Version 2
~Weeks Earlier - 1994 - Age 32~
Heaven's just a rumor she'll dispell
As she walks me through the nicest parts of hell (dance of hell)
I still dream of lips I never should have kissed
Well she knows exactly what I can't resist
If she says come inside I'll come inside for her
If she says give it all I'll give everything to her
-- From the song "Sanctified," the album "Pretty Hate Machine" (1989) by Nine Inch Nails
In seeming slow motion, her horns tumbled down her long velvet hair onto the covers.
"Ahhh... My God, Tom... Oh Tom..."
His eyes snapped open. Oh God.
Rising and falling, her slender eyes smoldered with soaring pleasure. Tossing him another seductive smile, she tightened her hidden muscles and observed his reaction.
"Uhhh," he shuddered.
Oh God.
~~~
"Do you believe in fate?"
Lost in the shock and awe and disbelief of the moment, he finally turned from the blank ceiling to the ageless face gazing curiously at him. "What?"
Katie rolled to her side and propped herself up on her elbow. "Do you believe in fate?"
"I... I don't know," he stumbled. "I've never thought about it before."
"Let me put it this way..." She traced a delicate finger over his bare chest. "Have you ever asked yourself, 'Why me?' "
He had to admit he did, and chuckled softly, "Yeah."
She smiled knowingly, "Then you believe in fate."
He returned to the blank ceiling above him. "Really?"
"Yup," she giggled briefly before growing more serious again. "Personally, I don't."
"Why not?" Staring at the ceiling, he began to stroke her forearm.
"Well..." Katie scanned around her, behind her, below her, and beneath the crinkled covers. Finally, she found them, snatched them, and squeezed the bright-red foam. "You see these horns?"
He focussed on her devilish headband and nodded.
"As I look at this two-dollar piece of plastic..." She turned it over in her hand. "I'd hate to think that 'fate' chose to buy it for me, that I didn't choose to buy it myself."
Tom began to wonder. Or tried to. It was one of those things too philosophical to think about.
She rested the plastic headband on his chest. "I'd hate to think that 'fate' can tell me what to do or what to think. You know?"
"Yeah. I think so." For now, he agreed just to agree.
"Forget it. I'm not making any sense."
"No, it's not you," he shook his head apologetically. "I... I'm still new to all this. Me, a hacker? It'll take me some time to get used to."
She giggled, "It didn't take you much time to get used to my... ummm..." She laughed out loud.
"Well," he began, then joined her adorable laughter.
For a few frozen moments, Katie studied his expression thoughtfully. His eyes. His nose. His lips. Definitely, his lips. Staring at his lips, she suddenly kissed him, and whispered into his ear, "Happy birthday, my neophyte."
~Today - 1994 - Age 32~
He sewed his eyes shut because he is afraid to see
He tries to tell me what I put inside of me
He's got the answers to ease my curiosity
He dreamed a god up and called it Christianity
God is dead, and no one cares
If there is a hell, I'll see you there
-- From the song "Heresy," the album "Downward Spiral" (1994) by Nine Inch Nails
The unthinkable had happened.
Why?
The week following her triumph, Katie vanished.
Why did you do it?
Her friends were shattered. Her close friends were devastated.
Why did you leave us?
But most of all, Tom. Tom had been abandoned.
Why did you leave me?
Abandoned.
~~~
With an emptiness that darkened his broken soul more profoundly than the ache in his growling stomach, Thomas Alexander Anderson miraculously revived his beat-up 1984 Toyota Celica, rattled out of the Priznet Pro parking garage, and began twisting and turning through another cold evening commute back to his equally beat-up apartment. He avoided twisting and turning his neck too much. The dull ache. But it was overshadowed by other things. He drove robotically, mechanically, reflexively, as if in a daydream or trance state, his silent cloud of depression waging an desperate war against his utter lack of direction. At least, depression gave him a direction. Down.
After locking and chaining his apartment door, Tom, with a grunt, wrestled off his coat, hung it on the rack, and tossed his keys beside the old-fashioned wire phone. He stared at the old phone for a few moments and lightly exhaled. Beside the phone, the plastic headband boasting two bright-red horns of foam stared back at him. They were her devil horns. Somehow she had left them. With a sudden twinge, he wished to see her wearing them again. But she never came back for them. She never returned.
Blinking away his thoughts, Tom stepped around his cluttered fort of mismatched tables and computers, and yanked open the mini-fridge door. An open pack of bologna slices. A six-pack of Diet Sprite, minus one. A few TV dinners in the high freezer shelf. He snatched a dinner, tore it open, and threw it into the ugly but working microwave. Spaghetti and meatballs. Reduced fat. Reduced calories. Cook. Five minutes. Start. The electric buzz of the appliance. Stepping back to his ruffled mattress, he unnoosed himself from his tie, peeled off his shirt, pants and socks and flung them all on the nearby chair.
A shower. Time for a quick shower.
In his T-shirt and boxers, he ran his usual combination of cold and hot tub water, waiting for it to reach the perfect warmth. Straightening his lean frame in the cracked mirror, he stared at himself. At his uncombed hair. Into his weary eyes. Curious, he leaned over the sink to get a closer look at their slight redness. The left eye. Then the right. He shrugged in resignation. He was slowly but steadily turning into an old man. Diet Sprite. Reduced fat. Strained neck. Lack of exercise. All the unsettling signs of middle age. Just around the corner. Over the hill. If he wasn't already there. Bending down, he held his hand under the splashing water. Good.
Setting his underclothes on the toilet lid, he pulled the shower valve, climbed into the uneven streams of warm water, and drew the mildew-edged curtain shut. His own personal tropical oasis.
Ahhh.
He needed that. Letting the warmth soak into his dark hair, his sore neck, his pale back, Tom hung his head. He stood silently in the soothing hissing rain. The moments passed. Moments turned into seconds. Seconds stretched into tens of seconds. For almost a minute, he stood quietly, as if the jets could wash away whatever needed to be washed away. The weariness. The emptiness. The lack of direction. The cloud of depression. Whatever. The loss of motivation. Whatever he hoped could disappear down the echoing drain.
From the other side of the mirror, muffled yells broke his drifting and draining downward spiral. The next-door neighbors. Roommates as far as he could tell. Kids really. Just like he and his best friend used to be.
Willie.
He wiped the blur from his eyes. Taking the shrunken soap bar in his left hand, he turned his back to the streams, and slowly, wearily began to lather his hands, arms and armpits. As the voices faded behind the hiss of the shower, he dragged the bar back and forth across his chest. Grazing his nipple, he paused. He grazed over it once more, and for an instant, he flashed back to her tender touch.
Katie.
Closing his wet brown eyes, he tried to remember. Her little fingers tweaking his sensitive nipples. His fingers brushing hers. Pink areolae that stood proudly atop her petite breasts. White mounds perfectly sized and shaped for his hands. He flashed back.
Why did you leave me? Where did you go?
Her narrow waist. The softness of her warm skin leading down to her slim hips. So massagable and squeezable. Another flash.
I need you. I don't know what to do.
Her straddling thighs. The warmth of her toned legs pinning him down. So powerful yet so fragile. Another flash.
Tell me what to do. A glow. A faint glow.
He could see his hands sliding steadily up her thighs and hips and sides. Gliding smoothly up her breasts and shoulders and neck. Stroking her long black hair and admiring her bright red horns. Focussing on her soft open lips. Floating into her deep slender eyes.
Oh Katie. With warm streams washing upon him, a spreading glow of electricity radiated down his spine and suddenly tickled his groin. Reflexively, his soapy left palm began to rub against himself.
He could feel the short polished nail and the rest of her middle finger search and slip into his open mouth. With the flash of her eyes, she wordlessly urged him to suck it. Surrendering to her wishes, he drew her finger deeper between his waiting lips and sucked. Enjoying her irregular gasps, he curled his hot tongue around her tiny rounded tip, and trailed it along her full quivering length. With a shiver, she moaned.
Oh yeah. In the massaging rain, he built up the foamy lather in his palm and returned to his growing hardness, his fingers gently caressing its sensitive underside. Back and forth.
He could feel himself easing in and out of her fiery entrance, while her withdrawing finger left his mouth empty and wanting more. With an ensnaring glance, she encouraged him to take her. He obeyed her command, and grasped her hips, enjoying the sensual rhythm of her weight and wetness. Rising and falling.
Oh Jesus. Drops dripping down his closed eyes and open lips, his foam-filled left hand encircled his pulsing stiffness and quickened its pleasurable stroke. Back and forth. His right forearm leaned against the shower tiles. Back and forth. Matching her rise and fall. Back and forth.
In and out. She urged. Fucking. Like hacking. Criminal hacking. In and out. Like piercing a firewall. Her fiery walls. Illegal. In and out. She breathed. Fucking. Fucking her little firewall. Fucking her forbidden fiery walls. In and out. He could hear her adorably innocent yet naughty gasps.
Oh God. With water jetting into his hair, onto his neck and back, running down his buttocks and thighs and calves, he maintained his arousing pace. Back and forth. Stroking himself. Back and forth.
She groaned. In and out. He could hear her delightful sighs. In and out. Her delicious moans. In and out. She whimpered.
Oh God, Katie. While his leg muscles tensed and trembled, his hand gripped tighter and stroked faster. Back and forth. Mindful of the neighbors, he held his breath. Back and forth. Stroking faster. Back and forth.
Her heavenly curves and mounds. In and out. Her heart-melting gasps and groans. In and out.
Oh God, Katie. Oh God. Tensing and trembling, he was gonna come. Back and forth. So close. Back and forth. So soon. Back and forth.
He was gonna come. In and out. Come inside her. In and out. Yeah. In and out. Yeah. In and out. And finally--
Ahhh, Katie. Ahhh. He exploded. Holding his breath, he exploded. Eyes shut, he exploded onto the tiles. Mouth open, he exploded inside her. And suddenly--
Oh no. Please. No! He froze in terror. He felt his overtensed calf begin to cramp.
Nooo! Nooo! Violent contractions. With a splash, he collapsed breathlessly onto the drain. Spasms. Clenching his teeth. Clamping with both hands. Spasms. Clutching his right calf with all of his strength. As if the weary strength of his mind could overwhelm the searing pain in his body. Spasms. And when he could no longer hold it in--
"Rrrr!" he roared through his teeth. "Rrrrrrr!" he thundered. Vicious spasms. With no signs of subsiding. No signs of fading. And when he could no longer take it--
"Aaah!" he cried out. Spasms. Clutching his convulsing leg beneath the warm hissing rain, he began to break down. Curling into a fetal ball on the splattering tub floor, he began to shake. Beneath the weight of his emptiness and loneliness and helplessness and hopelessness, he began to cry. Beneath the weight of it all, he cried.
Somebody please tell me what to do.
He cried at last.
Somebody tell me. Is this it?
Lost in the splashes, his tears spiralled down the drain.
Is this what it means to love?
Down the echoing drain.
~~~
With a damp towel wrapped loosely around his waist, Tom limped gingerly back into the kitchen, his stomach growling not only in hunger, but in anger, disgust, and shame. Anger at himself for the stupidity of his physical helplessness. Disgust at the pathetic depths of his desperate imagination. And shame that he actually found himself enjoying that fantasy. He blinked away the guilt. Or tried to. As he carefully pulled out his nuked noodles, the mocking microwave display blinked back at him: End. End. End.
Why me?
With a sudden spark, he caught himself in that thought. Her disbelief in fate. Dropping his dinner onto his mousepad, he finally started to make some philosophical sense out of her peculiar words.
"I'd hate to think that 'fate' can tell me what to do or what to think. You know?"
Yes, he did know. All of his life, he felt as if he was dragged along by the wrinkled hand of fate. Wrinkled and twisted. He never seemed to make things happen; things always seemed to happen to him. That never felt right. But that was going to change. Nothing was going to tell him what to do or what to think. Not anymore. Not his depression or emptiness or weariness or helplessness. Not his anger or disgust or shame or guilt. Not his bosses or colleagues or friends. Not even his futile fantasies. He didn't need them anymore. Instead, he needed to take back his control. He needed to take back control of his own life. After all of these years, he was finally going to control it and find out the fucking truth.
Why did you leave me?
Abandoned.
Where did you go?
Abandoned but not broken.
I need to know.
Poking the dull prongs of his metal fork into the once-frozen meatball, Tom chewed mechanically yet determinedly, as if it didn't matter.
No, I don't need. I want to know.
It didn't matter how it looked, how it smelled, or how it tasted. No, it didn't matter at all. As he gazed into the flickering computer screen, he took another bite.
I want to know the truth.
It was overshadowed by other things. Probing the unlimited depths of electronic information. Pursuing the hacking underworld.
Wherever it leads. Whatever it is.
Other things he wanted to know.
I want to know.
Everything.
END