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I want to squeeze the external hard drive between my thighs and rub my pussy with it until my leaking juices ruin its internal electronics, but instead I open the drive in the Explorer window and check the contents. When I read the name of the second folder, I do a double take. Why would there be a folder named ‘Misc’ next to the one that contains all the videos that Jacqueline filmed of us?

I open the extraneous folder. The window displays MKV files labelled from one to eight. As the operating system generates their thumbnails, they reveal that the videos feature naked women other than Jacqueline and I. They seem to be pleasuring themselves.

I double-click on the first one. I’ve barely registered the stranger’s long locks of buttery blond hair when I realize that I’ve lain on the same flamingo pink comforter.

I feel a small earthquake in my gut. My blood runs cold while I gawk at the video, unable to register the woman’s languorous movements except as the random shifting of colored shapes.

Why would this woman have been masturbating on camera in Jacqueline’s bedroom? No, I already know my girlfriend has fucked through the equivalent population of an entire apartment building, or neighborhood, or city. She’s an omnivorous sexual beast who thrives on the pleasures of the flesh. But why would she include the videos of those people in the external hard drive she intended to give me? She must have copied the folder deliberately; she named it in relation to the one that contains the videos she recorded of us fucking.

My stomach tightens with dread. Was Jacqueline trying to hurt me, to humiliate me?

I pause the video, then I roll my chair back and take a deep breath. Tomorrow, when I meet my beloved again, she’ll bring up the contents of her external hard drive, even the videos she included of other women. I suspect that she’ll ask me if I enjoyed them. My girlfriend wanted me to watch, so I’ll have to endure my jealousy and go through the recordings.

I restart the video and focus on the screen. This blonde, possibly of Swedish descent, belongs on a Californian beach from back in the seventies. Her tanned skin gleams in the soft lighting. She’s lying on her back while she strokes her long, sand beige legs, then she moves her hands up to her chest and fondles her breasts. She rubs between her fingers the pink nipples that poke out from her pink-brown areolas.

I hear myself breathing hard as I stare at those swaying tits. I imagine her sensitive little nubs bursting with pleasure as she squeezes and pinches them.

The blonde slides her legs apart, displaying her shaved, honey-colored pussy. As her fingers circle the clit, she reminds me of a cat rubbing her whiskers with her paws. Her head lolls back for a while, then she gazes up at the camera through half-lidded eyes. She licks a corner of her mouth in a twisted smile as she spreads her swollen, moist labia for the audience.

The rest of the clip consists of the blonde in a trance, arching her back, grunting and producing swishing sounds as she fingers her pussy. The way her crotch has been dripping onto the comforter, widening a darkened patch, makes me wonder how many women’s fluids that fabric has absorbed.

I close the video, then rub my eyes with my palms. My skin has heated, a drop of sweat is rolling down my back, and my crotch is tuned to white noise. I’m running a fever that only an orgasm can cure. I’d also like to eat chocolate ice cream.

I attempt to breathe through my nose, but it takes me a few seconds to calm down. Are women like this Swedish blonde the kind of supermodels that Jacqueline got used to fucking? Compared to that babe, I’m a runt. Her curves are the stuff of legends, while my body looks at best like the result of shoddy genetic engineering. I can’t compete with such women. I don’t even want to compare myself to them, it hurts too much. I’m just a simple spinster with simple needs: I like breasts. Big, round, juicy breasts with pointy nipples. I want to grab them, fondle them, suck them. I want to sink my face between two colossal mounds of tit-flesh, then squeeze them together so their milk gushes into my mouth until my stomach bursts.

In the second video, someone has shifted the camera tripod closer to the headboard of Jacqueline’s bed, to focus on the upper half of an Asian woman’s body. She’s lounging back against a collection of fluffy, faux fur pillows. The turquoise one held my head during my first date with Jacqueline, when I lay sideways on her lap.

I’m admiring the woman’s glossy, dark black hair, gathered in two loose ponytails that cascade down her naked chest. Her breasts are small and firm, but they stand out like two exotic fruits.

She laughs, which startles me. She grins as she speaks to someone behind and a bit beside the camera.

“Oh yeah, I love to watch them squirm,” she says in Spanish.

Although she keeps talking, I can barely retain the words, as if I caught part of a familiar song on the radio but I would need a long moment to recognize it. I must have missed some context, because the woman is relating eating broccoli to anal sex.

She bends over and reaches towards the center of the mattress. Her fingernails are painted a shiny wine red. When she lies back on the pillows, she’s wielding a wand-like device. She turns it on so it vibrates, then she cycles through the settings until the massager buzzes in an alternating pattern.

As if someone had asked a question, the woman smirks and answers that she’ll have to cut it off in twenty minutes, because she has left potatoes cooking in the oven. She shifts her ass further up on the mattress, revealing a dense nest of pubic hair. She grabs a bottle of lube from the nightstand, then she opens the cap and squirts a dollop onto the head of her massager.

My palms have turned clammy, and my nipples are growing erect. I fast forward through the video; I fear that Jacqueline will appear and join this Asian streamer that is hotter and more confident than me. Thankfully, the remainder of the clip consists of the woman chatting with her audience, or writhing in pleasure as the vibrator glides around her erogenous zones.

I get off my chair and pace around the office to calm down. My warm pussy is aching for attention; this must be the longest that I’ve stared at videos of such attractive ladies without pleasuring myself. I shan’t allow them to seduce me.

Once I dare to sit down and continue torturing myself, I double-click on the third video. A girl, whose body only technically could belong to an eighteen-year-old, is lying on a lemonade pink quilt, a familiar one that features unicorns in a variety of energetic poses, drawn like they would appear in a storybook. Her smooth, pearl white skin spattered with freckles clashes with her wavy mane of copper hair. The cluster of tiny brown spots across her cheeks would by themselves make her heart-shaped face look flushed. As the only garment she’s wearing, she has enveloped the lower half of her slender legs in knee-high, striped socks, that are white and hot pink.

Lost in pleasure, the girl is biting her round lower lip or releasing high-pitched moans. A trickle of drool dribbles from a corner of her mouth. Her nipples are hard little stones. Her ass twitches as she heaves herself with the heels of her feet, arching her hips off the mattress, to ram a candy red, jelly dildo into her drenched pussy, making squelching sounds, smearing her juices across her thighs.

Although the wall behind the bed is covered in a green screen that, through computerized magic, has been turned into the bedroom of some debauched duchess, the quilt alone reveals that this video was recorded in Jacqueline’s spare bedroom. I can’t hold that thought; I’m transfixed by how the girl’s coastal cartilages and her abs protrude from her slim tummy as she wriggles and breathes raggedly.

The girl leers sideways at the camera. When she parts her lips, a curtain of saliva slides to a corner of her mouth.

“So fucking good,” she purrs. Her breath is coming in gasps. “I think I’m gonna cum. Don’t you wanna see me cum?”

A drop of sweat slips into my eye, irritating it, and I realize that my right hand has pushed into my panties and is sinking two fingers into my soaked hole. My heart is racing, my legs are shaking. This girl is a goddess of porn: beautiful enough to make me nauseous, so depraved that my clit throbs.

“Wh-what should I do?” I mumble.

The girl smirks as a glob of saliva dangles from her lower lip.

“Whatever you want! Suck your own tits. Finger your ass. It’s all you, baby girl.”

I whimper. The musky scent of my arousal is driving me wild. My pussy is squeezing hard enough to cut off circulation to my two fingers and turn them necrotic.

The girl moans and gasps. Her glazed eyes are rolling back. Her clit has become a bumped-up nub: hard and distended and sticking up. As she thrusts the dildo inside her, the squelches of her pussy and her juices mingle into a muddled, wet sound.

“Yes, keep playing with yourself until I cum. Oh, fuck! I wanna see your fingers in your pussy while I cum on my dildo!”

Her intoxicating voice turns a light switch on in my brain. I’m aware of every quantum of the electricity coursing through my body and of the blood pumping through my heart. The hair on my nape is bristling, my free hand is gripping the edge of my seat. A drop of sweat slides from my nose and lands on the girl’s open lips, a glistening bead that her tongue lazily sucks into her mouth.

Jacqueline must have made a million euros solely from this lady’s videos, whose pussy I’d love to bury my face in. I’d probably lick her asshole too. I wish I could be an astronaut instead of such a pervert, but I can’t get myself out of this mess.

The girl pumps the dildo faster and faster in a jerky rhythm. Her eyelids flutter, she lets out little groans of pleasure. Her face morphs into an expression reminiscent of a bucking horse.

I’ve lost all sensation in the fingers of my right hand. My pussy has sucked it in up to my wrist, stretching my insides into a tangle, and keeps inching toward the elbow. I feel like my waist is being torn in half.

The girl’s moans and groans have escalated into wails. Her whole body shudders and contorts, and her muscles contract in spasms, as she releases the pent-up pressure by spraying her girl-cum all over her thighs. The hot, acidic fluid dissolves the skin of her inner thighs, that ooze blood. She gasps for air as the spasms of her orgasm keep wracking her body. Her wails transform into gurgling sounds, her eyes turn pitch black. The girl rolls her head back, and from her open mouth gushes a torrent of semen that paints her face and hair daisy white.

Panicked, I yank my right hand back, and with its wet index finger I push the button that turns the monitor off. I jump to my feet then stagger away from the desk. I make the mistake of closing my eyes; the girl is out cold, lying in a pool of bubbling cum, her neck twisted. If I killed this maiden with my maladroit masturbation, I’ll never forgive myself.

I’m drenched in sweat, my heart is beating in my throat, and my nostrils dilate with the deep breaths I’m forced to take. I stare down at my small hand, its slim wrist and thin fingers coated in juice. I rub my sore digits to stimulate them lest they grow more numb and fall off.

Am I in a pimp-fucking, pimp-dating situation? Did Jacqueline convince these women, and girls, to come to her apartment and masturbate so she could take a cut of the profits by selling the videos online? With such goods, no wonder she could afford to move to a quiet neighborhood in the hills of Donostia. She can probably afford to buy Luxembourg.

Did Jacqueline share the videos with me because she sought my approval? Does she want an accomplice?

I wipe the juice from my fingers on the backrest of Jordi’s chair. I need a break, and a shower. I want to crawl into a large, comfortable bed, but I’m far from any home.

I’ll buy a sandwich from the vending machine and leave the building for some cold air. Maybe I’ll forget about Californian blondes, haunting Asian beauties, redheaded teens, and monster-sized jelly dildos.

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Author’s note: I’ve listened to Nine Inch Nails as I wrote part of this chapter, that turned out to be maybe the most sexually explicit of all the chapters I’ve ever written, which is saying a lot for me.

Yesterday I was forced to remember that I was shat out into this shitshow exactly thirty seven years ago. Naturally I spent the entire day bummed out. I went out to print some dividers for the Marvel Champions card game, then I forgot to take back the pen drive from the store. I tend to forget everything if I don’t write it down or attach it to my body somehow; my brain doesn’t work very well. Then I sat at a coffee shop and studied for an hour or so, because I have to pass a heavy public examination in a few months that will determine if they’ll keep calling me to work. Not that I want to work, but you know how it is.

I’m enjoying Marvel Champions quite a lot. Far less mathsy and punishing than the Lord of the Rings LCG, and less infused with dread and chaos than the Arkham Horror LCG (AH used to be my favorite, but I grew to dislike the way you constantly feel like you’re treading water. Besides, if you leave a campaign for a while and then return, you feel lost). Marvel Champions, their third LCG, takes the best parts of both games and streamlines the general experience. They also decided to add plenty of particular cards for each hero, which gives them a lot of personality. I’m not a big fan of superheroes, particularly what Disney is doing to Marvel as part of the overall marxification of Western culture, but it’s still about superpowered people punishing bad guys, which is cool.

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A stone with jagged edges has lodged in my throat, but I manage to let some words tumble out.

“Anyway, why am I in the office at this hour…?”

Ah, I was supposed to wrap up a couple of tickets. What a drag!

I swig down the rest of the bitter latte, and as I return to my workstation, I drop the cup into the trash can. I plump down on my chair. I switch from YouTube to Visual Studio Code, then I scroll to the unfinished Angular function I was working on before the regular workday ended.

My monitor’s light becomes the only illumination in the office as the night descends on Donostia, and presumably on the rest of the country.

My concentration has gotten increasingly cloudier. I’m stuck in a portion of the code. I arch my back and stretch my arms over my head. When I open my eyes, my gaze rests on the external hard drive that I hid under the screen. Did Jacqueline cram in there all the recordings she took of us having sex?

As I stare at the black, flattened cuboid with rounded corners, my breath thickens and my heart starts pounding harder. Why am I wasting my time programming when I could be watching Jacqueline and I fuck?

I jump in my chair and hurry to connect the hard drive to the computer. Its screen shows that the drive contains two folders: one named ‘Us’ and the other named ‘Misc’. Inside the ‘Us’ folder I find a dozen MKV files identified by the date and the camera that filmed them, referred to as Camera A and Camera B. I won’t tarnish the recordings by playing them on Windows Media Player, so I download VLC.

I take a deep breath, then I double-click on the first video, recorded during our first date. In the center of the frame, the ass that belongs to my past self is sinking into Jacqueline’s flamingo pink comforter. I’m wearing the garment I bought for the date: a high-waist, tiered dress with puffed sleeves and a green floral pattern. On the edge of its square neckline, resting against my pale skin, the brass medallion glints in the white ring lights that the cameras were staring through.

I’d like to say that the woman in the video looks like a virginal maiden who spent her whole youth secluded in an attic only to be rescued by a loving, sexy mommy, but my past self seems dazed, almost drugged-out. Those sunken eyes are underlined with puffy circles, the result of a lifetime of stress and terrible sleeping habits. The four puncture wounds from the fork I plunged into my neck stand out as if I were flaunting them.

I cringe. Who could find such a wretch attractive? And why is she licking her wet lips lasciviously? Was I ogling Jacqueline’s tits?

I checked out the video to get horny, but this resembles the recording of a therapy session at some psychiatric hospital. It will end with the flesh of my past self bruised and cut up, covered in dirt and semen.

I jump to a position much further ahead in the video. My past, naked self is lying sideways on Jacqueline’s lap. She has covered her thighs with a turquoise toss pillow so I would rest on it, but at the moment my beloved is holding the back of my head while I suck on her right breast. The doughy tit-meat, that shines with sweat and saliva, is bulging against my cheeks. With my face buried in the fleshy mass, I couldn’t notice back then that Jacqueline’s narrowed, alluring eyes observed me lovingly as she massaged my scalp with a slow, circular motion.

“You look so relaxed, Leire,” Jacqueline coos. “Like a baby about to fall asleep. But not just any baby, my very own little Leire. You are the best breast-sucker, you know that? I’ve never seen a woman suck a pair of tits with such dedication. Have your fill until you are satisfied.”

My heart is about to burst out of my chest. My past self continues to suck Jacqueline’s titty trying to extract every bit of sweetness from it. She slurps with an insistent, urgent sound, like the crackling of a fire.

From that first date of ours, I remember the exertion of my tongue’s movement, the hard nipple’s protrusion into my mouth, and the little noises that vibrated through Jacqueline’s chest as she breathed deeply. After I close my eyes, I can recreate in my mind how it felt to trace the wrinkles and bumps of her hardened areola with the tip of my tongue. I experience the intoxicating contact of her warm hand as she caresses my neck.

“Your mother couldn’t protect you from this wicked world, baby,” Jacqueline croons in a pitying tone. “But I can, and you will let me. You know why? Because I’m the only person that can save you. I will help you. I will heal your wounds and wash away your tears.”

I take a deep breath, inhaling the sweaty scent of her breast.

“I can’t stand to be here anymore,” I mumble against her hardened nub. “I don’t deserve to be alive. My whole life is a lie, it’s been a lie from the beginning.”

Jacqueline sighs. She slides her left hand up along my thigh, then she squeezes a handful of my butt cheek.

“Oh, baby. You are not sick, you are not weak. You are simply a victim of a world that is not ready for you yet. I will teach you how to become what you want to be.”

I’m about to drool, so I swallow the excess saliva. I need to loop my arms and legs around Jacqueline’s warm, solid body again, and while I hold on tight, some helpful soul should weld my skin to hers with a blowtorch.

“Leire, I know about your life,” Jacqueline says in an ominous tone. “Your parents were clueless, but they did the best they could with someone as rotten as you. And that makes you angry, doesn’t it? To know that the couple that gave birth to you were so stupid. You think they should have been able to see what was coming for you. You are angry at them for their incompetence, and at yourself for having been born worthless. I understand. You feel ashamed that you can’t blame your parents entirely because your life turned out to be shit, but they are as guilty of their own weakness and ignorance as you are of your endless cowardice. We all have been forced to play the roles that our parents decided for us, but do you intend to hold on to that role for the rest of your life?”

I can’t read her face because she’s embracing me tight. I’ve turned squishy in her arms, and she seems to enjoy my trembling: she’s swaying with me like we’re dancing.

“If you don’t want to be the timid, sickly little girl that your parents made of you,” Jacqueline adds, “then I’ll become your mommy. I will help you get your revenge. You will learn to use your tits and your cunt as weapons that can defeat and even castrate your enemies. I will show you how to seduce your father so that you can destroy him for ever putting his dick into your mother and making you into this pathetic creature. I will show you how to fuck your brother so that he’ll feel powerless against you. You can flaunt those beautiful, sexy assets to humiliate your sister in order to drive her away from you forever. You will learn to weaponize your body to cause the suffering that otherwise people would have inflicted upon you.”

I groan, then I cough to clear my dry throat.

“What the fuck am I doing?” I wonder out loud.

When I open my eyes, the video version of my beloved has slid a finger down the crease of a pussy that during that first date entirely belonged to me. I need to feel an echo of Jacqueline’s fingers plunging in and out of my human frame.

I lift my ass off the chair to pull down my trousers, and as I ease my panties down, I feel the fabric stretch at the top of my ass crack. My pussy breathes free like it has so many times during my self-imposed overtimes. I smile, savoring the sensation. I can almost taste the orgasm that for a few blissful seconds will blind me and wipe out my thoughts.

My past self clenches her thighs around Jacqueline’s wet hand as she strokes my clit. Her cobalt blues are glimmering like a pool of dark water. An orgasm builds up in the collection of cells I inhabited back then, and the whole frame quivers and twitches as if in the throes of a seizure.

I’m imitating Jacqueline’s caress with my right hand. My free hand moves up and down my chest, mashing my tits together so they spill into a mounding mass. But when the monitor’s speaker plays my recorded moans, orgasmic cries like the dying breaths of a wounded beast, a jolt akin to an electric surge shoots up my spine. I hit the space bar to stop the video.

I stare unblinkingly at the frozen picture while a bead of sweat rolls down my forehead and my heartbeat dies down. I sit upright and rub my face. For a moment I fear that over the background hum of the computer I’ll hear someone else’s breath as that person, likely a guy, stands close, watching me.

I can hardly stand these warm pangs of guilt and regret. I’m a disgusting, shameless slut. I’ve turned into my mother.

A few seconds of reflection would have been enough for me to realize how far I’ve gone and how low I’ve sunk. Although I feel Jacqueline’s absence like I lost a limb, how did I dare to disrespect her by chasing with my fingers the fleeting heaven to which she sent me effortlessly with hers? I should be saving myself until tomorrow, when I’ll get to snuggle in her arms like a doll. Besides, I stuck around at the office to work overtime, not masturbate.

I pull my trousers up, then I shake my head and slap my cheeks to get rid of the warm-blooded stains of my arousal. After I switch to Visual Studio Code, I try to concentrate on the blinking cursor at the end of an instruction. I’ll transform my brain into a code-colored jellyfish and save this afternoon from my desperate thoughts.

I type quickly to elicit the fabled flow state from my discombobulated subconscious. When I program, I become the captain of my ship, which I steer away from the rocks of runtime exceptions and from the infinite horizon of the programming sea, where no ship has ever dared to venture. It’s been a long voyage, and I’ve gained plenty of experience along with my shipmates: the compilers and debuggers. The virtual machine also helps, I suppose.

I make the latest unit test pass and move to committing the changes to the repository.

“Commit?” my programming soulmate, Git, prompts me after I type my commit message. “I’m a sea creature that needs a port of call to rest in.”

I take a deep breath as I revise the commit message; my pig boss snoops on these. But I delete it and write a new message: ‘I’m a sea creature that needs a port of call to rest in’. I like the sound of that. Romantic. If I had come up with that line, I’d have used ‘seal’ instead of ‘sea’, due to the sexual connotations, but Git, who’s a kind of sea creature himself, knows best in this domain.

“What’s a port of call anyway?” I ask.

Git looks at me quizzically, widening his opaque, obsidian black eyes, as if he were contemplating this question for the first time. He laughs and crosses his arms over his belly.

“A port is a place where ships dock, where they can unload the goods they brought from faraway lands. When a ship is docked at a port, it’s safe from storms, and the crew can rest until they sail again.”

“I’ve figured out my port of call, then. My current destination is unexpected masturbation.” I sigh. “My masturbatory habits have gotten in the way of my work. What should I do about that, Git, old pal? I’m desperate for relief.”

Git strokes his scaly chin. I always abhorred the odd texture of his outer covering; it’s made out of scales of different colors and sources stacked on top of each other. In truth, his scales must be made from the fabric of the seabed. The ones on his chin are a soft white that jazzes up to a sky blue towards the edges. When he furrows his brow, his scales darken and thicken until they become black as night, making his face look like a hole caulked with teeth. But what can I say? I must accept Git as he is, for as far as I know he lacks any human ancestors, and can’t die no matter how many stones I throw at him.

Git holds his claws out.

“I recommend that you turn yourself into a sea creature.”

I grimace, then I consider his wisdom. After all, some quality of water makes me feel like it will ease my throbbing clit, and that’s exactly what I need right now.

“Alright, what kinds should I consider? Octopuses? Merfolk? Turtles? Sharks?”

“If you turn yourself into a seaman, your masturbation will become the ship’s port of call, and your rest will be its destination.”

“You make some sense. But can’t I become a seawoman instead? Don’t they have the most magnificent breasts?”

Git scowls as if he was chewing on grit, making his face look like a puckered orifice.

“I’m afraid that won’t work logistically.”

Crap. I had already warmed up to such a wild future.

“How about octopuses? They’re awesome, they have eight arms. You could combine four octopuses together, which would give you an octopus with twenty eight arms.”

Git smacks his lips disdainfully.

“If you ask me, octopuses are only suitable for scaring young children and arousing people with a fetish for tentacle rape. Besides, octopuses mate with the rhythm of the waves, and the only way to stop them is by shaking a rock into their den. They’ll never learn to master their urges like humans.”

I should shake a rock against my clit. It’s worth a try to relieve myself from my unending horniness.

“That doesn’t sound bad at all,” I say dreamily.

“Do you want to spend your whole existence trying to eat every other octopus you come across? In the octopus world, that’s a law, not a suggestion. I recommend you don’t become an octopus, woman.”

“Okay, how about octopuses with eight heads instead? That’s surely more than enough.”

Git furrows his scaly brow.

“Octopuses don’t even have two heads. Look, I don’t know what you’re trying to say, but you aren’t making any sense.”

I give him a break. Git’s claws are made for scratching, not typing. He must harbor some serious resentment after a lifetime of dealing with that disability.

“So it’s back to masturbating, then? I have no chance of surviving in the middle of the ocean, that’s why my port of call is masturbation. It’s all I have to keep me sane.”

Git laughs. The mirthful sound echoes around my office like a rainstorm, and the way his body shakes makes his scales sparkle like in the time of the dinosaurs, when life was better and the air clearer.

“I’m afraid that masturbating when you are in a programming state of mind will lead to errors. You need to find a way to program without your brain being flooded with thoughts of pleasure.”

“Can you offer any advice unrelated to transforming myself into a sea creature?”

Git narrows his eyes as he gazes into the faraway horizon.

“You could masturbate on the train while you’re commuting home.”

“The train?”

“The one that takes you to your apartment in Irún.”

“Oh, I can’t do that! I hate crowds. People make me nauseous. Besides, I’ve had enough of being stared at or touched by human beings. The only person for whom I make an exception is Jacqueline.”

“Oh well.”

“Don’t get me wrong, I thank you for your advice, my dear Git! But I’d rather keep masturbating at the office than on the train.”

Git shrugs.

“As a sea creature, I’m not qualified to make the decision for you. Besides, the best place for masturbation is the ocean.”

I raise an eyebrow.

“The ocean? Are you serious?”

Git nods slowly as his expression turns wistful.

“Masturbation is in truth an oceanic activity. But if you want to explore such depths of pleasure, you first need to learn how to be at peace with the world.”

I attempt to picture a landlubber like myself achieving such a feat. Should people masturbate while swimming?

“Who am I kidding,” I mutter morosely. “I’ll never be at peace with the world anyway. I’ll have to figure out some other ways of exploring the depths of pleasure, so I’ll know what’s like to climax like a creature of the deep.”

I doubt Git paid attention to any of my words. His smile suggests he’s in a reverie involving underwater masturbation.

“Often you even come across an unexpected friend,” he blurts out.

I frown, unsure of what he’s implying.

“Are there unexpected friends for unexpected masturbation?”

“Indeed. Whales!”

I envision myself rubbing my clit while sinking in the blue. Suddenly, a whale’s gravitational pull makes me flounder about in the churning water. The whale’s massive head emerges from the darkness. I struggle to swim away, but a whale doesn’t let go of a human it sees as prey. It just keeps laughing at you while you get sucked into its gargantuan maw.

“I don’t want whales!” I cry out.

Startled, Git draws his head back.

“Why?”

“I-I don’t like their eyes.”

Git stares at me for a few seconds, then he nods sagely.

“If you are afraid of cetaceans, I can give you a stick to scare the whales away. It has the ability to shoot waves.”

“A stick?” I ask in disbelief. “Is that supposed to be a weapon? Do you mean a gun?”

“It’s a wave stick. Anyway, when you’re at your most vulnerable in the midst of your usual masturbation routine, close to the moment of release, that’s when you’ll discover your unforeseen friends.”

After I shiver from head to toe, I bury my face in my hands and take a deep breath.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about. I think I’m done with the fucking ocean, thank you very much! But clarify this for me: the world’s largest mammal is a whale with a penis, right?”

“A sperm whale, yes.”

“Alright, moving on. I was supposed to commit my recent changes and push them to the repository.”

“Indeed. This is the moment of release.”

My face is flushed as the blood rushes to my cheeks. I imagine a sperm whale leering at my breasts, inching ever closer to licking my nipples. I shake my head to break the spell.

“Will you help me or not, Git?” I ask in quavering voice.

His lips curl into a satisfied smile as the smell of his body oil wafts towards my nose.

“Do you want to commit in the future or do you want to commit in the past?”

I hold my breath, then I let it out in an exasperated breath.

“Past, obviously! Way before I was born.”

Git nods, then he stretches his back in a dramatic pose.

“Done! Congratulations!”

My muscles relax. I’ve survived another nightmare. I want to hug him, but I restrain myself; his serrated scales are covered in a layer of fish-smelling oil.

“Thank you, Git. You’re a true lifesaver.”

Git beams, flaunting his pointed teeth.

“Glad I could help. A human with so much potential deserves to reach the surface.”

“You could help me a lot more, though. Your wisdom is invaluable.”

“You’re being polite,” Git says as he rubs absentmindedly the oil off some scales of his arm. “I’m a sea creature. I know very little about human problems.”

“I’ve long ceased to be a human being,” I say somberly. “I’m merely a programmer who often needs to rest after her long and intense voyages. So thank you for being my home port.”

Git lowers his head, then he turns on his heels. The scales that cover his back show off a treasure trove of dents and marks. As he shambles away, I step forward and struggle to formulate an apology for the unforeseen hurt I’ve caused him, but he stops and looks over his scaly shoulder at me. A teary glow emanates from his obsidian black eyeball.

“I’ve never been to the ocean,” he says hoarsely.

I’m shocked by this revelation, and the depth of his trust in me.

“Neither have I. The closest I’ve come to the ocean is when my mother took me to the beach a few times in my childhood. That place was the end of the universe as far as I was concerned. And the only reason she brought me there was because I had to pee.”

Git smiles sadly, then he sighs.

“I hold out hope, though, that one day the two of us will taste that brine.”

My friend waves goodbye. As he leaves, his body shimmers with the ever-changing patterns of light on his oily scales.

I lean back in my chair and gaze at the screen, that displays my current commit: thirty or so lines changed in a couple of files. When I take a deep breath, the air tastes salty. An odor of rotting fish stings my nostrils.

I need to think about how to decouple the functions involved in asynchronous user authentication so I can write unit tests for them, but my brain refuses to cooperate. I roll my chair back and stretch my arms.

I should make my way to the bathroom and wash my face with cold water. Maybe I’ll splash some on my neck. I feel like a layer of sand is stuck to my feet.

When I open my eyes, my gaze rests on the external hard drive I hid under my monitor’s screen. Why am I wasting my time programming when I could be watching Jacqueline and I fuck?

---

Author’s note: I’ve been on a funky mood ever since my last contract ended. Mostly dazed, though. I should start studying for my public examination, but there’s too much writing to be done.

I may have been inspired to go on a tangent because I recently discovered Caroline Konstnar and her ‘The Jellyfish Song’. I’ve also enjoyed this unrelated skit as well as this sillier and shorter video.