It's Always Time

by Oblimo

  "Oh," said Dee, one of nature's nerds. "Duh. You should have said. So what's so bad about lime? All lime meliae are tarts or something?"

  One of the women in the store harrumphed indignantly.

  "What's Latin for 'slime,' Dee?" Tomoe asked.

  Dee thought for a moment. "Uh. 'Oblimo?'"

  Tomoe and SB shared an awkward, embarrassed glance. "No," Tomoe said slowly, "that's the verb."

  "Latin has a verb meaning 'to slime?'"

  "Forget about 'oblimo,'" Tomoe said, waggling her hands. "The Latin word for slime is 'limus.'"

  "'Limus,'" Dee repeated.

  "Yep."

  "'Limus' as in 'lima?'" Dee said.

  "Yep."

  "And 'lima' as in lime," Dee said. He got it now. "And lime as in lye. And lye as in 'will burn your face off.'"

  "Lye's also used to make pickles," Tomoe said. "Your dick pickled yet, Dee?"

  "I'll say," said Dee.

  "The nanomek won't make the same associations with the flavor as you do," SB explained. "It won't behave as you expect. It never does. Rules are rules."

  Dee thought about it. Why had he wanted the thickener in the first place? Oh, right, to keep Jell-O thick when it warmed up. Instead, the nanomek gave him a girlfriend that melted faster the hotter she got.

  "When you went lime," Tomoe said, "you jumped ahead few dozen chapters of the story, like trying to graduate from kindergarten with a PhD in fucking."

  Dee felt foolish for asking so many questions, but that was why he came here in the first place, so he said, "There's a story?"

  "There's always a story," Tomoe said, rolling her eyes. "Once you buy something from SRU, you're subject to the rules. And the rules demand a story. They won't just let us skip straight to the fucking." She grabbed SB's hips and mashed herself against SB's package. SB purred and tugged playfully at Tomoe's hair. "Believe me, we've tried. Instead it's always talk, talk, talk, romance, romance, heroes, villains, yadda yadda. The gods have hard-ons for melodrama, seems like.

  "Anyway," Tomoe continued, "you deserve to know how your story was supposed to go. It's a fairytale. Lonely guy buys magic powder for mysterious stranger. She promises it will bring him riches and delights the likes of which he had never experienced—"

  "You didn't tell me anything like that. You didn't really tell me a damn thing, if you care to recall."

  "Shut up," Tomoe said, "I'm on a roll. 'But,' the mysterious stranger says, 'there is one thing you must never do: you must never mix the magic powder with lime.' So the lonely guy goes off and has all sorts of wild adventurers with honey nymphs, trying different flavors and concoctions that never seem to work as he intended, and much zaniness ensues. And then the story ends in one of two ways." Tomoe held up her thumb. "First, the Disney lovey-dovey ending. Our lonely guy learns about the true meaning of love, goes on some grand quest to truly earn the love of his beloved honey nymph, and in the process she turns out to be a warrior princess under an enchantment or something equally trite, his true love for her sets her free, and they live happily ever after and all that kind of dumb crap, at least until the straight-to-video sequel is released." Tomoe's forefinger joined her thumb. "Two, the Grimm's Tales cautionary ending, which seems to be getting more and more common these days: lonely guy fucks his way through dozens of honey nymphs, getting more depraved, bored, and even lonelier with each dalliance, until he finally decides that the mysterious stranger was full of shit and lime must really be where it's at, so he makes a lime honey nymph and he…" She rubbed her extended thumb and forefinger together, making a soft sandpapery sound, and mimed flicking away something tiny and distasteful. "Well, he sublimes."

  Dee remembered ["…keep you cumming and cumming…"] and admitted, "It almost happened to me. A couple of times, in fact."

  SB moved close, hands splayed on the countertop, her almond-shaped, diamond eyes narrowing as they hunted for something deep within Dee. "But it didn't. No man comes back from lime. No man denies sublimation. God damn it, Dee, Lime could probably devour me in a matter of minutes. Who are you? What did you do to Lime?"

  More memories ["…The fridge. You. Before that? Dunno…" "…It's time? It's time? Is it time?…"] brought Dee to the verge of tears. He tore his gaze away from SB and watched the autumnal gold sunset through the storefront window for a long, quiet moment. "Her name was never 'Lime,'" he whispered. "She is Galatea." He turned back to face SB wearing a smile so inscrutable Tomoe wanted to photograph it for future study and practice it in front of a mirror. "She's back at my apartment," Dee said, and touched his palm to the tips of SB's fingers. "I can introduce you if you'd like."

  Little drops of sport-drink florescent red sweat pricked across SB's brow, and she started to stutter. "S-s-s—"

  Dee arched his eyebrow in an unconscious but perfect imitation of Galatea herself. "Solid?" he said, and lifted his hand. It dripped like it had been dipped in red grapefruit juice.

  SB took a few jerky steps backward, eyes glazing an opaque, milky pink. The fingers where Dee had touched her ran together into a formless flipper. The plum-sized tip of the bulge in her one-piece crept up past her bellybutton and a candy red, gooey stain spread over her stomach. Tomoe reached out to her but hesitated.

  "Your precum is maraschino cherry syrup?" Dee said but shook his head. "I'm sorry, that was going too far. I haven't been myself lately."

  Tomoe glared at him. "Maybe you just didn't know who you really were before now. Dee, you need to learn how to control it."

  Dee matched her glare. "Control…what?" Dee growled in a deep, bass register.

  Tomoe wilted, knees buckling, palms flat against her inner thighs. "Please, Dee," she said, gnawing the flesh of her bottom lip. "Call it back. Dial it down. Do whatever you want—" Dee snarled wordlessly and Tomoe's eyes fluttered up as her head lolled down. "Ah, God, do anything you want, just please, stop playing games," Tomoe begged.

  "Games?" Dee said, gripping the countertop. "What games?" A tracery of cracks raced away from his clutching fingers, weaving an irregular spider web in the counter's glass. I've said that before, he thought, haven't I? No, it wasn't me…One of his earliest memories of Galatea hit him hard. He blinked. "Tomoe? SB?" But the two women just gawked in fear. Fear of me, he realized. He slumped over the countertop. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I wouldn't. I would never…" And this time he let himself cry for a while.

  Someone stepped close. "SB," Tomoe said, "you were right." Her petite but strong fingers ruffled Dee's hair. "He is a real lime-guy."

  SB strutted up, and gave Dee's shoulder a friendly punch. Dee stood and she greeted him with a wide, knowing grin, "Go on home, hero," she said and struck out her right hand. "Galatea is waiting."

  He nodded, straightened out his coat, and shook her hand. "Man," SB marveled, "what a grip." She threw her other arm around his shoulder and slapped him hard on the back, taking the opportunity to bury her face in his neck and drink in his scent. Dee felt a very unfamiliar pressure against his groin. His absent conscience was dead silent about it and his raw sex drive did not care what was touching his dick as long as it got him off. Dee himself chose to postpone his final opinion for a later date. "Dee," SB sighed as she broke the oddly-mixed embrace, "if one day Tomoe and I invited you to go…clubbing…"

  "I'd be sorely tempted," Dee interrupted, grinning, but SB just laughed.

  "I was going to say, 'Do you think Galatea would kill us,'" she said, peeking over his shoulder into the shadowy aisle behind him.

  "I don't think so. Not for just asking, anyway," he smirked.

  "Now scram, sport," Tomoe said, "but don't forget your nanomek." She held out the tin of SRU Thickening Agent.

  "Galatea doesn't need any more," Dee said, "and I don't want any more meliae, just her. Can't you put it back wherever it came from?"

  "No way, José," Tomoe said, shaking her head. "I'm sorry, Dee, but you brought it forth. You paid five dollar. It's yours, and whatever happens with it is your responsibility, your karm
a. I wish I could rewrite the rules, but I lost the stupid policy-and-procedure manual. Keep it close, keep if safe – and for God's sake keep it dry. One schmuck poured his down the drain and the next thing he knew his city was crawling with tentacled, sperm-stealing, sewage she-demons. That's how Atlantis sank, don't you know."

  "No, I didn't know." He took the tin of thickener from Tomoe, carrying it as gingerly as he would a live grenade. "And I really didn't need to know, either. And please, don't let anyone else know. I do not want to see fan art of that on the Internet."

  The old bell clattered as he opened the front door. He paused. "Tomoe?"

  Tomoe was counting out the money in the cash register. "Yeah?" she said, and turned to SB who was flipping through the Sudoku puzzle book and muttering in befuddled anger. "You had done them all wrong, so stop bitching," Tomoe told her.

  "There were three questions I forgot to ask," Dee said.

  "Go on." Tomoe worked on a tall stack of bills. "One five dollar," she muttered, "two five dollar, three five dollar…"

  "Why did you fire the other guy?"

  "I didn't like him," said Tomoe, "and besides, I didn't fire him. I just said, 'Whatever you do, don't take anything from the supply closet.' Never fails."

  "Oh," Dee said. "Tomoe?"

  "Yes, yes, two more questions, I know, I'm listening. Galatea must have to sit on your face to shut you up."

  Dee turned the tin over in his hands. "What would happen if you ate some nanomek?"

  "Me?" Tomoe said, about halfway through the stack of five dollar bills. "Probably nothing. Unless I guzzled semen at the same time, then I might turn into a cum-powered hose-beast monstrosity or something. Remember, it never works as expected."

  The silence stretched. Tomoe and SB looked up at him. "Dee?" Tomoe asked.

  The nanomek powder scrapped and scratched the inside of the tin. Dee tried to steady his hands. "What if…what if I ate some nanomek?"

  "Don't," said Tomoe, jumping out her seat and scattering the pile of bills, "don't even think about it. You can eat Galatea out as much as you like, but don't swallow any raw, non-patterned nanomek. That's even crazier than making a lime meliae."

  "That would be giving nanomek its own source of sperm," explained SB. "Take me, for instance. I can cum. I can cum gallons. I'm a one man-woman bukkake extravaganza."

  "She really, really is," breathed Tomoe. She reached out and twined a cotton-candy dreadlock around a lazy forefinger, her eyes roving up and down SB's crystalline angles and jellified curves.

  SB flushed russet under Tomoe's hungry gaze. "Any-anyway," she stammered, as Tomoe slid her other hand down the front of SB's one-piece, "I c-cum seminal fluid, not semen. Letting nanomek—ah!—have its way with your balls would be—oh, yeah—no-don't-stop! Just, just keep doing that. Oh, wow."

  Dee shuffled uncomfortably. "You, uh, could've just told me to get lost. I would've taken the hint."

  Tomoe disappeared below the countertop. SB started, "I—" but gave a little yelp and threw her arms wide to clutch at the counter, the fat puzzle book flapping to the floor. "I-thought-I-told-you-that-when-we-first-met," she squeaked as fast as she could before a small, delicate hand with an iron grip reached up and hauled her down by the ponytail behind the counter.

  Dee listened to the couple murmur and gasp for a moment before whispering, "Good night, guys." He shut the door as slowly as he could to keep that horrible bell from clattering.

  A few seconds later, Tomoe, topless but with her blouse gathered up to cover her chest, jogged out from behind the counter. "T, you devil-bitch, get back here!" SB cried from behind counter.

  "Fuck you I want to watch him walk," Tomoe said.

  "Huh? Oh, yeah, me too!" SB ran to join her.

  "Christ, SB, cover up, he might notice a three foot erection bouncing in the window."

  "Oh, shit, sorry. Um. Do you have a tarp or something?"

  "Never mind, SB, just let me look. God, what an ass."

  "He's got a cute butt, though, T."

  "Oh, hardy-har-fucking-har-har."

  "Seriously, T. What's going on? What is she doing to him?"

  "Her? Nothing. Him? Everything. Rules."

  "I've known you for three thousand years, T, if you include the future and all those temporal continuum anomalies, and I don't even know what the fuck you just said."

  The odd couple watched in silence as Dee started up his car and pulled away.

  "He had company, you know," said SB. "An entire entourage, seemed like."

  "I know," said Tomoe. "One I expected, the other I didn't. Still, it's best not to warn him. These things just get worse if I meddle. More than my usual meddling, I mean."

  "What happens now?" said SB.

  Tomoe reached up and wrapped her arms around SB's shoulders. "You know how this goes," Tomoe sighed, "they think they're in love, but all they have in common is sex, sex, sex. So, their love must be tested. You remember."

  SB's eyes narrowed. "Yeah. You and your stupid rules."

  "I didn't write them, SB."

  "Bullshit. You're forgetting who you're talking to, T." But SB cradled Tomoe's head on her shoulder.

  They stood in silence as twilight fell, a dusty blue van rumbling down the access road providing the only movement and noise. Tomoe stepped back to look SB in the eye. "Tell me truthfully, SB: Would you fuck him?"

  "What, you mean would I fuck Dee?"

  "Do you want to fuck him? Tell me true, now." Tomoe asked. Her eyes twinkled with the potential of tears.

  SB glanced out to the window and sighed. "Yes, T. I would fuck him. I want to fuck him. In fact, lover-girl, I would fuck him and fuck him until his ass was as red as mine and then I'd keep fucking him until my dick fell off." SB turned back to Tomoe and locked her in a clinch, mashing their breasts together. Tomoe's legs had to bow slightly to let SB's cock slide tight against her crotch and under her ass. Now fully engorged, SB's dick curved like a scimitar, its head pushing into the small of Tomoe's back. SB's pale crystalline eyes flashed brighter than the stars. "But I'd much rather do that to you."

  "Oh, honey," cooed Tomoe, flipping the sign on the door from OPEN to CLOSED. "You say the sweetest things."

  My creation, is it real?

  It’s my creation, I do not know

  No hesitation, no heart of gold

  Just flesh and blood, I do not know

  From my heart and from my hand

  Why don’t people understand

  My intentions...

  Weird science!!

  -Oingo Boingo, Weird Science

  Chapter Three: It's All Within

  The gloom of a New Moon twilight settled over long stretches of grassy, undeveloped commercial lots. The elevated highway loomed ahead, but the onramp was nowhere in sight. Dee flipped on the car's high beams, switched off the radio and drove into the whistling wind, waiting for the other shoe to drop. It took about two minutes.

  Dee heard a metallic sigh. "First this Ursula woman is giving you bars of homemade soap," Galatea grumbled from the back seat. "Now I find that a lipstick fem from Japan and a chick with a three foot dick made out of rock candy want to take you 'clubbing' and treat your balls —which, I'm sure I don't need to point out, are named Mine Too and Mine Also —as their personal sperm banks."

  Dee smiled into the rearview mirror. "So?" He saw no sign of Galatea in the rear shadows.

  "So? So? So what is it with you and lesbians?" she demanded.

  "I collect gay friends," Dee shrugged. "Everyone needs a hobby."

  A chilly silence descended in the creaky cabin of the old Volkswagen. He glanced up at the mirror, but the reflection of a high-riding pair of headlights ruined his night vision. Dee sighed and tried again. "Would you believe I'm a butch trapped in a man's body?"

  The cold silence seemed to turn thoughtful. "You know," Galatea said after a while, "I just might." Her voice sounded a little closer. "How did you know I was here, anyway?"

  "I didn't," Dee said, peering
ahead for the elusive onramp, "until SB tipped me off by looking right at you."

  "Your lesbians are conspiring against me!" Galatea cried. Dee heard a rapid, unhappy drumming.

  "Oh, come on," Dee laughed. "Besides, I should've known. You just said 'I could never be seen like this.' You didn't say that you weren't coming with me. Oh, there you are. Where's the rest of you?"

  A diminutive Galatea lay on her back on the passenger side headrest, no bigger than a Barbie doll but twice as curvaceous. "At home," she fumed, "and probably so horny I'm raping the next door neighbor. Think he'd put the X-Box controller down long enough to notice?"

  "Possibly. But I think Viggo's safe. "

  "How do you know? This is the longest I've gone without touching you, or kissing you, or, or tasting you—"

  "Or tying me down and tickling me to death."

  "Exactly!" She punctuated her exclamation by fracturing into dozens of little emeralds, pelting down into the passenger seat and reforming with her head squashed formless against the grey cushion and her doll-sized, heart-shaped rump wiggling a few inches the air. "And I need you inside me so much it, it hurts. It actually hurts…"

  Dee took his foot off the accelerator. The headlights behind them drew close but soon receded. Dee reached for her but she seemed so small and so fragile he did not know where to put his hand. "Honey," he soothed, "honey, what is it? What's wrong, really?"

  Galatea sat up on her knees, rubbing her eyes. "Can't cry," she said, "too small. Not liquid enough."

  Dee's car was rolling down the road little faster than twenty miles per hour. "You don't have to tell me if you don't want to," he said, his fingertip alighting against her cheek.

  She nestled the pad of his fingertip to her face as if it were a favored pillow. "Back at the store, it felt like you had more in common with those two women than you did with me. I watched the three of you become friends. We never became friends like that. They were your friends, and I was just a fuck buddy. It made me feel so lonely."

  "Do you want to know why I asked for the extra hour? It wasn't for clubbing."