“I don’t care! You promised I could have Locu!” Locu. Who? What? Jesse has no memory of anyone named Locu, what is she talking about? “I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings, I forget you are, like, so so sensitive! It’s just that, honey, I am lonesome, when do you think Locu could come out to start as my geisha, I know you could organize it!” and she adds slyly, “Otherwise me being this lonesome, maybe I should go to school. It sure sounds great!”
He thought they had discussed it, she can tell her mother she is going to school but she doesn’t have to go, school would be so… boring for her, though of course the real fear, for him, is that she’ll meet some high school boy, would blabber to her friends that he is a pedophile, or worse; the little vixen is capable of anything, he now knows.
He is suspicious. “Is this a guy or a girl?” As if that would somehow make a difference with these kids today?
“A guy.”
“Is he your boyfriend?” He almost spits out the word.
“Um, no.” Knowing A. Jesse even a bit, Tahnee has prepared this in advance. “But I’m lonely. I want to talk to Mommy. There’s nobody else here my age, you said I was going to go to school. Locu is just my friend. He likes other guys.”
Jesse is placated, somewhat. “I tell you what. In that case, maybe I’ll see about getting him sent out here and I’ll have him work over at Benezer Salamonder’s and that way Ben can train – what’s his name, your little friend? – until he gets tired of him, and then he can send him over here.” That is, if the kid lives through it, Jesse thinks, then adds, “But I should warn you, I hope your friend won’t mind a little rough stuff, though I’ll ask Ben if he can tone it down a notch or so –”
Tahnee looks pouty. “He’s my best friend in the whole wide world. Why can’t he come here first?”
“Believe me, all the young boys love it over at Ben’s, and you’re not exactly knowledgeable about etiquette to be able to train staff yourself.”
“Oh please, let me try! I promise I’ll be nicer to you!”
“We’ll see how you act over the next few days.”
She reaches out to stroke his cock through his trousers. “Oh, Jesse,” she murmurs contentedly, “I love it here so much and I hope when Locu comes I’ll be more comfortable and I can make you happy.”
The rich kids have no education either. The rich don’t have nicer manners, they swear just as much and are as tattooed, pierced or whatever the latest trend is. None of them read books, they all see the same movies, they all eat McDonald’s.
Not only would teaching Tahnee to read make her a freak, she would refuse – couldn’t – do it. Generations of ancestors playing video games have frozen any ability to read. Apart from minor things – like hand-waxed dental floss, for example – and sports that are unavailable to the poor (tennis; horseback riding; golf on real courses; mountain climbing; skiing on real slopes; swimming in genuine water – hey, the poor can do all things with virtual reality programs, so, after all, it’s not that big a deal!) the rich kids don’t live lives any different than the poor.
Tahnee loves her room. The sheets are folded neatly just beneath her chin, topped with a genuine camel-hair blanket and a feather duvet so light and fluffy and soft and warm. And, for the first time in her life a bed where roaches don’t crawl over her in the middle of the night! It is so cozy here but now Tahnee is actually sick of Murielle’s calls, is there no way to get rid of her? She was only pretending to miss Mommy; now that Locu is with her she has what she wants.
Murielle can’t understand what is taking A. Jesse so long, she is frantic and calls Tahnee, like, every five minutes, since Jesse mostly doesn’t take her calls. He is really going to have to come up with something.
A. Jesse is sorry he let Tahnee have Locu. The two of them spend all day together, giggling, cutting pictures out of magazines and dressing up in silly outfits made from shower curtains or umbrellas; to be honest, he can’t stand the kid. The way Locu stares at him with those lucent amber eyes, Jesse never knows what he is thinking and the house is perfumed with the strange spices, cumin and cinnamon, cardamom and mustard seed, flavoring the steamy pulses that simmer on the stove. Jesse can’t stand Indian food! Only Tahnee eats and eats.
One evening after one of these dinners, dhal masoor, matar paneer and mushroom bhaji, A. abruptly turns to Tahnee. “
Where’s the sapphire necklace I gave you? Why don’t you ever wear it?”
“I don’t know,” she says.
“Where is it?”
“I guess I lost it.”
Locu glances down, his gold-flecked eyes have lashes petal-thick, chrysanthemum, spiky aster, he could be a movie star, surely there is something going on between them? “You what? How could you lose it, do you know what that cost? Where were you when you lost it?”
“How come you’re looking at Locu?”
“I’m looking at him because he’s supposed to be your geisha, he’s not supposed to be hanging out with you while you eat in the kitchen, he’s supposed to eat in the kitchen while you eat in the dining room. And generally speaking, only older women or gay men have geishas that are male, for reasons I’m not about to go into here. Anyway, that’s not the point. Where is the necklace, when was the last time you saw it?”
“I don’t know where, maybe on the ski slope or something.”
“On the ski slope. You were wearing that necklace to go skiing? What were you thinking?”
“Well, probably it wasn’t on the ski slopes, its just here someplace. It will probably turn up.”
A. Jesse searches for hours with the housekeeper. At last she finds it in the pocket of one of Tahnee’s jackets. He storms in the art room, “See, I found your sapphire necklace, I spent hours looking for it! Next time –”
She and Locu look up guiltily. “How cool is this? Locu is sewing my new dress, I think he should have been a dress designer even though, actually, it was kind of my idea.” She is talking fast and it is so irritating. He has spent hours looking for that necklace and rattles it in her face. “See how materialistic he is,” she says to Locu who takes the necklace from Jesse’s hand and begins to wrap it through her hair in an elaborate style, the ungrateful little bitch.
Next he finds them standing in front of the one-way mirror in front of the gym, watching B. Jesse. A. Jesse has the housekeeper feeding the poor schlemiel calorie-free food, you can eat as much as you want, it’s nothing but air and textures, but… put on enough ketchup or mustard, it has a vague resemblance and taste. “He looks like a piglet,” Tahnee is saying.
“He is almost ready for the barbecue,” Locu giggles.
“You could put an apple in his mouth,” Tahnee says, “The skin should really be crispy, though, there’s so much fat you’d probably want to stick him with a lot of pins while he’s cooking.”
They haven’t even noticed A. behind them. “Do we look the same?” he asks Tahnee.
Locu giggles. “Who asked for your opinion?” Jesse snarls.
“Oh, no, I was just… it was just a nervous reaction, sir, I cannot tell you how grateful I am to be here in training as a geisha, that is what I always wanted. Especially to be with Tahnee and…”
He turns and catches Tahnee sniggering; what a pushover they must think he is. Inside the gym B. Jesse is pacing, orangutan-style, red ape, the clone still has a pot belly, tufts of fur, and B. shoves his face into the glass; from B.’s side it is a mirror. “Is that you, Dad?” says B. “Who’s out there? I’m sick of being locked up in here, are you nuts? Let me out already!” His mashed face is squashed against the pane. He’s not ready to take A. Jesse’s place yet, it’s true.
He knows Tahnee and Locu say mean things about him behind his back. He hates her. And yet… All the women before were simply… He never felt much of anything but he figured that was all that there was. This is different. To have that sensation once again, of wanting something; it has been so long since he wanted, it is unfamiliar, it is giving him a panic attack. Abruptly a mo
ment floats, unmotivated, a flimsy scrim into a parallel existence where everything that has ever taken place is stored: a moment when he was a kid. Of his family, gathered around a table.
Could that have happened, all his family gathered at once around a table? But who the heck are these people, what are their names? There is Mom, could her name have been Gunny? Jinty? And – my gosh, yes, there is a dad, Dad’s name is Bolly or Kaylie. And… here is Sissy! Or… it could have been a brother. In any event, that is his family, after the meal or… the family conference… Dad going off to the HGMTV room to smoke a joint, Mom must have just had… her face is all bandaged and oozing, has she just had a face-lift? Or maybe she’s been in another car wreck? Whatever. Oh, and there is the dog. The dog is named Chip, or Max, or Steam, something like that. How he loved that dog! It must have been wonderful, his childhood. Because he was so contented, yes, remembering this happy moment, happy.
Unless he has only imagined it.
Now, if he can get rid of Murielle once and for all, he could be happy like that again.
A. Jesse has a gift for Tahnee, something so rare there are at present only two in the world, an invention straight from the lab, the palm-sized lion… He’ll bring the little male to her, my God, it is the cutest thing in the world! Fits into the palm of your hand, there isn’t going to be one kid on the entire planet who doesn’t want his or her own pride of lions, you can feed one on a couple of raw chicken legs and a pound of chopped meat would last it two weeks!
He’s got the little guy tucked under his arm, he’s a feisty little thing; even though the lion has been hand-raised from birth, the stupid critter is roaring and scratching, feisty as can be. A. Jesse is laughing and trying to hold it under control when he pushes open the door to Tahnee’s bedroom. “Oh, sweetheart! Wake up! I have a surprise for you!”
Only, what the fuck, she’s all the way under the covers, which he peels back and there’s the kid, Locu: queer? Yeah, right, the two of them are going at it! So much for her virginity and Locu’s lack of interest in the females!! What a sucker he’s been!
Locu looks up sleepily, “Oh, heh-heh, sorry,” he says.
“Go away,” says Tahnee, “Don’t you know to knock? What are you doing here?”
For a moment he is almost about to apologize, then he grabs Locu by the neck and yanks him off the girl; the kid is giggling nervously, still holding the sheet, then – still with the lion in his hand – he backs out, into the doorway. He calls for security; Tahnee is scrambling into her clothes and Locu’s pulling on his blue jeans, three big guys come running and A. Jesse tells one to take the lion and another to grab Locu; he will figure out what to do with Tahnee later. In the meantime he waves his implanted microchip at the various equipment to turn them off.
She is going to have to stay in there without a computer, hologramovision, nothing she can use to communicate. He points at the windows and the metal security gates come down, then he points at the kid. “Throw him out,” he says to one of his staff.
“What?”
“You heard me. Tie him up and dump him outside the gates.”
“Your gates or the whole outer wall?”
“The whole place. What good does it do me if you dump him outside my property? I want him out. And make sure you get his entrance papers revoked. I don’t want him sneaking back in.”
“But is that really what you want to do, yo, Jesse, sir?”
“Do as I say.”
Outside Nature’s Caul and Morphew Valley Holiday Spa and Resort, beyond the thousands of miles of electrified wiring which is patrolled twenty-four hours a day by guards, there is a strip of land before the garbage-zone that was part of the war reparations. Here, he has heard, in the no-man’s land, live people who have come up in through Mexico, or hoping perhaps to get a job on the inside; some of them even have relatives who support them, tossing leftovers – illegally – over the fence, or they survive on recycling rubbish trucked out, picking through it to find anything edible.
It’s supposed to be pretty rough out there, but what’s it to him, the kid can either survive out there or somehow figure out how to make it back east.
A. can’t seem to calm down, even once Locu is gone and he knows Tahnee is safely locked in her room. He tells everyone he will be in his office, he is not to be disturbed. Of course he can’t get any work done, all morning he paces, trembling.
He unlocks her door, the room is musty: sweat and goat. She’s huddled under the blankets. He crosses the room and says, “What did you have to go and do that for, I was asking for so little in return for giving you everything. You know that, don’t you?”
Tahnee shrugs. “I don’t know. I’m bored. You’re boring.”
“I’ve never stopped thinking about you, since the moment I saw you; you’re the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen, you’re like a fawn or some kind of gazelle, you know what I’m saying?”
He leans forward and starts to kiss her. His tongue feels thick and bumbling and for no reason he pictures a bee drowning in the pool, buzzing and soggy.
“Ugh, just get away from me.” Her tongue unfurls, snailish, from her shell of a mouth. He sits back, stares at her, rips off her halter-top, the strings welting her neck before they break. “You are so disgusting!” she adds.
“Look at these sweet little titties,” he says. “And all this time you were stringing me along.”
“Just get away from me, you cretin, I’m going to call the police and tell them you’re raping an underage minor.”
“Raping you? I was willing to wait years for you. You stupid, stupid idiot, you had it made, now you totally blew it. At least one thing is still true,” he tells her as he waves the chip at her door, making sure it is locked, “If you’re rich enough or famous, you can do pretty much anything you want. What did you think, you could play me and I’d never catch on?”
For the first time since he has known her, she looks scared. Maybe something is finally sinking in.
“You don’t understand, we just mess around. He’s just an old friend,” she mutters. Then, dispiritedly, “I’m still a virgin.”
He forces his tongue into her mouth, he knows now how much she hates him, she is lying like a corpse with his thumb and forefinger pinching her nipples. No one has touched them before! When Locu tried she always screamed and kicked him, or slapped him – he was allowed to look, that was all – now, with fat tongue in her mouth she can’t verbally protest, though she tries to pull away.
The breasts are so sensitive to the touch she doesn’t know whether it is pain or pleasure she is feeling but the sensation makes her momentarily homesick and filled with longing – for something she can’t place. A. Jesse’s mouth is on the right nipple, it is even more tender than the left, she wonders if it will help it grow but something about it, the bud, in his mouth, makes her queasy.
Somehow he has also pushed the chinchilla spread onto the floor while he pulls off her pants; she tries to keep her legs together but even though her nipple is in his mouth, he has her legs apart. After all, what does she care, but her legs seemed to want to squeeze shut by themselves and then he has his tongue down there, slurping, not half as nicely as Locu, this guy’s tongue is… too thick, a bludgeon, not delicate. A ham sandwich.
A. Jesse forces her hand between his legs, which has a huge erect prod sticking straight out. At some point he undoes his fly, freeing a big bluish trunk as thick as her forearm and almost as long – and he wriggles out of his clothes, pushes her flat, begins to shove himself in; he is going to make this as ugly for her possible. “The head is going in, you like that? Ooh, baby, you are sooo tight,” he says, and as he forces he murmurs, “You stupid, ignorant cunt. Who do you think you are to disrespect me?”
“Jesus, let me go why won’t you just let me go, you don’t want me why can’t I leave –”
Shut up shut up he holds a pillow over her mouth and holds her down at least to shut her up shut her up does not take too long she thrashes a bit
and when the thrashing has stopped he stays there, holding the pillow over her mouth and nose for a few more minutes, only then does he stop pressing.
She lets out a scream muffled by fluff. “Hurts, hurts,” she says.
“Sshh, sshh, its all right, just relax, relax,” he says as he gets the rest of himself inside.
“I can’t breathe.” She keeps trying to wriggle out from under him.
“What’s the matter, huh? You don’t like it?” And when her arms start to flail he turns her over, still holding her onto him, so that now he is on his back and she is on top of him, and he begins to move inside her again, only very slowly now, in and out, jigging her slowly.
She might have been a big dolly except she spits at him so he hits her in the side of her head. “How does that feel honey, hmmm?”
What an asshole, what the fuck is he thinking, the pain is so terrible, this sense of being burnt inside? Up and down, up and down, with each thrust or motion the dry burning tinder, only she can’t get away, no matter how much she flails, his hands force her down.
“Uuuuh,” he says suddenly and she is filled with something liquid, but it doesn’t sooth the burn. “Oh, honey.” And he is motionless. “Oh, honey. That was amazing.” And finally he softens and she crawls away, shaking with pain. “You okay? You liked it, huh?”
“No I didn’t like it! Are you nuts, you slimy muckrake?” She reaches down to the floor, tries to find something under the bed.
“Can I get up now? You shrimp dick. That was about as nothing as you can get.”
“Stupid, ignorant cow, who do you think will ever want you? I picked you out, all I have to do is tell them to put you out and you’ll be crawling back to your ordinary nothing existence, who do you think you are to disrespect me?”
“Let me go why won’t you just let me go, you don’t want me why can’t I leave, I never wanted to come here.”
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