Peter Hamilton - The Mandel Files

Charlotte closed the door. Fabian gave the impression of wanting to jump on her, and flee at the same time. He stared miserably at his bare feet.

“I wasn’t sure if you’d really turn up,” he said in a thick voice. “I still think you might be a dream.”

Charlotte turned the flatscreen off, deepening the shadows. “Fabian?”

“Yes?”

“Am I really so hard to look at?”

When he lifted his head she gently pushed the lock of hair from his forehead, then put her hands on his cheeks and kissed him. His skin was singularly smooth under her fingers.

She let go, slightly disturbed by the amount of adoration in his gaze. “Before we go any further, I just wanted to thank you.”

“Me? What for?”

“For not trying to order me about.”

“I wouldn’t do that. Honestly.”

“Yes. I know.” Charlotte showed him a slow enticing smile.

“And now you don’t have to.” She slipped the straps off her shoulders in an easy motion and let the gown slide to the carpet with a silky rustle. Her self-control nearly cracked at the sight of the outright astonishment on his face as he stared at her breasts. Baronski had said they were big enough not to need enlarging, but she’d taken a hormone course to strengthen the Cooper’s ligaments which supported the ductal lobes, keeping them high and firm.

Fabian flipped his hair aside, and scrambled for his shirt buttons, his eyes never leaving her.

“No,” she said, and the huskiness of her tone surprised even her. “I’ll do that.”

She started at his collar, kissing his skin as it was exposed, moving down his chest on to his belly. There were no blemishes, nor spots, it was baby-flesh. She reached his shorts, and pulled them down along with his pants.

Fabian was biting his lower lip, drawing breath in judders when she rose to stand in front of him. She slithered quickly out of her panties.

“Bed,” she said, and took him by the hand.

He lay down on the rumpled sheets, an almost fearful expression on his face. Charlotte sat across his hips, her gaze holding his eyes for a long moment, then slowly leant forwards.

It was a strange sensation, to be in bed with someone so inexperienced, having to guide and whisper encouragement. But she discovered a secret miscreant pleasure in being dominant for once, bigger and stronger. It was exciting listening to him whimper as her fingers dug into his hard buttocks, tongue making love to his erection. She let him play with her breasts for a long time.

Then finally he was up between her legs, pumping wildly. It was over quickly, Fabian crying out as he fell on top of her.

She held him until his shaking passed. Kissing his brow as she gently stroked his spine.

“I got it all wrong, didn’t I?” he said wretchedly.

“No, not at all. I’ve known of some people who get so wound up the first time that they just freeze. That hardly happened to you, now did it? You’ll learn how to make it good for both of us.”

“So it wasn’t good for you, then?”

She sighed. Even now his mind functioned like a ‘ware chip. “This was your night, Fabian.”

“But you let me do anything I wanted to you. Anything. You never stopped me.”

“Was that so terrible? Didn’t you like it?”

“God yes, you’re so beautiful. It’s brilliant enough just being able to look at you and touch you, but sex with you is like going to heaven.”

She had to strain hard not to laugh. He really was cute.

“Sex is whatever you enjoy, providing it doesn’t hurt your partner.”

He raised himself on his elbows, looking down on her body with a sheepish awe. “Please, Charlotte, show me how to make you enjoy it. I want to thrill you, I want to make you as excited as I am, I want to be the greatest lover you’ve ever had. Please. Just show me how. Please, Charlotte.”

Now how long had it been since she’d had a request like that? If ever. She grinned lazily, and stretched her arms above her head, arching her back. “Do you know what an erogenous zone is?”

“Course I know!”

She giggled. “Ah, but where are they?”

His indignation faltered.

Charlotte caught one of his hands; she gently kissed the tip of each finger, licking with feline provocation, then guided him across her abdomen.

Suzi was sunbathing on the balcony when she heard the piccolo hiss of the executive hypersonic’s compressor fans. Darkness swept over her, accompanied by a wave of half-imaginary cold as the boiling afternoon sun was eclipsed by the little arrowhead plane.

Suzi opened her eyes and squinted up, but there was too much glare to make out the fuselage insignia. Andria sat up beside her, long hand shielding her eyes from the sun as she watched the hypersonic settle on the condominium’s roof pad two storeys above them.

“I don’t recognize it,” the girl said.

Suzi turned on to her back, shuffling her shoulders until the lounger’s cushioning was comfortable. “It’s an Event Horizon Pegasus CV-1 88D,” she mumbled with her eyes closed again. “Their latest marque.”

Andria laughed. “No, Suse, I meant, I don’t know who it belongs to. I don’t think it belongs to any of the residents.”

That laugh did things to Suzi’s brain that could normally only be achieved by a hefty infusion of proscribed substances, it was carefree and warm, amazingly sultry. She lifted her head to look at the naked girl on the lounger beside her.

Andria was nineteen, her body lean and long limbed, dark wavy hair falling below her shoulders. She had a heart-shaped face with a flat nose, and wide ever-curious eyes that never seemed to stay focused on anything for more than a few seconds. The whole world was a constant delight to Andria, she had to try and see all of it at once. Then there was her shyness, which was a provocative aphrodisiac.

Her pregnancy didn’t show yet. Six weeks after the private London clinic specializing in parthenogenetic reproduction had fertilized Suzi’s ovum and planted it securely inside Andria, the girl’s coffee-coloured belly was still flat and firm.

They had met in a New Eastfield nightclub last October, Suzi celebrating a finance sink deal with some of her team, Andria on a night out with her boyfriend.

It took Suzi three weeks to lure Andria into bed, shamelessly exploiting the girl’s sunny, trusting nature. She hadn’t pursued anyone with such determination since her Trinities days; it was like being drunk on raw lust. Their first night together was worth every agonizing second of the wait. She used Andria’s body to work off fantasy after fantasy, only to find it just left her wanting more. It meant that for the first time in a long while Suzi had been forced to tell someone how much she felt about them.

Andria had moved in permanently at the start of December, though she insisted on keeping her datashuffling job in the office of a local shipping agent. It was that kind of quiet pride which was such a puzzle and fascination to Suzi. A girl who would surrender every inhibition to her at night, yet still refused to become a dependant. Andria was more than erotic satisfaction, she filled the soul’s longing.

So in January, just before she started working on the Johal HF deal, Suzi screwed up her courage, and asked Andria to consider having her child.

“But why?” Andria had asked as Suzi lay on top of her.

The air-conditioned darkness of the penthouse’s bedroom revealed only the faintest of silhouettes, but Suzi knew the girl had a frown on her face. “Because it’s a way out for me,” she answered, shrinking inside for showing her vulnerability. “This shit I’m in, I know it’s bad, but it’s addictive. It gives me a high. I can’t get out. There’s nothing outside tekmerc territory that can give me the same buzz. I’ve seen ‘em all, dopey bastards who say they’ll quit when they’ve made their wad. Never do; they live wild for a few months, even a couple of years, then they come crawling back, and when they do their edge is all screwed up.”