Free Always by Nicola Griffith

An e-mail from Laurence, my banker, with estimates of the worth of my property should I choose to sell. Let me emphasize once again, though, the importance of local expertise. I’ll send you a list of eminent local real estate agents tomorrow. I sent him a quick acknowledgment, then opened a search box.
    Rockfish turned out to be a kind of bass, not mullet at all. Rusen, it seemed, had graduated from UCLA film school just a few months ago. Before that he had been some kind of software wunderkind. His small company had been bought out by a local behemoth. He was probably bankrolling his own production.
    My eyes felt dry and gritty. I closed the laptop.
    I emptied my pockets onto the dresser, pondered the Film Food card. Victoria K. Kuiper. Sounded Dutch. But no one calls me that.
    Someone had turned the covers back. I found the teddy bear and dropped it on the floor. Found the remote for the fire and turned it off.
    Vicky? Definitely not. Vic wasn’t right, either, nor Tory. Those muscles on her arms. Kory? Kuiper? Per? Stupid woman, waving that knife around. Film Food. Very Norwegian. My mother . . .

LESSON 2
    THE HEATING DUCT HISSED AND FILLED THE BASEMENT WITH THE SMELL OF burnt dust but not much warmth. I made a mental note to talk to the Crystal Gaze advisory board about that. At some point in the last week someone had left a whiteboard balanced on the stacked chairs by the bench, and a grey pegboard against the far wall. Suze was there on time. They all were, which surprised me. I’d expected two or three dropouts. Today no rings glinted, no earrings dangled, no chains apart from the crucifix around Pauletta’s neck. But there were two pairs of wicked heels under the bench. Everyone wore pants and a tank top or a short-sleeved T-shirt, except Sandra. It wouldn’t surprise me to find she had a lot of long-sleeved shirts in her wardrobe. Kim’s fingernails were maroon today, and still long.
    “Did everyone do their lists?” General nodding, a few movements towards bags or coats. “No. I don’t want to see them. I want you to remember, during this class, what you wrote down.”
    Suze stirred slightly. I gestured for her to speak.
    “You ever write one of those lists?”
    “No.”
    “So how do you know what you’re willing to do, when it comes right down to it?”
    I could point to the bullet scar on my arm and the thin white seam under my ribs, I could tell her about the man I had put in a coma at the end of last year, or the gunman I had killed with a flashlight when I was eighteen. But she wasn’t really asking about me. “We can never know. Not really. Every situation is different.”
    She frowned.
    They know nothing, I reminded myself. “Are you willing to be a guinea pig?” I said.
    “Sure,” said Suze.
    I stepped to the center of the room, beckoned for her to join me, and the instant she began to move I lunged at her, fist raised. She flinched and stepped back and turned away, hands going up to protect her head. Most of the others—but not Sandra—shot backwards like iron filings suddenly attracted to the wall. After a moment Suze looked up to find me standing two feet away, arms at my sides.
    She started to uncurl. “What the fuck was—”
    I lunged again, and again she flinched and stepped back, but this time she didn’t turn aside, her eyes stayed on me, and her hands went only halfway up. Everyone else was pressed flat against the wall.
    “One more time,” I said, and lunged, and once again she flinched, but her step back was small, her hands were in fists, and her chin pointed up. Therese looked as though she was about to protest.
    I raised both palms and stepped back two paces. "Thank you. I won’t do it again—to you or anyone else—without warning.” It took Suze a moment to decide to believe me, then she lowered her fists, but not her chin, and rejoined the others who were stepping cautiously away from the wall.
    “So,” I said, “what did we learn from that?”
    “Never