We’re Fucked, Pt. 108 (Fiction)

On By Jon UreñaIn Arte, Escritura, Inteligencia artificial

My brain concedes that this East Asian woman standing before me will stick around, instead of dematerializing as suddenly as she manifested naked in Jacqueline’s bedroom. She’s in her early twenties. Epicanthic folds narrow her slanted eyes. Their black pupils and charcoal-gray irises scintillate like tiny galaxies in the twinkling candlelight, that also caresses her pale skin devoid of wrinkles, blemishes, or visible pores. Her flat nose culminates with an upturned tip framed by small nostrils, followed by lips like painted watercolor, pink as blooming roses.

Although I remain intoxicated by the candles’ scent, the shock has snapped me out of my sex haze and rebooted the paranoid routines. As I gawk slack-jawed at the intruder, my lips part in speechless confusion. Jacqueline has vanished. My hands have gone cold, and I realize that I’m clutching at the bedclothes. I have become a child again, lost in a bustling city, desperately searching for a familiar face.

When the Asian creature opens her rosebud of a mouth, a feminine voice, clear and pure like a stream trickling over smooth stones, drifts between her gleaming white teeth.

“Take as long as you need.”

I can’t mistake that hint of a French accent. I swallow past the lump in my throat.

“Tu parles… le français?”

Her brows knit together in concern.

“Oui. It’s still me, darling. Fluent in French, Spanish, and English.”

My chest swells, then releases the pressure with an exhalation that comes like a first breath after holding it underwater. I’m a child who has found her mommy. However, a flood of questions crashes against the walls of my skull.

“H-how can you turn Asian? Is that something humans can do and I had failed to notice?”

As her eyes squint into two thin slits, a giggle, melodious and infectious, bubbles up from that exquisite visage, sparking an ember-like warmth in my chest. Jacqueline-but-Asian tilts her head, and her waist-length tresses cascade over her bare shoulder in a gleaming onyx tide. She stretches her lips into a mischievous smile.

“As far as I know, I’m unique in that regard. Who can say for sure, though? Until a few years ago, I would have thought all of this impossible. But I can change my form, and you, ma chérie, can communicate with beings from other dimensions.”

“I-I guess. Sounds like I’ve gotten the short end of the stick.”

Jacqueline lowers her head. She wipes at the corners of her eyes with her delicate fingers, brushing away the dewy beginnings of tears, even though she’s grinning. She lets out a soft sigh.

“Oh, what a relief. I’ve been dying to drop the bombshell on you ever since our first date in that Irish pub, but I thought I would never dare. The what-ifs drove me mad. Now that I have entrusted you with my burden, will you accept it? Will you stay by my side and make mommy happy?”

My heart swells. I want to spring off the mattress and throw myself at Jacqueline even in her Eastern incarnation.

“Don’t you know the answer to that question? I have come to terms with far more outlandish shit. In love, we accept each other even when we violate the laws of reality.”

Jacqueline presses a palm over her breastbone. A blush has tinted her cheeks, and those irises, deep as a starless night, shine in the candlelight like mirror-coated buttons.

“So… can you turn into other animals?” I ask. “Non-humanoid ones?”

She flashes a coquettish grin.

“Why, would that get you off?”

“Most things can get me off. But I’m just curious.”

“I was reluctant to try, in case my intelligence disappeared along with my human form. I worried in vain, though. When I attempted to transform into a dolphin, it didn’t work.”

“Why a dolphin?”

“Pretty sure I read that dolphins have a similar brain size. They’re also graceful and adorable.”

I shrug.

“They do hold a special attraction, perhaps a precognitive certainty about humanity’s doom. Did you attempt this transformation in a pool…?”

“Nope, in our living room. I planned to switch for a couple of seconds, then transform back into my gorgeous human body and laugh it off.”

I picture a bubblegum-pink dolphin, its skin shiny and rubber-smooth, flopping and hopping about, slapping the living room carpet with its flukes. A pair of meaty breasts squeeze and jostle against each other, nestled between the pectoral fins. Mommy stranded forever as a Delphinidae, her squeaking pleas unheard or unheeded until the SWAT breaks into our humble home and the operatives shoot their harpoon guns.

“I asked the universe for help,” Jacqueline continues, “and this is what it granted me. It’s been a fun if somewhat hollow ride.”

I rub my eyelids, trying to dispel the image of those dolphin tits.

“You are so unique, yet you waste your precious life working at our office, filling Excel spreadsheets with Arachne knows what unholy nonsense. You should be employed by an international spy ring to infiltrate criminal gangs, corrupt governments or evil corporations.”

She tosses her head, causing her obsidian mane to billow around her naked torso, and giggles like a schoolgirl.

“We need to keep our little miracle going, my love.” Jacqueline tucks in her chin, giving me a coy glance under her inky lashes. “Now I wish you had the power to turn into a cute little kitty.”

“Sure, I have often wished I could transform into a beast and escape humanity. But what would you do with a kitten me? Stroke my furry tummy? Cuddle me to sleep? Feed me milk?”

Her mouth widens into a toothy grin.

“I would put a collar and a bell around your neck, then take you for walks around the neighborhood. I’d let you sniff the asses of stray cats and dogs. Once you had done your business, I’d reward you with a bowl of milk and catnip cookies.”

My pulse picks up, and heat creeps onto my cheeks, but I’m too stupefied to get horny.

Author’s note: today’s song is “Anthems for a Seventeen Year-Old Girl” by Broken Social Scene.

I keep a playlist with all the songs mentioned throughout this novel. A total of a hundred and seventy-three videos so far. Check them out.

I produced the audiochapter for this one. Check it out.

A little bug has gotten inside my monitor and died there. Apparently that’s a thing that happens.