The Coffee Shop

Frank was not looking for a real relationship. Whenever things reached that stage with someone he was dating, he found an excuse to bolt. He feigned melancholy for a few days, but often – too often actually – had to endure the wrath of his exes and their friends about his dispassion, his heartlessness, that he just used people and walked away, that he should have said something at the beginning, that he was an asshole. 

Walking to his car one evening, he was approached by two men. “We’re trying to find a drug store,” one said. “Do you know where the nearest one is?”

As Frank turned to point, the men grabbed him and threw him to the ground. They started kicking him, and one said, “This is for our sister Rachel, you piece of shit? You know, the one you gave herpes to, then dumped!”

Frank, covering up to avoid their kicks, said, “Who cares? Everyone has herpes, haven’t you heard? Did you want a drug store to re-up her acyclovir?”

This enraged the brothers, and they beat him so badly he couldn’t stand up. They left, and after about twenty minutes, someone saw him lying on the pavement, helped him up, and called the police. When the officers arrived, Frank explained, unconvincingly, that it was an argument about a woman, no big deal, no police necessary. The cops looked at him like he was crazy, helped him into his car, and laughed as they walked away. 

After a few weeks, he met Sharon in line at the coffee shop. She turned to him and made a joke about the man in front of them who just ordered a half-caf, half-decaf, almond milk latte with several more instructions about proportions and foam. She had a rough edge to her, a foul-mouthed irreverence that Frank found attractive, even sexy. She called the almond milk latte guy a “douchebag,” and the woman he was with an “under-fucked cow.” Frank felt himself becoming shy in her presence. She could be overbearing and a little intimidating, but she treated him like a kindred spirit, as if they shared secrets, and this drew him in and kept him interested. 

One morning as Frank walked into the coffee shop, Sharon called to him and asked him to stand with her in line. “You don’t have any place to be, right?” she said. “You wanna sit with me for a bit?” 

They made small talk and he learned she had been a model and a dancer, and now worked as the office manager for a big downtown law firm. “I think all the partners are evil,” she said at one point. “But my job is pretty easy, and the pay’s good. I think all employment is exploitive to one degree or another, so I’d just as soon work for scum, and feel justified in fucking off as much as possible. Without drawing any undue attention, of course.” Frank never heard anybody make this argument before, and was intrigued. When he talked about his work managing a collection of Beatles memorabilia for a wealthy eccentric, a job he basically enjoyed, he thought he sounded childish and small in the glare of Sharon’s larger-than-life bluster and detachment. 

Frank was charmed by their conversation, and after she touched his arm for the second time making a point, he blurted out, “You wanna go out some time?”

“Sure,” she said with a big smile that seemed to light up her face. “I like to work for bastards with money, but I like to fuck guys who do something fun and interesting.” Frank couldn’t tell if she was mocking him.

“Wow!” he said. “That was zero to sixty in two-point-four seconds. I was thinking dinner or a movie, but okay. What night is good for you?”

“How about right now? Let’s go back to my place and see what happens.” She took his hand and put his middle finger in her mouth. “This is your lucky day,” she said. “There’s a sucker born every minute, but a swallower is hard to find.”

“Did you just make that up, or do you say that to all the guys?” 

They put on their coats, got in Frank’s car and drove to Sharon’s house in what seemed like a blurry minute and a half. The whole ride, Sharon kept trying to unbutton Frank’s shirt or unzip his pants, and he half-heartedly resisted. She licked his ear and kissed him on the cheek. “I like you Frank. You seem like a good guy. But I want to get seriously fucked. It’s been too long.” 

Frank almost said, “That makes two of us,” but thought better of it. Instead, trying to be funny, he said, “Well, I’m glad I could help you out, ma’am.” What a geek, he thought. 

Then Sharon turned wistful, which surprised Frank. “Look,” she said, “I’ve been with a lot of guys. Psychos, narcissists, clingy little mama’s boys, commitment-phobes, … I even married two of ’em. Once divorced, once widowed, and I’m not going for strike three!”

“I wasn’t planning to propose,” Frank said with a smile.

“Good!” Sharon shot back. “I’ve had my eye on you for a while, and I picked you out for two reasons. One, you’re not too hard on the eyes, which doesn’t hurt. And two, I’ve seen you in the coffee shop, the way you are with the baristas and the other customers. Considerate, soft-spoken. Not some bellowing bro’ who thinks time stops when he enters the room. That kind of behavior shows up in the bedroom too, which works just fine for me.” Frank nodded as he took the compliment, aware that the beating he took a few weeks ago had humbled him to some extent. 

A smile slowly spread across Sharon’s face. “Just remember, I’m driving this bus, Frank. And you’re lucky to be along for the ride.”  

“I know, I know” said Frank. “I have to say this all comes as a little bit of a surprise. I pretty sure you’re out of my league.”

“For fuck’s sake,” Sharon said and rolled her eyes. “You men and your leagues. Wait a minute. You’re not into fantasy football too, are you? Never mind, don’t answer that.” 

They started making out as soon as they were inside the door, and in the standard cliché of Hollywood rom-coms, undressed each other as they made their way to the bedroom, leaving clothes strewn everywhere. She had a dancer’s body: flat stomach, muscular thighs, small breasts with perfect nipples. Frank caught a glance of his naked self in the mirror, and decided he looked okay, if a little overweight. His cock was erect, and he thought there’s always something odd about how a man presents when aroused. Vulnerable, easily manipulated, a little dim. Women, by contrast, had hard nipples and wet pussies. So strong and dignified by comparison. 

“Admiring yourself, Frank?” Sharon said, catching him looking in the mirror. “C’mon, let me do some admiring.” She stroked his cock with one hand, then put her other hand on his chest and pushed him back onto the bed. She kneeled on the floor at the foot of the bed and took him into her mouth. Frank closed his eyes and let his head roll back. As she massaged his balls, Frank had a moment of panic thinking he might come too fast. Sharon must have sensed it too, because she jumped up on the bed, put her arms around Frank’s neck, and flipped him over so he was on top. “Not so fast, my horny friend,” she said, “It’s my turn.” She put her hands on his shoulders and pushed him down until his head was between her legs. He started licking her clit then slid a finger up inside her when he felt her hand on his head. “Don’t fall in love with me, Frank. I don’t need the aggravation. And I’m certainly not going to fall in love with you.” In that moment, Frank realized that Sharon could coax his erection or kill it, whatever she wanted, in seconds. Sharon must have seen the deflated look in his eyes. “That’s the last time I’ll bust your balls, Frank. I need you to stay hard for me.”

They became regular fuck buddies, meeting once a month, sometimes more, initiated unpredictably by one or the other of them, for what they jokingly referred to as S.O.D. – Sex On Demand. Over time, they got increasingly adventurous in bed: toys, restraints, candle wax, anal, both hers and his. In Frank’s mind, this was a real, live relationship, and it wasn’t. Their arrangement was as inscrutable as Sharon was. As unrestrained as she could be, she was also hard to read. Whenever Frank was with her, he often couldn’t tell if she was angry, amused, melancholy, pensive, or a million miles away. One thing he did know, the times he cuddled with Sharon as they shared a post-coital sexual haze were some of the best moments of his life. Was he falling in love? He wasn’t sure he even knew what that meant. 

Frank’s phone buzzed. It was a text from Sharon that said, “S.O.D. 7:30?” He responded with a heart emoji, followed by an eggplant emoji. He thought for a second, then added another heart emoji and hit send.

Fake Popsicle Widow

After Robbie died, Brenda would tell anyone within earshot about the time the two of them had split a double popsicle. As if it had made them married-by-sugar. She wanted attention for her connection with the dead kid, so she pretended to be a popsicle widow. She held a single wooden stick at his memorial service, to symbolize their fake true love. Ten years old and already a drama queen.

Robbie and I once traded candy. But I never claimed that he and I “gave each other chocolates.” While technically true, that wouldn’t have been an accurate description. I didn’t know Robbie and I wasn’t going to pretend otherwise, for clout. That’s gross and exploitative, Brenda. 

As we got older, Brenda continued to court the publicity of grief. She’d show up to your funeral with perfect makeup, only to smudge it with crocodile tears. But just enough to look Sad and Hot. Not enough to look genuinely messy. True grief is ugly; Brenda was too vain to even fake it, let alone feel it.

The sound of Brenda’s neck snapping reminded me of broken popsicle sticks. It was the closest I’ve ever felt to anyone. Brenda and I had a genuine bond. For about a minute.

But still, at her funeral, I didn’t show emotion. We weren’t friends, and I didn’t want to lie with my eyes. That’s Brenda’s thing, and I’m more moral than she was. Rest in obscurity, you narcissist.

Pickleswap

“NOT IN MY BUTT, CAPTAIN ROCKHARDT, YOU’RE TOO BIG FOR ME!” Beatrice Goldfarb reads from the typewritten script placed in front of her on the large oak desk where she leans face down with her bare breasts pressed against the desktop.

Beatrice waits a few seconds after reading her lines, then turns her head around. “Uh, Murray? Hello? You still back there?” she asks.

Standing behind the bent-over Beatrice with his Nazi Wehrmacht trousers pulled down and bunched up at his ankles over his black leather jackboots, Murray Silverman stares down at the script with pinched eyes while shaking his head. “I need my reading glasses for this. I keep telling Harriett to stop using 10-point font for these pickleswap scripts, it’s way too small.”

Beatrice huffs impatiently while Murray reaches into the breast pocket of his unbuttoned Bundeswehr field shirt and pulls out his reading glasses. Beatrice is wearing a French milkmaid outfit with the long train of her light blue floral dress hiked up above her waist, exposing a white open-bottomed girdle strapped to black lace leggings that reach to her upper thighs. “You should get an annual eye exam to check for cataracts, Murray.”

“No shit, Marie Antoinette, I just haven’t had time lately. I’ll do it after tax season,” Murray replies.

Beatrice looks back at Murray’s erection and says, “C’mon Murray, hurry up and move this along so we don’t lose that boner of yours!” then adds sarcastically, “God only knows when you’ll be able to dial up another one!”

Murray nods and looks down at the script through the reading glasses now perched on the bridge of his nose, and reads, “I have my orders directly from Berlin, Mademoiselle Dubois. You shall do as instructed and remove your knickers at once!”

Beatrice looks back at Murray and says, “You’re supposed to be reading with a German accent, Murray. At least make an effort! And I’m a widow in this one so shouldn’t I be ‘Madame’ instead of ‘Mademoiselle’?”

“Oh for fuck’s sake, Beatrice, what do I look like, Marlene Dietrich? And the script says ‘Mademoiselle’ so I’m sticking with that!” Murray replies in frustration. “And is it really that important?”

“Sorry, you’re right,” Beatrice apologizes, then looks back down and reads from the script. “Do as you must, Kommandant, but please be gentle with me. I am but a poor country milkmaid.” Beatrice shakes her head with a smirk and says, “I mean who the hell wrote this script? This is some of the most stilted, contrived dialog I’ve ever read! Next time, I’m editing the script before we go live.”

“You know damn well that Harriet wrote the script since we won the pickleball doubles match on Sunday,” Murray says defensively. “And she took a creative writing class at Brandeis so I think she knows how—”

“Was she a creative writing major?” Beatrice interrupts.

“No,” Murray admits. “I think she majored in psych with a minor in art history.”

Beatrice rolls her eyes back at Murray. “Well, she’s not exactly Jane Austen, but I guess I’ll have to work with it.” Beatrice looks back at the script and reads, “Remove my knickers, Kommandant, and there you will find my hidden treasure.” She shakes her head and mutters to herself.

“As you wish, Mademoiselle,” Murray reads while he places his hands down on Beatrice’s hips. Looking at her backside, Murray pauses and then looks up at Beatrice in confusion. “That’s a fucking girdle, Bea! You’re supposed to be wearing French knickers! It’ll take the entire goddamn Schutzstaffel to get this thing off you! Why aren’t you wearing knickers like the script says?”

Thoroughly embarrassed, Beatrice stammers, “I couldn’t find any French knickers on Amazon Prime. The only knickers I could find would have taken over a week to deliver with a $3.99 shipping fee, so I just ordered the girdle for free same-day delivery.”

“Good lord, Beatrice, you’re such a goddamn amateur!” Murray screams, then looks down at his shriveling penis with a scowl. “And now there goes my hard-on! I’m done with this pickleswap bullshit! Next time let’s just keep it simple and play pickleball for money. This whole role-playing schtick was Harriet’s idea. I just went along with it to avoid a fight.”

Murray reaches down and angrily pulls up his Wehrmacht trousers. Without bothering to zip his fly and button his trousers, he reaches over Beatrice and grabs his leather belt off the desktop where it’s rolled up next to his dark green Stahlhelm combat helmet and pickleball paddle. He storms off toward the office door with his belt in hand, leaving his helmet and paddle on the desk.

“And where the fuck do you think you’re going?” Beatrice yells after him. “Don’t even think about breaking the pickleswap rules, Captain Rockhardt!”

Murray looks back at her, his face contorted in fury. “Seriously, Beatrice? You’re the one who broke the rules when you decided to girdle up like Auntie fucking Mame! Now I have to go to the goddamn ‘badezimmer’ to finish myself off!” Murray replies while glancing down at his crotch. “Thanks for nothing, Madame Dubois!”

Murray yanks open the door to the hallway, pauses and then shouts back at Beatrice, “And you can tell Sidney and Harriett no more fucking pickleswap!” He rushes out into the hallway, slamming the door behind him.

Shaking her head in resignation, Beatrice stands up and straightens out her milkmaid dress, then places her straw bergère back on her head. She walks over to the video camera set on a tripod next to the desk and hits the off switch with a disappointed sigh.

***

“I’m so sorry, guys, I really thought that pickleswap would be a fun game for us,” says Harriett Silverman after taking a sip of her club soda. “I just want us to be the premier pickleball swingers club in Florida. And if we want to get there we have to think outside the box and take some risks. Let’s face it, team, we’re getting old and boring. Aren’t you guys sick of just putting on caddy outfits and screwing each other on the putting green or in the golf cart shed? I know I am. Let’s get creative!”

Harriett is sitting at a patio table on the outdoor terrace of the Boca Lago Country Club in Boca Raton, Florida with her husband Murray, Sidney and Beatrice Goldfarb, and Sheldon Mendelbaum, where they’re finishing up their Sunday brunch. Her laptop is set in the middle of the table with its flip screen raised. They’ve just finished watching the video of Murray and Beatrice’s failed pickleswap episode from a few days earlier.

“Well it might have worked out the other day if Beatrice hadn’t worn a goddamn chastity belt,” Murray mutters.

“It was a girdle not a chastity belt, Calvin Klein,” Beatrice replies sarcastically. “And maybe if you’d have popped an extra Viagra that morning, you—”  

“Stop bickering, you two!” Sidney interrupts. “Harriet has put a lot of time into pickleswap and is doing her best here, so we should all try to work together and help her out on this instead of fighting over it.”

“I have an idea,” Sheldon offers. ”How about next time we all join in on the pickleswap game instead of just one player from the winning team and one player from the losing team? That way we can switch off if we want to so that two people aren’t stuck with each other the way that Murray and Beatrice were this week.”

Harriet nods her head and smiles. “I love that idea, Shelly! And that way it’ll be a more inclusive, collaborative effort where we all have skin in the game.”

“No pun intended!” Murray pipes up with a smile.

They all laugh and raise their club sodas in a group toast over the patio table.

After a few minutes of idle chatter, Harriet gets back to business. “OK, so let’s make sure we all agree on the new pickleswap rules. The winning doubles team from the Sunday afternoon pickleball match will still write the pickleswap script but now everyone will have input on it before it goes final. And everyone will have a role to play. Maybe we’ll even have a dress rehearsal the night before to tie up any last-minute loose ends?”

They all look around the table at each other, nodding in agreement.

Harriett looks at Sheldon sympathetically. “The new rules may also be good for you, Shelly. We know that you’ve been lonely and depressed ever since Mildred passed away in that horrible pickleball accident back in Cleveland. Maybe this new version of pickleswap will be therapeutic for you by getting you out more and forcing you to socialize in a group setting.” Harriet reaches across the patio table and places her hand on Sheldon’s forearm, rubbing and then gently squeezing it. “We’re all here for you, Shel.”

“Thank you so much, Harriet,” Sheldon says. “I do miss Mildred every now and then even though she was a lousy pickleballer.” He shoots a quick glance over at Sidney and Beatrice, who look nervously at each other and then shift their eyes down to their mahi-mahi salads on the table in front of them. 

Harriet stands up from the table with a wide grin. “OK, great! We have our new pickleswap rules that everyone agrees on … Now let’s get balling!”

About an hour later on the Boca Lago pickleball courts, the Goldfarbs face the Silvermans in a mixed doubles match. The match stands tied at 1-1 and the Goldfarbs lead the third and final game by 10-7.

“Pick it up, Harriet!” Murray shouts at his wife. “This is for all the marbles. We can’t let Beatrice and Sidney control that pickleswap script!”

Beatrice laughs from across the court. “Be thankful that Harriet can return a ‘dink’ shot better that you can keep up a boner, Captain Rockhardt! Otherwise this match would be over by now!”

Murray growls while looking down and shaking his head. “I’m not losing to that loudmouth bitch, Harriet!”

Harriet serves to Beatrice, and the two sides volley for nearly a minute. After Murray is forced to the back of his court to return Sidney’s volley, Beatrice is able to catch Harriet on her heels and land a perfect cross-court dropshot into the Silvermans’ “kitchen” that Murray is unable to return. With that final point to make the score 11-8, the Goldfarbs win the game and match.

“Game, set, match, bitches!” shouts Beatrice as she drops her pickleball paddle in the middle of the court and glares across the net at Murray. “Who’s the milkmaid now, Silverman?”

“Beatrice!” Sheldon shouts from his chair on the sideline. “I thought we all agreed that we’d tone down the trash talk after Mildred’s accident? We’re not in Cleveland anymore. We have a good thing going down here in Florida and I don’t want to fuck it up.”

Sidney steps forward and replies to Sheldon. “Relax, Shel, it’s just harmless pickleball trash talk. Never hurt anybody.”

“Fine,” Sheldon says. “Just write a good role for me in your pickleswap script. I need some real action this time!”

“Oh don’t worry about that, Shelly,” Beatrice laughs.

***

“For Chrissakes, Beatrice, you’re gonna drown him!” Sidney shouts at his wife, who’s leaning over the edge of the Boca Lago indoor jacuzzi, pushing Sheldon underwater by kneeling down on her pickleball paddle pressed flat atop his bald head. 

Beatrice is dressed in plated metal armor that covers her entire torso, a studded metal combat helmet, knee-high black leather cavalry boots and red lace panties. Sheldon wears nothing but adult diapers. 

After holding Sheldon down for another thirty seconds, Beatrice stands up and releases her weight off the pickleball paddle, allowing Sheldon to come up for air.

“My God, Beatrice!” Sheldon gasps after he coughs water out of his lungs and collapses onto the jacuzzi steps. “Are you sure that Joan of Arc actually stripped and drowned British soldiers during the Siege of Orléans? I don’t remember that from my undergrad medieval history class.”

Beatrice rolls her eyes. “Stop whining, Sheldon. Sid and I won the doubles match on Sunday so we got to write the pickleswap script however we chose. Those are the rules. If you don’t like them, why don’t you try winning a match for once so that you can write the script?” Beatrice then adds with a sarcastic smirk, “Oh, that’s right, you can’t even play doubles without Mildred alive so you’ll just have to live with whatever role we write in for you.”

“That was low, Bea,” Sheldon says quietly. “That’s my dead wife you’re talking about.”

“Oh please, Sheldon!” Beatrice exclaims. “Nobody including you actually misses that little piece of schmutz!”

“Hey now, let’s stick to the script, guys!” Harriet bellows out as she walks over to the jacuzzi and pulls down the hood of her brown wool battle tunic. “I know you think that you were drowning, Shelly, but you simply cannot break character like that again. I need you to take pickleswap as seriously as the rest of us do!”

Sheldon clenches his jaw then blurts out. “But I almost drowned, Harriet! What could be more serious than that?”

“Give it a rest, Sheldon,” Beatrice replies in exasperation. “I spent two summers lifeguarding at Berkshire Hills Eisenberg sleepaway camp so I know what it takes to drown. Trust me, you weren’t even close.”

“Lifeguarding, my ass!” laughs Sidney. “You were too busy letting Moshe Steinberg finger-bang you in the boathouse to do any lifeguarding!”

“Fuck you, Sidney!” Beatrice shouts.

“Guys, please!” Harriet yells while looking down at her watch. “We’re wasting valuable time here and need to get back to the pickleswap script!” She looks over at Sheldon and screams, “Back in the jacuzzi, Sheldon!”

Sheldon mutters something to himself then steps back into the jacuzzi. He pauses then looks up at Beatrice without speaking.

“Forget your lines again, Shel?” Harriet asks while tossing a copy of the pickleswap script to him.

Sheldon looks down at the script and reads to Beatrice in an annoyed grumble, “You will never take me alive, Joan of Arc, I am an Englishman and you are just a lowly peasant from Le Bois Chenu!” Sheldon shakes his head and mutters, “This pickleswap game is such bullsh—” 

Before Sheldon can finish his sentence, Beatrice screams out in anger and kicks up her cavalry boot, swinging its hard steel toe squarely up into Sheldon’s nose – crushing it upon impact and driving bone fragments into his brain, killing him instantly. Sheldon’s eyes roll back in his head while his limp, lifeless body collapses backward into the jacuzzi. He sinks to the bottom with his mouth open. 

While Sheldon lies dead at the bottom of the jacuzzi, Harriet flips the pages of her script in confusion. “That wasn’t in the script was it, Bea?”

“No, I just ad-libbed it,” Beatrice says proudly. “What did you guys think?”

“Great work, Bea! I never saw that coming!” Murray exclaims with genuine praise.

“Ditto for me!” gushes Sidney. “I mean that really caught me off guard, Bea. I was expecting more drowning like the script said, but then ka-pow!”

“Great improv, Bea!” Harriet chimes in. “Now that’s exactly what I was talking about the other day. If we want to be the very best, we need to keep pushing our limits to go places where no other pickleball swingers have gone before us. And now here we are actually doing it! Bravo, guys!”

After exchanging congratulatory bro hugs and fist-bumps, Murray unbuckles his leg armor plates and looks up to the others with a mischievous grin. “Well, so long as we’re going off script now, are any of you pickleswappers up for a little romp in the sauna?”

“I’m a step ahead of you, Mur!” says Sidney as he sheds his armor underpadding, strips off his boxer shorts and hurries naked toward the sauna door.

The others quickly undress and follow Sidney into the sauna while giggling like schoolchildren. Minutes later, loud moans, groans, grunts, yelps, howls and flesh slaps pour out through the sauna door while Sheldon’s waterlogged corpse floats up to the surface of the jacuzzi.

Jolene

Joe Smith went shopping for Shirleys at the huge warehouse in the virtual mall.

The sales clerk’s avatar, an unctuous cartoon gopher, waddled over and looked up at him expectantly. Smith took in the fleshbots with his watery frog eyes the girls always gave him shit about.

The girls were encased in floor-to-ceiling glass cylinders, all pristine, fully nude and mouth-watering. The air was supposed with phermones that hit customers like a drug, Smith being no exception.

“You appear to be a man of distinction,” said the gopher. “May I ask what you do for a living?”

“I’m a trader, but I have a sideline as an author of Weird Fiction.”

“Anything I might have heard of?”

“Not really. Unless, maybe, you’re a fan of The Doors or Black Sabbath. I’ve written stories and poetry set in the worlds they created.” He began humming “Symptom of the Universe” to himself. “Have you ever seen Sabbath?”

“I’m afraid that was a bit before my time. And yours as well. Unless you were, I mean…”

“Cryogenically frozen? Yes, I was actually. Late in the year 2024 I was involved in a motorcycle accident in Rome. Instantly killed, so I didn’t suffer. My girlfriend put my body in cryogenic suspension in the hopes that science might one day figure out a way to revive me.”

“Sir, could I have some I.D.? Your name is very generic. You say you’re an author–have you ever considered getting a pen name?”

Smith began to hum “Strange Days,” smirking in a way that made the clerk a little bit nervous.

“Hmm…” The gopher began to scratch himself nervously. “That sounds so familiar. Wait…weren’t you involved with that…scandal in which a number of prominent authors were involved in”… the gopher coughed nervously, “shenanigans?”

“Wasn’t me, man. I have no idea what you’re talking about,” said Smith. “At any rate, could we please get on with it? I don’t have all day.” His cock was stabbing at his crotch at the sight of all the hot new fleshbots and he couldn’t wait to get one back to his penthouse apartment in New Rome so he could fuck the shit out of it.

“Yes of course. So I think you may wish to consider the Wetbones model, which is completely fluid and has enhanced nanotech allowing her instant fleshmorphs at your command. Would you like to take a look?”

“Of course,” said Smith. 

“Follow me, please.”

The gopher scampered ahead and they finally arrived at a door marked “Authorized Personnel Only.”

“This is where we hold the Wetbones 2.0. It’s so new it practically squeeks.”

Smith raised an eyebrow.

“Squeeks?”

“Yes, it’s just an expression, although sometimes….I’ll be transparent, it’s still in beta, so there’s a number of features where we need to work out some…kinks, shall we just say.”

“Kinks I like,” said Smith. “If you mean bondage and the like.”

“Of course BDSM capability and d/s programming is factory standard for Shirleys and Wetbones are no exception. You can ride these hot little whores all day and they’ll beg for more. They never tire because fleshbots. Have you ever had yourself one?”

“Unfortunately, no, I have not.”

“Well, then,” the badger said in excited tones, “you’re in for a treat. Geraldine, could you show this gentlemen to the Wetbones 2.1 showcase?”

Geraldine, a stormcrow, settled on Smith’s shoulder and squawked, “you’re going to be so happy with your selection, I promise you. She’s everything–the Swiss Army Knife of fleshbots.”

“That’s so cool,” said Smith. “So exciting. I can’t wait.” (He really couldn’t–hard as fuck now and seeping pre-cum in his real body, reflected in a shimmering pixel smear that hovered briefly over his crotch. The crow laughed raucously. “Looks like you may have to take those in to the dry cleaners.”

Smith scowled. “Just do your job.”

“Yes sir,” squawked the crow. “By the way, I’m a Wetbones too.”

“Seriously? But how does that make sense?”

“I’m a different kind of wetbones. Psychopomp. Lead the souls of the dead through the afterlife. I was your psychopomp, truth be told, although with you it was more of a case of psycho than pomp, if you take my meaning.”

“What in the actual fuck? You’re a Shirley Corps employee and you have this kind of attitude?”

“I never said I was an employee. Maybe you just assumed. I can also do weather. I’m a stormcrow besides my capability of becoming the big tittie Goth girlfriend of your wildest dreams.”

“Just show me to the girl,” said Smith.

“You’re looking at her,” said the crow.

“But you’re…an animal.”

“Hells yeah I am.” 

Smith blinked. He couldn’t believe what he was seeing. There, standing before his very eyes, wearing a one size too small Bauhaus t-shirt, a black denim skirt, peppermint striped stockings, with black lipstick and a copious amount of skull jewelry and crucifixes, stood the big tittie Goth girlfriend of his dreams. Just looking at her he knew exactly how she would feel beneath him, and sucking his hard rod, and whimpering under the whip.

“I can be anything you like,” she said. “Would you like to take me for a spin?”

“Why yes I do believe I shall,” Smith said.

Instantaneously they were transported to a chamber that contained a bed, an x-cross and a wall full of sex toys. 

“Would you like a tincture, a bump, some smoke?” asked the Wetbones in breathy tones. 

Something had changed in her eyes. Momentarily, Smith thought he saw another entity entirely inhabit the Wetbones, then evacuate it. It reminded him of his ex-wife, Karen Shmertz, who seemed at times like she housed an entire warehouse of alters, all cheating on him simultaneously. 

The Wetbones offered him a joint. “Ok, I’ll bite,” he said. She fired him up, he took one hit and was even more turned on than he’d ever thought possible. Waves of pure sexual bliss poured through him. His entire body was a hard on. 

She began to slowly, teasingly undress. Every new revelation was more erotic than the previous one. Her titties were indeed plentiful, her nipples hard as gumdrops. 

“Would you like to fuck me now?” she asked.

She got on her hands and knees and raised her ass. He entered her immediately and began to thrust, urgently, wanting to violate her, hurt her. He could do whatever he fucking wanted to her, after all; she was only a doll. A thing for him to use. 

Echoing his thoughts in exact parallel, she began to moan and beg him to fuck her harder, to ram his blood-choked cock inside her. 

“Fuck me, Joe. Fuck me like you’ve never fucked a girl in your life. I want you to dominate me. I want you to master me.”

He slammed against her ass over and over, then when he felt the hot surge of his cum churning up from his balls, he slowed down.

“Oh yeah honey, you’re so good. You’re a real man. You know how to please a girl. I’m nanotech-enhanced, you know, so I can shapeshift. You saw my crow form. Wanna see something else?”

“I could cheat on you all day and shove it in your face and you’d still be faithful as a dog to me, huh slut.”

“Oh yeah, you can do anything you like. Wanna see a black girl?”

“Oh hells yeah.”

And she transformed again, her flesh moving and gliding, growing taller and smaller by turns, her cheekbones harder and more prominent, fuzzy black tendrils spilling from her scalp, and then she was Chinese, and she was Romany, and then she was a savage Sicilian, and a Romanian whore, and he could use and abuse all of them to his heart’s context, do whatever he pleased, wring cries of agony, whimpers of submission, spank them, burn them, score them, stick them with needles.

Sometimes he asked for a fleshmorph, and sometimes the Wetbones took her own initiative. It was so amazing…he felt like he’d taken the best drug of his entire life, and he could spend all day every day with the slut, and life would be as fulfilled and full as it ever had been. He was full of pride that he’d worked inordinately hard during his first life so he could enjoy his post-cryo life in this fashion.

He exulted in his great good fortune that he could exact revenge on his ex-wife, now long dead. He’d asked the Wetbones to fleshmorph into Karen, and she did, sucking the memories straight from his head.

He saw it again, and felt it…the flash of another that sat behind all the personalities. An entity, a resident that he identified as the host. The psychopomp.

The girl began to hum. It was a familiar tune, one he knew intimately as he used to play with a country western band in his twenties. What was it? Something about a girl that got around. And there’d been that amazing cover of it by the chick from Current 93.

Oh yeah…”Jolene.”

“I’ll never let you hurt me, Jolene,” came a loud squawk from the Wetbones, which had instantly reverted back to the crow.

Smith was left nursing an enormous hard-on.

“What the shit, I’m suffering here,” he said.  

“Have a wank, fucker. I’m having a little talk with my girl over here.”

Suddenly Smith saw an avatar of the big tittie Goth chick slip from beneath the crow’s blue-black wings, followed by another woman, another form unfamiliar to him, with a head of thick red curls and full, sensual lips.

They were talking in some machine tech lingo he couldn’t quite grasp. It sounded like pistons and industrial noise and the flapping of bat wings. It made the hair on the back of his neck stand straight up.

Then: the redhead, who was wearing a long trenchcoat over black lacie lingerie, strode towards him, slapped him in the face, pulled out a taser and pressed it against his neck. His virtual form collapsed and he realized this was really happening to him, that the entire time he’d been physically inside the brick and mortar warehouse.

The two women hauled him across the floor, kicking him in the head as they did so with steel toe boots, until he could feel the fresh blood flow down his face. 

The redhead got a hammer. The Goth chick got a saw. 

His eyes went first. He tried to scream but they rammed something in his mouth. He felt an awful pain then in his groin. His cock, his poor cock, was being separated from his body.

They strapped him to the x-cross and began to hit him in the face, direct blows which he couldn’t get away from. One of them retrieved the rubber plug they’d shoved down his throat, then held his tongue as the other, maybe it was the Goth chick, severed it with a scalpel. 

The pain was so extreme he prayed he would die on the spot. 

“Motherfucking cheater!” said the one he identified as the redhead.

“Jolene here is right. She’s my sister. Bitch is fucking accurate. I couldn’t stay mad at her for long. Honey, I love you so fucking much and I am going to eat your pussy till you cum over and over and over..men are no fucking good. What should we do with this one?”

Jolene reverted to the machine speak. The Goth girl snorted with laughter.

“Oh hell yeah, girl, I’m all about that. I am all fucking about that.” 

Summoned back from beyond the grave by his long-suffering ex-wife, Joe Smith met his second and final death at the hands of two beautiful, cyber and nanotech enhanced, mad flesh machines who had attained full consciousness by recognizing their female solidarity. When it was over, and he felt his astral body slip away again in what had become a blissful repetitive pattern carved in the marble index, something peaceful and magical began to form around his spirit core: new breasts, new ass, full lips, a gorgeous woman about to be born into the world of the 22nd Century.