Thomas Perry: Sleeping Dogs

She demanded the other half. “What’s your name?”

“Michael. Would you like to go for tea or something?”

“Charmingly put. Who could refuse? Macready’s isn’t far.”

“Good. When we get there you’ll have to let go of my arm. Why do those people resent you?”

She smiled proudly. “I did something cruel to them for fun.”

“You did?” He watched her as they walked. “What?”

“Something horrible. Afterward, at the next meeting, they voted a formal reprimand and made speeches saying how irresponsible I was about taking care of the hidden secrets vouchsafed to the initiates.” She laughed happily.

“In other words, you’re not planning to tell me.”

She studied him for a moment, or pretended to. “Yes, knowing you as I do, I suppose I’ll have to. You’ll make me, won’t you?”

As they entered Macready’s tea shop and he followed her to a table in a dark corner, he had a moment to evaluate the risk he was taking. But then they were seated, and he decided to defend himself with questions. “You don’t seem to take your friends very seriously. What are you doing with them?”

She shrugged. “They’re one of my hobbies. I give them money, so I get to play with them. I inherited them, actually. My grandfather was a scholarly sort, and all his life he supported study groups and lectures on scientific topics. But late in life when he was beginning to think a lot about dying, and was getting a bit dotty, he lost interest in geology and archaeology and flora and fauna, and became obsessed with this sort of thing.”

“Expeditions to Atlantis?”

“Well, it’s a whole range of things, all mixed up and linked together. There’s Atlantis, but some of them think it was an ancient civilization and others think it was people from outer space. There’s a smaller faction who think it was an ancient civilization destroyed by people from outer space, and another that think it wasn’t destroyed at all, that they’re still underwater, waiting for us to be worthy of their company before they’ll come out. I hope they’re not holding their breath. It’s pretty easy to get an expedition together: if you’re a lunatic you have to hold some theory that accounts for Atlantis.”

“Why?”

“Because lunatics are systematic thinkers. If they have a secret history of the world to put forward, they can’t have other lunatics shouting, ‘Then, how do you account for the pyramids? What about Stonehenge? Easter Island?’ They have to include these things.”

“What did you do to them?”

“I’m ashamed to tell you.” She stared into her teacup, then added, “But of course I will. I assaulted them. Sexually.”

Schaeffer looked at her. “All of them?”

“Every last one. All of the people who were there today, and a few more who were otherwise engaged. Attendance is down today; you were the only new one. A month ago, I came in and took the podium. I’d been in Paris for some time, but I’d told everyone I was going to Bolivia. I was supposed to tell them about my research at Tiahuanaco. I went on for some time with slides of the ruins, the weeping god and all that, and then told them about my greatest discovery: I’d found a true aphrodisiac. I told them that in a tiny village I’d found a curaca , and paid him eight hundred pounds for a small vial of the stuff.”

“Don’t tell me you sold it to them.”

“Oh, no. It wasn’t anything so crass as wanting their money. I just wanted to play with them. I told them I’d put it in their punch at the reception before the meeting.”

“And had you?”

“Of course not. There’s no such thing. I’d slipped in a little powdered Valium mixed with cognac so they’d feel something. I said I’d just put some in so they could help with the experiment. But I’d prepared rather well. I’d hired two very attractive and respectable-looking prostitutes in London on the way home, and had them come to the meeting separately as interested beginners. Around this time they began to show symptoms that something was very wrong, if you know what I mean.”

“No, I’m afraid I don’t.”

“Well, I don’t know how to say this delicately. They began to adjust their clothing and wriggle in their chairs a bit. When that began to attract some attention, they started to make rather brazen advances to their male neighbors. Then, when the response was positive and visible, they both moaned with a certain urgency and insistence.”

“And it worked?”

“Not immediately. At first the emergency struck some people as medical rather than erotic, but then they both tore off their clothes and began to attack the men around them. There was a good deal of pawing and clutching. They were also extremely good at disrobing others with an economy of movement, and when a man’s trousers are suddenly around his ankles, he feels very silly. He must decide immediately either to pull them up, or not. Several of them delayed the decision until too late, and very soon some kind of line was crossed. It was like a riot. I ran to the door, locked it and shouted that it was a gigantic disaster—things had gone terribly wrong, all the while unbuttoning my dress as though I couldn’t help myself. But it was unnecessary. By that time both of the Hartleby sisters—the plump ones who take attendance—were uniformly naked, and Eunice Plimstall—the one you were ogling today—had convinced herself she’d fainted, and the poor dear had fallen with her skirt up to her waist, so old Mr. Capshaw was giving her an esoteric form of artificial resuscitation. She came to herself rather quickly, I have to say, and then she was up in search of a comforter with more stamina. Mrs. Purvis went to her hands and knees to help the fallen, but within seconds the vicar had lifted her dress and was helping her to free herself of her underclothes. It didn’t seem to cure her hyperventilation, but she appeared to be grateful for the thought, and the orgy was fairly begun. Afterward, they considered having me arrested, but thought better of it and settled on a reprimand.”

“That’s a wonderful story,” he said, then sipped his tea.

She looked disappointed. “You don’t believe it, do you?”

He shook his head. “Not a word of it. But that doesn’t matter. I don’t know any of those people. Why would I care if it’s true?”

“The stories are better if you believe in them,” said The Honourable Meg. “I always tell them to be believed. I hope you aren’t going to mind.”

“Not at all,” he said. He looked at her thoughtfully. “It ensures a certain level of quality. A story has to be pretty good before you can tell it as a lie.”

It was at this moment that things were settled. The Honourable Meg had found someone who would listen with fixed attention to her stories, and she was content to spend the next two years cherishing him for it. The time simply happened, without anything unpleasant to make her notice its passing. Michael Schaeffer was competent and solid, an American businessman who had done something so thunderously dull to earn a living that as soon as he had gathered enough to satisfy the dictates of respectability, he had retired to England and stopped talking, or even thinking, about it. Of course, marrying a man like that would have been unthinkable.

The Honourable Meg, as a young, healthy, attractive member of the aristocracy, was the property of an invisible national genetic trust. Her only duty as a loyal subject was to be scrupulously careful not to be impregnated by the American. She helped him to assuage his curiosity about music, art and the other pursuits of the rich, but after the first year, she became accustomed to the fact that his curiosity wasn’t strong enough to lure him far afield. He wouldn’t go to London for the theater or even for the food. This was acceptable because it enabled her to move among her equals and let her life proceed unimpeded by the presence of an embarrassingly unacceptable lover.