Drabblecast 490 – Slime on my Hackles

I actually thought myself lucky, the night I met Doffney.  Of all the dingy, back-alley bars Gungalow had to offer, fate had led him to Boffel’s, and wouldn’t you know it, into the seat next to mine.  I wasn’t usually so susceptible to a pretty face with a sad story, but something about Doffney got to me.  He had arrived only days prior, in the last wave of refugees from Luepreel.  With only his looks to lean on, it wouldn’t have been long before he was selling his hackles on the street if I hadn’t stepped in to help.  If only I’d known how much that help would cost me.

As it was, I could barely afford my current lifestyle, and Doffney hadn’t worked a day in his life.  He was afraid of our neighborhood, the Shakes, for its tremors and the rough Jackals who lived there; afraid of the Jellies, Gungelow’s locals; afraid of everything.  Somehow, leaving him never crossed my mind.  We were in this together now.  Which ultimately led me to approach Swyvo with my proposition.

“Slime, Swyvo,” I muttered, pulling free of his rift.  “Is there a towel somewhere?”  His mucus-like secretions cooled almost instantly as they dripped down my back.

“The bottom drawer,” Swyvo huffed, pointing limply at his desk.  He began licking his fingertips and rubbing saliva into the little cuts my hackles had left on his chest.  Jellies had yellow skin, mouths no wider than the tip of my thumb, and absolutely no hair.  How the rifts that opened along their chests served as their reproductive organs, I couldn’t fathom—and I had no idea how they went to the bathroom.

We were sitting on the little, white couch in his office, a room bigger than my apartment that smelled strangely of marshmallows—a lot of Jelly’s places did, actually.  “Don’t those hurt?” I asked, watching him work.

“Females, such as yourself, have numbing secretions, that dull the pain and make the pleasure last longer.”

I cringed.  “Go figure.”

The smile that spread across his tiny mouth in response made me want to punch him.  “Same time tomorrow?”

My head whipped around.  “Spider eggs were supposed to be the deal.  I don’t have time for that, this, and my usual rounds.”

A moist fingertip ran down my arm.  “Not to worry, little Jackal.  Swyvo will take care of it.”

Resolved not to waste any more money at Boffel’s, I went straight home.  At first, Doffney was thrilled.  Then he noticed Swyvo’s slime on me.  “Nury—” he began.

“One month, pup,” I cut in.  “Then we’ll be out of the Shakes and off this slimy planet for good.  Trust me.”

Drop an egg on someone’s shoulder, and the spider did the work for you, hatching within seconds to begin its search for the waxy, warm place at the center of the ear.  The rest was up to the spiders’ operators, waiting patiently in their pods to control their hosts’ bodies.  Swyvo’s spiders expired within about a day’s time, triggering a reaction in their hosts that simulated the symptoms of a stroke.  The whole thing reeked of slime and earned anyone caught in the act a hefty detention sentence, but at least it was easy.

After beating countless Jellies bloody in my regular work, it shouldn’t have taken rifting one on a regular basis for me to realize they had no bones.  Swyvo’s liquidy-skeletal structure was so malleable and soft to the touch, it felt like being humped by a giant water balloon.

“You must realize,” Swyvo said, noticing me eying him, “that you look as strange to us as we do to you.”

“I’m the alien here,” I snapped.  “Of course, I realize that.”  But the truth was, I hadn’t.  Pulling my shirt on over my sticky back, I said, “So, do you trust me enough to pay me now, or are you going to make me come back after my rounds?”

Swyvo slid off the couch and removed an envelope from the top drawer of his desk.  “You’ve kept your end of the deal, little Jackal.  Now, hurry along.  Sweet Doffney awaits.”

Frowning, I took the envelope and promptly left.  It didn’t hit me how relieved I was until I reached home—more like ecstatic, thrilled!  Something had actually worked out for a change.

“Doffney!” I called, stepping into our apartment.  “Time to pack!  Swyvo actually…”  Suitcases were already sitting in the hallway.  “Doffney?”

He stumbled out of the bedroom.  “You’re early.”

I held up the envelope.  “They’re real transit passes, Doffney!  We can go anywhere with these, taxes paid.”

“No, Nury.”  He picked up the suitcases and headed for the door. 

I moved to block his way.  “What are you doing?”

“Leaving.  Slime, Nury,” he blinked back tears, “you’ve been rifting that Gungelon for weeks!”

I raised my hand to slap him then stopped.  “You never call them Gungelons.”

“Please,” he said weakly.  “I just want to go.”

But the slip had already been made, and I knew exactly what was going on.  I never told Swyvo his name.  That alone should’ve tipped me off, but I was too distracted at the time to realize.  I grabbed Doffney by the scruff of his neck and dragged him to a chair—as gently as I could, because it was still Doffney’s body I was dragging, even if he didn’t have control of it.  Then I took out my cuffs from work and secured his wrists and ankles.

“Nury, please!” he begged.

“Don’t worry, Doffney.”  I kissed his forehead.  “I’ll fix this.”

At Boffel’s, I banged on the door until I heard it unlocked.  Her ugly face poked out.  “Beat it, Nury, we’re closed.”

“Damnit, Boffel, it’s about a spider!  Open up.”

Her eyes darted down the alley as she hurried me inside.  “Keep it down, would ya?  Spiders are illegal.”

“I need to get rid of one—without damaging the host.  Have anything?”

In the storage room behind the bar that doubled for her office, she rifled through drawers.  I waited impatiently on the other side of the desk, drumming my fingers on its sticky surface.

“This might do.”  She held up a suction cup with a hand pump. 

“That?”

“It works nearly every time—on low-grade spiders, whose webs aren’t that sticky… Alright, alright,” she kept rummaging.  “Here.”  A small, square box with a dial landed in my palm—some kind of remote.  “Fuss with it enough, and you’ll fry it eventually.  Take the pump too, if you want.  Shot for the road?”

I pocketed the tech, took the shot, and dashed out the door.

I was only a block away when the tremor started.  It was the worst I’d felt in years, strong enough to knock me and everyone around me to the ground.  When it finally slowed, I staggered to my feet and ran to my apartment, but I was too late.  Our building was a pile of rubble.

A few hours later the police picked me up, delirious and muttering Doffney’s name as I wandered the wreckage.  My arms were purple with blood from digging in rubble, and from the two emergency responders I killed for trying to stop me.  I didn’t remember any of it.

Detention gave me a lot of time to think.  About Swyvo mostly, and all the ways he’d ruined my life.  Thanks to his slime on my back, I started out with a reputation as a rifter, making me a pariah to the Jackal inmates and a target to the Jelly inmates and guards alike.  By the time they released me nearly a decade later, I had no life to go back to, but they were short on space and thought I was too beaten down to pose anyone a threat.  So I found myself back where I started, on the street, picking pockets and rifting anyone desperate enough to pay me for it.  Some days, I wondered if living was really worth the trouble, but with every bruise or broken bone, my resolve strengthened, and when I finally had some cash in my pocket again, I went to find Boffel.

She watched me from behind the bar as I staggered in, her mouth agape.  “Slime, Nury, you look like…well, slime.”

I heaved myself onto a stool with a sigh.  “Nice to see you too.”

“You been in detention all this time?”  She poured as she spoke.

“Nearly.”  I took the shot she slid me and grimaced; it burned going down.  “Swyvo still come around?”

“Not since I hooked up another Jackal with your old job.  Couple years back now.”

I nodded slowly.  “How much for a spider?  One that lasts longer than a few days.”

“More than you can afford, from the looks of you.”

I slid her my glass for a refill.  “Then you need to help me find work.”

Each night, I set myself up in the back corner of the bar and waited for Boffel to steer customers my way.  The dirtier the job the more I got paid, so I was game for anything, and soon cash started rolling in.  Boffel kept a running tab of her supposed ‘take,’ but in no time, customers started seeking me out directly, and when I could finally afford a high-grade spider and control pod capable of sustaining my body indefinitely as I operated it, I handed everything I had over to her, and trusted her to take care of the rest.

At first, I thought a mistake had been made.  When I held up my hand, my skin was a rosy colour, not yellow like Swyvo’s.  Then I noticed that familiar smell—marshmallows—and realized I was in Swyvo’s office, lying on his little, white couch.  Only the couch was black, not white, and there was something skewed and distorted about it all, as if the room grew larger and smaller with each breath.  I paced in circles for a while until I felt confident I could pass as somewhat normal, then I stepped outside.

Swyvo’s office was a separate building on the grounds of his mansion, the latter being a place I had never been worthy of entering until today.  The foyer was like walking through a womb: dark, damp, and rosy like Swyvo’s skin—which meant it was actually yellow?  It opened onto a large room, equally damp and rosy, with a long table at its center set with bowls of round, blue fruit.  I had seen Jellies with fruit like this before but had never tasted it.  I took one from the bowl and sniffed it—marshmallows.  I tried to bite it, but its skin was too tough for Swyvo’s little teeth to penetrate.  In fact, I was starting to doubt it was fruit at all.  As that thought crossed my mind, the fruit-ball started to glow and a warm sensation spread through me, a sensation coming from the fruit-ball.  No, from the little woman reaching for me through the fruit-ball.

Curious and bewildered, I followed that feeling, letting her guide me through a sprawling maze of hallways to her door.  I found her inside, sitting by a large window, craning her neck to look out.  Jelly Women grew no taller than three feet and wore collars that dangled strips of silk over the udder-like genitalia running down their bellies—something I learned from pictures circulating detention.  I sat down on the chair beside her, and she crawled up onto my lap.  She opened her mouth, as if to speak, but produced no sound.  It occurred to me her collar might have something to do with it, so I unclicked the lock on its side.  A look of panic passed over her face.  Our connection was severed the second it left her skin, and I suddenly felt horribly empty, like a part of me had been cut away.  I snapped it closed again, and we both breathed a sigh of relief.

What was it she felt now: fear, anger, desperation for closeness?  The word ‘baby’ echoed through my mind, and my rift instantly started opening in response.

Shaken from my stupor, I held her away from me, this child-like creature who wanted to mate, but she threw her arms around my neck and held on.  I scrambled to unfurl her fingers, but then a burst of dampness trickled down my chest from her udders.  She let go and started adjusting the strips of silk.

Was that it?

When I walked into Boffel’s, she straightened up to greet me like a Jelly.  Then she let out a wheezing laugh.  “Already?”

“Just pour,” I grumbled.  Had the walls always been this putrid shade of green?  I rubbed my eyes.  Boffel slid me a double, and I emptied it in a gulp.  With a sigh, I said, “I think I might be pregnant.”

She howled with laughter.  “You really are trying to ruin his life!”

I couldn’t help but laugh too.  “Do you know how they mate?  No wonder rifting…”  But I stopped myself.  I refused to feel bad for the Jellies, no matter how bizarre their biological destiny.

After a few more drinks, I took a cab back to Swyvo’s and went straight to his office.  I needed to come up with a discrete way to get a little cash for myself before I could disconnect my spider.  Problem was, I didn’t know how.

Swyvo’s computer was a squishy, blue blob sitting on his desk.  I massaged, slapped, and poked the blob until a projection appeared in the air above it, but at the same moment, there was a knock on the door, and a Jackal stepped inside.  “Always busy at work,” he greeted me, crossing the room to perch on the edge of the desk.

This must have been my replacement.  I recognized him from the bar.  Frommy, was it?   “Right,” I muttered with uncertainty.  “Hey, have you ever used this thing?”

Frommy raised his hands defensively.  “Never touched it, pup.”

“That’s not…  It’s just not working,” I sighed.  If only Swyvo could have had a normal, Jackal computer, that responded to words and growls.

Frommy slid off the desk and onto my lap.  Rubbing his back against my chest, he whispered, “How about you put me to work, then?”

Slime, my rift was driving me crazy.  Was Swyvo always this easily distracted?  Resisting Frommy was hopeless in a body throbbing at the sight of him, but I wasn’t about to rift him on Swyvo’s filthy little couch—not that it seemed like he would mind.  I led him to the house instead, and we went into the first bedroom we found.

Frommy flopped down on the bed, bouncing to test its springiness.  Unnerved by the thought of being interrupted by another little woman, I peeked through the door on the opposite wall.  Only a closet.  Remembering the udder-seepage on my shirt, I riffled through for something clean to wear afterward.

Frommy wrapped his arms around me from behind.  “Not as eager as usual, today?”

I pulled out a shirt.  On the hanger behind it, there was a string of blue fruit-balls.  Before I’d had time to wonder what they were for, Frommy said, “Ooo, fun!” and draped them across my chest.

“N-no!” I stammered as he tugged them down my rift.  I yanked them off me and hurled them to the floor.

Frommy held up his hands, “Fine, then,” and walked back to the bed.

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath.  Had the little women felt that too?  The thought made me shudder.

I tossed the new shirt on a chair by the bed and began undressing.  Frommy’s shirt was off the next instant.  As he walked toward me, his hackles were actually starting to rise on their own.  I tried to kiss him, but my little teeth latched onto his bottom lip instead—I’d forgotten I had no lips.  Giggling to hide his disgust, Frommy climbed onto the bed.

Despite not being my type in any other way, Frommy was a beautiful man, and at the moment, that was enough.  On my hands and knees, I wrapped myself around him.  Then his hackles firmed up, and—Oh slime… oh rifting oozing slime…

When we finally collapsed, Frommy pulled me into his arms, and I lay with my head on his shoulder, enjoying feeling small and masculine for a change.  With a sigh, I asked, “Do you think of me as a man, Frommy?”

“No.”  He stuck his fingertip in my mouth and rubbed saliva into the little cuts on my rift.  “I think of you as a Jelly.”

Which made me wonder why we felt the need to call Jellies anything.  Their so-called ‘males’ did look a bit masculine, dainty and breastless as they were, but their rifts were more like giant labia than penises.  And apparently, they could get pregnant, another feminine strength.

Frommy got up and started dressing.  Reluctant to be alone again in the strange house, I said, “Stay, and I’ll make it worth your while.”

He smiled at me over his shoulder.  “I bet you would, pup.  But I’ve got places to be, spiders to drop.  Tomorrow.”  He blew me a kiss and walked out.

My fellow Jackals and I used to grumble about how good the Jellies had it.  Now as Swyvo, I could go anywhere I wanted, do anything I wanted, but if I were being totally honest, Boffel’s was the only place that appealed.

There was a bang on the front door.  From the bedroom, it was only a quiet thump, but I knew the sound of a fist when I heard one.  As I finished dressing, the bedroom door flew open, and half a dozen police officers came rushing in.

In a cold, bright room at the station, I sat alone for nearly an hour until finally, a Jackal walked in.  She had a shaved head and a nose surgically altered to look less snout-like.  I instantly disliked her.

“Swyvo Gunge’Slorez,” she said, dropping a folder on the table as she sat.  “I’m Detective Gunge’Breleff.”

“Gunge’Breleff?”

She glared at me.  “I was born here.  I’m a Gungelon, same as you.”

Just my luck: a Jackal with slime-envy.

“You should know, it’s my personal mission to bring down Jellies who exploit and corrupt Jackals for their own gain, and I’ve got quite the case on you.” 

This was too perfect.  How did I disconnect my control pod, again?  Assuming I’d kill Swyvo before leaving, I hadn’t paid much attention to Boffel’s instructions.

“But for an advisor to the Governor,” Breleff continued, “we’re willing to make a deal.”

I glared at her.  “His advisor?” 

“Agent, supplier, muscle—call yourself what you want.  Just give us names, and your more salacious charges will be dropped.”

Swyvo’s slimy influence extended further than I realized.  Figured.  “I can’t do that,” I said stubbornly.

Her jaw tensed.  “You’re looking at years in detention, Swyvo.  We both know the Governor doesn’t want—”

“I don’t care what the rifting Governor wants!  Go public.  Lock me up.”

“Listen,” Breleff said with a confused look, “all we need are the Jackals.”

“The Jackals?”

“Arrests make people feel safe.  Exposing government corruption doesn’t.  Understand?”

“People,” I said through my tiny teeth, “or Jellies?”

She chuckled coldly.  “Spoken like a true Jackal-lover.”

I could have punched her for that.  “You’re a rifting Jackal!  Or have you forgotten where you came from?”

“I came from here,” she snapped.  “Luepreel is gone, and whatever happens to your goons is their own fault.”

“For them, it’s live on the street or work for people like Sw—me.  That’s their fault?”

“Yes,” she said coldly.  “The Jackals you rift with, do you really think they enjoy it?”  Clearly, Breleff hadn’t met Frommy.  “They hate you—Jackals like that hate everyone.  There are always choices, Swyvo, and they chose wrong.”  She opened the folder in front of her and started reading off names, my predecessors I assumed, until she came to mine.  “And another gem: Nury Luepreel-1.  Theft, battery, solicitation, and more than one murder, including that of her lover, Doffney Doellynen Luepreel-12.”

“Not Doffney,” I snarled.  “There was a spider.”

“I don’t see anything in the coroner’s report about a spider.  Doffney was found handcuffed to a chair, making it impossible for him to escape when the tremor started.  Pretty thing, too.”  She shoved the folder across the desk.

A slimy tear rolling down my cheek as I read.  Had Doffney actually wanted to leave me?  But getting off Gungelow was our plan, and he wanted to go with me, I knew he did.  I covered my face with my hands.  “I loved him.”

“Love,” Breleff scoffed.  “We can’t call it rape unless force is involved, but blackmailing him into rifting you isn’t far off.”

My head bolted up.  “Rifting me?”

“Don’t play innocent, Swyvo, we’ve been tailing you for years.  You had something on Doffney—caught him fooling around, maybe.  Whatever it was, when Nury found out, she went berserk and killed him for it.”

I tossed my head back and howled with fury, clawing my face with my slimy fingertips.  “You rifted Doffney?  You oozing rifted him!”  Crazed by the thought, I lunged for the gun holstered at Breleff’s hip, raised it to Swyvo’s head, and pulled the trigger.

*          *          *

“What do you think made her do it?” the attendant asked, holding the lid to Nury’s pod open for me to see.

I flapped my hand at him to close it; the corpse was starting to stink.  When a spider’s host died, its controller almost always died too.  Nury paid enough for a high-end spider so that wouldn’t happen, but not after I’d deducted my cut.

That was the problem with friends.  They were always ready to take, but when Boffel needed something, it was goodbye, see you later.  Well, I was tired of being passed by.  First by Doffney, that little tramp, always flashing his hackles at me and never putting out.  I told Swyvo everything he wanted to know about him, including the afternoon I stopped by the apartment while Nury was out.  Swyvo gave me nothing in return of course, but in the end, Nury’s misadventures took care of all three for me, so thank you, Nury.

Now, I just had Frommy to deal with.  The slimy rifter almost convinced me to keep it when I got pregnant, then I caught him heading to the bathroom with that Jelly—and everyone knew Jellies didn’t use the bathroom.  I still had a soft spot for Frommy, but what could I say?  At a certain point, we were all held accountable for our actions, Jellies and Jackals alike.