www.RayGregory.com

 

 

 

 

BudBin Dream Girl

 

by Ray Gregory

 

 

 

 

Like half of humanity, Laurie Wells sought adventure at BudBin — where the other half always seemed to be selling it. Probably the most recognized face on the planet belonged to the smiling young woman on BudBin’s home page. “Rent your eyes and ears, or tag along with someone else’s,” she would always coo. “Do your thing, have fun, make money. The world is your BudBin.”

     Laurie set her pay preference on her BudBin account to Pay as you go. Dangling those dollars, dropping one here or there when she was pleased, always got the best results. It made everything seem more personal and immediate, like a little cash-credit smile or thanks. In the poorest regions of the world, setting the tip button as low as a quarter or even a dime assured eager service. Laurie could be “walking along” with someone in an out-of-the-way bazaar somewhere on the other side of the globe when she suddenly saw a shop she wanted to enter. When she asked so sweetly and they heard that little cash blip, they would never say no.

     So what was she in the mood for today? The kids were off to school. Her husband was at work. The maid had been as thorough as ever, so nothing needed doing around the house. Laurie figured she really did fit the BudBin stereotype: the bored, affluent housewife slumming for cheap goods and thrills from developing-world lackeys. Yeah, right, she thought, so much for stereotypes. The most creative headcam jocks became real-life sensations. They made fortunes. They raked it in even as BudBin collected its little behind-the-scenes fee for every interaction. Everyone was an Internet tour entrepreneur these days. What a boon for the nobodies of this world! With China and India cranking out cheap headcams by the gazillions and satellite Internet access worldwide, was there anyone out there who wasn’t on BudBin? Even she hooked on a headcam when she went out so a gaggle of Somalis or whoever could get an eyeful at the local mall. They’d ooh and ah the whole time, ask all kinds of questions, mainly about prices. It made her feel like the jaded star of some decadent, exotic, international soap.

     Patsy, her best friend, said virtual shopping and sight-seeing were such bores. Laurie should try Trade. Trade! She couldn’t believe Patsy did that. Internet buddy sex? “Why not?” Patsy said with a shrug. You just opt anonymous, do a face paste, change your whole body if you like. You leave no trail. It’s completely safe. Confidentiality guaranteed. “You can do anything you want with a different face, and no one will know — unless, of course, you brag about it,” and Patsy winked, because after all, she’d want to hear all the juicy details. “Don’t be so naive, Laurie. Live a little. Have some naughty fun.”

     The last time they’d talked, Practical Patsy had even waxed philosophical: “It’s all just a game, like life. Who even knows for sure what’s what? Physical reality’s just technical stuff: atoms, energy, molecules, things you can’t even see. Everything of any real interest in the world is pure mind play, especially when you ditch the everyday distractions. In Trade you’re dealing solely with another mind. It’s pure like that, pure make-believe, fantasy.”

     “But,” Laurie had said,  “that’s just it, you don’t really know who you’re ‘dealing’ with.”

     “So what?” Patsy’d answered. “If the other person’s a pimply-faced kid in real life, or an ugly old guy, or even another woman, who cares? If they’re good enough that you can’t tell they aren’t the real thing, then for all practical purposes their mind really can be what they say. So who cares? Let them have their fun, and you yours. If they don’t rock you, just move on. It’s not like there isn’t plenty to choose from. The bottom line is, you have give as good as you get, and vice versa. If you wanna find your prince charming, you gotta be his dream girl.”

     But Laurie still found the idea of Trade disturbing. Even hiding behind a phony face, it was still her, her body, her self. She’d know what she’d done. But as Patsy said, it was completely safe, designed that way, guaranteed. Besides, your partner was on the other side of the world somewhere. Just don’t let out your real name or address, and certainly not your real face.

     Laurie wondered if maybe she was indeed missing something. Maybe Patsy was right about her lightening up, being more playful. As for the “adulterous” aspect, her final qualm, Patsy said, “Are you kidding? What, ‘mental’ adultery? It isn’t really you, not physically.” Patsy smirked, then added, “It’s not like you aren’t a fantasizing pro already, Laurie,” referring to the spicy, contemporary romance novels Laurie liked to curl up with. “C’mon, every girl fantasizes about cheating or being a porn star — or even worse.”

     Patsy could be so infuriatingly smug, especially when she wasn’t necessarily wrong. Laurie was in her bathrobe now, sitting before her computer after getting her husband and the kids off. She sat down her coffee cup by the keyboard. Was there really any question what she was going to try today?

 

#

 

At the BudBin website Laurie designed her screen face. First she mixed and matched her desired skin tones and textures. She was pale in real life, ghostly pale according to Patsy, who always told her she needed to stop wearing such baggy clothes and get more sun and open air. So Laurie tanned everything now, but just a shade or so. She didn’t want to look like just another basted beach babe. Perfect! Now at least she was a healthier shade of pale. Then she searched the FeaturesBin. She picked out fuller lips, a narrower nose, some really sultry eyes — great lashes! — though she kept her own powder-blue irises which people always noticed and admired. She decided her face should be a tad wider, with higher cheekbones, a squarer jaw. She’d always wondered too what it would be like to have long, straight, gleaming blond hair instead of her mouse-brown, shoulder-length curls. So why not?

     When she pasted on her new screen face — God, she did a good job! — it was eerie at first. It moved just like her own face. The eyes moved and blinked with hers. The lips smiled and pursed with hers. It was her, yet not her. She saw what Patsy meant. No one could tell. Just to make sure she went to the VoiceBin. She picked a voice with the slightest Southern drawl — southern classy, not trashy — then she clicked on the slider and lowered the pitch some. Her new voice was every bit as sultry now as her new eyes.

     But why stop there? She stood before her computer’s camera, slid her bathrobe from her shoulders, let it drop to the floor. She added a cup size to her breasts, no make that two, just two full cups each — she didn’t want to overdo it. Then she added five pounds, no ten, to her body. She fleshed out her hips and thighs some. She wasn’t really that bad before — people told her all the time she had a runway model’s slender bod — but now she looked exciting! She wished she were looking in a mirror instead of at her computer screen. She even stepped back and shimmied like a stripper, something she’d never do with only her real body. Her new screen breasts bobbed and swayed. Her perfect blond hair whisked and flailed. And it all looked real! No wonder Trade was so popular.

     Laurie took a deep breath now, then scanned the Trade listings. “Trade” meant no-charge sharing, except for the little BudBin fees behind every transaction. For example, you could walk through a museum in your hometown and share the local art with someone on another continent, as they shared the delights of their local tourist attractions with you, even-steven. But everyone knew, of course, ninety-five percent of Trade was really just body sharing, people getting naked before their computers to watch each other pleasure themselves, generally in the privacy of their own bedrooms.

     Laurie wanted her first Trade tryst to be something exotic though, someone, someplace that even Patsy couldn’t dismiss as lame. Laurie’d always thought tall, swarthy men in kaftans were dangerously sexy. She didn’t really know why. Maybe from some movie she’d seen as an impressionable young girl, or a character from some novel she’d long since forgot. So why not a real desert type, a guy who still rode the sands on horseback? He didn’t even need to speak English all that well. In fact, it might have been better if he didn’t speak it at all. They could communicate with only their eyes. Laurie could just imagine him, beaten by the sun and heat, retiring to his goat-skin tent for a romantic repast, unwrapping his American dream girl come true.

     So Laurie typed her exotic criteria into the various boxes, then clicked BudSearch. Immediately her jaw dropped. Look at them all! She giggled nervously as her eyes darted about the lists, the photos, the bios. There must have been thousands, page after page. She decided to roam far from the beaten path. She randomly picked page 182, then scrolled down, dazed. Wait. She stopped mid page. One face stood out. It was craggy, leathered, strong. The eyes were dark and deep. He was old too, maybe even sixty or more. It was hard to tell with a face so weathered. She couldn’t imagine the average woman choosing him, not with all the other choices — probably all phony, enhanced faces like hers now. Yet she was intrigued. He looked so confident, like he’d seen things, knew things. She figured a man’s character, his inner strength, outweighed all else. Wait, she thought, maybe that was — in fact, it must have been — his real face! He was even wearing a kaftan! Khalid Hashim Abdullah was the name. His bio said he spoke English too. He ought “the living river, the desire of the mountain.” A romantic? Even a poet?

     Laurie clicked on Khalid Hashim Abdullah’s image. She saw he was online now, live. It must have been night wherever he was, probably literally on the other side of the world with a name like that.

     She thought a moment, then typed, Like? The one-word come-on seemed simple, hip, provocative. She attached a snap of her new face to the single word, including an ample swatch of her newly enhanced cleavage, then sent it.

     An instant later, her whole body trembled. Her cheeks burned from blushing. What had she done? What had she been thinking? She logged off BudBin, turned off her computer, hugged herself. She was no cyberslut like Patsy. She headed to the bathroom, brushed her teeth, took a long, hot shower.

     But after she glanced at the newspaper, then wandered about the house admiring the maid’s handiwork, she couldn’t resist any longer. What exactly was it about Khalid Hashim Abdullah? She went back online. When she returned to the BudBin site, she felt like she was creeping back in. Immediately she noticed a message for her — from Khalid Hashim Abdullah! It was a voice message. She took a deep breath, then clicked to listen.

     “What do you hide because you are not the true self?” said the deep, accented voice. That was all it said. Laurie was embarrassed. The voice seemed understanding, even kind. Its simple, earnest message seemed like more, much more, than her brash come-on had deserved. Like? — plus that wanton pic? She was a cyberslut, just like Patsy. This Khalid Hashim Abdullah didn’t sound, or feel, like some hormone-addled teenager. He seemed eerily authentic.

     Laurie sat back. She listened to the voice, and its simple message, over and over. Simple? The words were simple, but their meaning? “What do you hide because you are not the true self?” Was it obvious, or did she even get it?  What do you hide — because you are not the true self? Did he mean why hide if you weren’t showing your true self? Or was it more probing, more like what are you hiding from? The way he said it too, so sonorous, so familiar, as if he’d known her for years. The more she listened, the more it gnawed at her. It was like a mild rebuke, yet concerned, helpful, like an admonishment clothed in a soothing mantra.

     Suddenly, there was a new message — from him! She realized she’d forgot about her default account settings. She hadn’t opted to be hidden when she’d logged in at BudBin. He knew she’ was there now, live!

     “The package does not conceal the gift,” he said.

     Laurie hesitated. What to do? She texted, she blurted with her fingers, who r u?, then sent it.

     “I seek only the promise,” he said back, in the same deep, slow voice. “May I hear you now?”

     Laurie typed quickly, this isnt me, not really. i havnt done this b4.

    “I know that you are young again,” he said.

     Laurie stared at the screen. “Seek only the promise”? “Young — again”? Was he trying to be mysterious, or was it his awkward English? She enlarged his photo, imagined the voice coming from that face. Whatever it was he meant to say, his voice fit him perfectly.

     She took a deep breath. “What do you — want?” she finally said in barely more than a whisper.

     “Ah, may I see you — to see the real you?”

     Laurie held her breath now. Her head shook reflexively. “Wait,” she gasped, then feared she’d sounded desperate. Her hands shot to her hair, but wait, it wouldn’t be her real hair. That long, blond mane she’d picked was perfectly brushed, every strand. Her defenses flared. What was she thinking? The real her? Her real face? That was what he was asking for, right? There was no way her face would end up on some blog or even a porn site as some sick guy’s trophy.

     “The eyes do not see,” he said now. His voice too was only a whisper, a soothing, knowing whisper. “Show me how that you see the true self. It is that which is desired. It is that which is promised.”

     Laurie sighed. Well, the face she’d created and her new, improved body were a lot like how she’d really like to have looked. They’d do. She previewed her computer’s camera shot before making it available to him. Everything looked fine too: the beautiful blond woman, tweaked to perfection, sitting comfortably before her computer. She tugged her bathrobe closed about her neck just before she clicked.

     “Delightful!” he said after just a moment. Laurie smiled, relieved. Now she saw him too, live, moving, smiling. Just like in his photo, he had a beard, and a full head of graying hair. It was snowy white around the temples. His screen image was grainy though. She figured he didn’t have the best equipment, probably one of those cheap solar-battery laptops made for the desperately poor living in the middle of nowhere. He seemed to be in a small room at night. Light from a lamp or fire, or maybe just his computer screen, flickered on the shadowy clay wall behind him. “Is not talk sufficient to begin?” he said.

     “Sure,” Laurie said with a forced smile. She wondered what he wanted to talk about.

      “Slow going is good to begin, slow as the river sleeps in winter.”

     Laurie smiled more easily. She even giggled. “Slow is good,” she said, “just like a sleepy river.” His look, his manner! It was curious how comfortable he made her feel. She wondered what he wanted, really wanted. It didn’t seem like sex, at least not the tawdry kind of sex Trade was famous for. Was that really what she was after?

     “Tell me the secret. Why that you come to me?”

     “Oh, uh — you first,” Laurie blurted. “I mean, why are you here?” She hoped she hadn’t sounded as childish as his question had made her feel. It’d been like being nudged off balance as a teenager, like a new friend suddenly asking to know her most profound, personal truth.

     “Your spirit is pure, like the water of spring,” he said, his eyes softening. “The soul quests to reveal all things.” Laurie stared, uncertain. His words were so overdone, but from him — that voice, that face? It all fit. “You are as the moon, the hair a golden halo, the cheeks smooth like royal silk.”

     Laurie smiled. The thrill of his voice, his over-the-top flattery! It was like letting go with a good book, one of those books. Patsy would laugh, of course, but Laurie wondered if Patsy, with all her tawdry hook-ups with tanned and buff phonies, had any idea what real romance was, or how good Trade could be with just the right person.

     “Allow the passion to burn you. Allow it to release the soul. Only it will reveal the secret.”

     Laurie still wasn’t sure what he was talking about. But did the words really matter? His voice was so dreamy and earnest. She luxuriated in the tranquil cadence, the hushed tones. She let them course over her, through her, bathe her body and soul. He stared so raptly, so worshipfully. She could see the reflection of his glowing computer screen in his pupils — his screen with her image on it. It was as if he wanted her to share in his rapture, to see herself as he did, to see herself through his eyes.

     Laurie loosened her robe now. She slowly slid it off one shoulder, then the other, keeping her arms folded over her breasts. She watched his eyes. She felt tied to them, almost as if they were her own. Finally she lowered her arms to expose her breasts, glancing at herself in the little preview window on her screen. She held her breath in anticipation. But even as he stared just as intently, there wasn’t a mutter, not a hint of appreciation. Her new body, she could plainly see, looked great too, especially her breasts. What was it? Were bare breasts everyday in his culture? Were hips or thighs or even ankles his big turn-on?

     “Do you — like?” she finally asked, glancing down at her breasts, then shyly back at him.

     “Like?” he said gently, as if the question made no sense. She felt him looking through her now, seeing the real her, not her body, but her true self. Of course he could see only the image on his screen — that was exactly what Practical Patsy would point out — but Laurie felt there was more to it than that. What he’d just said, whatever he’d meant, about releasing the soul, revealing the secret, still echoed in her head. She felt he was trying to make a connection, trying to contact her mind directly with his own. She didn’t know if telepathy, or any such mystical thing, was real or even possible, or if it was some more mundane meeting of minds he intended. But whatever was going on, she felt he was way attuned to it than she was, or was it simply that he’ was more honest and open?

     She knew what he saw wasn’t her, not really her at all. The more intently he stared into her eyes, the more fake and deceitful she felt. It was as if he were trying to see through her, through all her nonsense. She had the urge to be herself with him, to let him in, to show him, this remarkable stranger, something that really was her, her to the core. Was this honesty? Trust? The beginning of something real?

     She flashed back to when she’d been a kid, when she’d first realized how different she was. It was shocking and painful, but it was her, what she truly was. Now she felt it was something he needed to know too. She remembered what Patsy had said, the last thing she’d said about Trade: “Go ahead, Laurie. Just be yourself. You can even… you know,” and Patsy had winked.

     Laurie rolled her desk chair back a little to give herself room. Then she settled back into it, sitting cross-legged, yoga-style, her robe bunched around her waist. She slipped her forearms out of the sleeves, her eyes still fixed on his. He had to see it, to know. Then with one freed hand, she caught her nearest ankle and lifted it effortlessly over her shoulder, then slid it impossibly — yet for her, comfortably — behind her back. Then she caught her other ankle and lifted it over and back too, locking it with the first.

     Suddenly a young boy sprang from the darkness behind Khalid Hashim. “Sahib, saran timbu, nuk ambar!” he shouted, pointing wide-eyed at the screen. For an instant, an eternal instant, Laurie couldn’t move, couldn’t untie the lewd knot she’d begun with her body. “No. Oh, no,” she cried.

     “Nash bawo. Tuk matur Angaish,” Khalid Hashim snapped at the boy. “English only in her presence. Yes, she bends as the river.” Then breathlessly he said to Laurie, “It is you. You found me. The Western magic works!”

     Laurie finally broke through her paralysis, slid out of her knot. Her feet crashed to the floor. She hugged a forearm over her bare breasts. “Oh, God!” she groaned, her shame skyrocketing. She pounded frantically at the keyboard with her free hand, unable to think how to turn her computer off. Then she leapt up, ripped her robe from around her waist, threw it over the screen. She fell back into her chair, staring in horror, gasping. She heard Khalid Hashim and the boy jabbering in their unknown tongue. She suddenly remembered the power button. Her hand shot to it. When the screen fell dark and silent, she scrunched back into the chair. She drew her legs up, hugged them to her breasts, pressed her burning cheeks against her knees. That boy! He’d only been ten or eleven! What has she done?

 

#

 

Laurie couldn’t get the boy out of her mind. He was about the same age as Craig, her oldest son. And the way he’d pointed at her…. He’d seemed more thrilled than horrified. It’d been dark though, and the picture grainy, and with that strange language…? But what kind of man would let a boy that age...? Or had he even known the boy’d been looking over his shoulder? It’d been her, after all, her idea. She had done it! Was that even why she’d come to Trade, the real reason, the reason, to expose her sordid bending to a total stranger?

      When Laurie was fully clothed again, she phoned Patsy, the only person she could talk to about this.

     “What?!” Patsy said, as soon as Laurie mentioned the boy. But when Laurie admitted to nothing more than baring her breasts, Patsy said, “So — that’s it?” Then she sighed, exasperated. “You have to take things in context, Laurie. The kid probably lives in a one-room mud hut somewhere. He sees live nakedness every day, even sex. Childbirth’s like a town meeting in places like that. The women breastfeed their kids till they’re six years old!”

     Laurie figured it was just as well she hadn’t told Patsy the whole story. Not that Patsy knowing her secret had made any difference before. What a mistake it’d been, showing off like that in yoga class in middle school. The yews! and yucks! Laurie’s thirteen-year-old shyness, not to mention her budding breasts, had made her self-conscious enough. But yoga class had suckered her. Surely her secret “talents” would have been appreciated there, if anywhere. Her traditional parents had thought it odd she’d wanted to take yoga — yoga with its exotic taint of Kama Sutra lewdness. They’d forgot how weirdly flexible she’d been when she was small. She’d long since learned to act like she’d outgrown it. “Gross!” someone had shrieked in the middle of yoga class, summing up the feelings of all her classmates perfectly, all of them straining to do just the simplest poses.

     There’d been only girls in the class, but the word had soon spread. All the boys too had wanted to see what she could do. They’d called her Pretzel Girl. Then had come the rumors, all the things kids would swear to, with such hush-hush certainty, that she could do — that she actually did! And the way she’d blushed, which everyone had taken as proof positive the rumors had been true. A couple of randy seniors from the high school had even asked her out.

     She’d vowed anew never to reveal her flexibility again. She’d fake-strained now at even the simplest things in yoga class. She’d cringed at the word double-jointed — what an obscene-sounding abnormality! That had been when she’d first got into wearing baggy clothes — as cover in case she’d absentmindedly overextended anything — as well as scarves and hats and big sunglasses and even the occasional boa. But her schoolmates had finally became bored with it all and moved on. There’d always been new kids to torment, plus the perennial nerds and geeks. In time, with no new evidence forthcoming, her freakishness had faded into the realm of vaguely remembered lore, some sort of alleged physical weirdness, but what exactly, who’d remembered, or cared? By the next school year, when she’d taken art, her abstract paintings had been considered the most twisted thing about her.

     Patsy, her best friend even then, had been curious, of course. Once, during a sleepover, she’d got Laurie to show her “everything,” after swearing she’d never tell anyone. Laurie had watched as Patsy’s eyes had see-sawed between wonder and horror. Before Laurie had done half of what she could do, Patsy’s jaw had dropped, then she’d gasped, then fidgeted. So Laurie had pretended she’d reached the limits of her contortions. “Weird” was all Patsy had said, shaking her head. Then, seeing the upside as always, Practical Patsy had squealed, “Hey, you could get a job with Cirque du Soleil!” But Patsy had never asked to see it again herself. Ever since then she’d referred to it simply as “that stuff you do,” obviously not wanting to call up anything too visual.

     Laurie had even kept it from Rick. Just once in college, soon after they’d started having sex, she’d slid an ankle behind her shoulder during foreplay. In the heat of things it’d seemed seductive, even natural. What a mistake! Rick’s hands had flown from her body as if she’d been white-hot. The horror on his face! She’d apologized frantically. It’d been a bad joke, just a useless, tasteless thing she’d picked up in yoga class, she’d said. She’d sworn she’d never do it again, and she never had, or anything remotely like it around him. She loved Rick. It was good he didn’t like it, a sign of his character. What kind of woman would test a man with something like that anyway, a man she was actually interested in, the man she would marry?

     Alone in her bedroom though, before her full-length mirror, Laurie tested it to the limits: She scrunched her arches and bent her feet back at the ankles till they resembled pictures of Chinese foot binding. She pulled her shoulders out of joint and twisted her arms till, with her pale skin and lean frame, she looked like a broken, discarded mannequin. When she did the same with her hip joints and legs, she was the epitome of obscenity. She could fold her torso, forward or backward, till her head was practically…. It was all so lowlife and tawdry, so freak show/peep show sick. All that was missing was the leering barker shouting brazen come-ons and collecting the quarters. Why would anyone want to look so shamed and broken?

     She’d scoured the Internet. She’d seen the pictures of contortionists, especially the women, always naked and obscene: licking themselves, working dildos, grinning shamelessly, their minds as twisted as their bodies. Thank God, she wasn’t desperately poor, or mentally challenged, or pathologically submissive, or who knew what?

     When she let herself go, it was like her body was tortured and humiliated, stretched on the rack, all her joints unhinged. What was the point of it all without feeling any pain? But wasn’t that it, the sick fascination: seeing someone mock disfigurement and pain so convincingly? What kind of person would want to look so hideously deformed, would willingly provide such entertainment? Yet seeing herself like that gave her strength too. If she could face that in herself, what other horrors could she stare down?

     She knew what people were like, how visual they were. That was all they would have seen in her, all she would have been to them. Take Molly Reynolds down the block — second house from the corner. Molly Reynolds! Well, she could dress as low-cut as she pleased at PTA meetings, but all people saw when they looked at her was her backyard cookout antics. Striking matches and lighting cigarettes with her toes like that — with her monkey toes?! Basking in the titillation of the neighborhood husbands lounging in lawn chairs, beer bottles teetering on their bellies? How could anyone look at her without seeing a trained monkey? Would she be more ludicrous, more pathetic, if she even had a monkey’s tail?

     Molly had even come on to Rick once, at their first cookout when they’d moved to the neighborhood. Harmless flirting, right? Fortunately, her stupid monkey-toe tricks had grossed Rick out so completely, he’d never wanted to see her again. Molly Reynolds!

     Laurie was determined to keep her own “talent” secret. She’d never let it define her, never let it be what men craved in her. She’d actually been relieved by Rick’s reaction to it in college. What if he’d got off on it, even encouraged it? Would it have made him repulsive to her? Not that Rick was completely high-minded. He was kind and gentle, the perfect husband in so many ways. But he was also uncomfortable with feet, especially toes — ha, Molly! — and armpits and anuses and any excess body fat. He couldn’t stand fat people. And blood? Just the sight of it made him queasy. Even people with ruddy — “bloody” — complexions put him off. It was no wonder her — his “perfect wife’s” — pale, slender body was his ideal. That Molly Reynolds had better just keep out of the sun and shed some pounds and keep her stupid monkey toes to herself if she expected Rick to ever look at her again.

     Patsy’d always said it was just a meaningless physical “difference,” that was all, just a random mutation or whatever that made Laurie’s connective tissues so flexible. And as for the male fascination, that was just bondage on steroids. According to Patsy, even though men were so macho on the outside, their inner little boys were scared to death — especially of women they couldn’t control. Maybe they’d never got over being under their mommies’ thumbs. All that binding and strapping, all the high heels and fishnet stockings and garter belts and tight bustiers they wanted to see women in? That was just to make women seem easier to catch and control. That was even why they liked skinny women, Patsy said with obvious envy. But a woman with her actual body tied in a knot? A woman that pliable? A woman like Laurie? That was their ultimate turn-on.

     “You’re so funny, Laurie,” Patsy’d said once. “You’ve got this far-out thing about you, and all you wanna do is hide it and forget it. You’d rather hang out in the make-believe worlds of those books and magazines you read. I wish I could do some of that stuff you do — some of it anyway. Too bad Rick’s so unimaginative. I mean, some guys….” Patsy sniffed. “Look, Laurie, it’s just — different, that’s all. It doesn’t mean you’re warped, not your mind anyway. The kink’s always in the mind of the beholder. And if you gotta have something weird about you, it’s hardly the worst thing, since all you have do to keep it under wraps is remember not to bend anything too far.” Patsy snorted. “What’s really funny, Laurie, is how inflexible you can be.”

 

#

 

Laurie checked the range. Dinner was heating up fine, everything simmering peacefully under the purring vent hood. Her gleaming new kitchen had been Rick’s latest gift to her — to her, his “perfect wife.” She loved her new stainless-steel appliances, the marble countertop, enameled cabinets, tiled floor. Rick had just slung his coat and tie aside now and stretched out on the sofa to decompress after work. The kids were playing in their rooms. Laurie stared idly out the window over the sink at the setting sun. Her tidy suburban neighborhood was always so peaceful at sunset.

     The curious thing, she thought, wasn’t so much what she could do, as why she did it. Why in that yoga class? Why to Rick that time in college? Why for this Khalid Hashim Abdullah? — and that boy?! Why did she weaken like that? Why let her body take over without thinking? Wasn’t limiting herself second nature by now? But maybe that was it, her unconscious rebelling against the constant, thoughtless constraint. It was like a contortionist’s version of Tourette's Syndrome, with a literal obscene twist.

     She just couldn’t get that boy out of her mind. What if he’d been Craig? Seeing any woman naked and twisted like that…! But his own mother?! Could he ever have forgiven her? Could he ever have forgot? And now, his mom trolling for Trade at BudBin? Was she that bored, that disillusioned with marriage, parenting, life? Was all that just too “normal” for someone like her?

     After the late news was over on TV and the light in the kids’ rooms out, she offered to rub Rick’s back. It was their code, her way of saying she was ready if he was. It’d been almost two weeks now. Rick crawled into bed without his boxers — the sign he was ready too. He settled in facedown, his head nestled between the pillows. Laurie straddled his waist. She started kneading his shoulders, but soon she was bending over him, sweeping her roused nipples across his back. He squirmed impatiently. When she slid off him, he rolled over on her, then reached down to find her and plant himself.

     “Oh, Baby,” he sighed, clutching her whole-body now, his face buried in her hair as his mindless pumping began. Laurie wrapped her legs around his thighs, careful with him not to raise her feet any higher than his waist. She hugged him as her eyes fixed on the lazy spin of the ceiling fan over the bed. The shadowy, swirling blades, each like a woven, tropical leaf, carried her in ever dizzying circles. But Rick’s pumping slowed, got slower and slower, till it even stopped.

     “Rick?” she whispered, but he’d dozed off. He had mentioned he was tired while they’d watched TV. He worked so hard, and he was such a good provider. How many other wives these days didn’t have to work, or had such a wonderful home? And he was so good with the kids too. When she coaxed him off her, he woke and moaned, apologizing.

     “It’s okay, Honey,” she whispered. “You better get some sleep.”

     As she lay there, still watching the ceiling fan, she wondered what Khalid Hashim was doing now, what he’d thought, what that boy had been about. She finally drifted off herself.

 

#

 

After breakfast, with Rick and the kids gone again, Laurie faced her computer. When she went back to the BudBin site, there was a voice message from Khalid Hashim Abdullah: “Come again, please. We know who you are.”

    Laurie sighed. What was he talking about now? What kind of game was he playing? She felt she should just wait, maybe just forget about him all together, and the boy too. But she felt she had to face this Khalid Hashim Abdullah again — face him now just like she faced herself in her mirror. She noticed he was online now. What, was he waiting for her? She typed, what r u talking about u know me? why was that boy watching? i trusted you!!! and sent it.

     “All will be revealed,” Khalid Hashim responded seconds later. He wanted to talk face to face again. “You will not be tormented more,” he promised.

     Laurie stared at the little blinking button she had to click on to start Trade. She checked herself in the preview screen. She was in the same bathrobe as yesterday, with the same new face and hair and body. She snugged the robe high around her neck and tightened the belt, then sat up straight. When she clenched her teeth, she looked strong and resolute. Perfect! She clicked without saying anything.

     “Welcome,” Khalid Hashim said, bowing. “We are on the mountain top. All will be made clear.” He was wearing a headset now, with an eyescreen and headcam, sitting before his laptop with its camera. It was a split-screen image. Laurie could see him looking into his laptop, as well as what he saw with his headcam. When he turned, panning the horizon, she saw spires of jagged rock. Low, purple clouds couched the dusky sky beyond. She heard the longing howl of the wind.

     Now the boy stepped into the picture. Khalid Hashim glanced at him and said, “Timon chai.” Turning back to Laurie, he said, “The boy is the karingkata. This is a sign. He will show you.”

     “Please, Memsahib, to do this,” the boy said. He slipped his wool tunic from his shoulders and let it drop around his waist, then he turned to reveal a large tattoo on his back. Laurie looked closely, then gasped. The tattoo was of a woman, naked, horribly misshapen — her spine, neck, each limb yanked and twisted to impossible limits — something Laurie had only seen in her own mirror!

     “What is this? How did…?” Her hand flew to her mouth. “You said you know who I am?!”

     “You came,” Khalid Hashim said excitedly. “Your soul awakens. What you see on the karingkata, you will do this now? It is the sign. The awakening.”

     Laurie sat up, gripping the arms of her desk chair, straining away from her computer screen. “This is too weird,” she gasped, shaking her head. She sprang forward, closed her browser window, then fell back into her chair, panting.

 

#

 

That night in bed, Laurie watched the fan blades circling again. She hadn’t even been able to talk to Patsy this time. She could use some comforting, some distraction, but Rick would have to make the first move. He’d let her know when he was ready again. Best not to pressure him after last night’s instance of coitus doze-offus.

     What had that crazy Khalid Hashim been talking about anyway? Why had he wanted to see that? How could he have known? That tattoo! It’d been like the ultimate contortion, every twisted thing she could do, all of it at once. She followed the lazy fan blades, around and around, till her eyes finally drifted shut.

 

#

 

“Why? Why do you want to see that?” Laurie demanded the next day, facing Khalid Hashim again on her computer screen. He was back on the mountain top waiting for her.

     “You are the one. Look.” He clapped his hands. “Chailem kahirbrambda. Acoy,” he shouted, then panned the mountaintop with his headcam. Before him was a semicircle of women sitting cross-legged, their ankles resting on their knees yoga-style, their hands in their laps, palms up. Behind the women stood men in dark, hooded robes, shadowy, silent figures in the twilight, one man behind each woman. At the center of their attention was a large, flat stone illuminated by fire pots on either end. A solar-battery laptop sat on a rock outcrop behind it. When Khalid Hashim walked to the laptop and turned it on, her screen image split again. Laurie saw the women and men staring at her face on the laptop, as well as what Khalid Hashim looked at with his headcam.

     Then the boy stepped atop the flat stone. He was shirtless again, and he turned his tattooed back toward the women.

     “May we see it now?” Khalid Hashim said to Laurie.

     “What’s going on?” Laurie pleaded.

     Khalid Hashim gestured toward the women. “The honored one is yours. Choose her. It is when you will return to us.”

     “M — mine? What are you talking about?” Laurie glanced nervously at the women.

      Khalid Hashim stared at Laurie, his head cocked as if he expected her to suddenly understand. But she only said, “What? What is this?”

     “We are unworthy,” he said finally. “Yes, it is a lifetime. You will have them all.” He spun and raised his hand, then shouted at the men, “Nakchit pramba. Hailik coy.”

     Each man drew a long knife from under his robe. The women bowed their heads in unison. Some trembled and whimpered.

     “No, stop, wait,” Laurie shouted, chilled, breathless.

     “No?” Khalid Hashim said. He lowered his hand gently, and the men slid the knives back into their robes. Then he said, “You come back now from the West. You conquer the conquerors, as you foretold. Now your soul wakens to us. Now you will remember. You will be the true self. Come, see.” He turned and raised an arm. “Kanga nocktum. Brentar nobepaja,” he shouted, and the men gathered and lit torches from the fires.

     Khalid Hasshim’s headcam image on Laurie’s screen bobbed and flickered now as he led the men down the mountainside a short distance to the mouth of a cave. Then he chanted as the men proceeded into its shadowy maw. When they returned, they bore a large, woven basket. They set it down before Khalid Hashim, then backed off, falling to their knees.

     “Konsumiri kalinichon, nachinkato abutan,” Khalid Hashim pronounced. What seemed like a long blessing in the strange tongue followed, with Khalid Hashim laying his hands on the basket. His chanting was punctuated by the men shouting, “Boontwa, boontwa,” like solemn amens. The whole time Laurie’s eyes were fixed on the strange basket. Finally, Khalid Hashim lifted the woven lid and fell back bowing.

     “Come, see,” he said, creeping reverently back to the basket with his torch extended before him. “Your last incarnation.”

     When the torch lit up the inside of the basket, a mummified body stared out. It was a woman, naked, with long, tangled hair cascading to her shriveled breasts. Her sunken eyes and gaping mouth seemed to implore Laurie to look, to see. The mummy’s limbs and spine were contorted just like the tattoo on the boy’s back — just like Laurie bending all her parts to their limits. But the mummy’s sallow, parched skin, stretched taut over her ribs and bones, made her contortions even more astonishing. Laurie studied the mummy’s various tattoos in black and red, the twisting lines and dots and circles on the long-dead woman’s body. Then she noticed the skulls, the bed of skulls the mummy lay on!

     “You see, every year, always the most beautiful,” said Khalid Hashim breathlessly. “Now your soul knows.”

     Laurie took a deep breath, then another. Trancelike, she slid her robe off, then twisted into the impossible posture herself, matching every bend, every dislocated joint. She felt it, the same strength she felt when she faced her misshapen self in her mirror.

     “Tell me. Tell me my story,” Laurie growled.

     Khalid Hashim panted now with excitement. “You are Konsumiri, the river. When Tonar, the mountain, crushed you with the weight of his lust, then slept, you flowed together again. You rose and cut off his head. Every year we give you one woman, the most beautiful, as you command. Every year your passion melts the snow, the river swells, life returns. Now you waken to us in this new body.”

     After the men returned the basket to the cave, Khalid Hashim trudged back to the summit, followed by the line of men with their torches. Along the way he whispered intimately to Laurie, still contorted, “You fill my passion, Konsumiri, after many years. How much more must I wait? I long to bathe with you in the hot blood again.”

     “Blood? Bathe?”

     “Yes, Konsumiri,” he whispered in wonder. “We will be one again in the essence of the most beautiful. Look.” He reached into his kaftan, then offered up a cupped hand before his headcam. In his palm was a blue, diamond-shaped pill. “More magic from the West,” he said, grinning. Laurie recognized it, all right. She’d seen those Viagra ads on TV. “With this I seed all the sacrifices.”

     At the summit again, Laurie saw the women still waiting, sitting on the ground. They were still watching her contorted body on the glowing screen of the laptop, just as Khalid Hashim saw it in the eyescreen of his headset. The boy, also before the laptop, seemed barely able to contain his rapture now.

     “I will welcome you now with the most beautiful,” Khalid Hashim said, loosening his kaftan. “Simba koni, machit. Hailik coy.” One of the men dragged a women to the rock altar and bent her over it.

     “You, the boy,” Laurie screamed. “I want you to translate. Tell everyone what I say.”

     “Yes, Memsahib, I am the karingkata. I speak to all with your voice.”   

     “Good, good,” Laurie said. “Look, no more sacrifices. Konsumniri demands it. Sacrifices aren’t necessary anymore.  The snow will still melt, the river will flow, but no more killing.”

     When the boy finished translating, everyone stared, puzzled. The woman on the altar glanced about, then slid off it. She crawled a few feet away, then stared like the rest.

     “But Memsahib, how is this possible,” the boy said. “How is it — enough?”

     “Your sleep was long, my beloved. You do not remember fully yet,” Khalid Hashim whispered reassuringly. “Let us help. Let us remind you. We will share our delights once more.” Then he shouted, “Simba koni, hailiktung,” and the man grabbed the woman again and forced her back to the altar.

     “Stop,” Laurie yelled. “Stop it. Seed, you said? You seed them?” She stared fiercely at Khalid Hashim. “I know what I want now. I know exactly what I want. It’s the most important sacrifice ever too — like a welcoming back sacrifice, okay? And — and if I don’t get it, the river will dry up and the sky will fall and everything will be just — terrible.” Laurie watched as the boy translated, as every eye widened in horror, every head nodded, trembling.

      “What is this sacrifice? Are these not the most beautiful.” Khalid Hashim gestured toward the women.

     “You,” Laurie shouted. “I want you, Khalid Hashim Abdullah. No, no, wait. Not all of you, just — your balls.”

     Khalid Hashim was speechless. When the boy translated, everyone else was too.

     “You — you are not the true one,” Khalid Hashim finally shouted, shaking his head wildly. “I am — I am not a woman. I am the seed. Bailemka, bailemka. Null tamkri,” he screamed, shaking his head, slashing the air with his fists as he glared at Laurie on the screen. The boy argued with him now while the women and the rest of the men looked on, some bewildered, some terrified. Khalid Hashim clasped one hand to his crotch and raised the other, shaking his fist, his eyes blazing. The boy turned to Laurie and asked politely, “You say ‘balls,’ Memsahib?  This is — the testicles, yes?”

     Laurie nodded firmly, then carefully slipped her right shoulder back into joint and untwisted her arm. She reached for her mouse and called BudBin’s Bod Edit menu up on her screen, then she clicked and confirmed Remove all enhancements. Her gleaming, flowing blond hair, her perfect breasts and hips, her subtle tan all suddenly disappeared. Everyone saw the real her now, even her real face, staring into her computer screen. Then she slipped her shoulder back out of joint again and twisted her arm back into the impossible pose. She looked more like the mummified woman than ever now, she figured.

     Every jaw dropped. Khalid Hashim’s face turned ashen. Even his hair was whiter. The boy’s face lit up. He danced, pointing at Laurie. All the women and men, all but Khalid Hashim, began to howl like wolves.

     “Tolem anur. Manikorishnu coy,” the boy shouted. Several of the men grabbed Khalid Hashim and wrestled him to the altar. The boy chanted. He sang like a bird as the long knife flashed, as Khalid Hashim screamed. Laurie gasped, then fainted.

 

#

 

When Laurie reawakened a few minutes later, she was drained. She saw the boy and all the others bowing before her on the laptop. Now the boy was wearing Khalid Hashim’s headset.

     “Forgive us, Memsahib,” the boy said, rising to his knees, quaking. “We took the testicles of the Old One as you commanded. They are very big. The Old One’s soul left with them. But,” the boy cowered and lowered his eyes, “there was — little blood.”

     Laurie struggled to reassemble herself. She untwisted her arms and legs and neck, slipped her joints back into place, straightened her spine. When she was back to looking normal, she took a deep breath, then stared into her computer screen.

     “They were plenty big,” she said, “the biggest and best sacrifice ever, better than many women! Now you don’t have to kill anyone else, okay? The snow will melt and the river will flow just fine.”

     The boy bowed politely, but Laurie could see the bewilderment in his eyes. Finally, he said, “Konsumiri, you are the river. How will you flow without sacrifice, without blood?”

     Laurie bit her lip, frowned. “Uh — more blood? I have to think. I’ll, uh — I’ll get back to you, okay?”

     “This is very good, Memsahib,” the boy said. “You will ‘get back to’ us.” He turned to the others. “Pradim mamakiku. Primba nur alicara. Getbacktu! Getbacktu!” They all rose to their knees, nodding, smiling. “Sayonara, Membahib!” the boy said as the image faded.

 

#

 

Laurie logged off at Budbin, then turned off her computer. She stared a long time at the blank screen. Then she grabbed two felt markers, a black one and a red one, from the pencil cup by the keyboard. Standing naked now before the full-length mirror in her bedroom, in the canyon formed by stacks of tattered paperback romance novels and National Geographic magazines, she drew careful, black circles around each of her areolas, then a ring of ten red dots around each circle, just like the tattoos on the mummy.

     She scowled now at her mirrored face. Without any makeup on to hide them, her eyes were already as black as the mummy’s — black and blue. Against the pale, taut skin of her cheeks, they looked even darker, even stronger now than the mummy’s, though she still flinched when she saw them.

     She drew the same winding black lines the mummy had on her forehead and cheeks and neck too. Finally she added a large, red dot — an all-seeing third eye — atop the bridge of her nose. Now she was ready, ready to enter the other world — the so-called real world.

     When she cracked the bedroom door, then flung it open all the way, the sudden stench of Rick’s butt-heaped ashtrays riled her flared nostrils. She waded through the trailer, her toes squishing the dirty shag carpet. Then she stopped before the sliding window over the compact counter of the kitchenette. The arc lights around the fair grounds hung dead now on their tall poles. She could barely see the mountains of the tent tops against the starless night sky. The river of litter left by the crowds had dwindled.

     She reached under the countertop, slid open a drawer. Her hand patted around till it found the big chopping knife, the one Rick always pushed to the back of the drawer because it gave him the creeps. She marveled at its long, thick blade, so sharp and gleaming. Back in the bedroom, she nestled back into the pillows, then rested the cold steel against her bony chest.

     She closed her eyes, waited.

 

#

 

“Get in there, Monkey Girl.” Rick laughs, slapping Molly’s rump, pushing her through the trailer door. It slams shut behind them. They’re both drunk. Monday night. The carny’s closed, all the shows shuttered.

     “Isn’t she here?” Molly whispers, glancing about.

     “So what?” Rick huffs, waving toward the closed door at the rear of the trailer. “She’s back in bed — reading her goddamned Geographic magazines,” he huffs. “Head in the clouds up her ass, like she's some kinda world traveler. We got the place to ourselves.” He nods toward the cramped sofa.

      “I dunno.” Molly frowns, hunching, staring at the faint glow from the crack under the bedroom door. “Why not my trailer?”

     “Fuck her. I’m tired of her….” Rick winces, then spits on the shabby carpet. “I ain’t one of the suckers. I don’t pay for it, so I don’t wanna see it. Not in my own house, goddammit! Now she’s even got babies on her mind. Like I wanna have babies with a — a….”

     “A what?” Molly says, hurt.

     “Hell, you know what I mean. You know damn well you had to work at bein’ Monkey Girl.” He snickers, then grabs her round the waist. His other hand slides under her shirt, locks a breast. “You ain’t pure talent like her. What you see with her’s what you get,” he huffs, then reaches in his shirt pocket and pulls out a Viagra. “One of the suckers turned me on to these. Wanna try one? They work for women too, you know.” He snickers. “Why should the old fogeys have all the fun?”

     “Naw, not me.” She pushes it away. “So, what you said about Patsy while ago. She’s been buttin’ in?”

     “Shit, Patsy! So worried I’m gonna damage the bitch. Like I ever more than bruised her. Shit! Howya break bones made of rubber anyway? The way Patsy humors her. You’d think….” He snorts.

      “Everything’s business with Patsy, you know?”

     "'Course it is. Rubber Woman’s close as it gets to a real freak act these days. Ain’t a dime’s difference, you ask me. When she straightens up, looks all normal, what’s the bleedin’ hearts gonna do? That greedy bitch Patsy! She’d love to rake it all in without me around. Hell, I caught a goddamned little boy in the tent the other night, swarthy little immigrant prick, not even a teenager. Ran him out before he could whack off, the sick little fuck! Patsy laughed. Said I shoulda charged him extra.”

     “It’s in Patsy’s blood,” Molly says. “They say her granddaddy had a real carny back in the day, real, honest-to-God monstrosities. Patsy grew up bossin’ freaks.”

     “Yeah, now she thinks she’s a real freak shrink.” Rick spits on the carpet again, jabs a thumb over his shoulder at the bedroom door. “Cocksuckin’ Patsy! Had to go and give Miss Read-Her-Fuckin’-Life-Away back there a goddamned computer now, as if her stupid books and magazines weren’t enough.”

     “She’s just tryin’ to occupy her, keep her — satisfied. You know everything’s business with Patsy.”

     “Business, right! Well, the bitch is mine,” Rick shouts. “Legally mine. Everything she makes too.”

     “Shh! She’ll hear you.”

     “Right, forget her,” Rick huffs. “We got better things to do. She’s in her place. She’ll stay there too.” He grabs Molly again, gropes her hips. “I like a woman with some meat on her bones.” Then he spins her like they’re dancing. “I just want it straight up, okay? I like it — normal. Every day I see the straight chicks the suckers bring around, hot ones they wanna creep so they can ‘protect’ ‘em” — he slips a hand into Molly’s jeans, digs under her panties — “hot ones like you, babe.”

     He spins her again. They stumble down on the sofa, laughing. Molly squirms out of her T-shirt. She kicks off her sneakers.

     Rick pauses. He squints. “Wait a minute. You don’t use your toes for handjobs, do ya?”

 

 

Copyright 2009 Ray Gregory

www.RayGregory.com