The Rage Room

by Lisa de Nikolits

  I made Bax’s bottle and said a loud goodnight to the writhing orgy of limbs. “Goodnight ladies, if I don’t see you leave.” Having reminded them whose house it was, I turned to go upstairs when I remembered something. “Wait, it’s garbage day tomorrow. Celeste, hang onto Bax for me.”

  To my happiness, Bax protested at leaving my arms and Celeste distracted him with a singing toy. “Sweetie,” she said to me, “it’s only eight at night. You’ve got time.”

  “What time do the garbage collectors come?” Christine asked.

  “Oh, about twelve hours from now,” Celeste said, “but Sharps is obsessed with the garbage.”

  “Am not,” I said, slipping on my shoes and a coat. “I just like to be organized, not like some people I know.” I smiled, three quarters wattage.

  “There’s organized and there’s obsessed,” Celeste called out, but I ignored her.

  I closed the front door and I heard her discussing my so-called garbage obsession, and my chest ballooned with rage. I stood in the snowy night, listening to my wife gossip about me. I kicked at the light atmospheric Yuletide fluff and wished I was in a rage room.

  “The more stressed he is, the more he cleans and organizes,” I heard Celeste say.

  I told myself that I didn’t care what they thought. It wasn’t like any of them had lives I wanted. I went back in and I finally got Bax to sleep while Celeste saw Christine and Lila out. I gathered up Celeste’s mug of orange juice and vodka and poured the remains down the sink. I straightened up the sofa cushions and picked up the toys on the floor.

  Finally. Peace and quiet.

  “We need to have a chat,” Celeste said, and my heart dropped.

  She was kicking me out. She’d had enough. I felt bad for the things I’d felt and said about her. I couldn’t lose this. I crushed a tiny fluffy rabbit in my hands, twisting its neck tighter and tighter, filled with panic. I’d taken things for granted. I’d sat in judgement of her and forgotten who was in control, who held the power. It wasn’t me; it was Celeste. And there I was, thinking my biggest problems were Ava and my neighbour Strawberry Merv whose Christmas lights outshone mine. Celeste and I called him Strawberry Merv because he had a large strawberry-shaped birthmark covering half of his face. His real name was Mervin Hobbs, and he was clearly the least of my problems. My world was about to implode, and I had to apologize and convince Celeste that I’d try harder. I opened my mouth to speak, but she interrupted me.

  “We need to have another baby!” Celeste beamed at me. “Baxie needs a little brother or sister. But I’m not getting fat and gross again. This time we’ll go for surrogacy. And Christine’s more then willing to do it for us. Daddy will pay her.”

  “Another baby? Christine?” I blurted out, my body slick with sweat at my narrow escape. I was dizzy with relief but equally stunned by what she had just told me.

  “If she can’t, then Lila said she will. We might try with both of them. That’s what we wanted, right? A nice big family? Mummy and Daddy will be so excited, you’ll see!”

  The noosehold around my neck loosened. I wasn’t being fired by my wife. We were still a team. I put my head in my hands and began to cry.

  “Oh, sweetie,” Celeste said. “Come here. Come let mama make you feel better. It’s all good, baby, it’s all good.”

  Reprieve. But work was still looming, I only had two weeks left of my pat leave. And was I going to have to have sex with Lila or Christine? No, of course not, they’d just need my sperm. I had to stop over-complicating things so much, stop worrying and overthinking.

  10. LOOPING DADDY IN

  AND THAT NIGHT, THE SAME NIGHT I learned about Jazza and Ava, it seemed like Celeste’s plans had been put into motion a lot faster than I had imagined.

  “Sweetie! We really are going to have another baby!” Celeste ran out to the car and banged on the bubble door. “What do you mean?” I said as I got out of the car. There, in the doorway, stood Daddy and Mummy and Lila and Christine.

  “Sweetie,” Celeste sniffed, “why do you smell like wet plastic?”

  Oh shit. I had forgotten about that. “Rage room,” I said, and I sounded lame. “Then Jazza had a crisis and I met him without cleaning up.”

  “Oh.” Her eyes glazed at the mention of Jazza. “Well, anyway. Daddy thinks this is a great idea, and what’s more, he’s going to pay for Lila to have induced ovulation and make it all happen asap! We need you to go upstairs and jack off a great big lovely load of your best sperm. We’ve got a sperm transporter here and everything!”

  Lila? I thought it was Christine? A sperm transporter? I was hardly in the mood to get an erection, but Celeste read my mind. “Come on,” she said, winking at me. “I’ll help you.”

  She led me upstairs, past Mummy, Daddy, Lila, Christine, the nanny, and a man in white coveralls who I assumed was the sperm transporter. The man handed me a white egg-shaped container. No one looked the least embarrassed by what was going on, except for me. In fact, there was a real party atmosphere. I was surprised there weren’t balloons and streamers.

  Celeste closed the bedroom door, popped a HardOn, the newest performance-enhancing pill, under my tongue, and wheeled out my hole in the wall. Pills or no pills, I was drained and not up to the task. “Sweetie, why don’t you have a quick shower?” Celeste sniffed and waved a hand in front of her nose. “You do smell rather awful. Skipped the rinse down at your special place?” She was right, I had.

  There was a knock at the door. It was Mummy and Lila and Christine. What now? “We want to sprinkle holy water,” Mummy said, “and light sacred candles and incense. We want the church’s blessing for the conception of this dear child.”

  If they all noticed the strange wall in the middle of the room, they didn’t mention it.

  “I’m going to shower,” I said. “And actually, it would be helpful if you were all gone when I come out. I know what I’ve got to do.”

  I closed the washroom door and heard them leave. I had to deliver. It was tough because I kept thinking about Ava and Jazza. Mainly Ava. Overthrowing Minnie? That wouldn’t be the worst idea in the world, but it was imposssible! One had to admire Ava’s arrogance. No wonder I was afraid of her. Because she wasn’t afraid of anything. And here I was, working my ass off, well, wanking my dick off, to bring another child into the world. But what kind of world? A part of me was curious. I wanted to ask Ava what she was up to, but the idea of talking to her was like inviting a spring trap to snap down on my unenthused member. I looked down at my poor fella puddled in my lap. I had to stop thinking about Ava. She reminded me of Mother. Oh shit. That wasn’t a good route to go down either. Mother, another fervent believer that our world was shot to hell. Another Minnie-hater. I sat down on the toilet and studied the creamy cleavage of Miss NewCat March on the wall calendar in front of me. Yep, it was pretty ironic that the NewCats had a nudie calendar, but it was a time of great contradiction, to say the very least. And the models weren’t exactly nude; they did have strategically draped scarves, diaphanous and sheer with light accentuating curves and dips.

  Live Your Abundant Life Today! Miss December proclaimed and I held my dick and prayed to the blue god of chemical delights. I thought about the party downstairs with everyone eagerly waiting, and my poor fella drooped even further. Stop it, I told myself, stop thinking about Ava or Mother or anything. But still … there was nothing. I gave a sob of desperation and hunted in the cabinet for a second HardOn.

  Come on, Sharps. I closed my eyes. What could I do? Thankfully, the answer came to me. I grabbed a pair of nail scissors and started hacking the rolls of toilet paper in the basket. Stab as much as you can, slash that paper to ribbons, now hack a bar of soap, be careful now, we don’t want an injury, ah yes … there we go … that feels better, stab, stab, let it all out, pump your dick with right hand, stab a towel with your left, get it done, nearly there, grab the container, let it out. Shee
r fucking relief. I leaned against the wall and surveyed the mess. For once, I didn’t even care. I had the jar of jism!

  “Good man!” Daddy said when I got downstairs. The only trouble was, the second HardOn had kicked in and my penis was a north-facing torpedo in my pants. I accepted all congratulatory hugs with a maiden auntie hug, my pelvis arched backwards.

  “Sharps,” Daddy said, handing me a gin and tonic, “let’s you and I have a wee tête-á-tête over in the corner there. We need to talk a bit of shop, what with you going back to work.”

  He led me to an alcove with a love seat and patted the spot beside him.

  “Ava’s gunning for me. Son, you and Jazza have to deliver pronto. But,” he said, casting a glance at Celeste who was three sheets to the wind, “Celly will have to go back to the spa. I don’t think Christine’s a good influence. She will henceforth be blocked, all access denied. Which is why I chose Lila to be the carrier. She’s in financial difficulty—her husband hasn’t had a job in years—and she’s struggling. She’s much more malleable. We like malleable.”

  I was relieved to hear that Celeste was going back to the spa.

  “Daddy,” I said, “I have to tell you something. I met up with Jazza, and he’s gotten involved with Ava.”

  Daddy burst out laughing. “Involved? As in sexually? Now there’s a scarring image. King Kong and the hobbit girl.”

  “I know! But it’s not just that. Ava’s apparently going to overthrow the government! She’s written a manifesto and everything!”

  “Hmm. Well, she can certainly try, but she will fail. Listen, son. I have to tell you something in confidence. Strictly between you and me. Back in the day, when I was at university, I was part of a boys’ club. Phi Beta Kappa des Garcons, very hush-hush of course. It was considered good sport to visit Blowfly ladies of the night at their apartments, to get the full Blowfly life experience. But there were times when things went awry. You know, how boys will be boys? And one night, there was a group of us and one girl.”

  Oh my god. I glanced around. If my mother could hear Daddy, she’d have a conniption. She’d waste no time in pointing out that one didn’t refer to adult females as “girls” but rather, as women. But I nodded.

  “So there we were,” he continued, “and admittedly, consensual-inducing chemicals were in the mix to smooth the waters. But things went badly. When we left, the girl wasn’t in great shape, but we knew she’d survive. She was a Blowfly; they had doctors. But it turned out there were photographs. Evidence of a few of us in a compromising position. We had no idea that the woman had a child until that child showed up at my door, ten years later. Ava. She must have been nine or so when the unfortunate event occurred. She not only turned up, but she was also armed with copies of the pictures and full of demands that she work at Integratron. What could we say? Most of the Board members were there that night, and so we agreed, fine, Ava the Blowfly could have a job but that was it. We made it clear that we were playing nice. After all, we could have her more than blocked; we could have her deleted.”

  Around us, the party was in full swing, and it felt surreal to be having this discussion with Daddy.

  “She worked hard,” Daddy admitted. “She wanted to go to university before joining us, and we got her in. She got a Ph.D. I remember her thesis well: Exposing the Hidden Connections Between Third-Wave Feminism and the Writings of Ayn Rand. I was a great fan of Ayn Rand. Now there’s a woman who knew how to write a man! The scene where Roark gets it on with Dominique and leaves her bruised and covered in quarry dust—it never fails to turn me on!”

  I must have blanched because Daddy put a reassuring hand on my shoulder. “We all have needs, son. Anyway, my point is this: she and I had Ayn Rand in common but it turned out Ava’s thesis was, and I quote, ‘a deft evisceration of Ayn Rand’s misguided patriarchal pretence at affecting feminism.’” Daddy got lost in thought for a moment, and I leaned against the wall, cold sweat soaking into my waistband. The noise became a muffled roar, and my vision blurred. I put out a hand to steady myself.

  I had to go upstairs and lie down, and I was just about to excuse myself when Daddy grabbed my shoulder. “Anyway, after she graduated, we gave her a spot in the Sheds and she shot up the charts. She made us a bunch of money by helping sway female consumers, tapping into their insecurities and fears of aging. At first I didn’t trust her. A feminist sellout? But she seemed sincere. Of course we monitored her like crazy. Was she there to blow us up and get revenge for her mother? Or turn the women of the world against us? But a decade later, all she’d done was work, nose to the grindstone. She hadn’t attempted to access any privileged-denied files or shown herself to be a troublemaker in any way. So we stopped watching her. Until this, now.”

  “What happened to her mother?” My voice shook, but Daddy didn’t seem to notice.

  “Ended up in a permanent vegetative state. We admitted culpability by making sure she had all the medical attention she needed. However, we didn’t know that she had a child and that there was evidence of that night. Those facts slipped through the cracks.”

  “Who took the pics?”

  Daddy shrugged. “Boyfriend, pimp, who knows? But anyway, son, I’m telling you this because I need you to know what happened and just how dangerous Ava is and what her armory is. Poor girl actually, that Ava. Couldn’t hold a candle to her mother in the looks department. Stunner, she was. Redhead. Bazookers out to here. And to be honest, we’d been with her a few times, talk about wild in the sack! Gets me hot just thinking about it.”

  Daddy got an odd and faraway look in his eye while I tried to process what he’d just said. He was part of a boys’ club that raped Blowfly women and he got “hot” thinking about it? I felt sick. And Ava, having to fight her way up in a place like Integratron? No wonder she was such a bitch. She had to be. But why did she even want to be part of it? It had to be revenge. She’d been biding her time. Or was she another Minnie, a woman who sold out other women to get the money and power she desired? And did she jump Jazza’s giant bones to get intel? Or did she like him?

  “I really tried with her,” Daddy continued. “I offered her all the surgeries in the world, told her I could make her look just like her mother. I thought she’d jump at it, but she just looked at me like I’d lost my mind. Then, purely for selfish reasons, I told her I’d treat her to the app that would change her appearance to other people, but she turned that down, too! Why would she care? I mean, fine, she’s happy with how she looks, but we’re the ones who have to look at her!”

  So there was an app! “I’ve heard rumours of those apps,” I said carefully. “But I thought they were urban legends.”

  “Nope. But still, they cost a bundle. And not only did she turn me down, she blocked me!”

  I was curious. “If you bought the app for her, how would she look to me?”

  “However she wanted you to see her. The host controls the view. You’re only allowed one appearance per; once you pick your model, you can’t change it. The result is absolutely convincing, fits your raw clay like real skin. That’s what the designers call an unenhanced human body, raw clay. Anyway, my boy, we’re getting off topic.”

  Something occurred to me. Daddy had quite the thing for the late Prince Charles. I’d assumed he simply had an uncanny resemblance to the man who had never been king, but now that I’d been alerted to the veracity of the visual distortion app, I couldn’t help but notice that Mummy looked very much like Camilla. Daddy even talked like Prince Charles, I say, old man, and what, old chap? Good old ruddy Prince Charles who, unbeknownst to them, made the entire Royal family drink the lethal Koolaid shortly after he learned that Prince Will and his Duchess Consort Kate were being fast-tracked to the throne in a desperate attempt to keep the monarchy a socially relevant, lucre-pumping cash cow. But the monarchy was failing anyway, despite all of Will and Kate’s efforts to maniacally grin at every farmer, schoolteacher, flow
er-bearing child, and weary-looking nurse. With the Royal family out of the picture, it was easy for Minnie to colonize the former superpower that had colonized the world. Talk about ironic. It was no longer called England either. For some unknown reason, Minnie and Mama had renamed the towns, cities, and countries of the world after lesser-known saints. The island formerly known as the British Isles was now St. Malo. America was now St. Isidore, and Canada was St. Hubert.

  “Death before dishonour,” Daddy had said, reminiscing about Prince Charles with tears in his eyes. “Mercy killing. The Queen had broken protocol; she had transgressed the Royal chain of command.”

  I heard a crash from the far side of the room, and I looked up. Celeste, giggling, was peering lopsidedly at her plate in pieces on the floor. Yep, she wasn’t even in the same province as the wagon she had so whole-heartedly fallen off of. And how much raw clay was left there? Not much, I assumed. What if my wife was actually an eighty-year old woman? But she had borne a child. Still, anything was possible in that regard. The room swam before my eyes and I leaned against the wall. It was all too much to take in.

  “Listen, son.” Daddy forced my attention back to him. “Your intel is top-notch. You need to monitor Jazza and Ava, full surveillance. And we need to get this baby to fruition and get Celly sober. It’s hilarious that Ava thinks she’s going to have a go at Minnie—har har! Minette’s got armies up the yin yang. So it’s quite ridiculous. Anyway, old chap, I’m so glad we had this chat. Keep it under your hat, and we will not speak of it at work. The walls have ears and never, ever, message me about it. Be careful what you say; all audio is bot-monitored for trigger terminology, sensitive keywords blah blah. If you need to see me, flash the word Vanguard to my path and I’ll meet you in the men’s room on Sky Level 172. You need a pass to get in, so knock twice—tap tap, that’s it—and I’ll let you in. Anyway, enough shop talk. You deserve another drink! Here’s to a new baby and a bright future!”