"What do you mean?"
"The data. Yours were perfectly consistent. Hers were… erratic."
"Erratic." Her mind seemed to be working in another dimension. It took an age for the thought to form. "Like lying?"
"She's lied about a lot of things."
"But she could have been lying to me? About how she feels?"
He shrugged. "How can we ever know?"
She stared at him. "The literature," she said, trying to force her slippery brain to remember what she'd just read. "It says love's a feedback loop, right?"
"In terms of individual brain plasticity, yes."
"So it's mutual. I can't love someone if she doesn't love me." If it was love.
He gave her a look she couldn't interpret. "The data don't support interdependence." He paused, said more gently, "We don't know."
Pity, she realized. He pities me. She felt the first flex and coil of something so far down she couldn't identify it. "What have you done to me? What else have you done to me?"
"To you? For you."
"You made me feel something for a woman who fucked for money. Who had her mind fucked for money."
"So did you, if you think about. Just at one remove."
"I didn't."
"So, what, you did it for science?"
Cody changed direction. "Does Susanna know?"
"I'm flying to Atlanta tomorrow."
"Do you have her sound files with you?"
"Of course."
"Let me hear them."
"That would be unethical."
Unethical. "I think you might be a monster," she said, but without heat.
"I have a strange way of showing it, then, wouldn't you say? For the price of a few embarrassing experimental sessions you won't ever remember, I won you a contract, a girlfriend and a night on the town."
She stared at him. "You expect me to be grateful… "
"Well, look at this place. Look at it. Bare walls. Fish, for god's sake."
"Get out."
"Oh, come on-"
"Out."
"By tomorrow it will all fall into perspective."
"I swear to god, if you don't leave now I'll break your face." She sounded so weirdly calm. Was this shock, or was it just how people in love, or whatever, behaved? She had no idea. "And you can put those papers down. They're mine, my private thoughts. Leave them right there on the table. The thumbdrive, too."
He pulled the drive, laid it on the papers, stowed his laptop and stood. She held the door open for him.
He was halfway through the door when she said, "Richard. You can't tell Susanna like this."
"No?"
"It's too much of a shock."
"You seem to be coping admirably."
"At least I already knew you. Or thought I did. You'll be a complete stranger to her. You can't. You just can't. It's… inhumane. And she's so young."
"Young? Don't make me laugh. She makes you look like an infant." He walked away.
Cookie danced. She didn't want to think about the phone call. Didn't want to think about any of it. Creep.
But there was the money.
The lights were hot, but the air conditioning cold. Her skin pebbled.
"Yo, darlin', let's you and me go to the back room," the suit with the moustache and bad tie said. He was drunk. She knew the type. He'd slip his hands from the chair, try cop a feel, get pissed off when she called in Danny, refuse to pay.
"Well, now," she said, in her special honey voice. "Let's see if you've got the green," and pushed her breasts together invitingly. He flicked a bill across her breasts. "A five won't buy you much, baby."
"Five'll buy you, babydoll," he said, hamming for his table buddies. One of them giggled. Ugly sound in a man, Cookie thought. "Five'll buy you five times!"
"And how long did it take you to come up with that, honey?"
"The fuck?" He looked confused.
"I said, your brain must be smaller than your dick, which I'd guess is even smaller than your wallet, only I doubt that's possible," and she plucked the bill from his fingers, snapped it under her g-string and walked away.
In the dressing room she looked at herself in the mirror. Twenty-four was too old for this. Definitely. She had no idea what time it was.
She stuck her head out of the door. "Danny!"
"Yes, doll."
"Time is it?" She'd have to get herself a watch someday. A nice expensive watch.
"Ten after," Danny said.
"After what?"
"Ten."
Three hours earlier on the West Coast. She stacked her night's take, counted it, thought for a minute, peeled off two hundred in fives and ones. She stuck her head out of the door again. "Danny!"
"Here, doll."
"I'm gone."
"You sick?" He ambled up the corridor, stood breathing heavily by the door.
"Sick of this."
"Mister Pergoletti says-"
"You tell Pergoletti to stick it. I'm gone. Seriously." She handed him the wad of bills. "You take care of these girls, now. And have a good life."
"Got something else lined up?"
"Guess we'll find out."
There was one bottle of beer in Cody's fridge. She opened it, poured it carefully into a glass, stared at the beige foam. A glass: she never drank beer from a glass. She poured it down the sink. She had no idea what was real anymore but she was pretty sure alcohol would only make things worse.
She made green tea instead and settled down in the window seat. The sun hung low over the bay. What did Susanna see from her apartment? Was her ankle better? Contraceptive pills, Jesus. And, oh, the smell of her skin.
She was losing her mind.
She didn't know who she hated more: Richard for making the proposal, or herself for accepting it. Or Susanna. Susanna had done it for money.
Or maybe… But what about those contraceptive pills?
And what if Susanna did feel… whatever it was? Did that make it real? It was all an experiment, all engineered. Fake.
But it didn't feel fake. She wanted to cradle Susanna, kiss her ankle better, protect her from the world. The Richards of the world.
She picked up the phone, remembered for the tenth time she had neither address nor phone number. She called information, who told her there was no listing under Susanna Herrera in the Atlanta Metro area. She found herself unsurprised, though surprised at how little it mattered.
She got the number for the Golden Key instead.
A man called Pergoletti answered. "Cookie? She's gone. They always go." The music thumped. Cody's insides vibrated in sympathy, remembering.
"-don't have a number. Hey, you interested in a job?"
Cody put the phone down carefully. Sipped her tea. Picked up the phone again, and called Richard.
It was open mic night at Coffee to the People. Richard was in the back room on a sofa, as far from the music as possible. Two cups on the table. One still full.
"You knew I'd call."
"I did."
"Did you program that, too?"
"I didn't program anything. I primed you-and only about the sex." He patted the sofa. "Sit down before you fall down."
She sat. Blinked. "Give me her phone number."
"I can't. She gave me a fake. I called her at the club, but she hung up on me." He seemed put out.
"What does she know?"
"I talked fast. I don't know how much she heard. But I told her she wouldn't get the rest of the money until we'd done follow up."
The singer in the other room sang of love and broken hearts. It was terrible, but it made Cody want to cry anyway.
"How long does it last?"
"Love? I don't know. I avoid it where possible."
"What am I going to do?"
Richard lifted his laptop bag. "I planned for this eventuality." He took out a small white cardboard box. He opened it, shook something onto his hand. A grey plastic inhaler.
"What is it?"
"A vasopressin analogue, formulated to block oxytocin receptors in the nucleus accumbens. That is, the antidote."
They both looked at it.