Wet Dreams

Content note: Disturbing/violent sexual imagery.

Sunset on the Beach

The tide's coming in and I'm lying here on the beach without a care in the world. It won't last forever- nothing does- but for a little while I can just rest here, tasting the remains of my fourth pina colada and feeling that pleasant, chemical numbness relaxing every one of my limbs.

The tide's at my toes now, warm and pleasant but still enough to wake me a little from the stupor I'd fallen into. I creak my eyes open- one of them can see sand and the other, if I pull it hard to the side, can see along the beach. The sunset's coloured the beach a vibrant orange, so intense it's hard to pick out the pretty seashell I found earlier. It's right in front of me now. My face is pressed into the sand like a pillow, the weight of my head crushing my nose to the side. I have to breathe through my mouth.

The tide's past my knees and I'm breathing fast. My heart's running like a jackhammer and my fingers twitch with the desire to pull forward and push me up. I don't know why they won't. I can see the tide line on the beach and the water's going to come past me if I don't move. Why can't I move? Four pina coladas should not do this to a grown woman, I used to have six and think nothing of it and even if four made me a little fuzzy I went for a walk to clear my head so why isn't it clear? My left hand throbs. I think I cut myself on that seashell and then- and then what?

The tide's up past my belly and the more adventurous waves are starting to tickle the bottom of my chin. The foam's getting in my nose and I feel like I can almost move my legs; the water makes them light and I think if I can flip over I can float. I can flip over. I'm sure of it. I can just get this right, wiggle my toes and my fingers so I rock onto my back. It can't be that hard. I take a deep breath and it's half sea foam and I lose track for a moment

The tide's at my mouth and I have to breathe slowly or I just suck water into my lungs. Sometimes a big wave washes over me from head to toe and I feel like I'm sinking further into the sand. It stings my eyes. Someone's coming, right? Someone's coming because it's a busy beach, people walk around and you'd be able to tell I'm not doing well. It takes two minutes to drown. I read that once.

The tide's over my mouth and pouring into me and I can't stop it. I can't breathe. One minute and forty seconds now. Someone's going to find me and I'll flip over and I'll be fine. One minute twenty. Everything's blurry from the salt and I don't need to breathe, I don't need to, I can breathe out slowly and I can breathe in when someone comes to get me, come and get me, where are you

I can breathe in when someone comes to get me

I can breathe in when

Oh god it's not painless it burns your insides like fire and now I'm twitching all over, convulsing and shaking and god why couldn't I move my back earlier because now I'm arching and retching like a cat and there's still no air just another burning breath of salt and vomit help me come and help me please PLEASE

Vermilion

They came on a Tuesday
in the papercut between last night and this morning
on the corner of every street.

Ours was vermilion and puce
even though I did not know those words before.
They spoke when you looked at them and I knew
~
this is an artichoke
this is wind howling under membranous wings
this is a Fourier transform
this is vermilion 
and puce
~
in the brief instant when I looked at it
and had to turn away
and painted the concrete with my breakfast.

They spoke so fast.

Within a week I knew
~
this is an embrace
this is somewhere new
this is courage
this is better
and yours
~
and people had started to go away.

I saw the man from down the street make his decision.
He stared at it longer than I had seen anyone stare
without the glasses the government had first recommended
and then provided with astonishing speed.
It was speaking to him
and then he embraced it
roughly, like a brother
that you know is healthy and hearty and returned to you
fierce love shouted in the clasping of arms
and then he was gone away.

Now, no-one has gone away for a long time.
The people who stayed
are the sort of people who stay
so we don't look at them any more
except
even through the glasses
they still whisper
~
this is courage
~
and I wish I could know it
like vermilion
or puce

Company

There was a man in my house last night.

At about three in the morning I woke from a dream of storms to find I desperately needed the toilet, and after I was finished I realised that I needed another drink. Dry mouth makes my throat click when I'm trying to fall asleep and it's every bit as irritating as a mystery beeping or a distant car alarm.

I wandered down the landing and went downstairs without turning on the lights- I never turn my lights on when I get up in the night. Yeah, it means I have to sit down when I pee, but my night vision's pretty good and it keeps me from blinking all my sleep away with the flick of a switch. I went down the stairs and into the kitchen, and when I passed the living room something spiked a little note of worry in the back of my head. I didn't realise what it was until I was on my way back with the glass- I'd left the television on, and it was flooding the room with the weird dark light you get from a black screen. I opened the door to turn it off and there he was.

He was sat on the coffee table, his boots pressed together neatly on the floor. He was facing away from me, looking at the TV. I can't remember much about what he looked like; he was average height, average build. I do remember that he was sitting very still, so still that my first thought was that he was a mannequin one of my friends had put there as a prank.

"Hello," he said. His voice sounded familiar and for a moment I thought he was my brother, until another shellshocked neuron reminded me that Bill lived four hundred and fifty miles away.

"Hi there," I said. I don't know why. Something was really wrong with the whole situation; there was a smell I couldn't place, a pattern to this that was clawing at the back of my mind and telling me to be very careful indeed. I remember thinking very clearly that I could go into the hall, get the five-iron out of the closet and tell him to leave but I immediately discounted it as impossible to the point of ridiculousness. I wouldn't make it three yards. I don't know why that seemed so obvious.

"Could you give me a drink please," he said and again I felt like I could almost place his voice. I almost stepped forward to give him my water when I noticed three glasses next to him on the coffee table. I'm not a neat freak but I keep that table clear. One of the glasses was half full.

"Yes," I said quietly. "I'll go and get you one."

I stepped out of the room and closed the door. I walked backwards up the stairs, looking at that door, skipping the fourth and sixth and twelfth steps so that they didn't creak. I was at the top of the stairs and could only see the bottom of the living room door when it opened without a sound.

I turned the corner and kept walking slowly towards my room. I don't know how I knew the rules, but I knew them; no loud noises. No running. No looking away. I reached behind me and fumbled with my door handle when he came into view at the top of the stairs. I hadn't seen him move, hadn't heard the trick steps creak. He wasn't looking at me yet.

The door finally came open and I stepped through as quietly as I could, holding the handle down as I closed the door so as not to make a sound. I turned the lock in the doorknob and the lock clicked on, almost obscenely loud.

Something heavy slammed against the door, hard, and it bent slightly under the impact. For a moment I thought it was going to splinter and I dropped my glass. It shattered on the hardwood floor, too loud, and I danced back around the shards onto my bed and wrapped myself in the blanket, staring at the door. I heard a scratching sound for a moment and then a snuffling, like someone with a cold. Then a sound I didn't place until the next morning. I tried to stay very still.

Five hours later and when the sun had fully risen, I found out I'd cut my foot on the glass. The water had mixed with the blood on the floor and washed it under my bedroom door, leaving a sticky sheen across the floor. When I sighed at the sight of it- blood's a real ballache to clean off anything- I felt brave enough to open the door again. I bandaged my foot and it seemed practical to fetch the mallet from the camping kit under my bed, reasonable to shout about the police before throwing the door open. There was no-one and nothing there, of course, but the blood and water had been carefully wiped away where it had seeped through the crack under the door. I investigated the whole house as thoroughly as I could; the only things out of place I found were three of my best glasses washed and stacked in a neat pile on the kitchen table and a twist of kitchen roll with something wet inside on the coffee table. I put my gardening gloves on before I threw them out and tried not to think too hard about the TV, happily powered down in the living room. The whole place smelled of lemons, nothing like it smelt last night.

I was cleaning the blood later on when I placed the sound- it's the sound of a cat licking butter off the floor or your finger, a rough sort of scraping noise.

I've bought some new locks.

An Excerpt from the CEG Redbook

Smilers

Smilers are, in a word, fun. They’re one of the options in this manual that’s most likely to be mistaken for something supernatural, and while there might be mystical options available to create them you can get extremely similar results with a simple application of training time and medical knowledge. Lucky for you, both of those things can simply be bought!

My personal favourite way to use a Smiler is to spend a little time seeding your target’s subconscious before unleashing it. Doctored photos (just slash them across the mouth) and some unsettling images snuck onto the target’s computer or phone can be an extremely effective sucker punch- if they’ll respond to a wrong number on their phone, don’t be afraid to flirt with them a little before unleashing a close-up of that smile!

Projected cost: ~ $4,400,000 US

Subject: Girl 14-18 (slim build Caucasian recommended)

Requirements: Surgical Team, Medical Consultant, Soundproof Containment Suite B (or equivalent), Psychological Trainer.

All subjects and requirements can be purchased/hired from the Catag® Entertainment Group through the number in the back of the book.

Creation Time: 16-20 months

Creation Process: A Smiler’s signature is made of two parts- their winning smile and their crawling gait. Luckily, the removals that cause the latter can be put to good use augmenting the former. While the surgery is relatively simple, with all surgeries there are risks of infection and premature death so we recommend performing the necessary conditioning before the more elaborate surgeries. To that end, start by simply having your medical team sever both the Achilles’ tendons of the subject and remove her vocal chords.

After that, it’s time for your Psychological Trainer step in. While all Catag® Entertainment Group PTs are familiar with the training process, if you’re using an out-of-house trainer or if you’ve decided to participate in this fulfilling step yourself then follow these guidelines.

Conditioning Guidelines

Your subject MUST be isolated in a soundproof chamber. You want to associate the act of speaking with the desire to bite, and to do that you’ll need to avoid absolutely ANY vocalisations around the subject unless they’re part of her training.

When the subject tries to escape, allow her to damage the chamber in any way she sees fit, and as soon as she’s finished tranquilise her, bind her, and when she awakens repair the damage in front of her. If you need an out-of-trust partner to complete the repairs, have her watch through a television screen, and don’t continue with the repairs until you’ve made sure she’s watching. If you find she’s hoarded an object, have her watch you destroy it. Don’t get angry at her for attempting to escape- that fuels her belief that it’s possible. Instead, adopt an unflappable state of mind. Of course she’s trying to escape- who wouldn’t? All you need her to understand is that it is completely impossible and her bad behaviour is wasted effort.

Use positive reinforcement techniques to train the subject to the following three behaviours, with the first behaviour taking priority over the second and the second taking priority over the third:

1)     When the subject hears a song of your choice, she should sit hugging her legs with her eyes closed until the song is finished.

2)     When the subject hears another person vocalise, she should bite them, preferably in the neck, inner arm, or groin. (genital bites are rarely fatal, so discourage this)

3)     When the subject hears to the sound of another person breathing, she should move to their side and wait.

Once this conditioning is complete, your Smiler should be able to be controlled by using the song you’ve trained her with. It’s also absolutely worth conditioning her to accept eating raw meat and to treat raw meat and blood as perfectly normal parts of her diet.

Surgical Completion

Now it’s time to complete your Smiler surgically! The first thing you need to do is make that smile shine, and this is where you can really personalise your Smiler. The ‘classic’ Smiler has the teeth replaced with steel nails, but we’ve seen variants with sewing needles, razors and even repurposed shark teeth. The important thing is that the new "teeth" are placed in a way that won’t damage your Smiler when she bites, and will transmit the full force of her jaw. Some options add so much metal that it’s best to blend this step with the next one and replace the mandible entirely with a reinforced surgical steel replacement; make sure you get advice from your medical consultant and the head of your surgical team.

After the teeth have been replaced to your liking, the next step is twofold- first to split the corners of the lips right to the edge of the mouth, and then to transplant the gastrocnemius muscles- the calf muscles, for you non-medics- onto either side of the jaw, inside the mouth, to enhance the bite strength. This is an extremely complex procedure which requires a very delicate hand with the nerves, and while a Catag® Entertainment Group surgeon will always use Catag® Medical Group Neurolink Pads an out-of-house surgeon may need them recommended. The muscles can be added outside the mouth if you prefer but they’ll need to be covered with a synthetic “skin” in any case- ask your surgical team for details.

The bottom line is that after this surgery and the attendant recovery time, Your Smiler will have the bulging cheeks and deadly bite that really make it something to remember- while at the same time, removal of those calf muscles will ensure that her legs never heal properly, giving her that classic, slow, shambling crawl.

Note: Some surgeons prefer to remove the lips of a Smiler, in order to enhance the impact of the smile itself. While this is an entirely personal choice, it increases the risk of infection and can make it difficult to feed the Smiler, and for those reasons I cannot recommend it as good practice here.

In Conclusion

A Smiler’s a great way to either add the personal touch to an assassination, or act as one of the crowning moments in a campaign of psychological destruction. If you’re using one, make sure to intercept outgoing calls from the building so you can have your people reply to them. Remember that if an outing goes bad, you can just walk away- but if you do manage to retrieve the Smiler, you’ll have left the target with a story they can’t explain to any authority.

Remember that in the case of a containment breach, a trained Smiler won’t attack you so long as you do not vocalise- they’ll just follow you around until you play their song, at which point they can be safely transported again. Just keep your mouth shut and you’ll be fine!

All in all a Smiler represents one of the cheaper investments in Human Recreation that the Catag® Entertainment Group can facilitate for you- and for my money, one of the most fun to utilise.

A very polite letter indeed

hello neighbour

this is a polite message from you new neighbour please forgive any errors in my writing as english is not my primary language.

i am writing to say hello!! i am new and would like for us to get on very well as good neighbours are made to be. to help get on with you i am going to
1. i will not make loud noises with music or my voice after eleven at night and until seven in the morning.
2. i will keep my house clean and tidy so as not to attract pests!!
3. in the mornings i will be polite and share greetings with you and if you would like a conversation we can have a small conversation.

we are not friends, even though this is a polite message. i have had very bad neighbours before who have caused trouble and touched my personal property and been inside my house. i am sure you are very nice and you are going to treat this polite message as a piece of information that i would like to be treated in the same way as i will treat you, especially with the noises in the night and the CLEAN and TIDY house!! i have had too many problems with pests and animals before and it is not me who has the reason for the problem.

i do not want to have the door knocked on for any reason. if you need something from me please QUIETLY leave a note and i will deal with it in a polite way. i also do not normally use my parking space so if you need to use it that is okay and you do not have to ask, except for if it is the first sunday of the month when i receive a very important delivery. please MAKE SURE to keep my parking space clear then.

please be aware that i grow tomatoes and tomatoes are poisonous to cats so please if you can encourage them not to come into my garden, so they are safe. i will also encourage cats not to come into my garden.
if you have a dog that barks in the night i would be happy to help pay for training so it does not bark. i like to have a very quiet night for my rest.

if you have mice or rats or you hear any sort of mouse or rat PLEASE let me know VERY QUICKLY!! i do not like them and i can not have them in my house at all. i am sure you understand. it is very important to me.

if you would like to say hello!! to me that is very nice of you as a good neighbour should be. i would welcome a letter in return or a conversation in the mornings as i have mentioned.

to finish it i am in hope you will be a very good and clean neighbour and you will not touch anything in my house and we will not have any disagreements.

mister twyss

How The World Was Sung

At the start of the song that is the story that is the world, there is only Bes.

Back then when things were dark and strange, Bes was lonely, so she started to make little bubbles of life. Some bubbles were big and simple and lasted a long time; these are the souls of the trees. Some bubbles were flurries of activity, briefly spawning new bubbles before popping; together this stream of bubbles became the fizz of the insect-folk, scurrying and swimming and making the world alive in their quiet way. And so on Mama Bes went, making bubbles and life more and more complicated, until she decided to make people.

Bes didn't really have a shape yet, or a name, because she'd not made anything that could think about her properly. So she decided to make a new ape, one which stood up and was clever enough to know her. So Bes made bubbles for these apes and put part of herself into the bubbles, as well as life. These were the first people; and straight away when they saw Bes, they decided what she looked like.

Bes looked like a girl of about 17, who was 16 feet tall. She had coiled brown hair down to her neck, and her skin was the colour of hazelnuts. And the people she'd made called her Mama Bes and told her what she looked like, and Mama Bes was pleased. And she wandered the world, meeting the people and their children and their children's children, and for a long time she was not lonely.

But then she started seeing how the people loved each other, and thought that that was most fine. So she took one of the little monkeys, and stretched him out until he was as tall as a man, and breathed more life into him, and more love, and more joy, and so she made Papa Tan.

Papa Tan was and is a happy little fellow, and he likes jokes and tricks and lying in the sun because part of him, like part of us, is still a happy little monkey. And he loved Mama Bes with all his heart, and she loved him too.

Papa Tan wanted to get Mama Bes something special, and so he went to wander the world to find her a gift to enjoy. As he went, he sang to the rocks and the rivers and the sky, even though they were not alive; and because Papa Tan was a god, the world came a little bit alive because he sang it so, and it is still a little bit alive now.

So Papa Tan talked to the world, and it whispered to him what he should give Mama Bes- and Papa Tan loved the idea, because it would really be a gift for everyone, but for him and Mama Bes most of all. So he went to Mama Bes and said that they should make children together like the people do, and Mama Bes was most pleased with this suggestion.

And so they made children together, and they had two sets of twins- one pair of which was joined in the body and the mind, LockSal, and one pair of which were as different as could be, Froff and the Judge. And these children grew up and went about the world, and did what they thought was right and talked to people until they were Gods as well.

Lock and Sal were brother and sister, and both handsome and fine- they were joined up the back, and they concerned themselves with the love of two people in the dark, where they become as close as Lock and Sal are. One of them is more concerned with the pleasant feelings people's bodies get when they touch and hold and sex each other, and the other is more concerned with the pleasant feelings the mind gets when two people think and hope and love together, but they can never remember which is which. They won't admit that if you ask them.

The Judge's face is like a mirror, and he is tall and stern and honest, and he concerns himself with the way people lived. After they die, he makes them look at what they did without any of the lies they told themselves, and then makes them decide what should be done with what was inside their bubble. He is hard-working and strict, and he only ever wants people to do the right thing. He is not forgiving, because it is not his nature.

Froff does not look like a man at all, but more like a big furry beast, with a comfortable mane and a deep, numbing purr. He concerns himself with comfort and security and the release of sleep and narcotics, and being around him is like sitting in an opium den- you can feel your worries and cares and self getting more and more distant, until all there is is his deep, safe purr, and sleep eternal. He rarely leaves his house, but people come to visit it all the time; he only enjoys their company for a while but makes no effort to stop them leaving.

This was the way of the world and the Gods for a long time, but then there was something new. People started to make little suns, and take them inside to read and draw and play and live like it was day even when it was dark and cold, and Papa Tan loved this. He said to Mama Bes that they should make a child to celebrate and protect the little suns, and so they made Sunn together. Sunn is a child who loves to read and play and do experiments, and he wants to know everything so much that he always spins as he walks, so as to see everything. He thinks that his name is something secret that he has to find, so he looks after all the little suns people use to heat themselves and light their knowledge. Everyone else knows his name is Sunn, but he says that that is just what he's called until he finds his real name. Some evenings, you'll see him fishing with Papa Tan, and he'll look like an old man with a strange little smile, and you'll wonder if he's already found what he’s looking for and just likes watching people find stories.

This was the way of almost all the Gods, but there were two left to come. First, Mama Bes was suddenly always pregnant, and ready to give birth tomorrow. Always since then she has been ready to give birth tomorrow, and her baby is called Hope, and is always just about to be born. The other Gods all wait for it to be born, but Hope can never really live, or someone would be disappointed- Hope is happy to exist just behind a veil of existence, almost ready to see everything.

Lastly, there was a man called Yeshua, who wanted everyone to be better to each other, and was looked upon with great interest by all the gods except Froff, who never was interested in anything. And he was killed for saying that people should be better to each other, and when he died Mama Bes rewarded his hope by making him a god, and the advocate for everyone who dies and meets the Judge. So now, when you die, you'll have Yeshua the Advocate standing at your side, and telling you not to be so hard on yourself, and he'll quote precedent at you and go bowling with you and take you out to tango until you stop being so hard on yourself. He wears a nice suit, and always says he needs a holiday but never takes one. You would like him. You can give him a card on his birthday by giving it to someone else, and he will be embarrassed but secretly quite grateful.

These are the Gods who live now; Mama Bes, Papa Tan, LockSal, the Judge, Froff, Sunn, and Yeshua the Advocate. Hope is always about to live. And all of them watch your stories, and dance with you.