Women’s voices echoed around the dark, green and black stone bathing chambers. Olivine flickered in the smooth stone walls, like flecks in a cat’s eye. Riff eyed the enormity, the stature of these women. Their skin hugged around their hairless limbs. Their breasts stretched with implants. Some of the women were “naturals,” and were given supplements in their nightly hydration IV’s to keep their skin unmarked by the weight of their own breasts. Riff’s heart pounded and she approached an empty spigot next to Fern. Fern’s red wet hair clung in ovals and loops against her white, white skin and in her nakedness she looked smaller somehow, her pearly nails scraping thick lather in circles on her scalp. The water was warm. Riff couldn’t remember warm water. Fern smiled at her.
“Riff, how do you like it?” Soap bubbles hung from the baby curls on the back of her neck as she dipped her head back under the warm stream of water.
“It’s really…” She couldn’t find the word. “Like when in The Before you had cake and everyone sang to you.”
Fern laughed, rubbing creamy cleanser on her scars.
“A birthday party?”
“Yeah.” Riff said, unsure.
The water poured onto her back and hair. The hygiene kit Al had put together for her had eight different bottles in it. A soft ball of green netting nestled in the center of it.
The synth pop from Shanana Schwoop Shigetty about a boy robot who was just an MRI machine and thus unlovable cut out for morning announcements. A smooth male voice echoed around the shower chamber. Cameras glinted from the shining stone walls.
“No breakfast today, ladies. Today is movie day, where you’ll all be stars on the big screen and you’ll need a flat stomach and a great attitude! We have three new members of our team who will be joining us today, so be sure to give them lots of encouragement!”
Suddenly, Riff was surrounded by all the women in the bathing chamber, each of them pulling at her to cradle her to their damp bodies. They stroked her hair and kissed her mouth, their taut bellies pressing against her elbows. The cameras in the wall and ceiling floated from their indentions and hovered around the women, as they cooed at Riff. Fern draped around her and a small black tentacle slid from the corner of her mouth where it wriggled in the steam for less than a second. Riff froze, watching the tendril slip into Fern’s right nostril and disappear. The women continued to stroke their bodies and push their hair out of their eyes. Brown, green, blue, gray, hazel, stagnant, and tense.
***
The Holy Book™
Chapter 1 Verses 24-27
24 In The Before there was heat, but not too much heat. There was light, but not too much light. There was water for some, but not for all, and the people did adorn themselves with goods from the lands of tiny fingers and bowls of grain. The leaders of man did quarrel over underground lakes of black and it was good. Each was pleased unto his own desires.
25 But the women declared an abscission of men and the men wandered, deprived of a home in the bosom. And the rifts did grow and men did take up arms and this was the end of an era.
26 For soon the rift grew and the young of man no longer convalesced in the womb, lest the women destroy it, limb from limb, heart from heart for her own vanities.
27 Man did take up the sword, as his ancestors did, and this was the beginning of The Second Coming. For man did retrieve the women with impure and disobedient hearts.
***
Androids were scattered around the set under the white-hot lights, some shifting their genitalia from smooth rounds to recognizable sex organs; some sitting cross legged on their stools in front of ceiling height mirrors, smoothing eye shadow over their huge eyes; some chatting softly to one another, arms propped under perfect breasts or firm pecs. The director was the same man who greeted Riff when she got to the facility. His white jumpsuit had the words CREATIVE GENIUS printed on it in black lettering.
Robots rolled around the smooth white floor, folding synthetic animal fur and focusing cameras. Riff pressed closer to Al, who in male form was very tall. He tucked her against his lean side, and pulled her braid from the side of her neck, his knuckles brushing her earlobe.
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Fern’s care unit had already handed her a hydration pack and tugged her sundress down off her shoulders, holding out their arm for her to balance herself on as she stepped out of the yellow mound of fabric. The director walked over and reached out to touch her flank as she bent over to retrieve the crumpled dress but yanked his hand away as soon as she turned toward him.
Riff poked Al’s ribs and cupped her hand against the air motioning furiously for him to lean close. He leaned close, his ear inches from her mouth.
“What is he doing?” She hissed.
“Real men,” he stopped and pulsed his jaw, correcting himself “Non-android men aren’t allowed to touch the harem.”
“What the fuck is a harem?”
“It’s a very old word. By definition a harem is where a man of status kept women for...”
“Why can’t he touch us?” Riff interrupted.
“Did you watch the History of Mars material on the ship?”
“That boring stuff?”
Al rubbed his newly stubbled jaw and raised his silvery eyebrows. “Why is it less boring coming from me?”
“It isn’t.” Riff poked his ribs until he grabbed her wrist. His soft hands twined around her and she felt the rushing in her belly, like she did with Gram back at the factory. The heat and rise in her belly. The sweet wetness.
A prolonged tone sounded over the ubiquitous speakers. “Quiet, movie magic in progress” appeared on all the scrolling entertainment screens around the room. A giant skylight opened at the center of the of the set, dilating round, an aperture of golden light from the Mars atmosphere that smoothed skin and eliminated shadow, turning the hairless bodies into smooth shapes drifting toward one another around a giant cloth-covered platform.
Fern’s care unit tweaked her nipples and loosened her wild red hair. She trotted toward the set, shod in thigh-high black boots and nothing else, her labia snipped so small, so doll-like. An android stood very still in front of the camera, watching her with burgundy eyes, his body lit into unbearable brightness. He glimmered with Shine that a hovering cat-sized robot swabbed on with a roller.
Riff had never seen an erection before. She stared.
The android reached for Fern’s hand and pulled her close to his muscled chest. She craned her neck to look up, and a tentacle slipped from the corner of her mouth and into the android’s nostril. His eyes snapped shut and crinkled at the corners. His hand fell slack and a small line of pinkish blood tracked from his ear and dripped to his shoulder. Fern’s body pearled with sweat, her hand wrapped around the android’s still erect penis. He crumpled to the floor, dragging Fern with him, the tentacle stretching between their faces like a string of saliva from a departing kiss.
They lay on the ground for a moment, Fern’s tentacle withdrawing slowly back into her mouth. The android shivered on the ground. His right eye rolled left. Fern stood up, placed her booted foot on his face, and ground her heel into his jaw until the ligament gave and the jaw fell slack to the ground. She grabbed a silvery heat rescue blanket draped over the platform and flapped it over the motionless android, pausing to tuck it around his body and smooth his hair across his forehead. She kneeled beside him, her breasts pressing against him as she kissed the tip of his nose and then his cheek.
The room erupted in applause.
Magnificent. Jaw-dropping. Glowing performance.
The women all gathered around the director, weeping and shouting and clapping. Riff’s hands were clammy and nausea pressed at the base of her throat.
“Is he dead?” she shouted up at Al over the din.
“Yes. You could call it that.”
“Why?”
“Why is he dead or why do we call it that?”
“Why did she kill him?”
“Oh. She wants to live more than she wants him to live, I guess.”
“What was the black thing? In her mouth?”
Fern had pressed through the crowd and flung her thin arms around Riff, kissing her mouth. The smell of sweat rose from her cooling skin. Her long fingernails rasped against Riff’s bare shoulders. No trace of the black tentacle.
Al stepped back from the women and nudged himself between a cobalt blue care unit in female form with tiny sharp teeth and dark brown eyes and a remarkably humanoid unit who called himself Ricky. His skin was a rich olive with the faintest of stripes – a newer model.
“How did you like my show, little Riff Raff?” Fern stepped back, leaving her hands clasped behind Riff’s neck.
“It was…” her pulse throbbed in her fingertips “kind of scary.”
Fern’s brow furrowed and she pulled Riff back against her naked body.
“Oh no! Why, baby?”
“That thing in your mouth, and you killed him. I’ve never seen anyone kill anyone.”
“My familiar? Oh you’ll get one soon too. And you sweet creature, he wasn’t really a ‘someone.’ He was an android. He didn’t even feel it.”
Riff looked at Al softening back to the They-form. Their longish fingers twirling strands of silver hair as it thickened and curled. Fern gripped her shoulders tighter.
“When does Phobos rise?” Riff asked.
“What?” The noise in the room increased as the robots rolled the android onto a cart.
“When is Phobos’ next rise?”
“The moon? It’s in 28 Mars days. We usually have a party on Phobos’ rise. Well, I guess it’s really an eclipse, but you can see Phobos almost all the time, Riff.”
“And what’s The Nozzle?”
“I’m sorry?”
“The Nozzle.” Riff’s voice was flat.
“Oh! The Nozzle really is a sight to see. It’s a mystery left here just for us. Just go to the highest floor in this dome. You’ll see it.” Fern stroked the back of Riff’s neck, plucking at the baby hairs at the base of her scalp.
“Ok.” Riff pulled away from Fern’s scarred arms.
The room settled to a low buzz and the director waved his hand to wrap up. The decommissioned android’s hand opened and closed in a death reflex.