath away.
My mask of disdain was easy to maintain. It had always been far easier for me to feign indifference than to show fear. No use lying to you here and now, dear reader: after Thorne's near shattering of the end table, I was indeed afraid. Not for my physical person. I had no doubt that if he ever swung a fist in my direction I could dodge it with all grace and training. I could dodge him, yes, but what then? Could I leave him?
For all my mocking of him and keeping him at a safe distance, I was becoming addicted. Addiction is the closest parallel I can draw. Yes, we spent our time together arguing, but I lost track of the minutes, often not leaving him until well into the early morning. While I was supposed to be working with Kirti, my mind was elsewhere, thinking of what I would say to him next, wondering what he would say to me. If a night went by without summons to the study, I could not sleep. Then when he called for me next, I was giddy with relief—a relief I was having increasing trouble stifling.
Why stifle it, you wonder? Remember, dear reader, even more than I longed for Thorne, I desired control—though I hardly recognized it at the time. These four weeks were my last perceived chance to make the rules. After Thorne had indeed made me his in every sense, I knew I would be unable to resist anything he asked.
Hindsight is 20/20. I should have been using this time to ask other questions. I'd known from my first conversation with Thorne that he was hiding something from me. I should have been using this month to learn what that something was, but I was overwhelmed. The emotional fortifications I'd worked a lifetime to build had been condemned, a date for their destruction set.
While I thought I wanted everything associated with losing myself in him, I could not deny that I was running out of time to establish any hold I might have over him. No, Thorne did not obey my rules with humility or equanimity. However, the very fact that he submitted at all melted a pool of weakness inside of me. The more time went by, the more the melting worked at the plating around my heart, until there was precious little armor left. And what was left began to crack, until I feared the slightest quake would break me open.
