“What becomes of love, in a future where simple human affection is a crime against the state?”
The following tale is a futuristic dystopia, set in an indeterminate period sometime after the earth has been invaded—presumably—by a hostile alien species, and the human race is reduced to living in a single, final city upon an unnamed continent. The exigencies of survival upon an occupied planet has forced a reorganization of human society into something that is…less than human.
For the squeamish reader, the following story contains mature themes and, shall we say, rather explicit imagery and language. So be forewarned.
—T. J. Quaine
I awoke in the sterile interior of a hollow cube—ten by ten by ten.
I was completely naked.
So this is it, I thought. They’ve finally consigned me to the detention cells.
I rose stiffly to my feet; there was no bruising or aching—they’d seen that there were no traces of those. But I had evidently been lying asleep—or drugged—in the same position for quite some time.
I thought to take stock of my surroundings, but that was an exercise swiftly completed. I was in a stark, white cell—white floor, white walls, white ceiling, white light. There was no furniture, no furnishings or implements or ornaments of any kind. Nothing at all.
I wonder where I’ll piss and shit, I thought, irrelevantly. The answer, of course, was obvious: that was part of the game.
Yes, I was in for it now. My life—what was left of it—was to be an endless round of humiliation, degradation, misery and psychological torture. My person, my organism—that I could expect to remain intact and unharmed. Physical punishments were anachronistic in this civilized age; no, I was to be reserved for something far worse.
There was a dull itching sensation in the skin of my upper left arm; I looked, and saw the dreaded “brand.” Five numbers, embossed in the skin of my arm—21185. The dehumanization of the man who had been John Lysander was begun.
“Subject 21185!”
Despite myself, I was startled by that brusque, vaguely feminine voice that seemed to bark at me from all sides at once, like some disembodied, numinous vox dei.
They had seen me mark the numbers of the “brand.” That was all the time I would be granted to adjust to my new situation. Now the ordeal would begin.
“Subject 21185! You are to exit your cell and await further instructions!”
Slowly, a kind of door began to appear…rather, a lacuna in one of the white, featureless walls yawned open to reveal a portal of sorts.
I noticed, suddenly, that there was a dull, expanding sort of ache in my head. It seemed to localize somewhere behind my eyes, and spread thence throughout my brain. It was a terrible, violent sort of pain—blinding and debilitating, or at least it threatened to become so.
I began to double up, and felt a wave of nausea well up from my stomach. I staggered forward a few steps, and immediately the pain diminished and the nausea subsided.
It became obvious to me, then, what had happened. Gingerly, I felt the back of my head, and quickly located the insertion scars.
They’ve injected me with a Control.
What did I expect, really? Of course they’d implanted a Control in my brain. We’d all heard rumors about the brains of criminals and antisocials being impregnated with the genetically engineered, parasitical pseudo-organism that was called—rather unimaginatively—a Control.
But the reality of having one implanted in my own body was quite different from the theoretical knowledge of the thing. The horror was now a permanent part of my physiology. It would nestle in my brain for the rest of my life, responding to the commands of remote Controllers to inflict unbearable neurological pain and damage at their slightest whim.
Finally, when they were done with me, they would give the Control its final command, and in a gruesome, bloody explosion, the monstrosity would burrow out of my brain tissues and burst from my skull…leaving behind a nauseating puddle of liquefied gray matter and other offal, an unsightly mess to be cleaned by other, terrified Subjects.
It was obvious that the Controller was prodding me toward the door. I shook my head, hoping to clear out the pain, and stumbled toward the opening.
The pain receded—but I could feel it waiting there, a dull, lingering ache that remained as a permanent reminder that I was no longer what I had been.
I was no longer John Lysander, human being. I was a thing that had been created by the State, and I would never again be free of its control…if ever I had been.
I staggered through the doorway, and found myself in a narrow hall that was dimly lit by a sort of crimson glare.
As my eyes adjusted to the dimmer light, I realized that naked human beings were standing to either side of me, in a long row that stretched into infinity, for all I knew.
I recognized a person standing opposite me, too, and understood instantly that they were all Subjects, like myself…all of us ushered out of our cells, to await what fresh horror we none of us wished to imagine.
Occasionally, I heard a cry or grunt—mostly male, but sometimes I heard a woman scream in anguish as well—and I saw at least two males, several cells down on either side of me, doubled up in pain.
Horrified, I looked away…and my eyes settled upon the woman standing across from me. For that is what she was—a naked, beautiful young woman, and I was quite startled by how remarkably beautiful she was.
I expected—if I expected anything at all—only haggard, exhausted, bedraggled creatures; I expected criminals to be ugly, wretched, frightfully hideous, as befitted their sins. It didn’t occur to me that I was considered a criminal now, too.
No, she was quite lovely. Her enormous, expressive eyes—they were heterochromatic, I noticed, one a pale blue and the other a vivid yellow—caught my gaze, and then immediately looked away.
She was terrified, utterly so, and I noticed that her whole body was trembling. I couldn’t help myself—I looked at her body, and I was astonished by her loveliness. She was slim, and very pale-skinned, with a rich dusting of freckles on her nose and cheeks and shoulders; her hair was a bright golden-red color, and it fell in lustrous billows behind her ears and spilled across one shoulder, where she’d vainly tried to use it to conceal her breasts.
It was, of course, a useless gesture…and it was a pathetic one, too, so much so that it struck me as a viciously unjust and inhumane thing to do to the woman. I stared, despite myself—her breasts were very large and fat, with big nipples that had noticeably stiffened. She was quite tall, and pretty, and the rest of her was as well formed and as beautifully shaped as her face.
I could see that she was examining me as well, very shyly, and then suddenly her eyes grew very round, and she looked up at my face, blushed furiously, and looked away.
I glanced down, and understood at once what had provoked her strange reaction: I was quite fully erect. I should have looked away, of course, as soon as I realized how truly attractive the young woman was.
But I didn’t, and the result was entirely predictable. I felt my face growing hot, and I tried to conceal the shameful reaction with my hands…but they brushed it, and only made things worse. The whole episode was miserably embarrassing…and of course I refused to meet the young woman’s eyes.
It didn’t matter, though, for she was kind enough to look away. I sensed that immediately—there was a kindness to her, and we seemed to share a sense that we were both in a terrible situation that was beyond our control.
I looked up then, and noticed that she was standing up straight, proudly almost, and was looking earnestly at my face…in fact, it seemed she was trying to catch my eye. She refused to look at my groin, and there was something in her eyes that caused me to respond.
Those beautiful, queerly colored eyes of hers were speaking to me, and they said that we ought not to be ashamed for how our bodies reacted to each other. They said that this was just part of the game played by the State and the Controllers. That they wished to humiliate us, to degrade us, by using our bodies against us.
I let my hands drop to my sides, threw back my shoulders, stood as straightly as I could, and I returned her gaze. She smiled, and I smiled back.
Suddenly, I was struck by a blinding, shattering pain in my head. I fell to my knees, and doubled up with the pain; the nausea returned, in sickening waves, and I vomited loudly and objectionably upon the floor of the hallway.
After my stomach ceased to heave, and after I had spat out the last of the disgusting matter from my mouth, and after a violent coughing fit from aspirating some of the bile, the pain began to recede.
My erection had ebbed considerably, and I lay in misery on the floor. I looked up at the woman, and there was a look of terrible anguish on her beautiful face. Her cheeks were moist, and I realized there were tears welling in her eyes.
Suddenly, she knelt down, and whispered:
“I’m so terribly sorry…I never meant…this is all my fault…”
I shook my head.
“No,” I whispered hoarsely, “no, it isn’t. This is what they wanted to happen…this is why they put us together.”
She wiped away her tears with the back of her hand, and stood up.
“Subject 21185!” the disembodied voice shouted.
“Subject 21185! You will refrain from any further obscene displays of sexual arousal! The next time we shall not be so lenient.”
No, I expected they wouldn’t be.
“Subject 21185!” it screamed. “You will now stand up and comport yourself with dignity!”
The pain in my head, which had ebbed slightly, started to return. Oh yes, I leapt to my feet. The nausea was still there, somewhat, and my throat and stomach were in great pain…but I did not want to feel that stabbing pain in my head again.
I looked into the eyes of the woman, and found comfort in them. They still shed tears, and I could see her chest heaving slightly as she tried to stifle her sobs—but I found a great deal of strength in those curious eyes of hers.
Suddenly, I heard her scream, and I saw her fall to the floor. The same torture they had meted to me repeated itself for her. The pain was so terrible that it caused her to be sick on the floor; in fact, I’m sure it was designed for that purpose.
It was all part of a carefully planned course of mutual humiliation. We were to be reduced to our basest and most animal level, right before each other’s eyes. No human dignity was to remain to us…every biological reaction that had formerly been screened from view was now to be performed publicly, for the debasement and degradation of us all.
I pitied the beautiful young woman. But most of all I pitied myself.
“Subject 198317!” the voice screamed.
The woman pulled back her lustrous red hair, trying to keep it from falling into the pile of vomit. She was unsuccessful, of course, and it was obvious that parts of her stomach contents had become entangled in it.
She choked once, and coughed.
“Subject 198317! You will refrain from unseemly displays of emotion. Now stand up!”
The young woman staggered uncertainly to her feet, and cradled her head in her hands.
“Stand up straight!” the voice shouted.
She grimaced in agony, and rose to her full height, with her shoulders thrown back.
“That’s better, Subject 198317!”
She was still very beautiful…even with bits of sick clinging to her hair and chin, and with her cheeks looking a little hollower and less ruddy than they had a minute ago.
Yes, she was still very lovely—I wouldn’t let them change my estimation of her. There was no return of my erection; they had cured me of that, for now.
All the same, she was still beautiful, and I made sure to communicate that to her with my eyes. And she noticed it…I am sure of it, for I saw a faint smile tug at the corners of her lips.
Subject 198317, I thought. I wonder what her real name is?
She seemed able to read my thoughts. I saw her mouth two words:
“Sejana. Euphrosyne.”
Her eyes seemed to express a question.
“John. Lysander,” I mouthed in turn.
She nodded, and smiled—this time a little more broadly.
“Subjects!” the voice screamed, “you are all to report to the Inspection Stations!”
I could hear the slap of my bare feet on the smooth white surface of the floor, as I entered the tiny room.
It was a small cubicle, practically identical in shape, dimensions, and glaring whiteness to the cell in which I had awakened. But not perfectly identical.
There was a table in the center of the room, which seemed to ooze up out of the white floor like a living thing. There were no legs to the table, for it was not a piece of furniture placed within the room; it was an extrusion of the room, a pseudopod of sorts that the room had produced for a specific purpose—to be withdrawn once that purpose had been served.
The table was white, as the rest of this dismal place, with a smooth surface upon which various images and displays and lights danced with a kind of occult abandon.
A record of my life, I thought. All my sins and mental errors documented with meticulous care by the State, and reproduced here for the edification of my Controller.
A woman sat behind the table. She sat upon a smooth, white, very uncomfortable-looking chair that also looked like a liquid extrusion of the white floor.
She was a young and very pretty woman—like the redhead, the memory of whose beauty and kindness still floated giddily in my mind.
But this woman was different. Not merely physically different, though that was of course very apparent. This woman also had pale, creamy skin, but she had very dark hair, which was cut in a short bob that fell about her ears—a very popular fashion with all the State functionaries, male or female. Her eyes were a dark brown color, and her beauty was of a severer sort that did not invite feelings of warmth or love.
And there was a harshness in her expression and manner that marked her as something very different from Subject 198317…Sejana Euphrosyne. This woman was very intelligent—very cold, calculating, analytical. The perfect functionary. The perfect Controller. And there was not the faintest hint of kindness or compassion in her manner.
The Controller, without bothering to look up at me, flicked her wrist absently in my direction, and a smooth, white chair—identical to the one she occupied—began to slowly emerge from the floor.
It was an invitation to be seated…no, it was a command, for I felt the dull ache of the Control in my brain, and I staggered forward under its impetus, and fell into the seat.
It was hard and uncomfortable. I am lean, and my buttocks have little padding, and so the seat was a torture, even beyond what sitting on the hard white floor had been. Moreover, the shape of the chair was deliberately constraining, forcing me to sit with my legs pressed together—a position that squeezed my testicles in a way that was painfully uncomfortable.
The Controller continued to ignore me. She was intently watching the shapes and images on the surface of the table, occasionally swatting at them with her long fingers, sometimes frowning, but rarely betraying any emotion.
She was, it must be added, nearly as naked as I was. She wore a plain gown of white paper, little more than a rectangular sheet with a cutout for the neck and head, and which had been cinched at the waist by a small black strap or belt. Her arms were bare, as were the sides of her torso and thighs; her long, shapely legs were completely bare, as were her feet.
There was little that was left to the imagination. I could easily discern the full, smooth roundness of her small breasts through the sheer paper, which was tented in a very suggestive way by her protruding nipples. Her long legs were crossed, but then—as if sensing my attention, although she betrayed this through no expression on her face—she uncrossed her legs, and I couldn’t help but register the shadowy pubic triangle which the movement revealed.
I felt the familiar stiffness in my groin, and my eyes shot up to hers in terror. She was looking at me, an expression of unutterable disgust and disdain on her lovely face—a face that had never been made for such an expression—and then she looked down at my swelling erection.
The pain in my head grew again, and I doubled up in the chair, retching violently but producing nothing out of my already emptied stomach. The pain was intense, and I felt the tightness in my groin rapidly diminish as the erection ebbed.
“Subject 21185,” the Controller spoke. Her voice was liquid and soft, very pleasant to the ears despite the unpleasantness of her words and her manner.
“You will refrain from any more displays of aggressive sexuality. We will soon correct for your masculine psychosis, but in the meantime you are not to react to my biological dimorphism with such shocking and vulgar displays. You will note that I have complete control over myself, total mastery over my primitive physiology, and seeing you here before me, in such a state, has produced no effect on me.”
That’s a lie, I thought. You fool yourself, woman…but you can’t fool me.
She’d reacted all right.
I’d even heard the light crinkling of her paper gown as it tented out even further from the stiffening of her nipples, which were now a darker shade of pink; and I’d seen the deep flush that spread over her chest and neck and face.
Yes, she’d reacted. She wasn’t nearly so shocked by my reaction to her as she’d pretended. She liked it…my arousal was arousing her. She licked her lips, an involuntary movement, and crossed her legs again—she hadn’t nearly the total self-control she feigned.
This is probably the only sexual gratification she’s ever had in her life.
It was obvious that the Controllers were sexual sadists and degenerates. That was what made them ideal for this job. They were uniformly attractive men and women, and they were paired with their Subjects for a very specific reason. To be humiliated by an attractive, sexually desirable member of the opposite sex was the worst kind of degradation.
She leaned back in her chair, and studied him for what seemed an eternity. Her gaze was frank and comprehensive, and he noted that it lingered on those parts of his anatomy that he imagined ought to have been of no particular interest to such a cold and analytical creature.
“Subject 21185,” she said, in a quieter and more congenial tone, “I am your Controller. Do you know why you are here?”
I sensed that it was a question I was expected to answer in the negative. So I shook my head.
“You are here, Subject 21185,” she continued, with the pedantic tone of a schoolteacher, “because of that disgusting display that I just witnessed. In short, Subject 21185, you are an Atavism, and the State cannot tolerate Atavisms. Do you understand why this should be so?”
She laid her hands in her lap, rather suggestively, as she awaited my answer.
“Yes, Controller,” I said, “I understand.” I averted my eyes, for it was plain that she was displaying her beauty to fullest advantage, attempting to provoke another reaction from me.
This was not a requirement of her duty, I knew. This was merely a perk—a sadistic amusement.
“You will look at me, Subject 21185,” she said, her voice acquiring a cold, menacing edge, “or I shall be forced to take appropriate disciplinary actions.”
I felt the dull ache of the Control returning. I looked straight into her eyes, and did my best to ignore her manifest femininity. And I was successful, after a fashion, for I began to think of her as something other than a woman…something other than a human.
“That is better, Subject 21185. Our information indicates that you have committed a number of vile crimes against the State. You are a pervert, Subject 21185, and we have demonstrable proof of it. We have proof that you sexually defiled another Subject, against her will, and by this action caused her to produce an unregulated Unperson, in contravention of State law…”
Another lie, I thought.
I loved her…or I imagined that I did. I don’t really know what we were to one another. She reminded me of this Controller very much—maybe that is why they chose her. She was dark haired, and very beautiful…Alysia, she said her name was. Alysia Melpomene. Yes, she was dark haired, and dark skinned, with great dark eyes, and she could be as cold and inhuman as this Controller.
Not like Subject 198317…not like Sejana Euphrosyne.
But she could also be kind, after a fashion, and even caring when a strange mood struck her. She said she was fascinated by me, whom she called her “beautiful animal.” She was a minor State functionary, but she was not quite like the others.
I suppose…yes, I suppose I loved her, in a way. She said she wanted to know what it was like, that she had heard so much and she wanted to see for herself how delightfully animalistic it could be. So, one evening, we engaged in “unauthorized sexual congress,” as the sun’s last, crimson rays filtered into her apartment.
She was permitted a window—that was one of the reasons I wanted so badly to be with her. Her apartment was nowhere near the loftiest heights of the sky-clawing Congeries, of course; she was a minor functionary, and such a luxury was far beyond her status level. Still, Alysia was far above me in the pecking order of Teleiopolis—the ultimate city of mankind. She was at least part of the State apparatus; I was merely a third-class engineer in the space-yards.
But for some curious reason, Alysia’s apartment was situated in such a way that it commanded a magnificent view of the Congeries and even the ocean. I remember, at night, all the wonderful lights of the Congeries glittering below and above, and the blinding sparks of light as the Selectors—the gleaming white starships that departed every few minutes—shot into the night sky. I worked on the Selectors, designing and building their engines, and it was my one great pleasure to participate in the Benefactor’s great Plan for Mankind. So I thrilled to see them depart…carrying in their holds the precious human cargo that would broadcast the species among the stars.
Beyond the Congeries lay the ocean, lurid in the red glare of the fire-clouds that lay even further beyond…across the water, where were once the continents and cities of our ancient ancestors. Now there was only the fire-clouds, and among them flitted the brilliant sparks of the Shining Ones—the alien Others that had changed our world forever, and forced us to become the beetle-like things that lived in the Congeries of Teleiopolis.
Yes, I loved Alysia Melpomene because of what she had. And in return she wanted me to show her the forbidden pleasure of unauthorized sexual congress—the most heavily penalized of the many crimes against the State. I complied, of course, telling myself that I did so because I loved her. It wasn’t very good, and she was appalled by the whole thing. She was too nervous, by turns excessively timid and aggressive, and it was impossible to find the right rhythm with her; I ejaculated prematurely, and she pulled me out too soon, so that some of it got on the flesh of her stomach and thighs. It was, apparently, not at all as she had expected it to be. She never spoke to me again…but it didn’t really matter. Enough had gotten in her to make her pregnant. Conceiving an unregulated Unperson was a heinous crime, but it was very easy for a female Subject to deflect blame by claiming to be an unwilling victim of unsolicited masculine sexual aggression.
Alysia would have lost her position as a functionary…but at least she would not be sent to the Underneath. Alysia was no unwilling victim—she had begged me to show her for weeks, so that it was obvious that it had become a sort of obsession for her. It had not turned out the way she imagined, and she must have been filled with disgust and horror and shame at what we had done.
That would have been the end of it, had she not become pregnant with the Unperson. That could not be hidden. And so I had been named, and Alysia had at least escaped being sent to the Underneath…and here I was.
The Controller was watching me very carefully. I thought to see the hint of a smile.
“The State is benevolent, Subject 21185,” she continued.
“The Benefactor loves each and every one of us, even when we have sinned against Him. It could not be otherwise. You behave like an animal, Subject 21185”—she licked her lips, and her gaze was drawn to my crotch—“yet still the Benefactor loves you.
“The State is in a delicate balance, and Society must have order. We live in the Congeries of Teleiopolis, the last human city on the last pristine continent on the earth, and it is all we can do to survive. When the Shining Ones came, Subject 21185, we lived very differently—we were all Atavisms then, and we all behaved much as you do.
“But we cannot live that way any longer. We have evolved greatly since then, we have become more human…not less. But you are a kind of throwback, Subject 21185, and there are occasionally others like you. But you are not to be afraid. The Benefactor still loves you. We have developed many very sophisticated techniques to reform Atavisms. Sometimes they are successful…sometimes they are not.
“Nevertheless, we must try to cure you, Subject 21185, and all those who are like you. You like the red-haired girl, Subject 198317? You must remove such a notion from your head. She is an Atavism, like you, and she is very sick. We will cure her, as we will cure you, and then you will wonder why you ever liked her.”
The Controller stood up, and smiled—this time a genuine smile, full of warmth and a kind of spiritual benevolence. She walked around in front of the desk, and I could hear the gentle slapping of her bare feet on the smooth floor, and the soft crinkling of her paper gown as she moved.
She positioned herself before me, and settled upon the edge of the desk. There could be no doubt as to what her intention was. The paper outfit, inadequate concealment at best, rode up her slim figure as she sat on the desk, completely revealing the dark triangle of neatly trimmed pubic hairs between her thighs.
The Controller studied me for a long time, and I could not refrain from noticing the further stiffening of her nipples where they pressed against her paper gown. I did not want the pain that the Control brought, so I strove to master myself, but the Controller took no notice. She brushed her foot against one of mine, and lightly caressed it with her toes.
“It may surprise you to know that I too was an Atavism, once,” she continued, in a very hushed voice. She almost spoke as if in a nostalgic reverie.
No, I thought, that doesn’t surprise me at all.
“Yes,” she said, “I was once an incorrigible Atavism. I prostituted myself to other Atavisms, creatures such as yourself, and I even once conceived an unregulated Unperson…much like that poor Subject you defiled. But I was not like her…I brought my punishment upon myself.”
I had kept my eyes fixed upon hers, so I was somewhat startled when I heard the crinkle of her paper gown. Despite myself, I looked, and saw that she had slid her hand beneath the paper. She brushed the nipple of her left breast with her fingers, and then drew them slowly down the skin of her stomach, before plunging them into the dark crevice between her thighs.
The thin paper hid nothing from my sight.
I looked up at her, afraid I could not control my reaction, and she was smiling. There was nothing benevolent about this smile.
“The State cannot tolerate Atavisms such as we, Subject 21185. Since the coming of the Shining Ones over three thousand years ago, the Benefactor has worked ever so hard to change us as a species. Our ancestors were like us, Subject 21185—that is, like you and me—and they were nearly destroyed by the Shining Ones. But the Benefactor has turned us into something different…something better. The world has changed, and our species must change too…it must adapt. We cannot countenance unauthorized sexual congress, nor unrestricted procreation; we cannot have Subjects begetting unregulated Unpersons. This would lead to chaos. You do not desire chaos, do you, Subject 21185?”
Her breath came in short, sharp gasps, and there was a glazed, unseeing look in her eyes that mixed disagreeably with their customary fanaticism.
“You are guilty of dysregulated thinking, Subject 21185. That is what marks you as an Atavism. You are barbaric, animalistic, sexually aggressive. You injected your poisonous seed into a female Subject; this is a crime against the State. Only the Benefactor possesses the right to inject human semen into female Subjects. You would arrogate this right to yourself; you are, therefore, a criminal, Subject 21185, and you must be punished and reformed.”
The Controller’s eyes shone brightly as she described my crimes, and she looked at me with unmistakable desire as she touched herself repeatedly. I had no doubt what was in the Controller’s mind; her every expression and movement belied the import of her words.
“But I was cured, Subject 21185, and so can you be. Perhaps, in time, you too will be allowed to serve the State as a Controller.”
She was doing something to her groin with her fingers, and I could guess what it was. I strove to control myself, but the situation was designed to overcome any possibility of self-control. I fought hard to stop it, but it was an unequal struggle…I could feel the swelling begin.
Something exploded in my brain, and I knew nothing else for a time.
I awoke in a white cubicle. I thought it was the same one in which my ordeal had begun—but I soon realized it was not. There was someone else in the cell with me.
My head ached horribly, and I uttered a low groan. That’s when I noticed a movement on the far side of the cubicle, and I saw that I had a cell-mate.
It was the red-haired girl. Sejana Euphrosyne…Subject 198317.
My vision was still somewhat blurry, but I knew that it was her. She was watching me with those beautiful heterochromatic eyes of hers, and the angelic loveliness of her freckle-dusted face seemed to emerge from a glittering, red-gold cloud.
She was leaning against the far wall, resting on the balls of her bare feet and with her hands modestly positioned on her lap. She was watching me, very closely, and I sensed that she was afraid of me…or, perhaps more accurately, she was afraid of what she might do to me.
But she seemed to know that I was in terrible pain, and her compassion eventually overcame her fear. She stood up, and came toward me…hesitantly, at first, but then she apparently resolved that she was committed, and decided to take no heed of the consequences.
I heard the padding of her bare feet on the smooth floor, and then she squatted down beside me.
She took my head in her hands, and gently stroked my hair. She rested her head against mine, and I could feel the billowy cloud of her hair spill against my face and onto my shoulders.
“You poor man,” she cooed, “I don’t know what they’ve done to you, but it must have been terrible.”
“Wha-w-why are you here?” I stammered.
She looked down into my eyes, anguished compassion screwing her lovely face into an expression that I did not like to see.
“The real question, John Lysander, is why are you here? I was returned to my cubicle after a short session with my Controller. Then, some time later, they deposited you in my cell, and you have been unconscious for a very long time.”
She continued to stroke my hair, trying to soothe my aching head. Oddly enough, it was working.
“I think they have brought us together as a fresh form of torture. Apparently, they wish to use me to cause you pain…and you me, I fear.”
Suddenly, a wild, panicked look came into her strangely colored eyes.
“You must not think of me as a woman, John Lysander. You must not think of me like that at all. It is how they will torture us. I am Subject 198317…nothing else. Forget that you know my real name. I am nothing to you, please John Lysander—promise me that you will not see me as a woman…”
It was a promise I could not make.
I drifted into unconsciousness in the warmth of her embrace.
She was Sejana Euphrosyne, and she could be nothing else to me. And she was the loveliest and most wonderful woman I had ever met.
“I used to work here, you know,” she told me, as she held me in her arms.
“I was a Controller, and I was very good at what I did. I had a gift for winning the trust and affection of all those poor boys…those Subjects, who were brought to me.”
She began to weep, and I gently brushed the tears away from her eyes.
“Oh, John Lysander! I am ashamed of what I did to them! I treated them so cruelly. I broke them, and made them into State functionaries. Nothing but human machines…all of them. But I grew to despise myself—and on that day, I learned that I was no different from all the Subjects that I tortured.
“I was an Atavism, just like them. My sin was my empathy—I began to feel compassion for these poor people. And from sympathy and compassion, it is a short journey to love. That is a sin I never thought I would be guilty of, John Lysander.
“I fell in love with one of my Subjects, and of course they found us out. They always do. I was pregnant with an unregulated Unperson, which was immediately destroyed along with its father. He was incorrigible, they said, an Irremediable Atavism…but that wasn’t true. It was I who had condemned him to death through my actions.
“They plucked my child from my womb, and destroyed it before my eyes. And then they sent me here, to the Underneath, among the Subjects I once tortured. I am an Atavism, John Lysander, a criminal, a dysregulated thinker, because I want to love and be loved, and to have an unregulated Unperson of my own! I hate this world…and I hate what we have become!”
She lowered her head, and her lustrous cloud of red-gold hair spilled around her face, concealing it from me. But I knew from her convulsive shaking that she was sobbing.
I didn’t now how else to comfort her. I took her face in my hands, and I kissed her. It was not something I had ever done before…not even with Alysia Melpomene. Our interactions had been strictly animal, violent and feral and with not a trace of tenderness.
But with Sejana, it was different. I kissed her, and she seemed as surprised by the action as I was. But she returned the kiss, and for a brief moment, we were in a very different place…in a very different world.
The throbbing in my head began, and I felt it beat up quickly from my brain until it expanded to consume my entire body. I tore my lips from hers, and screamed in pain. I was erect, of course…the kiss, her closeness, our mutual feelings. I couldn’t help it, but the Control noticed, and the Control disapproved.
Sejana cried out in terror.
“Stop it, John! Stop it!” she screamed. “Why did you do that? You must not think of me that way!”
But it was no use. Even with the pain of the Control, the erection would not ebb. The feel of her soft, warm skin against mine; the taste of her lips and her tongue, and the moisture of her breath…the closeness of her, and the promise of love that she represented.
“Stop it, John!” she screamed again. “You must make it go away!”
But I could not. I writhed in agony on the cold white floor, and consciousness seemed to falter; perhaps the pain only strengthened it, but my erection would not subside. Sejana took me into her arms, and caressed my head, but there was nothing she could do to stop the pain.
Then, it was as if the same thought had come into her head…that there was nothing she could do to stop the torture. But there was, of course, though I was too far gone in misery to realize it.
She set me back down onto the floor, and roughly slapped my legs apart. I tried to double up again in a fetal position, but she refused to allow it; she gripped the shaft of my penis, and I opened my eyes to see that she was crouched atop me.
Roughly, carelessly, she shoved it inside of her…I felt the warmth and moistness as it slid into her body. The pain of the Control was too intense for me to take any pleasure or satisfaction from it—but then, that wasn’t the point of what she was doing. The pressure increased, and then I felt a release.
Slowly, the erection began to ebb, and Sejana tore it out of her amidst a thick backflow of its whitish discharge. The pain of the Control slowly faded, and a kind of life began to distill itself back into my body…a life that was apart from numbing pain and torture.
Sejana cradled my head in her hands, and whispered soothing words.
I looked up into her weird, varicolored eyes and beautiful, angelic face, and I smiled. I loved her, more than I had ever loved any woman, and I tried to croak the words from my hoarse throat.
She knew, though the words were inarticulate, and great tears slid from her beautiful eyes.
“I know, John Lysander,” she whispered, “and I love you too.”
I smiled, happy despite the horror of our condition and our fate, and rested my head against her chest.
She screamed.
It was a terrible sound, a scream of pure pain and terror, which suddenly crescendoed and ended in a sickening, wet pop, which was accompanied by a shower of warm fluid that splattered on my head and face. I noticed the lurid redness of this fluid immediately, and as Sejana slumped and fell heavily onto the floor, I saw instantly that her head had exploded.
A red smear of brains and gore disfigured the antiseptic whiteness of the wall. Somewhere amidst all that offal on the floor, I saw the Control, a fat, bluish-white, maggoty thing that heaved itself across the floor amidst a trail of blood and gray matter.
I retrieved the wriggling horror, and threw it heavily against the far wall, where it exploded in a burst of red.
There was a lesson here, and I learned it well. Sejana Euphrosyne was an Irremediable Atavism. She was a dysregulated thinker, with sexually aggressive tendencies. She had made no attempt to reform herself…and she had paid the price for her sins.
I did not want to meet the same end as Sejana Euphrosyne.
I had never loved Subject 198317.
That was a self-indulgent foolishness.
I sat at the small table, and studied the files on Subject 77393. She sat upon a small white chair, opposite the table from me. She was small, and pretty, and very dark. Vainly, she tried to hide her nakedness with her small hands, but it was impossible to do.
I smiled in contempt. Subject 77393 reminded me of Alysia Melpomene. I hated Alysia Melpomene.
Subject 77393 was a degenerate. A pervert. She had contracted numerous sexual liaisons with other Subjects, and she had produced more than one unregulated Unperson—all of which had been found and destroyed, of course.
She was an enemy of the State, but the Benefactor still loved her, and wished that she might be cured.
Wide-eyed, despite herself, Subject 77393 was studying every mark of my very visible anatomy, which showed quite plainly through my paper gown. I smiled, of course—but not so that she could see.
I saw her skin flush on her face and breasts, and she quickly looked away. She flinched, and held her stomach, and began to double up in agony.
I could feel the waves of pain coming from my own Control, but it was slight…and I had learned to ignore it anyhow.
This one is like I once was, I thought.
This brought me a great deal of satisfaction.
Subject 77393 would make a fine Controller.
[Hmm…seems like the last city on earth is filled with unrepentant sadists. The more things change, the more they stay the same, I suppose. Anyhow, please join us in the next issue of The Florilegium of Phantasy, for a nasty little horror tale of Old Constantinople…]