Jon Ureña's Blog, page 27
September 19, 2023
Review: Dungeon Meshi, by Ryōko Kui
Five stars. The title translates to "Delicious in Dungeon."
Two long-running manga series that I had been following for a long time ended this month: the first one, Oshimi’s Chi no Wadachi, and the second one is Kui’s wonderful Dungeon Meshi. More often than not, when I finish a manga series and I’m starving for more of the peculiar joys that this format provides (far higher joys than what most of Western fiction produces these days), I check out lists of recommendations, plenty of which mentioned Dungeon Meshi. However, I always passed on it. You see, a fiction genre somewhat popular in Japan focuses on weird food-related tournaments that mostly seem like excuses to draw mouth-watering food, and print recipes. I never saw the appeal, and I wasn’t interested in a variation of that formula even with a fantasy dressing.
Big mistake. Dungeon Meshi is an exceptional story with fantastic characters, and the food-making part works as a straight-faced satire, because the vast majority of the recipes involve cooking D&D-like monsters into something resembling edible food. The whole deal about making elaborate food out of monsters could have been a gimmick, but the plot turns it into a necessary element to survive.
[Check out the rest of this review on my personal page, where it looks better]
September 18, 2023
Review: Chi no Wadachi, by Shūzō Oshimi
The title translates to either “Blood on the Tracks” or “A Trail of Blood.” Despite the mystery or thriller-like title, this haunting story is about heredity, and how a fucked-up childhood could poison you for the rest of your life. I caught this series maybe three years ago, and read it up to the then latest chapter. This morning I have read the chapter that concluded the tale. I don’t know how to rate the whole.
I hate to review stories that I have read in a chapter-by-chapter release, because my impressions have been muddled and spread thin over time. I will make the effort, though, because I want to think about what this series left in me.
[Check out the rest of this review on my personal page, where it looks better]
September 13, 2023
Life update (13/09/2023)
Last night, at one in the morning, I was recovering from covid by playing Starfield; I went through a compelling mission with Sarah Morgan in Cassiopeia to find debris from her past. I needed to take a shit, so I quit the game, shut off my computer, and went to the bathroom as the last thing to do before bed.
It turned out to be one of those annoying shits that I have often, and that involve wiping over and over. After one of the first attempts to stem the presence of fecal residue on the toilet paper, I noticed that it didn’t smell like anything. I thought, “Curious. How could I have eaten so differently these past few days that my shit doesn’t smell like anything?” Alarms went off in my head. I tried to smell the soiled toilet paper from an inch away. It didn’t smell like anything at all.
[Check out the rest of this post on my personal page, where it looks better]
It turned out to be one of those annoying shits that I have often, and that involve wiping over and over. After one of the first attempts to stem the presence of fecal residue on the toilet paper, I noticed that it didn’t smell like anything. I thought, “Curious. How could I have eaten so differently these past few days that my shit doesn’t smell like anything?” Alarms went off in my head. I tried to smell the soiled toilet paper from an inch away. It didn’t smell like anything at all.
[Check out the rest of this post on my personal page, where it looks better]
September 10, 2023
Life update (09/10/2023)
It’s evening on a September Sunday, and I have covid. Turns out that covid, as far as my thirty-eight-year-old body goes, isn’t that bad. On Friday, I suffered a bit in the office; I always feel like shit whenever I leave a room where I’m the only person present, but on top of that, I had to deal with a runny nose, hot flashes, and severe diarrhea. As I was waiting for the train to carry me back to my rotting city, I suspected that the thermometer, once I made use of it at home, would have registered 37,2ºC or so (98.96 Fahrenheit), but to my surprise, I had a fever of 38,7ºC (101.66 Fahrenheit). In previous cases, a fever of 38,7ºC would have felt like I was close to slipping into delirium.
[Check out the rest of this post on my personal page, where it looks better]
[Check out the rest of this post on my personal page, where it looks better]
September 8, 2023
Life update (09/08/2023)
Last Tuesday I was playing Starfield when I received a lovely call: I was needed back at the office. Ever since, I have wasted invested three days of my extremely limited life serving the province or whatever the hell I’m doing there. Some shit happened on Wednesday, but that’s besides the point today. You see, I was working the afternoon shift when I started feeling that the hours were stretching longer and longer. My nose was leaking. I was shivering. The back of my head hurt. I exploded with diarrhea a couple of times, hopefully scaring the custodians. I couldn’t wait to leave.
On the couple of rides back (a bus and a train), I felt like I was losing it a bit. Hot flashes kept coursing through my body. This decaying society loomed even more repugnant than usual. When I got home, the couple of thermometers displayed 38,7ºC (101.66 Fahrenheit). A quick test later proved that I have covid. Hey, perhaps the latest “booster vaccine” didn’t give me atrial fibrillation for nothing.
I called my mother (former nurse) for some advice. She said, “I told you to never call me again, freak.” I didn’t ask to be born.
Anyway, I’m going to steal a few phrases from Inio Asano’s magnum opus for this development: “When it’s my time to leave, I’d like to to vanish like an insignificant bubble, and fade away from everyone’s memories as well.”
I won’t be able to see the Milky Way this year or the next, and all future Tanabata nights will be too cloudy, and yet the world won’t end nor will humanity perish.
On the couple of rides back (a bus and a train), I felt like I was losing it a bit. Hot flashes kept coursing through my body. This decaying society loomed even more repugnant than usual. When I got home, the couple of thermometers displayed 38,7ºC (101.66 Fahrenheit). A quick test later proved that I have covid. Hey, perhaps the latest “booster vaccine” didn’t give me atrial fibrillation for nothing.
I called my mother (former nurse) for some advice. She said, “I told you to never call me again, freak.” I didn’t ask to be born.
Anyway, I’m going to steal a few phrases from Inio Asano’s magnum opus for this development: “When it’s my time to leave, I’d like to to vanish like an insignificant bubble, and fade away from everyone’s memories as well.”
I won’t be able to see the Milky Way this year or the next, and all future Tanabata nights will be too cloudy, and yet the world won’t end nor will humanity perish.
We're Fucked, Pt. 111 (Fiction)
Check out this chapter on my personal page, where it looks better
---
Sources of endless wonder, of worshipful awe, to my eyes and lips and tongue, the thought of their satiny and succulent surfaces, their elasticity and heft in my grasp, has haunted me from the moment I first caught a glimpse of them at the office, and ever since I kneaded and caressed their velvet texture, inhaled their intoxicating fragrance, and savored their creamy taste, I have yearned to be swallowed up by that warmth again, like a woman stranded in a blizzard seeking the hearth and blankets of home. Oh, my blessed Jacqueline, mommy dearest, may Arachne's silken threads weave me a cradle within your heaving milk-tanks!
As the flames of the candles flicker and dance, they splash their honey-golden glow upon the ivory statue that stands before me proud and nude. A demigoddess. Jacqueline-but-French.
My skin crawls with an icy sensation. In those shimmering eyes that have always seen through me, the collarettes, crypts and striations that paint the irises cobalt blue, do they belong to yet another character in a shapeshifting play?
"Is this... you?" I ask.
Jacqueline's shoulders droop, and she glances down at the rug.
"Ah, je savais que ça viendrait. I can transform into different people, so what are the odds that the way I present myself in my everyday life can be considered 'me'?"
"I suppose that's what I meant."
She combs a hand through her raven-black tresses, then fans them out to cascade over her shoulder in a lustrous curtain.
"The body you're looking at, and that you adore, is the closest to the one that my parents' genes crafted, and with which I identified growing up. Not the original, though, because I enhanced it, with my own spicy seasoning added in, to match the woman that presented herself in that darkness: my mental self-image. You could call it mon vrai moi, one free from the ravages of time, other than minor imperfections that would be hard to justify lacking at my age." She raises her hands to her eyes and touches the hints of crow's feet.
So Jacqueline also hated her body, although likely not to the extent that I do of wanting to vomit every time I catch a glimpse of my reflection in a mirror. Yet another evidence that our fates were following parallel paths of angst and neuroses that would end up with us entangled and sweaty in her queen-size bed.
"Even before we met each other," I say wistfully, "you and I were both misfits that society disdained. Lonely wolves prowling on a frozen continent of their own to keep sane."
"I wouldn't go that far. But I'm forty-four years old, darling. Forty-goddamn-four. No idea how that happened. Anyway, even far richer women, with millions to spare, couldn't afford the kind of upgrade I've given myself. You've known my age; how did you rationalize that I looked this fresh?"
"Privileged genetics? I mean, that's what you told me."
Jacqueline's cobalt-blues frost over as if clouded by turmoil. Her statuesque posture deflates.
"Oh, mon petit chou, forgive me for the little masquerade. I wanted to tell you sooner, but I was scared whether you'd still adore me."
"I'm not running out of adoration any time soon. I do wonder how you used to look like, though."
She grimaces, then sighs.
"Darling, I've consigned that version of me to history. Even your charms cannot resurrect it. Let me put it this way: if you had suffered through your teenage years with a face ravaged by acne, you wouldn't want to go back, would you?"
"My goodness, that bad?"
"Heureusement non; those poor kids end up traumatized. I was lucky as far as adolescent skin goes, just a little zit here and there. I'm talking about the 'growing old' version of that: wrinkles, gray hairs, a flabby stomach, sagging boobs, cellulite. Yuck, I'd rather keep my mind clean. You wouldn't have swooned and drooled over me, I promise."
I picture Jacqueline's hair thinning as the blackness gives way to strands of cottony white. Her cheeks and chin sag into a jowly, hound-like shape, dissolving the jawline. Her ivory-white skin turns leathery and splotchy. Her mighty breasts, their once-full contours collapsed, wilt into two droopy pendulums. Her ass becomes a bulging, cottage-cheese-like mass. Maybe my shoulders should shudder at the image of Jacqueline, the voluptuous goddess that has rocked my world and inflamed my lust, transformed into a crone with withered teats, wreathed by a halo of spiderwebs.
"But I'm into mommies."
"I wouldn't want you to associate this mommy with that whole getup, mon trésor. Still, it isn't just about wrinkles and cellulite. It's also about the diminishing sands in the hourglass, the knowledge that the world is erasing us petit à petit. Our health and youth are crumbling away with every breath. We are aware that this road ends in pain, and yet we keep putting one foot in front of the other."
I rub the back of my neck, where a patch of prickling heat has erupted under my skin.
"Sure, people are good at believing two opposite things at once, even when neither of them makes sense. We're wired to fool others as well as ourselves; otherwise we wouldn't have made it far as a species."
"Nobody should have to grow old, Leire."
"The stars also burn out," I say in sympathy. "Perhaps I find comfort in the inevitability of it all."
Jacqueline pauses, her fingers lingering over her eyelids. When she speaks again, her voice carries a weight.
"That's the thing: I may be the first person in history who can remain forever young, at least on the outside."
My right hand clenches and unclenches the bedclothes. So mommy can dodge the ceaseless march of time and stay ever-delectable. I'm in love with an evergreen blossom amid the dust and ruin.
"As long as maintaining these forms doesn't exhaust you more than reverting to your original self, then great."
"I don't need to concentrate, ma chérie. It's like flipping a switch."
"And the celestial vision with which you brighten my life is a testament to your healthy self-esteem. If I could shapeshift into my mental self-image, you'd never stop screaming."
Jacqueline chuckles through a pained grin as she brushes a tear from the corner of her eye.
"Oh, choupette. You have become more confident and composed than the withdrawn mouse you were before we started dating."
"Even so, it's due to your motherly influence, your encouragement, and your relentless pursuit of pleasure. I have done nothing to deserve an improvement."
For years, my mind has felt like an outdated computer: slower over time, lagging in memory retrieval, prone to glitching out and needing to restart. One day, a silhouette will stand shin-deep in a shapeless pile of bones and rotting flesh that once gave shape to a human being. Watch me grow old and die.
---
Author's note: today's song is "Broken Chairs" by Built to Spill.
I keep a playlist with all the songs mentioned throughout the novel so far. A total of a hundred and seventy-seven videos. Check them out.
Want to listen to this lovely couple's philosophical discussion? Check out the audiochapter.
---
Sources of endless wonder, of worshipful awe, to my eyes and lips and tongue, the thought of their satiny and succulent surfaces, their elasticity and heft in my grasp, has haunted me from the moment I first caught a glimpse of them at the office, and ever since I kneaded and caressed their velvet texture, inhaled their intoxicating fragrance, and savored their creamy taste, I have yearned to be swallowed up by that warmth again, like a woman stranded in a blizzard seeking the hearth and blankets of home. Oh, my blessed Jacqueline, mommy dearest, may Arachne's silken threads weave me a cradle within your heaving milk-tanks!
As the flames of the candles flicker and dance, they splash their honey-golden glow upon the ivory statue that stands before me proud and nude. A demigoddess. Jacqueline-but-French.
My skin crawls with an icy sensation. In those shimmering eyes that have always seen through me, the collarettes, crypts and striations that paint the irises cobalt blue, do they belong to yet another character in a shapeshifting play?
"Is this... you?" I ask.
Jacqueline's shoulders droop, and she glances down at the rug.
"Ah, je savais que ça viendrait. I can transform into different people, so what are the odds that the way I present myself in my everyday life can be considered 'me'?"
"I suppose that's what I meant."
She combs a hand through her raven-black tresses, then fans them out to cascade over her shoulder in a lustrous curtain.
"The body you're looking at, and that you adore, is the closest to the one that my parents' genes crafted, and with which I identified growing up. Not the original, though, because I enhanced it, with my own spicy seasoning added in, to match the woman that presented herself in that darkness: my mental self-image. You could call it mon vrai moi, one free from the ravages of time, other than minor imperfections that would be hard to justify lacking at my age." She raises her hands to her eyes and touches the hints of crow's feet.
So Jacqueline also hated her body, although likely not to the extent that I do of wanting to vomit every time I catch a glimpse of my reflection in a mirror. Yet another evidence that our fates were following parallel paths of angst and neuroses that would end up with us entangled and sweaty in her queen-size bed.
"Even before we met each other," I say wistfully, "you and I were both misfits that society disdained. Lonely wolves prowling on a frozen continent of their own to keep sane."
"I wouldn't go that far. But I'm forty-four years old, darling. Forty-goddamn-four. No idea how that happened. Anyway, even far richer women, with millions to spare, couldn't afford the kind of upgrade I've given myself. You've known my age; how did you rationalize that I looked this fresh?"
"Privileged genetics? I mean, that's what you told me."
Jacqueline's cobalt-blues frost over as if clouded by turmoil. Her statuesque posture deflates.
"Oh, mon petit chou, forgive me for the little masquerade. I wanted to tell you sooner, but I was scared whether you'd still adore me."
"I'm not running out of adoration any time soon. I do wonder how you used to look like, though."
She grimaces, then sighs.
"Darling, I've consigned that version of me to history. Even your charms cannot resurrect it. Let me put it this way: if you had suffered through your teenage years with a face ravaged by acne, you wouldn't want to go back, would you?"
"My goodness, that bad?"
"Heureusement non; those poor kids end up traumatized. I was lucky as far as adolescent skin goes, just a little zit here and there. I'm talking about the 'growing old' version of that: wrinkles, gray hairs, a flabby stomach, sagging boobs, cellulite. Yuck, I'd rather keep my mind clean. You wouldn't have swooned and drooled over me, I promise."
I picture Jacqueline's hair thinning as the blackness gives way to strands of cottony white. Her cheeks and chin sag into a jowly, hound-like shape, dissolving the jawline. Her ivory-white skin turns leathery and splotchy. Her mighty breasts, their once-full contours collapsed, wilt into two droopy pendulums. Her ass becomes a bulging, cottage-cheese-like mass. Maybe my shoulders should shudder at the image of Jacqueline, the voluptuous goddess that has rocked my world and inflamed my lust, transformed into a crone with withered teats, wreathed by a halo of spiderwebs.
"But I'm into mommies."
"I wouldn't want you to associate this mommy with that whole getup, mon trésor. Still, it isn't just about wrinkles and cellulite. It's also about the diminishing sands in the hourglass, the knowledge that the world is erasing us petit à petit. Our health and youth are crumbling away with every breath. We are aware that this road ends in pain, and yet we keep putting one foot in front of the other."
I rub the back of my neck, where a patch of prickling heat has erupted under my skin.
"Sure, people are good at believing two opposite things at once, even when neither of them makes sense. We're wired to fool others as well as ourselves; otherwise we wouldn't have made it far as a species."
"Nobody should have to grow old, Leire."
"The stars also burn out," I say in sympathy. "Perhaps I find comfort in the inevitability of it all."
Jacqueline pauses, her fingers lingering over her eyelids. When she speaks again, her voice carries a weight.
"That's the thing: I may be the first person in history who can remain forever young, at least on the outside."
My right hand clenches and unclenches the bedclothes. So mommy can dodge the ceaseless march of time and stay ever-delectable. I'm in love with an evergreen blossom amid the dust and ruin.
"As long as maintaining these forms doesn't exhaust you more than reverting to your original self, then great."
"I don't need to concentrate, ma chérie. It's like flipping a switch."
"And the celestial vision with which you brighten my life is a testament to your healthy self-esteem. If I could shapeshift into my mental self-image, you'd never stop screaming."
Jacqueline chuckles through a pained grin as she brushes a tear from the corner of her eye.
"Oh, choupette. You have become more confident and composed than the withdrawn mouse you were before we started dating."
"Even so, it's due to your motherly influence, your encouragement, and your relentless pursuit of pleasure. I have done nothing to deserve an improvement."
For years, my mind has felt like an outdated computer: slower over time, lagging in memory retrieval, prone to glitching out and needing to restart. One day, a silhouette will stand shin-deep in a shapeless pile of bones and rotting flesh that once gave shape to a human being. Watch me grow old and die.
---
Author's note: today's song is "Broken Chairs" by Built to Spill.
I keep a playlist with all the songs mentioned throughout the novel so far. A total of a hundred and seventy-seven videos. Check them out.
Want to listen to this lovely couple's philosophical discussion? Check out the audiochapter.
September 4, 2023
Life update (09/04/2023)
I have wasted most of this Monday morning anxiously waiting for a call from the office; last week someone took a medical leave, but they didn’t request a replacement because the secretary in charge returned to work today. However, I haven’t been recalled to work, even though I’m first in the rankings. No idea why.
It’s not like I want to, of course. In fact, even though my last contract lasted about a month and a half, it burned me out socially; either I had to tolerate the usual group that behaves like schoolchildren in recess, or else I had to deal with the fact that two people, one of them my main boss, didn’t want me there, even though I’m not sure what changed in the meantime. My ability to read the intentions and motivations of human beings is very limited.
I’m falling more and more into my old recluse slash hikikomori mindset, which is how I spent most of my twenties: I don’t want to interact with anyone, neither in person nor online, and whenever I try to push myself to leave the apartment for a walk, I do so despite the knowledge that there’s nothing for me out there. I’m a stranger in this society that is progressively getting more dangerous; today, a street away from my place, I witnessed a couple of police patrols come arrest two shirtless guys in their early twenties or so, who were yelling loudly in their language. I came in late and didn’t stick around, but the feeling of danger stands, as well as the notion that soon enough I will find myself old in a city that has gradually turned into another Marseille.
Two weeks ago, I took a bus to the opposite outskirts of my city so I could see some horses (wealthy area with private clubs and such), but the sights along the way dishearten me a bit more every time. It’s not like I could spend much time walking around that quiet neighborhood; whenever I leave the safety of a closed room in which I’m the only person present, my digestive system, due to anxiety or whatever, sets a countdown timer for the next time I’ll have to suffer in a bathroom.
It’s just more of the usual complaining. No wonder I daydream often about being someone entirely different. My need to write fiction is likely part of it. I’m done with life in general; the only reliable way I can fight against that feeling is by losing myself in artistic endeavors, which is why I’m trying to focus on starting the next scene of my novel that’ll eventually end up as a self-published ebook, so I can move on to the next project that’ll keep me going for a while longer.
Anyway, I just wanted to get this off my chest for whatever reason.
It’s not like I want to, of course. In fact, even though my last contract lasted about a month and a half, it burned me out socially; either I had to tolerate the usual group that behaves like schoolchildren in recess, or else I had to deal with the fact that two people, one of them my main boss, didn’t want me there, even though I’m not sure what changed in the meantime. My ability to read the intentions and motivations of human beings is very limited.
I’m falling more and more into my old recluse slash hikikomori mindset, which is how I spent most of my twenties: I don’t want to interact with anyone, neither in person nor online, and whenever I try to push myself to leave the apartment for a walk, I do so despite the knowledge that there’s nothing for me out there. I’m a stranger in this society that is progressively getting more dangerous; today, a street away from my place, I witnessed a couple of police patrols come arrest two shirtless guys in their early twenties or so, who were yelling loudly in their language. I came in late and didn’t stick around, but the feeling of danger stands, as well as the notion that soon enough I will find myself old in a city that has gradually turned into another Marseille.
Two weeks ago, I took a bus to the opposite outskirts of my city so I could see some horses (wealthy area with private clubs and such), but the sights along the way dishearten me a bit more every time. It’s not like I could spend much time walking around that quiet neighborhood; whenever I leave the safety of a closed room in which I’m the only person present, my digestive system, due to anxiety or whatever, sets a countdown timer for the next time I’ll have to suffer in a bathroom.
It’s just more of the usual complaining. No wonder I daydream often about being someone entirely different. My need to write fiction is likely part of it. I’m done with life in general; the only reliable way I can fight against that feeling is by losing myself in artistic endeavors, which is why I’m trying to focus on starting the next scene of my novel that’ll eventually end up as a self-published ebook, so I can move on to the next project that’ll keep me going for a while longer.
Anyway, I just wanted to get this off my chest for whatever reason.
August 31, 2023
Life update (08/30/2023)
Yesterday I heard through the grapevine that someone at work had taken a medical leave. Knowing the guy, it’s probably his back, which would mean a contract of two weeks or so for the (un)fortunate person who would get hired to cover him. It just happens that at the moment I’m first on the rankings, so I anxiously waited all morning for the phone call. It never came. That’s weird.
I haven’t been called today either. I considered two possibilities: they pushed some political bullshit so that the person who would cover him would need to know Basque, a language I don’t speak. The second possibility involves my main boss doing some shady shit to jump over me and hire someone else; during the last contract, that boss refused to acknowledge my existence, as far as I know only because I refused to accept a new contract under much shadier circumstances last January, as I needed to rest due to my heart injury.
I wasn’t worrying too much; after all, I have money saved, and I’m a recluse who can barely tolerate spending fifteen minutes around people, let alone a whole working day. Then I noticed that I had received my check for August. I worked until the sixteenth, but they have paid me as if I had worked the entire month. What the hell?
[Check out the rest of this entry on my personal page, where it looks better]
I haven’t been called today either. I considered two possibilities: they pushed some political bullshit so that the person who would cover him would need to know Basque, a language I don’t speak. The second possibility involves my main boss doing some shady shit to jump over me and hire someone else; during the last contract, that boss refused to acknowledge my existence, as far as I know only because I refused to accept a new contract under much shadier circumstances last January, as I needed to rest due to my heart injury.
I wasn’t worrying too much; after all, I have money saved, and I’m a recluse who can barely tolerate spending fifteen minutes around people, let alone a whole working day. Then I noticed that I had received my check for August. I worked until the sixteenth, but they have paid me as if I had worked the entire month. What the hell?
[Check out the rest of this entry on my personal page, where it looks better]
August 30, 2023
We're Fucked, Pt. 110 (Fiction)
Check out this chapter on my personal page, where it looks better
---
A flicker, like a glitch in a high-res display, crosses the Asian features of my beloved Jacqueline. In a heartbeat, I find myself staring into slate-blue irises encircled by bold rings of black, round eyes that stand out in a heart-shaped face whose skin, pale and luminous as a pearl, is dotted with freckles across her cheeks and the bridge of her nose. The plumpness of her lower lip stirs a desire to draw close and savor its sweetness. In the glow of the candlelight, her wavy, copper mane comes alive with streaks of tiger-orange, as if the strands were catching fire.
Her mouth stretches into an impish grin. She shifts her body, making her copper waves ripple, to strike a pose: legs slightly apart, fists on her hips. Her bare chest, pushed out, is scattered with freckles like a constellation of brown stars.
"Alive and kicking, as you can tell," she says in a high-pitched voice and an effervescent lilt.
A vision from the Celtic folklore, a sunburst in the honey-drenched darkness. The way the colors fade from pink to orange to red, she reminds me of a summer sunrise.
"Irish Jacqueline," I mumble.
Jacqueline-but-Irish sweeps the tumbling tresses away from her freckled shoulders, so she can cup the slight slopes of her breasts, squeezing them gently with her slender fingers, pressing and molding her flesh into rounder mounds. She rubs the areolae with her thumbs, then coaxes her nipples into thickening peaks.
"In my mind, I refer to this body differently, but... Ah, it always makes me feel so naughty."
As Jacqueline caresses her midriff, her other hand twists and curls a copper lock that resembles a wave of living flame. The candlelight flickers in her eyes, which are blue like glacier ice, their depths shimmering with lust.
A nervous energy ripples through me, triggering tingles throughout my body. I'm getting hungrier.
"Of the many forms I have conjured up," Jacqueline says, "this is my second favorite. Aren't most people suckers for redheads? Imagine this colleen, with an appetite for mischief and debauchery, approaching you on the street."
"O-on a dockside pub or a foggy moor. Stargazing and witchcraft in the moonlight."
Her eyelids dip halfway.
"Wherever, her black Mary Janes click as she saunters over. She's wearing a white blouse that shows off her freckled cleavage, a short plaid skirt that hugs her hips, and knee-high socks with frilly edges. Her red hair is tied in two braids that fall over her shoulders. Your senses are overwhelmed by her sweet and woodsy aroma. What wouldn't this little vixen, this wood nymph from the deepest forests of Éire if you prefer, do to warm your dead, shriveled heart? You might struggle against her allure, but in the end, no fruit tastes sweeter than the forbidden."
This pagan beauty must have stirred in many people the yearning to bury their faces in her fiery hair, to trace her freckles with their lips, to get drunk on her taste, to quench the firestorm within them by piercing her maidenhead and filling her with creamy seed. Oh, she could burn the world's eyes out, and lure any hapless soul to drown.
From the base of my spine to my skull, a shockwave-like chill courses through my body, raising goosebumps on my arms and nape. In the aftermath, my skin still crawls with tiny sparks. I lick my lips and swallow past the lump in my throat. My hand has drifted to my inner thigh, seeking the warmth radiating from my core, the moisture gathering between my folds. I'm resisting the urge to rub myself, maybe in part to avoid tainting my fingers with my own filth.
"C-crack a pint and sing a few shanties before you bang the flesh off my bones."
Jacqueline's smile deepens, and her eyes, two sapphires set in her freckled face, sparkle as she ogles my exposed crotch. I look down. A rivulet of clear fluid is trickling out of my vulva and dripping onto the cloud-white bedding, staining it with a widening lust-blotch as if the comforter were a canvas and I the artist spilling paint. I smell the scent wafting up from my pussy, a primal musk, along with a metallic tang reminiscent of blood.
"You'd like me to assist you with that," Jacqueline surmises, "wouldn't you, darling?"
Jacqueline-but-Irish strides toward me with catlike grace. Her copper waves bounce as she leaps onto my lap, straddling me, gripping my hips with her thighs. She slings her arms around my neck and tugs me into an embrace, squeezing her hardened nubs against my tit-flesh. I feel her warm skin and the way her heart races. A surge of desire crashes against the shore of my libido like a wave, one that seethes with foam and carries the briny aroma of the ocean.
The world shrinks as if a wall of brambles and ferns had sprouted around us. Her hair caresses my cheek and tickles my throat. Her lips brush the lobe of my ear as she whispers words of fire.
"I can hear your thirsty heart, babe. Let it pump those hot and heady juices."
Jacqueline, thrusting her hips, grinds her slippery mound against mine, her swollen bud against mine. A jolt of electricity arcs through my nervous system, igniting my synapses, causing me to gasp and shudder in her arms. She purrs. Her mouth closes around my earlobe, which she nibbles. My clit throbs with a heartbeat-like rhythm while I bask in the smooth, oily friction of our pussies rubbing together, along with the wet noises and juicy squelches. I grasp Jacqueline's buttocks and squeeze them, digging my fingertips into the tender flesh. As my arousal rises like a hot-air balloon, the syrupy heat that has replaced the blood in my veins threatens to immolate me.
Her visage, sprinkled with cinnamon-like freckles, fills my field of vision, framed by wavy copper tresses. She's staring at me with the blushing countenance of a Renaissance painting, her half-lidded gaze like the blue flames of a gas-powered stove. Her glossy, Irish lips pucker as she leans closer, wanting us to merge into a kiss. I'd only have to breathe out an invitation for her mouth to meet mine, our tongues to entwine, our saliva to mingle. She will taste like honey and wine.
I'm breathing air thick with the aroma of melting wax mixed with that of rose, jasmine, and sandalwood. Within the jitterbug of hormones and this lust-laden gloom, my brain has liquefied, and I feel like a puddle of sparks. Yet, I turn my head away.
Her moist lips press against my left cheek, and when she draws back, her warm breath tickles my skin.
"Oh? You don't want to smooch?"
"That's cheating. I'm a one-woman-at-a-time gal."
As she giggles, her stiff tit-tips graze mine, which sends a heatwave through me.
"But grinding our pussies together is fine?"
"S-somehow that's different."
Jacqueline-but-Irish cradles my head between her palms as if it were a sacred relic.
"Ma coquine bien-aimée, you think this was a test? You'd be making out with mommy no matter what body I'm wearing."
"Sorry, Jacqueline. I'm having trouble wrapping my head around the display of shapeshifting. I'm blown away but also scared and horny."
"Je te pardonne, bébé. Let me assure you that you don't need to be afraid."
Her arms unwind from the embrace around my neck. She places the palms on my shoulders and, as her copper locks sway like a waterfall of flame, she shifts her weight off me, dismounting from my lap onto the plush comfort of the bedside rug. The sudden absence of her heat leaves me desolate.
Under a strip of fiery copper fuzz, almost scarlet, Jacqueline's vulva glistens pinkly in the candlelight, slathered with a glaze. Her nectar has trickled down the crease and slickened her inner thighs.
Jacqueline-but-Irish inches her right hand down her stomach, past the navel, and runs those fingers through the patch of copper curls. She strokes herself, sliding her middle finger along the wet groove and over the engorged berry. After she widens her stance, she teases the soaked petals apart, and her ruby-hued insides blossom. She dips a finger into the velveteen depths. When she pulls it out, her digit emerges with a glimmering thread.
"Isn't it exquisite?" she asks breathily. "The rosy sheen of this soaking honeypot, the juicy scent, the sluttish mess of it all. Don't you want to find out what a teen's pussy tastes like?"
My pulse is hammering. My brain still burns with the friction-fed flames of lust. I won't deny it to myself: I want to fall to my knees before Jacqueline-but-ginger. I want to bury my face in her damp snatch and feast on the clitoris of Ireland. I want to slurp up the salty tang of this druidess' nectar, to suck out the sweetness of her womb like through a straw plugged into the fountain of youth, until she forgets her Celtic chants and the screams of banshees.
Liquid beads that cling to Jacqueline's fingers reflect the candlelight in a rainbow shimmer. The air is saturated with a musky-sweet aroma like the fragrance of a ripe peach that has split open in the heat, dripping juice onto the sun-baked grass. I'm standing on the edge of a cliff, gazing down at the roiling sea that crashes and foams against jagged rocks. The sparkling spray shoots upward and outward in fan-shaped mists. My palms sweat, the wind whips my hair about my face. I'm afraid of landing on the sharp teeth of the reefs far below, where the waters would boil with a froth of blood.
"Another time," I whisper. "Right now I need you as you are."
---
Author's note: today's songs are "Look" by Sébastien Tellier, and "Smells Like Teen Spirit" by Nirvana.
I keep a playlist with all the songs mentioned throughout the novel so far. A hundred and seventy-six videos so far. Check them out.
Taste this chapter in an audio format through this link.
---
A flicker, like a glitch in a high-res display, crosses the Asian features of my beloved Jacqueline. In a heartbeat, I find myself staring into slate-blue irises encircled by bold rings of black, round eyes that stand out in a heart-shaped face whose skin, pale and luminous as a pearl, is dotted with freckles across her cheeks and the bridge of her nose. The plumpness of her lower lip stirs a desire to draw close and savor its sweetness. In the glow of the candlelight, her wavy, copper mane comes alive with streaks of tiger-orange, as if the strands were catching fire.
Her mouth stretches into an impish grin. She shifts her body, making her copper waves ripple, to strike a pose: legs slightly apart, fists on her hips. Her bare chest, pushed out, is scattered with freckles like a constellation of brown stars.
"Alive and kicking, as you can tell," she says in a high-pitched voice and an effervescent lilt.
A vision from the Celtic folklore, a sunburst in the honey-drenched darkness. The way the colors fade from pink to orange to red, she reminds me of a summer sunrise.
"Irish Jacqueline," I mumble.
Jacqueline-but-Irish sweeps the tumbling tresses away from her freckled shoulders, so she can cup the slight slopes of her breasts, squeezing them gently with her slender fingers, pressing and molding her flesh into rounder mounds. She rubs the areolae with her thumbs, then coaxes her nipples into thickening peaks.
"In my mind, I refer to this body differently, but... Ah, it always makes me feel so naughty."
As Jacqueline caresses her midriff, her other hand twists and curls a copper lock that resembles a wave of living flame. The candlelight flickers in her eyes, which are blue like glacier ice, their depths shimmering with lust.
A nervous energy ripples through me, triggering tingles throughout my body. I'm getting hungrier.
"Of the many forms I have conjured up," Jacqueline says, "this is my second favorite. Aren't most people suckers for redheads? Imagine this colleen, with an appetite for mischief and debauchery, approaching you on the street."
"O-on a dockside pub or a foggy moor. Stargazing and witchcraft in the moonlight."
Her eyelids dip halfway.
"Wherever, her black Mary Janes click as she saunters over. She's wearing a white blouse that shows off her freckled cleavage, a short plaid skirt that hugs her hips, and knee-high socks with frilly edges. Her red hair is tied in two braids that fall over her shoulders. Your senses are overwhelmed by her sweet and woodsy aroma. What wouldn't this little vixen, this wood nymph from the deepest forests of Éire if you prefer, do to warm your dead, shriveled heart? You might struggle against her allure, but in the end, no fruit tastes sweeter than the forbidden."
This pagan beauty must have stirred in many people the yearning to bury their faces in her fiery hair, to trace her freckles with their lips, to get drunk on her taste, to quench the firestorm within them by piercing her maidenhead and filling her with creamy seed. Oh, she could burn the world's eyes out, and lure any hapless soul to drown.
From the base of my spine to my skull, a shockwave-like chill courses through my body, raising goosebumps on my arms and nape. In the aftermath, my skin still crawls with tiny sparks. I lick my lips and swallow past the lump in my throat. My hand has drifted to my inner thigh, seeking the warmth radiating from my core, the moisture gathering between my folds. I'm resisting the urge to rub myself, maybe in part to avoid tainting my fingers with my own filth.
"C-crack a pint and sing a few shanties before you bang the flesh off my bones."
Jacqueline's smile deepens, and her eyes, two sapphires set in her freckled face, sparkle as she ogles my exposed crotch. I look down. A rivulet of clear fluid is trickling out of my vulva and dripping onto the cloud-white bedding, staining it with a widening lust-blotch as if the comforter were a canvas and I the artist spilling paint. I smell the scent wafting up from my pussy, a primal musk, along with a metallic tang reminiscent of blood.
"You'd like me to assist you with that," Jacqueline surmises, "wouldn't you, darling?"
Jacqueline-but-Irish strides toward me with catlike grace. Her copper waves bounce as she leaps onto my lap, straddling me, gripping my hips with her thighs. She slings her arms around my neck and tugs me into an embrace, squeezing her hardened nubs against my tit-flesh. I feel her warm skin and the way her heart races. A surge of desire crashes against the shore of my libido like a wave, one that seethes with foam and carries the briny aroma of the ocean.
The world shrinks as if a wall of brambles and ferns had sprouted around us. Her hair caresses my cheek and tickles my throat. Her lips brush the lobe of my ear as she whispers words of fire.
"I can hear your thirsty heart, babe. Let it pump those hot and heady juices."
Jacqueline, thrusting her hips, grinds her slippery mound against mine, her swollen bud against mine. A jolt of electricity arcs through my nervous system, igniting my synapses, causing me to gasp and shudder in her arms. She purrs. Her mouth closes around my earlobe, which she nibbles. My clit throbs with a heartbeat-like rhythm while I bask in the smooth, oily friction of our pussies rubbing together, along with the wet noises and juicy squelches. I grasp Jacqueline's buttocks and squeeze them, digging my fingertips into the tender flesh. As my arousal rises like a hot-air balloon, the syrupy heat that has replaced the blood in my veins threatens to immolate me.
Her visage, sprinkled with cinnamon-like freckles, fills my field of vision, framed by wavy copper tresses. She's staring at me with the blushing countenance of a Renaissance painting, her half-lidded gaze like the blue flames of a gas-powered stove. Her glossy, Irish lips pucker as she leans closer, wanting us to merge into a kiss. I'd only have to breathe out an invitation for her mouth to meet mine, our tongues to entwine, our saliva to mingle. She will taste like honey and wine.
I'm breathing air thick with the aroma of melting wax mixed with that of rose, jasmine, and sandalwood. Within the jitterbug of hormones and this lust-laden gloom, my brain has liquefied, and I feel like a puddle of sparks. Yet, I turn my head away.
Her moist lips press against my left cheek, and when she draws back, her warm breath tickles my skin.
"Oh? You don't want to smooch?"
"That's cheating. I'm a one-woman-at-a-time gal."
As she giggles, her stiff tit-tips graze mine, which sends a heatwave through me.
"But grinding our pussies together is fine?"
"S-somehow that's different."
Jacqueline-but-Irish cradles my head between her palms as if it were a sacred relic.
"Ma coquine bien-aimée, you think this was a test? You'd be making out with mommy no matter what body I'm wearing."
"Sorry, Jacqueline. I'm having trouble wrapping my head around the display of shapeshifting. I'm blown away but also scared and horny."
"Je te pardonne, bébé. Let me assure you that you don't need to be afraid."
Her arms unwind from the embrace around my neck. She places the palms on my shoulders and, as her copper locks sway like a waterfall of flame, she shifts her weight off me, dismounting from my lap onto the plush comfort of the bedside rug. The sudden absence of her heat leaves me desolate.
Under a strip of fiery copper fuzz, almost scarlet, Jacqueline's vulva glistens pinkly in the candlelight, slathered with a glaze. Her nectar has trickled down the crease and slickened her inner thighs.
Jacqueline-but-Irish inches her right hand down her stomach, past the navel, and runs those fingers through the patch of copper curls. She strokes herself, sliding her middle finger along the wet groove and over the engorged berry. After she widens her stance, she teases the soaked petals apart, and her ruby-hued insides blossom. She dips a finger into the velveteen depths. When she pulls it out, her digit emerges with a glimmering thread.
"Isn't it exquisite?" she asks breathily. "The rosy sheen of this soaking honeypot, the juicy scent, the sluttish mess of it all. Don't you want to find out what a teen's pussy tastes like?"
My pulse is hammering. My brain still burns with the friction-fed flames of lust. I won't deny it to myself: I want to fall to my knees before Jacqueline-but-ginger. I want to bury my face in her damp snatch and feast on the clitoris of Ireland. I want to slurp up the salty tang of this druidess' nectar, to suck out the sweetness of her womb like through a straw plugged into the fountain of youth, until she forgets her Celtic chants and the screams of banshees.
Liquid beads that cling to Jacqueline's fingers reflect the candlelight in a rainbow shimmer. The air is saturated with a musky-sweet aroma like the fragrance of a ripe peach that has split open in the heat, dripping juice onto the sun-baked grass. I'm standing on the edge of a cliff, gazing down at the roiling sea that crashes and foams against jagged rocks. The sparkling spray shoots upward and outward in fan-shaped mists. My palms sweat, the wind whips my hair about my face. I'm afraid of landing on the sharp teeth of the reefs far below, where the waters would boil with a froth of blood.
"Another time," I whisper. "Right now I need you as you are."
---
Author's note: today's songs are "Look" by Sébastien Tellier, and "Smells Like Teen Spirit" by Nirvana.
I keep a playlist with all the songs mentioned throughout the novel so far. A hundred and seventy-six videos so far. Check them out.
Taste this chapter in an audio format through this link.
August 18, 2023
We're Fucked, Pt. 109 (Fiction)
Check out this chapter on my personal page, where it looks better
---
Jacqueline's Asian mouth, a blush of cherry blossoms in spring, twists into a teasing smile. With her chin raised slightly, she sticks the tip of her ruddy tongue out then slides its moist surface over her upper lip, coating it in a saliva-film that glistens in the honey-golden candlelight.
"Well, does my sweet chérie find this version of mommy exotic and enticing? Have you ever wanted to indulge in the pleasures of the Orient?"
My mind floods with steam-engulfed images of Oriental delights. I'm admiring the neon-lit cityscape that glitters through the windows of a Tokyo penthouse. I'm living it up at a karaoke room, belting out Japanese punk anthems. I'm riding a bullet train, watching the countryside flash past: verdant rice paddies and mist-wreathed mountains. I'm wandering the bustling back alleys of Shanghai, gaping at kaleidoscopic lights and technicolor billboards, passing by women whose faces are powdered white, their lips lacquered blood-red, their bodies swaddled in ornate brocade. I'm gorging on rivers of noodle soup, mountains of stir-fried veggies, steaming hotpots of seafood, and pyramids of deep-fried dumplings stuffed with pork and ginger. I'm lounging in a geisha house, smoking opium, lying with a silk-wrapped, perfume-drenched, slender hostess who can ease the weight of a thousand centuries by fulfilling my darkest, filthiest desires. I'm witnessing the display of a master karateka, her lean and muscular limbs flashing as she lays waste to an entire class of her rivals in a tournament, breaking backs, snapping necks, and ripping off faces with clawed fingers. I'm meditating in a zen garden, bowing before the Buddha, then fucking a monk until his cock spits holy seed into my womb. Maybe the siren song of the Far East does beckon me.
I'm foggy from the heavy fragrances that cling to my brain, from the Asian figure that emerged effortlessly and stands in my mind-murk like an orchid thriving in the humidity of a deep jungle. Jacqueline-but-Asian runs a hand down her form, trailing those sensuous fingers from her collarbones to her belly button, inviting me to stare starstruck at the Oriental splendor. Her inky locks, sleek as polished ebony and gleaming with a blue sheen, spill over her rounded shoulders, flowing down to her curving hips. Where mommy was hipped with a wide pelvis that matched the proportions of her mammoth bosoms, this lady in her prime has the svelte torso and lissome limbs of a ballerina, no stranger to gliding on tippy toes, to spinning and leaping in graceful pirouettes across the hardwood boards of a stage, her spine arched, her arms outstretched, her swanlike neck exposed, all to thunderous applause.
The candles, as they dance their golden light across the bedroom, burning on and on like they'll outlast this fucked-up reality and whatever lies beyond, give a pearly radiance to Jacqueline's skin, highlighting in honey her lithe features: below a neck like alabaster, those jutting collarbones; twin firm orbs capped with caramel-pink nipples; the valley carved into the abdomen between the promontory of her ribcage and the arch of her hip, that in the old days could have shielded her womb from marauders seeking a spawn of godhood. I wish to reach out and stroke her delicate skin; I could run my fingertips through it like water.
Jacqueline plants her splayed fingers low on her abdomen, drawing attention to the patch of onyx fuzz, an ancient garden that guards her hidden petals as it glistens in the honey-tinted gloom.
"You're holding out on me, baby doll," Jacqueline purrs playfully. "Afraid I won't like your opinion? Come on now, love, surely you have something to share about this form."
I swallow the excess saliva, then face her exotic visage.
"You've gone and given yourself Oriental features, the fuck-off-you-Western-scum kind, but you look ravishing. I want to drown in soy sauce. Your current tits are smaller than mine, though..."
She grins. In her eyes, fringed with jet-black lashes, the pupils are dilated, and the coal-gray irises shimmer like two starlit pools of silver.
"Oh, darling. You miss mommy's huge, juicy milkers?"
My head nods without consulting me.
"Always, as long as I don't have access to them."
Jacqueline chuckles, which causes her creamy tummy to ripple like a sheet of water.
"I crafted this form to fill the niche of yoga that could be monetized. It's like the ultimate yoga master. My main body? If I tried with it half of the moves I can pull now, I'd end up in a cast. In fact, let me give you a little demo."
As she lowers her snowy behind onto the fluffy rug, her hair sways in a long cascade with each motion of the frame, and coils on the fabric like a sleeping serpent. She positions herself lengthwise, showcasing her profile as well as her lean dancer's legs. Those pale thighs resemble canvases on which to fingerpaint. When I seek her gaze, I meet the seductive glance she's casting over her shoulder. A warm chill courses down my spine. Knowing me snared, she smirks, then reclines until her head sinks into the rug.
She grasps her right ankle and draws that leg further and further back. With both arms, she embraces that calf as if hugging a lover. She plants her left hand on the sole of that foot, then pushes the leg down until its knee rests on the rug alongside her torso, making her inky locks billow over that calf, bending the limb in a submission hold that would make most of humanity cry out in pain.
"It helps that my usual tits aren't in the way," Jacqueline says.
She twists to reach her left leg, then folds it until her toes come close to grazing her vulva. Although she's torturing herself further, her face remains calm, a picture of peace. Jacqueline must have learned from the fox spirits how to harness the erotic charge of her Asian limbs.
A familiar tingle stirs inside me. I lean back to place my palms flat against the surface of the bed, bracing my weight, my right hand centimeters from the discarded thong. The shock has melted into a trance-like state. My mind is a page scrawled on with the vision of an Oriental goddess, the embodiment of Japanesque perfection, stretching her limbs in the flickering candlelight.
With her face buried in the rug, and her ebony mane pooled around her head and chest, Jacqueline assumes the downward-facing dog posture, thrusting out the white swell of her ass, making her buttocks wobble gently. I'd bite into those cheeks until they oozed pink.
Beginning in a supine position, she lifts her pelvis off the floor, arching her flexible spine like a bow. As her body curves upward, her abdomen stretches taut, and her ass tightens into two plump mounds. After she finds balance on her shoulders and the crown of her head, she appears suspended in mid-air.
In her upside-down face, from beneath her dark lashes, her eyes dart to the corners so they can meet my gaze. The pinkish-orange glow traces the flat bridge of her nose, and plays upon the contour of her lips.
"See?" Jacqueline asks. "I can do all sorts of crazy poses now."
"That's cool."
A glossy mass of darkness, a waterfall of night that contrasts with her ghostly skin, falls down her back in a shining curtain. As it shifts, the inky tresses sway gracefully, nuzzling the curves of her feminine figure.
Jacqueline has levered herself upright.
"Love, do you recall that external hard drive I lent you, filled with naughty videos I wanted you to watch? Now, which of my girls was your favorite?"
My heart, set aflutter by Asian magic, skips a beat. I'm assailed once again by the image that has haunted my daydreams ever since I peeked into the abyss: wavy locks of burgundy hair floating in a pool of bubbling cum.
---
Author's note: today's song is "Heartbeats" by José González.
I keep a playlist with all the songs I've mentioned throughout this novel. A total of a hundred and seventy-four videos so far. Check them out.
Leire peeked into the abyss back in chapter 45.
I produced an audiochapter for this part. Check it out.
---
Jacqueline's Asian mouth, a blush of cherry blossoms in spring, twists into a teasing smile. With her chin raised slightly, she sticks the tip of her ruddy tongue out then slides its moist surface over her upper lip, coating it in a saliva-film that glistens in the honey-golden candlelight.
"Well, does my sweet chérie find this version of mommy exotic and enticing? Have you ever wanted to indulge in the pleasures of the Orient?"
My mind floods with steam-engulfed images of Oriental delights. I'm admiring the neon-lit cityscape that glitters through the windows of a Tokyo penthouse. I'm living it up at a karaoke room, belting out Japanese punk anthems. I'm riding a bullet train, watching the countryside flash past: verdant rice paddies and mist-wreathed mountains. I'm wandering the bustling back alleys of Shanghai, gaping at kaleidoscopic lights and technicolor billboards, passing by women whose faces are powdered white, their lips lacquered blood-red, their bodies swaddled in ornate brocade. I'm gorging on rivers of noodle soup, mountains of stir-fried veggies, steaming hotpots of seafood, and pyramids of deep-fried dumplings stuffed with pork and ginger. I'm lounging in a geisha house, smoking opium, lying with a silk-wrapped, perfume-drenched, slender hostess who can ease the weight of a thousand centuries by fulfilling my darkest, filthiest desires. I'm witnessing the display of a master karateka, her lean and muscular limbs flashing as she lays waste to an entire class of her rivals in a tournament, breaking backs, snapping necks, and ripping off faces with clawed fingers. I'm meditating in a zen garden, bowing before the Buddha, then fucking a monk until his cock spits holy seed into my womb. Maybe the siren song of the Far East does beckon me.
I'm foggy from the heavy fragrances that cling to my brain, from the Asian figure that emerged effortlessly and stands in my mind-murk like an orchid thriving in the humidity of a deep jungle. Jacqueline-but-Asian runs a hand down her form, trailing those sensuous fingers from her collarbones to her belly button, inviting me to stare starstruck at the Oriental splendor. Her inky locks, sleek as polished ebony and gleaming with a blue sheen, spill over her rounded shoulders, flowing down to her curving hips. Where mommy was hipped with a wide pelvis that matched the proportions of her mammoth bosoms, this lady in her prime has the svelte torso and lissome limbs of a ballerina, no stranger to gliding on tippy toes, to spinning and leaping in graceful pirouettes across the hardwood boards of a stage, her spine arched, her arms outstretched, her swanlike neck exposed, all to thunderous applause.
The candles, as they dance their golden light across the bedroom, burning on and on like they'll outlast this fucked-up reality and whatever lies beyond, give a pearly radiance to Jacqueline's skin, highlighting in honey her lithe features: below a neck like alabaster, those jutting collarbones; twin firm orbs capped with caramel-pink nipples; the valley carved into the abdomen between the promontory of her ribcage and the arch of her hip, that in the old days could have shielded her womb from marauders seeking a spawn of godhood. I wish to reach out and stroke her delicate skin; I could run my fingertips through it like water.
Jacqueline plants her splayed fingers low on her abdomen, drawing attention to the patch of onyx fuzz, an ancient garden that guards her hidden petals as it glistens in the honey-tinted gloom.
"You're holding out on me, baby doll," Jacqueline purrs playfully. "Afraid I won't like your opinion? Come on now, love, surely you have something to share about this form."
I swallow the excess saliva, then face her exotic visage.
"You've gone and given yourself Oriental features, the fuck-off-you-Western-scum kind, but you look ravishing. I want to drown in soy sauce. Your current tits are smaller than mine, though..."
She grins. In her eyes, fringed with jet-black lashes, the pupils are dilated, and the coal-gray irises shimmer like two starlit pools of silver.
"Oh, darling. You miss mommy's huge, juicy milkers?"
My head nods without consulting me.
"Always, as long as I don't have access to them."
Jacqueline chuckles, which causes her creamy tummy to ripple like a sheet of water.
"I crafted this form to fill the niche of yoga that could be monetized. It's like the ultimate yoga master. My main body? If I tried with it half of the moves I can pull now, I'd end up in a cast. In fact, let me give you a little demo."
As she lowers her snowy behind onto the fluffy rug, her hair sways in a long cascade with each motion of the frame, and coils on the fabric like a sleeping serpent. She positions herself lengthwise, showcasing her profile as well as her lean dancer's legs. Those pale thighs resemble canvases on which to fingerpaint. When I seek her gaze, I meet the seductive glance she's casting over her shoulder. A warm chill courses down my spine. Knowing me snared, she smirks, then reclines until her head sinks into the rug.
She grasps her right ankle and draws that leg further and further back. With both arms, she embraces that calf as if hugging a lover. She plants her left hand on the sole of that foot, then pushes the leg down until its knee rests on the rug alongside her torso, making her inky locks billow over that calf, bending the limb in a submission hold that would make most of humanity cry out in pain.
"It helps that my usual tits aren't in the way," Jacqueline says.
She twists to reach her left leg, then folds it until her toes come close to grazing her vulva. Although she's torturing herself further, her face remains calm, a picture of peace. Jacqueline must have learned from the fox spirits how to harness the erotic charge of her Asian limbs.
A familiar tingle stirs inside me. I lean back to place my palms flat against the surface of the bed, bracing my weight, my right hand centimeters from the discarded thong. The shock has melted into a trance-like state. My mind is a page scrawled on with the vision of an Oriental goddess, the embodiment of Japanesque perfection, stretching her limbs in the flickering candlelight.
With her face buried in the rug, and her ebony mane pooled around her head and chest, Jacqueline assumes the downward-facing dog posture, thrusting out the white swell of her ass, making her buttocks wobble gently. I'd bite into those cheeks until they oozed pink.
Beginning in a supine position, she lifts her pelvis off the floor, arching her flexible spine like a bow. As her body curves upward, her abdomen stretches taut, and her ass tightens into two plump mounds. After she finds balance on her shoulders and the crown of her head, she appears suspended in mid-air.
In her upside-down face, from beneath her dark lashes, her eyes dart to the corners so they can meet my gaze. The pinkish-orange glow traces the flat bridge of her nose, and plays upon the contour of her lips.
"See?" Jacqueline asks. "I can do all sorts of crazy poses now."
"That's cool."
A glossy mass of darkness, a waterfall of night that contrasts with her ghostly skin, falls down her back in a shining curtain. As it shifts, the inky tresses sway gracefully, nuzzling the curves of her feminine figure.
Jacqueline has levered herself upright.
"Love, do you recall that external hard drive I lent you, filled with naughty videos I wanted you to watch? Now, which of my girls was your favorite?"
My heart, set aflutter by Asian magic, skips a beat. I'm assailed once again by the image that has haunted my daydreams ever since I peeked into the abyss: wavy locks of burgundy hair floating in a pool of bubbling cum.
---
Author's note: today's song is "Heartbeats" by José González.
I keep a playlist with all the songs I've mentioned throughout this novel. A total of a hundred and seventy-four videos so far. Check them out.
Leire peeked into the abyss back in chapter 45.
I produced an audiochapter for this part. Check it out.
