A raunchy tale of a one-night stand met with the impending doom of the end of the world. Lyra is faced with the promise of eternity to a man she's just met or the darker promise of joining the rest of humanity as the palace of Hell rises to the eart...
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When I met Zan's parents, the rumours had already filtered through the grapevine. Anyone from an immigrant background had such an effective flow of gossip in their community, and in the Greek community, they were particularly intense. Everyone knew everyone even if they hadn't met you yet. I showed up to that brunch blind to the opinion that stewed and taken shape like a second head I wasn't aware of sticking out from the back of my neck.
Neither of his parents got up from the table, and the minute we sat I realised this was an ambush. They wanted a dated list of everything I did at twenty-two, when I studied in Australia, when I lived in Greece. Who I met, who I lived with, where I worked, who I dated, how many I dated...
Money was an intense question. My parent's income was mentioned as if they'd sent a private investigator on them. My career and schooling were detrimental to my relationship with Zan who didn't even have a degree. Literature and creative arts didn't exactly spruce up an easy path into a high-income career and when I told them I was planning on opening up a local dance school, all the oxygen thinned out till we were all suffocating at their marble dining table.
Zan sat there and said nothing. It wasn't a meeting, it was an interrogation at gunpoint. I knew Zan would never have my back then, and I accepted it because, well, I don't remember why. I think I was just going through the motions, playing with the mechanics as if I could one day control the relationship.
Matisse's father gathered me in a one-armed hug, careful not to spill his drink. 'Let me look at you properly.'
Two women came up behind him, acting like the Hydra by resting their chins on his shoulders. They were beautiful, covered head to toe in rubies, sapphires, and emeralds. Eyes glistening behind sharp winged eyeliner and pearly white teeth grinning under full red lips. I wondered if one of them was his mother.
'This is the infamous Lyra,' one woman said.
'You've heard of me already?' I said. The coldness swept up my numbed back, like a faint ghost touch. Alarm bells were going off, like hearing the sirens ring in the next neighbourhood. I couldn't seem to delve into my discomfort, I was emotionally pushed back to a numbing pleasant attitude.
'Look at her, she's all confused,' the other woman cooed as if I was some adorable little mammal in a zoo.
'I haven't had the pleasure,' I said. Searching for Matisse who'd disappeared somewhere in the crowd. 'Um, who are you?'
The father clapped a hand on my shoulder, I had to catch myself before I smacked flat onto the tiled floor. 'That'll all be revealed in time. You're late enough as it is.'
I was pushed around the dome-shaped room of crimson-clad supermodels who bowed lowly before the father than they had for Matisse. The father moved on quite briskly as each of the women pinned her between them, arms slunk around hers forming a chain link at which she felt the weakest. The music was pop-jazz, smooth but with enough rhythm to pump your hips to and when a particular loud beat hit, everyone rushed to the dancefloor like a tidal wave of blood pouring into a bowl.
