by Asja Bakić
While I’m counting the pills, I get a message from Asja: “Be patient a little longer.”
“I don’t trust you,” I reply.
My fingers are so numb I can hardly text. I can’t trust her. She, too, is Asja, and they’re closing in on her too—her life likewise hangs by a thread.
I bar the front door with the wardrobe and sofa. I fear one of us is patiently lying in wait, maybe this very one who’s sending me messages. Who knows, maybe they need to destroy me if they want to stay alive themselves. Maybe I’m the only one who’d rather hurt myself than someone else. The others clearly don’t have such qualms. There are no rows of pills arranged in front of them, but knives, hand grenades—anything capable of wiping out the competition, anything that can make the future go their way.
I don’t go near the window, even though I’ve lowered the blinds and closed the heavy velvet curtains. It’s impossible to see me, but I’m still expecting them to retaliate. I don’t know which of them Kreanga might send. Best be on the lookout.
“I’m deleting you,” reads the message.
“How can I verify that?” I ask.
“Try looking up your ID number.”
I check the internet: I don’t exist. She’s even deleted my blog.
“Thank you,” I reply.
I don’t know enough about computers; I’m not sure if Asja is lying to me. I place the pills back in their tin box. Only one of them is toxic, but I have no way of knowing which because they’re all the same color.
“I’ve let the others know we should meet outside the abandoned pharmaceutical plant,” writes Asja.
“All right.”
“Be there at midnight,” she says.
“Okay.”
I have no intention of going. I search for a hunting knife in the wardrobe blocking the door. I know I have a few, but I can’t find them anywhere.
I should’ve been more organized, I tell myself.
Eventually I find an old knife with a carved rosewood hilt. As soon as I touch it, I know that Kreanga is thinking of me. When things were still okay between us, we would go to the forest to hunt together. Somewhere along the way, Kreanga would shove his hand down my pants.
“The forest is yours,” I’d say, “but what you’ve grabbed—that is not.”
He laughed then, but later it became clear to him that I really meant it.
When I arrived at his castle in ’93, during one of the worst famines in recent memory, I’d been soaked in sweat. But Kreanga hadn’t sent me to the bathroom so I could wash myself, as I’d naively expected. Instead he ushered me into his bedroom so he could, as he said, “lick you from head to toe.” It’s hard to believe what those who weren’t hungry in those days gave themselves license to do.
“No thank you,” I said. “I need lodging—tomorrow I’ll be on my way.”
“Where are you headed?” he asked.
He smiled. I could already tell there was no room for novelty in his appetites: Kreanga loved what his father loved, what his grandfather and great-grandfather had loved, and I was there just to confirm his proclivities, to reinforce his fetish. I proposed that I pay for the room by writing porn for him. He agreed to it faster than I’d anticipated.
“Why aren’t you here?” reads Asja’s message. “It’s midnight.”
I flinch, interrupting the memory.
“I haven’t managed to get there yet,” I lie, clenching the knife between my teeth so it’s easier to text.
“You’re not the only one who’s worried, we all are,” she replies.
Her anger is obvious even without the use of emojis. My thoughts are straining, like frayed rope—everything hangs from a thread: all the Asjas, Kreanga, everything I did well and poorly, and, maybe worst of all, my blood. If I hadn’t let Kreanga take a sample of it, I wouldn’t be here now. I wouldn’t have a knife between my teeth; I wouldn’t be feverishly sending these stupid, deceitful messages.
“Tomorrow, same time, same place. If you’re not there, we’re coming for you,” writes Asja.
I’m not scared, but I can’t fall asleep. I turn off all the lights, slump in an armchair, pull a blanket up to my chin. The knife sits in my lap. When I close my eyes, I return to my daydream: I see Kreanga moving his lips as he read what I’d written him that week. Utterly obsessed, he declared himself delighted. I tried to explain that few people had time for nostalgia anymore, but he ignored my remark.
“People are dying of hunger,” I continued.
“This is excellent!”
Kreanga never listened to me. He waved his arms around excitedly as if he’d never read anything in his whole life. I’m not the best writer, I know that, but Kreanga, having never read D. Elmiger, had no idea what good literature looked like.
The moon overhead is incredibly close now, enormous, like a nipple wanting to breastfeed my paranoia.
“Everything’s going to be okay,” I tell myself. “Everything’s going to be okay.”
But the blanket feels too heavy; it’s like Kreanga is sitting on my chest. I’m sweating profusely. I look over at my bookcase: the collected works of D. Elmiger, slim volumes full of lascivious scenes and descriptions that we all devoured in disbelief. Had people really done such things? Had they really?
In the morning, I count the pills again, convinced that only this will help me sort out my problems. My sweat hangs heavy in the air. The smell doesn’t bother me; my brain perceives it as something distinctly literary, like a motif I often used for Kreanga—the fetid sweat of a woman’s shaved armpit. Every sex scene, every sentence, needed to be saturated with pungent odors, liters and liters of saliva and mucus; otherwise, Kreanga would show his disapproval by tossing the draft in the trash.
One day we sat beneath a tree, plum maybe, and he read a story of mine that I’d set right there in his garden.
“The best you’ve written so far!” he said. “I love when it’s two women.”
I always carried the book by D. Elmiger with me and copied her descriptions whenever I ran out of inspiration. I pretended to understand what I was writing, as if I’d actually experienced sex and was now sharing the knowledge with my titillated reader.
Instead of a day or two, I stayed at Kreanga’s castle for three years. When I finally left, I fled with one bundle on my back. The knife in my lap I’d found in his pantry, along with some cured meat and the scent that’s never left my nose: the scent of prosperity.
Kreanga’s hope was to be the first man to achieve an erection in god knows how many years, and it drove him to behave like it could happen at any moment. He used different methods: toys, people, any means possible. Procreation was performed in labs, but also privately—in different medical offices where people were bred like cattle, for work and for pharmaceutical use. Because of this, it had been years since people had touched one another; there was no need, except during the exchange of money or other essential goods. Kreanga, however, touched people when it was unexpected and, above all, when it was unnecessary. If one of his servants walked by him, he would change his position so that they’d be forced to brush against him with a part of their body I described in my stories: ass, breasts, hands, and so on, those parts that provoked a particular discomfort in people unaccustomed to sex. The reason why Kreanga hung out with me was that it was easier for me to tolerate his touching.
Kreanga requested that I write porn in the first person, of course—that, if possible, he should be the narrator. He hoped that, reading the text, he would identify with that person who thought only about sex, with that insatiable, promiscuous literary character Kreanga.
My little slut, my puppy, I’m hungry for your fleshy tight pussy that lustfully melts for my tenacious cock, gladly receiving it, sucking and nibbling in satisfaction. Your voracious cunt, which I imagine growing wet as soon as you think of me fucking you, which you must satisfy with your fingers when I’m not there, rubbing against the sheets until you come, moaning. You’re shy, you naughty thing, and I know you
worship dick, and I’ll gladly give it to you, just how you want it: rough, all the way inside you. You’ll groan and beg, your body slippery as an eel, my cock disappearing between your milky ass cheeks, I won’t stop until I finish. I’ll fill you, little one, you’ll be my happy, dirty girl, you’ll ask me to piss on you.
It was so difficult to write, I’d have to pause after each paragraph to get some air. I agonized over every word, reviewing the text to see if what I’d written made any sense. I’d page through D. Elmiger: the testimony of the last woman to experience sexual pleasure. And I’d occasionally have to stop and laugh. Here I was, copying a woman’s writing so that Kreanga would feel more like a man. Then I’d continue.
I’ll fuck your mouth while your wetness drips down your thighs. You’ll beg me to put it in you, before you pass out. Don’t worry, I’ll satisfy you, your pretty pink animal spreading herself in the heat of passion, ready for my big cock, slut, you’ll moan and beg for it, I’ll grab your thighs and spread your legs until I can see the darkness of your wet flesh, the slit of your desperate cunt, open and ready, and I’ll enter you with ease, fast, and you’ll feel the force of my thrusting, I’ll impale you mercilessly, I’ll lie on top of you and pant: “My bitch, my lapdog, how I love you.”
“It’s pointless of you not to reply,” writes Asja.
I’d fallen asleep and hadn’t seen her new message.
“I was sleeping.”
“I’m coming over. You’d better let me in.”
“Where are the others?” I ask suspiciously.
“At my place, where it’s safe. If everything turns out okay, they’ll come too.”
“Okay,” I reply.
I move the furniture away from the door so my guest can enter. I’m still not sure this is a good idea, but I can’t keep torturing myself anymore. I’ve tucked the hunting knife under my belt. Just in case.
I don’t know what day or time it is, but despite this, I try to calculate exactly when she’ll arrive. As soon as I sit down, I hear someone entering the building. I shudder, terrified. I peer through the keyhole. My neighbor’s home from work. I don’t know why she still bothers—they don’t pay her at all. I return to my chair. My underwear is soaked, like I’ve pissed myself.
The last job I had was awful. I was a receptionist at the main municipal laboratory. The night shift. That was when I started writing a blog, to stay awake. I kept it anonymously, but the lab found out anyway and immediately fired me. The management didn’t like the topics I covered. It’s true, I wrote about genetic engineering, which concerned them directly, but I didn’t write anything negative. I never knew what bothered them exactly.
Luckily, I had an apartment left to me by my aunt, so I wasn’t worried about ending up on the street. I could no longer find work, though. No one wanted me. Eventually, I became so poor, I tried moving to the countryside so I could grow my own food or at least steal from someone else’s garden. That’s how I met Kreanga.
They say that one of the upsides to cloning is that the clone can’t be distinguished from the original. It seems to me, though, that this would actually be a downside: because of their shared appearance, the same person suffers over and over. A person gets cloned only so that they can be exploited by others. The original ostensibly has the advantage: the copies must be worked to death by forced labor. But how do you know who is the copy? Who is original anymore? Human beings surely aren’t. I wrote about this too. Upon further reflection, it occurs to me that perhaps this was the reason for my termination, but maybe I’m just lying to myself; maybe I fell asleep at my desk a few times or they caught me stealing the pills I was supposed to be guarding.
What amazed me, actually, was that Kreanga cloned me not once, not twice, but four times. Maybe he just couldn’t stop himself. I’m sure he quickly realized his mistake: every single one of my clones was a person unto herself, and none of us could help him.
At work, I also observed that gender roles persisted even without sex. I say this because the laboratory cloned different people for different jobs. I don’t know why; there were no fundamental differences. One has to admit that Kreanga would never have cloned a woman unless he needed her for “special occasions.” He’d adopted the prejudices of others: if he was going to achieve arousal, he wanted it to be in the company of a woman, even though he hardly understood, just as I didn’t understand, what arousal even was.
While I wait for Asja, I shift uncomfortably in my armchair. My legs are numb from poor circulation. I imagine our encounter, something like the first meeting of Bouvard and Pécuchet. We sit on a bench, holding identical hats, and suddenly realize that the same name is sewn into the lining of both: Asja.
Soon I hear a knock at the door. No doubt she’s arrived. I open it cautiously, eyeing Asja, that is myself, and say without thinking, “He did a good job, you look just like me.”
Asja laughs. We shake hands and she enters the apartment. She makes a beeline for my chair, which makes sense because, in a way, it’s also hers.
“I know where you keep your knives,” she says.
I start thinking I’m the clone and she’s the original. They’re exactly where she says. She even knows that I was looking for them earlier.
“Well done!” I say.
I feel a strange fear. I can’t relax in front of myself.
“What about the rest of the group?”
“Are you nervous?” Asja asks.
“Yes,” I confess. “Very.”
Asja lolls in the armchair, throwing a leg over the side.
“What should we do about Kreanga?”
“I don’t know,” I say, “but I have no intention of going back. He’s a jackass.”
And thus do I finally admit to myself that I’ve wasted three years of my life in the company of a jackass.
“True, he’s stupid, but he’s not a bad person. Just lost.”
I don’t get why Asja’s defending him. I listen to what she’s saying, but really, I’m watching her. I feel that I’m the one sitting in the armchair even though I’m sitting across from it, but not quite: my guest is merely one of my variants, a person unto herself.
While we’re chatting, Asja begins to massage her neck. My neck isn’t cramped at all. My legs hurt, but hers are fine.
“We’re completely different,” I say.
I’ve interrupted her midsentence, and she doesn’t remember where she left off.
“You said it would be better to resolve things with Kreanga in person,” I remind her.
“Yes, yes. That’s the best way.”
“One of you should go. Kreanga will never know the difference.”
“All right,” Asja says. “No problem.”
I stare at my copy: crooked teeth, blue eyes, blond hair; same weight, same height. On the outside, it’s me. There’s no denying it. While I’m contemplating our surface similarities, my gaze lands on her bare shoulder. Asja is sweating. Her leg is still hanging over the chair. She rubs her neck from time to time, but lightly. Like she’s rubbing it just for fun. Her upper lip begins to perspire. I mechanically run my tongue across my lip, as if I could wipe her sweat away.
“Why are you licking your lips?” she asks.
“I don’t know.”
I can feel that I’m squeezing my own leg too. It doesn’t hurt anymore, but I can’t stop. Asja throws an arm behind her head, across the chair’s edge, and I see her underarm is smooth. I have an overwhelming urge to lick her armpit with the tip of my tongue. I’m not sure if I read something like this in D. Elmiger, and therefore I should replicate the gesture, or if my desire has nothing to do with what I’ve read. Asja notices my confusion, but doesn’t say anything. She returns the hand she placed on the chair to her lap and begins to scratch between her legs. Her shorts have bunched up in her crotch.
“If Kreanga reports us, we’ll be captured and enslaved. You have to help us,” I hear her say. “I did everything you requested; I deleted you so Kreanga has no way of finding y
ou. Now it’s your turn.”
I hear her, but I’m not listening. Her voice is muffled; her speech, slow and quiet. My hand is also between someone’s legs, I don’t know whose, hers or mine, but it’s not scratching. It’s doing something completely different, something long forgotten. The feeling of a hand’s touch can’t be expressed in words.
CARNIVORE
When he got on the bus that day, Milan detected the strong scent of raw meat. The woman who was sitting a few seats in front of him, he instantly concluded, was carrying the paper-wrapped treasure in a bag. Tucked in beside it were peppers, an onion, but none of the vegetables corrupted the meatiness of the aroma. He observed her with interest. They got off at the same stop and walked one beside the other. And then came that strange gesture, an unexpected moving hand. The woman slipped him a piece of paper with her address and said he should come over for dinner.
“There will be fresh meat,” she whispered, then headed off in the other direction.
Milan touched his genitals, which a moment earlier had brushed against her hand. Not even Geppetto could’ve whittled better wood. What would he say to his wife? She was consumed by jealousy, and he feared her reaction. But he just had to go to that dinner. Ultimately, he stopped by the pharmacy for some sleeping pills. “No more than two at a time,” advised the pharmacist.
“So, three,” he said to himself as he climbed the stairs to his front door.
His wife was in a good mood. She didn’t ask him where he’d been or what he’d been doing. A miracle! Milan thought. While he ate his meal, his wife talked about her plans for the weekend. She was going to spend it with a friend at a cabin with no phone and wouldn’t be able to contact him. He choked.
“No way to call?”
“Right, I won’t be able to call. I hope that doesn’t bother you.”
“Okay,” Milan said softly. And then, even more softly, “I’m going to take a walk later tonight. Would you like to join me?”