Author: Hari Navarro, Staff Writer

Daena Nova stares through the recycled molecules in the air and laments that she hates flying even more than her pores do. But business is business and she has a man to meet.

The schematics held on the flash-drive that’s wedged into the canister that’s tucked between her legs will buy her an island. She has no idea what the plans are but she’s been fucked by all kinds of men and women who deal in such things and so she surmises, albeit briefly, that they’re probably blueprints for something that blows shit up or shoots shit down.

Daena owns a beauty that transcends cultural and individual preference. It matters not your sexual orientation, nor the age of your eyes and not even the blind are exempt from the heat she emits, everybody wants Daena.

Bartering her body to the world’s elite leaves her filthy but rich. This mammoth pay-day but one of many.

She savours the rush, not sexual, that she barely remembers but, instead, the pure unfettered punch of power that pinches at her skin as she makes fools of the weak.

“Power is like time. It depends on your vantage point”, she thinks as she takes stock of her lot and she imagines velvet planks laying out before her upon a network of bloated bodies. A bridge, an ascension that knows no pity. There’s no time, she knows she’s been dying ever since they slit open her mother and she slid like greased grace to the light.

The uncomfortable piece of plastic agitates and, though the cubicle is first-class large, it still makes her feel like she’s pissing in a cupboard. Muscles tighten and simultaneously relax, a tricky manoeuvre to hold tight her charge and, at once, let loose her bladder.

A bump, as if the floor has ever so slightly fallen away. Then…

Floating, waves fold blankets against a shore, dredging back in a rhythm that lulls as it rubs. Smiling, content in the knowledge that neither nature nor war nor whatever the fuck that was can end this most perfect of lives.

Sand. An endless stretch of white that catches the light, flicking it like sparks from a fire.

Daena reads people. She knows what they want. She knows the feel of eyes and she feels that hunger now.

“Like what you see?!”

The night is long and beautiful. Sleep hugs and, for once, her subconscious allows her peace and tomorrow her people will come. Tomorrow.

Two weeks pass, bare feet in the wet sand and she hears a splash. This is no human that now steps from the waves, a large silver fish convulsing in the clench of its teeth.

The monkey shows no fear as she approaches, the heady musk of his fur, dripping and knotted.

“A sea monkey”, she smiles.

His eyes widen as he cocks his head, drinking her in.

“It’s you that watches, furry little pervert bastard.”

Weeks roll and she shifts and changes and she craves for things once had.

Today the monkey is more inquisitive than usual. She’s become used to his casual indifference, but now he approaches and touches her face.

She feels the soft pad of his finger in her mouth. She tastes salt and thinks of the blemish-less skin that lays beneath the shag of her fur. Back home… she’ll shave it away, scrub herself raw and lather her body in oils.

“Nobody will know.”

Breath at her neck, his throat a rasp as he speaks.

“Now, you’re like me. The other world, it was not meant for those as beautiful as we.”