I bumped into a woman standing with her back to the house and, when she turned, I saw she was blessed with a stunning, Teutonic beauty. She had curly, blonde hair, wore heavy eye-liner and was in a long, old-fashioned, white-collared dress that laced up at the front. She seemed to look straight through me and barely registered me at all. Then I saw on the opposite pavement three other figures, just a few paces away from each other, looking vacant and wandering up and down slowly. One was a ruggedly handsome man with buzz cut hair and a scar on his chin, wearing a long, brown, thick-collared overcoat. Another was a woman with thick, curly, black hair, an elfin face and clothed in a smart, black, skirt suit with outrageous shoulder pads. The last figure was like a life-sized doll, athletic, with a chalk-white face, inky black eyes, frizzy blonde hair and dressed in an outfit of opaque nylon and faux leopard skin that had seen better days.

 

At the sight of these strange people I suddenly regretted my leaving the house so precipitously. Also, I remembered that I hadn’t washed since I first woke up, but as I walked slowly away from the big, brown, modern building it started to rain heavily, so I tipped my head back and allowed myself to be drenched, though the water was possibly toxic. Right now I didn’t care.

 

From the outside I could see that the house was much larger than I had imagined. I turned a corner to see more of the people with bland expressions pacing the pavement on the other side of the house. One of them, black and heart-meltingly hot, acknowledged me with a nod. Like the others he looked either as if his mind was wondering or as if he had no mind at all. I passed a sign with an arrow pointing to Alexi’s house that said, though it was hard to read under the sprays of graffiti, 'Skolkov Synthetics'. And suddenly, the memory hit and my legs crumbled. I half-sat, half-fell onto a low wall by the entrance to the house's driveway, and more memories came, memories of a pubescent, skinny girl in a bright yellow swimsuit.

 

Skolkov. The name of a family who had befriended me after I had arrived here from St Lucia after my parents and sister had drowned. The island had been flooded and I had escaped only because I was a strong swimmer. With so many of the neighboring islands having also been affected by global warming I had eventually found myself in a completely different part of the world, friendless, jobless and alone. The family of Russian immigrants had evidently seen me as a kindred spirit. When Lidiya Skolkova, tall and elegant, heard I had studied ballet, she took me under her wing and found work for me at the company she had danced in, years before. Alexander Skolkov, charming but distant due to his poor English, was also kind to me and, when I was offered a bedroom in their beautiful house, I felt like I had fallen on my feet. I also became part-time nanny to their daughter, twelve year old, painfully shy but precociously clever Alexi, though I had never called her Alexi then. How could I have forgotten such a vivid character?

 

Cutely wide-eyed in her thick glasses, her dark hair in pigtails and her upper teeth in an orthodontic brace, she always seemed permanently hooked up to the Net. I remembered the whining and protestations when I’d tell her it was bedtime and that mum and dad would be angry with me if they found their daughter still on her laptop when they came home late. She’d never argue seriously but plead pathetically while I tucked her into bed. Her bedroom was home to a menagerie of insects, some quite exotic, including a Hercules beetle from my own country of origin. These creatures fascinated the girl and she’d often fall asleep gazing into their gaping jaws. To draw her away from these obsessions I'd sometimes take her to the swimming pool and she had slowly been gaining confidence in the water. I had even bought her a new swimsuit to show how I proud I was of her progress.

 

The Skolkovs were religious, having been originally Russian Orthodox, but converting to Catholicism on arriving here. I accompanied them to church where their daughter would routinely disappoint them by making up her own words to the hymns and by distracting me with something she found funny about the priests. I’d be given the task helping of the girl with her Bible studies but, due to her irreverence and my lack of interest, these sessions would usually end up with us playing computer games and so I was relieved of that particular duty.

 

Then, one rare sunny day further down the estuary, before the sea had become too polluted to swim in, Alexi been in the mood to show off. The waves were not too high and so her parents had allowed her to show them some of the new skills I had taught her. I hadn’t joined her in the water as I found the English climate too cold for swimming outdoors. We watched the girl wade in, then begin a breast stroke. Every time she was eclipsed by a wave I sensed her parents tense up and hold their breath, but the girl called happily and we all waved. She waved back, then suddenly I saw her go under.

 

All three of us leapt to our feet and I began running, fully clothed, for the water. I dived in and soon reached her. I could hear her gulping air and water in equal measure. Later she told me that she had panicked when a big wave had smothered her, knocking the air out of her, disorientating her and, without her glasses, she hadn’t been able to see which way the beach was. I pulled her back to the sand and helped her cough up the water.

 

The Skolkovs expressed their relief and gratitude for saving their daughter but, from then on, our friendship had cooled. Maybe it was because of my carelessness, maybe it was just my propensity for guilt, or perhaps it was due to other circumstances in my life, but things changed. Alexi was sent to a boarding school, I moved out, and I lost touch with the family.

 

And when the thirtysomething punk had moved in next door to me, she had evidently known who I was, but had been too shy to say. I hadn’t recognised her, partly because, when I had known her as a child, no one ever called her Alexi. She had been known to everyone by a nickname given to her before she was even christened.

 

I looked back at the house and felt strings tugging at my heart. Why couldn’t she have just told me? I had loved the little girl, but that was a long time ago and this woman was a different person. Whatever Alexi had done to see that I was kept safe and alive I didn’t deserve any of it, so I stood and walked away, hating myself for it.

 

As I moved slowly along the pavement it became quickly apparent that this neighborhood was no nicer to the one around Deckard House. I was near a wharf and the river was clogged with huge tugs and freighters. I passed doorways in which people were pleasuring themselves or each other through filthy clothes on beds of garbage. A few steps ahead of me a man was lying half-naked in the middle of the pavement and, as I attempted to sidestep him, he leapt up and screamed something into my ear, deafening me temporarily. Dust blew through the hot air making me choke. I rounded another corner and was presented with a view of the industrial city with its impenetrable cloud of black filth draped across it like a pall. Where the hell was I going in this godforsaken place with no home and no money?

 

I searched my pockets, desperately hoping my last assumption was wrong and to my surprise, in the back pocket of my pants, I found some crisp paper money. She must have slipped it in there without my noticing. I felt like going back to return it, then weakened for some reason, probably selfishness. I continued to walk, feeling the benefit of the stick, and found myself outside a church of all places. The cafés were all too crowded and I was desperate for somewhere to sit that wasn’t already occupied by drunks. I recognised the church and saw that the statue of Our Lady, which had once stood outside, was no longer there. I pushed the old wooden door open and found myself somewhere cooler, darker and quieter than outside; quiet apart from some snoring in the pews. I noticed drooping heads and squashed cans. So the drunks had moved in here too.

 

I shook some of the rain off me and stumbled over someone lying on the floor I couldn’t see, but heard mumble a few curses at me. At the front there were fewer people and I made my way up there. I sat on the hard wooden bench, relaxed, looked up and appraised the crucifix hanging over the altar. The wooden figure of Christ was missing an arm and a leg and the outline of a small cock had been sprayed on his belly, just poking above the loin cloth. In my mind I saw a boy, swinging on this crucifix like a monkey, defiling it and urging a congregation below to do the same while his bright laughter rang in the arches. To the left stood the porcelain icon of Our Lady, not the white one that had once stood over the door, but another one, this one with chipped paint, her nose busted and her raised arm ending in a stump. But she was still my Mary. Whoever my Beau had been, whoever the genius was who designed that fantastical world, they had been here and studied this church and these icons. Here was the divine Virgin that I had deflowered, the first woman I had fucked as a man before an audience of admirers. How her skin had felt against mine and how her tight cunt had gripped by cock! How I had grown to genuinely love her and how real her love had seemed to me. How sweet were the caresses of Beau and Mary. These were more than memories of dreams. These people had been my life. I squeezed my hand between my legs, wishing it was Ian’s long cock I was squeezing instead, until a dark form lurched from the shadows at the side, hacking and burping. I managed to fight him off easily and quickly hobbled back down the aisle and out of the desecrated church. Outside, it had stopped raining, though the sky was still heavy with dark clouds.

 

“Where are you, my Beau?” I whispered to myself and started walking again.

 

On the streets, surrounded by large, lumbering bodies, I felt a little uneasy and patted the heavy weight in my pocket for reassurance. I caught my reflection in one of the few unbroken shop windows and saw a weak woman with long and unkempt hair. This wasn’t me. This had nothing to do with my self-image, the black, virile man that I knew I really was underneath. On closer examination I was surprised to see that my face was a little smoother than I remembered. Where were the little wrinkles at my eyes and forehead? This was neither the virtual face of Ian nor the real face of Irma.

 

I spat at the glass.

 

I had noticed a barber shop a few doors back and so retraced my steps. I sat and waited amongst the vacant-looking men and the staff seemed unconcerned. Every man leaving sported the same short cut, shaved short at the sides and back and clipped short on top. When my turn came the electric clippers and scissors were applied roughly to my head and I left feeling a little better about myself. I liked the new cool feeling and realised how much the long hair had been bothering me.

 

I headed towards a little place I knew for a drink and my mood lifted somewhat. I also felt a little safer as this was a district I knew. It had changed little and had the same bars, the same shooting galleries, the same tattoo studios. I had stopped outside one of the latter to admire some of the designs in the window when suddenly I remembered that it was in back of this place that I had acquired my illegal nanocircuitry. I wondered if they were still running that service.

 

I pushed the door but suddenly sensed eyes boring into my back. I looked around casually and saw the humanoid form of a ‘skinless’ synth, its internal mechanisms plain to see through its transparent plastic casing. Its eyeballs were directly aimed at me, probing into me, monitoring me. Maybe entering an illegal establishment was not such a good idea right now, so I continued to walk while looking over my shoulder to see it following a few steps behind. It was as short as me and I wondered what function it served. A skinless would normally be used for manual labor, but why build one so small? However, nobody else seem to be paying it any mind and such sights were hardly unusual.

 

At the next corner, the tenement block for which I had been heading came into view. Standing alone, the only evidence of the building’s erstwhile neighbors were heaps of rubble and partially crumbled walls. The synth continued to tail me as I crossed the road and entered the building.

 

The club had no windows but inside it was brightly illuminated with red light. It was also very loud and I could hardly make my way to the bar, such was the crush of heaving male bodies. People were jigging around, drinking and yelling. I felt safe here, having been here many times when I was younger. I saw two or three women, but it was much the same as I remembered it. It was somewhere I could hang without drawing attention, and sometimes that was just fine. I sat at the bar, ordered a beer from the nice, black barman and wondered if my new hairdo would fool anyone. I had zipped up my jacket to conceal my cleavage and I tried to wear what I considered to be a look of nonchalant machismo. I swigged my beer and eyed the other people at the bar. The men were all so much younger than me and deeply intent on whoever they were with. They were clearly not interested in me and I soon grew bored.

 

Then I noticed the skeletal hands of the synth on the bar, just a few feet away. I looked up and was again bored into by ice cold eyeballs. It should not have been in here. A skinless wasn’t allowed to just wander wherever it liked. The people around it were inching away, but too cool show their discomfort overtly. Moments later I was watching two burly men escorting it away from the bar and back through the door while all the time its gaze was fixed on me. I shivered and decided to use the bathroom. The whole time I was at the bar the only people to have noticed me were the synth and two toothless women who looked like they were approaching their eighties. I angrily kicked the doors to the cubicles until I found a vacant one and sat down.

 

Every inch of the partitions and doors advertised services you wouldn’t find advertised elsewhere, but I had no interest in knowing about that. The smells made it plain enough, as did the grunts and thumps from the cubicle to my left.

 

“Y’alright, mate?”

 

I heard a voice from my right and it was only then I noticed there was a two inch wide circular hole in the partition through which a reddened eye was regarding me eagerly like that of a fish that had been swimming in alcohol.

 

“I got something here that needs taking care of, like,” he said and the eye was then replaced with an entirely different kind of eye sitting in the end of a stiff sausage that grew and grew until I was confronted with all of its nine inches. “What you waiting for, eh, man?” I heard him demand from the other side of the partition.

 

I shrugged, spat into my hand and closed my fingers around the organ. I could only assume his glimpse through the hole hadn’t given him too clear an idea of the person he had chosen to do this dirty work.

 

“Use both hands!” he demanded.

 

Unable to oblige him there, I knelt down and put the end of this cock into my mouth. I heard him gasp and so I sucked as much of him as I could. It wasn’t much as this was the first blowjob I had given for quite a while and my throat was protesting against the violation. I was glad he couldn’t, from where he was, force my head onto him, so I was able to take it slowly. I slipped off my leather jacket and played with a nipple. He was really hard and hot but the skin was smooth and velvety on my tongue. His precum trickled down the back of my throat and I began pumping the cock quickly, massaging the length up and down with my lips while sucking my cheeks inwards. The inside of my mouth caressed him, feeling every vein and ridge slide back and forth. I forced myself onto him until he was really hurting me, but the more it hurt, the more it turned me on. He was bucking his hips against the partition so violently I was afraid it might break. When I heard him grunt I pulled off him and, while I gasped for breath, I wanked him vigorously with my fist until he squirted and dribbled onto my bare tits. Fronds of semen and saliva linked my tongue to his cock and his cock to my tits. He groaned and gasped while I wiped the mess up with some tissue. He thanked me and offered to return the favor.

 

“I think you might have some ter-trouble with that, dear,” I said and laughed while exiting the cubicle.

 

I passed as quickly as I could through the crush at the bar and left the building, catching a glimpse of a lop-sided grin on my face in the glass of the door. The front of my silk panties was wet and I was glad they wouldn’t show through the crotch of the leather pants. What fun! I chuckled to myself, until, back on the pavement, I saw the synth again, stock still, staring at me.

 

I raised my arm at it in a ‘whatever’ gesture, and turned away. It was only then I realised that I had left the stick in the bathroom. Fuck it, I thought. I felt better now and the ground didn’t seem to be wobbling as much. I was also feeling really horny. I looked over my shoulder at the synth and stuck my tongue out at it as it continued to stalk me. I hardly cared about that either, though it occurred to me that there really should have been a law against such things. I looked at it again and noticed a long, black car with impenetrable windows in the road, matching the synth and me for speed, its engine almost completely silent. However, the pavement was crowded and, with Alexi’s gun still zipped up in my pocket, I didn’t feel like I was in immediate danger. Uniformed police passed on the other side, oblivious to all of this, but I could hardly go to them as I probably had a record from having my neural nanocircuitry discovered. I kept my head down and concentrated on the business of walking without looking like I was in an illegal state of mind. It seemed the itch in my crotch would have to wait a while before I could scratch it. As I continued my purposeful-looking wandering, the buildings on my left gave way to fencing, then wasteland, then sand. I had arrived at the port and I wandered away from the road and the crawling limo, towards the railing that looked onto a thin strip of sand.

 

Sometimes, long ago, I’d come here to reflect on my life with the Skolkovs, until the water became increasingly polluted and the beach too shitty. Staring at water always seemed to help me to think, but that would be impossible now due to the continual honking of the ships. I liked seeing the enormous suspension bridge, a thin, curving line beneath twin towers. Behind me stood the tall bridge of a tidal barrier, and now, in the far distance to my left, at the end of the estuary, marched the gigantic, silver towers, spaced at regular intervals, of a much larger, newer flood barrier, stretching from the peninsula to the coast opposite. There weren’t that many people around, just a few of the ubiquitous drunks and Hypnozap casualties. Against the harsh sunlight I thought some of them looked curiously apelike and so I was reminded of how, with my two friends, I had wandered across a similar landscape as an ape myself. The contrast between the two scenes, one littered and sad, the other vivid and crazy, brought a grin to my face. If only these fuckups could see what I’d seen. Glancing back I was hardly surprised to see the metal skeleton still following me, so I climbed over the railing, jumped or fell down to the sand, twisted my ankle, and went to the water’s edge, hoping some of the water and sand might damage the synth’s feet if it followed.

 

To my left, back on the road, there came the sound of a woman’s screams and I turned to see two naked people jump over the rail, onto the sand, and run towards me. The first was a woman of about my height, with black hair and skin a dark blonde hue, clearly in some distress. As she came closer I noticed she was perhaps of Chinese origin. The man in pursuit of her was stocky and bald, sporting a wild grin and a raging, hard prick. In his right hand he brandished a knife, hardly more threatening than his erection. I looked to the synth but it had remained on the road.

 

The woman ran up to me crying and screaming something I could not understand, then dodged behind me and gripped my arms. The man stopped a few feet away and slashed the air just inches from my face. I backed away, as did the woman, and I think I managed to protect her from some of the maniac’s blows, but then I tripped against her and fell in the mud. Their pursuit continued in the same direction and I rolled over to watch them retreat, the woman still screaming, the man laughing, until they turned the corner onto the narrow strip of sand lining the adjoining river. No one around seemed to care or even notice.

 

I was struggling in the mud, coughing, struggling to stand, when I felt something grasp hold of me firmly and lift me up as if by a crane. I turned to see the inscrutable skull of the synth.

 

“A l-lot of use you were,” I told it while brushing myself down. “Freak!” It said nothing and I moved away. Jesus, I said to myself, now I’m talking to machines. I sat down where it was dry to try and calm myself, but that would not be possible with the synth standing over me, so I stood clumsily, confronted it and pushed its chest.

 

“Get the fuck away from me!” I screamed in its ugly face.

 

Exasperated, I began walking back to the road, but again I stumbled and again the thing helped me up. After many failed attempts, during which I declined all the synth’s offers of help, I climbed a stack of garbage piled against the wall and reached up to the rail. I noticed the limo had gone and I climbed over, passed the aquarium on my left and began heading north, but then suddenly stopped in my tracks. A stretch limo, longer than the last, had just pulled up and two tall, thin men, their faces obscured by striped Balaclavas, stepped out onto the road. One window to the rear was down and from it sprouted an odd face with wiry, black hair. The jaw was slack and the mouth swung wide, allowing some spittle to drool from its corner.

 

I was scooped up from behind, into the air, then I fell against something hard and cold. I looked up into the synth’s face as its arms gripped me tightly and it began running at an incredible speed. My pursuers watched impotently and I saw them recede swiftly into the distance until they were smothered by the exhaust smoke of passing vehicles. Too shocked at my brushes with death or worse and also relieved at having been rescued, I was unable to scream, despite being in the grip of a stalking automaton. The slabs of the pavement were a blur beneath us and I caught mere glimpses of the frozen faces in our wake. The ride was surprisingly smooth while the synth’s feet pounded the ground like a machine gun. Despite its small build it was very strong.

 

My head lolled back and I saw the sky darkening. Sudden tiredness overcame me and I just slipped away.

 

Copyright © Irma Cerrutti 2015