Just Say Yes

by Jo Dillon

Jo Dillon can't decide between being hopelessly romantic and totally creepy, so she strives to be both. Drop her a line at jodillon123
@aol.com.

Sputtering streetlights rushing by, pain fingers clawing her ribs, Gina ran. No looking back, just run, run, now jump the pile of bricks tumbling from a burned-out brownstone’s stairs. She came down off-balance on a storm grate, ankle wobbling. If she fell, Jeffy would be on her.

Without warning the storm grate swung away. Her upper body slammed into the sidewalk. Her hands scrabbled on the cracked pavement. Then she fell, even though she thought she'd already hit bottom.

Twenty-seven weeks ago she'd been holding tight to normal, teaching her favorite senior seminar, telecommuting three days because of gas prices, watching the riots on CNN. She hit a hard surface in the dark, wormy dirt puffing into her lungs. She tumbled at an angle then collapsed in a stunned heap. A metallic click echoed down the chute, followed by Jeffy's shout.

"Gina!" He rattled the grate like bars on a cage. "You can't run away, I'll find you, get you!"

She lashed out with arms and legs, found a low tunnel. She crawled on her stomach, blinking away dirt, ignoring broken roots sticking out of the ground and the sounds of a scuffle leaking down from the street above. She dragged herself towards a flickering light, hauled herself into a windowless room: cheap vinyl flooring, painted cement block walls, somebody's finished basement. A tiki lamp flickered on a wobbly card table, illuminating an apple, a crusty slice of bread and a chunk of ham. She jammed it all into her jacket pockets, scanning the space around her. The room ended ten feet away at a floor-to-ceiling black curtain, and a closed door was set into the right hand wall. She went for it, still running. She'd always be running now, and not just from Jeffy.

So hungry and frightened, she'd thought how hard could it be? She counseled students to find work that inspired passion. She'd always been passionate about sex. But in the chaos, nobody paid for just sex. They shelled out for payback: a chance to inflict a measure of pain in return for their suffering, a chance to feel in control, even if only in control of her.

"Please stay."

The calm voice shattered an internal barrier. Gina’s accumulated fear broke free in hoarse screams.

"It's alright. No one will hurt you. You're safe now."

Gina scrunched under the table. The biggest lie of her life: safe. All those insurance premiums, plus taxes for cops, firemen and FEMA. Had it helped? Was she safe?

"You're safe," the voice repeated, steady and patient, soft but masculine, coming from behind the black curtain.

Screamed out, Gina shook with sudden fury that pushed her to her feet. "Did you rig that hole? I could have been killed!"

"I'm sorry."

The apology doused her anger, set her trembling from weakness. She stared into the black curtain but couldn’t see the shape of the speaker on the other side.   

"Who were you running from?" asked the voice.

He spoke in the most rational, least threatening tone she'd heard since her townhouse burned. She couldn't answer such a voice with the truth. I kicked a psycho trick in the balls and I was running from my pimp. Shame drained the last of her strength, and she fell to her knees.

"Don't cry. Please?" The edges of the curtain flickered, a wave of motion going from left to right. "Eat something and rest. I promise you'll be safe."

Echoes of Jeffy. You'll be totally safe. Just think third date, eat all you can and enjoy the company. They'll be dying for the lost slice of apple pie you are, baby.

"Please?"

Gina pressed her forehead to the floor. She had no energy left to run, and grad school hadn't taught survival skills.  "Okay. Just for a while."

"Thank you."

The simple courtesy soothed. She uncurled herself and walked to the table, where there was a pitcher of water. Beside it, a glass and a square wooden box. Before, she hadn't registered anything but the food.

With her fear eased, she felt only hunger.

"Try to eat slowly. Otherwise you'll be sick."

Gina forced herself to count as she chewed. Eight-nine-ten-swallow.

"I'm sorry you're so hungry. It must be terrible up there."

Inadequate word. A tear splashed on her hand. Sorrow swelled her throat until she could barely breath. So consumed with fear, she hadn't had time to feel loss. Now she was full to bursting with it.

"What's your name?"

"Gina." It seemed so important that someone know her. She'd had a productive, socially meaningful job, maintained sterling credit, made her bed every morning.

"Gina." The voice seemed to savor the sound. "In the box, there's something that might help."

Even before her trembling fingers opened the latch she knew what she'd find. The needle winked in the tiki's flicker. Jeffy had filled her veins after the first trick gone bad. She was on a fast track to addiction, didn't care. Just surviving wasn't enough. She wanted to feel good.

But after running away from a man with the broken beer bottle and the worst of sexual intentions, she had to ask, "What will I owe you for it?"

"Just to share. That's all."

Relief hit like an avalanche. "It's your stuff, of course I'll share." She wanted to thank him for the food, the rescue. The heroin and brief safety. And most of all for the courtesy. But she didn't want to seem weak or eager to please. So she tied the rubber around her arm, sterilized the needle in the flame and slid the point under her skin. She injected only half, returned the syringe to the box and waited to float away.

Instead, adrenaline surged. Her nerves caught fire, tracing red glowing paths into her brain. "What did you give me?"

"I promise it won't hurt."

Pressure built inside her head like steam trapped between skull and gray matter. Fog clouded her vision and she screamed.

"Try not to be afraid. It's so much better if you aren't afraid."

The pressure in her skull broke, blasted through her spine and nerves.  She lost her body sense, felt multiplied, folding-doll Ginas linked hand to flimsy hand. The taste of Ivory soap fouled her tongue, just like when her crazy aunt washed out her mouth for saying pee-pee. She'd been so afraid of that old woman. An old scar on her left calf, the souvenir of a summer bicycle crash, blossomed into remembered pain as head-over-heels, out-of-control vertigo rolled her. The sound of a slammed door echoed through her ribs, along with the uncertain rush that came every time her drunken dad stormed out: would he come back, would he stay away, and which did she want? Her body flooded with memories and their sensory experiences, a whirlpool of them, drowning her.

Whispering sounds closed in. She felt soft touches on her face and neck. Something smoothed her forehead. Another something burrowed into her hair. The touches turned into multiple pricks, just like the needle.  The pressure and the memories gushed away,  draining her into blissful unconsciousness.

∞

When she opened her eyes, Gina thought things were normal again. Waking in a bed, feeling rested, warm, anticipating breakfast but not pinched with need -- normal. Then she remembered, and saw the figure standing over her.

"Don't be startled."

Gina tensed, ready to dive or scramble or attack.

"I'm Luis." He mixed Hispanic and African-American traits well, but was incoming-freshman young. "You're Gina, right?"

His wasn't the voice she remembered from last night. "What happened? Where am I?"

Luis raised an old-fashioned gas lamp to illuminate the room. It looked like someone's two car garage, the overhead doors bricked up with cement blocks. Six empty camping cots dotted the oil-smeared cement. She'd woken on the seventh, with no memory of how she'd gotten there.

"You're safe," he said.

"Everybody keeps telling me that." After food and sleep, she felt strong enough to question, strong enough to threaten. She sent an internal query through her muscles and nerves. Whatever drug she'd taken last night, it left behind the anti-hangover.

Luis sighed and rolled his eyes. "You're welcome to stay here as long as you want."

"Where's here?"

"Our little haven, guarded and safe."

"Our?"

Luis gestured at the empty beds. "There used to be more of us, but now it's just me and Marax. And you."

"Marax?" It sounded foreign. Maybe Greek.

Luis set the oil lamp on a small chest of drawers. "You met him last night. You can join him for breakfast. If you want to."

Breakfast sounded wonderful, but…"What did Marax do to me?" Remembering the release of that internal pressure rippled her skin with gooseflesh.

Luis tilted his head, smiling. "You feel good now, don't you?"

She did. Pushing up her sleeves, she found no scratches from her crawl through the tunnel, no bruises from her fall from the street.

"If you feel good, what else do you need to know?" Luis tapped the chest of drawers. "There's some scavenged clothes in here." He pointed to the room's far corner, screened off with blue tarps strung from the ceiling. "You can wash up over there. I'll be back in a little while."

He left through a thick metal door. No lock clicked. So she was free to leave if she wanted to, but why would she want to? She scrubbed herself clean using a bucket of cold water. The dresser drawers yielded a selection of basics: panties and boxers, generic t-shirts and sweats.

Never did she think she'd be grateful to wear a stranger's panties.

Luis returned to lead her out of the garage, through a utility room with empty shelves and thick, bare cables where the washer and drier had been. Behind an accordion folding door, stairs took them down to a wooden door that opened into the room with the table, the needle and the black curtain.

A box of Cheerios awaited her, only one place set. Luis returned the way they'd come, leaving Gina alone. The black curtain flickered in some unfelt breeze.

"Good morning."

Gina froze, the cereal box suspended. She remembered this voice, presumably Marax.

"Did you sleep well?"

Cheerios clattered against the chipped china "I slept very well, thanks. But now I have some questions." She didn't want this guy thinking she was passive and easy.  She started out simply, so she'd know if he lied. "Your name is Marax?"

"Marax, yes." He pronounced it with a rolling purr to the "r."

"Are you going to join me for breakfast?" A nicer way to ask why he remained just a voice and hadn't shown himself.

"I am with you," Marax said.

Familiar exasperation washed through her, felt each time her students tried to weasel out of failed exams and unfinished assignments with flimsy sophistry. "I mean sit here at the table with me."

"I can't." His tone, so rich before, turned flat, bleak. "I have to stay…where I am."

Gina turned in her chair to stare at the black curtain. It twitched in the shadows. "Where are you?"

"Do you like Cheerios? I can have Luis try to find something else, if you have a favorite."

The evasion set Gina's nerves on edge. She studied the curtain, detected no rod running the length of the room, no hooks in the ceiling tiles. With her bowl of Cheerios, a hand steadily moving cereal to her mouth, she took a few steps across the room.

"Please stop," Marax said, his tone without threat but filled with sincere discomfort.

Gina stopped, but not soon enough. The hair on her arms quivered and stood up. The curtain she thought was fabric was more like fog, or static rolling over a broken TV screen.

She retreated to the table, fighting for calm. Her hands shook so badly that she spilled the bowl of cereal. Cheerios scuttled like beetles across the table.

"I'm sorry to frighten you."

"What…?" What's going on? What are you?  What's going to happen to me? She wanted to ask it all. She wanted to ask nothing and climb under the table.

In answer, Marax said, "You need somewhere warm and safe, with food and water. I can give you that. I just need to share the drug with you. That's all I'll ever ask."

Gina sank into the chair, missed it, collapsed to the floor. Her vertebrae jarred and her jaw rattled. "I can't take any more." She meant only to think it, but the whisper escaped. "I just want my life back."

"I wish I could give you that." The voice paused. "No, that's a lie. I'm very happy you're here. I usually only get the homeless, the junkies."

Ironic anger pushed back her fear. "I’m a junkie hooker."

For a camera-flash instant, the curtain of static and fog flared with a network of blue veins. "You were surviving the best you could in circumstances you never anticipated."

Strange source for validation, but Gina felt it hook her more deeply than the drug, the courtesy, or the stranger's panties.

"I usually get people who are just too afraid to give up and die." A moment of silence conveyed the essence of a shrug. "Not very interesting company."

Gina heard loneliness in the disembodied voice. Empathy overshadowed fear: she knew how to fear being alone. "I'm an English professor. Was, anyway. I was teaching contemporary lit when…" How to describe the past weeks in just a sentence or two, or without breaking down into tears?

Marax seemed to understand. "Who's your favorite author?"

Jeffy had never asked her that, nor any man who'd used her. "Tom Robbins."

"I like poetry. Leonard Cohen's song lyrics, especially."

"He is good."

Silence floated down like snow between Gina and the fog-static curtain.

"Will you stay?" Marax asked, the need plain and unashamed in his voice.

Gina responded in kind. "Will I be safe?"

"Always. And you can leave anytime you like."

A pretty lie. Where could she go? She had no essential skill to trade her way into one of the fiercely guarded enclaves she'd heard had organized outside of town. Thematic deconstruction had no value anymore.

Gina glanced at the wooden box on the table. "What's that drug?"

More silence.

"I won't take it again if you don't tell me what it is."

"I don't want to keep secrets. I just don't want to frighten you."

His continued concern for her welfare, both physical and emotional, was more addicting than heroin could ever be. "You said it wouldn't hurt me."

"And it won't. It works on your brain, activating remembered sensory experiences."

She tasted a ghost of Ivory soap on her tongue.

"It's something I'm addicted to." He sounded ashamed of it.

"The drug?"

"No." Another silent equivalent of a shrug. "The experiences."

"And you…" She remembered the needle-like pricks at the back of her neck and all around her skull.

"I link to your brain and share the experience."

She remembered the smiling Luis saying how good it felt, the six empty beds in the garage. "With Luis, too? And others?"

"There were others, but now it's just you and Luis. The violence up there weeded out the vulnerable ones quickly." Marax didn't sound sad about that. "Nothing I do will ever hurt you. In fact, the whole experience makes you healthier and stronger." 

Gina rubbed the smooth skin of her forearm. She should be afraid, but being out in the chaos was so much more frightening than Marax.

"What happened to you out there?" Marax's voice seemed closer, almost a whisper in her ear. An acoustic oddity of the room, she thought. She put her back against the rough cement wall, drew her knees to her chest.

"I went to teach my Contemporary American Lit, but nobody showed. Not the students. Not the administrators. When I got back home, my townhouse was on fire. So I went to the bank to get some money for a hotel room. Credit cards don't work anymore. I had to have cash. But the bank wasn't open." In the flickering tiki light, no longer hungry or frightened, the memory didn't hurt so much. "I waited all day, then I went to one of the Red Cross shelters. Went back to the bank the next day, and the next day. I went for a week. It never opened. Then this bunch of people, a street gang I guess, took over the Red Cross shelter. I ended up sleeping in the lobby of a movie theater with three of my students and a man who said he used to sell cars. Jeffy."

She heard the sneer in her voice, knew Marax did, too, when he asked, "The man you were running from?"

Gina didn't want to talk about Jeffy. "It's terrible out there," she said, and hoped Marax wouldn't pry.

"I'm sorry." He sounded like he meant it, as if he would try to fix it, if he could.

Gina rested her head against the cement wall, felt the cool stubbly surface push against the skin over her skull. "What's your favorite Leonard Cohen song anyway?"

"Hallelujah."

"That's a good one."

"It's so wonderful to have you to talk with. Luis is nice, but he isn't as educated or experienced as you are."

Gina heard an eager vibration in his voice and closed her eyes. "What do you look like?"

Marax hesitated. Then, "Nothing like you. I'd prefer we didn't discuss it."

Gina didn't argue. Nothing like you settled like a seed in her imagination. She needed distraction. "Sisters of Mercy. That's my favorite."

"We weren't lovers like that," Marax recited softly.

"And besides," Gina finished, "it would still be alright."

∞

Weeks passed. The rhythm of Gina's life came on the downbeat of the small wooden box and the syringe inside, the pressure and the sweet release. Luis explained that the drug rode her emotions into her brain, extracting memories and experiences that matched her current feelings. Fear raised more fear. Happiness resurrected happiness. And lately, she always felt happy, eager to be with Marax. Surely it was just another addiction, nothing more. 

Still, a request slipped from her mouth just before the needle slid under her skin. "I want to see you."

After a long pause, Marax said, "I would frighten you away." 

With syringe in hand, Gina crossed the room to stand with her nose just inches from the fog-static: her habit when they discussed anything important. "Shocked. Startled. But not afraid. Not of you. Never of you."

Acknowledging her feelings was sweet as the release of the drug's pressure. Besides, when she filled her veins she knew what memories would surface. She couldn't keep this secret from Marax.

"Please don't ask me to do this." The fog-static curtain shivered, a wave like a snake cutting through dark water.

Gina put her palm as close to the swirling surface as she dared. The one time she'd experimented with breaching the barrier, the nerves in her fingertip had jumped and burned for three days. This close, she could feel sparks of energy, a current of power. "You sound like the one who's afraid."

"You'll be horrified." The color of the curtain darkened. Shadows played through its energy patterns. "You'll leave."

"You don't want me to leave?" She whispered the question so softly, would he be able to hear, wherever he was?

His voice answered just as softly, as if he didn't want anyone else to hear. "I don't think I can live without you."

An expression of love, or admission of addiction? Gina didn't care. Trembling inside and out, she backed away, knelt on the floor, held the needle above the vein. "Come out now." Normally he waited until the effects of the drug clouded her eyes. Now if he wanted his fix, he'd comply with her demand. "Let me see you."

Marax didn't answer. The static-fog curtain didn't react.

"Marax?" No denying what she heard in her voice. She'd called out to men in that tone before Jeffy, when she still believed in love. Funny how faith got restored. "Please?"

Her word hit the static-fog like a stone in a pond. Concentric ripples fanned out from the center. Ozone, then sulfur, then something milky and sweet hit her nose. The fog-static bulged, then ripped away. Ribbons of spiraling energy fluttered into the room, clinging to the thing pushing through. At first Gina thought arm with its hand severed at the wrist, only it was three times as thick as her arm. Ropes of muscles flexed under gray-mottled skin: muscles in a strange configuration, muscles never meant to link with a human shoulder joint.

What she thought of as the wrist stump pulsed and expelled a half dozen minor appendages. Gina thought tongues-intestines-snakes and, in spite of the courage of her heart, she scrambled back before she could stop herself.

The tongues, the snakes, whatever they were with their tips tense and sharp, froze in the air just an arm's length away.

"I warned you." Marax's voice had never sounded closer. Never sounded sadder. It broke the spell of fear.

Gina slid the needle into her vein. She caught a ribbon of Marax in both hands. The cool, slick feeling of his skin warred with memories of thicker, hotter things. She pressed the sharp tip against her temple, felt the quick puncture pain in a half-dozen spots while remembering sensations of different penetrations.  The pressure broke like the sun across her, and she fell into joyful oblivion.

∞

When Gina regained consciousness Marax was gone. When the feeding was finished he always retreated behind the impenetrable static-fog curtain. After-play was a part of her past. She felt a tinge of remorse as she stood up and headed back to her own bed to sleep it off.

On the other side of the door, Luis startled her. His face and neck were flushed, his eyes wide and wild. His fly was open and he wiped his hand on his pants. "What did he look like?" His voice was hoarse.

Gina could do nothing but stare. Did he listen at the door every time? Did he…every time?

"What did he look like?" Luis lunged at her. "Tell me!"

"He was beautiful," Gina whispered.

Tears overflowed Luis's eyes. "He hasn't shared with me for weeks." He ran up the stairs. A slammed door cut off the sound of his sobs.

∞

"I have a surprise for you. I hope you like it."

Marax sounded nervous. It made Gina smile. 

"I hope you understand."

Now he sounded troubled. Gina stepped close to the fog-static curtain.

He said, "I just want to make sure you're happy. I always want you to be happy."

Luis entered their room -- unprecedented, as they were always alone when doing the drug. Trailing behind him, docile like donkeys, came three naked men. Gina recognized the opiate glaze on their eyes. Jeffy memories pricked her, uncomfortable, unwanted. "What is this?"

"Thank you, Luis," Marax said after Luis had arranged the doped men in a line against the far wall.

Luis left without looking at Gina. She hadn't told Marax about how crazy he'd been. No sense rocking their life raft.

"Which one do you like the best?" Marax asked.

Gina kept her face toward the static-fog and away from the line-up. "What are you doing? I don't understand."

Ozone, sulfur, then milky and sweet. Marax pushed through the curtain with his oddly-jointed, oddly-muscled limb. "Pick the one you think is most attractive and lead him over to me."

"Marax --"

"Please." His voice tickled her inner ear. "I just want to give you everything. Trust me."

Trust wasn't her issue. He still shied from her touch, as if he couldn't really believe that she wasn't afraid. Now she was afraid, but didn't want him to know. So she chose the broadest shoulders, a body that even ravaged by drugs and deprivation promised protection and refuge, just what Marax meant to her. The man responded like a horse to her tug on his wrist, following her with shuffling steps to the static-fog curtain.

The ribbons of Marax unfurled from the stump, rising like cobras and spitting out a myriad of tiny tongues. The ribbons braided together and tiny tongues pierced the back of the man's neck.

Gina felt an unexpected surge of jealousy, as if she'd just witnessed her lover kiss somebody else.

The man tilted and stumbled. He lumbered a few steps. The muscles in Marax's limb flexed wildly under the mottled skin, then the man stood straight.

"So strange," Marax said, his voice coming from the other side of the static-fog as the man turned his head toward Gina, "balancing on just the two legs."

The heroin glaze cleared from the eyes, and Gina recognized Marax looking out at her. The stoned man and his echoes of Jeffy were gone. "What did you do?"

The man's arm lifted in a jerky motion, brushed Gina's hair. "I see your memories. I know what you're missing."

Anticipation and dread stretched Gina's nerves. "Will you feel it like me…like a human?" If he could, why did he use the drug? Why not get the experiences first-hand? Or, first tentacle.

"I don't have the neurology necessary to process sensory input, and I don't have the talent for controlling his body and reaping his mind at the same time."

"So you're doing this just for me?"

The body's arms, clumsy but strong, pulled Gina in. "Questions later. I can't keep his body alive for very long."

Gina jerked away, horror scorching her anticipation. "You killed him?"

Marax grasped Gina's wrists with the body's hands. "He was already dead. Just a matter of time. Gina!" He jerked her close and trapped her against the body's chest. "You need this. I need you. Please."

Gina felt her body respond in agreement. This was her life now. Adjustments must be made. It didn't matter if he loved her or was just addicted to her neural energy. She loved him, and this was the only way.

The head tilted down. "May I kiss you?"

Hesitantly, Gina curled her hand around the body's neck. She closed her fingers around the braided ribbons of Marax where they burrowed into the spinal column before she let herself be kissed. 

∞

Three days later, Gina woke to unexpected pain. She'd forgotten just how badly things could hurt.

"Wake up, professor."

Jeffy? Gina focused her eyes. Jeffy! His knees ground into the curve of her elbows, his body weight crushing her. He put the flat of a hunting knife against her cheek.

"You thought you got away? No one gets away."

Over Jeffy's shoulder she saw Luis watching and sneering. He had listened at the door, when she'd first seen Marax and when she'd told Marax about Jeffy.

Jeffy's face pushed close, blocking everything out. "Did you miss me?" The knife flashed. Pain lashed under her chin. She barely registered it above her panic.

Gina's muscles convulsed, throwing Jeffy off her body. He hadn't anticipated her Marax-given strength. She barreled past Luis, knocking him down. She had to get to Marax.

But she wasn't moving as quickly as she wanted. Halfway across the utility room, she realized why. She couldn't catch enough breath. Half the oxygen whistled uselessly through her cut throat. She half ran, half fell down the stairs, pushed open the door, stumbled past the card table, the tiki lamp, before Jeffy caught her. With a hand on her shoulder he spun her around. The knife split her skin, scraped her ribs, plunged like a cannon ball through her chest. She tipped backwards. Though the world bounced on impact, she didn't feel anything when she hit the floor.

Jeffy grabbed her hair, tugging like he wanted to rip off her head. Then he screamed and jumped back, gibbering, "What the-what the-what the---"

Ozone, then sulfur, then milky and sweet. At least she'd see Marax once before dying. She couldn't complain about the way things turned out. Losing everything, she'd found so much more. God, she would miss him.

At the delicate juncture of spine and neck, a familiar pain wiped away the rest. Her eyes swam in her head. She thought death was something she'd face completely, utterly alone, but she wasn't alone.

The world heaved up. She saw her hands, all bloody, reaching out. Dizzy, she felt herself step forward. Why did she walk like a drunk?

The answer flowed through her nerves and into her consciousness. She was not Gina, or not just Gina, anymore. Gina-Marax. Marax-Gina. It felt more complete than sex ever could: entered and penetrating, every barrier broken.

Jeffy came with the knife. Her hand came up, stopped it. The point broke through her skin, just below the joint of her ring and middle fingers. She jerked the knife from Jeffy. He stared at her hand, stared at her as she pulled the blade loose.

"Thank you for this," Gina-Marax said. "We never would have known…" How could they have guessed?…no, it made perfect sense. Suspended in joy, Gina-Marax saw the pattern. Love and addiction, Gina and Marax -- all neurologically driven. Gina and addiction reaching outside for stimuli that might soothe their isolation. Love and Marax stretching inward, linking to others but cut off from taste, touch, scent. The remnants of just-Gina sensed the vastness of what had been just-Marax: rolling dry dunes of hungering neurons. Now he reconfigured like blooming flowers as Gina rained on the matrix, both eager for the change.

The knife went into Jeffy like he was made of chocolate pudding and cream cheese. She remembered that delightful taste, shared the memory with Marax while Jeffy tipped away and Luis screamed.

Gina-Marax receded from the broken body that had been just Gina. Through the eyes the floor came up fast, then sight fractured into a multifaceted awareness of form and heat and vibrantly-colored energy. Gina-Marax sensed two bodies on the floor, dead, meaningless, and Luis screaming, seeming almost as lifeless as the bodies. Lingering just-Gina wondered how she'd survived alone in that lump of flesh. Without the sensations she'd have gone insane. Lingering just-Marax licked greedily across her neural energy, learning the patterns that would open up the sensual world.

Easing from her old self, just-Gina sensed others linked to Marax, others like Marax, vast patterns of loneliness, learning that he had discovered the way to completeness. She had one last human sensation, a dizzy rush as her world split apart and Marax’s world broke through, hungry and eager for what she’d help create. She had one last human thought: addiction or love? Just-Marax didn't care, and in the next moment, they were joyfully new.

© 2008 Jo Dillon