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Naked as I crawled into this broken world, I pad barefoot through the doorway to Jacqueline’s bedroom. The blinds have been rolled down, which would have engulfed the room in darkness if it weren’t for the lit candles arrayed on the nightstand, and on a stool at the foot of the bed. The flames, glowing gold, dance gently as they cast honey-colored light on the cloud-white bedclothes, and tint the walls and ceiling that one day we’ll repaint with the ashes of our enemies. I breathe in an aroma of rose, jasmine, and sandalwood.

Warmth permeates my skin as if I were wrapped in a blanket. Jacqueline has gone out of her way to craft this sanctuary for my sake. I’m reminded again that someone cares for me, chooses to keep me around day after insane day, even though I’m a relentless monster. I swallow hard, pushing back tears, and quietly close the door.

From behind the towering wardrobe that cuts my view, a sultry voice, soothing as a lullaby and with a hint of French accent, wafts over to me.

“Leire, be a doll and lock the door, s’il vous plaît.”

My hand reaches out, my fingers curl around the lock, then twist it into place. The metallic click resonates in the vault of my memories; how many times have I waited for that sound so I could feel safe alone, separated from the outside?

When I step past the wardrobe’s side, Jacqueline captures my attention: she’s standing by the mirrored door, between the wardrobe and the bed, like a medieval queen in her private chamber. My lover’s feminine figure is bathed in the golden hues of candlelight that makes her eyes sparkle. Her form-fitting silk robe glimmers like an oyster-pink oil slick, which accents her dark tresses. The ivory-white skin of her face and neck and chest and bulging cleavage glow. My gaze lingers on her mouth: the Cupid’s bow, the plump lower lip. I ache to feel that moist softness against me again.

“I love your fresh-from-the-shower afterglow,” Jacqueline says.

“Well, I’m glad you don’t find me hideous.”

“Hideous? Darling, you’re as beautiful as the dawn.”

I blush even though I’m disintegrating, even though the blood in my veins must have turned to sludge.

“Th-thank you for preparing this romantic setup, by the way.”

She chuckles, then gestures toward the bed.

“You’re most welcome, ma belle. Now sit on the edge. Get comfortable.”

The plush rug cushions the soles of my bare feet as I approach the bed. When I sit down, facing my beloved, the mattress dips under my weight. The lavender-scented, cottony surface feels cool against my ass and the back of my thighs.

“I’m programmed to loathe surprises, but I’m sure I will enjoy whatever you throw my way.”

“I hope so.”

Something in her voice gives me pause: an alien hesitation. Jacqueline turns away from me, drawn to the mirrored wardrobe. In the reflection, a shadow of doubt replaces the playful mischief that usually sparkles in her cobalt-blues. She presses her full lips together as the corner of her mouth twitches.

Jacqueline straightens her spine, maintaining a rigid posture. Her raven-black locks cascade down to the sash that hugs her hips. From under the strip of fabric, wrinkles in the robe fan out, mounting the swell of her buttocks. Her fingers find their way to the knot at the waistband. With gentle tugs, she draws the fabric out until the knot comes undone. Her hands part the sides of the robe, then she shrugs it off her shoulders. The garment flutters with a silky rustle down her voluptuous curves to the bedside rug, revealing a curvaceous frame clad only in a satin bra and a see-through thong.

The flickering glow of the candles paints Jacqueline’s curves in golden highlights: the elegant slope of her shoulders, the smooth expanse of her ivory-white back, the arch of her spine, the twin dimples above her coccyx, along with the rest of her physical attributes that suggest the abundance of a bygone age, such as her sculpted calves, her thick thighs, her wide hips, and the voluminous breasts that could make a corset explode. At this sight of my beloved, whose presence has rendered the universe irrelevant, a powerful sexual charge has stoked my loins, causing my breath to hitch. I want to bow down and worship her divine splendor.

The lace edging of her thong curves over her pelvis, and the back strip has disappeared in the crevice between the toned globes of that supple, fleshy bum. I lick my lips, then bite down on the bottom one. I should fall to my knees, grab mommy around the waist, and bury my face in those sumptuous globes.

She turns around to face me. Her ivory-white skin is stretched tight across the sinuous curves of muscle in her abdomen, toned abs that flex with each exhalation, whose grooves seem carved in clay. My gaze glides upward. The candlelight dances on the satin cups of her midnight-sky-black bra. Those cups encase snugly the massive mounds of her tits, an eruption of breast tissue that threatens to tear through the mesh that restrains it.

Jacqueline reaches behind her back, and unhooks her bra. As the straps fall down her shoulders and slide down her arms, the titanic breasts spill forth to first bobble then hang like twin moons. Those blessed milk-makers, immaculately-formed melons, the most mouthwatering pair of juggernauts, attract lust like metal fillings drawn to a magnet, and justify the pain of enduring this horrid life. A film of moisture glimmers on the upper slopes of those gravity-defying spheres now bathed in the color of honey, and capped with coral-pink areolas that encircle dusky-rose nipples.

A shiver courses up my back, sending goosebumps along my arms. My heart is thumping, my blood seething with arousal. I feel lifted in slow motion by a blaze that risks incinerating my sanity.

Instead of just feasting my eyes on those buoyant mountains of flesh, I must plant on them the palms of my hands, sinking them slowly. I will squeeze and knead the tender, creamy tissue for milk as the tips of her erect nipples graze against my palms. I will cup her breasts, then draw trails of saliva with my tongue on the bumps and folds of her areolae. I will kiss the stiff nubs, nibble them, tease their pliant peaks. Once I close my mouth around a nipple, the universe will concentrate on my desire to suckle the sweetness of motherhood, a taste and scent that will conjure memories of summers spent lazing about in the garden of Jacqueline’s childhood château.

My head is swimming with hormones. The feverish warmth that pulses within me, radiating outward from my core, melts the tension from my muscles like ice under boiling water. A pair of hands press the naked skin of my shoulders, pushing me back. With a slick and abrupt noise, like a wet kiss breaking, the succulent flesh that had filled my mouth suddenly leaves it. I stumble backwards onto the mattress with an inelegant flop.

Jacqueline’s cobalt-blues are glazed over and half-closed, and her pupils have dilated. Her cheeks are flushed as pink as peonies. She runs her tongue along her lower lip, moistening it. Placing both hands on her bosoms, she lifts them, then smooths and massages them as the engorged nipples poke out like flower buds, begging to be pinched and sucked.

“Of course you want to dive right into my tits,” she purrs. “And don’t get me wrong, mommy loves her baby’s attention.”

My pulse is thudding in my temples, in my throat, in my loins. My brain, fried from the hormonal onslaught, struggles to form coherent thoughts.

“Jacqueline, if you’ll allow me, I shall kneel before you, tear the thong off your body, and devour your steaming box with eager slurps.” My voice echoes within the dark chasm of my mind, my words slip out as if I were dropping them through a keyhole. “A voice is asking me if I understand what I’m seeing, hearing and feeling. It tells me that the red tide has come to consume this world, and soon enough we will be floating face down in cosmic sewage. Death will be cold and wet and lonely, so before we dive into oblivion to join everyone else in the swampy pits of purgatory, I want to squeeze every drop of pleasure from this life.”

Jacqueline chuckles throatily.

“Tu me fais trembler, ma chérie. Don’t worry, I’ll have you kneeling at my feet soon enough, but first there’s something I’d like to show you, something you have the right to know. I want you to become privy to all that makes me who I am.”

She hooks her thumbs under the thin straps of her thong, then bends over to pull the triangular piece of satin and lace down her shapely thighs. The candlelight caresses her mighty globes as they wobble and jiggle to the rhythm of her body. Once Jacqueline slides the thong off her ankles, she tosses the garment, soaked in her moisture, at my face.

Before the thong drops, I hurry to press it against my features, sticking the moist fabric to my nostrils and lips, warming them, smearing them with juices. I inhale deeply, drinking in mommy’s sexual tang. The intoxicating scent, salty and ripe with an earthy muskiness, fills my lungs and soaks into my brain like a firehose spray through the skull. I let the perfume melt my synapses while a sudden dizziness rushes through me as if I were getting high.

When I open my eyes, I find myself looking into a puddle of molten gold. I blink repeatedly until I recognize Jacqueline, whose brows are furrowed in worry as she wrings her hands.

I peel the thong off my face, then put it down beside me on the mattress.

“Mommy, what’s wrong?”

Jacqueline takes a deep breath. She combs a silken, gleaming lock of hair away from her face.

“I’m not sure, darling,” she says timidly. “What if you reject me?”

Have I heard her right? I grimace in disbelief.

“Well, that’s a silly fear for you to have.”

“Silly?” Jacqueline repeats, eyebrows raised, but the tension is easing from her shoulders.

“Jacqueline, you could reveal that you’re actually a three-eyed alien from Mars, and I’d still follow you to the end of the world.”

Her features brighten as her lips stretch into a grin that deepens her dimples, unveils her pearly teeth, and sends a wave of lust through me. Her eyes are glinting like blue fire.

“Alright. Check this out, Leire: a part of me that I haven’t shown anybody else.”

I blink. Wasn’t I staring Jacqueline in the eye? Instead I find myself looking at inky black hair with bluish reflections and parted in the middle. When I slide my gaze down, my head snaps back, and a shiver runs down my spine. Two monolid, almond-shaped eyes are staring at me from a face as pale as rice paper, that would belong in a medieval drawing of a Japanese courtesan.

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Author’s note: today’s songs are “La bohème” by Charles Aznavour, “Engine” by Neutral Milk Hotel, and “Sunshine Superman” by Donovan.

I keep a playlist with all the songs I’ve mentioned throughout this series. A total of a hundred and seventy-two videos. Check them out.

Hey, I heard you enjoy audiochapters. Got a fresh one right here.

I have been sick since last Thursday, mostly an excess of mucus and feeling out of it. It’s not covid, according to a couple of tests. On top of that, I’m working full-time. Due to my permanent heart issues thanks to a certain biological/technological weapon, I can’t consume caffeine, and I’m taking beta blockers. By four in the afternoon, my head is buzzing with exhaustion. I have changed my schedule to preparing the next writing session in the afternoon, then going to sleep at nine and waking up at four or five in the morning so I can inject the needed meaning into an otherwise pointless day. My job remains as shitty as usual, or even worse, because I’m rarely in the mood to tolerate any bullshit. There’s also, of course, the issue of constant anxiety and my IBS, which keep me locked in the most basic sphere of survival.

Why am I telling you this? Who are you anyway? Whatever. I hope you enjoyed this chapter, and if you didn’t, go read someone else’s stuff.

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Adrift in a fog of hormones, unsteady as if my bones had softened to clay, I unbutton my shirt, pull it off, and toss it onto the toilet seat cover. I kick off my sneakers into a corner. I shimmy my trousers down, leaving them bunched up around my ankles, then I step out of them. I unclasp the bra and discard it atop my shirt. I hook my thumbs in the elastic waistband of my panties and tug them down. After I shed my socks, the ceramic tiles send a pleasant chill through the soles of my feet, a contrast to the heated flush lingering on my skin.

From my peripheral vision, in the mirror above the sink, I glimpse my doppelgänger. She’s daring me to confront that slimy abomination, the viscous goo dribbling down in thick trails, those gaping, ragged holes instead of eyes and a mouth.

An icy dread numbs my guts, the familiar fear that creeps up whenever I’m about to square up to my reflection. My heart is pounding. I take a deep breath that smells of floral air freshener, then I turn toward the sink. I lean forward to plant my left palm on the mirrored cabinet door, covering the reflected face. My auburn hair frames the pale hand, which has lost enough subcutaneous fat that the veins and tendons appear in relief.

The halogen glow of the lighting fixture is throwing my form, the canvas my consciousness has been bolted onto, against the glass. A pair of ample, bell-shaped breasts hang in contrast to my thin frame, swaying lightly with every breath. Protruding ribs, stark as the rungs on a ladder, curve around the torso in an exhibition of skeletal architecture. Below, my abdomen hollows into a sunken landscape, and my flesh is stretched tight across the prominent hipbones.

I’m a revolting corpse-like wreck, but at least corpses are spared from having to face the outside world again.

“Look at you,” I mutter. “An avatar of death in the guise of life.”

At the bottom of the mirror peeks out a patch of auburn curls, perhaps a symbol of my unruly nature. I push myself off the cabinet. While keeping my gaze down, I stand on my tiptoes until the glass reflects my vulva: the hood that protects my button of joy, and the vertical flat mouth, coated with glistening moisture, nestled within the untamed curls like some shell-less mollusc.

Using my forefingers, I spread my pussy open. The white light draws stretch marks on the rose-pink insides of my flesh pocket. At its bottom, two pliant folds peel apart to reveal a black void. As I caress my labia, the clitoral hood retracts, unveiling the rosy bean. Suddenly I’m worried that if I keep my pussy open, a passing mouse might leap in headfirst to build a nest inside.

In a matter of minutes, mommy will recline on her queen-size bed, her head against some faux-fur pillows, and I will lie on my tummy between her thighs to lick her pussy like a dog after spending weeks away from its master. She better be ready; the sandwich I ate for lunch ended up as vomit in a wastebasket, so I’m ravenous.

As I slide my fingers along my slit, probing its wetness, a thrilling shiver shoots through me, arching all the way up my spine. My breathing has grown shallow, and my heart is drumming against my sternum. When I press the sides of my labia together, my engorged clit protrudes from its shelter. I rub that sensitive bean in slow circles.

“Eat me up,” Jacqueline purrs in my mind, “slurp me up, my precious darling, and I’ll take care of you.”

A musky scent reaches my nostrils. The rosy flesh of my pussy, that shines in the mirror like slathered in petroleum jelly, is filling with a rush of warm juices while its insides clench around nothing, craving to be filled. I dip my index and middle fingers with a squelch into my leaking tunnel, whose slick fluids are gliding down to my ass crack.

“Oh, Jacqueline,” I whisper, breathless, as my vaginal walls clamp around my fingers. “I never wanted to be human, I was only born as one, and until I met you, I hated everything about my life, every goddamn thing. La vie est faite pour la mort. If only I could take a piece of you and stitch it into my own flesh.”

I pull my fingers back with a wet slurp. They are coated in an obsidian-black, sticky substance, and tethered to a catenary of goo that stretches out, clinging to my skin, like a thread of rotten honey.

As my feverish daze begins to lift, and the world returns in a carousel of blurred colors and shapes, I find myself gripping the edge of the ceramic basin. My body is thrumming with arousal, but I’m getting a whiff of the blob’s stench mingled with my stale sweat; I picture a wet and moldy mound of garbage crawling with worms and roaches. I was supposed to wash off the grime, not make it stickier.

Once I step inside the shower cubicle, I adjust the temperature with the metallic knob. I turn on the shower to let the water heat up, and the showerhead sputters before it begins to spray a steady stream, filling the cubicle with a rhythmic drumming. I take a deep breath, then walk into the warm flow. Its droplets burst against my chest, against my face. I tilt my head back and stand stock still, arms hanging limp at my sides, eyes closed, mouth agape, surrendering myself to the downpour. As I lean forward, the cascade bathes my scalp with a tingling warmth. Rivulets stream down my back and neck, and trickle between my breasts.

I reach for the shampoo bottle that, tucked away on the corner shelf, with its bright purple hue, stands out like an alien splotch against the tiles. I squeeze a generous dollop of cream onto my palm, and the scent wafts up along with the steam: lavender and chamomile. At first I massage the shampoo into my scalp, soaking the roots of my hair, then I start scraping the skin with my nails, trying to purge every particle of muck buried within the follicles.

I snatch a bottle of shower gel with one hand and a loofah with the other. I pop the bottle’s cap open, then I squirt enough rose-scented gel to drown the sponge. I’m scrubbing, scrubbing away, lathering every inch of my body, every crevice, to wash away the dried sweat and grime from my armpits, limbs, thighs, genitals; anyplace that may be drenched in the blob’s filth. The cascade of hot water must be washing off the grime and layers of pollution, along with the viruses, bacilli and amoebae that tattooed themselves onto my being. The stink of sewage and doom must be fading as the liquid of life glides down my slippery skin. Yet, I can’t shake the feeling of decay that clings to me, nor the black thoughts scrawled across my mind. I wish I were scrubbing myself with a wire brush, raking my flesh down to the bone.

I drop the loofah, then turn off the shower. My skin tingles. I shiver, I shrug, I press the fleshy bases of my thumbs against my eyelids.

“This is fine.” Foam invades my mouth. It tastes bitter, chemical. “You, Nairu and I can live happily on our own private moon.”

Down on the shower pan, the remnants of my day, a pit of brew turned shadow-gray, are spiraling and gurgling down the drain.

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Author’s note: today’s song is “Tous les garçons et les filles” by Françoise Hardy.

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

Psst! Do you enjoy audiochapters? Check out this fresh new one.

I was introduced to Françoise Hardy and her music back in primary school. Our French teacher showed the music video of that song on an old CRT TV. I was enthralled, and from then on, French ladies became a matter of mystical beauty. It didn’t hurt that most of the French girls I met when going to the beach in Hendaye, or that visited our town, were usually lovely. I have to assume that Françoise Hardy inspired Jacqueline’s depiction, although I wouldn’t be sure to what extent, as I don’t plan those things consciously.

Last I know of Hardy, back in 2021 she was dying of terminal cancer, and begging the French government to euthanize her.

My septuagenarian father has covid. This Saturday I will travel to Vitoria so I can attempt to pass an exam on Sunday, that will determine how often they will call me back to work for the next few years. See you on the other side.

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As I ease the door to Nairu’s bedroom open, a broadening ribbon of hallway light pierces the darkness, creeping up the child-sized bed, reaching the slumbering form of the little girl we call our own. Glow-in-the-dark stars dot the ceiling, and under them, Nairu is lying prone, covered up to her neck in a lemonade-pink quilt featuring unicorns with turquoise-blue manes and self-satisfied smiles. The white light bathes our girl’s tranquil face, as well as strands of her chestnut hair, in a milky glow. Her hands are tucked under her chin, her rosy lips parted. Her torso rises and falls with each gentle breath. Our antediluvian baby.

Nairu must have grown on me like a cluster of orchids blooming in a marsh; I want to kneel by the bed, cradle her face, and rub my thumbs along the ridges of her cheekbones. Deep in dreamland, what fantasies are dancing behind those closed eyes? Is she strolling among towering conifer trees? Is she splashing in a stream, catching prehistoric fish with her bare hands? Is she playing a game of tag with a wooly mammoth while her furry-footed, beastly father cheers her on from the sidelines? Is she riding on the back of her centaur mother, racing through a grassy plain, while sabertooths watch them in awe? Is she fleeing in panic from a stampede of ground sloths? In the frosty quiet, has she stumbled upon the lifeless forms of her mother and father, cold as the ground beneath them?

Even though Nairu has been abducted into a world irradiated with perversion, she dared to drift into dreams in the abode of two women who remain mostly strangers to her, one of whom is a dangerous lunatic. Outside our sanctuary, how many unspeakable horrors lurk in the shadows, eager to suck the marrow from this girl’s bones? I must shield Nairu from enduring the same nightmares that haunt me, but for that I’d have to clean out society one doorstep at a time. Any potential threat to our pixie child? I’d hack them to pieces with a machete.

Jacqueline’s warmth envelops me as she leans into my side, hugging my waist, squeezing her breasts against my left arm. She tilts her head to whisper in my ear.

“Isn’t she lovely, our sweet little doll?”

Her sensual voice has rolled my spine into a tight spring.

“Mh-hm.”

“I get to take care of this innocent child. We are a family.” Her whisper becomes threadbare, as if she struggled to form each syllable. “Years ago, I was so miserable.”

I want to turn my head and meet Jacqueline’s eyes, but she buries her nose in my hair. Her fingers trace a path along the back of my scalp. She lets out a sultry sigh into my ear canal, which vibrates my eardrum with a whooshing noise like wind in a microphone. Goosebumps erupt on my skin.

“And then you appeared,” she whispers, “you twisted thing.”

Jacqueline wraps me tighter. My left earlobe becomes engulfed in a heated humidity as mommy savors the rounded, fleshy part of my ear with her tongue. A purry moan escapes her throat. She laps in slow motion at the outer rim of my ear, then the inner rim, then the hollow next to the ear canal, bathing them in warm saliva. I’m curling my toes and shrugging to keep from breaking in shivers as a tidal surge of desire rises up in my gut.

Before Nairu stirs from her sleep and sees one of her new mothers licking the other’s left ear like a lollipop, I ease the door shut until the latch clicks.

I close my eyes. Jacqueline’s tongue is sliding with a sensuous motion over the cartilaginous hollows, ridges and furrows of my ear, causing saliva to drip down to my earlobe. As she shifts her weight subtly from one foot to the other, and the pressure of her breasts squashing against my left arm intensifies or diminishes, I listen to her sounds: deep breaths, wet smacks when she withdraws her tongue to wet it, throaty noises when she swallows. My bodily heat is pooling in my crotch while an increasing moisture dampens my panties.

A hand lifts the front of my shirt, and those fingers caress my sunken abdomen. I shiver. A whimper slips out of my mouth. As Jacqueline’s fingertips dally toward my pubic bone, leaving trails of warmth in their wake, my nipples stiffen.

“You want mommy to dote on her baby girl, don’t you, sweetheart?” Jacqueline’s breath kisses the inside of my ear. “Yes, you’re in dire need of mommy attention.”

A feverish desire pulses in my groin, and my pelvic muscles contract involuntarily, while Jacqueline’s left hand unbuttons my trousers. I help her lower the waistband. Her right hand slides inside my trousers and along the curve of my ass, to knead my cheeks hungrily.

A tongue is coating the ridges of my left ear in saliva. A hand glides aside the seat of my panties, then cups and squeezes my bare ass. As a hand wanders down past my pubes, two of its fingers brush against my slit through the drenched panties, that cling to my quivering pussy. Those fingers rub my sex back and forth, sending a thrill through me.

My eyes roll back. Jacqueline’s heat has sunk into my bones and is traveling through my body, setting every corner aglow. I’m feeling faint; my legs threaten to give out from under me. In the center of my mind, a chained, horned wolf bays for sex and blood.

Jacqueline removes her mouth from my ear, and pulls back. I turn my head to meet her cobalt-blues, now glassy. Her cheeks are flushed, her lips parted and wet. She’s sticking her glistening tongue out. From its tip hangs a bead of saliva that gleams like a pearl. I stand on my tiptoes, envelop her coral-pink organ with my lips, and suck on her tongue as if to drain it of nectar.

I’m dizzy, and breathing in a floral fragrance. Jacqueline’s firm hands are stroking my shoulders. The corners of her mouth have risen in a seductive smile.

“Sorry to leave you wet and ready, darling, but… c’est de mieux d’arrêter maintenant, before I fuck you in the hallway. Get that sexy body of yours to the bathroom and freshen up.”

“I-is the rot heavy on my skin?”

“I can tell you have sweated quite a bit.”

“More like crawled through shit.”

Jacqueline chuckles.

“Go ahead and hop in the shower, sweetie. Wash the grime off and feel good again. Once you join me in our bedroom, as I told you on the phone, I’m going to show you something special.”

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Author’s note: today’s songs are “Forever” by Roy Harper (also this live version), “My Girls” by Animal Collective, and “Lysergic Bliss” by Of Montreal.

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

Are you also in dire need of mommy attention? Then check out the audiochapter I produced for this part.

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I nudge the front door closed with the back of my sneaker, and it settles behind me with a solid thump. I release my pent-up breath. I’m home, in the private domain of Miss Jacqueline Rouxel. I’m welcomed by the sight of the corridor and the smears of light from the recessed ceiling fixtures reflected in the glossy parquet. To my left opens the ample living room, its walls painted baby blue. The balcony door looks out into a patch of darkness.

A wave of relief washes over me; for the first time since I left for work in the morning, I can loosen my muscles and my brow.

Water is dripping from the moldy, spare umbrella I grabbed at the office. I turn around to slide it into the stand. I take off my corduroy jacket and place it on the coat hanger. My keys hit the tray with a sharp clatter.

Jacqueline is ambling down the corridor to meet me. Her unbound raven-black hair cascades to her shoulder blades, swaying gracefully. She has donned an oyster-pink silk robe, tied up at the waist with a sash, that highlights the contours of her voluptuous figure. As she walks, the light swims within the fabric like sunlight playing on a rippling pond.

I want to proclaim with elation that I’m home, that although I was brought against my will to this strident, chaotic world, I have managed to survive, but my vocal cords refuse to comply. Jacqueline is near enough for her intoxicating fragrance to envelop me with a mixture of freshly-washed skin, soap, cream, roses and jasmine, that triggers an ache of longing deep within me.

My partner in crime, the woman I adore, stops two feet away. Her eyes, cobalt blue like the deep ocean and blue tangs and hyacinth macaws, are brimming with warmth as they gaze down into mine. Her plump lips curve into a radiant smile that lights up her ivory-white features, that weakens my knees. Whatever may exist in this universe beyond Jacqueline blurs as my focus remains locked on my beloved. She bolsters me despite the rot inside me, despite my crippling derangement. Yet, a pang of guilt gnaws at my heart; her tenderness is wasted on such a filthy bitch, whom the rest of the world has rightfully neglected.

In the periphery of my vision, I catch sight of Jacqueline’s midnight-sky-black bra, whose satin fabric glistens subtly and is decorated with lace overlays, that supports the pair of massive breasts. I long to lose myself in eternity ensconced in her arms, burying my face in the ivory-white slopes of her tits so her warmth and softness and familiar scent soothe my frayed nerves. My heart pounds with the desperate need to be engulfed by her like a piece of paper succumbing to a flame.

However, a clammy, mucous-like sensation clings to my skin and clothes. Does Jacqueline’s fine nostrils detect the blob’s putrescent stench mingled with the acrid tang of my own sweat? The rot must have seeped even into the fabric of my panties, that are chafing against my private parts. I’m contaminated, marked with the brand of evil. I need to rip off my tainted clothes and scrub away the filth until my skin feels like it’s been flayed.

“J-Jacqueline, I’ve gone through a disturbing, exceedingly long argument with a blob of sewage.”

She steps closer, leans forward, and presses her plush lips against mine. Her tongue, that velvety organ, plunges in to probe mine warmly. I shudder. The hair on my nape stands up. Hot white noise tingles between my thighs. Her eyelashes flutter, tickling my eyelids, as her quickened pulse throbs through the skin of her lower lip.

While her soft tongue swirls around mine, Jacqueline slides her fingers behind my hips and clasps her palms together in the small of my back, pulling me closer. Her breasts heave against mine as she inhales and exhales, letting out low moans that resonate through me like a hum. My fingertips meander up and down her dorsal groove through the silky fabric of her robe, between the symmetrical ridges of muscle, until I touch the stiff clasp of her bra. As I fiddle with it, my mouth floods further at the prospect of unhooking the clasp and suffocating on those mounds of smooth flesh.

With a wet smacking sound, Jacqueline withdraws her lips from mine, breaking our embrace. I lean forward to resume the kiss, but I’m unable to connect our mouths. When I open my eyes, Jacqueline is gazing at me with the fondness of a mother regarding her child. Her cheeks are flushed pink.

“Bonsoir, ma belle,” she says in a silky accent that washes over me like a bath of lily petals, and makes me picture a rural village in the south of France.

The hot-blooded pleasure that had swelled within me begins to evaporate from my abdomen. I had lost any grasp of what words may mean, but now I’m coming up from my daze in the bottom of a warm sea. Reality, familiar yet foreign, has come into view like a distant shore after a weeks-long maritime journey. I hear the ghostly echo of Jacqueline’s voice asking, “Vous avez fait de votre vie, aujourd’hui, comme une araignée?“

The warmth of her saliva lingers on my tongue as I regain my breath. I struggle to push a single word out.

“B-bonsoir.”

Jacqueline’s lips stretch into a grin that brings out her dimples. The lace trim on her right sleeve slides down to the crook of her elbow as she raises that hand to stroke my cheek. Her tongue darts out and licks her lips.

“Gummy candy and… Mentos?”

“Yeah, I bought some on the way back. I wanted to mask the taste of vomit.”

“You vomited, dear?” Jacqueline’s brows knit together. “From an argument?”

“Ah… Doesn’t matter.”

“Indeed, what would anything that has happened out there matter now that you’re home and we can enjoy ourselves?” Jacqueline steps back, and her cobalt-blues scan me from head to toe. “I must say, though, that I was sure you would have returned a watery ghost. Drenched from the storm, your shoes soiled with mud. But here you stand, almost pristine.”

I let out a dry chuckle.

“I’m glad, because I feel like I spent hours knee-deep in shit. When I left the office, I was expecting to see Donostia in ruins, the buildings crashing down, the bridges falling into the river, the streets crawling with foul abominations… But instead, the storm had subsided to a drizzle.”

“Lucky girl.” Jacqueline grabs my hand, lacing our fingers together. “Now come with me, darling.”

As she guides me down the hallway, she casts a glance over her shoulder and raises a finger to her lips in a shushing gesture. Her eyes are twinkling.

A sketchbook page adorns the white wall. Our prehistoric prodigy has transformed that canvas of cream with strokes of colorful crayons. Her art depicts a trio bound by handclasp, and as the central figure stands a girl of about ten years old, with peach-orange skin and a swath of chestnut hair. The red smudge forming her mouth is curved into a smile.

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Author’s note: the songs for today are “Yours Truly, the Commuter” by Jason Lytle, “Sally Cinnamon” by The Stone Roses, and “Friday I’m In Love” by Yo La Tengo.

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

You want to listen to Jacqueline speak in French, don’t you? You know you do. Check out the audiochapter I produced for this scene.

Such a pleasant start for this demented new sequence titled “Miraculous Milk.”

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“Don’t look so defeated,” Alberto the blob says. “Listen, I know that the news about an impending apocalypse is hard to wrap your tiny mind around. However, despite how unbearable and loathsome you are, the universe still tolerates the burden of your existence. Don’t forget that.”

I narrow my eyes at the wall-wide, gooey scrotum of fate.

“What I don’t forget,” I retort in a ragged voice, “is that the universe lacks sentience, and therefore can’t give two shits about me or you for that matter. Otherwise it could choose not to implode in a fit of self-annihilation. But thank you, Blubberass, for your manipulative attempt to console me.”

The blob lets out a wet chuckle. I shake my head.

“I’m so glad that I can make even an ectoplasmic wall of pus crack up,” I grumble.

“Oh, quit your bellyaching. All it takes for greatness is the right kind of unhinged. Now that we’re balls deep in the cosmic stew, that’s exactly what we need: a freak among freaks.”

I lower my head as my fingers dig into the fabric of my shirt.

“I don’t even like human beings.” I struggle to push more words past the knot in my throat. “I shouldn’t be the one to save them.”

The putrescent heap of slime gurgles a sloshing sigh.

“Tough titties, pal. You don’t have to like ’em, you just have to save ’em.”

I envision a fire-breathing serpent coiled around the throat of the universe. I force a breath deep into my lungs, then exhale slowly.

“Can we cut the bullshit and get to the point? How in Arachne’s name, pray tell, am I supposed to fix a dying universe? These gaping wounds in the fabric of reality… How can they be stitched back up? What’s your grand plan, Oh Mighty Overlord of the Dark?”

“I’m glad you finally asked!” Alberto proclaims with theatrical flourish. “It’s not like we have been trying to explain the problem to you for weeks. But, you know, no rush. The universe is just on the brink of annihilation.”

My eyelids twitch.

“Get on with it, Blubberball!”

“Alright, alright. No need to feel guilty for your cognitive deficiencies. As a humble servant of the greater good, I will lay out a plan for you: destroy the professor’s machine. As in physically wreck it.”

“If that machine is a nexus of energies, a conduit between dimensions, then once it’s smashed to bits, the energies tapping into it would still exist and the tears in reality would continue to grow. Wouldn’t they?”

Alberto’s gooey form undulates irritably like a fleshy ocean current.

“Leire, you have the intellectual capacity of a walnut, and I’m merely a messenger. I don’t know jack shit about how that machine works. The professor has assured us that his invention should be demolished, so that’s what I’m conveying to you, the only one who can act on this information. Grow some humongous cojones and obliterate the magnum opus of a genius. Hopefully then the tears in space-time will shrink to a pinprick, preventing further entities from slipping through.”

“How am I supposed to smash a bunny machine that taps into the multiverse?”

“Have you forgotten that you’re insane? Have confidence in your mad skills.”

I glance down at my chest, but my breasts aren’t equipped to wield artillery cannons or nuclear missiles.

I shrug.

“Well, I’m a pro at ruining stuff, so I’ll figure it out. Where is this doomsday device located?”

“You’ll come across it, and once you do, you will recognize it immediately.”

My eyebrows knit together in frustration as my temper flares.

“Could you be any vaguer, you mucus-clogged imbecile?!”

“Just shut your cakehole, keep your fucking eyes as well as that interdimensional fuckhole of a brain open, and learn to pay attention to your surroundings.”

“Should a quest to get me interested in the world require universe-ending stakes?!”

“Apparently so, Leire. Apparently so. I mean, it always has to be something grandiose with you. Nevermind the little things, like good hygiene or treating your former co-workers with decency; universe-ending stakes or nothing. And to be honest, after however long I’ve been forced to listen to your babbling, which has turned my mind into a sewer, I feel that the universe ending may be a blessing.”

I rub my hands down my face. My muscles have tensed up with adrenaline, and a headache is gnawing at my skull like a starved rat.

“Is that all you came to convey?” I ask in a weary voice. “I have a pressing appointment with my amatory goddess, so before I hurry to cram in mommy goo by the spoonful, do you intend to bother me with further pieces of invaluable advice?”

“Just remember that you’re our emissary on this plane, all we’ve got, as sickening as the notion may be. We’re cheering for you. One of us is, anyway. I’m realistically pessimistic about your chances.”

I let out a bitter laugh. Sluggish, I shamble back to Jacqueline’s chair and flop down on it. The chair creaks as if complaining.

“Alright, well… I better get going and save the universe or whatever. Let’s keep this shitty world spinning, even though its sentient inhabitants have done little to deserve the ride. As for you, return to your home in the sewerage pipes of hell.”

“Yeah, fuck off, Leire. Enjoy the rest of your depraved existence.”

A smile creeps onto my face.

“You bet I will, Blubberboy.”

The blob makes a rumbling noise like a tuba full of turds. His gelatinous bulk starts convulsing, wobbling and rippling. As dozens of eyeballs shake and bounce against each other, viscous ropes of goo flail out, undulating like inky anacondas. Alberto’s volume is shrinking with a fleshy slurp as if a drain had opened in the wall and were sucking him down.

The puddles and splotches of black goo that have sullied the carpet are stretching dozens of tiny arms. Those wriggling strands, dark vines that grow in fast motion, are pulling themselves from the fabric as they reach out toward the wall. Blackened tissues, with which I had wiped my face after Alberto spat at me, roll up the inner wall of my wastebasket, then tumble across the carpet to meet the interdimensional drain that is pulling in every droplet of tarry putrescence.

A myriad of melon-sized eyeballs pop out from the dwindling mass of slime, dropping onto the carpeted floor with a series of thuds before rolling around like slick marbles. As they come to a halt, they blur, start hissing, and one by one they dissolve into effervescent mists of pollutants that carry a bitter, metallic scent.

With a glug, the last gob of ooze is sucked down into the void. Black and greasy smears remain, like spills of crude oil, but as the rain lashes against the office windowpanes, the stains begin to fade.

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Author’s note: the songs for today are “Fat Lip” by Sum 41, and “See You at Your Funeral” by PUP.

I keep a playlist with all the songs mentioned throughout this novel so far. A hundred and sixty-one videos. Check them out.

Enjoy some amateur theatre with AI-generated voices by listening to the audiochapter of this chapter. Check it out.

Thus concludes the saga of Alberto the blob, that started back in chapter 80, during November of last year. This last sequence has been the longest of the novel by a significant margin, with about 25,000 words. You can hear the entirety of this sequence as audiochapters through this link.

The next chapter will kick off a new sequence titled “Miraculous Milk,” throughout which I’ll proceed to lose what little remains of my audience.