Lucretia My Reflection

Kandy Fontaine adjusted her green-tinged mustache, micro-tuning the nanotech processors. Today the ends flared like the holocentric village villain; tomorrow, or in the next instant, the ends would justify the mean streets her etheric form would wander. 

Truth be told? She was tired. Tired of playing the game. Tired of conforming. So very tired of witchery as usual.

Yes, she had become a cybermagus and a mistress of magick war. She invented Grimwar and enjoyed being the local admin, outsourcing responsibility for the other nodes to various randoms, some of them beastheads–the parrots she dug special. One parrot in particular had looped through several tunnel systems in timespace and had replaced practically its entire body, such as it was, with robotic parts. 

The chaosian play was good as it got, but Kandy realized that she could play forever and the sweetness would continue to follow the law, diminishing returns chasing themselves down the rat’s alleys where the dead men lost their phones.

Lucretia buzzed her.

“Kandy,” she said, pausing to dab at her Fuck Me Red ™ lipstick implants in the mirror. The nanotech particles caused her face to shimmer, and behind tincture of drug couture she became a princess with the keys to the seven worlds.

“My reflection or yours,” said Lucretia quizically. Kandy’s pussy pulsed and warmth spread along her limbs, but she also recalled that the last time she and Lucretia hooked up–some gentech prince in vircher space thought it might be fun to watch their avatars fuck–she’d felt degraded and used, and not in the good way.

“Honesty, or…”

“Girl, you know I’m always honest,” said Lucretia. Which was a damn lie.

GhostDance at 5 zm was key to their reconciliation. They met at Shirleyz City of Dizbusters beneath the lava flow of Death Moon Omega. Both hit the Strobe heavily beforehand and their eyes glittered with skull-clots that chased each other in circles. Holograms of Dr. Gruje Panasky followed them down the streets and byways of adventure that snaked, split and became avenues of sin. 

“We have to stop doing this to one another,” said Kandy finally as their avatars melted back into the writhing pixelated black silkworm bedsheets. “We’re too much alike, and that means one of these days we’re going to jolene one another.”

“D’ya mean like that story where jolenes formed an alliance within the body of a single cyberwhore?”

“Kind of, yes.”

“But that has less than nothing to do with us. Think about this in relation to any response. What kind of feedback response did you get from your therapist the last time you discussed us?”

Kandy didn’t want to go down that road, and said as much. She kissed Lucretia one final time on those lips that were always fading to cyanosis…fantastic flavor, she thought, strawberry switchblend. 

Lucretia pulled out a single blade. It shivered between them. Kandy discovered she no longer had feelings either way. She could die then and be through with all of it.

“Do it,” she said. “I’m ready. Do both of us.”

“I’m ready too,” said Lucretia.

Afterwards they found themselves walking in comfortable silence along the beach of the Luminous Shore, as the other ghosts flickered and zipped in and out of their peripheral vision.

“Twas always thus,” said Kandy after awhile.

“Indeed,” said Lucretia.

“What exactly was up with that gentech prince?” asked Kandy, not really interested in the answer.

“Hell if I know,” said Lucretia. Her chrome skull was becoming more exposed, while Kandy’s was just growing in.

Fucked Up Fairy Tales: Pudding Fairies 

Empress Cherrypop, her flaming red hair unbound and floating in the etheric breeze, gazed down from the crystal balcony of the Euphoric Palace at the writhing mass of pudding fairies below. 

Their gelatinous forms shifted and merged in obscene configurations, reminding her of that documentary on deep sea creatures she’d watched with Silver last night. The way they moved, pulsing with an inner light that made her think of bioluminescent horrors.

“They’re getting restless again,” Silver whispered, wrapping cool arms around Cherrypop’s waist. Her silver hair cascaded over both their shoulders, mixing with the empress’s flame-red tresses like metallic blood.

The pudding fairies had been acting strange ever since that ancient grimoire had been discovered in the palace kitchens, bound in what appeared to be human skin and written in a language that looked suspiciously like binary code.

Below, the pudding fairies began to form a massive spiral, their bodies melting together into a hypnotic vortex of vanilla, chocolate, and blood-red strawberry. It was beautiful in a nauseating way, like watching flesh dissolve in acid.

“Something’s emerging,” Cherrypop said, her voice tight with anticipation and dread.

The spiral began to pulse with an otherworldly light, and from its center rose a figure that made both queens gasp. It was the Mistress of Graves herself, but reconstituted in pudding form, her body a shifting mass of dessert that somehow maintained the shape of a woman in a flowing gown. Her face was a constantly moving tableau of features that seemed to be drowning in custard.

“Welcome to my kingdom,” the pudding apparition gurgled, her voice like someone drowning in butterscotch “I’ve come to claim what’s mine.” 

The fairy creatures below began to keen in harmony, a sound that made Cherrypop’s teeth ache and Silver’s skin crawl with goosebumps.

What happened next occurred with the terrible inevitability of a nightmare. The pudding fairies began to rise, forming a massive wave that threatened to engulf the palace. But Cherrypop and Silver had been prepared for this moment. They joined hands, their ancient queer magic surging between them like electric current.

“Now!” Cherrypop commanded, and Silver pulled out the secret weapon – a massive spoon forged in the fires of the palace kitchen by the royal chef, who had been mysteriously transformed into a talking teapot the week before. The spoon began to glow with an inner light that matched the bioluminescence of the pudding fairies.

The Mistress of Graves let out a shriek that sounded like a thousand spoons scraping against the bottom of empty bowls. Her pudding form began to collapse in on itself as the fairy horde was sucked into the vortex of the magical spoon, their bodies compressing into a single serving of the most dangerous dessert ever created in the Kingdom of Euphoria 

When it was over, all that remained was a single bowl of innocuous-looking pudding on the crystal balcony. Cherrypop and Silver looked at each other, their faces reflected in its perfectly smooth surface.

“What should we do with it?” Silver asked, prodding the bowl with one perfectly manicured finger.

Cherrypop smiled, a wicked gleam in her eye. “Let’s serve it at the next royal banquet. I hear the Duke of Tartland has been plotting against us.” She leaned in to kiss her partner, tasting of cherry wine and revolution. “Besides, who doesn’t love a good pudding?”

The pudding in the bowl wiggled slightly, and both queens could have sworn they heard it giggle.

The Morning After

The amnesia was all too familiar. 

I remembered drinking with Todd at a downtown dive bar. Then nothing. Nada. Blank. Zip. Still, I could fit the pieces together. The narrative wasn’t hard to construct. After all, I hadn’t gotten home all by myself. Somebody had returned me to my apartment and tucked me in all nice and tidy. 

Todd. 

A real gentleman. 

It was enough to make me sick. Which I already was, although not so severe that I couldn’t climb out of bed and pad to the bathroom in my stockinged feet. The thoughtful bastard had even removed my shoes before covering me with a blanket. 

Shedding my blouse and miniskirt, I took a long shower and mentally reviewed last night’s failure. No doubt Todd had searched my billfold to ascertain my address. He had driven me home, using my key to unlock the door, and carried me to bed. 

Chivalric prick. 

Of course, he wasn’t the first. I had been treated like a princess before. Granted, Todd was the first to actually enter my apartment. Most guys called me a cab at the bar, others an ambulance. A few had actually driven me to the emergency room. 

Unfortunately, this was the norm. Believe it or not, most folks are decent people. 

I got out of the shower, toweled dry, and put on some comfy sweatpants and a baggy T-shirt. I fixed myself a cup of coffee and a bowl of instant oatmeal. Half the day was shot. I had slept through it all, slumbering like the dead. Not that it mattered. It was Sunday. I had nothing to do, nowhere to go.

Curled up on the sofa, I finished the oatmeal and nursed my second cup of coffee. Familiar street sounds came through the open window of my second-floor studio. Most people would have found them comforting. I found them loathsome. Last night’s dud date had put me in a foul mood. 

I was losing faith in men. 

The city was full of hipster pussies and woke faggots. Momma’s boys, every last one. Effete do-gooders. Scumbags were getting harder and harder to find. It had been months since my last successful hookup. 

Gene. 

A real degenerate. 

I had regained consciousness the following morning behind a dumpster in a trash-strewn alley, my skirt hiked above my hips, my back bruised and bloody from him pounding me against a cement wall. Used. Abused. I was long overdue for another Gene. 

A man who wouldn’t freak out when I started to fade, a man who knew how to take full advantage of the situation, a man more than capable of sealing the deal . . . 

I was contemplating a third cup of coffee when my phone vibrated. Todd. Fucking great. I had hoped it would be my dealer. My supply was getting low. Todd was checking on me. How touching. I visualized him crossing the threshold of my bedroom, carrying me like a young groom with his chaste bride. 

“Give it up.” I frowned at my device. “You’re not my type.” 

The whole thing was terribly confusing. 

I wondered why he—and the others who had failed to measure up—had even messaged me in the first place. My profile on the dating app should have made my sexual aberration abundantly clear. I was nothing if not transparent. Starting with my screen name . . . 

Mickey Finn.