by Jared Axelrod | Sep 6, 2005 | Story
Carmina Claypool didn’t look much like a madam. She looked more like a fishmonger, which, Allie had to admit, was awfully appropriate. She was a powerfully large woman – soft and muscular simultaneously – and her clothing seemed to make her even larger. The gargantuan galoshes, the voluminous apron, the immense rubber gloves, all of these increased her already imposing stature. She seemed almost out of place in the lobby of the hotel, what with it’s gilded detail work and red velvet trim. Almost, but not quite.
“Haven’t seen your face around here before, have we?” Carmina bent at the waist to bring her eyes closer to Allie’s level. Though the gesture was meant to make her feel more comfortable, it only succeed in making Allie feel smaller.
“No…I…I haven’t been…it’s my first time here…”
Carmina smiled. “A virgin, then?” The word wasn’t said with any malice, but it stung just the same.
“No, I’ve…I’ve done it, I’ve had…you know.” Allie found herself unable to make eye contact.
“Not like this, you haven’t. Trust me, deary, this is like nothing you’ve ever had before, But then, you already knew that, didn’t ya? Otherwise you would have come. Well, step in the parlor and we’ll see if we can’t find a companion for you.” Carmina waddled off, leaving deep indentions in the rich red carpet.
Allie began to wonder if perhaps this was a mistake, if she should leave, right then and there. She’d only just walked in; she could go out again, quick as you please. It wasn’t like she’d paid yet. Her inexperience shamed her. Allie had read stories of this sort of thing, erotica. She was now suddenly aware of the difference between reading about something and actually doing it.
Allie looked down at the scuff-marks her sneakers had made in the carpet, the only evidence of her presence. She then turned toward the room Carimina had gone to. The parlor. She could see an edge of back tarp covering the red capet just inside the doorway.
She had to see the parlor. She knew she couldn’t leave until she did.
The parlor was decorated much the same way the lobby was, with old Victorian woodwork and velvet curtains. There was no place to sit in the parlor, for it was filled with aquariums of various sizes. The Plexiglas tanks lined the walls, larger ones on the floor, smaller ones on bookcase. Inside each one could clearly be seen an octopus, each one different in size and color from the one next to it. It was the most beautiful room Allie had ever seen.
“Do I get…any one of these?” Allie was slightly dazed, allowing her fingers to drift across the clear tanks walls.
“That depends on how much money you’re willing to spend.” Carmina motioned to collection of small aquariums in a converted china cabinet. “We usually recommend these for the first timers. Rosa there is particularly easy-going, very giving. Wanda looks a bit stand-offish, but she’ll warm up as soon as you touch her. They all do, the lot of softies. Wanda just puts up a front. Now Bernie, here…”
Allie cut her off. “What’s in here? She was kneeling beside a tank nearly as big as herself, it’s cloudy water swirling ominously.
“That? That’s Leroy. Oh, no honey, you don’t want him. He mainly services our male clientele. Which is a shame; Leroy’s got a beak like satin. But he’s a bit more than most girls are willing to take on.”
Allie wasn’t sure why, but she placed her hand in Leroy’s tank. She felt his movement, first gently across the back of her hand (“His head,” she thought as her pulse quickened), and then more brusquely against her palm. She gasped a little as one powerful tentacle lashed out and wrapped itself around her arm, it’s slick tip sticking up out of the water.
Allie was not prepared for this. It was a muscle that was entwined around her. No, it was many muscles, pulsing and flexing. A symphony of pressure working in harmony up and down her arm. She could feel the grip of each suction cup, the creeping clammy calm of the arm itself.
She let out a low moan, barely aware she was doing it.
“This one,” Allie said, gazing lovingly into the murky water.
“Are you quite certain, honey? Leroy is—” Carmina was unable to speak, stopped fast by Allie’s hard look.
“The one I will be using,” Allie said. She flexed her forearm slightly, but it was enough of a signal that Leroy let go.
“Far be it from me to dissuade a customer.” Carmina removed a small phone from her apron pocket. “Juliet? Can I get an extra tarp in Room 14?” She smiled at Allie “I have a feeling the two of you are going to be a little messy.”
by J.R. Blackwell | Sep 5, 2005 | Story |
There was a young lady at the door. They were always sending young ladies.
She rang the doorbell again. Mzee looked at the screen for a few more minutes. She was very pretty, well groomed, her hair black and shiny, like India ink. She was holding a bouquet of flowers, a wildflower bouquet. One of the flowers was tucked neatly in her hair. When he opened the door, she bowed.
“Good morning Grandfather,” she said, smiling politely.
“Go away,” said Mzee. She bowed again and walked right past him into the house. Mzee grumbled. “I’m not your Grandfather.”
The girl smiled politely. “My name is Sophia,” she said, walking directly to his kitchen. “May I prepare your breakfast?” She reached under his kitchen fountain and took out a crystal vase. All these women always knew where everything in his house was. She clipped the ends of the flowers and arranged them artfully in the vase on the dining room table.
“I would like bacon,” said Mzee.
Sophia–in all likelihood not her real name, probably had a name he couldn’t pronounce–bowed again. “I will prepare you a salad and a vegetable omelet,” she announced, her hands folded. She bowed again and went into the kitchen, clattering about with his generator.
“I don’t like to eat salads,” said Mzee. “Salad for breakfast isn’t right.” At no time during Mzee’s five hundred and thirty years of life was salad at breakfast an acceptable norm. Sophia nodded, smiled and bowed again. She prepared him a salad and a vegetable omelet, using fresh, not synthesized products. Mzee wanted to hate her and the breakfast, but all these girls were good cooks, and none of it was really awful. Maybe the food was a little bland, but not bad.
“Grandfather, after breakfast, would you like to go for a walk?”
“No.” There was a time when Mzee would have loved to go for a walk with a pretty girl, when he was only home to sleep, always out, moving in the world.
“There are some school children who would like to meet you,” said Sophia, as she waved a glowing globe over his dishes, shining their porcelain surfaces.
“Why?”
“You are a great man.”
“I’m not a great man. I was a truck driver. I worked in dock, unloading things from ships. I had a farm. I grew things for people to smoke.”
“I’m sure the children would like to hear about it.”
“I don’t want to go out.” Outside was always strange. In here, he could keep things just the way he liked, in a way that made sense. The world had become incomprehensible, at once lewd and bound by etiquette he didn’t understand.
“Grandfather, you are a living record. You have a responsibility to the young people. The children should hear from you what tobacco plants looked like, how people drove cars, what people wore.” Sophia knelt next to his chair and put her smooth hand on top of his dark wrinkled one. “You spoke to me when I was a child, and it meant very much to me. It inspired me to pursue a degree in 21st century history. Please, allow these children the same gift you gave me. ”
“Get off the floor, girl, everyone’s gotten so god damned formal nowadays. Whatever happened to ‘just do it, ye old bastard’?” Sophia stood and bowed.
“Then you will go? You will speak to the children?”
“Yes, yes. I’ll go. I can’t do whatever it is people do with those vehicles nowadays. You’ll have to drive, or ride, or whatever it is you do.” Sophia smiled brightly, her grey eyes dancing with excitement.
“Of course.” She bowed and placed excess food into his Filter. Sophia helped Mzee out of his chair and ran around his house getting his hat, coat and Lift. She attached the little metal disc to his belt and suddenly it felt like he was floating and moving was easy again.
“Here’s the deal,” said Mzee. “I’m not going to follow any young woman around. I’m escorting you, alright?”
“Of course, Grandfather.”
Outside, pink balloons floated against the sky, barreling towards their destinations, penetrating the liquid metal of the temperature-controlled domes. The young lady’s grey eyes turned black in the sunlight, her skin darkening to suit the atmosphere. “Ready to go, Grandfather?” she asked.
Mzee sighed. “Go ahead.” She touched a silver bracelet on her wrist and a pink bubble enfolded them, like the petals of a flower.
by Kathy Kachelries | Sep 4, 2005 | Story |
I know that Amy is in there. I can see her, in the smirks and smiles and the way she shoves her hair away from her eyes. She’s still the same person. She has to be. There’s no reason that this should feel wrong.
In a cinderblock building over the river, my fourteen year old body is submerged in a bath of pink nutrients. By the time I’m fifty, the body will be twenty, and I’ll be ready for transfer. Cancer didn’t wait until she was ready for transfer. Beside my fourteen year old body, the second chamber is empty.
Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night with those tiny bones pressed against me and I don’t know how to feel. They’re Amy’s bones, I know. It’s Amy’s skin and Amy’s muscle and everything about her is Amy.
Most nights I push her away. I still love her, though.
I’ll always love her.
by Kathy Kachelries | Sep 1, 2005 | Story
Don’t wake up yet, Mischa. Please, please don’t wake up.
At nineteen, Christopher Malloy was the youngest person on Io to receive his degree in neuronanotechnology. It was quite an accomplishment, according to his parents and teachers and friends, but at that moment, on the sunken platform of the medical arena, Chris felt as small as the machines he worked with. Seven professors, nine technicians, two medical journalists, and one blinding halogen light glared from the space overhead, waiting for him to make a move.
“The patient is female, age fourteen,” Chris said, and the room filled with quiet clicking as the journalists transcribed his words. “Mnemonic reserve is at thirteen percent.”
According to the colony’s medical records, no one had presented with symptoms of mnemosis before the age thirty, but beneath Mischa’s closed eyelids Chris could see the REM flicker of the Forgetting. He bit the end of his pen, which was a nervous habit he’d developed in grade school. The room was tense with waiting. He stepped to the surgical tray beside the bed and picked up an empty syringe.
Chris had appealed to Mischa’s parents two months ago, eager to gather evidence for his doctoral thesis. Back then, the girl’s mnemonic reserve had been eighty three percent, but she was declining fast. “I can save your daughter,” he’d said with the arrogance only an eighteen-year-old prodigy could muster. They’d believed him, and signed the waivers. Now, the girl was a shell. Her brain was eating itself.
Chris took the silver vial from the tray and inserted the needle through the rubber shield. “I am injecting the patient with approximately seven thousand Pitschok neuronanocells,” he said, and pulled the stopper until the syringe was filled with sparkling grey.
Just a little longer, Mischa. Keep sleeping.
“Standard neuronanocells work to quarantine mnemosis by flooding the synapses of nearby cells,” Chris lectured for the benefit of the journalists. He slipped the glistening thread of needle behind Mischa’s ear, through layers of skin and membrane and water and blood and into the parietal lobe. “The Pitschok strain, on the other hand, has been bred to attack the infected cells and use the body’s own immune system to wipe the mnemonic reserve.”
Under the halogen light, Chris could feel sweat tingling just beneath the surface of his skin. He pressed his thumb against the stopper and the syringe emptied, spilling its shimmering contents into Mischa’s hungry brain.
“Once the electrical state of the patient’s brain has returned to its normal state, the Pitschok neuronanocells will use a low-energy pulse to stimulate regrowth of the damaged neurons. Within hours, the patient’s mnemonic reserve will return to its state before infection.”
Chris did not look away from the girl’s body, though he felt the unasked question filling the air like saline. They wanted to know if her brain could find its swallowed memories, if she’d wake up as the giggling girl they’d seen on the home videos Chris had included in the press kit or if she’d be a shadow, brain healed into a pristine blankness.
Shh. Mischa. Almost.
Chris watched the shape of her eyes flicker behind her eyelids. Impossibly long lashes trembled at every movement like a spider dancing on the edges of its web. He wondered what she could dream about, with her mnemonic reserve down to thirteen percent. Did her brain simply recycle the same images over and over, or did the dreams come from somewhere outside of her experiences?
Chris had no answer for the professors, for the technicians, for the journalists. Now, Mischa had all of the answers. He pulled the needle from behind her ear and a lock of stray hair brushed against his hand. It was soft and loose, like sleep.
Now, Mischa. Now. It’s time to remember.
by J.R. Blackwell | Aug 31, 2005 | Story
The worst had happened. I was in the care of Beloved Uncle, the public face of the Eastern Police. He had been appointed as a Machiavellian move, the political men who installed him meant to allow him a reign of outrageous violence to quell the populists and then kill him and replace him with someone who would seem gentle in his wake. Instead, the Beloved Uncles’ first action was to destroy the men who had appointed him.
“Ignorance is no excuse under the Law.†Beloved Uncle was a man who could kill me publicly without retribution, and I was arguing with him.
“They weren’t even really children! They were just rendered to look like children. They were all over the age of digital consent, they signed the forms!â€
Beloved Uncle was surrounded by his honor guard, a group of impossibly proportioned transparent women. These cyborg women had brought me to him, who now held my broken shoulders clenched under their diamond fingers. Glass, plastic, silicone, a slender steel spine, gloriously nubile, fierce, terrible, naked women, even more beautiful with blood dropping off their hard crystal skin, my blood. The Beloved Uncle was smiling, rubbing his hands together with glee.
“The images were sold as child pornography, the determination of which is left to me. The law is clear. You are now mine. Your new name is Brandy, cheap liquor synthesized by sods. You are not dead right now, Brandy, because your skills make you useful to me. Do you understand? By my mercy do you live.â€
“Please, I-”
“Speak no further Brandy, I don’t want to hear it. I have already heard your tragic story from my glass sluts.†The Beloved Uncles eyes glimmered with bursting glee. “I want to show you something.†He took his cane from under his arm and hoisted the gleaming metal before me.
“This, Brandy dearest, is the Sphincter Stick. It is my most favorite of birthday presents. Do you see these shiny buttons? I am told that there are two hundred and fifty four combinations for these buttons, and each will produce a different, painful, potentially lethal result.†He cradled the cane in his arms, rubbing the top joyfully. “Some of the combinations produce swarms of metallic wasps.†The women stared at me dispassionately and Beloved Uncle continued with enthusiasm. “I like to try out different combinations each time someone, someone like you, comes in here without results. I’m an old man though, and sometimes I forget the combinations, so I have to go through a lot of them before I get to something new, do you understand?â€
The Beloved Uncle was condemning me to something worse than any prison sentence, worse than public execution. I was going to work for him.
“I have an assignment for you Brandy, and you won’t come back to me unless you have tits or results. If you value your life, you will have both.â€
I couldn’t speak, I could only nod and pray silently.
