by Jared Axelrod | Nov 4, 2005 | Story |
“I just don’t see what’s stopping you, Raylan.” Piper adjusted her thick-framed glasses before jamming her fist back into the pocket of her hoodie. Raylan’s show at The Xanadu Carousel had been over for awhile, but the rain outside had only now just stopped. Piper and Raylan didn’t own cars, and this wasn’t the first time they had shared each other’s company after a show.
“It’s the knives, child. The knives,” Raylan said. Piper was always impressed by the way Raylan managed to navigate the slick pavement in his high-heeled boots. Even in puddles, he continued to gesticulate and sashay just like he was still on stage. “Besides, I have a fan-following to consider. Why, those little bald men who always sit in the front row would just be crushed!”
“I don’t see how. I mean, you totally look like a real girl alre–”
Raylan cut her off. “And you’re a sweet pea to say so, Piper. God willing, I hope I hope I never look like poor Belieze. I don’t care how much chiffon you put on a linebacker…takes all kinds, I suppose. But anyway, I enjoy a certain amount of sensual border straddling in my life. Plus, there’s the knife issue, darling.”
“They don’t use knives.”
“Lasers. Whatever. You what a laser is? It’s a knife made out of light. And I ain’t letting any doctor get all Obi-Wan Kenobi on my nethers. Not for nothing, child.”
Piper jammed her tiny fists deeper into her pockets. She had transitioned relatively recently, and was still getting used to being smaller. Her slight frame was overwhelmed by her sweatshirt; it had fit perfectly a few months back. “It’s gene therapy. They alter a few chromosomes and the–”
“Messing with far too much of the Lord’s handiwork, you ask me. Why be ashamed of the way God made you?”
Piper turned from Raylan and tried to hide even deeper in her hoodie. She started to run away, but didn’t get more than five steps before Raylan and his long legs overtook her. Piper felt swallowed in Raylan’s powerful embrace.
“Oh, honey, I am so sorry. I didn’t mean that. This mouth of mine just goes off on it’s own. You know that. You know that if I ever have a son, I’d want him to grow up into a beautiful young woman just like you.” Raylan removed Piper’s glasses and wiped off the moisture from their lenses. Raylan was taller than Piper even before the transition, and now with his height enhanced by six-inch heels, Piper felt extraordinarily vulnerable. Tears tumbled down her teenage cheeks.
“It’s just…it’s just you sounded like my–”
“Hush, honey. Hush. I know who I sounded like. And I am so sorry. God just made us different, is all. He made you able to change, and me perfectly content to wear a gaff for the rest of my life. It takes all kinds, All kinds.”
“Stupid hormones,” Piper said, wiping her nose on her sleeve. “I know I’m not a real girl…”
“Didn’t I just tell you hush?” Raylan petted Piper’s dark hair reassuringly with his painted nails, “You’re more of a girl than any of those painted tramps your age I see walking down the street, And you are my friend, which ought to make you real enough for anyone. Now, why don’t you dry those pretty blue eyes of yours and let me buy you a hot chocolate.”
Piper gave Raylan a weak grin. “Don’t try to butter me up.”
“Who said anything about butter?” Raylon said, hands on his hips. “You and I are going to get chocolated up, like real girls.”
by J.R. Blackwell | Nov 3, 2005 | Story |
Annabelle could have gotten stapled, pumped, sucked and tucked, but she had always been a bit of a herbhead, and she wanted to do it the natural way. It was more expensive, to be sure, but in the end, the results would be cleaner. She had looked for the hostess carefully, studying recommendations, medical reports and case histories. Olga Husker was her final choice, in part because of her excellent history with clients, but mostly because Olga was a natural blond, from the curtains to the carpet, and Annabelle had always wanted to be a natural blond.
They met for coffee. Annabelle had a lime cheesecake and hot chocolate and Olga had an unsweetened green tea. Olga emphasized that she was allergic to peanuts, so Annabelle had to be very careful when she selected candies. Annabelle had to sign a document that assured that she was liable for any damages, from sexually transmitted diseases to broken bones and her own body could be forfeit in case the damages were deemed to be too extensive. Olga was anxious to begin and agreed to a smaller fee if Annabelle would move the procedure up two weeks. She asked Annabelle if she could user her own clinic, and agreed to take another cut for it. Annabelle signed and authenticated the electronic transfer, and four days later they were in the clinic, prepping for the procedure.
Aside from the massive-two day migraine, there were no side effects after the surgery, and Annabelle was pleased with Olga’s tan and muscular body. She felt strong and sexy. She went out after the surgery and bought a beautiful new wardrobe of the tiniest clothes she had ever worn. Her husband was delighted with the change, and they spent two days in bed. At work, her co-workers asked to see the contoured stomach she had rented, and she obliged, lifting up her shirt to reveal the sculpted abs.
Olga had an intense workout routine, and Annabelle tried to follow it, hoping that she could stick to the workouts when she was back in her own body, but running was painful and exhausting, and the routines were a huge time commitment. After a few weeks, she gave up on the workouts entirely and just began enjoying Olga, eating whatever she wanted, confident that her body would be returned to her fit. Maybe then she would start the workouts for real.
The police picked her up a month after the transfer. Annabelle had been walking down the street when everything went silent. She recognized one of the polices noise bombs and saw the black van barreling toward her, but until it stopped in front of her and armed officers jumped out, she never once believed the thing was for her.
Getting her body exchange in the clinic was a mistake. Since there were no records of a transfer, it took the police three weeks to authenticate that Annabelle was really in Olga’s body, and by that time Annabelle and her husband had dropped their savings on legal representation to hold off medical interrogation. They let Annabelle go after she gave a full description of her body and released photographs of herself to the police. Olga was wanted for theft of government property.
Six months later Annabelle saw a still photograph of her body on one of the streaming screens in the city. Olga had been shot by the police trying to trade the stolen goods on Mars. Annabelle hardly recognized the slim woman on the screen, the face she had once seen in the mirror. It was dead, and it wasn’t hers anymore.
by Kathy Kachelries | Nov 2, 2005 | Story
“They’ll find you,” the chronomancer told me. “They always do. One day you’ll be sitting around sipping tea, playing Mah-Jongg, and BAM!” He slammed his fist on the rickety card table, nearly upsetting his coffee and definitely upsetting Sib. She moaned loudly and ran for the corner, then rocked back and forth and pounded her palms against her head as if the sudden sound had come from within. If he noticed her, he hid it well. People like Sib are easy to overlook.
“Time’s a big place,” I said.
“Not as big as you’d expect. You think you’re the first one to come up with this idea?”
I didn’t respond. The chronomancer exhaled a long, low note and pushed his fingers through his mop of wild white hair before taking off his glasses and polishing them on the edge of his greasy shirt. “All I’m saying,” he continued, “is that you’re not just going to vanish. Wherever you go you’ll stick out like a black cat in a snowstorm. You’ll get myths and legends built up around you. At worst, you’ll show up in history books, and they study that stuff. Anachronists, they call you guys. It would be hard enough if it was just you, but…” the chronomancer’s voice drifted as his eyes focused on the girl in the corner, “you’ll never be able to get away with that.”
His tone lowered at the final syllable, like mentioning Sib was a breach of etiquette. “You have something on your chin,” he might have said. “Your fly is down.” I stood up and stepped over the piles of paper and gears that littered his workshop to gather the small girl into my arms. “She has a name,” I told him.
The chronomancer pushed his glasses back onto his face and squinted at me in the dim light. “They’ll find you,” he repeated.
“We’ll take that risk.”
Sib’s small fingers grabbed at the collar of my shirt and she buried her face into the point where my head met my neck. She smelled like hospital, and she was still wearing the blue robe they’d given her when they tested her for genetic abnormality. The chronomancer watched her squirm into position.
“Do you have kids?” I asked him. He shook his head slowly.
“I applied, once, a long time ago,” he said. “I’m not made of the right stuff.”
“Neither’s she,” I said as I brushed my fingers against the space between her shoulderblades.
Again, he sighed that same note, though this time he slid open a metal filing cabinet under his table. The chronomancer withdrew a manila envelope and flipped through the papers with a grimy thumb. “Do you speak Greek?” he asked.
“I can learn.”
“We’ll find a place for you,” he said slowly, running his fingers over the page. “I’m sure we can find a place.”
by B. York | Nov 1, 2005 | Story |
“Diggs! C’mon man, we gotta keep this moving or we won’t find squat for real dirt by the end of the day!”
‘That had to be Brennan yelling over the drill tube. He’d been at work
on that machine, trying to suck up the dry mud and debris, hoping for a
better chance at the pure stuff.
Diggs wiped his brow, tugging the tube up out of the dirt to stop production. “Eh! Boss says we got to crank this up a notch, people, let’s strip this land and move on.â€
Brennan shifted his ball cap over his head as the the light of the sun beat down on the dying meadow. “Say, Diggs, I know you gots your kids birthday today. How’s abouts you go home early?â€
“What? And miss a shot at gettin’ some real prime planet core? Bren, you gotta be outta that thick skull of yours. The fuzz ain’t makin’ you nervous are they? You know we’re miles from the cops. Besides, we’re busy. We got two more areas to suck up after this one and-“
“Look†Brennan started up, swinging his clipboard back around in a wide dramatic gesture, “I ain’t tryin’ to steal goods from ya, just thought I’d suggest. She’s a real primer, this one. Just, be careful.â€
“Aw, Bren, I’m gonna get all misty. You ain’t still worried about what happened to the McClennan boys are you?†Diggs had taken the time to make mocking smirks at his boss and life-long friend.
“It just… it ain’t right. Like, the ground or somethin’ just ate’em up. They left the tools and ate the people, Diggs. I ain’t wanna see the same happen to you.â€
Brennan’s friend just shook his head and turned back on the A34 Soil Remover. The buzz turned to a low hum and soil started to pour through out onto the ground next to him. After Brennan left, Diggs remembered the reports. First, things had gotten real quiet, they read. A few of the soil-miners freaked and the rest were never heard from again. The activists got all up in arms, saying that it was punishment from God or maybe nature fighting back. Hell, it was already illegal to poach earth, but they did it anyways. That was all crud according to Remy Diggs.
“Damn, just got three good ones! Haha!†The soil-miner kept it up, feeding the suction into the ground to have the particles sopped up through the tube and analyzed.
This little machine was amazing, Diggs thought. It could sort out the moisture content in every grain of soil and then, when all was said and done, the same scientists who opposed the “raping of the land” had to bow down to the pure energy brought by a single unidentified element formed in one of three billion grains of soil. Sucker could power Vegas for ten years on just a handful of juiced grains. Ah, and the money sure did roll in.
Diggs was paying so much attention to his device, he didn’t even notice that things had gone real quiet, real fast.
by Jared Axelrod | Oct 31, 2005 | Story
With each stroke of the knife, I knew he loved me.
It started with my nipples, him telling me how much he loved me and how sexy I would look without them. He touched my face as he did it, cooing and kissing my forehead and telling me how much he loved me. He kissed away every one of my tears and held me within his powerful arms as I bled.
For six weeks there was no mention of knives. My heart leapt every time he looked at me, a joy and longing in his eyes. The six weeks after I gave up my nipples were quite possibly the happiest of my entire life.
But the seventh and eighth and ninth passed, and he grew distant, moody. He would spend nights away from the house and return drunken and grumbling. One night, I asked what was wrong, and what I could do to help him.
And so the knives came out again.
He shaved my head, including my eyebrows that night. Soon after, all of my hair from my body was removed through his amateur electrolysis. He took off my nose with one clean slice and, using a device I didn’t recognize, sealed up the wound and made it smooth to the touch, as if nothing had ever been there. I could only breathe through my mouth, and told him so, panicking. He just smiled, kissed the smoothness in the center of my face, and told me I was beautiful.
My toes and fingers took nearly two months, one joint at a time. He took similar relish with each of my teeth. He said he was sad when he went for my crotch, but I saw how happy his eyes were and how his hands shook with arousal as he smoothed out my groin.
He used that same device to seal off my sockets after he cut out my eyes. He also used it to fuse my ass cheeks, and later, my mouth leaving only a small hole in each case. I heard him laugh and tell me how sexy I looked. He kissed me all over, and made jokes about how easy it would now be to confuse my two ends. He sounded so happy.
One night—or what I assumed was night, at the very least—he drew a heart on my smooth chest with his finger. He told me it meant “I love you.” Then he cut off my ears.
Between long stretches of nothing, I would suck vitamin-enriched water from a straw he would press against lips and feel his strong fingers all over what was left of my naked body. I was too weak to react physically, but I reveled in his touch and the way traced that heart on my chest over and over. My life was spent this way, waiting for these moments.
It is difficult to love a being from another planet, but there are sacrifices to be made in every relationship. And now my alien lover will never leave me.
