The Heart Goes Last (13 page)

But Charmaine doesn’t believe this runaround for one instant. Someone must have it in for her. But who? A best friend or lover of one of her Special Procedure subjects? How would they even know, how would they have access? That information is supposed to be totally classified! They’ve found out about her and Max. It must be that. They’re deciding what should be done with her. Done to her.

If only she could talk to Stan. Not Max: at the first hint of danger Max would vamoose. He’s a travelling salesman at heart.
I will always treasure our moments together and keep you safe in my heart,
then out the bathroom window and over the back fence, leaving her to deal with the smoking gun and the body on the floor, which might prove to be hers.

Max is like quicksand. Quicksilver. Quick. She’s always known that about him. Stan, though – Stan is solid. If he were here he’d roll up his sleeves and tackle reality. He’d tell her what to do.

Heck.
Now she’s made a boo-boo with the neck of the blue teddy bear, she’s knitted where she should have purled. Should she unravel the row, knit it over? No. The bear will just have to wear a little ridge around its neck. She might even tie a ribbon around it, with a bow. Cover up the flaw by adding an individual touch.
If all you’ve got is lemons,
she tells herself,
make pink lemonade.

When she returns to her cell that night, she finds it empty. Her cellmate is gone; it’s her month back in Consilience. But the other bed isn’t made up, it’s stripped bare. It’s as if someone has died.

They aren’t giving her a new cellmate, then. They’re isolating her. Is this the beginning of her punishment? Why did she ever let herself get mixed up with Max? She should have run out of the room the first minute she laid eyes on him. She’s been such a pushover. And now she’s all alone.

For the first time that day, she cries.

“Honey, cheer up, surely life’s not so bad,” Charmaine was in the habit of saying when they were living in their car, which used to grate on him: how could she be so fucking perky, with the shit that was bombarding them from all sides? But now he tries to recall her light tone, her consolations, her reassuring quotes from her dead Aunt Win.
It’s darkest before the dawn.
He should man up, because she’s right: surely his life’s not so bad. A lot of men would be happy to trade.

Every weekday he goes to his so-called work at the Consilience electric-scooter repair depot, where he’s had to fend off questions from the other guys – “What’re you doing back here? Thought it was your month to be in Positron.” To which he replies, “Administration morons screwed up, they got my info mixed up with some other guy’s. Case of mistaken identity, but hey, I’m not complaining.”

No need to add that the other guy is the douche who’s been jumping his chirpy, treacherous wife, and that the administration moron was a highly placed Surveillance spook who’s recorded her husband’s encounters with Charmaine in grainy but surprisingly erotic videos. Stan knows they’re surprisingly erotic because he’s watched them with Jocelyn, sitting on the exact same sofa where he used to sit with Charmaine to watch TV.

That sofa, with its royal blue ground and overall design of off-white lilies, had meant tedium and a comforting routine; the most he’d ever done on it with Charmaine had been hand-holding or an arm around the shoulders, because Charmaine claimed she didn’t want to do bed things except where they belonged, in a bed. A wildly false claim, judging from those videos, in which Charmaine required nothing more than a closed door and a bare floor to release her inner sidewalk whore and urge Phil to do things she’d never allowed Stan to do and say things she’d never once said to Stan.

Jocelyn, smiling a tight but lip-licking smile, likes to watch Stan watching. Then she wants him to recreate these videos, playing Phil, with her in the role of Charmaine. The horrible thing is that sometimes he can; though it’s equally horrible when he can’t. If he roughs her up and fucks her, it’s because she told him to; if he isn’t up to it, he’s a failure; so whichever it is, he loses. Jocelyn has transformed the neutral sofa with its harmless lilies into a nest of tortuous and humiliating vice. He can barely sit down on it any more: who knew that a harmless consumer good made of fabric and stuffing could become such a crippling head-games weapon?

He hopes Jocelyn has been recording these scenes, and will make Phil watch them in his turn. She’s mean enough for it. No doubt Phil’s wondering why he’s still in prison, and is trying bluster –
There’s been a mistake, I’m supposed to be leaving now, just let me contact my wife, she’s in Surveillance, we’ll get this straightened out
. Stan takes an acidic pleasure in imagining this scenario, as well as the stonewalling stares and hidden snickering among the guards, because haven’t they got their orders, which come from higher up?
Just cool it, buddy, look at the printout, Positron identity numbers don’t lie, the system’s hackproof
. That twisted fuckwit Phil had it coming.

Holding this thought keeps Stan going during his sexual command performances with Jocelyn, which are a good deal more like tenderizing a steak than anything he finds purely pleasurable.

Oh, Stan!
comes the pert, giggly pseudovoice of Charmaine.
You get a kick out of it, you must! You know you do, well, most of the time anyway, and every man has those letdown moments, but the rest of the time don’t think I can’t hear those groans, which have to be enjoyable for you, don’t deny it!

Ram it,
he tells her. But Charmaine, with her angel face and devious heart – the real Charmaine – can’t hear him. She can’t know that Jocelyn’s been messing with their lives, paying her back for stealing Phil; but on the first of the month she’ll find out. When she walks into this house, expecting to find Stan, it will be Phil who’ll be waiting for her. He won’t exactly be pleased about it either, would be Stan’s guess, because a quick hit of supercharged nooky snatched on the run is not at all the same as all day every day.

That’s when Charmaine will discover that the fire of her loins is not who she thinks he is – not the Max of her fever dreams, whose fake name she invokes over and over in those videos – but a much less alpha male, who will look very different in plain daylight. Saggier, older, but also jaded, shifty-eyed, calculating: you can see that in his face, on the videos. She and Phil will be stuck with each other whether they like it or not. Charmaine will have to live with his dirty socks, his hairs in the sink; she’ll have to listen to him snoring, she’ll have to make small talk with him at breakfast; all of which will put a damper on the bodice-ripper she’s been acting out.

How long will it take the two of them to get bored, then fed up with each other? How long before Phil resorts to domestic violence, just for something to do? Not long, Stan hopes. He wouldn’t mind knowing that Phil is smacking Charmaine around, and not just as a garnish to sex, the way he does onscreen, but for real: somebody needs to.

But Phil better not push it too far, or Charmaine may stick a grapefruit knife into his jugular, since behind that blond fluff-head act of hers there’s something skewed. A chip missing, a loose connection. He hadn’t recognized it when they’d been living together – he’d underestimated her shadow side, which was mistake number one, because everyone has a shadow side, even fluffpots like her.

There’s another thought, not so pleasant: when Phil and Charmaine take up domestic life in this house, what will become of him, Stan? He can’t stay in the house with them, that’s clear. Will Jocelyn spirit him away to a secret love-nest and chain him to her bedpost? Or will she tire of treating him like an indentured studmuffin, of hotwiring his mind and watching him jerk around like a galvanized frog, and let him re-enter Positron for a much-needed rest?

Though maybe she’ll alter the schedule even further: maybe she’ll just keep Stan here with her, playing her warped game of house, and let the other two cool their jets inside the slammer. Switchover day will roll around and Charmaine and Phil will be all set to put on their civvies and beeline it to their seedy rendezvous, but then some gink in a uniform will tell them there’s been a delay, and they won’t be coming out of Positron right now. Which will mean three months straight for Charmaine. She must be going nuts.

Phil will already have guessed that Jocelyn has found him out, yet again; he’ll wonder whether she’s finally given up on him. He’ll be in an advanced state of anxiety if he has any sense at all. He must know his wife is a vengeful harpy, deep inside her business-suit-neutral cool and her long-suffering pose of tolerance.

But Charmaine will be confused. She’ll run through her gamut of girly manipulations with the Positron management: dimpled blond astonishment, lip-quivering, outrage, tearful pleading – but none of it will do her any good. Then maybe she’ll have a real meltdown. She’ll lose it, she’ll wail, she’ll crumple to the floor. The officials won’t put up with that: they’ll haul her upright, hose her down. Stan would like to see that; it would be some satisfaction for the contempt with which she’s been treating him. Maybe Jocelyn will let him watch on the spy-cam video hookup.

Not likely. His access to spy-cam material is limited to Charmaine and Phil writhing around on the floor. Jocelyn really gets a jolt out of those. Her demand that he duplicate the action is pathetic: she must know he can’t feel any real passion. At those moments he’d drink paint thinner or stuff a chili pepper up his nose – anything to dull his brain during these mutually humiliating scenes. But he needs to convince himself that he’s next door to an automation, he needs to keep the action going. His life may depend on it.

Last night Jocelyn tried something new. She has all the access codes to everything, as far as he can tell, so she opened Charmaine’s pink locker and rummaged around in Charmaine’s stuff and found a nightgown she could fit into. It had daisies on it, and little bows – very far from Jocelyn’s functional style, which was maybe the point.

Jocelyn is in the habit of sleeping in the spare room, where she also keeps her “work,” whatever it is; but last night, after lighting a scented candle, she’d put on that nightgown and tiptoed into his room. “Surprise,” she’d whispered. Her mouth was dark with lipstick, and as she pressed it down on his he’d recognized the scent of the lipstick kiss on that note he’d found.
I’m starved for you! I need you so much. XXOO and you know what more – Jasmine.
Like a moron, he’d fallen for this sultry Jasmine, with her mouth the colour of grapejuice. What a mirage! Then, what a disappointment.

And now Jocelyn wanted to be who? Dragged out of sleep, he was disoriented; for a moment he didn’t know where he was, or who was pressing herself against him. “Just imagine I’m Jasmine,” she murmured. “Just let yourself go.” But how could he, with the texture of Charmaine’s familiar cotton nightgown under his fingers? The daisies. The bows. It was such a disconnect.

How much longer can he go on starring in this bedroom farce without losing it completely and doing something violent? He can keep himself steady when he’s working at the scooter depot: solving mechanical problems levels him out. But as the workday nears its end he feels the dread building. Then he has to get onto his scooter and motor back to the house. His goal is to dump a few beers into himself, then pretend to concentrate on yard work before Jocelyn turns up.

It’s risky to combine beer fog with power tools, but it’s a risk he’s willing to take. Unless he numbs himself, he might find himself doing something stupid.

But Jocelyn is high up on the power ladder; she must have every one of her snatch hairs monitored, with a SWAT team ready to spring into lethal action at any threat. Stan would surely trigger an some alarm while making even the most innocuous move against her, such as roping her up and stowing her in Charmaine’s pink locker – no, not the pink one, he doesn’t know the code; in his own red locker – while he makes his getaway. But getaway to where? There’s no route out of Consilience, not for those who’ve made the dick-brained mistake of signing themselves in. Signing themselves over.
do time now, buy time for our future.

You got suckered
, says Conor’s voice inside his head.

Here comes Jocelyn in her darkened, softly purring spook vehicle. She must have a driver, because she always exits from the back seat. They’re said to be working on a bunch of new robotic tech stuff at Positron that’s going to help this place pay its way, so maybe it’s a bot driving the car.

He has a wild impulse to sprint over with the hedge trimmer, turn it on, threaten to shred both Jocelyn and her robot driver unless they take him to the main Consilience gateway, right now. What if she calls his bluff and refuses? Will he go for it, and be left with a dead car full of electronics and mangled body parts?

But if it works, he’ll make her drive him right through the gateway, into the crumbling, semi-deserted wasteland outside the walls. He’ll jump out of the car, make a break for it. He won’t have much of a life out there, picking through garbage dumps and fighting off scavengers, but at least he’d be in charge of himself again. He’ll find Conor, or Conor will find him. If anyone knows how to play the angles out there, it will be Con. He’ll have to eat his pride, though. Do some backtracking.
I was wrong, I should have listened to you,
and fucking etcetera.

Though maybe better not to try the hedge-trimmer move on Jocelyn. She can probably activate the alarm system by flexing her toes. Not to mention her fast moves: those Surveillance types must take martial arts training. Learn to crush windpipes with their thumbs.

Now she’s getting out of the car, feet first. Shoes, ankles, grey nylon. Any guy seeing those legs would have to be turned on. Wouldn’t they?

Hang on to that thought, Stan, he tells himself. It’s not all downside.

It’s the tenth day of February, and Stan is still in limbo. Charmaine didn’t reappear on the switchover day, as he’d been both hoping and fearing she would. Hoping, because – he has to admit – he misses her and wants to see her, especially if she replaces Jocelyn. Fearing, because would he lose his temper? Tell her he’s seen the videos of her with Max, confront her with all the lies she told him, belt her one, the way Con might? Would she be defiant, would she laugh at him? Or would she cry and say what a mistake she’s made and how sorry she is, and how much she loves him? And if she does say that, how will he know she means it?

He himself would be on shaky ground. What if Jocelyn takes her side, what if she shares what she knows about Stan’s pursuit of the fake Jasmine and adds in a few details about what she and Stan have been doing on the blue sofa? And elsewhere. Many elsewheres. The inside of his head turns to a snarl of string every time he tries to picture his reunion with Charmaine.

“I think you two need more time apart,” was what Jocelyn said about it, as if he and Charmaine were squabbling children who’d been given a time-out by a loving but strict mother. No, not a mother: a decadent babysitter who’d shortly be charged with corrupting minors, because right after that prissy little sermon, Stan found himself on the blue sofa with its chaste but by now grubby lilies enacting one of Jocelyn’s favourite scenes from the frequently replayed video-porn saga featuring their two energetic spouses.

“What if it were both of us at once?” he found himself growling as if from a great distance. The voice was his, the words were Max’s. The script called for some handwork here. It was hard to remember all the words, synchronize them with the gestures. How did they manage it in films? But those people got multiple takes: if they did it wrong, they could do it over. “Front and back?”

“Oh no, I couldn’t!” Jocelyn replied in a voice intended to sound breathless and ashamed, like Charmaine’s on the video. And it did kind of sound that way: she wasn’t acting, or not entirely. “Not both at once! That’s …”

What came next? His mind went blank. To gain time he tore off a few buttons.

“I think you could,” Jocelyn prompted him.

“I think you could,” he said. “I think you want to. Look, you’re blushing. You’re a dirty little slut, aren’t you?”

When would this be over? Why couldn’t he just skip all the role-playing crap, cut to the chase, get to the part where her eyes rolled back in her head and she screamed like ripped metal? But she didn’t want the short-form. She wanted dialogue and ritual, she wanted courtship. She wanted what Charmaine had, right there onscreen, and not a syllable less. It was pitiful, once Stan stopped to think about it: as if she’d been left out, the one kid not invited to the birthday party, so she was going to have her own birthday party, all by herself.

And she
was
having it all by herself, more or less, because Stan wasn’t present in any real sense. Why doesn’t she just order herself a robot? he thought. Among the guys down at the scooter depot, talk has it that full production has begun on the new and improved sexbots that are in the trial stage somewhere in the depths of Positron. Maybe it’s an urban legend or wishful thinking, but the guys swear to it: they have the inside track. It’s said to be a line of Dutch-designed prostibots, some for the domestic market, but the majority for export. The bots are supposed to be really lifelike, with body heat and touch-sensitive plastic fibre skin that actually quivers, and several different voice modes, and flushable interiors for sanitary purposes, because who wants to catch a dick-rotting disease?

These bots will cut down on sex trafficking, say the boosters: no more young girls smuggled over borders, beaten into submission, chained to the bed, reduced to a pulp, then thrown into sewage lagoons. No more of that: plus, they’ll practically shit money.

But it won’t be anything like the real thing, say the detractors: you won’t be able to look into their eyes and see a real person looking out. Oh, they’ve got a few tricks up their sleeves, say the boosters: improved facial muscles, better software. But they can’t feel pain, say the detractors. They’re working on that feature, say the boosters. Anyway, they’ll never say no. Or they’ll say no only if you want them to. Stan doubts all of this: the empathy modules at Dimple Robotics wouldn’t have convinced a five-year-old. But maybe they’ve made strides.

The guys joke about applying to be prostibot testers at Positron. It’s said to be a wild experience, though creepy. You get to choose the voice and phrase option, the bot whispers enticing flatteries or dirty words; when you touch her, she wriggles; you give her a jump. Then, while the rinse cycle is kicking in – that part is weird, it sounds a little too much like the drain cycle on a dishwasher – you have to fill out a questionnaire, check the ratings boxes for likes and dislikes of this or that feature, suggest improvements. As an on-demand sexual experience, it’s said to be better than the bonk-a-chicken racket that used to go on at Positron, they add. No squawking, no scratchy claws. And better than a warm watermelon too, the latter being not all that responsive.

There must be male prostibots for the Jocelyns of this world, thinks Stan. Randy Andy the Handy Android. But such an item wouldn’t suit Jocelyn, because she wants something that can feel resentment, and even rage. Feel it and have to repress it. He knows quite a lot about her tastes by now.

The night before New Year’s Day, she’d made popcorn and insisted they eat it while watching the video prelims: Phil’s arrival at the derelict house, his restless pacing, the breath mint he’d slipped into his mouth, his swift preening of himself in the reflection of a shard of glass left in a shattered mirror. The popcorn was greasy with melted butter, but when Stan moved to get a paper towel, Jocelyn laid a hand on his leg; lightly enough, but he knew a command signal when he felt one. “No,” she said, smiling that smile he increasingly can’t read. Pain, or intent on causing it? “Stay here. I want your butter all over me.”

At least it was something extra, that butter. Something Phil and Charmaine hadn’t done. Or not on the videos.

And so it went on. But toward the end of January, Jocelyn’s ardour or whatever it was had flagged. She seemed distracted; she worked in her room at the computer she’d set up in there, and instead of wanting sex on the sofa she’d taken to reading novels on it, with her shoes off and her feet up. He knows more about her now, or more about the story of herself she’s using as a front. How did she get into the Surveillance business? he’d asked her, for something to do at the breakfast table.

“I was an English major,” she said. “It’s a real help.”

“You’re bullshitting me, right?”

“Not in the least,” she said. “It’s where all the plots are. That’s where you learn the twists and turns. I did my senior thesis on
Paradise Lost
.”

Paradise what? The only thing that came to Stan’s mind was a nightclub site in Australia he’d once seen online when looking for soft porn, but the place had shut down years before. He wanted to ask Jocelyn if that book was made into an HBO mini series or something, in case he might have seen it, but he didn’t do that because the less ignorance he displayed, the better. Already she was treating him like a brain-damaged spaniel, with a mixture of amusement and contempt. Except when he was in full-throttle pelvic action. But that was happening less and less.

Some nights he found himself drinking beer alone because Jocelyn was out of the house. He felt relief – some of the performance pressure was off – but also fear, because what if she was about to discard him? And what if the destination she had in mind for him was not Positron Prison but that unknown void into which the bona fide criminals originally warehoused at Positron had vanished?

Jocelyn could erase him. She could just wave her hand and reduce him to zero. She’d never said so, but he knew she had that power.

But the first of February had come and gone, with no switchover for him. He’d finally dared to bring the subject up: when, exactly, would he be leaving for Positron?

“Missing your chickens?” she’d said. “Never mind, you might be joining them soon.” This made his neck hair stand up: the nature of the chicken feed at Positron was a matter for grisly rumour. “But first I want to spend Valentine’s Day with you.” The tone was almost sentimental, though there was an underlayer of flint. “I want it to be special.” Was
special
a threat? She watched him, smiling a little. “I don’t want us to be … interrupted.”

“Who’d interrupt us?” he said. In old movies, the kind they showed on the Consilience channel – comic movies, tragic movies, melodramatic movies – there were frequent interruptions. Someone would burst through a door – a jealous spouse, a betrayed lover. Unless it was a spy movie, in which case it would be a double agent, or a crime movie in which a stool pigeon had betrayed the gang. Scuffles or gunshots would follow. Escapes from balconies. Bullets to the head. Speedboats zigzagging out of reach. That’s what those interruptions led to, though followed by happy endings. But surely no such interrupting was possible here.

“No one, I suppose,” she said. She watched him. “Charmaine is perfectly safe,” she added. “She’s alive and well. I’m not a monster!” Then that hand on his knee again. Spider silk, stronger than iron. “Are you worried?”

Of course I’m fucking worried,
he wanted to shout.
What do you think, you twisted perv? You think it’s a kiddie picnic for me, being house slave to a fucking dog trainer who could have me put down at any minute?
But all he’d said was, “No, not really.” Then, to his shame: “I’m looking forward to it.” He’s disgusted with himself. What would Conor do in his place? Conor would take charge, somehow. Conor would turn the tables. But how?

“Looking forward to what?” she said with a blank stare. She was such a gamester. “To what, Stan?” when he stalled.

“Valentine’s Day,” he muttered. What a loser. Crawl, Stan. Lick shoes. Kiss ass. Your life may depend on it.

She smiled openly this time. That mouth he would soon be obliged to mash with his own, those teeth that would soon be biting his ear. “Good,” she said sweetly, patting his leg. “I’m glad you’re looking forward to it. I like surprises, don’t you? Valentine’s Day reminds me of cinnamon hearts. Those little red ones you sucked. Red Hots, they were called. Remember?” She licked her lips.

Cut the crap, he wanted to say. Drop the fucking innuendo. I know you want to suck my little red-hot heart.

“I need a beer,” he said.

“Work for it,” she said, abruptly harsh again. She moved her hand up his leg, squeezed.

Charmaine is called in to verify her data: sit for the retina scan, repeat the fingerprinting, read
Winnie the Pooh
for the voice analyzer. Will these steps re-authenticate her profile for the benefit of the database? It’s hard to tell: she’s still alone in her cell, still shunned by the knitting circle, still stuck in Towel-Folding.

But the next day Aurora from Human Resources turns up in the laundry room and asks Charmaine to accompany her upstairs for a chat. The other towel-folders look up: is Charmaine in trouble? They probably hope so. Charmaine feels at a disadvantage – she’s covered in lint, which is diminishing – but she brushes herself off and follows Aurora to the elevator.

The chat takes place in the Chat Room beside the front checkout counter. Aurora is pleased to be able to tell Charmaine that she will have her cards and codes restored to her – or not restored; confirmed. Just as Aurora has been assuring her, the database glitch has been repaired, and she is now once again who she’s been claiming she is. Aurora smiles tightly. Isn’t that good news?

Charmaine agrees that it is. At least she has a code identity once again, which is some comfort. “So can I leave now?” she asks. “Go back home? I’ve missed a lot of Out time.”

Unfortunately, says Aurora, Charmaine can’t depart from Positron quite yet: the synchronization is off. Although in theory she might move into the guest room of her own house – Aurora makes a laughing sound – her Alternate is of course now living in the house they share, it being that person’s turn. Aurora understands how upsetting all this must be for Charmaine, but the proper rotation must be preserved, with no interaction between Alternates. Familiarity would inevitably lead to territorial squabbling, especially over such comfort items as sheets and body lotion. As they have all been taught, possessiveness about our cozy corners and favourite toys isn’t limited to cats and dogs. How we
wish
it were. Wouldn’t life be simpler?

So Charmaine must continue to be patient, says Aurora. And in any case she’s been doing such a good job with the knitting – the blue teddy bears. How many has she knitted now? It must be at least a dozen! She’ll have time for a few more of them before she leaves, hopefully at the next switchover day, which is when? The first of March, isn’t it? And it’s almost Valentine’s Day – so, not long to go!

Aurora herself has never learned to knit. She does regret that. It must be calming.

Charmaine clenches her hands. One more of those darn teddy bears with their bright, unseeing eyes and she’s going to go sideways, right off the tracks! They’ve filled bins of them. She has nightmares about those teddies; she dreams they’re in bed with her, unmoving but alive. “Yes, it is calming,” she says.

Aurora consults her PosiPad. She has another piece of good news for Charmaine: as of the day after tomorrow, Charmaine will be taken off towel-folding and will resume her former duties as Chief Medications Administrator. Positron does reward talent and experience, and Charmaine’s talent and experience have not gone unnoticed. Aurora gives an encouraging grimace. “Not everyone has the soft touch,” she says. “Coupled with such dedication. There have been incidents, when other … other operatives have been tasked with the, with the task. With the essential duty.”

“When do I start?” asks Charmaine. “Thank you,” she adds. She’s thrilled to be getting away from the towel-folding. She looks forward to re-entering the Medications Administration wing and following that remembered route along the hallways. She visualizes approaching the desk, accessing the possibly real head on the screen, advancing through the familiar doors, snapping on the gloves, picking up the medication and the hypodermic. Then on to the room where her Procedure subject will await, immobile but fearful. She will soothe those fears. Then she will deliver bliss, and then release. It will be nice to feel respected again.