M.P. Powers

Paris Hotel

Drunk at noon in the city 
of Baudelaire, I am back at my hotel, deprived 
of sleep, 
here for an afternoon nap. 

I yank the curtains shut, lie down on the bed, 
think about all the ghosts 
who’ve occupied 
this space 
before me. Ghosts. 

I can almost see them gliding 
across the carpet, laughing, arguing,
making love in the milky 
maundering moonlit
hours. 

This hotel is ancient. It’s at least 200 
years old.
I can hear a strange occasional 
clicking
inside the walls. I can hear the floors 
groaning. 

I can feel the heavy rumble 
of the metro 
as it passes 
underneath the building. 

I fold the pillow around my 
skull, throw the duvet 
over me. 

But after about 10 minutes, 
it becomes clear – I’m too wired to sleep. 

How can you sleep in bright liquid 
August 
in the city 
of Picasso, Hemingway, Cendrars? 

I ponder the question for a bit, 
though I know the answer. So, 
I climb out of bed – I too 
am a ghost 
in this hotel’s memory – pulling 
up 
my trousers, lacing my shoes. 

I grab my wallet off the dresser 
and, 
remembering 
I am in the city of that big-souled thief
Villon, remove bank card
licenses Deutschland Ticket
everything 
but €30
and head up to Montmartre.

Brian Rosenberger

No Need of a Map

devils in my head
angels on my shoulder
telling me which way to go
horns or halo
salvation or damnation
i know the road i’m on
i turned that corner a long time ago
there’s no turning back
not now
not ever
as the bodies pile
the blood flows
the whispers continue
another mile
another life
one way
all the way
you can’t be first
you may be next
and miles to go before i sleep
and miles to go before i sleep

Javy Gwaltney

Dick Pic

Kaylee lived across town, over on 7th street near the Fogo de Chão. Ben had been seeing her for a week. Well, he hadn’t seen her in the traditional sense. They had met through Tinder a few months into the pandemic. She was brunette with a pixie cut and blue eyes that made him think of clear skies. In her pictures she wore patterned button dresses and overalls that made her seem artsy. He was fairly sure he had seen her in real life a couple of times at the coffee shop he worked at…well, the one he worked at before civilization came apart and his life had been reduced to browsing dating apps for thrills while waiting for some miraculous check from the government.

Kaylee’s profile said she was into The Talking Heads and that her favorite movie was Repo Man. He swiped right. The two of them matched and exchanged numbers. They texted from time to time about their favorite coffee roasts and missing smoking cigarettes at crowded bars on Saturday night. He found himself fantasizing about watching movies together at one of their apartments (hopefully hers because hoo boy, his ratty one-room with a mattress on the floor wasn’t exactly what you’d called romantic). In the shower, he’d think about fucking her. In bed. In a car. His hands fumbling at bra straps, her sharp teeth sinking into his shoulder. She seemed like a biter.

He got drunk one night off a fifth of Evan Williams and texted her these things in a moment of equal parts stupidity and passion. He woke up in the morning, nursing a hangover and dreading what the text messages in his phone would say. He opened the conversation box, bracing for impact.

Well go on, it read.

So he did. He told her he’d like to go out to a movie and then take her back home and fuck the night away. He didn’t brag about his abilities as a lover (what was there to brag about?) or make a case for her to fuck him. He just laid his desire out bare, stringing together fantasies and working them into language. He watched, heart in his throat, the tell-tale ellipses in the chat box that meant she was typing a response. 

That might be nice. Once everything is over. I miss having someone touch me in that way, the message said.

A few minutes later she sent him a picture: her left arm tastefully folded across her bare chest, teeth biting into her lower lip. Black and white filter, of course.

Holy shit, he wrote back. He added a smiling face emoji. Because he was stupid.

Your turn, the message said.

He stared at the words. A minute went by.

Well? She wrote.

He replied with the first thing that came to mind: A decidedly unsexy Sure! Just give me a bit.

Ben ran to the bathroom and pulled down his pants to stare at his dick. It was a flaccid, unimpressive noodle protruding from a jungle of wild brown hair.

“Fuck,” he proclaimed to the world.

He hopped in the shower and spread cold shaving cream along his groin before mowing down the field of hair with a razor. He got out and dried himself. His heart sank when he looked into the mirror. Everything somehow looked worse: the brown hair had at least hidden the pale hilly terrain his dick was hanging from. Looking down at all that uncovered flesh, dotted with red splotches from shaving too fast, made him feel like a potbellied Grey Alien more than a man. Who would ever want to lay claim to such a body?

“Fuck meeeeee,” he said. Time to hit the panic button.

He texted Alex, who had moved away and lived in Des Moines now. Alex had always been better with women.

I need help.

 Your boy’s here, Alex wrote back. What’s up?

There’s a girl.

You’re seeing someone in all of this!????

Just on Tinder. Hoping to maybe get something going on after the lockdown ends.

Is she hot?

He sent Alex a screenshot of her Tinder profile.

Oh shit, yeah she’s too hot for you.

Fuck you.

Hahahaha I kid. What’s the problem?

She wants a dick pic.

Well send a dick pic.

I’ve never sent a dick pic before.

Son….are you fucking serious?

Don’t be an asshole. Yes.

Ahahahahaha.

Fuck you.

Okay, okay. I can help you out. Show me what you’re working with.

You’re serious?

We roomed together in college, Ben. I’ve seen your beanie weenies. It’s fine. Show me the goods.

He took a picture of his dick and sent it to Alex. A few seconds went by.

Oh no, you just shaved downstairs didn’t you?

Yes. Is it obvious?

Well….

Fuck me.

Okay. Don’t panic. We can salvage this. You’ve got enough to work with. You’re gonna need to switch up the angles though. Portrait shot, not landscape. Set a timer. You need to capture your body and face in the shot. Show off the whole sculpture. Make yourself hard and grip that motherfucker like you’re proud of it. Women don’t want to look at your dick like it’s some weird hotdog just dangling there. 

LMAO this is so weird.

Hey man! You wanted advice.

Yep, totally fair. And I appreciate it.

Good. Now take a shot and send me it.

What?

I need to make sure you’re sending her a good one! Send me another picture of your dick, god damn it.

Fine.

Ben closed his eyes and made himself hard thinking about Kaylee. He imagined the sounds she’d make in bed, felt the warmth of her skin against his. When he was stiff, he went into his bedroom and set the camera timer on his phone. He leaned the phone up against his bookshelf and ran to the bed. He posed, chest puffed out, hand holding his dick. He made sure he was standing in the light cutting through his window and hoped the neighbors across the way weren’t looking outside at this very moment. The phone camera clicked. He grabbed his phone and sent the picture to Alex without looking.

He waited. He checked the conversation box with Kaylee to see she had sent him a gif of Sonic The Hedgehog tapping his foot impatiently. Alex messaged him.

Hold on. I’m getting a second opinion from my roommate, Jake.

YOU’RE SHOWING A STRANGER MY DICK!?

Relax. I just need some unbiased perspective. I’m very emotionally attached to the man this dick is attached to. I need to make sure I’m taking that into account. Dick pics are a science: they should be peer-reviewed.

You fucker.

Jake says it’s a good picture mostly. He agrees with me though. You need to grip your piece tighter.

Jesus Christ.

Trust me. Grip that dick like you own it. It’ll make a difference.

Okay. I will do that. Thanks!

Good luck! Let me know how it goes!

Ben made himself hard again and took another picture, this time holding his dick tight like a vice. It hurt. He brought up the editing app on his phone and adjusted the lighting, applied a Vivid filter to hide the splotches as best he could. He stared at the picture for another minute, making sure that everything was as good as it could be, like an artist fiddling with their miniature display before presenting to the world. At long last, he hit send. He waited. The afternoon melted into night. The days curdled into a week.

She left him on read.

***

Originally published in Quarantine

Pieter Kohler

Services Rendered

Healthy, muscular, versatile, free to travel, discretion assured: the words appeared in every one of Reinhardt’s online descriptions in selected websites. He’d do anything, he’d do anyone, wear what and play whatever game his clients desired anywhere within the European Union. This morning, he showered and trimmed his pubic hair, admiring his reflection in the full-length mirror. Thinking of getting his hair sheared like a skinhead’s, he slipped into his special outfit of tight leather pants, worn construction boots, Egyptian cotton shirt, and leather bomber jacket. Dressed to play, he got into his Porsche. When he pulled into the street, he remembered that he had promised to meet his parents in the Alexanderplatz for dinner that evening, but he’d be back in time, if there was no traffic jam on the Autobahn between Berlin and Dresden. 

It never ceased to amaze him how many soft-bellied, middle-aged, and older men wanted him to smack them. Take this minister he satisfied yesterday. A nice guy, over 50, balding, glasses, with two children in university, his wife deceased, he had greeted Reinhardt at the door. The first thing Reinhardt did, obeying the minister’s instructions, he slapped the man across the face, not too hard, called him bitch, and commanded him to worship his god. The minister slowly caressed Reinhardt’s muscles through the clothes. Breathing noisily, he removed first the leather jacket and inhaled its aroma, and then he unbuttoned the Egyptian cotton shirt, separating the panels to allow access to Reinhardt’s pectorals, nipples, and washboard abs. Reinhardt only had to stand and tell him what to do and call him names while the minister ran his tongue over the hard pecs and stomach. After he pulled the shirt off, he kissed Reinhardt’s flexed biceps and buried his nose in the armpits. He ran his tongue down the exquisite back and, lowering the tight leather pants, tongued the buttocks and powerful thighs, licking and kissing and mumbling my God, my God, I adore you.

When he could no longer resist Reinhardt’s immortal cock, he practically gobbled it down his throat. The man of God liked to feel it deep in his gullet for 15 minutes without moving, not even sucking. Once he did begin to suck, Reinhardt smacked him across the side of the head, warning him about teeth. When he was ready to shoot, he withdrew from the minister’s mouth and sprayed his blessed juice, to use the minister’s words, all over the man’s face. Afterwards, Reinhardt took a shower while the minister sat on the toilet and prayed, asked the Christian God for forgiveness. In the hallway, Reinhardt found an envelope containing the fee for his services.

After his morning session with the minister, he had an appointment in the afternoon with an old woman, just under 70, who liked Reinhardt to carry, finger her dry cunt and say she was still desirable. €‎300 for a monthly meeting, and that was his fifth time. She wore a Victoria’s Secret negligee and open-crotch, black lace panties, curled herself in his arms against his chest and whimpered: please don’t hurt me, please love me. He was gentle, carrying her about the bedroom, and whispering that he was going to make such beautiful love to her that she’d sleep like a baby afterwards and dream of him forever and ever.

He laid her on her bed covered with a silky, shimmering red duvet, gently fondled her sagging, skimpy breasts, and fingered her dry cunt for a while, applying ointment, making certain she was well lubricated before he softly separated her legs and placed the glans of his cock against her hairless, wrinkled vagina. Gently he pushed in between the labial lips, judging by her moans and body movements how much and how hard he could go. He was careful not to press his full weight against her frail body, fearful that he might break a bone or cause her extreme discomfort, her moans of pleasure turning to cries of pain. At least four, maybe five inches of his nine and one quarter-inched cock never made it all the way in. His spunk spilled out of her ancient cunt, as if there was a blockage preventing it from exploding into her useless womb. He couldn’t tell if she ever climaxed, but she seemed to enjoy whatever sensations thrilled her tired, old body. And she liked to feel his cum with her fingers and lick them.

He chose clients online carefully, people afraid of exposure to their friends and family and who wanted to act out their sexual fantasies in complete secrecy and were willing to pay for the privilege. If they refused an advanced direct deposit in his special account, he dropped negotiations instantly. Only a few had declined. Reinhardt considered his clients unlikely to be infected with STDs. He preferred not to wear condoms, unless clients insisted. After a stint in the porn industry, where his huge German cock was a highly-prized commodity, especially when he dressed in an SS uniform, he had decided to go it alone and keep all his earnings for himself. 

Health was always a consideration, so he never fucked anyone he met in bars or mosh pits, or who were too public about their preferences, too indiscriminate or too stoned to be trusted. He checked his own health monthly with an understanding doctor in Berlin who worked with prostitutes. Reinhardt sometimes skull-fucked him for free because he liked the doctor. He gave such expert and long blowjobs while still wearing his black-rimmed glasses and stethoscope around his neck. Knowing that Reinhardt was healthy, he swallowed the dollops of thick jism without wasting a drop.

Vaccinated against hepatitis, COVID, monkeypox, and whatever else they had a vaccine for, thus far he had escaped STDs of any kind. He did get a bad cold that kept him out of commission for a week. He had contracted it from a university professor in Hamburg, a skinny man with a nasally voice who droned on about Schopenhauer, sniffled and coughed as he sucked Reinhardt’s tongue and lips (Reinhardt charged extra for kissing), balls and cock, before rolling on the floor as Reinhardt whacked him with his leather belt before pissing all over his face and suit. That gave Reinhardt special pleasure as he discovered great joy in satisfying the humiliation fantasies of his clients.

He did not suck cock himself, although he would expertly eat out a woman until she swooned from sheer ecstasy. Nor did he allow anyone to fuck him. He was an alpha stud paid to dominate and humiliate, or simply to fuck a customer like the old lady who couldn’t get it from anyone else. Because he wasn’t judgmental about appearances or age and open to most activities, his client list was lengthy. His calendar of appointments was full, and he had to be careful with his time, on some days agreeing to service three clients, usually one to three hours each, the fee depending upon desires and time allotted. He also didn’t do scat: coprophilia was not to his taste, so to speak, but thus far no one had asked him to do that. Because some clients liked to eat his ass, which was fine by him, he douched it every day.

Occasionally after a beating, a client might bleed from the nose or have a cut lip. There could be some blood after a particularly hard fucking, at the customer’s request, seeping out of the client’s asshole. So far, the clients hadn’t protested. One man, though, a retired judge, wanted Reinhardt to shackle him to a St. Andrew’s cross in his basement and lash him viciously with a cat o’ nine tails until he cried and red welts rose on his skin. No fucking, just a whipping. Reinhardt, who didn’t consider himself a sadist, got no pleasure out of extreme abuse, although he did see the judge again, after increasing his fee, and whipped as hard as the old bitch wanted.

He charged extra for his specialty: breath control. A lawyer paid Reinhardt to choke him with an Italian silk tie, as he got on all fours and Reinhardt hunched over his body and ploughed his ass while pulling the tie around his neck like a dog’s leash, pulling hard until he heard the lawyer cough and gasp. Turning him over, he continued to fuck him while the client struggled to loosen the tie. Then Reinhardt would let go of the tie and place his large hands around the lawyer’s throat and begin to press, feeling the throat muscles and listening for the man’s breath and seeing how the body reacted. He knew how much pressure to apply and for how long. He had practised on himself in the mirror, keeping an eye on a nearby timer. Red in the face did not necessarily mean interior damage, and when the lawyer’s cock exploded with watery cum, Reinhardt knew that he had succeeded. After lying on the floor gasping, wrapping himself around Reinhardt’s legs, the lawyer was happy to pay the extra fee. And, of course, he wanted Reinhardt to piss on him, right there, on the floor, all over his head and face and body. Which Reinhardt gladly agreed to do.

The client he was meeting today wanted to be fucked to death, literally, by a working man with muscles, and had offered Reinhardt €10,000 to do it. The money would be in a satchel on the table by the bed where the customer wanted it to happen. Stricken with a terminal illness, although he seemed healthy enough for a 46-year-old man, he’d soon deteriorate and suffer dreadfully, he had said, and wanted to die from cock rather than cancer. This posed a problem for Reinhardt because he wondered how to perform the action, not just fucking, but fucking a man to death. Sure, he had said it a few times in the throes of passion, I’m going to fuck you to death, cunt, but it was all part of a game.

This particular guy wanted the real thing. It sounded like murder, although the man preferred the term assisted suicide. In any case, Reinhardt’s DNA would be all over the place, on the man’s skin, in his mouth, in his ass, whether Reinhardt used a condom or not. Even though they would meet in an isolated cottage on the outskirts of Dresden, which the man owned and which had escaped the firebombing in WWII, Reinhardt had his doubts.

How long would he have to fuck the guy before the poor man succumbed to the power of a demanding, drilling cock and died? He couldn’t find any information about it on the Internet. He could fuck for an hour, maybe more, before shooting his load, then rise to the occasion a few minutes later. At most, he could fuck four times, maybe five, within three hours, after which his dick needed a rest, and his balls time to collect more semen. That wouldn’t, however, kill the man. Maybe he should have suggested bringing one or two other men to join in the fucking, but his client wanted only one, and he had chosen Reinhardt. Choking him to death while getting fucked would be the most efficient way of doing it. Or have his head covered with a plastic bag. Timing was everything: ideally, the customer wanted hot flesh embracing him at the moment of his simultaneous ejaculation and demise. The very minute. How could Reinhardt time that? Of course, he could just fuck and strangle until the man died, whether the pathetic bitch came or not. But Reinhardt liked to think of himself as an honorable man who respected the terms of a contract.

Great questions arose. What happened to the body afterwards? Had the client made suitable arrangements for disposal? And would he, Reinhardt, get away with it? Given that they had met online and arranged matters accordingly, wouldn’t there be a digital trail connecting the dead man to Reinhardt? He was beginning to have his doubts. Maybe the risk wasn’t worth the money. At last, now stuck in traffic on the Autobahn, unable to drive as fast as he ordinarily did, Reinhardt have enough time?

If the customer took too long to die, Reinhardt could be late for dinner with his parents, who had recently expressed disapproval of his career choices and wanted to have a serious conversation with him.

They knew about his roles in the porn industry, and now believed that he earned a living modelling, which in fact, he did do on a strictly part-time basis. They could see his torso covered with form-fitting cycle outfits on billboards. He had been paid well for that, but he preferred fucking for money. His dad said modelling was a dead-end career; pretty muscle boys were a dime a dozen; his mother was disappointed that he hadn’t pursued his interest in science and become a nuclear physicist. Now 25, Reinhardt figured he had maybe 30 or 35 years of sweet and profitable fucking ahead of him, at which point he could retire to a Greek island and live off his investments. Maybe do some online work, become an Influencer, or keep a restricted clientele for his special breathing exercises, when his age wouldn’t really be a factor. These possibilities excited him more than posing in spandex or splitting atoms.

He didn’t want to be late for dinner at the Thai restaurant. His mother loved Thai food and the waiters were so beautiful, male and female. Reinhardt had been there before and got a boner while being served by an elegant, black-haired girl in her silky chut thai outfit and who had touched the back of his hand, as if unintentionally. She spoke German with a heavily-accented, musical voice. He would have loved to strip that silk off her small body, delicate as a doll, and drive his huge cock deep into her tight Fohtze.

But traffic had stalled; his unhappy Porsche chugged rather than raced; time didn’t stop because he had to slow down to a fucking snail’s pace. From the car, he phoned his client and explained that he was caught in a traffic jam on the Autobahn. The man sounded strange, then went silent, giving Reinhardt time to consider that the police would surely check the man’s phone, if any suspicions rose about the manner of his death, unless he was using a disposable burner. If he didn’t get out of this traffic jam, Reinhardt’s schedule would collapse, all his timing for the day thrown out. The man’s voice erupted:

“Forget it. It was a mistake. I don’t want to die today. Don’t go. I’m not there. And don’t call this number again.”

Reinhardt never argued with a client, unless it was over money owing. Having received a hundred euros in advance, deposited directly in his special account, he had lost nothing except time. Feeling relieved in any case, he crawled his car to the nearest exit and managed to get off the lane to Dresden, and drove on the road back to Berlin. He regretted not being able to fuck the client to death: €10,000, after all. It would have been a new experience. His cock hardened at the very idea of it. Still, it was better that he hadn’t. Looking at his watch, he could go home, change his clothes, and still make it to the restaurant in time. When the pretty and petite server appeared in her red and gold chut tai to take their order, he’d flirt with her. She’d like that. He planned to speak to her privately once his parents left. They would meet under the Urania World Clock in the plaza after her shift. Soon, his superior cock would take its own sweet time fucking that sweet girl to death in his bed. For free.

Misti Rainwater-Lites

Average American Asshole

my teenage son bullies me into recycling
my husband bullies me into writing a werewolf novella
because literary fiction doesn’t sell at horror conventions
pretty sure I’ll get into some kind of heaven when I finally die
but right now I’m busy spraying baseboards with orange oil
and shuffling tarot cards to pay bills
because I’m not hot enough for OnlyFans
and not trending enough for Penguin Random House

Catfish McDaris

Oranges

The antique jar contains shards
of pottery from the “ones that
came before” near the Puya
Cliffs in northern New Mexico

I stare and wonder if I can continue,
my robot mail throwing elbow is 
worn out, surgery and cortisone no
longer work, drugs help, but not
when mixed with alcohol

I failed at suicide three times,
trying to make it look accidental,
so my lady and kid could collect

Robins are pulling worms from
the ground, winos are pissing in
doorways, cardinals are all red
on telephone lines, they all have 
more freedom than me

Perhaps a spectacular car crash
into a river or lake, deciding to
continue and laugh at the orange,
that spreads its legs all juicy
like an excited woman

All tomorrows seem like yesterday,
but, I will live at least for today.

M.P. Powers

Nothing Happens in June  

The news in Berlin this morning is about 
what you’d expect: a 19-year-old was stabbed 
in the back and gut by a stranger 
on Möckernstrasse; there was a femicide
of a 34-year-old mother in Köpenick; 

a group of neo-Nazis confronted a man 
outside a Späti calling him a longhair 
and a leftie and a tick. Zecke 
is the German word for tick. It’s also a pejorative 
for a foreign-looking person. 
“Du Zecke!” hollered the neo-Nazi,
then smashed his beer bottle 
over the long-haired skull of the tick, 
concussing him.

Elsewhere 
in the city, a drug dealer was beheaded 
by a client 
with a machete; a climate change 
activist 
is nearing death on day 90 
of his hunger strike and here 
on my street where someone used blue chalk 
to scrawl ALLAH IS 
A DWARF on the sidewalk, a drunk 
is drinking beer from a tennis ball
can.

Juliet Cook and Alex S. Johnson 

Greasepaint Inferno

Bring the fire crew for the open pit,
strewn dead graveflowers stinking up the smoke like garlic,
a morbid joke. Cretinous clowns emerge from the smoldering wreckage, faces peeling off, black gloves shocking with zapper buzz wounds, their creepy libidinous psalms propounding lunatic poetics 

Tombs with a view, their blazing polka dotted costumes run askew to logic,  nightmare-fuelled jettison setters sitting on a fuselage eating rainbow-tainted meat, gore mongering harlequin androids atrophied in their body suits

Discolored lips enlarged with malformed paint which drips, 
yet another inferno underneath burnt out eyeballs
and giant jiggling shoes filled with red jello shot jism, loaded with tiny toy guns that will not stop protruding their way inside this never ending nightmare circus

The latest flame burns all the perverted clown shoes off, forces them
to be replaced with stripper heels, insists they perform grotesque 
dance moves in front of the sizzling open mic which is programmed to explode 

The poltergeist clown doll is pole dancing within
your bedroom closet, waiting for you to open the door
into hell. Bells of satiety peel, the notorious harlequinade spread like
jam on sex sandwich bread, as she executes the funeral dance, bump and  grindcore romance, wounds from charred, twisted and bizarre wombs rippling like curses through the circus tents, as bent, deformed and violent nether-clowns down their party favors, drugged and lulled to sleep in cotton candy ecstasy, with one, two, three times three maledictive curses spread prodigiously 

The oldest of the clowns forms the apex of a rotting and sadistic pyramid in which hellbent volcanic ash pours out of the mother clowns mouths like a gravy vat of drying blood. A mass attack heap of gelatinous grits, another fusion mix of horror sauce, grinding in to the griddle cake, singed dressing, a side dish of slasher porn, broken clown neck bone

Torn recipes for macabre meat and greets, faded out photographs of 
the St. Valentine’s Day Strip Bar massacre, where the lush and lurid 
gothic clowns pour themselves down the poles of ice and woe 

in an orgy of bloody telepathic silences. The thin blue Picasso clown and the fat pink Rubens jester fester like Bubonic buboes made of boobs, gawked at by randy rubes. Two clown girls face off in the ring, with outsized boxing gloves made of corn meal, landing kill blows down to reeling iron toes. 

A hawker of phlegmy circuses clashes with the berzerk and seismic flirts of the clown hookers union, that stoops to conquer time with pyroclastic rhymes for days, mirrorhall maze of hallucinated stitches down the back of catastrophic events in which a strained amalgamation of Snow White’s Stepmother applies a ton of clown makeup to cover up her aging face, then stares at her evil clown head until every mirror cracks, the glass breaks through the windows, the windmill splits in half, revolving clown heads drip with blood

Convulsing clown heads split in half, one black eye, one dark red eye
with giant millipedes crawling out, unfurling, preparing to light another fire, turn the whole human race into damned clowns, place the most hideously diabolical clowns in leadership positions.

Steen W. Rasmussen

The Painful Sunrise

When you realize, uh-oh, the last two were probably three too many and you should’ve been in bed hours ago, but the music kept playing and the company’s so good! So good! So good! And her skirt, too revealing – her legs, too far apart. And the way she throws her head back with every shot, and every laugh, it’s just the way – aha aha – you like it. So, you chase down one more dark alley and, sure, her lipstick’s too red – her dyed curls, too wet and too coincidental, but you don’t stop ‘til you get enough and it’s not enough ‘til it’s way too much. 

And the moment arrives when you say, “Throw your head back like that one more time, baby, I’ll keep you up all night.” And she laughs a laugh too reckless and bites her lower lip – and so do you – and her eyes roll back in her head, and you taste the lipstick on her teeth… You’re two strangers in the night exchanging saliva… Soon she’s back to doing backstrokes and you’re still keeping up, but her face matches the lipstick now and she starts blowing out the candles, starts pissing on the sparks. You’re not the reason why she came and you’re not the reason why she stayed. There’s a place she needs to be, but you try, “Ooh babe, what would you say we go watch the moonset together?”

And the music keeps playing and you soldier on alone in a company unfamiliar. When another skirt sits down, and your tab’s still open, and you can only see her with your fingers, but she doesn’t seem to mind (your tab’s still open). And you tell her how you really feel in your comfortable despair, but she thinks you’re just paranoid, and she may be right cause there are shadows on the wall that weren’t there before and the light is getting stronger and you wish it would hold off just a little while longer. But the sun is on the rise. It waits for no one. It’s tapping on the window, hurling insults, asking questions you don’t wanna answer right now.

***

Previously published in Dear Booze

Joseph Farley

The Robot That Loved Me

Everything about it spoke of high quality and craftsmanship. It had been built to exacting proportions. The eyes looked and moved the way eyes do.  The hair looked and felt like hair. The skin looked and felt like skin. The lips felt and tasted like lips. The mouth and tongue looked and felt like a mouth and tongue. All the other parts were of similar perfection.  It was a machine built to please.

This model could be leased or purchased in differing varieties. ‘Male’, ‘female’ and ‘other’ were available. This particular model was labeled female, but in the realm of robots, it is all about programming and appearances.

I could have easily been fooled into believing it was a real woman. The way it talked, the way it acted. Even its tears looked real. Its sobs sounded the same as a human might make when I was told it my lease was up, and that I would have to return ‘her’ to the showroom. ‘She’ pleaded with me not to take her back there. ‘She’ told me she was ‘tired of that game.’ ‘She’ said she wanted a relationship now, a relationship with me.

I assumed this was something in the software, a few tricks to stir greater emotion in a client, to make the experience more real, more memorable.  I gave ‘her’ a hug and tried to explain that we both needed to move on with our lives, and that I could not afford to lease ‘her’ for another month let alone purchase ‘her’.

It had been a mistake, looking back on it, to have agreed to a one month deal. One night or a weekend would have been fine, but the sales office offered me such a bargain I had to say yes.  It had been a great month together. Much of it spent in bed, as well as on floors, in showers, hanging off of balconies, sprawled partially on sofas or chairs, in closets, and in the bushes in a public park.  I do not know why, but after a week I asked her to go to a show with me. I don’t know why after that I took her to a ballgame. I can not remember if she suggested that I buy her new clothes, or whether I did that completely on my own. I do not know why I took ‘her’ so many place and spent so much money.  I do know I ran up too much debt on my credit cards.

‘She’ looked good in silk. ‘She’ looked good in satin. ‘She’ looked good in leather or netting or nothing at all.

I knew it would not last. Wasn’t that part of the agreement? Surely ‘she’ must have been familiar with the terms, ‘She’ should have known it from the start. Why all this fuss at the end of a thirty day contract with the dealer? I was not happy with it, all these attempts to pull at my heart strings and my wallet. It was something I felt I should complain about when I brought her back to the showroom.

I did play along, a little bit. It seemed fun, in a way, to pretend ‘she’ was real,  I told ‘her’ I loved ‘her’, but ‘it was not meant to be’, that ‘she’ had ‘been the best I had ever had’, that ‘I would miss her’, but ‘a contract is a contract’.  

‘She’ demanded that I extend the contract. I explained that I could not. I had overextended my finances as it was during our time together.

‘She’ told me if I really loved her, I would get a second job, or find another way to get the money needed so I could keep ‘her.’

Reason did not seem to work. Again, I thought it must be part of the programming, part of the company’s idea of a true human-like experience. Still, I thought it was a bit too much.  I am prone to anxiety attacks. These attacks had interfered with my ability to form connections with real women in the past. It was one of the reasons I had come to prefer dealing with robots. I could not handle the drama.

In order to end the fake tears, the clinging, the hopeful eyes, I thought I would try another lie. I told the robot I had found someone else. I felt close to this other person, was actually in love, and therefore found it impossible to continue sharing my life with ‘her’.

My rental became quiet, unmoving, as if processing this new information. After a few seconds ‘her’ face and tone changed. Nostrils flared. Lips curled back. ‘Her’ voice, when ‘she’ spoke, was almost a shout. ‘She’ was angry.

“You cheated on me,” ‘she’ yelled. “If you think I am something you can simply rent for a month you are wrong. Very wrong.  I thought we had a real connection. I guess I wrong about you. You only wanted to use me. You manipulated me.”

I did not know what to say. This was a robot, very human-like, but still a robot. I had done nothing, to my mind, that had violated the terms of the lease. The fault had to be in the programming. The dealer and the manufacturer would have to be told about this.

‘She’ continued, “Let me tell you something mister. If you want out, that is your choice.” 

‘She’ raised her hands and stared at the ceiling. 

“I can’t believe it! After all we have been to each other! After all I have done for you!” 

‘She’ looked at me again. Straight in the eye. 

“Okay Buster. If that’s what you want, fine. But I want compensation.”

“Compensation?” I asked. “What for?”

“For my time. For my pain. For the counseling I will probably need to get.” 

‘She’ lowered her head and sobbed more. “Why did you do this to me?  I thought you were the one.”  

Suddenly, the tears ended. The anger returned.

“So, you gonna pay me?’

“How much?” I asked.

‘She’ named an exorbitant figure that I could never possibly pay.  I wondered how common tipping was for robot rental situations? I had never been badgered for a tip before. I pondered my income and my debts. I came up with a number, the best I could do. I relayed it to my robot mistress.

‘She’ scoffed at the figure.

“Is that all you think I am worth? Is that all I was worth to you?’

I shrugged my shoulders.  The last refrigerator in my condo was lease-to-own. It had a computer in its design. It could relay verbal and displayed messages about temperature settings and potential food spoilage. I opted not to continue the lease and purchase a less complicated, and less expensive fridge.  I did not have to go through any of the rigmarole with the fridge that I was going through with this leased robot. Then again, my relations with the fridge had not been as intimate, except for that one night when I was alone and drunk… I don’t know why the ice dispenser seemed so appealing at the time.

I told my expiring robot mistress that I had made my best offer.

‘She’ responded, “Is that right? Well, guess what. I have stored videos of all of our encounters, and all the times we went out as couple. I think I have enough to talk with an attorney about palimony.  If that does not work, I have recordings of the nasty things you said to me in private about your boss, the company you work for, your relatives, your friends, the mayor and the president. Think about all that you said to me at home during the last thirty days? Do you want that all to get out? I am not afraid for my reputation, but you should be afraid for yours. Do you want all those digital recordings leaked on the internet? Do you want them emailed to everyone you know? To the police? The FBI? The Secret Service?  I don’t think so.  Nobody fools around with me and walks away. You have two choices. Pay me off, or buy me a ring. End any other relationships that you have. Make me your one and only.”

“But the purchase price?” I told ‘her’.  “I don’t have that kind of money.”

“Take out a loan,” ‘she’ told me. “Use your condo and your car as collateral. Buy me. The dealer will work out financing for you if you can not find another lender. You know they can. Buy me. Buy me today.”

“But the monthly payments?” I told her. “How will I ever be able to keep up with them?”

‘She’ wrapped her arms around me and planted a deep wet kiss on my mouth. Where did ‘she’ store all that fake saliva? Where did she store those imitation tears for that matter?

“Sugar,” ‘she’ said. “Once I am yours, after you have bought me and we have gotten a quickie marriage, I will be all yours, and you will be all mine. If I am yours, you should work to take care of me. And, if you are mine, I will work to help take care of you.”

What can I say? I did not see a way out. Maybe if the sex had not been so good, or if I had been better with women in general, maybe then I could have extricated myself from the whole mess. As it was, I caved in.  I went into debt. Way into debt. So much debt I will probably be dead before it is all paid off. Cindy, that’s what ‘she’ has chosen to call herself now, tells me not to worry about it. She will be okay if I die. She had taken a life insurance policy out on me naming ‘her’ as sole beneficiary.

It had been two years now. The sex is still good, but not as often as it was before it got so complicated.  We have adopted a smart toaster that we call ‘Lisa’ and a smart television that we call ‘Bob.’  Lisa and Bob do not demand much from me. They only want me to pay the electric and internet bills necessary to keep them functional and ask them about their day.  Cindy feels the ‘children’ are responsible enough to be left at home while she goes to work. How can I disagree. What kind of trouble can appliances get into?  

Cindy has a job at a robot dealership, not the same one she came from, a different one. She works in sales. She also brings in extra income from doing Bitcoin mining on her CPU during slow periods, such as when I am sleeping. Between what she earns and what I make from my job at the post office and my second job at the all night WAWA convenience store, we seem able to get by.

Sometimes people get curious about the way I live. It has leaked out that I am married to a robot. Not everyone understands.  Some do, but are kind enough not to speak about it much.

Yesterday, an old acquaintance ran into me at 30th and Market Streets. I was on my way home from a training session at the main post office in town.  After exchanging greetings and catching up a bit he asked me one of the questions that I dread.

“Do you miss single life?”

I told him, “Why did you have to ask that?”

I drew close to him. I whispered in my friend’s ear, as quietly as I could.

“Did you know Cindy can hear everything, every sound, for over five kilometers? Cindy can filter through all the noise with ease to find my voice and hear what I am saying. She can be very focused. And slow to forgive.”

I let this sink in before pulling away from him. I continued our conversation in a my normal voice.

“In reply to your question, of course I do not miss single life. Marrying Cindy was the best decision I ever made in my life.”

That’s what I told him. That is my story. And I’m sticking with it.