Tally your life by this tally your love your vengeance your faith
The words echoed in Alice’s head like a chorus. It came from Ms. Atta’s gash, from the PA system and from Alice’s heartbeat all at once. She nodded and turned to Tommy, the greasy soles of her feet slipping a bit on the tile. The weight of responsibility threatened Alice’s posture, but she refused to be bowed. This tallying could not be done on her own skin.
“I’m taking his pants off,” she said.
Rachel and Olivia knelt on his wrists, crushing them into the floor. Tommy thrashed and kicked until Jill and Julienne each gave him two sharp slashes into the soft flesh of his belly. Alice paid no attention to his whimpering or his bleeding as she grabbed the waistband of both his pants and boxers and forced them down the length of his skinny legs. At last they discovered a place on Tommy that wasn’t bald. Alice pinched his bush and yanked until the roots tore free. God, how he screamed.
And got hard.
Tommy’s erection was impressively disproportional to his slight body. And he was not circumcised. Alice cupped his penis in one palm, which it quickly outgrew.
“What are you doing?” he said.
Alice dug her nails into his erection. Tommy shrieked, but Alice felt him grow and throb.
“Wow, you’re really enjoying this, aren’t you?” Alice said.
“I’m—I’m a virgin. Nobody’s ever touched it before.”
Alice looked at the girls and then back at Tommy. She remembered how he’d put notches on his gun—including one for Ms. Atta. Boys were just like that, weren’t they? They tallied their conquests and victories, thinking enough notches would finally add up to manhood and transform them. Maybe in Tommy’s case it had. He seemed truly in awe of the length and hardness of his cock, as if both were fresh surprises. Maybe the violence he’d committed, the lives he’d taken, had done their alchemy.
Alice released his penis and dipped her hand in Ms. Atta’s blood. It was still warm and stunk of copper. She rubbed her fingers together until they were slick and began stroking Tommy. His body rocked with spasms. He hissed air through clenched teeth and squeezed his eyes shut.
“Oh, God!”
A boy’s cry.
A man’s cock.
“Please, please use your mouth. Just taste it with your tongue.” Tommy’s dick was sticky with blood now. Alice spit into her palm and made him slick again, stroking with her left hand, her awkward hand, the hand she never even cut with. That was reserved for her right hand, which she now extended palm up and waiting. Olivia placed her blade there, prodding her a bit with the tip, enough to make stigmata. Tommy went on moaning. Alice had heard male circumcision influenced sensitivity, though whether or not the influence was positive or negative, she couldn’t say.
“Oh, my God, I’m going to come,” Tommy said.
“How many?”
Panting, he said, “How many what?”
“How many times have you jacked off? How many times have you come? Have you ever added them up?”
“I dunno. Like a thousand,” he said, and arched his back while Alice stroked him.
“But your first with us. We should start a tally.”
Alice held the blade alongside his erection. The edge would split it open like a summer sausage if she worked it lengthwise.
But notches were the order of the day.
Joshua Viola is an author, artist, and former video game developer (Pirates of the Caribbean, Smurfs, TARGET: Terror). In addition to creating a transmedia franchise around The Bane of Yoto, honored with more than a dozen literary awards, he is the author of Blackstar, a tie-in novel based on the discography of Celldweller. His debut horror anthology, Nightmares Unhinged, was a Denver Post bestseller and named one of the Best Books of 2016 by Kirkus Reviews. His second anthology, Cyber World (co-edited by Hugo Award winner, Jason Heller) was named one of the Best Books of 2016 by Barnes & Noble. His short fiction has appeared in The Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers' Found anthology (RMFW Press) and The Literary Hatchet (PearTree Press). He lives in Denver, Colorado, where he is chief editor and owner of Hex Publishers.
Sean Eads is a writer and librarian living in Denver, Colorado. His second novel, The Survivors, was a finalist for the 2013 Lambda Literary Award. His third novel, Lord Byron’s Prophecy, was a finalist for the Shirley Jackson Award and the Colorado Book Award. His first short story collection, 17 Stitches, will come out in June 2017. Sean’s favorite non-writing activities are playing golf and competing in bar trivia with his epic team of fellow geeks, Irritable Vowel Syndrome.
THE BROKEN HEARTED by T. Fox Dunham
T. FOX DUNHAM
“Richard Gishman?” my new attorney asked.
He knew who I was though. My face is the most known face in the world. Hitler. Mao. Gishman.
“I never pretended to understand the workings of the inner heart,” I said. “I only wanted to bring love to the world.”
“And for ten years you did, Mr. Gishman,” the attorney said. “Then I murdered it.”
“Such statements could be considered an admission of guilt,” he said, already advising me before our initial consultation. The reek of antiseptic burned my nose, but it smelled better than the urine ambiance that permeated the International Crime Court’s detention cells in a Dutch prison in Scheveningen, The Hague. I found it astounding that with all the world’s problems, the remnants of the world court still had the money and support to incarcerate and try me, but I figured they needed me to give the wounded populations someone to blame. Villages and cities in every country burned me in effigy and demanded my trial. The fractured governments happily obliged, eager to find a patsy to focus revolutionary impulses that usually followed economic destruction.
The bald guard had pushed me into a seat at a plastic table. Number seven attorney entered from the other side. The first five lawyers had turned me down. Number six had accepted my case, saying all this hyper-rage was a lot of nonsense, but I had to replace her—her husband butchered her while on their second honeymoon in Switzerland. He sliced her up into bite-sized pieces and fed her to the ducks—another dissatisfied customer of my service.
“I need to ask you a few questions,” number seven said. “Obviously, I’m aware of your history, but I need your side of the story. Please answer honestly.”
I nodded.
“How did all this begin, Mr. Gishman?”
“I was born with an innate sense of the funny little paths numbers can travel. And I just wanted money to buy pot. I didn’t mean to end the world.”
Number seven crossed his stubby legs, pulling up his pant leg, exposing his black sock. He typed on his pad, and I checked his finger for a wedding ring. “Did you find your partner with my algorithm?” I asked.
“No. I met my husband the old-fashioned way, in a pub. Not from the Gishman equation.” I placed his accent somewhere around Lincolnshire. My wife, January, and I had traveled extensively in the early years of our happy union.
“So you and your husband are—?” I noticed his hands trembled.
“Miserable but happy,” he said then took out a thermos from his satchel. “I’ve managed to find some coffee,” he said and poured enough to fill two paper cups. “Hard to get now that we’re in a global recession.” He pushed the cup to my side of the table. “It’s not the champagne you’re used to.” He sighed and stared at the black patch over my eye. “Sorry. I shouldn’t mention champagne.”
“Any news on my wife?” I asked. I didn’t blame January. I had done this to us, and I needed to see her. I sipped from the weak coffee and tasted the end of society.
“Internet is sporadic.” He checked his tablet. “Right. She is still a patient in the Penn Mental Care Facility, Philadelphia. Listed as “non-responsive”. I don’t know how much longer they’ll be able to keep her. The mental health system is collapsing.”
“They’re blaming me for that too?” My right eye ached, and I scratched under the patch.
“Not if m
y team can help it,” he said. “This kind of thing could have happened to anyone.”
I shook my head. The jumpsuit’s collar scratched my neck, and I rubbed the raw skin. My gut pushed against the table, rocking it against its bolts. I’d fattened since my days as a college stoner, but I still saw myself as a young rebel, the anti-establishment hacker who would never sell out. I had to get over myself. January always humbled me.
“It couldn’t have been anyone,” I said. “This is what I was born for. My mother always told me I was too smart for my own good.”
“I think our first action is to file a brief with the ICC, asking that they dismiss the charges. International law is still unclear about corporate negligence.” He folded his hands on the table. “When did this really begin?”
“In 2003, when my girlfriend walked out on me.”
“You’re not mature enough for a real relationship,” Stephanie said, packing a bag. I kept failing my courses, and now they wanted to throw me out of Penn. The rent on our shitty roach-infested apartment was two month’s late, and she’d finally had it. “You’d think with all that Google shit on the internet, I could find a good man.”
“I’ve got this idea for a website,” I said, playing the old con one more time. “We’ll be rich in a year.”
“Hearing the same song,” she said, exposing her Midwestern accent. “I’m staying with Stacey. I’ll come back later for my shit.” Stephanie shut the door. Roaches scurried. I sat down in my throne and logged into some hacker sites.
The same song.
I didn’t shower for days, sitting in my boxers and eating old rice from Cantonese boxes. I downloaded movies and ignored my classes. My landlady slipped notices under the door, and I waited for the Philly police to come and drag me out. Stephanie’s comment about the internet looped through my brain.
I coded a new program and tied it into the major search engines. I typed some equations, using my acumen to seek her replacement. I didn’t do it because of my industry or my imposed genius. I just wanted someone to hold me at night, and I applied what I knew. I’d employed dating sites before to no assistance. America wanted a cheap fix to its amorous issues, and sites that promised such a service made money.
It took me a few days, but I finished the equation—a specialized search engine that would use a compression method to scan all relevant data on the internet then tell you if you had a match equal to your own presence on the web. My program compiled the information already available online. Social networks displayed your data for public usage. No one ever read those licensing agreements when they clicked I agree. My equation utilized everything from credit reports to government census, and so much could be assimilated by what was missing from your records. That was the true brilliance of my algorithm. The program compiled only a hundred lines of code, and I added new search parameters, elements I felt were important in a relationship, my own compatibility factors. I made up some of them, programmed them for chaos, gray areas between people. I’d taken some psych classes, and instead of focusing on the positive aspects of people’s lives, I programmed for the negative, for the hard times that come in every relationship. I wanted to find someone who would stay.
I plugged in the numbers and set the program loose onto the sea of chaotic information. My baby stalked and hunted, seeking out the perfect prey to endure my inadequacies. Many variables showed on the report, but only one name registered with 100 percent accuracy.
January Snow.
I looked her up on Facebook—a cute face, glasses and blonde hair. She lived with her mother in D.C. Her profile said she studied law, and I found her email address through Georgetown University. In desperation, I emailed her:
January:
I believe there’s someone out there for everyone. I don’t know you. I’m one of the broken hearted. My girlfriend just left me, and I’ve not left my apartment since. I found you because I wrote a computer program that searched the internet. The variables and math have determined after scanning the millions of people online that you are my best match. Are you lonely too?
And I signed it:
Deeply Misunderstood.
I wasn’t misunderstood. I was exactly what women thought I was—a lazy, entitled child with maternal fixations. Still, I hoped I’d find a woman that would kick my ass into adulthood. I knew I had potential. I just needed something to fight for.
“So she was the first?” my attorney asked, scribing down notes on his tablet.
“A successful experiment,” I said.
“She must have fallen for the email. You married her in 2004.”
I folded my legs under the table, then sipped from the weak coffee.
“She wrote back telling me she wasn’t interested, but the program intrigued her. I kept at her—little notes, stupid poetry, confessions from my soul. January stopped in Philly to change trains, heading out to Chicago to visit her dad. We had a couple of beers at 30th Street Station, and we couldn’t be apart after that.”
“And did you see any signs of the union going bad? Symptoms you ignored?”
“Perfect bliss like all my clients. Guaranteed. One million clients in the first six months. News of bliss spread, and everyone wanted a sip of ambrosia. Nearly one billion in ten years. People don’t fall in love without my help. It was all January really, though I’m not saying this is her fault. She encouraged me to get my act together, and I founded No More Broken Hearts, Inc.”
“I wouldn’t call it luck, Mr. Gishman,” number seven said. “The death penalty is on the table. The ICC never gives the death penalty. You’ve angered them. I think two of the judges had spouses who attacked them.”
“It’s not my fault,” I said, but I knew it was. “So when did it start to go bad?”
In 2014, the Nobel Prize committee considered me for a peace award. It had been ten years since I’d dared to send the email to a stranger on the internet, and I’d saved the world. So we traveled to Philly for the weekend to celebrate. My algorithm accounted for at least seventy-percent of unions since I launched the dating site, and I got a bonus for every civil union, marriage and long-term relationship. Divorce rates fell; people got along better now that they were happy at home; wars ended.
Room service delivered champagne, 1928 Krug, chilled in a sterling silver bucket. They pushed the tray to the door, and I carried it into the penthouse we’d rented in the Penn Tower Hotel. Lights reflected on the inky Delaware River, and a nor’easter blew into the city. Sleet stuck to the wall-length windows, freezing ice sheets on the glass. I built a fire in the grand hearth to heat the penthouse, and we lay on top of the covers enjoying the glow.
“I have a surprise for you,” she said.
“I love your surprises.” I set the down the crystal flutes and corkscrew on the bed stand. She still wore her jeans and Phillies’s sweater, always casual—another thing I loved about her. She’d dyed her hair red as part of a surprise for me, and I’d cut dinner short just to get her to bed faster.
“Richard?” January said, going into the bathroom carrying a box from Georgette’s. I loved the way their boxes shimmered red in the light. “Have you noticed we’ve never had a fight?”
The sudden monotone quality of her voice unnerved me, but I shook off the change in her demeanor as a moment of deep reflection. When I too reflected, I realized I couldn’t recall one major fight or blowup, which was odd as I constantly fought with my girlfriends. “Didn’t we fight over…?”
“We’ve never had a fight,” she said. “Don’t worry about it. You saved the world with your matchmaking. Saved us too. I don’t think it’s so odd that two people can live together and not kill each other.” She shut the bathroom door, and I waited, heart pounding. She still did that to me after all these years.
January slipped out of the bathroom and slinked over to me. The sapphire negligee clung to her little bunny-body, and I could see a thong through the slits along her thighs. January spread her nimble body out on the silk sheets then reache
d for the champagne, grabbing the corkscrew and running her finger down the curved metal. She teased me, and I panted. Then, she leaned in to kiss me but paused again. Her expression changed, twitched, and I worried she’d stroked out. She looked down at her bare legs. “In ten years, I don’t think you’ve ever asked if my feet were cold,” she said.
“Your feet?”
She looked up again, and her eyes never broke contact from mine as she swung the corkscrew. It slit my cheek, and the salty taste of my own blood surprised me. I still couldn’t believe she’d done it. I’d never seen January swat a fly, and I paused, nearly stunned when she swung again. This time my survival instinct kicked in. I dodged, and she hit my shoulder, stabbing the skin and muscle. Pain shot up into my neck and radiated down into my chest.
“Christ, Jan. What the hell?”
“My fucking feet are freezing!” she yelled and went after me with the corkscrew, aiming for my head. I rolled off the bed, and she jumped, landing on top of me. “Stay still, you cocky son of a bitch. It’ll tickle.”
I grabbed her arm, but she yanked it free. Saliva leaked from her lips and down her chin. She bit her lip as she lunged, and the blood dripped into my mouth. She thrashed a final time. The sharpened screw stabbed my eyeball and split the wet tissue. Pressure compressed my socket and temple. I yelled out and twisted my head, breaking the insertion of the wine utensil. Finally, in an act of self- preservation, I kicked her off, throwing her tiny body into a table. It shattered from the force, and a Tiffany’s lamp broke under her. I scurried back against a wall and looked up, waiting for the assault to renew. January just sat there and stared off into the room. The molten glass of her eyes cooled, and she gazed catatonic.
DOA III Page 2
