Coffee
By Cassandra2pg and myself


The people of Blue Cove have always lived in the shadow of The Centre and maybe this is the reason for the dark looks they throw it, the sneaking glances when driving past and the not-quite-real reasons they give. The Centre is huge; all the townspeople know that and Blue Cove is tiny, so someone will undoubtedly know someone, who knows someone, who is someone working for The Centre.

Which is why, in a way, everyone in Blue Cove knows what goes on up on the top of the hill. And if they haven’t heard the stories then they know just enough to realise its bad news.

They also know that no matter how bad it gets up there, no one survives to tell.

As special as Jarod might think he is, he is not exempt from this rule.

“I want him dead,” Mr Raines rasped. “He’s far outlived his usefulness, and advances in cloning have made it more profitable to just make a new Jarod.”

“He’s gone to ground,” Lyle explained patiently. “We’ve been searching for him ever since Carthis and have had no luck.”

Mr Raines looked directly at Miss Parker when he said: “Then make him show himself.”


A picture of a young woman was dropped on the desk. Miss Parker studied it thoughtfully; a pretty girl, red hair and green eyes with a bright smile and an air about her that just screamed devil may care.

She didn’t need telling that this was Jarod’s girlfriend.

Lyle shook his head regretfully, “Zoë, our time together was so short…”


“Which is exactly why you’re having no part in this, Lyle,” Mr Raines explained. “Find her, and you’ll find Jarod.”

Which, naturally, only left Miss Parker.

Life’s just like that sometimes.

Sitting outside the woman's house, trying to look inconspicuous while in what was probably the only black Town Car in the state didn't work very well. It had been nearly 10 hours of the first day and Miss Parker hadn't learnt much about anything except trivialities; Zoë had a car probably older than Miss Parker and sang incessantly to old songs on the Classics Hits and Golden Oldie stations. When the last light flickered off sometime after 10, Miss Parker drove back to her hotel and didn't think about Jarod.

On the second day of surveillance she learnt that Zoë loved to bake, needed to coax her car up steep hills with words of encouragement when anyone else would have thumped it, and loved childish things like swings.

The third day arrived and Miss Parker wondered why she hadn't done it last night; why she didn't really plan to do it today. Maybe it was because this woman loved swings and didn't swear at her car, or maybe it was because this was Jarod’s girlfriend, and something told her that if she killed her, Jarod would never, ever be found.

Sitting outside the end of a long driveway, a coffee in hand and wishing that Sydney were here to help her with the strange thoughts, there was a tap at her window. It was Zoë with a plate of cookies.

In Parker’s Cleaner days there had been some memorably close occasions with guns and bullets and big men tapping on the window, intent on letting her know they did not appreciate being watched. Strangely enough, there’d been no cookie-bearing women. So this was something Parker was rather unprepared for.

She wound down the window and said, “Yes?”

“Hi,” Zoë replied cheerfully. “I just thought you might like some cookies, seeing as it’s rather far from the nearest Starbucks or bakery I’m afraid.”

Parker stared at her for a moment before managing, “Uh.”

Zoë smiled brightly and took this for a thank you. “No problem, you want to come in? I’ve got fresh coffee.”

The coffee in Parker’s hand had gone rather cold, and she was going to end up learning the plan of the house anyway…

“All right,” she replied.

They tracked up the gravel driveway towards the main house. It was small but the half-painted porch, the hanging plants and birdfeeders gave it a homely touch.

“Nice,” Parker commented, choosing to not refer to anything in particular and avoid sarcasm.

Zoë threw a grin over her shoulder. “Thanks.”

Inside was pretty much like outside. Masses of clutter adorned every surface, obviously self-painted pictures hung on the walls in various styles of frames, the smell of baking and lavender was present in the air and somewhere down a hallway a radio was playing.

Parker fiddled with her sleeve self-consciously; acutely aware of how much she didn’t belong in these surroundings. Her own ‘house’ was minimalist in style, designer right down to the towels. Zoë did a bit of a twirl, floral dress spinning around her, beating against her thighs, she looked part of the scene, and Parker didn’t.

“Well it’s not much, but it's home.”

Parker nodded.

Zoë extended her hand, “I’m Zoë and you’ve been camped outside my house for two days. I have a pretty ferocious rabbit in the back garden if you’re some sort of stalker.”

She shook it. “My name’s Miss Parker. And I’m not a stalker.” I’m here to kill you, Parker finished inwardly.

Zoë tested the name, “Miss Parker. Very formal.”

Miss Parker nodded, “Call me Parker,” she said and looked around for somewhere to sit. Zoë noticed her dilemma with amusement and moved a half-finished paining. “I’ll get the coffee.”

She came back a few minutes later with two steaming mugs, “Sorry, no crème, you take milk and sugar?”

“Just sugar.”

They sat in silence and Zoë fidgeted, she obviously wasn’t one to indulge in long periods of quiet. Parker wondered how Jarod and his brooding could stand her. They ate cookies in more silence and yet another thing became apparent. Both Zoë and Jarod shared a love of sugar in everything; the cookie nearly hurt her teeth.

“You wouldn’t happen to have anything to do with those men who kidnapped me last year would you?” she asked after a while.

The girl was smarter than she looked, but with her gun safely concealed in the small of her back, her expensive jacket had hidden it from the other woman’s view, that wouldn’t matter. It would be a simple task of setting down her mug, removing the gun and putting the barrel against her pretty temple.

Pondering this had obviously taken too long as Zoë started chewing her lip and accidentally adding sugar to the small table on which her coffee cup was perched.

“Yes, I am with them,” Parker decided to say. “I’m checking up on you, to make sure that Jarod doesn’t appear.”

Zoë frowned suddenly; anger contorted her features to something older than she was. “Why can’t you just leave him alone, he’s a nice guy, a really nice guy. You know how many of them there are around here?”

Sarcastic barbs on the tip of Parker’s tongue evaporated as Zoë’s expression became sad. “Then you’re wasting your time, he won’t be coming here anymore, said it wasn’t safe.”

Parker stirred her hot and bitter coffee.

“He was here a few days ago, just before you arrived,” Zoë admitted. “I don’t know where he went but I do know he won’t be back. Do you – do you know where he is?” Zoë trailed off the last part when Parker started shaking her head.

They sat in dejected silence for a while longer when suddenly Parker gave out a small huff of laughter.

“What?”

Parker smiled wryly. “I was just wondering how many times I’d seen that look on the people he leaves behind.”

Zoë fidgeted with the hem of her skirt, trying to smooth out the wrinkles and didn’t look at Parker when she said, “You wear the look too you know.”

Parker nodded, “I know.”

“He left me for you.”

A shrug, “Maybe.”

“He didn’t say your name but I knew. In some ways I was everything he wanted, but in others I was nothing like it.”

Parker just nodded, it was all she could seem to do. They were silent again, Zoë observing her over the top of the coffee cup and this time apparently unwilling to break the silence.

Finally Zoë set down the coffee cup with a determined air and Parker knew this was it. What it was she had no clue.

“So … you gonna do it?”

There was a small mound of un-dissolved sugar in the bottom of her coffee cup, Parker removed it with a finger and licked it clean. “Do what?”

“Y’know, shoot me.”

The girl was obviously much more intelligent than she’d given her credit for.

“Why would I do that?”

Zoë got slowly up and stood in front of her. Light from the window behind gave her a glow as it shone through her dress. Parker wanted to laugh aloud at the imagery. “You would shoot me,” Zoë said slowly, in a tone so serious she could scarcely believe it was from a woman who baked cookies and kept rabbits, “because it’s your job.”

Parker blinked.

“You follow Jarod around like a shadow, a hellhound always on his goddamned heels, destroying all the chances he has for happiness.”

Zoë leaned forwards, getting right up into Parker’s space. Parker should have felt angry, angry with this woman using her technique, trying to intimidate her with her red matted hair and floral sundress but she knew she was right.

She pronounced each word as a curse, “You don’t deserve him.”

The gun was loaded, holstered in the small of her back, one quick movement as she’d done hundreds of times before and she could draw the gun, pull the silly girl forward and blow out her brains. Then she’d stop talking.

She knew what she should say, she should say neither do you, and then Zoë would slap her and she’d leave. Instead her voice was a whisper when she replied, “I know.”

Zoë glared viciously, daring Parker to be sarcastic.

“But … I don’t have him.”

The glare became sceptical.

“He wanted me to come with him, but I couldn’t,” Parker didn’t really know why she was telling her all of this, after all, she hadn’t told half of it to Sydney. Maybe it was the knowledge of the gun against her back and her orders, maybe.... “I wanted to but this, this is what Jarod wants. A tiny little home full of clutter collected over a lifetime, a place with a kitchen that is used and wallpaper that doesn’t quite match but it doesn’t matter because they hung it themselves. He wants a pet in the back garden and a porch. He wants all this.”

“Then … why?”

“Because he doesn’t know, because he wants me in this, and doesn’t realise that we don’t match. He wants you to be me and me to be you.”

Zoë leaned back and tucked a lock of red hair behind an ear. “He made me want to be you. He didn’t mean to, but when he left it felt like I was being replaced because I was the opposite. And when we first met I thought he liked me because I was the opposite.”

“I almost wanted to be you,” Parker confessed. It was true. Here was everything a life should be: collections of mementos from all around the world, a passion – art – proudly displayed for all to see, a bunny outside, probably not unlike the one she’d been forced to give away.

The house, the clutter, and the art were not things Miss Parker could have done, or lived as for any length of time, but in that moment, she was overcome by the desire to try, to see. If only ever for a moment.

Truth be told Parker was tired. Tired of seeing things just unobtainable, truth and answers dancing on the horizon. She was tired of playing a never-ending game with Jarod where the stakes just kept getting higher and she had nothing left to bet. She was tired of having an ulcer, wearing the shirts of a dead boyfriend just to remember what it was like to be loved.

Zoë didn’t even understand things like responsibility and power, she probably dreamed of world fucking peace and truly believed that if everyone just stood down their armies we’d all get along peachy keen. Zoë was what Jarod wanted, freedom and happiness and right now, Zoë was what Parker wanted.

It doesn’t count, Parker thought, she’ll probably be dead soon anyway.

She stood up, not sure what was happening but for once in her life prepared to just let the feeling take over. Standing less than a foot away from Zoë she took note she was a couple of inches taller, but for once wasn’t going to use this to intimidate, and was rather glad she hadn’t worn boots today.

Zoë smiled, and Parker wondered if she knew what was going to happen. The thought was chased away as soon as she leant down and in and kissed her.

A part of Parker wanted to say that Zoë tasted like summer, spring, and flowers. She didn’t. She tasted slightly like strawberries from cheap lip-gloss, sugar and coffee. That didn’t stop Parker from not being able to get enough of it.

A coffee cup dropped onto the faded carpet and Parker couldn’t help but wonder if Jarod had kissed Zoë like this. Perhaps here in the living room, he'd taken her there on the carpet, whispered sweet nothings and basked in an afterglow in what space he could find on the couch. Wondering this made it all the more enticing. Parker wanted to pause and ponder this, but was afraid that if she did Zoë would step back and say stop.

Zoë’s hands wandered down the stiff formal fabric of her suit, brushing over her breasts and lingering down by her hip. This close to the gun Parker had to question Zoë’s motives, she knew why she was kissing Zoë … well thought she knew anyway, but why was Zoë so responsive? Why was she tugging the silk blouse, trailing her fingers up the lace bra?

As Zoë’s fingers found her nipples, the question was lost.

Parker found the zip to Zoë’s dress, and she let it slip off her shoulders and pool around her feet where she hastily kicked it away. Now Parker could see all of her, the curve of her breasts, still hidden behind a plain cotton bra. Enjoy the gasp she gave when she took them in her hands, and was free to consider where Jarod had left his marks. Small bruises, almost finger mark size, along her hips, was he rough, or just liked it fast? Did he hold her like this…?

The lace panties she tugged down with one hand, while the other still rubbed a breast. Did Jarod give them to her? They looked so out of place and it pleased her to think, as she ran circles over the other woman's clit, making Zoë gasped out her name, that she was removing some token of affection he’d given her.

Zoë fumbled at the waist of Parker’s pants suit, her hands flighty and nervous around the gun, Parker unbuckled the holster and placed it on a rickety table with a coffee mug.

They followed its path, slowly making their way down onto the sofa, Zoë trying to breathe and clear some space at the same time, and not managing either. Parker wondered if Jarod got her to lose control like this.

They fell onto the couch, Zoë underneath, just as it would have been with Jarod. Parker made a more leisurely investigation, kissing her way down from her mouth, along her collarbone, between her breasts, and down further.

What had Zoë called her, a hellhound? It was true, she could almost taste him on her skin; his kisses would have been feather light, not hard and demanding like hers. She sucked gently and enjoyed hearing the other woman gasp out “Parker … god … please,” in several ragged breaths all the while desperately trying to get some hold of her, push her closer. She swirled her tongue slowly inside and rubbed her with her thumb, listening to Zoë call her name as she came, all her muscles relaxed and Parker knew that this, this is what Jarod had seen, had done.

After a moment of catching her breath Zoë smiled. Parker wondered if this was what she looked like to the many men she’d bedded, half predator, half something she couldn’t name. With a movement that wasn’t too quick for Miss Parker, (though she didn’t really want to stop it), Zoë had flipped their positions, Miss Parker now pinned on the couch, Zoë on top.

She started with her mouth, a brief kiss, chaste and teasing. Another on her collar bone, another on the hollow of her throat. Painfully slowly working her way down. A kiss on each nipple, three on her stomach and then two on her inner thigh.

All the men she’d ever done this with had been fumbling; unsure of what she wanted despite what noise she may make. Zoë didn’t, she knew where to brush over and where to … oh gods … “Zoë,” she cried out -- whimpered -- as she came.

They lay there a while as Parker decided her idea of the couch and the afterglow was rather inaccurate, as Zoë had already began to squirm.

“You know, we still have a problem,” she murmured, the seriousness of her words betrayed by the slight grin on her face.

Parker raised an eyebrow.

“I’m not dead.”

She ignored her, got up and dressed. A button was gone from the silk blouse, and it took a while to find her bra but dressed formally again Miss Parker felt much more herself. She looked around one last time and went to the front door to put on her shoes.

Zoë followed behind, mostly dressed and extremely untidy, looking at a loss for what to do. She also looked … lonely and Parker wondered if that was why she’d let her touch her.

Parker opened the door to leave, she felt that she should kiss Zoë goodbye, but she also felt that was a very Jarod thing to do.

“Thanks for the coffee,” she said. Zoë nodded. “I’ll see that no one finds you.” Zoë nodded again and Parker let herself out.