The Brummagem Clan Ablated

by Fred Ollinger

part 2 of 4

Lobster neon letters spelling out “Sizzle” floated above the nightclub door. The z’s spun around. In front of the glass door, people danced in the streets. The women wore skin tight dresses that selectively went transparent to reveal parts of their body: belly, thigh, and in some cases, nipple. After a second of transparency the area went opaque.

The women danced with men who sort of stood, posing, wearing tight white pants, partially unbuttoned shirts, and casual jackets. A few wore loose ties.

When Beverly had first confronted the crowd blocking the doorway of the club, she waited for the dancers to get out of her way. They never did. After watching them for a few minutes, she noticed that they danced in inhumanely precise patterns.

She walked right into the crowd, her body passing right through the dancers. Holograms. Like most Philly clubs, Club Sizzle was narrow. There was a bar on the left, and a row of round tables on the right. She nodded her head in time to the jack-hammering beat that was turned way down to attract the dinner crowd.

She waved to Mick, the bartender, then she walked straight back until she got to the the dance floor. A spotlight illuminated a single woman who rocked arythmically to the music. As soon as Beverly stepped onto the dance floor, she was hit by a glare. The spotlights were programmed to shine on each dancer to make them feel special. Beverly sucked in her gut and pulled back her arms.

Her competition’s body was a collection of rails that was standard for clubs. She showed off her ample cleavage, arms, and legs all of which were fake-tanned orange. When she turned, Beverly saw her face as a blur. Her lipstick and mascara were smeared making her mouth and eyes look impossibly big.

Beverly’s internal clock read 23:17. After work she had thought about staying home to finish her Mario knitting. She went through the same debate with herself every night. Each time she tried to knit, she found something more pressing. Usually, it was sleep, but tonight, she wanted to go out.

She stifled a yawn and stretched her bare arms up into the air to shake the hunger. She hated how they jiggled. She bobbed her head to make it look like a dance move. She had already eaten dinner, a Bagel LiteTM with soy butter, hours ago at the CyberMe cafeteria. A few drinks, and she’d cease to think about food.

Beverly walked back to the bar. There was now one patron. A male. She sat one seat away from him. Mick brought over a martini glass filled nearly to the top with a neon green liquid. Beverly took a long pull on the straw. The sour apple was a lot stronger than usual. She winked at Mick. He continued wiping non-existent stains from the counter, but Beverly could see a smile in the corner of his mouth.

She turned to glance at the patron. His head was down, his shoulders were spread out as if he feared someone was going to steal his drink. The little of his face she could see was pale and unblemished. His chestnut hair was combed back; it stood high on his head. The sleeves of his white shirt were rolled up. The cut of his suit coat hanging on his chair suggested Armani.

She looked for loose threads and other signs that the suit was a cheap knock-off. She didn’t find any. The coat was clean and perfect just like everything else she could see, but the clothing counterfeiters were getting good. She could only be sure if she touched the fabric. She wasn’t ready for that yet.

She took another sip of sour apple. The numbness crawled across her tongue down her throat to her belly chasing away the day’s stress.

She tucked a strand of blond behind her ear then leaned over to the suit. “You always go out on Tuesday nights?”

He turned to look at her. He was young enough to be called cute, except for his eyes which were much older than the rest of his body. The area around his eyes was pink, the whites bloodshot.

He shook his head. “I work so much, I hardly ever go out. Tonight, I decided to do something different.”

“What do you do?”

“I did IP for DOS.”

“What?”

“Intellectual Property for a company named Destiny of Science.”

“You’re a lawyer?” She tried to make it sound like fact and not a hope, but her voice still trailed off a bit too much.

“I was,” he said.

“Once a lawyer, always a lawyer.”

“I guess.”

Beverly looked around the bar. Mick had his back to them. His arms pumped up and down splashing water. Occasionally, he’d put down a pair of glasses to dry and pick up more dirties.

“There’s nobody here,” she said. “Your secrets are safe with me.”

He looked down into his drink. “I’m quitting.”

“So you didn’t quit yet?”

“I just put the last twenty years of my life in school studying for this.” As he gestured, his hand flipped his tie.

“You worked twenty years for a tie?”

He sighed, but Beverly saw the edge of his lips curl up a little. “To be a lawyer.”

“It’s your parents,” said Beverly. “You thought becoming a lawyer would make your parents love you, but they still don’t.”

“What do you know of my parents?”

Beverly reached over to touch his arm. Baby smooth skin of an office worker, but there was some gym muscle there.

“Sorry,” he said, trying to look into her eyes. His eyes were the aqua of the ocean at Bermuda. Despite his volatility their cool blue was a center of calm.

“I’m so pissed off right now, I could just take all my work and delete it,” he said. “I work so hard, and they treat me like crap. I just got off work, you know.”

“So did I,”she said, and she meant more than just “I just got off work, too.” She meant it all: working hard and being treated like, well, like a whore.

“Oh,” he said.

“You probably make more in an hour than I make all day.”

“What do you do?”

“I’d like to say that I’m an artist, but my art hasn’t sold enough to support myself.”

“What kind of art do you do?”

“I knit retro-video game characters.”

The left corner of his mouth curled. First she thought it was a smile, but it tightened into a smirk.

She playfully slapped him on the shoulder. “Come on,” she said, “what do you do in your spare time?”

“Nothing.” He wore a blank frown again.

“Come on, you must do something.” She brushed his coat long enough to determine that the suit was a genuine Armani.

“No. I was always so busy trying to get into the best schools. Hobbies just cut into my study time.”

“You never had a hobby?” Beverly’s voice got lower and softer.

The lawyer looked away then at the spot where Mick had been. The bartender was nowhere in sight. He leaned in closer and said, “I used to make model kits.”

“Really?”

“Yea, my father would get them for me. I liked the rockets the best. I had all four: the EU, the Russian, the Chinese, and the Indian.”

“American?”

“We outsourced our rocket program because of the budget collapse.” He looked at her searchingly.

“Hey, my father used to play video games with me, that is until...”

“Until?”

“Never mind.” She took another sip of apple and tilted her head to look behind the bar through the window into the kitchen. Mick was still gone, but there was the black-clad food server.

She shouted at him, “Hey, turn up the music, we’re partying here.”

He looked out the window into the nearly empty room then shook his head.

The lawyer asked, “What do you do when you’re not knitting?”

“Party!”

“You know what I mean.”

She looked away from him as she answered. “I’m in virtual reality.”

“A programmer?” He looked her up and down, for the first time, spending the most time on her breasts. Her breasts weren’t very big for her size; when she put on weight, it went to her hips and belly. She wore a frilly top that made it difficult to tell exactly how large her breasts were, but it was low-cut enough to show a little cleavage.

Without thinking about it, she brought one hand in front of her chest. She said, “I’m more of an actress.”

“Any holo-vid that I’ve seen?”

“I do a different kind of acting.”

“Do you like to play guessing games with every guy you meet?”

“OK, you win. I do VR porn.”

He coughed a bit. “Really? They do that?”

“Of course, for VR, sex is the killer app.” She was going to add “Where have you been?” but she didn’t want to get him moping about law school again.

“Wow,” he said, looking into his drink.

“Are you going to stare at your drink all night or are we going to get going?”

“OK,” he said.

Mick sauntered over from the back holding the bill. The lawyer paid for his drink, but not hers. When she went for her purse, Mick just waved her off.

* * *

She wasn’t sure if he was a virgin, but in some ways that made it easier. She never got fulfillment from the sex anyway, and even less from what came later. But each new guy was a new hope.

* * *

The next day, Beverly awoke. Though there was no one else in bed, she lay off to one side. Her pink comforter smelled like a mixture of cologne and body odor that she had begun to associate with Joe. Joe Esquire. She liked that. Too bad he was quitting law.

Her crimson eye clock read 6:34. She wondered where he went so early. Then she spotted a figure on her chair and for a second, she thought that it was him. But the figure was so motionless, she realized that it was Joe’s clothing hanging neatly from the chair.

Hearing running water coming from the bathroom, she assumed he was taking a shower. She remembered that she had put her last towel in the wash. She almost got up to empty her bladder, but she paused for some reason. She wasn’t exactly sure why. It wasn’t as if she’d see anything that she hadn’t seen last night.

She looked up at Mario hanging on her wall. His eyes gazed blankly at the closed bedroom door. He seemed oblivious to his lack of legs. Beverly told herself that next time she did a knitting, she’d put more effort into the eyes. She’d make them look more human, more feeling, and less blank. She reached out to pull him off the wall. Behind her she heard the door open and the squish of wet feet. Abandoning the knitting, she fell back into bed and covered herself.

Joe wore Anida’s purple towel around his waist. Water dripped off his body as if he hadn’t dried himself at all. He casually wiped off his ghost-white body a little. He wasn’t completely dry when he began putting on his clothes.

She thought that a professional would be neater, then realized how ridiculous that was. They didn’t teach proper bathing skills in law school. She was going to say something, but she forgot all about it when she saw the smile on his face. He whistled off-key as he dressed.

After he put on his shirt, he looked at her. She pulled the comforter up to her chin. She wished she had put on make-up when he was still in the shower. She wanted to cover her head completely, but that would probably be even more weird than him seeing her with the residue of last night’s make-up.

“Good morning to the woman who turned my life around.”

“Really?” she said.

“You gave me the courage to go on another day. Life doesn’t have to be without pleasure. When I was in the shower, I thought about last night, and I realized that I shouldn’t throw away the last twenty years of my life. You convinced me of that.”

“I did?”

“Yea. It was all you. I’m going to go in there and knock them dead.”

“You’re not going to go to work and shoot up the place?”

He chuckled as he buttoned his shirt. The buttons were not lined up right.

“No. I’m even going to finish my project. Today. If it takes all night.”

“So we aren’t going to see each other tonight? Maybe dinner?”

“I’d love to,” said Joe. She could all ready hear the but. “But I don’t know when I’ll finish.”

“Then?” she asked.

He came over to kiss her. She hadn’t brushed. She offered him her cheek. He kissed it and then left.

From the howling from the bathroom, Beverly knew Anida was upset. She covered her head when the banging started. She’d deal with her roommate later. For now, she just wanted to dream of Joe.

* * *

To be continued...