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I haven’t fully recovered yet from the Moderna booster shot, but at least I don’t have a fever anymore. I spent the day after the jab with temperatures close to 39ºC. The following day they averaged about 37.5ºC. Besides the inevitable decline of my cognitive abilities during the fever, I experienced muscle pain, a troubling, pulsating headache at the base of my skull, and maybe worst of all, I developed something of a bronchitis, for which I’m still taking asthma medication. Still, it seems I’ll have to continue this life of mine.

Anyway, I had been working on this scene for days, and frankly I wanted to put it out there and move on. I’m not entirely content with the result, but it achieves all it was meant to.

---

Jacqueline and I walk arm in arm under her umbrella along the puddle-infested pavement, as we head towards my coworker’s chosen pub. Raindrops are pelting the umbrellas and plunking against car roofs; only the occasional motorbike’s engine sounds over the white noise of the downpour. Rivulets run across the street and into gutters where they turn white with froth. With each inhalation, watery air enters my lungs. Jacqueline and I remain silent as if we had agreed to wait until we reached a shelter.

We pass the courthouse, and after we hurry to cross a short zebra crossing, we continue along a leaf-littered pavement lined with nude trees. The umbrellas of the strangers that pass us, as well as ours, sway and dance in response to the gusts of wind. Rainwater falls from the ends of the fabric in curtains while cold raindrops hit my bare legs like tiny daggers, as if the water was trying to push through to enter my bloodstream and feed on my living tissue.

By this point of human civilization, when most things are airtight and insulated from nature to prevent damage to buildings or our vulnerable lives, stormy weather should have been forbidden by law, yet it continues to make everything on earth quiver and shiver and whimper in terror at the sight of the freakish beast known as rain. However, being so close to Jacqueline’s warmth has given me goosebumps on top of those the cold provided. With every breath I take, her scent invades me. It’s musky with an undertone of rose petals and honeysuckle. This also causes a slight but noticeable warming of my genitals.

My mind drifts to daydreams in which I’m lying in a stroller with the canopy down. I’ve never quite known which way to go, but with Jacqueline driving me around, I don’t have to worry.

Jacqueline slows down as we reach the end of the canyon made of wheat brown apartment buildings. Beyond a small square with a garden enclosed by a green and yellow, knee-high hedge, a daisy white building, that likely contains one or two hotels, hides the view of the La Concha beach. The air is damp with the smell of the ocean, a touch of seaweed mixed with brine.

“That’s our pub,” Jacqueline says.

She tugs on my arm so we won’t miss the green light. The shopfront of the pub is wooden and painted charcoal black, which clashes with the building it’s embedded into. The fake, gilded signs written in English evoke decades long past. Must be an Irish pub.

Jacqueline closes her umbrella as I pull the pub’s door open. In the interior, thick wooden beams run across the ceiling, the dimmed bulbs highlight a few cobwebs, the pillars are made of mortared bricks that remind me of an old factory, sets of stairs lead to raised platforms where they’ve set up a few tables, and wooden banisters have divided up areas like a row of tables next to the windows, or the mezzanine. A musty aroma permeates the room as if mildew had grown in the wood paneling. The room is also filled with the low murmur of conversations, mixed with soft rock music that comes out from a tinny sound system hanging above the bar counter.

The brass umbrella stand is stuffed full, so we walk further ahead while the floorboards creak beneath our footsteps and our umbrellas leave a trail of rainwater. Groups of men or couples sit at worn out wooden tables with scarred surfaces, furniture likely made with love, at least of money.

“Let’s see if my favorite tables are free,” Jacqueline says cheerfully.

She walks ahead, but as she disappears past a pillar, the sole of my right sneaker slips on wet wood, and I stumble backwards onto my ass with a loud thud. I suck in my breath and hold it as my ass cheeks complain.

A guy sitting at a nearby table is eyeing my crotch while he nurses his beer mug. What the fuck is he looking at? Ah, my legs are spread as if I were about to give birth, and I’m wearing a damn dress, so I’m flashing my panties. I bang my knees closed, mortified. However, the guy had already averted his gaze to stare into his beer. He had a chance to ogle my barely covered vagina, but he rejects it? Am I that disgusting? What has my life become that some pervert wouldn’t even bother checking out my privates for more than a second?

I try to stand up quickly, but Jacqueline approaches me and stoops to help me up.

“You okay?” she asks.

“I mean, besides the embarrassment.”

“Don’t worry. We can sit at one of my favorite tables, so we’ll be fine.”

As I hurry up beside Jacqueline, I avoid glancing back at the fiend who had gotten an eyeful of my likely wet panties. We walk up a short flight of stairs. Jacqueline guides me to a high-top, round table next to a decorative barrel and a pillar that hides us from the rest of the pub except for the bar counter, the bartenders and a nearby table occupied by a mixed group in their early twenties.

We lean our umbrellas against the banister. As I drag a tall stool to our table, Jacqueline unbuttons her designer coat and takes it off, revealing a crimson, lace dress with long, sheer sleeves and a choker neckline that pushes her large breasts together. The skirt of her dress ends mid-thigh, but black, opaque stockings hug the rest of her shapely legs. Her dress is tight enough to display the curves of her stomach and her wide hips.

I swallow.

“Holy fuck.”

Jacqueline laughs softly. She helps me take off my thick corduroy jacket, and we drape my jacket and her coat over the barrel.

“A bit overdressed for this place,” Jacqueline says mellifluously, “but you had waited for a good while to see more of me. Oh, and look at that, your nipples are poking right through your bra and dress as if taunting me. As I thought, you have surprisingly big boobs for someone so skinny. It’s a shame that you choose to hide them with hoodies and sweaters.”

I’m dizzy and speechless as a flush of warmth spreads throughout my midsection. The next thing I know, I’m perched on my stool, and Jacqueline has dragged hers close enough that her thighs almost touch mine. But I’m disappointed that she hasn’t taken me in her arms and filled my mouth with her tongue. A part of her must be afraid of becoming too involved with a creature like myself.

Jacqueline brushes a lock of my hair behind my ear as her cobalt blue eyes lock into mine, causing goosebumps to erupt all over my body. I can’t look away, although my face is burning up.

“You are much cuter when you blush like that,” she whispers.

I discern the webs of striations in her irises, that encircle the black holes of her pupils. That gaze captivates and possesses anyone who meets it, and the longer she stares with hunger into the eyes of a victim, the more they lose themselves, becoming so engrossed in lusting over Jacqueline’s presence that they forget the corpses strewn about the ruins of this society. It may also lead to madness and eventually death for those unlucky souls unable to fight back.

“So, what do you want to drink, sweetie?” she asks.

“W-well, just travelling to Donostia has worn me out, so I need a coffee.”

“Alright. What kind?”

“A latte would be fine, but I should be the one…”

Jacqueline shushes me up. She stands up, then steps gracefully past the brick pillar.

My coworker has taken the lead in this gathering. She’s turned into a predator that’ll try to drag her prey into her cave. I can’t wait for her to turn me inside out and devour every morsel of my flesh.

Jacqueline reappears once she reaches the bar counter. A female bartender, who is wearing a white T-shirt tucked into black trousers, approaches my coworker and greets her as if they know each other. Jacqueline nods towards the backbar, where the rows of liquor bottles glisten in the dim light.

From this angle, her dress delineates her firm ass cheeks. I need to knead that ass and stuff my nose up her asshole. She must work out, while in my spare time I barely retain enough energies to trudge up to my sofa and pass out. I avert my gaze partly because I fear getting so horny that I’ll become incoherent.

Two of the young guys sitting at the nearby table, and facing the bartenders, crane their necks to check out Jacqueline. One of the girls, who looks like a college student, looks over her shoulder to figure out what has titillated her pals. These girls may be much younger, but they ain’t Jacqueline.

My coworker is taller, stronger, healthier, more beautiful than me. She has the passion and drive to succeed in life. Jacqueline surpasses me in every parameter, except programming. I’m quite sure that she can’t program for shit, so I have that going for me. What am I doing, though? Would it be possible for a woman like Jacqueline to fall for someone aged by stress and who lacks any charm, a creature with no redeemable qualities other than having a job with a decent paycheck, the occasional urge for self-abuse, a fetish of collecting unplayed board games, and a penchant for masturbating to elude her despair? How did I dare to invite Jacqueline out on a date? I’m a cockroach that skitters about in this world of towering humans.

I rest my elbows on the table and hang my head low. The rain is beating on the windows, which muffles the murmur of conversations and the clinking of glass. I close my eyes and listen to Red Hot Chili Peppers’ ‘Californication’, that’s playing on the speakers. A song that never got old, and that makes me nostalgic for a youth I never had.

When someone’s footsteps approach me from the nearby pillar, I open my eyes and find myself staring at Jacqueline’s ample thighs. Her legs appear taut and muscular underneath her black stockings. I straighten my back. My coworker’s cobalt blue eyes sparkle with mirth, her teeth gleam white, her lips are full and red, her neck slender and smooth.

Jacqueline places my latte, served in a glass, in front of me. A fork-length away, she places her glass, which is filled with a yellow liquid. They stuck a slice of orange on the rim.

“What the hell is that?” I ask hoarsely.

Jacqueline chuckles as she climbs onto her stool.

“A mimosa.”

“Sorry, I don’t know shit about drinks.”

She smacks her lips, then rubs my nape with her warm hand.

“What’s got you down, baby doll? I wish I knew what’s going on in that head of yours.”

If Jacqueline knew, she would regret it and never look my way again. I wish I didn’t know about the monster that dwells within the confines of my skull.

“I wonder… why an exquisite creature like you, with all your charms, wastes her time working at our shitty office surrounded by miserable people, or at least one miserable person and that happy-go-lucky intern of ours. Shouldn’t you be out there conquering the world instead, maybe starring in movies?”

Jacqueline caresses firmly, but slowly, the muscles in the back of my neck. My heartbeat accelerates as my chest rises and falls with deep breaths.

“Oh, you just think so because you are seeing me through your adoring eyes, sweetie,” she says in a sultry voice.

I dare to hold her patient gaze for a second before I focus again on the cracks in the wooden table. I sip my latte, then wipe my lips with the back of my hand.

“I don’t know. Our job feels like having settled for a boring, dead-end life with no meaning other than being employed.”

Jacqueline takes my chin and turns my head towards her. That beautiful face framed by raven black locks fills my vision. Her sapphire earrings contain a polygonal, distorted version of my own visage.

“Leire, you know you can relax.” Her voice is low and husky, with hints of that French accent that reminds of wine in an old oak barrel. “Back when I drove you to the train station, we spoke without issues, didn’t we? We had no problems getting along, no awkward silences or anything like that. Right?”

I can’t remember anything about our conversation during that ride, just that my heart beat fast and that I wanted her to drive me to her home and take care of me until morning. Now I wish I could press my lips against hers and taste her warm saliva, at least to forget for a while about my life and this shitty world.

“S-sure,” I whisper, “but these are different circumstances.”

“Because you have invited me out on a date?”

Jacqueline fixes her lips in a reassuring smile. Is she testing me to clarify my intentions? A woman who only sees another as a potential intimate friend wouldn’t invite her on a date. Maybe I have mistaken why Jacqueline agreed to meet me today, and I’m about to be shot down with the harsh truth of how reality works.

“Yes,” I say.

She touches the tip of my nose playfully.

“You’ve already been brave enough. Now we will open up about the inner workings of our minds and hearts so that a budding romance can blossom between us. Surely you can say whatever happens to pop into your brain.”

A shiver runs down my spine. I shift my weight in the stool.

“You have no idea the kind of ruination you’ve invoked.”

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---

Thick raindrops keep racing each other on the windowpanes, forming tiny rivers that run down the glass surface and reflect the living room lights with kaleidoscopic patterns. Beyond the window, the visual noise caused by slanted lines of rain blurs the facade of the opposite apartment building, although grey shapes appear briefly every now and then; possibly pigeons looking for shelter from the driving wind. I picture them getting struck by lightning, which would cause my window to crackle as if filled with static electricity, making the glass vibrate with white sparks of energy. The wings of those birds would catch fire, and then, unable to escape from the electrical discharges zapping their bodies, they would die screaming even before they shattered some bones by crashing into trees.

Any other day, I would have welcomed the patter of rain hitting my window, as well as the distant thunderclaps, but in a couple of hours I must abandon the safety of my dry apartment and venture through the drenched cold of the outside world so I can meet my French queen. I have paced my apartment frantically for the last thirty minutes, as my stomach acid breaks down whatever remains of the spaghetti, but the weather remains indifferent to my plight. Or maybe it’s punishing me for daring to pursue Jacqueline as my lover.

I plonk down on the sofa and I wipe my eyes with my palms. Where is that stupid horse hiding? That abomination had scarred himself mentally by interrupting me at work as I masturbated, but when I need someone to calm me down, he’s nowhere to be found. I can’t rely on anybody but myself. Although I’ve always known it, every time I relive the same realization, it takes a chunk out of my sanity.

I need to empty my mind until it becomes an open vacuum waiting for a spark to kindle and set off an explosion that wipes everything out, me included. It’s better to spend one’s life in loneliness rather than embrace love blindly and end up crushed and mutilated beyond recognition, like a piece of candy broken between somebody’s teeth.

Jacqueline must be standing by her window. I picture her sighing as she caresses her large breasts and twiddles her nipples. The deluge has procured the excuse my coworker needed to cancel our date, but she’s reluctant to call me in case she has to hear me stabbing myself on the other end of the line. I should contact her instead, and bow out gracefully from this mess.

I blow my nose quickly as I wait for the call to connect.

“I’d figured you would call,” Jacqueline says warmly into my ear.

“Yeah, I…” I clear my throat. “I guess you want to cancel.”

The rain sounds like thousands of water drops bouncing off metal foil. Jacqueline sighs.

“Is that how little you want us to meet, that regular old rain should cancel the opportunity?”

My heart pounds fast. I sit upright and wave my hand at the emptiness above my coffee table.

“No, not at all! Rain is wonderful! But I feared you would want to.”

Jacqueline laughs lightly. I picture her twisting a lock of hair around her finger and tilting her head to stare at herself in a full-length mirror. She’s wearing nothing but stockings, panties, a garter belt, a bra, and lace gloves that reach up to her elbows. Her body radiates warmth. I need her to wrap her arms around me and hold on tightly for the rest of my life, so I won’t feel again the coldness of even a single raindrop splashing against me. If only we could be together tonight, inside, on a bed or floor with a blanket spread over us, away from all dangers and monsters. Otherwise there’s no point in continuing with this charade of being alive.

“You have a low estimation of your ability to adapt and overcome, as usual,” Jacqueline teases gently as if she was talking to a toddler, which makes me wet all by itself. This must be a trivial topic for everybody except me. “Leire, just make sure you don’t drown on your way to the Buen Pastor cathedral. We’ll see each other in a few hours.”

“At s-six o’clock, right?”

“Still six o’clock,” she says melodiously.

“I’m looking forward to it.”

“I can tell, sweetie.”

Jacqueline hangs up. I slump on the cushions and listen to the pelting rain as my heart settles down.

After I take a deep breath, I close my eyes and fill the theatre of my mind with Jacqueline’s tits. Her hands knead them, and with each upward motion she caresses her flesh buttons to expand those soft globes. I suckle gently on one of her hard nipples as she squirms and lets out throaty hums. I feel the heat rising from her breast, I inhale the musky scent of her sweat. Jacqueline observes me from above with pleading eyes as her mouth quivers. I take her nipple deeper within my mouth and massage it with a firm suction as my tongue swirls about its length, savoring every curve while my lips slide across the silken skin. When I pull back from her breast, a drop of honey seeps from its puckered center as if following my tongue. Once I’m done with her breasts, I lap up Jacqueline’s pussy with my snake-shaped tongue until she cums blissfully.

* * *

The cold air rushes to my lungs as I exit the Amara Euskotren station along with a throng of travellers, some of whom are holding briefcases or bags, or have glued their cell phones to their ears. I’m held up in a jam behind a wall of people who are either opening their umbrellas or huddling under the awning. Those who dared to continue on their way are rushing over the zebra crossing, although they can’t avoid stepping on puddles. Heavy clouds hang overhead like bloated balloons made of lead and filled up by hundreds upon thousands of gallons of water droplets.

I shudder. I chose to wear my thick corduroy jacket over the dress I bought yesterday, and by the time I realized that the combination looks silly, I had to hurry to the train station. My bare legs, that I went through the trouble of shaving for Jacqueline’s sake, are wet and covered with goosebumps. I want to rub my thighs together to warm up, because even my pussy has gone numb.

Once the mass of bodies has thinned down, I cross the zebra crossing as I hide my shame behind the inner canopy of my umbrella, but I realize that the downpour was muffling some chanting along with irate shouts. A crowd has packed the adjoined Easo square. Half of the people are facing the train station as they awkwardly hold banners along with their umbrellas. The banners feature the portraits, many upscaled to pixelation, some mugshots, of men that belong to a mixture of races. These demonstrators demand justice, and for some people, presumably the men featured on the banners, to be brought back. The other half of the crowd is counterdemonstrating. As I walk by the low wall that delimits the square, a big guy who looks like a construction worker makes a bullhorn with his hands and shouts angrily, “Good fucking riddance to those rotten bums and thieves!” The rain has plastered his wet hair across his forehead as the thick raindrops keep slapping him upside his face.

I follow other pedestrians, nearly bumping into their umbrellas with mine, to bypass two police vans parked on the pavement. Pairs of Ertzaintza officers, covered as best they could with black raincoats that hang loosely down their backs, stand around like they’d rather pull out their fingernails than stand out here in the rain to handle this mob.

As I trudge towards the nearby Buen Pastor plaza, I only peek out from under my umbrella to make sure I’m heading the right way. Millions of raindrops strike randomly against stone, metal and glass like tiny artillery shells fired by angry angels trying to find out where heaven hides. I must be walking awkwardly as if I feared pissing myself. My legs have gone numb, but thankfully I brought tissues, because I keep sniffling.

When I spot the tortilla brown, palatial public library, I cut through the smooth pavement of the plaza. Some trees obscure the view of the cathedral, a gothic marvel of architecture from likely centuries ago, and that looms over the nearby buildings. Those spiky spires look like they’d hurt if I shoved them up my ass.

A couple of minutes later I’m standing on the raised platform where the cathedral was built, and that overlooks three square gardens marred by slippery patches, where pools of mud have accumulated thickly like sludge oozing from somebody’s rectum after a rough bowel movement. More importantly, the platform overlooks the nearby street from which Jacqueline should appear in about ten minutes.

I only feel giddy and tingly for a minute, until the wet cold wins out. I’m clenching my teeth and shivering. My anxiety is building up like rainwater in a glass placed on the pavement, and my hands tremble as if I were possessed by the restless souls of the recently deceased. My thoughts are stuck in the mud of my mind like worms that can’t find their way out.

As I scan the view hoping that any of the umbrellas that bob through the plaza hides Jacqueline’s face, a few of the passersby glance up at my solitary self, instead of to ogle my bare, pale, soaked legs, to wonder what kind of moron would wait for someone under this barrage of falling water. I avoid their gazes; any quick peek informs them of the hideousness that lurks inside me, a beast so malformed and unsightly that it would frighten even street-tough orphans.

My hair is matted, has fallen out at random, or is congealed with the blood of others; my face is too thin because I survive on a diet of spoiled roadkill; my eyes are sunk deep into their sockets; blood oozes out from fissures and cankers in my rotting gums; my teeth point inward and to the sides due to terrible genes, are clogged with bits and pieces of my dead friends and relatives, and whenever I eat I need to keep my gnashers from rattling loose from their sockets; my mouth is dripping with spittle, drool and vomit. Also, due to excessive use of my vibrator, the edges of my mouth have become permanently numb, which hinders my ability to smile properly, and those I force come out creepy.

I snap out of a trance, because a luminous figure is strolling towards me between the rows of elm trees. She tilts back her umbrella, which is black with a white and tiger orange butterfly motif, to reveal a red smile that would make most women put aside their love of cock for a while. Jacqueline walks with her back straight and her shoulders squared. Her raven black locks are bouncing with her rhythmic strides, while a long red scarf hangs loosely off the shoulder of her designer coat, trailing its crimson hem along her body and emphasizing her tall figure. Her long, stockinged legs lead to the box pleated skirt of her coat, that barely conceals her curvy hips. She attracts the attention of a couple of passersby’s like a lodestone sucking in the ferrous metals around it.

I can’t tell if I’m shivering or shuddering with lust as Jacqueline ascends the steps to my level. Earrings of gleaming sapphires dangle at her ears. As she greets me with a wider smile, her dimples deepen, and the skin at the corners of her cobalt blue eyes creases as she squints like a cat.

I want to tear off Jacqueline’s clothes and shove my tongue deep inside her pussy until she begs for mercy.

I shake my head slightly to wake the fuck up and pretend to be sane enough, but I’ve barely stammered a greeting when Jacqueline steps closer, places her free arm around my shoulders and presses her warm cheek against mine. Although the contact lasts two seconds at best, it sets my face on fire and makes me achingly aware of how hungry I am for Jacqueline’s blood and meaty innards. I swallow deeply a breath filled with longing and despair.

“I didn’t recognize you for a moment,” Jacqueline says.

“Huh? Ah, you wondered why a wet homeless woman was staring at you.”

I fear that Jacqueline will confirm my suspicion, but she closes her eyes and lifts her free hand to her mouth as she chuckles.

“I meant the dress, idiot. You bought it so you could wear it for me, didn’t you?”

“Y-yes. It’s not like I would wear this of my own volition. I mean, I usually wear hoodies and stuff.”

Jacqueline checks me out brazenly from head to sneakers and back again. I gulp. She seemed about to point something out when she blinks twice and leans in to inspect my neck.

“Are those perforation wounds?”

I clench my teeth. I had forgotten about the consequences of that time I thrust a fork into my flesh to see if anything lived there. Just how long do wounds take to heal?!

“I might have done something nasty to myself,” I admit sheepishly as I avoid Jacqueline’s concerned gaze, but I’m eager to change the topic. “What about you, though? Both of your chosen mascara and lipstick are bolder than usual, and I’ve never seen you wear this expensive, comfy-looking coat. Did you want to look that good for me?”

Jacqueline lifts the left side of her upper lip in a flirtatious smirk. She steps back, and as she holds up her umbrella elegantly, she twirls like a schoolgirl. White noise rushes to my crotch. I press my thighs together, mostly because I can’t shove my hand down there now.

“You know it,” Jacqueline says. “Anyway, let’s get going, shall we? Aren’t your poor legs wet enough?”

As she strokes my cheek, worry creeps into her blue eyes.

“Sweetie, you are shivering. It’s too cold to bare your legs like that!”

“Y-you’ll have to warm me up then, won’t you,” I whisper hoarsely.

Jacqueline’s eyes widen and narrow rapidly, then she giggles. She pushes the bottom spring of my umbrella and slides it closed as she covers my head with her own umbrella. She nods towards the nearby street.

“Grab my arm. This pub I like is dark and warm, so it will suit us well.”

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I’ve endured through a hellish week at work that involved me visiting numerous medical departments and befriending their nurses enough so they would cooperate with what I was tasked to do. It was one of those weeks in which I remember that although I can act well enough, my nature doesn’t tolerate having to deal with so many human beings and the nonsense they impose upon me. I wish I worked at a remote lighthouse.

In any case, that meant that I wrote far less than other weeks, although I have rearranged my notes, and added some more, for my ongoing novel ‘We’re Fucked’. I have accumulated about nine thousand words of unimplemented notes, so that means I still have at the very least about 27000 words left to write of this story. I have already figured out its remaining major plot points, including the ending, so I should have little issue getting there, assuming I can find the time and mental energy to do so.

---

A dead face stares back at me in the bathroom mirror. It glistens with stale sweat that emphasizes the rouge pink eye bags, and that has drenched the tresses glued to the forehead, where a lifetime of stress has carved wrinkles that stretch from one side to the other. Those wide eyes, vulnerable and defenseless as a cow’s, and yet burning with an obsidian black gleam of madness, speak silently of a hunger for sustenance beyond mere calories, for something nourishing that doesn’t come packaged with a label and a barcode, a craving born of desperation because everything valuable has been stripped from existence, and what remains is a hollow, hungry soul with nothing but despair to feed upon, that waits endlessly for death although it finds herself forced to struggle as a humanlike construct.

Soon enough, the hair will turn patchy and wispy, the skin will start rotting, the eyes and nose and ears and lips and genitals will fall prey to decay. The extensive loss of tissue will cause the circulation to collapse, the blood vessels to rupture and hemorrhage and empty out into puddles. But those dead eyes will remain wide open, unblinking and unmoving, the jaw hanging slack, the threadbare facial muscles locked into an expression of mindless stupor.

I scream. I consider screaming again when I admit to myself that dead people are rarely covered in stale sweat, particularly those corpses that look as if they’ve been lying in a ditch for a couple of days, nor could the dead imitate my nervous movements so minutely. The mirror reflects the ghastly creature that I’ve become, the same that somehow believes herself worthy enough of meeting a French queen.

I hadn’t bothered to pick up my panties after I got up from my bed and shuffled to the bathroom, so now that I’ve stepped back in disgust, the mirror shows me a pair of slim legs covered in downy hair, and a wiry patch of pubic hair sprinkled with vaginal juices and even tangled in tufts that I’ve twisted absentmindedly. My hands are wrinkled claws with sagging veins and yellow nails sporting dirty spots of accumulated shit and urine, the fingers bent backwards and resembling mantis appendages. My eyes stare from behind their blinds because of all the grime caked upon them, mud gathered beneath the lashes, the irises coated in dirt, the pupils reflecting my own demented thoughts. There’s nowhere to flee, not from my home in this rotting corpse.

I imagine myself daring to stand proud, with my feet wide apart and naked from the waist down, to offer Jacqueline a proper display of my feminine charms, but she doubles over and vomits.

I’m about to hyperventilate, so I fill the sink with frigid water then I dunk my face in it. I let the cold liquid seep into my brain as a stream of bubbles rolls up each of my cheeks. I don’t want to be a disgusting, pathetic excuse for an insect anymore, a living being that squirms helplessly inside the belly of a vivisected carcass while a parasitic worm gnaws on my skull and another parasitic parasite crawls into my ass and takes residence within my rectum’s dark recesses. I want to prove to her majesty how amazing I am by displaying various degrees of affection for her person, including my gratitude towards having received royal patronage to fuck her as much as I please.

I snap my head back and fill my lungs with air. As the foam on the surface of the water fades away into thin strands of bubbles, the liquid turns murky with organic waste matter drained out from a sewage system built by worms with tiny little worm intestines. The fetid pool reveals my past reflection staring back at me: that of my mother.

Although I have calmed down, I feel filthy, so I step into the shower to rinse off all the crap on me, as well as all the dirt lodged deep within my pores. I turn on the water to a scalding temperature to help loosen the debris. The spray feels like the blast of heated jets hitting the body of a bikini clad creature riding atop a horseman, and I wish that I could wrap my arms around the coarse coat of his neck while the two of us race across hills or prairies or desert plains or snowbound mountain tops, galloping at full speed as the wind blows my wet tresses around my face like some wild woman of the forest that rides the back of a unicorn whose hooves churn the ground like a raging storm. The animals seek shelter from our racing approach; we’re dangerous beasts driven mad by lust for blood, that kill without remorse because we’ve been starved of pleasure for far too long.

While the water rinses off my limbs like an overflowing waterfall washing down the mountain slopes and carrying soil, stones, sticks and leaves, along with dead bodies, I marvel at its powerful suction force. That’s what this shower invention does to a body immersed under its spray: it sucks away the dead weight weighing on its bones until the true form emerges from the shower like an amphibian freed from its chrysalis.

After I have dried myself off, I’m returning naked to the bedroom when my stomach grumbles. This unusually turbulent hunger justifies how woozy I’ve felt for the last few hours. I’m forgetting how swallowing nourishing food feels like, which would improve anyone’s life despite the horrors that lurk beyond these walls. Still, I don’t want to go through the bother of trying to whip up a meal out of the expired contents of my fridge, so I look up online if there’s any nearby Chinese restaurant willing to deliver me some food.

At a quarter past two I’m in the kitchen and sitting in front of two tupperware-type containers filled with either beef in oyster sauce or noodle stir fry, and both smell like they would provide nutrients. The long, greasy strips of beef are tough and stale as if this restaurant cooked the food a few hours ago and just reheated it, but I’m desperate enough to risk poisoning so I can nourish my dying brain. I may have been tempted to bite a chunk out of a rat. How could I complain about the food quality, anyway, when I’m tasting juicy flesh that oozes with fat and is seasoned with salt, oil and herbs?

I’ve emptied both containers. I lean back on my chair and I sigh heavily. Now that I’ve fulfilled my duty as an apex predator, I have to focus on how I can make myself presentable enough that tomorrow afternoon won’t end with Jacqueline running away in tears. No way my French queen will see me naked during our first date unless she really wants to watch someone undress, but suddenly the probability that I might pull down my trousers in front of her has increased from zero percent, so just walking alongside the woman I desire while my trousers hide my hairy legs and wild bush will pump up my anxiety tenfold.

I open my wardrobe forcefully, which causes my collection of hoodies, sweaters and T-shirts to sway in their hangers. Years ago, in my distant youth when I considered myself dateable, or at least that some men would want to fuck me, the few that dared to hold my hand, kiss me, fondle my ass, fumble with my bra, lick my pussy or shove their cock into my vagina, also lived with their parents, so they tolerated my imperfections. Few cared about how often I wore hoodies once they got to slide their hands under them to grab my tits. But I have already hit thirty. Everyone that interacts with me assumes that I’m an adult instead of a teenager whose body grew old.

Jacqueline always shows up at the office with what I would consider business attire, but she rocks it so well that anyone that works with her will eventually develop a fetish for secretaries. If I dared to meet her tomorrow dressed in one of my old sweaters and carrot pants, and not wearing makeup, I would witness Jacqueline’s face twisting in a grimace. She would grant me a pity hug, and an hour later she would find some excuse to leave. Once I shuffled back to the station, I would throw myself in front of the train, so I wouldn’t have to suffer the flashbacks that would harken me back to that moment when Jacqueline realized she should have never agreed to a date with me.

At about four o’clock I leave my apartment and I walk down the stairs to the street level. The sky is overcast with chunky clouds that are gliding by fast, carrying dirty water along with trash and human remains. Those cloud butts have darkened to spruce blue, the cloud equivalent of blood pooling at the lowest points of a corpse. The cold breeze, which makes me huddle under my coat, smells like rain mixed with rotten cabbage. I should have grabbed my umbrella, because I may end up getting caught in a storm, but I don’t want to bother walking back into my apartment building.

As I march with my head down towards the Mendibil mall, the breath thickening in my throat and the pressure in my chest remind me of why my routine has been pared down to trekking to work and then returning straight home. All streets leading from my apartment building lead nowhere good, and all roads point toward death. This city is like a sewer drain clogged by shit from every angle, a fetid hole with rotting excrement staining all available ground.

I have reached the closest square, which contains a playground with only a plastic tower and swing, a coffee shop and a few business, one of them the hairdressing salon that I frequent whenever I need to get rid of my excess hair, the one that grows in my head. The sight of the working-class apartments that surround me, their rows of windows like empty eye sockets, along with the cars driving by along the narrow road and the random humans with whom I share the pavement, make me feel as if I’m venturing into safari country. Emaciated dogs pace at the roadside begging at passersby, gross men walk around with bloated bellies as they drag their guts through mud, starving rats feast on the carcasses left on gutters, the dead bodies of drug addicts hang from lampposts, and all the residents who can fill their bellies with fresh food instead of roadkill appear ready for war as they glare threateningly at everyone who crosses paths with them. Those who remain sane, or who have gone crazy enough to see clearly, prefer to hide within their fortified compounds, because the monsters come knocking after dark. But I have to admit that, while there are several dozen species sharing our planet with the vermin known as humankind, none can match the strength of these jerks in performing miracles of manual labor with their small minds.

Everybody talks so loud, and the car engines cause such a racket, that I wish I could turn off my hearing at will. I walk enough zebra crossings to reach the more populous Fuenterrabía street, with its rows of decades-old businesses in front of which meanders a hodgepodge of people that the French police regularly push back into this border town’s boundaries for failing to show residency papers. I anticipate the next time I’ll find myself followed by strange men who speak in unintelligible languages and snicker towards me, as if they were planning to ambush me in an alley, rape me while screaming insults because I dared be female, strangle me and throw my corpse in the river. There isn’t much difference between this place and a wildlife reserve, except that predators roam free while prey hides within cages. Most humans are too busy looking at their phones and talking about trivial nonsense to realize what kind of disaster is happening around them, so at least they can continue feeding upon one another until everybody dies. I wish I could just run back to my cave, sit in front of a fire and hide from the rest of this species except for the very few of its members that I like, and whose name starts with a J.

There must be another world out there beyond this squalid reality: a bright place full of wonder where dreams happen without a hitch and people show affection through hugs and cunnilingus, so everyone smiles at each other and share kind words like ‘bonjour‘; a land with fewer buildings but plenty of trees growing wild and unkempt, where the air smells like roses instead of sewage mixed with garbage and piss; a peaceful realm where one can always find a partner to play board games, and it doesn’t matter if you spend hours gazing at videos of naked women with large breasts.

I suddenly remember that I went out because I intended to buy clothes, razors, shaving cream and lotion, so I force myself to check out the storefronts that I usually hurry up past. A clothing store, its window plastered with sale signs because the aging owner may retire or die soon, sells inexpensive underwear and shirts that are likely stained with vomit, dirt and cum. In another storefront, headless, armless mannequins display the kind of dresses that a New Age lady would wear on a stroll through the countryside. I’m still thinking about underwear. I might buy some silky red panties with lace edges that look like tongues licking naughty places.

Once I walk through the bridge that spans the railroad tracks, I head down the Colón promenade, past the outside tables of coffee shops and restaurants. I’m bothering to observe the storefronts, so I discover clothing stores that I could swear didn’t exist until now. However, none of the styles suit me. What would suit me, though? I wear hoodies and sweaters because they are comfortable and they conceal my decaying body. If my usual clothes speak to people, they tell them to look elsewhere. But I need Jacqueline to look at me, to focus on me, to find in my inadequate self someone to like. I swallow the taste of vomit that rises from deep within my stomach. A deformed, castrated, horse-shaped delusion had taken the habit of stalking me recently, and yet now I can tell that I’ve lost my mind, because I have convinced myself that I have the slightest chance to be accepted as a human being.

Past a panhandler, a homeless guy sleeping on a bench, a row of phone shops, and one of those shady stores that buy whatever gold you bring, no questions asked, I freeze next to a storefront in which elegant mannequins, oriented to gaze blankly in different directions, are bedecked with sun, apron or babydoll dresses, fern green or rose red, with floral or polka dot patterns. An array of sparkling jewels hang from silvery chains. I approach the glass. As the breeze chills my face and makes me sniffle, I bow my head slowly until my forehead rests on the cold glass. My vision is blurring while an uncomfortable warmth spreads in my chest. A few tears roll down my cheeks, but I don’t bother wiping them although I hear the footsteps of many pedestrians as they walk by me. They keep their distance because they can smell in me the rotting flesh that has long since been drained dry by parasites and maggots crawling inside, feeding off my decay. The few passersby brave enough to sneak glances at my tears must be wondering why I have chosen to remain in this world.

I dry my eyes and cheeks on the sleeve of my coat. I sigh deeply. When I walk into the store, a bell above the front door chimes. The room smells of incense and potpourri. An old bimbo with white hair looks up from behind the counter, and as she notices my expression, that of somebody trying desperately to preserve her sanity, her face transforms from placid to bewildered.

“Please,” I beg in a thin voice, “help me dress myself as if I deserved to be loved.”

***

At half past five I’m standing at the entrance of the Mendibil mall as I hold on to two bags, one from the clothing store and another one from the cosmetic store. I feel drained and ashamed like I used to after each therapy session, and I’m spacing out as my mind attempts to hide in daydreams. I need to be home, in the darkness of my bedroom, where I would curl up under my sheets and cry myself to sleep. But I have already walked all the way here, so I’ll push myself a bit further.

Adults also buy enough groceries to cook proper meals. Some even buy enough to last them days, or a week. Although I have to squint against the fluorescent lights shining overhead, and the presence of many wandering humans is making my skin crawl, I stand on the descending elevator that leads to the depths of this mall, where they built a BM supermarket. The bumblebee yellow they used for their signs hurts my eyes, as well as my sense of harmony.

As I stagger through the aisles, I only glance as necessary at the assault of items on display that threaten to overwhelm my mind. I fill my hand basket with wheat bread, skinless chicken, turkey breasts, pasta, rice, eggs, Frosted Flakes cereal, milk, and a few cans of tuna. When I realize that I have gathered as many groceries as I’m willing to bother checking out today, I take a deep breath of relief, but I find myself staring down a narrow aisle lined with tall, packed shelves of canned goods. Once again, the same silhouette of a man materializes at the end of the aisle, facing straight ahead menacingly. Armed with a black hammer, the man sprints from buyer to buyer as he strikes them in the head with the deadly implement. Although the buyers continue browsing the groceries, their souls slip out of their frames and collapse on the floor, and from under them spread puddles of black blood.

When I open my eyes again, the murderous silhouette has disappeared, although I’m still surrounded by wandering monsters. My hand that holds the basket trembles, so I change the weight to my other hand. It’s been years since I learned that a guy that the news only identified as mentally ill rampaged through these aisles and cracked some skulls open, which killed a few of his victims. I had come to buy groceries just a few days before the assault happened. Ever since, an echo of that nonsense plays out again in these aisles so I can witness it once more. I prefer my kind of mentally ill, those people who’d rather stick forks into their own necks, and who daydream about jumping off a window for relief. I’m better off staying home and watching porn until the demons stop invading and devouring my thoughts.

***

By the time I hurry up the stairs to my apartment and I close the door behind me, I’m sweating, my muscles are tense, my hands and feet are tingling. I place my groceries on the kitchen table, and then I shuffle to my bedroom and I take out the folded clothes I bought. I drape the dress over the wrinkled sheets. I take out the brass medallion necklace and I lower it so it rests on the delicate fabric. I chose a high-waist, tiered dress with a square neckline, puffed sleeves and a floral pattern that from a distance looks like green noise. I pick up the necklace by the brass medallion, and I run the fingertip of my thumb over the words engraved on the metal: ‘mon coeur‘.

I’d never wear such a daring dress of my own volition, but I had also never attempted to pursue a woman that I have no chance of seducing. Or any woman, for that matter. I guess that tomorrow I’ll cosplay as a regular girl who is getting too old and who hasn’t been loved in a long time. In reality, I’ve felt ancient ever since I was born, and nobody has ever shown me what love is supposed to feel like.

I’m frying an egg and the remaining slices of serrano ham on a pan when a pitter-patter distracts me. Night has fallen, and those threatening clouds are peeing on my window, as well as on the entire city. I avoid staring at the rain falling outside; sometimes my imagination makes me see snakes crawling around naked underneath the wet night skies. After this afternoon’s adventure, I have to steel myself to sit on a crowded train to Donostia, and huddle under my umbrella as I march to the Buen Pastor plaza, where I will wait in the cold and rain for my beloved to arrive, if she shows up at all.

I go to sleep at ten, partly because I’m exhausted and I was dozing off, but my brain won’t shut up. I move away my sheets and blanket, I pull my pajama trousers and panties down, and I soak the index and middle fingers of my right hand with a coat of saliva. Nothing has ever calmed down my frenzied thoughts like abusing my clit, as if I was trying to claw through this rotting body of mine in search of salvation, until I come violently, panting while drooling copious amounts of saliva onto the pillow. And I need all the relief I’m able to muster so I can distract myself from the disaster I’m heading towards.

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At midday, I pull down my pajama trousers, lie down on my wrinkled sheets and wet my fingers with saliva to combat my despair, which worsens when exposed to bright light and sounds of life and civilization, and that by now it feels like a spreading rot from a necrotic limb. I close my eyes and take a deep breath. With my damp fingers, I stroke myself gently around my clit as I paint a portrait of Jacqueline on the dark canvas of my mind. Those cobalt blue irises acknowledge me from her narrowed eyes. She brandishes a pink smile that deepens her dimples, displays the slight gap between her lateral incisors and her canines, tightens the skin around her prominent chin, and wrinkles the bridge of her nose. I yearn to induce thousands of such smiles, if only because they may lead to Jacqueline wanting to embrace me and keep me pressed against her motherly breasts.

My vagina has discharged enough gooey lubrication, and I spread it over my labia. My body temperature is rising rapidly, my heart is jumping on my chest, I’m breathing faster, and I feel the warm flow of blood rallying round to enlarge my clit, that I keep massaging with circular movements while I gaze into the void.

Ever since Jacqueline wrapped me in her arms and convinced me that a home awaits me in this world, I’ve hoped to strengthen the lingering echo that my bones have preserved, but I can’t synthetize at will how safe and loved that Frenchie made me feel. Such inability might be a built-in defense mechanism; if I could spark that feeling the same way I can make myself cum, I likely would never leave my bed. In any case, I ache to touch Jacqueline’s warm skin again. As long as she remains close by, she will ease away the darkness that threatens to swallow whole the hopeless human wreck that I’ve become.

As I caress myself, I reach towards the nightstand to grab my phone, but I nearly push the vibrator to the floor, which would have made me stop abusing my genitals to pick it up if I end up requiring its services. I thumb the phone’s screen until I pull up the entry for Jacqueline on the contacts list. I would only have to press the green button and wait a few seconds for her mellifluous voice to flow down my ear hole. I’m assuming that she’d like to hear from me, but… why wouldn’t she? While I’m fondling my genitals, Jacqueline goes as far as staring at me so intimately and whispering consoling words that echo throughout the theatre of my mind, just so she can help bring me to a climax. Surely she’ll welcome my call.

While I hold the phone to my left ear and wait for the call to connect, I close my eyes and I stare at Jacqueline’s rosy, moist lips as they part, inviting me to dive headfirst into her darkened, warm pool of saliva.

“Hey, Leire,” says the voice on the other end. “So nice to hear from you.”

I hesitate to answer. That voice belonged to a much younger woman. I picture a college student with twinkling eyes and who holds against her chest the unjustifiably expensive textbooks she was forced to buy. Did Jacqueline give me a wrong number originally, maybe to avoid a confrontation? That doesn’t make sense, because we sent a few messages back and forth, and this young voice has called me by my name. Whatever. I guess we all sound different over the phone. I suspect that if I heard my voice back, I’d sound like a madwoman who should be locked in an attic.

I ease the abuse upon my throbbing clit so I can speak without panting.

“I think you told me,” I mumble, then I swallow to clear my voice, “unless I have made it up, that you’d be there for me, that I could rely on you.”

Jacqueline remains silent. I make out a faint conversation in the background. I press on.

“M-maybe you just blurted that out because seeing me cry made your maternal instincts kick in, but if you were serious, I’d… I’d like for us to meet and hang out, if that’s fine with you.”

After a silence long enough to make me want to kill myself, Jacqueline smacks her lips, but a man’s voice approaches her. Jacqueline muffles the mic. When she uncovers it, I understand the words ‘from the office’. A door closes.

A cold feeling spreads in my chest, and my heart would have sunk to my feet if I wasn’t lying on my back. I have interrupted Jacqueline either before or after one of her tennis players fucked her. Now, even receiving a call from her relatives would have annoyed her. Why did I ever think that such a divine woman would want to bother interacting with a loser like me, especially one with such terrible social skills and a taste for masochism?

“You are this naughty, huh?” Jacqueline’s giggly voice first disarms me, then it seeps down my ear canal like honey dripping from between her warm thighs.

“W-what do you mean?” I croak. My throat is dry, and my body is taut as the wires of a harp.

“You are lying in bed and touching yourself, aren’t you, sweetie?”

I shudder from head to toe, but I must have developed an alien hand syndrome, because listening to Jacqueline’s voice has convinced my right hand to polish my clit harder while the available fingers dig deeper into my cunt’s fleshy folds. I feel that if I were to look over my shoulder, instead of staring at my headboard, I would hold Jacqueline’s mischievous gaze.

I gasp at a sudden realization.

“Were you the one filming me all along?” I ask, flabbergasted.

Jacqueline chuckles.

“Filming you? Strange of you to say that. But no, I haven’t filmed you so far. What I meant was, don’t you understand who you are talking to?” she asks in her melodious French accent. “I recognize that labored breathing and the tiny breaks in your voice, which you distort with the effort to avoid gargling your saliva.”

Sweat beads on my forehead and temples, my clit throbs against my soaked fingers, the muscles around my vaginal opening contract violently. Jacqueline is lying beside me. Her moist lips are brushing my left ear as her honeyed voice reverberates in the concha.

“W-what kind of depraved fiend would call a coworker while she masturbates?” I ask in a panic. “No way I–“

As I scramble for any excuse, I picture myself dressed in a hoodie and running leggings as I fly through my city’s moldering streets, trying perhaps to escape the demons that haunt my thoughts and memories, but even that healthy version of myself would stop to make a call. Besides, any excuse that involves exercising feels more demeaning that the truth.

I suck in a deep breath to quell my growing terror.

“Alright, I’m masturbating. B-but that’s unrelated to my sudden urge to call you!”

Once the words I chose hastily escape my mouth, I clench my teeth and hold my breath. The blood is pulsing sluggishly inside my head.

I was about to apologize when a muffled giggle makes me imagine Jacqueline covering her mouth with her hand as her shoulders tremble.

“You want us to get together, huh? Alright, it’ll be fun. Today I’m a bit busy, but how about tomorrow afternoon, around six?”

I want to cheer and scream with joy, but I fear that Jacqueline will find my enthusiasm repulsive, so I clear my throat. Am I truly going to hang out with Jacqueline, just the two of us? The thought alone keeps my sanity intact.

“That sounds great. I have nothing going on.”

“Can we meet in Donostia? I’d rather not visit Irún if I can avoid it.”

“Of course. I want to spend as little time in this cesspit as possible!”

“Great.” I can picture her smile by how it distorts her voice. “Let’s meet in front of the Buen Pastor cathedral. From there we’ll walk to this pub I like. How about that?”

“I wish I was there already,” I say hoarsely, but there’s a slight tremor in my hands, and tears are starting to stream down my temples at the notion of being close to her again.

“Don’t play with yourself too hard, huh?” Jacqueline suggests, then hangs up.

My heart is trying to dig its way out of my chest, and it wouldn’t surprise me if the next moment a torrent of hot vomit came spewing forth from my esophagus. The air remains still, permeated with my musky, sweaty scent. My stomach calms down as my wet fingers continue to stroke my aching clit.

Did Jacqueline agree to a date, or does she just want to spend some free time with a coworker that amuses her? Maybe she feared that if she rebuffed me, I would have leaped from the nearest window to my demise. I may have. But who cares? Tomorrow at six in the afternoon I’ll stand in front of the Buen Pastor cathedral and gaze upon my goddess. Maybe she wants to cum all over my face while making sure I keep gazing directly into her sparkling eyes until they burn my soul, leaving permanent scarring with their luminous blue hue.

I would have never dared to call Jacqueline and propose that we meet if my pleasure-induced delirium hadn’t convinced me. I only have masturbation to thank for the few blessings in my life.

Sorry, Jacqueline, but this warrants a more diligent self-diddling. As I knead my breasts with a needy intensity, I reach towards my nightstand with my left arm and close that hand around the sticky plastic of my vibrator. I turn it on, then I ram it into my pussy. The plastic shaft vibrates wildly as its buzzing song reverberates throughout my body like a swarm of bees trapped in a jar and banging violently against the glass enclosure, trying desperately to fly unfettered to pollinate flowers and plants and shrubs and trees so they may bloom and flourish in abundance, becoming a source of sustenance for any creature too lazy to suck nectar directly from flowers, slurping sweet dew off blooming rose petals with the tongues of hummingbirds. Sorry, birdies, but my fantasy doesn’t include the need to feed you with my fluids. Sorry sweet insects of the forest that I’ll only explode in an orgasm if your tiny mandibles dig deep into my clit’s hooded entrance so my blood starts pumping rapidly through my throbbing cunt and lubricating your hungry mouths.

My body twitches as waves of bliss radiate from between my spread thighs and up my spine. I’m panting like an excited dog, drooling profusely and emitting moans of relief mixed with animalistic noises. My eyes roll back, my mouth gapes open. As the spasms in my loins continue to shake my frame, a warm gush flows from my vagina, leaving a damp stain on the sheets and the air with a sickening odor of discharge, a stink of putrefaction mixed with excrement, as if my entire nether half had voided itself and marred my home’s decor with its vile output. I am a disgusting mess and will remain as such until my body can rid itself of the revolting stench that suffocates every one of its cells.

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I kneel on the floor, behind the coffee table, to prepare our gaming area. I lift the lid of the game’s box and take out the honeycomb-like server tiles. They are colored red, green, blue, yellow or purple, and the partitions are numbered from one to six. The tiles incorporate a neon motif that brings up faded memories of playing early 3D games on my Pentium computer.

Spike clomps closer, likely denting the hardwood with every step of his uneven hooves. His black, bulging eyes stare as though hypnotized by some treasure, maybe his long-awaited reward for proving himself a loyal servant to his creator. An odd hint of mustiness about his dewy mane of coarse hair, as well as about his fetid coat, reminds me of mildew and rot combined with some putrid essence of mold and fungi from an infested attic crawlspace.

“Here’s the plan for the next couple of hours,” I say. “You’ll play one of the available cyberpunk runners and help me defeat an evil supercomputer that I usually refer to as Shadowcluster.”

During my first playthrough of this board game, back when I bothered to open the games I bought, I named my opponent Shadowcluster because it allowed me to imagine myself facing an AI fiend who intended to shut down my ability to reconnoitre the cyberspace. To discover what nasty secrets this supercomputer harbored deep inside its digital heart, I had to avoid getting caught in the machine’s endless labyrinths filled with traps, including robots that kill with laser beams, acid spray and poison gas if they detect intruders. As a boss fight, I clashed with a pair of mutant cats that emitted radiation fields from their paws and that could spit acidic foam if cornered.

Spike’s eyeballs roll around, which reveals an offensive lack of enthusiasm for my proposal.

“W-well, I…”

“Don’t ‘w-well, I’ me. Every time you intrude upon my life, I’m forced to inhale your fetid body odor, but you can’t do this little thing for me? I thought we were friends, Spike. If two pals can’t play a board game together, why would we even bother existing anymore?”

Spike sucks in air then releases it in a single breath of foul fumes. He lowers his gaze and shuffles his thick rump to the sofa, into which he awkwardly flumps down. I’m allowing this horse’s dirty haunches to rest on my cushions, but I suspect I’ll end up regretting it when I find myself washing skid marks.

My horse stalker remains silent as I arrange the server tiles into a configuration that provides an advantage to both players in the race against the supercomputer Shadowcluster. I assemble the circle and square tokens into distinct piles, then I build our starter decks. Five minutes later, the red avatar I chose, and the blue one I picked for Spike, are standing on the assigned partitions of our corresponding, multicolored server tiles, ready for action and looking dumb.

A red token accompanies my avatar, who specializes in overwhelming the server partitions with viruses to destroy their countermeasures. I forced Spike to choose a blue avatar, because their playstyle is centered around teleporting from partition to partition, which suits my stalker. Besides, this horse is too dumb to handle the sophisticated techniques of the green avatars, that shift tokens around, or the yellow ones, that turn server defenses into useful contaminants.

I shake Spike’s starter deck in front of his drooling muzzle.

“You’ll draw from this initial set of weak command cards, but don’t worry: this is a deckbuilding game. You like deckbuilders, right? You can spend these command points to buy stronger cards from the marketplace over here. And the new cards go directly to your hand!”

“This is one weird-ass game,” Spike mutters through his long lips.

“What, you don’t like it?! Top-notch board game design right here. A seven point eight on the BGG, high for that competitive ranking. Don’t tell me you are a Gloomhaven fanboy. Its exhaustion mechanic doesn’t make any sense!”

“M-maybe I’ll wrap my head around the rules as we play…”

Spike’s spaced out expression suggests he wouldn’t be qualified now to clomp across the living room without faceplanting, but I haven’t enjoyed a board game in ages. After I draw my five initial cards and I’m considering their combined strengths, I regain the fleeting feeling that I can affect something in the world through the power of my luck-based assets, as if I had been born into an affluent family. I look over the cards available in the marketplace, and I gasp.

“Holy shit! I can buy the Microbionix card with my starter hand! Check this out, Spike. This card offers either three leadership command points, which you can use in place of any regular command point, or else it lets you delete one spark in my partition and every adjacent one! That’s two sparks gone in one go, baby!” I hunch over to pick up the two spark tokens, then I drop them in the corresponding pile of white, round tokens. “Too bad I can’t upload a virus contaminant in this round, but this was a good start.”

After I replenish my hand of cards, I fill the empty slot in the marketplace. I reread the supercomputer’s countermeasures card to figure out if it reacts at the end of my turn, but I’m safe. I pick up both the server and the partition dice.

“Spike, pay attention. The rules order us to add an enemy defense token, called a spark, whenever each of us finishes his or her turn. That means we can’t fuck around, because before we know it we’ll face a losing battle!”

I roll the dice. I get a blue circle on the server die, meaning the blue server, and a two on the partition die, so I place a spark token on the second partition of Spike’s home server.

“Back luck,” I say. “That previous spark on the first partition of your server may slide towards the second one, and whenever you find yourself about to gather three sparks on the same partition, a guardian token gets generated!”

Spike’s thick tongue lolls out while his mouth gapes open, showing off his large, buttery teeth. He rocks forward as if he were about to collapse onto the board and its numerous tokens, but he catches himself and shuffles back into position. He slurps the thread of saliva that has been moistening the cushion between his hind legs. I thought that Spike was going to apologize for his apathy, but he remains quiet as he stares through the mosaic of server tiles into the distance.

“Hey, what’s the matter with you?” I complain. “Pay attention, damn it!”

The only answer from Spike is a wet gulp and a shudder of drool. If he fails to snap out of it, Shadowcluster may spawn a giant robotic horse that will charge at Spike’s flank, or even fire its deadly laser directly at my poor, doomed horseman’s chest, where the armor is merely skin stretched over an unimpressive muscle mass. A successful hit would cause my friend to disappear in a flash of flame.

I take a deep breath and consider how best to break through Spike’s fugue. The supercomputer must be getting impatient, and eventually will send drones into my apartment that will kill us both if they detect our presence in the living room.

“This is a cooperative game in which we must join forces against an evil AI, and I won’t let you drag me down. Shadowcluster is a serious threat to all servers connected to the network of my mind. I know that you lack enough of a brain to realize how many advantages are present during your turn, but I will patiently point out the obvious options. Along the way, you might even learn how to interact properly with human beings. So, your turn has begun! Draw five cards.”

Spike blinks, then tilts his long head to look down at his retracted forelegs. His hooves click together.

I sigh.

“Sorry, I forgot you are useless and might be developing dementia. I’ll draw the cards for you, since we are friends and everything. Alright, this isn’t a bad hand for the playstyle of the blue player. I think that your role should consist in easing movement for me as I solve problems across the board. You waddling all the way to my server would take too long and many cards, so let’s install a teleport token, shall we? Now for an exam question, how would you spawn the blue installation with your current hand? Spike!”

Silence reigns as I wait for an answer from an idiot horse who probably can’t count higher than three digits. The wiry muscles of his neck tremble as he swallows.

“I-I’m not sure…”

“I might as well be playing with a toddler.” I hold up two cards with blue command points near Spike’s right eye. “What would happen if you spent three blues at the same time?”

“You create a teleport thing…?”

I discard the two cards, then reach towards the jumble of square tokens to grab a blue one. I place it next to Spike’s avatar.

“Now you can jump from this partition to anywhere on the network just by spending an additional blue command point.” I discard the spent card, then I pick up his avatar and displace it to my server tile. As I straighten my back, the irritation makes me shake my head and grunt. “You know, this is suboptimal, in the same way you are subhuman. The best thing about playing board games with someone else should be the freedom of worrying solely about your own options, but instead I have to deal with a half-baked mule that gets distracted by his stinky self and useless appendages. This serves as a reminder of why horses are considered dumb animals rather than intelligent beings as some of us believe them to be.”

Spike mumbles and fidgets while he studies his front hooves as if they were foreign objects. His grotesque head keeps swaying while beads of sweat bedew his coarse coat.

“Are you alright, buddy?” I ask, softening my voice as if addressing an ill child.

“I… don’t feel good. It’s hard to focus.”

“Well, make an effort. You offered to play board games with me, remember?”

I order him to roll the server and partition dice by pinching them between his front hooves, but the thick keratin coverings slide and the dice fly off. One of them flicks me on the forehead, the other clatters on the hardwood floor. I can’t even complain; my forehead wouldn’t sting if I had thrown the dice myself.

I don’t bother commentating on how a new spark spawned on the fourth partition of the purple server. The gleaming surface of Spike’s black eyeballs is moistening, and his head remains tilted as if he can’t be bothered raising it anymore. The horse lets out a wet snort that echoes throughout the living room, that has become a sterile laboratory devoted entirely to research into insanity.

“Am I witnessing the start of a cycle of depression, my friend?” I ask with sympathy. “It’s okay. Horses are lovable idiots, and being gay is not a crime if one is an ungulate.”

Spike turns on his haunches towards me, likely smearing an arc of shit on the cushion under him. He’s nearly wheezing through the dilated black holes of his nostrils, and his vacant eyes, dull and glazed over like worn coins, could bore holes into mine and penetrate my soul.

“L-Leire, I shouldn’t spend so much time in this dimension at once, and I’ve already… C-could you please listen to what I’ve been trying to tell you all along?”

I rub my eyes. I’ve gone through the trouble of setting up the game only for our enthusiasm to fade this quickly. When I hold Spike’s teary gaze again, my tone hardens.

“Don’t you understand, my friend? We were blessed that the maddening complexity of our world had been condensed to the mechanics of this cyberpunk game. Whatever worries you would have waited until after we won the battle of wits against this digital entity that intended to trumpet its victory over us. You need to learn how to relax, make a dash for freedom from your horsehide prison. This society was made to wear us to the bone, and whoever gazes upon your grotesque visage can tell that you need as many wins as you can get. Besides, we are insignificant compared to the governments and corporations that make their billions off our misery. Even if horses could participate in the electoral system, do you truly believe that anyone’s vote determines who wins? You have no clue who has access to the computers where they process the results. The world will continue along on the road to ruin regardless of whether or not we defeat Shadowcluster today, or tomorrow, or in ten years. We could have sustained an illusion for the length of this playthrough, but the mirage has shattered. We have reunited with our fates as living machines that will keep grinding away in a never-ending cycle of debt slavery through wage theft. I know that you need to believe that just because you were born, the universe had special plans for you, but the only plan written in the genes of sentient beings is for them to fear how many days are left until they die.”

Spike has hung his head. His drool dribbles onto his chest and rolls down to his navel. Although I take a deep breath then pick up my hand of cards, the horse has already infected me with his gloominess.

“I’m going to play my next turn, Spike,” I mutter. “That’s what I’ve always told myself to get out of bed in the mornings. I’m strong enough to play through another fucking turn.”

I’ve just exchanged one of my cards with an advanced command card from the Hack Shack, but I realize that the miasma that had suffused the living room is dwindling fast. Before I turn my head, I already know that Spike has vanished without saying goodbye.

I force myself to finish the rest of my turn. I even replenish my hand with cards I won’t play. I lean back onto the cushions, and as I listen to the flow of nearby traffic, someone’s loud phone conversation in a foreign language, and the neighbor’s muffled and lazily dubbed TV show, I slide down the sofa so much that I fall off.

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Since I put on my checkered, flannel pajama set and I flumped down into my living room sofa, I’ve had to contend against my brain’s urge to doze off. I need to remain alert. Hunched over, resting my elbows on my knees, I keep watch. That horse-shaped fiend will materialize in the previously empty space, then I’ll confront him and extract from him, through torture if necessary, an explanation for that floating, computerized display that had popped in and out of reality like my equine stalker.

Why would Spike film me as I was fucking myself silly, if any hint of arousal should remind him that he lost his dick? No, I shouldn’t try to figure out the motivations of a deviant, lest the conclusions contaminate my mind. That deformed horse has spied on me at will ever since he stepped out of the bathroom’s stall at work when I was enjoying a break. From that day on, I’ve endured a waking nightmare.

My stomach keeps gurgling. After the fourth or fifth time I’ve nodded off, I decide to discard my anxious, paranoid thoughts until I’ve shoved some food down my gullet to replenish the calories burned off during stress and masturbation. But when I open the kitchen door, the stench coming from the heap of garbage bags filled with rotten food, that have been allowed to fester for a week or more, hits me as if I had taken in a whiff from a sewer drain. The eggs incubating in the decaying organic matter may hatch into mutated insects as ugly as roaches, a step away from turning into vampires.

An intrusive thought startles me: I should take out the trash. But that’s assuming I can dig up enough strength to carry the garbage bags outside, stumbling along with an armful of rotting stuff as heavy as lead while I avoid being eaten alive by the hungry worms wriggling in those disgusting plastic sacks. No one ever wanted to help me with the disposal of this shit, and now I realize why: I might be harboring an epidemic of parasites that have infected my neighbors and have spread to every part of my city in the process, including my own apartment, where they lurk in dark crevices to breed and infest everything and everyone within reach.

I take advantage of my sudden urge to get rid of this festering filth, that at this point likely harbors germs like leprosy and gangrene. I put on my winter coat, I wave away and yell at the flies that buzz incessantly over the stinking mess, and in fifteen minutes I’ve gotten rid of all the bags in various trips to the container. Then I spend five minutes washing off with soap water to banish any trace of that nefarious stench lingering on my skin.

I had hoped to eat something wholesome, but most of the contents of my fridge have expired. I discover that my freezer has stocked ice cream and a couple of frozen pizzas that will inevitably go bad too, unless I store them somewhere colder than the bottom of my freezer, preferably on top of a hill in Antarctica where they’d stay cold forever while awaiting their chance to escape and run rampant throughout nature with a vengeance. I bother to place one of the pizzas on the counter, but I can’t muster the motivation to cook it.

Why am I trying to obey this decaying body’s narcissistic demands, when I have been inching closer to self-destruction for as long as I can remember? I lack a satisfying answer. This deadly game can only end with mutilation of all kinds and a descent into oblivion. I return the pizza to the freezer, but I end up taking out the rest of the serrano ham, as well as a few slices of sandwich bread that, after I pick off the mold, smell edible enough.

Tonight, sleep mostly eludes me because I keep fantasizing about strangling that damn horse and eating its insides, then spitting out the skeleton onto the ground and stomping on the remains with hobnailed boots while singing a death anthem of mine. It would be a way of getting back in touch with basic instinct and reviving my life’s purpose as the warrior who kills monsters. Anyway, I spend hours in a fitful, delirious state, unable to drift off in peace, dreaming up fighters for me to face in combat. An insect woman covered head-to-toe in thick fur except for her pink vagina. A bloodthirsty werewolf whose favorite meal consists of horse intestines cooked into delicious steaks served rare. A mantis lady eager to suck out an opponent’s soul as easily as slurping down spaghetti carbonara. An albino gargoyle that babbles blasphemous curses from his evil tongue made from crawling maggots. The combatants come from nowhere, then vanish just as fast when I kill them off in spectacular fashion. Still, those demons taught me what true pain means, because I hadn’t suffered any major trauma or grievous injury since I became a cyborg at age twelve. An AI isn’t programmed to understand human frailty as deeply as they know themselves from inside their own guts. And as a cyborg, I never had to worry about being alone, because robots can’t cry nor scream nor suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder, and neither do they mourn for others in vain.

When Saturday morning comes, my exhausted muscles twitch, I feel nauseous as if I woke up early from an unprofitable nap, and my mouth tastes like sour milk from an old bottle that has sat undisturbed in a forgotten corner of the cupboard. The taste generates in my brain the image of a person licking a puddle at an industrial factory floor, oblivious of the stench and pollution permeating her flesh, her mind locked in the endless pursuit of oral gratification at all costs no matter how vile, unsanitary or hazardous, because her obsession won’t stop unless someone shoots her face full of buckshot, or drives a rusty nail right through her skull until her eyes turn purple from ruptured capillaries, causing a vision of heaven to explode into colored sparks.

I barely make any progress towards releasing myself from the grip of my damp sheets, which seem glued to every inch of my body, making this soggy cocoon nearly impossible to escape. And how many times I’ve woken up only to wish I had been killed in a nightmare?

An eternity later I manage to roll off my bed. I roll up the blinds and open my curtains, then I cover my mouth with the sleeve of my pajama shirt because the other side of the window turns out to contain the worst thing ever to invade the nostrils of humanity: the outside world. Dawn has broken, but the facade of the opposite apartment building, despite the potted flowers in a few balconies, remains grey and lifeless like covered in dusty cobwebs. I open the window and stick my head out. The pale, yellow ball of the sun that rises from behind a roof looks painted in the clear blue sky as if by a kindergartener, and it barely warms this cold October morning.

I fill my mouth with soggy cornflakes while I watch on YouTube some American dad ranking board games in his basement den with his daughter. There is nothing worth looking forward to today, and as usual, every part of this rotten body is filled with a sense of impending dread. I can’t shake off the shock of realizing that someone was filming me while I masturbated. Out there, a video shows me rubbing Jacqueline’s lip balm against my throbbing clit. What if that fiend also recorded me during the previous times that I leaked my juices at the office? The more I picture that drooling horse’s child-like bulging, black eyes, the more I doubt he knows how to operate a camera, but surely he inhabits the same realm as those monsters and random objects that pop in and out of existence.

I pace my living room while I expect that horse-deviant to appear at any moment. I’m growing increasingly irritated. Spike must know that I intend to berate him, so he’s chickening out from showing his elongated mug. He likely also intends to avoid getting arrested and put on trial for stalking and voyeurism, as well as for displaying his embarrassing deformities. In any case, when did I become such a threatening and dangerous creature that I frighten even other lunatics?

A noxious miasma fills my living room, permeating through all corners of this tiny space, escaping from a new asshole ripped in reality. I wouldn’t have thought, if I had bothered to consider the possibility, that I’d be relieved to inhale a stench that could disturb a forensic pathologist.

When Spike appears next to the coffee table, he shoots me an apologetic look.

“Leire, I–“

“You took your damn time! We need to talk about that voyeurism of yours, Spike!” I stand my ground with my hands crossed over my chest as I glare at the equine pervert. “I was trying to get rid of my stress by experiencing a mystical union between myself and the higher version that I glimpse whenever I’m lost in the throes of pleasure. You sullied the memory of that holy act, tainted it with your perversion.”

Spike’s drool sways as he gears up to defend himself.

“I apologize! If I had known you were masturbating, I would have approached you another time!”

“In case you intended to take advantage of my vulnerable state, I must inform you that although I have endured through some dark stuff in this wretched life of mine, I doubt I’m ready to stoop so low as to fuck an equine freak. And why would you care about sex anyway? Do you believe that your detached dick will get hard inside the jar with formaldehyde where your tormentor stores it, likely for fetishistic purposes?”

My brain had buzzed like a hornet trapped in a jar, but as soon as I started ranting, my head felt lighter, it became easier to speak coherent sentences without stuttering, and suddenly my mouth tastes like strawberries. Still, Spike’s expression of horror makes me a bit sorry for insulting his masculinity.

“L-Leire, please! This has gotten ridiculous and far too personal and scary.”

“Do not interrupt me again, stop changing the subject and listen carefully! I can handle you appearing when I’m diddling myself, but you filming me doing so crosses a line no sane person should dare tread. Stop harassing and bullying me, or I’ll find an excuse to fire you and send you packing to some psychiatric ward.”

Spike stammers as he blinks in confusion.

“Filming? What are you talking about?”

“Don’t you know what filming implies, you deranged horse-mongrel? I’m talking about that screen that hovered in front of my bare legs as I was recovering from the anxiety-erasing orgasm that Jacqueline inspired. You want to turn me into your personal porn star, don’t you, stupid horseman?!”

Spike tries to raise his atrophied forelegs in a placating gesture, but they only flail around uselessly. I make the mistake of staring at the dumb brute closely. Those crooked nostrils, the oddly protruding eyes due to his malformed skull, remind me that Spike emerged from hell along with the rest of his kind. Who could deny that some foul miasma lurks in his soul?

“Leire, I’ve never filmed you,” he states earnestly. “I can’t even hold stuff with these stupid hooves. But an impossible floating screen is bad news! It must be related to the ongoing catastrophe I’ve been trying to warn you about ever since we first met!”

I scrutinize what passes for an expression in this horse’s deformed head. His trembling eyeballs mostly show fear of my anger, while sweat trickles down his matted and dirty coat. I should have known that he’s too innocent an abomination to be responsible for such a loathsome machination. He didn’t betray me, partly because he lacks the wit and cunning needed.

I sigh, relieved, and for the first time since I woke up on this Saturday, I feel free as only a weekend can provide for a wage slave.

“Never mind all that, then! Remember that you offered to play board games with me? I got bored with the solo variants.”

I hurry to the pile of board games that occupies the gap in the cabinet where stupider people would have set up their television. I struggle to free the coin grey and cyan box of the cyberpunk game Renegade from the middle of the pile; years of chronic masturbation have weakened my hands, turned them clumsy, and I’ve refused to acknowledge the issue to any medical practitioner that might understand anything about this rotten carcass of mine, because most people already have enough with the average stuff that emerges from my mouth as if from a hideous nightmare.

When I find myself holding the weighty cardboard box, it electrifies me with the promise of losing myself within the constraints of the game’s carefully designed rules and scenarios. For those that possess my technical mindset, these games are like drugs with waning addictive properties. I always end up getting bored of setting them up then playing against myself. After all, such games need to compete against the rapture that rubbing my clit elicits, and not even the sharpest minds can design a worthy contender to what millions of years of evolution produced, namely the beautiful flesh button between my legs, so wonderfully equipped with nerve endings to please when stimulated. Why give a shit about anything except being able to cum after squeezing my cunt lips together and pinching my clit for a while? Due to this monopoly, living creatures continue expelling offspring instead of realizing the pointlessness of perpetuating these circles of pain and despair and therefore settling for a mass die-off.

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I shuffle back to my chair, but as I reach it, I fall to my knees, cross my forearms on the seat and hide my face. I’m as defenseless as a baby bird. Any ravenous predator could ambush me without warning, and I even lack a mother who would watch helplessly as her chick got devoured alive. Nobody would help, except maybe the birds nesting in my computer tower, that could peck at my eyes or suck my brains out with their sharp beaks. Alone, I have to feed myself with my own blood.

Although I already understood the extent of my curses, my mind continuously grapples against that horrifying knowledge lest I hang myself at the first opportunity in a Japanese forest, to end up as a heap of bones and decomposing organs that would get mistaken by some passerby for a pile of trash. I was only lucky that I confused Ramsés enough that he desisted for now, but this bastard will surely fire me because I refused to fill my womb with his foul offspring. In his mind, why the fuck would he want to retain the burned-out prude that’s hogging the workload like a parasite on the carcass of a dead deer, when he can easily replace her with an eager slut?

The ambush has rattled my brain to the core. Still, I must concentrate on programming. Slowly and steadily, my fingers stop trembling as they rest on the keyboard or press the keys down firmly. Each letter and punctuation mark illuminates the darkness with its fading light, and its clicking prevents me from being devoured by the hungry silence of the office and this cursed land infested by monsters.

My tar-like loneliness has flooded the world as far as my mind can see. I close my eyes tight and I clench my fists to dissipate the anxiety, until a fire like that of an ancient lighthouse brightens the blackness inside my throbbing skull and burns away the shadows with flames, which lick every crevice while steam rises and sweat drips from my skin, making trails through the grime that has coated me for decades. I’m back at that break in the bathroom when I broke down crying due to my self-hatred and despair, when I would have remained lost except for Jacqueline. I picture the wet heat of that woman’s lips pressed against my ear as she runs her fingers through my hair. When had I felt so cherished, and loved? While she held me in her arms and squeezed her motherly breasts against mine, nipple to nipple, she convinced me that as long as I disappeared in her embrace, none of the horrors that this world has birthed could infect me ever again.

I squeeze my thighs together. In my mind’s eye, the juices rushing to my crotch flow like a torrent on a dry riverbed. Hasn’t Jacqueline marked her territory on her side of this long table we were ordered to share? She embellished it with a framed photo collage of European capitals, a plastic rose bouquet in a bone white pot, a silver pen holder with a reticulated overlay, a red suede leather blotter with intricate patterns of golden fleur-de-lis embossing, and three different pens: a fountain, a rollerball, and one made from unicorn horn.

I roll over to Jacqueline’s domain and I run my greasy fingertips over the half-empty water bottle from which she drank this morning. And what about that pineapple yellow tube of lip balm, with a rounded cap red like a poisonous berry, whose scent reminds me of summer rain on blossoming cherry trees? That’s the kind of item a girlfriend would carry in her purse so her lips would always remain moist and kissable.

My breath is ragged as I fiddle with the lip balm. I lift it to my lips and I plant kisses on the plastic surface. I slide it cap-first into my wet mouth then I suck the tube off, while rubbing my tongue around the cap in a circular motion, as if I were licking the leftover stickiness from the hardened nub of any of Jacqueline’s nipples after she nursed our baby daughter.

The nerve endings in my pussy are sizzling with tingles like an unscratchable itch deep within; yet another reason to keep nursing mommy’s milk that flows to nourish you, little girlie. All that remains of my sanity is trapped between my legs. I unbuckle my belt and pull down my pants. While my fingers brush the damp fabric of my panties, caressing my eager labia, I briefly check over my shoulder that no one has unlocked the door and sneaked up to me. Nobody is there, not even the birds that inhabit my computer tower, or the rats nibbling at the garbage bags stacked in the corners of my apartment, or the stray cats seeking shelter in my abandoned car. I just need five minutes for this rotten world to feel like a beautiful dream as my insides writhe and throb.

I daub the rounded cap of the lip balm with my mucoid saliva, then I rub the waxy plastic up and down along every inch from my labia to my clit. I shudder, and shift my weight from foot to foot, while the tube sinks between my folds as if it were trying to crawl back to its home beneath my skin. Jacqueline has blessed this lip balm, which transforms my womanhood from a wastebasket filled to overflowing with filth due to the rot from within, an ugly reminder of a whole life when nothing could please me but ugliness itself, to a fresh flower bed of petals waiting for that Frenchie to nibble on them at her whimsy. A place for her sweet honey to drip out whenever my fertile cunt is ready for breeding.

The sudden stench that engulfs me makes me think that I’ve sharted in the midst of my heavenly trance, a bad omen sent by whatever evil lurks behind this curse. But when I open my eyes and my sight clears up, Spike the horse is standing on his hind legs a few feet away from my spread, bare legs, his nostrils flared wide at me and his head jerked back due to my own scent. His bulging, black eyes seem about to pop out of his deformed head, and his lips have curled back revealing his rotten gums. He must have realized the awkward position in which he has put himself. His atrophied, retracted forelegs tremble while the horsey abomination struggles to balance his body as if he were a newborn colt. Spike remains castrated, and his frenulum hangs in a frayed web of flesh around the void of his mutilated genitalia.

At first, my throat is too parched to make any sound other than a low groan.

“My friend, I believe you caught me at an inopportune time,” I say hoarsely.

Spike’s eyes twitch. They gleam with madness. I could swear that his ropy threads of drool are thickening as they drip onto the worn carpet.

“L-Leire, the situation is getting more dire by the day, and I feel myself deteriorating the longer I spend in this dimension.”

I consider stroking Spike’s matted mane with my clean hand, to comfort him, but I remember that his fetid hide could infect me with insanity as well as disease. Thankfully, Jacqueline can still reach me at the end of my long tunnel of despair. Blood keeps rushing to my clit as the pleasure grows. If only we were able to breed together. No matter how much horror and pain may surround us, both of our bodies would be bloated with milk, and the litter of pups would brighten the darkness of this despairing world with their innocent laughter.

“My mind is unraveling,” I whisper. “I’m so close.”

Spike’s hind legs sway like a drunkard’s during a delirious binge, but the horse’s eyes are now fixed on mine as if hypnotized. Maybe his will to live has been broken because of his rotting glandular system, or maybe his brain has gone numb from spending too many years locked inside his skull. The horse’s drool has become a gluey stream that sticks between his lips as they curl into a permanent grimace of agony.

“Y-you truly need to listen,” Spike whines. “Sorry to bother you while you are busy, but I can’t stick around for–“

“Spike, whatever nonsense you think is going on can wait until I come. And… here it is!”

My trembling voice cracks as my legs shake uncontrollably. My clit has swollen to its limit, like a mushroom sprouting purple spores to spawn new life after soaking up nourishment from rotting leaves and manure. My knees have bent at an angle to accommodate such a contorted posture: my back has arched, my butt has lifted and clenched tight, allowing my sex to spasm and pulse. The pleasure reaches a crescendo that threatens to send me over a cliff into insanity. My whole body is screeching silently for release like a beached whale desperate for salvation. I go cross-eyed as my vision whitens and tears roll down my cheeks to mix with my sweat and spit as if to lubricate my passage to heaven. A membranous ball of energy squirms inside my uterus and bursts out through my vaginal walls, then an intense stream of liquid erupts from my pussy to splash against my thighs and whatever happens to be near my gushing slit. Oh fuck yes I can’t stop cumming and cumming and all I want is to fall to my hands and knees and bow down before Jacqueline like a slave girl begging forgiveness. Fuck me! Please don’t let me lose my mind, feed me your warm milk, fill me with baby chicks who’ll grow wings made of silver glitter, and stay with me forever in this domain full of flowers that bloom with your scent.

An ecstatic explosion has blown my brain apart and scattered my thoughts across a darkened theatre cluttered with junk and trash, but I am not afraid of this gloomy place since I know that the audience is there watching my performance in silence, except for the occasional muffled snicker when I fail miserably in front of them with every word that comes out of this dumb slut mouth of mine.

Once I regain my proprioception, I’m breathing hard, I’m covered in sweat, and I’m staring at a full-screen video on my monitor. No, not on my monitor. A paper-thick screen is hovering a couple of feet away from my spread legs. The video shows a woman slumped in a chair with her back against the camera, but angled so the image features a bare thigh covered in downy hair. I get a glimpse of lush pubes above her labia, which are wet from the juices oozing out of her vagina. I regret looking up again. That’s the back of my fucking head.

I gasp. My spinal column has frozen. The slumped body on screen trembles. When I dare to lift from my thigh my wet hand, the filmed person imitates me. Her pale fingers glisten in the fluorescent light as if covered with a layer of oil.

Either I missed a mounted CCTV camera aimed at my workstation, or someone is standing behind me while holding a camera. But what the hell is this hovering screen unattached to anything?!

The hairs on my neck stand straight up as tears well up in the corners of my eyes. I clench my hands over my crotch, then I swivel my chair slowly to face the intruder. I find myself staring at Jordi’s empty chair, its seat pushed under the table. I only hear my ragged breathing and the buzzing of electricity inside the walls. When I turn around, the hovering screen is gone.