The woman squirmed. “Um, if you’re not going to let me…uh, then I’d like to get off.”
He nodded.
She stopped the elevator and made a quick exit. When the doors closed behind her, Joseph eased himself to his feet and continued the trip to the top of the spire in silence.
Was he really ashamed of his original body? It was as God had made it. But if God hadn’t seen fit to make it appealing to the fairer sex…
No, that didn’t make sense.
None of this made sense.
At the top floor, the doors opened, and a gaggle of excited faces looked in at him.
He wasn’t sure how much of this he could take before he broke.
But he had been through worse.
So he straightened his shoulders, stepped off of the elevator, and did his best to ignore the small crowd as he touched the glowing panel and said, “Computer, transportation for one to spire seventeen.”
“Hey, that’s where I’m going,” said a bald, snake-patterned man. He appeared to be nude, with no arms and one solid leg as wide as his hips. Upon further inspection, Joseph was able to discern that he did indeed have limbs, but they vanished when held tightly against his body. He didn’t look very hard to see what had happened to the man’s genitalia, if indeed he were a man. He was learning not to assume anything in this future.
A gondola for two pulled up, the number 17 flashing on its doors as they opened.
“I’ll wait for the next one,” Joseph said.
The man smiled and flicked out his forked tongue. “I only bite if you ask me to.”
Behind him, he heard another man say, “I’ll go to spire seventeen.”
“Please, go right ahead,” Joseph said. He turned to wave him onto the gondola, and froze.
The face staring back at him was like a teenaged version of his own, back before the bony lumps had blossomed to their full size and the swelling under his lips had rendered his speech almost completely unintelligible. “No, silly,” the man said. “I meant I’d go with you.”
Joseph had to struggle to find his voice, finally stuttering, “Ah— Actually, I’ll t-take this one,” as he backed onto the waiting gondola.
The doors closed, trapping him with the snake man, and he prayed to a God who he hoped could still hear him that the trip to spire seventeen would be a short one.
The snake man shook his head. “So unimaginative.”
Joseph closed his eyes and leaned heavily against one window. “He did that to himself on purpose, didn’t he? He thinks my old body is fashionable.”
“You’re the latest trend. I think we’ll be seeing a lot of that. I’m hoping it blows over quickly. I always hate it when everyone starts looking the same.”
Joseph said nothing, just waited silently for the ride to be over.
“You must be used to that kind of attention, though,” the snake man said.
“I never liked it.”
“Don’t worry. It’ll pass. It always does.”
Joseph opened his eyes and looked at the man with weary gratitude.
The man smiled, and Joseph noticed a stirring at his snake-scaled groin. Ah, there were his genitals. “So, would you like to—”
“No thank you.”
The snake man shrugged. “Fair enough.”
The gondola pulled up to spire seventeen, and the snake man was kind enough to let Joseph take a solo elevator trip down to floor 130. LeShawn and two other young, soft-faced men sat in the middle of the bare floor, staring into space, doing, as LeShawn had promised, nothing. Joseph grabbed a handful of food bars from the cupboard, then disappeared into his bedroom.
“Computer, is it possible to lock the door?”
The wall read, “Locks engaged.”
“Computer, tell me, how did María Luisa record our…congress?”
“She enabled my recording abilities.”
“Is it possible to shut them off? I don’t want to be recorded without my consent again.”
The computer helped him set up encryption based on his brain-wave pattern, and recommended that he opaque his windows to prevent camera-bots from peering in. “Suggest replacement imagery.”
He hated himself the moment he said it: “Give me the view of New York City that I had in my tank.”
Joseph glanced briefly over his shoulder to ensure that the view was in place, then kept his back to it as he made the wall teach him everything he needed to know before he dared venture out again.
* * * *
He’d gone through two meal bars and countless hours of programming by the time the door started flashing. “Giancarla,” it read.
“I’m not coming out,” he said. “I’ve seen enough.”
The door flashed again. “Giancarla.”
“I’ve locked it. Please, just leave me alone.”
It flashed again. “You’ll need to come out some time.”
He closed his eyes. She was right; he couldn’t hide in here forever, no matter how badly he wanted to. He paused the program he’d been watching on life outside the dome, had the computer replace the fake New York City view with a blank opaque wash, then unlocked the door.
Giancarla stepped in, clutching a satin wrap around what he assumed was a still-bare torso. The snakes on her head had been replaced by a symmetrical series of orange lumps, each with a flashing green spot at the very top. “Well, I saw María Luisa’s little recording. I assume that’s why you’ve locked yourself in here.”
Joseph stared down at his folded hands. “She used me.”
“Good for her,” Giancarla said. “She’s learning how to get ahead in this world.”
“And you used her, too,” Joseph said, not daring to look up as he said so.
“Of course I did,” Giancarla said. “Altruism is a thing of the past. I take bring-forwards in for the same reason everyone else does—for my own gain. I spent a lot of money to buy out someone else’s breeding credit so I could trade it in for her, and it paid off three times over in body sculpting commissions. María Luisa was worth every peso.”
“And me?”
“Oh, you I took simply for the notoriety. You’re already getting me invited to the best parties, with the caveat that I bring you with me, of course. The first two are this Friday. It’ll be fabulous—you’ll be the center of attention all night long. No one’s ever been brought forward from so far back, or from so wretched an existence.”
“That’s the reason you volunteered to take me in?” Joseph asked, aghast. “For party invitations?”
“Well, you came cheap. But that’s just how the world works, Joseph. No one does something for nothing.”
Dr. Treves had. Or had he? Joseph had taken it on faith that Dr. Treves had helped him because it was the Christian thing to do. But had he profited in some way from Joseph’s care? It had certainly seemed to gain him notoriety in many upper-class social circles, and Joseph had heard murmurs that he’d been introduced to the royal family…
Had Dr. Treves only helped him so he could get ahead?
Joseph rested his head in his hands and wished he could order the floor to swallow him up along with the sofa.
Giancarla had the floor conjure up an easy chair and sat in it, adjusting her wrap with her lower two hands. “So, I also hear that you saw one of Jean-Pierre’s little shows.”
Anger spiked through Joseph, fierce and hot, and he rose to his feet and paced the far wall, his hands balled into tight fists.
“It’s not your body anymore. I don’t see why you’re so bothered by it.”
“What he’s doing is highly improper.” He clasped his left hand around his right fist, holding it back from punching who knew what.
“It’s not like he’s defiling something that you want back.”
“It’s just…” Joseph struggled to articulate the complicated mixture of repulsion and shame roiling in his gut, waving his hands helplessly in front of him. He gave up, and collapsed back onto the sofa. “Why do I care so much what
happens to that body?”
Giancarla shrugged. “It’s a bring-forward thing. You all see your bodies as so permanent.”
“But they—”
“—aren’t.”
Joseph sagged as all his breath left him. “I spent my entire life in that body, trapped helplessly in a flesh and bone prison that grew ever more deformed over time. I should be glad to be rid of it.”
“Well, if it’s any consolation, Jean-Pierre’s paying a heavy price for what he did to you. The court has awarded you all of his assets and his slot in the breeding queue. You’re officially rich. Congratulations.”
“He has no money? But what will he do?”
Giancarla waved both of her left hands. “Oh, don’t worry about him. He’s living comfortably off of the curious and the lascivious. And I’m sure his father will take him back once people get bored with him. You, on the other hand, now have the same problem that he did, namely, trying to figure out what to do with all that wealth while trapped under a dome.”
Joseph shook his head. “I have no idea.”
Giancarla’s eyes twinkled, literally. “Oh, I’m sure you’ll figure something out.”
* * * *
Joseph special-ordered a new dressing bag that very evening.
* * * *
Joseph didn’t leave home for the next several days. He had a barber come by to give him a proper haircut, and when they determined that his hair was too curly to lie flat, he had it cut down to half an inch and used a pomade to flatten it. Sometimes he’d sit in his room just running his hands over his scalp, marveling at how small and smooth his skull was.
He ordered more things for himself through the computer, including new templates for the furniture in his room. By day, his space was configured to be a proper sitting room, complete with a Berber rug, a richly upholstered reading chair with matching ottoman, a chestnut coffee table, and two sofas for guests. At night, the room switched over to a four-poster bed with an exotic South American throw.
And most importantly, he started granting interviews.
He hadn’t planned to. But after Giancarla had left for the office one morning, he’d stood in the middle of the living space, staring at the front door, desperate to come up with a way not to have to go through it any time soon. LeShawn shuffled out of his room and asked, “What’s wrong?”
“She’s going to bring me to parties.”
“Yeah. She does that.”
“I fear I won’t like them.”
“No, you won’t.”
“What can I do?”
LeShawn chewed thoughtfully on his lower lip, then said, “Use up your fame now.”
“Won’t that make your mother angry?”
And then Joseph saw something he’d never seen before: LeShawn’s smile. “Most definitely.”
LeShawn set up a battery of interviews, booking Joseph on all the major entertainment channels. He made it clear that if Jean-Pierre made an appearance, either in person or on the wall, the interview was over. Each reporter came into Joseph’s room in turn, marveled at the reproduction antique furniture and his overly-modest clothing, and then launched into a series of questions about Joseph’s past and what he thought about the present. Joseph followed LeShawn’s instructions and answered calmly, but with candor, even when the subject turned to María Luisa, who one reporter brought in on one of the walls.
“Joseph, I’m so sorry. I just…” She winced and trailed off, staring down at her clasped hands.
Joseph put on a fake smile and tried to ignore the knife twisting in his gut. “I understand how hard it is to be disabled. You just wanted to be whole again.”
LeShawn made sure Joseph had a few moments to himself after that interview before letting in the next reporter.
Like the rest, she asked, “So, what do you think of what Jean-Pierre’s been doing with your body?”
He gave her the same answer he’d given every other reporter. “It’s his body now. He can do what he wants with it.”
If he said it enough times, he might eventually come to believe it.
His final interview over, he stood and gazed out his picture windows at today’s image. It was a ground-level view of one of the few remaining rainforests. Most had been destroyed by migrant populations outside of the domes that were desperate for a patch of land, a scrap of food.
Maybe once he understood this world better, he’d see if he could use his money to help some of them. Maybe that could be his life’s work. Philanthropy was a noble cause. Could he build a life around it?
He had to build a life around something.
When Giancarla came home, she was, of course, furious. “How dare you?” she snapped. “No one will care about you by Friday! What am I supposed to do now?”
“Perhaps you should spend some time with your son.”
Twin expressions of shock graced both Giancarla and LeShawn’s faces as he withdrew to his room and closed the door behind him.
From the solitude of his room, he watched the walls to see if his interviews had changed anything. The furor over him grew for a day or two, then subsided once people realized that he wasn’t interested in publicly exhibiting his culture shock any further. He received several interview requests from historians, and one from the New British Museum, but as far as the greater population was concerned, he had become yesterday’s news.
And as much as it pained him, he forced himself to watch his body’s escapades, or, at least, the clean ones. Jean-Pierre was impossible to escape. He was invited to every party in the dome, whether lascivious or chaste. He was the main topic on all the fashion programs, where the hosts would give tips on how to achieve that genuine Proteus Disease look in between discussions of other “Deformity Chic” surgeries. His visit to the ruins of the AT&T Center was covered live by nearly every channel, as was his subsequent boat tour of the Riverwalk.
And then nearly a fortnight later, the coverage stopped.
At dinner, Joseph asked why.
Giancarla shrugged. “I suppose he’s gone out of fashion.”
LeShawn, who had recently begun joining them for meals, nodded in agreement.
The next morning, Joseph ventured back down to the ground floor, into the thick of the St. Mary’s Street Mall.
Nobody gave him a second look.
Joseph stepped into the closest store, a fragrance store, and peered at the racks of amber tubes.
A salesperson came up to him and asked, “May I help you?”
“Oh, I’m just looking. I’m Joseph Merrick, by the way.”
The salesperson smiled. “How nice for you.”
Joseph offered up a silent prayer of thanks that his ordeal was finally over. He bought a small vial of musk, browsed through several other stores, bought something called teriyaki ostrich, and decided, as he was nibbling it off of its genuine faux wood stick, that he liked it better than curry.
Later, as he was putting his purchases away in his room, he heard a chime, and turned, puzzled. He stepped back into the main living space and saw that the elevator door was blinking. “Visitor,” it read.
“Computer, who is it?”
“Jean-Pierre Paredes de García.”
Joseph felt his hands grow numb. Jean-Pierre was here. He was just on the other side of that door. That body…
No. He’d forced himself to watch it on the walls. It didn’t bother him anymore. It wasn’t him anymore.
But there was a big difference between seeing something on the wall and seeing it in the flesh.
He didn’t know if he could face it again.
Joseph swallowed hard, unclenched the fists he’d unconsciously made, and wrapped his arms tightly around his borrowed body. “Computer, relay message: What do you want?”
After a pause, the wall displayed the words: “I need to talk to you.”
Joseph stared at the blinking door, his body breaking out into shivers. Why couldn’t he open it? Why was he still afraid of what he once was? This was madness. He had
nothing to fear. It was just a body, a horrible one, but one that had sheltered him for twenty-eight years. It was, he reminded himself, the body that God had seen fit to give to him.
And it was the body he would never have to wear again.
If he didn’t open the door, then that body still had power over him.
Damn it.
“Computer, let him in.”
Joseph looked down at the crumpled heap on the elevator floor and felt a swell of disgust.
“Help me,” Jean-Pierre mumbled.
Joseph narrowed his eyes, feeling his heart grow cold in his breast. “Why should I?”
Incredulity radiated from the body’s one good eye. “I thought you’d understand.”
“Understand?” Joseph scoffed, and realized that his fists were back at his sides.
He saw fear.
Good.
He stepped into the elevator and watched Jean-Pierre whimper and cover his head with his thick right arm.
“Bastard,” Joseph spat, and kicked him instead.
His old body howled and curled up protectively.
Something inside Joseph snapped, and he attacked, pounding fists and knees into the revolting excuse for a human body lying huddled in the back corner of the elevator. Twenty-eight years of torture, twenty-eight years of imprisonment, twenty-eight years of hell on earth, and after all that, it was begging him for a handout? Hadn’t he given enough? Hadn’t he been made to suffer enough? “I hate you!” he screamed, raising both fists over his head and bringing them down hard on the knobby skull again and again. “I hate you!”
Out of swollen lips, he heard the faintest, “Please,” and it was his undoing.
“Oh God,” he gasped, collapsing to his knees next to the bruised and bloodied flesh. “Oh God, I’m so…” He reached a hand out to the quivering body, but it whimpered and pulled away.
What had he done?
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’ll help you.”
Out of the mass of flesh, a shaky, unblemished arm extended itself, and he clasped it, pulling Jean-Pierre to his feet. He put his arm around his shoulders, feeling the cauliflower masses compress under his grip, and led him into the apartment, where he called up a divan and helped him settle onto it. “I’ll get you a blanket,” he said.
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