Ugly Heaven

by Carlton Mellick III

  "She usually sleeps with all the newcomers."

  "I was only there for a day."

  "Well, then I'll have to show you how it's done," she says.

  Swan arches her back to shove her spiky breasts into his face. A grin stretches across her swamp-green lips like she's about to corrupt the innocent and the idea is issuing clouds of molten violet glass from pores on her skin.

  Tree has no idea what to do. He doesn't really remember having sex as a human. He just remembers it required a penis and an orifice to put it in.

  He tries to follow her lead. She kisses him, sucks his golden lips into her mouth. Her tongue goos out onto his shoulder. Tree looks into her mouth. She's toothless. There are ridges of cartilage but it's more fish-like than human. Her entire mouth is a stretching of tongue that rolls out of her lips and massages the back of Tree's neck.

  She smiles excitedly at Tree's millipede tongue. Its hundreds of legs are more like thin tentacles. They run across Swan's cheek and tickle her ear.

  Swan presses her lips against the millipede and closes her eyes. As her giant tongue slides into Tree's mouth, she begins to shiver. It slips down into his throat and back into his mouth.

  She pushes away from him and looks deep into his eyes.

  "You like that?" she asks.

  Tree nods.

  She sticks her tongue back into his mouth and shoves it further down his throat this time. He can feel it tickle the insides of his chest. He tastes rust-fuzzy

  She begins fucking his throat with her tongue. Throat sensations like a vagina, but more intense, his nerves in a complex web of sensuality. Tree attempts to put his tongue into her throat but is overpowered by the seahorse girl's massive shaft of meat. He wonders if her tongue will cum inside him like a penis.

  Swan throws Tree onto the floor of the subway car. Her tongue flaps at him like a nervous tail. Before Tree realizes what is happening, the green girl pulls his blade out of his arm and cuts his belly open from his crotch to his ribcage. Tree gasps in shock as she straddles his thighs. Her lips puffed at him, eyes glowing into him as she spreads open the new lips on his torso and slides her fingers inside.

  Tree explodes with new sensations as she explores his goopy insides with worming fingers. Orange mucus pours out of Tree like globs of blood. She seizes something inside of him, up inside of his chest that makes his entire body ache and squirm.

  She pulls on it, slips it out of his torso and shows it to him. The organ is as large as a lung but pulses like a heart. It reminds Tree of a water balloon made from a doctor's rubber glove, with several thick white tubes that connect it to the inside of his chest.

  Swan opens her mouth around the organ and sucks one of its wriggling udders. Tree's limbs soothe into calm. It feels like his entire body is inside of her mouth. The iguana tongue oozes out of her deep green lips and coils around the pulsing organ. Bloody nuggets dripping out of the sides, clinging between her fingers and taste-buds.

  Then Swan's breathing becomes rapid. She licks the orange goop from Tree's knife and quickly cuts into her own belly, impatiently, sloppily. She groans as she squeezes out an identical meat-balloon from inside of her, behind her spiky breasts and holds it up. She pauses. One organ in each hand. Holds her breath. Mouth wide open and tongue dangling out as she slowly presses them together.

  Tree sees the fingers of the organs curl around each other and then blank. Sensual overload. His sight becomes all white, all sound disappears, smells erased. All he can feel is a cosmic squishing of his soul-flesh into Swan's. His entire body melting into her, rubbing against every molecule of her being. Endlessly orgasming.

  They are swallowed by each other. Digesting one another.

  For a moment, they do merge completely. Become one consciousness. Tree forgets which soul is his, which particles are his, which thoughts.

  He is the closest he's ever been to anyone, even himself.

  Tree awakes wet and bristly in the subway car. His head in Swan's breasts. Though spiky, her chest is surprisingly comfortable. Their bellies still open, spilling fizzy fluids onto the floor. But Swan has put the sex organs back into their original containers. "What happened?" he asks.

  "You blacked out just before we climaxed." She wipes grease from his forehead. "I was expecting you to. Nobody makes it to climax their first time. Especially someone so young."

  "You didn't tell me it was like that," Tree says.

  "No, I guess I didn't," she says, big green smile.

  "How many times have you done it?"

  "Dozens," she says. "Mostly with CLOTTA. She was the best. The older souls can do amazing things. I can't even begin to explain it. This was the first time I was the leader. It was pretty fun. You should try it with Salmon sometime."

  Tree shakes his head. "I don't think so."

  "You might someday remember loving him," Swan says.

  "If I do it won't change anything. That was another life. I'm a different person now."

  "We'll see," Swan says.

  A snake of pudding slimes out of her belly and down Tree's back.

  From the back of the subway, Salmon watches Tree and Swan lying together, bellies open at each other. He grips a fire axe in his hand, twisting his palms against it. A corner of the axe blade stabs into his pink thigh. It eases only a little of his pain.

  Tree and Swan push withered old grocery carts full of supplies down the suburban sidewalk. The carts are ready to fold inward, wheels ready to break apart, and the sidewalk is too rough and rocky, but they try to get as far as possible before abandoning the carts.

  "We can probably stay here for quite a while with all this stuff," Swan says.

  "Yeah, I'd like that," Tree says.

  They smile at each other. Their eyes glowing in the dimness.

  Their bellies are sewn up with fresh thread. Swan found everything they'll need in the shelter under the city. She even found extra knives for cutting their stomachs open again.

  They find a new home. A sturdyish one on a better preserved side of town. There is even a place for them to sleep, an old mattress that has withered down to a pile of soft stuffing.

  Cuddling together on the musty mound, Swan drops deep into sleep within Tree's arms. He just about falls asleep against her when a shadowy form jerks him awake.

  "Take it," Salmon says.

  He leans over the bed, a litde boy with an axe, his fist stretched to Tree.

  "What are you doing in here?" Tree asks, then he notices the axe.

  "I don't want to hurt you," Salmon says. "But I'm going to split your skull in half if you don't take this pill."

  "That was another life," Tree says. "Even if I was your lover on Earth, I won't be in Heaven. I'm a different person now."

  "I just want you to remember what I remember," Salmon says. "The two of us were happy together. In love. If you can just remember, I'll be satisfied. Even if you don't want to be with me."

  "I don't trust you," Tree says. "Why do you have that axe?"

  "I promise I won't hurt you if you take the pill," Salmon says.

  "I'll be unconscious. If you hurt her while I'm out I will slice you to shreds."

  "I don't want to hurt anybody. I just want you to take the pill."

  He drops it on Tree's chest.

  "I'm serious," Tree says. "I'll cut you to pieces."

  He slips the pill into Tree's mouth.

  As Salmon sets down the axe, Tree swallows.

  Salmon watches his face excitedly as he fades out.

  Tree bursts out of the bed at Salmon. His knife whips out of his arm and presses against the pink man's thin neck.

  Salmon screams, Swan jerks awake.

  "What's going on?" Swan cries.

  "You promised you'd take the pill," Salmon whines.

  "Shut up!" Tree says.

  "You promised!"

  "You son of a bitch!" Tree says.

  "I just wanted you to remember.

/>   "You fucking piece of shit!" Tree says.

  "Why didn't you just take it?" Salmon says. "That's all I wanted."

  "I did take it."

  "Really? Did you remember? How we were?"

  "You killed us, you sick fuck!" Tree says.

  "What?" Salmon cries.

  Swan keeps her distance.

  "You selfish prick! You killed us both!"

  Tree knees the little man in the stomach and throws him out of the room.

  "Stay away from me," Tree says.

  Salmon's face droops at the yellow man. bo! tree screams.

  Salmon runs out of the house and down the street.

  He keeps running, around the globe of the city, and then around it again. He keeps running until his legs can no longer move. Then he finds a dark room to collapse in. He crawls into a corner, curls into a ball, and bites his knees. Streams of tears soaking his salmon-colored skin.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Tree is shitting copper spring worms in the black-fuzzy bathroom.

  "Can you tell me now?" Swan asks, helping him balance on his new spider/foot.

  He wants to be alone, but he knows he can't sew himself up all by himself. Swan bends over and stabs the needle into his hind flesh.

  "I can see your emotions," she says. "Don't bother trying to hide them."

  "He was right," Tree says. "We were lovers. At one time."

  "So you were gay?" she teases.

  Tree smacks her forehead with his butt for saying that, the needle poking her fingertip.

  "It wasn't quite like that," he says. "I didn't think in terms of male and female, gay and straight, when I was on Earth. I just needed to be close to someone. Anyone. I didn't care what their gender was. I was attracted to the affection."

  "You weren't in love with him?"

  "Perhaps I was on some level, but I was just with him because it was comfortable and convenient."

  Swan bites the thread and lets Tree go.

  "One day I found somebody else and was ready to move on. It was a normal cycle for me. I would stay with one person until I found somebody new. Then I'd move on. This time it was a woman. A painter. She was a neighbor and I could tell she wanted to try a relationship with me. I could always tell. Salmon couldn't handle it though. He couldn't let me go. He threatened to kill himself. On the ledge of my apartment building. I tried to stop him. I don't know why. I didn't love him anymore. It would have been an easy way to get him out of my life forever. But he didn't want to be saved. He just wanted me to get close enough to him so he could grab me and take me with him. He killed us. I was such an important person. My skills as a surgeon were incomparable. But he killed me. For such a stupid reason."

  "It doesn't sound like a stupid reason to me," she says. "He loved you."

  "It wasn't love. It was something sick."

  Days pass.

  Swan and Tree have cleaned out the house and converted it into a comfortable home. It is swarming with crawly creatures from their excrement. Snail-bats, monkey-lizards, troll-mice. Swan pretends they are all their children and keeps them as pets. Tree doesn't seem to mind them so much.

  They haven't seen Salmon since the fire axe incident. He just disappeared into the ruins and became a wandering ghost. A lost soul. Sometimes they hear a distant voice in the night and assume that it is him.

  Their sex is getting better, but Tree still can't make it all the way to the climax. His senses don't overload as easily though.

  Most of their days are spent in bed, holding each other, content with their eternity. But sometimes they go out and explore the old ruins. There's a dead park where they go on picnics. A merry-go-round that still works. Many interesting places where they can have sex.

  It's not quite Heaven, but it's good enough.

  An earthquake hits one morning. A very small tremor but it causes the crack in the sphere to widen. Several large buildings collapse downtown. Thick clouds of dust fill the air like smog.

  "I don't like it," Swan says.

  "It wasn't that bad," Tree says.

  "It was bad enough," she says. "We're not safe here."

  "It was bad enough," she says. "We're not safe here."

  Swan and Tree spend the day looking for a way out. The elevator they entered the town with is no longer operating.

  "We're trapped," Tree says.

  "No, there's got to be another way."

  They continue hunting. The town is mostly rubble. If there are any exits they've all been buried a long time ago.

  "Maybe we can see something from the other side of the sphere," Tree says. "By looking through the fissure."

  Swan nods.

  Another minor earthquake as they get close to the crack in the sphere. The fissure is acting like a fault line. The sides pressured outward with the artificial gravity, rubbing the edges together to create a rumble through the entire city.

  "It's unstable," Swan says. "It can collapse at any time."

  The streets near the cracking fissure are weak. They break apart like thin ice.

  Swan stops Tree. "Wait."

  She uses Tree's knife to cut a slit in her hip and with two fingers she pulls a meaty cord out of her side.

  She stretches it, coils it like a lasso.

  "Here," she says.

  She ties the tendon around Tree's waist. Then pulls more of the string out of her torso for slack.

  "Do you remember mountain climbing?" she asks.

  Tree shakes his head.

  "I'm going to be your safety," she says. "You'll lean outside of the sphere and have a look around."

  "Shouldn't you be doing this?" he asks, feeling Swan's warm fluids pumping through the meat rope around his waist. "Your vision is stronger than mine."

  Swan taps her nose. "You'll be fine."

  Tree walks across the crackling asphalt toward the opening in the ground. He can see the overwhelming Heaven-circuitry and electric waterfalls on the other side. It occurs to him that they might just be decorative. Everything unfamiliar doesn't always have to have a function.

  He looks back at Swan. She smiles, feeding him more slack from her goopy insides.

  Before Tree gets a chance to look away from Swan, the ground breaks apart underneath him and he drops down into empty space.

  Tree doesn't fall far. His body flaps out into space for j ust a moment before it rolls backward onto the outside of the sphere.

  He lies there for a moment, staring out at the electric waterfalls. Then he rolls over on his belly, crawls to the fissure, and peeks back through the hole to see an upside-down Swan trying to reel in her belly cord.

  "I'm okay," he says.

  Her mouth wide open.

  "There's gravity out here. I'll have a look around."

  Swan nods slowly and feeds him more of the tendon.

  Tree stands himself, his spider foot scrambles to find balance. The sphere is in the center of another giant sphere. He can't tell the distance to the walls of the outer sphere, but he can tell they are very far. It is like they are on the inside of a planet.

  There is a small cement building on the other side of the fissure. A face is staring out of the window at him. A pink face.

  Tree circles around the hole, careful not to cut Swan's flesh string, just now realizing that her nerves must stretch all the way up the cord.

  "I would never hurt you," Salmon says to Tree from the window.

  "What are you doing out here?" Tree asks.

  "I tried to jump," he says.

  Tree approaches the small building. It is the size of a bathroom.

  "I didn't really kill us, did I?" Salmon asks.

  "You couldn't accept that I didn't want to be with you anymore," Tree says.

  "I must have gone crazy," he says. "I couldn't imagine living without you."

  "We shouldn't have taken those pills," Tree says. "Things were better before."

  "Maybe. But our memories made u
s who we are. Without them we were lost."

  "I think CLOTTA was right. We're better off forgetting about our past for now. We need to move forward."

  "I already took another pill. I saw when we first met. You killed a man for me. You killed a skinhead bouncer. Behind a pub. You cut his neck open with your scalpel.

  "You sliced him up in such an artistic and beautiful way. Like you were dancing tango with him instead of slaughtering him. After it was all over and you dabbed up droplets of blood from your neck, you told me that you did it for me. We were strangers. It was the first time I ever saw you and you killed a man for me. It was love at first sight."

  "I'm sorry," Tree says. "I don't remember. I don't want to remember anymore. That person is no longer who I am."

  Salmon lowers his head.

  "We're trying to find a way out of here," Tree says. "If we find a way you can come with us. But I don't want to hear about our past lives. That is ancient history. Understand?"

  Salmon is red-faced at him.

  Tree steps away from the pink man's shelter and examines the exterior of the sphere.

  Another small earthquake.

  Tree's spider foot squirms in different directions, throwing him off balance but he does not fall.

  When it is over, Salmon appears at Tree's legs. "I think I know a way out."

  Tree kneels down.

  "I haven't tried it yet," says the child-sized man, "but I think it'll work."

  Tree helps Swan crawl out of the city and onto the shell of the sphere. Once she is on the exterior, Tree unties her flesh rope from his waist and coils it up for her. She stuffs it back inside of her with a twist of her hips.

  "Over here," Salmon says. He leads them across the metal surface to a large plastic tube stretching out of the sphere and up into the abyss of Heaven's circuits. The tube contains a cart. It looks like it was made for cargo, not passengers. For shooting supplies from one end of Heaven to the other.

  "It's worth trying," Tree says.

  Swan shakes her spiky head at him.

  It takes several hours, or what seems like hours, for Swan to figure a way to power up the cart. Tree wants to help but he doesn't remember the mechanics of earthly machines let alone Heavenly ones, so he watches Salmon do solemn cartwheels along the metal surface.