+J.M.J.+
Conversations with a Mecha Named Joe
by "Matrix Refugee"
Disclaimer:
See Chapter 1
Author's Note:
About time I got back to this one, or to just post SOMETHING, or part of something. There's been a surge of new talent lately, a lot of new fics from a lot of new writers, so I've been letting them have the spotlight. About time I wrote something dealing with a certain green-eyed love machine....
**********
Chapter IX: "Heat Up, Cool Down"
Summer days, I stay put, copywriting Christmas flyers and winter travel brochures, a pitcher of iced tea beside my datascriber, mp3 player blaring Christmas music drowning out the hustle and bustle that creeps in, window closed and the air-conditioner on low. Too high and you get soft so you can't take the heat when and if you venture out.
Late in the afternoon, as the sun is sinking, I shut off the air conditioner and crack open the window for some fresh air. The wind coming in off the river helps cool down the air, but nothing ever really cools this city down.
20.00. As the sky grows dim and the neon starts to glow off the haze, after supper, after I send off my day's work to the client, I head out for my nightly walk, hitting the street.
Summer season is the peak time of the year for crowds of visitors from everywhere, from all over the States and even from other countries. Not just Orgas coming in for the city's stock in trade: quite a few new models of lover-Mechas are brought in for their trials this time of year.
I have to elbow my way through the crowds on the boulevards. A few scruffy young men try to reach for me thinking, in their eagerness, that I might be a Mecha. Thank God for my naturally scrawny figure, which quickly puts them off, as does my deliberately stand-offish approach -- and my thick glasses. Who ever saw a lover-Mecha with tin rimmed specs?
I move through the pulsating jungle, past crowded bars and casinos, past dance clubs with their floors almost too packed for the gyrating couples, clusters and groups. Rainbow-hued neon gleams off skin, either slick from sweat or from its silicon base. Laughter, giggling, bawdy, raucous, ripples through the backbeat that is the anthem of this city. The warm night air oozes with dozens of aromas, sweet vanilla, salt of sweat, heady musk and more less innocent or pleasant.
Would-be lovers offer me their wares, strutting males steaming with machismo, tight pants, open-necked shirts, some shirtless. Hey there, honey, you lonesome? Looking for some company? Want it rough or slow? I glance at them for a nanosecond, but not finding what -- or rather who -- I'm looking for, I turn them down. Nope. No thanks. Sorry, not my idea of fun.
I keep walking through the sultry streets. The back of my neck cakes up with grime and sweat. I stop by a fountain in the middle of a plaza and sit down on the lip of the low basin, right where the spray can hit me without drenching me. When no one is looking, I take off my glasses, turn, and plunge my head into the water (It isn't very deep, barely a few inches), eyes closed, nostrils pinched shut.
I pull my head out and shake out my dripping hair, head tilted back so the spray falls over me.
"Are you trying to drown your loneliness in that fountain? I know of a more effective way," asks a silken baritenor right next to me.
I blink the last of the water drops from my eyelashes and turn toward the soothing sound.
And Joe is sitting beside me on the edge of the basin, long legs extended gracefully, clad in the summer version of his usual late Romantic Era retro: cream-colored shirt with the cuffs unfastened and rolled to his elbows, Byron collar open almost to his slender waist. The corner of his phosphorescent green operating liscense glows, just visible under his collar, but not half as bright as his eyes.
"Nah, I'm just trying to cool off on a warm night like this," I reply.
"It would appear, since your labors require little effort, this climate would not overheat your flesh," he said.
"You'd think it wouldn't, but it does." I looked him up and down. "Does the heat ever affect you?"
"It does not, no more than the chill of winter," he replied. Now it was his turn to scrutinize me. "But will not the cool of the water soaked into your garments chill your more delicate person? Perhaps you should get out of them."
He said this with, at one in the same time, an innocently concerned lilt coupled with a deliciously suggestive note hinting at something other.
"Oh, be off with you!" I teased, and I flicked a handful of water at him, right into his lap.
He started back slightly, his eyes scanning my face, reading it to determine the motive behind my gesture, a pucker of puzzlement and mild alarm between his neatly arched brows. But that quickly smoothed away.
"One turn deserves another in kind," he said, and flicked some drops of water in my general direction, nowhere as hard as I had, but with this impish glint in his eye.
"Oh yeah?" I drawled, and I splashed him back, using both hands, creating a bigger wave. The water ran right off him, skin, clothes and all.
"Oh yes," he replied, adding another teasing little splat.
I must have gotten excited. The splash I gave him back didn't amount to much: my hip slipped on some of the water I'd spilled on the basin and I nearly slid in. Joe reached out and caught me around the waist, keeping me from falling in.
"Ooh, you saved my life!" I crooned in a mock swoony voice, smiling up into his face as he helped me to my feet.
He shrugged one shoulder gracefully. "I was merely keeping you from getting yourself thoroughly sodden," he replied. "Unlike the way you treated me."
"Oh, don't be such a drip: you're the one with the water-proof skin," I retorted, my eye on the small puddle that had formed at his feet.
(More someday.......)
Conversations with a Mecha Named Joe
by "Matrix Refugee"
Disclaimer:
See Chapter 1
Author's Note:
About time I got back to this one, or to just post SOMETHING, or part of something. There's been a surge of new talent lately, a lot of new fics from a lot of new writers, so I've been letting them have the spotlight. About time I wrote something dealing with a certain green-eyed love machine....
**********
Chapter IX: "Heat Up, Cool Down"
Summer days, I stay put, copywriting Christmas flyers and winter travel brochures, a pitcher of iced tea beside my datascriber, mp3 player blaring Christmas music drowning out the hustle and bustle that creeps in, window closed and the air-conditioner on low. Too high and you get soft so you can't take the heat when and if you venture out.
Late in the afternoon, as the sun is sinking, I shut off the air conditioner and crack open the window for some fresh air. The wind coming in off the river helps cool down the air, but nothing ever really cools this city down.
20.00. As the sky grows dim and the neon starts to glow off the haze, after supper, after I send off my day's work to the client, I head out for my nightly walk, hitting the street.
Summer season is the peak time of the year for crowds of visitors from everywhere, from all over the States and even from other countries. Not just Orgas coming in for the city's stock in trade: quite a few new models of lover-Mechas are brought in for their trials this time of year.
I have to elbow my way through the crowds on the boulevards. A few scruffy young men try to reach for me thinking, in their eagerness, that I might be a Mecha. Thank God for my naturally scrawny figure, which quickly puts them off, as does my deliberately stand-offish approach -- and my thick glasses. Who ever saw a lover-Mecha with tin rimmed specs?
I move through the pulsating jungle, past crowded bars and casinos, past dance clubs with their floors almost too packed for the gyrating couples, clusters and groups. Rainbow-hued neon gleams off skin, either slick from sweat or from its silicon base. Laughter, giggling, bawdy, raucous, ripples through the backbeat that is the anthem of this city. The warm night air oozes with dozens of aromas, sweet vanilla, salt of sweat, heady musk and more less innocent or pleasant.
Would-be lovers offer me their wares, strutting males steaming with machismo, tight pants, open-necked shirts, some shirtless. Hey there, honey, you lonesome? Looking for some company? Want it rough or slow? I glance at them for a nanosecond, but not finding what -- or rather who -- I'm looking for, I turn them down. Nope. No thanks. Sorry, not my idea of fun.
I keep walking through the sultry streets. The back of my neck cakes up with grime and sweat. I stop by a fountain in the middle of a plaza and sit down on the lip of the low basin, right where the spray can hit me without drenching me. When no one is looking, I take off my glasses, turn, and plunge my head into the water (It isn't very deep, barely a few inches), eyes closed, nostrils pinched shut.
I pull my head out and shake out my dripping hair, head tilted back so the spray falls over me.
"Are you trying to drown your loneliness in that fountain? I know of a more effective way," asks a silken baritenor right next to me.
I blink the last of the water drops from my eyelashes and turn toward the soothing sound.
And Joe is sitting beside me on the edge of the basin, long legs extended gracefully, clad in the summer version of his usual late Romantic Era retro: cream-colored shirt with the cuffs unfastened and rolled to his elbows, Byron collar open almost to his slender waist. The corner of his phosphorescent green operating liscense glows, just visible under his collar, but not half as bright as his eyes.
"Nah, I'm just trying to cool off on a warm night like this," I reply.
"It would appear, since your labors require little effort, this climate would not overheat your flesh," he said.
"You'd think it wouldn't, but it does." I looked him up and down. "Does the heat ever affect you?"
"It does not, no more than the chill of winter," he replied. Now it was his turn to scrutinize me. "But will not the cool of the water soaked into your garments chill your more delicate person? Perhaps you should get out of them."
He said this with, at one in the same time, an innocently concerned lilt coupled with a deliciously suggestive note hinting at something other.
"Oh, be off with you!" I teased, and I flicked a handful of water at him, right into his lap.
He started back slightly, his eyes scanning my face, reading it to determine the motive behind my gesture, a pucker of puzzlement and mild alarm between his neatly arched brows. But that quickly smoothed away.
"One turn deserves another in kind," he said, and flicked some drops of water in my general direction, nowhere as hard as I had, but with this impish glint in his eye.
"Oh yeah?" I drawled, and I splashed him back, using both hands, creating a bigger wave. The water ran right off him, skin, clothes and all.
"Oh yes," he replied, adding another teasing little splat.
I must have gotten excited. The splash I gave him back didn't amount to much: my hip slipped on some of the water I'd spilled on the basin and I nearly slid in. Joe reached out and caught me around the waist, keeping me from falling in.
"Ooh, you saved my life!" I crooned in a mock swoony voice, smiling up into his face as he helped me to my feet.
He shrugged one shoulder gracefully. "I was merely keeping you from getting yourself thoroughly sodden," he replied. "Unlike the way you treated me."
"Oh, don't be such a drip: you're the one with the water-proof skin," I retorted, my eye on the small puddle that had formed at his feet.
(More someday.......)