Refracted Crystal: Diamonds and Desire

by M. J. Lawless

  This made Daniel laugh and he finally turned his head to meet her gaze, his eyes flashing now with a demonic humour. “No,” he said. “I’ve never made that mistake. But you’re not... you’re not an automaton, if you know what I mean. You are most definitely real in your passions.”

  Despite herself, Kris momentarily felt her face flush at this. Those women in Victor’s—all so beautiful, all so fake. Yet there was still something that disturbed her.

  “The room that... he told us not to go into.” She couldn’t bear to name Francis Roth. “What was going on in there?”

  Daniel sighed again, and a tic started in his face. “I don’t know, but I would guess they were...” he paused. There was something he couldn’t bring himself to say, but his euphemism was much worse. “I would guess that a new girl was being broken in. Occasionally it’s a boy.”

  Kris felt her heart twist and burn with cold fire for a second. “You mean rape, don’t you.”

  He nodded, his face turned once more to the window.

  The cold fire in her heart became a burning flame in her face, and she let go of his hand. “We should do something.”

  He gave a humourless laugh at this. “What? Go to the police, you mean? Report them to the authorities? You didn’t recognise anyone in that room last night, but I can tell you that half of the men there could form the gross domestic product of a significant number of countries between them.”

  “So,” Kris replied acidly. “You’re telling me because you’re rich you can do whatever you want?”

  Now Daniel turned his face to look directly at her, and his eyes were calm and sad once more. Despite her anger he did not rise to match her aggression. Instead, he wanted to make her understand.

  “No,” he told her, very quietly. “You have to be rich and smart. The women you saw there, sometimes young men they hire... none of them go unwillingly. Whatever happens to them, they are paid well—very well. My guess is that none of them would be willing to stand up before a court of law.”

  “But why didn’t you do anything?” Kris felt that her mouth was opening now of its own accord. She realised that she was standing on the edge of an abyss, that before her stretched out the void and that everything could change now, this instant. She had to stop, and yet she could not prevent herself running towards that abyss.

  “Oh my god,” she said in horror. “You didn’t...”

  Daniel did not reply, but simply stared at her. For a second, she saw contempt in his eyes, a cold, bitter response to her unfinished question, but then once more they were filled with sadness.

  “I have my faults,” he said quietly. “Lord knows I have too many of them to fully reckon with, but that... never. I have never needed to do that. I may be dominant, aggressive, violent even, with more than enough to fill me with shame, but I’m no rapist.”

  For a fearful moment, Kris’s mind was filled with memories of a day in Monaco, Daniel drunk and angry, grabbing at her, attempting to force her—and how with just one word from her he had stopped himself, regained control of his dark, terrible self.

  She said nothing, and the pained expression on his face became truly miserable as he turned his head away from her. “I don’t believe any of that bullshit about changing a man, turning him into something good, but you’ve got to understand... before all this...” he gestured around the plane with one hand, “I was a different person. A husband, a lover, with simple desires, simple needs. I can’t blame anyone else for what I became when I fell into myself so deeply, but even then I was never that depraved.

  “It sounds clichéd, it sounds trite—fuck it, it is trite. You saved me. When first I met you I was lost in a way that was as full of despair in its own way, but if you think you pulled me back from a life of lechery and abuse, I hate to disappoint you. I’d already worked that one out for myself.”

  Kris was angry with herself at her doubts, but she had to know. “I’m sorry,” she said quietly. “But you must understand why I wanted to ask.”

  He nodded, still not looking at her. His hand, however, sought hers out blindly and, finding it, squeezed it. Then he appeared to achieve self-mastery and, drawing in a shuddering breath fought down whatever anguish had filled him.

  “And we needed to talk about this.” He gave a wan smile. “I don’t particularly like thinking about this stuff—it seems so... alien to me now. I never really did fit in, you know.” His smile now was more ironic, as though considering some other thought.

  “What do you mean?”

  He shook his head and turned his eyes onto her once more. “No, no self-pity. I can’t stand that, and I just wallowed in it, just for a second. Seriously, though, I was never truly accepted in the club. They want to corrupt you completely, to ensure that you’re one of them—it’s the only way some of them trust you. They want to know that you’re mired in the same personal hell as them. Unfortunately for them, I’d been very happily married before. Even at my worst, I knew that it was all fake, all unreal.”

  Kris nodded at this and returned the pressure on his hand. “What about that... man?” she asked. “Why are you doing business with the father of a little pipsqueak like that?”

  “Francis?” Daniel let his head fall against the back of his seat. “I do business with his father because he’s one of the most important men in my line of work. I can’t not do business with him, not if I want to have any hope of survival. He’s nothing like Francis—well, not in regard to his hobbies.” He turned his head sideways and looked at her directly. “Stay away from him. He’s dangerous.”

  For a second Kris did not know whether he meant the father or the son, but she nodded in any case. She had no intention of meeting either, not if she could help it in any way.

  She was a little surprised when they drove from Palo Alto airport to see fog extending towards San Francisco.

  “It happens,” Daniel told her, holding her hand tightly as they drove along. “The bay area can get very foggy in the summer, but you still get plenty of good days. Perhaps it’s not quite as clear as your beloved Lisbon, but it’s still much better than England.”

  His eyes flickered slightly nervously towards the driver. Very specific instructions had been sent ahead and, if anything, Kris was slightly frustrated by the sedate speed with which the covered the thirty miles or so from the airport to San Francisco itself. Nonetheless, even at this slow crawl, Daniel still hated being in a car with a driver he didn’t know.

  After a while the fog parted and she was able to see the skyscrapers of downtown San Francisco rising up before her. Her frustrations departed—more so when she finally caught sight of the Golden Gate Bridge: “Just like in Vertigo,” she gasped.

  “Just like in Vertigo,” he agreed.

  The driver took them to their hotel, the Fairmont in Mason Street, one of the few buildings to have survived the historic earthquake of 1906. “You’ll like it here,” Daniel had told her. “There’s a bandstand that floats in the swimming pool, and they even put on thunderstorms as part of the show.”

  Kris’s excitement was returning as they were shown to their suite, and neither she nor Daniel mentioned again the awkward conversation they had shared on the flight. Nonetheless, she was also aware that neither of them were keen to indulge what had become something of a ritual between them whenever they visited somewhere new, a baptism of lust on the bed (or bathroom, or lounge table, or anywhere else for that matter).

  While Daniel was changing, she looked out of the window across the city. To the north west she could make out the red spans of the Golden Gate Bridge extending across the bay, while to the east another bridge ran across an island to Oakland. Although they were based in the financial district, she knew from a map that not far away lay Chinatown and Fisherman’s Wharf, and when she returned her gaze to the bay she could just make out the forbidding rocky outcrop of Alcatraz, which sent a shudder of cathartic pleasure as she thought of the prison there. Such a thrill was entirely evanescent, of course, a passing thr
ill of considering herself and Daniel locked away together.

  “Will Anne and Andrew be staying here as well?” she asked as Daniel came through from the bathroom, dressed in jeans and a casual shirt.

  He nodded. “If I remember the details, they should be here in two days time, as well as another guest.”

  “Someone else?” Kris was intrigued and, for some reason, slightly troubled, wondering who out of Daniel’s past would come to their wedding. Until only a few days before, she had assumed that it would be the two of them and no-one else, but now things seemed to be shifting around. “Who?” She tried to make her voice sound as casual as possible.

  Yet he knew her too well, and realised that she was still nervous at the thought of the stranger. “Don’t worry,” he told her. “There’s only one person I would want to have at this time, someone who I know has my best interests at heart. In any case, she wants to see how you’ve developed since I first sent you to be checked out by her.”

  Pursing her lips in mock reprobation, Kris stood up on tip toe and kissed him on the cheek, suddenly understanding exactly who he meant.

  “Come on then,” he said, reaching for a jacket. “Let’s go and check out Chinatown. I’m starving!”

  Daniel had been about to call for their driver automatically, but as the fog had cleared now and the warm afternoon was turning into a balmy evening Kris insisted on walking. “I want to see the city,” she reprimanded him.

  He laughed at this: “Well, you’re in luck here. I guess New York’s not so bad, but for just about everywhere else in California it’s drive or nothing. San Francisco is a little more European, I suppose.”

  As they passed colonial revival and Mediterranean-styled houses mixed with more modern and contemporary shops and housing blocks, following the undulating streets as they rose and fell towards Chinatown, Kris understood what Daniel had meant about the city appearing more European. It was not simply reflected in the architecture, which was not as heavily built up as New York—a legacy of its disastrous earthquake—and included many white walled or blue painted houses that would not have looked out of place in Lisbon, but also because there were many more Hispanics here, going about their business through the bustling streets.

  Overall that European feel did not transform itself too much when they first entered Chinatown, although within a while Kris was confronted by several ostentatiously oriental buildings. Daniel pointed out the Bank of America, with its gold dragons and columns topped by a brightly-coloured Chinese style roof, and later the Sing Chong building which almost looked like a pagoda as they approached it. Hispanics and Caucasians were also increasingly replaced by Chinese occupants, and as the work day had not yet ended the shops and sidewalks hummed with noisy activity.

  “Come on,” said Daniel after they had glutted their eyes and ears with the sights and sounds of the district. “I’m still starving. If I remember correctly, this is a great place to eat. Nanking gets all the tourists, but this is much, much better.”

  The restaurant was much less gaudy than some that Kris had seen on the way, lacking any of the most obvious signs of being Chinese at all, and she had to swallow a little sense of disappointment that she was missing out on some essential experience. She was also somewhat surprised, glancing at the menus as they entered, to see how inexpensive this place was compared to those Daniel usually took her. As he pushed his large frame between a couple of Chinese patrons, however, food clearly on his mind, the scents assaulting Kris’s nostrils began to tempt her own desires and she followed him in.

  As he sat down, he began to speak to the waiter and Kris did a double take. The waiter himself frowned a little and so Daniel repeated himself more slowly. When the man walked away, Kris’s mouth fell open in shock.

  “I didn’t know you spoke Chinese!” she exclaimed, dropping her voice when she realised just how loudly she was speaking.

  Daniel grinned at her and opened a paper package next to him, retrieving chop sticks that he broke apart. “I think you’ve just heard the complete range of my Mandarin,” he told her. “I thought it would be a good idea to learn some basics for that trip Felix and I took out to Beijing a couple of months ago.” He looked at the waiter receding towards the kitchens and his grin became a wry smile. “Not that I think I’ll be winning any awards for my communication skills. I have a slight horror of what I may be ordering tonight...”

  As it turned out, the dim sum and other dishes were some of the most delicious things that Kris had ever tasted, though worried about her weight she restricted her eating a little. She still felt a little queasy from time to time and thought that the experience at Victor’s had thrown her more than she expected. Indeed, the memory of that alone made her stomach lurch a little and she quickly repressed any further recollections.

  Daniel, by contrast, looked more relaxed than he had in a very long time, stuffing food into his mouth and chatting with her without a care in the world. It took Kris some time to realise why: he had been so glued to a phone or tablet in recent months that she had barely seen him parted from them and the constant stream of demands on him that they represented. Although she had had a recent shock, she also remembered that it was she who had forced the point, driven to it by that damn trouble-stirrer, Felix Coltraine. By contrast, here in a restaurant in San Francisco, she suddenly realised that the man who would be her husband in three days time, aside from his physical presence and more animated face, looked more like a regular guy than at any time since she had known him, more at peace and contented with himself. Sipping her water and listening to him explain the history of Chinatown she smiled indulgently, her eyes shining as she watched him.

  Chapter Seven

  As the driver opened the car door, Kris stepped out carefully, brushing her white dress so that any minor creases that were beginning to form would ease out of the simple, beautiful fabric. As she stood, the dress came to just beneath her knees, her white shoes clean and pristine, and her dark hair tied up on one side. Her only embellishments were an elegant diamond brooch which Daniel had presented to her the night before.

  As Daniel came around to the side of the car, dressed in a dark, charcoal suit and with a blue and gold tie, she thought how handsome he looked when he reached out his hand for hers. He was always meticulous in his appearance, but after a few days of seeing him dressed more casually his preparation for this day was even more stunning. In her heels, she came up to just above his shoulder as the driver stood to one side, and he smiled down at her, the dark hair above his ears flecked with grey, the scars across his strong face mild memories of a past that had brought them here. Nothing else mattered: today, she would be his in a way that went beyond anything else they had done together, and he would be hers.

  Her only slight irritation was that the dress she had chosen so carefully a month before when they had fixed on the day now pinched her slightly. That, however, was a small cross to bear.

  She had been almost trembling with excitement as they had driven up to San Francisco City Hall, the imposing beaux-arts building that looked like a more ornate model of the White House, though tinged in the most delicate blue. Around them extended the luxury of a wide, open space, with boulevards leading towards the rest of the city and, lifting back her head, she could see the large dome of the rotunda reaching up towards a clear, bright sky.

  The sound of the other car drawing up behind her made both her and Daniel turn and they waited as the doors opened. Anne got out first, dressed in a pale outfit that, she confided, had almost caused her to stop breathing when she had been told that Daniel was to buy it. “Dior!” she had hissed in Kris’s ear. “A real Dior!” Even Andrew had made a great effort, having cheerfully submitted to a tailor to provide him a suit to replace his typical designer uniform of jeans and T-shirt.

  They had arrived the morning previously, as had the last occupant of the car. In a two piece dress suit that made her look as formidable as Kris had always remembered her, Elaine Christiansen beamed as hap
pily as Anne and Andrew as she looked on the pair. “I won’t admit that I wasn’t surprised,” she had said meeting Kris again, “but in some sense I was not completely surprised. He needs you, you know.”

  “Have I passed the test, then?” Kris asked, unable to keep a certain tartness out of her tone of voice, although Elaine had never been anything but kind to her. The older woman’s eyes narrowed slightly at this, and she tilted her head to one side.

  “I’m sorry,” Kris immediately apologised. “I just remember something you said when we first met: he usually prefers them taller and skinnier.”

  At this Elaine laughed and shook her head. “I’m the one who should apologise.” Her eyes narrowed again, however, though this appeared to be an attempt to scrutinise Kris, evaluate something about her clearly rather than to criticise her. “I suspect that marriage might be exactly the thing that is required now,” she said rather enigmatically.

  That all of them were here now, however, meant that Kris was ready to take what was in many ways the most important step of her life. She had been nervous that morning, her stomach fluttering a little, at the memory that this was not the first marriage for Daniel Stone, but she quickly pushed that thought aside. There were to be no ghosts here on this day: they had been exorcised a long time ago.

  Entering through the glass doors, decorated with ornate blue and gold designs, they passed the circular base of the marble staircase beneath the beautiful rotunda overhead. When first she had seen it, Kris had immediately wanted to marry there, but Daniel had laughed and shook his head. “While I could possibly get a city official to give us more than ten minutes there, if that ever got out someone might view it as bribery. In any case, I want a little more privacy when we actually tie the knot.”