Free Saffron and Brimstone: Strange Stories by Elizabeth Hand Page A

London.”
    “It’s a dance club!” Jane retorted. She laughed, rolled the newspaper into a tube, and batted him gently on the shoulder. “Don’t worry. I’ll be careful.”
    David continued to stare at her, hazel eyes glittering. “Who says it’s you I’m worried about?”
    She smiled, her mouth tight as she turned and began cleaning bottles in the sink.
    It was a raw day, more late November than mid-May. Only two school groups were scheduled; otherwise the usual stream of visitors was reduced to a handful of elderly women who shook their heads over the cockroaches and gave barely a glance to the butterflies before s huffling on to another building. David Bierce paced restlessly through the lab on his way to clean the cages and make more complaints to the Operations Division. Jane cleaned and mounted two stag beetles, their spiny legs pricking her fingertips as she tried to force the pins through their glossy chestnut-colored shells. Afterwards she busied herself with straightening the clutter of cabinets and drawers stuffed with requisition forms and microscopes, computer parts and dis section kits.
    It was well past two when David reappeared, his anorak slick with rain, his hair tucked beneath the hood. “Come on,” he announced, standing impatiently by the open door . “Let’s go to lunch.”
    Jane looked up from the computer where she’d been updating a specimen list . “I’m really not very hungry,” she said, giving him an apologetic smile . “You go ahead.”
    “Oh, for Christ’s sake.” David let the door slam shut as he crossed to her, his sneakers leaving wet smears on the tiled floor. “That can wait till tomorrow. Come on, there’s not a fucking thing here that needs doing.”
    “But—” She gazed up at him. The hood slid from his head; his gray-streaked hair hung loose to his shoulders, and the sheen of rain on his sharp cheekbones made him look carved from oiled wood. “What if somebody comes?”
    “A very nice docent named Mrs. Eleanor Feltwell is out there, even as we speak , in the unlikely event that we have a single visitor.”
    He stooped so that his head was beside hers, scowling as he stared at the computer screen. A lock of his hair fell to brush against her neck. Beneath the wig her scalp burned, as though stung by tiny ants; she breathed in the warm acrid smell of his sweat and something else, a sharper scent, like crushed oak-mast or fresh-sawn wood. Above her brows the antennae suddenly quivered. Sweetness coated her tongue like burnt syrup. With a rush of panic she turned her head so he wouldn’t see her face.
    “I—I should finish this—”
    “Oh, just fuck it, Jane! It’s not like we’re paying you. Come on, now, there’s a good girl—”
    He took her hand and pulled her to her feet, Jane still looking away. The bangs of her cheap wig scraped her forehead and she batted at them feebly. “Get your things. What, don’t you ever take days off in the States?”
    “All right, all right.” She turned and gathered her black vinyl raincoat and knapsack, pulled on the coat and waited for him by the door . “Jeez, you must be hungry,” she said crossly.
    “No. Just fucking bored out of my skull. Have you been to Ruby in the Dust? No? I’ll take you then, let’s go—”
    The restaurant was down the High Street, a small, cheerfully claptrap place, dim in the gray afternoon, its small wooden tables scattered with abandoned newspapers and overflowing ashtrays. David Bierce ordered a steak and a pint. Jane had a small salad, nasturtium blossoms strewn across pale green lettuce, and a glass of red wine. She lacked an appetite lately, living on vitamin-enhanced, fruity bottled drinks from the health food store and baklava from a Greek bakery near the tube station.
    “So.” David Bierce stabbed a piece of steak, peering at her sideways. “Don’t tell me you really haven’t been here before.”
    “I haven’t!” Despite her unease at being with him, she laughed,