When she met Jiannis, she could immediately identify and cost the programs running in his body, and liked the choices he’d made. Too many men went for the boxer’s build, but he’d chosen a marathon-runner’s physique, with the toned arms of a tennis player and a dash of enhancement to his genitals that made him a magnificent lover without entering into the realm of the ridiculous as too many men were often tempted to do.
Jiannis worked in finance, did something with data, and she met him while selling him the luxury character-filled new-build apartment on Blackfriars Bridge complete with private off-road parking, twenty-four-hour concierge, private gym and film club. He made an offer immediately, on the condition she had a drink with him, and they christened the deal with their bodies at the secondary inspection once offer was accepted, then again on the confirmation of purchase and, of course, on the day keys changed hands.
She knew he was the one for her when they did a line of coke together down the club off Cannon Street, and she realised that he too was doing it just for show, just to be with the lads, and had left his anti-toxin protocols active, just like her. He liked to be in control. He liked to control his job, his body, his world. Nothing he did was unconsidered, even when it seemed wild, delightful, spontaneous. He understood the value of appearance, and knew how to appear relaxed when tense, at ease when on guard. She admired him instinctively, and liked that he admired her too, and when he asked her to move in with him when her lease came up for renewal, she decided it was probable she’d end up loving him.
“He seems like a very . . . respectable . . . young man,” was Karen’s assessment the day they had lunch together in Richmond, a halfway point between her life and her mum’s, straight up the railway from Bracknell. “He seems . . . yes, well, I hope he does right by you.”
If Karen had called him a scion of the Hun, a reprobate and a dangerous fool, she would not have done so in stronger language, and Harmony knew this, and chose just this once to hear the words spoken rather than their meaning, and smiled her perfect smile, a smile to illuminate the world, and said, “Really glad you like him, Mum.”
Six months of bliss followed.
She knew they were blissful, because she had decided that they almost certainly would be, and though she was a sensible woman, a woman who knew how to respect herself, there was no denying that Jiannis was one of the smartest, sexiest, most on-it people she’d ever met. If being with him meant that she was also all of these things, then she’d take it. She would rejoice in this identity.
He chose the best restaurants, and even though the bill was sometimes a bit . . . but it was OK, because her credit card kept on extending the overdraft and she was still making minimum payments, and besides, he’d take her out a lot anyway, pay for her drinks down the club, though she’d always insist she was her own woman and could pay for herself.
He had interesting, intelligent friends too. Not the swaggering, show-offs of the estate agents, not men (and women) whose whole careers were built around the bluster and the sell, but cultivated, clever friends who’d chosen their upgrades with real discernment, and exercised, just for that added bit of self-control, to prove that they were capable of it. Every Saturday, their photos would go up on social media, proud athletes conquering new challenges, even if the nanos did most of the work.
Jiannis knew vegans, whose nanos were programmed to fill in the protein deficiencies of their diets; he knew teetotallers who’d paid – she had no idea how much; she couldn’t find the upgrade online anywhere – for an at-will upgrade to stimulate an endorphin and dopamine rush that was, they swore, better than LSD, but which they only used on Sundays or between the hours of 11 and 12 p.m. on Friday nights, because they didn’t need this shit to feel good. They didn’t need any of it. They made choices. And their choices made them magnificent.
She sat down with Jiannis to compare nanos the day she moved in with him. He laughed at some of her upgrades, tutted at others – mostly at things she didn’t have – applauded her taste in many of her physical enhancements.
“Elevation,” he chuckled. “I knew there was something about you. Christ, when I’m near you it’s just . . . Jesus.”
For a moment, she wondered if he’d ask her to turn it off, and wasn’t sure she would. What was sex like, when your body wasn’t rushing with hormones, when your skin didn’t transmit a come-hither, all-pervasive allure, when there were just parts pressing against other parts, biology happening, instead of something extraordinary, profoundly beautiful, like it was in the movies? She wasn’t sure she could remember, but somewhere at the back of her mind the face of Jarek the third-year student floated, astonished, indignant.
“Don’t you have upgrades?” he’d whispered, and she closed her eyes to try and drown his face in the dark, and opened them again to see Jiannis, all man, all himself, reaching out to stroke her chin, enamoured of her beauty, her wonder, herself.
“You are beautiful,” he murmured. “You are the most beautiful woman I have ever seen.”