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THE NEXT DAY SEEMED to drag. There was an odd feeling in the air, and I don’t mean the experimental Kirrikibatic music that was constantly playing in the waiting room. On three occasions I had to walk out there and call in the next client when usually they were almost busting down the door.
At about four-thirty I dispatched the last client and retreated to have a shower and some rest. My bed was unmade and a pair of Tyge’s dark grey military-grade undies were lying in the middle of the bathroom floor. But I was too tired to start picking up after her yet again.
In fact the whole place felt grotty. There was unfinished housework all over the place. What was happening to me? What had I sunk to? I used to keep things absolutely ship-shape. Was it Edgetown? Did it destroy everyone who came here? If you stayed long enough you were doomed to stay forever? The very idea of it gave me the shivers.
I sat on the end of my bed with a sigh, fatigue and depression creeping over me like some sort of psychic shadow. What I had become? That was easy: I’d become a hard-drinking, foul-mouthed, lying, cheating scumbag filled with dirty secrets like everyone else in this God-forsaken hole; like Hickster, FFS! And I hated myself for it.
I was a fringe-dweller, I was out of touch with trends, I hadn’t seen grass or trees for nearly a year, or a 3-Deo. What was the latest? I didn’t know. The newest popstar? I didn’t know. What were they wearing in NovoTokyo? No idea. I hadn’t been to a lecture in what seemed like eternity. I hadn’t had a date since ... since Sharp.
Who was I kidding? I was a loser and a loner. A man without love. And what did I have to look forward to, day after day? Getting pissed with the same sad losers I’d been hanging out with since I’d arrived here.
“This was not in the plan.” I said softly, without any anger, without any hope. Ignoring the mess I lay down on the rat’s-nest I called my bed and pulled the covers over me, knowing I’d pass out from exhaustion almost instantly.
#
I CAME AWAKE WITH A bang, wondering what had woken me. As I began to realise that something actually had gone bang, I heard something clatter; the distinctive sound of one of my flaking tools hitting the floor. Sat up, heart pounding.
Someone, or something, was out there. Was it Tyge, coming home drunk? Not like her.
In one fluid motion I slid off the bed and reached my doorway. I was still in my undies. No time to dress. I looked out. There was only one light on, in the office. Odd.
“Hello? Anyone there?”
Silence. Then something else hit the floor; another item from my medical toolkit. Someone was methodically trashing the place. Or some thing?
“Hello?”
Boldly I walked to the office door and looked in. Empty. My big office chair was facing away from me. Then, just as I was about to turn away, I saw a pair of feet drop to the floor. Women’s feet. Someone was in the chair!
The chair spun around. It was Ms Sharp!
“Hello, doctor.” She said in a breathy, barely audible voice, coming smoothly to her feet, “I just had to come and see you. I have a ... a problem.”
“Wwwww...” I didn’t get any further than that because at that point she opened the front of her long silk gown. I was transfixed by the vision within.
“I have this pain, doctor, it’s like an ache all through my body,” She began gliding towards me. “... especially here. Please, please do something about it.”
I glanced out the door towards Tyge’s room.
“Don’t worry,” whispered Sharp, “She won’t wake up. I gave her something earlier this evening.” By then she was right in front of me. Lifting her arms she wrapped me in her silken tent and caressed the back of my head. I smelt perfume, something spicy and stimulating. I knew that smells had been created that could trigger extraordinary responses in the opposite sex, but I wasn’t exactly thinking straight by then anyway. And besides, Sharp was way too much of a lady to stoop so low.
“Kiss me.” she whispered.
Since I had been longing to do exactly that ever since I’d first set eyes upon her, it was not an invitation I could easily turn down. I kissed her very very gently. Respectfully.
“More.”
She pressed herself right against me, slowly forcing me backwards until I was stopped by the wall. This was too good. This was too much. This was all the heaven I had ever dreamed of; all my visualizations exceeded in an instant.
“I so need you, doctor,” she whispered, “I need your full treatment.”
Well, I have to confess, I kind of lost control about then. I kissed her like crazy. I kissed her like there was no tomorrow. And pretty soon there was a lot more than just kissing going on. By degrees we steered each other away from the light and into my room, and thence onto the bed, and then...
There was an earthquake right in the middle of it, I swear. The Crush moved!
#
WE LAY A LONG TIME in each other's arms after that. Contrary to popular belief it was I who lay awake and wanted to talk, and she who slid off to sleep. After a while I felt kind of lonely and just wanted to gaze at the love of my life. Moving carefully I eased sideways to reach the crappy old bedside light that only had manual controls.
She stirred, “What are you doing?”
“I just wanted to look at you.”
“What? Hey, wait a minute, no!”
But my hand had touched the light. It lit up, full strength. There was Sharp in a panic, her face a mess and her wig half-off.
Wig?
She tugged it back on hastily, but not before I spotted the same short-cropped black and ginger stripes that Tyge wore. And not before a very Tyge-like expletive had escaped her lips. My eyes flew to the one arm visible to me – there was Tyge’s familiar shoulder tattoo.
“Huh...?” my throat managed to utter, barely connected to my brain. I guess I must have looked like something caught in one of those stasis fields, mouth hanging open, eyes unblinking, brain racing but producing nothing but static.
She spoke first. “Well, I had to get your attention somehow.”
“–H-h-how could you do this to me?”
“Go on, Doc, admit it. You enjoyed it.”
I was speechless. Again. She shrugged as if just possibly she felt ever so slightly embarrassed by what she’d just done, but when she spoke she sounded cross.
“You’re not the only one horny around here, even if you are the blindest.”
I was still speechless.
She went on, “I thought, you know, with us hanging out so much together we might’ve become more than just friends. But oh no, you kept turning into Mr Doofus every time Sharp went near you. It was pathetic to watch. I mean get real, Doc, she’s simply not your type. It was never going to happen.”
I still couldn’t speak, but I could grunt. With an angry grunt I tugged the blankets my way. She tugged back, her tone softening up a little, becoming almost playful. “Oh, come on, Doc. Filmore. Let’s keep it going, huh? Otherwise it’s going to be a long, lonely year for us both.”
Finally I found what I had been wanting to say. Hesitant and spluttering with the fury I still felt, I let her have it. “No. No! I’m sorry, but seduction by deceit really kind of riles me, you know? Like ... like it’s just ever so slightly immoral? I mean like this whole flaming town! Like this whole flaming world! God! Everyone's faking it, everyone's cheating the system. And you know what? I’d just like a bit of honesty sometimes. I’d ... I’d just like to live among people who... who live by decent moral principals!”
“Hah!” she shouted back, “You're not exactly a shining example of that yourself, Doc!”
“Yeah, well maybe not anymore, but you know what? I used to have a dream once. And it didn’t involve all this cheating and faking. My dream had progress in it, and... and networking, and meeting normal regular people, and dating. And sure I wanted sex, but I wanted romance too, and love!”
Tyge flung herself out of the bed, “What, with that soulless geisha girl?”
“Now back up, lady, back up. That woman has got a soul. Haven’t you heard her sing? Haven’t you heard her pain?”
“She’s not the only one around here with a soul, Doc! She’s not the only one with pain! Why don’t you look a bit closer to home, Doctor!”
And with that she stomped off to her own room. Watching her go I wondered in some remnant rational corner of my brain how I possibly could have mistaken her muscular body for Sharp’s. I also wondered how she had changed her eyes. The cat-slits were gone. They looked exactly like Sharp's! It should have sounded a chord, but it didn’t right then. In fact it was the last thing chewing on my mind. I was in such a state of confusion that my mind just chewed, and chewed, and spat it up and chewed it again. I threw myself back in the bed, hitting my head painfully on the headboard, and grunted with rage and frustration, “Arrrgh!”
I felt sick inside. Defiled. Cheated. My destiny usurped. I just wanted to run, and run, and run ... as far as I could get from this horrible, horrible town.