Gagged (16 page)

All of a sudden, Caspian’s face brightens.
 

“Would you like a drink?”
 

“Uh … ” Jasmine stammers.
 

He nods to James, who stands. “I’ll just have a water. And whatever the ladies want.”
 

James looks at each of us in turn. Jasmine says she’d like a Diet Coke if he has one. He turns to me, and I mumble, “The same.”
 

The room is silent as James moves to the bar. He pulls four glasses from a cabinet and uses white tongs to drop round ice cubes inside them. I watch James crack a Diet Coke and pour half the can into each of our glasses. Finally he opens a bottle of clear liquid that’s like no brand I’ve ever seen and pours water into the remaining glasses. When James takes one of each kind of glass and comes forward, I notice how large his hands are. I notice how handsome his strong face is, with a skim of intentional stubble along his chin, with broad shoulders and a thick chest, all of it moving nicely beneath a pressed blue fitted dress shirt.
 

James hands the Diet Coke to me and the water to Caspian. Then he takes the other two glasses and moves to stand behind Jasmine rather than sitting beside her. He hands Jasmine her Coke but then uses his own glass to touch her cheek, her long neck, her exposed shoulder, like a cool caress. He leans forward and seems to whisper something into her ear. When he does, his other hand goes to her bare shoulder, and the glass goes lower, dancing across the skin above her breasts, leaving a trail of condensation. Jasmine giggles at whatever he’s said, but it’s a flirty giggle. She touches her neck, and then his hand.
 

“Don’t you want to take photos?”
 

I’m so focused on Jasmine and James that I’m startled by Caspian’s voice. When I turn, he’s looking right at me. Considerately and questioningly. Cordially, even. It’s as if he’s forgotten last night. As if this is the first time we’ve met. As if he hasn’t seen me with my hand on my pussy, making myself come.

I look at Jasmine. She’s eyeing me, but James’s hand is on her shoulder, rubbing slowly.
 

“Don’t you?” she echoes.
 

“I think I got enough last time.”
 

“But he’s giving us so much time today.”
 

“He’s the same person. This is the same office.”

Caspian clears his throat. When I look over, he’s nodding. “And the same things are happening. Nothing unusual to see here. If there were new action today, you’d want to document it, but there’s … ” He pauses. His eyes flick toward Jasmine and James. “Not.”

I follow Caspian’s eyes. I see James’s face by Jasmine’s neck again, this time with lips close enough to her skin to kiss it. She’s still laughing a little, laying her head back a bit, exposing her throat.
 

“Anyway,” Caspian says. “Questions.”
 

I can feel it inside: everything is about to change.
 

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

A
URORA

J
ASMINE
ISN
’
T
PAYING
ATTENTION
. F
OR
a second, the hand James has on her shoulder slips down just far enough for the tips of his fingers to dive beneath her dress, three or four inches from her breast.

“Jasmine told me you’re considering open source,” I answer for her.
 

“Considering,”
he repeats.

“How seriously?”
 

“Depends on the price.”
 

“Nobody is going to pay you to go open source.”
 

He sips his water. Then he shrugs.
 

“How would you like the schools to spend the money you gave them?”
 

“However they’d like.”
 

“Most donations like yours come with strings. Guidelines for use. You don’t want them to buy more books, do you? You want tablets. Technology.”
 

“There are no guidelines for use. There is only an intended outcome.”
 

“Which outcome?” I say.

“That you come here to visit me.”
 

I feel an alarm go off, but I won’t let him intimidate me.
 

I have the power here
.
 

“We’re here,” I say. “Because you promised an interview.”

“And you can have it. You can have the most complete interview anyone has ever done on me. I’ll hold nothing back, because of the point I’m trying to make.”
 

“What point is that?”
 

“That
you
hold
everything
back.”
 

“This isn’t about me,” I say.
 

“Fair enough. Then ask your questions.”
 

“It’s Jasmine’s interview.” I look at the recorder then up at Jasmine. She’s kissing James. They’re trying to be quick and covert but doing a hideous job. His hand is lower now, on the swell of her breast, moving slowly over the fabric. I look to Caspian for a reaction, but it’s as if he can’t see it despite looking right at them.

“Jasmine!”
I say. She straightens, blinking as if she has no idea who she is. James’s hand doesn’t move.
 

“You aren’t here because you want to know about education,” Caspian says. When I look back at him, he’s picking dust from his pants. Without raising his head, he turns his pale blue eyes to look at me. “You’re here because you’re curious about yourself.”
 

“I know all about myself.”

“I don’t think you do. Not like I know myself. Not even like I know
you
. Would you like to know why I started GameStorming?”
 

“It was a college project,” I say, reciting what the world already knows.
 

“That’s the public answer. But I could have built anything. I built a social network underpinned by enormous data-sharing activity because I wanted to know what interested people as a whole. I merged with LiveLyfe because that data pool was immense. You see that much information, you soon get a feeling for what makes people tick. It’s all right there. Not on the surface, though. Not in what people publicly share on LiveLyfe or research with GameStorming. The real story is between the lines, in what people think they’ve hidden.”
 

“What does that mean?”
 

“It means that with the privacy controls removed, sometimes it feels like I can see right into humanity’s soul. The sweet old grandmother who only shares pictures of her grandchildren spends her off time searching for sadist porn. The shy teen who can’t summon the nerve to share group photos containing the girl he has a crush on films himself masturbating to her and posts the videos on amateur tube sights. With my hands on the wheel, I see it all. Everyone is twisted under their skin. Deep down, every civilized human being is an animal.”
 

I jerk my head toward Jasmine, but she doesn’t see me. Her eyes are closed because James’s hand is down her dress, rubbing her breast skin to skin. But I can’t think about that now. My attention is elsewhere.
 

“You’re diving into private user data?” I look back at the recorder, and to my shock, Caspian does, too. He hasn’t forgotten it’s there. He’s just willing to eviscerate himself on the record.

“It’s not about them as individuals. It’s about humanity as a whole. It’s about what I discovered about myself. About what makes me the way I am.”
 

“How
are you?”
 

His answer surprises me: “Honest. Unlike you, Aurora.”
 

I don’t like the feeling in my chest. It’s like I’m in a car, skidding in oil and slaloming out of control.
 

“On the surface, you’re plain. You play by the rules. You don’t post anything that would ever offend anyone or rouse controversy. You get good grades. You pay your rent on time. You — ”

“How could you know any of this?”
 

But he pushes on. Beside me, I hear a soft moan slip from Jasmine’s lips.
 

“You keep up with your mother. You even keep up with your father. Why would you do that, Aurora, after what they must have done to you?”
 

I stand up. I back away. But then I stop because it’s like Caspian is looking right through me. There’s an invisible tether holding me to him. I’m afraid of what I’m hearing. I’m afraid of what this is rapidly becoming — which is to say something foreign and out of control, like the well-behaved party last night that turned to lust and hedonism. But for some reason I don’t go. For some reason, I need to know what he says next.
 

“You don’t know anything about me.”
 

“You’re wrong, Aurora. I know you better than you know yourself. On the dance floor last night? That was you. When I saw you afterward?” He looks toward the couch, but Jasmine and James, with nobody telling them to stop, are actively engaging in a public display of affection. I doubt she can hear me, so Caspian’s discreet phrasing probably isn’t even necessary. “That was the real you. That’s the person you are deep down. Under the social bonds that bind your arms behind your back and truss you into submission.”
 

“Bullshit,” I say. But I still haven’t moved backward another step. I’m still here, with my pulse in my throat, swallowing heat.
 

“There’s that filthy mouth of yours again. I thought you didn’t like to swear? To say such
bad
words?”
 

“And I thought you promised you’d discuss educational applications for your software.”

He’s sitting back. He spreads his hands, sightly smiling. “Ask all the questions you want. About anything. But don’t be afraid to say what you will, Aurora. I know perfectly well how dirty your mouth is capable of being.”
 

I can’t help it. My eyes fall to his crotch, and I can see that he’s hard.
 

“Tell me, have you used my gift?”
 

The vibrator. The little black helper I keep in my drawer like a dirty secret.
 

“You’re disgusting,” I say. But the way I sound, even I wouldn’t believe me.

Caspian leaves his seat and approaches me, then he squats down with his eyes never leaving mine and pulls the camera from my bag.

“You can pretend to be this person that everyone expects you to be. But I’ve seen the way you write online about your art.” He hefts the camera. “You believe the lens can see truth that the eye cannot capture. And your photos prove it. You have the same power I do, but you don’t need an enormous social network’s worth of data to see it. You point and click. And the subject’s true nature reveals itself to you.”

I reach for the camera, but Caspian steps back and takes a picture of me.
 

“I see a girl who was told to be one thing yet became something else.”

He takes another picture.
 

“And I see that the possibility of another interview wasn’t the reason you came here today.”
 

“Yes it was.” I swallow. “You could help children everywhere. You could make such a difference in the world if only you’d — ”

“Of course,” he says, cutting me off. He takes a third photo of me then looks at the resulting image on the view screen. “But what I see in this photo is that today, at least, that was only an excuse.”

I look to Jasmine for help. She’s no longer paying any attention whatsoever. James is openly pawing her breast, his mouth assaulting hers. I could shout to snap her out of it, but for some reason nothing will leave my lips.
 

“I see a girl who wanted to know more. Who was intrigued by what she did last night, against what she thinks of as her better judgment. I see in your eyes the same look I once saw in my own, before I pushed my boundaries and found the person I truly am.”

“I was drunk. I didn’t know what I was doing.”

“You were tipsy,” he corrects. “Enough to know
exactly
what you were doing — and for once you didn’t stop yourself just because someone, somewhere, said that’s not what a girl like Aurora Henley does with strange men.”
 

I look again at Jasmine, but she’s beyond hearing any of this. I feel my skin heating, growing wet, aroused by Caspian’s accusations more than I’m enraged.

“Don’t be embarrassed, Aurora. Humanity is not what it pretends to be. The world is not what it thinks it is. We have not evolved from the brutal beings we once were. We have only grown new skin. We have only agreed on a society that does not change us, gagging our base mouths and binding our lustful hands. You want to talk about education? Then I say this: Let’s educate children in the true ways of the world. Civilized society is a farce. Optimism is a joke. The more I study and dig into people’s true natures, the more I see it: there is no future other than one filled with darkness and depravity.”
 

I think I won’t say anything. I think I’ll grab my bag, grab my friend, and run. Away from this man who compels me. Away from the ties that draw me toward him even as my mind fights my body.
 

Instead I say, “You’re wrong.”
 

“I do like children, Aurora. They have the lives I never had. They are innocent. They don’t yet know who they will inevitably become. Ignorance is bliss, and I don’t wish to take it from them. But you asked me why I don’t make my software available for schools. Why I don’t take GameStorming open source? It isn’t because I’m greedy or cruel. It’s because I’m honest. I’m real. I won’t delude myself. I don’t invest in education, Aurora, because there is no point. It’s only the thinnest of artifices — not lessons and tablets — that keep us all from devolving into the horrible things we all, deep down, truly are.”
 

His words are so grim, they chill me. If he tried to touch me, I’m sure his skin would draw warmth from mine, feeling more like ice than flesh. But I can see in his eyes that he’s serious. I can see the way he’s looking right through me. Seeing me as meat because that’s the way he sees himself. As awful as he is, it comes from the truth of the world as he knows it.