You Choose Who Owns You, Pt. 1 (Poetry)

On August 4, 2021August 6, 2021 By Jon UreñaIn Arte, Escritura, Inteligencia artificial1 Comment

Next part (2)

Nothing like alcohol for killing the pain.
I felt the warmth of the bar on my face;
I had rested my head on many familiar tables
And closed my eyes, yet failed to sleep.
That night, like many others of the last year,
I wasted more money of my diminishing savings
By travelling to Shinjuku station,
And from there northeast to Kabukicho,
Where I would drink myself into a stupor.
All of Tokyo is alive in those sexy streets.
So many beautiful women walking about,
The gorgeous kind that live a dream,
The likes of which you can’t see anywhere else.
Some men standing in corners or against walls
Offered me drugs, but I said no way;
Alcohol should be enough to numb the pain,
But it wasn’t: my heart broke every night.
Although I told myself that I would be alright,
I wanted to sleep with my head under water;
The pain had changed from intermittent attacks
To an excruciating chronic condition.
With each day that passed, I felt less and less alive,
As if I were slowly rotting away;
My body was filled with swelling useless flesh,
And I couldn’t stand the sight of it anymore.
My head hurt, my heart ached.
All that I had achieved seemed hollow.
My life had no direction, no meaning,
And a void within me cried out to be filled.
I couldn’t find peace when I was so restless,
And the only thing I knew was that emptiness.
In thirty minutes, my butt was resting on a stool
At the bar of the club I had come to frequent.
I had already downed a couple of fruit cocktails
When I felt someone’s gaze burning my face;
It came from a woman sitting nearby,
Clad so stylishly that it reminded me of a hotel suite
(Or the kind of high-class escorts I’d meet there).
She had fair skin; thin, pointy lips;
A scooped nose with a turned-up tip;
And dreamy, distant eyes.
A beauty that I wouldn’t dare to pick up.
Her long black hair was pulled back with a clip.
She was wearing a rosewood pink cocktail dress
That showed most of her shapely thighs
Of a pair of legs that had stepped out of a magazine.
A drunk like me didn’t deserve her attention,
But I couldn’t think of many men who would.
“Hey,” she said softly. “You look lonely tonight.”
Well, sure. Why wouldn’t I have felt lonely?
My last girlfriend and I should have lasted forever,
But I lost my job and couldn’t provide,
So she had found someone who could.
Now we were broken up, for good this time.
I returned to the dating market as a forty-year-old
Who likely looked more worn out than he even felt,
And now I faced a beautiful young woman
Whose gaze I could barely dare to meet.
“I’m lonely, but you look way too expensive,”
I answered politely to the likely escort.
The woman brandished a gorgeous smile.
“You’d be surprised by how affordable I am.”
I was interested in the picturesque
Amount of flesh that her garment exposed.
The woman stood up, then walked up to me
And slipped one hand across my shoulder.
Her strong scent wafted through my nostrils.
I wanted her bad, but I would have fucked anyone
Who was willing to have sex with this old man.
As I turned around, she leaned forward
Until our lips touched, and probed with her tongue.
Her taste was intoxicating, yet slightly bitter.
Before I knew it, she took hold of my crotch
To squeeze and grope my dick.
She whispered in my ear, “I live close.
Let’s go to my place so I can fuck your brains out.”
No sane woman would choose a forty-year-old
Who doesn’t disguise he’s burning his savings,
But the other escorts who seduced me
Were far uglier and cheaper-looking,
So if I were set on wasting my money,
I may as well give it to this beautiful whore.
We left the bar and I guided her to the taxi stand,
But the woman tugged on my arm she was holding.
“No need, I came here in my car. Let’s go.”
I followed her to the parking lot
As I stared down at her toned ass;
This woman worked out regularly,
And she looked like she had money to spare,
But I figured that falling for this woman’s ploy
Was more interesting that drinking myself to sleep.
We got into a shiny, silver Honda.
When I sank into the passenger seat,
She got into the driver’s seat
With her legs spread wide open
And her skirt hiked up.
I thought it best not to say anything;
I only thought of shoving my dick inside her.
As the woman drove away from Kabukicho,
She reached between her thighs
And glanced at me as she rubbed herself.
“You have given up, haven’t you,” she said softly,
“And you are hoping for the drinks to kill you quick.”
I was drunk enough that I couldn’t think straight.
I shifted my weight to disguise my erection,
Although the woman kept pleasuring herself.
“I don’t want to die as much as to disappear.”
This escort had already picked me up
When I was drinking myself into a stupor,
So I figured I could be honest with her.
The woman smiled sympathetically.
“It must be so hard, that pressure to provide,
When nobody would want to take care of you.”
I shivered from head to toe, and had to swallow.
“I’m sure you have taken care of many losers.
The only kind of angel we are allowed to meet.”
She lightly stroked my face, her expression pleasant.
I wished for her to grant me a miracle tonight,
To make my rotten self feel alive again.
We passed by suitable love hotels,
But maybe she was looking for seedier ones.
“Are you thinking of a hotel in particular?” I asked.
The woman’s cheeks were flushed, her eyes excited.
“Didn’t you hear me before? I’m bringing you home.”
The woman’s house wasn’t close at all.
She drove in the night past the national garden,
Straight through the entirety of Minamiaoyama,
And then south towards Hiroo, a fitting fancy district
That I could only dream of living in.
I had drunk as much as I had become used to,
And I had sunk in the passenger’s seat
As I watched the multicolored lights flying by.
I had ceased to care whether I would have sex;
If this woman stopped and told me to get out,
I would bow and thank her for the pleasant ride.
But she made a left turn into a one-lane road
Lined with clashing, idiosyncratic homes.
All the yards were dark at this hour.
She gestured towards a lace white house
Two stories tall, fenced with cast iron
Topped with medieval, sharp spikes.
A row of pill-shaped bushes hid the view
Of the balcony in the second floor.
I felt dizzy as I gawked at the house
While the woman veered into its garage.
Once she parked inside, I spoke:
“This is the fanciest home I’ve been in.
I guess your job pays very well.”
The woman slowly climbed out of the car,
Then chuckled softly as she smiled.
“I have always done well for myself,
As I could put my talents to good use,
And now you’ll enjoy this luxury too.”
I knew I didn’t belong in such a place,
Nor standing in front of a gorgeous lady,
Whether or not she charged for sex.
But she was smiling seductively
As she pressed herself against me.
I could feel her pussy through her skirt.
I caressed her toned left thigh
While my erection bent in my pants.
No way she wanted this old man’s cock,
But I had decided to pay her handsomely.
I must have looked so pitiful and lonely
That even a high-class escort felt sympathy.
She opened the door and invited me in.
I feared I would smell the aroma of a man,
But the place was clean, too tidy for a drunk.
The furniture was either black or cherry red.
The woman closed the sliding door behind us,
Then devoured my mouth ravenously.
No other woman had showed me this passion.
I could taste her lipstick from our kisses
As she gripped me tightly through my underwear.
We fondled our way further into the house,
Until the woman stopped next to a room.
“That door over there is one of the bathrooms.
Go inside and pee or whatever you need
While I prepare something good in the kitchen.”
I walked to the bathroom and shut the door.
The toilet was modern, with a sensor,
And I had never seen a shower like this.
It had many different settings,
With a dozen buttons on the panel.
After I peed, I held my insufficient dick.
No way this escort would be impressed.
The booze had gone to my head;
I was surprised I could even get hard.
Maybe I should just have called it quits.
When I walked into the kitchen,
It took one look of the escort’s figure
For my penis to perk up again.
I needed to see her body,
To know the shape of her curves and her skin.
I wanted to feel her softness against my chest.
I wanted to make love to her,
And to believe for those brief seconds
That such a woman would truly want me.
She was holding two glasses filled
With water in which something had dissolved.
I was concerned, and pointed at them.
“What’s that? Aspirin? Do you have a headache?”
Her dark hazel eyes narrowed like those of a cat.
Her smile was charming, but her eyes were cold.
“It’s mescaline, my friend. Ever heard of it?”
It took me a while to climb out of my stupor,
But it made sense: she needed to be high
To fuck an old ruin like my drunken self.
“Alright, I guess you know how to party.”
The woman tossed down her drink,
And on impulse, I drank my entire glass dry.
It tasted bitter, yet refreshing.
I enjoyed the residual flavor of the drug
As my body fizzled with ecstasy and fear,
Like when a boy first tried smoking weed,
Only this feeling was much stronger.
The woman was staring at me hungrily.
Her pink lips moved closer until we kissed,
And I wrapped my hands around her toned ass.
“Let’s go to the bedroom, shall we?” she cooed,
And whispered in: “I’m going to fuck you hard.”
I pictured her hiding a penis in her panties,
But at that point I likely would have taken it.
She half-pushed me down the hallway
Until we reached a stark bedroom,
Where beside the nightstands, and a statue
(Which looked like it represented a goddess),
The central feature was a gothic, four-poster bed.
The sheets were white, and the pillows pink.
There were bars connecting the posts,
From which hanged iron rings.
Both the headboard and the footboard
Had ornate designs with holes and more rings.
I imagined the escort as a medieval countess.
The few windows were tall enough
That no neighbor would be able to peek in,
And although the bedroom looked clean,
It smelled strongly like sex.
That mescaline was taking effect,
And my brain was turning blue.
I chuckled. “I see that you like to play.”
She devoured my mouth as she fondled my dick.
“I’m never more serious than when I’m playing,
And you’ll know all about it soon enough.”
She pulled off her cocktail dress in my arms,
Exposing her perfect torso to the night.
She was wearing a lacy black bra.
I couldn’t wait, so I undid the clasp,
Then cupped those firm breasts,
Which felt so smooth and warm.
They reminded me of the woman’s face,
A mixture of youth and experience.
She pulled back as she took off her panties.
Her pubes were trimmed, her pussy glistened.
Her breasts were full of pink and vitality,
And they swayed tantalizingly as she breathed.
As my erection tried to poke through my pants;
I couldn’t believe I would fuck a woman like that.
She kissed me as she passed by,
Then climbed onto the gothic bed
To lie on her back, showing her pussy.
She opened those moist lips for me.
“Do you like this beautiful pussy of mine?”,
The woman asked in a serious voice.
I unbuckled my pants as I stared at it.
“Oh, yes. It’s the most glorious thing.”
“Are you going to pleasure it like it deserves?”
I shivered under her gaze. “If you let me.”
She pointed at her crotch and licked her lips.
“Then come over here and eat my pussy.”
For as long as it lasted, I was in heaven,
Lying on my belly as I fondled her thighs
While I lapped up her pussy juices
And her clit throbbed against my tongue.
But my mind kept wandering to the past,
Now in hallucinatory, dream-like swirls
(I was sobering up, but the mescaline kicked in).
I kept seeing the woman I used to love,
And who maybe I loved still, a year later.
I remembered her small, soft breasts,
Her cute nose and big eyes.
I recalled the feel of her pussy hugging me.
I remembered the way she smelled,
Her aroma that made my heart beat faster.
During sex, I only wished to recall sex,
Because my eyes were too eager to tear up
Whenever I recalled everything I lost.
When the woman came with a long sigh,
Her orgasm brought back some of my youth.
I kept tonguing her clit as her vagina throbbed,
But when she relaxed, I looked up at her face;
It was beautiful, framed with raven black hair.
“You are such a good boy, aren’t you?”
She asked me sweetly, slightly out of breath.
My mouth was still wet from her juices,
And her words caused me a new erection.
“I loved being a good boy for you.”
She got up and walked around the bed
Until she stood straight behind me.
Even naked, she was full of confidence,
While I was a lonely drunk of an aging man.
She exuded an aura of wavy, purple flames,
But a drug was running through my veins.
“Take off all of your clothes,” she said.
“A-are you sure? It will ruin the mood.”
“It turns me on when you do what I say.
Take off all your clothes and let me see.”
I did as she commanded.
I felt like a child undressing at the doctor
(A chubby child that was growing bitch tits).
As the woman stared, she was inscrutable.
I feared her disapproval, her mockery,
Even though I was sure I would pay a lot.
Fully naked, I stroked my cock,
Hoping that it would grow more.
“I wanted to spare you the sight,” I said.
“After all, I’m a forty years old man,
And even when I exercised I looked like shit,
So I can’t imagine how hideous I am to you.”
The woman nodded, and looked me over.
“You are unsightly, but I love your potential.”
I wanted to smile after hearing such kind words;
I lacked potential even when I was young.
As she stepped forward and caressed my chest,
She looked up at me with a glistening gaze.
“Lie on your back on the bed,” she said,
“And from now on, do everything I tell you.”
I felt a bit dizzy. “Alright, that sounds good.”
After the back of my head sank in the pillow,
The woman pointed at the side of the bed.
“Grab what is hanging over there.”
Confused, I reached with my arm,
And found myself holding a padded cuff
That was chained to a ring attached to the bed.
My heart beat quickly, and I gulped,
But I was excited, and even euphoric.
“What the fuck?” I chuckled in disbelief.
The woman was serious as she spoke:
“Fasten that cuff around your right wrist.”
I kept giggling, eager to follow her game
While figures of light danced in the air.
I obeyed her; the padded insides were cozy.
Before I knew it, she was at my other side,
And she fastened a cuff around my left wrist.
She then pulled something under the bed,
Which tightened the chains attached to me,
Forcing me to spread my arms.
The woman stood at the foot of the bed,
And stared down as if I were a conquest.
Being helpless only made me harder.
If she had pulled out a knife to murder me,
I’m quite sure I would have welcomed it.
The woman breathed deeply
As she climbed onto the bed,
And her knees digged in the mattress
Next to my hairy calves.
“You loved the taste of my juices, didn’t you?”
The woman’s voice was deep and seductive,
And her words sent a thrill through my body.
“Yeah, I loved it. You are a beautiful woman.”
“It does taste better when she’s beautiful, huh?”
“Well, nobody prefers ugly people,
Which is why I haven’t been lucky lately.”
The woman scooted closer to my waist,
Which made my dick throb in anticipation.
She leaned towards me and rubbed my hair.
“I bet you’d love to lick me over and over.
Not only tonight, but many other days.”
My mind was fuzzy, my thoughts slow.
I couldn’t imagine meeting her again.
“Y-you’re actually going to let me…?”
“You didn’t answer me properly.”
As a reflex, I tried to hold her waist,
But the cuffs restrained my arms.
“Yes, I’d love to keep eating you out.”
My brain refused to believe this could happen,
But this woman seemed to need sex badly,
And a sad sack like me would provide it eagerly.
“Because you are my little slut, aren’t you?”
She asked me with a voice hoarse with lust.
Her fingers traced my lips;
Her touch was electric.
I wanted to please her,
To be a good boy,
To be a good dog,
To obey without question,
With no hesitation.
The woman fondled her tits
As they hung over my face.
“Do you like my twins?” she asked.
Her pussy was breathing on my dick.
“Oh, yes. I’d suck on them all day.”
She pushed her chest forward,
Making her breast slide across my mouth.
I was paralyzed, feeling unworthy.
“Lick my nipple,” she ordered.
I traced the outline of her round nipple
With my wet tongue as I salivated.
I loved its texture and its taste.
I wanted to play with it forever.
“Mmm, you are so obedient,” she said.
I licked her breast all over
While she stroked my hair.
I bit her nipple gently
And she moaned warmly.
She was vastly amused by my performance
As I slurped on her firm breast.
She lowered her waist, and her warm juices
Dripped on my achingly hard dick.
She rubbed her pussy lips along my erection.
“You want to fill me with your cum?”
The woman asked, almost breathless.
I was so happy that I wanted to cry,
Partly because of the mescaline,
But I had never heard such beautiful words.
“I’ll give you as much cum as you want.”
She guided my dick inside,
And it slid into her warm tunnel slowly.
The sensation was powerful and delicious,
Much sexier than with any previous woman.
I wanted to hold her ass cheeks,
But my arms tugged on the chains.
“Don’t move,” the woman ordered,
“Just stay still and enjoy me.”
I did as I was told, releasing a long sigh.
The woman moved her hips back and forth
As my cock made wet sounds in her pussy.
She grunted and thrust herself backwards.
Her breasts were bouncing and jiggling.
I wanted to stare at her beautiful face,
But from this angle I only saw her tits
And how they swayed while she moved.
I took deep breaths of the perfume
That drifted off her loose, raven black hair.
The woman kept undulating her ass;
Her body looked sinewy, tight.
“You have beautiful skin,” I blurted out.
She chuckled softly, and groaned.
“I am beautiful and will remain so,
And I’m so rich I don’t need to work.”
Her pussy felt like hot silk,
And it was enveloping me snugly.
I truly must have been dreaming;
I should be invisible for such a woman.
I wanted to ask her to marry me,
But she would be unimpressed by the ring.
As she rode me passionately,
She reached down to squeeze my balls.
I shook and trembled.
“Are you going to come or not?” she asked.
I nodded curtly; I guess I was holding back,
But now that she had given me permission,
My orgasm swept through my body quickly.
I squirted semen deep inside her,
And she kept milking me until I finished.
My dick softened, and she stopped moving.
“This is what you get when you obey me.”
For a moment I may have passed out,
And when I regained my senses,
My gaze fell on her beautiful breasts
Which rose and fell as she breathed heavily.
She got up and stood next to the bed.
My semen dripped from her pussy.
“I’ll uncuff you; you’ve been a good boy.”
When she released me from the restraints,
I wanted to ask her to put them on again.
I suddenly felt so incomplete and unsafe.
I wiped the sweat off my forehead
As I sat weakly on the edge of the bed.
I avoided looking at the woman, as I feared
That she would be disgusted at me.
“You want me to leave, right?” I asked.
“Why? Are you eager to go home?”
“Not at all. I’d live here if I could,”
I blurted out, and then, ashamed, added:
“You showed me such a good time
That I’ll pay you whatever, above your rate.”
After a long silence, I looked at her.
The woman was wearing my clothes,
Except for my boxers and undershirt.
She narrowed her dark hazel eyes, irritated.
“How do you think it makes a woman feel
When you refer to her as a prostitute,
Right after you came inside her?”
I froze and was silent for a few seconds.
“W-wait, I didn’t mean it as an insult.
Are you truly not an escort?
Why would you want anything with me?”
She shrugged and looked away
As she tied up her raven black hair.
I thought that’d be it, but she spoke:
“I told you, I see a potential for you
To become better than your current self.”
“Why are you wearing my clothes?” I asked.
“Because I wanted to wear them.
Anyway, I’m hungry. Let’s go to the kitchen.”
I stood up and hurried up to dress myself,
But just wearing my underwear felt weird.
“Wait, I’ll prepare a nice dinner.
I may not look it, but I’m a good cook.”
I made us kitsune udon noodles,
Topped with fried tofu and fish cake.
As I handled our food in her fancy kitchen,
I felt her gaze on my back from where she sat.
The woman was achingly above my league,
And I couldn’t tell what she wanted.
She was wearing my clothes and liked BDSM,
But I feared falling in love with her kind of odd,
Because I knew this wouldn’t work.
I sat in front of her at the table,
And I kept glancing at her unsubtly,
Because I hoped she liked the dinner.
She seemed anxious, like she was waiting
For something that was supposed to happen.
She slurped the noodles with relish.
“You must have a really good job
That you can afford a place like this,” I said.
The woman stared at me intently,
And I felt uneasy and shyer than usual.
“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.
And I can’t, anyway. I signed NDAs.”
I couldn’t imagine what world she lived in,
But clearly I didn’t belong in it.
“Fascinating. It’s a secret, but is it illegal?”
She offered me a hypnotic smile.
“What is legal depends on the times.”
I was stunned, and reached for my water.
“Anyway, I’m rich and powerful,” she said,
“So I can do many things you can’t.”
I didn’t understand what she was talking about,
But I didn’t want to prod too much.
When I looked back up, she was staring at me
As if she had been waiting for our gazes to meet.
“And what do you do,” she asked rhetorically,
“That you’ve spent most of this last month
Drinking yourself into oblivion at Kabukicho?”
I swallowed hard. I had misread her,
And I had no clue who I was looking at.
I resumed eating to avoid her gaze;
Her sudden arrogance frightened me.
“I drink way too much so I can forget,
As much of a cliché as that is,
The feelings of loneliness and betrayal.”
“Of loneliness and betrayal, huh?”
I was annoyed at her detachment.
“Yes. I feel empty no matter what,
And I need to forget how old I am.”
“Why would that matter?”
I wanted to throw my hands up in the air.
“You are beautiful and still young,
So you can’t have a clue.
I have spent my whole life working hard
Just to keep myself afloat in the world,
But the moment I went through rough times,
Nothing I had done mattered at all.”
She rested her head on her hand.
“That’s why you get drunk,
Because you lost your job?”
I took a deep breath and rubbed my eyes.
“My girlfriend of many years left me.
We had been trying for a baby,
But she turned out to be sterile.
We became resentful of each other.
She eventually found someone else,
But I can’t mend my heart back together.
I no longer care about my future.
I’ve gotten too old, things were always hard,
So I spend my days drowning instead.”
She chuckled, and swallowed more noodles.
“You have the courage to speak frankly,
And I admire that very much.”
I studied the woman, trying to see
Through the chameleon-like persona.
“Yeah, well, thank you for the good time.”
“So you have given up, then,” she said.
I couldn’t tell if she was mocking me.
“Yes, there was never any use thinking further
Even back when I was young, looked better,
But now I’m a forty years old broke guy
With an unpleasant face and a bloated body.
I’m done. I just know it in my heart.
Nobody cares whether I live or die.
I’m no one in Tokyo, and my life is worthless.”
The woman stared at me earnestly,
As if she had the answers to my troubles.
“You are not finished yet, I think.
You want to be, and make those excuses
As if nobody ugly had gotten anywhere in life.”
She knew, of course, that I was insufficient.
“Well, you are the one who fucked an ugly guy.
You even pursued me to begin with,
You had noticed I had frequented that club.”
“Yes, I had noticed your phone resting there,
On the bar next to your glass,
And that nobody ever bothered to call you.”
I hid my face in my hands,
But then I took a deep breath.
“I don’t see why you would care,
Even just enough to notice that.
You could have anyone you wanted.”
She looked down, suddenly gloomy.
“I’m unique, and I attract men;
They have flocked to me from far and wide,
But I’ve always wanted something else.
You see, I’ve lost my share too.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
She refused to answer me.
We ate the rest of our dinner almost silently.
We infected each other with yawns.
After I put our plates in the dishwasher,
The woman looked at the clock on her phone.
“Four and a half in the morning,” she said,
Then looked up at me almost defiantly:
“You’ll sleep with me the rest of the night.
We’ll feel good in each other’s arms.”
I was exhausted, my thoughts still spun.
Although I feared waking up next to her
Only to see a grimace of regret in her face,
I knew this dream wouldn’t repeat itself.
“That sounds great, but I must warn you:
I am dealing with serious insomnia
Even when I’m this exhausted,
Which is part of why I frequented clubs
And spent so many nights outside.”
She smiled warmly at me,
Which gave me tingles in my stomach.
“Do your thing in the bathroom,” she said,
“Then join me in the bedroom you know.”
In the bathroom, I found a new toothbrush;
I wanted to taste fresh if she kissed me.
I dared to look at my forty years old body:
A saggy sack of old, hairy, unhealthy skin
That could produce only disgust and shame.
And yet, that woman had taken me in.
When I entered the bedroom, she was nude,
Standing there as she held a glass of water
In which some drug was dissolving.
“Drink this,” she told me. “You’ll fall asleep.”
I was so grateful, I’d drink anything of hers.
She was stunned when I took the glass
And gulped it down without a word.
She put her hand on my shoulder.
“I handle drugs regularly through my job,
And I’m good at keeping any person
In any kind of physical state I want.”
She led me to the bed by the hand.
It might have been the placebo effect,
But I already felt much sleepier.
I lay down, and she climbed in beside me,
Then covered us with the sheets.
I felt the warmth of her breath on my neck,
And her silky skin brushed against mine.
Her soft lips were touching my ear
As I thought about how I had wasted my life.
All my years had been a nightmare
Of loneliness and defeat.
I closed my eyes because I felt so vulnerable
That I would have started crying silently.
I heard the ghost of her voice in my head:
“Just let go, and I’ll take good care of you.”
I recall shivering, burning as with a fever.
I couldn’t tell if I was asleep or awake.
Although my body wanted to turn,
I felt shackled, locked in that pose.
When I opened my eyes, I saw my left arm,
Which was outstretched and cuffed,
And an IV catheter was inserted in my vein.
I couldn’t move, and I kept shivering.
Sunlight was streaming through the high windows.
The woman was buttoning a sky blue blouse,
Which she tucked into her sober black trousers.
Her hair looked professionally styled,
And she was wearing shiny earrings.
The woman noticed that I was awake,
And adjusted her cufflinks as she approached me.
“I have to spend the afternoon at the lab,
But I’ll feed you when I come back,” she said.
I opened my mouth to speak, but nothing came out.
“Don’t bother,” she said. “You won’t produce a sound
With the mix of drugs that I’m feeding you.
Just endure it, the shivers, the fever, the pain,
Because it will all be worth it in the end.”
I glanced at the IV tube connected to my arm,
But the woman just stared softly at me.
“When you need to pee or shit,
Just let go in your diaper.
I’ll clean up after you later.”
I was too weak to even move my neck.
She leaned in to kiss my forehead,
Then turned and left through the door.
In the drug-induced trance, I heard her car
As its engine started, and then it drove away.
‘You Choose Who Owns You, Pt. 1’ by Jon Ureña

Saving the Roman Empire (Poetry)

On August 2, 2021 By Jon UreñaIn Arte, Escritura, Inteligencia artificialLeave a comment

When I’m standing on the bus
Or sitting on the train on my way to work,
I either work on that novel I wrote in May,
Or I lose myself in my usual daydreams,
Which have a theme in common:
I either save a person from their brokenness,
Or I return in time to fix some horrible disaster
(Which involves someone’s death,
Or a vast empire having fallen before its time)
Since I finished reading my favorite manga,
Inio Asano’s ‘Oyasumi Punpun’,
Almost every night I lost myself in a daydream
In which that story played out differently;
The main character wasn’t so disturbed,
And he didn’t run away from those needing help
(I can’t be more specific about that daydream,
Because it would involve massive spoilers)
However, ever since I wrote my latest novel,
Those soothing nightly daydreams
Turned into me visiting my fictional girlfriend
(Which I made up entirely in my mind,
And who incorporated my own depression)
To fall asleep to a secure, loving relationship
That all my real ones failed to be
(I met her after she visited me at random times,
As if she’d been summoned by my calling,
On trains and buses and escalators;
She walked right over to me, hand extended,
But beneath this mild happy smile
Was the sadness of the world coming for me)
I’ve wanted to write about a superhero
Who can go back in time to save dead people,
And stops time before those people die,
Then disappears while remaining anonymous
This fictional alter ego of mine reappears
In my daydreams when someone of note dies,
Or at least someone whose death bothers me
(Like random pedestrians getting obliterated
In YouTube compilations of car accidents;
I’m not sure how come YouTube allows
Videos of people getting hit by cars and trucks,
But I was the kind of kid who searched for gore
In obscure websites from the early 2000s,
Because I’m attracted to death and mayhem)
My alternate selves sometimes appear as well
In periods of history when they are needed most;
I daydream of a team of time travellers
Who are scholars studying alternate timelines
To correct some of the worst disasters in history,
Or else to discover what would happen instead
I consider that Western civilization died with Rome,
And that we have been inhabiting a corpse since then,
One where the values it should embody do not exist;
I daydream of visiting the Roman senate
During the reign of the great Marcus Aurelius
(The last emperor of the Pax Romana,
Before the empire devolved into utter craziness)
The team of time travellers comes down
To introduce themselves to the baffled senate,
And after the team presents the world globe
(I wonder how the Romans would have dealt
With the discovery of a whole new continent),
The time travellers focus on solving the issue
Of the many invaders along the long borders
Of the overexpanded Roman Empire:
I’d introduce the MG 34 machine gun
By training a couple of legionaries
On how to obliterate Iron Age armies
Afterwards I’d give them the schematics
And elaborate on how to develop the industries
That would produce both the machine guns
And the large quantities of bullets necessary
For a full century war against invading hordes;
That would take care of the Sassanid Empire
As well as the many tribes of barbarians:
The Huns, the Vandals, the Visigoths, etc.
(In another mission, the time travellers
Visited a depressed China after years of famine,
And after the team saved them, it disappeared
And became a part of Chinese mythology)
I would introduce the Romans to electricity:
How to build batteries and power plants,
And the myriad of devices they could make;
That would segue into telegraphs,
And how to wire their entire empire
So the news would travel very quickly;
Instead of having to send letters by horse,
The info would come through wires of copper
These major advancements would be enough
To physically save my esteemed empire,
But their minds would still be at risk
From alien ideologies from the Middle East:
They would be wary of monotheistic religions,
Whose mobs would have otherwise destroyed
The temples and libraries filled with wisdom
That would have been lost forever
(When I visited the cathedral in Oviedo,
The history lessons went on cheerfully
About how the saints had been canonized
For their tireless efforts to root out paganism,
Which ended up plunging this part of the world
Into about 1,500 years of superstitious darkness;
The Romans, despite their own superstitions,
Were about to invent the Industrial Revolution,
Their medical science remained unbeaten,
And many of their majestic buildings still stand)
I wanted to state that I love the Roman Empire,
That it should have endured to this day,
With its badass legions, its universal language,
Its philosophers, its architecture, its arts,
And mainly their glorious men and women
Who transformed humanity from barbarism
To a civilization that stood strong for a millennia
(I wish for the Roman Empire to return
Whenever I go outside and look around)
Anyway, like there’s that isekai genre in Japan,
I wish there was a genre about time travellers
Who just went to the past and changed stuff
And left everything in peace afterwards,
But stories need a significant amount of conflict
To raise from the level of mere anecdotes
(That’s the problem with daydreams:
They are about feeling good, correcting wrongs,
But the stories that work are about challenges)
I have always relied on daydreaming
To escape from this unpleasant reality
And having to inhabit this broken body;
I guess it’s the poor man’s version of VR
(Although I played Skyrim in VR yesterday)
My point is that if I had a superpower,
I’d either be invisible or a time traveller,
So I could go back in time and save people
(And possibly entire empires)
From their unfair deaths or collapses,
And after everything returned to normal,
I would be happy to have done some good
Instead of spending my time writing shit
Like the poem you’ve just read
‘Saving the Roman Empire’ by Jon Ureña

I Will Never Drive a Big Rig (Poetry)

On July 31, 2021July 31, 2021 By Jon UreñaIn Arte, Escritura, Inteligencia artificialLeave a comment

I rely on taking breaks from the world to endure it,
Whether through sleeping (despite my insomnia),
Writing, or through the wonders of virtual reality;
Today, a Saturday, I woke up so exhausted,
And mentally drained from a long week at work
(I’ll never get used to returning home at night),
That after eating I only wanted to take a nap;
My mind remained foggy and sluggish,
So I knew I wouldn’t write anything of value,
But I didn’t want to sleep through the day,
So I returned to my comfort game in VR,
Which consists on driving virtual trucks around
Due to how my brain works from birth,
I’ve never learned to drive;
My mind takes flight by itself,
And when it returns to reality,
I have to reacquaint myself
With whatever I was doing
I’ve talked with other autistic people,
And some understand what I mean,
But others are driving safely to this day
(Then again, autism seems to be caused
By atypical pruning of neuron connections
In babies’ brains as they develop,
Producing different overall configurations)
(There was this guy who crashed many times,
And who got his driver’s license revoked,
But he had taken so many drugs in his youth
That he now suffers from epileptic seizures)
My point is that my wiring is all fucked up,
And I rarely know how much I care about things,
Except maybe for food and shelter and sex
(And VR also helps with one of those things)
My mind takes flight even when I try to focus;
I don’t think anybody has noticed at work,
Although I keep being absent in conversations,
But my inability to stick to reality
Constantly ends up with me rear-ending
The poor bastard who was driving in front of me
Thankfully this only happens in video games,
Such as when I’m driving a virtual truck,
But if I was able to drive my own vehicle,
I’m sure I would crash in less than a week,
Or maybe I would obey my nagging thoughts
About driving straight, full speed, into a wall
(Besides, I’ve never had a stable job;
I rarely know if enough money will come in,
So I can hardly justify buying a vehicle
When the public transport is so good here)
Learning to endure my lot in life
Has depended on me facing the reality
That I’m equipped with two different brains:
One the analytical, slower one on top,
And the other the primordial, bestial brain
Which takes most of the decisions for us
While the analytical brain makes up a story
(So it can keep telling itself that it’s in charge)
Immersing myself in VR is a constant reminder
That although my PC is producing the world,
My primitive brain is deceived easily,
So I get to escape for a while from my life
Because my stupid brain is convinced
That I’m a trucker driving through Europe
While listening to popular tunes
(From annoying modern music
To the rock classics from decades ago,
But all of them feel good while driving)
When you’re trapped inside a truck cab,
You stop thinking about your problems,
And if the right song ends up playing,
It’ll make you feel like you’re on the road
With the wind blowing through the windows,
As you drive across the plains of France
While the sun shines in the sky,
And the beautiful landscapes never end
(But the VR journeys always end,
Because I have to return to my real life,
And I need to remember to eat and sleep
If I want to continue driving a truck
In the virtual reality, where I am king
Of the highway, and my trucks rule the land)
Driving a virtual truck fills me with nostalgia
About a world I haven’t experienced in reality,
That involves sitting inside a huge metal box
Which would explode into mush any human
Who was stupid enough to walk in front of it
My virtual trucks make me feel powerful and free,
And like I could drive to the ends of the Earth,
If I could afford all the gasoline it would take
And if my trucks wouldn’t break down so often
Being a trucker sounds like a blissful life,
But many things sound good when imagined;
In reality, you need to sleep at fixed times,
At random rest areas frequented by weirdoes
Who may decide to break into your truck,
And I doubt that the deliveries pay enough,
Or else most truckers would be filthy rich;
They don’t seem to have much luck at making
A living off their trucks, although they are kings
Still, I want to drive through the desert
While listening to radio stations,
And singing along to the music,
And worrying about being abducted by aliens,
(And coming across ghost hitchhikers,
Or sasquatches that crossed the road)
My mind would keep drifting away from reality
While I thought about the important stuff,
Like how to repair my truck’s engine,
Or when I should pick up the next prostitute,
Or whether I should become a serial killer
When my mind would return to reality,
I would have crashed into a telephone pole,
And there would be suspicious splatters,
Huge and red ones, dirtying my windshield,
But luckily I wouldn’t have died,
So I would keep driving around town
Till my truck started to smoke;
Then I’d find a motel room
Where I could spend the night
(I would be woken up by a loud alarm clock,
And I’d start my day with a cup of coffee,
Then I’d drive my truck back to the shop
For repairs, or to get a new one)
I never became a trucker,
I will never drive a big rig,
And those are my biggest regrets in life,
But maybe there’s time to move to Brazil,
Where I could rent a truck and drive straight
Into that goddamn Amazon jungle,
To be the first to cut it through
With my huge metal box I’d sit in,
While I listened to the radio
And failed to see another person
For days at a time
(Unless I drove into them)
My brain feels like shit today,
But I’m a failure if I don’t produce a text,
So I wrote these words that I hope you enjoyed;
Now I can return to my virtual trucks
And my virtual life, which is just as real
As the one I live in (although it’s not)
‘I Will Never Drive a Big Rig’ by Jon Ureña

I Gave Birth to This Thing (Poetry)

On July 30, 2021July 30, 2021 By Jon UreñaIn Arte, Escritura, Inteligencia artificialLeave a comment

My pregnancy went right for the first few weeks,
But then my son began to move about
Like an acrobat on stilts
Who isn’t the slightest bit sure-footed
My son grew bigger and bigger,
Although I barely nourished him,
And when he finished his dance
(Or rather, his somersault),
It burst out through my navel
And fell onto my bed with a plop;
I had given birth to a pink, slimy egg,
That I called, after much thought,
A baby
The thing was still warm from my womb;
The egg’s soft shell felt like velvet in my hands,
And I stroked it gently as if it were a living creature
That would soon hatch into a new life form
(My thoughts turned back to the moment
When a sperm came near to breaking through my egg
And made that strange movement
Which was the prelude to a unique creation,
One that was doomed from start to finish
By some cosmic accident or mistake,
And now the whole process appeared
Less mysterious than cruel)
At last the miracle occurred: the egg split open
And out came out crawling this beautiful baby boy:
A tangled mass of tentacles, beaks and teeth,
And a single eye, which rolled around madly
My son didn’t look at all like me,
And he also could speak telepathically
(I can only make out words
In between bouts of nausea and fainting spells)
“Mommy, can you hear what I’m saying?”
“Of course”
“Can you understand what I say?”
“Why not? You’re my son”
“You mean that you can see my thoughts
Floating there above my head?”
“Yes”
“What are they thinking now?”
“That you’ve just been born,
And that I should be proud of you”
My poor son couldn’t stand up properly
Without falling over,
So every time he moved his mass,
He got himself in trouble
Between wrinkles, his body hid tiny mouths,
Which contained fangs like those of sharks;
At night he would scream with pain,
And in the morning he’d cry out again
Instead of suckling on my tits,
This son of mine latched on to my skin
With half a dozen of his tentacles,
And sucked through my pores
Until the red stuff trickled out
From where I was bleeding inside
His little eye stared at me blankly
As if it were made of glass
While he sucked away at my flesh;
Afterwards, when he got tired,
He let go and fell down on the floor
In front of the mirror where I gazed at myself
After having been fed upon by him,
My breasts bled so much
That I couldn’t staunch the wounds,
Which itched and hurt terribly
My eyes looked dead;
I dreamed about black birds flying overhead,
I dreamt of the moon
As I was carried along under water
Sometimes my son was silent,
At other times he babbled unintelligibly;
All that was obvious to my eyes
Were the bubbles of blood around his beaks,
And the blood that ran down onto his belly
To mix with the yellow-green fluid
Of the pus that filled him up;
Also, slime covered him like an orange scarf
One evening as I lay asleep,
My son came down from his perch high above
And took a bite out of my breasts;
The bitten flesh turned black and fell away,
But he ate these bits of meat and sucked
On the wounds left behind
When dawn broke next day,
Both of my breasts were gone;
They probably flew far away
Into some other nest
When my son grew hungrier, he ate me
Until he sucked the marrow from my bones;
My blood is now all used up,
The tissues of my limbs are rotting away inside,
The nerves have died,
My bones are hollow,
My skull contains only air;
I am now just another victim
Of motherly devotion
I can never get rid of my spawn,
Not if I try forever;
After him, I don’t want any more children,
Nor any more slimy eggs
I will wait until I become old enough
For someone else to take care of me;
It will surely feel much better than tending
To this abominable son of mine,
Who has eaten everything there was to eat
Of what once belonged to me
‘I Gave Birth to This Thing’ by Jon Ureña

An Untethered Life (Poetry)

On July 29, 2021July 29, 2021 By Jon UreñaIn Arte, Escritura, Inteligencia artificialLeave a comment

Years ago I stored a permanent memory:
My latest relationship had ended badly,
And I was standing in a random street
While I looked down at my two feet;
I suddenly felt that the tethers
I had allowed that person to attach to my skin,
And that tied me to another human being
Wherever in the world she happened to be,
Had been forcefully severed,
And I found myself like a stranded astronaut
Drifting through the black void,
Unable even to radio back home
Ever since, I’ve refused to let anyone
Tether themselves to my sensitive skin;
All I’ve learned from my intimate relationships
Is that I wasn’t born for any of it
They were just there as an excuse for me to live,
To enjoy life while pretending to love them
(Besides, what a romantic relationship provides
Isn’t worth the demands and the humiliations)
Real human beings are far too complicated
For someone like me, who’s only ever loved
Either the broken or the monsters
(Most of them fictional, some I made up)
Human beings are bound to bother you,
And if you lack the instinct to interact with them,
They only steal your time and energy
That could have gone into writing,
Or anything better than dealing with them,
Such as idly browsing the internet;
I only want people when I want them,
Otherwise they should go away
(I still fantasize about fucking
The many attractive women
That I come across any given day,
But that’s the hormones speaking,
And VR is very good at solving
That age-old problem)
This week I’ve been working afternoons;
By one and a half PM I want to take a nap,
But I have to traverse my city
(Which has become merely a container
Where dozens of nationalities push each other),
Get on a train, and later on take a bus,
So I can work at an office doing shit
That I couldn’t care less about
At the end of the month I get angry
Because the government steals
Hundreds of euros I need for myself,
So it can fund my country’s suicide
(Or more appropriately, its murder)
And I only care because I have to live here
(I couldn’t begin to figure out how to leave);
I’ve already had people trying to break in,
And a woman almost got raped nearby
(The neighbors beat the culprit up);
Just two things on top of the usual shit
I make my way back home
At eleven PM at night,
And I usually just stare up ahead
So I don’t despair at the chaos,
And the hopelessness of our future
I guess it’s different for those people
Who look around and feel connected,
But wherever I look, I see flat images,
Ones that don’t elicit any feelings
(Any positive ones, at least)
Walking through my workspace,
Or any of the streets I pass through,
They remind me of movie sets
Where important movies had been filmed,
But that have been abandoned to rot,
And the people who remain around
Keep cleaning and repairing the sets
Without knowing why,
And without a single clue about
What it all means
At work, I keep looking at the time
As the hours tick by;
The years have gone by so fast,
And I’ve wasted my youth,
My entire life,
Waiting for a phone call or email
From people who never contacted me
I’m working through the second full-length revision
Of that novel I wrote in May, about the ghost woman,
But it advances slowly, and the process is painful;
Those scenes feel like memories from a past life,
Moments that I’ve seared in my brain
Because nothing in reality makes any sense to me
I wish I could delude myself into going back,
To live vicariously through their fictional lives;
I’ve never cared about my own,
For as long as I remember, I’ve wanted to disappear
(I’m just waiting to be shot down
By an army of soldiers and policemen,
And when they finally find me,
I’ll probably get the same treatment I gave others)
Why go on living if you know
How pointless your life truly is?
How much pain and suffering
Are worth enduring?
(You’re just a pawn in someone else’s game,
A piece that no one cares about,
An object to use and discard,
A tool to satisfy the needs of the powerful)
I only have days in which such questions burn me,
Or those in which nothing manages to matter;
That’s unless I can distract myself
Through writing my way out of hell
None of the stuff I’ve written
Has ever amounted to anything,
But I can be proud that I tried my best,
Even though I knew I would fail
I have no choice but to continue on
To try and escape from my misery
And the future I don’t want,
Which will surely come true
(I hope I die before that happens)
And I do all of this shit
Because I may as well
‘An Untethered Life’ by Jon Ureña

Interspecies Misdemeanours, Pt. 3 (Fiction)

On July 27, 2021April 12, 2022 By Jon UreñaIn Arte, Escritura, Inteligencia artificial2 Comments

Previous part (2)

Although the sight of the two aliens had rendered me speechless for a moment, I had to reply to my friend’s idiotic comment.

“I don’t know what you mean, Frank. They look perfectly human to me.”

Frank shook his head, then gestured wildly towards them.

“What are you talking about? That guy is covered in fur and has four legs!”

The short, bald alien clicked and chirped to his pal, who grunted back. Then they started trodding towards us slowly but with purpose.

The three of us froze. Before we knew it, it was too late to escape through the oval entry of the spaceship. We retreated further into the dimly lit interior, until my back hit the side of one of the seats. The two aliens stepped through and stood there bathed in blue light as they stared at us. The furry alien’s eyes glowed like a cat’s.

My mouth was dry, and I felt dizzy. The hairs on my nape stood up. I couldn’t tear my gaze away from the aliens, but I think the three of us friends were frozen in place, unable to move or speak.

I could barely make out very wide but narrow eyes behind the tinted lenses of the bald alien’s aviator goggles, but I could tell he was glaring at me. His face was a mess of either wrinkles or scars, or a combination of both.

“Is this your spaceship by any chance?” the short alien said in a raspy voice that could have belonged to an old man.

I heard Betty gasping, but I was relieved. Of course, these guys were so advanced and civilized that they had to speak English.

“Wait, doesn’t this spaceship belong to you?” Frank asked, bewildered.

I lifted my hand to shut my friend up.

“Yes, it’s our spaceship,” I said. “We came here from Alpha Centauri. It’s a planet far away, beyond this galaxy.”

The bald alien’s eyes narrowed even further, and his obscenely large nostrils flared.

“No, it’s not. This spaceship is ours, and we landed here with it a short time ago. Which means that it doesn’t belong to you, and you shouldn’t be wandering into other people’s property!”

I was startled by how hostile he sounded, although his intimidation factor was lessened because he was looking up at me. The tall, furry guy merely stared at us with his coin eyes as if he were a bystander, but we needed to pacify the shorter one, who seemed in charge.

“Okay, okay,” I said, trying to sound confident and mature. I stuck out my hand so the bald alien would shake it. “I’m Sam.”

The short alien’s expression remained grim. I looked down at his four-fingered right hand, which ended in long claws, but he didn’t move it. More importantly, I recognized a gun holster attached to the belt of his black jumpsuit. I couldn’t tell what it contained, but it wouldn’t be candy.

As my blood ran cold, suddenly the tall alien stepped forward and shook my hand firmly, which hurt my wrist a bit. The handshake felt like shaking a dog’s paw, if the dog had human-like fingers. I could barely dare to look up at the alien’s furry face, which lacked a nose and ears. His mouth opened wide, revealing rows of pointed teeth and a tongue covered in tiny hairs. He was so close that I could feel his body heat, and he smelled like a mix of rotten meat and something sweet.

“It’s bad manners to leave someone hanging,” the tall alien said with a deep, gravelly voice that sounded like a bear growling.

“Ah… Much appreciated.”

I never thought we’d encounter such an extraterrestrial creature, let alone speak to it. The excitement of the discovery trumped my initial fear. That’s how young and adventurous I was back then.

“So, who are you guys?” Frank asked nervously, but with a determined look.

“You three are avoiding to clarify why you entered our spaceship without permission,” the bald alien said, “but I’ll answer you: we are extraterrestrials, as in from another planet, and we developed advanced technology, which is how we ended up coming here.”

“W-what’s your name?” Frank asked.

The bald alien sighed.

“My name is Krayt X-9.”

“What a stupid name.”

Krayt X-9 gasped and snapped his head back, appalled.

“Can I call you Krayt?” I asked.

“I don’t care what you call me,” the bald alien grumbled. “Who the hell are you humanlings supposed to be?”

Frank pointed at me.

“This is Sam. He’s the best friend I’ve ever met.”

“I don’t care,” the bald alien said. “You all look dumb.”

“We look dumb?!” Betty snapped behind us, then she pushed Frank and me away to step between us. “You two are the ugliest people I’ve ever seen!”

The taller alien, who was twirling a lock of fur from his left hand with his other one, stared at Betty through his round, flat, shiny eyes, and answered calmly.

“Every species looks ugly to everyone else.”

Betty seemed to have taken the aliens’ hideousness as a personal insult.

“That’s not true,” she insisted. “Cats and dogs are beautiful, but you two are like space cockroaches.”

I wanted to bonk my attractive friend in the head. We were already trapped in the spaceship of these two alien freaks, which made me sick and anxious, and I had a gut feeling I wouldn’t like what would come next.

Betty pointed angrily at the furry alien.

“You in particular look like a cross between a deformed monkey and a bear.”

The furry alien shrugged.

“Noble creatures.”

“Not the monkeys,” I said.

When Betty pointed at Krayt X-9 next, her finger trembled.

“And you, I think you’re the most repulsive looking thing I’ve ever laid my eyes on. I mean, I know it’s rude to say that about a person from outer space, but I gotta be truthful here.”

I put my hand on Betty’s shoulder and begged with my eyes for her to shut up, then I cleared my throat to address the aliens.

“In any case, don’t pay much attention to Betty’s insults. She has a good reason to despise aliens, having lost one arm because an extraterrestrial bit her in her youth. Back then, no one in the neighborhood understood how dangerous the world truly was.”

“Your species can’t regrow limbs,” the furry alien said nonchalantly. “Anyway, I am called Yash.”

Betty sighed.

“Sam is right. You two don’t seem dangerous, even though you are hideous.”

The bald alien seemed about to complain, but Frank spoke over him as he eyed both aliens nervously.

“You’re crazy! Didn’t you hear my dad? The aliens killed a guy with a hammer!”

“That’s just a story,” Betty answered. “And even if it happened, these two haven’t done anything to me besides damage my eyes with their ugliness.”

I shifted closer to Betty and whispered into her fleshy ear.

“The short one has a gun. A ray gun, probably. It could kill you in a second.”

“If we let him.”

“Why did the three of you humans come here?” Yash asked.

“We were exploring,” I said, trying to sound calm.

Krayt X-9 shook his head.

“Exploring? You mean spying on us?”

“This planet has already been thoroughly explored,” Yash said.

A chill ran through me. It was true. We weren’t tourists. This wasn’t an ordinary trip, but a mission. Still, I raised my hand to pacify the aliens.

“No, no, we weren’t spy on you! We saw your ship flying into the forest, and we figured that we could come and take a peek. You know, to figure out if there was something interesting inside.”

“What, to steal?” Krayt X-9 insisted with contempt. “Very appropriate, coming from a species that descended from apes!”

“They think we are animals,” Betty whispered in my ear, which made me shiver. “My mom says that sometimes human beings look like animals to other people. She also said that some of her relatives are part cat.”

I didn’t have time to consider her comment. I steeled my gaze and spoke firmly at the aliens.

“We aren’t thieves. We’re explorers, scientists, who want to learn more about your culture. You are confusing us with the kind of people that those Nazis or Communists are.”

Krayt X-9 snorted with disdain.

“Whatever. Now you idiots have realized that there’s nothing of interest in our ship. Is that correct?”

Betty and I nodded. Frank shrugged. I wasn’t sure what we had expected to find. Possibly something expensive.

“Then,” Krayt X-9 continued, “I’m sorry you wasted your time with such a pointless task. I suggest you leave immediately.”

“Why did you land, though?” Betty asked. “I bet I know why.”

The bald alien scowled at Betty.

“Oh, I’m sure you do.”

“Don’t you dare say it,” I warned her.

“You two needed to pee,” Betty said.

My face turned red. Frank looked away, embarrassed.

Krayt X-9 frowned as he blinked repeatedly, then he took a deep breath.

“What a preposterous notion. We did away with those means of disposing waste long ago in our evolutionary line. Your species is the one who is always handling pee and shit.”

“I’m afraid that’s true,” Yash said. “Humans have to carry their own excretions.”

“So why did you land, then?” Frank asked, curious.

“We were just tired of spending so much time sitting in our ship,” the furry alien answered. “We wanted to stretch our legs for a bit.”

“A momentary peace that has been ruined by three stupid humans breaking into our ship,” Krayt X-9 added.

“I don’t think you should talk about us like we’re animals,” Betty said in a quavering voice.

“You are animals, but most importantly, your species is a bunch of monkeys. You all descended from the ape family. You have no rights to that pretense of intelligence when you can’t even speak properly.”

Betty gasped. When she recovered, she lowered her head and clenched her teeth as she glared at the bald alien.

“We don’t need to explain ourselves to you. And you are not very polite.”

I stopped facepalming and took a deep breath.

“We didn’t break in, we just opened the hatch. You two aliens are the ones who didn’t lock your spaceship.”

Krayt X-9 fixed his narrow gaze on me.

“Don’t you understand how entering a ship that doesn’t belong to you can be interpreted as a violent act?” he asked, sounding increasingly irritated.

I shrugged as I tried to look unconcerned. These two aliens scared me, but I hated when people told me I couldn’t explore some cool place, even a boring spaceship like this one.

“We thought that maybe you guys had landed because you were lost, so we came over to see if you needed any help. That’s all.”

“Now you are just changing your story.”

Someone rested a hand on my shoulder, which startled me. It was Betty. The little of her warmth that I felt through the fabric of my shirt made me tingle all over. But she had put her other hand on Frank’s shoulder, so she hadn’t intended it as an intimate gesture.

“Hey, it’s already gotten late, and the five of us have become friends,” Betty said in a conciliatory tone. “So we can sleep inside the spaceship until tomorrow morning, right?”

“What?” Krayt X-9 asked in disbelief, his raspy voice turning high-pitched. “Of course you can’t!”

Frank’s face lit up with excitement as he smiled at Betty.

“That sounds amazing! If only we had brought a picnic basket, so we could have lunch inside the spaceship.”

Betty let out a noise as if she had suddenly remembered something. She grabbed the backpack, which was hanging from Frank’s shoulder, and she opened it.

Krayt X-9 got nervous and took a step forward.

“Hey, what are you doing? What are you pulling out?”

It was the box full of sandwiches. Betty opened it, and the scent of bread and jam made me salivate. She stretched her arms holding the box towards the crabby alien as if presenting a gift.

“We offer you a meal!” Betty said sweetly. “I suggest you two eat quickly before your sandwiches spoil.”

Krayt X-9 stepped back as he grimaced at the food offerings.

“Don’t push that disgusting human garbage towards me.”

Betty gasped, then hung her head low. Tears started accumulating along her lower eyelids.

My blood was thumping in my temples. Frank’s dad was right: these aliens were dangerous. If Krayt X-9 wasn’t an alien and he didn’t have a gun, I would have punched his stupid face. I grabbed two of the sandwiches and chomped on them, stuffing my mouth.

“Don’t listen to this prick, Betty!” I growled, showering her with crumbs. “He’s from another world, he lacks manners, and he doesn’t know that one never rejects a sandwich from a girl! They are delicious, see? I will always be glad to eat your sandwiches!”

I shot Krayt X-9 a challenging stare. He looked away in disgust.

Yash turned his furry hands up.

“Our digestive systems can’t process human food.”

I couldn’t complain about the furry guy, so I calmed down a bit.

“Say that, then.”

“What do you eat instead? Poop?” Frank asked mockingly. “Nevermind, I forgot you guys don’t poo like normal animals. You just poo in a special place.”

Krayt X-9 barely deigned to glance at Frank.

“I’m going to ignore you from now on.”

This was a problem, though. If these aliens couldn’t handle our sandwiches, we lacked bargaining chips for them to let us go peacefully.

“Sorry, sorry,” Frank said. “But now that we’re here, can we make some sort of deal so you explain how this technology works?”

“You don’t listen, do you? And what kind of deal could you possibly mean, humanling? Your species has already invaded our ship and tried to steal from us!”

I lifted a hand to pacify the bald alien.

“There was no stealing going on. Listen, we are big enough to admit our mistakes, and I apologize if we caused you harm by trespassing on your spaceship. I also forgive you for making Betty cry.”

Krayt X-9 snorted at me contemptuously.

“Apologize? We are not interested in such a cheap apology, and we have no interest whatsoever in hearing you admit that you made an error.”

Frank had wandered back towards the control panel installed on the wall, in front of the smallest seat, which I guess belonged to Krayt X-9. My friend was running his fingertips over some weird gauges.

“Hey, do not touch anything!” the bald alien complained.

Frank shrugged in a way that suggested he wasn’t intimidated by the warning.

“I’m curious about what kind of power source this ship uses, and whether it’s nuclear or solar. Where are the solar panels? I would love to examine them in detail, and find out how they are able to produce enough electricity to power this ship without relying on fossil fuels. Not that there’s anything wrong with fossils.”

Krayt X-9 snorted.

“As if we were primitive beings without manners nor intelligence! Fossil fuels! Don’t bother me with such nonsense. We aren’t going to tell you anything about how our ship works. You humans cannot be trusted with advanced technology! You would endanger the safety of everyone else.” He points at the long stick I had rested against a wall. “And what is a part of a tree doing in my ship?”

I nearly grimace, but I maintain my composure.

“That’s called a walking stick, and it was given to me by my parents as a gift because they know that I am fascinated by nature and the outdoors.”

“Your parents gave you a wooden toy. That doesn’t mean you can bring it inside our ship.”

“No, it’s a walking stick, and it’s made out of wood. It’s harmless and won’t hurt anyone. In fact, it has helped me get around while I was exploring this forest. If you want, I will show you how I use it. I have trained with it for years now, and my dad taught me how to care for it properly.”

Frank had knelt to rummage through his backpack. He pulled out his camera and started fiddling with it.

“At least we can go home with pictures of aliens! A few shots will suffice. Nobody will believe us otherwise. Betty, can you pose next to the furry guy?”

Betty was already approaching the aliens reluctantly when Krayt X-9 let out a noise of indignation. Yash lowered my friend’s hand as he was about to snap a photo of the bald alien.

“Can’t let you take photos, sorry,” Yash said. “We aren’t even supposed to be here, nor be seen by human beings. It’s how it works.”

I raised my eyebrows.

“According to whom?”

Yash turned towards me and shrugged.

“It’s due to the quarantine thing.”

“Quarantine? What are you talking about? Is there a virus going around?”

Krayt X-9 snorted and shook his head.

“Yes, exactly that. This whole place is just a festering virus.”

“Are you aliens going to get infected by the viruses we have, like it happened to the Indians? If so, you might want to be careful. There are diseases in this world that can kill a person in a matter of minutes.”

“No, you moron. You human beings are the virus! They put the quarantine in place because your species is as violent and irrational as they come, and the Coalition can’t allow you to leave your nest unless you get your shit together. Which you never will! You’ve been like this for hundreds of thousands of years.”

I gasped. He had hurt my pride.

“You’re wrong. We have evolved a lot in recent centuries, and we are much more civilized than you think. We may not have become as bald and wrinkled as you, but we’ve improved in many ways! For example, we haven’t had a war in a few years.”

Krayt X-9 rolled his eyes.

“So why did this Coalition send you here, then?” Frank asked as he rubbed his chin.

“We were just taking a break,” Yash said.

I glare at the short alien’s tinted goggles.

“You act all uppity, Krayt, but you two are probably criminals who came down to our home to steal from us.”

Krayt stared at me coldly as he stood motionless, except for the slightest flicker in the muscles under his skin.

“What the fuck did you just say to me?”

“Cool it. You are going to make Betty cry again.”

“I’m fine,” Betty said.

I stepped forward and jabbed a finger at the bald prick.

“I know all about you aliens. You’ve been kidnapping humans and doing weird experiments with their butts for years! And you call us uncivilized? I’m sure you have dissected many of us for fun!”

“The extraterrestrials who kidnap humans are another group, and they aren’t on our side either,” Yash said. “Don’t lump us together with them.”

I was considering the furry guy’s words when I realized that Krayt was glowering at me as if he was containing himself from strangling me.

“Let me tell you something about your species,” he said carefully and coldly. “Years ago I was part of a team that descended to this planet so we could study its soil and figure out why it’s so toxic. Your soil is garbage compared to the other planets we know about. Suddenly we found ourselves being shot at by uniformed men, and two of my crewmates got hit. Luckily we managed to escape, but those mates died on the ship.”

“That’s terrible,” Betty said.

Her sympathy confused Krayt X-9 for a moment.

“Yeah, it was horrible. I couldn’t save those guys. Coming here in the first place was a horrible mistake. Human beings are dangerous, volatile creatures. Their inferiority complex causes them to attack others for no reason!”

“Well, we weren’t the ones that hurt your pals,” I said. “We were just curious about your ship. And we knew nothing about a quarantine.”

Betty had been having trouble breathing properly, maybe because of the fear, and she started having a coughing fit. Krayt X-9 snapped his head towards her.

“Yes, you’re right.” Betty said in a hoarse voice, then kept coughing while Frank patted her on the back. “We shouldn’t be here, but it’s too late now.”

“It’s not just about some individual humans,” Krayt X-9 insisted while he frowned at Betty. “These other guys we knew came to this nasty planet to have a good time. They landed on a long strip of paved ground. That was the very first time they visited your species, mind you. But one of those primitive, toxic vehicles you call cars stopped in front of the ship, and its occupants yelled at the extraterrestrials for blocking their path. The humans got out of the car and started beating our guys up, who then hauled ass out of this wretched planet and pledged to never return!”

I chuckled.

“Yeah, there’s no way that ever happened. And they shouldn’t have blocked the road anyway.”

Krayt X-9’s fists were trembling as Betty doubled over in an asthma attack. Her eyes had welled with tears, and now she was hacking up phlegm.

“Shit, Betty! Did you bring your inhaler?” Frank asked, panicking.

Betty nodded and pointed at the backpack. I had already grabbed it and shoved my arm inside, but Krayt X-9 strode up to Betty, seized her arm and started dragging her towards the oval entry of the spaceship. My friend could barely let a noise of surprise out amidst the coughing.

“That’s enough!” Krayt roared. “I won’t suffer a diseased human messing up my ship!”

“No way!” I shouted. “You don’t grab girls like that!”

I dropped Betty’s inhaler, then I jumped at the bald alien and punched him in the face. Krayt X-9 stumbled backwards. Betty crawled up to the inhaler and took a deep breath through it.

Pink, liquid worms started pouring from Krayt’s huge nostrils. When he covered his nose with one hand, the liquid dripped between his fingers.

“You are trying to start a fight with us,” Krayt X-9 muttered. “Well, we can’t have that.”

Frank realized it was on. He pushed the bridge of his glasses up, then turned around and threw a punch at Yash’ chest. However, the furry alien caught Frank’s fist. My friend complained inarticulately. When Yash let go, Frank fell on his ass.

Betty scrambled her way to the large stick resting against the wall. She picked it up, twisted her body around and hurled the stick at Yash, who was turning his palms towards the ceiling when the stick bonked him in the head. It snapped back. Once Yash lowered his head again, he stared at Betty inscrutably, but then again his eyes were lidless and uniformly pickle green.

“Hey, don’t do that.”

I felt a warm sensation at the base of my neck: something metallic was pressing into my skin. Krayt X-9, as he bled profusely from his nose, had unholstered his gun. I opened my mouth to speak, but the bald alien kicked me in the abdomen and I staggered backwards. My right heel hit the lower edge of the oval entry, which caused me to somersault onto the grass of the clearing.

Krayt X-9 tramped out of his spaceship, still gripping his futuristic gun. He stepped aside to let Yash pass, who was holding up both Frank and Betty as if they weighed as much as puppies. Frank was too stunned to complain. Betty had started coughing again, and tears were jumping from her eyes. Yash placed my friends carefully on a bed of tall grass. As soon as he released them, they pushed themselves back.

I tried to stand up, but Krayt X-9 closed his hand around my face, scratching my scalp with his long claws. His fingers were cold and clammy; they reminded me of a spider’s legs. He shoved me to the ground.

I got a still shot of the chest of his jumpsuit, which was stained with pink blood, before Krayt X-9 lifted his right hand to point his gun at my head. The white lines around his mouth creased as he smirked.

“You had your chance to talk. Either you die, or I will kill you.”

The tendons in his shooting arm were contracting, but Yash knocked the gun from his pal’s hand as I heard a sizzling discharge. The red beam that had grown in my vision for a split second had struck the ground near my head. A patch of grass had disintegrated. What remained in the edges smelled like embers.

Krayt X-9 grimaced in disbelief as he looked up at the furry alien. The bald alien clicked angrily in his language, but Yash shrugged and grunted in response.

I could have sworn that I lost consciousness for a moment while the phrase ‘this ugly alien just fucking shot me’ echoed in my mind. Next thing I knew, a bunch of human adults were shouting at us from different directions.

“Drop the gun! Drop it now!”

As I tried to stand up with my trembling legs, I saw Krayt X-9 paralyzed in the act of crouching to pick up his ray gun. We were surrounded by three nervous cops who were pointing their standard issue pistols at the murderous alien as if they couldn’t wait to blast a dozen holes through him.

Krayt X-9 was startled. When he straightened his back and opened his mouth to speak, the nearest cop lunged forward and tackled Krayt to the ground, landing with a thud on top of the short alien’s shoulders.

After one of the other cops kicked the ray gun away, they approached the tall, furry alien cautiously. Yash merely stared at them as his arms hung by his sides.

“Put your hands behind your back,” one of the cops barked. “Don’t try anything stupid.”

Yash sighed, turned around and obeyed. The cops handcuffed him.

One of the cops handling him, a guy in his forties who had a ketchup stain near his moustache, furrowed his brow as he stared at Yash’ alien face.

“You are one odd lookin’ fella.”

“Hey, you also look weird to me.”

While the cops led the two aliens out of the clearing towards the path, Krayt X-9 kept struggling and yammering something about the Coalition, but I could barely make out what he was saying over Betty’s coughing. One of the cops bothered to address us.

“Go home soon, kids. Your parents are worried about you.”

“Sure,” I said, stunned.

Once the adults were gone and I ceased to hear Krayt’s complaints, I ran straight to the spot where the ray gun had fallen, but it was gone. I guess one of the cops took it.

Frank had knelt next to Betty to hand her the inhaler. I sucked air through my teeth; I should have been the one giving it to her. But I ran to Betty’s side and I held her head as her trembling hand pressed down the canister. Something about the way she pursed her pink lips around the mouth of the inhaler sent shivers down my spine.

Betty took a deep breath, blowing whatever an inhaler does into her lungs. She repeated it twice. Both her shoulders and her face relaxed. She wiped some tears with the back of her hands.

“Are you okay?” I asked her.

Betty nodded as she hung her head low.

“I’m sorry,” Frank said to me. “This is all my fault.”

I wasn’t sure what he was referring to.

“You are forgiven, Frank.”

My brain was rattled. I guessed there was a parallel universe in which that ray gun put a big hole through my head.

“My lungs feel like they’re burning,” Betty complained in a pitiful, raspy voice. “I’m really glad those fucking bastards left us!”

“That was amazing, though,” Frank said. He stood straight and gawked at the huge spacecraft. “Those aliens looked like dinosaurs.”

“Damn it, Frank,” I said. “They looked nothing like dinosaurs. Stop it.”

I was brushing the dirt off my pants when I realized that Betty was looking up at me in silence.

“Are you okay?” she asked.

Those big brown eyes of hers silenced me. Her pigtails were resting on the chest of her pink, polka-dotted dress. I knew, even though I had never held a girl in my arms like a man holds a woman, that this was the moment when my old friend Betty and I should kiss passionately. I felt my face heating up.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” I said as my heart jumped in my chest. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

Betty frowned with concern.

“Because that hideous alien almost killed you, Sam. And you punched him because he had grabbed me…”

I scratched my nape.

“W-well, I had to defend my girlfriend, didn’t I?”

I bit my tongue so hard that it hurt for a while. I dared to look her in the eyes again. Betty had blushed.

“Your girlfriend? Since when?”

“Since now.”

Betty averted her gaze, and fiddled with the hem of her skirt.

“You can’t just decide that unilaterally… You are a weirdo, Sam.”

My heart sank. I kept staring at her while my insides cooled down. I pictured her holding my gaze again and saying something very different, but she didn’t. When she lowered her head and coughed, I turned around and shuffled away from my friends.

I don’t know how much time passed before any of us spoke again.

“I bet we would get a lot of money for this alien spaceship,” Frank said. “Maybe we could sell it to that guy at the auto plant and use the cash to finally buy a car.”

“You idiot,” Betty said, deflated. “That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard. And you would regret it later when you paid taxes on that kind of income.”

Frank held a cigarette between his lips while he struck a match. He lit the cigarette and inhaled deeply before blowing the smoke into the night sky.

“I know it’s risky, but the ship must hide some kind of advanced technology, right? We could try to pry open the wall, pull out some cables or whatever. Forget about a new car, we could even buy a boat to sail around the world.”

I sat down wearily on the grass. My chest hurt. I wanted to go home.

“That’s nothing but another empty dream,” I muttered. “There’s no way we are getting rich off aliens.”

After a long moment, Betty let out a long sigh and looked up at the spaceship.

“The government people will come and take it away. We’ll never see it again.”

I lifted my gaze in the direction of where the cops had led those two weird aliens away. I guess they’ll end up in some holding cell next to thieves, burglars, and drunk men who hit their wives.

I couldn’t stop my hands from trembling. I feared for the future of my species.

“I knew that the aliens were dangerous,” I said in a thin voice, “but I never thought they’d be evil.”

Frank huffed and wheezed. Betty stood up and patted the skirt of her dress.

“Let’s just go home.”

* * *

I had been hoping for an adventure that would make us feel special. I think that was why the three of us had loved to explore our surroundings since we were children. We were fifteen years old, we weren’t supposed to be scared of anything. I wished to experience new and exciting things.

It’s been many years since the last time I faced violent poltergeists or armies of robots, visited space stations, was pursued by giant monsters, or punched an alien. But whenever I feel like my life has been reduced to bills, long commutes, mortgages, and a body that only gets rustier, I can close my eyes and remember my old friends Frank and Betty, and all the good times we used to have.

THE END

The Well-Hung Duchess of Cosmographica (Poetry)

On July 26, 2021April 12, 2023 By Jon UreñaIn Arte, Escritura, Inteligencia artificial1 Comment

Bogdana, duchess of the dark motherland,
The forgotten kingdoms of Cosmographica,
Lady and mistress, sovereign of the night,
Queen of the darkest castle, the greatest conqueress,
Rules her subjects through terror and sex

Her castle stands high above all others,
And its towers are made from gold
Few dare rebel against her anymore;
They know she destroys everyone who disobeys

The castle was built three hundred years ago
During Alcindor’s rule as king,
But the man left this country after the war,
And never returned there

Bogdana is his descendant still,
Who rules through the terror and pleasure of sex,
That she uses to maintain the loyalty
Of her vassals, soldiers and slaves

Now Bogdana reigns in this castle, in Alcindor’s place,
And she does not treat her subjects well;
Instead, they serve only to be used by the duchess
Whenever she feels hungry

She’s got the perfect body and face for sex
Her breasts are huge, her hips wide, she’s tall
(About two heads taller than any man)
She’s a beauty who can please any gender

Bogdana was born a miracle from God;
She has two sets of genitals:
A sealed, shriveled vagina,
But the largest, veiniest cock

Beware the evil that hides beneath her skirt,
Those clothes may cover what you shouldn’t see
If anyone ever does gaze upon Bogdana’s cock,
Let alone touch it or look to long upon it,
They will become enslaved by her massive tool
The best way for men to serve her now
Is with their own tongues between her thighs

Her enormous phallus stretches out like a bow
To bend all men, and women as well;
She can break you with a look, but will not hesitate
To fuck a hole open for her own pleasure

Bogdana’s penis doesn’t just end at the pussy;
It ends at the anus too;
Sometimes it extends beyond those openings
And reaches her mouth

Every morning when Bogdana leaves her bedroom,
Us servants gather to see her magnificent bosom
Dressed in silky nightclothes,
Then the the duchess smiles at us
With an expression both terrifying and tender

We can’t contain ourselves, because we admire her
Breathtaking chest, which rises high and proud;
Each of her large mounds sits upon the summit
Of her glorious bosom in an hourglass shape
As her chest rises higher than our heads,
Sometimes we can’t see her face at all

The duchess’ upper half is adorned in pearls
And jewels and precious stones,
And the lower part, covered in smooth white flesh,
Leads to Bogdanas’s delicious ass,
Which she loves to squeeze with each step;
She squeezes so hard that she creates waves,
Which ripple along the floor below,
Causing water and mud everywhere

Bogdana is so powerful, beautiful and big
Nobody knows how to compete with that,
And certainly only the mad would want to;
It would be like trying to fight a hurricane

(As I was sitting to write these words,
The great lady walked into my quarters
And began to remove my clothes;
These days I give myself freely, eagerly,
Because I welcome the privilege of pleasing her,
The mistress who rules over me)

A man could never stand against her frame:
He’d lose in the first minute,
And he’d have to give up and submit
Then, Bogdana would make him pay

The duchess wants subjects who are obedient,
Who sit in a corner like the perfect doll,
Or bow before her to lick her shoes clean
(Or maybe suck out a load of spunk)

Bogdana loves to hear others begging her,
To feel their obedience and helplessness
As they kneel before her,
Bowing and prostrating themselves
Even when their words and actions contradict
What they think of themselves
It fills the duchess with such lusty ecstasy
Oh God… She’s already dripping with precum!

I was a simple peasant in a neighboring country,
But the plundering men of Cosmographia came my way
My farmhouse was destroyed, my older brother killed,
And I was brought over to the duchy as a slave to sell

I was a young maiden back then, shapely and unspoiled,
An innocent village girl who just started having periods
I met Bogdana right off, at my very first inspection;
She sent me straight to her bed instead of her dungeons

I spent days bound by chains in her bedroom
My body ached, with bruises forming everywhere,
Because Bogdana kept beating the shit out of me
(My wrists hurt for months, and my ankles swelled so bad
That I had to hobble and hop all around)

I was a mere child and I had done nothing wrong
Bogdana said that this wasn’t enough torture
“Your only choice left is obedience! Do whatever I ask!”
I didn’t want to suffer anymore,
So I surrendered to do as she demanded,
Which was to serve her monstrous cock
In exchange for some food every now and then

I could see myself reflected in Bogdana’s glistening prick:
I always look tiny compared to the duchess,
With my little breasts, tight little tummy, slender waist,
And my pitiful female sheath, which goes into my body

(The duchess licks at her own chocolate milk
While stretching open the towel in front to reveal
The double organ woman: it’s a mirrored cunt
As it hooks on to its own angry bacon neck
God damn Bogdana! What is that thing?!

I feel the cockhead, then I can barely accommodate
A single millimeter when Bogdana pushes herself in
I fall unconscious for a while and come awake in a dream
Of being penetrated with the duchess’ enormous prick

Bogdana keeps forcing herself inside, deeper,
And my poor, aching hole can hardly handle it all
This goes on forever in this weird erotic loop
While my mind is filled with the immense sensations
And pleasures of being fucked so big
It feels like a man should, but also not like a man

Even these days, as a veteran servant of our lady,
When the pain becomes unbearable,
I sob, cry out loud, which worries Bogdana,
But she gives my throat something extra;
The duchess loves the taste of her former slave girl
So much, in fact, that whenever I get fucked
She will gift me her saliva like it’s candy;
I swallow her gifts, and she does the exact same
To keep feeding me that special flavor;
I’ll be honest, this makes my life worth living)

While she wiped her cock, Bogdana told the guards,
“Give this filthy creature a clean cloth,”
So the senior servant ran out to do so;
I thanked the lady after wiping me thoroughly,
Then she offered me a cup filled with tea

The weary senior servant took me aside
To explain what my life had been reduced to:
“You’re going to work for Bogdana in the palace
And help with the farm chores and the cleaning
We are to service her, serve and please
Her every waking need as long as we are alive”

I bowed my head, ashamed at how pathetic I looked
My tears made the senior servant sigh
“You’ll soon get used to this life; Besides,
If you try to run away, she’ll catch you in a day
You’re never free from Bogdana’s clutches
She’s got eyes in all the corners of the realm
She sees everything, and she hears too if she wants

Bogdana can read your mind,
So whatever you’ve been hiding from her,
Don’t bother lying: she’ll know soon anyway
You better tell the whole story immediately,
To get through your punishment soon”

I dreaded the next time I would face the duchess,
And heard her words echoing in my mind,
“Get down on your knees, peasant slut”
And so I, so far removed from my old life,
Would bow in worship to Bogdana’s monster cock
“Fuck yourself onto me!” she commanded
I always obeyed like a mindless puppet,
Till I felt a warm, wet spot forming under me,
A feeling so wonderful and pleasant I couldn’t bear it
“Come for me now, slave!” ordered Bogdana
(Those same nights, I yearned to be taken again)

Whenever I faced Bogdana, my hands were sweaty,
My heart was pounding and racing,
The air around me shimmered with anxiety and fear
As Bogdana’s cock continued relentlessly beating
The shit out of the rest of my mind

If I said anything back to the duchess,
She beat me unconscious with her giant dick,
But if I obeyed her completely and did everything right,
She rewarded me with sexual pleasures beyond belief

Oh no, the duchess was smiling at me,
And her huge dick was swinging around again;
If her skirt was hiked up to reveal her massive erection,
It didn’t matter that now the lady was polite and nice
Thankfully I learned to carry around a jar full of lube
That I saved for those rainy days

My body trembled when she forced herself on me
My breasts ached for release
From being squeezed tightly by her huge nipples
My pussy clenched around her gigantic shaft,
Begging to feel more of it buried deep inside me
Then the duchess laughed at how weak I was,
How much pleasure I got from being dominated like that,
For wanting to serve her in every possible way

The worst thing was being forced to beg;
You must know how good that can feel,
It felt fantastic when my begging brought a smile
To the face of someone as powerful and cruel as her

(These days she doesn’t order me to beg,
I love to do it over and over myself)

Once she forced me to ride a horse
Bareback without reins for hours;
When I returned to the castle, covered in sweat,
Bogdana tied me naked to a tree, spread-eagled,
And fucked me until I came three times

The duchess orders us servants to bring out the wine,
The food (including her favorites, pork loin and sausages)
Then her most devoted attendants bring her gifts:
Jewelry, dresses made for a princess, shoes

Bogdana adores giving presents to her people,
Because the gifts remind her that they adore her
She doesn’t care about politics and wars:
What the duchess truly desires is sex
All of Bogdana’s desires, both mundane and erotic,
Can be summed up as: more sex, please

(Bogdana likes her drink with just enough booze;
When it’s just alcohol, it doesn’t taste good
The liquor must flow freely, and yet be diluted
So she can sip her favorite libation
Without getting completely wasted

She likes drinking alone, all by herself,
In secret and hidden from anyone else;
She thinks it’s best to drink her whiskey in peace
With a book on her knee)

No amount of money can buy your freedom;
Bogdana has absolute authority here,
And the price for her vassals to stay in power
Is unquestioning devotion

The duchess gave orders for all the servants,
The wretches who worked hard for months or years
Just getting enough food to live;
Bogdana told us not to eat at her palace,
But rather live off what’s outside in the woods

The duchess intended to torture us all in the forest
To get us addicted to pain;
This way, we would always crave punishment,
So we could only survive if we received the treatment,
Which was more doses of her dick
The end goal was total submission, total obedience

I hated her then, even as my body burned with arousal,
But the hatred and the lust were one in the same;
I had come to see the great duchess in a different light:
Her abuse of her subjects wasn’t just about pleasure,
But something more important, a kind of twisted justice

I had already learned that I loved the pain,
Loved the fact that my mistress used
And punished me so thoroughly;
It made me so horny every night
That I couldn’t wait to get back to Bogdana
To have my pussy stuffed with cock again

She made us servants worship her feet
And suck on her toes like dogs,
And when Bogdana wanted sex, she just grabbed
Someone attractive by their hair,
Even lords and ladies,
And threw them onto her bed

For men all over the realm, I give some advice:
Bend over slowly with your back facing the duchess,
Put your hand onto your cheek (this is important),
Spread your legs a bit farther apart,
Then say these words, “Your wish is my command”
She will be on top, you are expected to lie there,
Accepting her cock without resisting

Bend down, kiss and worship its massive head,
Serve the great duchess’ every whim;
Then when she says you’ve been obedient enough,
You can sit up straight again

Bogdana isn’t afraid of anybody:
Nobody can stand up to her,
Nobody can stop her;
Everyone knows that her cock is undefeatable

It’s true, nobody can beat her,
Not even the king himself;
He can try his best, but he’ll fail;
He won’t be able to match her strength

She owns all the lands around
And keeps the peasants in her debt, as she does us,
Through her own wicked sexual pleasures;
She’s powerful enough that she never gets sick,
Even after eating the most horrible foods,
Or drinking the most awful liquids
The great duchess always remains healthy,
Because her cock gives her energy

(Bogdana has taken the habit
Of coming to my bedroom at night,
To force her monster onto my pussy lips;
She even called me her favorite

Her past beatings ceased to hurt,
And her attention makes me so warm;
I admit to myself that I love my duchess,
Especially when she pumps me full of cum)

The duchess’ cock never gets tired,
Even after fucking all day long;
Although we keep hearing cries
Of shame and humiliation,
The duchess only cares about having fun

The noblemen bow before her,
All the poor peasants are afraid of her
Her power comes from her obscenely tall frame,
But mainly from her monstrous cock,
Which is even bigger than it befits a giantess

It must be wonderful to have a dick like that,
To get to feel its weight and size every day,
To feel so much power in each stroke,
To have the ability to make a man or woman
Lose consciousness with just one thrust

One thing Bogdana has added lately
Is a cockstander’s stance
That seems like it fits in quite well
She loves her cock-enhanced look;
Her huge cockette always juts out of her panties,
Except now it sticks out a few extra centimeters

(Cockstanding is an ancient tradition;
It began with the Egyptians and is still performed today,
Albeit to a much smaller degree
There is more going on than simply “cock-and-cocking”;
There’s lots and lots of sex, that involves sucking dicks,
Fucking holes, swallowing cumshots, getting facefucked,
And the act of being shoved full of cum
The list of possible acts is almost endless

I think it would take a very long time to write
An essay that could describe in detail all the possibilities,
However I can offer some ideas;
Here’s a short sample of what I imagine:
The duchess puts a finger into your asshole)

Bogdana is uncharacteristically respectful
To a famous writer in her court;
These days she often carries around
That man’s latest book, an ode to his duchess

(I admit I have felt jealousy at times,
And wondered whether she had fucked him)

The book contains descriptions of her adventures
Plenty of pages are devoted to her enormous cock,
Although a section is dedicated to Bogdana’s bosom,
Her nipples, and how to tit-fuck her slave-girls;
There are dozens of drawings,
Including one which is rather close-up

In fact, this book is actually a manual
On the art of cocksmanship,
That explains how Bogdana will dominate
The forgotten kingdoms of Cosmographica
And make her subjects love her even more;
Many pictures show throughout the book
How her subjects will eventually come crawling
For the chance to get even more humiliated,
Just so they can be used by her big prick
She is not only the mistress, but also the teacher;
I suspect that someday there will be
A few books written about me

(I myself was fortunate enough in my younger years
To have been blessed by a mother
That had experienced several orgasms herself;
This taught me to understand how to perform
A number of techniques on another human’s anatomy;
At night, she let me have sex with her
Using all the different techniques she knew

My mother went on to pass her own experience along
To both of her young offspring;
The eldest, my deceased brother, having an active interest,
Although I was somewhat more laid back and indifferent

While my dear mother didn’t possess the authority
And credentials found on the bookshelves
Of some of Cosmographica’s finest institutions,
She was a member of the Cockstuddling School of Love,
Which maintains the right balance of professionalism
Coupled with a level of comfort for its members

I never thought that my master would allow me
The privilege of taking our great duchess to heaven,
Where we spend our lives together)

The duchess’ cum tastes absolutely fantastic,
And is especially useful as medicine
I once heard that a single dose of her semen cures cancer;
This is obviously fake, but there’s a small truth in it,
Since semen is a natural disinfectant and purifies wounds;
I know a lot of people in Bogdana’s realm have it on tap,
So they can drink their recommended dose daily

The duchess orders me into the bath with her
Every single morning, for a few years now,
Because she likes having a cockbath before breakfast
(Sometimes this happens in the middle of the night:
She climbs into the water, nude of course,
And waits until her massive cock begins swelling
Before diving underneath)

As our duchess and I sit in a tub full with warm water,
It takes me an hour and twenty minutes
To wash off most of Bogdana’s cock,
Without having time to start cleaning the rest of her body
Then I must towel-dry the duchess carefully,
Because her phallus sticks straight out like a pole

(Some mornings she lets me wash her with my mouth;
Mainly her breasts and her armpits,
But her large balls can be cleaned efficiently by licking)

Bogdana’s enemies are totally ignorant
About the duchess real, vast wealth and fortune,
Which as she readily explains, comes mostly
From her immense collection of books,
Some of them dating far back in history

For example the ‘Necronomics’, written in ancient Erokine;
‘The Compendium of Sigmoidal Paedology’,
Authored sometime between 982 CE to 1004 CE;
‘The Anonymous Dictionary on How to Use the Penis
Like an Instrument of Human Pleasure’,
Composed during the Renaissance Era;
And my favorite, ‘The Manual On How to Get a Real Job’,
By an author known only by his first name: Lamplight

Many of the books have been passed down
Through the duchess’ line and the Cockstroking School;
Bogdana also owns the ‘Degenerate Art of the Vagina’,
By the famous artist of the same name,
Who’s probably the greatest genius who ever existed,
Even though he lived more than six thousand years ago

One of Bogdana’s favorite books is one titled
‘Cockolded Women and Cuckolds’ (by an unknown male,
Which the duchess keeps chained up in her dungeon)
He suggests many ingenious techniques
That women should use to keep a cuckold husband in place
While also pleasing her lovers

Most people think that her collection
Is just another impressive treasure trove of knowledge,
But after a thorough inspection of one particular book,
Called the ‘Great Encyclopedic Compendium
On Human Sexual Anatomy’,
Her opponents will suddenly change their tune
“Wow! I can’t believe Bogdana is such a scholar
What incredible knowledge of medicine and sex!
That must explain her incredible powers
As a sexual dominatrix,
And the fact that her huge cock
Always stays erect and full”

This is a classic misunderstanding
Which reveals a deep ignorance of biology
(And is a prime indicator
That her detractors aren’t very bright)
It is well-known in the scholarly community,
Especially among scientists of all ages,
That the size of a woman’s cock is irrelevant
To whether she is skilled or not in lovemaking

Bogdana once received the visit
Of the three princesses of Cuntistan;
The duchess impregnated them in the same night,
So one day they’ll give birth to future bastard claimants
(Which makes this book particularly relevant:
‘How the Cuntistanians Will Endure This Painfully,
And Then Learn Their Lesson,
In Order To Stop Trying to Overthrown Our Power’,
by King Bilefunk the Fifth, from 898 CE onwards;
An account of a coup attempt by his eldest son)

Bogdana became intrigued by the huge sword
Of one of her most trusted bodyguards
He agreed to compare the size of their swords,
Then said he couldn’t conceive the size of her weapon,
The broadsword that Bogdana came armed with;
Still, the bodyguard deeply admired its beauty,
His own weapon being smaller and shorter, too,
So he jokingly offered the duchess the option of trade

Bogdana asked him, “Do you like this gift from God?”
“Oh yes, my duchess. It’s a thing of immense power”
Bogdana smiled and moved her broadsword
Slowly and heavily towards the man’s buttocks,
And shortly after, the hilt rested between his cheeks

The broadsword stayed like that long enough
To make one wonder, “Is he okay? Is he going to die?”
But he screamed, “Oh my god! That feels so great!
Please keep doing that, duchess; don’t stop now!”

The man panted as the orgasm rushed through his veins,
And the blood poured into his balls from deep within;
Once Bogdana was satisfied and pulled out,
The bodyguard collapsed face down
In a pool of his own gooey cum

An ancient temple had collapsed in town,
Killing a dozen subjects, adults and children
Bogdana summoned the grieving families
To the throne room of her majestic palace
The duchess then gave them a short speech:
“Dear subjects, my heart aches for your misfortune,
And it brings tears of sorrow to my eyes”
Then Bogdana started to pump her big fat cock
Slow and steady, with both of her strong hands

The gathered subjects became quiet,
Everyone stared intently;
All the attention was on the duchess’ phallus,
Which was slickened with copious amounts of precum

Bogdana’s cock twitched and throbbed,
Then bolts and gouts of sperm shot up from its massive tip,
Each squirt causing droplets to cascade onto her thighs,
And splattering over her subjects like warm rain

Some cried tears while some just moaned with pleasure,
Some kissed their children, some embraced each other,
But most kneeled until they slowly got up off the floor,
Stood on wobbly legs and thanked Bogdana
For healing their sadness

(Every time I see our duchess, she has a larger dick,
Longer and thicker, with even bigger veins
It seems like it could easily spear people when erect
The monster is so huge that a shot of its spunk
Could pierce through someone’s head, splitting the skull)

Bogdana needed a bit of relaxation,
So when the time seemed appropriate,
Bogdana took her pleasure
From a few of the female slaves
Who were captured during a recent rebellion;
Bogdana did what any good duchess might
When it suits her fancy: she fucked their faces
Using the royal castle dungeons
As her personal playground

The duchess blasted streams and rivers
Of her thick sperm over her victims,
Over her own tits and belly, and over everything;
Eventually her victims’ entire bodies
Ended up covered in cum, like a painting

Bogdana had been practicing for a while
By taking turns on all the male prisoners,
Without causing much bloodshed or injuries;
The only problem was finding some fresh new victims

Bogdana enjoyed being in control,
But when her desires started becoming obsessive,
She decided to fuck a different man each time,
Making sure that she ended up satisfied

Those who have challenged the duchess’ power,
Or those who failed her or betrayed her,
She has tortured, chained and beaten in her dungeons,
Then fucked them over and over again,
Until they could no longer think
Or remember their names

It’s amazing how fast her victim’s brain was spinning,
Especially once she hit them over and over again
She also told them to smile, and smile some more
And laugh with joy as she ripped open their asses;
If their bowels were too small to accommodate her,
Then they would simply burst from the pressure

They screamed out loud about how much they loved
Being fucked by her monster cock;
Once their bodies and spirits had been broken,
They submitted without resistance,
For if anyone resisted,
She just forced them to take more
Of her massive dick

When she pulled her cock out from the hole
Belonging to the prey whose mind she broke,
Their insides were bloated with fresh cum;
She let the guy lie on the ground for a moment,
Then the duchess sent her servants out
To wheel in a large metal cage
That’d hold the person inside it

They walked the poor soul slowly through town
Past hundreds of people who were used to this;
Then they dragged the person inside a prison cell,
Closed the gate, turned a wheel, locking him away

Once every one of those men’s defences were broken,
Bogdana put them all to work for her
In the name of love, in the name of friendship,
For the sake of the kingdom, for the glory of God

When she truly came to hate some poor bastard,
Bogdana threw them into the dungeon
She used her massive cock in that prisoner every day;
Although they kept begging, Bogdana didn’t stop,
She just kept fucking them harder and faster
Until they could no longer can stand up, nor breathe

She enjoyed the idea that someone would die screaming,
Knowing she killed them in such a horrible fashion,
By using that gigantic cock to break them in agony,
Making sure they wouldn’t ever escape again
This way Bogdana could always keep herself satisfied
While still punishing the weak and evil

Some of her subjects have been caught suggesting
That our lady isn’t really human,
That her mother gave birth to Bogdana
After having been raped by three demons,
A process that took three days of continual fucking
Those vile gossipers said that Bogdana was born deformed,
So much that nobody knew whether she was alive or dead

Our lady punishes those spreading such a rumor,
Which is nevertheless completely false:
One look at our duchess’ elegant visage
Is proof enough that Bogdana is most divine
(And the goddess of our lands and our hearts, our queen)

There was this cocky courtier
That had the gall to disagree with the duchess;
She broke his spine in half with her own hands
Just to see what he was made of

One of Bogdana’s messengers approached the king
To present a beautiful gift from the duchess:
A golden bowl full of the queen’s piss
Mixed with loads of Bogdana’s own semen
(The king had tried many times to fuck his wife in vain)
An added letter from Bogdana proudly stated
How she loved to caress the queen’s piss-stained crotch

The punishment for breaking serious laws and orders
That Bogdana is too busy to dole out with her dick
Is to be buried alive in a hole filled with shit,
Which makes for some rather interesting stories
To tell the grandchildren on a future holiday

One of her guards was an elderly guy,
A veteran who had survived the duchess’ moods,
But out of nowhere Bogdana ordered the man
To wrap her cock around his neck;
Although the man protested, he quickly obeyed,
And the duchess’ cock strangled him like a boa,
Chocking his windpipe, making him gasp for air;
This aroused Bogdana, so her dick got hard,
Instantly crushing the guard’s neck,
And sending him flying into the air as he died
While the cock splattered cum everywhere

I witnessed Bogdana killing a maid:
She cut off the girl’s fingers,
Shoved a knife deep inside her throat,
Then buried her in some patch of dirt

She once forced some servants into the kitchen
And made them cook dinner
While Bogdana watched from a distance;
Then she took her favorite dishes
And ordered the cooks to add in more spices
Bogdana ordered the cooks again,
Telling them to change her dishes,
But this time, there would be meat
Then Bogdana sent her soldiers in
To kill all the cooks,
Along with everyone in the kitchen
Nothing remained except scraps and bones,
And the soldiers also burned the place down

Few boys ever returned home
After working in her fields,
And some wives and husbands never saw
Their loved ones alive ever again

Sometimes, after she finished screwing some captives,
Bogdana just cut off their heads with a knife
Once Bogdana confirmed that the captive was dead,
She dug a grave nearby for their corpse, covered it up,
Placed flowers upon the grave site,
Sprinkled it with perfume to honor their memory
(She likes perfume which reminds her of sex),
And placed candles and torches around the tombstone;
When finished, she planted rosebushes around that grave
To mark a past lover’s tomb; they remain as a signpost
Of the lives lost at the hand of Bogdana-cosmophilic desire

Bogdana told everyone to watch out:
Any children playing in the street
Shouldn’t play together;
If the children found one another,
It may have been a clue
That they planned to betray her,
So she had instructed the guards
To murder those plotting kids;
The duchess wanted no loose ends

Sometimes sex got too boring for Bogdana;
She threatened her guards to murder her,
Or else she’d tear them apart with her cock
The terrified guards pulled out their swords
And started slashing away at her,
But Bogdana’s will is incommensurable;
Although the guards stabbed her several times,
And she did scream and shout
(Because it felt so fucking amazing),
She ended up beating them all up;
She had a lot of anger towards anyone
Who dared hurt her precious body

Her massive penis pounded her guards relentlessly;
Their blood poured out and mixed with hers
When she came, she crushed the guards’ brains,
Which splashed on top of Bogdana’s breasts
She laughed insanely and continued moaning
Until she fell over in exhaustion,
Lying flat on the floor of the royal palace,
Surrounded by the corpses and splashes of gore

The king had enough of Bogdana’s tyranny
(Mainly that she kept pleasuring the queen),
So he ordered all his other dukes and counts
To march in order to eradicate her realm

Bogdana heard the rumours of war coming,
And immediately took measures
For the safety of herself, and her kingdom;
In the meantime, her men built up their army:
They trained every single soldier day in, day out,
So that when the war began and her men were attacked,
Bogdana could quickly crush any of the enemies
Before they could ever stand against the giant duchess’
(That she would later call the Mother Goddess) army

After weeks of their siege,
Bodies and heads were piled up around the palace,
Forming tall, grotesque and hideous walls
They were made mostly of the king’s men,
But also of plenty of Bogdana’s subjects,
To make the walls even taller

Bogdana fought naked (except for her boots),
Armed with her broadsword;
The enemies screamed and groaned as they died,
Then their corpses were thrown onto the growing piles,
Which started overflowing and spilling down

Bogdana’s huge cock continued spewing forth
Gallons and tons and thousands of gallons of semen,
Which was soaking through everyone’s clothes
(Including those in armor, who were soon drowned);
None were immune, and all had the pleasure
Of being impregnated and impregnated again

Bogdana laughed as she pumped the enemy full of cum,
Squirting her seed into the pit of their bowels
She loved filling their bodies with thick, creamy fluid,
Then looking down as her seed bubbled up from their holes

Afterwards Bogdana stood up, her body wet with cum,
And said, “Well, now I’m done with you guys;
This whole battle has just served to prove
I can easily beat up armies a million strong”

When only captives remained to deal with,
She ordered us, her guards and servants,
To escort the enemy into her majestic throne room;
The captives lined up, terrified and afraid

When Bogdana entered her palace,
Her huge body swayed
Making waves in the pool of fluids,
While her enormous cock swung wildly
Back and forth between her massive thighs

Bogdana sat comfortably in her throne,
But as usual it took some maneuvering
To accomodate the thickness of her cock,
Which she swung to hang over the armrest

She ordered all of her guards and servants
To walk up to a captive and execute him;
She made a festive ritual out of it too

Bogdana addressed me by name
As she told a guardsman to hand me a dagger,
Which I ended up shoving through a captive’s eye;
I felt the young man’s life fading away
As he trembled against the guards holding him,
Then he fell and sank in the pool of cum,
Where his blood flowed like water

Once every captive had been killed,
Bogdana ordered us to dismember them,
Then take their severed parts
And throw them out of the windows;

Bogdana laughed merrily
“Let’s celebrate our victory with a party!”
She told the guards to bring over her subjects,
Who came running to see her duchess,
Although many of them were old and decrepit

“Hello, hello, dear subjects of Bogdanos,”
The duchess said sweetly,
Her voice reverberating off the stone walls
“Please sit down and don’t mind the mess I made”

Some subjects gasped and screamed,
Because there were torsos lying around,
And they didn’t like standing in a pool of cum
Two morons even tried to escape,
But Bogdana’s cock blocked their attempts
(They were lucky they caught her in a good mood)

She asked her subjects if they were happy now,
And they all gave her a similar answer:
“Yes! Yes! Of course we are happy! We’re thrilled!
We love you, Mistress! Thank you for everything!”
And they’d do anything she asked of them,
Anything at all, even if it hurt

Bogdana announced her intention of having an orgy;
Her guards and us servants helped her with it
By picking out her favorites, the most handsome guys,
Then bringing them over to our duchess

Bogdana tore off their clothes,
Then made them kneel at her feet
And lick her boots clean
While her huge cock rubbed their faces;
Meanwhile, some of her favorite servant girls
(I was one of the lucky ones, thankfully)
Kissed her beautiful body, worshipping her
(I ended up swallowing a couple of liters of cum)

The king was left without an army, and terrified,
So he gave Bogdana a gift for her achievements:
He named a town, built in his domain, Bogdanatown,
And he declared Bogdana a princess of the kingdom

He ruled that her authority was binding and irrevocable
Over human affairs, which include slavery;
All of this would be recorded in holy writings,
And as violent and cruel as her name may be,
She would have total control over her subjects
She could use her dick whenever necessary
To enforce these holy orders

The only beings that remain to challenge her power
Are gods and goddesses and the Devil,
But Bogdana promises that in time, Satan will be hers:
He will become another chained member of her harem

The duchess’ army fights and conquers with such zeal
Because her huge monster cock fills them with zeal;
Even the bravest warrior must yield before our lady;
After she finally overwhelms the king’s retinue,
Beneath Bogdana, there serves the queen

Get down on your knees,
Or maybe just sit back in your chair;
Lift up those skirts of yours
And put your hands behind your head
That’s the way to really impress Bogdana:
She likes a subject who knows how to behave,
And she’ll love to watch you beg for mercy;
Begging is so hot, it makes her feel powerful
It turns her on even more than fucking them

The entire population of humans, and their slaves,
Will one day be under the rule of Bogdana’s cock
There will no longer be any need for kingship
All of humanity should live in fear
That their time will come

I conceived this epic poem as the dark counterpart to ‘Kanazawahr and the Thousand Immortals’.

Interspecies Misdemeanours, Pt. 2 (Fiction)

On July 25, 2021April 12, 2022 By Jon UreñaIn Arte, Escritura, Inteligencia artificial3 Comments

I stopped Frank to open his backpack and pull out two flashlights. I gave them to both of my friends. Betty switched hers on to try it, which whitened her face.

“What’s our plan here?” I asked.

Frank pointed at the edge of the nearby forest that we had explored many times, but that usually didn’t contain aliens.

“Let’s walk in there. If nothing happens, we’ll leave.”

I disliked the implication that we wouldn’t leave the forest if something happened. I narrowed my eyes at Frank, but he gave me an impish grin.

“If nothing else,” Frank added, “I’m hoping to find out how many aliens were in that ship.”

“Yeah, I guess that’d be nice. To know exactly how much trouble we are in.”

When we approached the edge of the forest, I realized how dim it had gotten; the sun would hide in less than an hour. I pointed my flashlight at the space between the two trunks that acted as our doorway, then I switched the light on. My heart was pounding with excitement.

As soon as the canopy covered us, the air felt moist, and it smelled like fresh earth and leaves. We picked up the pace while we kept shining our lights in all directions. Betty was jogging next to me. I couldn’t help but glance at her; it disturbed me how much she had grown this last year.

“You’ve become so beautiful, Betty,” came out of my mouth.

I wanted to punch myself in the teeth, but she replied in a sarcastic tone.

“Thanks. You’re not so bad yourself.”

Our flashlights flickered over the trees and the undergrowth. We were getting anxious; so far into the forest, the trees were large and the foliage so dense that anything, or I guess anyone, could hide in there. The path we followed was made by people walking through this area for decades, or hundreds of years, and it was lined with tall bushes. What little remained of sunlight barely poured down the holes in the canopy, so we mainly relied on the flashlights to follow the path.

I heard wheezing coming from somewhere behind us, and the hairs on my arms stood up until I realized that it came from Betty. She coughed in her hand as quietly as she could. Frank and I stopped so she could reach us.

“I’m sorry,” Betty said in a raspy voice, “but my asthma is acting up.”

I patted her on the shoulder.

“It’s okay, Betty. We understand.”

As Betty catched her breath, Frank pulled out a pack of cigarettes from his backpack. He held a cigarette between his lips as he lit it with a match, then he snapped the match in half and threw it in the mud. He took a long drag and blew smoke towards the trees.

“What are you doing?” Betty asked.

“Nothing. Smoking.”

“I thought you quit.”

Frank checked his pulse.

“It’s just one fucking cigarette.”

We barely spoke as the trees grew thinner and the forest floor more navigable. We came across the small stream we knew, and after crossing over it, we spotted the clearing through the gaps in the foliage. It was a wide open field with tall grasses all around, a couple of ancient fallen trunks, some scattered leaves and twigs, and more importantly for our purposes, a huge otherworldly spaceship that looked like a flattened pyramid. It was bigger than any truck or bus we’d seen. Its three tiger orange lights must have come from its bottom surface. The three of us crouched behind some bushes and made sure to avoid aiming at the ship with our flashlights, although the faint sunrays were reflecting off the metallic surface.

We listened in silence for a few seconds as we held our breaths. I shook my head.

“That looks like a huge coffin,” I whispered, “for transporting dead people.”

“It’s huge,” Frank said, too loudly for my tastes. “I think it may be indeed a cargo carrier of some sort.”

Betty put her hands on both my left and Frank’s right shoulders, and attempted to push us down.

“It’s far too small to be a cargo carrier, stupid,” she whispered nervously. “It’s probably full of aliens, and we should be careful with the unknown. We may get abducted by those people. How would we return home then?”

“Well, we are already here, Betty,” I said, although I was doubting myself.

“How about we leave and tell the police that an alien spaceship landed in our neighborhood? Maybe we wouldn’t have to worry anymore, because they’ll send a team of experts to investigate. That’d be a lot safer than us approaching the ship. Besides, we haven’t explored the entire forest yet! There must be plenty of undiscovered stuff around here more interesting than a spaceship.”

Frank’s nose kept running, but the handkerchief he brought from home was already wet.

“Yeah, and who knows what kind of dangerous creatures live in these woods. Aliens, monsters and ghosts… There’s no telling what could happen. But what about your asthma, Betty?”

“You don’t know anything about asthmatic people, do you?” she replied annoyed. “They can go anywhere and do whatever they want.”

I patted Betty on the shoulder to calm her down, because she was shuddering, but I was getting annoyed as well: I remained the only one who wanted to take advantage of the opportunity to explore an alien spaceship.

“Frank, look over there,” I whispered. “Those footsteps.”

The three of us stared in that direction. Some of the grass in the clearing had been trampled by odd footsteps scattered as if the aliens had walked around while inspecting the area, but a trail of footsteps also leads out of the clearing and into the opposite depths of the enclosing forest.

“If they are advanced enough to build a spaceship and use it to travel to Earth, they must already know we are here,” I said confidently. “Whether or not we dare to get closer to their ship, we are going to end up meeting those invaders. One of those choices will allow us to explore an alien spaceship. So we already know what we must do, don’t we?”

Betty nodded nervously. Frank pulled out his camera.

“Alright, I can’t argue with that. Let’s get going then.”

It took us about ten seconds for the three of us to regain full mobility. We advanced carefully towards the treeline; once we crossed the edge, we’d stand exposed in the clearing. I stayed as close to Betty as possible. If the aliens ended up ambushing us, I didn’t want them to target Betty with their captivating powers, so it only made sense to stay this tight to each other’s side. As it had been happening for the last few months, whenever my bare skin brushed hers, I shivered warmly. I didn’t know why, nor what to do about that.

Frank was leading us. He was covered in sweat and holding his nose. His eyes kept darting around, searching for the next place of concealment. The sun was already setting behind us and the moon would soon rise. The air felt colder. My heart pounded on my chest as I realized how close to the mysterious ship we were getting.

After we hid ourselves behind a couple of the thickest tree trunks at this edge of the clearing, Frank gasped as he stared at the ground between his feet.

“Guys, check this out! Quick!” Frank exclaimed excitedly.

The three of us crouched to check out that spot. Frank lifted an object: a stone. Our friend inspected the color pattern underneath.

“Holy cow! It’s a fossil! It looks like a jawbone too, of a carnivorous species!” He ran his fingertips over its grooves. “It must be thousands of years old!”

I wasn’t as enthusiastic. The chances of finding a real dinosaur fossil in these woods were pretty slim, and we had aliens to worry about.

“It’s just an ordinary rock, Frank,” Betty said in a quavering voice.

He twisted his torso to reach for the backpack, likely to store his finding. I moved faster: I snatched the stone and tossed it away. It landed under a bush.

“Sam!” Frank complained.

“Don’t yell, damn it. That wasn’t a dinosaur, and this spaceship isn’t going to wait around forever.”

I looked at Betty for support, but my friend’s face had gone pale. She was trembling and squeezing her thighs together as her unfocused gaze stared through the trunk we were hiding behind.

“Betty, what’s wrong?” I asked.

“I need to pee. I already had to go when we were playing ball.”

“Shit, then just go.” I pointed at the nearby bushes. “We won’t take a peek, I swear.”

Betty looked around frantically.

“B-but what about the aliens?”

Frank, still frowning, wiped his nose with his sleeve.

“Unless you resemble a female alien, I wouldn’t worry about it. They are unlikely to want to mate with you.”

Betty’s face brightened as she anticipated emptying her bladder. She duckwalked away awkwardly until a thick bush hid her. I heard a long sigh, then splashing sounds.

I addressed Frank, mostly to distract myself.

“Don’t you want to check out what’s inside that thing? The spaceship, I mean. I wanna know, for sure.”

“I don’t know, man. Betty had a point there. It’s possible the aliens plan to capture us and use us as hostages.”

“They are just a bunch of stupid people from another planet. It’s no big deal.”

Frank shrugged.

“Well, alright.”

I wondered whether I was trying to convince Frank or myself. I had read many books about aliens and UFOs, so I knew how dangerous they were.

“Besides, we survived through that nightmare on the aircraft carrier, right? Along with the army of robots, and the giant monster that’s still chasing us.”

Frank looked aside as if trying to remember.

“I’m not sure if any of that ever happened…”

“Sure it did, Frank. We’ve been chased by a giant robot before, haven’t we?”

“Yeah, and it was really scary. But now I think of those things as being more like movies than real life.”

“No, it’s real. It’s all real, I’m afraid.”

Something was telling me that the aliens would try to harm us. I hoped to find some weapons that would help us fight them off, if it came to that.

When Betty duckwalked back to us while fixing the skirt of her dress, the relief had made her forget all about aliens, but then she eyed warily the big branch that I was holding like a baseball bat.

“What are you going to do with that?” she asked, concerned.

“Just in case I have to knock on their door.”

The three of us sneaked towards the spaceship. After we crossed the border into the clearing, I felt we were going to get zapped by laser guns at any moment, but we only heard birdsongs and our faint footsteps as we stepped on the tall grass.

The oval windows of the spaceship were blackened glass. From up close the hull looked dirty, scratched and dented in places, and with large patches of a rust-like substance. It reminded me of some kid’s first car that originally belonged to someone’s grandpa.

“If we hadn’t witnessed it descending, I could have sworn this ship has been abandoned for decades,” I said, disappointed.

As the three of us stood in front of a part of the hull where I would have installed a hatch, because it lacked any windows, we looked at each other confused about how to proceed. My heart was beating fast with excitement.

“Well, I’m going to touch it.”

As soon as I pressed my fingertips against the metallic surface, which felt like any other cool metal, an oval hole the size of an adult opened silently in the hull as if it had been cut with scissors. Both Betty and Frank jumped back, but I was mesmerized by the eerie, soft blue glow that filled the interior of the spaceship. The air smelled like something was burning.

The three of us stepped cautiously inside, then we were cut off from the remaining sunlight when the oval entryway turned into solid hull, this time with a loud clunk. I realized that Frank was about to panic, so I chuckled.

“That’s probably how alien spaceship hatches close. It doesn’t mean we are trapped here.”

“I-I guess.”

We forgot about our worries quickly; we were standing in the dimly lit interior of a spaceship with four seats and plenty more room for several people standing up. One of the seats was smaller than the other three, to fit someone of the size of a tween, and it was facing a small control panel mounted along the wall.

Betty kept looking around as if searching for something.

“Where is the bathroom?”

“What, you need to go again?” I asked in disbelief as I rested my big stick against a wall.

“No, idiot. The aliens need to pee as well, don’t they?”

“You have pee in your brain,” Frank said. “Maybe they don’t do that stuff. We have no clue about alien anatomy.”

Betty narrowed her eyes at Frank, but then she must have reached a satisfying conclusion, because she smirked and tilted her waist.

“Maybe they landed so they could take a leak.”

I was impressed, and didn’t know what to say. She had come up with the most absurd idea I’d heard yet.

A sudden flash startled me; Frank had snapped a picture. Now that the novelty of having entered an alien spaceship was fading quickly, I felt as if I had sneaked into the cockpit of a plane, no cooler than that. We had done crazier stuff in the grand scheme of things.

Betty and I started looking around for anything that could give us a hint about the aliens. The control panel was inscribed with weird characters that we wouldn’t comprehend. A few wires and cables attached to the walls ran to the back of the craft, where they sank into the floor.

I sighed.

“So what’s the deal with this ship? It looks like it was designed by a teenager who wasn’t very good at building things. There’s not much to see in it.”

Frank must had snapped about five pictures, likely documenting everything there was to see. As he stored his camera in the backpack, I plumped down on the pilot’s seat. The cushion was made of a material harder than I would have expected. It reminded me of sitting on a rock, but I guess I couldn’t complain after having walked all the way here.

The soft, blue glow that bathed the interior was coming out of nowhere and made the space resemble a cave, but instead of stalactites hanging from the roof, there were wires that looked like old spider webs. The silence inside the spaceship was eerie; the hull cut us off from even the birdsongs outside.

The three of us sat around for a while, but as the minutes ticked by, nothing happened.

“I’m bored,” Betty said.

I groaned. I was also getting impatient.

“I guess exploring alien spaceships is pretty boring compared to exploring forests and caves. Why bother?” I got up. “Let’s just go home.”

Betty smiled at me.

“Don’t forget to take your baseball bat!”

“They can keep it.”

The three of us stood in front of the section of the hull that had opened before. Although I was pressing my hands against the cool metal, it refused to react.

“Shit, we may actually be trapped inside this boring ship,” I mutter. “Let’s look for buttons or some sort of control panel that may open the hatch.”

We ran our hands over the wall. Betty ended up finding an indentation that, when pressed, opened a controller cabinet. It looked like a breaker box. Before I could say anything, Frank grabbed a handle and attempted to twist it.

“This panel is too close to the hatch to be unrelated. And I need to get home, man. My dad is seriously going to call the cops.”

The handle didn’t budge until Frank pulled it, and the oval entryway reappeared. The three of us let out sighs of relief, but when we switched on our flashlights to brighten the darkened clearing, our beams revealed that two humanoid beings were stepping on the tall grass as they headed towards us.

The one on the left was a chubby alien shorter than me. His head was bald and bulbous, and his nostrils large enough to shove marbles through them. He was wearing thick goggles like those of an aviator. His red lips had white lines around them that resembled the stripes of a feline, and his long, thin fingers, four in each hand, ended in black claws. His skin color reminded me of Frank’s dad.

The alien on the right was as tall as an adult. He was covered in thick, matted fur, and his head was egg-shaped and mostly featureless, lacking ears and a nose, except for two circular eyes that resembled coins, and big, sharp teeth that peeked out from under his lips. His odd mane reminded me of snakes. He was also walking on double the usual amount of legs. Both were wearing identical black jumpsuits without insignias.

When they saw us standing like idiots at the entrance of their spaceship, they stopped, startled. The bald, shorter alien looked up at his pal and let out a series of clicks and chirps.

Frank grabbed my shoulder, which almost made me drop my flashlight.

“Sam, these guys are not human.”

Interspecies Misdemeanours, Pt. 1 (Fiction)

On July 23, 2021April 12, 2022 By Jon UreñaIn Arte, Escritura, Inteligencia artificial2 Comments

Next part (2)

As the three of us witnessed the spaceship descending from the sky, the soccer ball continued its parabolic trajectory and ended up hitting Betty in the head. However, none of us commented on it, because we were mesmerized by the three tiger orange, glowing lights in a triangle formation, which seemed to be attached to a metallic frame. The spaceship was headed towards the forest near our home, which we had explored countless times.

Both Frank and I took off running in the direction the spaceship was heading, although there was no way we would catch up to it. Betty sprinted after us and grabbed our shirt tails.

“I don’t like that one bit!” she complained.

Reluctantly, Frank and I stopped and followed Betty back to Frank’s yard, but we kept looking over our shoulders as the three glowing lights passed behind tall treetops. It was heading to the clearing near the center of the forest. Our trio of adventurers had gone through a lot of nonsense already, so I could understand Betty’s reluctance. There was that whole thing with the haunted factory last week. We had never encountered anything as interesting as a spaceship, let alone an alien spaceship, but the last thing we needed was to get involved in some alien drama involving UFOs. Still, none had landed at such close proximity to where we resided.

Anyway, in order to explain properly what we ended up discovering, it’s necessary to first introduce myself, Betty and Frank. I’m Sam, and back then I was a fifteen-year-old kid living in a typical suburban town. My friends were Frank Haimer, who lived a couple of blocks away, and Betty Krommer, whose dad worked at the auto plant. Betty and I were quite interested in space and science, but Frank was a dinosaur guy. The three of us had in common that since we were much younger, we rarely wanted to return home from playing in the street, and we explored around town whenever possible.

Betty crouched to pick up the soccer ball, then she lifted it to her shoulder. She was wearing a pink dress with white polka dots on it, and her hair was tied in pigtails. She turned to face me with a smile. I wanted to tell her that her hair had looked quite nice recently even when untied: it covered the sides of her neck and the top of her ears, giving her a more mature look.

“Forget about aliens. Let’s keep kicking! Although we’ll need a bigger yard if we keep playing with this.”

She kicked the ball down to Frank. After he caught it, he tossed the ball to me without taking his eyes off the alien spaceship, that was hovering over the clearing in the middle of the forest.

“I’ve got to admit this is pretty exciting,” Frank said.

“Yeah, I agree,” I said.

The alien spaceship slowly lowered itself to the forest floor, and disappeared fully behind the treetops.

“Forget about it,” Betty said as she motioned for me to throw her the ball. “It has to be some kind of secret military aircraft.”

My heart was beating fast. I didn’t want to wake up one day and think to myself, ‘You know, I should have taken the chance to see some aliens’. I could tell that Frank was waiting for me to come to a decision.

“What do you think, Sam?” he asked, both worried and excited. “Do we go or not? The aliens are waiting for us.”

“Fuck no,” Betty said.

“Let’s put it to a vote.”

Betty lost, but she conceded her defeat quickly enough. As we were about to run to the forest, we realized that Frank’s father was staring at us from the big living room window, but he quickly turned around and moved further into the house. Although he may have glanced at us casually, these last few years our parents always seemed suspicious of how we occupied our time, and I guess we gave them enough reasons.

“Maybe we should tell my parents first,” Frank said. “I don’t want to deal with the police again.”

I sighed.

“Yeah… We probably need to get your flashlights.”

“And my camera!” Frank said as he ran to his front door.

Frank’s parents approached us cautiously as we were filling up a backpack in the kitchen.

“What the hell are you kids planning this late already?” Frank’s dad asked gratingly. “Aren’t you tired enough from playing soccer or whatever you were doing?”

“Something more interesting came up,” Frank answered as he made sure a flashlight worked.

I realized that Betty was preparing too many sandwiches. Her butt looked way more appetizing, though.

“What are you doing, Betty?” I asked.

“The aliens are probably hungry, so I’m making them something to eat.”

Frank’s dad snapped his head back.

“What are you talking about? What’s this about aliens?”

“Didn’t you see the spaceship?” I asked the big man. “It had three glowing lights and was flying over the forest. It clearly landed in there.”

The old man’s eyes went white. He hunched over to grab his son’s shoulders.

“Frankie, UFOs are not a joke. These aliens are dangerous. I already told you what I learned in the war! One night they shot down a bomber as it was heading to Dresden, killing everyone on board, and then the UFO disappeared in a flash of lightning! I also heard that some aliens killed a guy by hitting him over the head repeatedly with something heavy. And for what? They stole everything the poor guy had and escaped with no trace!”

“They are just visiting,” Betty said as she smeared a slice of bread with jam. “They haven’t killed anyone.”

“You are going to endanger yourselves! Just think of the consequences if you meet one of those bastards.”

Frank’s dad was getting more and more agitated, and this time it wasn’t because of a football game. He was starting to look like a madman. Frank and I exchanged glances. I could tell he had also realized we needed to get out of there.

“Well, dad, anyway…” Frank said as he wiped his nose with a handkerchief. “We are leaving.”

Frank’s dad shook his head. He grabbed the doorknob and pulled the door shut with a loud click.

“I won’t let you out. This isn’t the time to be playing around.”

“Think about your dad’s heart pressure, honey,” Frank’s mother said mousily.

Frank frowned.

“Dad, this is nothing new. The forest near our house has never been safe. It’s infested with monsters and ghosts, along with plenty of other things to worry about. If you don’t believe me, ask Betty.”

Betty nodded at Frank’s dad. She had finished making the sandwiches and was now putting them in a box. I attached my usual flashlight to my belt.

“Don’t you want to see the aliens?” I asked Frank’s dad. “They could be the only ones left alive in the whole world! They might help us against the Russians and the Nazis.”

“To be fair, these aliens are probably just some dumb guys from another planet who got lost,” Frank said.

“Frankie, stop acting like a child,” his dad said severely. “This is serious.”

Frank and I looked at each other, and as usual we came up with the same plan. I offered his old man my brightest smile.

“We were just pulling your leg, sir. You’ve been to the forest plenty of times. There’s nothing there but trees and critters! You know that.”

Betty nods.

“Aliens are just stories for kids.”

“We dreamed that whole thing about the UFO,” I said. “Or maybe we were lying. In any case, we are going out for a bit, for reasons unrelated to aliens.”

As I unlatched the door and opened it, Frank’s dad grabbed me by the shirt.

“You little brat!” he shouted.

Frank looked embarrassed, and put a hand on his dad’s forearm.

“Let him go. He didn’t do anything.”

His dad couldn’t face his son’s embarrassment, and hung his head low, but his face remained red and angry. As he stared at the ground, a tear dropped from his eye.

“Sorry, Mr. Haimer,” I said.

“My name is Paul,” Frank’s dad grumbled. “Don’t call me Mr. Haimer.”

“Okay, Paul. But you don’t have to worry about us. Betty and I will be careful, we’ll take care of Frankie. I promise.”

Frank’s dad turned towards the living room, from which came a spirited play-by-play.

“Just make sure you guys don’t stay out too late,” the old man said over his shoulder.

“Yes sir, we won’t.”

Once we closed the front door behind us and we hurried out of the yard, we sighed in relief.

“Your dad has problems, Frank,” I said in a low voice.

Frank looked away.

“You don’t have to tell me that. And he’ll end up calling the police on us again.”

This Is Not a Good Story (Poetry)

On July 23, 2021June 22, 2023 By Jon UreñaIn Arte, Escritura, Inteligencia artificial1 Comment

The first time I saw her, a few days after she moved in,
My neighbor was standing on the landing late at night,
Frozen in the middle of opening her apartment door,
Staring up at the murky sky as if she wanted to scream.

For a few seconds I stood motionless
As the rain came down upon my head.
Then my neighbor lowered her gaze
At the stranger who gawked at her.

As I stared at her vacant, translucent eyes,
I imagined water running over ice floes.
Hers was a face painted on a doll
With nothing behind it except air.

Stunned, I bid her goodnight,
But she nodded in silence,
Let out an exhausted sigh,
Then walked into her apartment.

It started one day that we chatted
As we leaned on the railing of the landing
In front of the doors to our apartments,
While the wind chilled us with sudden gusts.
She wasn’t beautiful like the women on TV,
But she wasn’t at all like other girls.

She was my next door neighbor.
I would have been able to see into her room
If the wall between us were transparent.

My neighbor’s hair, like mine, was dark brown,
But her eyes were dry, hopeless,
As if she had been searching for a long time
Until she gave up.

I shared that I programmed websites,
But she asked me how I’d been feeling,
Alone in my tiny apartment
With only the TV and PC for company.

The loneliness I had bottled up inside myself,
Hidden deep within the folds of my mind,
Seemed suddenly exposed, raw,
And it burned through my skin.

“It is lonely, but I have my own life,”
I said hoarsely as I avoided her gaze.
I wasn’t happy, but the way I was living
Had been working out for me until then.

She waited until I dared to hold her gaze,
Then she offered a weary smile.
“Your bed must be hard and cold.
Do you also lie there and stare at the wall
As you wonder why you exist at all
In a world where everything turns to dust?”

As I returned home from the office,
The air smelled like autumn trees
And leaves yellowing under frosty skies.
Although the wind was blowing hard,
My neighbor looked down at me
From where she sat on the landing,
Her hands tucked into her armpits.
She seemed like a tiny, helpless thing
Trying desperately to conceal her pain.

On a different day, we sat side by side
On the grass of a nearby river embankment.
We watched the boats as they went by.
I could tell we were eager to open up,
But our lives were hard to explain
Even to ourselves.

I never managed to comprehend
That look she gave me from time to time.
I felt that her heart, like those eyes,
Had dried up and turned to stone.

“I’m just an ordinary, unimportant girl
Who is stuck with a dull, empty job.
I don’t think I’ve ever known what love means,
Or really cared about anybody else’s problems,
And we are enduring all of this
For no reason whatsoever.
What do we gain by tiring ourselves out
With so many silly endeavours?”

She could see through the lies and excuses
I told myself everyday to survive.
I tried convincing her she wasn’t alone anymore,
But her body stiffened, and her face went pallid.

“I miss many books on my shelf,
Which I haven’t read since elementary school.”
When, confused, I said I would buy them for her,
She let out a soft laugh that rang strangely loud,
Like the last gasp of some dying animal.
She turned and shuffled toward her home.
Cautiously, I followed her from far enough.

(My neighbor was right, of course.
Nothing in this life makes sense,
No one knows what tomorrow will bring,
Our happiness is short-lived, and so are we.)

After that time, we met almost every day.
We strolled slowly along or sat with a coffee,
And sometimes we watched online videos.
She became indispensable, and it scared me.

She showed me the old books on her shelf,
All worn and well used, stocked haphazardly,
Which she had read dozens of time over.
I borrowed some, and I soon found out
That someone had written them for us.

Many of the stories that my neighbor loved
Back when she was a carefree child growing up,
Those books she would have needed to share,
Most of them she lost along the way,
And many of their titles she forgot,
And a few of them won’t ever return in print,
But the memories remain fresh, bright, alive.

(Please, let these pages never be erased,
Let the memories saved here
Never disappear.)

We drank beer and talked until late at night.
She told me that she had tried everything
To feel better, but it hadn’t worked yet,
At least not very well.

She looked up at the night sky through the window
As she spoke at length about her loneliness,
How it waited under her skin
For any excuse to surface.

I liked protecting her feelings from the world,
So she wouldn’t feel ashamed nor isolated,
But I couldn’t erase that lonely look
Of someone drowning deep at sea.

We spent an afternoon in the park
Watching the autumn leaves fall
As the sky grew darker with clouds overhead.
My neighbor spoke about her mother,
Who left her by moving to a distant country,
After which her father was never the same again.

I witnessed her tears as they rolled down her cheeks.
Before she wiped them away, I reached out
And brushed them off with my fingertips.
The loneliness and desperation she contained
Were like a gas leak waiting for a match.

I hoped my touch might spark the explosion.
In her catharsis, something beautiful may happen,
Something new and real could come into being,
Just like the words that flowed from her lips,
Like the wind across ice floes on a frozen lake,
Leaving nothing in its wake.

My neighbor’s loneliness hurt more than mine did,
For it was hers that made her needlessly brave,
As if her life depended on facing her pain
And speaking honestly to me of it
Without caring what anyone thought of her.
We both agreed that we had nowhere else to turn,
And we embraced as the cold wind blew against us.

Instead of progressing in life, we were stuck
Pushing the walls of our small world together.
What awaited beyond was so big
That we lacked the strength to break out.

It felt more appropriate to reach
Through the gaps in the books we shared;
That emptiness inside both of us
Couldn’t be filled through our own words.

The walls of our cramped apartments were thin.
I listened to the sounds she made as she slept.
Even the slightest sigh, or breath she drew in,
They felt loud inside me as I lay awake in bed.

Her lips grew chapped, as did my fingers,
And we kept our hands warm inside our pockets.
Sometimes I found myself gazing at her mouth,
But I feared what would happen if we kissed.

We went out for karaoke and we sang softly.
We also ate sandwiches or sipped liquor.
The alcohol allowed us to laugh,
And also to grow much closer.

By now we often smiled in unison
As if our minds were connected by wires.
We could spend hours together
Without ever getting sick of each other.

The next day my neighbor woke up hungover,
And when she exited her apartment,
I was already sitting on the landing
Reading one of the books she had lent me.

I didn’t want to be hurt if I failed her now,
But I knew I couldn’t stand back anymore.
If my heart broke before hers did break,
Maybe it was best that way.

That night, we hid in my neighbor’s home.
Once she took off her faded shirt,
Her back looked almost translucent,
Naked and pale as the paper white sheets,
And I discovered the words written on her skin:
‘This is not a good story’.

(I dream of a woman whose tears are black
As ink spilled on snow white rice paper,
And who carries her burden of loss
Inside her all alone.)

I held her tight as we made love
While we listened to some old record.
Afterward we lay next to each other
And stared at the cracked ceiling.
Our breaths slowly grew shorter, quieter,
Then they seemed to stop entirely.

We remained perfectly still
And silent like stone.
We were floating there like ghosts
Caught somewhere outside of space and time.

She spoke of a black hole inside her heart,
Where everything she cared about had been sucked in,
Leaving only that void to consume her from within,
A hollow emptiness to which no one could give meaning.

I could tell she was crying,
So I hugged her tightly.
Her shoulders trembled
As her tears moistened my neck,
Shedding salty drops onto my collarbone,
Pouring her heart’s sorrow into me.

I held my neighbor’s slender body
Like I had wished to do for months.
I felt the soft, smooth warmth of every curve,
And how her breasts pressed against my chest.

Still, I barely heard her whisper,
“Our lives will end soon enough.
When it finally comes for me,
Please let my self continue
Through your hands and your thoughts.”

We awoke to an overcast, cold day
Like when my dad used to drive me to school.
It seemed so odd, lying beside this girl
While her face was turned towards mine
Instead of facing the wall or looking down
To be alone inside her secret world.

From then on, we slept together most nights,
Sometimes in our beds, and others on her couch.
We spent weekends watching television shows,
Listening to music we didn’t care for very much.
There were times when we had nothing to say
Except for anything related to the past, or work.

(Some days she lacked the strength to get up.
She would lie in bed from morning to night,
And whispered words over and over to no one
Or wept silently until she fell asleep.
Each time the waves of grief swept over her,
I wondered if the tide would take her away.)

We decided to move to a small apartment
With a home office for my job,
And empty space for her father’s stuff.
We found a cheap place in a town close by.
The landlord liked our faces,
So we didn’t have to offer references.

On a Sunday evening, after we exited a movie theater,
My neighbor talked about getting married some day.

(The black hole in her chest
Had continued growing stronger,
And she admitted that she feared
That one day it would swallow her up.)

Her dark hair fluttered lightly behind us
While the rising sunlight reflected off the puddles.
I held on to her hand tightly and I stared up ahead
As the light of a new day spread its glow across us.

All the desires I harbored became so clear
That they overwhelmed me with their beauty,
Transforming this world into an endless mirage
Within which we floated between joy and sadness.

(I wish I could find my old books again,
To take them with me everywhere I go.
Every time I close my eyes at night,
All I can see is her back as she turns away.)

We could spend a whole day
Holding each other like two children might.
I had never felt at home with anyone before,
And I feared that it would collapse if I let go.

I think my neighbor and I became happier
After we got engaged.
We got married in the city hall
In front of ghost guests,
A large crowd.

(Every single morning, when I wake up,
My heart is heavy, my mind foggy with despair,
And I grow even colder whenever I believe
That I can hear her footsteps approaching me.)

My head filled up with dreams to fulfill
In this city that seemed too big,
In a place full of all sorts of new stuff I needed,
In a world in which I now wanted to stay.

I couldn’t take away her look of loneliness,
Of having spent her entire existence,
Since birth, as an isolated creature,
And knowing that her loneliness
Was a natural law.

(Sometimes my body freezes abruptly,
As if a black cloud has descended upon me
To suck out every breath and consume me.
I’m thrown into the water at the edge of a whirlpool.
All the people I care about are swept away
Alongside the debris from the broken shipwrecked hull.
Then I hear my next door neighbor whisper,
“Let us disappear, please.”)

I never got used to the fear
That threatened to overwhelm me
Whenever I got a glimpse
Of the words written on her back.

That sentence would surface and resurface
In the corners of my neighbor’s sight.
Whenever I could read them in her vacant gaze,
She would stare at me,
Or right through me,
As if asking,
“Why are we still this lonely?”

The only way for me to cope was with words,
Or by pretending that I didn’t notice
How she disappeared further inside herself.
To fill that void within her,
We tried to live normal, boring lives,
Drifting along without any particular goal,
Just like our neighbors did.

(If I drown now, it won’t be for long.
The world will stop spinning,
It will stop and it will go dark
Like the ocean does at night
When everything becomes still and silent,
Nothing moving except the surface ripples
Of waves from far away.)

The world around us slowly moved on,
And I can’t describe what went on inside my head.
Maybe I was trying to hold onto a solid ledge,
And everything of which I could make sense.

The last time I saw her, she walked down the hallway,
And then beyond the entrance of our home.
Her fading footsteps didn’t sound like they belonged
To a young woman anymore.

	LudoForge #4 –… on LudoForge #3
	LudoForge #3 –… on LudoForge #2
	LudoForge #2 –… on LudoForge #1
	Living Narrative Eng… on Living Narrative Engine #…
	Living Narrative Eng… on Living Narrative Engine #…

The Domains of the Emperor Owl

Tag: GPT-J-6B