A Better World

CHAPTER 21

Soren smiled.

Books he loved. Movies and tri-d and stage plays and dance and comedy and sports and music were all torture. No matter the intelligence of a screenplay, no matter the elegance of a joke, at his timescale they were endless. Each note of a Bach concerto was drawn out until all meaning and emotion were lost.

But a book. He’d learned long ago how to widen his eyes to take in the whole page, focusing on individual words with his mind rather than his pupils. A good book was close to personal nothingness, a place the self could be lost. He often read five or six books between rising and sleeping.

John Smith had been thoughtful in furnishing the apartment in New Canaan. It was quiet, tastefully lit, and walled floor to ceiling with bookshelves. Soren found it a touching gesture, this reminder that his friend knew him in a way no one else did.

John said, “Iwillneedyousoon.”

“To?”

“Kill. Willyoukillforme?”

“Yes.”

“Myplansarelaid. Butthingsarefluid.”

Things are fluid. Yes, that was certainly true. “And?”

“You’retherook. Overlookedonthebackrow.”

A reference to their childhood at Hawkesdown Academy, playing chess in the cafeteria. Soren always lost, but it hadn’t mattered. The games had been periods of simple pleasure and engagement spent in the company of a friend. Maybe the first time in his life when time had passed too quickly.

His role was plain to him now. Smith would have spent years preparing for this moment, but strategies always changed in execution, always. So Soren would be the asset his friend’s enemies didn’t know about. The solution to problems yet undiscovered.

“I understand.”

“Ihaveasurprise.”

Soren followed his friend through the apartment to a closed door. John gestured to it, smiled, and left.

Soren opened the door and saw her waiting for him.

The only woman in the world. Tiny and blond and perfect. The one who understood what he needed. Not just understood it. Became it. That was her nature, her gift and her curse; she could transform herself into what others needed. Could sense and embody the desires people didn’t dare speak.

Samantha was naked, pink tulips and fresh cream, and her arms were open. “My love,” she said. “I’ve missed you.”

Bliss. Not an instant’s worth, the way normal people experienced love, but complete and lasting. Bliss like warm water he swam languidly.

His curse could be a gift, too. With her.

In Hawkesdown they had found each other, perfect Samantha. When they were fourteen, she had come to him and touched his cheek and begun without a word spoken, and every touch lasted minutes. The caress of her tongue, the softness of her hair trailing down his body, the grip of their clenched fingers, all threatened to overflow him with fullness. When it finally came, the orgasm was a long, slow freefall down the curve of heaven.

Then she had vanished from the academy, stolen away by her mentor, and he had never seen her again.

Soren had tried with others, but failed miserably. Women wanted to banter and share and be charmed, to know and feel known. He understood that, but the rituals of the mating dance were unbearable to him. Jokes drained of all flavor, small talk lasted days.

There had been a prostitute, one time. An expensive call girl he paid in advance. He had given explicit instructions in an e-mail: she wasn’t to speak, wasn’t to delay. All he wanted was her perfumed warmth writhing above him.

She had done as he asked. But there was a moment as she moved on him when the expression on her face flickered, the mask slipping. Just an instant for her, but he had been forced to stare for long seconds at her boredom and hatred and contempt even as he was inside of her. Unable to turn away, to shut his eyes. He still burned with shame to think of the moment.

He and his love slid together, parted, and rejoined. She was his need. And he knew that for her he was the safest, purest thing she would ever know. She was an addict to her own self, and he let her be that with purest gratitude.

When at last they were done, she curled into the hollow of his arm and laid her head on his chest, and he basked in the afterglow of their bodies’ desire with perfect peace.

Thank you, John. A surprise indeed.

And another debt.

Will I kill for you?

God himself.