The Way of All Flesh: Illusions Can Be Real

by Corey Furman

  He got up and was moving toward the kitchen, but he paused and turned around. “Please,” he said. The smile disappeared beneath slack muscles as he looked at from under a lowered brow.

  She thought she must have missed something again. “I’m sorry…?” She tossed her head in an effort to knock more of the cobwebs loose. “I’m not sure if I’m getting everything yet.”

  “Please,” he said again. “I’m sure you meant to say please, right Maré?”

  Understanding dawned. “Yes, I’m sorry. Please.”

  A change rippled through him and he smiled again. “Of course! I know you’re just coming around. I should give you some time to adjust.” He winked at her. “I’ll be back in a few minutes.” When he moved into the kitchen, Maré could see him opening a cabinet and taking out a few packets and plates. He started to hum softly to himself.

  It was all too much. She laid her head down on her knees and tried to slowly think through the situation, but all she could think of was Luna. A sob escaped her chest, and she hugged herself and cried.

  “Shhh… It’s okay, honey.” Breylin had sidled back into the room and sat next to her on the couch before she’d noticed. He tried to put his arms around her, but something about him was unsettling, and she jerked away from him. He dropped his arms and waited for her to settle. “Listen,” he said quietly. “We’ll get some food in you, I’ll explain how things work around here… everything is going to be fine. You’ll see.”

  “I… I’m sorry. My Chroma –”

  “Luna, yes. She used to live here, too. I remember her very well… and I remember how the two of you were together.”

  It took a minute to sink in, but she realized that he must have meant others from her bloodline. “I mean my Chroma. Look.” She sighed heavily and continued. “I’m really tired, Breylin.”

  He held up his index finger. “Mr. Breylin.”

  “Mr. Breylin, right. May I go lay down for a little while, Sir? I feel like I need to rest and get used to this before I take on any more.”

  He sat up straight and stabbed at her with his gaze, and right away she knew what was strange about him – his eyes; they were a cool blue, and liquid, and wild with too many emotions beneath the surface. As she looked at him she had the feeling that something dangerous was staring back at her through those eyes. She had to look away, and after a moment he spoke firmly. “I’m making food, Maré. I want you to eat.”

  “Please, Mr. Breylin, I’m not doing so well,” she pleaded, hoping he’d be reasonable if she conveyed her distress. Her stomach was starting to knot.

  He got to his feet. When he spoke, his tone stropped her with its edge. “We’re done with this discussion. I’ve made food. You will eat it, Maré.”

  She started to cry as her insides began to roll, sweat popped out of every pore and her mouth filled with saliva. She got up as fast as she could and nearly toppled over, but thankfully her rubbery legs held. She was seconds from vomiting. “Where’s the bathroom?” she said, and clamped a hand over her mouth.

  Breylin pointed toward his bedroom, and she unsteadily made her way as quick as she could by running her hands along the walls. Seconds later, Maré was noisily retching up the water she had drunk. When the heaves stopped, she rested her head on the rim of the white, plastic toilet and tried to slow down the pace she was gasping for breath. She wiped her mouth with some toilet paper, tossed it in and flushed. Then she noticed that he was standing in the doorway watching her with his arms folded.

  “That was quite a show. All finished now?”

  What does he want from me? she thought. “I’m sorry, Mr. Breylin,” she said as she forced herself to stand. “I feel dizzy… Can you show me where I can lay down, please?” she said as she steadied herself by holding onto the edge of the sink.

  “You seem to have difficulty understanding. I said you were going to be eating the food I’ve prepared.”

  Baffled, Maré looked at the toilet, then back at him. He can’t be serious! The taste of bile was thick in her mouth, and she couldn’t possibly think of eating now.

  He took her by the arm. “Let’s go.” With that, he steered her back out to the kitchen. Stopping abruptly by the table, he said, “Sit down. Now.”

  Afraid to disobey him, Maré sat down. He pushed a couple of buttons on one of the appliances. There were a few tones and the machine whirred to life. Seconds later, he opened its front panel and withdrew a couple of plates. He put one down in front of her, then at the chair across the table. Next he dug out forks, handed her one, and then sat down. He dug in with gusto, but after a few swallows, he put the utensil down.

  “Pick up the fork, Maré. If I have to feed you, we’re going to have a bad day.”

  She did as she was told, scooped up some of the lumpy, beige goo and put it in her mouth. Thankfully, it was nearly tasteless – or maybe it only seemed tasteless compared to bile. She swallowed carefully, then repeated the process until the plate was nearly clean. Her stomach was still doing backflips, but she compartmentalized it away, along with the loss of Luna. There was nothing to do about either of those things now. Stars, where am I?

  Breylin paused between sips of whatever he was drinking when he saw that she was done. “Very good, dear. Don’t you feel better now?”

  No – This is worse than Almeida! “Yes Sir… mostly.”

  “Would you still like to go lay down?” he said sympathetically.

  Hope dawned. “May I, Sir?”

  Standing up, he smiled and said, “sure. I’ll just show you where the cleaning supplies are first.”

  “I don’t understand, Mr. Breylin,” she said as her hope began to falter.

  “Well,” he said while spreading his hands. “You puked in the toilet, and now it needs to be cleaned. You don’t expect me to use it like that, do you?”

  Holding onto the back of her chair for balance, she looked at him and tried to keep up with the pace at which he changed gears.

  “Do you?” he said, piercing her with his aggressive eyes and raising his voice. The edge in his words was growing keener.

  Compartmentalizing again, she kept her eyes down and bit back the tears. “Uh… no, of course not.”

  “Better,” he said amiably. “You’ll get the hang of this, Maré. I suppose this could be the first thing you need to keep in mind – everything around here needs to stay very clean. If you make a mess and don’t clean it up, I’ll become quite cross.”

  “I think I understand, Sir.”

  “Do you?” He patted her shoulder. “I hope so, Maré.” He strode from the room, and she followed. She just wanted to catch her breath and come to terms with Luna being gone, but she would have to play his game first.

  Breylin supervised while she cleaned the commode. Except for on old ring of mineral deposits around the edge of the water the hard material gleamed, but it looked the same to her afterwards. She didn’t care, though - it had been something to just get through. “All done, Sir,” she said as she dragged the back of her forearm over her face and climbed to her feet. She stood there on her treacherous legs looking at him through a few strands of sweat-darkened hair that had fallen across her eyes, though she couldn’t summon the care to do anything about them.

  “This appears to be acceptable, Maré.”

  “Thank you, Sir,” she said as she stood there waiting, his eyes drilling into her, but she couldn’t imagine what was making him tense.

  It filled the air though, as he looked back at her from where he stood by the sink. “Well?”

  “May I please go lay down, Mr. Breylin? I can barely stand.”

  “Your muscles can stand you up just fine, my dear. You tell them what to do, and they obey. You have to want it to happen though.”

  “I…” She took a couple of calming breaths. “Sir, I did what I was told to do.”

  “But what about the rest?”

  “The rest, Sir?”

  Breylin shook his h
ead as he withdrew the controller and thumbed a few buttons. Maré felt her muscles lock up and she went as rigid as a post. It was too much for her. The room started to spin at crazy angles and she felt her cheeks flush. Every pore on her body threw itself open again and sweat poured out.

  “See, dear? Your muscles just needed to be told what to do, and they obey.”

  He grabbed her by the arms and dragged her roughly from the bathroom, through the bedroom and into the living room, smacking her taut frame against furniture and the doorways along the way. He shoved her, the room yawed out of alignment and the floor rushed up to meet her as she toppled over. The acrid taste of copper was in her mouth, and darkness crept inward from the edges of her vision until black ink covered everything.

  A grunt escaped her lips as pain seared her back, and her eyes banged open.

  Breylin grabbed her by her neck and pulled her up enough to see her eyes. “Ah, there you are, dear.” He let her thump back down to the hard plastic floor. “You’re going to have quite a bruise on your cheek from where you fell on it. One of your front teeth seems to be a little loose too, but it should be fine in a few days. Assuming nothing else happens, that is. I’m getting the feeling you’re going to require a lot of retraining. Time will tell.”

  She could move now, and her back felt as if it was laced with fire. Disoriented and crying, she slowly got her hands under her. When she started to push up, her tunic fell away from her in tatters. He must have torn it down the back, she thought thickly. Why the hell would he do that? She made a grab for it to cover herself, and out of the corner of her eye she saw a quick movement. She heard a swishing sound, and another sharp, thin line of fire stretched across her back, and instantly she went prone again as the shock of it made her arms give out. “I didn’t tell you to get up, Maré,” he said so quietly that she almost missed it, hidden by the blinding pain that filled the world.

  “Look up, dear. Do you see this?” She forced herself to lift her chin, and he showed her a slender piece of tubing in his hands, about a meter long, white and narrowly ridged. He flexed its semi-stiff length into a curve, straightened it, and then curved it again. When she saw it, and the mad gleam it produced in his eyes as he considered it, she became terrified. The urge to flee screamed its way through her synapses, but there was nowhere to go, and fear kept her rooted in place.

  “We use tubing like this at work. It’s flexible – as you can see – but it’s quite strong. It has to be, because sometimes it has to endure some pretty intense pressures.” He watched, with an almost fascinated look on his face, as he flexed it a few more times. “None of that is terribly relevant to its use here, Maré. No… I’m afraid this particular piece of tubing has a much more domestic use.”

  He looked down at her. “Let me explain. I could use your collar to punish you – I guess that’s how most people handle their gabachas. And I’ll use it sometimes as an aid… but this,” he said as he held out the improvised lash, “this is what I will use to get your attention. Do I have your attention now, Maré?”

  Through her dread she husked out an answer: “yes, Sir. Please Sir, don’t hurt me anymore.”

  “Hurt you?” he said sounding almost offended. “I’m not hurting you, dear. I’m teaching you. There’s a difference.” A sadistic edge crept into his voice. “Trust me, I know how to hurt someone.”

  A fresh wave of panic flared in her skull and she cried, harder now. “Sir, I don’t know what I did. Tell me and I’ll never… do… it… again!” she wailed as she stared into the floor.

  When her crying subdued, he touched her face with the end of the tube, and she flinched. He caressed her with it, back and forth, around her neck, and down her back. It caused fresh agony as it touched where he’d already welted her with it. She trembled, scared that he might bring the terrible thing down on her again.

  “Maré, I told you that any time you make a mess, you must clean it up, didn’t I?”

  “Y-yes, Sir.”

  “And yet you insisted on laying down when you knew there were dishes to do.”

  The dishes. “I’m sorry, Mr. Breylin! I’ll go do them now if you let me!”

  “No, Maré. You needed to lay down, so now you’re going to lay down, right there.”

  She laid there crying for a long time, but with only the dull torment of her thudding heartbeat to mark its passage she couldn’t guess how long. Breylin stroked her gently, back and forth, with the lash the whole time. Eventually her eyes stopped leaking, and the only sensations she could perceive were terror and the agonizing trace of the tube’s edge as it played lightly over her exposed skin. Her attention seemed hyper-focused on the pain each time it touched one of the welts. She didn’t dare move or speak.

  He stopped touching her, and for a few agonizing heartbeats she knew he would begin welting her with the tube, but he merely sat down. Time froze as she continued to lay there, but at last he spoke. “You may now go do the dishes, Maré, then come back when you are finished.”

  She got up and tried to hold the ruin he’d made of her clothing to her breasts, but he spat at her, “leave that. You can wear shirts again when you’ve earned them.”

  A few sobs escaped as she dropped it and went into the kitchen.

  When she was done doing the few dishes, she returned to the living room and stood to the side of him with her arms crossed, covering her chest. She saw that he was staring out the window, evidently at the sunset.

  He ignored her for a few minutes, then without looking in her direction he said, “Maré, come over here and kneel down.”

  She hated the thought of getting any closer – he still had the makeshift whip laying across his lap – but she knew she didn’t have any choice. Wordlessly, she moved and went to her knees.

  “Closer, Maré. Put your hands on my leg.”

  The tears fell as she moved in and did as she was told. The worst of it was not knowing what he would do next. Her mind invented all sorts of dreadful things – anything but what he did.

  He leaned forward and put his arm around her, then spoke. “Look at that, dear,” he said as he pointed out the window with his other hand. The fiery edge of the sun simmered above the edge of the horizon, radiating dust-soaked bars of sunlight in all directions. His hand moved lightly on her hair, and they sat like that together for some time in silence.

  He sat back, but he kept stroking her hair. “Your mother used to sit and stare out like this,” he said, sounding hollow and far away – and maybe crying. She couldn’t look.

  What the hell is he talking about, my mother? Why did he punish me if he was going to become nice? Is he playing a game? Oh the Stars, she thought as she realized what must be happening. He must have me confused with some other simulant!

  Breylin gave no indication if he noticed her internal struggle. “I miss you so much, Riss…” he whimpered.

  The air thickened as she held her breath and wished she could get away from him. His arm around her, touching her hair, was revolting. Even so, she was surprised to find that she had a tiny pebble of pity for this wreck of a man living in his own hell.

  A tremor went through him and he withdrew his hand. From the corner of her eye she could see that he was studying her. His scrutiny was as fiery upon her as the edge of the sun was on the land. Eventually he spoke. “Take this, Maré,” he said as he proffered the lash. When she made no move he grabbed her hands and enclosed them tightly around the thin tube. She could feel the texture of its ridges digging into her fingers and palms.

  “Now that your work is done, I will show you your room.” He stood and took her by her elbows, bringing her to her feet. “Back this way.”

  He guided her down the hall towards the back of the house, stopping before a closed door at the end. He gestured above it and said, “see that hook up there, dear?”

  “Yes, Mr. Breylin,” she said in a quiet breath.

  “Put your lash up there, Maré, so that you walk under it wheneve
r you go in or out of your room.”

  Timidly, she obeyed and reached up. As she balanced it in place, its edges dipped into a frown, and for an instant she thought maybe even the house was looking upon her with tight disapproval.

  “Don’t ever touch it, Maré,” he said leaning in so that his lips were brushing the hair over her ear, “unless I tell you to get it. If you do, I’ll know, and then I’ll break you with it.”

  She started to snivel in gibbering fear again as she tried to shy away from him.

  “You will do as you are told, won’t you, Maré?”

  She nodded her head, and his grip tightened on her arm. He leaned in closer still and spoke softly in her ear. “Use your words, dear. I want to make sure you understand.”

  “I understand, Sirrr,” she slurred through her tears.

  “Okay, then.” With that, he opened the door to her room, shoved her inside and slammed it behind her. As his heavy footfalls retreated she heard him say angrily, “get some rest. I’ll be back for you in a few hours.”

  She crumpled onto the bed and sobbed without tears, as much for grief as for her own seemingly-unending plight.

  Maré woke to Breylin shaking her by the shoulder.

  “Get up Maré. I have something special for you.”

  Her head started to clear as she looked around and realized where she was – her room in Breylin’s house. She didn’t remember falling asleep, but she must have been deep under. She wanted to lay back down, but that wasn’t going to be an option. She swung her feet down to the floor and stood.

  “Come with me.” He said as he turned from her and left the room.

  She resisted for all of two seconds. She didn’t want to follow him. She was lonely and tired, her muscles ached, and where he had whipped her earlier was yet dull agony. But not wanting to follow him had nothing to do with any of those things – or not much, anyway; what seized her thoughts was anger – at life, at going from one hell to another, at him. There had been pleasant moments since she’d left the maturation pod, quiet times with Luna, but she been controlled and tormented and used on Paradise. She was sure life would be every bit as difficult now, compounded by being bereft of Luna. Yes, coming out of sleep had been mindless and rough, but she now felt awake, and the resentment tingling her scalp was sharp.