Dinner, Sex and a Movie(16)
Jake:
And gagged.
Emma:
Especially right about now. But you are shit out of luck. Does she have black hair?
Jake:
Brown. But I’m already giving you too much.
Emma:
Withhold at your own peril. Did you want her?
Jake:
I always will.
Emma sits up abruptly and looks Jake in the eye.
Emma:
And just like that, we have our showstopper.
Jake:
No, that’s just called honesty.
Emma:
You should have lied on that one.
Jake:
I know how to lie to women. I’ve done it a lot. I thought you’d want straight answers.
Emma:
You had better give me straight answers. We’re only guaranteed a few more hours, my little rock star.
Jake (looking her in the eye):
People can be in love with more than one person. That doesn’t mean there isn’t one more special than the others, and that they can’t end up with the one they should be with.
Emma:
I couldn’t be with a guy who loved someone else. It’s got to be only me.
Jake:
That only exists in dysfunctional, counter-productive fairy tales. Real life is far more complex.
Emma (looking away):
I’ll wait for the fairy tale, thanks.
Jake:
That could be a long wait. There’s a Beatles song you need to listen to in the meantime.
Emma:
I know it. It’s rubbish. Male rationalization for infidelity. How did you meet her?
Emma gets up and moves about the room freely as she interrogates Jake, routinely pausing to cuddle and play with him as she does.
Jake:
I was drinking in a pub in Kendall Square.
Emma:
Good old Cambridge. Knowing you, she was the barmaid.
Jake:
No, this is a few months before her. I had to meet the society first.
Emma:
“Hell.”
Jake:
Yes.
Emma (concerned):
This is kind of the big black spot on your resume, you know that?
Jake:
Better than anyone else.
Emma:
Proceed.
Jake:
They were mostly Harvard and MIT rejects. They had dedicated themselves to developing a science of human relationships.
Emma:
Only an idiot would claim human relationships were a science.
Jake:
I did say rejects, didn’t I? Jerry was denied admission to both of them, Adam washed out of Harvard his first year.
Emma (sparring):
You failed out of Cornell. Although how anyone can do that is beyond me.
Jake (returning fire, playful):
You can stick your Penn diploma, darling.
Emma:
My fault. Please continue.
Jake:
Jerry and Adam were at a table arguing about the design of a behavioral study they intended to run – in public, without any consent. They wanted to identify ten couples with flawed relationships. Then they would break up the relationships in some strategic manner, after which they would re-assign the heartbroken, unknowing study subjects to other, more compatible lovers.
Emma:
That’s ridiculous. And pathetic.
Jake:
That’s what I said. Only I said it directly to them.
Emma (tapping Jake with one finger as she speaks):
And they found a very pretty and useful weapon.
Jake:
No. They did ask me to take part, but I said no. Partly because I didn’t believe them at first. Then they invited me to observe the study that was already underway.
Emma:
They’d already done this?
Jake:
And it was working. 5 couples dissolved, 7 out of 10 jilted lovers successfully re-assigned for 6 months or longer.
Emma:
How do things like that even come about?
Jake:
Jerry and Adam had both been lurking on the perimeter of society for years. Watching how people worked. They had it mostly figured it out – but became permanent voyeurs in the process. The irony was, neither one was ever able to find a partner himself.
Emma:
Where did the name come from?
Jake:
It was just a superficial observation – dating is hell. Relationships are hell. So they called themselves “Hell.” Jerry, Adam, a girl I never met, and a bunch of mercenaries they sucked in like myself. Half of the people they used to wreck the existing relationships didn’t even know the society existed, or that they were being controlled.
Emma:
But you did. Why didn’t you just walk away?
Jake:
From knowing how to control relationships? It was straight heroin. Could you?
Emma:
Probably not. But it’s evil. And it’s still too much to believe.
Jake:
It doesn’t matter if you believe it. What happened, happened.
Emma:
If that’s true then, I should be scared to death of you.
Jake (looking her in the eyes):
Don’t you dare. You know me better.
Emma:
I don’t know any such thing. Just keep talking.
Jake:
They had Boston and Cambridge pretty well under control. They wanted to move south, to Connecticut and eventually New York and Philly. But I was available immediately. Thirty minutes in the wrong direction, a straight shot up 93. Easy to keep tabs on.