Date: Wed, 06 May 1998 20:00:03 +0000
From: XoYo <xoyo@dial.pipex.com>
Subject: All Tomorrow's Parties

All Tomorrow's Parties

By XoYo

If, in my old age, I ever find it difficult to maintain a suitably
comfortable life-style, I believe I could guarantee one by writing a
memoir of Cassandra's parties.  Through them, I was present at some of
the key moments of the history that none of our children will ever be
taught.   Not that I ever had children, but short of being accosted by
a woman desperate to carry a baby for an old queen like me, that was
always somewhat unlikely.

Ah, yes; the stories.  Stories of Cassandra the broker of hidden deals,
Cassandra the arch-courtesan of the post-monarchistic world, Cassandra
the secret hand in British politics, Cassandra the eternal hostess.
She was a legend to those who knew of her private world.  To the
uninitiated she was just a wealthy and  somewhat eccentric woman with a
love of entertaining powerful guests.  And now that she's dead it
should be safe to tell all.  Rather, it would be, if she were actually
dead.

I was there that night Cassandra spiked the drinks of delegates from
the Scottish and English negotiating teams with a powerful aphrodisiac.
 The sexual bond that developed between them following that one drunken
tryst did more to guarantee the comparative peace that has followed in
the British Isles than the years of fruitless talks that had preceded.
The later marriage of the negotiators also made history as the first
homosexual union to be recognised officially by the Anglican church.  I
suspect Cassandra had a hand there too, as the Archishop of Canterbury
was an occasional guest of hers.

Then there was the occasion that, against the wishes of her regular
guests, she invited the increasingly powerful chairman of the Popular
English Front, the most charming and media friendly British fascist
since Oswald Mosley.  He was doing his best to woo the gathered crowd
with his trustworthiness and interest in their futures.  Considering
the ethnic and sexual diversity present, he was pursuing a minority.
All was going to his satisfaction until Cassandra asked if he was
comfortable at the party without his partner.  After savouring his
surprise, Cassandra brought out his catamite from one of the side
rooms.  The young lad announced to all there that he wanted to go home
as it was past his bedtime.  That small, but pivotal moment did much to
define the next few years of English politics.

It was stories like these which made Cassandra a legend.  It was always
easiest to see her as a force of nature, or an enigmatic manipulator of
the lives of the rich and powerful.  She had a thousand acquaintances
and no friends.  Nobody gave a thought to Cassandra the person, the
woman who existed in private, as well as public.  Well, almost no one.

                              *     *     *

I think I was the closest thing Cassandra had to a real friend.  I
attended my first of her parties over twenty years ago,  when I was
just coming up to forty.  I was dragged along by my lover of the time,
Michael Cage, the editor of a small but influential literary journal.

Michael and I had met at the launch party for an anthology of verse to
which I was a contributor.  I had been ill at ease that night, as
usual, and had drunk far too much.  Michael had drunk even more and was
in a disgraceful state.  He spent most of the evening carrying out ad
hoc character assassinations on anyone who stood near him for too long.
 He had tried this out on me, but I declined to fight back.  After
around five minutes of subtle and clever abuse his tone suddenly
changed and he became quite charming.  Without really knowing why, I
left with him that night, and so started our brief and miserable
affair.  The sex was pretty good, but even in the early days this was
hardly enough.  If I were to be honest with myself I was so lonely that
even a vaguely abusive relationship felt better than none at all.

Michael was one of Cassandra's irregular invitees, but never missed one
of her parties when the call came.  I have never been the gregarious
type, and the thought of attending another do packed with strangers
and, I imagined, society types, filled me with gloom and unease.
Actually this is an understatement.  I had spent most of my life until
that time in the grip of a crippling shyness.  Maybe this is why I
became a writer - it's easier for me to communicate with others when
separated by time and distance, letting my static words do the talking
for me.

It would make a better story if I said that I walked through the door
of Cassandra's Knightsbridge flat and was enchanted, all my
reservations and shyness falling away.  Sadly, this was not the case.
I looked around at the mass of smartly dressed and generally beautiful
people and I panicked.  As I ran off to the bathroom to vomit I could
imagine Michael rolling his eyes in that theatrical manner of his.
After my stomach had ejected its small payload I did my best to freshen
my breath and regain my composure.  I fear I was still white and
shaking as I made my way through the crowd.  The worst part was that
everyone else looked so at ease.  It was as if I had wandered into a
large gathering of friends and was the sole stranger.  I have felt like
this often, ever since childhood, but never so acutely.  I was on the
verge of turning and leaving when I felt a hand on my shoulder.

"Ah, there you are, Rupert," Michael boomed.  "I was just saying to
Cassandra that you must have called it a night already."  He gave one
of the short snorting laughs that signalled he was demeaning me; it was
one of the many reasons I left him not long after.  I was just about to
attempt some suitably witty and cutting retort when I noticed the woman
with him.

Now, I've known and understood my sexuality for as long as I've been
conscious of it.  I have never met a woman I found sexually attractive,
but for a split second, when I saw Cassandra, I had a brief flash in
which I could understand what straight men might see in women.  I don't
think anyone would have called her beautiful - she looked too much like
a real person to fit any modern ideal - but she was the kind of woman
who became the immediate focus of any gathering.  She wore her hair
short and dark then, as was the fashion, and it accentuated her thin
face and its sharp cheekbones.  She was tall and elegant and moved with
an unstudied grace.  Her eyes and nose seemed a bit too large for the
rest of her face, but the whole effect was one of a woman one could
trust.

"You must be Rupert Cullen," she said.  "I'm an admirer.  I thought
_Eulogy for Angels_ was one of the most moving collections I've read."

I must have reddened.  I could feel it in my cheeks.  I certainly
stammered.  "But, I mean, how could you.  There were only three hundred
copies printed.  It was a disaster."

"Anything but," she said.  Her eyes narrowed conspiratorially, balanced
by a faintly mocking smile.  "For a start it means that you have at
least another two hundred and ninety nine fans out there."  She took me
by the hand and led me away from Michael, dodging through the crowd
with skill.  A number of people smiled and waved, trying to start
conversations, but for those few moments I was her sole focus of
attention.  "Let me introduce you to one of the thousands to come."  We
stopped before a loud and drunken group of men, all in formal evening
dress.  "Anthony!"  One of the men turned and looked over at us.  Well,
at Cassandra, to tell the truth.  He was several years older than me,
but handsome in that way that wealthy middle-aged men who know how to
look after themselves can be: distinguished, weathered and terribly
sexy.  "Anthony, I have someone you simply have to meet.  This is
Rupert Cullen.  I'm sure I must have mentioned him.  He's one of the
most astonishingly original poets of our age.  Tragically, he seems to
be without a publisher at the moment."

Cassandra turned and kissed me on the cheek.  "I'll leave you two to
chat.  I'm sure you'll find lots to talk about.  I must go and mingle,
I'm afraid, but if I don't see you before you go tonight I'd love to
have you back again."  With that she was off, back into the crowd, like
a shark cutting through a school of tuna.

I turned back to my new acquaintance.  He smiled warmly; it was a
lovely smile.  "So," he said, "You're one of Cassandra's favourite
poets, then?"

"I wouldn't go that far, but she did say some pretty nice things."  I
grabbed a drink off a passing tray and swallowed it all in one go,
without knowing what it was.  I was still shaking.  "Sorry," I said
after a brief but awkward silence, "I didn't really catch your name."

He stuck out a hand and we shook.  "Anthony Justice," he said.

I blinked for a few moments.  "Erm, as in Anthony Justice Publishing?"

Obviously amused by the petrified look on my face he laughed and put an
arm around my shoulder.  "Yes," he said, "That Anthony Justice."

                              *     *     *

It was less than two months later that I left Michael and moved in with
Anthony.  I usually attended Cassandra's parties in Anthony's company,
but it became clear in time that I was the guest, with Anthony as my
partner.  I'm not sure if this bruised his ego, but it never seemed to
hurt our relationship.

Within a year, Anthony Justice Publishing had reissued my volume of
verse, which sold respectably for poetry, which is to say hardly at
all.  They also published my first novel, _Running South_, which did
somewhat better, and started me off one a moderately successful career
as a novelist.  I accused Anthony of publishing me only because of our
relationship, but he told me that in his eyes I was a promising writer
first and a great lay second.  The first time he said this I hit him
with a pillow and we both laughed until we cried.

Even now, as I enter my sixties, I'm not sure that I've ever really
been in love.  It's funny, that for a poet and novelist who has written
about love in so many of its forms, for such a ridiculous number of
years, that I still can't define it to my own satisfaction.  I think,
though, that if I ever loved anyone, it was Anthony.  He wasn't the
most affectionate man I've known, and God knows he wasn't perfect, but
I felt a kind of peace in our years together that has been absent
throughout the rest of my life.  There was simply a rightness between
us that never needed to be stated.  Maybe this is the best definition
of love I can manage.

If I ever owed a debt to Cassandra, this was it.  For all the
excitement and richness she and her parties brought to my life, Anthony
was her greatest gift to me.  She would never need to do anything else
to earn my trust and loyalty.

                              *     *     *

Despite the fact that we only ever met at her parties, and never really
talked in depth, my friendship with Cassandra grew quietly over the
next ten years.  Without ever telling me anything, she managed to make
me feel like a co-conspirator, like we were naughty children who shared
a secret no one else knew.  Maybe this is how she made everyone feel.
It would explain a lot about her success.  Certainly it made me feel
closer to her than I did to people I actually knew in depth.

She always took time out at her parties to find a quiet spot and chat
with me for a while, usually about harmless gossip or recent books that
had impressed her.  I didn't understand why, at first.  Here she was,
surrounded by the most fascinating people in England, and she kept
coming back to me.  I knew it wasn't because she was attracted to me,
as it was her who had introduced me to Anthony.  It was almost a year
before I realised that it was because, for all her popularity, she had
no real friends.  Obviously some kind of spark had passed between us
when we met, but I was too dull to notice it.  I was glad of her
friendship, odd as it was, as it blossomed over the years.  It went
beyond the shallow thrill of being Cassandra's closest friend and
became something genuinely rewarding, if frustratingly elusive.

So it might have stayed, until her death, if Anthony hadn't died first.
 It doesn't seem right his death can be described in so few words.  He
deserves better.  One of these days, I've promised, I will give him the
words he deserves, but not here; this is Cassandra's story.

It was liver cancer, quick and merciless.  By the time Anthony and I
knew anything was seriously wrong we had so little time to say our
goodbyes.  That almost hurt more than his death itself.

It wasn't until after I had put Anthony in the ground that I realised
how many of our friends were really his friends.  Oh, of course they
were all very kind in the time surrounding the funeral, and I had as
much sympathy and condolence as one man can tolerate, but after the
initial period of mourning all our friends drifted away.  Maybe I'm not
being fair: it's possible they really had been friends, but no longer
knew how to deal with me in my new role of widower.  Whatever it was,
life became very empty and lonely.

                              *     *     *

One day, not long after the funeral, Cassandra came to visit me at the
flat.  Put like that it hardly sounds like a monumental event, but it
was if you know anything about Cassandra.  To my knowledge, no one had
ever seen her outside of one of her parties.  I had felt vaguely hurt
when she did not turn up at Anthony's funeral, despite knowing her
reputation for privacy.  When I answered the door, and saw her standing
there, dressed in jeans and a plain cotton sweatshirt, I was as
flustered as I had been the night we met.

Cassandra walked in without being ushered and hugged me.  She smelled
of soap and fresh laundry.  "I'm sorry Rupert," she said into my
shoulder, "I should have been there."

We disentangled and I looked at her again.  Without her makeup or one
of her famous gowns she looked like an ordinary young woman.  In fact,
fresh faced as she was, she looked much too young to be the woman I had
known for ten years.  I dismissed this as the time as a consequence of
daylight and her lack of makeup.

"Sit down, please.  Let me get us some tea."  I cleared a stack of
papers off the settee to make enough space for her.  Since Anthony's
death there had seemed little point in doing housework.  I was also
padding out my meagre income by doing reviews of poetry and novels for
several journals, and as a result the flat was awash with manuscripts
and books.  Cassandra sat in the middle of this paper chaos and smiled.

I moved to the kitchen in something between a walk and a run, dodging
piles of paper and magazines.  After putting the kettle on I looked
around and realised that all the good teacups either had mould growing
in them or were heavily discoloured from having tea or coffee left in
them for disgusting lengths of time.  I tried to give a couple of them
a quick scrub, but it made little difference.  I almost laughed at the
irony of not being able to offer the most famous hostess of our age
even a simple cup of tea.

In the back of one of the cupboards I found a couple of old mugs,
decorated with pictures of characters from a children's show of my
youth.  I had picked them up at a jumble sale, amused by the feelings
of nostalgia simple tat could generate.  I rinsed them out and served
the tea in them.

I passed Cassandra her cup.  She held it up to the light and laughed
musically.  "The Banana Splits.  I haven't thought about them for
years.  Thank you.  That's cheered me up."

Sipping my tea, I thought for a moment.  "That was years before your
time."

Cassandra shrugged.  "I must have caught repeats on satellite."

We both fell silent, but there was no awkwardness in it.  Just two old
friends, sharing some tea.

"I should have been by earlier.  It was unforgivable."

"Not at all.   I know you're busy.  It must take superhuman effort to
do all you do."

She shrugged again.  "Someone has to.  It's a calling."

I looked into my tea, as if seeking a meaning to her visit.  Despite
the inanity of the talk it all felt important somehow, but I couldn't
understand how.

"Anthony's death came as a real shock to me," she said.  "I know we all
have to die sometime, but I'd known him for so long that he just seemed
like a natural part of my life.  The suddenness of it was chilling - a
reminder of how any of us can have the rug pulled out from under us
without any warning."

"Well, you shouldn't be worrying about it too much at your age.  With
your youth and vitality you'll outlive us all."

Cassandra shook her head and smiled sadly.  "Nothing is ever as it
seems.  I may not have as many years left as you think.  I have a
suspicion that you'll be the one to outlive me."

I felt like this was my cue to say something, but couldn't for the life
of me think what it was.  I just nodded dumbly.

"Anyway," she continued, "That's what brought me here.  I know it's
selfish, with this really being your time of need, and with me not
having visited before it must be presumptuous, but..."

I may be the only person alive to have ever seen Cassandra at a loss
for words.  "Yes?  It's all right, whatever it is."

"Thanks."  She reached into her handbag and pulled out a small brown
envelope.  "This contains the keycards to get into my flat and my
private rooms.  I've taken the liberty of making you the executor of my
will.  If anything should happen to me, you can use these to find out
everything you need to do.  You'll see what I mean when the time comes.
 I know I'm making the right decision and I hope you'll agree."

"Erm, yes, of course."  I tried not to let the absurdity of the
situation take me away from its seriousness.  Here was this fit young
woman asking a late middle-aged man like me to sort out her affairs
after her death.  It made no sense to me at the time.

"Thank you," she said.  "I can't tell you how much this means to me."

"It's quite all right.  Really."

She relaxed visibly and sat back in her seat.  "So," she said, "Tell me
all about Anthony.  Make me feel like I knew him as you did."

                              *     *     *

Over the course of the next few parties I attended I saw a marked
change in Cassandra.  She seemed to become more preoccupied and
self-absorbed.  I don't think, in her role as hostess, I had ever seen
her frown; now she seemed to do nothing but.  Then, one day, she became
her old positive, gregarious self again.  I thought to ask her what had
been going on, but never quite got around to it.  I felt that if she
wanted to tell me, she would.  It was her business.

My role in the parties grew.  I never noticed the change in myself as
it was happening.  I knew I had become less shy, but now people
actually seemed to be seeking out my company and I was enjoying it.  I
went from someone who dreaded the company of others to one who felt
less and less comfortable on his own.  After the healthy advance I got
for _The Choirmaster's Dream_ I bought a larger flat and tried hosting
a few parties of my own.  They seemed to be a mild success, but they
never felt quite real enough.  Cassandra's place was where it all
happened for me.

Cassandra even started delegating some of her work to me.  In most
cases I was left to make those introductions that Cassandra thought
would be advantageous to all.  Sometimes the work was a bit more
demanding.  When Professor Thomas of Cambridge announced to the press
that he was one step away from developing a prototype time machine, I
was charged with making sure he accepted his invitation and, once he
was there, convincing him about the potential damage such an invention
could wreak.  In many ways he was not a naive man, but he had an
enormous blind spot when it came to his work.  I did my preparation for
the party by reading as many science fiction stories about time travel
as possible, in order to present a variety of potential nightmares,
ranging from lethal paradoxes to the destruction of civil liberties.
It was one of the most challenging and stimulating evenings of my life.
 I doubt I gave any arguments that the good professor had not heard
before, but the mild hallucinogen that had been slipped into his fruit
juice may have made him more open to other possibilities.  He showed no
sign of a conversion by the end of the evening, but a few weeks later
he announced that there had been an error in his calculations and he
was the possessor of a large and very expensive pile of electronic
junk.  Maybe this was the truth and I made no difference.  I don't
suppose I'll ever know, but as I get older it helps me to think I did
something.

It was this and other evenings like it that made me feel like I had a
purpose.  My writing career was progressing adequately, but without
making too much of a dent in the best-seller lists.  I wasn't too
worried about this.  I told others it was because I wasn't really the
kind of writer who would ever be popular, but mostly it was because my
focus lay elsewhere.

In all this time I saw many people come and go at the parties.  Some
guests would be regulars for a period of up to a few years, and then
their flow of invitations would dry up.  Others would be there for
special purposes, or to be introduced to exactly the right person at
the right time.  This led me to notice two things.  Firstly, at any
given stage, I was the only person who had been attending for more than
five or six years.  Secondly, Cassandra never changed.  When I say she
didn't change, I'm ignoring the fact that she was always on the leading
edge of fashion.  Her hair, makeup and clothes were always perfectly
synchronised with the emerging trends, sometimes even setting them.
Over a period of a few years a stranger who had met her once may not
even recognise her as the same woman.  The problem was that she didn't
age.  After just over twenty years since I had first met her, she still
looked like she was a little over thirty.  No one else seemed to
realise there was anything unusual, maybe because they were all kept at
a safe distance.  But it grew to bother me more and more.  Still, I
believed one day Cassandra would tell me what her secret was.  It would
have been impolite to press.

And so it progressed for the ten years after Anthony's death.  Then I
received the telephone call.

                              *     *     *

It was about one in the morning and it took me almost thirty seconds to
work out what the noise was that had woken me up.  Few enough people
want to call me in general that I tend to be untroubled by the
telephone, even during daylight hours.  I could not remember the last
time someone had rung me in the middle of the night.

"Hello?"  There was a long silence.  "Hello?"

"Rupert.  Come over to Cassandra's place."  The voice belonged to an
unfamiliar man, and from the sounds of things he was in great pain.
Every word was choked with effort.

"Who is this?"

"Just come over.  It's important."

After hanging up the telephone, I sat on the edge of the bed.  It
seemed like an unlikely prank, and Cassandra had showed little
inclination for frivolous jokes in the past.  I had no idea who the man
was, but it sounded genuine somehow.  Worried that now may be the time,
I picked up the envelope Cassandra had given me all those years ago.

I dressed hurriedly and caught a taxi to Knightsbridge.

                              *     *     *

With moonlight streaming through the windows, with no one else around,
Cassandra's flat looked somehow less real.  It was still as grand and
elegant as ever, but to see the reception hall, with its tasteful,
minimalist furnishings and painstakingly selected artworks without the
company of others seemed almost indecent.  I felt like an intruder
again, twenty years after I had first shaken that feeling off.

There was a sliver of light coming down the corridor that led to
Cassandra's private rooms.  Hesitantly I started walking towards it.

"Cassandra?  It's Rupert.  Is everything all right?"  There was no
answer.  I knocked on the partly open door that was the source of the
light.  "Cassandra?"

I eased the door open and looked around.  In contrast to the beauty of
the rest of the apartments, the bedroom that lay beyond the door was
plain to the extent of being out of place.  It contained a single bed,
a bedside table and wooden dressing table, covered with cosmetics, but
no other furniture to speak of.  The closest thing to a decoration was
a full-length mirror on one of the walls.  One set of doors apparently
led to a walk-in closet and another single door had what looked like a
security mechanism beside it.  There was a telephone on the bedside
table, on the far side of the bed, with its receiver hanging off.  I
walked around to investigate and saw a bare foot sticking past the end
of the bed.  I ran the few feet to the other side of the bed and
stopped.  There was a man lying still on the ground.  He looked to be
in his late sixties or early seventies, dressed in a silk dressing
gown, and he appeared to be dead.  I had never seen him before.

Carefully, I knelt down beside him and tried to remember how to take a
pulse.  I felt for the artery in his throat.  His skin was still warm,
but I could find no sign of a heartbeat.  I looked over at the
telephone and thought about calling for an ambulance.  Was that what
one did when one found a body?  If he had wanted an ambulance, he could
have called one.  He chose to call me instead.  Why?  Who was he?

I stood up again and looked around the room, hoping to find some clue.
In the walk-in closet there was a dazzling array of women's clothes,
including many of the dresses I had seen Cassandra wear.  There were
also a few sets of male clothing, all casual wear.  Did the dead man
live here, with Cassandra?  Why had I never met him before?

Looking around again, I saw the locked door.  I remembered the envelope
in my pocket and took it out.  There was the card I had used to get
into the flat in the first place, and then another.  I tried it in the
swipe unit and a light went from red to amber.  I pushed the door, but
nothing happened.  Looking in the envelope again I found a slip of
paper with a number on it.  I punched it in and the light went green
and there was the sound of a lock clicking.

I don't think I've ever felt the sense of shock that walking into that
room gave me.  It was sleek, white and antiseptic.  Air conditioning
filled the room with a low hum and made the air dry and sterile.  A
bank of monitors displayed the images from hidden cameras throughout
the house.  Another bank of electronics held a couple of computer
terminals and a lot of equipment I just simply couldn't recognise.  In
the middle of the room was a pair of white leather seats, almost like
dentist's chairs.  In one of them, stark naked, sat Cassandra, eyes
wide and staring.

Shaking, I walked over to the seats.  "Cassandra?"  She showed no sign
of response.  Hesitantly, I touched her shoulder.  She was cool to the
touch.  I shook her gently.  "Cassandra?"  Her head lolled from side to
side.  There were things coming out of her head.  I still don't know
how to describe them.  They weren't exactly wires, as they appeared to
be organic, but wires is the closest word I can find.  They connected
her to the seat.

Nothing made sense to me.  Was she dead?  She looked more like she was
in a coma, but if so, what was she doing here?  I started to feel sick
and dizzy.  The sterile, dry air in the room was doing little to help.
I half staggered around to the other seat and sat down in it slowly.  I
leaned back, waiting for the nausea to pass.

Something started moving under my hands and I sat up with a start.
There were pads of the same material that made up the wire at the end
of the arms of the chair.  The pads seemed to be sprouting animated
strands.  I felt something tickle my ear and jumped out of the chair.
The headrest was also made of the material and it too was pushing out
tendrils.  I backed away in terror until I hit the wall.  As I watched,
the tendrils poked around for a bit and then were sucked slowly back
into the chair.

I don't know how long I stood there, staring at that chair.  Slowly my
mind started to give control back to rational thought.  The chair,
Cassandra's body, the man in the next room.  In a flash it all started
to make sense to me, but it seemed lunatic.  Of course she had never
aged.  She was never a real person.  I think I started to laugh at the
absurdity of it all.

There was only one way to tell if I was delusional, or if the real
world was as unreal as it now appeared to be.  I took off all my
clothes, trying to ignore the chill of the air conditioning.  I didn't
know if I had to be naked, if it would even work at all, but it seemed
like a good bet.  Once undressed I sat down in the seat.

It took all my will to sit still while the tendrils probed me.  They
wrapped around my hands first, and then my face, discovering orifices.
I could feel them beginning to crawl all over my body like dry worms.
They found their way into my ears and up my nose.  I almost gagged as
one pushed down my throat.  As they worked their way around me I felt
myself beginning to lose consciousness, despite my building panic.  I
remember hoping that I hadn't made a miscalculation and that this
wasn't the last thing I would ever feel.

Then, suddenly, I was awake and untangled from the wires.  Looking
around, I saw the other side of the room.  I looked down and saw
breasts, and laughed.  I had been right after all.  I eased myself out
of the chair and walked through to the bedroom, marvelling at the
subtle differences in sensation.  My balance felt different as I
walked, rocked side to side by the sway of feminine hips.  I also felt
a sense of well-being that I had forgotten as I had aged, the vigour of
youth.  I looked at myself in the mirror and saw Cassandra, naked, but
elegant as ever.  I tried on one of her faintly ironic smiles and broke
into a real one to see it reflected back at me.  This was incredible -
to walk around in someone else's skin.  Before I could lose myself in
the novelty of it all, I was dragged back down to earth as I saw the
dead man's feet reflected in the mirror.

I walked over to him and knelt again.  He felt so light in my arms, as
if his escaping life had left nothing more than a hollow shell behind.
I cradled his head and brought it up to look at me.  His eyes were
still open and obscenely vacant.  The sudden reality of the loss of a
friend I had never really known filled my eyes with caustic tears.
"Goodbye, Cassandra," I said and kissed him on the lips.

                              *     *     *

I pulled a pair of jeans and a cotton top out of Cassandra's cupboard
and dressed.  I was thankful that Cassandra had been designed with
small breasts.  I didn't know if I could work out how to put on a bra.
In my youth some of my friends were heavilly into the drag scene and
would have killed for some of Cassandra's frocks, but I was always the
more reserved type.  Jeans and a t-shirt would definitely do.  Anyway,
there was a lot to be done.

Some of the pieces had obviously fallen into place, but some were also
missing.  Back in the white room I sat down in front of one of the
computer terminals.  Despite some little experience with using
computers for writing, my expertise was decidedly limited.  Surely
there would be some kind of password in use.  How would I work it out?
To the side of the screen was a little round bit of glass that looked
like a peephole.  I looked in it and heard a beep.  Looking back at the
screen I saw the message "Retinal scan accepted."  I smiled to myself.
"Cassandra, you thought of everything."

I must have sat up for most of the night.   It turned out Cassandra's
body didn't get tired easily.  I hoped my own was getting some rest
wrapped in its white cocoon.

It took me a while to understand how to access the files on the system,
but once I had I discovered it would take me weeks even to scan them
all.  There was a daily diary, complete with descriptions of all the
events at her parties Cassandra had witnessed and reconstructions of
others from the details gathered by her security system.  There were
staggeringly detailed files on all of the attendees, complete with
details I'm sure would have shamed the intelligence services.  Of
course the first file I read was my own.  Who wouldn't?

More began to make sense as I read.  Apparently I had reminded
Cassandra of herself - sorry, himself - when he was a bit younger.  He
took a liking to me, and despite my shyness thought I had some kind of
potential.  And he hadn't been lying about being a fan of my poetry,
although it turns out he was disappointed with my prose.  I was only
slightly surprised when I read that in the years our friendship was
developing, he was actually grooming me to become his successor as
Cassandra.  That time Cassandra had visited, after Anthony's death, was
when he had discovered that he had angina.  He was worried that he
might not live too much longer and wanted me to be in a position to
take over almost immediately should he die or become incapacitated.
Shortly afterwards he found that the drugs he was taking to control his
condition worked well, and the pressure was off.  Still, I was there if
things got bad.  And now they had.

I had to get up and walk around the room to clear my head.  Would I be
able to take over as Cassandra?  More importantly, did I want to?  Not
only would it involve the sacrifice of what little personal life I had,
but it would also rely on me living a lie.  I didn't know if I could do
that.  And the whole idea of spending large chunks of my life as a
woman didn't appeal very much either.  Cassandra's body certainly felt
fitter and healthier than my own ageing one, but it wasn't me.  I was
sixty now, and the idea of embarking on a whole new life seemed like an
impossibility.

There had to be other possibilities.  I sat back down and carried on
looking through the files as I thought.  As I was browsing I came
across Cassandra's own file.  There was surprisingly little in it.  One
of the most fascinating individuals of our age and he found himself to
be less important than me.  He was born in the mid nineteen-fifties, a
little over ten years before me.  He had come from a wealthy background
and had developed both middle-class guilt and a strong sense of
ambition.  The two had fused together into a master plan that developed
into becoming a Machiavellian socialite, to use subtle influence to put
right what he saw as the ills of our society.  The problem was that he
wasn't very good at it.  In a brutally honest section he put it down to
his general lack of personality and poor looks.  He built upon this
plan, however, and bought the technology and services he needed to make
it work.   He mentions that his money managed to bring about some
outstanding advances in biotechnology, almost none of which he really
understood.  The scientists and technicians contracted in were sworn to
secrecy, but some of the details of the work had found their way into
the mainstream, mostly in the development of a new generation of
medical prosthetics.

Cassandra was born around twenty five years ago.  His explanation as to
why Cassandra was a woman was vague.  He mentions that he believed
women were more natural socialites than men, and that people would open
themselves up to a woman that bit more.  Certainly it made it easier
for him to manipulate men, who even in out new age of enlightenment,
hold much of the power.  I think in the end there must have been a deep
personal reason, one that led to a combination of utility and pleasure.
 Some men are just born to be women.

As his/her work progressed he realised that he really could make a
difference and what had been an experiment turned into a life's
vocation.  The details were sketchy, and I felt like I still knew
nothing of him.  I wished he had had more of an ego; I would have liked
to have known him better as a person.

Once I had read all this, I felt more strongly than ever that it was
important that Cassandra continue.  I may not have shared all the same
drives as Cassandra, but I was not without a conscience.  I had seen
too much good come from her work to let her die.  If she would not live
through me, however, she would have to live through someone else.  Who,
though?  I went back to the files.

After many hours of reading through the dossiers on recent guests I had
narrowed it down to three candidates, but one in particular stood out.
It would have been ideal to find a woman, but none on file seemed to
have all the qualities I associated with Cassandra.  The man I had
chosen was David Hewlett, a young lawyer who was beginning to make a
name for himself.  We had only met properly once, but he had made
something of an impression on me.  I remembered that he had one of the
quickest minds I had encountered, with a very dry sense of humour.  He
was also painfully handsome.  I had spent a considerable portion of the
evening flirting with him gently.  I knew he was straight, but
sometimes that just makes it more fun.  It can be a refreshing change
of pace to play sexual games without any risk of success, just purely
for the sake of entertainment.  To David's credit he showed no offense,
and even humoured me more than I had any right to expect.

I wondered whether my fond memories of David were prejudicing my
judgement.  As I read on, though, he did seem to be perfect in so many
areas.  He was still in his early thirties and had no family.  He was
ambitious, as shown by his growing reputation as a fearsome barrister
with an expanding practice.  Despite this, the majority of the work he
did was pro bono, indicating a sense of idealism.  Added to this was
evidence of a strong manipulative streak, which was probably a
prerequisite for a successful lawyer.   Cassandra had had a very high
opinion of him and thought that he would be most useful in the future.

The question still remained of how to convince him.  I doubted that I
could just call him up and ask him.  He would probably think I was mad,
and if I then presented him with evidence in the form of Cassandra it
would confuse and terrify him.  Something more subtle and devious was
required, something that would combine function and plain fun.  What
better way to serve Cassandra's memory?

                              *     *     *

Before anything else could be done I had a body to get rid of.  I
couldn't really report it to the authorities in case all the details of
Cassandra and her secret came out.  I had no idea of how one disposed
of a body.  I entertained some thoughts of using the building's
furnace, if it had one, but I didn't know where to look.  I couldn't
face dismembering him, and it seemed dishonourable to his memory,
anyway.  Maybe if I could find a building site there might be some wet
concrete, but this seemed like a good way of getting caught.

A workable idea occurred to me.  Nobody had seen this man for years.
In practice it was as if he no longer existed.  This made things
somewhat easier.

It was still dark outside, but it wouldn't be for long.  I found the
oldest and tattiest looking male clothes I could and took them outside.
 There was a small patch of parkland a few streets away.  I rubbed the
clothes in a patch of dirt and snagged them on a chainlink fence before
taking them back.  I then dressed the now cooling body in the dirty
clothes.  I wondered if I would have to go back to my own body for the
next stage, but Cassandra was a lot stronger than she looked.  I
carried the body down to my car and drove over to the South Bank with
him lying across the back seats.  Could I ever explain this to the
police if I were stopped.  Once at the South Bank I found a deserted
stretch under a railway bridge and deposited the body, wrapping him in
an old blanket and some cardboard I found in the area.  With any luck
the police would never think he was anything other than a vagrant who
died after a night out in the elements.  The temperature was certainly
below freezing.

I still feel bad about leaving him to an anonymous death like that, but
I'm sure it's what he would have wanted.  Cassandra's life was more
important to him than his own death.

                              *     *     *

"David?  It's Cassandra."  I hoped that despite the difference in
controller, Cassandra's voice sounded the same.  The telephone would
probably help.

"Cassandra!  How delightful.  To what do I owe this pleasure?"

"I know it's short notice, but I was hoping we could have dinner
together tonight."

"Really?"  He sounded unsure.  "I haven't had an invitation."

"Oh, don't be silly."  I tried to reproduce that laugh of Cassandra's
that had always melted my heart.  "It's just an intimate little dinner
for the two of us.  I'd be delighted if you said yes."

"How can I refuse, then?  What time shall I be there?"

"Eight.  Eight will be perfect, darling."

                              *     *     *

I had most of the day to prepare.  From having helped organise some
parties before I knew the number for Cassandra's usual caterers.  They
were more than pleased to arrange an intimate little dinner for two at
such short notice.  I imagine Cassandra almost single-handedly kept
them in business.

In the file on Cassandra it had said that while she was capable of
eating and drinking she never actually absorbed or digested anything.
After a set length of time it would just pass through her.  This meant
she was immune to alcohol, which explained why I had never seen her in
anything other than full control, even when a party went on until the
early hours of the morning.  I made sure there were a couple of bottles
of Chateau Margeaux and some fine brandy on hand.

It took me almost over an hour to search through Cassandra's wardrobe
for a suitable dress.  The choice was staggering, and I had to play
with combinations a bit.  It was a lot more fun that I had expected.  I
can't say it gave me much of a thrill, but I was reduced to helpless
giggling a number of times as I got caught up in straps and zips.  In
the end, I picked something black and sleek, with a split skirt and
plunging neckline.  It took me several hours to get the makeup right,
never having experimented with it before, and the hair took almost as
long.   The end result was worth it.  When I looked in the full-length
mirror I was pleased with and surprised by the effect.  Cassandra had
always been the very definition of an elegant hostess, but I had never
really considered her ability as a seductress.

By the time eight o'clock rolled around everything was ready.

                              *     *     *

"Cassandra, my dear.  Delightful to see you."  David kissed me on the
cheek and walked in.  "This place looks a lot larger when it's empty."

I smiled at him.  "I know what you mean.  Drink?"

"Martini, please."

If I hadn't read David's file I probably wouldn't have remembered too
much about him.  As it was I was able to ask him enough questions about
his law practice and the cases he was working on to kickstart the
evening.

In my heels I was about two inches taller than him.  I hoped this
wouldn't bruise his ego too much.  He was even better looking than I
remembered, with the kind of dark looks that hinted at an Italian or
Spaniard in his parentage.  The evening would be a genuine pleasure.

The caterers did their job beautifully.  The food was excellent and
rather salty.  I made sure that David was given regular refills of wine
over dinner.  I had been concerned that I wouldn't find enough
smalltalk to keep things going, but it turned out David had a low
tolerance to alcohol.  He became loquacious early on, opening up about
his need to make a difference in his work.  I thought he was just
making conversation at first and then it hit me that he was trying to
impress me.  By the time we came to have brandy by the fire he was
positively flirtatious.

"Sorry," he said, placing a hand on my knee, "I've talked about myself
all evening.  It must have been a bore."  His words were slightly
slurred and his face was flushed.  Everything was going according to
plan.

"Not at all."  The feeling of his hand, tempered by the silk stockings
I was wearing, gave me an unexpected thrill.  The evening was getting
even better.

"I've just realised that I know almost nothing about you.  Please, tell
me something.  Is there a man in your life?"

I almost burst out laughing, but how would I explain that?  A man in my
life?  Not in the way you think.  "Not at the moment."  I put my hand
on top of his.  "Why do you ask?"

He looked into the fire.  The way the glow picked up the highlights of
his face made me want to kiss him there and then.  "Oh, you know."

"No, not really."  I leaned over and pulled him around to face me.
"Why don't you tell me?"  Our eyes met and I could see a deep longing
in them.  I felt a momentary pang of guilt as I thought about the
deception and where it was all leading.  Then I put it aside.  For the
next few hours I would be Cassandra, letting Rupert sleep in the chair
in the white room.

He looked at me like a lost child.  He's intimidated, I realised.  He's
heard the stories about Cassandra and can't believe a woman like her
would be interested in him.  Holding him by the shoulder I leaned back
and stretched out on the hearth rug, pulling him over me.  He paused
and then kissed me gently.  "You can do better than that," I said, with
only a hint of mockery.  Our lips locked again, passionately.

One thing women's clothes have going for them is how much easier they
are to take off in the throes of passion.  I helped David as he fumbled
with his shirt and trousers, but it still took forever.  I hoped the
frustration wouldn't kill his passion.  My dress came off easily.  I
had decided against a bra and David paused in the last stages of taking
his shirt off to stare at my, well, at Cassandra's breasts.  "My God,"
he said, "You're beautiful."

"Have you any idea how much more romantic that would be if you were
making eye contact instead?"  David looked up guiltily.  "Joke," I
said. "It's OK.  Stare all you want."

He bent over me and took a nipple in his mouth.  It felt sensitive and
wonderful as his tongue played over it.  For the first time I thought I
might miss having breasts when this was over.

With a free hand I started trying to ease his underpants down.  He
looked up at me.  "Isn't this all going a bit too fast for you?"

"Don't worry," I said, "This is how I like it."  This must be heaven
for him, I thought, a woman who doesn't want much foreplay.

He pulled his underpants down quickly.  His erection was firm, if
somewhat small.  Still, it looked like it would do the job.  I thought
about sucking him first, but decided he was probably so excited he
would just shoot off in my mouth.  If this was going to be my only sex
as a woman I wanted to know what it felt like.  God knows I've given
enough blowjobs in my life.

With a look of intense concentration he pulled my panties down.  I was
glad I had the foresight to put them on over my stockings.  I had come
to like the sensation of them and wanted to feel the friction of David
between my legs through them.  I spread myself open and pulled David
down on top of me.

I've never been much of a fan of being penetrated.  In my sexual
relationships I've tended to be the dominant partner.  I do believe
that it is better to give than to receive.  This time it was a bit
different.  The normal discomfort wasn't as bad, and as David pushed
himself into me I was able to look into his eyes.  I think I gasped.  I
certainly bit his shoulder.

It was all over much too quickly, but while it lasted it was wonderful.
 Maybe there would have been more practical or foolproof ways of
accomplishing my goal, but I doubt I would have enjoyed any of them
quite as much.  I could almost ignore the fact that I was in a woman's
body, despite the different sensations, and concentrate on the fact
that I was making love to a very handsome man.  He closed his eyes for
much of it, but I watched him screwing me, picked out in the flickering
firelight.  I doubt I will ever have such good sex again.  All of a
sudden he started shuddering and breathing quickly.  I felt a spurt of
warm liquid enter me and he slumped over me.  He kissed me hard. "That
was terrific,"  he said, just before he rolled off me and fell asleep.

I lay in the warmth of the fire for a few minutes, enjoying the post
coital glow.  I hadn't come, but that didn't seem too important.  I
played with the sparse hair on David's chest and watched him sleep.
Luckily he started to snore, which reminded me we weren't just there
for my pleasure.  I nudged him a couple of times to make sure he was
sound asleep.  Once I was satisfied he was I stood up and lifted David
to his feet.  The orgasm and the alcohol made him drowsy and pliable.
"Don't worry," I said, "We'll get you to bed."

As I walked him down the corridor I felt the semen trickling out of my
vagina and down my leg, into the silk stockings.  Never mind, I
thought, Cassandra's budget can stand another pair.  I laid David down
softly on the bed in Cassandra's room and then went through to the
white room.

The harsh light of the room snapped me out of any romantic thoughts I
might have had left.  I was there to do a job.  I took a last look at
my body from the outside.  It looked so old and frail, wrapped in its
white strands.  I wondered briefly if I was doing the right thing, but
it was too late, really.

I sat down in Cassandra's side of the seat and waited for the white
strands.

                              *     *     *

The rest of the plan was simple and business like.  First, I gathered
up David's clothes and every other piece of male clothing in the house
and put them in a refuse sack and dropped it by the front door, ready
to take with me when I left.  It wouldn't do for David to have an easy
out once he woke up.  I wanted to encourage him to at least explore his
new identity.  As an afterthought I rescued his wallet and keys and put
them on the bedside table.

Then, once everything else was ready, I eased David on to the seat in
the white room.  I wasn't sure if the transfer would wake him up and
wanted to be able to make a speedy exit if it did.  The procedure
looked even more bizarre watched from the outside.  The tendrils crept
all over him, like anemic snakes, finding all his entry points.  It
gave me shivers of disgust.

Luckily Cassandra showed no sign of stirring once it was done.  Maybe
even she needed to sleep sometimes, or the procedure took longer with
an unconscious mind.  Whatever it was, I wasn't going to wait around to
find out.

I believed that David was an inquisitive man.  Once he had got over the
initial shock he would want to work out what was really going on.  I
put a note on the computer console saying "retinal scanner", just in
case he wasn't as lucky as me.

Maybe it would all work out.  It was a gamble.  It was possible his
masculine ego wouldn't be able to cope with the idea of being a woman.
Maybe, like me, he would just simply decide this wasn't the life for
him.  From the few things I knew about David, however, it seemed like
there was a chance.  The hardest part would be keeping out of the way
and letting him work things out for himself.

                              *     *     *

A few agonising months later I received an invitation to a party at
Cassandra's place.  I had almost given up hope.

I arrived late.  I was unsure of how I would be received and wanted the
camouflage of the crowd in case things went badly.  There were a lot of
familiar faces there and many new ones.  I felt uncomfortable again and
wished I could feel otherwise.  I greeted a few old friends and
discussed trivialities.  After about half an hour the moment I had been
dreading and desperate for arrived and Cassandra walked up to me.  She
looked as radiant as ever, but there was a slightly different cast to
her eyes.  I thought at first it was hostility, but then realised I had
never seen her wearing one of David's expressions.

"Rupert," she said, "I'm so glad you could make it."  No hint of irony,
but maybe it was just a lie.  She took me by the arm and led me through
the crowd.  "I believe we have things to discuss.  Do you agree?"  I
swallowed and nodded.  He'd worked out who the interim Cassandra had
been.  There hadn't been too many possible suspects and he was, after
all, a very clever man.

"Maybe this isn't the time and place," she continued.  "Anyway, there's
work to be done."  She touched a portly, grey haired gentleman on the
shoulder.  "Chief Inspector Anderton, there's someone I'd like you to
meet."

The man turned around, beaming at Cassandra.  "Of course, my dear."  He
looked at me with a polite interest.

"This is my dear friend Rupert Cullen.  I think it's fair to say that
it's only thanks to his dedication that any of us are here tonight."
She turned and pecked me on the cheek.  "Keep in touch," she said.  Our
next meeting would certainly be interesting.

I looked back at my new acquaintance.  "Anderton?  That's a familiar
name.  Are you by any chance the Chief Inspector Anderton who made it
Met police policy to close down gay S & M clubs?"  A warm, familiar
feeling filled me, like I was coming home after a long journey.

"One and the same, dear boy."

"Oh good," I said.  "I think we have a lot to discuss."

-- 
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| \ O / \ O / |  Where are the songs about boozers and buildings,  |
|  \ /   \ /  |     banning the bomb and abusing the children?     |
|   X     Y   |----------------------------------------------------|
|  / \    |   |             email: xoyo@dial.pipex.com             |
| /   \   |   | stories: http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/Lofts/6628/ |
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