her what she needs before she sends me away. And then, at last, she’ll rise again from the ashes of her life to resume her work. Willie can be proud of that.
You are Christopher.
Lydia and I have spent most of the past six days in bed. It’s been a repeating cycle: Tears, sex, a little sleep, more sex, and food. Then back to the tears. According to what Daniels and the Christopher chip have told me, everything with Lydia goes in cycles.
But this particular cycle has to be interrupted, because we’ve run out of food. Despite her huge house, Lydia has no hired help; and since no one will deliver groceries this far out in the Hill Country, one or both of us will have to make a trip to Kerrville. But Lydia isn’t supposed to leave the estate alone without calling CCA-Austin for a bodyguard . . . and if she were to go out with me, the hassle from the videorazzi would be even worse than usual. The headlines would be something like “Lydia Performs Satanic Ritual to Bring Boy-Toy Back from Beyond the Grave.” I don’t think she can handle that just yet.
But if I slip out by myself, I tell her, I’ll be inconspicuous. Christopher Jennings is an ordinary guy. Put him in his old jeans and pickup truck, and no one would suspect that he’s the man living with Lydia Love. I have the jeans, and the pickup’s still in Lydia’s garage. So I can hit the Kerrville H.E.B. supermarket and be back before the sweat from our last round of lovemaking has dried. It makes perfect sense.
But Lydia shoves me away and gets out of bed. She stands over me wild-eyed, her neck and arm muscles popped out hard as marble.
“You just got back, and now you want to leave?” Her voice is like the cry of a hawk. She is enraged, and I’m stunned. This has come on like storm clouds on fast-forward.
She’s waiting for an answer, so I listen for a prompt from the Christopher chip. But there isn’t one.
“Just for groceries,” I say. My voice is limp.
Lydia spins away. She goes to her mahogany dresser, pulls it out from the wall, and shoves it over. The crash makes me jump. Then she flings a crystal vase against the wall. Her hair whips like fire in a tornado. All the while she rants, “I thought you were dead, and you’re going out to die again. I thought you were dead, and you’re going out to die again. I thought—”
I start up from the bed. I want to grab her and hold her before she hurts herself. She’s naked, and there are slivers of crystal sticking up from the thick gray carpet.
Stay put. We never try to stop her.
But she already has a cut on her arm. It’s small, but there’s some blood—
She always quits before she does serious damage. So let her throw her tantrum. It’s a turn-on for her. She expects it to have the same effect on us.
Lydia looks down and sees herself in the dresser mirror on the floor. She screams and stamps her feet on it. The mirror doesn’t crack, but she’s still stamping, and when it breaks she’ll gash her feet. I have to stop her.
No.
This isn’t right. But if Christopher would let her rage, then I must do likewise if I want her to believe I’m him. Even now, as she attacks the mirror, she’s looking at me with suspicion inside her fury.
She expects arousal.
Having trouble getting aroused in the presence of a naked Lydia Love was not a problem I anticipated.
She stops screaming and stamping as if a switch in her brain has been flipped to OFF. The mirror has cracked, but it hasn’t cut her feet. She leaves it and comes toward me, moving with tentative steps, avoiding the broken pieces of crystal. Except for the nick on her arm, she seems to be all right. The rage has drained from her eyes, and what’s left is a puzzled fear.
“Christopher?” she says. Her voice quavers. Her ribs strain against her skin as she breathes.
She is looking at my crotch.
What did I tell you?
This was the one area I hoped the surgeons wouldn’t touch, and to my relief they decided that it was close enough as it was. Christopher had an average body with average parts, and so do I. So they didn’t change much besides my face and voice.