“You see the scars?”
Sterling nods. The scars are mostly on the middlemost fingers, about two inches below the knuckles.
“Pounded a man’s face in.”
“Why?” he asks, just to keep the man talking so he can focus on his delixer. The first sip hits the back of his throat and burns. He swallows hard, tunes back in to what the strange man is saying.
“Faceless, I’ve always believed it, but I’ve never seen it,” Clay says. “One minute, this guy is running at me with a clubbing stick and the next, he turns faceless. In the name of the Goddess, I swear it’s true!”
“Faceless?” Sterling has never seen someone become faceless. Regardless, it’s a good thing where he’s from. The Goddess of the North, Time, appears in public with a mask on. Sterling has seen Time twice in her tower; he believes she’s faceless under that mask.
Clay says, “The filthy Northerners will pay the ultimate price when we finally break through the Off Limits.”
“Now Clay … ” the flesh dealer says.
“Don’t tell me it isn’t possible, dammit!” He moves closer to Sterling, starts breathing heavily through his nostrils. “What do you think about the North?”
“I don’t think much about it,” Sterling says as he takes another sip. “I’ve got my own problems.”
Clay slams his fist against the bar.
“Clay!” the flesh dealer shouts.
“You don’t think much about it? What in the hell is that supposed to mean? They’re the enemy, stranger. They’re the ones who did this to me!” He pulls up his shirt, shows Sterling a collection of scars and welts. “The whore bitch of the North is false!”
Sterling squeezes his glass at the mention of the Northern Goddess, Time. It’s Halo, the Southern Goddess, who is false. He knows it – his heart knows it – but he’s been around enough loudmouth drunks to keep his face straight and his delixer hole shut so as to better avoid confrontation.
A small light above the back door flickers on. “Clay,” the flesh dealer says, “you’re up. And try not to be too rough this time. Room five.”
“I’ll be however I want to be,” he says under his breath as he stands. “Nice to meet you.” Clay extends his gnarled paw, settles his gaze on a place just below Sterling’s neck.
“Same.”
The man’s hand is warm and sticky; Sterling wipes it on his leg as soon as he’s gone.
***
Sterling’s turn comes.
After finishing a second double shot of delixer, he makes his way out the back door of the rectangular building. There are six medium sized sheds in back, each with a number painted on the door. A primitive outhouse sits at the end of the row of sheds, its proximity the main reason for the flies buzzing in the air. A fence keeps those who pass by from observing what happens at the fleshroom; broken pieces of metal and glass have been plastered onto its top.
Buzzing in the air, a metalzip whooshes by, sees him, and stops. The tiny metal winged insect hovers in front of Sterling for a moment, circles around his head.
“Get outta here.” He waves his hand at the odd insect, careful not to actually touch it. This is considered a sin in both the North and the South: metalzips are not to be touched.
Sterling kicks open the door of the outhouse to find two thick pieces of prefab running parallel over a deep hole in the ground. He aims, pisses right through the opening they create, cringes as he hears his urine splatter against the shit pile down below. It feels good to piss, but the eye-watering stench keeps him from fully enjoying the experience.
Finished, Sterling wipes his hands on his trousers, finds the door labeled “2”, and knocks.
“Enter,” a sultry voice calls from inside.
.4.
A woman sits on the bed, her body covered in cloth. The wrappings twist around her, enclosed by a bindring over her shoulders that restrict her arm movement. Her eyes are wrapped tightly, her blonde hair pressed against her skull. She hums softly, rolls her head back and forth, moves herself in a manner that is seductively welcoming.
“Blinders?”
The woman’s arms extend, dropping swaths of cloth onto the bed. It seems as if she is whirling in a sea of material, the only edges demarcated by the sides of the bed. The cascading fabric moves as her body gyrates, washes over her. Hanging from her fingers are strips of fabric with tiny discs of mirror and small bells sewn onto them. She beckons Sterling forward, moves her fingers as if she’s playing an inverted ethereal keyboard and allows her finger grazers to waltz against the fabric covering her body. The sound is soft, excruciatingly beautiful.
Sterling sheds his R Boots, tugs his shirt off, pulls his pants down, leaves everything in a pile on the floor. He falls to his knees, crawls to the bed keeping his head down. His arms reach the edge of the bed and he presses them forward through the fabric. Her finger grazers dance over his arms, brushstroke feather light over the dark hairs protruding from his skin.
“You’re a Goddess,” he says, on the verge of tears. The feeling of ecstasy has triggered a response in him that he is all too familiar with, a merging of remorse and pure desire.
“I am your Goddess.”
He looks up at her through a blur of tears, rests his chin on the bed. She’s staring down at him now through her blinders, which are pulled so tightly across her face that he can see the indention of her eye sockets. Her skin is pure, translucent, blemish-free; her lips barely part as she speaks.
“Blinders,” he says as stilted reason returns to him. “My Goddess doesn’t wear blinders. Time doesn’t wear Blinders.”
“Time is the Goddess of the North,” she purrs. “You’re not from here.”
“I … um … ” Sterling runs his tongue against the inside of his cheeks – no one will believe a lover anyway. “It doesn’t matter where I’m from.”
“Is that so?” she asks. ‘then, I’ll remove the blinders.”
The flesh giver presses the cloth to the top of her head. Her eyes dilate slightly as she takes Sterling in. He’s seen this before – only those who work in fleshrooms can do this. They return to normal, one eye light blue and the other green. He feels like he has seen the same eyes before – knows he has.
“A Northern man, an Upper if I’m not mistaken,” she says, calmly. “How intriguing.”
Sterling backs away, squats onto his haunches at the edge of her bed.
“Halo, the Goddess of the South, wears blinders. All lovers replicate their Goddess, surely you know this.”
“Will you tell?” Sterling glances over his shoulder, catches his R boots with the shiv inside. They’re only a few feet away; he could easily get to them before she gets to the door.
“Why have you come here?” The only thing that has changed about her is the removal of the Blinders. She’s moved her hands in front of her body, dangling her finger grazers as she twists and gyrates.
“To escape,” he says. “To … ”
He wants to say, save my family, but bites his lip. He knows better than to tell a lover; the fact that she can read him so easily also has Sterling on edge.
“Then escape.” With one hand, she pulls down a large swath of cloth covering her chest, revealing her ample breasts. “Escape with me.”
“In the name of the Goddess … ” Sterling whispers.
“Come to me, Northern man of the Stayed. Give me everything you have, everything.”
***
Men of the Stayed are weak, all too prone to surrender to temptation. Sterling accepts this as he crawls from the floor to the bed like an animal, inhaling the flesh giver’s essence with each deep breath as if it were the remedy for his accumulated grief. The threat against his family; the knowledge that he’s in a foreign land so close yet so far; his death imminent in the coming days – the lover with her wrappings and her essence of femininity pares his worry, knifes his concern. He drops his head into a worshipful position, resting it on her crossed legs, waiting for her to run her finger grazers o
ver his neck and back.
“The Canyon is your home,” she whisper-purrs, quoting the Book. “The Book is your vessel; the Goddess is your answer; the Stayed are your brethren. All things coexist in the Canyon. North meets South at the War Zone. Places have their names, people have their places, people have their names, more than one are faceless.”
Sterling stops kissing the tops of her thighs. “Do you think being faceless is … good or bad?” he asks, not making eye contact with her. Better to get an answer before plunging in.
“All that matters is what you think, Man of the North.”
Altruism is faceless; nature is faceless; love is faceless; loyalty is faceless. The words come to Sterling, stop behind his teeth. He knows what he believes, but a flesh giver from the South may think differently.
He uses his free hand to push himself back. Squinting at the lover, he tries to imagine her as faceless, something he’s done since he was a teenager. He sucks in her image, watches as it blurs at the edges and swirls into a vortex that has appeared on her glabella. Her image flattens, expands horizontally, snaps back into a sharp form that is clearly a face. She isn’t faceless.
He feels tears well in the corner of his eyes. He wipes at them, tries to come to grips as to why he’s experiencing such an intense emotion when he should be relieving himself of his sexual urges. The feeling washes over him; his breath quivers. The faces of the two men he’s killed that day materialize in the midst of all this passionate sentiment. He’d taken their lives as a matter of convenience, with no more thought than he’d give to crushing an insect; now he regretted ever lifting his shiv.
“What is it, Northern man of the Stayed?”
“Nothing,” he mumbles, “just … nothing. Forget it.”
The flesh giver moves her hands forward, her finger grazers gently clink and tinkle as they travel over the wrappings covering her body. She places her hands around his cheeks, pulls Sterling in and kisses him, lightly flicking her tongue against his lips.
“You are a troubled man,” she whispers on the tip of her breath.
“I am.”
“You have much on your mind.”
“I do.”
“You have a son.”
“I do not.”
“Who is this boy then?”
He whips around to find the door cracked.
“Dammit, kid!” Sterling rolls off the bed, tries to grab one of the flesh giver’s wrappings and falls to his knees. Bolt has already run off by the time Sterling can get his pants on. “You stay here,” he tells the flesh giver. “Don’t move a muscle!”
She gyrates slowly, sinuously. “As you wish.”
“The little fucker,” Sterling says under his breath as he searches for Bolt in a dark alleyway. He bangs his bare toe on a rock, curses, continues into the dark. The homes of the South are clumped together; the alleys connecting them are many and confusing. If he’s not careful, he could get lost, which would spell trouble for him as the rest of his clothing is back with the lover.
Think like an animal. A quote from the Book comes to him and Sterling stops, calms his breath. He listens as closely as he can to the sounds of the night, from the gentle breeze whistling over the rooftops to the buzzing wings of metalzips and other insects.
A whimpering meets his ears.
He turns to the darkened sound, takes a few steps towards it.
He finds Bolt in the shadow of a depot. The kid’s knees are to his chest; his sobbing increases as Sterling approaches.
“I’m sorry,” Bolt blurts out. “I was … scared. I’ve never … THAT WAS THE GODDESS!”
“What? Her?” Sterling lowers his fist.
“What were you doing to her?”
“Shit, kid, how old are you again?”
“Just turned thirteen.”
Sterling was thirteen when he first visited a flesh dealer, knew what sex was a few years before that. Could Bolt really be that guileless?
“That was a lover.” Sterling crouches down in front of the kid. “You know what that is, right?”
He nods. “Men go to become men again. That’s what my dad said.”
Sterling snorts a laugh. “Well, your dad wasn’t wrong, but that’s not exactly why men go. Look, I don’t know how much you know about the relations between a man and a woman, but that’s what happens in a fleshroom.”
“I saw you naked.”
“Yeah? Welcome to the club.”
“Why were you naked with the Goddess?”
“Are you dimwitted or something? That’s not the Goddess! You said you knew what a lover was … ”
“It looked like the Goddess!” Bolt locks eyes with Sterling; the kid’s fierce glare makes Sterling look away first, which surprises him.
“You’d better watch who you give that look to,” Sterling growls, his fist curling at his side.
“That looked exactly like Halo.”
“Who? Oh yeah, the Goddess of the South.”
“Yes!” Bolt whispers a quick prayer.
“Since when did you become so religious?”
“Since I saw you with the Goddess.”
“You really think that’s the Goddess, huh?” Sterling stands. “Get up. Let’s go back there and ask her exactly what she is. Come on, get up.”
“What?”
“You heard me, kid. Get up.”
***
“Tell him what you are,” Sterling says as soon as he’s cleared the doorway. Bolt stands behind him, reluctant to step inside.
“A child?” the flesh giver asks, not recoiling in the least bit.
“Get in here.” Sterling grabs Bolt’s arm and drags him in.
The kid stumbles into the room, skids to a halt just before the bed. The look on his face morphs from sheer panic to curiosity to shame. He takes a giant step back.
“What’s your name, child of the Stayed?”
“Drop the act, lady,” says Sterling. “Just tell him that you’re not the Goddess and be done with it.”
“My name is Bolt.”
“A bold name.”
It’s Bolt.”
The lover shifts her hips, causing her cloth wrappings to crease in and out.
“You look like the Goddess, like Halo,” Bolt says, his head hung in shame.
“I’m … ”
Sterling gives her the knock-that-shit-off look just in case she wants to get creative. Her eyes, one blue and one green, dart between their faces. Finally, she says, “I’m not the Goddess. I’m a flesh giver, a lover.”
“Why are you dressed like Halo?”
“All of us dress this way,” she explains. “Daft men give themselves to the Goddess and they want something in return. I give them what they want in return.”
“Daft?” Sterling thinks for a moment, can’t recall the definition of the word. Still, he doesn’t like her tone.
“What do you give them?” Bolt asks, genuinely.
Sterling is just about to comment when she says, “I give them whatever it is they want. Some men want to cry; others want to fornicate. Some want to be told they are strong and brave; others want to be told they are useless and poor. Many men build themselves up in their own heads. They believe who they say they are even though they know it’s a facade. As a lover, I open this door for them, I allow them to become children again – like you – and by doing so, they leave feeling touched in a way that is both sensual and metaphysical. I let them be whoever they need to be. It is the men who are in control, yet here in the Canyon, it is the Goddesses who run the men of the Stayed, in and over them, and the Goddesses are women.”
“Enough,” Sterling says.
“So, young man, it is my job to let a man feel both weak and powerful at the same time. This is true ecstasy for them; the best way to soothe intrinsic psychological encumbrances.”
“Enough with the big fancy words,” says Sterling. “You get the picture, kid? She’s a whore and men, including me, are idiots. Look, we spend nine months trying to get out an
d then the rest of our lives trying to get back in. I don’t know how long it’s been this way, but I’m betting that it’s been going on for about as long as we’ve existed. Sound about right?”
The flesh giver shrugs, lifts her arms to her lap and drags her finger grazers across her legs.
Sterling faux yawns. “It’s been a long day, so you can be on your way because the kid and I are sleeping in here tonight.”
“Very well.” She moves off the bed, palms her Blinders. After a glance around to make sure all her fabric is intact, she moves past Bolt and stops in front of Sterling. She cups his cheek in her hand, tilts her head and gives him a half smile. The circular mirrors attached to her finger grazers catch the dim light of the room. Her eyes flash black again.
“It was nice meeting you.”
Sterling gulps. Any animosity he felt towards the woman melts away. “Same to you.”
She steps out of the small room and drops her wrappings. They cascade to the ground, sending swirls of dust into the air. Like the train of a wedding dress, the fabric follows behind her as she walks to the flesh dealer’s main room. She looks over her shoulder; Sterling feels something twist in his stomach.
“Damn, that was some woman,” he says as he shuts the door. “Some woman.”
“Where will I sleep?” Bolt asks.
“The floor, near the door. Take a blanket if you’d like.”
.5.
Orange skies makes gray nights, dusty days come late plights. A war like fingers, rooted trees, a life well-lived is on one’s knees.
Sterling tarries in the dim, comfortable anteroom of sleep when Clay enters the room. Bolt awakens when the man’s calloused hand covers his mouth and stifles his scream.
Reactions are a funny thing. The well-trained can instantly come awake, aware, and ready to fight; others take longer to get their shit together. Sterling – having slept many a night in a fleshroom and accustomed to the scum that the place attracts – is on his feet faster than most.
No words are exchanged.
He leaps up and tackles Clay, tossing Bolt aside. Bolt screams full lung and hops backwards to watch the two men roll around on the floor.
The Zero Patient Trilogy (Book One): (A Dystopian Sci-Fi Series) Page 3
