by Chris Kelso
—You have never even touched your own cock?
Lizzy knew she couldn’t answer this. She didn’t have a cock, not like Druitt’s anyway. Cutbush dismounted his camel and then jerked Lizzy down from the saddle.
—Remove your robes!—Cutbush was furious. Lizzy’s confusion and embarrassment had stolen her tongue. The great simian took one sharp step forward and tore open Lizzy’s garments at the crotch. The nomads gasped in harmony.
—It has… nothing!
They all stared at the girl’s smooth, sparsely pricked genitals.
—How is this possible?
—I don’t know . . . I haven’t had enough time to understand it myself—the girl tried to explain. The lumbering presence of Sadler appeared.
—It’s not so unusual, Gull and Sickert . . .
—Gull and Sickert were castrated for insubordination!—Cutbush interrupted.
—Isn’t it entirely plausible that this one has also been cut in a similar way?
—I wasn’t cut—Lizzy protested. Becoming increasingly impatient, Cutbush knelt to her exposed genitals, placed two heavy hands on her thighs and nuzzled. Lizzy squirmed uncomfortably at first then surprised even herself when she reached out to clutch Cutbush’s head and pushed his tongue deeper. He lapped back and forth and the nomad posse stood watching with utter shock as the girl moaned. Cutbush pulled his head away and spat on the ridges of sand.
—What are you??—he demanded, licking the lead of his wrist band, preferring the sand-blasted metal taste to Lizzy’s own natural juices.
—You weren’t created by the replicating machine were you?—Sadler asked, helping Cutbush to his feet.
—That makes it one of the Brood?
—No, I was conceived by the cosmos—Lizzy insisted.
—Ha! It’s a god all of a sudden.
Sadler stood before the girl. He studied her naked front and sighed.
—There are no lacerations. It’s as if it were born without a cock, like some freak of nature, an abomination . . .
Lizzy’s head bowed. She was as innocent as any newborn and yet was judged with such hateful abandon. Sadler saw the pain in her face and the feminine spirit in him that lingered in the recesses of his heart came to surface.
—I suppose . . . even if it is a freak of nature, it is not entirely its fault.
—Not its fault? What is this? It doesn’t . . .
—Sir, please, we can’t presume to know anything about it—Sadler turned to Lizzy and addressed her.
—You say you were born this morning, a child of the cosmos? Well we are children of the Replicator. We are clones. Although we claim to despise the Brood, we are inexorably linked to them. We are their descendants, the next stage . . . if you come to our city we will show you.
Cutbush reluctantly allowed Sadler to speak outside his authority because he was undeniably fascinated by Lizzy Stride.
***
That night they camped on the ergs. Sadler and Cutbush were engaging in anal sex—Sadler’s giant frame dominated the comparatively small stature of his leader. Lizzy considered her birth, her death, and its inevitability; she had no idea about the bit in between.
Deeming was sitting cross-legged, his chained hands resting on his knees. He watched Lizzy with a patient lust. His eyes, first like glittering Chrysolite, then like poisonous green liquid, congealed in two hard marbles.
—I’ll get you—he mouthed. The girl tried to ignore his threats.
She saw a lion withered to nothing in the mosaic of smooth stones and sand, its ribcage visibly trembling. She lay down, invited the lion to feed from her flesh and muscle and bone. The lion etched closer, either baffled by the gesture or distrusting of the act itself. It dually fed from her. Lizzy died clutching a stem of grapes.
She would be re-born the next day.
***
The city was magnificent—the buildings were set in tessellated tiles, giant stone phalli’s stuck out of the sand and the front gates were mortared with semen, sweat, and wadded sputum. Lizzy held her breath when they entered through the gates. She was now walking beside Sadler and Deeming. Cutbush continued to lead the line.
They approached a polished, titanium structure which jutted out of the sediment like a giant machine-cock. Cutbush got off his camel and waited for the others to catch up. He halted Sadler.
—Are you sure about this? We can’t go around exposing our genesis to just any old freak, especially a freak without a fucking cock!
—Sir, perhaps if we can study the abomination we can learn more about where we came from.
Cutbush nodded grudgingly, lowered his halting hand.
—Ok, let’s . . .
Cutbush and Sadler were alerted to the sudden sound of a woman’s screams. They ran to its source and saw Deeming on top of Lizzy. His cuffed wrists were joined around her throat and he had mounted her from behind. He was yelling like a maniac.
—Jesus! Look at the blood! Christ! Look at this blood, I think I’m killing her!
Sadler dived at Deeming, pulling his blood-swathed cock free of the girl. She lay quivering with her cheek against the sand. All she could think about was the pain; she had felt less pain while being mauled by the lion.
Sadler drew back a fist and smashed his giant, serrated knuckles into Deeming’s mouth so hard that a scatter of teeth came flying out.
—Why are oo punfing me??—Deeming begged, choking on a round of his own bloody saliva.
—WHY? WHY?? WHY AM I PUNCHING YOU?
He drove another fist into Deeming’s pulped face again and again until the skull completely caved in and Sadler was left laying into a wet bag of bones.
—ENOUGH!—Cutbush ordered. Sadler ceased his furious bludgeoning and Deeming’s pulverised head fell limp. Lizzy couldn’t move. Her buttocks were still poised and presented high in the air.
—THE MENARCHE! THE MENARCHE IS HERE! CRUCIFY THE MENARCHE!
The chorus of protest came from a group led by the eunuchs Gull and Sickert.
As well as being castrated for insubordination, both men appeared half devoured by syphilis. Their minds succumbed to insanity long before.
—CRUCIFY THE MENARCHE!
—KILL HER PLEBIAN SPIRIT!
The group of men grabbed Lizzy by the armpits and boarded her on a wooden crucifix. She could hear the 4th dimension, a better world—the sounds of the subway beneath her rattling through the curved sleepers of his ear canal. Lizzy closed her eyes and thought of the next world, the better world.
***
She woke up outside the city gates with that same feeling of re-birth as before. She felt the sand beneath her knees, the great cross weighing heavy across her back. She tried to get up but kept toppling over.
Was this the 4th dimension?
Lizzy eventually made it to her feet and set off in the opposite direction from the clone metropolis, the second city of masturbating monsters.
She had trudged through the desert for almost thirty minutes before acknowledging the change in herself. Between her legs, something flapped against her inner thigh. Lizzy looked down and saw her latest affliction. In the distance a figure waved at her for help. The closer Lizzy got to the figure, more definable features emerged through the searing haze.
It was another woman. Lizzy’s penis swelled and she was powerless once again . . .
HEART-ATTACK MAN
Hand clutched hard on chest
Terence, Mephisto & Viscera Eyes
Dreams of slaves at your behest
Terence, Mephisto & Viscera Eyes
Ambitions veil like a bleeding cataract
Terence, Mephisto & Viscera Eyes
To Cherry Island you’ll set sail
Terence, Mephisto & Viscera Eyes . . .
Hearts explode, in time you’ll see.
THE VERIDANT DREAM
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Thanks to Karen, Gordon, Casper, Jake and Lulu (the wild cat) for providing a nice countryside escape from the urban sprawl
of it all. Thanks to Lauryn, Rachel, Darren, John, Joseph, Anne and Margaret for all the support and back-patting throughout the years.
High 5’s to Seb Doubinsky, Michael Faun, Konstantine Paradias and Andrew Coulthard for all their professional encouragement, Christ knows I needed it!
Finally, thanks to Vincenzo for being a great friend, armchair psychiatrist and editor—and to Pat for accepting my second work of fiction for publication.
Miss you Louie.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chris Kelso is a writer, editor and illustrator from Scotland. His books include include—Schadenfreude (Dog Horn Publishing), Last Exit to Interzone (Black Dharma Press), A Message from the Slave State (Western Legends Books), Moosejaw Frontier (Bizarro Pulp Press), Transmatic (MorbidbookS), The Black Dog Eats the City (Omnium Gatherum), Terence, Mephisto & Viscera Eyes (Bizarro Pulp Press) and The Dissolving Zinc Theatre (Villipede Publications). He also edited the anthologies Caledonia Dreamin—Strange Fiction of Scottish Descent (with Hal Duncan), This is NOT an Anthology and is the co-creator of The Imperial Youth Review.
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