Seoul Survivors (37 page)

She had to say something. “It's Chungmuro Station, right? On the orange line?”

“Is not subway station.” Jae Ho raised his index figure. “Is Korea today: is stagnation machine, block drain system, pollution. Is bad air. But opposite also true, always true. Everything good and bad. This girl, she punky Missy generation. She have many choices like never before. Maybe she waiting to choose, waiting longer than her mother. Now she angry she miss train, she calling friend. Is Korean way. This man, he not wanted, he goblin man, but he make own joy. Is also way of Korean people. We crippled, we out-date, we have crazy business, but we do what we always want.”

Sydney laughed, but inside she felt a little sick. His English had improved so much—did he have a new foreign girlfriend? Were there any pictures of
her
in the studio?

She checked herself. This wasn't supposed to be happening. She was supposed to be so
over
Jae Ho. She was supposed to be bragging about her new boyfriend, her trip to Japan. She opened her mouth to let him know she couldn't care less about his wife, his paintings, his endless theories about Korea, but he was already talking again.

“I so glad you here, Sy-duh-nee,” he said. “I want ask you about this painting. Why
you
think I upside down?”

He could always do that, she remembered: draw her in, make her feel valued. And she
did
have things to say. Soon she was going to be attending art openings all the time. She tossed her head. “Because you're spying on them?”

“Spying?” He put his arm around her, resting his hand lightly on her shoulder. The smell of his skin, his breath, invaded her nostrils. She hadn't realized until this moment how much she missed his smell. “
Ye
,
ye
,” he praised her. “Is artist job, to spy. Every artist redraw the map. I not
kitsch
artist.” He stressed the word as if he was proud of knowing it, and dropped his arm, trailing his fingers down her back. She should step away, she knew. But she didn't.

“Kitsch art is toy soldiers.” Jae Ho snorted dismissively. “My art
real
army.” He gestured at the other canvases arranged around the
room and she followed his gaze nervously, but she couldn't see any other pictures of foreign women. Instead, the room was full of gray battlefields, paintings that could have been made with the sludge from subway walls. Why was everything he painted so ugly, so depressing, so gross?

“If I art make from mass produce,” Jae Ho thundered on, “I choose pink rubber glove, glove army of Korean woman use to clean subway station. Power of my art is energy of Korean people. Not afraid to say what wrong. Not afraid of touch other people. We not like Japan.”

He slipped his arm around her waist and squeezed her to his side. She felt an overwhelming urge to throw her arms around him, to complete the embrace. It didn't matter who else he fucked, or she fucked, there was something special between them, a sizzling current that recharged them both.

But she hadn't come here for that. She'd come here to prove she could hold her own with him. With anyone. She'd spent hours in the Chair working on her self-esteem, affirming her right to be loved by someone who truly cared for her. That person wasn't Jae Ho.

His hand was straying down toward her jeans. She interlaced her fingers with his, and pulled them back up to her waist, where she placed her other hand on top of the knot. That was okay, wasn't it? They could talk like this. “Jae Ho,” she challenged, “you sound so proud of Korea, but most of your paintings are dark and gloomy. This one looks like a grave.” She jutted her chin at the subway station canvas, thinking she was scoring a point, but he just nodded vigorously and tightened his grip on her waist.

“You very smart girl, Sydney. Is grave, and is womb: old-time Korean graves always shape of woman's place, for rebirth. My painting is mass grave, for rebirth of everyone. This painting called
Cave of Tan'gun.
”

An image of him eating noodles in the nude, telling her Korean myths, sidled into her mind.

“The
halmoni
selling the garlic,” she asked, “is she the bear? The first woman in Korea?”

Now he turned and placed his other hand on her belly. “You remember good, Sy-duh-nee,” he said approvingly. “
Halmoni
is old-style Korea. She very old, very wise. She sitting well. I don't know who buy her garlic; I don't know who is new child of bear. I not god, only spy.”

He was rubbing her belly now. Round and round, in little circles.

She was going to Tokyo with Damien tomorrow. She was
meeting
Damien in half an hour. New energy was coming into her life.
I let go of people who belong to my past.
She should let go of Jae Ho's hand on her hip. She should remove his other hand from her stomach.

But Damien was going to live in Canada. And Jae Ho's hands felt nice. So very nice.

“Sy-duh-nee.” Jae Ho placed his free hand on her breast and, through the skimpy bra, rubbed at her nipple with his palm.

She closed her eyes and leaned limply against his side. Did she have to stop this? Why?

“You, your poster,” he whispered, massaging her breast, “is tiger. Is tiger eating Korean economy, Korean identity. Is feeling of not wanting smell like garlic; is blue eyes on Korean girls, but also is foreign energy that inspire Korea, make Korea stronger. Like you inspire me.”

His groin was pressing into her hip. He reached into her top and gave her breast a final rough squeeze—
this is mine
, his hand said—then dropped his fingers to the waistband of her jeans. All she had to do was turn to him and he would kiss her, would slip his hand deep down into her panties, where she was already moist and pulsing for him.
Why not?
She hadn't promised Damien anything.

“I remember you secret place, Sydney.” Jae Ho's voice was hoarse now. “You secret place very beautiful. I want touch it again.”

Her secret place.

I choose my secrets wisely.

She was in her body, in Jae Ho's arms; but at the same time she wasn't. It was like escaping from a wrestling hold, like that trick Annie had taught her: lift your arms, bend your knees, drop down to the ground—and on the way slam the guy's nuts with your elbow. But instead of dropping down, she flew up: as if a whole layer of her skin suddenly peeled invisibly away, and whooshed like a balloon to the high ceiling of the studio.
What are you doing
? it hissed down at her.
Take another look at that painting—is that who you are? Is that where you belong?

She was exposed. Frozen cold. Shivering with shame, but also starkly aware. She couldn't hide from herself anymore. Jae Ho was married. He had a kid. What they had wasn't “special.” It was a toxic little secret. If she let him, he would just paint her into a corner, break her tar and glass heart all over again.

“I want you, supergirl.” His hand slipped beneath her waistband, found her panties. “I miss you too much.”

The words were aimed point-blank at her, but they landed a million miles away, in the heart of some other girl, a girl in an orange dress maybe, or a yellow one, or a pink halter-top. Sydney's heart was soaring up, out of Jae Ho's grip, up to the ceiling and into the magical stream of light she remembered from all her sessions in the Chair. That was where she belonged: in a moving, flowing, ever-changing, ever-loving story. Not trapped in Jae Ho's canvas, his grubby, grasping, sunless memories of her.

With a sensation of immense relief, she wrapped her free hand around his wrist to pull his hand away, and opened her mouth to say “no.”

Sydney was letting this bloke crawl all over her, and now he was sticking his hand down her jeans. Damien had seen enough. All the slack he'd cut for Sydney snapped back like elastic. Part of him wanted to barge into the room, to rant and rave, to shake an explanation out of her, but what the fuck was the point of that? No.
Get out while you still can.

He whirled round, and banged straight into a huge canvas. It skidded forward, knocking a tall ceramic statue off its pedestal. The statue smashed into smithereens on the tiled floor, making a racket like resounding applause, and the canvas toppled in front of him, blocking his path. He fought it aside, sending a stack of smaller paintings clattering and slithering down the hall. Scrambling past the first canvas at last, he heard the studio door open behind him.

“
Damien!
” Sydney cried.

Damien kicked a small square urban landscape ahead of him, sending it skittering in the direction of the stairwell. Behind him, Sydney launched herself down the hallway. Several canvases had collected in a heap at the end of the hallway and he had to fling them aside to get to the door, losing precious moments. Her heels clicked rapidly closer, then there was a long ripping sound, and a sharp “
Aigo!
” from the painter. “Wait,” Sydney gulped, grasping at his elbow, her breath hot on his neck.

He swiveled round to glare at her. Over her shoulder, he could see the painter dragging a torn canvas into the studio. He gave Damien a little salute and smartly closed the door.

“It's not how it looked,” Sydney wheedled. “Please, listen—”

“You said you were going to visit Da Mi! I've heard enough bullshit to last a lifetime, Sydney.” He tried to pull away, but she gripped his arm tighter.

“You don't
understand
.”

“What's not to understand? You're running a sperm collection agency for a psycho dominatrix, you're shagging some sleazy geezer—fine, but just leave me alone from now on. I'm done with you and your bloody string of
lies
.”

“I am
not
shagging him!” Sydney wailed. “I was telling him to
stop
.”

“Yeah, that's
exactly
what it looked like you were doing! Just let go of me, all right? Let
go
!” Still trying to pry her hand from his arm, he dragged himself through the doorway and back into the stairwell.

But she clutched at him desperately, then grabbed at his waist. They were leaning over the banister, panting and grappling, when he heard the door to the corridor shut behind them.

He twisted round to tell the painter to fuck off, but someone else, a man, not tall but broadly built, shoved him back against the railing. Something hard pressed into the base of Damien's skull. Suddenly he felt a burning desire to piss.

“Keep nice and quiet, buddy,” the man growled in his ear.

An American, Damien realized dimly as he clenched his bladder muscles. There was a metal clunk; a sound from a movie. He stared
unseeing at the gray wall beyond the banister, his heart pumping like an oil-drill. Part of him felt like throwing up; part of him wanted to burst into laughter: a gunman, right. What else did she have up her sleeve?

“Johnny?” Sydney squeaked. She was frozen beside him.

He wasn't surprised she knew the guy. Under different circumstances, Damien would have shot her a sarcastic look.

“So, you remember me, do you?” The man, Johnny, jammed the gun under Damien's armpit. Then he grabbed Sydney and pulled her in front of Damien so the muzzle was pressing into her back “Impressive. Now, if you don't want Hugh Grant here to get instantly forgettable, you'll both come with me.”

He clamped his free arm onto Sydney's shoulder and prodded the pair of them down the stairs. Damien, wedged between the gunman and the trembling girl, registered the vanilla scent of Sydney's hair, Johnny's leathery musk, and the fact that a boner the size of a beer bottle was lodged against his arse.

A white Sonata was waiting for them in the dark alley, engine running, headlights off. Johnny reached in front of Sydney and opened the back door. Yanking her to the side, he shoved Damien in first, jabbing the gun hard against his spine. Then he jostled Sydney into the middle of the backseat, got in beside her and slammed the door shut.

The car stank of stale sweat and hamburger. The back of Damien's skull ached, but he didn't dare lift his hand to rub it. He took a sidelong glance at the gun now investigating Sydney's ribs. It was big and black, with a groove along the barrel.

“They're child-proof locks, Hughie,” the man snarled. “Don't even think about it.”

“My name is
Damien
.” Damien scowled.

“That's not what the ladies called you, is it, Sydney?”

There was a Korean woman in the driver's seat in front of Damien. With a sinking feeling, he met her gaze in the rearview mirror.

“Da Mi?” Sydney sounded as though she might start to cry. “You're doing this with
Johnny
?”

“It's Pebbles, actually,” Da Mi replied. “The test drive was always scheduled for today.”

Damien rolled his head back against the seat, closed his eyes and took a very deep breath. “Jesus Christ, Sydney, what kind of shit have you landed us in?” he said quietly, not expecting a reply.

He didn't get one. “You said you were my
friend
,” Sydney sputtered as the ProxyBod turned on the headlights and moved the car slowly down to the junction ahead.

“I am your friend, Sydney, but I am also your employer. When you told Damien about our plans you broke one of the central clauses of your contract.”

Sydney tensed beside him. “I haven't told Damien anything,” she said, warily. “Have I Damien?”

Before he could get drawn into a losing game, the ProxyBod shook its head. “Sydney,” Da Mi tutted, “I have a VoicePrint file of your conversation in Music Intelligence—and several files of your discussions after that.”

“A VoicePrint file?” Sydney sounded incredulous. “What the hell is that?”

Johnny snickered unpleasantly. “Kinda makes ya think twice about accepting expensive two-way communication devices from ladies you meet in hot-tubs, hey, Sydney?”

Beside Damien, Sydney stared down at her wrist.

“Gotcha!” Johnny crowed.

“You were listening all the time?” Sydney's voice was hollow, lost. Somewhere in the depths of his heart, Damien felt a stab of sympathy for her.

“It was for your own safety, Sydney,” the scientist responded calmly as the car swung into a main street. “At first I just wanted to know if Johnny was bothering you, but, in fact, though he and I have had our disagreements, for both of us, VirtuWorld is the only future worth working for: a future you were on the verge of seriously endangering.”

“What? What did I do? So I told Damien, so what? I was just trying to get him to help out!”

Good on you, girl
, Damien thought wearily.
That's the spirit. Yell at a fucking robot.
From the corner of his eye, he saw a cat run out into the road, a streak of fur and a flash of phosphorescence. The car drove straight over it. The body thumped and rolled under the chassis and was left behind to die.

“Da Mi, stop! You just killed a cat!” Sydney was outraged.

Damien wished she would shut up. “It's a fucking dummy driving,” he groaned. Peering over the front seat, he could see that the ProxyBod was plugged into the cigarette lighter. Guess they were still working on the battery problem.

“My apologies. Pebbles' reaction times are not quite at optimum level yet. But otherwise she's a very smooth driver, don't you think?”

“Da Mi, why are you acting like this?” Sydney implored. She obviously still thought this woman gave a shit about her. “If you've got all these tapes, you know how much I care about VirtuWorld. I just thought Damien might want to be part of it too!”

“You signed an agreement not to tell
anyone
about VirtuWorld, Sydney. You knew there would be strict penalties for doing so.”

“What? Like send in the
assholes
?”

Johnny cracked the gun butt into Sydney's ribs and she doubled over with a grunt. “Why dontcha try shutting up for a change, sweetheart,” he murmured. “Give us all a break.”

Sydney cringed. As she huddled against Damien, he stiffened. Had she really just thought of him as a Hugh Grant lookalike? But then she sobbed, and despite everything, he felt another sharp trace of pity for her. Whatever games she'd been playing, she obviously hadn't expected this nutter to show up. And the agreement
he'd
signed hadn't said anything about being kidnapped.

“Look Da Mi,” he said loudly, “what the fuck is going on here? If Sydney broke her contract, why don't you just fire her and find some starlet to play Queen Wanna Bee? If she feels anything like I do, she just wants to completely forget about you lot.”

In the mirror, the ProxyBod flicked a glance at Johnny. “That's what you say now, Hugh boy,” the American scoffed, “but when VirtuWorld is raking in the cash, you'll change your tune, demand paternity tests, royalties, homecoming parades, the lot.”

“We are within our legal rights to contain the threat to our concerns, Damien.” As she spoke, the ProxyBod shifted gears until the car was gliding down the main shopping boulevard. “You and Sydney should have read your contracts more closely. Until VirtuWorld opens, you are no longer at liberty to communicate with the world at large.”

“
What?
” Damien gripped the front passenger seat headrest and shook it. “This is complete bullshit! There's no way we both agreed to be fucking
kidnapped
. I demand to see a lawyer!”

“Sit
still
,” Johnny roared, brandishing the gun. “This ain't the Old Bailey, fag-boy. You'll see a lawyer if and when we like.”

Fag-boy. Damien groaned. Who wrote this shit? He sank back into his seat and leaned his head against the window, the wad of envelopes in his jacket pocket an awkward wedge between his chest and the door, the laptop in his rucksack a hard cushion against his back.

The Sonata was passing a serpentine row of wind chimes the Gu Council had erected to beautify the boulevard: steel cylinders, cut at angles, dangling from a wooden frame. Random images flashed through his mind as the car swept past: the organ at the church where he used to sing until Jessica died; that boyhood game he'd played with railings and a stick—a useless act of auditory vandalism, musical bravado. Then the car pulled out of the Hongdae shopping district and swung into the streams of night traffic, heading west. They were leaving the streets he knew, entering an endless, monotonous zone of darkened buildings and Korean street signs. Beside him, Sydney was still hunched up in a little ball. Some vital part of him disengaged.

Ahead of them, the procession of cars and taxis was a glittering river of glass and chrome. Her ribs hurt and her head was pulsing, but for a moment, faintly, the serene, untouchable feeling Sydney had experienced in Jae Ho's studio returned.

“C'mon guys,” she pleaded. “Don't wig out, Damien. Everything's going to be fine. I just need to explain a few things. I'm sorry, Da Mi, I really am. I should have told you I wanted Damien to know about VirtuWorld—but I was never going to run away. I was going to play my part to the hilt. You know that.”

Johnny jabbed her with the gun. His spit sprayed across her cheek. “After the way you've played us both, do you think we can trust a word you say?”

“Trust!” A blood orange sun throbbed in Sydney's head, throbbed and spread its colors. Gritting her teeth, she turned to Johnny. “
You
talk to
me
about trust? When you've been spying on me for months?” She strained forward, between the two front seats. “Da Mi! I demand to negotiate this deal so it suits my life!”

“You were going to go to Japan, Sydney,” Da Mi replied, almost sadly, “and from there, possibly Canada. Your recent actions have seriously jeopardized the project. There will be no negotiation, I'm afraid.”

A motherload of fury welled up from the pit of Sydney's stomach. “You
bitch
!” she screamed.

“Language, language,” Johnny admonished, clamping his hand over her mouth.

Struggling, she bit hard into his fingers. She got another rough crack of the gun in her ribcage for her efforts, but at least her mouth was free.

“—and you slimy, no-neck piece of
shit
! I am
so
glad I didn't just give you two what you fucking wanted. Just
try
and make it work without me, just
try
—you need the real mother, how are you going to get public support without me; did you think about that?” Embarrassingly, out of frustration, she began to cry. She grabbed Damien's arm. “I'm so sorry I got you into this mess, Damien—but I'm glad I trusted you.”

“How touching,” Johnny scoffed. “An Oscar nomination, coming right up. I'm sure knowing that you trusted him makes Hugh feel better, Sydney, considering how you were two-timing him with that Korean Casanova. Didn't tell Damien you were part of a
harem
, did you?”

“I broke up with Jae Ho
months
ago,” Sydney hissed. “You know that—you've been listening to everything I've done all year.”

“And mighty tasty listening it's been too. Ooooh, Damien!” Johnny trilled.

He wasn't going to get to her. No way. Sydney wiped her eyes with her sleeve. “I hope you fucking learned something from those tapes, Johnny,” she sneered. “I had more fun with him in
one night
than I did with you in six months.”

Beside her, Damien sighed. “You went out with him too? You sure know how to pick 'em, Sydney.”

“She bit off more than she could chew with me,” Johnny drawled. “So I passed her on to Da Mi for some mollycoddling. She's all screwed-up emotionally, you see. Comes from being a two-bit runaway whore, doesn't it, Cindy? Isn't that your real name? Didn't like it anymore after all your johns used it, did you? Or was it always just a touch too common for my little porcelain princess?”

“Sandman! There's no need to dredge up her past,” Da Mi interjected sharply.

Ignoring her, Sydney stared Johnny full in the face. He had a crooked smile on his thin lips and his blue eyes were almost colorless in the wash of light from a big department store window. “
Some
guys, Johnny, don't have to
pay
for it,” she said.

He put his hand over her face and shoved her down into Damien's lap. “Company account, baby,” he crowed. “You were just
expenses
.”