• Previous part (22)
• Next part (24)

---

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“At s-six o’clock, right?”

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

“I’m looking forward to it.”

“I can tell, sweetie.”

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

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

* * *

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Are those perforation wounds?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

• Previous part (21)
• Next part (23)

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

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

---

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

***

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

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

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

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

***

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

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

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

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

• Previous part (20)
• Next part (22)

---

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I gasp at a sudden realization.

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

Jacqueline chuckles.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

• Previous part (19)
• Next part (21)

---

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

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

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

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

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

“W-well, I…”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I sigh.

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

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

“I-I’m not sure…”

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

“You create a teleport thing…?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

• Previous part (18)
• Next part (20)

---

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Leire, I–“

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Spike stammers as he blinks in confusion.

“Filming? What are you talking about?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

• Previous part (17)
• Next part (19)

---

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

• Previous part (16)
• Next part (18)

I think that from now on I will use this new format to increase the legibility of my prose. I should have been using it already, but I was concerned that formatting it back into its proper shape for an ebook would get too annoying. A somewhat idiotic concern, given that barely anyone has read my ebooks.

---

As I’m hunched over the table and perusing Python’s online documentation, a sudden racket coming from my sides disconcerts me. My coworkers Jordi and Jacqueline have stood up and are gathering their stuff to leave. My computer’s clock confirms that the workday has ended. Usually, my boss strutting out of his office at a quarter to five signals that the day’s torture is about to end, but I must have been so absorbed in programming that I missed it.

Someone switches off the radio that for the entire workday had tried to lift our spirits with its chirpy popular songs. I keep scrolling the documentation when Jordi bids me goodbye, but I feel Jacqueline towering behind me. As I turn my head to look over my shoulder, she applies pressure on my trapezius muscle with a pincer grip. Warmth spreads through my shoulders and neck.

“Are you coming?” Jacqueline asks in a mellifluous voice as she keeps massaging the tense muscle.

I lean my head back until the inverted version of my coworker’s narrowed, cobalt blue eyes stare into mine.

“Sorry, I’m working overtime today. I have to get familiar with this damn snake language, and write a whole bunch of tests…”

Jacqueline smacks her lips, then sighs.

“That’s too bad. I was looking forward to a long conversation in my car with you.”

She slides her warm hand between my jawline and scarf to caress my sensitive, moist skin, then she strokes my cheek softly as she lifts her hand away. A jolt runs down my spine and tingles spark in my lower stomach. I feel like a starving dog who smelled a steak cooking. When I recover, my heart is beating quickly and Jacqueline is walking away to catch up to Jordi, that was loitering near the open entrance. Jacqueline waves and smiles, but in a moment I find myself staring at a closed door.

I curl my toes and press my hands against my trembling thighs as I focus on regaining my composure. I can’t deal with my throbbing pussy now; unless I learn enough about Python’s updated features to assuage my nibbling suspicion that I won’t be able to complete my assignment, I will waste my whole weekend worrying. But that woman’s lingering warmth and scent has made me dizzy, and likely left a wet spot on my panties.

I shake my head and straighten my back. I’ll spend a couple of hours browsing the documentation, then I’ll rub one off and head to my lonely apartment for a good night’s sleep.

For the next five minutes I struggle to douse my dark desires; I imagine myself convincing Jacqueline to stay for at least an hour of overtime. I would lock the front door and shut the blinds tight. With only the slight possibility of being overheard and interrupted, I would kneel in front of that woman and bury my face in her soaked mound. Jacqueline would tremble and pant from my tongue’s intricate dance on her inner folds and that pink nubbin on top of her slit.

A sudden movement in the corner of my eye makes me look to my right by instinct. My boss is standing behind Jacqueline’s chair. He has pushed its seat under the table and is resting his hand on top of the backrest as he stares at me.

It takes me a couple of seconds to figure out that I haven’t been visited by a hallucination. I’m slouched as if I were melting, I’m scratching the inside of my right nostril with my index finger, and my face is likely offering the stupidest expression imaginable, the kind of dumbfounded gape that would make anyone ashamed of knowing me.

I jump in my chair.

“Ah, what the hell!”

Ramsés’ mustache widens in a satisfied smile as he holds up his right hand, palm out, in a placating gesture.

“I didn’t intend to startle you. Everyone picks their nose, you don’t have to worry about that.” His gaze slides down to my neck, and he raises an eyebrow. “What are those? Is that a wound?”

Shit, I had taken off my scarf because sweat had seeped into the fabric and my skin was itching. I rub the line of four healing puncture wounds on my neck as if I wondered how they got there. I’d prefer if he never found out about my craving for self-abuse.

“I must have gotten bitten by a couple of tiny vampires as I slept. But don’t worry about it!”

“Alright… In any case, I have stuck around because I intended to talk to you in private, Leire,” Ramsés says solemnly.

My mouth has dried up. My gaze falls down the gravity well of my boss’ crotch for long enough. The fabric of his creased, navy blue suit trousers is bulging where this bastard’s engorged, slimy cock pushes to break out. He has caught me unawares as I sat on my chair, my face aligned with the concealed mushroom head of his dick, which must be cursing the belt loop’s buckle and the fly’s zipper that are holding that monster captive.

I had only glimpsed for an instant, but when I look back up, I can’t mistake that lustful, domineering sneer, nor his drooling tongue nearly peeking out from his puffy lips. In a few seconds he’ll cup the back of my head and force me to taste his putrid saliva, a mix of cigarettes, rotting teeth and rancid meat cooked in oil.

“Regarding our talk,” Ramsés continues calmly, “back when you complained about the workload, I’ve given it some thought. I appreciate your contributions, Leire, and it’s about time I propose to you something that I’ve run by your coworkers, so you can take a step forward in life.”

Ramsés has spoken in a low voice filled with calculated intimidation, a tone meant to capture me in a trap of words. This man is a hypnotist who has ensnared many victims, someone whose power over people is based on a carefully crafted persona and a subtle mastery of body language.

My heartbeat has become a ticking bomb, seconds away from exploding and sending my blood spurting out of my arteries like a geyser of red hot lava. This man had waited to corner me until Jordi and Jacqueline left, so he could pounce freely on the isolated prey. That sheeny sweat that has coated his scalp under the thinning hair, and the dark, curved sickle shape of his eager mouth, scream that he has anticipated for a long time how he intended to ravish me.

But what kind of pervert would want a slobbering freak like me? Do I seem like some impressionable housewife that returned to the workforce only to be dazzled by the wealthy man that demands her obedience? I never manufactured situations such as my skirt getting bunched up above my waistline so my boss could catch a glimpse of my panties; a few times I even came wearing sweatpants because I didn’t bother to wash my usual outfits. I’m a low-status cockroach with abysmal self-esteem and a tendency to mumble and mutter to myself. Anyone interested in me must be a dangerous fetishist, possibly a serial killer.

“Leire, are you okay?” Ramsés asks, mocking my plight.

His dark, predatory eyes evidence that he had figured out that I’m a scared little mouse. This man could lift me and carry me under his stained armpit as if I were a child. How would I oppose him? Whatever muscles remained from exercising throughout my schooling years wasted away due to the neglectful diet to which I subjected my decaying body. Ramsés could force me into any sexual position he wished while his thick hands squeezed my breasts or his fingers probed between my legs. He must want to see me lying helplessly facedown in front of him, my ass exposed as if I were begging him not to use my anus or pussy as an ashtray. He could humiliate and degrade me at will while I cried out in pain, then he would frame the incident as nothing more than the clumsy bump of two bodies colliding during the struggle of everyday life. I might even resign myself to the assault and try to forget it, because involving the police feels embarrassing and bothersome.

Ramsés is staring down at me like a bloated king observing how ants crawl over his crown jewels. The insects multiply in his presence, they lay their eggs in his shadow and feed them to him as proof of their submission and loyalty toward a master of unlimited authority, a man of patience who can afford to wait until he gets his fill of a woman’s tears. Due to the ceaseless worship, this monster grows bigger day after day. He has anointed himself as a god in a world ruled only by beasts.

“P-propose what?” I ask in a thin, shrill voice.

Ramsés blinks twice, then tilts his head as if confused.

“Follow me and you’ll understand. This company of ours is special, and worth helping grow and prosper beyond imagination.”

He’s about to shove his fat dick in my mouth to make me choke on the filthy shaft, leaving me gasping for air, so my stomach ends up churning with his foul-smelling cum. As he steps forward and reaches for my hand, I roll the chair back abruptly, which causes me to elbow my notebook and two pens to the carpet.

“Oh, fuck no!” I blurt out as I hold my hands up to ward him off.

Ramsés’ smile drops, then he raises his mustache in a grimace of disbelief because I interrupted his victory plan. I bend over to pick up my notebook and pens. After I return my items to the desk, I take the opportunity to swivel my chair towards my PC and shake the mouse to wake the screen up.

“I-I had decided to work overtime because I wanted to advance my tasks at my leisure,” I gabble out with a nervous grin that barely lasts on my face, since the devil’s tongue has been planted deep inside my brain. “Sorry, sir, but you can’t lay something like that on me suddenly. I don’t handle change well, and I-I have to focus on what I’m doing.”

I’m breathing fast. I refuse to pry my gaze away from Visual Studio as I scroll through the lines of code, but I sense that my boss remains immobile. I can’t tell how many seconds pass until Ramsés clears his throat, then the soles of his expensive shoes squeak as he turns around.

“My bad,” he says, sounding flabbergasted. “I’ll approach you during the workday.”

Ramsés’ heavy footsteps echo as he walks away with measured strides. I hold my breath until the front door of the office closes slowly, as if my boss wanted to avoid startling me further. Silence descends upon the empty space left by the absence of that monster who tried to turn me into a sexual slave, who intends to spread his seed across all four corners of the Earth before he finally dies and is reduced from a man of infinite power to a mere corpse rotting away, likely buried in a grave right outside the gates of hell.

I exhale, relieved, but my heart pounds in my throat and I can’t stop trembling. When I manage to release some tension from my shoulders and neck, as my spine becomes less hunched and my head feels lighter, I hurry to the door, turn the deadbolt from inside with my spare key, then leave the key in the lock.

• Previous part (15)
• Next part (17)

---

Ramsés’ scalp shines over his forehead, where his hair has thinned down to a patchy layer of bristles, as he reviews on his screen the React dashboard I’ve delivered. My boss squeezes his lower lip and nods repeatedly.

“I see, so the summary lists the infringements of the loaded tachograph data, and the tooltips show the rules and regulations associated with each penalty applied. The tooltips are nested, too. A nice touch.”

“I made it so they disappear when the user moves the cursor out of the frame,” I add wearily. “If I forced them to click some part of the interface to close those tooltips, they are prone to get confused.”

Ramsés narrows his eyes at me as he purses his lips. At least for the length of this meeting, my work is worth paying for.

“I’ll play around with it for a while and then send it to the client for review, but I think this is done. Good job, Leire.”

I hadn’t bothered to sit down; the scarf coiled around my neck, as well as my tired eyes, should dissuade most people from wanting me close, so I get to stand a few feet behind the guest chair. Still, the cigarette smell from Ramsés’ breath lingers in the air.

Unless the client complains about minutiae that won’t take me long to change, I will get to resolve this ticket when I return to my workstation. As usual, instead of any sense of accomplishment or pride, I’m only rewarded with a relief similar to pulling out a wood splinter from under my nail, and I’m sure that I’ll receive a Service Manager notification with another assigned ticket by the end of the day.

I was about to turn around and leave my boss’ office when he points at his own neck as if he were the one wearing the scarf.

“Nothing contagious, I’m guessing,” he says.

“I doubt it. Just a simple cold. I got hit by cold gusts as I walked back home, and I had grown accustomed to the climatized interior of my car. Because, as I said, I can’t use that old Renault of mine any longer.”

Despite my weak voice, Ramsés must have interpreted in my words a rebuke of his previous suggestion that I had made up my car’s demise to arrive late on purpose, which as far as I’m concerned it only offered an insight into the devious workings of this man’s mind. Ramsés smirks and tilts his head.

“Maybe you have chosen to commute by train because you need to keep the excuse going, until likely next week when your car gets fixed, whether or not it was broken in the first place.”

I snap my head back as a grimace contorts my features, but I hurry to blow my nose before the opportunist snot runs down further down my face. Ramsés guffaws, which startles me, and he waves a hand dismissively.

“I’m just busting your balls, Leire. Good job with this dashboard, and come see me when you can show me anything solid of that Python contract, alright?”

I fake a smile and leave my boss’ office. As soon as I’m out of sight, my jaw clenches shut and I can’t lift my gaze from the worn carpet. How come whenever I speak with this guy, I end up wishing I could shove the business end of a shotgun in my mouth and pull the trigger? To be fair, I fantasize about self-termination several times on any given day, but Ramsés knows how to push the buttons that could easily lead to a fatal result. I wish he understood how much pain he causes me just by existing.

As I pass behind Jacqueline to sit at my workstation, I sense that she raises her head seeking my gaze.

“Everything alright?” she asks.

My chair creaks as I plop my ass in it. I fiddle with my notebook and pen to avoid turning my head towards Jacqueline. How long can I keep this up? I feel so pathetic and childish. I should face her and assure her that she won’t use me like a toy to bolster her ego. But my back hurts as if I pulled a muscle in my sleep, and I feel the mounting anxiety tingling at my fingertips.

It’s only a quarter past ten. I focus on the blinking cursor on Visual Studio Code, that awaits my input. I should lose myself in the pending tickets to forget about my delusions and weird obsessions, but I keep noticing every time Jacqueline shifts her weight in her chair, sighs or clears her throat. Has she pondered about our conversation? What does Jacqueline think about me after I skedaddled from her Audi because I was too weak to face that I had been caught fantasizing about her? Does she intend to mock me because I’m desperate for her to love me? Throughout Jacqueline’s life, she has likely obtained most of what she wished. She would never need someone like me. She’s definitely not interested in helping somebody overcome their despair through orgasmic release.

I can’t bear sharing this office with Jacqueline for more months, or years, so I will have to look for another job. Maybe they’ll hire me at one of those big corporations in which rows of anonymous programmers crammed into a cramped office maintain a decades-old legacy system, possibly written in COBOL or BASIC. Back in the day I interviewed for Ibermática, and I recall the HR employee telling me that they handled Kutxa’s banking service, as if I should be impressed. I dreamed of getting hired to implement cutting-edge neural networks, or maybe become a part of any local team that developed games using C++, but that dream faded away once I realized that nobody wants an unhinged loner as an employee who might send emails about fearing that she would stab herself with a fork due to stress. Ibermática did offer me a position, but I refused; I figured that if I worked at that corporation, I would get reduced to a nameless, deranged woman in her early twenties that for at least eight hours a day sat between fat slobs who hated their lives so much that they contemplated ending themselves via stabbing or hanging. Somehow I ended up becoming a slob who hates her life, but I remain skinny because I can’t cook for shit.

If I got lucky for once, I would get hired by some company that would tell me to sit at an isolated desk, facing a wall. I would only interact with my boss, who would hand over the design documents that I would get paid to implement. I would never register any other coworker’s face, so nobody would know me deeply enough to realize that I’m a perverted lunatic obsessed with masturbation as a means of overcoming my despair about my insignificance as a human being trapped within a brain filled with suicidal thoughts.

However, I know how working at any company would end: a random coworker, someone whose face I might not recognize, would catch me crying either in the bathroom or in the hallways, or I would suffer a breakdown that would involve me running out of the office while screaming that I want to die. What well-adjusted member of the workforce would want to deal with someone who might hurt themselves or others? At the most, a kindhearted boss would suggest that I see a psychiatrist, as if those people helped instead of just stealing my hard-earned money while using me as a guinea pig for their drugs. Eventually I would either get fired or they wouldn’t renew my contract.

During a pause in which I rub my eyelids and take a deep breath, my shoulders droop, and a foul sensation spreads through my gut. I feel like I’ve done nothing but suffer because of a curse placed upon me by the gods of the underworld during my birth, that I’ve only survived so far because I must amuse some sadistic demon from another dimension.

* * *

Eleven o’clock comes and goes. I’ve been aching for a coffee boost, but I suspect that Jacqueline expects me to offer meekly to buy her one, like I did yesterday. I intended for her to notice that I wouldn’t debase myself any longer, but neither of my coworkers have mentioned coffee. At ten past eleven I’ve had enough, so I spring to my feet and I stride to the entrance of our office.

I buy a cappuccino from the vending machine. I consider returning to the office and drinking it at my workstation, but I want a break from my coworkers, as well as from human beings in general, so I go outside into the sunlit streets. The day is bright despite a few thick clouds, but the cold turns my breath white when it escapes my lips.

I walk absentmindedly towards a nearby electrical box adjoined to a row of garbage bins. I end up stumbling, and nearly spilling my coffee, because I was about to stomp on a black bunny. No, not a bunny. As the dark creature hops and wobbles around on six legs, I realize that similar entities are hanging out near the garbage bins like kittens wandering close to where their mother left them. One such entity approaches my left sneaker. As it leans in, three holes dilate in a frontal blob, as if it were sniffing me. I hold my breath. I wouldn’t be surprised if half of the creature opened wide in a gaping mouth and chomped on my foot. Although I’m looking down wide-eyed at the creature, it remains blurry enough that I can’t make out the texture of its skin, as if it could blend into shadows when needed.

The creature was attempting to climb on top of my sneaker when the front door of the office building closes noisily. I find myself staring at Jacqueline, who is heading towards me while she nurses a warm cup of coffee with both hands. She’s wearing a velvet cardigan, smoke grey and with a slight sheen, over a low-cut, knee-length drape dress that seems made of satin. Her cleavage is deep enough that it displays the bridge of her bra, but I suppose that all that appetizing fatty tissue shields her against the cold. However, she is warming her long legs with black, translucent winter tights. She gifts me pink smile.
My neck trembles. I want to tear my gaze away, but with my coworker so close, I’d seem childish and weak. My heart has betrayed me as well by fluttering. I can’t deny to myself how much I want this woman, although it can only hurt me.

After she reaches me, she greets me warmly and exposes her white teeth again. A few strands of her gleaming, raven black hair fall across her forehead, covering her right eye with shadow. The sunlight accentuates her crow’s feet. I guess that at her age I won’t be able to disguise them either.

“You must want that cold to develop into pneumonia, huh?” Jacqueline says amiably.

I consider remaining silent, like back in high school when I pretended to be a mute, or I guess retarded enough, so those hormone-addled savages would leave me the fuck alone. I doubt I have progressed much since then. I sip my warm cappuccino as I squint.

“I have been always been drawn to self-destruction. But my snot is already drying up.”

The white steam of her breath wafts in my face. It smells minty and fresh. I imagine her sliding a breath mint from her wet tongue to mine.

Jacqueline’s gaze warms my cheek, and when I dare hold it, she narrows her eyes affectionately.

“You know it’s okay, right?” she asks quietly.

I gulp, then hang my head low. The creature that might have intended to bite off my foot has wobbled away towards the curb. On its way, it stops to avoid colliding with another of its kind that is headed for a trash bin. A few tentacle-like feelers stretch out of the mass of the first entity and wiggle as if to check for danger, but then it ventures forward.

I want to point the creatures out to Jacqueline, but I don’t know what would be worse for my mental health: another confirmation that my brain somehow hallucinates these abominations, or the realization that the people around me do see the creatures, but pay them as much attention as they would to doves.

I want to sit down on the sidewalk and hug my knees.

“Don’t you think… that the world has gotten strange lately?” I ask weakly while I take a deep breath.

Jacqueline lifts her face to the cold breeze, then she drinks half of her coffee.

“For sure. It’s never been more bizarre. It’s the good kind of weird, though. In many aspects, I’ve never been happier than nowadays.”

She smiles at me with a pearly white grin that reminds me too much of a vampire. I can’t tell what she means, and I feel too unhinged for cryptic talk.

“Well, that’s good for you, Jacqueline. But… what are we supposed to believe in anymore, when the most unlikely stuff suddenly becomes real?”

She chuckles. I avoid her gaze by looking straight ahead, but before I know it she’s standing in front, facing me. My eyes twitch. I can’t step back, because I was almost leaning against the wall.

“Your eyes are like saucers,” Jacqueline whispers. “So big, and round, and full of wonder.”

If Jacqueline stepped forward, her nose would brush mine. Her white, warm breath tickles my cheeks.

“I-I think that’s panic.”

“You should look up, and not just stare blindly, but really look. Up high, to the sky. Look beyond everything. What’s there, in the far distance, in the middle of the universe, is something incredible.”

“What the hell are you talking about…?”

“You shouldn’t feel ashamed because you have a crush on me,” Jacqueline adds in a reassuring tone.

She tilts her pretty chin at me with an air of mock seriousness and a knowing smirk. She must be aware that my heart is beating faster, and I wouldn’t be surprised if some sweat dribbled down my temples.

“Y-yeah…? I don’t have any control about whether or not I feel ashamed, nor can I control my infatuations.” I pause, because my throat is dry and squeaky. “All that’s left for me is to try and cope with reality as best as possible.”

I have admitted that I’m infatuated with Jacqueline, and I can’t take it back. My eyes risk getting watery. I want to run away from this business park, all the way down to the Lugaritz station, maybe to take a train to some city I have never stepped on and where nobody would think to look for me.

Jacqueline touches my free hand gently. My heart thumps and a warm sensation starts spreading throughout my body, but it feels invasive, as if the person who had cheated on me tried to get my sympathy. I pry my gaze away from her cobalt blue eyes and look down at the pavement instead. A few pieces of gum are stuck between the cracks of concrete slabs.

“For some people, getting touched is commonplace,” I say in a thin voice, “but for me it feels like a violation of my personal boundaries, and it does dangerous things. Don’t touch me if you don’t mean it.”

She strokes the length of my fingers, caressing the sensitive areas while her eyes twinkle with mischief.

“I can touch you then,” Jacqueline whispers.

This woman must have woken up today extra confident and relaxed due to the hard fucking that the tennis player gave her, and that deflates me; I wish Jacqueline belonged to me. She likely couldn’t care less about how she affects me when she flirts.

She tilts her coffee cup to gulp the rest of her latte, then she strokes my hand one last time before she lets go. She heads to the entrance of the building while her raven black hair swings with her steps.

I stand there as the October air cools the warmth that Jacqueline had imprinted on my skin. The aberrations I had mistaken for bunnies keep meandering between the garbage bins and the asphalt of the parking lot. They seem to enjoy their freedom to roam.

Jacqueline might have only used me to pump up her ego, but a fleeting moment of bliss can sustain me for the rest of the day in a similar way that abusing my clit does, even if it means fuck all.

• Previous part (14)
• Next part (16)

Note from the author: I’ve been recalled to work. Today I endured through the usual first day of every contract: I had only managed to sleep for about an hour, so I have spent a whole workday fighting against my drowsiness while navigating through the interactions with numerous coworkers who seemingly believe I must be doing great now that I’m back at the office. My IBS has acted up worse than usual; my gut has churned and burned for the entire morning, forcing me to sneak away to the bathroom like twelve times. I wish I could transfer my mind to a robot body, because this rotten corpse I inhabit has long reached its expiration date.

In any case, I have most of this novel planned out, and I intend to continue writing it until I finish, but I suspect that the periodicity of new entries will suffer, and possibly the quality of the texts as well. But I’m assuming that anyone is actually reading this stuff, that the few likes I get aren’t just people wanting to steer attention to their own sites. In any case, I need to write to escape from the waking nightmares.

---

Jacqueline’s licorice black mouth smiles at me as she stands with her back against a cliff, on a background of clouds that drift like cotton balls. Her gleaming hair flows gently down past her bare shoulders, and her breasts overflow from the cups of her sleeveless, lace nightgown. I can’t look away from her cobalt blue eyes as she steps closer and wraps her hands around my back, squeezing our chests together tightly. Her scent fills my nostrils: a mix of flowers and citrus and a hint of manly muskiness that she exudes from between her legs.

When her fingers dig into my back with a fierce grip between tender affection and painful pressure, it shoots an electric shock throughout my nervous system. I shudder. Her pouty lips brush against mine softly, but then she presses hard as she cups the back of my head and forces open my mouth with hers. Her tongue slips out of her wet mouth to share her saliva, and it tastes like lemon juice and sugar syrup.

Jacqueline pulls me towards her so we tumble backwards off the cliff. We fall together into a freezing abyss lined with razor-sharp rocks and jagged, unforgiving spikes made of crystal glass. Jacqueline protects me in her firm embrace, a cocoon which shields me from the spikes that lacerate her flesh, cutting through skin and muscle tissue, as we plunge deeper and deeper.

When we crash at the bottom, the impact sends huge chunks of dirt and rock flying everywhere. A landslide of rubble and debris buries us alive beneath tons of sand and soil and mud and gravel. An opaque darkness has engulfed me. My screams echo inside my head, but Jacqueline keeps holding me tightly as my lungs fill up with silt and grit, choking me slowly to death.

I wake up with a start. My face is drenched in sweat, my heart pounds like a steam engine in overdrive. As I catch my breath, I stare wide-eyed at the darkened ceiling of my bedroom. I roll over towards my nightstand to check my phone. Four in the morning, two hours before my alarm blares. Although my window is closed and I have rolled down the blinds, I hear the ruckus of a drunken fight coming from a nearby street, as well as a dog that barks incessantly.

I sit on the toilet to pee while I rub my face with a towel. At least it’s Friday, so I can look forward to lazing around until Monday comes and I start anew.

* * *

The sunrise has tinted the numerous clouds tangerine orange as I approach the parking lot of our two-story office building. My legs tingle from the laborious exercise that trudging all the way up to this business park represents for my neglected body, and every five minutes I have been blowing my runny nose. I’ve caught a cold, I guess because I only warmed myself with a hoodie when I trekked back home in a windy October day, but at least this nasty cold allows me to justify why a scarf hides my neck. Jacqueline would notice the line of four puncture wounds, and I intend to avoid my coworker for the foreseeable future.

The office waits empty for me, as it has always done when I arrive fifteen minutes before the workday starts. I only hear a muffled buzzing of electricity in the walls and cars passing by outside. After I sit at the long, porcelain white table, I switch on my computer and I think how much more comfortably, and productively, I would work if I didn’t have to share my space with other human beings. If most people felt as anxious as I do in the presence of others, we would likely work remotely and communicate only through email, which would deprive me of the opportunity to gaze upon some delicious pair of large breasts that would drag me down a spiral of lust and obsession.

As I blow my nose with my left hand and open Outlook with the other, Spike announces his arrival with an explosion of fetid air and an abrupt clatter of hooves. I glimpse at the reflection of his bulging, black eyes in my monitor. Drool is dribbling down his chin and hangs off his jawline with gravity and weighty significance.

“Good morning, you walking disaster,” I say in a hyponasal voice due to the blockage.

“Are you doing okay, Leire?”

I look over my shoulder. The horse is standing close enough that his breath, as pleasant as the effluvia emanating from rotting organic material in a landfill, warms my face. I sneeze. Although I have warmed up to this beast, I should remember that his ugliness is an infection that can contaminate healthy tissues like cancer cells, and no amount of medication would be able to relieve that pain.

“Is that why you decided to visit me so early in the morning? To check on me?”

Spike nods. An expression of deep concern passes across the horse’s grotesque features.

“I can’t help but worry about your health after what happened yesterday.”

“My brain feels like a balloon with a hole punched in it, but I will pull through, probably. Thank you in any case.”

“Good. I won’t insist anymore today, I think… You should take care of yourself and get better soon, then maybe we’ll go see a movie together, play a board game, or something.”

“That might as well happen.”

Spike turns towards the entrance on his hind legs, as carefully as if he were operating heavy machinery. His grey tail was swishing when the horse vanishes along with its stink into another dimension, whatever else is out there waiting to swallow us all whole if we don’t stay sane. I find myself smiling. The rotten recess of my brain that generates this abomination must care enough to want me to remain alive and functional despite everything. I could have sworn that at this point every cell in my body would be begging for the oblivion of death.

Jordi and Jacqueline telegraph their arrival by filling the office with their prattle, too loud for such an early hour. I straighten my back, although my shoulders get narrower by themselves as if I were about to walk in the rain. I should remember that I don’t get paid to interact with them. I will focus on programming through my tickets while avoiding any distraction.

Jordi is wearing another black and white outfit, as if every day he expected to be interviewed for a job as an assistant.

“That’s one bulky scarf,” he says while he sits down. “Ah, you caught a cold, it seems.”

Our friendly intern always tries his best. I can’t fault him for interacting with me although I’d prefer to be left alone. I force myself to hold his gaze and smile wanly.

“Yeah, I was used to how cozy it felt inside my car, at least when it refrained from trying to murder me like a rabid dog and instead just sat still and behaved itself.”

Jordi returns my smile as he takes off his glasses and cleans them with a handkerchief before putting them back on his thin face. His eyes are as red as fresh blood and glow with an inner fire despite being surrounded with a pallid mask of skin and flesh.

I can tell that Jacqueline has swiveled her chair towards me, because her gaze is piercing the back of my head, but I pretend that I have received an email that requires my full attention.

“Good morning, Leire,” Jacqueline says with her slight French accent.

Her cadence had relayed that she understands I’m avoiding her. Jacqueline should remain for me a shapely blob at the edge of my vision, even if I sacrifice gazing upon those motherly breasts ever again, so I won’t face her smirk and tilt of her chin up in acknowledgement of the fact that she’s making progress with breaking in and gaining control of some part of my soul that she can use against me later. I already knew that I’m defenseless as a child. I must steer clear of predators.

Even the most gorgeous bodies contain the seeds of decay and rot hidden beneath layers of glamour and youthfulness, like maggots burrowing under their flesh to emerge at nightfall from the inevitable corpse those people are destined to become. Everyone is at the most a few decades away from a gruesome end as a pile of bones and excrement, and any notion that loses sight of that fact is a whisper of self-delusion.

“Yes, hi,” I reply in a thin voice, then I blow my nose.

• Previous part (13)
• Next part (15)

---

The cold of October seeps through the fabric of my hoodie and penetrates the pores of my skin as the breeze blows my hair around my face. The smell of wet leaves and damp earth permeates the air, and a chilly darkness is settling over the city. I keep sniffling and fidgeting. I wish I could rock back and forth as if possessed, but I’m sitting on a hard bench between two women burdened with shopping bags, and I’m surrounded by a throng of people that wait to board the train to Irún. I feel like everyone is staring at me.

I never wanted to hear about Jacqueline’s sexual escapades. Didn’t I tell her as much, back when they dragged me to that packed restaurant for lunch? She only intended to hurt me, like everyone else does. That woman is a beautiful, ruthless predator without any qualms about devouring anyone around her to preserve and increase her power and status. She feasts upon their flesh and bones while slurping down their blood, then she pisses them out into empty wine bottles that she uses to decorate her apartment. If she ends up with nothing but dust and ashes, she’ll move back to France and start again.

How could I remain so naïve, when everything had conspired against me and everyone was trying to destroy me for reasons beyond comprehension, until they finally succeeded in poisoning my mind to make room for something new inside me, something foreign, malevolent, and hungry for human souls? Still, throughout the years I became obsessed with a few unlucky people, although I knew deep down that none of them suited me, or would want anything to do with a mentally unstable woman that constantly makes a fool of herself and has lost the ability to distinguish between fantasy and reality.

I hold my head in my hands and I keep my eyes closed until I hear the train’s clacking wheels as it pulls into our platform. I jump up. As soon as some passengers exit, I hurry inside and find an empty seat in a group of four. I press my thighs together to avoid any contact with the middle-aged guy sitting to my left, whose right knee is jiggling up and down as he stares at his phone screen in a trance. When the doors of the carriage swing shut, a wave of heat suffuses the air inside.

I focus on the passing scenery as I swat any thought of Jacqueline away from my mind, or of my future prospects as a burned-out programmer who is barely sane. I find myself overlooking the large sports center of Fanderia, with its two football fields and tennis courts. Thankfully nobody is playing tennis in this cold night; otherwise, I’d have to jump down there and wring their necks.

I shouldn’t give my brain the opportunity to lose itself in daydreams. From now on I’ll always bring my ebook reader along. I haven’t read a novel in years. I used to love reading when I was younger, but once I started working as a programmer, other people’s fantasies began feeling too far removed from the reality of computer bugs and deadlines. Perhaps focusing on the troubles of made-up people will help me overcome my despair, or at least alleviate some of my boredom.

I get off the train at the central station in Irún. I climb the stairs and emerge into the Colón promenade, that teems with pedestrians that hurry home after work, or return from shopping trips. I walk along the bridge and gaze down at the rail yard that continues into France among gravel and weeds. The gusts keep making my hood flap around. My fingers are stiffening, my nose running.

Once I cross the tiny San Miguel plaza and reach the nearby market, at the end of the street appears the shitty, working-class apartment building where I live. As I drag my feet towards it, I gaze at the available view of Mount Jaizkibel, arched like a horse’s back and featuring two stripes of deforested land that reach to the top, to prevent fires from spreading.

I walk up to my apartment and I hurry to unlock the door as if I was being followed. After I enter my cramped nest and I push the door closed with my back, I sigh as I stare at the eggnog yellow wall of the hallway. This place never felt like a home, but its walls shield me from the outside world, allowing my body to finally give up for the day. White noise is running through my legs as a drowsiness threatens to overwhelm me.

After I pee, I put on my flannel pajamas and a tracksuit jacket for the cold, then I shuffle to the living room, where I plop down on the sofa. My gaze falls upon the pile of board games that occupies the gap in the birch wood cabinet where the previous tenants, an elderly couple judging by the paintings they left behind, likely set up the television. Terraforming Mars, Renegade, Core Worlds, Fire in the Lake. Half of those boxes remain wrapped in plastic. Part of the joy of buying board games, and that sometimes I miss more than playing them, involved waiting for the delivery person to ring my doorbell. Unfortunately, some ended up calling me during the workday, because they didn’t bother to read the delivery instructions.

I wish I retained enough energy to lose myself in the mechanics of one of those games, but I would be evading my homework. I need to download a couple of books about Python’s updated features so I can cease looking up code snippets on Google for every function, to develop that nasty contract that my boss secured. Still, does anybody pay me for the extra research? I doubt I deserve to rest, but I need it desperately.

My back slides down the cushions until the armrest holds my head. I yawn loudly. A wave of exhaustion is engulfing my mind, threatening to pull me under its dark waters. Surely I can close my eyes for a moment. Once I open then again, I will make my bed, mop the floors, wash the pile of dirty dishes in the sink, clean the bathroom…

I open my eyes. Where am I? My saliva tastes foul, and stale drool has sticked to my chin. Slowly, I sit upright and reach for my phone, that I placed on the coffee table. It’s half past eight.

I wipe my mouth with a crumpled tissue. I’m dizzy and disoriented as if half of my brain remains asleep. I want to lie back down and sleep away my sorrows and worries, but I should fill my stomach with some food, if only because I won’t recover otherwise.

Once I stand up and I stagger around, I smell a hint of horse manure and old urine. The wind has picked up and is rattling the windows. I hold my breath to avoid inhaling any horse-related particles. My ears perk up. I’m getting used to this eerie sense that someone disgusting is staring at me out of nowhere.

“Is that you, Spike?” I ask in a raspy voice.

A noxious stench envelops me, like that of a corpse that’s been left to rot in a swamp for weeks.

“You were looking for me?” the horse asks.

I turn around and flinch, as I find myself looking up at the imposing frame of a towering horse standing on its hind legs. That pair of retracted, atrophied forelegs detracts from the terror of his appearance. Under the yellow light of the living room, Spike’s elongated head is a mass of scars, and his mane is matted with thick, oily clumps of hair that resemble a tangle of filthy pubic hairs. He’s already dripping drool from his muzzle onto the hardwood floor. His belly hangs between his legs like a pregnant woman’s.

I wish I owned a bathtub, so I could fill it with warm water and scrub myself clean of this horrid stench of rotten flesh.

“Spike, your body odor reminds me that one of these days I’ll have to take out the trash,” I say. “What do you want with me?”

When this fucker draws his lips back to speak, he shows me his sharp, jagged teeth, like filed piano keys that have been smeared with butter. His throat emits an awful noise that makes my skin crawl, as if his vocal cords were made of iron bars that scrape against each other.

“I keep telling you, Leire. I need you to listen to something important.”

I sigh. Spike’s long, grey tail lolls over his hooves like an empty fur coat or a hairy, hollow penis in place of the one that this horse monster lacks.

“Again with that nonsense? Well, that’s your problem. I’m going to prepare dinner.”

As I walk to the kitchen, a clack of hooves follows me. Flies are crawling over the dirty dishes and cups that have filled the sink, and a sour, pungent smell is coming out of the trash bin. My shoulders droop. The effort to clean the kitchen alone would drain me dry.

“Your apartment is a disaster zone,” Spike says in a low rumble.

His words sting. My hand was hovering over the handle of the fridge, but I stop to glare at him over my shoulder.

“If it bothers you that much, clean it yourself! And you are one to talk!”

“Ever heard of the broken windows theory?” Spike asks.

“I doubt it, but don’t worry. Although there must be plenty of viruses and bacteria floating in the air, most of them are small enough to be filtered by the particles in the atmosphere and dispersed into the wind before they can reach our lungs or bloodstreams.”

“Many must have landed on the rotting organic material, and they are multiplying rapidly now that they can feed on that stuff.”

What the hell is this horse talking about? Why is he always making up weird shit? I shake my head as I look at the mostly empty shelves of my fridge, where some moldy vegetables and yogurt lurk in their containers. I had intended to prepare some bacon and eggs, but I guess I ran out of eggs at some point, and the remaining bacon smells rancid and spoiled. I need to buy more food soon and get rid of all this junk in my cupboards and freezer, but merely envisioning the trip tires me. Oh well. Thankfully, the slices of serrano ham don’t stink.

As the ham sizzles in the pan, I feel Spike judging me with those bulging, black eyes, so I run water on my dirty dishes and I scrub them until they shine again. The flies buzz angrily around me.

“Is His Eminence happy now?” I ask mockingly as I turn around to face Spike. “Hey, don’t lean your haunches against my dining table! If I find a shit smear anywhere in my house, I’ll fucking bash you!”

Spike lifts his snout sharply, as if I caught him lost in thought.

“Sorry.”

A fly lands on my nose. I shudder, then I swat at it repeatedly.

“Stop apologizing over and over. It makes you look weak.”

I carry my plate with fried slices of ham, as well as a glass of milk, to the living room, and I settle down on the sofa. I poke into a slice with the fork, but as I lift it towards my mouth, I find myself staring at Spike, who observes me casually from a few feet away. I must have gotten used enough to his horrid horse stench for me to think about shoving food into my mouth.

“Do you have to stare at me like that while I’m eating, Spike?!” I snap at the horse monster, who is still drooling. “Check out all those board games sitting in piles of dust! They are aching for someone to set them up, which can take up to half an hour, or even more in the case of Anachrony!”

“I would enjoy playing board games with you, but I can’t hold the pieces,” he laments.

I frown at the horse monster as I chew the salty and fatty meat. He continues to gape at me with a creepy stare from that pair of dead fish eyes. His thick tongue flutters and flaps like a horse’s bridle strap while he drools onto the hardwood floor.

Spike is so creepy and repulsive that only a pervert could find his presence appealing or welcoming, and yet a perverse part of me would like to feel his tongue licking at my nipples and his teeth nibbling at my pussy lips. At this hour, Jacqueline must already be lying on her back while a cock with a glans shaped like a tennis ball penetrates her roughly. Those large breasts are bouncing and jiggling as she moans and begs. The tennis guy finishes by blowing his load all over my ham slices.

I should have imagined that one day I might become another victim of such depravity. I will never be able to escape this sickening world. I lower my tainted plate onto the coffee table, then I lean back until I rest on the cushions.

“What’s with the thousand-yard stare?” Spike asks.

My mouth hangs open for a few seconds, until a fly lands on my lower lip. It takes off before I can smack it away.

“Do you know about my secret fetish for older women?” I say in a faraway voice. “Particularly for big-breasted, seductive, French-speaking, childless, horny women. It’s only natural for me to want to fuck them, since they’re the kindest, most nurturing, sweet, loving, sensual, and caring people that exist on this planet, and they deserve to be fucked hard, over and over again, until they die from a massive orgasm.”

“I know all about your obsession with Jacqueline, yes,” Spike says. “You may be aiming a bit too high.”

I’m appalled, but I remember that a hallucination would naturally have access to my memories and thoughts.

“Well, can you blame me? She’s tall and shapely, has a lovely smile. When she walks, those large breasts bounce and sway in a very erotic manner. Even a horse should detect the aura of sexuality and charm that radiates from her body.”

“You fell for her because she held you in her arms like she would a child, though.”

I hunch over, digging into my knees with my elbows, and I claw at my face as I grit my teeth. I hear a fly’s wings beating furiously while it circles my head. I need my screams to echo throughout this cramped apartment. I can’t bear it anymore, this constant, relentless pressure to get everything done, to achieve something beyond what I am capable of, and to keep my job in order to survive. Tomorrow I’ll have to trudge my way up to my mortifying office and face Jacqueline’s piercing gaze. She stared at me as she revealed that she knew I want her to love me.

I’m a freak. It’s impossible for me to continue living this miserable existence when all I can think about is death and destruction. I keep complaining about Spike’s body odor, but it’s far better than the putrefying stench coming from inside my own head.

I take a deep breath, then I scoot closer to the edge of the sofa.

“Go ahead, Spike,” I say hoarsely. “You’ve been trying hard to get me to listen to some garbage. I’m all ears. Speak whatever words come to mind, and let’s see if they make any sense at all to me.”

Spike perks up. Even his pitch black eyes seem brighter now that he has a captive audience.

“Wonderful! Then listen, Leire. I used to work at the same… Wait, what are you doing?!”

The tines break through the skin of my neck as I push the fork further into my flesh. A cold shiver runs down my spine, but the endorphins flood my brain, making the intensifying pain more tolerable, if not pleasant. A warm trickle of blood oozes out and slides towards my collarbone.

Spike stumbles towards me. He must intend to unleash a torrent of insane horse thoughts into my mind, but I prevent it by shooting him a menacing glare.

“Stay the fuck away,” I whisper. “I’m killing a rotten bitch.”

Blood is pooling at the base of my throat while tears form in the corners of my eyes. I can’t believe how much relief comes with a simple act as committing suicide. All the bad things in life can be left behind forever. There will be no more nightmares and delusions and hallucinations and depression and anxiety and loneliness and the excruciating feeling of being trapped in the center of an infinite maze I can’t possibly escape and the fact that my only friend is an evil horse monster who wants to eat me alive.

My vision is getting blurry as I concentrate on the fork buried in my neck. My fingers feel numb with frostbite.

“I’d say this is a cry for help,” Spike says sternly. “You are in dire straits and reaching out for salvation, and maybe, just maybe, for love.”

My lips twitch. I taste the snot that runs down my nose.

“W-well, can you help me?!”

Spike’s atrophied forelegs flail around like a pair of broken twigs.

“Help you? I came to you because I needed your help!” he shouts, his voice cracking like an adolescent boy’s. “What do you want me to do?”

I groan as my nostrils flare. I pull out the fork and throw it at the floor. It leaves a splash of blood.

“Fucking useless. Not even a crippled horse cares. You are just like everyone else. They’re always looking for an excuse to discard me, but that’s even preferable to allowing them to get close, because those people are the most likely to betray and abuse me. This is why the best course of action is simply to cease existing altogether, let the rest of the universe continue in harmony instead of having its existence threatened by my presence.”

Spike crouches to bring his horrifying horse face closer to mine, although he seems about to topple over from his awkward posture. A few veins bulge on his forehead and neck as if they could burst and send a spray of hot liquid all over my body.

“You should have been destroyed millions of years ago by a nuclear warhead,” I mutter, “you fucking pervert.”

“Press that tissue against the holes in your neck, will you? They look like the bites from a couple of tiny vampires.”

I lean back against the cushions as I obey this equine stalker’s orders. The burning in my neck feels as if a bunch of bees had stung me. How pathetic am I that I tried to kill myself in such a lazy, inauthentic way? I thought I was better than this. Whatever. I’m too exhausted to move anymore.

Hot tears roll down my cheeks as if someone was pouring hot wax onto my face. I close my eyes, but I keep hearing Spike’s raspy breathing, and by this point his fetid stench has permeated my body. I want Jacqueline to love me, although she’s a woman who is only interested in men, although I thought I was only interested in men. I need someone to care for me and protect me from falling apart.

“I-I guess I’m glad that you want to keep me company, Spike,” I slur as my chest spasms. “I know you’ve got nothing going for yourself. You’re ugly and deformed and smell bad. But at least you’re not an asshole like all these other damn humans are. So thank you for wanting to stay with me. I should reward you with some sugar cubes.”

Spike looks so sad. Maybe he really does feel sorry for me.

“Why would I want sugar cubes of all things?”

I chuckle.

“Spike, you stink of geriatric dementia. Maybe I’m offering you sugar cubes because you can’t eat anything else with those rotten teeth of yours. Although I can also tell that you are dying of thirst because of all the fluids that keep leaking from the hole where your horsecock used to be.” The pain in my neck is starting to subside, replaced by a dull headache that makes it hard for me to think straight. I take a deep breath through clenched jaws before I continue our conversation. “My brain has linked the notion of sugar cubes to the existence of horses. Who knows if that’s relevant. But have you forgotten again that you are a horse? To be fair, you are as withered and emaciated as a scarecrow, and you stink so bad that anyone would think you are a carcass rotting away in some ditch.”

Spike snorts loudly, then he shakes his head. I try to focus on his eyes as they stare into mine, but his gaze is lost in a distant place far beyond reality.

“We are both deformed horses. You are a female deformed horse and I am a male deformed horse. Our bodies are twisted and misshapen because our mothers ate strange things while pregnant with us. They didn’t care about their children, they didn’t want them. We are cursed to exist as broken creatures, doomed to suffer abuse and neglect from everyone who encounters us, including ourselves. But we can still dream of being normal and beautiful some day.”

I lie down sideways, facing the cushions, and I close my eyes tight. If only my heart could beat fast enough to keep the blood flowing in my veins, but alas, it’s a dead weight that drags me down to a place far below the surface of the earth, somewhere in the bowels of the planet where the magma burns and boils. If only I could give up on my mind completely, accept that the entire world is a nightmare, a horror movie that I’m forced to witness every single day. That’d be the only way I could survive this despair that’s consuming me like a cancerous tumor. I want to curl up into a ball and never move again.