Amanda stood before me in the bedroom doorway, naked except for a clinging shroud of black gauze so thin it looked more shadow than silk. Her statuesque figure was fully visible in the early afternoon light, full, pert breasts tight against the flimsy material. Ordinarily I'd have to keep myself from staring, but strangely enough in that moment it was hard to not make eye contact with her. Those big, pretty eyes, grey-blue like deep pools of ice water . . .
A muted noise from down in the street woke me from my reverie and I realised I had no idea how long I had been standing there like a fool. The expression on Amanda's face gave away nothing, her porcelain skin and air of quiet amusement making her look vaguely regal, like some pagan queen rendered in marble. More to cover my embarrassment than anything else I asked "So, why exactly are we-" I shrugged in what I hoped was an expressive fashion.
"What would you say if I told you I was trying to conceive the Antichrist?"
"I'd say that the concept of 'the Antichrist' is largely the product of medieval anti-papacy and 20th century popular culture, with little scriptural authority."
She laughed musically. "Oh, I bet you say that to all the girls . . ." More laughter rang through the airy apartment. "As to the why . . . well, you don't need to worry your pretty little head about that."
"Well, I suppose . . ."
"Shhhhh" Amanda pressed an elegant finger against my lips. I fought the urge to suck it. "No more questions, you'll see for yourself soon enough." She withdrew that elegant finger. "OK?" I nodded, my mouth suddenly dry. "Right then, I need to get things ready in here, but first; you need to take this."
She held up her hands, cupped together one beneath the other. Sitting in the centre of her white palm was a glassy black tablet, a little bigger than your average paracetamol and curiously shaped; not oval but rather a hexagonal prism with a blunted point at each end. Standing in the doorway there wasn't enough light for me to be certain, but there looked to be something etched into the surface, tiny letters or pictograms.
"Ah, what
is
that?" As a wise man once told me; if you don't know what it is, you probably shouldn't put it in your mouth.
"It will awaken relict elements of your genome, left over from when you were part of a more . . . versatile species." Her tone was bright, helpful, and gave me no clue as to whether she was joking, totally serious, or planning to shoot me full of bath salts and nail me to the wall. Her perfect pink lips formed an encouraging smile.
Well, I told myself, it's probably just a placebo. Probably. I bowed my head down to her cupped hands and took the strange black tablet into my mouth, glassy and tasteless against my tongue, cold as I swallowed it. As I did so Amanda leant in and kissed me on the forehead. "It will take a little while to take effect; and in the mean time I need to finish getting things ready in here. You take your clothes off and wait." She stepped back and closed the door in front of me.
Alone in the spacious apartment, I began to consider my position. In retrospect it seemed like maybe I shouldn't have just taken a mysterious pill given to me by a woman I didn't really know. But at the time it had seemed, not so much like a good idea, but rather inevitable. Was I hypnotized? Starstruck was more likely, if I was honest. Actors, musicians, artists; there are always a few celebrities floating through the multitude of overlapping occult subcultures, some of them passing through a brief phase and others with a lifelong interest. For a man who liked to think of himself as a scholar and an aesthete, it was chastening to realise how effortlessly Amanda had inserted me into whatever working she had planned, telling me almost nothing, and generally turning me into her little familiar.