by Joe Stretch
‘Just hold on . . . I’m coming.’
On the other side of the door the two Ankas are staring at each other. Both look nervous. They offer each other stark, open eyes. Identical thoughts pop like washing-up liquid bubbles inside their heads. What are we going to say? How will we begin to explain?
‘You should go and hide,’ whispers one Anka.
‘Me?’ says the other, pointing at her protruded collarbone. ‘Why should I go? You’re the anorexic.’
‘You are, you mean. You’re just a skeleton.’
‘Bollocks. I’m a good weight. Look at yourself. It’s painful to see.’
The two Ankas hiss at each other. How did this happen? they both think. I was fine. I was eating. I’d recovered. Sure, I was working hard, burning calories, but I was eating. Suddenly, a memory hits them both like a snowball to the ear. The memory of going into Subway for lunch. The memory of asking for a fistful of watercress and being told abruptly that Subway is a sandwich shop. The memory of saying, ‘Then I’ll get something later on, and in any case I only eat organic food nowadays, I only eat seafood, only eat nuts, rye bread, popcorn, water, black coffee, zero dairy, I’m a vegan at the moment, you know the shit they put in food, I’m going to grow my own leeks, become a farmer, a self-sufficient superstar, I’m thinking about trying to get a recipe book published and, the thing is, I ate before I came out. I did, honestly. I ate a shitload just before I came here. It’s ridiculous really and that’s the truth. It is. That’s the truth.’
‘Bollocks,’ says one Anka, shutting her eyes then covering them with a hand.
‘I know,’ says the other.
‘We haven’t been eating at all lately, have we?’
‘We ate an egg. We sucked on monkey nuts. But other than that, nothing.’
Knelt down in the corridor next to Roger’s door, both Ankas hold hands and share their worried eyes. On the other side of the door Roger is making slow progress. He’s looking at the different coloured lights that blink beneath the skin of his hands. Blue ones. Red ones. Yellow. Will she mind? he’s thinking. Will Anka find it foul that my bronze wires have grown so long from my nose that my lips can hardly be seen? She might think it looks weird. Or worse, ugly. She might not be attracted to the thick black cables growing from my ears, or the mouse that’s growing out the back of my head. She might not find me sexy. Nothing new there. But she knows, Roger recalls. I told her all about it. She understands. We both felt a warmth. We made a connection. We are both alone and desperate, desperate!
‘I’m almost there, Anka. Hold on.’
Roger is almost there. He is lying like a dead seal beneath the door. He’s panting with exhaustion. Every piece of equipment is muttering inside him, desperately processing. He’s staring up at the lock. It’s like staring at the clouds. I won’t be able to reach it. He rolls onto his back, breathing at the ceiling, wondering what the best plan is. How will I get beyond the door? To Anka. To sex. To a human moment.
‘Roger?’
‘Yeah, I’m here.’
‘Before you open the door, there’s something I need to tell you.’
That’s handy, thinks Roger, trying to breathe a sigh of relief.
‘Have you ever had a threesome?’ say both Ankas, hands held tenderly against the wooden door. ‘You know? Have you ever tried it with two girls at once?’
Roger, pinned to the carpet, is finding it hard not to laugh. A threesome? There’s more chance of me bumming the Queen. He stares at the space around his eyes, examining it with darting glances. He puts a hand on his crotch and starts tapping at the numerical keypad where his penis should be.
‘Sure,’ he says. ‘A threesome. Absolutely. I’ve done that. Why?’
‘Because, well . . . Roger, I’m quite ill.’
‘You’ve got an eating disorder.’
‘Yeah.’
‘I figured.’
‘And you see . . .’ Both Ankas are pulling frantic faces at each other, shaking their hands, fingers crooked like they’re gripping invisible hearts. ‘It’s hard for you to understand, Roger, but, basically, when you open this door, you’ll see that there’s two of me.’
Jesus Christ. This is all a bit much for Roger to take. He’s tapping frantically at the keypad that replaced his cock.
‘What’s that noise?’
‘It’s my teeth,’ says Roger, ‘they’re chattering. I’m cold.’
‘Do you mind it being a threesome?’
‘No,’ squeaks Roger. He’s thinking. If you can call it thinking. He’s thinking: a threesome with two Anka Kudolskis. What a concept. The mere idea of it undermines all the hardware in Roger’s skull and he briefly feels sixteen again. Brain like a trumpet with boobies in the bell. He remembers how Anka had looked on QUIZ TV. He duplicates that image and begins bleeping and whirring for joy.
‘I think I can deal with it,’ he says, trying desperately to get to his feet and open the door. ‘It will be odd, but I think I can understand.’
The Ankas can barely hear Roger’s voice over the sound of clinking electrics and clattering plastics. ‘At least we’re human,’ whispers one of them. ‘Listen to that. He’s just a sack of technology.’
‘Shhh,’ hisses the other. ‘He’s a nice guy. I know he is. And you and me need to be touched. We’ve forgotten. We’ve lived in our brains too long. Our brains are fucked.’ She raises her voice. ‘Roger, are you gonna open this door?’
‘Yeah,’ says Roger, through a high-pitched wince. ‘Just as soon as I can . . . get . . . up . . .’ Roger is yet to leave the floor.
‘I think we can help each other, Roger,’ say the Ankas, suspecting Roger might need encouragement. ‘We’re all in a right state. We need to behave simply. We need to just feel each other.’
Definitely, thinks Roger. We need to have a frantic threesome that’ll convince me beyond doubt that life is a big wooden barrel of laughs. Roger’s face is purple with strain. His teeth are gritted. His hands try desperately to lift his legs.
‘Come on, Roger. Hurry.’
‘I’m trying.’
Roger’s on his feet. Almost. He’s trying to straighten his legs. Straining for the door handle with a shaking hand.
‘Don’t be embarrassed,’ say the Ankas. ‘We’re ready for you.’
‘I know,’ hisses Roger, through a closed mouth, reaching up, fingertips straining, brushing the grey metal catch, desperate to get a grip.
‘We’re here, Roger. We’re really here. We’re ready and waiting for you.’
‘Aaaaaaagggghhhhh!’
Roger throws his failing body upwards at the lock. His hand grips it for a second. He feels the latch and tries to drag it down. Drag it down and unlock the door, throw it open and fall on them, the two beautiful girls, his first humans in months, their soft flesh, damaged by disease but still silky and warm and actually alive. I’ll see them, he thinks. Sex and hope. Smiling faces. I’ll open my eyes and feast on the light of beauty.
‘Roger?’
Silence. Roger nibbles on the shadows of his lonely apartment. The lock above his head is still locked. I failed. I can’t do it. I’m too far gone.
‘I haven’t got the strength, Anka,’ he says. ‘I can’t reach you.’
More silence. On the other side of the door the two identical girls shake their heads in frustration. They each push their blonde hair off their faces and make temporary ponytails with their fists.
‘Can you get back to your computer, Roger?’
Roger sighs. ‘Always.’
‘Then let’s go back to Wow-Bang. Meet us at the Real Arms.’
Roger places a hand against the door. The two girls do the same. The lovers are separated by just an inch or two of wood. ‘It’ll be OK,’ say the Ankas, in that soft London voice of theirs. ‘It’ll be OK, Roger. But be sure to bring a penis. In fact, bring as many codes as you can afford.’
16
BACK IN WOW-BANG, Joe Aspen is deliberately trying to piss Janek Freeman off. They’re
both in a small, red-walled room above the Real Arms. They’re waiting for Life. After Joe dropped the bombshell that he’s taken baby Sally south of Birmingham, Life insisted they hide up here while she probed her colleagues from the Wild World for the likely consequences of this. For a while the boys, their avatars at least, shared an awkward virtual silence. They were both relieved when two men in suits walked in and started snogging each other. They watched with relief as one man’s appearance altered completely and he became, in fact, a woman, with black suspenders, crotchless panties, big tits, brown nipples and blonde hair. Joe and Janek watched as the other man bent the woman over a table and began screwing her with a stripy zebra dick. They watched as the woman struggled, her arms flailing and her legs kicking. They heard the man say, ‘You love it, mate. You fucking love the Rape Code.’ But watching the rape only kept Janek and Joe distracted for a little while. Not long enough. Soon they turned to stare at each other again. They both tried to work out exactly what Life saw in the other. This is when Joe started to wind Janek up. He spread his large puffin wings and began flying around the room, over the rape, then round and round above Janek’s head, occasionally pecking at his digital beanie.
When Life arrives she’s quick to put a stop to the rape. She produces a small pistol and points it at the man with the zebra dick. He withdraws from the woman, smiling, dick nodding, putting his hands in the air. Life shoots him anyway. She shoots the woman, too, as she’s clambering back to her feet. Joe and Janek feel a little ashamed.
‘No one knows,’ says Life. ‘No one knows what’ll happen to Sally in the south.’
‘She’ll be fine,’ says Joe, flying towards Life, landing just in front of her. ‘I’m a good dad. I love her. I’m gonna raise her.’
Janek watches Life with her former boyfriend. He’s getting annoyed. Since his revelation that being alive could conceivably be quite good, he’s yet to get off the mark, notch up a few happiness points. He needs Life. She’s the key. He stares at her graphic breasts and recalls how the breasts they imitate had shaken in that hotel bed. How the two of them had craned their necks. How Life had shouted, ‘Watch it go in and out.’ That was living. Fast, shaking flesh. Stuck in Wow-Bang, Janek can’t figure out what to do.
Joe can. He’s wrapped a wing round Life’s shoulders. Life can’t help but be amused. This is typical of Joe, coming to her disguised as a puffin, the emblem of her home country. It reminds her of when the two of them visited the Faroe Islands to spend Christmas with her family, over a year ago now. Joe had enjoyed the food: the rotten mutton, the herring, the fresh salmon, the puffins themselves. He volunteered to help catch the puffins and he and Life’s dad had gone off to the coast with large nets. It’s likely that that trip to the Faroe Islands kick-started Joe’s preoccupation with the natural world. He was fascinated by the rotten sheep’s ribcage that they collectively devoured during the two-week stay. He’d insisted that he and Life walk daily in the green-black mountains, tracking long-haired sheep for miles, drinking ice-cold water from the countless falls, kissing Life’s full, frozen lips, their feet sinking into the spongy waterlogged grass. When they returned to Manchester, things just weren’t the same. Joe stood nightly at the black winter window, eyes shut, flapping his arms. By day he filled his pockets with handfuls of what soil the city produced. The relationship had to end. It’s amazing it took a whole year. Life hadn’t left the Faroes to shack up with a boy with a puffin complex. She came to Manchester for the pavements and the English language. The coffee shops and the clothes. As she stares now at Joe the puffin and, beside him, Janek, Life realises she’s affected both boys in almost opposite ways. She has turned Joe into an animal and Janek into a classically modern, carefree, thrill-seeker. She wonders which of them, if either, she wants.
‘If I wasn’t a puffin, Life,’ Joe says suddenly, spreading his wings so as to obscure Life’s view of Janek, ‘and if I wasn’t standing in this bullshit virtual world, whatever it’s called, then you’d be able to see I’ve changed. I’ve matured. I’m the only moral person in England. I’m the only one who wants to live simply and be happy. I’ve got no hang-ups. I’m a good guy. We were in love. I know we were. You said we’d call our first child Magnus, if it was a boy. You said that, Life –’
‘I don’t want to do this, Joe. We only broke up two weeks ago. I care for you, I love you, but –’
‘But what?’ pleads Joe. ‘You’re not sure? You’re going to fuck off with this guy in the hat and forget all about me, forget about the time we spent together? Is there no chance we can just go and be happy somewhere, anyfuckingwhere? We could make a Magnus that could play with little Sally. Fuck fun, it’s bollocks. Fuck all this tap, tap, dip, shit, wappy, fucky, clothed crap. There are only two things worth doing in this world, Life: being in love, and hiding!’
Janek’s had enough of this. He pushes Joe to one side and stands in front of Life.
‘Don’t listen to him, Life, he’s a complete dick. Five minutes with an N-Prang and he’d be fucking fine. A couple of weeks ago I was talking this kind of shit.’ Janek turns on Joe, saying, ‘I bet you’re weeping in the real world, aren’t you, Joe? Crying at your computer. I bet you wouldn’t even buy a ticket for a fuck festival.’
Joe smirks. ‘Shut up, you dick.’
‘Piss off, puffin boy.’
Janek turns to Life again. She’s standing completely still.
‘Think about it, Life, I’m the one. You’ve made me realise that life is only about moving from one hilarious moment to the next. And don’t forget, I know Jay-Z, and Snoop Dogg, I’m mates with Peter Gabriel. Think of all the fun we could have.’
‘No one cares,’ says Joe, red beak snapping. ‘She doesn’t even like hip hop, do you, Lie?’
Life says nothing. She doesn’t even move.
‘She’ll like Snoop,’ blurts Janek, before silence can get its teeth into this moment. ‘He’s really funny. He’s really, really funny.’
‘Big deal,’ says Joe. ‘I’m offering her a real life; children, love, soil, shelter from all that bullshit.’
‘Yeah?’ says Janek, intonation rising like scraped guitar strings. ‘Yeah, puffin boy? Well, get a load of this.’
Janek has altered his appearance: his recently purchased penis is bursting, fully erect from his trouser fly. He’s twizzling round, showing it off to Life and Joe. This’ll show her, he’s thinking. This’ll show Life that I’m serious about being a fun-haver, a leggy giggler, a flippant and funky human. Get a load of my big digital dick.
‘Well?’ says Janek, crazed circular eyes. ‘Well?’
Life is motionless and Joe is rummaging in his feathers. Seconds later and Janek’s isn’t the only well-programmed penis in the room. A proud human erection is poking out from Joe’s puffin groin. The atmosphere seems suddenly doomed. The two boys stare at each other’s graphic sexes, inspecting them nervously and in detail.
Mine’s longer, Janek notices. Is that a good thing or a bad thing? Does that mean I’m insecure? Is it wish fulfilment?
Pubicly, thinks Joe, mine is more impressive. Janek’s pubes look like a black stain, whereas mine, well, the pubic detailing I acquired was worth every penny. Each strand perfectly rendered by the geeks who design these things. I mean, obviously I don’t care, thinks Joe. What I care about is catching rainbow trout and cooking it in lemon juice on an open fire while Life feeds baby Magnus milk from her breast. But it’s still nice to be winning this contest. It could matter. Though his dick is bigger than mine. I’m fairly sure that’s a bad thing.
‘Mine’s nicer,’ says Joe.
‘Bollocks.’
‘Of course it is.’
‘No,’ howls Janek, ‘I mean, you don’t have any balls.’
‘I don’t?’
He doesn’t. And Janek does, not great ones, but he does definitely have balls.
‘We’ll let Life decide,’ says Janek, falling into line beside Joe so their erections are side by side, grinning at each other.
<
br /> ‘Whatever,’ murmurs Joe, realising that he has sunk once more into the wet black tar of the social and that he’s desperate to be out of Wow-Bang and back on all fours in the real world with baby Sally and his kitten, Beak.
‘Well, Life?’ says Janek, hands on his hips, arching his back. ‘Tell us, which is better?’
Life hasn’t moved an inch in minutes.
‘Life?’ says Joe.
Nothing. The two boys edge closer towards her, both their erections nudging pointlessly at her stomach. Her graphic eyes contain no soul, no meaning, no movement.
‘She’s gone,’ says Joe. ‘She’s left her computer. What did you expect, hassling her, getting your dick out?’
‘Piss off,’ Janek groans. ‘She arranged to meet me. We’re together.’
‘You’re not together. You’re too boring to be with Life,’ snaps Joe. His comment hits a nerve because Janek knows it’s true. ‘We are together,’ he shouts in retaliation. ‘We shagged in a hotel. I watched it going in and out!’ This hits a nerve, too, because Joe knows it’s true. He knows Life couldn’t go long without sex. It’s part of her sublime nature. He brings his beak up close to her face. He stares into her eyes, imagining her computer screen and the real room she must be living in. Where is she? In the real world, Joe feels each of his rag organs twist and twist until they’re very thin and dry: why can’t she just decide to be with me?
As he backs away from Life, Joe sees that Janek has a pistol pointed at him. He shrugs. ‘What are you doing?’
‘I’m just killing you,’ Janek sighs. ‘I’m just killing you because I want to fit in. For the fun of it, you know?’
‘Fine,’ says Joe. ‘I’ve had enough of this place anyway. It’s shit. I need to get back to Sally, and to my kitten.’
Janek cocks his pistol, saying, ‘The thing is, Joe, this girl is a happiness machine.’ He waves the gun in Life’s direction. She looks like a statue of herself. ‘You must know what she’s like. She makes happiness; spits it, shits it, sweats it, makes its noises. I need a happiness machine, Joe . . . I need a happiness machine!’