Disclaimer: None of the characters belong to me. They are all property of
the Wachowski brothers and Warner Bros.
I know I'm slow at updating, but I just went on a trip to LA for 5 days, and I'm exhausted. Believe it or not, I'm actually typing this in an airplane lounge after getting the inspiration to write a lot more about Neo and pals after watching the Imax version today. And boy, does Neo look good 6 stories high.
BTW, Cattie, Neo is 35 actually. It says so in his Enter the Matrix profile. Keanu Reeves is 38. Thanks for the heads up anyway. And sex simulations are explained in the original Matrix script, but was later cut out due to goodness knows why. (Source: The Art of the Matrix).
Chapter 4:
Rated PG-13.
When Persephone re-entered the room, a decanter of chilled Bordeaux red in one hand and a couple of wine glasses in the other, she was stopped short by the sight of Neo sitting at the table. He was sucking at pomegranate seeds with such a melancholic expression on his face that she wanted to hold him.
Did he have any inkling of what she had in mind? Or did his subconscious program him to enact that mythological reference?
Even she herself was not fully convinced she was going to go through with it. She wanted to see (and feel, touch, taste) what he was like first. So far, she was liking him more than she thought she would. Most men fell prey to her raw seductive power almost instantaneously, it never mattered whether they were married or attached or single. Her almost animalistic pheromones overwhelmed them before they could even be smitten by her physical beauty.
But not him. Perhaps he was impervious to her chemical charms. She suspected nevertheless that the problem was psychological. He was still thinking about Trinity. He would probably view this as an act of betrayal, no matter how much he had tried to psych himself into thinking it was not real.
She felt a pang. Men like him were a rarity in her world. He was a gem to be treasured, too good for the likes of her. Though that unbidden, fleeting thought had crossed her mind....the temptation to begin it was too deliciously sinister...
No, she told herself. Wait.
She did have the power. In her hands were all the tools of the trade, the choice was all hers to use them.
She walked carefully to the table, setting the decanter and glasses down. He looked up.
'Shall I pour you some wine?' She asked him, amused to see him do a double take. She had changed into a flowing, almost translucent Grecian mauve dress that accentuated her full womanly curves. She knew she was a stark contrast to what he was used to. While Trinity was sharp and angular like a prosaic Picasso painting, she was fleshy and voluptuous, like a depiction of Mother Earth in all her ripe woman-ess.
'Yes, thank you,' he replied, not meeting her eyes.
He was flustered, she could tell. She had always been piqued by shy men, and he was as passive as none she had ever met before. It was a strange trait to belong to one such as The One, but they were living in strange times and this particular version of the Matrix was the strangest, most portentous one she had been in yet.
He downed the glass of wine she had poured him in one swallow. When she amusedly poured him another, he emptied it as well.
He was trying to get himself drunk. She almost felt sorry for him. Trinity was a lucky, lucky woman.
When he reached for his sixth glass, she put her hand on his. 'I think you've had enough.'
He agreed. 'It's not you, you know,' he said apologetically. 'It's just the circumstances.'
'Of course.' She took his hand in hers, gazing into his eyes. His hand was warm, very alive, and she was reminded again of how real digitized code could be. Leaning over, she pressed her lips against his in a chaste close-mouthed kiss. He seemed to savor it. Then, abruptly making his mind about something, he responded; kissing her back slowly, still close- mouthed..but with a rapidly building hunger.
She liked the way his lips felt against hers. They were soft, moist and succulent, and they tasted of the wine he had just drunk. He would be so easy to love, really. The way he was so easy to look at; with his soft, fawn-like eyes that wore a perpetually bruised, questioning expression; his marvelously sculptured features and his unusual spectacular beauty that was a Shakespearean prose come to life.
You have to take the lead in this, she told herself, because he won't.
Gently parting his lips with her tongue, she probed tentatively, sizing his response. He did not resist, and allowed her to continue this exploration, his arm creeping around her body to steady himself. She felt his lips pull against hers in a gentle sucking intensity, and a plethora of his emotions assailed her - this was her specialty, the vampiric assimilation of another's emotions, but the deluge had never ceased to stagger her when they came. She felt his confusion at the newness of his world; the purity of his love for Trinity; the calm resignation he felt towards his fate as a messiah (she knew now too he was ready to die if he had to for this world); the physical attraction he felt towards her that he was trying unconvincingly to deny.
At least he was attracted to her. He wasn't all lost into that woman. Not yet.
She pulled apart before she could drown into him.
'Come with me,' she said huskily, leading him into the bedroom.
He hesitated for just one moment before he obliged.
*
If he wanted to be honest with himself, Neo had to admit he was slightly tipsy. That was good, it was the way he wanted to be. Okay, maybe more than just slightly tipsy. The dire thing was - he had to admit again - he was horribly attracted to Persephone. Why shouldn't any man be? She had the face of a goddess and the body of a Maxim centerfold.
Now if only Trinity's face didn't keep intruding itself into his mind.
Breathe, he thought. This is not real. It was no different from all those sex simulation programs the guys were passing around in the ships, to while away those days being away from Zion and their families. Everyone had them, it was a tolerated thing in the navy. Kept sex scandals among teammates to a minimum. The choices were as inventive as there were multiple - from old Matrix-world entertainers, both women and men, to fantastical original creations. The scenarios were only limited by their designers' imaginations. There were rumors there was even one involving him circulating the black market - it was illegal to make a simulation about an existing human being unless he or she permitted it. There was an outcry from the temple for a while about sacrilege.
He had tried going into one such simulation before, just for the heck of it. But exited as quickly as he had entered. He had known only simulation sex for most of his life, he had no desire to experience it again, unless it was with Trinity.
The bedroom was again very feminine, all white silk and embroidered lace, but it was comfortable enough, with heavily patterned palmettes and draperies lining the windows, shielding out all the light. There were several lamps placed strategically around the room, designed to give off as pleasing a glow as possible. He felt weird in this white pleasure palace, dressed completely in black, standing out like a dark shadow amidst all that gleaming white. A harbinger raven of doom.
How would he even start? This was something he was so not good in.
'I think I need more wine,' he announced.
'No you don't,' Persephone said gently, taking his face into her hands and kissing him again. 'Just do what comes naturally.'
He felt himself responding to the kiss again, closing his eyes and tasting a vision that was part Persephone/Trinity. The wine was making him light-headed, and the room was spinning a little. Or maybe it was her perfume. Whatever it was, he found himself hardening as she kissed him voraciously on the mouth, over and over again, as though she was trying to absorb him. Her hands were tugging at his shirt, and he helped her ease it off.
'So firm,' she said, stroking his abdominal muscles. 'And so lean. Such young flesh. Are you like this in real life?'
'No.' He was beginning to feel more at ease. 'In real life, I have buttons all over me and I'm skinny. You wouldn't find me very attractive at all.'
'Somehow I doubt that. And what about you, Neo? Do you find me attractive?'
He wasn't going to lie. 'I think you're one of the most beautiful women I've ever seen.' And really, she was. Even if she belonged to the other side, nothing would ever change that.
'Would that be enough for you?' He detected just the slightest tinge of sadness in her voice. 'Or would you want me to put out the lights so you can pretend I'm someone else?'
Deep down inside, he thought, she was just a little girl. Wronged by so many men in her life; sitting in front of a total stranger, begging to be loved. Something about that touched his heart deeply, and he felt a pang.
'No, that's enough for me,' he replied, kissing her again and pushing her down against the bed.
*
He tasted like a slice of heaven, just like she knew he would. She was glad he didn't insist on turning off the lights. She wanted to look into his eyes while they were making love. He had such beautiful eyes - exotically shaped and luminously sad - she wanted to see herself mirrored in them while he was inside her.
Through his deep, searching kisses; the tactile sense of his skin brushing against hers; the rhythmic thrusts of his body inside her, filling her deeply and completely, she could soak up his very essence like a sponge. She had yet to meet a spirit such as his - his incredible nobility, his piety, his judgement in the face of right from wrong. He was not an innocent, as he had suggested. He was a modern-day warrior messiah with the blood of many crusades on his hands. A Lancelot or a Tristan rather than a Galahad or a Jesus Christ. And indeed, there was something very chilvaric and Arthurian about him, almost as though he belonged in another knightly, less barbaric era.
It was a stretch to ask him to make her believe she was Trinity. He could not do that. But he gave her something even better. He was truly making love to her, without any pretense that she was someone else. That, in her book, was the greatest gift he could have given her.
Through him, she could feel his overpowering love for Trinity - that deep, undying emotion that was something approaching rapture. Such a love, so blinding in its intensity and so rich in its depth, could only spell doom for its partakers. If either of them were to lose the other, the one remaining would surely wilt away, unable to sustain any enjoyment in life thereafter; for reality henceforth would be only poor consolation.
She knew also that she was desirable to him. He found her beautiful and earthy, as lush as she was feminine. She could read the word he had framed in his mind to describe her: Goddess. She was a goddess incarnate to him, a true testament to her namesake. His deification of her allowed him to separate her from what he felt for Trinity, who represented reality to him.
But oh, she could fall in love with him so easily. Already, she could feel the tendrils of that beginning to form.
I'm sorry, Neo, she thought as he climaxed inside her. But I don't really want this to be over. I must do what I must. Please forgive me.
'Sorry,' he apologized as soon as he caught his breath. 'It's the best I can do.'
'No. It was wonderful. You don't have to be sorry.'
He rolled away and lay beside her, looking at the ceiling, his body covered in a sheen of sweat. 'I know this doesn't sound very decent immediately right after..you know...but I really should be getting back.'
'This is a timeless construct. You can spend the night here. It would make no difference.' She squeezed his hand. 'Please do. It would mean a lot to me.'
'Are you doing this to get back at your husband?'
'Perhaps,' she said truthfully. 'But mostly because I like being with you.'
His face lit up with a genuine smile. 'You know, Persephone, in this life I'm already taken. But in another life maybe...if we'd met under different circumstances.'
He was hovering too close to the truth, so she said no more and let him drift off to sleep, still holding his hand. For a while, she watched him, admiring the way the shadows played in the contours of his features. When she was sure he was deep in sleep, she arose from the bed and crept out of the bedroom, her feet padding silently onto the plush carpeting.
She entered another room attached to the boudoir, one that was guarded by lock and key. A shiny mechanical room filled with computers and their paraphernalia, and rows and rows of data storage chips that were kept in metal cabinets. Opening a drawer, she selected one known only to her, and cradled the tiny object to her bosom. So tiny, and so life changing.
Neo, she thought, I'm sorry. But I'm about to betray your trust.
TBC
P/s: Just to let everyone know, I'm perfectly capable of descending into R or NC-17, but I just couldn't do it to Neo for some reason. Arghhhh. Oh well, please R & R if you'd like to know what Persy has in store.
I know I'm slow at updating, but I just went on a trip to LA for 5 days, and I'm exhausted. Believe it or not, I'm actually typing this in an airplane lounge after getting the inspiration to write a lot more about Neo and pals after watching the Imax version today. And boy, does Neo look good 6 stories high.
BTW, Cattie, Neo is 35 actually. It says so in his Enter the Matrix profile. Keanu Reeves is 38. Thanks for the heads up anyway. And sex simulations are explained in the original Matrix script, but was later cut out due to goodness knows why. (Source: The Art of the Matrix).
Chapter 4:
Rated PG-13.
When Persephone re-entered the room, a decanter of chilled Bordeaux red in one hand and a couple of wine glasses in the other, she was stopped short by the sight of Neo sitting at the table. He was sucking at pomegranate seeds with such a melancholic expression on his face that she wanted to hold him.
Did he have any inkling of what she had in mind? Or did his subconscious program him to enact that mythological reference?
Even she herself was not fully convinced she was going to go through with it. She wanted to see (and feel, touch, taste) what he was like first. So far, she was liking him more than she thought she would. Most men fell prey to her raw seductive power almost instantaneously, it never mattered whether they were married or attached or single. Her almost animalistic pheromones overwhelmed them before they could even be smitten by her physical beauty.
But not him. Perhaps he was impervious to her chemical charms. She suspected nevertheless that the problem was psychological. He was still thinking about Trinity. He would probably view this as an act of betrayal, no matter how much he had tried to psych himself into thinking it was not real.
She felt a pang. Men like him were a rarity in her world. He was a gem to be treasured, too good for the likes of her. Though that unbidden, fleeting thought had crossed her mind....the temptation to begin it was too deliciously sinister...
No, she told herself. Wait.
She did have the power. In her hands were all the tools of the trade, the choice was all hers to use them.
She walked carefully to the table, setting the decanter and glasses down. He looked up.
'Shall I pour you some wine?' She asked him, amused to see him do a double take. She had changed into a flowing, almost translucent Grecian mauve dress that accentuated her full womanly curves. She knew she was a stark contrast to what he was used to. While Trinity was sharp and angular like a prosaic Picasso painting, she was fleshy and voluptuous, like a depiction of Mother Earth in all her ripe woman-ess.
'Yes, thank you,' he replied, not meeting her eyes.
He was flustered, she could tell. She had always been piqued by shy men, and he was as passive as none she had ever met before. It was a strange trait to belong to one such as The One, but they were living in strange times and this particular version of the Matrix was the strangest, most portentous one she had been in yet.
He downed the glass of wine she had poured him in one swallow. When she amusedly poured him another, he emptied it as well.
He was trying to get himself drunk. She almost felt sorry for him. Trinity was a lucky, lucky woman.
When he reached for his sixth glass, she put her hand on his. 'I think you've had enough.'
He agreed. 'It's not you, you know,' he said apologetically. 'It's just the circumstances.'
'Of course.' She took his hand in hers, gazing into his eyes. His hand was warm, very alive, and she was reminded again of how real digitized code could be. Leaning over, she pressed her lips against his in a chaste close-mouthed kiss. He seemed to savor it. Then, abruptly making his mind about something, he responded; kissing her back slowly, still close- mouthed..but with a rapidly building hunger.
She liked the way his lips felt against hers. They were soft, moist and succulent, and they tasted of the wine he had just drunk. He would be so easy to love, really. The way he was so easy to look at; with his soft, fawn-like eyes that wore a perpetually bruised, questioning expression; his marvelously sculptured features and his unusual spectacular beauty that was a Shakespearean prose come to life.
You have to take the lead in this, she told herself, because he won't.
Gently parting his lips with her tongue, she probed tentatively, sizing his response. He did not resist, and allowed her to continue this exploration, his arm creeping around her body to steady himself. She felt his lips pull against hers in a gentle sucking intensity, and a plethora of his emotions assailed her - this was her specialty, the vampiric assimilation of another's emotions, but the deluge had never ceased to stagger her when they came. She felt his confusion at the newness of his world; the purity of his love for Trinity; the calm resignation he felt towards his fate as a messiah (she knew now too he was ready to die if he had to for this world); the physical attraction he felt towards her that he was trying unconvincingly to deny.
At least he was attracted to her. He wasn't all lost into that woman. Not yet.
She pulled apart before she could drown into him.
'Come with me,' she said huskily, leading him into the bedroom.
He hesitated for just one moment before he obliged.
*
If he wanted to be honest with himself, Neo had to admit he was slightly tipsy. That was good, it was the way he wanted to be. Okay, maybe more than just slightly tipsy. The dire thing was - he had to admit again - he was horribly attracted to Persephone. Why shouldn't any man be? She had the face of a goddess and the body of a Maxim centerfold.
Now if only Trinity's face didn't keep intruding itself into his mind.
Breathe, he thought. This is not real. It was no different from all those sex simulation programs the guys were passing around in the ships, to while away those days being away from Zion and their families. Everyone had them, it was a tolerated thing in the navy. Kept sex scandals among teammates to a minimum. The choices were as inventive as there were multiple - from old Matrix-world entertainers, both women and men, to fantastical original creations. The scenarios were only limited by their designers' imaginations. There were rumors there was even one involving him circulating the black market - it was illegal to make a simulation about an existing human being unless he or she permitted it. There was an outcry from the temple for a while about sacrilege.
He had tried going into one such simulation before, just for the heck of it. But exited as quickly as he had entered. He had known only simulation sex for most of his life, he had no desire to experience it again, unless it was with Trinity.
The bedroom was again very feminine, all white silk and embroidered lace, but it was comfortable enough, with heavily patterned palmettes and draperies lining the windows, shielding out all the light. There were several lamps placed strategically around the room, designed to give off as pleasing a glow as possible. He felt weird in this white pleasure palace, dressed completely in black, standing out like a dark shadow amidst all that gleaming white. A harbinger raven of doom.
How would he even start? This was something he was so not good in.
'I think I need more wine,' he announced.
'No you don't,' Persephone said gently, taking his face into her hands and kissing him again. 'Just do what comes naturally.'
He felt himself responding to the kiss again, closing his eyes and tasting a vision that was part Persephone/Trinity. The wine was making him light-headed, and the room was spinning a little. Or maybe it was her perfume. Whatever it was, he found himself hardening as she kissed him voraciously on the mouth, over and over again, as though she was trying to absorb him. Her hands were tugging at his shirt, and he helped her ease it off.
'So firm,' she said, stroking his abdominal muscles. 'And so lean. Such young flesh. Are you like this in real life?'
'No.' He was beginning to feel more at ease. 'In real life, I have buttons all over me and I'm skinny. You wouldn't find me very attractive at all.'
'Somehow I doubt that. And what about you, Neo? Do you find me attractive?'
He wasn't going to lie. 'I think you're one of the most beautiful women I've ever seen.' And really, she was. Even if she belonged to the other side, nothing would ever change that.
'Would that be enough for you?' He detected just the slightest tinge of sadness in her voice. 'Or would you want me to put out the lights so you can pretend I'm someone else?'
Deep down inside, he thought, she was just a little girl. Wronged by so many men in her life; sitting in front of a total stranger, begging to be loved. Something about that touched his heart deeply, and he felt a pang.
'No, that's enough for me,' he replied, kissing her again and pushing her down against the bed.
*
He tasted like a slice of heaven, just like she knew he would. She was glad he didn't insist on turning off the lights. She wanted to look into his eyes while they were making love. He had such beautiful eyes - exotically shaped and luminously sad - she wanted to see herself mirrored in them while he was inside her.
Through his deep, searching kisses; the tactile sense of his skin brushing against hers; the rhythmic thrusts of his body inside her, filling her deeply and completely, she could soak up his very essence like a sponge. She had yet to meet a spirit such as his - his incredible nobility, his piety, his judgement in the face of right from wrong. He was not an innocent, as he had suggested. He was a modern-day warrior messiah with the blood of many crusades on his hands. A Lancelot or a Tristan rather than a Galahad or a Jesus Christ. And indeed, there was something very chilvaric and Arthurian about him, almost as though he belonged in another knightly, less barbaric era.
It was a stretch to ask him to make her believe she was Trinity. He could not do that. But he gave her something even better. He was truly making love to her, without any pretense that she was someone else. That, in her book, was the greatest gift he could have given her.
Through him, she could feel his overpowering love for Trinity - that deep, undying emotion that was something approaching rapture. Such a love, so blinding in its intensity and so rich in its depth, could only spell doom for its partakers. If either of them were to lose the other, the one remaining would surely wilt away, unable to sustain any enjoyment in life thereafter; for reality henceforth would be only poor consolation.
She knew also that she was desirable to him. He found her beautiful and earthy, as lush as she was feminine. She could read the word he had framed in his mind to describe her: Goddess. She was a goddess incarnate to him, a true testament to her namesake. His deification of her allowed him to separate her from what he felt for Trinity, who represented reality to him.
But oh, she could fall in love with him so easily. Already, she could feel the tendrils of that beginning to form.
I'm sorry, Neo, she thought as he climaxed inside her. But I don't really want this to be over. I must do what I must. Please forgive me.
'Sorry,' he apologized as soon as he caught his breath. 'It's the best I can do.'
'No. It was wonderful. You don't have to be sorry.'
He rolled away and lay beside her, looking at the ceiling, his body covered in a sheen of sweat. 'I know this doesn't sound very decent immediately right after..you know...but I really should be getting back.'
'This is a timeless construct. You can spend the night here. It would make no difference.' She squeezed his hand. 'Please do. It would mean a lot to me.'
'Are you doing this to get back at your husband?'
'Perhaps,' she said truthfully. 'But mostly because I like being with you.'
His face lit up with a genuine smile. 'You know, Persephone, in this life I'm already taken. But in another life maybe...if we'd met under different circumstances.'
He was hovering too close to the truth, so she said no more and let him drift off to sleep, still holding his hand. For a while, she watched him, admiring the way the shadows played in the contours of his features. When she was sure he was deep in sleep, she arose from the bed and crept out of the bedroom, her feet padding silently onto the plush carpeting.
She entered another room attached to the boudoir, one that was guarded by lock and key. A shiny mechanical room filled with computers and their paraphernalia, and rows and rows of data storage chips that were kept in metal cabinets. Opening a drawer, she selected one known only to her, and cradled the tiny object to her bosom. So tiny, and so life changing.
Neo, she thought, I'm sorry. But I'm about to betray your trust.
TBC
P/s: Just to let everyone know, I'm perfectly capable of descending into R or NC-17, but I just couldn't do it to Neo for some reason. Arghhhh. Oh well, please R & R if you'd like to know what Persy has in store.
