Artefacts

It was well after midnight when Jess slipped out one of the British Museum's side doors and made her way to the car park on Bloomsbury Way. Double-decker night buses cruised by like red whales. The staccato of her high-heeled walk, echoing in the surreal London silence, made her self-conscious. As she entered the multi-story car park, she held her briefcase tighter to her chest.

She stopped at the ticket machine and fished a tenner from her suit pocket. Cursing herself for paying the exorbitant parking rates was a nightly ritual: Why do I own a car? Why don't I take the Tube like any rational person? Especially when it's such a short trip home to Kensington? She checked her watch: right. Because she rarely left work before the Underground stopped running. She imagined the worm-like train cars, asleep in their tunnels, and wished that her own transition from work to somnolence could be so guaranteed.

Jess turned on her heels, spotting her beat-up blue Vauxhall hatchback in a secluded corner of the garage.

"Right where I left you," she whispered.

Out of the corner of her eye, something glimmered. She turned to look and could scarcely believe what she saw parked along the wall, haloed by the garage's yellow sodium lights.

The sight of the long lines of the Rolls Royce Silver Ghost, its curved fenders and ink-black tires, made Jess' breath catch in her throat. It was just like each time she lifted a new artefact from its nest of straw and held it to the light. She hastened toward the car, heart beating fast, before she realized what she was doing.

Jess' hands hovered over the warm hood of the Ghost for nearly a minute before touching her fingertips to the glossy silver paint. She ran one hand along the nose and let her stockinged thigh rest against the generous curve of the fender. It had been years since she'd seen a Silver Ghost, since that rogue member of the Indian Parliament had tried to woo her into being his mistress. Neither the car -- nor his political placement, embarrassingly lavish apartments or fancy honorary degrees -- had been enough to lure Jess away from her work at the museum and into the life of a full-time kept woman.

But this Ghost was different. Its crest was a kneeling woman -- not the flying woman seen on the cars sold to men. For the first time, Jess thought to look through the windscreen to see who was inside. The darkness inside was total.

As the passenger-side door of the Silver Ghost opened, Jess' body flooded with adrenaline. She held one hand against her chest as though it would still her pounding heart.

"Get in," said a voice.

Though the action startled her, caution had never been Jess' cup of tea. Curiosity blotted out any warnings against getting into cars with strangers. As though entering a shrine, she set her briefcase down on the cement floor and stepped out of her shoes. She got in and pulled the door shut behind her, noticing the confident thunk as it closed.

As she slid onto the front seat, sleek leather stroked the backs of her thighs. The feel of it made her flush from crown to cunt. Because the Ghost was lit from above, it was still too dark to see inside the car. But she knew how it would look: the lavishly upholstered front bench, the spacious and carpeted floor, the steering wheel mounted on the end of its long stem.

"Who's there?" Jess asked.

Warm laughter came from the far side of the seat.

"Call me Tara." The woman spoke in a chocolaty voice punctuated by an upper-class Bombay accent. It was inflected with British flavor, unlike the rougher middle-class accents Jess had grown up with in the streets and masala-infused kitchens of Southall.

"Do I know you, Tara?" Jess unclasped her hands and rested them on the seat.

Soft laughter again. "Probably not, Jessamyn. You've likely walked past my name a thousand times, stamped on the wall inside the Museum, but I doubt you've ever stopped to read it."

"You're one of the donors?"

"Yes," Tara said. "And, because of that, I know your work, a little. You're good."

"Thank you." As Jess' eyes adjusted to the darkness inside the Ghost, she could see small glints of light coming from Tara's clothes. As the woman moved, she could hear silk rustling on silk, and guessed that she might be wearing a sari woven with metallic thread.

Jess tried to think of what to say next, but her talents rested in artefacts, not conversation. Everything she imagined would sound tactless: So, you must be very wealthy. Or, Have you been watching me for long?

She finally settled on: “Is this your Rolls Royce?”

“It is,” Tara replied. “I purchased it from a lady sheikh after I made my first $10 million.”

Jess coughed involuntarily. She'd handled artefacts worth that much, but couldn't imagine referring to that amount of money so casually.

“What do you do, exactly?”

“I trade in rare architectural finds,” Tara said. “The items that your kind think are long-lost; they are my specialty.”

“So you've donated more than money to the British Museum.”

“Yes.”

Curiosity surged through Jess again. “Which items?”

“Forgive me, but I can't tell you,” Tara said. “My suppliers insist on strict anonymity all the way up the chain.”

Jess nodded. Plenty of the pieces in the Museum had come, seemingly, from nowhere – slipped through mail-slots or couriered by generic-looking men in black suits who never spoke.

Just as Jess began searching her memory for items Tara might have contributed, the woman at her side shifted the conversation.

"Have you ever walked into the Temple of Ishtar in the Museum and imagined what it would be like to be her?" Tara's smooth voice seemed to stroke the back of Jess' neck. She put a hand over Jess', almost protectively.

"It's one of my favorite pieces, but I always thought that she wouldn't have liked it," Tara continued, not waiting for Jess to reply. "She was a great warrior, queen of the heavens. The time she spent indoors, or in the underworld, was full of strange trials. Torture, even. I think she would have wanted a temple under the open sky. That roof, and those walls, would have been like a prison."

Tara squeezed Jess' hand firmly, then traced her fingers under the sleeve of Jess' suit jacket, drawing a bracelet of shivers around her wrist.

Jess unbuttoned her blazer and shrugged out of it. The air inside the Silver Ghost was warm and close on her bare arms.

"My favorite piece right now is the Japanese tigress," Jess said. "The one carrying her cub by the scruff of the neck. Her eyes are so fierce, but her child is perfectly safe in her jaws."

"Like Kali," Tara purred, her hands tracing arcs on Jess' forearms. It briefly occurred to Jess that she should be uncomfortable letting a stranger touch her in a car park, no matter how nice the car. Instead, she felt secretly exotic, as though a hidden flower were unfurling inside her. She sighed.

"Yes -- like Kali." Jess stumbled across the name, which had been forbidden in her house growing up. Her mother did not let the children dwell on the darker gods and goddesses. "Before that, it was the cat mummies. I was never allowed to have a cat for a pet, though I wanted one desperately. My landlord doesn't allow them now. But the Egyptians, they loved their cats so much they wanted them to live forever."

"You are a cat fan," Tara murmured. "Good. Good."

Jess slid across the seat and leaned in to breathe Tara's scent. She smelled of flowers, but underneath it Jess caught wisps of rich spices, warmed by the woman's heat.

"Open your mouth," Tara said.

As Jess parted her lips, something solid nudged between them. She took it in, a solid morsel that melted across her tongue. Flavors of chocolate came first, followed by fresh roses and cinnamon. Tara pressed Jess' lips closed with two fingers. As the flavor ebbed away, Jess looked across and saw the other woman's eyes flashing, watching her. Her sight had grown accustomed to the darkness.

Tara reached behind Jess' head and pulled the pins from her hair, tossing it with her fingers as it spilled across Jess' shoulders. She stroked Jess' jawline and throat, then pressed a smooth palm against Jess' breastbone.

The heat of Tara's hand seemed to bore straight into her breasts, inflaming her nipples.

"May I touch you?" Jess asked.

"A little, darling."

Jess brushed her fingertips against Tara's arm. It was rounded and smooth -- almost powdery, like the softness of fresh naan. She wanted to feel it between her teeth, know it with her tongue, but she held back. Jess lifted Tara's heavy breasts through the layers of silk, one and then the other.

Tara circled Jess' wrist with her fingers and pulled her hand away. "That's enough. Let me."

Tara knelt on the carpeted floor and pulled Jess' hips to the edge of the seat. With sure hands she tugged Jess' panties down, leaving her stockings and garters in place. She tested Jess' slit with one finger, which came away slick and musky.

Tara returned to the seat and rustled in the darkness for a moment before laying her hand, palm-side up, on the leather. Jess slid forward so that the woman's fingers were directly under her clit. She rocked gently back and forth as Tara flicked her fingertips, sending sparks up Jess' spine. Jess clutched the back of the seat with one hand and let her head fall back, sighing into the darkness, eyes pressed shut.

Jess found herself remembering Tom, the first intern she'd hired after being named one of the assistant curators at the British Museum. Together they were assigned the after-hours shift, unpacking and cataloging new artefacts in the warehouse at the back of the building. Until Tom, Jess had avoided all personal ties to her co-workers, refusing even to take coffee with them after their shifts. Maybe it had been the frenzy hidden in his dark eyes, or the way he could identify any new artefact -- down to the region, the mythology, the era, even the year -- faster than she could.

One night, after the gallery lights had long since been dimmed and the security guards had nodded off, she let him fuck her face-down in one of the long, straw-filled crates that had carried a sarcophagus only twelve hours before. After drenching his condom-slicked penis in her cunt, he had pressed himself against her puckered anus and slid inside. With his free hand he had inserted something cold and heavy into her throbbing pussy, thrusting both at once until they both shuddered with orgasm.

Jess had discovered that the object in her cunt was a miniature replica of Cleopatra's Needle that had been found in village excavation outside Cairo. Years after, she still couldn't walk past its glass-encased pedestal in the Museum without remembering that night -- or the half-dozen paleolithic Venus statues Tom had stolen before fleeing London.

Jess inched forward on the seat, covering Tara's hand with her soaked cleft. Tara curled her fingers and teased them inside Jess, first one, then two, then three. She rocked her fingers in and out with no sense of urgency, which only made Jess clench harder around her.

Their knees were touching, breath mingling. Jess reached out to touch Tara's face, studying its shape blindly. Her cheeks were round, her jaw strong, her hair as soft as the hair on expensive handmade dolls. Jess rubbed her thumb across Tara's lips hard enough that she could feel the woman's lipstick smudging across her cheek.

Jess moved against the woman's hand, now deep inside her. She felt full, the walls of her cunt stretched hard, a pain so immediate that it washed over her as waves of bliss. Every hair, every cell was trained on that three-inch space where Tara's fist swayed patiently back and forth.

She pressed her lips to Tara's cheek, then buried her face in the woman's shadowed bosom. Tara pressed her teeth into the back of Jess' neck, gathering flesh into her mouth and holding it firmly.

Jess stroked her own clit, forcing her climax to the surface. Her pussy clamped against Tara's hand so hard she thought she might fracture it. In response, Tara's teeth sunk into the nape of her neck, sharp enough to sting. Jess sung out with it, loud and high, forgetting where she was. The sound of her voice was swallowed by the Ghost.

Tara withdrew her teeth, then her hand, as Jess relaxed against the leather bench. Shy now, she tugged her skirt to her knees and smoothed it out, as though the motion would return each of her nerve endings to its rightful place beneath her skin. She turned to Tara, still shrouded in darkness, and asked whether she could repay the favor.

"No, darling." Tara's voice was musical now, and very light. "Trust me, you already have. You've allowed me something I've been wanting for a very long time. It is enough."

A shiver crossed Jess' skin. She pulled her blazer back on.

"It's getting late," Tara said. "I'm sure you want to get home."

"Yes." Jess couldn't shake the vague sense of guilt she felt, and she knew thanking the woman wasn't enough. She did it anyway.

Jess pushed the passenger-side door open and slid her feet into her shoes, still waiting by the car. "Goodnight, Jessamyn," Tara said quietly as Jess lifted her briefcase and waved.

On wobbly legs she walked away from the Silver Ghost as quickly as she could. Slow rain fell outside, pattering against the concrete walls and trickling down the drainpipes.

Jess unlocked her Vauxhall and tossed her briefcase into the passenger seat before ducking inside. The door creaked as she pulled it closed, and the engine choked and grumbled as she turned the key and stepped on the accelerator pedal. When she looked in the rear-view mirror, the space where the Silver Ghost sat was empty.

"I guess it lives up to its name," she whispered to herself.

The windshield wipers shushed back and forth as Jess drove home. She slid the Vauxhall into her parking space and padded up the stairs to her flat, carrying her shoes in one hand and her briefcase in the other. Without bothering to turn on the light, she went straight to her bedroom, undressed by the side of the bed, and slid under the blankets.

It was late morning when she woke. A rare spear of sunlight shafted across Jess' bedroom. Every part of her felt heavy, as though she'd been drugged. Jess stretched and pressed her fingertips into her arms and legs to wake them. She rose and went to the toilet, startled by a plunk as she bore down to piss.

Jess stood and looked into the bowl. Something shimmered at the bottom. She reached in, her fingers closing around the object, very hard and strangely warm. There, in her hand, rested a pale blue gem the shape and size of a hen's egg.

She quickly washed it under the tap and dried it with the cleanest towel she could find. Jess returned to the bedroom to examine the jewel in the light. There was no mistaking it: she had seen descriptions of this stone before, always in catalogs published by collectors who offered mind-bending sums of money for it.

It was called the Babylon Diamond. It hadn't been seen in so many centuries, experts had started saying it didn't exist, or that it had been destroyed. But here it was, glittering in the palm of her hand.

She could already picture precisely where, in the Museum, she would display it.

--

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