Hotwire

by Simon Ings

  ‘Farofa?’

  ‘I bought a book!’ She sat on the edge of the bed reading to him from the cookbook as though it were an adventure story. She showed him the pictures, pointing out the things his worm-inflated appetite had brought to mind. ‘I’ll cook them all for you, the fatty ones as well, as you get better.’

  ‘You’ll be long gone,’ he said. ‘You’ll fly away to God knows where, start a new life, be human.’

  ‘I’ll not leave you!’ She couldn’t bear the idea that they might eventually part.

  It was just as well – for now.

  ‘Don’t leave me,’ said Ajay, each time she left the house to shop. ‘You must come back,’ and somehow, for some reason, she did. ‘I’m here,’ she said, returning, and sometimes – taking her cue from daytime shows – ‘Honey, I’m home!’

  Yes, just as well: for if she’d run, how far could she have gone before running into trouble? And he guessed that, however far she got, her naïveté was bound to lead that trouble back to him. As yet, she lacked the tools to deal with the world.

  And yet he could not work out why she stayed. Being naïve, she could have no idea what dangers there were in the world. Why then didn’t she try to leave? She had him at her mercy, yet she stayed and tended him. The very fact that she did what he told her began to unnerve and finally to irritate him. She seemed to lack all self-possession, turning all her care on him. Fine for now, sure, but later? Was he saddled with her? When the time came to throw her off, what would happen? He had already glimpsed the depth of rage in her. It scared him. He doubted if even she had guessed its true dimensions. When the time came, he’d have to hoodwink her somehow, convince her she was coming to Rio with him. That prospect was so far off anyway; there was no guarantee they’d ever get that far. It was enough of a worry, whether he’d even recover.

  My aching belly . . .

  He thought, In her place, I would have run, no question—

  ‘Love, I’m home!’

  —but he had places he could go and anyway, had grown up running. All Rosa knew was living in a womb. Even in escape she’d cleaved to him, rather than rush into the world—

  Why? What were her motives? She’d killed her sister, after all, to free herself from Dayus Ram and flee with him—

  Was that the core of her desire, then? Not flight at all – but him?

  Could it be true?

  Was he the one?

  Sick, deadly, wired—

  Me?

  She worked hard caring for her new friend. She’d had no friends before and it gladdened her that someone needed her. By day she was fulfilled.

  At night, she missed the snakes.

  Ajay was gentle with her now. He did not grab at her like he used to. The bruises on her arms were gone. But in some strange way she missed them. Rather, she missed the passion that had put them there, his eyes ablaze with anger, fear, command . . .

  They had a lovely house. She’d never been anywhere so beautiful. It was made of wood, and at night she lay awake and listened to it creak and groan. She thought of the house shrinking and expanding, panting almost, like a living, sleeping thing. Sometimes, when the wind was up, she fancied she felt the house move around her.

  The thought of it surrounding her, alive and warm, comforted her in the dark. At night she was at her weakest. At night she was scared to look out the window, fearing the hugeness of the sky, its billion unreachable stars. Night-time was the only time she ever felt nostalgic for her old life inside Ma.

  She knew it was weak of her. By day, when the awful immensities above her were cloaked in close and friendly blue, she berated herself for her night-time fears. Daytime was easy. She had a friend to care for then.

  At night, she was alone.

  He was kinder to her now. He did not rage at her, or bruise her, or even raise his voice. But then again, he did not let her near him any more, not like before. Not like in Ma, when she’d kissed the milk into his mouth. Oh no, he would have none of that now. She wondered why. She wondered if she was alone in finding pleasure in these things, these gestures. She wondered if these desires of hers marked her out an alien. She didn’t understand where they came from. From the snakes, perhaps, seducing her since she was little. But even such a thought did not repulse her, and from that she guessed that these desires were rooted deeper, far deeper, beyond habit, to some part of her she had no name for yet.

  She wanted very much to sit on him again, and have him breach her, and feel his hardness slide between her legs; but it was out of the question. She wondered sometimes if he guessed at what she’d done. She wanted to tell him. She wanted him to know. She wanted to say, ‘I broke myself on you.’ She thought perhaps he would think differently of her then. But how differently? She couldn’t guess. She said nothing.

  At night, alone, she sought comfort where she could. She touched herself. She was gentle at first, but it didn’t last. Her frustrations were many. Deprived of the hunt, her inventiveness and aggression had nowhere to go but back on herself. The smell of herself reminded her of the animals she’d hunted. She sucked at her fingers hungrily. Sometimes while she masturbated, she thought about the girl she’d killed. Her biggest catch: so white and plump, she wished she could have eaten her.

  She became wily and inventive with herself. She tried to simulate the touch of snakes. Her fingers were thick and dry, so she rubbed her hands with cooking oil, so they might feel as wet and warm as snake tongues. Rubbing herself she never came, but drove herself yet more distracted, even more unsatisfied.

  One night, fed up and hungry for release, she used things, moving them inside herself, dreaming the strangest dreams. She found at last a way to come, filling her mind with pictures of her first and only union with Ajay. She saw him as she’d seen him first: pegged out, anatomised, erect, like some Herculean map of what a man was; and afterward, her blood and his, pooling on the bright chrome table-top . . .

  The silver arm intruded into these dreams strangely. Clutching herself afterwards, she thought of it poised above her arse, brutal, sharp, bloody. It scared her, how much she wanted it.

  She spent most of the day alone too, of course, but that was different. While she was shopping for Ajay, running some errand, keeping house, she felt as though he was with her. She was too busy to do much exploring, and picked things up about the world as she went along. She had worked out, for instance, how to guess what the push-cart men were selling from the way they tapped the sides of their carts. You could tell from the beat what it was: noodles, pumpkin, squid.

  If she had the time she bought something and took it to the pier. She sat on a bench away from the tourists to eat, and listened to the seals barking, begging food.

  Sometimes, if she wasn’t feeling so hungry, she bought the food and fed it all to them, piece by piece. She was fascinated by them, their golden fur, their long legs. They looked so intelligent.

  ‘They’re really not, you know,’ a man told her once.

  Some of the regulars had got to know her by this time. They smiled and nodded and left her alone. All but this one: a big man with highlighted hair in a perm, too much weight round his middle, and thick polished fingernails he kept digging into her leg whenever she sat beside him.

  ‘But their eyes,’ she protested. ‘Their smiles—’

  ‘They were smart once.’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘They were like you and me. We called them sailors.’

  ‘They were human?’

  ‘Oh yes. Quite human.’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘They evolved. You don’t know the story?’

  Unhappily, she shook her head. It was a story she felt she ought to know. Not knowing it, she felt conspicuous. ‘Tell me,’ she said. Weakly: ‘I must have forgotten.’

  ‘When the American military became Massive, its human part joined forces with machines. They wired their heads with datafat and rare techniq. The rest is history.’

  ‘They changed?’
<
br />   ‘They became one. A single mind.’

  ‘Presidio.’

  ‘As said.’ The gulf between her ignorance and his strange knowledge was huge. He said, ‘Where are you from?’

  ‘New York,’ she replied, picking a name at random.

  ‘Far away.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Why’re you here?’

  ‘I’m touristing,’ she said, racking her brain for explanations.

  ‘Ah.’ It seemed to satisfy him.

  She was sure she knew him from somewhere, but she couldn’t remember where. After all, where had she been? It must be her imagination, she decided. Beneath his toothbrush moustache, his mouth was wet and weak. He licked his lips often. The weakness of his mouth sat uneasily with the rest of him. He was very strong.

  ‘Another game.’

  She rubbed her arm. ‘No.’

  ‘Oh, I’m sorry. Please, come on, I’ll be more gentle.’

  He bought little things for her so she would stay talking with him. Sweets, drinks, souvenirs. He played silly games with her: arm wrestling, thumb wrestling, shells. Games that proved how much stronger he was, how much smarter than her.

  He had a wonderful smile; he must have stolen it from somebody else. ‘Is New York beautiful?’ he asked her once.

  ‘Oh yes,’ she said, more confident by now. She’d fooled him after all!

  ‘I’ve never been,’ he said.

  ‘You should.’

  ‘But here is pretty too.’

  ‘For sure,’ she agreed, pleasantly.

  ‘You’ve seen the Statue of Liberty?’

  ‘Liberty?’

  ‘Not far from here,’ he said.

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Just down the coast. In Carmel.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘Would you like to see?’

  She shrugged. ‘Maybe.’ Then, with a sudden flash of inspiration: ‘There aren’t many statues in New York.’

  He looked out to sea. ‘No?’

  ‘Not many,’ she said.

  He chuckled.

  ‘What?’

  He changed the subject. ‘You like them?’ He pinched the material of his green pants and shook the creases.

  ‘They’re very shiny.’

  ‘Stroke it, if you like. Stroke the material. It’s great to wear.’

  She touched his knee.

  He took her hand in his, and dragged it up his leg. ‘Nice?’

  ‘Sure,’ said Rosa, not knowing what else to say.

  He wore beautiful shiny clothes, a new outfit every time she saw him. He was always immaculately dressed.

  He started buying her clothes too. Simple things at first. Hair ribbons. Screw-on earrings for her unpierced ears. A friendship bracelet. At last—

  ‘Do you like it?’

  A yellow skirt, quite long, very full, with buttons all down the front. It wasn’t what she would have expected from him. It was lovely.

  ‘Put it on.’

  She went to the ladies and slipped off her shorts and buttoned up the skirt around her waist. She came out. He was waiting for her at the end of the pier, alone, looking out to sea. She walked up to him. He looked at her. He said, ‘You’ve got it back to front. Come here.’

  He wedged her between him and the railing, took hold of the waistband and turned it so the buttons were at her back.

  He started undoing them. She felt his fingers slip inside her skirt. They were rough, and warm, and she liked the way they tickled her. They snaked their way over and into her pants and began edging them down. She started. He paused, his fingers tickling her crack. ‘Isn’t this what you wanted?’ And while he waited for her answer he stroked her, minute after minute after minute. He had unending patience.

  At last she nodded.

  He pulled the panties off her arse. They slipped down round her ankles.

  ‘Step out of them.’

  She shook her feet free.

  He kicked the panties forward, under the railing, off the pier. She leaned forward to watch them fall. They bobbed on the surface of the water.

  ‘That’s right.’ He ran his fingers between her buttocks. She leaned forward some more. Her knees trembled.

  Below them, the sea thrashed. A seal bobbed up, snatched the pants with webbed fingers and dragged them below the waves.

  He reached between her thighs and up. She winced. ‘Your nails.’

  He said, ‘Part your legs more.’ His fingers were teasing her in both places. He pressed hard up against her, hiding his hand. His weight against her made her tremble even more. ‘You’re wetting yourself,’ he whispered.

  She nodded, dumbly. He was rubbing her juices out from between her lips and into her rear. ‘Please,’ she said, not knowing what she meant.

  He took his weight from her. She heard him unzipping his fly. Then his weight came back, and his hand, and his erection.

  ‘It’s only small,’ he whispered, rubbing it against her, back and forth. ‘It won’t hurt. Really it won’t.’

  Back and forth, and back: she realised then where he was going to put it.

  She straightened her back.

  He took her neck in his free hand. Roughly he bent her down. He leaned her into the railing, pinning her there. ‘It won’t hurt.’ He let go her neck and stroked it with rough fingertips. His other hand angled his penis carefully. He nudged it in. ‘You see?’

  It hurt like hell.

  And then – when she relaxed – it didn’t.

  His fever past, Ajay found comfort listening to the radio. He tuned in to the news often. He talked to Rosa about it, teaching her what he could about the world. He said, ‘I think we’re safe.’

  ‘Safe? How?’ Nothing Rosa had heard in the bulletins suggested it.

  ‘It’s what’s not said,’ he explained. ‘No talk of Presidio, to start. Not much at any rate. The occasional yacht maybe, Celested.’

  ‘Come again?’

  ‘I mean uncrewed. But nothing bigger. Nothing to suggest Presidio’s in charge here. Seems it’s as brain-dead as they taught me back at Haag.’

  ‘Then why’re we here?’ said Rosa. ‘Why did Ma bring us here? Why not let us go to Rio?’

  Ajay shook his head. ‘I just don’t know.’

  ‘There’s talk of the Bay Area thinking,’ Rosa said. ‘Maybe Ma meant us for the Bay, not for Presidio.’

  Ajay shook his head. ‘The Bay’s no Massive.’

  ‘They say it is.’

  ‘There’s talk of that sort everywhere. Every city dweller wants his city to start thinking. It’s just a fad.’

  ‘The Bay’s not sentient?’

  ‘No.’ He stretched and groaned. He was better, and he was growing restless from spending so much time in bed. ‘The Bay doesn’t think. It’s years behind the field.’

  Later, to send him off to sleep, she turned the radio to an all-music station. The songs were gentle, and they helped drown out the backbeat from the waste-ground parties. The words delighted her: so many songs of love!

  She took to learning them. At night, dozing on the living-room couch, so she’d be near Ajay but not disturbing him, she let the music into her mind.

  Such lovely words.

  One night she woke up, checked her watch – 3.00 a.m. – and listened close: there it was again. An antique melody. Ajay can’t sleep, she thought. Perhaps he wanted something. She threw the covers back and walked over to the bedroom door. ‘So place yours hands,’ she crooned. ‘Over my sleeping face.’ She smiled.

  And squeeze the dark

  that’s in me out

  She opened the bedroom door.

  Feed me your truth,

  pour your light in,

  ‘I want to have your love drool from my lips!’ She padded over to the bed. Ajay was asleep. She stole a kiss on his cheek.

  I want to feel you

  press your body into me

  She bent down to turn off the radio. But it wasn’t on.

  And feel my every joint,
>
  and tendon pull.

  She walked around the flat. The music followed her. She crept out the back door and wandered round the derelict garden a while. It made no difference. The music was inside her head, lodged there. She couldn’t shake it free.

  She went back to bed, enchanted and afraid at once.

  That’s how I’ll know

  it’s time to light

  this wrapper soaked in napalm: our embrace.

  A week went by. Ajay’s intestines healed over. After a brief bout of thrush the foliate in his mouth and gut achieved a working balance.

  Its task complete the worm inside him lost its will to live. What meat there was on it was soon digested. The tough hide remained: Ajay began passing it. Segmented, shit-flecked, half-alive, it slid inch by inch from his gut with each pain-racked heave of his rectum. Rosa bathed his blistering, over-stretched anus, fed him aspirin, kept him warm. She tried to speed the process up, revolted and afraid for him. She sprinkled salt on the wormy tail trailing from between his buttocks. It wriggled. Yellow foam bled between its soft, articulated plates. She swabbed the worm down, four feet long now, trying to rid it of the stink of bowels, acid, anus, wormy death.

  ‘Don’t pull,’ he said, through gritted teeth. Always in pain, unable to sleep, he seemed worse than before. ‘You’ll give me haemorrhoids.’

  Passing the head was worst. Deflated like a burst balloon, its razored mouthparts all in-turned but vicious still and stained with blood. When it was out of him he burst out crying: tears of relief, embarrassment, catharsis.

  ‘What shall I do with it?’

  She had coiled the worm about her arms. An artificial girl bearing a dead leviathan. Ajay thought of his grandfather. ‘Christ!’ he laughed, shakily. ‘He’d have loved this!’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Go put it in the bathtub. Douse it with alcool. Set it alight.’ The worm was rare techniq. To throw it out would be to court unwelcome curiosity.

  ‘You’ll be all right?’

  ‘I’ll sleep,’ he said.

  A few minutes later he snapped out of a light doze, feeling the sheets slide over him. He moved towards the warmth and opened his eyes. Girlish arms encircled him.

  ‘I thought to keep you warm,’ she said, nervous and uncertain.