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Sources of endless wonder, of worshipful awe, to my eyes and lips and tongue, the thought of their satiny and succulent surfaces, their elasticity and heft in my grasp, has haunted me from the moment I first caught a glimpse of them at the office, and ever since I kneaded and caressed their velvet texture, inhaled their intoxicating fragrance, and savored their creamy taste, I have yearned to be swallowed up by that warmth again, like a woman stranded in a blizzard seeking the hearth and blankets of home. Oh, my blessed Jacqueline, mommy dearest, may Arachne’s silken threads weave me a cradle within your heaving milk-tanks!

As the flames of the candles flicker and dance, they splash their honey-golden glow upon the ivory statue that stands before me proud and nude. A demigoddess. Jacqueline-but-French.

My skin crawls with an icy sensation. In those shimmering eyes that have always seen through me, the collarettes, crypts and striations that paint the irises cobalt blue, do they belong to yet another character in a shapeshifting play?

“Is this… you?” I ask.

Jacqueline’s shoulders droop, and she glances down at the rug.

“Ah, je savais que ça viendrait. I can transform into different people, so what are the odds that the way I present myself in my everyday life can be considered ‘me’?”

“I suppose that’s what I meant.”

She combs a hand through her raven-black tresses, then fans them out to cascade over her shoulder in a lustrous curtain.

“The body you’re looking at, and that you adore, is the closest to the one that my parents’ genes crafted, and with which I identified growing up. Not the original, though, because I enhanced it, with my own spicy seasoning added in, to match the woman that presented herself in that darkness: my mental self-image. You could call it mon vrai moi, one free from the ravages of time, other than minor imperfections that would be hard to justify lacking at my age.” She raises her hands to her eyes and touches the hints of crow’s feet.

So Jacqueline also hated her body, although likely not to the extent that I do of wanting to vomit every time I catch a glimpse of my reflection in a mirror. Yet another evidence that our fates were following parallel paths of angst and neuroses that would end up with us entangled and sweaty in her queen-size bed.

“Even before we met each other,” I say wistfully, “you and I were both misfits that society disdained. Lonely wolves prowling on a frozen continent of their own to keep sane.”

“I wouldn’t go that far. But I’m forty-four years old, darling. Forty-goddamn-four. No idea how that happened. Anyway, even far richer women, with millions to spare, couldn’t afford the kind of upgrade I’ve given myself. You’ve known my age; how did you rationalize that I looked this fresh?”

“Privileged genetics? I mean, that’s what you told me.”

Jacqueline’s cobalt-blues frost over as if clouded by turmoil. Her statuesque posture deflates.

“Oh, mon petit chou, forgive me for the little masquerade. I wanted to tell you sooner, but I was scared whether you’d still adore me.”

“I’m not running out of adoration any time soon. I do wonder how you used to look like, though.”

She grimaces, then sighs.

“Darling, I’ve consigned that version of me to history. Even your charms cannot resurrect it. Let me put it this way: if you had suffered through your teenage years with a face ravaged by acne, you wouldn’t want to go back, would you?”

“My goodness, that bad?”

“Heureusement non; those poor kids end up traumatized. I was lucky as far as adolescent skin goes, just a little zit here and there. I’m talking about the ‘growing old’ version of that: wrinkles, gray hairs, a flabby stomach, sagging boobs, cellulite. Yuck, I’d rather keep my mind clean. You wouldn’t have swooned and drooled over me, I promise.”

I picture Jacqueline’s hair thinning as the blackness gives way to strands of cottony white. Her cheeks and chin sag into a jowly, hound-like shape, dissolving the jawline. Her ivory-white skin turns leathery and splotchy. Her mighty breasts, their once-full contours collapsed, wilt into two droopy pendulums. Her ass becomes a bulging, cottage-cheese-like mass. Maybe my shoulders should shudder at the image of Jacqueline, the voluptuous goddess that has rocked my world and inflamed my lust, transformed into a crone with withered teats, wreathed by a halo of spiderwebs.

“But I’m into mommies.”

“I wouldn’t want you to associate this mommy with that whole getup, mon trésor. Still, it isn’t just about wrinkles and cellulite. It’s also about the diminishing sands in the hourglass, the knowledge that the world is erasing us petit à petit. Our health and youth are crumbling away with every breath. We are aware that this road ends in pain, and yet we keep putting one foot in front of the other.”

I rub the back of my neck, where a patch of prickling heat has erupted under my skin.

“Sure, people are good at believing two opposite things at once, even when neither of them makes sense. We’re wired to fool others as well as ourselves; otherwise we wouldn’t have made it far as a species.”

“Nobody should have to grow old, Leire.”

“The stars also burn out,” I say in sympathy. “Perhaps I find comfort in the inevitability of it all.”

Jacqueline pauses, her fingers lingering over her eyelids. When she speaks again, her voice carries a weight.

“That’s the thing: I may be the first person in history who can remain forever young, at least on the outside.”

My right hand clenches and unclenches the bedclothes. So mommy can dodge the ceaseless march of time and stay ever-delectable. I’m in love with an evergreen blossom amid the dust and ruin.

“As long as maintaining these forms doesn’t exhaust you more than reverting to your original self, then great.”

“I don’t need to concentrate, ma chérie. It’s like flipping a switch.”

“And the celestial vision with which you brighten my life is a testament to your healthy self-esteem. If I could shapeshift into my mental self-image, you’d never stop screaming.”

Jacqueline chuckles through a pained grin as she brushes a tear from the corner of her eye.

“Oh, choupette. You have become more confident and composed than the withdrawn mouse you were before we started dating.”

“Even so, it’s due to your motherly influence, your encouragement, and your relentless pursuit of pleasure. I have done nothing to deserve an improvement.”

For years, my mind has felt like an outdated computer: slower over time, lagging in memory retrieval, prone to glitching out and needing to restart. One day, a silhouette will stand shin-deep in a shapeless pile of bones and rotting flesh that once gave shape to a human being. Watch me grow old and die.

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Author’s note: today’s song is “Broken Chairs” by Built to Spill.

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

Want to listen to this lovely couple’s philosophical discussion? Check out the audiochapter.

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A flicker, like a glitch in a high-res display, crosses the Asian features of my beloved Jacqueline. In a heartbeat, I find myself staring into slate-blue irises encircled by bold rings of black, round eyes that stand out in a heart-shaped face whose skin, pale and luminous as a pearl, is dotted with freckles across her cheeks and the bridge of her nose. The plumpness of her lower lip stirs a desire to draw close and savor its sweetness. In the glow of the candlelight, her wavy, copper mane comes alive with streaks of tiger-orange, as if the strands were catching fire.

Her mouth stretches into an impish grin. She shifts her body, making her copper waves ripple, to strike a pose: legs slightly apart, fists on her hips. Her bare chest, pushed out, is scattered with freckles like a constellation of brown stars.

“Alive and kicking, as you can tell,” she says in a high-pitched voice and an effervescent lilt.

A vision from the Celtic folklore, a sunburst in the honey-drenched darkness. The way the colors fade from pink to orange to red, she reminds me of a summer sunrise.

“Irish Jacqueline,” I mumble.

Jacqueline-but-Irish sweeps the tumbling tresses away from her freckled shoulders, so she can cup the slight slopes of her breasts, squeezing them gently with her slender fingers, pressing and molding her flesh into rounder mounds. She rubs the areolae with her thumbs, then coaxes her nipples into thickening peaks.

“In my mind, I refer to this body differently, but… Ah, it always makes me feel so naughty.”

As Jacqueline caresses her midriff, her other hand twists and curls a copper lock that resembles a wave of living flame. The candlelight flickers in her eyes, which are blue like glacier ice, their depths shimmering with lust.

A nervous energy ripples through me, triggering tingles throughout my body. I’m getting hungrier.

“Of the many forms I have conjured up,” Jacqueline says, “this is my second favorite. Aren’t most people suckers for redheads? Imagine this colleen, with an appetite for mischief and debauchery, approaching you on the street.”

“O-on a dockside pub or a foggy moor. Stargazing and witchcraft in the moonlight.”

Her eyelids dip halfway.

“Wherever, her black Mary Janes click as she saunters over. She’s wearing a white blouse that shows off her freckled cleavage, a short plaid skirt that hugs her hips, and knee-high socks with frilly edges. Her red hair is tied in two braids that fall over her shoulders. Your senses are overwhelmed by her sweet and woodsy aroma. What wouldn’t this little vixen, this wood nymph from the deepest forests of Éire if you prefer, do to warm your dead, shriveled heart? You might struggle against her allure, but in the end, no fruit tastes sweeter than the forbidden.”

This pagan beauty must have stirred in many people the yearning to bury their faces in her fiery hair, to trace her freckles with their lips, to get drunk on her taste, to quench the firestorm within them by piercing her maidenhead and filling her with creamy seed. Oh, she could burn the world’s eyes out, and lure any hapless soul to drown.

From the base of my spine to my skull, a shockwave-like chill courses through my body, raising goosebumps on my arms and nape. In the aftermath, my skin still crawls with tiny sparks. I lick my lips and swallow past the lump in my throat. My hand has drifted to my inner thigh, seeking the warmth radiating from my core, the moisture gathering between my folds. I’m resisting the urge to rub myself, maybe in part to avoid tainting my fingers with my own filth.

“C-crack a pint and sing a few shanties before you bang the flesh off my bones.”

Jacqueline’s smile deepens, and her eyes, two sapphires set in her freckled face, sparkle as she ogles my exposed crotch. I look down. A rivulet of clear fluid is trickling out of my vulva and dripping onto the cloud-white bedding, staining it with a widening lust-blotch as if the comforter were a canvas and I the artist spilling paint. I smell the scent wafting up from my pussy, a primal musk, along with a metallic tang reminiscent of blood.

“You’d like me to assist you with that,” Jacqueline surmises, “wouldn’t you, darling?”

Jacqueline-but-Irish strides toward me with catlike grace. Her copper waves bounce as she leaps onto my lap, straddling me, gripping my hips with her thighs. She slings her arms around my neck and tugs me into an embrace, squeezing her hardened nubs against my tit-flesh. I feel her warm skin and the way her heart races. A surge of desire crashes against the shore of my libido like a wave, one that seethes with foam and carries the briny aroma of the ocean.

The world shrinks as if a wall of brambles and ferns had sprouted around us. Her hair caresses my cheek and tickles my throat. Her lips brush the lobe of my ear as she whispers words of fire.

“I can hear your thirsty heart, babe. Let it pump those hot and heady juices.”

Jacqueline, thrusting her hips, grinds her slippery mound against mine, her swollen bud against mine. A jolt of electricity arcs through my nervous system, igniting my synapses, causing me to gasp and shudder in her arms. She purrs. Her mouth closes around my earlobe, which she nibbles. My clit throbs with a heartbeat-like rhythm while I bask in the smooth, oily friction of our pussies rubbing together, along with the wet noises and juicy squelches. I grasp Jacqueline’s buttocks and squeeze them, digging my fingertips into the tender flesh. As my arousal rises like a hot-air balloon, the syrupy heat that has replaced the blood in my veins threatens to immolate me.

Her visage, sprinkled with cinnamon-like freckles, fills my field of vision, framed by wavy copper tresses. She’s staring at me with the blushing countenance of a Renaissance painting, her half-lidded gaze like the blue flames of a gas-powered stove. Her glossy, Irish lips pucker as she leans closer, wanting us to merge into a kiss. I’d only have to breathe out an invitation for her mouth to meet mine, our tongues to entwine, our saliva to mingle. She will taste like honey and wine.

I’m breathing air thick with the aroma of melting wax mixed with that of rose, jasmine, and sandalwood. Within the jitterbug of hormones and this lust-laden gloom, my brain has liquefied, and I feel like a puddle of sparks. Yet, I turn my head away.

Her moist lips press against my left cheek, and when she draws back, her warm breath tickles my skin.

“Oh? You don’t want to smooch?”

“That’s cheating. I’m a one-woman-at-a-time gal.”

As she giggles, her stiff tit-tips graze mine, which sends a heatwave through me.

“But grinding our pussies together is fine?”

“S-somehow that’s different.”

Jacqueline-but-Irish cradles my head between her palms as if it were a sacred relic.

“Ma coquine bien-aimée, you think this was a test? You’d be making out with mommy no matter what body I’m wearing.”

“Sorry, Jacqueline. I’m having trouble wrapping my head around the display of shapeshifting. I’m blown away but also scared and horny.”

“Je te pardonne, bébé. Let me assure you that you don’t need to be afraid.”

Her arms unwind from the embrace around my neck. She places the palms on my shoulders and, as her copper locks sway like a waterfall of flame, she shifts her weight off me, dismounting from my lap onto the plush comfort of the bedside rug. The sudden absence of her heat leaves me desolate.

Under a strip of fiery copper fuzz, almost scarlet, Jacqueline’s vulva glistens pinkly in the candlelight, slathered with a glaze. Her nectar has trickled down the crease and slickened her inner thighs.

Jacqueline-but-Irish inches her right hand down her stomach, past the navel, and runs those fingers through the patch of copper curls. She strokes herself, sliding her middle finger along the wet groove and over the engorged berry. After she widens her stance, she teases the soaked petals apart, and her ruby-hued insides blossom. She dips a finger into the velveteen depths. When she pulls it out, her digit emerges with a glimmering thread.

“Isn’t it exquisite?” she asks breathily. “The rosy sheen of this soaking honeypot, the juicy scent, the sluttish mess of it all. Don’t you want to find out what a teen’s pussy tastes like?”

My pulse is hammering. My brain still burns with the friction-fed flames of lust. I won’t deny it to myself: I want to fall to my knees before Jacqueline-but-ginger. I want to bury my face in her damp snatch and feast on the clitoris of Ireland. I want to slurp up the salty tang of this druidess’ nectar, to suck out the sweetness of her womb like through a straw plugged into the fountain of youth, until she forgets her Celtic chants and the screams of banshees.

Liquid beads that cling to Jacqueline’s fingers reflect the candlelight in a rainbow shimmer. The air is saturated with a musky-sweet aroma like the fragrance of a ripe peach that has split open in the heat, dripping juice onto the sun-baked grass. I’m standing on the edge of a cliff, gazing down at the roiling sea that crashes and foams against jagged rocks. The sparkling spray shoots upward and outward in fan-shaped mists. My palms sweat, the wind whips my hair about my face. I’m afraid of landing on the sharp teeth of the reefs far below, where the waters would boil with a froth of blood.

“Another time,” I whisper. “Right now I need you as you are.”

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Author’s note: today’s songs are “Look” by Sébastien Tellier, and “Smells Like Teen Spirit” by Nirvana.

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

Taste this chapter in an audio format through this link.

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Jacqueline’s Asian mouth, a blush of cherry blossoms in spring, twists into a teasing smile. With her chin raised slightly, she sticks the tip of her ruddy tongue out then slides its moist surface over her upper lip, coating it in a saliva-film that glistens in the honey-golden candlelight.

“Well, does my sweet chérie find this version of mommy exotic and enticing? Have you ever wanted to indulge in the pleasures of the Orient?”

My mind floods with steam-engulfed images of Oriental delights. I’m admiring the neon-lit cityscape that glitters through the windows of a Tokyo penthouse. I’m living it up at a karaoke room, belting out Japanese punk anthems. I’m riding a bullet train, watching the countryside flash past: verdant rice paddies and mist-wreathed mountains. I’m wandering the bustling back alleys of Shanghai, gaping at kaleidoscopic lights and technicolor billboards, passing by women whose faces are powdered white, their lips lacquered blood-red, their bodies swaddled in ornate brocade. I’m gorging on rivers of noodle soup, mountains of stir-fried veggies, steaming hotpots of seafood, and pyramids of deep-fried dumplings stuffed with pork and ginger. I’m lounging in a geisha house, smoking opium, lying with a silk-wrapped, perfume-drenched, slender hostess who can ease the weight of a thousand centuries by fulfilling my darkest, filthiest desires. I’m witnessing the display of a master karateka, her lean and muscular limbs flashing as she lays waste to an entire class of her rivals in a tournament, breaking backs, snapping necks, and ripping off faces with clawed fingers. I’m meditating in a zen garden, bowing before the Buddha, then fucking a monk until his cock spits holy seed into my womb. Maybe the siren song of the Far East does beckon me.

I’m foggy from the heavy fragrances that cling to my brain, from the Asian figure that emerged effortlessly and stands in my mind-murk like an orchid thriving in the humidity of a deep jungle. Jacqueline-but-Asian runs a hand down her form, trailing those sensuous fingers from her collarbones to her belly button, inviting me to stare starstruck at the Oriental splendor. Her inky locks, sleek as polished ebony and gleaming with a blue sheen, spill over her rounded shoulders, flowing down to her curving hips. Where mommy was hipped with a wide pelvis that matched the proportions of her mammoth bosoms, this lady in her prime has the svelte torso and lissome limbs of a ballerina, no stranger to gliding on tippy toes, to spinning and leaping in graceful pirouettes across the hardwood boards of a stage, her spine arched, her arms outstretched, her swanlike neck exposed, all to thunderous applause.

The candles, as they dance their golden light across the bedroom, burning on and on like they’ll outlast this fucked-up reality and whatever lies beyond, give a pearly radiance to Jacqueline’s skin, highlighting in honey her lithe features: below a neck like alabaster, those jutting collarbones; twin firm orbs capped with caramel-pink nipples; the valley carved into the abdomen between the promontory of her ribcage and the arch of her hip, that in the old days could have shielded her womb from marauders seeking a spawn of godhood. I wish to reach out and stroke her delicate skin; I could run my fingertips through it like water.

Jacqueline plants her splayed fingers low on her abdomen, drawing attention to the patch of onyx fuzz, an ancient garden that guards her hidden petals as it glistens in the honey-tinted gloom.

“You’re holding out on me, baby doll,” Jacqueline purrs playfully. “Afraid I won’t like your opinion? Come on now, love, surely you have something to share about this form.”

I swallow the excess saliva, then face her exotic visage.

“You’ve gone and given yourself Oriental features, the fuck-off-you-Western-scum kind, but you look ravishing. I want to drown in soy sauce. Your current tits are smaller than mine, though…”

She grins. In her eyes, fringed with jet-black lashes, the pupils are dilated, and the coal-gray irises shimmer like two starlit pools of silver.

“Oh, darling. You miss mommy’s huge, juicy milkers?”

My head nods without consulting me.

“Always, as long as I don’t have access to them.”

Jacqueline chuckles, which causes her creamy tummy to ripple like a sheet of water.

“I crafted this form to fill the niche of yoga that could be monetized. It’s like the ultimate yoga master. My main body? If I tried with it half of the moves I can pull now, I’d end up in a cast. In fact, let me give you a little demo.”

As she lowers her snowy behind onto the fluffy rug, her hair sways in a long cascade with each motion of the frame, and coils on the fabric like a sleeping serpent. She positions herself lengthwise, showcasing her profile as well as her lean dancer’s legs. Those pale thighs resemble canvases on which to fingerpaint. When I seek her gaze, I meet the seductive glance she’s casting over her shoulder. A warm chill courses down my spine. Knowing me snared, she smirks, then reclines until her head sinks into the rug.

She grasps her right ankle and draws that leg further and further back. With both arms, she embraces its calf as if hugging a lover. She plants her left hand on the sole of that foot, then pushes the leg down until its knee rests on the rug alongside her torso, making her inky locks billow over that calf, bending the limb in a submission hold that would make most of humanity cry out in pain.

“It helps that my usual tits aren’t in the way,” Jacqueline says.

She twists to reach her left leg, then folds it until her toes come close to grazing her vulva. Although she’s torturing herself further, her face remains calm, a picture of peace. Jacqueline must have learned from the fox spirits how to harness the erotic charge of her Asian limbs.

A familiar tingle stirs inside me. I lean back to place my palms flat against the surface of the bed, bracing my weight, my right hand centimeters from the discarded thong. The shock has melted into a trance-like state. My mind is a page scrawled on with the vision of an Oriental goddess, the embodiment of Japanesque perfection, stretching her limbs in the flickering candlelight.

With her face buried in the rug, and her ebony mane pooled around her head and chest, Jacqueline assumes the downward-facing dog posture, thrusting out the white swell of her ass, making her buttocks wobble gently. I’d bite into those cheeks until they oozed pink.

Beginning in a supine position, she lifts her pelvis off the floor, arching her flexible spine like a bow. As her body curves upward, her abdomen stretches taut, and her ass tightens into two plump mounds. After she finds balance on her shoulders and the crown of her head, she appears suspended in mid-air.

In her upside-down face, from beneath her dark lashes, her eyes dart to the corners so they can meet my gaze. The pinkish-orange glow traces the flat bridge of her nose, and plays upon the contour of her lips.

“See?” Jacqueline asks. “I can do all sorts of crazy poses now.”

“That’s cool.”

A glossy mass of darkness, a waterfall of night that contrasts with her ghostly skin, falls down her back in a shining curtain. As it shifts, the inky tresses sway gracefully, nuzzling the curves of her feminine figure.

Jacqueline has levered herself upright.

“Love, do you recall that external hard drive I lent you, filled with naughty videos I wanted you to watch? Now, which of my girls was your favorite?”

My heart, set aflutter by Asian magic, skips a beat. I’m assailed once again by the image that has haunted my daydreams ever since I peeked into the abyss: wavy locks of copper hair floating in a pool of bubbling cum.

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Author’s note: today’s song is “Heartbeats” by José González.

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

Leire peeked into the abyss back in chapter 45.

I produced an audiochapter for this part. Check it out.

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My brain concedes that this East Asian woman standing before me will stick around, instead of dematerializing as suddenly as she manifested naked in Jacqueline’s bedroom. She’s in her early twenties. Epicanthic folds narrow her slanted eyes. Their black pupils and charcoal-gray irises scintillate like tiny galaxies in the twinkling candlelight, that also caresses her pale skin devoid of wrinkles, blemishes, or visible pores. Her flat nose culminates with an upturned tip framed by small nostrils, followed by lips like painted watercolor, pink as blooming roses.

Although I remain intoxicated by the candles’ scent, the shock has snapped me out of my sex haze and rebooted the paranoid routines. As I gawk slack-jawed at the intruder, my lips part in speechless confusion. Jacqueline has vanished. My hands have gone cold, and I realize that I’m clutching at the bedclothes. I have become a child again, lost in a bustling city, desperately searching for a familiar face.

When the Asian creature opens her rosebud of a mouth, a feminine voice, clear and pure like a stream trickling over smooth stones, drifts between her gleaming white teeth.

“Take as long as you need.”

I can’t mistake that hint of a French accent. I swallow past the lump in my throat.

“Tu parles… le français?”

Her brows knit together in concern.

“Oui. It’s still me, darling. Fluent in French, Spanish, and English.”

My chest swells, then releases the pressure with an exhalation that comes like a first breath after holding it underwater. I’m a child who has found her mommy. However, a flood of questions crashes against the walls of my skull.

“H-how can you turn Asian? Is that something humans can do and I had failed to notice?”

As her eyes squint into two thin slits, a giggle, melodious and infectious, bubbles up from that exquisite visage, sparking an ember-like warmth in my chest. Jacqueline-but-Asian tilts her head, and her waist-length tresses cascade over her bare shoulder in a gleaming onyx tide. She stretches her lips into a mischievous smile.

“As far as I know, I’m unique in that regard. Who can say for sure, though? Until a few years ago, I would have thought all of this impossible. But I can change my form, and you, ma chérie, can communicate with beings from other dimensions.”

“I-I guess. Sounds like I’ve gotten the short end of the stick.”

Jacqueline lowers her head. She wipes at the corners of her eyes with her delicate fingers, brushing away the dewy beginnings of tears, even though she’s grinning. She lets out a soft sigh.

“Oh, what a relief. I’ve been dying to drop the bombshell on you ever since our first date in that Irish pub, but I thought I would never dare. The what-ifs drove me mad. Now that I have entrusted you with my burden, will you accept it? Will you stay by my side and make mommy happy?”

My heart swells. I want to spring off the mattress and throw myself at Jacqueline even in her Eastern incarnation.

“Don’t you know the answer to that question? I have come to terms with far more outlandish shit. In love, we accept each other even when we violate the laws of reality.”

Jacqueline presses a palm over her breastbone. A blush has tinted her cheeks, and those irises, deep as a starless night, shine in the candlelight like mirror-coated buttons.

“So… can you turn into other animals?” I ask. “Non-humanoid ones?”

She flashes a coquettish grin.

“Why, would that get you off?”

“Most things can get me off. But I’m just curious.”

“I was reluctant to try, in case my intelligence disappeared along with my human form. I worried in vain, though. When I attempted to transform into a dolphin, it didn’t work.”

“Why a dolphin?”

“Pretty sure I read that dolphins have a similar brain size. They’re also graceful and adorable.”

I shrug.

“They do hold a special attraction, perhaps a precognitive certainty about humanity’s doom. Did you attempt this transformation in a pool…?”

“Nope, in our living room. I planned to switch for a couple of seconds, then transform back into my gorgeous human body and laugh it off.”

I picture a bubblegum-pink dolphin, its skin shiny and rubber-smooth, flopping and hopping about, slapping the living room carpet with its flukes. A pair of meaty breasts squeeze and jostle against each other, nestled between the pectoral fins. Mommy stranded forever as a Delphinidae, her squeaking pleas unheard or unheeded until the SWAT breaks into our humble home and the operatives shoot their harpoon guns.

“I asked the universe for help,” Jacqueline continues, “and this is what it granted me. It’s been a fun if somewhat hollow ride.”

I rub my eyelids, trying to dispel the image of those dolphin tits.

“You are so unique, yet you waste your precious life working at our office, filling Excel spreadsheets with Arachne knows what unholy nonsense. You should be employed by an international spy ring to infiltrate criminal gangs, corrupt governments or evil corporations.”

She tosses her head, causing her obsidian mane to billow around her naked torso, and giggles like a schoolgirl.

“We need to keep our little miracle going, my love.” Jacqueline tucks in her chin, giving me a coy glance under her inky lashes. “Now I wish you had the power to turn into a cute little kitty.”

“Sure, I have often wished I could transform into a beast and escape humanity. But what would you do with a kitten me? Stroke my furry tummy? Cuddle me to sleep? Feed me milk?”

Her mouth widens into a toothy grin.

“I would put a collar and a bell around your neck, then take you for walks around the neighborhood. I’d let you sniff the asses of stray cats and dogs. Once you had done your business, I’d reward you with a bowl of milk and catnip cookies.”

My pulse picks up, and heat creeps onto my cheeks, but I’m too stupefied to get horny.

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Author’s note: today’s song is “Anthems for a Seventeen Year-Old Girl” by Broken Social Scene.

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

I produced the audiochapter for this one. Check it out.

A little bug has gotten inside my monitor and died there. Apparently that’s a thing that happens.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

She chuckles, then gestures toward the bed.

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

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

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

“I hope so.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Jacqueline chuckles throatily.

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

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

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

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

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

“Mommy, what’s wrong?”

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

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

Have I heard her right? I grimace in disbelief.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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