“Shall I call for some assistance?” he offers, American accent, dressed in black, a robe crossed right to left — cross your kimono the other way for the dead; a white boy somehow pulling off looking good in formal Japanese clothes.
“Would you like to borrow my handkerchief, your mascara appears to be a little…”
Perfect: to be superficial to your very core.
Bright blond hair, perfectly smooth skin, not a wrinkle in sight. I feel my hand move to slap him and physically jerk it down to the side, hard enough to catch his eye, my body contorting like a dropped puppet. I dig my nails into the palm of my hand, break the skin, feels good, focused.
Gauguin’s eyes are still drifting round the room. I will not run; not while he has my picture in his hand, a square of light shining from his phone. He will look for the woman who runs.
“Thank you,” a voice says, charming, rich, a cliché of English wealth, inexplicably mine. “That’s very kind.”
With his handkerchief I dab very gently at the rim of my eyes, a gesture which explains in its delicate motion that no, of course no, I wasn’t crying, merely had something in the corner of my eye…
The nails dig deep in the palm of my left hand.
I am my pain.
“Did someone say…?” The beginning of a chivalrous gesture, perhaps? Did someone slight my honour, is there a battle to be fought here? Manly perfection: to be in perfect accord with what society deems to be the quality of masculine.
Words associated with masculine: logic, confidence, authority, discipline, independence, responsibility.
He was watching me, head slightly on one side, letting me wriggle in his gaze, a half smile on his lips, and again, I held back the temptation to slap him and said instead, “Do you know what a Möbius strip is?”
Words, happening for words’ sake, Gauguin by the door.
“Yes,” he said, and I was so surprised that for a moment, my field of perception narrowed back down to his face. “Yes I do. What a curious question.”
A flare of irritation; I was prepared to actively dislike this man already, and his expression of amusement was not diminishing this instinct. “Can you express its qualities mathematically?” I snapped.
Words associated with the quality of feminine: sensual, demure, nurturing, compassionate, emotive.
“… golf?”
He had been saying something banal, listing things more interesting than maths, perhaps. Sailing, sake, sumo… golf.
I grabbed a canapé off a passing tray, allowed the motion to turn my body, angling myself so that Gauguin can only see the back of my head, and surely even he cannot identify me by that. “Golf, how interesting,” I intoned, rolling the battered vegetable between my fingers before biting it in half.
At this motion, he flinched, and it took a moment for me to conclude that it was the indelicate sight of a woman eating with relish, teeth churning, lips pushing, half an eaten-thing still between her greasy fingers, that caused him so much distaste. I licked my lips, smiled deep into his concerned eyes, and very slowly, very deliberately, wiped my fingers clean on my sleeve. His eyes widened, and I wrapped my arm in his and said, staring deep into his pale grey eyes, “Have you played Cypress Point?”
A moment, in which he wavered between a medley of thoughts. The secret to the con is always to offer the thing that the mark most desires; and every golf-loving mark desired Cypress Point. “No,” he breathed. “But I know there are some here who have membership.”
“I got in at nine hundred and fifty thousand points,” I replied, fingers dallying in the hook of his elbow. “You haven’t seen perfection until you’ve seen Cypress Point.”
“How?!” Envy now, bringing his attention right back to me. “I’ve been trying to get in for years!”
“I played the game.” I shrugged. “I achieved perfection.”
“So have I,” he replied, “but my life won’t be complete until I’ve played that course.”
“You’ll see it; you can be anything you want to, now.”
Still, my fingers, his arm, keeping that contact, Gauguin behind me, but I was confident now, I knew what I was doing, back in control, controlling my environment, this man, myself, hell yes, bring it, world. Fucking bring it.
Perfect: to be inhuman in your perfection.
Then he said, “My name is Parker,” and for a moment, I lost my breath again, and had to catch it, pull it in deep, count backwards from ten. “You’ve heard of me?” he asked, when my silence stretched.
“I knew a Parker once,” I replied, “in New York.”
“Impossible!” he chuckled. “I’m the one and only Parker of New York.”
“Except Spider-Man.” Words — I remember reading them, not hearing them, but still… “I’m sure if we’d met, I’d remember you.”
A flicker, perhaps, in the corner of his eyes, but the smile didn’t waver. “I’m sure you would too.”
“What do you do, Parker?” Turning him again, using him to shield me from Gauguin, manipulating his body, easier now, easy.
“Casinos. I had a lot of luck on the tables a few years back; now I own the tables where I used to win.”
“And how long have you had Perfection?”
“Three years.”
“How did you find the treatments?”
“I can honestly say they changed my life.”
“In what way?”
“They made me who I am.”
“And who is that?”
“Someone worth remembering.”
My fingers still in his arm, he wanted to be physically closer. It was not me he lusted after, I decided, but rather he was aroused by himself. Seducing me gave him an outlet to express his brilliance. Easy to manipulate someone that vain. His body, a half shuffle closer, his hip bumping against mine.
I let it play, I was my smile, I was my skin, I was a woman as aroused by him as he was by himself.
Gauguin by the door, watching. I kept my back to him.
“And why are you here, the one-and-only Parker from New York?”
Who is this person who speaks?
A tinkling laugh, a little smile, practically a bob of the knees, a caress of his arm under its sleeve, who is this woman who wears my face?
She is the creature I have created, the default position I retreat to when I am under threat. She is whoever she needs to be to get the job done.
“I was presented with an opportunity. There’s a club in Macau, looking to do more business. You always know you can do business with the 106, with people like us.”
I looked to his face for a flicker of something, anything, which might be called doubt, humour, and saw nothing. The crowd turned and we turned with it, and there was Filipa again, her eyes elsewhere, I had already vanished from her memory, but this man, this stranger with a familiar name, watched me, enjoyed watching me and I felt…
My fingers tightened round his arm.
With my other hand I reached up, touched the corner of his jaw, turned his head this way and that, feeling the skin around his face. What could I remember about Parker, the man I’d met in New York? Not him, only a list of characteristics that I had written down, words without meaning. Mousy hair (that could be dyed), grey eyes (he had those), a mole on his chin (missing — not my Parker then, clearly not)
my fingers brushed his chin, felt the tiny change in texture, a place where a surgeon with inestimable skill had carefully excised the offending growth. I probed that spot in fascination, invisible to sight but just palpable to touch, a slight scaling of the scar tissue, and he caught my wrist, pulled it away, the smile never wavering (perfect people always smile), curiosity in his eyes.