Chapter 11

Early Spring – 2082 a.d.
Memories

Jake sat on the porch, one booted foot up on the railing, looking out at the dust devils swirling around in the February desert sun. In a few hours the sun would be going down and, if he sat here long enough, he would be able to see the Aurora Borealis flickering on the horizon. It had only become visible this far south in the last few years, as the sun licked the protective ozone layer off the edge of the atmosphere. The ozone layer had been dissipating for over a century. Scientists still blamed it on everything except the true cause, the sun itself.

Jake had been retired since 2080, almost two years now. He thought back on his hundred and twelve years of life. He had seen the Third World plight end as the Semitic races, each full of unreasoning hatred for the other, destroyed themselves in nuclear fire. Now, their precious oil fields and fabulous monuments to their historic faiths were a radioactive wasteland. Humankind had not only destroyed Béla, it had also destroyed the race that had been her human half. (That actually wasn’t true; the tribal people who had occupied that land for the last few thousand years swept through and replaced the original indigent population a few hundred years after Béla had arrived there.)

He had seen a resurgence of the Black Plague and the common flu wipe out almost half the remaining planetary population. It hit worst in the overpopulated areas that were already affected by nuclear radiation from the recent war, like India and China. In the U.S., it wiped out a quarter of the population, mostly in the ghettos of the big cities, causing massive riots and trillions of dollars in property destruction.

U.S. business, taking advantage of the chaos, slipped into power and began running the government. Now, instead of a president and congress, there was the Supreme Board of Directors with each board member the president or CEO of at least one major industry. The individual states still maintained their autonomic governorships, but most of the property in the country was now owned by businesses, not individuals. ‘Buying’ and ‘selling’ of individual homes had changed some, and had actually become easier now that there was no profit motive for holding onto or selling a property. It was actually more of a trading system.

Jake closed his eyes, but only for a moment. He could still see the flaming conflagration that had consumed Béla eighty-seven years earlier. He still had to have constant noise around him to drown out her unearthly screams as she perished, her regenerative ability betraying her in the end by keeping her alive and aflame much longer than she should have had to suffer.

Unable to escape her flaming vehicle, pinned in her seat by a simple mechanical latch that had welded itself together in the first few seconds of the explosion, her screams ceased only when her blood reached its boiling point, bursting her charred lungs and finally ending her torture, ending her, forever.

Jake opened his eyes again, unwilling to view that image indelibly etched on the backs of his eyelids any longer, and got up to go inside. Despite the fact that he looked like he was in his early twenty’s, his hundred and twelve-year old joints let him know they didn’t like being out in this breezy, forty-degree weather. It was pleasantly warmer (compared to last month), but even basking in the sun on your own porch had its limits when it was this cold.

In the kitchen, he puttered around for awhile, then started a pot of coffee. It was almost five p.m. and would be starting to get dark, soon, but, being retired now and no longer a slave to anyone’s timetable, he ate and slept when he felt like it and, right now, coffee was what he felt like. If he stayed awake long enough, maybe Béla wouldn’t haunt him tonight.

Taking his coffee in his hand, he went upstairs to his bedroom and got undressed. Then, walking into the bathroom, he sat down on the toilet.

“Shelf,” he said to the wall. A foot-long flat shelf slid out of the wall. He set his coffee cup on it and said, “Console.”

The panel just above the shelf opened, revealing a wall console. While he sat, he did his mail. He had quite a bit to sort through as he hadn’t accessed his mail site, or even turned on his console for almost two weeks. About halfway through, he got bored and accessed a puzzle site to see if anyone had posted any new ‘stumpers’. He could finish his mail, later. He always saved his personal messages ‘til last – it seemed more pleasant to end his weekly or bi-weekly junk mail sessions with personal messages instead of the other way around.

‘Stumpers’ was carrying a new ad for another ‘Suicide’ club. Suicide clubs began springing up all over the U.S. after the Supreme Court redefined the legal definition of murder so that assisted suicide was no longer illegal.

Jake frowned as he remembered his single visit to one of those clubs. His date had invited him to come and join the club with her. When he picked her up, she was wearing an incredible costume that consisted of one long purple ribbon, two inches wide that wrapped around her body several times, leaving lots of skin in between. Her arms and legs were laced with matching purple leather straps. Her skin, where it was visible, was painted in wide swathes of silver and turquoise – even her face. Her lips and eyes matched the purple of the ribbon she wore.

“I don’t think I’m dressed for this,” Jake had told her, trying to back out after seeing her outlandish, but very erotic, outfit. His semi-formal dark gray jacket and slacks didn’t seem appropriate to take this dazzling dame anywhere without one of them embarrassing the other.

“Oh, nonsense, Darling,” Rachel replied, smiling. “You’re just my escort. I’m the showpiece!”

At the door, everyone signed that they were either a member or a member’s guest. Members were put into a lottery – guests could volunteer to enter the lottery, but weren’t required to.

What had interested him the most was that most of the couples were dressed similar to them. The ladies wore flamboyant, attention-demanding costumes that often displayed more flesh than they should for the shape they were in. The men were dressed more casually, or semi-formal, like Jake. This was definitely a showcase for female flesh.

After about a hour of strolling around and meeting all of Rachel’s acquaintances and lady-friends (“Darling, how ARE you! It’s been so LONG!”), and munching anything that came by on a catered tray, the crowd began milling toward the stage. The curtains were lit, indicating a show soon to begin.

Ten minutes later, the curtains were drawn back. On one side of the lighted stage was a stand-alone wall about eight feet high. Attached to the wall were four manacles; two near the top and two near the bottom. Off to the other side, a high bench held several weapons; a bow and arrow, a handgun, a rifle and a hand-held energy weapon.

“Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to the Gray Mouse Suicide Club,” an announcer dressed in a black tuxedo said as he walked onto the stage.

The lights darkened in the rest of the room and everyone became quieter. There was an excited tension in the air as they gazed toward the brightly-lit stage.

“This is the fun part,” Rachel whispered into Jake’s ear. “Watch what everyone’s doing...”

Jake looked around the room, noticing that, although everyone was watching the stage, they were also hugging, embracing or petting whoever was next to them.

“For this evening’s entertainment,” the MC continued, speaking very dramatically, “we have the typical ‘Execution Wall’ and a variety of ‘Instruments of Death!’ Each weapon can be used only once, and the couple who are selected as our lottery winners get to select which weapons to use on their partner.”

“What?” Jake whispered at Rachel. “One mate is going to kill the other?”

“Of course!” Rachel whispered back. “It’s a suicide club! People come here to die! Others, like me, come here to watch. Pay attention! It’s a real turn-on!”

Jake could see that, sure enough, other couples were getting more involved with each other, now. Rachel was absently stroking one of her nipples right through the ribbon that (barely) hid it from view. A nearby girl wearing nothing but paint already had her partner’s pants open and was playing with his cock right in the middle of the room.

“The Lottery Number for tonight is,” the MC said, looking out at the crowd for a moment to make sure he had everyone’s attention, “Thirty-six!”

“Oh my God!” someone exclaimed. “That’s you! I mean – that’s us!”

The crowd cleared around the ‘lucky’ couple and made room for them to reach the stage. The woman, dressed in a skintight Lycra, held out her arms for people to caress as she walked slowly forward toward her doom. As people became bolder, she held her arms over her head to allow them to stroke and caress her body.

As Jake watched this performance, Rachel turned toward him and began rubbing her breasts against his shirt, recapturing his attention. As he gazed at her, she pulled a piece of her costume loose from her shoulder and the whole thing unraveled, leaving her completely naked, standing in front of him wearing nothing but blue and silver stripes of body paint that swirled around her body.

“You like?” she asked, smiling at him.

Jake couldn’t answer. He couldn’t get his vocal cords to work.

Rachel began unbuttoning his shirt. “You’re quite a prize, darling. Not many men in here look as good as you ... I hope you have the equipment to match your looks.”

When she reached his waist, Rachel deftly unfastened his belt, then unzipped his trousers. As they fell to the floor, trapping Jake where he was standing, Rachel rubbed her bare belly against his.

“Watch the show, darling,” she whispered, “while I get you warmed up.”

She sensuously slid her soft, yielding breasts down the length of his body, leaving sparkles of paint on his chest hairs that reflected the bright lights from the stage. Her movement was so erotic that she reminded Jake of the slithering of a snake as it traveled. His attention was drawn back across the room to the doomed woman, now naked, whom several men were sexually mauling.

“Are they going to gang-bang her?” Jake asked, looking down at Rachel as she played with his growing cock.

“Yes,” she replied. “I can tell by the way your cock jumps that it turns you on. Do you want to fuck her, too? It will be her last fuck. I’m certain that you could make her happy, and she’d probably love the idea that someone as handsome as you would remember her.”

“I’m with you,” Jake reminded her. “Wouldn’t you rather have me to yourself?”

“How sweet and old-fashioned you are, Darling,” Rachel replied, then licked his hard cock for a few seconds. “But, I can have you next week. She can’t. She won’t be here. And when you fuck me then, we can both remember her.”