And God Belched

by Rob Rosen

  “Whoa,” I said, the image so clear that I could see the pores on his face, every strand of glorious blond hair, even the sparkle in his eye. “So handsome.”

  “He says the same of you, Randy.”

  I smiled. “He does? He talks to you about such things?”

  “I am Milo’s friend.”

  I squinted my eyes. Really? A friend? The watch? I shook my head. Such an odd planet. And then I thought of a new strange request for said friend. “Do you have an emoji, Tag, a representation of some sort of yourself?”

  Again, Tag didn’t answer or show me an image. Mainly because Tag was suddenly standing by my side, tall and slender, handsome as, well, as Milo himself, with blue hair and porcelain skin, a surprisingly bright smile on his face, which was warm and inviting. He, like the face still hovering above me, was lit, a sort of halo surrounding his entire form. Like his voice, Tag was, I’ll admit it, sexy. Sexy as all hell. Hell and heaven, actually. Throw in Purgatory, to boot.

  “Whoa,” I repeated. “You’re hot.”

  “I feel no such sensation, Randy,” he replied, mouth moving, eyes blinking.

  “Handsome. You’re handsome.”

  “A subjective word,” he said. “I have many thousands of form variations. I was, in fact, designed by Milo. I can also be a woman.” Tag was suddenly a woman. “I can be a small boy.” Yep, Tag was suddenly a small boy. “I can be a faithful pet.” And no, Tag wasn’t a dog so much as something resembling a squishy octokitty. It didn’t look like something you wanted to play with so much as shoo away.

  “Back to Milo’s preference, please, Tag.” Tag reappeared. “Naked.” Tag’s clothes vanished, leaving a stunningly naked man by my side, smooth as the sheets above me, though not tenting as those now were. “Milo designed this as well?” Tag nodded, while I instinctively reached out to grab his dangling willy. Sadly, my hand went right on through. It glowed from within the image, which felt both odd and unsettling.

  “Do you have a full body selfie of Milo?”

  Milo was suddenly standing next to Tag. He was dressed in similar clothes to what we’d borrowed from him. He was shorter than Tag, perhaps a little less than six feet, about my height, about my medium build, nicely defined. My heart pittered and then promptly pattered at the sight of him, this being the first time I’d seen him below the neck.

  “This is a photo taken and reproduced as a 3-D image?”

  “Photo? No, Randy. We have no such thing on this planet. I simply had to scan Milo. I can now put Milo in any position, standing in front of any backdrop, doing any sort of activity, just as I can stand in any position, in front of any backdrop, doing any sort of activity. It is simple technology.”

  “Uh-huh,” I said. “Simple.”

  I pushed myself up onto my elbows and lowered the sheets. I was naked. I was so hard that a crowbar would bow in reverence. “Both of you naked, please, Tag, with Milo fucking you.”

  Presto! Milo was ramming his prick up Tag’s ass, real as day, even with grunts and groans and sweat glistening across his slightly hairy chest. I jumped out of bed, cock swaying, creating a minor breeze in its wake. FYI, I was no longer exhausted. No less confused, sure, but now fully caffeinated, so to speak.

  I walked around the holographic spectacle, taking in every inch of Milo, head to toe, every hair, every freckle, all of it perfectly reconstructed.

  “You don’t mind this, Tag?”

  “Mind what, Randy?”

  “Me having your friend do this to you?”

  Tag looked up at me, blue hair hanging over his forehead. Tag had emerald eyes that locked onto mine like a vise. “It is not real, Randy. Milo cannot fuck, as you put it, me. I cannot feel this fucking. The image is simply constructed for your viewing pleasure. Are you not pleased?”

  I grabbed my cock. It and me were both pleased. Which was as gross an understatement as ever there was one.

  “Pleased, yes,” I said. “Stop fucking. Have Milo stand before me, naked, erect, hands at his sides.”

  In an instant, Tag was standing beside Milo, both of them naked, erect, hands by their sides. I gulped at the sight. I’d, of course, seen porn on my computer before, but that was nothing compared to this. That was like comparing an old black and white TV to an IMAX screen.

  “Does Milo put me in such positions?”

  Tag nodded. “Sort of, Randy. Seeing as I couldn’t previously scan you, I had to extrapolate from Facebook. Still, Milo seemed satisfied with the result.”

  “Scan me now, Tag.” A beam shot out from the watch. It took all of a split-second. “Place me in between the two of you.”

  I jumped as a duplicate me appeared between them, just as naked, just as erect. It was me down to the freckle above my nipple, down to the hairs that trailed beneath my bellybutton, to the one ball that was slightly heavier than its neighbor, to the crooked big toe.

  “Handsome,” I said, mainly because Tag wouldn’t call me out on it like my brother would’ve.

  “If you say so, Randy.”

  I nodded. “Have me kiss Milo.”

  Of all the things I could’ve had us do, of every position we could’ve suddenly been in, this was all I wanted to see, all I so desperately wanted to do. Well, okay, fine, not all, but firstly.

  And so, I watched intently as Milo and I were in a tight embrace, kissing passionately, his hands in my hair, mine running down his lower back. As I jacked my cock, balls bouncing against the silky sheets, and as I almost immediately came and came and came some more, I prayed: Please let this happen for real, God. Please let Milo still be alive, so that this can happen for real.

  § § § §

  Tag woke me up exactly five hours later. He was still a shiny, naked hologram. It was a pleasant if not wholly strange way to greet the day, and greet a flaccid dick not five inches from my face—and one that had a blue bush to match the hairs on his head. In other words, the carpet matched the drapes. Go figure.

  “Good morning, Randy.”

  I grinned. “Can you wake up Craig like that?”

  He shook his head. “I cannot go that far from the device on your wrist, at least not through a wall or around several corners.”

  “Pity.” I looked around. I needed a shower, seeing as I was still sticky from, well, you know. I didn’t see a shower. I needed to pee. There was no toilet. I needed to eat something. There was no kitchen, no stove, no food. Still, I knew all I had to do was ask.

  And so:

  “Shower.”

  There was no shower. Instead, from the ceiling lowered a tube. As with the bowl in the station bathroom, a light bathed over me. I didn’t feel anything but a slight bit of warmth, and yet, I did feel completely clean about five seconds later.

  “Novel,” I said.

  “You care for a book, Randy? What topic?”

  I shook my head. “Novel. Original. Fresh. Innovative.”

  Tag nodded. Tag was still naked. I liked Tag naked, in that Tag looked quite beautiful naked. Milo had designed him well. Kudos to Milo. Lucky for me.

  “Pee,” I then said.

  A bowl emerged through a slit in a nearby wall. I peed. The pee was evaporated away almost instantly, a faint aroma of something akin to jasmine wafting up to meet my nostrils.

  “Blow nose,” I said.

  Out popped a tray with a bowl of tissues, ones similar to those in the train station bathroom. I blew, the sound echoing around the nearly empty space around me.

  “Breakfast.”

  A tray emerged from the opposite wall, a bowl perched atop, something akin to, well, paste within. The paste didn’t smell like jasmine. The paste didn’t smell like anything. The paste was simply paste, nearly as grey as the jumpsuit I’d recently been wearing.

  “What is it?” I asked.

  “Nutrition,” said Tag.

  “Yes, but what kind?”

  He tilted his head. “I do not understand. You eat. Your body utilizes the nutrients. The food is standardized to meet your needs, bas
ed on your height and age. All inhabitants of Planet Six eat this.”

  I took a slurp. It tasted like paste. I know because I’d tasted paste before. Once was enough. “And what of flavor?”

  His head remained tilted. “Again, all inhabitants eat the same, no variation. Equal portions per meal, based on height and age, provided by the government in exchange for services rendered.”

  “What kind of services.”

  “Jobs, I believe you would call them.”

  I shrugged. I ate. I needed, as he put it, nutrition. Maybe, I hoped, there were restaurants with better options, but I wasn’t bothering to cross my fingers in that regard.

  “So, everyone is equal on this planet?”

  “It is the law, Randy.”

  I looked at the bare room, the bare floor, the bare bed. “And everyone is happy?”

  He shrugged. “Another subjective term.”

  I thought of the houses, the buildings, the formality of it all, the lack of warmth. I thought of Milo’s home. It was decorated without flare, without personality, individuality.

  “Art,” I said, staring at the white, metal wall. “What of art?”

  “Also subjective and nonexistent. An art piece would be appreciated by some, not all. All would need to appreciate it.”

  “Equally.”

  He nodded. “It is the law.”

  I nodded. I got it. Everyone was equal in every regard. Milo had said there were no divisions of race or gender or sexuality. Equal. All equal. I stuck my tongue out at the bare wall. “Boring Planet Six.” I turned to Tag. “Do they have orgies on this planet.”

  “If so desired, Randy.”

  I smiled. “Okay, so it’s a little less boring.” I got dressed. I slid my jumpsuit on. I froze when I saw the card that still dangled off the grey material. There had been a light on it that glowed yellow; it now glowed blue.

  I looked up at Tag. “What happened to it.”

  “Your government-issued card has been deactivated.”

  “Because we broke the law? Because it was stolen?”

  “Presumably.”

  I frowned. That, apart from Tag, had been our one saving grace. We could hide with it, go where we needed to go. Now what would we do? “Can you fix it, Tag?”

  He scanned the card. “It is illegal to fix. Protected.”

  “Uh-huh, and so not what I was asking you.”

  He gazed up at me, those green eyes surprisingly alive with wonder, with curiosity. Was this simply technology, programming for my benefit? It was funny, actually, this whole Tag thing. I honestly thought of him as my friend now. Was it because I’d see him naked, blue bush and all? Or was it something else, like maybe because I needed all the friends I could get?

  “Milo would never ask you to do such a thing, something illegal?”

  “Doubtful, though Milo did break the law when he communicated with you, so it is not outside the realm of possibility, however improbable it might be that he would ask.”

  My gut tightened. For me, Tag had said. Milo had broken the law for me. He’s in trouble because of me.

  “You care about him, about Milo?” I asked.

  “Milo is my friend. I care, as you put it, for his well-being.”

  “And so do I. Which is why I’m asking you to break the law.”

  He nodded. The colors of the light changed as they shot from my wrist and hit the ID card, morphing between yellow and red and orange and back again. He was doing as I asked, staring at his work as I in turn stared at him. “Are you…are you self-aware, Tag?”

  He briefly gazed my way. “I am active, Randy. My device is powered on.”

  “Again, not the question.”

  “Then I do not understand the question.”

  I nodded. I thought of another way to phrase it. I took the watch off my wrist, though it continued to emit its colorful rays. “If I smashed this, destroyed it, you would cease to exist.”

  He nodded, his face in a strangely rueful configuration. “I would prefer you did not do that, Randy.”

  I smiled. “That answered my question, Tag. Thank you.”

  Again, he locked eyes with me. “You do not ask questions like others do, Randy. You do not make requests like others.”

  “And you like that?”

  He shrugged. The beams of light vanished. “The card is fixed. It will function as before, though no longer registered to the previous owner, and so, in theory, it is now untraceable. If you are caught, I will be deactivated. You will be incarcerated.” He smiled. “And yes, I, as you say, like that.”

  My smile matched his. “You like that because we’re friends.”

  He nodded. “Yes, because we are friends.”

  I went to hug him, and then thought the better of it. Instead, I bade him to follow. “Great. Now, let’s go scare the shit out of Craig.”

  “Sounds messy, Randy.”

  I laughed. “Yes, it does, doesn’t it?”

  Chapter 7

  Craig did not appreciate the shit scared out of him, which is what made it so much fun. It was, in fact, like being back home—minus, of course, the friendly hologram.

  In any case, I filled him in on what I’d learned about the planet, about Tag, though not what Milo and Tag looked like while fucking. He nodded as he ate his paste. He looked none too happy with it. I knew the feeling—though not the taste, seeing as it had none.

  Now that we were all caught up, I turned to Tag. “So, where was Milo last seen?”

  Tag blinked. “A quarter Earth mile from here. Would you like to keep me in this mode and follow?”

  “It won’t look weird out in public?” I asked.

  He shook his head. “Not common, but not unheard of either. If we see people, they will not care or be alarmed, if that is your concern.”

  I nodded. Craig nodded. “Let’s go then, dude.”

  “Dude?” said Tag.

  I grinned. “Pet name.”

  “But I am no pet,” said Tag.

  I shook my head. “It’s how friends refer to other friends. It replaces the use of the person’s name. Craig is hooked on it. He thinks it makes him sound cool.”

  A breeze suddenly blew from the watch. “I can make that happen as well.”

  I laughed. I walked us out of the apartment. I dropped the English lesson; it was more laborious than it was worth. We then followed Tag down the hall and out of the building.

  The sun was bright as it jutted above the distant horizon, its rays bouncing off the buildings that surrounded us, making everything appear a warm orange. I breathed in. It smelled fresh. It didn’t smell like any city I’d ever been in before.

  Craig pointed down the street. “People.”

  There were two people, in fact, so at least we were finally no longer alone. And, thankfully, they weren’t in grey jumpsuits, nor were they chasing us. I turned around and stared in the other direction. There were three more people. So, there were now five people in our general vicinity. Five people in a massive city. It made no sense. Still, at least we had easy access to the streets and people movers, which meant that we’d find Milo all that much quicker.

  Tag led us to one of those people movers, which promptly got us going in the right direction. And so, we moved as Craig and I looked around. There were no businesses, but with all the windows and doors hidden from sight, who could tell? I guessed you just had to know where you were going, or have your watch tell you, or maybe everything simply got delivered to you. Maybe Amazon finally achieved world domination—or perhaps other-world, as was the case. Or maybe the planet’s inhabitants really did eat nothing but nutritious paste and wore the same clothes year in and year out, changing the colors of said clothes as they saw fit.

  Lost in my thoughts, I didn’t realize that we’d arrived. Tag exited the people mover, even though he wasn’t technically, um, people; technically, he was nothing more than, um, technology, and a holographic version at that.

  The three of us then stood side by side, staring
at the building in front of us, at the last known whereabouts of Milo. Said building was short and squat, unlike the skyscrapers around it, but, like them, it had no windows or doors, no signage.

  “What is it?” I asked.

  “Odd,” replied Tag.

  We both looked at him. “Odd?” I echoed. “It’s like all the other buildings we’ve seen, except for the size and shape.”

  He looked at me. “Odd, in that it’s not registering. Milo’s body GPS pinned him to this spot, but this spot doesn’t show up in the system. It has no name, no function. It is, as if, it doesn’t exist.”

  Craig pointed at the building. “It begs to differ.”

  I tapped Tag’s shoulder. I swiped air. I’d have to remember not to do that; it was disconcerting, to say the least. “Perhaps it’s a secret government building then.”

  “The government has no secrets,” Tag said.

  I shook my head. “Unless that’s the secret.”

  We continued standing there. I suppose we were waiting for one of us to come up with a brilliant idea, preferably Tag. Eventually, two men came out of the building both in—surprise, surprise—grey jumpsuits.

  “Think that proves it?” I asked.

  Craig shook his head. “They could just as easily be janitors or mechanics, according to what Tag told us.”

  Tag nodded. “But they’re not.”

  I cocked an eye his way. I wondered why you could cock your eye, but not your nose or your mouth. Heck, you didn’t even cock your cock. “How do you know that?” I asked him.

  He pointed to the watch. “Listen,” he said. He cranked up the sound, the watch, apparently, picking up the conversation of the two men. Given that there were no other noises anywhere, it wasn’t all that surprising that we could hear them, or that the watch was also a listening device. Given that it could project a hologram—and a sexy hologram at that—I wasn’t surprised that it could do anything that it could do. Heck, you could probably shove carrots into it and get juice. If this planet had any vegetables, that is. If this planet had any food besides paste.