Photo by Troy wade on Unsplash
“Really?”
“What?” Juvan asked from behind his camera lens.
She shook her head and went back to scrolling through the breakup text, ignoring her now-ex documenting the last stages of their relationship for his all-important Instagram account.
(words 37; first published July 3, 2022 – from a picture prompt for a Facebook writing group. Aim is about 50 words)
The rain never stopped. Poseidon was a hell-hole planet, whose unique flora had thousands of pharmaceutical applications. All one had to do was tolerate the climate.
Depression and rotting skin were just a couple things mentioned by the recruiter; he wouldn’t get paid if the recruit cuts out before the year is out. Atesh signed up anyway because of the pay. Four months later, he was cursing his choice as he waited for the next group of recruits to arrive. Yes, his bank account was ten times fatter than it had ever been. But he would spend it all on a pair of dry socks.
After two months of harvesting, one can move into any other open position. Based on his skill set, or lack thereof, Atesh got Greeter. He welcomed new people, set up their rooms, and showed them the ropes. Only half his day was spent in the rain now; the rest of the time was in environmentally “controlled” facilities unable to keep up with the humidity. Hell, it rained in his room when the temperature dropped in the evening.
Three people shakily disembarked from the drop crate. Immediately the construction crew started moving it to the second cafeteria site. Two more crates, expected tomorrow, will provide enough material to seal the backup food area.
“Fucking wet slop.” The cultured voice was at odds with the surrounding environment, and the second-rate garments all new recruits were provided hung differently on the tall, young male.
Atesh suppressed his immediate interest in the new arrival. Rules said four days before newcomers could be integrated into the social activities, and it was his job to enforce the regulation. He smiled at the group and gestured to a small container half-buried under the vegetation which had grown since this morning’s pruning. All of them made haste to the stand-alone shelter, likely thinking being out of the rain would get them out of the wet too.
(words 323; first published 12/14/2020)
Photo by Colin Lloyd on Unsplash
Oopsie.
Danielle studied the most recent disaster. Maybe her dad should have left her at the school, but when a random earthquake happened during her testing, he pulled her out quick as a wink and hugged her tight.
Random earthquake … right.
She knew her test results. Everyone who knew her knew that the paper slip would turn pink on her sixteenth birthday as soon as her blood dropped on it. They should have taken her out much sooner.
Well, at least the truck driver wouldn’t be picking up people to rape anymore.
She started scrambling down the landslide to get to the semi and her backpack, the body behind her little better than a smear.
*** and ick. Let’s try that again, but with action and dialog.
Version 2
“Hey, why are we stopping?” Danielle asked the trucker who picked her up at the Washington-Oregon border as he pulled over at a wide spot in the deserted two-lane highway through deep woods.
The man, who had introduced himself as Colin and up till now acted like a kindly uncle, sneered. “Toll time.”
Danielle’s adrenaline spiked. “What do you mean?” she asked calmly, ignoring the rumbling in her ears.
“Oh, you know.” Colin pivoted in his seat once the rig came to a complete stop and he thumbed off the engine. “I see what’s under that pretty blue jacket and if it is nice enough, you show me more.”
Scooting away from him on the pleather seat, Danielle pulled her backpack up to put between him and her. “Um, how about no?”
“How about yes.” The driver leaned over, snatching and shoving the backpack into the back of the cab. “It ain’t no big thing, just the toll of the road. Get used to it sweetheart, if you want to get to the southern border.”
Danielle twisted her body to face the door, grabbing the handle and pulling frantically at it as he laughed and, outside the vehicle, thunder rolled in the hills. No, no no. No!
“Come on, little changeling. It’s not like you are human anymore.” His meaty hands grabbed at her jacket as she twisted and fought. His adult strength won out, and he pulled her outside the cab onto the asphalt after he unlocked the doors, throwing her down on her butt, her hands scraped against the gravel on the side of the road. “Stay down and don’t run. Now get out of that jacket.”
“You think I’m a changeling.” Danielle panted, trembling. “Aren’t you scared?”
The man snorted. “Of a sixteen-year-old foundling? If you were anything, they would have hunted you down the instant your powers emerged.” Unwinding his belt from his pants, he wrapped it around one hand. “All you kids made a dash for the border. They just let you get so far then scoop you up. You may as well enjoy this.” Colin said, kicking off his pants. “No need to die a virgin, am I right?”
He snapped his belt at her, startling her, destroying the last of her control and the trembles roared out like they had at the school when they came at her with the needle.
Dad wasn’t here to pick her out of the rubble, but this time there was no roof to cave in, only a road.
Danielle walked to the edge of the landslide, stepping over the bloody streak where she had pushed the trucker away from her, into his semi, and over the edge.
Her bag was down there, inside the cab, with all her money, all her dad’s money, and the phone numbers she never memorized but dad wouldn’t let her take her phone because he said they could trace it. The trucker likely had food in his living space.
Sighing, Danielle started leveraging herself down the slabs of asphalt. If she wasn’t being hunted before, she would be hunted now. Three dead so far because of her.
(words – first version 117, second version 525, first published 4/25/2023 – from a picture prompt for a Facebook writing group. Aim is about 50 words)
By a Landslide Series
Sixteen years (10/11/2020)
Oopsie (11/8/2020)
Photo by Jonny Clow on Unsplash
“Come on Delly,” Avon pulled on my arm. “You can bid on me.”
“Or better yet,” Justinian said from my other side, “Join us on the block.”
I rolled my eyes, trying to extract myself from their well-meaning exuberance. I fell between the cracks like normal. This time too poor to be a contract buyer and too old to interest anyone on the breeding platform. At twenty-three, I was positively ancient for an unbound female. I shook them off and wished them well.
Avon was finally old enough to qualify for a full contract, and Justinian only put himself in for a weekend indentureness, not wanting to be saddled with a share of the birth expenses. I would miss Avon. Someone would be sure to cough up the money to cover the minimum year support plus temporary abatement of her work contact. As beautiful and young as she was, they might even buy out her work contract altogether. It wasn’t like it needed deep pockets. She was never the strongest, apparent from the first spring day on the block, and she complained about the annual renewal clause Limer added to her branding ink.
No one ever gets out from the education indentureness with an annual.
Hell, no one gets out of education indentureness. The first-comers got that sewn up.
I pushed aside the negative thoughts and let the crowd draw me in its wake, except to the auction area. That would be too depressing.
I went up those steps the required three times and no one came close to covering the annual minimum. Closest was an offer for a weekend breeding attempt, if I agreed to pay for the implant removal myself.
My wild coins picked up a crystal-salt caramel apple, and I found some ribbons to wrap my dreads at a reasonable price for a fair day. Since I couldn’t get into town any other day, I parted with more of the temporary coins and pocketed gayly colored cloth. Determined to have a good time, ignoring the lack of friends on my arms, I floated from entertainer to entertainer. The fire-dancer hoops flared bright, giving the hoverbot above her a challenge in advertising the night show for her troupe. I would need to be back on the plantation by then. Pity.
The trio sounded hoarse, one looked sick. Being dragged from town-to-town on market day couldn’t be an easy contract. I sat cross-legged through three songs at the harpsi-drums, wrapping a few of my new ribbons around my twists, and dropped the last of my wild coin into his pot which his hoverbot scooped up. It’s not like I could deposit the wild coin against my contract or Edebt.
Two more hours to sunset, enough time to meander to the feast area which the large contract employers stocked for community largess on the three market days, per the community levies. After stuffing myself on someone else’s contract, I still would have time to easily catch the plantation haycarts back to the hill country.
Bumping into someone at the corner, I apologize before I realized he was a bot. Specifically a sex bot a little too far outside the marked lines of the vendors stall. I nudged him back, dusted him off, well, all the parts that wouldn’t get me accused of shoplifting, and stepped back. “Now, aren’t you a handsome one.”
I could hear the humming of an activated bot, but he didn’t move his eyes or verbally respond.
The stall owner was watching me closely. No surprise there.
I clearly wasn’t a first-comer, between my skin, height, and clothes, everything screamed I was descended from the last arrivals, the refugees from Earth’s environmental collapse. A token few made it out of indentureness. But with the burden of our parents and our grandparents on us, the chances of success are minimal. Avon would be free of debt before my grandchildren would be. If I decided to burden anyone else with this.
Which I hadn’t.
But a girl got needs too.
“How much for him?” I waved at the male sex bot. The owner named an outrageous price. I looked at him and then the bot.
“It isn’t even steady on its feet.” I tapped the bot lightly on its chest. “Look, each passing wind is rocking him out of your stall. Do you want to get fined?” I then named an equally outrageous price in the opposite direction, half of what was in my earnings account, set aside to cover monthly education interest if I am too injured to work contracts.
To my surprise, since I offered a twentieth of his initial asking price, the salesman said, “Sold.”
I sputtered, sure that I was just haggling to have one last bit of fun for the day. But, a verbal contract is still a contract.
“You, stay here.” I said to the machine, and, strangely, he stopped rocking.
Walking over to the register, I laid down my arm and my contract ink and related income came up above it. A few swipes, verification of sale, transfer of title, double-checking the title was assigned to me, not my employer, and I was the proud owner of a sex bot, male variety.
Not the normal way I bent, but it could do.
He should fit in my cot area, I think. Not only was he was handsome, he was big all over. Broad shoulders, long legs, strong arms, braids to kill for falling to his waist, and, well, the selling package. He had four inches on me in height, and I was over six foot.
No annual contract for me. Limer had me tied up into my mid-fifties, with two extensions of a score of years each at his option, not mine. But, if I took it to the very end with the luck of good health and no injuries, I would die debt-free instead of the balance transferring between my nearest ten relatives if I had no offspring.
Someone with the contracted potential to be debt-fee had certain clauses required by law hanging out from the very first-comers and the indentured on those ships. I could own my own things, and my contracted employer could not sell them from under me if I was unable to perform to contract. Even if I got sick and Limer paid the fine to break the contract, my ribbons, my cot, my blankets, and, now, my bot were mine to take with me.
I looked up at the bot whose eyes gleamed red for the title transference. “I am your owner.”
“You are my owner. Designation.”
“My designation is ShipClotilda Level Two Berth Two Hundred Forty-Six Bunk Delta, generation four maternal-paternal-paternal-maternal.” I was once again grateful I was an oldest child of an oldest child going back to the ship. Third or fourth born cadet lines got really complicated in their designations.
He opened his mouth, showing a perfect pink tongue, which rolled into a circle, then flattened, then rolled again. Watching his downloading of my ink gave me way too many ideas of how I would be using him tonight while the barracks were sparsely inhabited. Eventually, his mouth popped shut. An almost living sparkle touched his eyes and a gentle smile pressed those wide lips. “I see your common use name is Delly, may I call you that?”
“Of course.” I put my hand on his arm. “Are you okay to walk and talk?”
“Whatever is your pleasure, my sweet Delly.” His voice dropped and roughened while talking to me, until it sent a shiver down my spine when he said my name.
“Whoa, what is that?” I managed as we walked slowly away from the bot stall.
He responded softly, his voice like velvet against my ears. “Protocol adjustment to personalize behavior.”
“Well,” I panted a little, gripping his arm tightly, “tone it back in public areas.”
The bot nodded, smiling a private smile at me. “Noted, my sweet Delly.”
“Good.” I smiled politely back, missing the roughness, but thankful for the one step up from panty-dropping bass he had pinged me with as a personalization. Damn, it had been everything I never knew I needed.
A few heads turned as we made our way through the crowd, his blue-black iridescent gleam catching the eye until his mechanical purpose became clear and people frowned and looked away. Sex-bots were to be owned, not seen. Especially not seen with someone as far down on the cultural pole as I. But they had to be transported home, and today is the day people bought them for reasons ranging from amusing gag gifts to enhancement of breeding contract. If my hand wasn’t on his arm, the crowd wouldn’t be so judgy. They would assume I was assigned by my employer to bring home the new equipment.
Well, suck it world. This one is mine.
(words 1,478; first published 9/30/2022)
Market Day Series
Every society contains gender roles. In some cases, like Spanish, genders are assigned to everything including inanimate objects. Today, the writing exercise is focused on the two traditional genders of American society.
WRITING EXERCISE PART ONE: Write a flash where traditional gender roles are strongly displayed through some medium: romantic, job division, clothing, etc. Aim for about 50 to 100 words, don’t go overboard. Have two characters; they can be the same or different genders.
WRITING EXERCISE PART TWO: Switch the gender role assignments – he to she; she to he. Do not change the characters appearance or actions, except for gender-related appearance (breasts to pecs). How does your story read now? Does it still work? What makes it feel different to you? Comment below.
My Attempt (Flash Title: Tongue)
Towering over her, David lifted her chin until Kendra stood on tiptoes, her mouth drying at his dominance. She ran the tip of her tongue over her red-stained lips, watching his brown eyes darken in response. He lowered his head, twisting it sideways until his lips hovered just above hers.
“Open,” he growled.
Kendra exhaled, her lips parting with the breath.
He smiled, dropping the last inch between them, his alien tongue entering her mouth and sweeping down. (words 78, first published 3/23/2022)
***
Towering over him, Kendra lifted his chin until David stood on tiptoes, his mouth drying at her dominance. He ran the tip of his tongue over his red-stained lips, watching her brown eyes darken in response. She lowered her head, twisting it sideways until her lips hovered just above his.
“Open,” she growled.
David exhaled, his lips parting with the breath.
She smiled, dropping the last inch between them, her alien tongue entering his mouth and sweeping down. (words 78, first published 3/23/2022)
***
One interesting aspect of the gender switch for my flash is the “red-stained lips.” On a female, lipstick is assumed. On the male, you don’t know why they are stained … but blood does come to mind.