Curse of the Potency

by Oliver Franks

  She laughed and we stood for a moment as she lit another one of her cigarettes.

  “Alright,” I said, looking around for a spot. “Maybe over here on this flower bed.”

  It was a smallish but relatively isolated mound of soil.

  “How will I know you are not just peeing normally?” she said with a frown. “There are not even any flowers for you to destroy. Just mud. I am starting to wonder if you are making this all up.”

  She was right, of course. It was winter after all, so it wouldn’t really show anything beyond the melting of the mud, which was not really a thing at all.

  “I told you I want to see a demonstration. Why can’t you give me what I want?”

  I was not comfortable at all with her insistence, yet every second the need to wee grew.

  “Alright, where do you want me to do it?”

  “Why not on the gates?” she said. “Or on a tree?”

  “Er… because that will cause massive destruction?”

  I anxiously looked over my shoulder at the surrounding area. I was more concerned about being seen than about any damage, truth be told. It was quiet though, all residential, no noisy bars or anything like that, and no one loitering.

  “Don’t be a coward!” she said. “Just do it. We can flee the scene of the crime together, back to your basement, no?”

  She gave me a cheeky little look and the blood rushed far away from my head.

  “Alright, you crazy dingbat.”

  I unzipped, quite certain it was a terrible idea yet still more than happy to do it.

  *****

  We were positioned at a rough midpoint on one edge of that square. On the other side, beyond the fencing, was only a bit of grass and perhaps some bushes, as far as I could make out in the dark. Since I didn’t want to be responsible for felling any more innocent trees, I reluctantly settled on directing my wee to the gate. It was a powerful old blast of zing-bright luminous green urine that came out of me then, making a mush of that metal in no time.

  “Holy mother!” squealed Julia. “You were not lying.”

  The small area where I peed flaked away instantly to its touch. I was actually a bit shocked to witness the speed with which my stuff disintegrated it, letting off that same yellow smoke, producing that same awful mouldy bananas slash mushroomy smell I hadn’t smelled for some months now.

  “Why have you stopped the demonstration?” moaned Julia.

  The problem with demonstrating on a large gate was that it was structurally very sound. I had obliterated the roughly spherical section that lay immediately before me and was now just pissing on open ground. All around it was still intact, as if nothing had happened.

  “Well you can see what it’s done here, can’t you?”

  “Come on,” she said. “I want to see what you are truly capable of. Show me more, please.”

  Then she got all gooey on me again. “I promise,” she whispered in my ear, “you can have your way with me.”

  Just like the way metal folded at the touch of my pee, I folded at the mere thought of having any sort of way with her. What’s more, having drunk heavily all day, my bladder was packing strength in depth.

  “Oh, alright…”

  I shuffled along a little bit to the left, allowing my wee to make contact with further sections of the gate—plenty more hissing and smoke and melting metal as I went.

  “This is incredible!” she cried.

  “You really have no respect for public property, do you?”

  And evidently, neither do you, Dave, I said to myself as I kept shuffling along, laying waste to steadily more and more of that gate.

  As I did so, the creaking of the overall structure became gradually louder. Before long, it began shuddering quite unsettlingly. I looked up and could see it swaying slowly forwards and back.

  “It’s going to fall down soon,” I said with a sigh.

  “Mama mia!” she cried.

  The gate now groaned, and I looked up to see it folding down, centring on the midpoint where the lower section had been obliterated.

  “We need to get out of the way now,” I said, walking myself back onto the paved curb beside the road, almost bored with the whole thing.

  Thankfully I was now finishing with my gargantuan pee, though the pavement slabs directly beneath me were ripped to shreds, letting off a noxious, salty smoke as they fizzed and bubbled out of existence, the final vestiges of the evening’s drink escaping me in a dribble.

  Julia had already moved out of danger.

  “You have powers no man should have,” she said, watching me with a wild smile.

  I zipped up with a sigh. The gating was swaying violently now, leaning towards the inside of the square. Finally, a huge line of it crashed heavily to the ground away from us, its fall broken by several unfortunate bushes and trees that were smashed down in its path.

  “Oh shit,” I said, feeling almost sobered up by the whole thing.

  “Fantastic…” said Julia.

  I was both ashamed and shocked at what I had done. It was a pointless, ridiculous level of damage for no real reason. One way or another, I knew I would end up paying for it.

  “That a man can do this…” said Julia in awe.

  She was stooping down to examine the nearby section of pavement, which was burnt to tatters by my wee, revealing concrete and earth underneath.

  “Yeah, you kind of get used to it after a while.”

  People would come soon, I knew. It was a quiet neighbourhood, but the falling of that gate had been something. I surveyed up and down its length. At the far edges, it remained standing, though it was far from straight. It teetered. In the middle, it was as if someone had bulldozered a truck straight through.

  I was just about to ask Julia for another one of her cigarettes and suggest we leave when she flicked the one she had just finished over towards the fallen mess of metal. As it landed, it instantly set fire to something and there was a humongous whoosh as the area around the fallen gating was caught up in a wave of bluish, green flames.

  “Jesus H Christ!” I cried.

  She grabbed my arm and shouted something equally sharp in Russian.

  The whole square seemed to light up in a sudden burst of exploding colour from nowhere, like the start of a huge fireworks display. Bright blue and green illumination revealed many trees and bushes on the other side of the gating which I had not seen before in the dark. To my horror, I saw that the flames were spreading. Those distant areas were starting to catch fire too, a whole row of trees and bushes burning with strange colours in the night.

  “It’s beautiful,” she said.

  “It never did that before…” I said, astounded.

  It was obvious what was happening, of course. It was my wee that had caught fire. Not only was it super-corrosive, but it was also some kind of bloody rocket fuel!

  Chapter 15

  The stuff really did burn like crazy. Julia and I, gobsmacked and awed by it, simply stood and watched the spectacle for a time. The growing blue-green blaze engulfed tree after tree and bush after bush, the smoke rising thickly into the clear night’s sky. The whole square was given an eerie tinge by it, shadows dancing about off the buildings as if a swaying drunk giant was holding a magic lamp. People started to congregate on the street to get a closer look.

  When we heard approaching sirens, I finally came to my senses.

  “We should go. That’s enough, isn’t it?”

  “This is unbelievable,” she said. “Are you even human, my dear?” She looked at me seriously, something flashing in her eyes. Disgust, maybe? Fear? Or possibly awe? I wasn’t sure, but it kind of freaked me out. Then, before I could answer the question, she moved closer to me, placing her palm on my chest.

  “Take me to your basement now. Please.”

  “Sure,” I said. “Sneaking back to the basement was the plan all along, right?”

  “Yes, darling,” she said. “Let’s go now.”

  Fire engines arrive
d just as we left the scene. We pushed through the crowd of people now milling about. Luckily, none had seen my role in the disaster, so we blended in just fine, but the level of chaos and destruction gave me a deep sense of foreboding. Imagine explaining this one to the judge, I thought. The truth was, there was no way to explain it. It was just stupidity, plain and simple.

  *****

  “You alright?” I said as I entered the password at the door to the Solar Ray offices.

  “I am fine,” said Julia, yet she was barely smiling at all.

  Ah well, I thought. She’s doubtless a bit frazzled by the amazing show I’ve given. I wasn’t sure how I expected her to react, really.

  The door gave the customary beep and unlocked itself.

  “Come on,” I said.

  I decided not to push my luck with her. Maybe just a drink or two and I’d send her on her way. The craziness of what had just happened had rid me of my adventurous spirit. Plus, I no longer felt drunk in the slightest. To be honest, the more I sobered up, the more I was beginning to suspect there was something weird about her. I mean, you’d have to be some sort of a loon to force me to do what I just did—and even more of one to even consider sleeping with me after that.

  *****

  “You live here?” she said with obvious distaste when I opened the door to my basement room.

  “Yup,” I said. “Not exactly the Ritz, I know.”

  “And this?” She stepped in and pointed to the shiny green silvery tub that sat next to the doorway. “This is made from that material you mentioned? It can withstand your urine?”

  “Yup,” I said. “Solid mega-dega-poly… Ah shit, I’m sorry. I can never remember the name of that stuff.”

  “Show me,” she said.

  “Show you what?”

  “Urinate into it.”

  There was something pointed about the way she made that request. It was more of an order, actually, and her eyes were now as cold as a pair of ice cubes.

  “I don’t need to pee now. Just went for one, remember?”

  She didn’t look too pleased.

  “I’m sure I will later,” I said in as nice a way as I could.

  I was hoping she would snap out of it, actually. I didn’t fancy chucking her out, but I wouldn’t hesitate if she pushed me too far. At least, that’s what I told myself.

  “Alright,” she said with a sigh.

  She sat down on the end of my bed, looking around as if it was a rat-infested hole, which of course it was, minus the rats.

  “I know. It’s a mess. Sorry, I wasn’t expecting company.”

  “Never mind.”

  “Do you want a drink?”

  “That would be nice.”

  “Alright.”

  I went to my little fridge and took out some vodka and Coca-Cola I had. When I’d finished making us the drinks, I gave her a glass. She took it and gave me a little smile, patting the space on the bed next to her, indicating for me to sit down.

  “Cheers,” I said, sitting.

  “Cheers.”

  We tapped our glasses. Then she downed hers in one go.

  “Come on, Mister,” she said, giving me that suggestive look again. “Your turn.”

  Lad that I am, I downed the glass as instructed. Yet I had a strange sense of déjà vu. Hadn’t I been the one forcing Molly to down glasses of that horrible wine in this very room? God, I missed her.

  “Now,” said Julia, placing her glass on the floor, moving close to me. “I did promise—”

  “It’s okay,” I said, retreating.

  “What?” She looked perplexed.

  “You don’t have to, you know…”

  “No?”

  “No.”

  “You don’t want me now?”

  The look she gave me was pure stone.

  “I, er…”

  She muttered something in Russian. I assume it was a swear word by the way she delivered it.

  “Make me another drink,” she ordered.

  “Alright.”

  I got up. I could hear her huffing, talking to herself in Russian.

  When I had made her drink, she grabbed it from me and downed it.

  “You bring me down here to reject me, yes?”

  Boy, did she look angry.

  “No…” I said, sipping my drink.

  “I feel rejected.”

  “Please don’t.”

  “Should I leave now? Is that it?”

  I was buggered if I knew what to say now.

  “No…”

  “You liked me before,” she said, pouting childishly.

  “Yes, but—”

  “Drink your drink,” she ordered, staring down at the glass I was holding. “You need to drink more,” she said. “You need to relax.”

  “Okay…”

  I knocked it back, feeling decidedly uncomfortable. A woman ordering me to drink? What was the world coming to?

  “Now make us more drinks,” she said, frowning at me, holding out her glass.

  “Are you sure—”

  “Do it.”

  She was very bossy indeed. And now, the alcohol of that last glass hitting me, I looked down at her through the fog of that booze and found the amazing reality of the situation seducing me once again. Yes, I should probably have wondered what was going on, but also, who was I to complicate things? The stunning woman from the bar was sitting right there, on my bed, and wanted to have it off with me!

  “Make the drinks,” she ordered again. “You like to be told what to do, no? If not, you will not do anything, I think.”

  “Er…”

  She was a character; I’ll give her that. So I went and made those further drinks. Once again, I handed her a glass full of vodka and Coke, and once again, she downed it in one, letting out a big breath of satisfaction, smacking her lips and shaking her head theatrically, her blonde hair bobbing this way and that over her milky soft shoulders.

  “Oh, that is good…”

  She nodded to the glass in my hand.

  “Your turn.”

  In a haze of confused excitement, I nodded slowly and did what I was told.

  “Good.”

  She gave me a suggestive smirk and a raised eyebrow, curling a raised finger towards herself.

  Once again, I sat next to her. She looked me at me with her brilliant blue eyes.

  “Now,” she said, “my wild creature of the impossible, I will make us one more glass each of the vodka, we will drink this, and then we will make love. Does that sound acceptable for you? Or are you going to make a fool of this poor, lonely woman tonight?”

  *****

  Luckily or otherwise, we never got to the “love-making” stage. She made that drink, ninety per cent vodka and bitter as hell, and we downed our glasses, me in a state of utter nervousness, her apparently hell-bent on my seduction. She started kissing me passionately with mouth and tongue and panting, far too much for me to handle. She was hot, yes, extremely, but also completely over the top, and I was starting to feel sick of her, wondering if maybe my fate was to be eaten alive by those silky lips. It was more ordeal than pleasure.

  So I was somewhat relieved when, mid-snog, I felt the need for another wee.

  I pulled myself away from her.

  “You need to pee again, yes?” she said.

  “Er… yeah,” I said, feeling extremely woozy.

  I had, after all, drunk four glasses of vodka and Coke in quick succession.

  I stumbled to the tank and did my business, slamming the red button as I finished.

  “What is that?” she said sharply.

  “Oh yeah,” I said. “I forgot to mention. There’s a special tank they have to put it in. A bloke called Bill will be along in a second to collect—”

  “Another will come here?”

  “Yeah.”

  She swore again in Russian. “You did not tell me this,” she said, eyes ablaze.

  “Er…”

  Talking to herself, she looked all around in s
uch a panic I worried she might lamp me or something. I was about to tell her not to worry, that we were both fully clothed and there was nothing particularly incriminating about what we had been doing, not since the burning of the square anyway, but there was not enough time for that because, straight away, the door opened and in walked Bill.

  “Hi, Dave,” he said casually. “Not too pissed I… Oh, got company, have you?”

  He frowned when he saw Julia sitting there.

  “Yeah,” I said. “This is Julia.”

  “Hello there,” she said.

  “Hi,” he said, but then he looked straight at me. “Dave, you know you are supposed to register any guests into the building.”

  I certainly couldn’t recall that part of the induction.

  “Is there a problem?” said Julia.

  “Not necessarily,” said Bill. “It depends. What are you doing here?”

  She laughed. “Do I need a reason to spend the night with a man?”

  “You do with this man.”

  “We met in a bar,” she said. “We are both lonely souls. So we make company for each other. And now, perhaps, you will leave us alone?”

  “What? You were going to sleep with him? Seriously?”

  She shrugged.

  “Why is Dave acting so strange?”

  Bill was looking at me again now. I was about to answer that for myself but for the fact there was something rather odd about the way his voice sounded. Hazy and echoey. I looked down at the floor. It was wobbling horribly. In fact, the whole room was beginning to spin.

  “He is drunk,” I heard Julia say, yet her voice also seemed to be reaching me from a great distance. “He likes a drink, you know.”

  “He looks worse than drunk,” said an increasingly distant-sounding Bill.

  Forget a great distance—it was as if he was calling from another dimension. He was still looking at me, frowning at me, I think, though it was hard to tell since his face had divided itself into four spinning circles of eyes and noses and mouths. He moved his lips as if he was shouting, yet I could hardly hear him.

  “Dave!” he cried.

  “Oh…” I mumbled.

  I was falling in quicksand.

  Something was very wrong with me. I managed to stumble to my bed before I passed out completely.