She denied it, of course she did, but somehow he could tell she was lying, and instead of accusing her of anything, he helped her get rid of Jared and made it look like he’d just taken off somewhere. As far as Calista knew, the cops were still looking for Jared as a suspect in Veronica’s sudden disappearance.
The victim, now assumed to be the villain.
Dramatic irony.
She remembered that from her English lit class too.
And it was all another little secret that she and Derek shared.
Having someone know your secrets leaves you vulnerable to him, but also draws you close in a way nothing else ever can.
So, yeah, in a sense Derek had power over her, but she also had power over him. She knew what he was capable of, what he had done, so they were indebted and, in a very real sense, beholden to each other.
Yes, beholden. A word Derek had taught her and she’d always wanted to use.
Maybe that’s what intimacy was really about — not so much trust and attraction like some people think, but about holding subtle degrees of power over your lover.
All because of the secrets you know.
And can use, when necessary, to your advantage.
Two weeks ago Calista had been there when they changed the role Thad Becker was going to play as the research progressed.
He hadn’t picked up on using the exolimbs in a timely enough manner, and after three weeks Derek had announced that they were going to have to move things in a different direction.
While they could have terminated the test entirely, as they’d done with others in the past, at this point in the study Dr. Malhotra considered that to be a waste of resources, so they decided to change the exact nature of the tests they were doing on Thad.
She’d asked if she could be the one to give Thad the injection, and Derek had given her permission to do it.
Tomorrow morning she was scheduled to return and see how he was doing in his new role.
She wasn’t sure about his condition, but from what she’d heard, he was not going to open his eyes again. Not ever again. But, connected up to the machines as he was, they would be able to keep him alive almost indefinitely.
It was sorta weird watching the guy just lay there like that. He looked like a total vegetable, but, at least from what she understood, he was still aware. That’s the thing. His mind hadn’t been affected at all. He knew what had happened to him. And he knew there was nothing he would ever be able to do about it.
Pretty wild.
Totally paralyzed.
Totally aware.
Forever, completely, irreversibly helpless.
Derek wanted one thing more than anything else — to live forever. That’s not what Calista wanted. No, she didn’t want to grow old at all.
He was looking forward to something he called The Singularity and would do whatever it took to “hasten its coming.” Fine. Whatever. She was looking forward to tonight and tomorrow and taking every day one at a time as they came her way.
No, she was not a high-end escort. She made maybe a tenth of what some of them made. Totally unfair. She was just as good as any of them were — Derek told her so.
Well, she had something on her side.
Time.
They were going to age.
They were going to turn thirty and have wrinkles appear around their eyes and then turn forty and put on belly fat and sag in all the wrong places, and she was going to remain young and firm and desirable.
Derek had promised her this.
And one thing he’d never done was lie to her.
Now, she finished putting on her makeup and went downstairs to meet up with him in the living room.
She wore a tight, form-fitting dress that’d been designed with one purpose, made evident by the length of the slit up the side. And she was obviously well aware of what it was because, as she glided across the room, she made the most of every step.
“Are you ready for a memorable night, my love?” Derek asked her.
“Uh-huh.”
He pulled out his car keys. “Well then, let’s see how our dry run goes.”
Sin City
Our flights go well, but still, by the time we land in Las Vegas it’s nearly 11:30 p.m. and all of us are exhausted, travel weary, and ready to get acclimatized to our own time zone again.
Xavier has called ahead, and there’s a limo waiting at the airport to take us back to my place.
Even more than most cities, Las Vegas has a different mood at night. During the day, Vegas looks like any other major US city — business going on as usual, the rush hour traffic pulsing through at regular intervals, Minivan Moms, kids waiting for school buses, late afternoon joggers.
But here, as dusk arrives, you can feel electricity begin to sizzle through the air. Whether you’re downtown on Fremont Street watching five million lights put on a show above your head, or joining tens of thousands of other people walking the Strip, there’s no place in the world like Las Vegas.
Walk the Strip on a Saturday night and you’ll see all sorts of things: mimes, break-dancers gathering crowds around them and angling for money, musicians playing their instruments with their hats on the ground by their feet, people dressed up in outlandish costumes who’ll get their pictures taken with you for a tip.
And of course, street magicians doing sleight of hand. Whenever I see them I always stay to see what they can do, and regardless of whether or not the magicians are any good, I leave a tip. I figure if they’re good they need a boost to get onstage somewhere, and if they’re not any good they need to pay the bills while they practice — and despite what you may have heard, the best place to practice sleight of hand is always in front of an audience instead of a mirror.
It’s all part of what makes Vegas unforgettable.
During runs of my show, I’ve visited dozens of amazing cities all over the world, but it was only when I came to Las Vegas that I felt like I was finally coming home.
Sin City.
What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas.
That’s what they say, and it makes a good marketing slogan. However, as attractive as the idea is, there aren’t any places you can go where you’re exempt from the consequences of your decisions. Obviously there aren’t. A trip to Vegas isn’t a journey away from accountability; it’s actually a barometer of your character.
No, what happens here doesn’t stay here. It’s the wet dream of all hedonists to think there’s a place you can go to fulfill all your fantasies and not have to carry any of the consequences of your choices with you back home.
Every city contains both a caricature of and an extension of itself. Here in Vegas, if you have the money, you can indulge in anything your heart desires.
Anything.
So that is my city.
And it is also a city of skateboarding and Little League games and strollers in the park.
That is my city as well.
There’s a paradox to Vegas — so much of what you see on the Strip and downtown is facade, and yet the people you meet are showing you their true selves. Like the homeless person’s sign I saw on one of the walking bridges over a side street off the Strip: “Will Smoke Your Weed for Food.” No hiding anything there.
As one of my friends once told me, people in most cities wear masks all year round and only take them off when they visit Vegas. We live without any masks at all.
And that’s one of the reasons I like to call this city my home.
The airport is nestled up right next to town, something that has concerned Las Vegans ever since 9/11. After all, if you were a terrorist concerned about the Great Satan spreading filth across the world, what better place to attack than Sin City itself? What better target that represents sexual indulgence and the capitalist vices of America than striking at downtown or the Strip? It looked like plans to relocate the airport were in place back in 2007, but the recession of 2008 and the lack of money flowing into the city put everything on hold.