Category: Arte

Review: Gereksiz, by Minoru Furuya

On By Jon UreñaIn Arte, Escritura, Reseñas1 Comment

Four stars. The title apparently means “unnecessary” in Turkish.

This is Furuya’s latest series, finished six years ago, after his fan-favorite (at least for this fan of his) Saltiness. As usual, the story follows a man in the fringes of society, the owner of a small shop that specializes on baumkuchen, a type of pastry I wasn’t aware of but that looks delicious. As a teen, the man was urged to quit high school and become an apprentice of his father’s. Now his father is dead, and he has found himself as a nearly forty-year-old dude who knows little else other than baumkuchen, and whom nobody would love. His sole acquaintance is his twenty-three-year-old employee, an intimidating young woman who regularly pesters him with random topics such as the birth of the universe. She also finds him weak and generally pathetic.

One day, our protagonist begs his employee to eat out with him, and she reluctantly agrees because it’s his birthday. He has realized that he leads an empty life, but he opens up about the fact that he has fallen in love. The employee fears that she’s the target. However, that’s not the case: every evening, when he’s returning from work, he sees the same shapely young woman standing behind a tree at a local park, and she’s alluring enough that he can’t stop fantasizing about her, even though he has never seen her face.

The protagonist’s employee is intrigued. She urges him to head to that park and introduce himself to the woman. As he points the stranger out to his employee, though, an issue arises: he’s the only person who can see her.

That’s as much as you need to know about this shortish series, which only gets increasingly bizarre from there. Although it’s a minor work by a now fifty-one-year-old author who has probably said most of what he needed to say, it delves into powerful topics such as the need of certain people to lose themselves in delusions, because if they faced their reality objectively, they’d go insane.

I enjoyed this tale a lot, and found its last stretch quite touching. However, I would have ended it a page or two earlier.

I have reviewed most other works of this author, such as Boku to Issho, Wanitokagegisu, Himizu, and Ciguatera. Unfortunately, I have only found the translation for a single more work of his, and it’s the oldest, made in the early 90s. Furuya hasn’t produced any original work in six years, although he seems to have involved himself in adaptations of his series such as a live-action version of Ciguatera, which I’m sure is lackluster because live-action stuff rarely works.

Reread: Saltiness, by Minoru Furuya

On By Jon UreñaIn Arte, Escritura1 Comment

I’ve read through this series a third time since I reviewed it in this post. I’ve checked out most of Furuya’s stuff, such as Boku to Issho, Wanitokagegisu, Himizu, and Ciguatera, among which Ciguatera may be objectively his best, but Saltiness speaks to me to an extent that has made it my second favorite manga series after Asano’s Oyasumi Punpun.

Saltiness is the story of, for me, a clearly autistic dude who lives in one of those isolated Japanese towns with his younger sister, who is a teacher. We don’t know it yet, but they went through hell growing up: their mother abandoned them, and our generally deranged protagonist had to steal and loot in order to provide for his helpless little sister. As a result, even about twenty years later, he’s terrified of anything bad happening to her, and her happiness is his one goal in life, to the extent that once she manages to set up her life in a way that doesn’t require him anymore, he plans to arrange an accident in the woods to die and let her continue without needing to worry about him.

When the story starts, our oblivious protagonist is busy training to remain stoic in the face of all the outrageous nonsense in the universe. He pictures bizarre phantoms in his imagination, that pester him with philosophical questions and test his mental fortitude.

One of those days, his grandfather, the relative that took them in years ago, makes the protagonist aware of something horrible: as long as his little sister has to worry about his autistic ass, she won’t get married, won’t have a family of her own, and will end up miserable. Our protagonist understands that if he’s to achieve his goal of making his sister happy, he should become a financially independent adult. Thus, even though he doesn’t even know the name of his town, he hitch-hikes to Tokyo in order to achieve this goal.

What follows is a deranged, outrageous tale filled with fascinating characters, most of whom exist in the fringes of society: a garrulous gambler with little self-control, a student who’s forced to steal panties to support his family back in the sticks, a senile old man that believes he alone knows the secret that will topple the US, a clown who punishes cheaters by shitting on their cars, a forty-year-old mentalist who lives with his mother and hasn’t talked to other humans since he was eighteen, an arrogant prick who will only speak nonsense to those he deems more intelligent than him, a successful but suicidal novelist on a spiral of declining mental health, etc.

Throughout this journey, the protagonist will shift his perspective on how to confront the mysterious monster called life, to figure out what, ultimately, constitutes happiness for him. I was very pleased with the ending.

Furuya’s works share the same elements: men on the fringes of society try to improve their lives despite having few resources, and facing somewhat episodic, at times horrifying stuff that they’ll nevertheless have to endure through. I’m talking about kidnappings, torture, and rape in the extremes, mingled with mundane stuff like trying to figure out if your family members will be out of the place when you bring your girlfriend over. Curiously, after some of the most outrageous, potentially life-derailing stuff, the characters involved keep going, having grown a little bit after the experience but otherwise unaffected.

All of his protagonists, if I remember correctly, deal with intrusive thoughts and bizarre daydreams. Along with the way his characters talk and his outside-the-box narrative choices, I’d say that Furuya’s brain must be quite similar to mine, which naturally ended up making him my favorite overall. I’m instinctively drawn towards writing similar stories.

I see myself rereading this series plenty of times throughout my life. I’m already rereading his Ciguatera, a fantastic work on its own right. It’s a shame that Minoru Furuya remains a stranger even for many seasoned manga readers.

On writing: Developing the premise #3

On By Jon UreñaIn Arte, Escritura2 Comments

You can check out all my posts on writing through this link.

Are you happy with your concept? Then grow a premise out of it. Premises involve a task to be accomplished and a character that must accomplish it in the midst of conflict.

The following notes, gathered years ago from many books on writing, focus on developing the stakes associated with your premise. The dictionary defines “stakes” as “a sum of money or something else of value gambled on the outcome of a risky game or venture.” It also defines “stakes” as “a territorial division of a Latter-day Saints (Mormon) Church under the jurisdiction of a president.” In summary: someone in your story should stand to win and/or lose big during the course of the tale.

  • What is at stake for the hero relative to attaining or not attaining the goal, which can be stated as survival, the attainment of something, the avoidance of something, the discovery of something, and so on?
  • The reader should know, early on, what the consequences of success or failure will be. If you’re still only vaguely defining the stakes of your story as “happiness” or “peace,” congratulations, you’ve just found the probable weakness in your story.
  • Could your story be about the hero trying to change something?
  • Could it be about him or her trying to improve anything at all?
  • Could it be about him or her seeking to save someone?
  • How do the weight of the stakes motivate the reader to root for your hero with empathy?
  • How do they manipulate the reader into emotional engagement, one that would cause us to take action too?
  • How would the stakes touch us emotionally and intellectually?
  • How could the stakes be vividly and viscerally established?
  • How much can change if the protagonist succeeds or fails? Try to make it bigger, playing for something bigger than the main character. The bigger the win, and the deeper the cut of a loss, the better, because dramatic tension is fueled by stakes.
  • What would the stakes be for the opposition should they fail?

We’re Fucked, Pt. 122: AI-generated audiochapter

On By Jon UreñaIn Arte, Escritura, Inteligencia artificial1 Comment

Until that one day when the end comes. This audiochapter covers chapter 122 of my ongoing novel We’re Fucked.

Cast

  • Leire: Thieves’ Guild operative that offers job down at the Ragged Flagon in Riften
  • Jacqueline: redheaded mage mommy from Maribor
  • Nairu: some kid that sells newspapers in the post-apocalypse

I produced audiochapters for the entire three previous sequences, and I intend to continue until the novel ends or I erupt in a fountain of Ice Age megafauna. A total of five hours, thirty-three minutes, and twenty-seven seconds. Check them out.

We’re Fucked, Pt. 122 (Fiction)

On By Jon UreñaIn Arte, Escritura, Inteligencia artificial3 Comments

Before I enter the kitchen, the bitter scent of freshly brewed coffee wafts into my nose, mixed with the aroma of browning batter sizzling in a frying pan. Jacqueline, clad in her burgundy silk robe with wide and flowy sleeves, stands at the stove, cooking a batch of pancakes. The high-gloss cabinetry under the counter reflects her pair of toned legs, that end in pink slippers. Seated at the table, past the fruit bowl centerpiece that adds a splash of organic color, Nairu has hidden her face in a dinosaur picture book, ignoring the glass of milk set in front of her.

Jacqueline welcomes me with one of her disarming smiles.

“There you are, darling.” She slides a spatula beneath the frying pancake and skillfully flips it onto the pile on a plate. After withdrawing the spatula, she points it in the direction of the coffee maker at the end of the counter. “Your morning boost awaits.”

As I start to move, Nairu lets out an anxious cry universally understood as, “Wait, let me do it.” She puts down her book, hops off the chair, and hurries to grab the coffee mug from the dip tray. When she turns, her grinning face, framed by messy chestnut hair, greets me. Her amber eyes hold a depth of stories untold, the memory of a world that only she remembers. She’s wearing pajamas striped in mustard yellow and cream, patterned with cartoon pigs, bears, and whales amid five-pointed stars.

“That’s a smile of pride,” Jacqueline says. “Just by watching me, she figured out that she had to pick a fresh capsule from the dispenser, put it in, wait for the machine’s ready light, then push the button to brew. Isn’t it amazing? I might be biased, thinking of our lovely girl as a genius, but you may have come upon a prodigy of her time.”

I could comment that humans have been anatomically modern for hundreds of thousands of years, capable of formulating the same thoughts and learning the same skills. And I’m no different: I follow Jacqueline’s instructions, hardly understanding what magic transmogrifies those capsules into the dark, bitter, caffeinated nectar that I can’t live without. Yet, even if Nairu had handed me a pebble instead of this coffee mug that warms my palms, I’d be moved too, longing to wrap our girl in a tight hug until I risked smothering her.

“Thank you, Nairu,” I say in a choked voice, “for wanting to improve my day.”

“Alright, pancakes done,” Jacqueline announces. “Sit down, mes chéries.”

When mommy lifts the towering plate, Nairu’s eyes widen, and she scurries back to her seat. I turn toward mine across from our Paleolithic child, but I’m drawn to the sight of the stainless-steel refrigerator, whose door displays a collection of drawings attached with magnets. The pictures, rendered in crayon, depict bears, mammoths, ground sloths, a triceratops, pines, pastries, a stop sign, a bus, the Mount Igueldo tower, Jacqueline and me holding hands. At the rate we’re accruing drawings, we will need to rent a storage unit.

As I lower myself into the chair, my sore body complains. I don’t know how my hip remains intact with the poundings I receive. The culprit, Jacqueline, has set down the stack of golden-brown pancakes, their edges darker and crisp. I lift the mug to my lips and take a gulp. A lazy fire spreads in my stomach, chasing away the chill of the early morning, the creep of age. Coffee and freshly-cooked pancakes: a classic breakfast that every human from the Paleolithic through history can enjoy.

Jacqueline spears the top two pancakes with a fork and slides them onto Nairu’s plate. Mommy picks up the syrup and chocolate bottles.

“What do you want to top the pancakes with, mon bébé?” She holds up the plastic bottles, exaggerating her gestures to bridge the language gap. “Syrup, or chocolate?”

A giggle bubbles up from Nairu’s throat before she jabs her finger at the latter bottle.

“Chocolate!”

I serve myself a couple of pancakes, then reach for the syrup bottle while Jacqueline keeps busy browning Nairu’s treat further. As I pour the viscous amber, it settles in glossy, deflating puddles on top of the first golden disk, and trickles down the sides to pool on the plate.

I slice through the pancake, the fork gliding effortlessly, and scoop up a fluffy, syrup-drenched piece. I take a bite. My mouth floods with the caramel-like flavor of syrup, blended with those of vanilla and nutmeg.

Outside, bird chirping announces the imminent birth of a new day, that for those avian fiends will be comprised of confusion, mating rituals, and a frantic search for food to feed themselves and their helpless hatchlings. In our kitchen, I hear the clatter of cutlery on plates, vocalizations like “mm-hmmm,” and gentle glugs. At times a dog’s bark, or the rumble of a car’s engine, filters through the balcony door to remind me that we aren’t alone.

Dollops of chocolate have landed on Nairu’s pajama shirt in blots and streaks. Her lips, chin, and nose are smeared with the sticky substance, while her cheeks bulge as if she has stuffed herself after starving for days. Suddenly, her eyes clamp shut, and violent convulsions seize her small frame. Out of her mouth shoots a rainbow-hued gush that splatters onto the table, the stack of pancakes, the fruit bowl, my own breakfast. Solid forms, the size of action figures, have surged with the flood and bounced off the table, the plates, the fruits, or the spongy pancakes: woolly mammoths, mastodons, stag-moose, ground sloths, giant beavers, saber-toothed cats, short-face bears. Some of the miniature beasts lie injured or dead; others stagger to their feet, waddle around in a daze, or shake their shaggy, sodden pelts, flinging rainbow-colored droplets everywhere.

Hunched over, I prop my elbows on either side of my plate, and rub my temples in circles to dispel the vision. My heartbeat has accelerated, my stomach churns ominously. Jacqueline, seated along the long side of the table, reaches over to enfold my right hand in her own.

“Are you alright, mon amour?”

I straighten up and lower my hands. My gaze falls upon an ivory nightgown framed by the V-neck of her burgundy robe, and adorned with lace trimmings in a floral pattern. The silky fabric, that must glide over her skin like a lover’s fingers, clings to mommy’s tantalizing cleavage.

“I had one of my moments,” I say, “but I feel fine already.”

Nairu, engrossed in her dinosaur picture book, pushes a piece of pancake into her mouth. Her striped pajamas remain unspoiled.

Jacqueline caresses the neckline of my cardigan, tracing the stitching.

“I must say, you’re looking quite chic today.”

“Yeah? Says someone who could wear a potato sack and still enchant. Anyway, I can’t rely on hoodies forever. I would have preferred to wear a T-shirt emblazoned with the words, ‘Let’s kill our boss,’ but alas, I haven’t dared to order such a customized garment.”

Jacqueline knits her eyebrows in worry.

“Let’s focus on staying out of trouble, shall we? You’ve been carrying more tension lately when it comes to work. Is… our boss putting extra pressure on you?”

I take a deep breath as I run my fingers through my hair. I’m no closer to figuring out what machine I’m supposed to destroy before it rips the universe apart, but I won’t ruin the sanctity of this family by bringing the apocalypse into our dynamics: I must shoulder the responsibility alone.

“No, I’d say he’s burdening me with the usual amount of pointless programming tasks.”

“But you can offload some of them on Jordi, can’t you? How are you two getting along these days?”

I get a flash of that intern of ours, with his ever-neat red hair and glasses, always dressed in a self-imposed uniform of crisp white shirts and tailored black trousers. His youthful, freckled skin, along with that habit of referring to me as his senior, makes me feel as if I should start collecting a pension and oiling my knees, or whatever the hell old people do. But I’d rather not spend my spare time dwelling on Jordi any more than I would on the office furniture.

“Now that I’m getting acquainted with that ravishing Irish form of yours, the epitome of redheads, every other redhead should have spontaneously combusted in shame.”

Although Jacqueline laughs, my body stiffens and my eyes widen in panic as I glance at Nairu, who’s unaware of Jacqueline’s shapeshifting. Our antediluvian wonder is taking a long draught of milk. When she puts the glass down, she licks away her milk mustache while her gaze darts back and forth between her mommies.

Jacqueline props her chin on the heel of her palm.

“One of these days we’ll need to be careful with our words around Nairu, but I’m afraid that day is a long way off.” She straightens up and lets out a squeak of delight. “You’re so cute, mon petit ange!”

Jacqueline scoots over to cup Nairu’s face and smooch her, prompting a fit of giggling from the girl.

In this morning of pancakes and mammals surging from a mouth, a comet-like flare is forming within me.

“Anyway, Jordi is decent enough. I’d prefer if he didn’t exist, but I think that of most people. It’s always been a struggle to care about anything, to feel connected to anyone, even myself. These days, though, whenever I’m chained to my computer at work, I find myself thinking about you and Nairu, hoping you’re enjoying yourselves. That makes the world keep spinning even when it’s crumbling apart.”

Jacqueline’s smile fades into a thoughtful expression. She scoots toward me and reaches for my hand, but my cellphone vibrates in the pocket of my trousers and starts playing Chopin’s Nocturne, the second alarm of the morning. Time to make it through another day in this harsh, unforgiving universe without going insane.

Once I silence the alarm, I gulp down the remainder of my coffee, then put the mug in the dishwasher. Nairu calls out “Eide,” the name she baptized me with, drawing attention to her picture book. A double-page illustration depicts a herd of diplodocus, their long necks swaying as they cross a stream. She pokes and babbles at one of the flesh-and-bone catenaries that end in a head with a slender snout, a narrow jaw, and lateral eyes.

“Yes,” I say. “Can you believe that millions of years ago, some creatures were even more astonishing than your Ice Age marvels? You know, my first memory was of waking up after a surgery. During the hospital stay, my mother bought me a plastic triceratops. It seemed magical. I wonder what happened to it…”

Nairu’s cheeks dimple in a pure smile. Her amber eyes are alive with a spirit that never dims.

I ruffle her chestnut locks tenderly.

“Goodbye, ma fille.”

Nairu waves back at me as Jacqueline, her hands on my shoulders, steers me toward the front door.

From now on, until that one day when the end comes, how many times will our family sit around a table to share a meal? Once Nairu masters the language, how will she take to learning board games? The three of us, in competitive or cooperative formats, will run a zoo, colonize Mars, evolve our ancient civilizations, build our post-apocalyptic nations, fight against eldritch horrors. As cyberpunk runners, blazing through corporate servers while evading countermeasures, we’ll finally defeat Shadowcluster.

“I never heard of that memory before,” Jacqueline says warmly.

“Well,” I push through my constricted throat, my voice a raspy whisper, “I don’t like to remember things.”

I open the front door. Jacqueline cups my face and wraps my mouth in a chocolatey, syrupy kiss. When she pulls back, her cobalt-blues shine through the ivory-white blur of her features.

“Remember that, Leire. We’ll be here when you come back.”

The door closes with a thud behind me. Alone in the gloom of the landing, I start descending the stairs, but my legs feel unsteady enough that I grab hold of the cold handrail. My heavy footfalls echo in the stairwell, mingling with a muffled conversation coming from some apartment.

As I turn a corner, a liquid drips on my right hand. I stop and glance up; no ceiling leaks, none that I can see in the dim light. Warm streams are coursing down my cheeks. One trickles over the curve of my upper lip and slides into my mouth. It tastes salty.

I’m neither depressed nor miserable. So why am I weeping?

Author’s note: today’s songs are “A.M. 180” by Grandaddy, “Good Ol’ Boredom” by Built to Spill, and “はるなつあきふゆ” (“Spring Summer Autumn Winter”) by Ichiko Aoba.

I keep a playlist with all the songs I’ve mentioned throughout the novel so far. A total of two hundred and four videos. Check them out.

Are you too lazy to read, and would prefer to listen to this chapter instead? Then check out the audiochapter.

Review: Jingo, by Terry Pratchett

On By Jon UreñaIn Arte, Escritura, ReseñasLeave a comment

Four stars.

This is the fourth novel in the City Watch series of books, after Guards! Guards!, Men at Arms, and Feet of Clay. What started as a nearly extinct force of guards led by a drunkard, has become a well-recognized band that features members of most of the fantasy races present in the city of Ankh-Morpork, including dwarves, trolls, werewolves, zombies, golems, gargoyles, and overzealous proselytizers.

This time, an Atlantis-like island has surfaced between the city state of Ankh-Morpork and the neighboring country of Klatch, the fantasy equivalent of a Middle-Eastern muslim country. Both nations have claimed this ancient, somewhat Cthulhu-esque landscape for themselves, and if neither gives in, an armed conflict could break out.

A long time ago, Ankh-Morpork established itself as the dominating force in the area, mainly thanks to the efforts of a Caesar-like figure, but these days, the city’s power is mostly illusory, based around debt and selling weapons to every side of the nearby conflicts. When foreign embassadors from this pseudo-Middle-Eastern country visit the city, the Watch gets dragged into it to secure the peace. Unfortunately, someone is trying to whack the foreign prince in an echo of how JFK got killed, involving a conspiracy. Is that someone trying to force a war to break out, or are the Klatchians dragging their internal politics into the city? Tensions are flaring up: some Klatchians who have been living in the city for decades, some even born there, become targets, and if the Watch look like they’re trying to side with the Klatchians, they could be painted as traitors.

In the process of investigating who JFK-ed the foreign bigwig, one of our beloved watch-people gets kidnapped, so our heroes decide that a trip to desertic lands is in order, even if the odds aren’t in their favor.

A peculiar tale in what has otherwise been a confined series, now heavily featuring a Leonardo da Vinci lookalike, a submarine, crossdressing, and some other unlikely stuff.

I liked seeing more of Lord Vetinari, perhaps the most cunning and capable ruler in any story I’ve read, and I enjoyed the interactions between characters that otherwise wouldn’t have engaged each other. There’s quite a bit of social commentary on empires that believe themselves high and mighty although they’ve long lost their might, on the position of women in repressive societies, on how humans gravitate towards picking sides and demonizing the opposition, etc. Pratchett also injects that self-defeating Western thing of depicting the westerner proxies as ignorant dullards and the exotic foreigners as sophisticated and clever despite their backward societies, which tasted stale for me.

It took me quite a while to get through this one, because I’ve been in the mood to either read manga or play video games in my spare time, but the fourth entry in this series may be the best overall, even though the Watch were, for the most part, dragged along for the ride.

We’re Fucked, Pt. 121: AI-generated audiochapter

On By Jon UreñaIn Arte, Escritura, Inteligencia artificial1 Comment

Can’t enjoy your morning coffee in peace. This audiochapter covers chapter 121 of my ongoing novel We’re Fucked.

Cast

  • Leire: a blonde thief from good ol’ days of non-corporate Bethesda
  • Irish Jacqueline: a youthful, slightly unhinged gal from something called Genshin Impact
  • OG Jacqueline: redheaded mage, friend-with-benefits of a monster hunter

I produced audiochapters for the entire three previous sequences, and I intend to continue until the novel ends or I prefer to stay in bed all day instead, letting gravity do its work. A total of five hours, twenty minutes, and fifteen seconds. Check them out.

We’re Fucked, Pt. 121 (Fiction)

On By Jon UreñaIn Arte, Escritura, Inteligencia artificial3 Comments

The amber-and-gold glow of dawn bathes a bearded man clad in animal furs. He’s standing barefoot on grass that glistens with dew, his rugged figure framed by the maw of a cave. The man’s face bears the marks of the sun and wind, and his thick beard is matted with traces of last night’s campfire. Around his neck hangs a necklace of teeth and bones.

As the man squints against the rising sun, he raises a steaming cup of coffee to his lips and takes a sip of the bitter brew. When he lowers his gaze, a jolt of surprise shakes him, causing his hands to jerk and the coffee to splash over the rim of his cup. His eyes widen, his mouth falls agape, the tendons in his neck stiffen. A shaggy, hulking ground sloth slams against the man, thrusting him backwards into the cave. The steaming cup sails in an arc through the air, trailing streaks and droplets of coffee that gleam orange in the sunrise.

The warm weight of a body is draped over me like a heated blanket. Two hard nubs are poking my upper back as a petite bosom presses against me, and more conspicuously, a pulsating shaft is pumping inside the slippery channel of my vagina.

I stir. Although my eyelids peel open, either I have gone blind or the rolling shutters have sealed the bedroom in blackness.

Soft lips nuzzle the crook of my neck in kisses that coax ticklish shudders through my spine. I feel the rise and fall of her chest, along with the beating of her heart.

“Good morning, ma chérie,” says a light and airy voice, high as the upper notes on a musical scale.

My breath hitches in my throat, my muscles tense up. I’m trapped in this person’s grip: she has wrapped an arm under my breasts, and with her other arm, she has caught me in a headlock. Who the fuck is fucking me?!

As my panic escalates, my mind paints a picture on the canvas of darkness: vibrant, wavy copper hair cascading down; a constellation of freckles dusted over porcelain skin; coral-pink, well-hydrated lips like velvety rose petals. I relax, then lean back into Jacqueline’s embrace just as one of her hands glides down to caress my abdomen.

“And what a beautiful morning it is,” she purrs.

“D-did you fall asleep with your dick on?” I utter in a voice raspy with sleep.

My ear fills with soft giggles, the tinkling of tiny bells.

“More like passed out, after I drained myself deep inside you. No wonder I slept so soundly. Today I have woken up snuggled up to ma moitié, my erection nestled between her ass cheeks, and I figured that I could help her start the day off right.”

She’s rocking her pelvis, prodding the length of her penis inside me with a friction that brings forth a wash of slippery juices.

“Ah, ça c’est bon…” she murmurs, her voice quivering with the rhythm of her thrusts.

“Wh-whenever you grow that dick of yours, you turn into a wild beast.”

“Don’t you love to wake up to the feeling of mommy’s cock plowing your insides?”

“Of course I do. I purely pointed out a fact.”

“You’re right, though. I become a wild animal driven by the need to hold you tight and fill you up with cum. And that, mon bébé, is what I intend to do.”

As her throbbing hardness grinds inside my velvet chamber in an undulating motion, rubbing against every fold and groove, pleasure rolls up from my loins in delicious waves. A hand fondles my right breast, kneading its plump flesh. Her fingertips trace the pebbled surface of my areola, and when she pinches the nipple, a bolt of ecstasy lances through me. Her hot tongue travels upwards along my neck, leaving a trail of fire. Her lips close over my earlobe, which she nibbles in electric prickles.

Sighs and whimpers keep escaping from my throat. I reach for the back of her head and intertwine my fingers with her silky locks.

Jacqueline’s hand slithers down from my breast, along the concave plain of my abdomen. Folding my right leg, I plant my heel on her thigh to offer better access. Her hand reaches the patch of curls above my slit and begins to rub circles on my turgid clit. Meanwhile, her pulsing shaft withdraws with squelches, sluicing my arousal out and spattering it onto my inner thighs, only to plunge deep again. The furnace-like heat inside me is coiling tightly. Her swollen glans nudges my cervix, making my toes curl. The muscles of my pussy clamp around her in rhythmic spasms as if trying to suck her deeper.

I attempt to muffle my whimpering moans with the pillow, but Jacqueline’s other hand, still securing a headlock, coaxes my face towards hers. Our lips lock, and her tongue slides against mine in a velvety dance. I can’t help but moan into her mouth. Once she pulls away with a wet smack, she speaks breathlessly.

“Oh, I wish I could stare into your puppy eyes now, mon trésor, at that face distorted by lust-glazed adoration. I can’t wait to see your belly swell and your breasts engorge with milk to feed our child.”

Our child? We can’t have a child of our own. It’s not driven by the fear of miscarriage or labor fatality alone, serious as those risks may be: the spare bedroom where Jacqueline filmed some of her camming sessions has become Nairu’s room. Would we compel our Paleolithic artist to endure a screaming baby and piles of soiled diapers just so Jacqueline and I could experience the luxury of a biological offspring? What about our second child’s individuality, forced to share a bedroom growing up? Well, we could move into a bigger home, like a castle; my wealthy shapeshifter could afford it, and if necessary, I’d pester my interdimensional stalkers into paying for the renovation fees. But a baby produced from our combined genes would be ruined by a legacy of sexual deviancy. Even worse, he or she may inherit my anxiety, my intrusive thoughts, my obsessive tendencies, my self-loathing, my depression, my compulsive masturbation. That kid would be doomed to a lifetime of misery. And what if I become the sort of mother who locks herself in the bathroom with a bottle of scotch? It should be illegal to give birth in a world that is falling apart, a world from which I’ve looked forward to removing myself.

One lucky spermatozoon belonging to my French-speaking, child-adoring, shapeshifting secretary, as well as on-and-off cam girl, would pierce my egg, implanting the embryonic progenitor of an uncharted genus within my womb, a cradle that might call forth an entity hitherto unknown: perhaps an ice-breathing chimera from a prehistoric environment so distant that its memory was erased from the earth. This fetus would drain life-giving nutrients and oxygen from my body, transforming my blood into sludge and my heart into a stone like my mother did to my father, like she did to me since I emerged from her vagina squirming and screaming in indignation. Such a parasite wouldn’t wait for post-partum psychosis to prolong my agony; given the chance, it would slit open my midsection and crawl out of my guts like a creature of legend: winged, multi-legged, clawed, and with a maw of serrated teeth sharp enough to tear through the fabric of reality.

Oh, who am I kidding. Last Friday at the office, I had trouble concentrating on my code because I kept picturing the sweat glistening on mommy’s ivory-white skin, the smooth ridges of her toned thighs, the jiggle of her breasts, the roundness of her ass in my hands, and my nose bleeding again from the exertion of sucking her cock. My fingers itched with the desire to type dirty messages into her DMs and send photos of my wet cunt. I long to be ravaged into submission in the missionary position, in cowgirl, on all fours. I’m a slut-lady who serves mommy’s mammoth member, and I can’t wait for her to commandeer me as a container to concoct cum-sticky creamsicles.

Jacqueline is panting, her breathing, ragged and moist, tickling the shell of my ear. Her arms are wrapped tightly around me, pressing me closer. Her heart pounds against my back. Her cockhead batters the back of my vagina as her fingertips strum my engorged clit with growing urgency, milking waves of tingly sparks out of my nerves. I’m drooling into the pillow, pinned against the mattress, caught in a vice of bliss. I clasp my arms around hers and hold on tight. Mommy will splatter her gluey seed into me soon, maybe while twitching on top of me and whispering enticing filth.

“You’ve been loving the daily doses of mommy milk,” Jacqueline whispers, “haven’t you, mon ange?”

I turn my head enough to unmuffle myself.

“More than you know.”

“Then beg me to breed you.”

“P-please, mommy, make me your broodmare. Fill me up with your fertile spunk until I explode.”

Her breath catches in her throat.

“My love,” she pants, “you make it difficult to control myself. Don’t worry, mommy is about to give you a bellyful of babies.”

The bed creaks and groans while Jacqueline’s hips hammer at my ass with violent fervor, in meaty, echoing slaps. The pressure within me builds and builds, swelling to a fever pitch. I’m writhing, mewling. When the dam bursts and a flood of pleasure rushes through me, a sprinkle of stars flashes against the blackness. I quake from head to toe, overcome by the euphoric tsunami, but I still feel the veins of Jacqueline’s cock throbbing against my clutching walls as its length twitches. With her face buried in the crook of my neck, she lets out a long, shaky sigh, and the spasms of her climax seize her in waves. Hot gushes of her cream must be splashing deep inside me in ropey spurts.

When our orgasms ebb away, our breaths have synchronized, and our skins are melding into one lascivious, dewy whole. A peace shimmers inside me like the sunlit surface of a still lake.

Jacqueline’s fingertips draw swirls on my lower abdomen with a delicate, feathery touch. Her shrunken shaft remains lodged within me.

“Do you think I’m greedy, mon coeur?” she asks, her voice honeyed with contentment. “You’ve given me such a sweet child to love and nurture, but I want another one made of us both.”

“That’s fine. Just don’t leave me to fend off for myself in the streets.”

“How could I ever abandon my darling? You’re stuck with me, whether you like it or not.” Jacqueline caresses with her warm palm the stretch of skin between my bellybutton and pubes, as if rubbing a pregnant belly. “What do you think it’s going to be? A boy or a girl?”

“That’s assuming that the kid can’t turn into one or the other at will.”

“Oh dear. If so, she better figure it out only after she turns eighteen. What a complicated childhood would await our little person otherwise.”

“We might also end up with a genderless blob, like sentient pudding.”

Jacqueline giggles, her breath hot against my neck.

“Seriously though,” I say, “I do hope it’s a girl. I wouldn’t know how to handle a boy.”

“Oh, I know it already, Leire. It’s a girl.”

“Well, if it isn’t, let’s not try to turn him into one. My parents screwed me up enough; I wouldn’t want to do the same to another being.”

Babies, with their squishy cheeks and button noses, with their flailing limbs and drooling mouths, fling sticky mash on people when they aren’t pissing and shitting themselves, but they don’t intend to be rude; they just want for someone to wipe their bottom and put a nipple to their lips. The worst thing in the world, besides having your teeth torn out by rabid dogs, is forcing your child to confront the alienating forces of society alone. Fret not: Jacqueline and I will stand alongside him or her, safeguarding our spawn against the raiders and cannibals of the wastes.

Piano notes of bell-like clarity, cascading like crystal droplets, light up the darkness with an ethereal touch. However, that glow comes from my cellphone’s screen, resting on the nightstand beside Jacqueline. One of these days I’ll change my alarm melody; it’s unfair to associate Chopin’s Nocturnes with the mundane dread of having to wake up for work.

“Merde…” Jacqueline grumbles. “Time to get up, mon lapin.”

She twists her right arm out from under the covers, and turns enough to reach over. The melody cuts off; she must have swiped across the touchscreen. Paired with a faint electronic sound, blackness descends on us again.

I could try to convince myself that I imagined the alarm going off, that I can look forward to hours in the warmth of Jacqueline’s embrace.

“Let’s pretend for a while that everyone other than you, Nairu and I have died.”

Jacqueline presses a kiss on my temple.

“Believe me, I’d rather you stay in bed all day with a pillow tucked under your hips, letting gravity do its work.”

I sigh.

“I guess I have to play along with the farce of normal life, one pointless website gadget at a time.”

Jacqueline disentangles herself gently, withdrawing her left arm from under me. She unplugs my vagina with a moist slurp. In a rustle of bedclothes, the weight of her body lifts from the mattress. Her warmth won’t linger long.

I roll over toward Jacqueline, then grope around for the switch of the nightstand lamp. When it clicks on, its light brushes across the wood-grained surface of the furniture, revealing its dark-espresso finish.

As I blink my bleary eyes against the brightness, I get a glimpse of a fiery copper mane mussed by sleep and sex, of sienna-colored freckles scattered over the milky porcelain of a lithe figure, that of a swimmer who may have emerged from a river, or the sea. Instantly she shifts into the taller, hourglass shape of Jacqueline-but-French. I want to bite into that plump derrière.

Her arms sweep upwards in a fluid motion to reach overhead, and the muscles in her arms and arched back tense as she stretches. A groan of comfort escapes her mouth.

Jacqueline gazes down at me over her shoulder, her cobalt-blues alight, her lips parted in an amorous smile.

“Go take a shower, ma lumière. I’ll wake up our little one, then prepare us three a hearty breakfast.”

Author’s note: today’s songs are “VCR” by The xx, “Bodys” by Car Seat Headrest (also this fantastic live version), and “Nocturne Op. 9 No. 2” by Chopin.

I keep a playlist with all the songs mentioned throughout this novel. A total of two hundred and one videos. Check them out.

Would you prefer to listen to this delightful chapter in audio form? Check it out.

This chapter kicks off the second-to-last sequence, titled “The Great Pretender.”

Ongoing manga: Nora to Zassou, by Keigo Shinzo

On By Jon UreñaIn Arte, Escritura, ReseñasLeave a comment

The title translates to something like Amidst the Weeds, or Lost in the Weeds. It’s been quite a while since I start an ongoing manga series and I feel compelled to write about it before it finishes. But this tale hits some of my personal spots well enough, particularly my savior complex, that I, engrossed, nearly missed my stop on the train.

The story follows a police inspector who sets up sting operations on prostitution rings. He’s a reserved guy whose hair has already gone white at forty, and who seems to be going through the motions. During a sting operation, turns out that some of the prostitutes were underage. Even worse, one of them resembles the inspector’s only child, who drowned some years ago.

She’s a runaway. The police send her back to her mother, who proceeds to beat up her daughter as a greeting. In turn, she runs away again. When this girl isn’t overtly prostituting herself, she’s pseudo-prostituting herself by announcing on social media that she’s a poor underage runaway; lots of men offer her a spot on their beds out of the kindness of their hearts. By this point, this girl is seriously broken, having lost the ability to feel happiness, and harboring little else than resentment and hate towards humanity.

The inspector realizes that she has run away again, and fears that one of those men she gets involved with will turn out to be a serial killer who stuffs his victims in suitcases, but legally our male main character can’t do much, other than try to convince the girl’s abusive drunkard of a mother to report her as a missing person. Soon enough, our girl and the inspector realize that they have something in common: they both feed the same dirty stray cat who lives among weeds in the bank of the river. Therefore, this man may not be the kind to take advantage of her. At her lowest, he finds her, and offers her to live with him.

This is a tale about two broken people discovering what happiness may look like. Neither are perfect beyond their circumstances: we learn that the inspector was an overworked, neglectful father, and the girl can easily slide into bursts of rage that resemble those of her mother, causing undeserved pain to those around her, perhaps unconsciously to sabotage herself.

The rest of the story so far focuses on trying to return the girl to normalcy, for example going to class. However, most of the school knows that she used to prostitute herself, and some of the adults that stare at her may be wondering if they could get in the action.

The girl inherited from her mother, other than a simmering rage, the talent to preserve the beauty of the world in drawings. Through art, she’s getting a taste of what fulfillment feels like.

This series may not have reached its midpoint yet. In any case, I highly recommend it to fans of good manga in general, but in particular to those who loved Kei Sanbe’s Erased, and even Inio Asano’s Oyasumi Punpun (which remains my favorite manga series). I didn’t know the newish author, who is thirty-six years old, but I’m getting the feeling that I will read plenty of his in the future: he’s great at depicting nuanced emotions both in his script and drawings, and other than a few moments that were a bit on the nose, I wouldn’t change anything from this series.

We’re Fucked, Pt. 120: AI-generated audiochapter

On By Jon UreñaIn Arte, Escritura, Inteligencia artificial1 Comment

A ride that will end before we know it. This audiochapter covers chapter 120 of my ongoing novel We’re Fucked.

Cast

  • Leire: sassy thief who hangs out among rats down in the sewers of Riften
  • Jacqueline: flirty redheaded mage and friend-with-benefits of monster hunters

I produced audiochapters for the entire two previous sequences, and I intend to continue until the novel ends or I get hurled off a rollercoaster. A total of five hours, four minutes, and fifty-three seconds. Check them out.