by Daniel Six
“She’s done,” one of the losers complained, and the cabinet was raised by protocol. Emma was instantly overwhelmed by a rousing cheer from the crowd gathered about her hitch. The air was jumping with supersaturated green rays from the glow gnomes overhead, and a dense moisture roiled the dance floor. Dean’s following almost rivaled the Drummer’s crowd, and both were much larger than the man challenging them.
Mark was staring down at her, clapping in appreciation, pecker wet from Emma’s service. Manassa was laughing and shaking her head, and Emma resolved to do another term in a hitch before the night was over. She drained a glass of stillwater mint and saluted the Dowser.
Later, when she was sucking his immense cock in obligation to their experimental “concoction,” Emma remembered the story she had been told about his past.
The Dowser was the supreme power in the City because he was its founder.
In ancient days, before anything but sand occupied the desert, the Dowser walked the dunes. He was not the only creature to do so, but of all the men loosed to find their fate on its endless desolation he was the mightiest of stature, the most deeply endowed with the will to endure its arid heat. There was virtually no water, and it created instant rivalries and hierarchies anywhere it was discovered.
The Dowser’s incomparable physicality saw him through one conflict after another; none could match his phenomenal strength or skill at wrestling. And one by one the sand claimed his enemies till there was no one left to oppose him but the limitless prison of the desert itself.
One moonless night, at the utter limit of his will, he faced this adversary at last.
Toppled by thirst he stared up to the night sky in unblinking calm, breath slowed to the faintest flow. His mind was empty of its timeless rage, of wariness or regret even. Free of these obfuscations his body finally discovered an unguessed sense; a faint tingling on his skin. Desire.
With a monumental effort he rose. His great manhood was roused to rigidly pointing turgescence from the electric prickling and he followed it without thought, trod aimlessly where it directed till flaccidity mysteriously returned. When he realized his arousal occurred only over certain paths in the sand it came to him for the first time that something flowed beneath.
He traveled a tendril of this sensual yearning along a sinuous route till it joined a stronger current, then a stronger one yet. He could feel the thrill of electricity passing through him unseen, from charged vapor massed high in the sky down to hidden subterranean streams.
Deploying his last energy, he followed his erection to a mighty current. And far in the distance where it invisibly proceeded a flicker of lightening lead up from the sand to meet an answering bolt from the sky.
He found a massive valley there, where green things grew and drink could be found. And once he had recovered the Dowser made a well, inventing the concept of volume by the measured installments of water he produced from it, a reflexively comprehended language of cost and value. He was not alone for long, and a bigger well was dug, and another, then a huge one at the summit of the highest hill, tapping an ever-condensing lake and a timeless eddy of stillwater within. The City was the eventual result of his civilizing distributions.
And now he was master of all he surveyed, Emma concluded as the giant man’s penis flooded her mouth with sticky semen. She drank everything that was produced then slowly disengaged from his flesh.
“Well?” the Dowser inquired. “Did the concoction help?”
Emma licked her lips, wincing from the gargled humiliation of his manly fluid. She wanted to respond with an acrid complaint as usual, but paused. Was it just a little less bitter?
And so the days and nights came and went, split between Ione’s apartment in the Gnomon’s Tower and the more glamorous place Emma shared with Dean high on the Dowser’s hill. Mark stayed with either as convenient, helping them with their professional lives. Manassa had a humble little place of her own near the park. They spent much time driving at first, then less as they were drawn farther into the disparate cultures of the City. Ione hated the noise and unpredictability of the hills and Emma found the Gnomon’s technical culture tedious and indecipherable.
They fought about it and made up and fought some more. The others tried not to take sides, awkwardly adjusted to their moods. Longer intervals apart began to render them strange to each other when they did make time to be together.
They were in Manassa’s little pink loft one night when everything unraveled. Ione and Emma had agreed to meet there as it dwelt halfway between their apartments. Dean and Mark were present. It had been many days since they were all together in one place.
Outside the metropolis ground its way through another hot evening, a society of limitless size devoted to an oddly compact set of priorities; sex, status and stillwater. Their own group was motivated by just the last of these at the moment.
“Let’s go to that new place on the other side of fruit hill,” Emma insisted for the third time.
“I thought we were going to stay in tonight,” Ione sullenly countered.
“Well, if we’re not going to do anything then what’s the point in even getting together?”
“Escaping all of… that,” Ione gestured out the window.
Emma dully regarded the taller woman. “And what are you expecting to find here?”
“I don’t know Emma. Loyalty, maybe. You still fooling around with Chaycee?”
“Let’s not start that again,” Dean sighed. “Flirting is part of the job.”
“At least she’s alive,” Emma spat. “Unlike your stupid gnome.” Ione turned away in shock.
Mark took a huge draught of stillwater and moodily surveyed the humble neighborhood outside the front window, fanning himself with his free hand. “We could at least go somewhere with a blow gnome to cool the place,” he muttered. Manassa didn’t have the status for such things.
“I’m leaving,” said Ione. The words were so quietly delivered no one could mistake their aching resolve.
“Fine,” Emma shrugged. “Guess I’ll see you whenever…” She got up to depart herself but halted as a strange sound blighted the ambience of the little salon.
Manassa was crying.
“What’s wrong, love?” Emma crooned, instantly at her side. Ione blinked in astonishment, stepped over to put a solicitous hand on her shoulder. Mark and Dean shared an unhappy glance and crowded close.
“I miss the Lap,” the big woman sobbed. “I don’t know who I am anymore.”
The others stared in dismay.
“If you’re having doubts about your identity, then I must be completely lost,” Emma humbly submitted. The slow circulation of hunted glances that ensued confirmed she spoke for them all.
Ione sat down on the shaggy red couch that occupied an entire wall, put her head in her hands. The aggregate murmur of the metropolis suffused the room, a thrilling voice that had become menacingly repetitive, no longer differentiable night to night. Or moment by moment, even.
“We’re nothing here,” Mark grated. “For all our status, we’re lost in a sea of people with the same opinions, the same ambitions, the same dull reason for everything they do, the same the same the same…”
“I’m exhausted,” Dean numbly disclosed. “Starting to feel like a fixture at the Club. Some kind of animated bar stool,” he winced.
“They keep sending me up to this weird theater for ‘training,’” Manassa snuffled. “This strange voice tells us what to do and no matter how I feel about it we always seem to obey. And sometimes, with all these people staring down, clued into something I can’t understand, I feel like maybe I don’t know what’s real. That I’m slowly going crazy…”
The City filled their silence once again.
“We have unique personalities,” Ione quietly declared, looking calmly around the group. “I believe that. What we don’t have is a collective identity. And without it we’ll always be helpless here.”
“We need some way to solidify our group i
mage,” Mark realized. “We lost it somehow.”
“Maybe not by chance…” Ione darkly remarked.
“Well, what can we do?” Dean implored.
Manassa sat up straight. A cheerful light had returned to her eyes. “I know!”
“What?” Emma encouraged, one arm lovingly circled about the big woman.
“Let’s have a party!”
The Party
“We totally should!” Emma blurted, warming instantly to the idea.
“There’s a perfect place in the Tower,” Ione enthused. “A whole floor we could reserve.”
Emma snorted. “A party at the Gnomon’s place? Swell. We can stare at the same drink all night and calculate how fast our status is evaporating, or something equally scientific. Me and Dean already have a big following at the Club. We should do it there.”
“But they won’t let my friends in,” Ione complained.
“Exactly,” Emma relished. “The cool people will love it though. We could start telling them tonight.”
“We’d have to have the party tomorrow then,” Ione sardonically contemplated. “Your crowd can’t remember anything past a day.”
“Well if that’s true maybe we could do it at the Tower,” Emma retorted. “Seeing as the memory wouldn’t burden anyone for long.”
“Okay,” Mark hastily interceded. “Let’s just slow down and consider this less emotionally. Or maybe not at all.”
“Yeah. There are some tough logistical issues,” Ione phlegmatically conceded. “Those big dick-sucking machines Emma loves won’t fit in my convertible. Have to drag’em around on casters or something.”
The room fell quiet, then the little blond burst out laughing at the image. “Okay. That was pretty good.” The mood lightened.
Dean went to Manassa’s little bar and got himself a fresh drink, still chuckling. “If we’re gonna do this, we should do it big. Get everyone we know.”
Mark nodded. “I agree. But if it has any connection to the judges they’ll win all the status that results, one way or another.”
“It needs a theme,” Dean mused. “Great parties usually have a theme.”
“Well, what would be novel to people from the Tower and the Club?” Mark wondered.
“I have an idea,” Manassa hesitantly returned.
“Spill it,” said Emma, symbolically tipping her bottle to the other woman.
“Well, on the far side of the park—near that maze of streets with all the soap and cream shops—there’s an abandoned garment warehouse.”
Ione nodded. “I’ve seen it. The big grey thing right next to the forest.” She grinned. “Now that would be–
–a totally fucked up place to stage a party,” Emma breathed. They regarded each other in burgeoning excitement.
“And the theme…” Dean began.
“It’ll be a dress-up party!” Manassa exclaimed. “Everyone will show up in the most amazing clothes–
–and take’em off later so they can fuck each other silly!” Emma bubbled.
Mark was pacing the small room. “I like where this is going. A lot. My friends would be totally psyched for something this weird and risky.”
“We could have gifts,” said Manassa. “I can grab leftover stuff from the boutique.”
“And sex toys!” Ione added. “We’ve got loads of manufacturing overruns!”
“Which is perfect for what’s gonna be goin’ down,” Emma grinned. “And me and Dean can get the best swill.”
“Gotta have that!” Ione cheered, clinking bottles with her.
“Lotta work though,” Dean considered. “Who knows what the place is like inside? Have to do some recon. Sneak in and look around.”
“There’s plenty of mannermen lurking in the area,” Manassa warned, daring them to admit fear. “It’s right next to the park, after all.”
Mark emptied his bottle and slammed it on the counter with tipsy bravado. “Fuck’em!”
“I’ll come up with some new music,” Dean promised. “The sleaziest grooves you can bounce out of a kit.”
“We can try some of the crazy ideas you’ve been going on about,” Emma realized. “No Dowser around to set the rules.”
They fell silent for a moment, contemplating the glory.
“Well?” Ione faced them squarely.
“I’m in,” Mark declared. “We gotta do this. I need it.”
“Me too,” Dean concurred.
“I have the perfect dress in mind,” Manassa lilted.
Emma gleefully regarded her friends. “I don’t have anywhere to be till tomorrow evening. We can start planning now.”
And they did, drinking and scheming far into the night.
Ione wiped a few beads of rain from her brow and restlessly studied the moonlit cloudscape.
It had been sprinkling intermittently all day long, and the possibility of getting drenched was a real flaw in their plan for the evening. She absently cursed Mark’s boozy machismo earlier that day, and her complicity in the result.
She was parked near the abandoned garment warehouse they had chosen for their party, stationed such that she had a good view of the structure without being obviously interested. It was the middle of the night, and the streets around her were almost barren of pedestrians. Traffic was minimal.
A hulking mannerman exited the misted interior of the park to her left, brushed a little moisture from the square shoulders of his crimson suit, slowly scanned the environs, lingering on Ione for a moment, then strode off in a direction that took him away from her position. Ione released an unconsciously pent breath and settled back on the seat. This was the third one she had seen, and she looked down, reflexively verified the appropriateness of her full-length black and grey dress. It was totally uncharacteristic of her style, conservative to the point of dowdiness—but exactly the sort of thing mannermen approved of on a woman. They had all agreed to adorn themselves in unfamiliar attire on the theory that their enemies observed just the transitory qualities of appearance, and therefore wouldn’t connect their presence in the neighborhood from night to night. This notion had directed their choice of transportation as well. None of them were willing to risk being spotted in their own cars.
But rather than borrow vehicles from their friends—who might be unfairly associated with their risky activities—Ione had convinced the others it would be more efficient to go straight to the source. Her status with the Gnomon allowed her to evaluate any vehicle he manufactured, and she and Mark had spent the evening doing just that.
“Get ready,” she said, preparing to jump off the elevator as the production lot pulled into view. Mark took her hand and they landed elegantly on the floor where new automobiles were staged. A doorman nodded politely to Ione.
“We can try anything?” Mark questioned, surveying countless sedans, convertibles, trucks and vans, some of exceptionally high-status requirement They strolled among the possibilities for a little, debating the virtues of concealment versus speed.
“I think we should grab this thing,” Ione decided, gesturing to a purple van glinting with chrome hardware. “All the space we need, and no one would ever connect it to us if something went wrong.”
Mark seemed curiously distracted for some reason. “Yeah… maybe. But there’s just one problem,” he admitted, taking a swig from a pure stillwater flask.
“What?”
“Just before we got to this floor we passed the one with gnomecycles. And it had a test track.”
“Oh. Okay. You wanna go look?” she offered, estimating the time remaining before they were due back at Manassa’s loft. Mark grinned.
They were shortly immersed in the world of two-wheeled transport. Mark stepped down the line of new cycles, which were ordered by size.
“Look at this one,” Ione chuckled, kicking the rear tire of a machine with dramatically elevated handlebars. The gnome compactly arranged under the seat was packaged by lustrous blue fairing that cleverly reprised its kneeling posture. A bright tag pointed t
o the carefully hidden finger hole that released the wheel lock. “Mark?” He was staring down the line. Ione followed him to a pair of cycles at the end.
“Oh, Mark…” she sighed. “No.”
“Oh, Ione yes,” he sighed, unlocked one and climbed on the gargantuan machine. Its rear tire was as thick as his brawny thigh, and the gnome installed under the three-rider seat had a dangerously capable air, seemed like something that belonged in a truck.
“We’re already dealing with a lot of variables…”
He snickered. “Rendering one more comparatively insignificant. Logically.”
Ione had observed that Mark usually invoked the term “logic” when he was drastically abusing the concept.
He reached down and slapped a nipple. The cycle jumped slightly. Nudging the kickstand back, his right foot rose to the short-radius cranks and initiated a careful rotation to put the machine in motion, establishing enough lateral balance to get his other foot in play.
The gnomecycle prowled away from its place in the line. Mark turned onto the test track and an instant later the whole level resounded with the shriek of rubber as the gnome delivered a colossal quantity of torque to launch the machine up on one wheel.
“Hoooyeahhh!” Mark triumphantly roared, hurtling around the track in manly exhilaration, and Ione succumbed to a sinking realization they would be leaving with the thing. She glanced over to the remaining unit in the lineup, guessing she was one of the rare women big enough to command its mass. It couldn’t hurt to find out…
They gathered at Manassa’s loft for their final strategy meeting as the sun set on the valley and its inhabitants. Her bar counter was occupied by a bricolage model of the warehouse and its environs constructed mostly of bottlecaps, which were produced by the dox and trix when they met to plan and prepare and stage tipsy forays by moonlight for drive-by intelligence.