The Stepford Florist Read online

  The Stepford Florist

  JT Lawrence

  Contents

  Also by JT Lawrence

  The Stepford Florist

  1. Bootleg Vampire Facelift

  2. Better Than Magic

  3. A Pretty Zombie

  4. Honey Light

  5. Emerald Irises Flare

  6. Gold Kidneys and a Melted Heart

  7. Locker Room Rumour

  8. Pollen&Pistils

  9. Hot Pocket

  10. Tabula Rasa rats

  11. Vagabond

  12. Arctic Mist

  13. Specimen #586

  14. Cherry Slush Lava

  Epilogue

  What’s Next?

  Also by JT Lawrence

  About the Author

  Stay In Touch

  Also by JT Lawrence

  FICTION

  WHEN TOMORROW CALLS

  • SERIES •

  * * *

  1. Why You Were Taken (2015)

  2. How We Found You (May 2017)

  3. What Have We Done (October 2017)

  The Stepford Widow: A Short Story (Oct 2017)

  The Memory of Water (2011)

  * * *

  Sticky Fingers (2016)

  * * *

  Grey Magic (2016)

  NON-FICTION

  The Underachieving Ovary (2016)

  The Stepford Florist

  A short novel set

  in the When Tomorrow Calls world

  Chapter 1

  Bootleg Vampire Facelift

  Jasmine loads up the syringe with her client’s platelet-rich plasma, fresh from the blood-spinning machine. She’s just recently bought the secondhand centrifuge from the darkweb marXet, an absolute treasure trove of grey label bioware. She attaches a needle, holds the syringe up to the light, and flicks it with her violet nails. It isn’t strictly necessary, but she’s seen enough medical dramas on BingeStream to know how to act the part.

  Jasmine pulls on some perfumed rubbersap gloves—clients prefer the vanilla-scented ones, while her tastes run a bit darker—and pumps the chair pedal with her open-laced KoBolt runners. She would have preferred a pair of Neo-Victorian ankle boots to go with the rest of her look: 50s Beehive Babette with a steampunk twist, but performing these vampire facelifts are murder on her feet.

  She turns on her brightest smile and blinks her false lashes at Ms Fontaine. “Ready?”

  * * *

  Her caravan—as modded out as it is—isn’t the ideal set-up for backstreet cosmetic treatments. Jasmine overhauled it with other intentions in mind. Still, she’s not complaining. It’s serving its purpose for now. She paints some local anaesthetic onto Ms Fontaine’s cheeks and forehead, and the woman flinches.

  “Cold,” she says.

  “Yes,” says Jasmine. “It’ll only take a few seconds to work.”

  She picks up her capped scalpel and uses the back of the implement to poke the skin stretching over Ms Fontaine’s cheekbones.

  “Can you feel that?”

  The woman shakes her head. “No.”

  Jasmine inserts the needle into the dermis right below her client’s wide open eye and injects a small amount of the plasma. Before she retracts it, there’s a crashing at the door. Ms Fontaine bolts upright and Jasmine’s needle misses puncturing her eyeball by a hint of millimetre.

  * * *

  “Fuck!” Jasmine shouts, cool exterior shattered by the fright adrenaline. Her heart is a jack rabbit. She whirls around to face the three cops dressed in kevlar vests who have just smashed their way into the cabin. Ms Fontaine shoots up from the chair and puts her hands up.

  “Don’t touch her,” Jasmine says, about to demand a warrant.

  “We’re not here for her,” says the cop with the tranqtaser. His holobadge reads ‘DETECTIVE SOLARIS’, but Jasmine knows that already. His hand, holding the weapon, isn’t shaking, not even a little bit. His bulletproof torso is of superhero chest-to-hip ratio. The other two policetrons look around at the bespoke steampunk interior with confusion and distaste.

  “Don’t touch that,” Jasmine says to the cop about to touch her transparent timber cuckoo clock, but he does, anyway, and the clock sounds ‘cuckoo!’ and a copper bird shoots out and pecks his eye. He exclaims and drops his weapon as his hands fly up to his face. Ms Fontaine wraps her fingers around her throat and screams as if she’s in a Hitchcock film.

  * * *

  Jasmine pulls the injured cop’s hands away from his face to inspect the damage. A small cut on his left eyelid.

  “It’s just a flesh wound.” Jasmine feels no guilt. He should have listened to her.

  “You should have listened to me,” she says.

  Sometimes people don’t pay attention to her. Perhaps it’s because she’s petite and wears fabulous lipstick. Maybe they assume because she’s well made up, that there’s no brain under the beehive. They assume incorrectly.

  “Jesus Christ,” says Detective Solaris, looking at her copper bolted walls and recogged microwave. “You’ve been hard at work. Is this whole place booby-trapped?”

  “Maybe,” says Jasmine. “So my original advice stands.”

  The third cop is tending to the bleeding one. She breathes right into his face as she tenderly wicks away the blood with a pocket-warmed wipe.

  They’re shagging, thinks Jasmine. She watches the way the woman’s brow is furrowed with concern, and the way her backbone arches when she’s in close contact with the man.

  Definitely shagging.

  “What are you doing here?” she asks Solaris.

  Since blunt became legal, he’d stopped visiting her. She kind of misses him; a part of him, anyway. A very specific part of him. She puts her hands are on her hips. “And why did you bring your minions?”

  Solaris clears his throat. “Official police business.”

  “Really,” says Jasmine. It’s not a question.

  “Jasmine Reeves, you’re under arrest,” says the female cop. She flashes the warrant in the air between them, too fast to read.

  “Under arrest? For what?”

  “Do you have to ask?” she says. “We just caught you red-handed.”

  “Illegal cosmetic surgery,” the bleeding cop says with a wounded expression, as if Jasmine has hurt his feelings by breaking the law.

  “This isn’t surgery. This is a plasma injection. What’s a little spun blood between friends?”

  “You’re not licensed to perform these … what do they call them again?”

  The female cop clicks the silver handcuffs off her utility belt. “Bootleg vampire facelifts.”

  The cuffs lock around Jasmine’s tattooed wrists with a hard snap. Hard metal on soft inked skin: botanical prints swirling into clocks and flying inventions. Petals and rivets.

  If she notices the spark plasters on Jasmine’s fingers, she doesn’t say anything.

  “I’m sure I can come up with a license if you give me 24 hours,” says Jasmine, batting her quantum eyelashes.

  “Nice try,” says the female cop. Perhaps she hasn’t yet forgiven Jasmine for almost taking out her lover’s eye.

  “We could trade favours. You can look the other way until I get the cert and I’ll give you a lightning facial.”

  “No thanks.”

  Scowling, she pushes Jasmine outside.

  “What about an iris color pop? A collagen lip plump? You’d be amazed at the difference it can make.”

  * * *

  They step down, out of the caravan and into the chaotic garden, leaving a nonplussed Ms Fontaine behind. The property size is substantial: a Greenside double-stand with no building on it. Jasmine’s caravan is parked in the middle of a thriving, blooming, bedlam garden, with not a weed in sight.
It’s all green leaves and seed pods; Bokashi tea soil; hungry creepers, blushing rose tulips, and giant torch lilies like sticks on fire. Hundreds of species of genetically modified flowers in every stage of bloom. One of Jasmine’s striped cyborbees buzzes past their faces. The scowling cop sneezes. “What is this place, anyway?”

  Jasmine doesn’t answer.

  Chapter 2

  Better Than Magic

  Detective Solaris taps on the bars of Jasmine’s cell with his ID chip card. She stops her rhythmic finger-snapping and looks up at him.

  “Hello, you traitorous bastard.”

  “Hello, you rabble-rousing minx.” Solaris notices the handcuffs lying open on the floor. “Hey. How did you get out of those cuffs?”

  Jasmine, feigning innocence, whistles a tune. One of the reasons she wears her hair in a beehive is because she loves 50s fashion. The other reason is that it can hide a host of tools, especially if they’re steampunk-inspired. Her high-spec steel hairpins can be used as thumbtacks, nails, and in a pinch: weapons, if held between her fingers in a fist. They’re also pretty handy for picking locks.

  * * *

  “Get your stuff. You’re getting out.”

  “I was just getting settled in.”

  She’s been enjoying the last few hours she’s spent in jail. Unplugged and undisturbed, she’d been able to practice with her latest invention. Jasmine clicks her plastered fingers one last time and the spark appears again, like magic. Except it’s better than magic: it’s science.

  “What the—”

  “It’s nothing.” Jasmine hides her hand behind her back and winks at him.

  Solaris shakes his head and holds the card up to the lock. The mechanism springs apart and the door swings open.

  She walks out of the cell. “Charges dropped?”

  “No. Bail paid.”

  * * *

  The detective opens a transparent evidence bag and hands Jasmine her Snakewatch back. She snaps it onto her wrist.

  “What you doing tonight?” Desire flashes in his eyes.

  “Seriously?”

  “Yes, seriously.”

  “You arrested me this morning and now you want a booty call?”

  “Um.”

  “You’re unbelievable.” She’d take serious issue if he weren’t so damn delicious-looking. The reality is she’d be totally up for a booty call from Solaris if she didn’t already have plans for the night. It’ll be good, anyway, to keep him waiting. Keep him wanting.

  He sidles up to her, looks left and right to make sure no one sees him whisper in her ear. “I dream about the things I want to do to you.”

  She hands him off and walks towards the exit. “Tell that to your charge officer.”

  * * *

  Jasmine skips out of the police station and makes her way towards the taxi rank. Solaris could at least have given her a lift home. She bumps Seth, and a little green bunny icon flashes when he responds.

  * * *

  Flowergrrl > Tx 4 rolling my bail. Life saver. IOU.

  * * *

  SD > Hey?

  * * *

  Flowergrrl > Thanks for paying my bail.

  * * *

  SD >> I didn’t pay your bail.

  * * *

  Flowergrrl > ??

  * * *

  SD >> Hang on. U need help?

  * * *

  Flowergrrl > No, all good. Catch u later.

  * * *

  Jasmine stands on the pavement for a minute, thinking, and a metallic navy blue limousine cruises past, then stops just ahead of her. The back door opens. Jasmine starts walking again.

  “Ms Reeves?” says a sophisticated voice from inside.

  She stops, looks inside. A mature woman in a black power suit smiles at her. Everything about her looks elegant. “Ms Reeves, may I have a word?”

  “I don’t think so.” Jasmine keeps walking.

  The limo drives next to her. “You’re not interested in who posted your bail?”

  Jasmine stops again, looks into the dim interior of the car.

  “May we talk? Just for a minute,” the woman says, tapping the seat across from her. “I have a business offer you may be interested in.”

  Chapter 3

  A Pretty Zombie

  “Why would you pay my bail?” Jasmine shifts uncomfortably on the expensive microsuede seat of the limousine. Her beehive almost touches the ceiling, and her rivet and blossom botanical print tattoos feel out of place in the champagne cabin.

  “We’d like you to come and work for us.”

  “Us?”

  “The Quantum group. Specifically, the Tabula Rasa clinic in Sandton.”

  Jasmine’s heard of the Tabula Rasa. Latin for blank slate: as in, you walk in a normal human being and walk out shiny-skinned and brain-bleached. A pretty zombie.

  Jasmine’s snakewatch alerts her to a bump.

  Business card received, it says. Alexis Barnaby CEO Quantum Group.

  “Why me?”

  “We need more therapists, and you need a job.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “We make a point of scanning the profiles of potential employees.”

  “You stalked my data.”

  “You seem like just the type of person we need at Quantum.”

  Jasmine looks into Barnaby’s clear grey eyes.

  Thank the Net Jasmine makes a point of keeping her real details offline. Her online avatar is a total catfish. Only the paranoid survive.

  “Ms Reeves. You’re in debt. You’re a paycheck away from being blacklisted.”

  Jasmine’s watch vibrates again.

  Payment received from Quantum PTY LTD. 50,000 Blox.

  Barnaby smiles. “A week’s wages in advance.”

  “That was presumptuous of you.”

  Barnaby laughs. “Most people would say ‘thank you’.”

  “I’m not ‘most people’.”

  “Oh, I know. That’s why I like you.”

  “Look, I appreciate your interest, but I don’t think I’m right for this position.”

  Barnaby stops smiling. “And where else are you going to get a job?”

  If Jasmine really did need a job, it would be difficult to get one with her inked skin and extensive criminal record. Jesus, she detests living in a nanny state. Loves it and hates it at the same time, because if everyone else obeys the rules, those who don’t are at a distinct advantage.

  “It’s not like you’ll get a job as a SurroSis.”

  The SurroTribe is the last place Jasmine would get a job.

  Without professional surrogates, the country’s birth rate would be through the floor. Single fertile women who volunteer to assist infertile couples are afforded special treatment in almost every facet of their lives: free accommodation, travel, medical treatment. Each SurroSis has her own bodyguard and personal car. Fashion houses dress them, jewellers loan them compressed carbonites, brands virtually trip over themselves to place their products in their hands. They wear white robes and ‘SS’ badges in public so they can be easily identified and shown the proper respect: the opposite of a scarlet letter.

  Solonne, the Matriarx, while outwardly chilled and bohemian looking, has a fierce moral imperative and a titanium spine. The SurroSisters, who live together in a gated community, have to be beyond reproach in every way or they are stripped of their pins. Solonne looks like a new-age hippie but she’s marketing savvy enough to know how important brands are, and she won’t stand for anyone tarnishing hers.

  Nope, no way I’d be getting in there any time soon, thinks Jasmine.

  Barnaby sits forward. “We’re on the other side of the line, you and I. We think boundaries are for … pushing.”

  Jasmine looks into her eyes again. Stainless steel irises return her gaze, then look her up and down. “Besides, I like your style.”

  Jasmine shakes her head. “There are plenty of cosmeticians that are way more qualified than I am.”

  “We’re specifically looki
ng for people who see the current laws for what they are.”

  “And that is?”

  “Mutable.”

  “They law seemed pretty rigid this morning.”

  Barnaby smiles and blinks. “Well. You’re out, aren’t you?”

  Chapter 4

  Honey Light

  Seth is waiting for her on the step of her caravan. It’s quite a picture, him sitting there in a field of flowers, bathed in honey light.

  “Aren’t you a sight for sore eyes,” Jasmine says.

  “Right back at you.” The tone of Seth’s voice makes Jasmine think there might be sex on the cards, and that makes her feel slightly less exhausted. He stands up and moves out of the doorway, allowing her to step up and go inside. She almost trips over her grey cat, a British Shorthair called Chairman Miaow, who is shaking his tail at her for being late.

  “Hello, Miaow,” says Seth. “I have a new collar for you.”

  “You bought my cat a collar? I think our relationship just leveled up.”