Who: John Clegg and Alice Morgan. What: Meeting at a fancy party. When: Sunday evening, 9/22. Where: The meeting area of a fancy hotel. Rating: PG-13. Status: Complete!
Alice had been fairly diverse in her investments ever since coming back to Los Angeles from Napa. One of those companies was a research firm, and tonight, that firm was holding a dinner. She’d debated pleading a headache, but she was one of the larger minority shareholders, so it might be appropriate, she figured, to show up. She just hoped it didn’t have to be for long.
She was standing in the corner, sipping a dry martini, watching all the punters. It seemed a fairly average crowd - a couple of breast augmentations, tummy tucks, and enough freezer and filler in faces to raise the Titanic. Very dull.
John Clegg had been doing freelance research for the company for years. As such, he had the dubious honor of having to attend their dinners. He sighed as he went to the bar to order a scotch rocks, wearing his least memorable black suit and dark blue tie. He was told the tie matched his eyes and made him look terribly handsome.
And that was all he wanted to be - just terribly handsome, not terribly memorable. He was hoping to just be the geeky entomologist nobody talked to.
Alice did manage to lay eyes on one man who didn’t appear to have had anything done. His very ordinariness drew her eye. She walked over toward the bar, ‘accidentally’ brushing his arm as she got near. “Pardon me. It’s a bit close.”
“No harm done,” John smiled. He hadn’t gotten his drink yet anyway. “I do wish they’d get a bigger room for these events.” He was doing his best ‘oh shucks’ routine, his best ‘I’m not very good with women’.
He seemed awkward, and Alice found it amusing. “The larger the room, the more people would come, so I’m thinking this might actually be better.” She tried to look conspiratorial. “It’s rather boring.”
“You too?” He exhaled a breath that he’d been holding to make himself look more nervous. Laughing, he offered her his hand. “I’m John Clegg, it’s nice to meet you.”
“Alice Morgan.” She shook it lightly, nothing too strong. Men tended to underestimate you when you acted like a fluffy bunny - she wasn’t capable of that, but she was capable of looking very normal. “I didn’t even really want to come, but I felt like I had to.”
“Likewise. They use me for a lot of entomology research, and I felt like it would be ungrateful to not show.” Finally getting his drink, John smiled and tipped the bartender.
“Entomology? Is that bugs?” Alice was fairly sure it was, but just to make sure. “I have some money invested; it’s only right to keep an eye on one’s legacy, I suppose.”
“It is. They like to know how certain drugs live inside the bodies of the deceased, and there’s no better way to do that than to examine bugs afterward.” John chuckled, looking down, acting appropriately embarrassed.
“Really.” That actually did interest Alice; in all her study of criminology and victimology, she’d done very little with the actual postmortem science. “Is forensic entomology your speciality, then?” She gave the word the British pronunciation, as if to accentuate her foreignness from the entire scene.
“One of them.” He shrugged. “I got my doctorate early, so I was able to dabble in a few things.” He curled his fingers contentedly around his glass of scotch, sighing happily. “One thing about these functions, they do have nice booze.”
“Agreed. The gin actually tastes of gin.” Alice laughed as if it was actually funny. “I work for a newspaper, but not covering anything like this. This is a purely private affair for me.”
He chuckled in return, not really amused at all. “Are you related to one of the staff? I don’t know if I love anyone enough to go to one of these things for them.” He screwed up his face in what he had been told was an adorable expression of displeasure.
It was rather charming, but somehow, there was something not quite normal about him. Maybe it was just that he spent most of his time with bugs. “No, I’m afraid I’m one of those rare birds that actually paid attention during the actuarial briefing.” Alice smiled a trifle archly. “My investments are what keep me in cashmere and sapphires.” As opposed to diamonds and furs. She wasn’t interested in such obvious and frivolous wealth.
Blue eyes widened. “My sincerest apologies. I didn’t know you were helping to pay my mortgage.” He bit his lower lip, looking down at his shoes. “Should I put my foot in my mouth now or later?”
Alice laughed. “Oh, no, not at all. I don’t like looking like I have money. It’s gauche.” Also potentially dangerous. “I’m sure I flatter myself, but I don’t like to be just another airbrained woman tottering around Beverly Hills on three-inch stilettos.” She was something more.
“Well, speaking as a man who prefers brains to vapid consumerism, I appreciate it.” John took another sip of his drink. He didn’t need to work, especially since he’d inherited all of his family’s money, but he thought he’d go mad if he stayed home.
“I couldn’t agree more, in truth.” Alice tipped a metaphorical hat to him. “I got my degree from Oxford at seventeen, in astrophysics, but unfortunately, who’s hiring in astrophysics nowadays?”
“Not NASA,” John quipped. He wished his trousers had pockets, but he settled for his hands behind his back. “I didn’t go anywhere so grand, but I was twenty-four when I got my doctorate.” The first one, at least. It was something to be proud of.
“That’s quite impressive.” Alice nodded. “We’re clearly a couple of extraordinary people.” She mostly even meant it.
“I’ll drink to that,” John smiled. He raised his glass to the unusual woman. “To being extraordinary, then.”
Alice sipped her martini. “What manner of research do you do, Mr. Clegg? If it isn’t forensic?”
“Really, just what needs to be done. I do quite a bit of environmental research lately, figuring out what deforestation and certain chemicals do to various insect species. I helped figure out what’s happening to the bees.” It was a crisis, and nobody seemed to notice but him.
“Aren’t they disappearing?” Alice cocked her head to one side. “I confess I’m not as au courant as I could be, but I do seem to recall reading of it. It’s actually quite problematic, isn’t it? Since bees feed on insects, and so on.”
“Oh, it’s beyond that,” John said animatedly. “Bees pollinate our food. Without bees, we’ll die out. Ironically, it’s pesticide use that’s killing them the fastest.” He shook his head.
Like most experts’, his claims were no doubt a bit hyperbolic, Alice figured, but nonetheless. “Pesticides kill the bees, but not the insects? How is that? I would imagine bees to be one of the more intelligent species.”
“They’re intelligent, but even they can’t help that they’re fuzzy. It’s what helps them collect pollen, which is, unfortunately, easily tainted by more of the most popular pesticides in use. It literally eats away their exoskeleton while it’s stuck on them.” John shook his head. “And don’t get me started about how terrible life will be in two thousand years when frogs die out.”
“Oh, I see.” Alice actually hadn’t thought of that, and that interested her more. “What an awful way to die.” Being eaten from the outside? Not something even she would attempt on anyone.
“It’s like you or I being dropped into hydrochloric acid and forced to leave it on forever.” John shook his head and winced. “Monstrous.” He wondered if that was too much rage, or not enough.
“Ugh.” Alice didn’t have to fake the distaste, but it was mostly because it would be a horribly inefficient way to murder a human. She despised inefficiency. “It does rather make one think, every time one sees a food label that boasts it’s “cruelty-free”.”
“Pesticide free is truly the only cruelty free way to go on grown items,” he sighed. “And even then, if you’re a carnivore, that’s nearly impossible.” He shook his head. “It’s just a sad, sad business.”
“Unfortunately, I enjoy the thrill of the hunt far too much to ever become an herbivore.” Alice said, knowing it was ambiguous and wondering what he would make of it.
He snorted a little bit at her euphemism, feeling a cold tingle at the base of his spine. “I understand that,” he murmured. Hopefully she’d think that he meant bugs.
“Do you?” Alice’s smile was pleasant. What on earth did he think she’d meant?
“Of course. When I manage to get a rare beetle or butterfly in my net for research?” He gave a delighted shiver. It wasn’t really what he’d meant, but she didn’t need to know that.
“My former partner, in Napa Valley, fancied himself a hunter.” Alice sighed. “I don’t ever believe that he killed anything, but he felt as though he could uphold the lineage, given his ancestors were Zulu warriors. I always thought it was in poor taste.” Appropriating an ancestor’s warlike heritage was like putting on a stolen mask.
That made John wrinkle his nose. “I don’t think I could kill animals.” Well. Not anymore.
“Well. His ancestors killed people.” Alice laughed.
“That doesn’t mean much. The ancestor of every domestic dog is the wolf, but I’ve known a great number of very pacifist dogs.” John took another sip of his scotch.
“Oh, I’d have to disagree, Mr. Clegg.” Alice shook her head. “Every dog has the instinct to kill. They just have to be pushed to it.”
“Not all.” He shook his head. “Genetically speaking, some dogs - and people for that matter - just don’t have much of a hunter instinct. Someone has to gather.”
“That’s what other species are for.” Alice smiled. She felt like toying with this man for some reason. “Are you a gatherer, then?”
“Of course.” He was a collector, after all. He’d only been violent the few times. “It’s less necessary to be a hunter now.”
“Less necessary, but some of us enjoy it, that’s all.” Alice smiled. There was something about him that wasn’t ... right. Somehow. Some way.
“Some of us. I’m guessing you’re counting yourself in there?” He chuckled a little, looking uncomfortable.
“I like to hunt in all forms, Mr. Clegg.” Let that be ambiguous. “Whether it’s a deal, a position, a man - though I am not coming on to you - I tend to get what I want, but not by silly female hysterics. It’s much more empowering to do it my way.”
“You’re a bit terrifying,” he murmured, giggling nervously. He’d been told that was cute too, and it wouldn’t let her know that he thought she was magnificent. She didn’t need that bit of information; it would give her too much power.
“Are you afraid of empowered women, then?” She laughed. If he truly was, he’d have made some polite excuse and fled in terror before then.
“Not at all, I’ve just not met one quite so overt. Most of them would rather use some sort of camouflage.” He hinted at subtlety because that was all he used.
“My whole life is camouflage.” Alice wasn’t scared; she hadn’t actually said anything he could use in a court of law.
“So you’re like a zaretis itys,” John smiled. “Rare Peruvian butterfly whose wings, when held together, make it look like a dead leaf.”
“An apt metaphor, perhaps.” Alice smiled. “At the risk of sounding petulant, sometimes I do rather appreciate being able to cast off the mask. Don’t you?”
“Masks are necessary,” John murmured. “But I don’t think you’re talking about insects and how they disguise themselves, are you?”
“No.” Alice would leave it at that. She was amused by just how subtle he was, but there was that glaring off note in an otherwise perfect portrayal. “I daresay I shouldn’t monopolize your time, though.”
He nodded, smiling and reaching out to take her hand. “We should speak later on, Miss Alice. I’d very much like to keep in touch.” Kissing her hand, he smiled up at her, his light blue eyes ice cold.
“I’m easy to find, Mr. Clegg.” Alice smiled, melting back into the crowd.