Jasper nodded. “I know some people are able to live without sex. Unattractive people and monks or priests or whatever, but I don’t get that. It was my whole life. I want to try to get my life back. Do I have enough money for the procedure?”
“Not really. But given the circumstances, I’ll cut you a deal. Your brain has a lot more value to me than the cash in those bags.” Voda stood and dropped her cigarette. A surgical team entered with a wheelchair and began to help Jasper get into it.
“Um,” Jasper said. “We’re doing it right now?” A worker approached him, pointed a small gun at his arm, and fired.
“No time like the present, Jasper,” Voda called after him as they wheeled him away. “Maybe we’ll see you on the other side.”
THE BLINDING, OMNIPRESENT LIGHT WORRIED JASPER—IT WASN’T heaven because that was not his idea of heaven, his face and eyes feeling trained upon with interrogation-level spotlights. It did correlate pretty tightly with his concept of hell though.
So did the thought of the atmosphere’s oxygen being replaced with cigarette smoke.
Jasper coughed and reached up to feel his head for bandages. Was he still on the operating table? He felt strapped down.
A firefly glowed in the distance, came closer, clarified into the ember of Voda’s cigarette. Had she been smoking during the surgery? That couldn’t be okay? Jasper was pretty sure.
“Truth time,” Voda said. Jasper tried to clear his throat. What would he have to confess? Would a microphone be involved? “We’re ready to see if it works. To do that, we could have you bring yourself to climax and tell us your initial thoughts—if you think you’d be able to sleep with a woman and duplicate the feelings and visuals you start having, et cetera. We could also bring someone in for you to try it out with, an impartial third party. But I’m interested in your partner’s experience as well. Would you be opposed to trying it out right now, with me? It may strike you as irregular, but it’s practical. We’re both already directly involved.”
Voda’s hair moved in front of the light for a moment.
“With people watching?” he asked. As if in response, the lights seemed to further brighten and blind him.
“Would you care? I prefer it that way.”
Well, Jasper thought. Probably not. What mattered was whether the surgery worked. Had it been surgery? Did he need to recover? “Will you be smoking?”
“I’m willing to do without. You’re restrained, and it might be easiest for you to remain so; if it’s all right I’ll take things from here in terms of the physical exertion. May I begin? Is that okay?”
“Please,” Jasper nodded. “I want to try it out. Let’s go.” He closed his eyes and waited, smelling the air cleared of smoke.
Was a different smell beginning to hit his face now? It seemed the vague promise of saltwater, the mackerel odor of a full treat bucket at the Oceanarium. He let out a gasp when he felt it, unmistakable—a rubbery bottlenose seemed to graze across his thigh.
In his mind, Jasper found himself lying poolside by Bella’s tank. She was rising up out of the water, hovering over the top of him and moving closer, so close he could almost feel the cold surface of her skin—she was joining him; it was happening. Jasper felt a wind of relief begin to blow through him in puffs that seemed to correspond to thrusting. When he came it felt like the two of them had rolled into the pool—he had the sense of falling, a large amount of water around him draining somehow. Was someone emptying the tank? His eyes opened just for a moment and he saw a glimpse of Voda, though seemingly far away, or behind a thick lens made of several panes of glass. Her head was thrown back; she was astride him and her body was rising and falling with laughter—she seemed to be orgasming as well?
He closed his eyes again, hoping to get Bella back for a few more seconds, but her aquatic show had just finished. Everyone in the stands was clapping, rising, gathering up their things and readying to leave.
Jasper opened his eyes but the sound of applause didn’t fade. It was growing steadily louder. Around him on all sides, the surgical crew was clapping. He was vaguely aware of Voda dismounting him, buttoning up her white coat. “There are several ways in which I have now earned a cigarette. I’d say it worked, Jasper. I’d say we did it. Would you agree?”
Only now was he aware of feeling winded, of his racing pulse. He could see a medical pit crew coming over to work on him, tugging free various restraints on his numb limbs. “It felt like I was fucking a dolphin,” he whispered. The words left his mouth so quietly they seemed unspoken. But Voda heard.
“It did. My team will help you get dressed, show you to a room where we’ll have a little reception. Come eat. We’ll give you something to help your appetite return.”
Jasper began to smile his old smile, the smile that came at the successful end of a good con. A smile from his former self.
It didn’t feel the slightest bit familiar, though. Everything about him felt replaced and new.
JASPER WATCHED VODA EAT SEVERAL POUNDS OF SHRIMP BEFORE deciding to stand on the opposite end of the room and eat a lot of shrimp as well. Everyone except Jasper was wearing a lab coat. They’d placed him in a nondescript gray sweat suit.
When the soiree began to break up, Jasper wondered why he wasn’t taken with the urge to try to leave—was he free to go?
“Well, well,” Voda said, walking over. “It all came together. It’s so exciting when something surprises you. Perfection isn’t the norm in experimental neurosurgery.”
“That was fun,” Jasper said. He meant it. Then he realized this was something people said, with sincerity, at the end of actual dates that they had enjoyed. Through the years, with many a con, he’d been forced to watch lots of romantic comedy films where this happened.
Was there something he liked about Voda? They had just slept together, though he didn’t feel like they had. The dolphin imagery had been that real. But hypothetically, that could explain whatever sense of fondness he was currently feeling. Couldn’t it? His cons always seemed more wrapped up in him after the relationship got sexual, even though he himself had never felt that way.
Was he feeling something?
“It was fun for me too, Jasper. Few of my career wins have had such a pleasurable physical dimension. And you’re in pretty good shape.”
He nodded, wanting to return the compliment.
“You’re a lot more energetic than I expected. Especially for smoking so much.”
“I do all right for having had cancer twenty-eight times.”
Jasper choked on his shrimp a little. He’d made small talk at plenty of happy hours but had never heard that one. Regaining his composure, he said, “Well, you look great, all things considered.”
“Sounds worse than it is. We nip it at the nanophase. The procedure’s less invasive than a dental cleaning.”
Jasper scratched his head. “That’s um . . . an option?”