Peter James - Perfect People

Out in the hall, the music was playing even louder now. Above it, she heard the rattle of ice cubes coming from the kitchen, and walked through.

John was standing close to the sink, barefoot. He had a cocktail glass out, a bottle of vodka, a jar of olives, and a bottle of dry Martini, and was jigging the silver cocktail shaker hard. He hadn’t heard her come in.

She saw a single cube of ice lying on the floor, knelt and picked it up. Then, quite spontaneously, she crept up behind him and rammed it down inside the back of his shorts, pressing it against his buttocks.

He shrieked, dropping the shaker in shock, and spun round, straight into her arms. ‘Jeez!’ he said. ‘You scared the hell out-’

She had no idea what was inside her head, suddenly she just wanted him, now, this minute, absolutely desperately. Pulling his shorts down over his knees, she knelt and took him in her mouth. Gripping his buttocks, she held him firmly for some moments, then slid her hands up his lean, strong body, hearing him gasp with pleasure now, feeling his hands pushing through her hair, grappling her head, desperately turned-on herself, aching for him.

She tilted her mouth up, stood and kissed him hard on the lips, put her arms around his neck then slowly pulled him down, onto the floor, on top of her. They rolled, kissing furiously, each fuelled by the other’s crazed turned-on desire, John naked now, tugging away at her clothes, then he was above her, entering her, forcing himself in, feeling him pushing, feeling his huge – wonderful – gorgeous – incredible – thing – sex – filling her, filling her body.

She pulled him even harder into her, gathering him tighter and tighter against her, pushing back against him as he slid deeper and deeper in, heady with the scents of his skin, his hair, his cologne. They were safe like this, totally safe, inside their wagon-train circle here, no longer two people but one, solid, incredible, beautiful rock. She murmured, almost delirious with pleasure, as he gripped her with his arms, thrashing her body against the hard tiles of the floor, pressing deeper and deeper inside still, until both of them began to judder together. She heard him crying out and clutched him still tighter, whimpering with pleasure, wanting this moment to last, to never end, wanting them to stay locked, to stay as one body, one rock, forever, right to the end of time and never move.

Afterwards they lay back on the floor, looked at each other, grinning and shaking their heads. It had been that good.

Later, the house was filled with the sweet smells of burning charcoal and hickory chips. John, out on the deck, was fiddling with the barbecue. Two thick tuna steaks he had brought home were lying in a marinade on the kitchen table. Naomi was mixing a salad, and feeling a rare moment of tranquillity. Peace inside herself. All her fears locked away – if only for a few fleeting moments – in another compartment.

Got my life back.

The phone was ringing for about the tenth time. John, prodding the coals with a toasting fork, didn’t react. She debated whether to let it go to the answering machine, then suddenly wondering if it might be the Dettore Clinic, picked up the cordless receiver and pressed the switch.

‘Hallo?’

She was greeted by the hiss of static.

‘Hallo?’ she said again, her hopes rising that it might be the ship-to-shore phone with a bad connection. ‘Hallo? Hallo?’

Then a woman’s voice, American, unfriendly with a hard Midwest twang, said, ‘Is that the Klaesson home?’

‘Who is that calling?’ Naomi asked, on guard suddenly.

‘Mrs Klaesson? Am I speaking with Mrs Klaesson?’

‘Who is speaking, please?’ Naomi said.

More insistent now. ‘Mrs Klaesson?’

‘Who is that, please?’

‘You are evil, Mrs Klaesson. You are a very evil woman.’

The line went dead.

Naomi stared at the receiver in shock. Then, hands trembling, she switched it off and hung it back on the wall. She shivered. It suddenly felt as if the sky had clouded over, but through the window the strong evening sun was printing sharp, clear shadows like stencils across the yard.

She was about to call out to John, then held back. It was just a crank. A nasty crank.

You are evil, Mrs Klaesson. You are a very evil woman.

The woman’s voice echoed in her head. Anger clenched her up inside.

‘It’s ready,’ John said ten minutes later, presenting Naomi at the candlelit table on the deck with her favourite dish, and slicing it open to show it was cooked exactly the way she liked it, seared on the outside, pink in the centre.

‘Tuna goes on cooking after you take it off the heat, that’s what people don’t realize; that’s the secret!’ he said proudly.

She smiled, not wanting to tell him that the smell was suddenly making her feel sick, and that he told her the same thing every time he cooked tuna.

He sat down opposite her, spooned (his secret recipe) mustard mayonnaise onto her plate, then helped her to salad. ‘Cheers!’ He raised his glass, sweeping it through the air is if it were a conductor’s baton.

She raised hers back, touched his glass, her head swimming with nausea, then ran to the bathroom and threw up.

When she came back he was sitting waiting, his food untouched.

‘You OK?’

She shook her head. ‘I – I just – need-’

Peas, she thought, suddenly.

She got up again. ‘Just need something to settle-’

She went into the kitchen, opened the freezer compartment and took out a bag of frozen peas and carried it back out to the table.

‘You want peas? Want me to cook them for you?’

She tore open the pack, separated one pea from the frozen mass and popped it in her mouth, letting the ice melt, then crushed the pea between her teeth. It tasted good. She ate another, then another, and felt a little better. ‘These are good,’ she said. ‘Eat yours, don’t let it spoil.’

He reached out a hand and took hers. ‘Remember, women get cravings during pregnancy; maybe that what’s happening.’

‘It is not a craving,’ she said, more irritably than she had intended. ‘I just want to eat a few frozen peas, that’s all.’

The phone rang. John stood up.

‘Leave it!’ she snapped.

He looked startled. ‘It might be-’

‘Leave it! Just leave the bloody phone!’

John shrugged and sat back down. He ate some of his tuna, and Naomi broke off and chewed more peas, one at a time. ‘How was your day?’ he asked.

‘Lori rang. She’d read the piece.’

‘And?’

‘Why the hell did you have to tell that woman, John? The whole city knows; the whole of America knows – probably the whole bloody world knows. I feel like a freak. How are we ever going to bring our child up normally out here?’

John looked at his food in awkward silence.

‘Maybe we should move, go to England, or Sweden, just go to some other place.’

‘It’ll calm down.’

She stared at him. ‘You really think that? You don’t think Sally Kimberly – and every goddamn television station and radio station in the country – hasn’t got a date marked down in their diary for six months’ time, when the baby’s due?’

He said nothing. In his mind the question was swirling, Who the hell are the Disciples of the Third Millennium?

There were all kinds of fanatic groups out there. People who believed their religious convictions gave them a right to murder. And he was thinking about the faces of his colleagues earlier this morning. The enormity had only really struck him today. He and Naomi were doing something the world wasn’t ready for. It would have been fine if they’d kept it a secret.

But now the genie was out of the bottle.