Anew: Book One: Awakened (17 page)

“But I thought the government
provides stipends for those who can’t find work.”

I have read about this on the
link. As technology takes over more and more of the functions once performed by
humans, people have no choice but to accept the government’s support.

“It does but only up to a point,”
Adele says, “and not for those who have been convicted of a crime, any crime,
of which there is a very long and ever growing list. Inevitably, people in that
situation come to the city and other places like it in search of the means to
survive.”

“Couldn’t more be done to help
them?” I ask. Criminals or not, the waste of human beings with all their
potential for creativity, innovation, and so on strikes me as appalling.

“Of course it could,” she
concedes. “If there was sufficient will to do so. But the constant flow of
mindless entertainment, legal recreational drugs, and empty promises of a
better future have a certain tranquilizing effect.”

She drops her voice a notch.
“Change won’t come from the masses. They have neither the means nor the will to
bring it about. If an organized rebellion does happen, it will have to start at
the top, among men and women of privilege who also possess a conscience. The
revolution that created our country, and about which almost no one speaks any
more, began that way. The same will have to happen again.”

As though she suddenly remembers
herself, Adele pats my hand. “Don’t trouble yourself about this. You’re just
beginning to know this world. Enjoy the good aspects, and there are many,
before you consider the rest.”

I don’t dismiss her advice but
images of the beaten young man haunt me hours later after I have retired for
the night. Lying between the cool silken sheets of the bed in the lovely tower
room that was Susannah’s, I remember the intensity of his gaze, so fierce and
strong despite his suffering.

My grandmother believes that
change can only come from the top. I can’t help but wonder if she is wrong.
Surely, men like the one I saw have the will and courage to act on their own
behalf. But beyond that, I have to wonder how we came so quickly to talk of
revolution. At the very least, I cannot escape the thought that the idea was
already prominent in my grandmother’s mind. What could have put it there?

I turn over in the bed, nestling
my cheek against the pillow, as I wonder what Ian would make of all this. With
his background and his resources, would he see the potential for revolution as
a threat to be ruthlessly crushed? Or could he be one of those Adele was
thinking of when she mentioned people of conscience in the highest reaches of
Society?

Scarcely does that latter
possibility occur to me than images of Ian fill my mind. Ian walking toward me
in the garden, on the balcony in the rain, above me in the golden bed, in the
spa, again in the golden room, our image captured in the mirror in which I saw
myself, a creature of pure carnality, enslaved to his touch.

I become so caught up in
thinking about him that I scarcely notice when my hand slips under my nightgown
and down my body to the apex of my thighs. I hesitate but the hollow pain that
has been inside me since those moments in the library is suddenly unbearable. I
am desperate for some relief from it.

Remembering Ian, how he touched
me with his mouth, his hands, all of him, I touch myself tentatively. The
sensation is…pleasant. Nothing more, nothing to frighten or alarm me. And
certainly not distasteful. In fact, as I persist a little it becomes…enjoyable.

And then more so…enough
that…after a few minutes a small orgasm ripples through me, taking me by
surprise, not in the least because it is so mild. I didn’t know they came that
way. Everything I’ve experienced with Ian is so vastly more.

I could continue but the
hollowness of my actions mocks me. Mere physical relief is meaningless without
him. The sense of his body, his presence all around me, and the knowledge that
I can give him shattering pleasure in return transform a simple, physical
process into an act of true intimacy.

Considering that, I eventually
slip into
sleep but I don’t find any rest there.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

I
am in the gestation chamber, trapped and helpless. It is my world, all I have
ever known. That other world--filled with light, color, sensation--was an
illusion woven by my starving mind. A pathetic delusion, its loss only
heightening my anguish.

The white-coated technicians
are priming their machines. Soon the pain will begin. I open my mouth to scream
but my throat is paralyzed. Panic strikes and I struggle to breathe only to
realize that I can’t. I have never taken a breath, never eaten, hardly moved.
My body is maintained. My mind is left to fend for itself. As for my heart…

Where do the people go when
they aren’t on the other side of the glass walls? Where am I when I am not
awake to see them?

Time passes, moments merging
one into another. Suddenly, in a flicker, there are more beings on the other
side of the glass, many more, working intently. So many, so busy that I try to
brace myself for the agony that is to come. It does but not in any way I could
expect.

Motion--I am moving!

Different walls surround me,
a room I have never seen before but I hardly notice.

The level of liquid in my
chamber is suddenly dropping. Terror fills me. How can I exist without the
medium that has sustained me all this time?

I begin to thrash and am restrained.
A tube is forced down my throat. Air fills my lungs for the first time.

Light unfiltered by fluid
strikes my eyes. Sounds assail me…the murmur of voices, the beep of machinery…

I am strapped down on a hard
surface. Something that I can’t see is attached to my head. Pain and fear are
so much my normal companions that I hardly notice them anymore. But suddenly
there is more…much more…something faint, elusive, growing…

Someone.

Awareness explodes within me.
For the first time, I have words and with them a flood of concepts and ideas
that they illuminate. From all that, my mind forms a single, transforming
thought:

I.

I exist. I am.

Like the beaten man on the
ground. Like the woman in the portrait. Like all those in the drab uniforms and
those who put them there. Every one of us, each singular and unique.

I blink and Ian is coming
toward me out of the shadows. His stride is steady, his eyes intent. The world
is falling away before me. I reach out frantically, feeling the brush of his
fingers, the touch of his breath in the moment before hope slips from my grasp
and I plummet into drowning darkness.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

I wake sobbing, struggling in
sheets so twisted that they confine me like a shroud. By the time I fight my
way free, I’m soaked in sweat, my heart hammering in the vise-like grip of
terror.

Slumped on the side of the bed,
my head in my hands, I struggle to find a center of calm that seems impossibly
far away and out of reach. No sound except my own ragged breathing disturbs the
silence in the tower room.

The air is bright with the cool,
woody scent of the Lombardy pines that stand like sentinels in the garden. The
only illumination comes from the street lights on the avenue outside. It slips
through cracks in the heavy silk drapes, slanting down the brocade covered
walls and across the soft pastel Aubusson carpet to touch the bed set beneath a
circular demi-canopy draped, as the windows are, in pale gold.

Soothed by the scents, drawn by
the light, I lift my head and not for the first time study the room that was
Susannah’s. It is like the woman herself, beautiful and tranquil, in the best
of taste, more restrained by far than the golden room in the palazzo.

All her personal belongings are
gone, whether removed after her death or just before my arrival I cannot say.
Yet a sense of her lingers, enough for me to imagine her sitting in this room,
weighing the possible extension of her own life for however brief a time
against the bestowing of mine.

What prompted her choice? I am
grateful to her, of course, wildly grateful for the life I have been given.
That is the light pushing back the darkness that threatens to smother me. Yet
there are times when I feel so overwhelmed, so unprepared that I wonder how I
can ever be what she intended. The ultimate makeover, Ian said. Susannah’s own
version of the perfect woman.

Is there a more daunting
prospect? One that I already know I can never fulfill?

I lie down again eventually but
only to skim the surface of sleep. Monsters lurk in the depths--memories I am
not supposed to have but cannot escape. They are as much a part of me as
anything Susannah intended.

Perhaps even more so for they are uniquely my own. The
thought occurs to me that in trying to flee from the monsters, I am really
running from myself.

Amelia

A
ccompanied by Adele
and Edward, I step from the car onto the red carpet laid before the entrance to
the Opera House. Ours is one of a steady stream of luxury vehicles dropping off
the evening’s audience or at least that portion of it destined for the dress
circle and the stalls.

There is a separate entrance to the side of the theatre for
those being admitted to the balconies. I catch a glimpse of the people lined up
there and notice that they are still wearing the same plain, uniform clothing.
Are the worker bees of Manhattan never allowed to appear in anything that could
distinguish them as individuals or worse yet, lead to them being mistaken for
the privileged ones they serve?

The paparazzi are out in force, clamoring for items to feed
the private link that Adele has shown me, where the elite are not at all shy
about exchanging news and gossip. Edward waves the videographers and reporters
off but most of those on the red carpet are happy to preen and pose.

We are held up momentarily behind a couple chattering on
about who “dressed” them, when I happen to glance beyond the barriers that
confine the workers to their own allotted space. A young woman is standing
there. Although she is wearing a drab brown tunic and slacks, and has her
gleaming dark hair scraped into a bun, she is remarkably, even fiercely
beautiful. Her high cheekbones hint at an Asian heritage but her large,
thick-fringed eyes and warm, olive complexion suggest that she could be a
Latina. More even than the loveliness of her features, the pride evident in the
tilt of her head and her expression rivets me. For the first time, I’m seeing a
member of the worker class who isn’t striving for invisibility.

Our eyes meet. I am openly curious but I’m also worried. If
anyone else notices her staring so blatantly, she could be in trouble. That
possibility doesn’t seem to concern her. Holding my gaze, she gives me a smile
and inclines her head in acknowledgement.

A moment later, she fades back into the crowd. I’m left
wondering if I imagined her.

But not for long. As we step into the Opera House, I
understand why Adele and Zosimo both insisted that I had to wear something
spectacular this evening. The gown that the spiky red-haired wizard created for
me is aquamarine silk shot through with strands of gold that together look like
bright sunlight falling on crystal clear water. The sleeveless bodice is a
stiff embroidered brocade that begins just below the upper swell of my breasts
and stops precisely at the top of my thighs, enclosing my torso in an almost
rigid sheath. Below, an intricately pleated silk chiffon skirt ripples down the
length of my legs like small undulating waves.

The total effect is as elegant as anything in the palazzo
dressing room but it is also completely different. The colors and the look
itself are more vibrant and daring than Susannah would have worn. In addition,
I resisted allowing my hair to be straightened even after being told by the
huffy hairdresser that it was absolutely de rigueur if I am to have any hope of
being fashionable. Instead, I’ve gone for a look that admittedly is a little
wild, a mass of chestnut waves interlaced with small, bejeweled flowers,
scooped high on my head and left to tumble below my shoulders. I am confident
that my appearance is sufficiently different for me to be accepted as 'Cousin'
Amelia.

Looking around at the other women, I know I made the right
decision by insisting on my own style. I need to stand out, to appear
distinctly myself to assure that no one will ever guess the truth, and I’ve
achieved that. In contrast, most of the young women I see and some of the older
ones who should know better are decked out in the height of the season’s
fashion trends. Those aren’t all bad--transparent bands of lace worn over the
eyes create a tantalizing air of mystery. But some of the others…

Of all the excesses--and there are many--the collars stand
out. Every slave to fashion is wearing one. They come in a variety of styles
but the most extreme extend from the collarbones all the way up to the chin,
completely encircling the neck and holding it rigid in splints of leather,
lace, or even lacquered metal. The wearers can’t turn their heads without
moving their entire upper bodies. I touch my own bare neck and wonder how they
can even manage to swallow.

Adele appears amused by the excesses whereas Edward seems
oblivious despite the attention from many of those same young women that keeps
coming his way. He and Adele both stay close to me as we proceed through the crowd
toward the curving marble staircase framed by golden statues of cherubim that
leads up to the dress circle.

The interior of the Opera House is done in over-the-top
Rococo, filled with multi-colored marble friezes, sculpted columns, statuary,
and murals. Lavish gilding, rich velvet, and gold leaf have been applied to
every possible surface. The whole is lit by the radiance of several hundred
crystal and gold chandeliers creating an effect that is more than sumptuous. It
is an orgy for the senses as well as a showcase for privilege and power,

As we join the crowd ascending the broad marble steps, I put
one hand on the smooth banister and with the other lift my skirts so that they
won’t catch on the delicate, pointed heels from which my bare, painted toes peek.
I’m thinking about everything I’ve seen since coming to the city, the good and
the bad, trying to make some sense of it all when I glance up.

In the space of a heartbeat, every coherent thought
dissolves. Only sensation and instinct remain.

Ian is standing at the top of the steps, impeccably dressed
in evening wear that, in stark contrast with the excesses of fashion all around
us, is austerely elegant. He has shaved recently, revealing the chiseled line
of his jaw, and his dark hair is freshly trimmed.

But the veneer of civilization does nothing to lessen the
sense of power and fierce will that surround him, made all the more startling
by his undeniable youth. He truly does look like a prince bred to rule.

When our eyes meet, his gaze is hard, glittering,
remorseless. At once, a cascade of memories engulfs me--water sluicing down his
big, hard body as we stood together in the shower, the sun playing over his
face as I lay beneath him in the pavilion, those final moments in the library…
A bolt of pain makes me gasp.

I am suddenly hollow with yearning and trembling with need.
My knees threaten to buckle. I am desperately afraid that I will cry or throw
myself at him or simply melt, becoming a humiliating spectacle for the
titillation of Society and to my own abiding shame.

Hot, cleansing anger comes to my rescue. How dare he send me
away, then turn up again just when I’m struggling to put what happened between
us behind me? He has no right to look at me as he is, the searing intensity of
his gaze leaving me no room to think or breathe. Still on the steps, I quake.
My hand slips from the banister as my balance falters.

A low but very audible curse breaks from Ian. His hand
thrusts down, grasping mine. At his touch, any hope I might have that I could
deny the effect he has on me vanishes. In its absence, I am filled with alarm.
I hadn’t thought it possible that I could ever return to the unnaturally
compliant state in which I first awoke. I will not return to it. That is not
who I am.

Yet my fingers curl around his all the same. I tell myself
that I am merely choosing between accepting his touch or tumbling down a flight
of marble steps but some part of me knows better. This is what I have been
longing for, what I crave above all, what I need as much as air and light.

Steadied by his strength, I climb the last few steps. My
breath leaves me in a gasp as he draws me so close that our bodies touch.
Distantly, I’m aware of Edward coming quickly to my side. He is scowling but I
can’t care. Adele is nearby. I catch a quick glimpse of her smile. I have the
sense that she understands all too well what she is seeing.

There are other people around us but they might as well be shadows.
Ian commands my attention as effortlessly as he does my will. I don’t know how
long we stand like that, so tantalizingly near, the barrier of our clothes
unable to mask the heat flaring between us. The look in his eyes…

A long, slow tremor begins in my core and spirals outward.
As much as I want to shield myself from the truth, there is no mistaking his
desire. He wants nothing less than to devour me. To fill me with pleasure until
I am shattered by it, unable to think or move or resist, utterly obedient to
his touch and his command. Just as he did that last night in the golden room.

Worse, I want the same.

The soft clearing of a throat recalls me to the moment.
Belatedly, I notice the two women standing just behind Ian. One is about my age,
the other looks as though she could be her mother. Both are lovely--slim,
blond, elegantly dressed in a manner that suggests they are far too confident
and sensible to succumb to the vagaries of fashion.

The older one gives me a quizzical look. “Won’t you introduce
us, Ian?” she asks.

For a moment, he appears startled, as though he has
forgotten that anyone else is present. But he recovers quickly.

Calmly, as though we are no more than mere acquaintances, he
says, “By all means, mother. I’d like you to meet Amelia McClellan. Amelia,
this is my mother, Helene and my sister, Marianne.” Remembering his manners, he
says to them, “And of course, you both know Edward and Adele.”

“Of course we do,” Helene Slade says. She has a quick smile
for both but her focus is clearly on me. “Amelia…?” The warmth of her manner
does not conceal her unmistakable curiosity.

“My cousin,” Edward says. Very deliberately, he draws me
away from Ian. For a moment, I fear that I’m about to become the object of a
tug of war between them.

“We’re delighted that Amelia has come to stay with us,” my
brother adds as Ian, with obvious reluctance, releases me.

“How wonderful,” Marianne says. She seems friendly but she’s
wide-eyed with surprise. I wonder why that is. Surely, Ian has introduced them
to other women he knows?

“We must do lunch,” Helene says brightly.

I quail at the thought. How can I possibly be with Ian’s
mother and sister for more than a few minutes without revealing my feelings for
him? Even though I’m not entirely sure what those are? Passion, certainly, and
fascination and desire and yearning and…

“What an excellent idea,” Adele says, sealing my fate. I
dare a quick glance at Ian. Not surprisingly, he is frowning.

If we were alone, I’d be tempted to ask him what he would
have me do to discourage this unwanted interest from the women in his family.
But not only are we surrounded by relatives, we are in the midst of a large
crowd and people are watching us. That comes as a shock. I’ve been so caught up
in seeing Ian again that I didn’t realize we were attracting attention. We--or
more correctly I--am the target of glances ranging from icy to speculative.

As much as I wanted to distinguish myself from Susannah, I
never imagined becoming the focus of such widespread attention. It makes me acutely
uncomfortable. When three chimes sound, the signal to be seated, I all but sag
with relief.

With a last, long glance at me, Ian escorts his mother and
sister to their box. Adele and I go in the opposite direction with Edward.

Amid the murmur of voices and the rustling of clothes, the
audience takes it places beneath the immense bronze and crystal chandelier
hanging from the cupola above the stalls. The light it casts, flecked with hues
of gold and silver, dims as the maestro walks out and takes his position before
the orchestra. He taps his baton on the podium, the sound ringing clearly in
the sudden hush that falls over the audience.

The music begins.

The opening notes from the cellos are a paean to passion and
longing, so intense, so blatant as to be all but unbearable. Hard upon them
comes the aching dissonance of the woodwinds with their cry of yearning drawn
from the depths of the human soul. Without warning, a hymn to unbridled
sensuality fills the opulent space of the Opera House.

I lean forward, so instantly entranced by the music that I
can only think my reaction must be extreme. A quick glance confirms that. The
audience, at least as much of it as I can see, appears no more than politely
attentive.

Except for…

Ian is seated with Helene and Marianne in a box nearby. His
head is turned in my direction. I cannot see his eyes but I feel them
nonetheless. The instant connection between us is unbearable. Seeking relief, I
focus on the stage only to realize my folly.

As the curtain rises, much of the cast is revealed to be
partially or entirely nude. Moreover, some combination of nature and modern day
enhancements has resulted in people who have both extraordinary voices and
bodies to match. The women are all slim and lush breasted, the men superbly
muscled and otherwise equally well endowed.