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# Hard Cider
- URL: https://david-santin-kilday-dsk.ghost.io/hard-cider/
- Published: 2026-08-14T08:58:22.000Z
- Updated: 2026-08-14T08:58:22.000Z
- Author: David S Kilday

Hard Cider 

5.0

A novel authored by David Santin Kilday (DSK).

Copyright 2024

Chapter 1

Stella

The light from a flashing red emergency lamp lit the inside of the elevator. I pressed the button for the roof. The elevator shook and then rocketed upwards with such velocity that I thought I might break through the ceiling to the sky itself—ever upwards to a date with destiny.

The elevator came to a sudden stop and the doors bounced open. I felt myself levitate for a moment as my momentum carried my body a few inches into the air. I came to a bouncing stop and stumbled out of the elevator and onto the roof’s tar paper floor. As I got to my feet, and brushed the dust and debris from my jeans, my eyes perceived the North Star, Polaris, burning in the night sky like a light leading to my liberty. 

It was a clear night. I try to learn a new constellation every clear evening here on the roof of the hotel. I have spent hours on this roof, or others like it, staring upwards into the night sky, luxuriously alone in a crowded city–except for my bodyguard. He leans on the wall that surrounds the roof, chain smoking Lucky Strikes. 

The constellations revolve above me. 

I am trying to determine my coordinates and the time of day by the placement of the sun in the sky. The night sky is easy once you learn the constellations and the pathways of the moon. I can predict my period by watching the placement of the lunar disk. As a woman, I want to be more in touch with the natural world. 

I have learned that the winter solstice occurs when the sun is lowest in the sky. With a little practice and experience, you can determine your coordinates on the ground and the time of day from the arc of the sun in the sky. I can see it now beyond the barred windows. It hangs, gibbous and gangrenous, in the low sky. It burns. 

Stella could feel the sunlight inflame her pale skin. She felt pinned to the floor, a specimen. She felt the sunlight focused by the magnifying glass set her on fire and torch her with fire as if focused through an inspector's magnifying glass. 

We just had the shortest day, and the longest night, of the year. This was the winter solstice. I had spent the night in the throes of passion with a young stud I had been The constellations changed with the seasons so watching the night sky was essential to the ancients’ agrarian, crop based, mode of production. The position of the sun, moon, and stars (determined by scientific knowledge and tradition) determined when these ancient organized groups planted and when they harvested. 

They lived in the now, but with an intimate knowledge of the seasons and the natural world. They were at one with their environment. Is this what we miss in our hyper fabricated and super mediated experience of the world today? Do we seek a return to a primitive state of wholeness and abundance? 

I have a large compass that I wear as a pendant from a stainless steel chain around my neck. With this device, I check my coordinates. With my wristwatch, I can confirm my temporal estimates. This watch features a floating second hand to minimize resistance caused by friction. The quartz watch loses less than ten seconds per year. In learning these outdoor skills, in becoming one with my toxic environment, I am planning my quest for escape, liberty, and freedom. 

The winter solstice was traditionally the time for a Bacchanalian celebration of riot and excess. The celebration of the winter solstice was adapted by Christians from wild pagan celebrations to the sober and pious celebration of the birth of Christ, “Prince of Peace.”

But before the Christians deliberately repressed dance, spirits, and festivals on their holy days–in favor of the reserved and sober celebration of the birth of Christ in Bethlehem–there was drinking and suggestive dance, orgies and feasting (*Dancing in the Streets*). In this solstice, pre-Christian carnival celebration, traditional values were suspended, and the order of society was reversed so that–if an official ruled during this time of carnival—he ruled only as The King of Fools. 

I am a professional model and too beautiful for my own good. I have large pendulous breasts that hang from a body that is naturally as skinny as flesh and bone. I fit the current American myth of female beauty. Waifs are popular, but unusually tall, lithe, raven-haired, statuesque women, clothes horses one and all, are always in fashion. 

I was born beautiful in the Balkans. Our home was a two room, dirt floored, stone building with a pump out back and a small outbuilding that housed a dairy cow, a pig, a goose, and a few chickens. I was unclear about my nationality since the borders kept shifting underneath my feet. 

There was perpetual war throughout the region. My mother sold butter, cream, and eggs. My father was a coal miner and a frequent soldier. 

I was sold to the agency at age 12\. My parents probably thought they were doing me a favor. The next year I became a comfort girl in Tokyo. While 13 is the legal age of sexual maturity in Japan, I was never asked to have sexual intercourse with a customer. 

Instead, we were employed to permit the customer to buy us drinks and spend as much time on the clock in conversation with us as possible. The more charm and allure you had, the more you were paid. We girls could practice our manners, deportment, and the Japanese language in these refuges of civility and flirtation. 

I don’t know when the bars of my gilded cage became visible to me. There were the barred windows of my room. There were blackouts when I would lose track of hours in my California king bed. 

These became more frequent. I would awaken with contusions on my hips, sore genitals, and a burning mouth and sphincter. All the girls complained of this. We had our theories. 

Occasionally, I would be brought to the hospital when I became too nauseous or exhausted to continue. At the hospital, I would be anesthetized and treated. They always asked me if I had been exposed to any domestic violence. I just shrugged because what evidence did I have. 

There was always the guard at my door. He was as wide as he was tall and most of it was muscle. His neck was tattooed with two dragons’ heads. The mouths of two heads gaped flaming hell on either side of his neck and combined at his shoulders to form a scaled body that tracked down his spine. There was a dragon’s head tattooed on each of his buttocks. Was this organization, the agency, protecting me, or was it an instrument in my imprisonment and exploitation? 

The agency kept me flush with spending money, but spoke only annually about my growing debt. The guard accompanied me everywhere I went in Tokyo. At first I was grateful for this, for Tokyo was very strange to a girl from a medieval, mountainous land like the war torn Balkans. 

No one messed with my bodyguard. I’d only seen him blow up twice. In one case, he had gone through a door. In the other case, he had gone through a brick wall.

Soon, as I grew into womanhood, my disease began to ease. I began to go out on dates organized by the agency. I usually dated older men. I began to develop as a youthful dominatrix. The bodyguard imposed on me a strict schedule in which every hour of my day was delineated and in which I definitely had a curfew for my “beauty sleep.” 

By 16, I was nearly 6 feet tall. My legs ached from my growth spurt and my breasts grew full with puberty. My face also shifted, as the baby fat melted away from my bones. My flesh tightened, so that my cheek bones became more prominent, my chin sharp, my eyes wide, and my lips full. Then, there were the breasts. I have great tits, but to me they are just alien projections, for what use were children to me, I needed to keep my figure for my career as a professional model. My breasts were sacks of blubber which I planned to have reduced to apples as soon as my career permitted. I would burn my bras. 

By age 18, I had gigged my first six figure contract and was talking to porn about the movie rights. By age 19, I had filmed a sex scene with another woman. By age 21, I had settled with the agency, attached to a new publicist, and cleared $250,000 in my bank account. I thought I was rich. 

Chapter 2

Stella

Of course, to a man making more than a trillion dollars a second, my paltry riches didn’t make me rich. It didn’t make me immortal, omnipotent, or omniscient. It made me a player and a potential plaything. 

Goldendump was an old name in the long-in-the-tooth and toney province of Connecticut from which he came. He was the final survivor of an intrigue bewitched family. When the smoke cleared he liquidated his assets and retired into banking. The family's colossal fortune, the result of centuries of accumulation, was now concentrated in the capable hands of one man. 

If Caesar didn’t reproduce, the Goldendump line would end with him forever. Caesar, due to the new life extension technologies, was immortal and had no intention of reproducing. I, Stella, thought I knew what was best for him. Or maybe I knew what was best for me, for I knew that Caesar was immortal and had never wanted a wife or child. He didn’t want a wife, an heir, or a dynasty. He wanted to reign alone and supreme, the sole proprietor of a massive banking empire, alone forever.

This is what I knew about Caesar Goldendump: his income was said to be over a trillion dollars a second; he never signed anything; he was an accomplished pilot (both helicopter and fixed wing); he had circumnavigated the planet in a clipper ship; he was known to be celibate although he had been a stud in his twenties; he traveled without visible security; his insurance was extensive; he was a bubble boy; his nickname was the Royal Red because of his bloodline, his humane sympathies, and the bloodiness of his methods; he was known to never sleep. Some said he was telepathic, others said he was surgically telekinetic with quark accuracy. Some said he had the reach of an infinite entity, with an infinite floor, and the potential for infinite intelligence. All together, he was attractive and terrifying.

I had met him, for the first time, at a winter charitable event. He arrived in a helicopter. The helicopter had hovered for a moment like a beetle in the night and then plummeted from the star strewn sky. It bounced twice before it came to rest in the precise center of the H in the round helipad. The pilot had landed well within the tactical parameters of his over-engineered machine. The pilot had landed with flair. 

There it sat, steaming in the winter night. I broke away from my bodyguard and made for Goldendump’s helicopter, a one-off from one of his military corporations. A canopy in its carapace slowly slid open. 

Suddenly, I came to an abrupt halt as I felt two invisible needles in my neck and a phantom sword in my spleen. I looked around a little desperately. There was no one there, but I perceived the pain. Where was my bodyguard? He was cooly observing me from the edge of the dance floor with his arms folded across his massive chest. 

Caesar jumped out of his machine and reached back inside to retrieve a leather briefcase. He was tall and light of build. His limbs were equivalent. He appeared exactly balanced. Me, I am top heavy but curvy. A doll. He wore a tartan kilt, and a black leather motorcycle jacket over a tank top. He wore bouncy combat boots that had seen some wear. 

My first words to him were, “May I take your measure.”

His neutral face contorted into a pained expression and he said, “No. Never.” 

“Never. Never say never, your mood might change. I’m just trying to be friendly. Aren’t I comely? Don’t you want to get inside me and get to know me a little better.” 

“You just want to take my measure. I don’t mean to be rude. What do you want from me?” 

“One night in the sack.” 

“You want a kid. I’m sterile and celibate.” 

“That could change.” 

“I don’t want any kids 

“Why not.”

Caesar looked away and said something about playing God which was lost to me in the icy wind. Then a murmur, “There can be only one.”

“You haven’t told me how beautiful I am yet,” said Stella a little desperately.

Caesar Goldendump leaned forwards from his waist, screwed up his eyes, and peered at me from tiara to snow boots and then from snow boots to tiara. 

I know I looked good. I had agonized over which outfit to wear before settling on a snow bunny suit with white tights that could not help but attract this man. The first viewing is special, as every woman knows. 

Suddenly, he looked very old. He said, “I wish I had known you twenty years ago. Your beauty is lost on me now. Yes, of course, you are beautiful, but I am suspicious of beauty, desire, and attachment. What are you really like? Do you have a beautiful spirit? I have a friend who likes your type. Do you want his card?” 

“I had my heart set on you.” 

“Your heart? Aren't you full of cliches?” 

“Yes. My heart, you dumb man.” 

“I don’t date or attend many parties. You would get bored. Aren’t you in your thirties, I'd guess?” 

“I’ll never tell.” 

“Read. You’ll have more to say.”

“Are you asking me to read something, you strange man. I’m a reader.” 

“A reader reads a book a week. My entity is aware of all publications, in all languages, written by all sentient life forms, on Earth and throughout all known space and time. My biological expression, my body, is reading the Earth archive. What have you read, since you're only in your dirty thirties?” 

“I keep abreast of the papers and I must read the modeling trade magazines. I’m glamorous, you dumb man. I’m informed. Where’d you get your togs made.” 

“You call the papers and the glossies glamor? Fashion doesn’t amuse me. I don't like the hit parade. I get my togs in Mayfair.” 

“Oh, you like it there?” 

“Most Londoner’s can hold a conversation.” 

“Aren’t I conversational.” 

“You learned to spar verbally in Japan,” Caesar said in clipped Japanese. 

“How do you know I worked in Japan,” I replied in my best Tokyo street slang. 

“I read a one page précis on everyone attending this event. Security said you might come on to me. I am ice cold so beware; your heart will freeze before I light it up.” 

“I burn to feel you inside of me,” I groaned aloud. 

“I haven’t had sex in twenty five years. When you’ve been gone as long as I have, you don’t want to come back. You may be surprised to learn that I am celibate. I lead the simple, undistracted life of a monk. I live alone. No staff. I want no pet or companion.” 

“What are you doing after this event?” I asked eagerly. 

“Getting back into my one-seat helicopter and rocketing the hell out of here.” 

“Boring,” I exclaimed. 

“At least I will get some alone-time in my single-seat helicopter when I fly back to the city and then rocket to my farm upstate. I don’t exist to entertain you. I don’t strive to be well liked. I don’t want to be your little friend.”

“Well, I never! You are so alien to me. What makes you tick?” 

“Justice and revenge!” he exclaimed as he jumped forward and clenched his hands into fists. 

I felt three needles in my neck. They slowly retracted. Once again, no one was there. What a perplexing man, I thought, as I retreated back to the center of the dance floor, found my date, and began to unreservedly dance to the death metal flowing from the amplifiers. I felt a familiar disconnect between my mind and body. As my body thrashed and shimmied with the rhythm, my mind cooly reflected on Caesar Goldendump.

He was the most unapproachable man I had ever met. He needed no one but his litigator. If he had given up on sex and reproduction, I couldn’t understand how to approach him. 

Obviously, he distrusted beautiful women. I felt only a frigid wind as he looked at me, not the usual heat of the male gaze. I guess, I would have to bewitch his mind, for I wanted to bear the son of the richest man in the world. 

Chapter 3

Stella

The second time I saw Caesar Goldendump was in the summer at a modern primitive themed charitable event. The event was held on the luxuriant green lawn of a castle. Caesar was sitting alone and cross legged in a kilt on a lawn with a drum between his thighs. 

He appeared unattached. I circled around him to get a better look. It was true. He had gone commando. He was wearing several fake piercings and some temporary henna tattoos at which I was very curious to get a better look. 

I wore a bull ring through my pierced nose for this modern primitive themed garden party occasion. I wore a skirt with no top. Barechested, I charged straight for Caesar until I was brought up short by the sensation of three needles in my throat.

I groaned in frustration and called out over the distance between us. “Hi, Caesar.” 

“Greetings.” He nodded coldly, the invisible needles slowly retracted, and I cautiously advanced. The drums were silent for now. Caesar’s hands still moved across the drumhead of his rhythm maker in an aimless creative composition. He looked at me curiously and waited for me to speak. 

“Do you want me to take your measure or not,” I bitterly complained. 

“That would be inadvisable. You write a tell-all column in the paper sometimes, don’t you?” 

“I heard you write.” 

“Everyone writes," said Caesar Goldendump. “It’s as common as film, though film, favored as the ultimate art form by the Bolsheviks for its potential to uplift a population, requires a complex apparatus, a camera, lighting, sets, and sound. All you need to write is pen and paper.” 

“Everyone has a smartphone these days,” I said. Anyone can shoot a film with their smartphone—though some are better at it than others. Rise to the creative challenge and make a film with me.” 

“That is a good point, but I don’t have a phone. I use a simple quill and a pot of ink to write in a vellum ledger. I do own a bespoke calculator.”

“I see. Is that your drum, here?” 

“It’s a Darbuka goblet drum from Egypt. ‘Doom’ is what this note is called.” He slapped the center of the drumhead and the instrument produced a bass note. “This is the ‘tak.’” He struck the edge of the drum head and the drum produced a high pitched staccato sound. 

“Were the Pharos really aliens?” 

“Yes. The Pharaohs were really aliens but their slaves were human” he said in a tired tone. 

“How can you be so sure?” 

“I am personally acquainted with King Tutankhamen,” he said with a wry smile. 

We were getting somewhere. Humor, I could work with this. “Ever meet Cleopatra?” I said laughing. 

“As far as I know, she suffered permanent death when she killed herself.” 

“I have met the Roman general Mark Anthony.” I said venturing humor again. 

“Most of the Roman patriarchal elites were into slaves and boys. Not my scene.” 

“I’m glad to hear that.” 

“The Roman military celebrated the enslavement of their conquered populations. Their values were askew. They proceeded by rape and pillage.” 

“The Romans produced Homer.”

Caesar peered at me in surprise. 

“Homer was blind,” Caesar muttered. “Have you read Homer, Ms Stella?” he asked. “He was Greek.”

“I had a thorough education. I am smarter than I look. I was born in a palace. I had tutors. I am just drawn this way.” 

“Have you read Auerbach’s *Mimesis*?” 

“Where Auerbach compares Homer’s Achilles and the Bible’s David.” 

“Yes, exactly. Maybe I misjudged you.” 

“I have read all of the new classics,” I said proudly. “I had to interact with elderly men for the last decade; I had to raise my game.”

“You like guys. Did you ever get in touch with my friend.” 

“No, I prefer women. You never really gave me his card,” I said. 

“Want it?” 

“No.” I answered shortly. 

“Just trying to be friendly.” 

“Dismissive,” I exclaimed. 

“No,” abruptly said Caesar. 

“That’s the second time you refused me. I won’t ask you again.” 

“Good. Don’t bother. I’m not a horny teenager anymore. Aren’t you? You’re barely out of your teen years; you have a lot to learn,” he said.

“Don’t you prefer a direct woman?” I asked. 

“I prefer anticipation,” he replied flatly. “Our sense of time is different."

“I see you are a patient, old man.” 

“You have no idea. My friend with the card is even older.” 

“Fine.” I would have to adjust my tactics. This man was not into instant sexual gratification. Maybe I could prevail. His friend would be a conquest—another notch on my lipstick case. Maybe, I would notch up my .38 Special, for I could kill Caesar for being so difficult. Still, if I wanted to pursue him for mating purposes, I would have to adjust my strategy. 

He ventured neutrally, “You are fine. I hear you are a supermodel. I don’t know why you are bothering me. I’m not considered fashionable, you know.”

“Slumming.” 

“The jacket is American. Straight from *The Wild One,”* he said.

“Play golf?” I asked. 

“I went through a golf phase. I dropped it after my first scratch match and took up tennis.” 

“Isn’t tennis what we are doing here in this conversation, lobbing ideas back and forth between the two of us. Do you wear your kilt when you play tennis? Is it true what they say about men in kilts?“ 

“Uh.” 

“Promises. Promises. I give head you know.” 

“Legendary. I’ve heard of your exploits.” 

I squealed with pleasure. “What did you hear?” I asked. 

“Long and hard.” 

“Do tell,” I exclaimed. 

“I told you, I am sterile and celibate. I want no heirs or a wife. As for my age, I am older than I look.

“How old is very old.” 

“Trillions of years old. I know the time to the second as the second hand sweeps forward in my mind’s eye.” he said. 

“Repair and replace?” 

“I get cured and detoxified on an ad hoc basis. It's hell to keep the brain implants out. My missions require constant and instantaneous medical oversight and tactical control.” 

“That must get expensive.” 

Caesar Goldendump just laughed and mysteriously said, “I’m a legal entity. I am covered, but my fortune is finite. The figure is instantaneously updated for me in my mind's eye, to the penny.” 

He was the type who just laughed all the way to the bank, I knew, then and there, that he would get the last word for he planned to outlive us all. 

“What do you like to do for fun?” I asked.

“I read books like Heinlein’s Time Enough for Love. You don’t understand me at all if you think I am here for the money. I dropped seven figures to attend this party. We’re all here for a good cause, although I don’t play God. Freedom of speech, intellectual freedom, and freedom from censorship are what are important to me. I am here as a representative of my D.C. based think tank. We own a square block of Washington D.C. real estate and plan to expand to fill it all.”

“We women have to play God when we reproduce. Imagine our children. They would have every advantage.” 

“My family life was screwy. I don’t want a family.” 

“Do you think we should abolish it? I had a screwy family life too.” 

“What, abolish the nuclear family? I don’t play God.” 

“Why don’t you have me rejuvenated.”

“Aren’t you perfect in every way?” he asked with his wry smile. 

I just laughed and said, “To the eye. Why don’t you see how I taste.” 

“I’m not into intimacy. I am unaffected by desire, passion, or any emotion at all. I don't like attachments. I’ve been operating a lot on the point of the spear.” Suddenly, he appeared tired and fragile. 

“Just a kiss?” 

“What’s the point,” he said and stomped on the lush green grass. He added scornfully, “What’s love got to do with it?” 

“Kisses are nice, not love.” I knew I had him. If he would just kiss me, I would have him in my web. We would be joined together by destiny. 

“No, it’s unhygienic, a kiss can kill. I do recall Kiss on the radio in the 1970s.” 

“They still play them. ‘Rock & roll all night and party every day,’” I said enthusiastically. 

“Kiss loved their fans. They were seriously hardcore. They didn't care much about the transfer of saliva. You a rocker?” he asked. 

“Obviously.”

“I don’t run with the rock crowd; I don’t follow the daily news cycle or watch television at all; I do listen to some contemporary music--mostly jazz and classical.” 

“Music. I’m your music woman. Rock on. 'Last one to die.' I have contacts everywhere,” I said. 

Chapter 4

Stella

“I like their music, too. Who do we have here, Caesar?” 

It was Trenton, the litigator whose card Caesar had offered me. He had walked up between us and stared down at me where I squatted in front of the cross legged Caesar. 

“I don’t know your name. I’ve already told you about him. Look, honey, he’s sexually active. I’m really not. Why don’t you have a go at him?” 

This annoyed me. To spite Caesar, I decided then and there to have intercourse with his friend there on the lawn. I would show him what a sexually aggressive woman could do. 

Caesar’s friend was a wide body. He was built like a sumo wrestler, I thought. A man that size likes to eat. He too wore a kilt. But his kilt was not red and black, like Caesar’s, but blue and green. He also wore a black tank top. He wore a lightweight, black, silk sports jacket. 

I wondered at his casual appearance. He proudly wore a professional costume at work, I would learn: the robe and wig of a London barrister. He wore a cock ring as an amulet at this modern primitive themed event. I wondered with amusement about his endowment. 

Caesar and Trenton dressed as punks. Caesar attended no business meetings that might have influenced him to wear a business suit. He simply conferred with his litigator--Trenton--for I found that was his name. 

Trenton was Caesar’s close personal confidant and litigator. He had acted as Caesar’s first legal liaison. Caesar felt loyalty and gratitude towards his friend Trenton for he had cut through the intrigue surrounding Caesar. To hear Caesar tell it, Trenton had saved Caesar’s life.

There were many types of punks—from saints to racists, from violently antisocial to ivory tower cerebral. Some people considered skinheads punks, but Caesar and Trenton, though sometimes shorn, had no sympathy with the skinheads' petty hatreds. The skinheads were not anti establishment so could not be considered punks at all because fascism was so establishment these days.

Trenton and Caesar listened to the Left Coast punks, London ska, and the Irish punk music of their youthful rebellions. They had skinned their knuckles in fights against the skinheads in their youth.

I learned that Caesar had been attacked by his own family, for violating some silly taboo of their provincial society. He had originally been adopted, in the hopes of stealing his ancestral wealth, by a couple who were only too glad to exploit their only child. Caesar’s family had poisoned him, sodomized him with a corncob, pandered his ass, slit his throat, and attempted to give his fortune away to the people who managed it. 

It was then that Trenton intervened. Trenton had once been punked too. Trenton’s naval family, long associated with the admiralty, had made him into a punk. Under Trenton’s guidance, Caesar sued his family for their unjust, extrajudicial, and illegal punishments. 

After some nasty litigation, Caesar alone remained. He had outlived his family. Caesar had the last, if funereal, laugh. Caesar’s life, up to the point of his independence day, had been horrific. 

Our little group looked uncomfortable at one another and then awkwardly introduced ourselves. Caesar, Trenton, and me, Stella. It felt like a day of destiny. 

Trenton did not appeal to me as much as Caesar. Caesar’s unavailability was a huge turn on, for I liked a challenge, and, as was well known, I always got my man. I had heard that he wielded a seven eleven. A girl needs to know. It would be fitting. 

Yes, I was going to seduce him no matter what. If I knew anything at all, I knew men. Caesar used to be a slut in his youth; I would make him my slut. I would just undress and place my nubile, lingerie encased body within easy reach of him, when we found ourselves alone together, hopefully on a bed, until he succumbed to the inevitably of my temptations, allures, and charms. 

Trenton was cool to me. He was totally relaxed and I relished his lack of heat. Maybe he was making plans to seduce me, just as I was weaving a web in which to ensnare his friend and confidant Caesar with a child. I would make Caesar mine for life, but first I would seduce his friend. 

There was something otherworldly and asexual about Caesar. Maybe he had been snipped. I guess I didn’t care; I simply had to incorporate him into my interior like an amoeba consumes food by flowing over it, around it, and then the amoeba consumes it. I felt flexible and painfully empty around him. 

I tried another tactic, “Is your dick ring accurate, Trenton?” 

“It’s a little tight.” 

“You’re too much for me.” 

“Really?”

“Nothing is too huge for me, really. The larger the better. I’ve been wrenched before but never ripped.” 

“I wouldn’t want to rip you.” 

“That’s good. Some guys would. They’d regret it. My core is the strongest part of my body,” I answered. Suddenly, sex with Trenton felt inevitable. 

Maybe sex with Trenton would turn Caesar on and they would tag team me, I thought recklessly. Maybe it would make Caesar jealous. Either way, it couldn’t hurt. I learned later that Caesar never got jealous or emotional about anything. He was uncanny. When he once told me “Live well and prosper apart,” I knew I had an emotionless Vulcan to seduce.

I took Trenton right there on the lawn. His ring and my condom fit loosely, to my amusement. Then I drew him into me, bucking like a horse beneath him on the soft cushion of verdant grass, until I felt him orgasm.

Caesar had stared off into the middle distance politely while Trenton and I ground together nearby on the soft bed of grass. When we were finished, Caesar Goldendump said, without looking at us, for he had looked away while we were shagging, “Share the women. Share the wine.” 

What did I have to do to get under this guy’s skin? I wondered, as he effortlessly side stepped my desire to excite him or make him jealous. 

It was dusk and the drums had started up again. I sat up on my elbows, for Trenton had nailed me in the missionary position with little regard for my pleasure. First shags with old men were often like that. 

Caesar shifted a little ways off to sit cross legged on top of a knoll with his drum in his lap. He played meditatively on his goblet drum alternating between taks and dooms in arabesques of sound. 

I stared, for from where I lay back on my elbows, Caesar was glowing. I had heard that Caesar glowed in the dark. Now, a bright, golden light hovered above his forehead to illuminate his balanced countenance. 

The bulk of his body glowed with a soft aura. Was this a projection of the twin electric fields produced by his mind and his heart? Could it be some kind of shield—for I was told that Goldendump could afford future technology of the highest order? *Maybe I was in over my head*, I thought. 

Caesar said, across the distance between us as if he had read my mind, “You’re not in over your head, Stella. I’m just a man.” Caesar turned and met my level gaze. “Time to go. Glad you like Trenton. It always happens this way, snow bunny.” 

Caesar Goldendump smiled beatifically and a little sadly at me and then disappeared with a a pop and a whiff of smoke in the breeze. 

Only his drum remained. Dropped to the lawn’s lush ground cover, it rocked gently for a moment, until it came to a stop like an infant safely placed in its cradle or a gridiron football safely down at the end of the play. 

Trenton, still flushed from our momentary passion, asked me if I wanted to come over for dinner at his estate in the country. Because he was nice, I said “Sure, I’d love to.” *Maybe he’ll hang a little longer next time*, I thought as I giggled to myself with wild abandon. 

“What do you like to eat?” 

“What do you think, steak!” 

“Winner, winner, chicken dinner?” 

“I’m not a chicken of anything, but it’s time for steak.” 

“I’ll see what the chef has when we get home.” 

*When we get home*, he had said, she observed. 

His face would have been attractive were it not for the deep dark bags beneath his eyes. His eyes, brown nearly black, beneath his horn rimmed spectacles, had drilled into my eyes as he transfixed my body with his own. 

He had a sty on one eye and a massive keratosis on the tip of his nose from which grew three coarse black hairs. His fringe of white hair made him appear like a monk with a tonsure.

Disastrous to Stella, Trenton wore a pointed gray chin tuft beard. He seemed to have fused beatnik with punk in his self imagination. He looked to be older than Caesar, although with medical advances these days, he could appear as any age, race, or gender.

He and Caesar made quite a pair. They both dressed as distressed punks and moved comfortably in all strata of society. They moved in their own bubbles that were surrounded by covert operatives and heavy weapon systems—for Caesar’s financial resources were said to be inexhaustible. 

Trenton had done me with more flair than most men his age and I wondered if he could be a more generous lover. He was unusually strong for his age. I would know more in a few hours, for I planned on going immediately to bed with him after dinner for another friendly fuck. 

This time our intercourse would be on my terms—slow and gentle—for this was really the way to my heart. I resolved to top him and ride him because I wanted to be in control now that I had taken his measure. 

Chapter 5

Classical Guitar Player

I happened upon the summer gig by accident one morning. I was busking on a sidewalk corner downtown when a man in a suit approached me and asked me if I would like to play a garden party. They planned to seed the event with musicians, especially percussionists, for I could play a Classical guitar percussively as he had observed. We were to be the party’s “native color.” He said, “You have rhythm.” 

“Everyone has rhythm,” I replied simply as I drummed my fingers in a roll on the scarred body of my Classical guitar. “Everyone has a heartbeat and the rush of blood in our veins.”

“Do you play any other instruments,” he asked. 

“I can play the bass, but I travel with a plain-old guitar.” 

“Where are you from?” he said. 

“The floor. A cinder block. I’ve been to or through all fifty states. I’m a intergalactic pilot and what you see is what you get.” 

He took a close look at me. I wore tights underneath baggy shorts, ergonomic sandals, and a concert T-shirt that read across the shoulders on the back, “I AM CREATION.” He observed bedraggled long hair, matted and uncombed, and a flowing beard. 

“Are those dreadlocks?” he asked.

“I've got nothing against them.”

Behind me on the sidewalk was my open guitar case with some change and a few bills strewn in it. Next to the guitar case sat my AWOL bag and a one liter BPA-free container half full of coffee. 

He said, “You appear road-worn.” 

“That I am. I’m a dharma bum.” I said—wondering if he would get the literary reference. 

“Sure, like Jack Kerouac.”

I exclaimed, “Are you calling me a modern primitive? I’m a desolation angel. I have no tattoos or piercings. I meditate. I stand on my head. I drink my own urine. I can levitate.” 

“You drink your own urine.” He stated–deadpan. 

“It’s traditional and I don’t drink that much. It’s a daily purification ritual,” I said. 

“I’m not that interested in purity. Just don’t drink your urine at the party. Do you want to bang on your guitar this afternoon—or not.” 

“Sure, I’ll try.” I placed the sealed, one liter, coffee container in the AWOL bag and shouldered it. Then I stowed my guitar away and picked it up. “What’s the pay?” 

“Two fifty to work until sunset,” he said. 

“Let’s go,” I said. 

The boss led me around a city block’s corner and we got onto a bus, half empty with other musicians and their instruments, that was waiting at the curb. We drove seemingly at random throughout the city, on the way out to the country—picking up buskers as we went. 

We were to contribute to a drum circle. We were to be on display—our poverty, musicality, and authenticity now our stock in trade. 

When we got to a castle in the country, we parked next to a large open air tent. We were told that the bus would return us to the city after nightfall. 

There was a decontamination tent through which we paraded one by one when we got off the bus. I emerged from the decontamination room’s jets of air—feeling fresh. 

Actual drums were distributed to us. Props for props, I thought. I unpacked my guitar to use as my rhythm maker. We buskers formed a circle near the castle wall and began to produce a rhythmic beat. 

Guests from the city were given drums too, and they began to play their instruments in time with us buskers. I had eschewed a drum in favor of the body of my guitar for I had been trained to play it rhythmically in the flamenco fashion. 

“Olé!” someone called out, so we redoubled our efforts. Most of the guests began to join in cautiously on their own rhythm making party favors. Other guests curiously scoped us with their monocles or opera glasses. 

I began to feel like a specimen beneath the lens of some great eye. Someone pocketed their glasses and approached me. She poked a finger into my ribs and exclaimed, “They are real. They’re not holograms at all.” 

“Are you real?” I asked her. She recoiled and drew out her opera glasses to cautiously scan my face. 

“I’m bedrock, dear,” she answered. 

“This gig puts a roof over my head for a week.” 

“Do you need money?” She withdrew a fat wallet from her purse. 

“You don’t understand me at all. I’m free of money too.”

Chapter 6

Caesar

Caesar levitated for a moment and then dropped down cross legged onto a woven, straw tatami mat. He had teleported to his bridge quarters, a two room cabin deep inside his electronically shielded and massively armored submarine. 

The vault-like door to the bridge was locked from the inside. It was silent in his quarters, yet there was a slight vibration in the bulkheads and in the floor. There was a subsonic buzz a level beneath perception. He felt comfortable, safe, and alone. 

He got to his feet and stepped over to the replicator. He pressed his palm against the screen above the microwave-sized device and selected a Café Americano. He retrieved the coffee and moved from the ready room, with its replicator and crew table, to the relaxation room, where he partially reclined. 

The cup of coffee met his caffeine tolerance level and he lay down on a futon and slept for a few hours in quiet satisfaction. 

When he awoke four hours later, he replicated an espresso and a 3mg ampule of a stimulant from his formulary. He squirted the stimulant into the espresso and moved into the ready room where he sat down at the crew table in front of his custom calculator and his thick, double-entry ledger book. He began to read a document, operate the bespoke calculator, and make notations in his ledger with the ink and nib of his fountain pen.

When he tired of this, he left the work area to review the most recent edition of The Universal. He laughed when the paper laughed. He cried when the paper cried. Caesar believed in experiencing the full range of emotion including both joy and sorrow. The Universal said the law had the provincial sodomites on their heels and the law was punching away. “Savage, non consensual sodomy is violent and illegal,” read the paper, “The law considers it a form of torture.” The Universal said the military was being called in to extend the area safe from ass pirates. 

An interstellar celebrity, a musician he liked, had summited a mountain on a distant planet. A different video star had supposedly perished on the same expedition when his life support failed and he suffocated. It made for a good story. 

He reviewed the interstellar currency exchange rates carefully on the calculator’s curved screen and made some modifications in his portfolio of intrinsically valuable interstellar currencies. 

It was all so simple now. He had taken a hit to his principal, when he had liquidated, but he had taken over as sole proprietor and now had total control of his finances and instantaneous interstellar liquidity. His investments on Earth amounted to less than 1% of his fortune.

Chapter 7

Stella

Trenton’s place was not what she expected in a country house. It consisted of interlinked rectangular volumes in a neo-brutalist style. It looked like it was built to survive a direct atom bomb attack. 

Trenton had closed the limousine’s partition and lay with his head in my lap for the entirety of the trip to his home. We exchanged sweet nothings until we parked underneath a broad portico. 

Trenton sat up and kissed me lightly on the cheek. I wasn’t sure how I felt about this, but he was bright and nice, so I decided to play with him—for tonight anyway—for my plans were flexible lest I had landed Caesar. 

The front door to Trenton’s house slowly opened. Trenton opened my car door and then we walked inside. The open door led into a dimly lit parlor room. There was a grand piano in the center of the room. Musical instruments of every description were strewn about the room where they had last been played. 

There was an open hearth at the end of the room near a bar. Trenton took my hand and led me to the hearth where we sat down on opposite sides of the fire. 

“This is home.” Trenton said earnestly. 

“It’s lovely.” 

An older lady, dressed primly in a long dress with a high collar, approached Trenton, leaned over to him, and whispered something in his ear. 

“We have a joint in the chiller. You’re in luck—prime rib.”

“I can only eat so much, but that is a preferred cut of meat.” 

“I hope I'm your meat for the night,” said Trenton. 

I laughed. “I don’t know how to play you yet so we’ll see how you distribute the cards,” I replied coolly. “Maybe we could try it more slowly. I need some time to warm up. That quickie on the lawn barely got my motor running. You need to slow down.” 

“I was overcome with passion. I couldn’t control my orgasm.” 

“You’ll need to learn to control yourself if you want to hang with me. Simultaneous orgasm is the goal with me.” Now, I had him where I wanted him. He pledged to do better and to indulge my every whim. 

I prodded, “You must let me top you next time. I see you’re repentant, you alpha goat.” 

“No, I don’t like your implication of guilt. We don’t need to be forgiven.” 

“Good. I saw one other couple shagging at that party.” 

“Really. Well, we were off to the side. I wonder what Caesar thought?” I said carelessly. 

“I see. So you used me to get into Caesar’s head?” said Trenton.

“He was part of the equation.”

“Pshaw.” 

“I like him too,” I said. 

“That’s okay, just don’t get your heart involved,” said Trenton, “he’s barely there anymore. He's so far gone. He disappears all the time now. He’s discovered teleportation, I think. He won’t talk about it. He can be very tangential.”

He lives his life in millisecond intervals in which each moment holds the possibility for an infinite duration of time. It’s just him and his machines. He is a man. He is also an instantaneously updated artificial intelligence that is simultaneously present in all his systems universally. A multi nodal space brain set on ascend. He won’t tell me if he uses silicone or biological systems. Probably both. 

He’s interstellar now, and when you meet some of his friends, you’ll find that they are all space marines. Caesar’s really become a tripwire commando type. His duty, don't you know. His larger family expects 350 years of military and police duty before he marries and starts his dynasty. 350 years is their tradition. You see him in repose, but if you can get him away from his ledger long enough, you will find him operating.” 

“He’s a mission man?” I asked.

“He moonlights with the military and the police. Mostly, he represents his private interests and leads his security arsenal. They call him Spearpoint. He's a private superhero. They say he is unstoppable. I look after our legal affairs. I worry. He really takes the hits. They had him lead them through a minefield last time. He was blown to pieces over twenty five times. Maybe you’d be good for him, he’s due some leave.” 

I was starting to wonder what this man Trenton wanted from me. If he was an alpha goat, then Caesar was an apex polar bear. 

Two members of the house’s interior team brought over a table and set it between Trenton and I in front of the crackling fire. The woman in the prim dress approached and set a silver platter with a cold joint of prime rib on the table. She cut a slice for each of us, mine petit, and we tucked in silently. I wondered if I had gone too far. Certainly we were going to have to rekindle the mood. 

After we had dined, and I had one too many glasses of the heavy Cabernet wine, Trenton rose and absently stabbed at the fire with a poker. A cloud of sparks shot up through the flue and into the chimney. The fire burned merrily. 

“What do you want to do? I could drop you off at your place in the city, you could sleep here in a separate room, or you could sleep here with me.”

“I lost the mood,” I said. 

“Me too.” 

“I hate quarreling.” 

“Why don’t you stay?” said Trenton. 

“Let’s go. Remember, slow and romantic,” I said 

“Anyway you like it ….” 

I smiled and said “Yes...”

Chapter 8

Classical Guitar Player

I watched the taillights of the bus back to the city fade into the night. I would hitch my way back to the city. I felt an aversion for the confined space of the bus and a desire to be in lush summer’s nature. My mood was a curious one, and I longed for the nourishing vitality of nature because I was sick of the dead, concrete towers of the city. 

I felt repelled by the castle here on the edge of the city too. It probably contained some old aristocratic family and their court, servants, and security. The gates of the castle had remained closed during the party. With snipers on the walls with scoped rifles, the castle was girded for defense. 

I set off down the driveway towards the main road that led to the city. The driveway was lined with mature oak trees. When the driveway ended in a perpendicular road, I set off in the direction of the light pollution over the city. The low lying clouds glowed a dull yellow and red there. The colors in the clouds flickered as if they reflected an inferno below. In the inferno, the industry never ceased. The day was made up of three eight hour shifts and the pay wasn’t bad.

The road descended into a valley filled with fireflies. These will-o’-the-wisps drew me onward through the balmy night atmosphere towards a bridge that crossed a river. The river way would take me back to the city. I ambled towards the bridge. I was in no hurry. I was fleet of foot and fancy free.

As I came around a final bend, I noticed a tiny, flickering light beneath the bridge. As I approached, the light transformed into a small campfire surrounded in a semicircle by three people. I cautiously left the road and stowed my AWOL bag and guitar beneath some shrubbery. I got down on my belly and shimmied invisibly forwards towards the fire. I could move like a fox and pounce like a cat. I stopped and lay still just outside of the firelight and listened. The three people, two women and a kid, passed a bottle of bleach and a leatherette wine skin between them. 

I felt a wave of revulsion sweep over me. The kids were drinking poison. My revulsion soon passed. This was real. People drank bleach for kicks. Moralizing about it was cheap self-aggrandizement. The real was the true and I wanted to understand the truth. 

Anything for a cheap buzz, I guess, but bleach was poison, and the purview of only the most desperate, poor, and reckless buzz seekers. Still, wasn't alcohol toxic to the liver and tobacco used in the production of insecticide. In fact, was the largest industry on the planet, oil, a capital building exercise in the management of toxicity. 

I recalled that I had once owned a cassette of Nirvana’s first album *Bleach*. That power trio, Nirvana, revived punk for my generation. The album *Nevermind* followed naturally from the album *Nevermind the Bullocks*. The three people around the campfire were speaking with one another. 

“The people at that party sure were weird.”

“I’ve never seen so many jump jets in my life.” 

“They seemed alien; they must be alien.” 

“They live.” 

“I like that movie. 

“*They Live*. Arguably, the best fist fight ever filmed.” 

“I don't know. Have you seen *Splitzville*.

“The main actors in *They Live* were professional wrestlers. People don’t want to wake up. They would rather operate within the illusions disseminated by those who seek to control them. 

Since I left behind the hospital, and my computer and television, I left the illusions behind. There is a sharp disconnect between the interests of the re-clonable (and so lasting beyond death) 1% of the media barons and the interests of the 99% of the finite (humans) for whom death and the media are no laughing matter. Neither are sitcoms, so unfunny that they require a laugh track.” 

They all laughed recklessly and uproariously—the bleach had taken hold.

“He really didn’t want to put on those glasses in the movie *They Live*; he really didn’t want to believe that the United States was controlled by space Nazis from South America. People prefer bad-faith.” 

“We’re grounded. I wondered where the party goers call home.” 

“Space, probably.” 

“Some of the jump jets appeared to be ready for space. They might even fit in the hold of a cruiser.” 

“Money was here today.” 

“Future-tech was on display.” 

The river flowed. I heard crickets and frogs in the dreadful silence that followed this conversation about the low down about the picnic in which we had participated. 

Chapter 9

The Kid

I took a sip of bleach and washed it down with a swig of cheap wine. The frogs and insects seemed to echo in the night. The river water turgidly eddied under the bridge. I wondered what the bottom of the river contained. 

I railed, “I wish I had future tech to improve my life. The top 1% have enough dough to postpone death indefinitely. A heart valve goes bad, replace the entire heart. If there’s a spot on a lung, replace both lungs. When they become toxic, they can always get detoxified. Sure these medical procedures cost, but to the 1%, these expenses are nominal. Not to mention every time they die or get put in prison they shit a new clone. They’re pests.”

“Where did you learn so much about it?” said one of the women sarcastically. 

“Common knowledge. Common knowledge,” I replied. 

“Well we are in the bottom 1%. I never know where my next meal is coming from and I don’t even know where to lay my head at night," said the other woman angrily. Then calmly, as if her anger had only been a cloud drifting across the face of the sun, “This is a nice place to rest for the night.” She smiled and inserted a piece of kindling into the small campfire. 

“I hate sleeping in the city. It’s scary. Does anyone have any food?” 

I held up a can of Alpo, but the angry woman’s friend unwrapped a napkin to reveal some canapés from the party. She passed the napkin to her friend and her friend began to eat. 

“Bottom 1%, do tell. I’m in debt. I am less than zero,” I said.”

“At least you’re banked and have a line of credit. I don’t have a bank and I’m in debt. The kind of debt where they break your fingers day by day if you don’t pay.” 

“Damn shame. Damn shame,” I said.

“The Johns, with their petty perversions, are the ones who know shame. The Johns and the pimps are the true whores. I’ve seen everything. Now, I just hate all mankind, and oh how I’ve learned to hate male, lizard-ape crosses especially. This world is led by gibbons controlled by baboons.” 

“That’s one way to look at it. What cracks me up are the old farts who ‘punish with their penises.’ They sodomize and cum and deny they’re homosexual. What a lot of depravity. 

Some predatory homosexuals take pleasure in sodomy, like the common pig, and sodomize heterosexual men and women. The call it a ream, but it is really rape. Death is too good for them.

I have no problem with gaiety. A few of my friends are punks and some of them are gay. None of my friends sodomize without consent. I hate predatory depravity since I am a victim of sodomy which is a specific form of torture. 

Some gay men, married, who in their perversity thrive on hypocrisy, like to sodomize heterosexual men brutally in the ass. Sometimes, through mind control, they make their victims appear to enjoy it. 

Both types of asshollers, or plain assholes as they are called here, are savage brutes. Sodomy is insidious and for the cameras. It is brutality disguised with the appearance of consent. 

The average Joe like me, unable to hire a lawyer, is commonly victimized by the nasty American politicians and the nasty American celebrities. 

With a time control device, such rape might not even enter the victim’s perceived existence or the victim's memory banks. Imagine the potential of these devices for blackmail. 

These time control devices can be implanted beneath the skin and cost a certain amount of dollars. It's possible to take a video of a victim of mind control and blame him for actions the powers that be made him do through psychic puppetry. 

The victim of puppetry, if he was taken out of his perceived reality by one of these time devices, would not even perceive what he was forced to do. I used to think of this puppetry as voodoo for I have not always been myself. I have had no safe space or refuge.

Sodomy is practiced by the Nazis, and there are many American politicians and celebrities who are Nazi Agents. They like Nazi gold. Rape is what the Nazis did to the Jews, both male and female, before they gathered them up and sent them to the concentration camps. Atrocity, depravity, and rape are expressions of the primitive social structure called ‘barbarism.’”

“Do you speak from experience?” 

“Hitler was an abused child, hence his rage and hatred. How do we keep from becoming like him?” 

“So what are you going to do?” 

“I was punished with penis unjustifiably and illegally. I have a lawyer compiling a caseload, and keeping track of the criminal and civil punishment of my enemies, on paper, right now. We can litigate it all in an instantaneous burst. Right now we're just hunting and pecking. I have suffered 20 years of torture.

You can take me to the floor of time with your damned devices, but I don't experience what happens to me there. The triple verified scanner never wavers so I am covered. I am a bubble boy.

I am a bubble boy. I ride the wave of the winds. My lawyer and I are going to wreck the whole system that uses sodomy to terrorize citizens in the name of politics and Nazi, antisemitic malice. This will be an improvement, because who wants a bunch of vain, state sponsored terrorists running around raping and killing everyone who dares to speak the truth. The enema of the state is illegal in all fifty states.”

The two women looked at each other and then stared at me as if I would float away. “You are like the cantankerous infant in *Who Framed Roger Rabbi*t, said one. Both women laughed a little hysterically, for the news was grim. 

“I don’t need to eat or sleep. I just exist, bound by necessity, subject to the whims of the hostile powers who use mind control to control my speech and behavior to the tee while my lawyer trolls for hits. I am the bait.”

“Sure, sure,” said the sarcastic one, “That’s the bleach talking.” She handed me the bottle of bleach and I took a slug. 

I held up the bottle of bleach, “Lovely nose and it’s got decent legs.” 

The women laughed. I had done my best to imitate the cultivated tones of the peculiar people at the charitable event to which we had been bussed. We were in no hurry to get back to the rat infested metropolis. I had enough of rats. I carried a sword cane for the rats. 

Chapter 10

Violet

I took a shot of the bleach and felt my kidneys burn from the poison. Still, it took the edge off our grim existence and for that I was grateful. 

I handed the bleach to my partner. Then, I swallowed a chaser of wine and felt a little better. The men could really be nasty to the boys. And if the boys were insured, they would never even know what was happening to them, out of time, until a lawyer stepped in. Then it was lawyers, guns, RPGs, guided bombs, space to surface death rays, pass through property, teleportation, and military bodyguards, to the bitter end.

As for the kid getting raped in the ass by the predatory, homosexual, male rapists, each rape was a host of crimes. A litigator with a triple verified scanner, through which truth can incontrovertibly be ascertained, could really spin up a caseload for the victim, this poor, heterosexual kid…

The predatory depraved are usually uncultured cretins with zero IQ and so totally reactionary. They are unable to think. They find thought painful. They only know how to react. Some people without book learning resent the learned. Those who hate learning hate the intelligence, independence, and freedom that comes with book learning. 

The predatory depraved prey on sleeping men and women and rape them during their R. E. M. sleep at drug-crazed after hours parties that display the most revolting depravity. 

He was a strange kid with his bleach. We were used to unhoused men playing us with crack cocaine, not bleach. I sympathized with the poor kid. 

“Depravity by the men could be bad, but the women, especially the crones and bull dyke strap on artists, could be worse. The ones with what they call the ‘pussy control’ option can control men’s minds. Women rape men, sometimes out of time, with that mind control option, too.”

That was usually how it started anyway. Then they would find a predatory doctor to drug the kid to extend the depraveds' pleasures. Then there were the nearly unspeakable ones who liked to murder their victims and then screw their dead corpses in the asshole. But they were a different matter, or were they? Sickos.

Lord help the kids who were insured. Soon, these after hours parties would escalate to murder parties, and then torture sessions. When it was known that the insured kid could not be killed permanently, the depraved predators would kill the insured kid to watch him suffer and die.

Then the ultimate pleasure began for the sadistic elite. The rapist would rape the insured kid and then the rapist would discharge his gun into the kid’s head at the exact moment of the rapist’s peak sexual climax. They called it a “come and gun.” It had little to do with the ideal of sex, simultaneous mutual sexual orgasm, and much to do with a perverted pleasure in the power of domination.

Then mind control operatives, the psywar spies who can control other people’s minds without the need of a mind control device or implant. They usually become politicians in America. These psywar experts would get involved for notoriety and money. They would screw some kid over and make the kid appear to enjoy it with their psychic puppetry. They would try to compromise his legality. They would mind control him into homelessness to punish him for his success. 

Who knew if it was worse in the city or in rural areas. In the USA, barnyard barbarism was common and even popular—particularly in poor, provincial regions where judicial corruption was rampant.

Chapter 11

Classical Guitar Player

I had heard enough. A kid and two women in the process of getting bombed on bleach. They were headed for an early grave. What did they care? The kid was still growing, but the two women should know better. Any cheer in this perilous night was welcome, I guessed. 

I shimmied silently backwards, keeping my belly low to the ground and shimmying from side to side like a fox as they had taught me to do in the military, until I was beyond earshot and visual scrutiny. Then, I rose fluidly like the mongoose I had been taught to emulate, turned my back on the group of revelers with some disgust, and returned to my guitar and bag. When I retrieved these, I squared my shoulders and began to walk deliberately towards the bridge in the center of the road. I hadn't tried bleach yet. I ticked off the other crazy drugs I had never tried like LSD, Meth, and Fentanyl.

I had something in common with the zany trio. We were all buskers who had been bussed to the charitable event at the castle. We were all “local color.” We had been told that we had succeeded in our role and then been paid. We had provided a certain frisson to the event. 

The key to life on the road was to bring nothing that you couldn’t afford to lose. This, too, was a good life policy. In the end, I lived by the motto, “Leave no trace.”

My most valuable possession, outside of my smartphone and solar powerbank-bubble lantern, was now my guitar. It was a simple, nylon string, classical guitar. Its body was scarred and worn. It had a jagged hole beneath the rosette where my fingernails had scarred and then worn a hole through the face of the guitar. I had bought the guitar second hand from a pawn shop for fifty bucks because its frets were still good. I restrung and tuned the guitar to my liking to form a serviceable instrument and musical tool. 

When I slept–I thought happily about how I would now be able to rent a hotel room for five nights–I slept with my guitar in an awkward embrace. I would have some privacy, and I would take the time to wash some clothes, and get washed up at the hotel. 

I marched unnoticed to the center of the bridge and paused to listen to the summer night. There were crickets everywhere, frogs in abundance, and the murmur of conversation broken now and then by the manic laughter of the three people loaded on poison bleach. They were a regular power trio.

Why bleach? Punks, usually antisocial nonconformists, were often poisoned with bleach by straight society. Taking bleach for pleasure was an inoculation to poison and a celebration of their own outlaw status. 

They were no threat. I had scanned them all closely. The two women were unarmed, the kid had a folding knife with a tiny sub two inch blade in his bag. Legal in this state, I knew. 

I was a veteran of foreign wars so I felt no threat from the civilian trio below. Whenever I felt my commando overlay and my adept Aikido and Karate rise to the surface of my conscious mind, I de-stressed by breathing deeply the cool, night air from my diaphragm. 

I played with a band three days a week in the city. We would meet at a given intersection, or in a certain park, and play music. I would play classical guitar with a guy on acoustic bass guitar and a woman who played a cajon. We were all repertory trained, but down on our luck. We would play until we were roused, at which point we would melt into the crowd to meet later at a predetermined pub to spend our winnings on starters and small beer. 

Chapter 12

Stella

The third time I saw Caesar Goldendump was in the fall. It was in a secured marina and he had arrived on a dinghy at a boat dock. I had heard he would be there. I had arranged to be at the charitable event for the man all the women thought would be my destined husband for all eternity. I talked and thought confidently, but I was aware that Caesar was a tough nut to crack. 

He was ice cold around me. Like a basilisk, everything he saw turned to cold stone. He turned me cold with his icy eyes and his distant vision. When he was by himself, and I learned that he preferred solitude to companionship, he focused in the far distance with a thousand mile stare. He silently communicated with his tactical, strategic, and medical controls, through mental telepathy. He was never alone.

He still had that eerie aura around his head like a damned halo. 

He jumped to the pier from the dinghy and landed on both feet. Like a cat, his knees, hips, and spine absorbed the impact. Then he paced loosely, heel-ball-toe, straight ahead. 

I was at the base of the pier to meet my future husband. He ignored me until I grabbed his arm as he passed. He spun deftly, pressed my shoulder, and I released my grip as my hand spasmed. 

“Never touch me again,” he had said, followed by, “Stick with Trenton. You’re barking up the wrong tree, Stella. We will never be intimate as long as I have my own free will. I am not interested in sex or companionship with you. Buzz off.” 

I watched him walk away until he disappeared through a heavy door in a building.

Chapter 13

Trenton

I walked Stella to her door. She grabbed me by the neck and brought my head down. She kissed me on my bald head and said, “Enough. Stud. You can call me tomorrow.” 

“That will depend on how many fires I have to put out tomorrow. I’ll try to call.”

“Trouble at work?” 

“Just busy. When we are displeased, we move money; when we are angry, we corner currencies. Caesar manages it all from a particular workstation in one of his submarines.” 

“He has submarines?” she asked. 

“He’s a nuclear superpower. He’s also the artificial intelligence in all of his big machines.”

“Why doesn’t he like me?” 

“He doesn’t like it when women try to get at him through me. I, on the other hand, am happy to take his off-fall. He really doesn’t want a sex life. Goldendump is timeless. Caesar has no weaknesses and won’t entertain any. No wife. No children. He likes it that way.”

“He’s a killer?”

“He’s a soldier. He is not a civilian. He earns combat pay. You don’t understand him. He puts his body on the firing line to protect the homefront. He doesn't want children. His doctors keep him sterile, so even when he slips up, there is no mess up.”

“I’m a mess around him.” 

“He’s an apex predator on the battlefield but with women he plays the lamb.”

“He’s just introverted.”

“He likes to be alone. He’s never really alone because he has so many telepaths in his head. He is a little more social when he dines. We match drinks with each other sometimes—that’s the time to catch him, in his cups.”

“What does he eat?”

“He has an aversion to eating flesh—although he has special tactical teeth for combat.” 

“Tactical teeth,” she said neutrally.

“For melee combat. He says it gives him an edge in the clench.”

“You don’t say. My love is a soldier. I love this. He’s a death maniac. This concerns me.”

“Please don’t fall in love with him. I think you just want him because you can’t have him. He can be repellant.” 

“No man dare deny me. You can’t.” 

“I haven’t tried yet.” 

“Come inside with me.” 

“I shouldn’t.” 

“But you must.” 

“Duty calls.”

Chapter 14

Caesar

They parachuted in together. Caesar waved to his team and teleported behind enemy lines. He lay down prone. He oriented himself according to his compass. He had scrutinized a 3-D mockup of this terrain’s topography. He lay next to a path that passed along a stream. 

On schedule, a patrol of two soldiers approached from the direction of the bridge. Caesar shredded them silently as they approached—meat mist for the river fish. 

Next, he exploded the skulls of the guards at the bridge.

Then he dug through the wall of a cement pillbox with a cupped hand and quickly killed the person inside before he could pull the trigger of his machine gun. 

Cesar’s support team and the dog of war then emerged from the tree line in complete silence. A flag flew in the breeze.

Chapter 15

Vivian

Beneath the overpass, we had finished the bleach. We also used it to inoculate ourselves, as we were often poisoned with bleach by people who thought we were different. Poisoning with bleach was called an “elbow” because it perceptibly pained the kidneys.

The wine was finished. We all complained of headaches. We decided to make a four hour watch. I agreed to stand the first watch alone. My partner and I kissed goodnight. We stared for a moment into each other’s eyes, and then I broke away and arose. 

I walked over to the river and selected a smooth stone from the gravel and rocks under my boots. I skipped it across the water. The river flowed and I discerned shadows of fish flitting here and there in the shallows. 

My partner and I had been together since the spring and through the early summer. She had the most unusual eyes. 

We were two parts of a busking duo. I was a one man band. My partner, Violet, was our vocalist. She also kept time with a tambourine while I piloted my contraption—banging the cymbals between my knees while blowing on a plastic kazoo. When we reached a chorus we would sing together. She beat on the tambourine while I kept time with my foot pedal activated bass drum. 

Now Violet lay there with her knees to her chest. The kid was on the other side of the fire. He lay contorted on the ground as if in agony. She walked over to him. He opened his eyes, and without moving, met my stare. Then he groaned painfully and rolled over on his other side. 

I returned to the water’s edge. Beyond the shadow of the bridge, the moon and the constellations were reflected in the river. I experienced a confused sensation of being without orienting positions because here all points were reversed in reflection. I returned to our camp and stirred the coals of our campfire with the steel-capped tip of my sword cane. 

Chapter 16

Violet

I was awakened by my partner Vivian. I felt lousy. My kidneys were inflamed from the bleach and my stomach burned. I picked up the empty bottle of bleach and shook a few drops into my mouth. My body convulsed spastically. Damned bleach, what next, aerosols, I thought. 

I heard a noise on the bridge above and froze. Two asleep and I alone to protect them. I stepped back into the deep shade of the bridge and waited for the situation to flow. 

Flow had become central to my new conception of self. Instead of a fixed solid subject interacting with the objective world, I now saw myself as an entity that responded to the flow of the changing situation in time with a flow of my own. Maybe we were all surfers of the night. 

There was a snuffling overhead and then a loud, drawn-out fart. The sound of footsteps came next, approaching, receding, now gone. I waited for a few minutes before I stepped from the shade of the bridge into the moonlight and silently ascended the embankment to the road. 

There he was in the distance. His silhouette carried a guitar. He wasn’t a threat, but a guitarist—probably one of us buskers from the party—he was a fellow musician. 

Chapter 17

Stella

When we arrived under the portico, Trenton saw that his front door was open and said, “It appears I have guests.” 

Two green lights lit the night on either side of the door. “Let’s see who's here. It is probably your Goldendump.” 

My heart was thrilled at the mention of his name. Then I recalled that I should be mad at him. He had been jealous and rude at our last meeting, so I prepared, mentally and emotionally, for a confrontation. 

I let Trenton precede me into the house and then stepped carefully beneath the lintel. The dim parlor was lit with pools of light. In the bar area, Caesar, a man, and a woman sat at a high top table drinking black draft beer. 

Trenton asked me if I drank beer as we crossed the expanse of the parlor. I nodded cautiously and said I would have one. 

“One and done?” Trenton said. 

“One to start,” I said and laughed. 

Trenton called out to the people around the high top table, “What are we drinking?” 

“Your draught stout. We lost someone this morning. He took a rocket propelled grenade. It wasn’t pretty,” said Caesar. 

“Will you lose more?” 

“Many more. Sure. It keeps us honest—the threat of immediate death. We dodge bullets. That's why I don’t wear a helmet. They say you never feel the one that gets you.” 

Caesars’ companions groaned. Maybe they were superstitious. 

“I thought you were permanent, Caesar,” I said. 

“The forever option is true, but I still die and feel some pain.” 

“Can you be permanently killed? Should I worry,” I asked. 

Caesar rolled his eyes and appeared pained. He said, “We’re not all permanent, Stella. We don’t know yet whether they are going to bring back our teammate who died. They will probably reissue his clone. All the operators are preserved in memory chips. Their consciousness is backed up in a computer chip as an artificial intelligence. They will probably install his mind in a new body when they clone him. They’ll like the way he died. He took it like a man.

“Who are they?” I asked. 

“In this case, his superior officers.” 

“Are you they.”

He just laughed and said evasively, “I am a legal entity and a lawful man. I am completely compliant with the letter of the law–unlike you and Trenton.” 

Trenton looked up from his imperial pint of stout. Foam covered his upper lip. He looked at us beseechingly as if to say “What have I done now.” 

Trenton and I had perked up, during our ride to the country, with some ecstasy and some pep pills. The pills made me feel edgy. I could feel my heart pounding in my chest. We were peaking now, so the fortifying stout lifted our spirits and steadied our mood. 

“Should I be worried,” I asked Caesar again. 

“It’s always touch and go, but we thoroughly prepare for each operation. I’m sorry, if I was rude to you, Stella. You seem to show up at the worst times. You needn’t worry. Trenton and I are secure beyond all intrigue. My constantly updated consciousness is secured in every preferred galaxy in space. Trenton is well covered too. Our consciousnesses are backed up and present in some of the computer device we share as artificial intelligences. 

I am a little different from Trenton. He’s a clone. I’m not entirely biological. I am a creature of spirit and light.” 

“What does that mean?” 

“I’m not a biological organism anymore. I am now an infinite, instantaneous, multinodal entity.” 

“I still don’t understand.” 

“My team and I are well insured, but no one expects a rocket propelled grenade to the face. It’s a shame we couldn’t recover his brain. They’ll have to spin up his new clone from his DNA and some plasma jelly now” 

I started tapping my toes with excess energy. I was suddenly aware that I had interrupted their conversation—hopefully for the better. I took a closer look at Caesar’s companions: a man and a woman. They were both seven footers, thin, and heavily muscled with whipcord. They were dressed casually. They had skipped the funeral because they had attended their friend’s in-theater burial at sea. Both had sad eyes and rosy cheeks. 

The primly dressed woman, the team leader in the house who handled the kitchen, drew new pints for everyone at the high top table. We all thanked her, but she just stared at me in reply. When we finally made eye contact, she smiled a thin smile. I was a little afraid of this woman. 

Caesars’ companions were larger than large, though their bulk was partially concealed by the high top table. Trenton suggested that we do some Irish car bombs to “send him on his way.” Everyone was amenable because, in a situation like this, it was traditional. 

We moved to the bar, the operators moving with precise body control and feline grace for what they specialized in was millimeter precision, perfect footwork, and leverage control. I learned later that the man specialized in Aikido. The woman, with her lengthy and powerful legs, had been a Karate star. It was said, they spared only with each other. 

They were said to spar only with each other. 

The majordomo began to pour a shot of whiskey to go with each glass of stout. 

Chapter 18

Stella

“Did you hear that?” I said to Caesar Goldendump. “These two are partners. They only trust one another. Now, that’s what I call commitment.” 

Caesar shook his head without interest and said coldly, “Remember, there can be only one. It's the nature of capitalism. Aren’t you and Trenton partners now?” 

“He spoils me so I don’t mind. It has to be a non-stop party with me.” 

“You sound exhausting.” 

“You could keep up physically. Emotionally and mentally, I’m not so sure,” I said. 

“Bad timing. Relationships are all about timing. You should know that. You’re twenty years late, youngster.” 

“Youngster. Really! Trenton and I are always right on time. You’re missing out.” 

“Sex is overrated. It's just vulgar animality. That's all. I had plenty of sexual intercourse when I was your age. Now, I don’t care if I ever have sexual intercourse again.” 

“Don’t you get lonely?” 

“No. I am rarely alone. Three telepaths are talking to me right now while I field your childish questions. Don't you know, there can be only one? I treasure solitude and privacy. They are some of this world’s ultimate luxuries. 

Didn’t I direct you? Aren’t you glad I found a suitable man—a horny, old goat—for you. Few complain about Trenton’s mojo.” 

Caesar touched an earbud in his left ear, and carefully listened. He said, “I just received a communique. They like the way he went out. They’re going to spin him up, gestate him, and then shit him from a cloning tank. He’ll be enfeebled for several weeks. He will look different. He will be operating in six months. He’ll be fine if he shoots and spars every day. With his death bonus, he can afford a vacation before he redeploys.” 

We celebrated, then, with the shot and beer drink called an Irish car bomb. On a signal from the majordomo, we dropped our shot glasses filled with Irish whiskey into the tall imperial pint glasses that were filled with black stout. Then, we drank the mixture down in one gulp. I was the last to finish, but they cheered me on as I slowly chugged the Irish car bomb and slammed the now empty glass, containing the now empty shot glass, down on the bar. I grinned sheepishly. The alcohol dulled the speedy pills. The blend went right to my head and I slurred, “I felt that one.” 

Trenton said, “You’re as light as a feather. I call her Ms. Topper.”

“Am I unbearable? I knew I had to have you the moment I saw your penis ring.” 

“Wedding bells?” said Caesar. 

“His cock ring, Caesar. He has a most prodigious endowment,” I said. 

We all laughed at that. I may have been Trenton’s flavor of the month, but I was getting under his skin. Soon, I would be indispensable to him. 

We hoisted another car bomb and began to make merry. Suddenly, I noticed that there was a soldier standing in each shadowed corner of the room. They were very real. I froze in mid motion. Each soldier was armed with a long sword, a short sword, a long gun slung on their shoulder, and two handguns. Their heads pivoted on their shoulders as they scanned the room for signs of threat. 

I asked Caesar nervously, “Who are these people in the corners?” 

Everyone in our little group looked at me and then at the guards in the corners. 

Caesar answered, “They are from the tactical wing of my private bank. They are here for our protection and they aren’t alone. If you’re uncomfortable, they can switch to a totally covert mode like before. I like having them around. Would you prefer robots? 

I’d offer them a drink, but they are on the clock. He moved his hand in a simple hand jive and the people standing guard in the corners of the room disappeared from view. 

“I don’t know which is worse, visible or covert,” I said. 

“Covert is most dangerous. The corners are just protocol. There are fifty soldiers, a war dog, and a medic on duty here on the grounds now and seventy five thousand soldiers in reserve; they are prepared to teleport in at a moment’s notice.” 

The two soldiers began to strike gymnastic poses. As we called out to him with enthusiasm, Caesar began to walk around the room on his hands. He would stop and do press ups of his entire body weight—while standing on his hands. Trenton and I picked up some hand percussion instruments and began to play. 

The two seven footers started to spar in slow motion, as they worked out the footwork for the room’s complicated geometry. 

We congregated at the bar for a third Irish car bomb. Now we were flush with exertion, exhilaration, and celebration for he was to be reborn.

Chapter 19

Yvonne

Trenton and his current companion, Stella, entered the parlor from the portico. Trenton’s companion, Stella I recalled, was taller and fitter than he was. She looked to be half his age and less than half his weight. Beautiful—no doubt a model—she was the living embodiment of the American, female, physical, male fantasy. I had heard that she kept Trenton waiting in bed, while she read and until they had discussed what she had read. She had an active mental life—well read, bright, and travel-polished—though she was encased in an appearance that was coded and reinforced for male physical desire and approval. 

She was dressed for downtown. She wore black latex pants, red, knee-high leather boots, and a crisp white shirt under a latex, crop-waisted, black motorcycle jacket. Her hair was caught up in a ponytail. This made her appearance youthful and almost boyish. She was a bit of a tomboy, despite her womanly looks, and loved to spend time with the men–no doubt because of her allure to the male gender. She wore a black ribbon choker with a red amulet around her neck. 

Caesar seemed loose, and very much at home, when he greeted Trenton. They had both been punked, so they now dressed alike with bouncy combat boots, kilts, and motorcycle jackets. They wore punk garb as a badge of their survival and as an indication of their contempt, following Thoreau, for the conventional society that had been only too happy to reject them. They rejected the hazing they endured growing up, and so refused to punk others at the after hour parties that they particularly sought to avoid. Alike, they slept at sun down and arose at dawn.

Trenton had been a whipping-boy, like Caesar, until he finished his legal education, and promptly litigated every crime that had been committed against him—from birth. He was, like Caesar, foretold. As he had saved himself, he saved Caesar, on the condition that Caesar would save someone else. 

Trenton had insured Caesar’s life and his spatiotemporal continuum. Trenton made Caesar a bubble boy and waited to see what happened next. This insured that Caesar would survive to litigate. 

Caesar’s hopeful heirs tried to murder him in the hopes that they might benefit from his will. They hoped to profit from his death. Unknown to them, Caesar had a cyclic will which insured his immortality and did not include any other beneficiaries but Caesar himself. Caesar was ageless. “Live and let die,” he would say. He had outlasted all his enemies, even his presumptuous heirs. 

Stella introduced herself to me. I replied, “I’m Yvonne. I roll with Caesar. I’m glad you like Trenton. Let’s take a powder.”

I grasped one of Stella’s soft hands in my huge mitt. My hand was horny and calloused on the striking surfaces. Her hand felt as soft and fragile as a butterfly in my palm of stone. 

I said, “I’m six ten. People are always wondering. You’re tall too.” 

“Six one.” 

“Mostly legs. You could be a contender in Karate.” 

“I thought you were with Caesar.” 

“I am. We soldier together. He’s a good guy to have around in a fight.” 

“Do you have rank?” I asked. 

“Sort of. We’re a private concern—part of a vast bank arsenal. I am an independent operator. I am part of Caesar’s security detail. We all need some cheering up today; I think I got loaded.” 

“Trenton and I are well on our way. We’ve been feeding our heads since we awakened this morning. Want a boost?” 

“Nasty girl. I hope you haven’t done anything illegal. Caesar is strictly lawful and he sees everything. He’s universally omniscient. He has read and researched it all. Trenton strays, but this is his house. 

No, I don't want to do lines with you. Alcohol and espresso are as close as I get to an eightball these days. The combat medics do wire us up with combat drugs for our operations though. That’s legit and usually per contract.” 

“Pharmaceutical cocaine. You lucky girl.” 

“No. Every battle drug under the sun. They experiment on us with a new battle drug every time we roll. It’s in our contracts. So are orders. These are the easy contracts to execute. There isn’t any room for dissent, doubt, or regret. You’re the lucky girl. Is it true that Trenton is hung?” 

“I’m not complaining. Check out his cock ring. It’s not too far off. He can get it on.”

We both started giggling. We reached the powder room and squeezed inside the narrow space together. 

“Is Caesar hung?” Stella asked me. 

“He is hung like a block of ice. But there’s no romance in Caesar anymore. He can’t be bothered with interpersonal relationships. He hangs out with Trenton or us soldiers. You’re a woman. We are creative and nurturing, right?

Stella just laughed at that. 

“Caesar is the very opposite. He is about destruction and execution sometimes. 

I said, “I don’t think he likes me.” 

“If it were true, that would be a problem. Catch him in his cups. He likes good cheer. He’s been celibate for decades. He’s a glacier but he used to understand romance. When the levee breaks, it’s been so many decades, someone will really be in for the ride of their life. As for love, I don’t think he considers it relevant or real.” 

“Relevant or real?” Stella said. 

“I am just warning you, girl, I can’t picture Caesar in love.” 

“He’s more cerebral and less corporeal, maybe?” 

“He’s a warrior with a killer-commando personality. It’s kill or be killed in the field. War is very corporeal. War is evasion, adaptation, and execution. War is bullets flying, struggle, and bodies running—a new tragedy for each generation.” 

“Why does he fight? Can’t he retire.” 

“He isn’t the type to quit. He retired but he has his duty.” 

“How do I focus his attention on me,” Stella wondered aloud. 

“You’re at a disadvantage. He doesn’t trust beautiful women. He thinks that beauty is internal, not superficial. He sometimes speaks of beautiful women with ugly souls. They are overwhelmingly ugly to him. It's as if their physical beauty makes it worse.

He detests taboo and romantic cliché. As for boys and men, he is definitely uninterested and even a little hostile. He’s very competitive with men and more collaborative in the company of women.” 

I went on, “He and everyone in his organization, CGD Enterprises—his organization is fifty one percent female—are on a wartime footing. There is a price on his head. He is used to getting hit. He ends each day exhausted. 

He wakes before dawn, quietly exultant to live one more day, to celebrate another morning, his favorite part of the day. He starts reading or writing before sunrise. Most of the time, he travels in the center of his three dimensional array of submarines. His flagship and its array are in the Pacific Ocean. We're in range here and, actually, everywhere. 

CGD Enterprises is a multinational/interstellar corporation. It invests primarily in space. Less than one percent of its financial mass is invested on Earth.” 

“I begin to see,” said Stella. 

“It would be difficult to love such a man. He disappears for weeks and months at a time. Only Trenton knows where he is when he is gone. They rarely travel together.

He won’t see you every night. He won’t wine and dine you. He likes to fight. He’s a killer. He likes to win. I think he likes operating because it is so necessary. 

Keeping an eye on the numbers of his bank is cerebral, but he makes it human with a vellum ledger and a fountain pen. He says his present pen is an exact replica of the Conklin pen used and endorsed by the remarkable American writer Samuel Langhorne Clemens.”

Twain, most notably, wrote a beautiful and very funny, book that climaxes with the recognition of the shared humanity between an African-American slave and a “white” American southern boy. Caesar likes the pen because it is unusually American. Caesar is originally American. His pen, cast on the same machine as Twain’s pen, was manufactured in Toledo, Ohio.” 

“Should I be worried? Caesar isn’t going to die on one of these missions, is he?” Stella asked. 

“He has died many times. He has been tortured to death. Soldiers don’t like to talk about that kind of thing with civilians, so don’t ask him. He would just reply ‘Dead again?’ and then that's it, like he always does, with one of his macabre exclamations of laughter.” 

“Wasn’t that a film," quickly queried Stella. 

“You are a bright girl—though cursed by your looks. You could talk about that with Caesar, the movie *Dead Again*. He’s seen the film, and all the noir films to which the film alludes, if I know Caesar. He is known for being thorough.” 

I went on, “Trenton is the only one who knows the details about Caesar’s security and insurance. Trenton, me, my partner and everyone at the bank have the same coverage. We thrive on opposition. We are prepared to defend ourselves. We are nearly invulnerable and we are totally unstoppable. Some people form a band. We stand as a multi nodal private bank.” 

I went on, “He’s enough of a punk to despise romantic conventions and clichés, but he’s old enough to have been raised with conventional mores. After he was punked, he lost the desire for intimacy and began to refuse any romantic love predicated on unconditional love or self-abnegation. 

He may not be capable of love anymore. With Caesar, chivalry isn't dead. He’s a feminist. He hates patriarchal and aristocratic pretensions. Affection, for him, is narrowly conditional. Also, he refuses to forgive. He told me once, ‘I never forget; I never forgive.’ Never betray him.” 

“How awful. What a terrible man.” Stella exclaimed. 

“Really, he’s an angel. A terrible, righteous, avenging angel.” 

“An angel? He sounds like a creature of vengeance. He is Ming the Merciless. Obviously, he gives no quarter.” 

“He’s an angel,” I said. “He is fond of the tune by Led Zeppelin ‘No Quarter.’ The childhood delinquent Caesar wasn’t acting according to his own agency. When he came of age, and they litigated his life before the judge, they found that he had never committed a single crime. 

All his childhood crimes were the result of mind control by a conspiracy of entities—for Caesar was foretold to be the ruin of this group of entities. These hostile entities would control Caesar’s mind and therefore his body and speech to make him do crime, like a puppet is controlled by a puppeteer. The purpose of the puppeteer was to tarnish Caesar’s saintly reputation.” 

“How can a person control someone else’s behavior and speech?” said Stella. 

“By controlling someone else’s mind. You are either ignorant or naive. A psychic operator trained in mental warfare techniques can control other people. This is necessary on the battlefield. Telepathy and telekinesis come naturally to certain brains, often at times of extreme stress. A psychic operator can control another person’s mind through a variety of different techniques,” I said. 

“Can you control my mind?” asked Stella

“Yes, I have a few tactical tricks. I can make someone blink or pause; I can make myself invisible to others. This gives me a time advantage and the cover of invisibility with which to sink the knife in.” 

Stella replied with a hint of fear, “I see you live a different sort of life. Don’t you get tired of all that fighting and dying?” 

“Professional soldiers aren’t dissimilar. We love life, and as private operatives, all legends in our field, we don’t put up with too much of the suck. I’m long lived for the profession. I am in my forties. That’s winter for an operator. As for the fighting and dying, I live for it. It's the life. The life is the truth. I may never retire.” 

“And I’m still a virgin in my twenties,” roared Stella. She withdrew a vial of powder from the space between her breasts and her brassiere. She tapped some of the powder from the vial into the hollow between her thumb and index finger. She then took two snorts of the powder, one snort into each nostril, like tobacco snuff. 

“Need a lift?” Stella asked Yvonne. 

“Never touch powder anymore. Street drugs and ghetto coke don’t do it for me. If it’s not prescribed by a doctor, I want no part of it.” 

“I am not so pure.” 

“Are you an anarchist? You seem to willfully break the law.” 

“I know I’m vile. No one tells me what to do. I consider it civil disobedience. I follow Thoreau in this respect.

“Do you? I didn’t know you were even American. Hmm. It’s just that I worked, and still moonlight, in club security. It’s a side business of mine. Just me and my partner.” 

“What kind of partner? Asked Stella. 

“Sexual, yes, he’s hung if you can handle a seven footer.” 

“I’ve taken more, I think.” 

“He’s more. He’s my limit. You’ve got to try him. Don’t worry. I won’t judge you. When I was a club kid, I tried everything. I associate that period with my miserable teens and twenties. Maybe, you should grow up.” 

“I know what I’m doing. My relationship with Trenton is strong. He can be a baby, though. I think this is just because he is older. He’s all lovey-dovey when we are alone together. 

Caesar seems warmer tonight. Maybe, I will make my move. Maybe this terrible, temporary death will put him in the mood for love.” 

“Seeing Caesar in love would cheer us all up,” I said. “He would consider a relationship with you an inconvenience or an error, though, I think. 

“What a terrible infant,” Stella ejaculated. 

“Men would be lost without our guidance. They probably would never even learn to tie their own shoes.” 

I withdrew a stick of eyeliner and lipstick from my purse, and touched up my makeup. 

Stella said, “You have such beautiful skin—though I guess the only thing that is different between us is our degree of pigmentation. 

“Thank you for the compliment. My skin is cold in the winter, but black is beautiful. I was part model and part athlete when I competed professionally in Karate. I’m still a sex symbol in some places. Not too many men can handle me or satisfy me at six foot, ten inches. I keep fit. I am sober and without any illegal vices anyway,” I replied. 

I withdrew a pack of cigarettes from my purse. I put a cigarette between my lips and lit it. I held out the pack to Stella. Stella extracted a cigarette from the pack between two manicured nails and placed it between her lips. 

Stella said, “I was in the mood for one of these earlier. Gotta light?” 

I lit Stella’s cigarette. 

“First of the day. Yours?” said Stella. 

“I don’t count. That would take all the fun out of it,” I said. 

“I thought you would be more disciplined.” 

“I haven’t slept in twenty five years. I’d feel safe sleeping here though. Caesar and Trentons’ security details are strong—especially when they are overlapped like here tonight. There are soldiers on the floor; there are drones in the air; space is covered. Caesar has unlimited resources. You will learn this about Caesar: he never loses, though he will gladly lose a battle to win a war.” 

Through the window, one maxi-tank, capable of taking down a city, and two mini-tanks, one anti-aircraft and one anti-personnel, appeared and then disappeared in the driveway. When the tanks disappeared, Stella whispered under her breath, “Overkill.” 

“It’s Caesar, “ I said. “His AI must be listening to us. It perceives everything universally. Those tanks are meant to reassure you, Stella. You’re in no danger here. Come on, Stella, let’s rejoin the others. We have reason to drink. We’ll make merry and rejoice at this return to life or the enemy will have won.” 

Chapter 20

The Classical Guitar Player

It began to rain. I stepped off of the path, and walked into the dense woods. I stopped under the bower of a tall pine tree and sat down cross legged with my back against the tree’s trunk. Rain drummed on the boughs of pine needles that surrounded me but my gear and I were in a clean, dry space. 

Beyond the dry spread of the tree’s bower, between the trees, the rain splashed and made ripples in puddles on the waterlogged forest floor. The rainfall pounded down on the ground and echoed in the night. 

I heard a dull sound approach. The undertone amplified as the crowd approached my hidden position inside of the tall pine. From my stealthy place, I could observe people moving here and there on the edge of a crowd. 

I froze and tried to be invisible. Beneath the interlinked boughs, branches, and pine needles of the tall pine, I could observe without being perceived. It was aromatic and sweet inside the tree. I was separated from a clearing in the woods by a few trees. I carefully shifted some branches so that I had a good view of the clearing in the woods. 

In the midst of the crowd, a humanoid biped, by the looks of him a male, was pushed forward to where he collapsed in the center of the clearing. His blistered flesh had been blackened and he was covered by tufts of feathers. He was naked. It was as if his entire body had been dipped in boiling tar and then covered with feathers. His wrists were bound behind him; his ankles were shackled; his head was covered by a heavy burlap bag. 

All at once, lighted, concentric circles appeared around each man in the crowd. The circles lit the clearing bright as day. Each man in the crowd stiffened and then collapsed dead on the ground in still silence. The light faded to night.

I rose nervously, and took a step away from the tree’s trunk. I waited, but no one stirred. I waited until I was moved by the moans of the mob’s victim. I advanced cautiously, feeling for a pulse on the necks of some in the crowd. No pulses. They were all dead. 

The naked man moaned as if he had been driven by pain into some preverbal state of mind. I pressed the tar from his eye sockets, nose, ears, and mouth. He began to breathe more easily. 

When I pressed the tar from his eyes, I noticed that he was Caucasian, not colored as I had originally thought. Someone in the crowd had scrawled bright red lipstick on his mouth. It was as if these mob marauders had to paint him in blackface to justify their violence, for hadn’t segregationists used just these methods to oppress African-Americans during slavery and Jim Crow. It was as if the marauders had created their own personal white sambo to dehumanize him. It was as if the mob used the tropes of the minstrel show to justify the torture and abuse of their victim. 

I retrieved my gear from beneath the tall pine and dropped it amidst the dead bodies near the naked man. I wanted to be far from here, but cleaning him up was first necessary, so I asked him if he thought he could walk a country mile. In reply, he got to his knees and then to his feet. He swayed back and forth on trembling limbs, like a faun standing for the first time. 

I said, “We have to move or we might get blamed for this judgment. They got what they deserved.” 

“Death’s too good for them,” muttered the naked man. I noticed he was shivering. 

“You look awful. We should get moving,” I said to him. “The river isn’t very far. We’ll get you cleaned up there.” 

We walked to the path, and haltingly walked back down the hill of the valley eroded by the river over time. 

“We can rest when we get there. We’re almost there. I have some fresh clothing for you; and I’ll make you some Spam with some macaroni & cheese. You could have died, you know. What set them off anyway?” I asked. 

“They said I ogled one of their women. They said I whistled at her. I don’t remember whistling.” 

“They must have been local. You from out of town?” 

In reply the naked man waded silently into the river, immersed himself completely in its waters, surfaced, and began to pick the feathers and congealed tar from his naked flesh. The tar had been very hot. His body was covered by burns and scabrous open wounds. 

I called out, “Don’t stay in that water. You’ll get hypothermia.” He climbed from the river and squatted next to the small campfire I had lit when he was in the water. 

“Do you play guitar?” asked the naked man. His immersion had cleared his head. 

“I’m a busker,” I replied. 

“What are you doing out here? Don’t you know that the lords cavort here? This forest is their ancestral hunting preserve. They prefer human prey. We should get out of here!” exclaimed the naked man with a shriek. 

“We’ll move carefully when we move. My fellow buskers and I were working a gig. It was a charitable garden party. Maybe we were just bait. We, actual buskers from the city, were the entertainment. Now, we may be the prey of the night’s sport. 

We are at home in and organic to the city, just as the lords are organic to this sylvan realm. I will walk back to the city with you. You will need to get your nose set and your jaw wired shut. We’ll find a hospital emergency room for you in the city. Maybe they can look after your dangling ear.” 

Chapter 21

Caesar

Caesar jumped out of the plane alone at 50,000 feet. As he accelerated downwards with the force of gravity, he felt strangely warm in his heated, bulbous jumpsuit. He was protected from the frigid air, and fed oxygen from a mask, by the military jumpsuit. 

When the parachute opened at 500 feet, he felt his shoulders jerk back and his boots swing beneath him. When his boots touched the ground, he let his ankles, then his knees, and then his hips fold beneath him. He rolled carefully, to absorb the impact of the ground, and then rolled up onto his feet: a creature of the oceans and the heavens on earth.

He shed the jumpsuit and stashed it and the parachute behind some shrubbery. He brought up his compass, from where it hung by a length of paracord around his neck, and got his bearings. Once oriented, he began to walk.

The quicksilver sphere that had accompanied him in his descent now hovered over his head. He began to walk towards the far treeline and the sphere followed him above his head and a few feet behind.

Once at the treeline, he would have to traverse the narrow forest, on the other side of which was located a productive oil field. The roughnecks were ready to be helicoptered in once Caesar neutralized the oil field’s defenses.

He was exposed when he walked across the grassy field that separated the landing site from the forest. His sphere would protect him from detection and, when he needed it, throw down. There was nothing at the oil field that could match it. 

It was a lovely day. He tread through clover and knee high grass. The grass was wet and still covered with dew because the sun had only just broken the edge of the horizon.

The trees in the forest were sometimes close together. Caesar's sphere, roughly two feet in diameter, narrowed and elongated to squeeze through the trees. There was wildlife here, but when Caesar sensed a hungry predator, he just turned them in a new direction or, in the case of a hungry brown bear, Caesar teleported him to another region of the forest entirely.

When he had traversed the forest, he stood in the shade of the treeline and carefully assessed the strategic situation in the oil field. The oil field was fenced against intrusion. There was only one gate. There was a pill box on either side of the gate and behind them, two pieces of light artillery placed on either side of the road.

Caesar had crossed the forest from the West. The gate of the oilfield was to the South. Caesar decided to move through the Western fence and attack the artillery and pill boxes from behind. 

Intelligence had said that three armored cars and two tanks guarded this oilfield. They had not responded to his intrusion yet. He saw and heard no sign of them so he would have to take them out when they appeared.

Caesar slowly walked towards the electrified cyclone fence. He and his sphere then passed through the cyclone fence as if it wasn't there and appeared on the other side.

He walked through the grid of tall derricks and approached the Southern gateway from the North. When he drew near, he waved a hand and the pillboxes and artillery creaked, groaned, and puffed up into momentarily molten slag.

Caesar knew that each square millimeter of the material from which the pillboxes and artillery were made, concrete and metal, had simultaneously exploded. The artillery and pillboxes had become inoperable.

Caesar turned on his heel and set out to find the armored cars and the tanks. He found the armored cars surrounding one particular derrick. A group of workers were arguing with a manager. The manager was backed up by the three armored cars. Each armored car had a turret attached to the roof whose fifty caliber machine gun was sited on the workers.

Caesar approached, waved his hand, and the armored cars, and the weaponry of their occupants, were neutralized. The occupants of the armored cars, all wearing desert camouflage fatigues and body armor, erupted from their machines and began to mill around their neutered vehicles in confusion.

My guess was right and the two tanks took the bait. Two tanks came trundling over a hump in the road. Caesar neutralized the two North Korean tanks. He instantly transformed them into slag. Caesar said “mission accomplished” out loud to the spirits of the air. He added his own voice to the music of the spheres. 

Then Caesar disappeared with a pop to rejoin his submarine deep beneath the waves in calm Polynesia. He travelled there via a long, instantaneous, teleport through the mass of the Earth itself. 

He loved Polynesia. The people were warm and friendly in this sun kissed archipelago. And as for airspace and the orbital space above, Caesar could see them coming from very far away. No one could approach Polynesia with hostile intent. When they got to the border, hostile jets, submarines, surface ships, and missiles simply turned to slag. 

The submarine and orbital cluster in Polynesia was farthest removed from the ICBMs to the North where the US and Russia menaced their neighbors with genocide. 

Caesar thought of the old Beatle’s tune “Back in the USSR.” I guess this song dated him. He could never tell, in a certain mood, whether the song referred to the USSR or the USA. 

This was the same mood that led Caesar to identify the President with the King when reading *The Declaration of Independence*. Try it. Read *The Declaration of Independence* and think of President Yahoo Whatever whenever you read King George. They say I'm moody.

There were no nuclear targets in Polynesia. Those who liked submarine/orbital sentient systems moved to Polynesia for the peace and quiet of the place. Polynesia was well defended by these submarine/orbital arrays. If Earth went to hell, and the MIRVed nuclear ICBMs ever launched, the orbitals could simply teleport their submarines into their holds and be beyond the solar system’s coronasphere before the Earth even exploded.

Chapter 22

Classical Guitar Player

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Here ends what I will share so far of *Hard Cider* by David Santin Kilday (DSK)