Jon Ureña's Blog, page 66

My Own Desert Places, Pt. 15 (GPT-3 fueled short)

Link for this short on my personal blog, where it looks better

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In a futuristic room bathed in blue light, inside a tank filled with similarly blue water float a bunch of little ghosts: jellyfish. They keep contracting at regular intervals to maintain their buoyancy. Alazne leans towards the glass, and her curious face gets reflected. The jellyfish don't react, because if they have a brain it's as minimally functional as possible. And they are lucky for it. For a few seconds I grow jealous of jellyfish.
Alazne agreed to let me organize a potentially exhausting outing for Saturday. I chose the aquarium in Donostia, because from the few times I came here as a ghost I recalled it being quite beautiful, and looking at animals is always cool; no matter how terrible the troubles in one's life, at least you aren't trapped in a zoo exhibit or a tank filled with water so a bunch of idiots can pay to gawk at you. Then again, if the animals are stupid enough, maybe it's a good thing that people are keeping them safe and feeding them and cleaning their shit so they don't have to worry. It's like an utopia. And to an extent I would have loved to take care of Alazne like that, but eventually she'd feel like rebelling against her perfect living conditions and would think of ways to fuck everything up. I don't blame her, that's just human nature.
"Have you ever been stung by a jellyfish, Asier?" Alazne asks.
It takes me a few seconds to snap out of it and realize that I'm Asier. I'm such a moron, and yet I have to believe I can keep up this facade permanently.
"I have been stung by many jellyfishes," I say solemnly. "Most had the form of human beings, others were abstract concepts that however caused me painful rashes, metaphorical ones at least."
Alazne chuckles and pushes my shoulder playfully. I rub it pretending that it hurt.
"I see," Alazne says. "You're talking about your past relationships, aren't you?"
Dumb as I am, I just gave my beloved an opening to pry into this troublesome past.
"Yes," I say, smiling a bit. "At least I think so. Now then: have you ever been stung by a jellyfish, my dear?"
Alazne squints at me sideways. I can tell that she doesn't enjoy my wariness, but she must realize there's a good reason for it.
"A few times," says Alazne. "Most were small and insignificant. Others were large and memorable."
We move on from the damn jellyfish, and we enter a large, darkened room with a shape that brings to my mind a hallway, but without any doors that the visitors could get into. Dispersed throughout there are tanks, either cylindrical or hemispheres mounted on displays. All the tanks are lighted as if nothing else in this building mattered but looking at the fish and fish-related beings, and I guess that's why people come to the aquarium. I have no idea why this aquarium looks like the rooms of a futuristic spaceship, though.
As we approach a cylindrical tank filled with small fish that remind me of sardines, and with a starfish glued to the glass, I can't take out of my mind Alazne's suggestion that she dated quite a few people before. Back when I stalked her as a ghost, I never saw her interacting with anyone who wasn't selling her something. I guess she dealt with a few coworkers at different offices, but even as a ghost the idea of working terrified me, and I didn't want to enter any office in case they captured me and I ended up spending my eternity chained to a desk.
"Tell me about this large and memorable one," I say cautiously to Alazne, "I mean the metaphorical jellyfish who stung you."
Alazne sighs and smiles.
"There's not much to tell. He was an idiot, but I guess he had his reasons. He was a lot like you in some ways, and that's why I liked him."
"What was his name?"
"Asier, and he had this tendency to avoid opening up whenever I asked him any direct question about his life previous to meeting me."
"Well, I'm lucky that I'm not Asier," I say while trying a smile, but it falls on its own a couple of seconds later.
I look away, and my gaze conveniently happens to land on a crustacean resembling a shrimp, but larger, uglier and more armored. The creature seems startled that a stranger has noticed it.
I sigh deeply, although I avoid meeting Alazne's deliberate stare.
"I mean, it sounds like he avoided the subject for a reason," I say in a low voice. "Maybe he had something to hide, maybe that something wasn't worth knowing or maybe it was something that you wouldn't have liked. Maybe he had a good reason for doing what he did, or maybe not, but I do know that the only thing you're achieving by thinking about those matters is losing time and energy that could be dedicated to making the best of now."
I look at Alazne hoping that she understood my point. Her eyes are even sadder now, and her shoulders hang low. A wave of self-loathing threatens to make me tremble.
I grab her hands. They are colder than usual.
"I mean, I don't have anything to hide," I say.
Alazne looks around for a moment, likely hoping that no groups are approaching us, and none are. She hugs me, resting her face on my chest.
"You know I have wanted to die for a long time," she says in a soft, vulnerable voice, "and that I have actively tried to. What detail about your life up to this point could be worse?"
I feel my whole body stiffening.
"Can you please be my rock?" Alazne asks, then looks up at me with glistening eyes. "You don't know how much it means to me that there's someone like you in my life. Someone who doesn't judge me for my past, and accepts me despite it."
I run my fingers along the back of her head.
"I am your rock, sweetie. It's just that I meant it when I said that my life up to meeting you no longer mattered to me. I have... done and experienced things I regret. Just imagine someone showing you a video taken of you as a child, and that version behaves so embarrassingly and out of character for who you know yourself to be, that you just want to burn every single photograph and videotape that registered such a version."
"You don't need to prove anything. I love you."
She says those words with such conviction that it makes me feel like crying.
"I love you too."
"It's just that I want to know. I want everything of you, and I will accept all of it like how you have accepted me. I can't help but feel you are being silly, because whenever you end up sharing it with me, I will simply hug you, kiss you, and if necessary, dry your tears."
"I'm physically incapable of crying, though, as a man."
Alazne flicks my nose with barely any strength.
"Like I said, everything of you."
She can tell that I won't open up under pressure, so she grabs my hand and we keep observing the exhibits. We stop in front of a big tank featuring bushes of red algae and some weird fishes that just rest on rocks, seemingly dead except because they aren't floating face up, and also move their fins from time to time. I can't focus on any of the fishes now, though. Every day that passes with me concealing the sordid details about my troubled existence, I feel as if I'm pushing a poisoned pin millimeter by millimeter into Alazne's heart. She needs to know. But how can I open up about being a ghost? It goes against the whole purpose of my previous existence as one of the damned.
And being a ghost wasn't the worst part: it was being a woman. I have to face now that the most damaging aspect of my life is having been born with two X chromosomes. But what would I have done if I fell in love with a lovely woman, and had the best, most passionate sex of my life with her, only for my girlfriend to eventually reveal that she was a man all along? I'd probably kill myself. Is that superficial, though? The world would likely be a better place without me, but I don't want to die, and I want to live with Alazne in love and happiness. My head hurts so much today.
"You okay?" Alazne asks.
I'm so preoccupied with my thoughts that I didn't even notice that I've been holding a door open for Alazne. She looks at me worried.
"Yeah," I answer. "Just some thinking. About me opening up and all that unmanly stuff."
Alazne stands on her tiptoes and gives me a sweet kiss on the lips. I grab her by the waist and press my mouth against hers for a couple of seconds. When we pull away from each other, still holding on to each other's hands, she offers me a sheepish smile, a slightly contrite one.
"Why would I pressure you about something you don't want to do, when we already have such great times together? I'm selfish. I'm loving the fish exhibits and this whole day you prepared for me. Let's keep enjoying it."
I beam at her, maybe making my relief too obvious.
"That's my girl."

We come across the first view into the central tank of the aquarium, a lake-like monster of an exhibit in which swim placidly big fishes, bigger fishes, turtles, sharks and some other crazy shit. In the background I can make out the tunnel that awaits up ahead, so we will be able to look up at the passing sharks as they seem to fly overhead. The times I visited aquariums featuring such daring tunnels, I always feared that the glass would break and that we would end up swimming with the aquatic monsters. And I have witnessed a couple of times how one of those sharks bit in half some random innocent fish during feeding time, maybe because they confused a living fish with their meal, or just because sharks are demons masquerading as animals so they can catch us unawares.
I grab Alazne by the arm and ask her to stop next to the glass as I pull out my phone.
"Please, I want a photo of you in front of the horrifying monsters."
Alazne poses. Despite our recent argument, she offers me a beaming smile that could outshine the whole tank. After I register the photo on the device's memory, I make sure that I don't delete it by mistake, so I can treasure it forever.
I put the phone back in my pocket and take Alazne in a kiss. With this display of affection I want to tell her how much she means to me, and that everything I do is for both of us, not just myself.
"Asier? That's you, isn't it?" a woman's voice says to my back.
Through the sounds of splashing water and the chattering tourists, I didn't hear anyone coming, but I spot an elegant woman with chin-length, shiny black hair styled in a way that looks as if a hairdresser just worked on it. She's wearing a mid-calf length floral dress that is a mix of green, pale yellow and red, and over it a short denim jacket. She's Ainhoa, my ex-fiancée. Or Asier's. One of them anyway. She approaches us confidently, as if her mind had never been plagued by anxiety nor doubts, although Asier cheating on her with as many women as he could fuck must have destroyed her mindset.
It takes me a few seconds to notice that the man in his early thirties pushing a stroller next to Ainhoa must be her husband. He's pale, probably unable to withstand too much time in the sun, and his hair is black. A mean expression draws his eyebrows together. By the look he gives me, I can tell he knows Asier cheated on the woman he loves. He probably realized that Ainhoa remains in love with that Asier prick, even though his ghost moved on to the beyond. At least this husband guy has the integrity to look annoyed that we ran into each other. I respect that.
"Funny running into you in an aquarium," Ainhoa says, sounding friendlier and more stable than I expected due to how we last parted.
What the fuck are you doing here, Ainhoa?! That's what I want to shout, but instead I say:
"It's funny, yes. How are you both doing?"
"Good. This is my husband, Unai."
"Nice to meet you," Unai says in a monotone voice. He shakes his head slowly and looks at the ground.
I open my mouth to greet the nearly cuckolded husband, but I realize that Alazne is trying subtly to pull her hand away from mine. I'm surprised, as I wouldn't have expected it, but I hold hers tighter. In a few seconds she gets the point and closes her fingers timidly around my hand. I gesture towards Alazne.
"This is my beloved, Alazne. Gaze upon her gloriousness."
"Hi," she says, then looks up at Unai with a nervous smile.
"Hi," Unai repeats in the same monotone he used before.
Alazne glances towards Ainhoa, but she misses my ex-fiancée's head. My beloved can't sustain her smile for this greeting.
"Hi to you as well. Nice meeting you," Alazne tells my ex, in a voice a moment away from breaking.
It might have only happened for a second, but my mind retains the image of Ainhoa's glad expression as she stares at Alazne, who now I recognize was intimidated by how mature and well put together is Asier's ex-fiancée, one of them anyway. And although Ainhoa wipes that expression off her face, she must be gloating internally about it. I recall having referred to my Alazne as gentle but passionate, reclusive, severely depressed. I'm a fucking bastard. Why would I tell anyone about Alazne's private details like that? Who else should have to know that my beloved is reclusive and depressed? I want to punch myself in the gut.
"Where are you from?" Unai asks Alazne.
She hesitates, as confused as me that the guy would want to ask my beloved anything, but then tells him.
"I'm from Irún. Born there."
Unai makes a thoughtful sound.
"So am I, although I haven't lived there in a while. Olaberria. Really quiet area, nothing like this."
"Yes, I... Yeah."
Alazne fiddles with the hem of her jacket. I have no clue why this asshole husband startled my beloved, but I want to distract their attention from her. I nod towards the stroller that Unai is holding.
"As you told me, Ainhoa, you guys spawned a creature."
Ainhoa is disconcerted by my choice of words, and looks towards the stroller as if she had expected to find something else there. But then she looks back at me, smiles and nods. This woman is hard to read. I suppose that she makes a habit of disguising how she really feels.
"... Yes. Our dear girl will turn a year and six months next Tuesday. We thought it would be nice to bring her to the aquarium, now that we have... disposable income."
I can't see the creature inside the stroller from here, but it isn't making any noises, so either she's sleeping or dead. Why would you bring a baby or a toddler or whatever this child of hers is now to an aquarium, when she doesn't even know what a fish is? Does Ainhoa believe that her daughter will retain anything? Whatever. Parents don't enjoy hearing these things. Or anything lukewarm about their children, for that matter. Parents become brainwashed by their parental hormones and they cease to exist as human beings: they have been reduced to tools to bring forth the next generation. I have never wanted to bear a child myself, even back when I inhabited a body that was capable of such supposed miracle. There are few things in life that I would want less than to be destroyed from the inside by a goblin that one day would yell at me, steal my shit, bring weirdoes home and then abandon me forever. People are so weird with their life choices.
"Yes. She will enjoy seeing the fishes," I say with a fake smile.
Ainhoa nods and smiles faintly. Her silence is unnerving. I lack the tools to engage in small talk, and I'm never quite sure how much I can say about certain things. However, I realize she's working herself up to tell me something. After a few seconds of awkwardness, she lifts her gaze towards me and opens her pretty mouth.
"I think most people would have refused the money," she says softly, "but it will help us so much. I'm very grateful, as I texted you. Most of it will benefit our daughter, so... you did a good thing."
Oh yeah, I gave her thousands of euros, didn't I?
"You're welcome. It's good that you're taking care of your daughter. That's what's important."
"That's not all, but thank you. Listen... I have to tell you something."
Ainhoa is holding my gaze with a troubling determination.
"I know who you are," she adds, "and I know you're not Asier."
I nearly gasp. I realize that Alazne's hand that I'm holding is sweating, but maybe it already was. I cast a quick glance at her, and see that she has fixed her gaze on the floor.
"I know you're not Asier," Ainhoa repeats softly, "not anymore at least. So it feels wrong to call you by that name. What happened to you is a sort of miracle, the proof that people can start over. I no longer hold any disdain towards you. It would be like blaming someone for what another did."
I'm immensely relieved.
"Thank you."
Ainhoa looks at the both of us. Although Alazne clearly doesn't want, or maybe can't handle, any more of this encounter, Ainhoa ignores it. She starts walking as if to pass us by. Her husband lets out a soft sight and maneuvers the stroller. However, as Unai was already showing me his back, Ainhoa turns and talks to me from a meter and a half away.
"I hope the... problem at your house is solved."
"Problem? What are...? Ah, you mean--" I realize that Alazne hasn't got the faintest clue that Kateryna lives in my house, nor that she's a ghost. The slight sweat on my forehead is turning cold. "It's not a problem for me. You see it as an infestation of sorts, something for which to call an exterminator, but for me it's simply a fact of life. Even millennia-old civilizations knew about them, right? They had all kinds of traditions and rituals to handle them. It happens all around us, although most people don't get to realize it. Nothing to worry about."
"Oh. I guess I was just not used to... bugs," Ainhoa says awkwardly. "But you are for sure the expert. If it doesn't bother you, I guess it's okay."
Ainhoa finally decides to catch up with her annoyed husband, but she keeps talking to me over her shoulder.
"I hope things continue going well for you."
I wave goodbye.
"For you too. Take care."
The encounter startled me so much, and I suddenly felt so relieved when Ainhoa and her family disappeared behind a wall, that I don't realize that I have absentmindedly approached the tank as if I was very interested in observing the fish. I have dragged Alazne with me. When I look at her downcast, mortified face, my heart sinks.
"Ah... You aren't well at all, are you, Alazne."
"I'm sorry. I'm such an idiot."
I raise her chin with my left hand, and speak to her in a voice brimming with affection.
"No, you aren't. Why did you try to stop holding my hand?"
She tries to reciprocate my gaze, but ends up looking away. Her brow is trembling.
"B-because I thought you would want me to."
"So you didn't want to?"
I caress her blushed cheek, and then slide my hand to the back of her head to cup it and bring her mouth towards mine. I separate her lips with my tongue. She closes her eyes, and after a few seconds of making out, her hand stops trembling. When we pull away, she still looks up at me with a pained expression.
"Alazne, do you truly understand that you are my girlfriend?" I ask her. "I'm as serious with you as a person can be."
"Of course I know it, but..."
Her voice sounds so frail that I feel an urge to take her somewhere else where we can be truly alone.
"That's not how it seemed to me. If I am your boyfriend and you want to hold my hand, you keep holding it no matter who approaches us."
Alazne takes a deep breath, then finds the strength to look me in the eye.
"Asier, you had something with that woman, didn't you?"
"Yes, I did. It was obvious, I guess... She's my ex-fiancée."
One of them, anyway.
Alazne snaps her head back. I don't know what kind of relationship she had expected Ainhoa and I to have, but this truth makes her grimace as if I had slapped her.
"Y-you had a full life before me... Do you still love her?"
"No, my mind is only set on you, Alazne."
"S-she looked at me very aggressively. I think she loves you still."
"Whether or not she does, it makes no difference."
"Such an elegant and confident woman was someone you were about to get married to, but now you are with me..." Alazne looks down at the patch of floor between our feet. She presses her lips together as a naked despondency overwhelms her facial features. "I'm clearly a downgrade."
"Don't say that ever again, Alazne."
"W-was I just a pity date...?"
I pull her into an embrace. She stiffens up, but then gradually falls limp as she sobs into my chest. Her tears stain my shirt while I kiss the top of her light brown hair.
"Well, clearly fish time is over," I say as I sigh.
Alazne tries to say something, but she shuts up. I suppose that in her current state she wouldn't have been able to finish a sentence without sobbing. A few groups, either young couples or older ones with their children, pass us by while offering us glances of either concern or embarrassment. I keep caressing Alazne's light brown hair until she calms down.

We leave the aquarium a few minutes later. It must be around six and a half in the afternoon. As I hold Alazne's waist, we walk along the port, near the edge to the calm, basil green, fish-smelling waters. The sky is getting cloudier, although there's barely any breeze. It may not rain today. Still, the weather changes way too quickly around these parts.
I want for Alazne and I to sit in peace for a few minutes, so I guide her towards a long pier built like a regular street, only narrower, quieter, and surrounded by the bay waters on one side and a whole lot of resting leisure boats on the other. I always wondered how they manage to maneuver out of their parking spaces. In any case, this part of the harbour looks humid and depressing, but Alazne and I sit on a stone bench added to the low wall that protects us from falling into the bay.
Alazne is reluctant to speak, so I merely stroke her hand as I lean my head against hers. Some distance away a bunch of people are talking, and I also hear the background noise of traffic from a couple of streets away. A few minutes later I look up and find a sliver of clear blue, while most of the sky is puffy white.
"When that woman acted so familiarly with you," Alazne begins suddenly, in a hollow voice, "I felt such a mix of worry, fear, and anger towards her... I have no clue what's wrong with me."
"There's nothing wrong with you."
I lean in trying to look her in the eye, but she turns her head slightly away from me.
"Well, while that woman was hitting on you..." Alazne says. "If she was doing it at all... I don't know. Something just overwhelmed me. It was like I wanted to hurt her. I never had such thoughts before."
"You're jealous." I smile, although she can't see it. "Completely normal. The more you care about your romantic partner, the stronger it gets, but for some people it can get pretty crazy."
"But I don't even know her... I mean, I couldn't know her. She's a stranger to me."
"She's someone who came over and spoke to me with some intimacy. You are pissed because you feel you should be the only one treating me that way. It's normal, as I say. And I would get similarly annoyed if anyone approached you. You learn to live with it."
"S-so that's what it was, jealousy...?"
I grab her head so I can kiss her forehead. Alazne finally turns her face towards me. Her hazel eyes look naked, defenseless, and still afraid.
"Asier... I haven't dated anyone for more than two months." Her voice becomes quieter as she speaks. "I could hardly consider the ones I had as proper relationships, and they happened a long time ago."
"Alright, so this is all new territory for you."
"But you already had a fiancée. You were that close to deciding how the rest of your life was going to go."
"The divorce rates are quite high these days, if I remember correctly."
"The intention must have been there."
"I'm not entirely sure about that..."
Alazne's mouth is slightly open and she's frowning in confusion, as if expecting me to clarify the many unknowns of my life.
I sigh.
"Listen, Alazne... Ainhoa is a normal person. She can't conceive except what passes for normal. That's her measure of good and evil. I don't want someone like that as a girlfriend, nor as a wife. A lifelong relationship with such a person would bore me out of my mind."
"Th-that's... That's quite cynical..."
"I have never been quite sure of what that word means, or at least what people mean when they use it."
"What I mean... What I mean is..."
"I have come to understand that even if Ainhoa is not a permanent fixture in my current life, if we happen to run into her, I can tolerate her. It's just one of those things that happen, that come with someone's life. Baggage of a sort. That's all she is for me."
Alazne rubs her eyes, then leans forward to rest her elbows on her knees. The slight breeze is tousling her hair, which she's wearing loose.
"Asier, I've been thinking of what you said yesterday. You mentioned that you travelled the world because you wanted to learn more about your condition, and to meet more people with your same problems. That if you remained at home, you might surrender to despair. It was something like that, right...?"
"Yes, but--"
"You have been comfortable with thoughts of death as well as... my suicide attempts. You are familiar with death, aren't you?"
"Of course. I mean... I'm desensitized to it."
Silence hangs between us. Alazne brings her knees up to her chin and wraps her arms around them, then closes her eyes.
"Asier, a-are you dying? Do you have a terminal illness or something to that effect that will take you away from me? I-I wouldn't be able to bear it, but if that's the case, you still need to tell me. I need to know in advance."
I feel a cold, nasty sensation in my guts as if some organ had teared open. I'm a horrible piece of shit, aren't I. Just the lowliest garbage imaginable. I didn't predict how much refusing to open up was going to hurt the woman who loves me, or maybe I didn't bother understanding how it would damage her.
I swallow to moisten my mouth.
"It's the opposite case," I say in a thin voice. "I was already terminal, and now I'm alive thanks to you."
Alazne opens her eyes and stares straight at me, but she doesn't say anything. I can't tell what she's thinking. A tear rolls down her cheek. She looks weary, as if she's had enough of just about everything.
I try to focus on how to clarify what I mean, but nothing comes out. I don't know how many seconds pass. Maybe more than a minute.
"I wish we could freeze," Alazne says barely above a whisper, "or everything around us would freeze, so it would be just you and I and nothing would change. Maybe I'm too sensitive about it. Children are supposed to grow out of these fears relatively quickly, but... I guess I never really matured. I know well how easily people can die. I had my entire life upended. And after I met you and came to care so, so much about you, I fear that you are going to die at any moment, that one day you will leave my apartment and I will never see you again. I can't take it. I guess I'm too fragile, but... I mean, that's just how it is."
Alazne has started to cry in earnest now, even though her expression doesn't change and no sound escapes from her mouth. I place my hand on her left cheek and caress it with my thumb. She shuts her eyes and bites her lower lip, but she doesn't try to hide the tears rolling down her face.
I don't say anything, although I don't think she expects me to.
"I had assumed that I would always be alone," Alazne continues. "Still, by the end of that day you pursued me, I felt like I had been living in a stuffy, darkened, closed off room for decades, but suddenly the windows blew open, letting air and the sunlight in. I find myself imagining futures. I fantasize about going to this or that place, doing certain activities with you, and even travelling abroad."
"Please, share those ideas one of these days," I say calmly. "I might not come up with them on my own."
I'm not sure if Alazne has paid attention to what I said, because she continues:
"And it's just because you want me."
I scoot closer to her, then pull her head towards me so she can bury her face in my chest. I rest my chin on the top of her head, and my gaze falls upon the wide view of the bay.
"I do more than want you, Alazne. You will integrate that eventually, I think."
"It's so hard..."
I allow her to cry silently onto my chest as she presses herself against me. I caress her soft hair slowly.
There are around three dozen leisure boats on the waters of the bay, some close enough that I can distinguish the expression in the couple of men walking around on top. Except for one of the boats, all the others remain static as if they had dropped the anchor, if that's a thing that boats still do. Beyond the calm waters, which reflect the clouds that cover the sky, on top of the large cape that rings the bay stands the castle-like structure of Monte Igueldo, or of the amusement park. I never quite figured out if Monte Igueldo was the whole structure or if people just call it that because they are lazy. I guess I'm lazy as well, because I never bothered figuring it out. It doesn't matter anyway, in the grand scheme of things.
It's peaceful. Although Alazne is crying softly against my chest, or at least I assume she keeps doing it, because I can only feel her breath intake, the world that surrounds me, of which I'm a tiny and insignificant part, looks beautiful in its indifference. Once all of our pains have passed, way beyond whenever our countries and civilizations die off, these enormous shapes that our human constructions cling to will remain in place. It's all so stupid.
"For many, many years I felt incapable of connecting with others," I say. "I couldn't even get interested in the living. Their existences kept going undisturbed whether or not I was present. By that point they felt like a different species, their busy lives an old foreign movie in another language. People came and went like the seasons. But I remained in the middle of all that. And I kept thinking, what had I done that warranted me getting trapped in this wasteland, enduring the pain of this acid loneliness with every passing second? For what regret did I remain penitent, and what goal would I have to fulfill so I could be free? Or was it my punishment to witness listlessly the ravages of time for no reason that I could understand? And at one point, a resolution flicked in my consciousness: I would keep drifting. I no longer expected the hurt to end, but I figured I would get to enjoy the sights as they came."
I pause, waiting for some kind of interruption. Maybe Alazne will speak, or laugh, or cry, or simply ask me to continue. She doesn't. I hope she's still listening.
"I was a ghost for twenty years," I say. "And then I met you."
The breeze is picking up, pushing sea smells into my nostrils. It's getting too chilly to just sit around.
Alazne sniffles.
"I don't understand anything," she says.

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Note from May of 2021:

The same day I wrote this entry I walked up to the apartment building where I chose that Alazne lived for my probably fictional story. It didn't take me long to walk there, because I live in the same city. I hadn't seen that area of Irún in years, probably since I studied at the nearby high school, and as I have experienced before when coming across places or objects that I built fictional stories around, the experience was surreal, even dizzying. As I stood exactly where my protagonist did, I expected Alazne to come out at any moment. I thought about moments that had taken place there in my story, and it was as if I had fabricated memories in my brain that were more vivid than most real ones. Like Alazne herself, I have struggled with depression for most of my life. One therapist called it 'clinical depression resistant to treatment'. I don't suffer it the same way my fictional character does, as I have more functional coping mechanisms such as writing, but I'm sure this depression is responsible for how I have forgotten most details of my life, and how many of the remaining events seem tattered. I used to know people for years, and was even very tangled with some, and yet I only remember sequences of a few seconds of my experiences with them. By writing fiction it often seems as if I'm creating vivid memories to fill all the spaces in my brain where voids have remained. And unfortunately, given that I have been unlucky in the stuff that has happened to me as well as the people I've met, no matter how crazy my fictional memories get, they feel warmer than the real ones.

My Own Desert Places, Pt. 14 (GPT-3 fueled short)

Link for this short on my personal page, where it looks better

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When I regain consciousness, I find myself in a new place. I hear the muffled sound of soft rain outside of whatever bedroom I woke up in. I smell a woman's scent. I feel as comfortably warm as a human being can be, lying in bed and covered by its sheets, but I also hold the body heat of another person in my arms. I feel her soft hair against my face, her back against my chest, her ass against my penis, her thighs against mine, her feet between mine.
Alazne has slept in my arms for the first time, and she remains huddled against me. When I was a ghost I daydreamed so many times about this moment, and yet I had never thought that I would be able to return to life. I should feel much happier. I shouldn't be taking this miracle for granted, but my emotions feel out of sync. Is it due to them passing through Asier's brain? Or is this body still shaken by the car accident?
My left arm is numb, caught under Alazne's neck. When I move my right arm slightly, it rubs Alazne's breasts, which despite being covered by her bra and her top they feel so good against the bare skin of my arm that I don't try to move it again. My heart starts beating faster.
"You're awake," Alazne says softly. "I've been up for around half an hour."
I moisten my dry lips with my tongue and I kiss Alazne's neck. She shivers and narrows her shoulders.
"Rare of you to wake up this soon," I say.
"Y-yeah... I thought I would have ended up so exhausted from the great time we had yesterday that my brain wouldn't work until around twelve in the morning. But I guess that at least for today, I have broken another one of my habits..."
"Being this close to your warmth," I whisper into her ear, "having my penis nestled between your ass cheeks like this... I'm finally in heaven."
Alazne rubs her butt slowly against my erection as I hug her tighter with my right arm.
"I-it feels real good..." Alazne says in a thin voice. "Makes me feel wanted."
"You know you are."
Alazne hugs my right arm. She runs her middle finger slowly over my hairs, making me shiver. She gets to the edge of my hand and strokes the tips of my fingers, then grips them.
"Tell me things about you, Asier," Alazne says dreamily. "Tell me what makes you happy. What do you like to do in your spare time?"
I chuckle.
"Why do you ask?"
She has all the reasons in the world these days to want to know everything about me. It just happens that Asier isn't even my name, and that I've never been a good liar. I hated liars, actually. I considered honesty to be one of my main virtues, no matter how much the person on the other side of the conversation was bothered by what I had to say. But by possessing a dead man's corpse to date Alazne, I signed up for a lifetime of deceit.
"Just curious..." Alazne answers. "Maybe I can learn more about you."
"There really isn't much to know. I'm a boring guy."
"I doubt that, but if you say so..."
Alazne's hand moves up my arm, and she makes a fist around my bicep. She squeezes it gently.
"You're pretty strong," says Alazne, with a hint of arousal. "Do you work out?"
"I do, yes. I have an exercise bench at home, as well as dumbbells, a barbell and a variety of weighty discs."
"Oh, you're into weightlifting?"
"It's not just that. It's about self-defense. You never know when some random Eastern European blond guy would want to flatten your intestines. Lifting weights is good for building up your strength."
"Do you want to show me sometime?" she says playfully.
I want to eat her up.
"You will get to see it for sure, as well as many other things. But I already proved to you how I strong I am, didn't I? I recall you squirming under me as I pushed myself deep inside you, and you couldn't even more your arms."
"Y-you're right. You did."
I nibble on her ear. My girl cock is getting harder, bending now against one of her ass cheeks. I'm sure she can feel its pulse.
"And that's exactly what you needed, isn't it?" I whisper into her ear canal. "That I would take full control of you, and all you had to do was feel pleasure."
Alazne is breathing harder.
"Y-yes..."
"You are small and you have a soft ass, Alazne. Perfect spanking material. You did tell me that you needed a boyfriend who would discipline you."
Alazne turns her head towards me and I hold her glistening gaze, as much as I can see in the morning light filtered by the curtain.
"B-but I'll be good, I promise."
"That's perfect, because I need you to be a good girl right now."
Alazne smiles as I let go of her and pull my left arm from under her neck. I maneuver under the sheets so I straddle Alazne's waist while looking down at her flushed, sleepy face. My hands run across her bare, warm waist and up her belly. I slide my hands under her top, then lift the bridge of her bra until my fingers gently caress both of her tits. They're warm and soft, and the nipples have already hardened. I squeeze and fondle her breasts, alternating between tenderness and firmness, while I pinch her right nipple with my right thumb and index finger.
Alazne closes her eyes and exhales softly.
"That feels good, doesn't it?" I ask.
"Mm-hmmm," she moans as she nods.
I roll the sensitive nubs between my forefingers and thumbs while her chest raises to meet my hands. I lean down and press my mouth to hers. Our saliva tastes stale and mostly bad, but it doesn't matter to me now. I move my hands down to the bottom hem of her top. Alazne raises her arms obediently over her head, allowing me to pull the top off her body. Her bra follows.
I hold up the top.
"I hope you can clean this properly without fading the Wings of Freedom logo."
"W-what do you mean?"
"Somehow it ended up with huge semen stains down the front."
"W-what? No it didn't!"
"I'm afraid it did. Don't worry, I can buy you anything, even more 'Attack on Titan' merchandise."
Alazne reaches with one hand and tries to wipe the stain with her thumb and index fingers, but the semen this body produces is just too powerful.
"You planned this, didn't you. So I would have to dress with more girly clothes."
"So you wouldn't wear anything, more like it. Don't worry. After we shower we can go downtown and buy clothes you like. It isn't raining that much. Right now though, I'm starving and I want to taste your body all over."
Alazne gives me a seductive grin as she slides her hands down my chest.
"You're going to have to let me taste you first," she says. "The Chinese from last night didn't fill me enough."
I push the sheets off my body and I stand up next to the bed, facing Alazne, who sits up and hooks her fingers in the waistband of my boxers. She slowly slides them down my legs as she kisses her way from my stomach, across my hip bones, and to the base of my cock, which hasn't gone down since I woke up this morning. As Alazne smears the sensitive skin of my shaft with her warm saliva, I slide my hands through her light brown hair. She opens her mouth and takes me in.
I close my eyes as Alazne's wet mouth slides slowly up and down my hard cock. She swirls her tongue around the tip in a figure eight pattern. The pleasure is nearly unbearable, but to my surprise I also feel relieved: if Alazne keeps her mouth busy, she won't ask me questions for which I would have to fabricate the answers.

After we bought a bunch of clothes for Alazne in the stores of the Mendibil mall, we parted ways so I could return home and make sure that my ghost roommate and confidant Kateryna hadn't killed herself due to her recent despair. Just kidding, she couldn't get rid of her consciousness even if she was serious about suicide, because she's trapped in the afterlife.
That night, which I spent at Alazne's apartment again, I offered to bring her the following morning to another potentially exhausting adventure in Donostia, but she refused. She wants to ease herself into doing more and more things slowly, because her brain isn't used nor suited for it. We got together the next afternoon at three, and walked hand in hand to the center of Irún so we could order coffee in one of the popular restaurants and coffee shops along the Luis Mariano street. We end up choosing to sit at an outside table under a retractable, two-sided awning.
After we both order coffee with milk and the waitress leaves, Alazne rests her chin on her hands while offering me a lovely smile. Her light brown hair and eyebrows contrast starkly with her pale, freckled skin, particularly in the sunlight. She looks beautiful, even though she's dressed simply in a long-sleeve green sweatshirt and black capri pants.
"I used to force myself to walk up to the center of the city and sit for at least an hour in a coffee shop to read, mostly to avoid spending the entire day at home like I needed. Like my brain demanded, more accurately. Still, I could feel the anxiety mounting by the minute."
"It's a good thing you were pushing yourself out of your comfort zone, given how you could have ended up."
"I felt that it was good, yes. Still, I'm talking about a period of several years. For the last couple, I barely went out unless I had to work. It got so tiresome, sitting alone at a coffee shop, feeling people staring at me and wondering why I didn't come with someone. Two waiters, one a young guy and the other a woman in her forties, asked me whether I had ordered two coffees. When I repeated that I just wanted one, they said they were kidding. Fucking assholes... And one day as I was sitting calmly like we are doing now, a guy came over to me, put his arm around my shoulders and tried to talk to me right into my ear."
I press my lips together as I feel my blood pressure raising.
"Did you kick him?" I ask in a grave voice.
"No, but I wanted to. He wouldn't leave me alone. I felt my heart beating faster and faster as he sat beside me and refused to go away. I was sweating. My palms felt wet. It was disgusting."
I squint and nod in understanding. Alazne continues.
"I couldn't control myself anymore and ran out of there while people stared at me. I got home and cried."
"What the fuck did he want?" I ask in a raspy voice.
"No idea. I couldn't understand his language."
"Wonderful. Alazne, now that I have this well-built body with some muscles, it's not just for keeping you warm in bed, but also for tearing apart anyone who bothers you." I feel my hands balling into fists. "If you see him again, point him out for me. He will feel the pain of a thousand deaths."
The waitress comes back with our coffees, and one look at my angry face makes her stop in her tracks. I force myself to relax as I take a deep breath. I avoid looking into the waitress' eyes, though, as I am embarrassed. I don't recall getting this mad back when I inhabited my original female body, the little I remember after twenty years as a ghost. Is the testosterone speaking through me?
"Thank you," Alazne says, and she pays for both coffees before I can think of objecting to it.
After the waitress leaves again, I purse my lips as I look at the cup of coffee in front of me. I should calm myself down before touching it.
Alazne puts her hand on mine, and strokes it. Her warmth relaxes me as if I were a wild beast to which she was singing.
"I shouldn't have mentioned that," she says softly. "Obviously it was going to bother you."
"I am a bit out of shape in controlling my anger."
"I'm sorry."
I recall my shameful diarrhea incident, and that for a split second I had wanted to crush that Oleksiy's face until no discernible facial feature remained.
"Don't be. I just didn't expect I would get this angry again so soon."
Alazne looks at me curiously, but I want to bite my tongue. Thankfully she accepts that I don't want to talk about it, and she allows me to drink a bit of my warm coffee.
After Alazne sips her own beverage, she speaks camly.
"Remember that during our marvellous first date to the amusement park, you mentioned that you had travelled around quite a bit?"
I clear my throat. Is it lying time? It looks like lying time.
"I guess I did, yeah..."
"Please, tell me some of the stories. I always wished to travel, but it's hard when I can barely leave my house due to the anxiety. Not to mention that I've never had the money."
"That's a shame. You're missing out on so much."
I want to kick myself for saying that. Not only I must have made her more curious about my experiences, but it's silly for me to say so: after my first years as a ghost travelling throughout Europe, the experiences ended up feeling so stale and pointless that I never left Spain again.
Alazne rubs my hand slowly with her thumb. She doesn't need to tell me how much she cares for me already: I can see it in her eyes. And yet I'll have to deceive her over and over.
"Hopefully you can share some of your experiences," Alazne says. "I don't doubt you've seen plenty of the world."
"Well, I suppose I have. I once met Charles Dickens..."
Damn it, that's not believable. I purse my lips, then smile and scratch my nape like a mischievous child.
"I totally made that up. There's no way I'd meet someone as famous as that, even if his ghost still wandered around. I once saw a seven-year-old get bullied by some teenagers, though. That was pretty awful."
Alazne giggles.
"I meant your experiences travelling, you idiot!"
"Ah, those. Yeah, I guess I did. A lot of them are pretty mundane, but I guess they can get pretty exciting as well."
"Tell me about some of them."
I go into a story about an avalanche I skied on once. This leads to a story about a drunken party on a train in China that the other passengers didn't know was happening, and from there I go into a story about how I smuggled home a baby monkey in my backpack. Alazne keeps laughing.
"Alright, now how about you tell me some true stories?" she asks.
I try to contain my nervousness. I did visit every country in Europe, but I happened to be a ghost back then, so none of the ways I reached those countries nor how I entered many of the buildings where I had the most interesting experiences will make any sense. My ghost powers allowed me to pass through walls, walk along the bottom of lakes and swim through the ground. On top of all that, my memory is hazy about many events. I'm fucked.
"Alright... Hmm..."
Desperately, I try to rack my brain for any story that's halfway believable. I feel a headache coming as I furiously search through old, dust-covered memories that haven't been accessed in many years. After about a minute of searching, I give up.
"I can't do it," I admit. "All of my experiences are so outlandish that I can't come up with anything that seems remotely believable."
Alazne is even more intrigued.
"Did you have one of those wild youths in which you grabbed a backpack and just travelled through different countries?"
"Well... I guess that's close to accurate. I spent from 2003 until 2008 or so abroad. I did get on trains, buses, taxis, and similarly useful vehicles to reach further destinations."
"I thought you had travelled around for a few months at the most! You spent years? Where did you go?"
"Well, I visited many different places in Europe. I started in France, and travelled to places like Monaco, Vatican City, Germany, Ireland and many more. Basically anywhere I could physically move to, even if I had to get on a plane or a boat."
Alazne is looking at me with different eyes now, proud but also a bit intimidated, as if my revelation had hurt her self-esteem.
"Wow! What's it like there?"
"There's a lot of history. Many, many people. Lives that had started without me having any say in them, and that I became disconnected from entirely once I chose to walk away."
"Did you do it for fun?"
I wring my hands, and then I regret that I have lost myself browsing through the faded memories of those years. I take a gulp of my coffee.
"It wasn't about that. I wanted to see new places and try new things. I needed to learn more about myself, my condition, and about others with my same problems. I feared... that if I stayed back home, I would surrender to despair like most around me, or go insane."
"So, did you?"
I was going to ask which one of my previous sentences her question refers to, but I stop myself. I'm opening up too much.
"Ah... I learned about many kinds of insanity. For example, I spent some time in Switzerland with a reclusive guy who did little else than listen to music. Lorenzo was his name. Quite a few of the songs you got to hear during our date to Monte Igueldo I learned about through him."
Alazne looks to the side as if imagining a scene, and when she holds my gaze again, she's frowning slightly.
"What was wrong with him?"
"He was afraid of people. He felt safer in his house."
"That doesn't sound so bad. Why did he need your help?"
He may have needed my help, but he didn't even know I existed. I shake my head.
"He didn't. He was too far gone. One day I came back to his place and he had cut his wrists. That was that."
Alazne's eyes tremble as she stares at me. She swallows. I take a deep breath and wait in case she wants to comment on it, but she doesn't. I shrug.
"By the time his parents saw his body, they didn't recognize him anymore. I can't help but think they wouldn't have been able to recognize their son even if he were still alive. Did you know that they threw away his music? That was the worst for me, somehow. The only thing that had brought the guy some joy, and his parents discarded it like nothing. Didn't even bother listening through the stuff that had been keeping him alive until then."
Alazne's eyes quiver, and she frowns.
"That's really sad," she says in a low voice.
I nod.
"In time I've learned to let go of the past. It doesn't serve any purpose other than to weigh you down."
It's easier said than done, though. During my travels, when I wasn't doing previously impossible things like sleeping in the forest by my ghostly self during a storm, looking at junk at the bottom of rivers and lakes, jumping off rooftops, and a fuckton of spying on random people's houses, I felt drawn to misery, which seemed to be the only domain that I truly belonged to anymore. When I wanted to rest for a few days or a week, I ended up running into some terminally depressed person, or hanging out with bored, cranky, miserable ghosts as long as they hadn't gone insane. Now I wish I could forget all of it. I wish I had been born the moment I woke up in Asier's body, that I had lost my memories as I keep assuring everyone, and I could face the future like the man I'm supposed to be. Instead of that, for every step I take I will keep dragging years and years of loneliness and nightmares, and lying to the face of the only person in this stupid world that I have ever loved.

My Own Desert Places, Pt. 13 (GPT-3 fueled short)

Link for this short on my personal page, where it looks better

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For a few seconds I only hear the storm outside, its rain drops hitting the window. Then Alazne rests her guitar against the wardrobe, sits down on the edge of the bed and leans towards me, sinking a hand into the mattress next to my torso. She's smiling.
"Did you like it?"
I caress her cheek and then move a swaying lock of her light brown hair behind her ear.
"Let me tell you."
I sit up, and with a grappling maneuver I roll Alazne so she lies face up on the bed. Then I slide an arm behind her to cup the back of her head, and I kiss her mouth deeply. She responds in kind. I feel her heart beating harder through her chest.
She wraps both arms around my neck and we kiss for ages. I caress the warm skin of her back under her top, then I slide my fingers of that hand down until I get to fondle her left ass cheek under the loose fabric of her shorts.
She gently pushes me off and rolls me over so she's on top. Her hands go down to my belt. She unbuckles it. She unzips my pants and then starts pulling them down, revealing my blue and white boxers that are struggling to contain my erection. Alazne lets out a whimper of anticipation. I lift my hips to help her draw my pants down my legs and off, but after she strokes my penis through the thin fabric of my boxers for a moment, I grab her waist and maneuver so we both end up kneeling in front of the other on the mattress.
"That's no way for me to introduce you both," I say with pure animal hunger. "First off, let's take off that top of yours..."
I lean in and caress her back up to the nook between her shoulders and neck, then I trace an almost straight line down to the hem of her black top. There, I hook my fingers on it and slowly start drawing it up. She lifts her arms so I can take the top off her.
The light pink bra matches the color of her underwear and resembles the tone of her skin. Her nipples are hard. They look so delicious that I lean closer and lick one of them through the fabric. Alazne lets out a surprised squeal. She grabs my hair and, while pulling down that half of her bra with her index finger, makes me suck her nipple. She holds my head in place while I flick her small, warm nub of flesh with my tongue and give it a gentle nibble, then she pulls me up to kiss again. My mind is going blank, but I pull myself away to stand up next to the bed. A string of saliva remains connected to our lips for a couple of seconds.
As I straighten my back, I notice movement on the surface of the wardrobe. From inside a small, round frame hanged on the mahogany stares at me a man in his late thirties, whose face is slightly sweaty, who hasn't shaven for a few days and who ogles me lecherously. My heart stops, my body wants to go into a fighting stance. What the hell is that man doing in Alazne's bedroom?! Then I realize that I'm looking into Asier's startled eyes in a mirror.
I guess that in my mind I was picturing our lovemaking session differently. I wasn't a female ghost wearing a tall, well-built, already greying dead man's body as if I were commanding a titan. I was a muscle-bound Amazon, an alpha femme whose pelvis somehow supported a cock that wasn't so much a sexual organ as a weapon of mass destruction, its helmet head constantly leaking whitish nectar, and eager to tear through any innocent's pussy to shoot off her brain from inside with a nuclear burst of cum. But I guess me having a man's body works too. After all, Alazne always searched for older, big men who would handle her forcefully to save her from having to doubt and decide for herself. Even though I yearned for Alazne to venture into those intriguing advertisements of voluptuous, confident women with huge cocks, she never did.
When I look back down towards Alazne, whom I had committed the sacrilege of forgetting entirely, my cock throbs: she's kneeling right in front of me, her glassy eyes fixed on the bulge twenty centimeters in front of her, her hands caressing her thighs as if she could hardly wait to masturbate.
I hook the sides of my boxers and slowly unveil her gift. My girl cock springs to life, so close to Alazne's flushed face that if I came right now I would blind her. I put my fists on the sides of my waist and speak proudly.
"Gaze upon my futa co--... I mean, this manly monster. All hard and thick."
"Mmmm..." Alazne moans and opens her mouth wide with lust. My cock grows half a centimeter just by looking at her face.
Both her pupils and nostrils dilate as my girlfriend leans forward slowly and reaches with her hands to hold on to my waist, failing to realize that I had put my own hands there. I let her grab on to me. Alazne sticks her tongue out slowly towards my purplish cock head. A drop of saliva rolls down the tip of her tongue and elongates as it hangs, but excess saliva is also trickling from one side of her mouth.
I had only intended to show my girl cock to Alazne, to figure out if she shared my enthusiasm for this new superpower of mine. And I fear that I'm going to explode the moment her saliva wets it.
"Uhh... You don't need to..." I groan as her warm breath tickles my cock.
But Alazne continues to lean in until her tongue touches the tip of my dick. Her lips purse as if she's going to kiss, and then they wrap around the glans. Her mouth is like an oven, almost scalding hot.
I close my eyes and grimace in ecstasy as Alazne bobs her head. My legs are shivering. Shit, I'm going to come in seconds. How the hell do guys block themselves from orgasming?! I have trained myself to recognize and contract the different muscles that this miracle of nature contains, but it was a serious mistake for cocks to evolve without developing a shut-off valve. Still, if millions of years of evolution haven't provided one, that means that nature intended men to shoot their loads as soon as possible. I hope Alazne doesn't take it against me.
I try to keep my eyes open, even though everything looks bleached as if I had stared into the sun. The sounds return: Alazne is slurping while from her throat escape placid moans. I blink the whiteness away until I see Alazne's light brown hair bobbing up and down. I lower my hands to run my fingers lovingly through her soft hair. As it pertains to me lasting more, looking down at Alazne's expression was a mistake.
"A-ah..." escapes from my dry mouth, which feels anesthetized. "You are such a good girl, Alazne."
I feel Alazne's body shivering from her tailbone to her cervicals. When it reaches her mouth, her teeth grip my dick for a very long moment. Then Alazne takes a deep breath, her eyes roll back and she slides her right hand under the waistband of her shorts. Once her fingers make contact with her holy button, Alazne rubs it rhythmically in harmony with how she's guzzling my cock. Saliva keeps dripping from her chin.
I try to move back, but Alazne holds me in place by grabbing my ass. She must know what's going to happen to her mouth, or I hope she does, because I doubt I'm going to be able to stop it. Has even a minute passed?
"A-Alazne, you are giving me the time of my life, but..." I manage to say in a threadbare voice.
"Nnph!" Alazne moans in the back of her throat, exhaling a ruffled 'ah'.
"You're going to make me come... if you keep this up. But I want to fill your pussy first."
Alazne pops half of my dick out of her mouth, tilting her head so she can speak. Her pupils are unfocused and dilated as if she was drugged.
"Y-you want to put it in?"
"Oh God, yes."
Alazne draws her head back, and my cock slides out of her oven-hot mouth. My mighty phallus glistens as if greased. Exposing it to the ambient temperature of this stormy evening feels beyond wrong, and I almost plead for Alazne to take me in again.
I get lightheaded for a moment. When I regain my balance and look back up, Alazne is lying on her back with her head propped up on the pillow. She has taken off her shorts and moist panties at lightning speed and has thrown them beside her onto the unmade sheets. She has spread her legs, covered up to her knees by her pink socks with a cat motif, and with her fingers she's holding apart her drenched pussy lips to present the punch pink insides. Her vagina keeps leaking juices that are spreading a circle of wetness on the sheet. Her light brown pubes have grown towards her abdomen like a fuzzy lighting burn.
I have never seen such desire in someone's eyes, as if Alazne's life depended on getting filled with my cock. She offers me a drowsy smile while her skin from her upper lip to her chin shimmers under the electric lamp.
"I'm your precious little girl," Alazne says lewdly. "I need you deep inside me, daddy."
I was so lucky that I was unbuttoning my shirt instead of touching my dick, because the spasm that shakes the lower half of my body evidences that I would have shot big globs of cloudy cum all over the sheets. With Alazne's pussy already open for me, such a waste would have been unforgivable. And the sight of that throbbing little button and those lubricated lips are making me want to launch myself at them face first like a ravenous wolf. I have so much hunger built up from the myriad of instances as a ghost that I lied in bed next to my Alazne, or even kneeled on the floor under the bed so I could keep my incorporeal face real close to Alazne's lubricated fingers as she rubbed her clit and fingered herself, only for me to die over and over again out of frustration because my ghostly tongue could never reach her. Now I just want to eat that pussy out until I wear it down to her pelvic bone.
I'm about to communicate to Alazne my change of plans, but I notice that she's staring hungrily herself at my girl cock, which must have been leaking precum for a while. I can eat her out later, I guess. That's right, we are not pressed on time. Alazne is my girlfriend, we are going to fuck over and over in the coming days and weeks and months and years until our genitals shrivel up and fall off.
I climb onto the bed, kneeling so the underside of Alazne's thighs touches the top of mine. She lets out a yelp of delight. I can barely look in the direction of her pussy without feeling like I'm about to explode. I need to fill Alazne up like a human-shaped cream puff. If it depended on me, my girl would never be able to stand up without leaking cum.
I loathe having to use a condom, because it will prevent me from properly feeling Alazne's insides, but unfortunately male semen is toxic and it produces horrifying mutations in defenseless females. The world is cruel, and that's not changing anytime soon.
I lean on the mattress next to Alazne's bare waist so with my right hand I can pull out a condom from the back pocket of my pants. I rip the condom's wrapper with my teeth, then take the lubricated piece of latex out, which smells vaguely like a balloon. I start unrolling it over my length, although this is a challenge because of how rigid and pulsating it is.
"Nooo, no condom," Alazne says as if out of it.
"I assure you, my love, I would adore nothing more than to push my raw cock inside you and fill you up with as much semen as I can produce in a day. But if me inviting you to live with me on our first date, then declaring our love for each other before the second one isn't going fast enough, me impregnating you the first time we fuck probably would count as 'too fast'."
"True..."
I would say I'm happy that Alazne sees reason, but the look on her eyes suggests that there's nobody tending to the command module in her brain. I'm amazed that anyone remains in mine. I would love to lose myself entirely, and only regain my senses an hour or so from now, when I would realize that the white flood coming out of Alazne wasn't due to a horrifying infection, and that I would have to bother myself figuring out how to prevent a pregnancy. But that version of me wouldn't be the current one whose penis is rock-hard and who needs to shoot her load as soon as possible, so fuck that future version of me, theoretically.
I have already unrolled the condom to cover the entirety of my futa cock. I move up on the bed towards Alazne's flushed, drooling face, and rest my elbows below her armpits so I can slide my hands under her shoulders. She realizes that my mouth is close to hers, and she grabs the back of my head to plunge her tongue into my oral cavity.
I feel my glans touching her warm, slippery opening; a dulled sensation, thanks to the damned condom. Still, I'm going to have trouble lasting more than a few pumps before I burst inside the sex balloon. Back when I was a ghost and I got involved in sexual situations, usually because I walked through a wall into them, I took pride in how much I could last without coming, but then again I was only watching, I was a woman ghost so coming soon didn't matter, and also I wasn't physically able to come. It's such a shame. If Alazne came in a couple of seconds, I would be happy, and shortly after I would be working her up into a second orgasm, and a third, and so on.
Alazne crosses her legs over my ass and pulls me towards her. I oblige her, sliding the glans inside. There's a feeling of pressure on my cock before the walls of her vagina dilate to accept me. Fuck, it feels so good. I gently push my hips forwards, sliding more of my monster in. Her warmth and wetness threaten to make me lose my mind. I retract my hips until only my glans remains inside her opening, before I push again.
I'm so lost in sensations that I couldn't even tell that we are still playing with each other's tongue. I draw my head back. Alazne is lifting her hands slowly towards my nape as if to bring me closer, but with a couple of jerky movements I grasp her wrists and push them down onto the mattress to immobilize her arms over her head. Alazne blushes harder and lets out a moan.
I draw my hips back and then drive them forwards with a smacking noise, our waists touching as I bury my futa cock all the way inside my woman.
"Fuck!" Alazne wails.
Her breasts rock up and down with the motion of my stolen body. Her eyes are almost white, having rolled back, and an unending amount of drool keeps trickling out from both sides of her mouth. With the weight of this man-body holding her down, and my strong grasp restraining her, Alazne can barely move. She could resist, but it wouldn't change anything. She only needs to be take it in and let go.
Every backstroke keeps splashing her vaginal juices on the both of us. I lower my mouth to whisper in her ear.
"From now on you are fully mine, Alazne."
She shakes her head slowly. Her long hair is getting drenched in our sweat and her saliva. I recall plenty of moments like this playing on her monitor while she rubbed her clit frantically as her body shivered. A strong man restraining the actress, taking full possession of her entire being, and his thick cock pounding her so hard and deep that the woman didn't have to think nor feel anything but the waves of pleasure. Alazne came so hard with those.
"Even if you don't admit it, you are mine," I say, and prod the holes in her ear with my wet tongue.
Alazne's body gets closer to her peak. I possessed this disgusting man-corpse so I could make her fall in love with me. She will be mine, and she can't do anything about it. I am a ghost and she is not.
"I-I... I am yours," Alazne whimpers.
"You will be my sweet girl forever."
I quicken my strokes, and her thighs tremble. The most beautiful sound in the world is when a woman reaches her climax with my cock inside her; it's the sound of me winning. I have never used a cock to fuck anyone before, but I know this is true.
"Ah... Hm..." escapes from Alazne's mouth as her head rolls back and forth slightly.
"I'll take such good care of you. You'll get to fill your warm mouth and your pussy with this cock every day."
Alazne's toes curl inward, scratching the back of my thighs. The noises flowing out of her mouth no longer resemble words. I speed up even more, and my cock sinks all the way inside her. Her whole body trembles. Her pussy squeezes me tight as if it doesn't want to let go.
"This body is so dirty... so filthy... so nasty..." I keep muttering.
"I-I am yours," she repeats in a louder voice.
Alazne's spine arches as spasms shake her body and the walls of her vagina keep milking me. She throws her head back, and her mouth opens to release an intense cry. I hadn't noticed that she managed to free herself from my grip, because what remains of her bitten nails are now biting into my flesh. The pain is delightful.
I think I could tell she had already orgasmed, but her hands are clutching onto my shoulders as if she needs to keep herself from falling, and I continue my thrusts until I'm sure that the last spasm has faded away. I lose my concept of time. The next thing I know is that I'm filling the condom while my cock remains deep inside Alazne. My body shakes as a wave of heat flows through me.
Alazne is panting, and her eyes are closed. Her face glistens with sweat, saliva and tears.
I withdraw my cock from inside her. The pussy lips close slowly around my glans as if reluctant to let it go. I lean on the mattress with one trembling hand while with the other I start taking off my condom, but I'm out. I can't deal with that right now. I end up lying sideways next to Alazne, with my hand resting on her opposite breast, still covered by her pink bra, as if cupping it. I kiss her cheek softly, letting my lips linger.
"That was amazing," Alazne says in a low voice. "I never thought it could be like that."
I want to say something clever, but I can't. I feel as if all my grey matter was squeezed through my cock.
"As I moaned I didn't think for a moment about the neighbors," she adds. "Now they have something new to talk about."
"I doubt they have heard such joy in a long time," I say in a trembling voice. "They can die of envy if they want."
Alazne raises herself on one elbow, then she brushes her light brown hair away from her sweaty forehead. She's staring down at me with boundless love and trust, and for a split second I feel hollow.
"I love you, Asier," she says in a low, serious voice. "I love you, I love you, I love you."
Something cold wells up inside me, a solid entity. I raise myself to kiss Alazne's beautiful mouth, and I push her gently onto the bed so we can keep making out without a worry in the world.
We lie on the bed, holding on to each other's warmth and drinking each other's saliva, forgetting about the passing seconds. The rain lashes against the window as the wind pushes it, and from time to time distant thunder rumbles. After we stop kissing, we remain curled up against each other like cats in the sun, while observing the details of each other's eyes.
"I can't believe you exist, Alazne," comes out of my mouth.
"The whole time I was growing inside my mother's belly I thought that, Asier," Alazne whispers slowly. "For nine months I watched her drink alcohol, smoke and eat all the things she wasn't supposed to. I thought, why would I keep growing? To what end? And even after I was born, I couldn't understand."
A warm tear rolls across my temple. Alazne takes a deep breath, then she moves a few strands of hair away from my face. Her fingers are warm against my skin.
"But then I got old enough and things became clearer," she continues. "Now I'm here, lying in your arms. All is good. Have you thought about that? About why you were born?"
"I'm a ghost in the machine. A bug in the system. An anomaly. What was the point of me?"
I hold Alazne's sad gaze.
"The point was you met me," she whispers.
I plant a kiss on her lips, and lie down on my back next to her. She imitates me. We stare at the ceiling as the sound of the rain quenches our thirst for auditory stimulation. I've had enough of feeling the inside of a soggy, wrinkly condom, so I pull it off. I end up spilling semen on my lower abdomen. I tie the condom in a knot and throw it aside. No idea where it landed.
Maybe a minute later, I open my mouth to speak.
"What are you thinking about?"
"I'm thinking about my dad, and how he died scared."
My throat tightens.
"You often think about that, don't you?"
"Yeah, but it's fine now. I forgave him a long time ago." She doesn't talk for a few seconds. After she sniffles, her voice comes as if she has turned her head towards me. "Were you scared when you crashed your car? You lost consciousness, right?"
"I lost consciousness, yes."
"What were you thinking about right before you passed out?"
I take a deep breath.
"I didn't have time to think. It happened too quickly. I didn't see it coming."
"But did you feel an inkling of anything? Like, how your mind was preparing itself for death?"
My eyes are affixed to a long crack in the ceiling.
"No, nothing. One moment I was following the road, the next one I woke up in the hospital pumped full of drugs."
"That's good. If you felt any inkling of fear, then it means you're not as strong as me."
I turn my head to see Alazne's face. She has stopped crying, and turns to face me as well. I smile at her. She smiles back. I grab her by the sides and pull her into an embrace.

Around eight in the evening, Alazne's stomach had already growled a couple of times, but we couldn't justify to ourselves breaking away from our warm bed and each other's touch. I was going to have my dinner anyway, though, and after I licked the insides of her bellybutton for a while, I kissed my way down to her pubes. I loved that smell of stale sweat and dry pussy juices. It was honest.
Alazne, as she giggled excitedly, propped her shoulders up with pillows and rested the back of her thighs on my shoulders. I stared at her beautiful, glistening slit in anticipation. Without realizing, I ended up drooling onto the sheets. I lowered my face towards her warm entrance and I gently flicked my tongue against her labia. Alazne let out a long, slow sigh.
I don't know nor care how much I've been licking along her labia or holding her throbbing clit between my lips as I rub it with my wet tongue. Alazne keeps petting my hair in a trance. From time to time she shivers and moans softly.
When her thighs tremble continuously against my ears I know she's close to finishing, so I push my index and middle fingers inside her. Her pussy responds with contractions that grip on my fingers tightly. My mouth waters as the scent of her arousal fills the bedroom. The taste of her honey and muskiness is so appetizing, I feel like I could lick her out for hours on end.
After Alazne lets out her final, long sigh, she puts her hand gently on my forehead to let me know she's done for now. My jaw aches from the long session of grinding, but I couldn't be happier. I kiss her thigh a few times before I rest my face on it as if it were a pillow, and neither of us speaks.
It's raining harder although the thunder stopped a while ago, but I welcome the nasty weather, as it reminds me that Alazne and I can keep each other warm inside. It would be nice if it never stopped raining, and we never had to do anything else but lie around on her bed.

Alazne opens her fridge as if she didn't know what she was going to find inside. Even back when I lived here as a ghost, her fridge tended to remain half empty, and some of the stuff I would have liked to eat, although back then I wished I could eat anything at all, had gone past its expiration date.
"This is embarrassing..." Alazne says.
"What would you have eaten for dinner normally?"
"Well... I can do with a glass of milk, some bread and butter, or a few pieces of fruit. Many nights I don't eat anything at all."
This should be the moment when I pick up a few ingredients and I end up whiping out a meal that would amaze Alazne with how great of a cook and how responsible I am, but that can't happen. I was a ghost until recently, and I have survived on ready-made food. To be honest, I'm not even sure if I ever boiled water, let alone cook anything. I was dead for too long.
Alazne rubs my shoulder while she looks up at me with those big, hazel eyes, which couldn't seem now more apologetic.
"I asked you to come to my place, and you took such good care of me, but I don't even have anything to feed you. I'm the worst."
"Sweetie, you took fantastic care of me, I assure you." I let out a gasp. "Also, I just remembered that I have the power of money! I'll look up some pizza or Chinese place. Or whatever kind of place you want!"

Around twenty minutes later we finally push away the chair in front of Alazne's computer and we sit on the edge of her bed. Each of us is holding a warm cup of noodles from the Chinese restaurant. I reach towards the computer mouse to open this week's episode's folder from uTorrent, and then I play the video file on VLC. When I lean back, Alazne touches the side of my head with hers, then digs into her noodles.
"Let's see what they fuck us up with this week," I say as I stir my noodles. "The last one wasn't so much a cliffhanger as just sadness."
"Well..." Alazne begins playfully. "Maybe they'll start explaining how the hell they spent the last few years in the island."
The episode starts by pulling the audience back into an extended flashback. I know what's going to happen not only in this episode but in all the remaining, and so does Alazne. She bought the volumes translated to Spanish, but when I was a ghost I also read over her shoulder the fan translations to English, that tend to come up shortly after each chapter gets released in Japan. Still, Alazne and I keep putting on a show of our own. I guess that human beings come built with a fundamental ability that is the main reason why we didn't crumble away into oblivion long, long ago as a species: we can appreciate individual moments as they come, even though we know how everything ends.

My Own Desert Places, Pt. 12 (GPT-3 fueled short)

Link for this short on my personal blog, where it looks better

---

After that Oleksiy punk left on his Toyota 4Runner, I probably should have wandered away for a while, because my gated community is far too close to the narrow street where Oleksiy confronted me. However, the punch in my guts had done a number on my intestines. I struggle towards my house as fast as possible while clenching my asshole. Any wrong movement threatens to shoot all the contents of my bowels so they fill my underwear and roll down my legs. As if trying to avoid shitting myself wasn't enough, I'm holding an umbrella with my left hand while with the right I'm punching in my phone a reply to Alazne's text. By sending me that delicious sexual invitation via her bare midriff and her wet fingers, Alazne had opened up about her needs far more than I would have expected just after our first date. And I also can't simply call her: Alazne won't want to speak in her current state, flushed and in an erotic trance. That's assuming that she's still touching herself after I left her hanging to take care of that Eastern European dickhead.
I write back to Alazne, I'm so sorry that I didn't reply to you immediately. Some weird guy accosted me thinking I was someone else.
Don't worry. Are you okay?, she replies.
My angel, worried about my well-being above her horniness.
I'm fine, I text back. And now I'll text you what I wanted to as soon as I looked at that picture: if you show me something so delicious, the next time I see you I'm going to eat you up.
Alazne must have looked through some options, because about ten seconds later I receive an animated emoji of a blushing face and a few hearts that orbit around it. Shortly after she writes, Please come over to my place today.
I'm already passing in front of the graveyard adjoined to Asier's gated community. My guts are churning and burning, and I want to spare myself the memory of shitting myself in the street. I would have to push that moment out of my mind whenever I looked at my beloved. Still, I focus on replying to Alazne's message with I will be there around six and a half. I hope you are ready.
Can't wait. I'll be thinking of you, Alazne replies.
I finally enter my gated community, and then I scamper towards my house while I shiver. My sweat has turned colder than the rainwater. I might be imagining it, but I think I smell the stench as my asshole struggles to hold my breakfast and lunch in. When I open the front door of my house, I throw the soaked umbrella onto the floor, push the door close with my back, and then I run to the nearest bathroom. I lift the toilet seat, pull down my pants and my underwear with jerky movements, and as soon as I sit down and relax my asshole, it spasms and shoots out a load of hot, watery shit that plasters the inside of the bowl. Then my ass explodes again. I cry out loud as it burns and itches terribly while cold sweat gets in my eyes.
As my asshole keeps spasming and shitting, I groan and breathe heavily. About a minute later, it's finally over. I pull my pants up with shaky hands and walk out of the bathroom. I'm very dizzy and weak, so I have to lean against the walls as I shuffle to the kitchen to get a mop and a bucket. I don't recall having cried while cleaning before.
When I enter the kitchen, I feel Kateryna's invisible presence staring at me from the dining table, next to her ouija board. I don't want to talk about the disaster, but she moves the planchette to communicate with me. I can't leave her hanging.
WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT, the planchette spells out.
"I had a bit of an accident," I reply, struggling to keep my breathing normal. "An accident caused by some Eastern European prick punching my guts in."
I sigh heavily. I approach the sink and use it to prop myself up. I rest my elbows on the edge as I grip my hair with my hands, almost in a hugging manner. I wish that Kateryna gets the message and lets me wallow in shame for a while, but my ghost roommate pushes down the call bell a couple of times. I turn towards the ouija board.
The planchette spells out PLEASE EXPLAIN.
"There's nothing to explain, Kat," I say in a hollow voice. "It seems that we live in a world where random Eastern European thugs accost people for no reason, and even go as far as stopping traffic to get out of their cars and wreck an innocent person's intestines. What kind of society are we leaving to our kids?"
I move closer to the ouija board and let my fingers glide over the planchette.
"Don't you sometimes just feel like going outside with a shotgun and... and ventilating every asshole you see? These dickheads shouldn't be allowed to walk free, Kat. They fucking punch random people in the guts just because they're having a bad day. If I had my way, I would..."
I stop talking, because I feel the tears coming. That bastard assaulted me, an innocent, harmless girl. I can't believe such demons are allowed to roam around.
PLEASE DONT CRY MY BABY, the planchette spells out.
I wipe my eyes, then take a deep breath.
"Don't worry, Kat. I have already emptied my bowels. Probably scraped the inside lining as well. Now all that matters is getting back in the mood to have sex."
GO LOOK AT MY PHOTOS, the planchette spells out.
I'm touched, and I raise my hand to my heart.
"My needs have made you uneasy as of late, yet you still suggest me to masturbate while ogling your perfect features! You are an angel, Kateryna. This world doesn't deserve you. But that wasn't what I meant."
I take out my phone and rescue my recent conversation with Alazne so I can show it to my ghost roommate. I hope Kateryna is looking from the direction at which I'm pointing my screen.
"See? My Alazne is horny and needs me inside her. So don't wait for me, because I'll spend the night holding the love of my life in my manly arms."
The planchette remains still for a few seconds. Maybe my roommate is despairing because she can't love anybody, while I'm so lucky that someone as perfect as Alazne has become my girlfriend.
CAN ONLY WAIT, the planchette spells out.
I lower my phone a little.
"Huh?"
CANT SLEEP.
A sudden pang of pity makes me hunch over. I swallow my stale saliva.
"My poor Kat. I shouldn't have reminded you of your predicament. Please, tell me which movies you want me to queue on VLC. All of them will look amazing in the new monitor."
CANT WAIT TO BE ENTERD IN HEVENLY PARADISE, the planchette spells out.
I sit down heavily on the nearest chair, then rub my eyes. Nothing is going to stop me from ravaging my Alazne tonight, and yet I'll have to abandon my roommate in despair.
"Everything is shit, Kateryna," I mutter. "You are right about that."

A warm shower rinsed most of my shame away, as well as whatever residues remained of my ass explosion. The moment I got out of the shower I grabbed my phone from the sink and called a taxi. I wouldn't bother with walking to the nearest bus stop that would take me to Irún, and then getting on another bus to reach Belaskoenea. Rich people shouldn't have to suffer such inconveniences.
As I stand in front of the fogged mirror, that thankfully conceals the view of my man-torso with all that hair and lack of proper breasts, I dry myself with a towel and consider how this stupid day is going to end up: I will join my goddess in holy communion by letting her hungry insides wrap themselves around my rock-hard monster. I need to have more confidence in myself and in the body I'm presenting to the world. After all, this body will keep Alazne warm and safe in its hairy arms.
I wipe the steam from the bathroom mirror and take a good look into Asier's eyes, that stare back at me. I would have never thought I would come to feel sympathy for that clown, but then again he is me now, isn't he?
I spray lavender-scented deodorant under my armpits, then brush my teeth in a hurry. My heart is beating hard, but more due to anxiety than of anticipation. That fucking Oleksiy turd ruined my day, and could potentially turn my first night together with Alazne into a disaster. I need to pump myself up. I bring up Alazne's sexy picture on my phone, then stare at her bare midriff, at those anointed fingers.
"My love, tonight I'm going to make you fully mine like a man does, by stretching out slightly his girl's vagina according to the particular dimensions of the man's penis."
Those curves in Alazne's midriff are making me salivate, and my penis finally twitches. I pass the phone to my left hand and allow my right to come to my penis' aid. It's back to life, and pushing against my palm and my fingers as it grows to fill as much space as possible. My pet monster has acknowledged his responsibility.
Thankfully this Asier prick wanted to see as much of his cheating self as he could, because he bought a huge bathroom mirror. As I hold my hard penis, I study its reflection. It's thick enough that I can't close my hand around it, and if I slide my fingers along it until the pinky touches the base, my hand only hides half of the full penis. Its head is bulbous but tight, with a pleasant purplish-red color now that it's filling up with blood. Stroking this girl dick feels so good that I've spent plenty of time in this house with my pants down and touching myself as I performed any activity, especially in the beginning, when I would feel feverish and needed to alleviate the aches of my transformation into a man.
In less than two hours, this monstrous seed-spewing device of mine will be thrusting into Alazne's pale, freckled, delicate body, and her hot insides will milk my monster eagerly until it explodes.
My mind is going blank as I lean against the sink and keep stroking myself. My heartbeats feel as if I'm risking a heart attack. I will get used to having a dick. The rest of men's bodies disgusts me, but the power inherent to a cock aligns better with my nature as a conqueror. Feeling women squirming in my strong arms while my monster ravages their insides, that's the only reason to live. And because I retain my female mind, Asier's well-built, powerful man-body has lost its only weakness. I may be the first true futa in this retarded planet.
My legs feel weak, my knees threaten to buckle under me.... Will I be able to shoot my load before the taxi arrives? I have to dress myself and everything. Wait a second, why the hell am I jerking off right now? Wasn't I preparing myself to head to Alazne's house so I can fuck her for the first time?
Although the man-brain that remains in this body curses me for it, I take my hand off my penis. I rest my forearms on the sink and take deep breaths as my penis aches for more contact. I wash my face with cold water. Calm down, Irene. You did the right thing. You were about to commit a sacrilege, because the jerk off times are over. Alazne is eager to welcome me sexually, so from now on every ounce of semen that this stolen body produces is going to end up splattering her skin or her face, or filling her mouth or her womb. Or in a condom, I suppose... If Alazne suggests ass stuff, though, I will resist, because that's just nasty.
Unfortunately, this sudden decision of mine only brought more elaborate imagery to my mind. I close my eyes and take deep breaths to calm down.
After I return to my bedroom and lay my clothes on the bed to dress myself, I realize what a service I'm going to procure to my Alazne as her devoted boyfriend. Alazne masturbates so much because it kidnaps her from the abusive relationship that her depression forced upon her. For the very short time that the orgasm's flower of pleasure-inducing chemicals blossoms in one's brain... No, that's too lyrical. My point is that an orgasm whites out everything in a brain except for the pleasure of coming. That's more like it. So it follows that if I could make Alazne come over and over, with the next orgasm overlapping the last throes of the previous one, there would be no pain, no depression. My job as Alazne's girlfriend slash boyfriend is to make her orgasm as often as possible.

Once the helpful taxi driver leaves me right next to Alazne's apartment building in Belaskoenea, I am careful to open my umbrella to protect myself against the downpour. I don't want to show up in front of her as drenched as a stray dog. Also, I don't like one bit how dark the late afternoon has gotten; only the brightest of suns should have accompanied today the blessed act that Alazne and I are going to perform in her bed.
Along the way here I texted Alazne to let her prepare herself, because I would arrive in a short while. She added that she lived in the third floor and apartment D. I guess she forgot that I buzzed her apartment for our first date.
Lightning strikes and thunder rumbles with menacing indifference to my plight. I press the button to Alazne's apartment. She buzzes me in silently. I take the elevator, and as it moves up I concentrate my remaining anxiety in my fists. I'm a tough man. Back when I was a girl, I deflowered plenty of innocent ladies. That now I'm going to use untested equipment makes no difference. Thankfully I don't risk crossing the streams with anybody.
I step out of the elevator onto the third floor. The old light bulbs lighting the two apartment doors make it feel as if I have stepped back in time into the seventies. And even if I didn't know Alazne's apartment letter, I'm already overwhelmed by an aura of depression that I can trace back to my queen's apartment door. She must have been looking through the peephole, because she opens the door to welcome me.
When Alazne appears in front of me, my heart nearly bursts. Her light brown hair is loose, framing her pale, freckled face. Her sad, hazel eyes are glassy, and look up at me as if pleading. Her cheeks are flushed. There are traces of dried saliva near the edges of her mouth. She's wearing a black top with the Wings of Freedom logo over her heart as well as on the short sleeves, and the top exposes her midriff, the sight of which turns up my production of saliva. She's wearing grey pyjama shorts which must hide those pink cotton panties that her photo hinted at. For some reason Alazne also put on pink knee-high socks with cat faces all over them, but I won't complain, as they only make me breathe harder.
I can tell by Alazne's hesitant smile that she's embarrassed. She took her alluring pic during her masturbation session, when the entire world beyond anything related to her pleasure had ceased to exist, but she still had extended a hand towards me, as her subconscious had understood that I would join her gladly. However, that Oleksiy thug had failed to read the mood, so I couldn't reply to Alazne's offering soon enough. Now my girlfriend, who I suppose has stopped masturbating for at least an hour, wonders whether I came because I felt obligated. Maybe she feared I would consider her a loon for having sent me a sexual proposition for our second date, even though I had accepted her pleading wish that I would take care of her forever.
I step into her apartment, making Alazne step back so I can close her apartment door, and then I turn towards her, hold her by the bare, warm skin of her lower back and bend over to taste her wet mouth. I reach down to her butt, barely covered by her shorts, and touch the cleft between her cheeks. She feels warm and inviting. My dick is already growing against my boxers. I put my other hand on the soft skin of her abdomen and caress it slowly as I tangle her tongue with mine. She tastes like strawberry toothpaste. I take a deep whiff of Alazne's smell: stale sweat, what little remains of yesterday's deodorant, a hint of pussy juices mixed with soap. My mouth is flooding, and I feel a pang of hunger that only Alazne's body can satiate.
After we stop kissing, Alazne keeps her arms crossed behind my head. Her eyes are glistening.
"I-I thought I had been too forward..."
I lick the saliva that had leaked from her mouth.
"You thought of me while you played with yourself to forget this horrible world. I couldn't feel more blessed."
She laughs and squeezes me tightly. I hug her back. I touch her ear with my lips, and I whisper into it.
"You know what you need, and I will take good care of you."
I kiss along her neck, then move down to her clavicles. I bite one of them. Her body tenses up and a moan of delight escapes her lips. I would have fucked her right there and then, but she breaks the embrace. However, she keeps holding my hand.
"L-let me show you around," she says shily, unable to look me in the eyes, even though her smile is as pleasant as they come.
Her rented apartment is cramped and old. Most of the furniture is made of mahogany, and the majority of the shelves are empty as if the previous owners took every object with them except for the furniture, which was too cumbersome or mostly worthless. The sofa is worn out and covered in cat scratches. I have never seen a cat in this apartment, but maybe Alazne had a precious pet and lost it, so I won't bring it up.
"Looks like shit, doesn't it?" Alazne says with a smile. "I found out that the previous owner, an old woman, died right there on the sofa. I wouldn't be surprised if she were still around, or if this apartment simply doesn't heat up properly."
I want to avoid seeming silly, so I contain behind a manly expression how happy I am that I finally get to experience Alazne's apartment without it feeling colorless, tasteless and odorless thanks to that faded filter that the afterlife applies to everything. And Alazne's warm, slightly sweaty hand feels heavenly in mine. I want to fuck her so bad.
"Ah..." I start, but I end up swallowing to compose myself. "Wait, you say that the ghost of that old broad might still be here?"
Alazne smirks.
"Yeah. She's mean, too. She threw my brand new glasses out of the window when I was leaning in to get some fresh air. No, I'm kidding, that was me being careless, as usual."
"If the woman remained as a ghost, you would experience much more ghostly stuff than that, for sure. Footsteps, whispers, maybe objects flying around, sleep paralysis, and if you were particularly unlucky, some opportunist ghost might possess your body to touch you all over. I know I would have been beyond tempted."
"You seem well versed in ghost stuff. You keep surprising me with the things you are into."
"Yeah," I say in a low, hungry voice. "If I were a horny ghost, I'd go after you, with or without your permission."
"Hm... So I wouldn't be able to resist you as you caressed me...?"
"That's right. I would do with your beautiful body whatever I wanted."
Alazne blushes, then moves closer to me so she can rest her face on my chest. I put my hands on her bare lower back, and then slide them under her shirt. I prod the wings of her bra.
Back when I haunted Alazne's apartment, I was the only other ghostly inhabitant, so that old woman must have either moved on to the beyond or fucked off somewhere else, whether because she wanted to explore the world or because she preferred to leave Alazne in peace. Whatever the case, I couldn't be more grateful. Thank you, nameless old woman. I hope the afterlife is treating you better than it did most of the boring, hopeless souls I came across.
After Alazne and I kiss for a bit, she guides me further into her apartment through the narrow hallway. Hanging on the walls there are black and white photos of the city, and of the neighboring Hondarribia, as they must have been in the thirties and forties.
"That's the bathroom." Alazne points towards a half open door. "The cistern barely works, and often I need to move the mechanism around, as well as the lid, so it fills up again. And it's better if you flush a few times while you are taking a shit, because clogging is an issue. I think I heard some neighbors say that it's a problem with the sewer line, or something."
"Hm. Okay."
We move from the hallway into the kitchen, a small room with barely any furniture save for a table and two chairs. The fridge is relatively new; she must have bought it in the last three years. But a toaster, a mixer and other appliances have gathered dust on a shelf. I know that Alazne doesn't bother cooking complicated stuff, and if she can get away with it she'll heat up premade food, or remain hungry when she's depressed enough. A bunch of boxes have piled up in a corner. Alazne doesn't care much about clutter, but most of the stuff she buys she eats, are clothes, or exist as ones and zeros in her computer.
"That's where we... w-we will eat breakfast together tomorrow..."
That's my Alazne's way of asking, 'please, stay with me after you fuck me'. I run my fingers through the loose hair near her nape.
"I'm sure breakfast will taste so good after having you sleeping in my arms."
Alazne shivers, then turns towards the hallway.
"R-right. Then... there is the bedroom," Alazne says in a desirous tone.
The walls are painted a soothing blue. The best part of the room is the unmade, queen size bed, with a pearl-white, floral bedding set. The bed takes up most of the room, and it even goes into a gap in the mahogany wardrobe that covers that entire wall. Next to the bed there's a nightstand with all sorts of things on it: a lamp, her phone, a glass of water, guitar picks and a capo, various pill bottles with the labels torn off... The small desk where Alazne set up her cheap PC is so close to the side of the bed closest to the window, as well as to a radiator, that once you sit in front of it you can barely move.
I have finally reached paradise. I will spend all of eternity in this bedroom.
Alazne lets go of my hand, turns her back on me and stands up next to the bed.
"So... what do you think?" she asks in a thin, anxious voice. "Pretty sad, huh...?"
I ogle her light brown hair that reaches the middle of her back, her soft butt barely covered by the shorts, those succulent thighs, and the way her knee-high socks hug her calves. I feel the pulse in my dick, and it's getting harder for me to breathe. I step closer to Alazne and put my hands on her shoulders.
A big, well-built man who wants her bad, and she the small, lightly clothed woman who is too shy to ask for what she yearns. She has replayed scenes like this on her computer while her thighs trembled. And now, the woman who has longed to feel desired and sexually needed has that chance. She doesn't feel like she deserves it, but she'll take it eagerly.
I hug Alazne from behind, pressing my body against hers. With my right hand I tilt her head and hold it to grant me access to her neck, and I kiss and lick her skin upward until I get to suck on her ear. With my left hand, I caress her abdomen and focus on digging into her bellybutton.
"I'm scared..." she whispers in a quavering voice.
Alazne lets out a sigh of delight as she presses her butt against my erection. She raises one hand to my face and strokes it while I nibble on her earlobe. 'I'm scared,' the actress said. The muscled, well-hung man who restrained her delicate body would whisper in her ear that she had nothing to fear, that he would take care of her.
"Don't be. You can trust me." I reply as my left hand wanders lower to dive under the hem of her shorts and panties. "From now on you will be fully mine. You will feel me deep inside you, I will lick your clit until you come in my mouth, and when you can't take it anymore, you will sleep in my manly arms, which will keep you warm and safe."
"T-that... Hmm... Sounds so good..."
When I open my eyes, my gaze falls on her computer monitor. Alazne has left uTorrent open. Most of the entries have Japanese titles and episode numbers, and I even recognize the one for yesterday's episode of 'Attack on Titan', but around half of the entries either seeding or downloading are porn videos. This woman... Now it truly makes no sense that she used incognito mode to browse PornHub, back when I was a ghost looking over her shoulder.
I cross my arms over her breasts to bring her closer in a tight hug as Alazne's butt trembles against my dick. I speak softly into her ear canal.
"You've been a bad girl, Alazne. You haven't opened up about what you love the most."
Her eyeballs roll towards me, although they are so glassy that for a moment I consider whether she would listen to anything at this point. But she turns enough to kiss me on the lips, then asks me:
"W-what do you mean?"
"Those guitar picks, the capo, the calluses on your fingertips... You may not afford to pay for the classes, but that hasn't stopped you, has it?"
Tears form in the rims of her eyes.
"I keep telling myself I'll give it up, because the daydreams hurt me, but I don't. I want so much to play... B-but I'm too fucking scared to go outside, so I just s-stayed here instead..."
Oh no, she's turning incoherent. I bring two fingers to her lips and silence them. She closes her eyes and licks my fingers slowly, coating them in saliva, while she rubs her ass against my erection. I shiver. To be honest, I'm losing it myself. I clear my throat subtly.
"Show me, Alazne. I won't fill you up with this monster until you show me what you truly love."
"Y-you want me to play the guitar...?"
"That's what has kept you alive so far, isn't it?"
She closes her eyes and remains still for a moment, but then she turns around and hugs me tightly. Her love oozes out of her body.
"It's the only thing I wanted, before I met you... Just play songs, even if those songs belonged to others. Nothing else felt right."
She's self-taught and she doesn't quite know how to play properly, but back when I lived here without her knowledge, I had never heard anything so beautiful in my strange existence. She committed herself to every note as if her life depended on it, and I guess it did.
I pull back from the embrace, and I smile at her as I stroke her cheek.
"Play a song for me. We have all night for making love."
Although her face is flushed from horniness, she grins like a teenager and walks on the bed until she reaches a tall vertical door on her wardrobe. When she opens the door and tries to pull the guitar bag out, something falls to the floor. It's a worn, stained sheet, with a knot tied on one end to make a noose. Alazne drops the guitar bag, which falls backward until it rests against the wall, and stares down at the noose. My girlfriend's face has gone white. Although she tries to force herself to look into my eyes, her gaze merely raises for a moment from the floor before she gives up. Her shoulders droop.
I cup her head and bring her closer, to kiss her on the temple.
"Don't worry about it."
"I-I wanted to die... B-but I didn't have the courage. Still, I hoped that eventually I would succeed... Then I met you, and you told me that you love me. I decided to keep living, for your sake."
"You don't need to keep living for my sake. I want you to keep going because eventually you'll want to remain alive no matter what."
I pick up the noose and then throw it into the wardrobe. I close the door.
"I don't think you'll use it again."
A few tears roll down Alazne's cheeks as she wrings her hands in front of her shorts.
"I won't."
I grab the guitar bag and place it at the foot of the bed. Alazne snaps out of it. She sits on the edge of the bed and takes out her instrument. It's a cheap round shoulder acoustic. Alazne rests it across her right thigh as carefully and lovingly as she would a child. She caresses the strings with her fingers as she finds a comfortable pose.
I place the chair close enough that I will be able to look at Alazne from the front. Then I sit down and lean forward.
"W-what do you want me to play?" she asks shily.
"Whatever you feel like playing."
She nods, then starts tuning her strings. She bites her lower lip as she focuses, and I smile as I watch her cute face. Then, when the strings are all set, she starts to play. I recognize the three starting notes, mainly because I have heard her play this song many times. It's a custom rendition of Explosions In The Sky's 'Your Hand in Mine'. Unfortunately, almost as soon as she hits the second phrase, her fingers stop playing the proper notes, and even hit dead ones. It's as if she had gotten on a bycicle years later only to realize that she forgot how to ride it. Alazne grits her teeth as her face becomes a mask of frustration. Even though she tries to power through it, likely to reach her favorite part of this song, she ends up groaning and giving up. She presses her lips together as if to repress as sob.
"Ah... W-why would I be surprised. I always fuck everything up. Even playing the guitar, my favorite thing in the world, and a song that I have played over and over, my fingers suddenly have no clue where to go."
I stand up hastily and then kneel in front of her. She looks at me as tears form in the corners of her eyes. I rest my hands on her shoulders.
"You're just very nervous because I'm watching you. You are worried about disappointing me, even though that couldn't be further from how I feel about you. Playing an instrument isn't the domain of that part of your brain that questions everything, that worries about what others think, that filters every thought and movement to figure out if it has to censor them. Isn't that right? You need to return the control to your true self."
"Y-yeah..."
"I'll lie down on your bed behind you and close my eyes. I don't want to hear you performing for someone else's ears. Play because it keeps you alive."
She nods and grabs a tissue from the nightstand to wipe her tears. As I promised, I get on her bed and lie down behind her, resting my head on Alazne's soft pillow. It smells like my beloved. I close my eyes and I caress the back of her picking arm.
Alazne starts to play the beautiful melody, and this time she nails it. She performs with passion as if she was shaking off all her burdens. And it doesn't matter that I'm listening to it with my eyes closed while a holy warmth spreads throughout my body, because back when I lived here as a ghost, I always stared at her as she played. I replay one of those memories in the theatre of my mind. Her fingers dance up and down the strings as her facial expression goes through a series of transformations. First she looks sad, then concentrated, then passionate, then mournful. There has never been a human being this beautiful.
The tears stream down across my cheeks to moisten the pillow. The first time I heard Alazne's song, the one peeking out from inside her performance, was when I happened to wander in front of this apartment building, back when I could no longer conceive of anything more than the dreary, colorless, meaningless eternity as a ghost who would never move on. I can now sink in this bed and hear the full intensity of Alazne's playing, smell her scent, feel the warmth of her skin, because she brought me back to life.
When I know that it won't take long until the last notes fade away into silence, I wipe the tears from my eyes. A man doesn't cry.

My Own Desert Places, Pt. 11 (GPT-3 fueled short)

Link for this short on my personal blog, where it looks better

---

The morning after my first date with my beloved Alazne, I woke up with the impression that I had spent my dreams wandering around some country-sized amusement park while holding on to Alazne's arm, and the bizarre attractions we dared to experience, which featured skeletons playing chess, robotic aliens and incongruous octopuses, drained our energies and left us traumatized. With such an aftertaste, it's hard for me to consider the date a success, but as I eat cereal in the kitchen I can't tear my gaze away from the photo I took of my girlfriend. She's truly my girlfriend. I don't think it's registering properly. Back when I was a ghost, I couldn't prevent myself from getting obsessed with Alazne; I wanted nothing more than to spend time around her and to fantasize about holding her in my arms and kissing her. I had known I would never be able to feel Alazne's warmth, but yesterday we made out in the street like a teenage couple. Still, I'm staying calm about it. I guess that human beings can get used to any change in their circumstances, for good or for ill.
Given how exhausted Alazne ended up yesterday, I would understand if my cellphone stayed silent for the entire day. I'll have to make do with gawking every five minutes at my only photo of her.
It's been like twenty minutes since I finished my bowl of cereal, and I have done nothing else than rest my face on my palm, sigh and zoom into different areas of Alazne's photo on my phone. A movement on the ouija board I set on the dining table distracts me. I spot the planchette levitating, but then it drops onto the board. I hadn't thought about Kateryna; I have the window open, and the cold, humid breeze that gets in not only masks Kat's presence, but also evidences that we'll suffer some rain by the end of the day.
I get closer to the ouija board to figure out what Kateryna wants to say, but first of all I need to share my thoughts.
"Hey, Kat, isn't my Alazne the cutest in the world?" I ask in a voice bursting with pride.
The planchette twitches, then remains still for a few seconds. It spells out THOUGHT I WAS.
I sigh.
"That's some healthy self-esteem, Kateryna. I wish I could accept myself so easily."
The metallic bowl that holds a couple of oranges and a pear slides a few centimeters as if Kat had targeted it by mistake with her poltergeist powers. Or worse: she's annoyed and wants to remind me that she can turn any object into a projectile, as if I had forgotten the ruinous state of this house before Ainhoa bothered herself tidying up most of the mess.
The planchette spells out YOU TOLD ME.
Kateryna is right about that. I had that reaction to the first photo I saw of her, taken back when she believed she was going to marry Asier and live a life together that wouldn't end up in suicide. I haven't allowed myself to forget Asier's nefarious influence, but I mainly distributed every framed picture of Kateryna around the house because looking at her Ukrainian, model-like features brightens my day, and makes me horny.
"Ah, yes," I say, sounding guilty. "Well, Kateryna, you are the most beautiful woman I have ever seen, for sure. I'd venture to say that there are few in the whole world that could compare. But you are beautiful in the same way the sun is beautiful, you know? It outshines everything else, but looking straight at it will burn holes in your eyes. Only astronauts wearing impossibly strong sunglasses and revolutionary heat resistant spacesuits could come up to you and hug you tight like you deserve. My Alazne is the most beautiful woman in the range of people with whom I could feasably spend the rest of my life."
The planchette spells out DONT KNOW ABOUT THAT.
"I'm sorry, Kat. I'm just trying to express my admiration for you in words, and it isn't working very well. I'll use simpler words. I'll say that you are a goddess among women, my dear Kateryna."
The planchette moves in a flurry, as Kateryna's side of the conversation sounds more like an annoyed rant.
"Yes, yes, I agree," I lie, because I didn't catch any of that. "Listen, you were lying next to me in bed those times I was holding your picture while training how to masturbate this penis properly, right? You told me you witnessed all of it. Didn't you feel flattered? You saw how quickly this thing got hard merely by looking at static images of you!"
The planchette spells out FELT EXPOSED.
"Oh, dear Kat! You shouldn't have felt that way! I would never ever do anything to hurt you! If anything, each of those sessions, how pleasurable they felt and the volume of semen I was able to shoot are testament to how gorgeous you are."
UNBELIEVABLE, the planchette spells out.
"Back when I had my original female body, I couldn't leave around measurable puddles of how excited each target of my masturbatory sessions got me. I wasn't a squirter. But now, it's all laid out in the open. I wouldn't have to take out the trash as often if I wasn't thinking of you this much."
WOW, the planchette spells out.
"You're not just an inspiration for my masturbation sessions, you're an inspiration for everything in life. You gave me the strength to take control of Asier's life and his fortune. I'm not just living in his house, dear Kateryna, I've made it into a home, but it would feel empty if you weren't here with me. And I have already offered Alazne to move in whenever she wants! Imagine, all of us living together. I want us to become a happy family."
HIS DICK HAS TAKEN OVER YOUR MIND, the planchette spells out.
I sigh sadly. I consider it for a moment. Is possessing a body like inheriting someone's titan?
"That's where you are wrong, Kat, because I was an unrelenting pursuer of women even when I had a woman's body. You should have seen me back in the day."
I WOULD HAVE FLED, the board replies.
"You'd need to be fast then, because no woman could ever resist my advances, straight or otherwise. I was like a barbarian conqueror of pussy."
WHAT ABOUT GHOST WHORES IN THE AFTERLIFE, the planchette spells out.
"They don't have genitals anymore, just a cold, sad echo of physical contact when you dare touch them, and it feels so wrong that ghosts don't go around fondling other ghosts. And as you know, I couldn't even fuck myself. I wanted to be a beautiful, powerful and sensual woman who could have any girl she wanted. I needed to possess them all. But everything turned grey and tasteless until this stupid Asier veered into my lane."
DISGUSTING CHEATER, the board answers.
"He was stupid, as I said. He squandered his life with short-term pleasures and long-term misery."
SO DID YOU.
I lower my head, then swallow my suddenly foul-tasting saliva.
"I never cheated, though. Serial monogamist. Not that I officially dated that much." I point at the ouija board. "You know what I did? I saved the damn world from a bunch of demons that wanted to enslave it."
YOU DID NOT.
"... Yeah, I didn't. I didn't do anything good for anybody else. But this case is different, you know? With Alazne, I mean. My pursuit of all those nameless girls in the past was pure horniness, but now there is extreme horniness added to the purest love imaginable. That's what I have in store for my woman. I will date the hell out of my Alazne, and one day I will marry her and put some babies in her. We'll become a happy family until we die. I will never stray."
I HOPE SO.
"It's inevitable that we will love each other for the rest of our lives. We're going to be together until one of us physically cannot be anymore. I just know it."

My pleasant chat with Kateryna served to take my mind off the fact that I feel like a teenager in love. I wander around the house, and even venture out beyond the gate of our little community to relax by gazing at the countryside, as I keep replaying in my mind every moment of my first date with Alazne. I try to rescue the feeling of how warm and delicate she felt in my manly arms, the texture of her light brown hair when I ran my fingers through it, the taste of her saliva, the slow and loving touch of her tongue as it caressed mine. But the minutes keep passing, the sky is getting cloudier and darker, the breeze is picking up, and my anxiety turns my thoughts into wondering why I haven't received any text from Alazne today. Because she's likely still unconscious from yesterday's exhaustion, and may only wake up in the afternoon. No, I reply to myself. Truly, why hasn't Alazne messaged me?
I feel so bad that I start writing a message. It takes me a while to put together the text Hey darling. How are you doing?. My hand trembles as I steel myself to send it, but I end up groaning and deleting it.
When I close my eyes I can see Alazne sitting next to me during that precarious boat ride, when I realized that my beloved was losing tears like a broken dam would lose water. And I caused those tears, didn't I? If only, because I dragged her out to an exhausting date. How horrible of a person am I to make the love of my life lose most of her body's water content through her eye holes? And she later mentioned that I wasn't right for her, didn't she? Alazne's other half must be waiting for her somewhere in this wide, stupid world, but I'm now preventing her from searching for him. Because it's a him, I know it, while I only wear a man's body, and my real self doesn't have male genitals.
These thoughts are too much for me, and I can't bear staying in Asier's house a second longer. I head out the door and walk towards the center of the city, hoping that buying a bunch of stuff I don't need will distract me. It takes me around twelve minutes to finally reach Donostia street, which isn't located in Donostia but in this city, which is Hondarribia. From there I can descend some stairs into the older area of the city, that contains most of the opportunities to spend money. I have to admit, though, that the view of all those quaint houses, oddly distributed because plenty of those streets popped up back when people didn't care about anything, that view as I was saying, does make me feel better, because it's not an extension of my concerns, but just a city with houses and all that stuff. And beyond the houses await the waters of the Txingudi bay, where the Bidasoa river disembogues the piss and shit of everyone in the surrounding cities, apart from water from up in the mountains, I suppose. Rivers have to come from somewhere.
I walk aimlessly while looking at the shops of both sides of the narrow streets. I browse absentmindedly the women's clothing displayed outside of a store in San Pedro street. My head hurts.
"Are you looking for something in particular?" asks me a woman in her forties, I guess an employee of the store instead of some random person.
I stare at her for a moment, then I realize that I was trying to find clothes that would fit me.
"Shit, I forgot I'm not a woman anymore," I say.
The woman raises an eyebrow, then looks at me sideways.
"Ah, I see. It's a shame that you'd make a very pretty girl, but for your age..."
Now she's calling me old?
"You are likely far older," I tell her.
She gives me a nasty look.
"Come on, let's go. Go spend your money somewhere else."
"Yeah, well," I choose as a retort while I'm already walking away.
"Psycho!"
She's right, though. I'm a complete psycho.
I make my way through nearby streets, now wandering towards the port. I don't know what is it about Hondarribia, but it awakens a strange nostalgia in me even though I never visited it before I settled in this area as a ghost. It has a peculiar charm, and it often smells like fish. I suppose that in the past they also hauled to this town the whales they hunted in the wide open sea. It's a bad idea to hunt whales, though, probably because there are few of them. However, I have never seen ghost whales, so when they die they likely move on to the beyond immediately. That means that whales do not hold regrets. Maybe I should resent those thick bastards, then. I can't connect with anyone who does anything else than just breathe in this world and doesn't start piling up regrets immediately.
Shit, I can't deal with this constant rumination. How is Alazne going to feel about our relationship when she wakes up? I get the feeling that she'll be distraught because she allowed someone to disturb her peace and isolation. Maybe she will feel unworthy of being looked at as warmly as I do. Maybe she believes she won't be able to gather the strength to face me again, and that she will end up fucking up this relationship anyway, so it would be better to give up and never contact me again. That would kill me inside. I decide that if I don't hear from Alazne in forty eight hours, I'll head up to the rooftop of the highest building around and take a swan dive. My girlfriend loves that song, so when she ends up finding out, at least she'll get the reference.
I give up on walking around and figuring out how to waste my money, so I enter a restaurant next to the port promenade and order some seafood. Around twelve and a half, my phone vibrates while playing the notification sound of a message. I almost drop the device on my hot plate of spicy mussels.
The message says I had the best time yesterday. Thank you. She also sends me an animation of two full lips kissing.
I feel like I'm going to have a heart attack and die. After repeatedly rereading the message and observing the cartoon lips, I drink more grape juice and think about what I'm going to reply. I can tell that Alazne just woke up. Hell, it's around the time she used to wake up back when I lived with her as a ghost and she wasn't forced to drag herself out of bed to go to work. During those periods, though, she either had been fired or quit, so she had become increasingly depressed.
I wish I had the guts to tell her that I'm a ghost. I wish I had the guts to jump off a building right now to put an end to this. No, I don't really believe that. I'm just afraid of being rejected.
It was my pleasure, I send back. I hope you're feeling well today.
I'm feeling wonderful now that you're in my life, she replies.
I can barely pass air through my distended nostrils, and my forehead is sweating. I shouldn't have ordered the spicy mussels.
I love you, I write, and I accidentally press send. A moment later I see the red dot that indicates that Alazne has written a message but hasn't sent it. Aw, shit.
I love you too.
I want to cry.
I can barely keep my eyes open, Alazne sends. I woke up because I needed to pee, but I think I'm going back to bed after I eat some cereal.
Rest all you need, I reply. I'm eating some seafood next to the port in Hondarribia. We can see each other as soon as you want.
I wait a few minutes, but I guess that was her goodbye. Ah, she always looked so cute while she slept. How can someone be so perfect? She's the only person who has made me feel alive, saving me from the usual maelstrom of confusion, anger and despair. In any case, I'm not worried anymore. I will stick around, walk along the Butrón promenade while inhaling all those crab-like smells, and in general rejoice because I am alive and because the woman of my life wants me too.

Around three and a half in the afternoon, the temperature took a nose dive. That cold front that I had seen coming from the restaurant of the Monte Igueldo amusement park has covered the entire sky in grey blue clouds that look eager to discharge their fluids onto the helpless world below. I could smell the water in the air, so I bought an umbrella, which was a pleasant moment because it reminded me that I can buy anything without looking at the price tag. I headed home. I felt a primal need to enclose myself within walls and a roof.
I'm walking through the quiet, residential neighborhoods towards my gated community adjoined to a graveyard. The rain is cold, which makes me narrow my shoulders although most of the drops bounce on the umbrella or slide off its fabric. The rain has that clean, earthy smell that reminds me that nature is still present and powerful. I come across few people on foot, and they are hiding their faces under their own umbrellas.
At four fifteen in the afternoon I was following the upward slope of the narrow Gabriel Aresti street, passing in front of small yards hidden behind hedges, when my phone vibrates in my pocket. I stop and hold my umbrella awkwardly under my arm so I can read Alazne's message as soon as humanly possible.
I've been lazing around for an hour, as awake as I'm going to be today, the message says.
While I'm picturing her either lying on her bed or lounging in front of her computer, as I used to watch her do, Alazne sends me other messages.
I haven't showered nor done any of the things I'm supposed to do today. But I'm missing something.
The next thing that I receive is a photo. In it, Alazne has pulled up the shirt of her pyjamas to show her bare, milk-white midriff from slightly under her breasts down to a couple of millimeters of her pink cotton panties. With her left hand, which I can't see, she must be hugging against her chest the stuffed seal that she won at the shooting gallery, because the photo features the seal's dark tail, spotted with grey circles. Alazne's right hand is arched close to her panty line, and her fingers are touching the light hair, thin like a spider's thread, on her lower abdomen. Her index and middle fingers are wet.
She adds a message: I need my real seal in my bed.
A warm shiver runs through me, and I almost drop my umbrella. The rain falls on my hair and flows down the back of my neck. When I pull the umbrella back towards me, its shaft hits me in the head. My mouth is salivating. I breathe deeper as I zoom into Alazne's oval bellybutton, which I want to explore with my tongue. I also focus on how her skin delineates her lower ribs, and on the slight, narrowing slope from her abdomen towards her light brown pubes, which the photo unfortunately doesn't show.
Although my mind is devolving into that of a feral animal, I wonder how I should feel about being compared to a seal. No, I don't have to wonder how that feels, because my hard dick is bending painfully against my tight underwear and jeans, tenting the fabrics to their limits. My heart is beating in my neck. The scent of Alazne's love must be dripping from her fingers, and I feel I should be able to smell it through my phone. I need to suck those fingers that have caressed her holy button.
I change the phone to my left hand as I hold the umbrella awkwardly under my armpit, and with my right hand I fondle the length of my erection though my pants. My chest is tight and my heartbeat feels heavy.
Back when I lived in Alazne's place as a ghost, I witnessed many instances in which Alazne lay on her back on her unmade bed, took off her pants and panties and rubbed her delicious-looking pussy while playing in her mind some erotic fantasy. For minutes she rolled slowly as she caressed her clit rhythmically. She panted, her eyes rolled back, drool trickled from her mouth. To be honest, although I adored those displays, I preferred the times that she masturbated to videos, because I could then learn what excited her. But now Alazne must have been touching herself while thinking about us, held in each other's arms, silently reading everything the other needed to tell through the bumps on our tongues. Why am I a city away?
"So that's how it is, huh, Alazne?" I whisper to myself, almost breathless. "Oh, you've done it now. You have no clue what kind of natural disaster you've just unleashed."
I'm about to slip my hand down my underwear when a man's voice shouts at my back.
"Hey! What the fuck are you doing, you damned pervert?"
I turn around so fast that I almost slip on the wet pavement. I find myself staring at a brick red Toyota 4Runner 4x4 car, that must have been driving up this one-way road only to stop when the driver noticed me fondling myself. And the man has gone as far as lowering the passenger side window and sitting closer to it. He has light blonde hair, as well as a two weeks old beard, and pale blue eyes that look incongruous with the disdain evident in his glare. His general facial features and his accent, that of someone who has lived in the area for maybe a decade, suggest that he's Eastern European. He is also well-built, and he wears a faded old shirt with some paint stains. He may do construction work. I suppose that he could be considered handsome, if you are into shady thugs. Many women are in that market, for sure. Not me, because I want pussy.
"I asked you a question, motherfucker!" he says in a tone that implies he is used to having people obeying him immediately.
The guy keeps staring in my direction. I look behind me to see who he's addressing, but there's only a hedge. Being a ghost is a constant game of 'are you talking to me?', one that rarely ends with a shootout at a whorehouse. And most of the time I got the impression that breathing people were addressing me even though I knew they didn't know I existed. I guess that everyone's consciousness relies on the belief that other beings around you acknowledge your existence, and if that can't be the case, the delusion that they do is good enough. Still, talking through people is rude, whether you can see them or not. Wait a moment, I haven't been a ghost for some time now.
"What the hell, man?" I say nervously. "You can see and hear me?"
"Of course I fucking can!" he says, emphasizing his words with head movements. "Have you lost your fucking mind?"
"There's no need to include 'fucking' in every sentence. I can tell you are angry. Still, what's your problem? Don't you have a dick that often demands to be touched?"
"I don't give a shit about your dick! Now answer my question: why are you still around here? You have some fucking nerve to be walking around like nothing!"
"I'm still around because… Well, I got things to do, you know?"
The guy looks as if he would love to jump out of his passenger-side window and pummel me against the pavement.
"You got 'things to do'?" he asks shrilly, with a heavily accented bitterness. "You are spitting in our faces, you fucking clown. You know you are fucking doing it."
"I have no clue why you care that I'm still lingering on this plane. We need to get rid of our reasons for holding on to our past, but sometimes those reasons aren't clear enough to anybody, and in the worst case they aren't solvable. In my case I doubt I will be able to move on to the beyond." I remind myself that I'm possessing a dead man's corpse. "Not that it matters at the moment, with the whole being alive thing."
The man grimaces. His right eye is twitching.
"What are you talking about?" he almost roars.
I take a deep breath and raise my hands to pacify him.
"Listen, I'm sorry you had to witness me touching myself. I often forget that others can see me, and I didn't even care much about that back when I breathed through my original body. If I offended you, I apologize."
A woman holding a child's hand, both people covered by the woman's umbrella, hurry to pass by this mess on the other side of the street. The Eastern European man gets worried, or embarrassed, because he follows them discreetly with his gaze before glaring at me again.
"Get in my car," he orders me icily. "We need to talk about this."
I take a couple of steps back, and the pointy surface of the hedge ends up poking the back of my head. This is escalating weirdly and quickly.
"Getting into a random Eastern European thug's car?!" I yell anxiously. "Are you trying to rape me or something?!"
The man lets out a confused noise, then shakes his head and scoots over to the passenger side of his car. He opens the door.
"I can't keep blocking the road. Someone is going to drive this way eventually. Just get in, we'll talk about the matter, figure things out."
"Fuck no, I ain't getting anywhere nor going nowhere with a shady guy like you. I don't know who you are, I don't care who you are, and I can touch myself in public if I want!"
The man snaps his head back. He stammers for a moment as if buffering. Then he only gets angrier.
"You think you can just pretend you don't know me?!" he shouts as his face turns red.
I stare with a blank expression at the man. This is making less and less sense. Suddenly my phone vibrates in my hand, playing the sound that I have received a message. I quickly open it with my thumb. Alazne has sent me, Was the photo too much? Please tell me something.
I almost vomit, then my hands tremble with fury. This motherfucking thug has made my Alazne get worried because I didn't get to send my praises for her holy photo.
I start punching in a reply, but the Eastern European man tries to interrupt me. I haven't registered what he yelled at me. I lift an index finger ordering him to wait, and I send the message. I wrote to Alazne, A random guy just stopped me in the street, I'll reply to your holy offering in a minute. Then I grit my teeth and turn towards the Eastern European construction person.
"Shut the fuck up, asshole. Look at your car. It's fucking dirty as hell."
"What's it to you, you fucking..."
"It's nothing to me. But you need to learn some manners. You can't go around yelling at random people, whether or not they are touching themselves."
The guy slaps the passenger door of his car. Although the anger in his face suggests he'll shout even louder, he takes a deep breath and narrows his eyes.
"You are looking at me as if you seriously don't recognize me. Is there something wrong with you, or are you such scum that you would move on that easily, forgetting everything?"
I take a good look at him while I try to seem indifferent rather than confused. I squint, but of course I don't remember shit. This guy is likely someone that Asier dealt with. Don't tell me that Asier was knee-deep in crap with the Russian mafia.
"Sorry, I don't know you. But if you tell me your name I might be able to..."
"Oleksiy, damn it. You should know what you know me from."
"Ah... You were one of Asier's... business partners, maybe? Something drug-related? It's just that you look so different with that beard and those clothes... And by Asier, I mean me, of course. I'm Asier."
The man looks to the side while frowning, then he stands up right in front of me. He's about my size, but with bigger muscles. However, he's now staring at me as if he himself isn't quite sure with whom he's dealing.
"So you are involved with nasty shit like that...?" the man says in a low voice. "I could tell from the beginning you weren't any good."
I hide half of my face with my hand for a moment. I need to think about Alazne, how I left her hanging, what she must be thinking because the last thing she knows is that a random guy was bothering me. I need to get rid of this thuggish bastard, whoever he is.
"Hey, buddy, look at this." I point at the still healing wound near my hairline. "I hit my head very hard in a car crash. It might have ended up in the news. Since then I've had serious, and I mean real serious, problems to remember anything. I truly have no clue who you are."
"You don't remember anything at all?" he mumbles as his eyes grow colder.
I shake my head. This Oleksiy guy stares at me for a moment, then makes a fist with his right hand and strikes me in the gut. I bend over and cough, nearly puking. I drop my umbrella, which rolls around on the pavement, but I manage to keep holding on to my phone. I feel the cold rain on my neck.
"What the hell are you doing?!" I shout in a raspy voice. "That was unnecessary! I'm telling the truth, my memory is fucked up!"
He grabs my shirt and lifts me up to his face. One of his front teeth is discolored, as if the dentist who fixed it did a poor job.
"Amnesia?! That crap is made up for television! No way something that convenient happened to you! And the wound doesn't look that bad!"
Amnesia may very well be made up for television, not that it would make any difference in my circumstances.
A couple of vehicles are slowing down as they realize that the Toyota 4Runner blocking the one-way road isn't going to move. The occupants of the white van that stops right behind Oleksiy' 4x4 don't look the type to wait around patiently. The driver rolls down the window and shouts a question in a language I don't understand.
"Hey, what's going on here? Are you okay?" a man walking a dog on the other side of the street asks.
It's all happening so fast… What do I do? If this guy knows Asier, then my whole plan may be ruined.
Oleksiy eyes the wound on my forehead, then his grip tightens as his face twists into an animalistic snarl.
"Whatever. You'll come with me and I will explain it to you over again, if you want to play it that way."
The rain keeps hitting my face, rolling down my skin, getting between my back and the clothes. My guts hurt, but adrenaline is rushing through my veins. Why am I tolerating being handled like this? Am I not a big man now? I put my phone in my pocket. With that hand I pry Oleksiy's fingers off my shirt, then with my other arm I push him towards his Toyota. He stumbles two steps back and almost falls onto the passenger's seat.
"Get the fuck out of here before I break your skinny ass!" I shout.
He raises himself and glances at me with a mix of anger and confusion. The even shadier driver of the white van is blowing its horn, and the guy walking his dog is sticking around, I guess because he lacks a sense of self-preservation.
I take out my phone and lift it to my ear while I glare at Oleksiy or whatever his name is.
"Hello, I'd like to report a stalker."
Oleksiy fixes his T-shirt.
"Motherfucker, I can tell you haven't dialed any number."
"What's going on?" the dog walker asks me.
I crane my neck to answer him.
"He's my ex and he won't leave me alone. My name's Julián."
Oleksiy groans loudly, looks back towards the angry driver of the white van, then gets into his own car. After he slams the passenger side's door, he scoots over to the driver's seat. He leans towards the open passenger window to yell at me.
"Alright, but now I know you still live in this city! I'm going to see you again!"
"I don't know whether to feel threatened or flattered, sweetie," I say loud enough for the witnesses.
Oleksiy grits his teeth and accelerates his Toyota. The white van and two other vehicles follow him.
I force myself to breathe steadily. I wipe the rainwater off my face, but new rain drops assault me. I'm cold, I feel like my ass is going to explode with diarrhea. When I bend over to pick up my umbrella, I realize that the dog walker, a nerdy-looking guy in his mid twenties, has crossed the road.
Without thinking, I ask, "Do you have a cigarette?"
He takes out the packet from his shirt's pocket, opens it and offers me one. As I fish through my pockets for a lighter, the dog walker looks at me worried.
"I had a feeling that guy was no good when I saw him yelling at you."
I chuckle nervously.
"I'd say that yelling at someone in the streets is a good sign of that person not being any good. What am I doing? Nevermind."
I drop the cigarette onto the wet pavement, then grind it out with my heel.
"You shouldn't smoke. It will kill you that much quicker."

My Own Desert Places, Pt. 10 (GPT-3 fueled short)

Link for this short on my personal page, where it looks better

---

We take a break to eat lunch outdoors. The sun warms our skin moderately, and the fresh breeze brings sea smells. We eat hungrily from our standard combo plates. I finish before Alazne, but to be fair I also spent many, many years lacking a body that could process food. It worries me how much I enjoy shoving crap into my mouth now. I have been keeping Asier's dumbbells and his exercise bench busy, because I don't want to deal with getting fat, not when I need to look good for my girl.
I turn on my phone, and I see that the reception is strong. That reminds me that we are much closer to civilization than what I would prefer, but I'm enjoying the view of the vast sea, which feels like coming up for air after being underwater for far too long.
As Alazne finishes eating and cleans her fingers, I get the urge to take a photo of her. It's the future: the current generation of phones capture moments at a tremendous resolution, and I intend to hoard many photos of my Alazne for those long hours or even days when we won't be able to see each other.
"I'm capturing your essence with my fancy new phone, if you don't mind," I tell her.
She's embarrassed.
"Go ahead. Take a good photo if you can."
I snap a quick photo. I navigate through the complicated menus, with buttons you need to press on the screen, to bring up my masterpiece: I have captured Alazne's angelic, pale, freckled face, her slightly furrowed brow as she worries about how she's going to look, but also a pleasant smile because she welcomes the attention. Her big, hazel eyes are narrowed like a cat's, and she has combed some locks of her light brown hair behind her ears so they wouldn't get on her food. Her eyebrows are thin and curved, her nose small and cute, with its bridge just beneath her eyes.
Proud, I turn my phone towards Alazne.
"Look! What a masterpiece of nature."
"Oh, please!" She turns redder. "I don't look good at all! Turn it off, I don't want to see!"
I smile knowingly and shake my head.
"I will cherish this photo of you for a thousand lifetimes. And when I finally manage to copy it into the computer, I'm sure it will look clear even in my brand new monitor! I still can believe the amount of pixels these things pack now."
Alazne chuckles softly.
"You are such a dad."
"A dad, huh? I guess this body is showing its age," I say as I focus on the phone to make sure I don't delete the photo by mistake.
Alazne has gone quiet. When I look up again, her smile has frozen, and she's looking down and beyond the table. Her brows twitch for a moment.
"Are you okay?" I ask.
She snaps her head towards me. She's breathing deeply.
"Yes! I'm fine. Just... Just thinking about something. I have to go to the bathroom, though."

Some minutes later we planned to go through the remainder of the attractions that aren't aimed at, and full of, screaming children, but we first stop in front of a small souvenir shop. Although I try to convince Alazne to buy lots of stuff with my money, and that I'll hold the bags, she only agrees to purchase a grey hoodie with the name of the city on it. A wasted opportunity.
We both shoot fake rifles at a colorful map of Spain. I hoped to earn a bunch of plush toys, but Alazne is the one who ends up winning a stuffed dark seal. I would have loved to have it for myself, to be honest. However, when Alazne offers it to me, I refuse.
"Nah, keep it and hug it at night wishing it were me."
"Don't worry, it is you!" she says while grinning, but then she covers her mouth with her free hand.
I would have loved to just make out with her for half an hour right at that spot, but we move on.
We discover an indoors rollercoaster with a space theme. I don't recall having seen it before, or maybe it hadn't been built yet; although my memory has grown unreliable, I think I only came to this amusement park once as a ghost, and I wasn't in the best of moods back then. The ride plunges us in darkness except for the bright images of starships and stars. The car turns a bit too sharply for two people who are digesting a meal. However, Alazne is clinging to me as if she's hoping we'll end up glued to each other, so my stomach can take on anything at the moment.
After we get out, Alazne asks to rest for a while. We find an empty bench nearby, behind some bushes that separate us from the main stream of visitors.
"That made me a bit dizzy," she says.
I don't think the ride made her feel that way, but rather the feeling of being so close to me, as if she's one more step closer to falling in love. Or maybe that's just my wishful thinking. I put my arm around her shoulders to stroke her hair. After half a minute, she looks up towards me and focuses on the still healing wound close to my hairline, obviously from back when Asier tried, and I guess succeeded, to kill himself by driving his car into the opposite lane. Alazne is studying my wound carefully, and I know that it looks significantly worse than healthy skin, so I grow uncomfortable.
"Does it still hurt?" Alazne asks in a higher-pitched voice.
"Only when I scratch it. And also randomly throughout the day."
Alazne hugs me and leans in to push her wet lips against my wound. She does it so gently and lovingly that my temperature raises. When she tries to pull away, I don't let her, and tangle her in a makeout session of a couple of minutes.
Alazne looks tired. I'm about to say something when she suggests we try to locate new rides. As we walk around, we come across a square circumscribed by a balustrade, and that offers a view so wide of the surrounding lands that it feels as if we should be able to overlook the entire province. On our left, the ocean extends to the horizon, I guess until it reaches Iceland or the North Pole or whatever the hell is in that direction. Alazne yawns noisily, her eyes brimming with tears.
"You're sleepy. Should we go home?" I ask with genuine concern. This is a woman who could barely stay awake from morning to night even if she just spent it holed up at home.
"No. I don't want to return yet."
Less than a minute later we descend some steps and we see the track, if one could call it that, of a water ride so narrow and close to sharp falls that it makes me nervous. Alazne, however, lets out a noise of delight, and points at a water wheel that keeps turning. She pulls on my arm.
"Ah, I want to get in this one."
As we get in line for our boat to come, I realize that the breeze is getting chillier. Nothing worrying yet, but the vast view from up here shows that a cloudy front is sliding towards the city from the sea. In any case, we sit in our boat, and the precarious ride begins. The track follows an artificial cliff to amaze people with the view of the city, but it only takes me about a minute to feel weird. It's not exactly vertigo: as a ghost I used to jump from rooftops, and whatever city I ended up in, I made my way up the highest skyscrapers and performed some leaps of faith, assassin style. But this feeling that threatens to overwhelm me is something different: a fear of managing to fuck up enough that I fall and die, which would mean that I would abandon Alazne, maybe destroy her utterly through my carelessness.
Alazne is holding on tight to my arm. When the track goes into a short, old tunnel with cavities mined in the left side to exhibit some counterfeit-looking Disney characters, I turn towards my girl to tell her, for no particular reason, that I'm not feeling good, but I realize that she's crying profusely. I freeze, my heart stops for a moment. Alazne must have been containing herself, because she now convulses as if hiccuping. She doesn't look in as much despair as the amount of tears suggests, but she's also keeping herself from sobbing by closing her mouth tight.
A pang of guilt pierces my heart. Have I triggered some kind of trauma? I hug her from the side as best as I can, and lean in towards her ear while I stroke her neck.
"What's wrong? You can tell me."
Alazne trembles as she shakes her head slowly. She offers me a sad smile that doesn't calm me down in the slightest, and she turns towards me to bury her face in my neck, wetting my skin.
I embrace her tight. I wish we were somewhere else instead of being carried by a boat along one of the most concerning tracks I've witnessed. Above all, I need to protect and keep warm this unique being that is huddled against me. A swell of emotion tightens my throat.
"My precious girl," I whisper against her hair.

As soon as we get out of that ride, we head to the exit of the amusement park. I must have pressed Alazne too much for a first date, or maybe for any date. She now looks depleted and clings to my arm as we take the cable car down to the city.
I'm worried. For this date I figured out online what bus stops we should walk to, which bus line we should wait for. Returning to the Amara Euskotren station will take walking for significantly longer than Alazne may tolerate in her current state.
However, after we walk downhill from the cable car station towards the park near Ondarreta beach, passing in front of fenced tennis courts, Alazne points towards the beach, and in a vulnerable voice she asks me if we can sit on the low wall that delimits it. Although she has stopped crying, she looks weary as if she needs to be alone in a darkened room.
It's already five and a half in the afternoon, and it won't take that much longer for the sun to begin a quick slide towards the horizon. After we sit aligned with the band of breaking waves about ten meters below, I cup Alazne's head to bring her closer to mine. I kiss my girl deeply. We keep caressing each other's tongue, and rubbing our backs and shoulders, for a couple of minutes or maybe more. Afterwards we merely remain in each other's arms for a while.
"I feel like a fool," she tells me.
"You're not a fool. I'd tell you all the things I believe you to be, but you'd suffer a sugar overdose."
Alazne lowers her gaze towards the beach and wipes her eyes slowly.
"I have no idea how you convinced me," she says in a low voice. "I had learned that adding people to my life would only mean buying pain that would end up echoing until I died. You can try to convince yourself that all that pain is worth it. All these people we've come across today, that myriad of strangers, seem to get by just fine. But the math never added up for me. If you allow someone to worm their way into your heart, you are just pushing a poisoned pin into it. And eventually comes all that you had chosen to sign into: the feeling that you, because you are yourself, have lost something precious you will never get back. All that guilt, all that regret. It never gets any easier. It piles up like a landfill."
I can't figure out what to say. I keep looking into her eyes, helpless.
Alazne curves the corners of her mouth upwards slightly, and then she combs a swaying lock of light brown hair back behind her ear.
"I think people like me can at the most fantasize about meeting by chance someone as broken as ourselves. It's not even about having an intimate relationship with them in a romantic or sexual sense, but just about being able to recognize in this meaningless and hopeless universe, and feel it down to our bones, that someone else understands how alone we are."
"So you're saying you'll never..." I struggle to say, but I can't continue that sentence. I don't even know where it was supposed to go.
Alazne caresses my cheek with an understanding look. A few isolated tears are jumping from the corners of her eyes.
"I'm sorry," she says. "In that sense, maybe you are too normal for me. It does worry me. You are well put together, and I'm doomed. Still, I... I think it's better for me to date you. If my other half were someone as broken as me, we'd end up dead in a month. I know it too well... What I need as a human being that is forced to continue existing in this ridiculous world is someone who can drag me out of my hole, discipline me... Break me out of my endless cycles of pondering everything over and over and rarely coming up with conclusions."
I clear my throat. Despite her last sentences, I'm terrified that some of her next words will include a decision to never see me again.
"Does it mean that you don't like me much, because you think I'm not particularly broken?" I ask in a vulnerable tone that I wouldn't have used willingly.
Alazne chuckles as if I'm being an idiot. Then she passes one of her hanging legs over the low wall to the street's side, so she can hug me fully.
"Not at all. Believe me, I have never... Truly, I have never felt this for anyone. I'm exploring new territory. I want it to stay."

It's already evening and the city is losing light quickly as we reach the Easo street on foot. A kilometer or so away we'll arrive at our train station. I can't wait, because I'm spent. I feel like a shriveled raisin. However, both Alazne and I find ourselves glancing at the proud apartment buildings to our left. They are in a different category than the working class towers of nests that I identify with most of the cities between Donostia and Irún, and in Irún itself, particularly the area where Alazne lives.
"Must be nice, huh?" she says softly, exhausted.
"Yeah. A lot of things must be nice. I'll try to find some of those. If you are referring to living in a better place than... Well, what I know of your apartment building, you don't have stay there for much longer if you don't want to. I live in Hondarribia, as I said, in a nice house inside a gated community. Nothing nearby resembling the throng of this area, nor any bastardly old men wearing tracksuits who walk their shitty dogs. Whenever you want, just come live with me."
Alazne's eyes widen, astonished. We stop, because she nearly trips.
"Are you being serious?"
"I would be far too cruel if I was joking around about this. I know it's too soon... Not the kind of thing you say to your girlfriend on your first date, but--"
"No, I know what you mean. I feel as if I have found who I was supposed to be with."
As I stand close to her and my heart beats quicker, I remember the day when I first heard Alazne play guitar. I had felt drawn to her song, and then to her presence, as if I had sensed the threads that had tethered us both to each other from some ancient beginning.
"Yeah, that's... I said something to that effect, didn't I?"
Alazne holds on to my shirt with both hands, and steps closer so the tips of our shoes touch. People keep walking by us.
"It must be a red flag, right?" she whispers. "This urge to declare what I feel towards you, when we have barely started seeing each other. But..."
"I can't say I care about any red flags. They are not relevant to people like us."
Alazne's eyes are glistening, and her expression implores me as nakedly as I've ever seen.
"Then, please, never let me go. Be with me forever."
I feel my whole body heat up, and I can't think of anything else than how our lips should meet. I guess that the people around us think that we are too old for a display like this. Sucks to be them.

Once our train leaves the Amara station, we each put on a pair of expensive earphones, and Alazne asks me to play from the beginning Laura Marling's 'Rambling Man', which we had cut short on our way here. It's dark out. Alazne is drained, close to mute, and fights to keep her eyes open. Past Oiartzun, as Waxahatchee's 'Silver' pours into our ears, Alazne's eyes finally roll back and she dozes off, about to fall forward, but she catches herself and straightens her back.
I reach with my hand to caress her opposite cheek, then I kiss her lips.
"Why are you resisting to fall asleep, sweetie?"
"B-because I'm going to lose my stop and end up in France."
"You silly girl, just lean against my head and fall asleep. I will wake you up when we arrive at your station. Then we'll walk together to your apartment. I fear that otherwise you may collapse of exhaustion along the way."
She looks at me baffled. She hadn't considered it a possibility. I guess she always thought of herself as standing in this world with only her two feet. She lowers her head, and by how her eyes get watery I fear she will start crying profusely again, but she then closes them and leans towards me. I also lean her way, so she rests against my head. I take her hand in mine and I stroke it slowly. In less than a minute, Alazne starts breathing deeper.

The woman that I walk up to her apartment building is as close to an empty husk as a human being can be. She's almost sleepwalking, but fortunately I'm holding her up by her waist. Finally under the lights of the hallway of her apartment building, Alazne embraces me tightly.
"I can't do these plans every day, I'm afraid, given that this body and this brain feel like I'm running on borrowed fumes," she says in a similarly hollow voice. "My energy never recharges enough. But I look forward to the many experiences we will have together."
"That's good, because I would hate to tire you out any more than I have."
"I'm shaking a bit..." she says. "Let's go inside. I need to sleep for a whole day..."
She opens her bag and takes out her keys, which hang from a keychain that's also 'Attack on Titan' merchandise: it features a chibi version of some character I don't recognize from here. Alazne hasn't even noticed that she invited me to sleep with her, but she has endured too much for today.
I cup her head and kiss her goodnight.
"Don't hesitate to message me or call me as soon as you want. I'll wait until you do, in fact, because otherwise I fear I'm going to wake you up."
"Hmm... Yes, I'll message you soon. Thank you for today, Asier."
As she shambles into the elevator and its door closes, I find myself standing for a while in the artificially lighted hallway. I hear a dog's echoed barking from a few streets away. "That's right," I tell myself to try to lighten the weight pulling my organs towards the ground. "I'm that guy who went around fucking up everything he touched and who then died, and I will keep showing that face to you until the end."

My Own Desert Places, Pt. 9 (GPT-3 fueled short)

Link for this short on my personal blog, where it looks better

---

I hope Alazne forgives me for causing her, a severely depressed person, to wake up at around seven in the morning so I can meet her at her apartment building's door. But it's time for our first date. The last time we spoke to each other in person I had promised that we would have a fun time together, and I fully intend to make Alazne happier than if she had remained at home to sulk alone.
I get off the bus close to Alazne's apartment in Belaskoenea, and as I approach the front door of her working-class apartment building, down the street I spot an old man I have grown to hate: the self-appointed neighborhood watchman who annoyed me for staking out the building. He's wearing the same likely foul-smelling tracksuit, and walking a tiny Maltese dog. I try to avoid even looking in the bastard's direction; I should only associate bliss with anything related to my beloved Alazne. But when I press the doorbell of Alazne's third floor apartment, the old man notices me and glares at me. Damn old turd! In this body, I'm much bigger than you. Some people have no sense of self-preservation.
I hear a metallic crinkling sound as Alazne answers the doorbell.
"Is that you, Asier?"
I'm Irene, though, and I'd much rather have my beloved calling me by my actual name, but she has no clue that I'm a woman wearing a dead man's corpse. For a second my heart sinks. I shake my head. In a minute or so I'll get to see my beloved again, which makes every lie worth it.
"That's right," I answer.
"I'll be down in a minute!"
I realize that the front door is open, and I enter the comfortably cool hallway. I'm getting nervous. I can't wait to look at Alazne's angelic face again. I begin pacing back and forth.
The elevator opens, and Alazne walks out. As soon as she sees me she offers me a shy smile that lights my heart. She's wearing a grey cardigan over a loose top that's a lighter shade of grey, and frayed jeans. No jewelry, not even earrings. A small crossbody bag hangs under her right arm.
"H-hey, you," she greets me as her cheeks blush.
I have grown so used to watching Alazne either just wearing pyjamas, or T-shirts and shorts, or any variety of 'Attack on Titan' apparel, back when I was a ghost stalking her at home, that I'm well aware that she must have agonized over which clothes to wear to our first date.
I have failed to greet her back, and Alazne catches me checking out her attire. She looks down as if to examine her choices, and grows embarrassed.
"To be honest, I haven't bought new clothes in a long time. I wasn't sure what to wear. I must look a bit shabby."
I approach her quickly, which takes her by surprise, then I cup her head and kiss her mouth. Her saliva tastes like mouthwash. As I lick her tongue, she remains still for a moment, but then she hugs my waist and licks me back as she breathes deeper through her nose.
We finally part, and I place my forehead against hers.
"I couldn't wait to see you again," I say. "You look like an angel, you know."
Alazne lowers her gaze, her cheeks tinged red.
"L-let's go," she says as she links her arm with mine.
After we exit her apartment building and we walk down the street towards the Belaskoenea train station, which is about three minutes away, I realize that the old man is standing between two houses while his little dog pees, and he's following Alazne and me with his gaze as if I couldn't just cross the street and clobber him for his insulting indiscretion. When we pass him by on the other side of the street, I flip him the bird behind Alazne's back.
We reach the train station and wait for the next ride towards Donostia. I had only told Alazne that we were heading for that city, but it was the obvious choice. I haven't seen many cities as beautiful as the capital of the province where I decided to settle. Just walking along its coast, past the La Concha beach, would have made for a lovely date.
Thankfully Alazne and I manage to sit next to each other. Having her so close, with our legs touching casually, is making me all tingly. I reveal that I have come prepared: not only I bought a MP3 player, but also a headphone splitter and two way too expensive earphones, which should deliver sublime audio quality. Money is no object. I know damn well how much Alazne cares about music, given that it was the main thing that could brighten her day to day, rescuing her for a while from her perennial depression.
When she notices that I'm going to enhance our forty minutes trip with music, she perks up, but then grows apprehensive as if she fears receiving a bad gift. Still, she combs her light brown hair behind her tender-looking ears, and shoves the earbuds into her ear canals. As I fiddle with what for me is a piece of modern technology, Alazne ventures to apologize in advance.
"Ah... I am very much into music, but I have particular tastes. I can't stand most of what plays in the radio, so..."
"So you worry that the man who insisted on dating you may be a fanatic of reggaeton?"
Alazne grimaces.
"Our relationship would for sure be doomed if that were the case."
I chuckle, then press play.
"Let's see if we'll have to cut this date very short."
Along many other fascinating discoveries, living in Alazne's apartment as a ghost had allowed me to find out which songs she loved to play over and over, and it wasn't a compromise on my part to share them with her now, because I love her music as well. We were that compatible from the beginning. I chose to introduce my beloved to my musical tastes with The Velvet Underground's "Oh! Sweet Nuthin'". It only takes a couple of seconds of those melancholic guitar notes and the slow drum beats for Alazne to look up towards my eyes and for her mouth to curl in a rare smile.
"This... This is my jam," she says in a thin voice, and reaches to turn the volume up on the player.
Less than a minute later, Alazne relaxes and leans into my shoulder. I entwine my fingers with hers on her lap. I keep staring at the passing waves of green beyond the window, cropped against the Jaizkibel mountain. For our first date we have been given a blue sky with only a few shreds of cloud. I close my eyes to feel the warmth of Alazne's hand better as the song launches into its solo. I couldn't get into heaven as a ghost, but I am there now.
"One of the most beautiful songs I have ever heard," Alazne says close to my ear. "I have loved it for many years. But this time it sounded better."
Alazne wasn't ready for the onslaught of satisfying surprises with which I kept clobbering her, one song after another. I even managed to surprise her with a few of my personal picks. For example, one of my favorites: The Unicorns' 'Tuff Ghost'. Not only it's idiosyncratic and weird and has a punching solo, but it includes the word 'ghost' in the title, and it's about a ghost. I also enjoy their song 'Sea Ghost' for some of those reasons. I first heard that album, and then over and over, back in 2007 when I lived for a while with a doomed, breathing person in Switzerland, who spent most of his days either listening to The Unicorns' 'Who Will Cut Our Hair When We're Gone?', or crying along to Joanna Newsom's 'Ys'.
By the way, the following is the full list of songs with which I wanted to dazzle my Alazne:

'What It Is' - Angel Olsen
'The Bells' - Anna St. Louis
'Neighborhood #1 (Tunnels)' - Arcade Fire
'Neighborhood #2 (Laika)' - Arcade Fire
'Silver Soul' - Beach House
'Every Time I Hear That Song' - Brandi Carlile
'Broken Chairs' - Built to Spill
'Else' - Built to Spill
'Broken Record' - The Cairo Gang
'3 Legged Animals' - Califone
'Let the Cool Goddess Rust Away' - Clap Your Hands Say Yeah
'K' - The Clientele
'Since K Got Over Me' - The Clientele
'Before The War' - Colours Run
'Colours Run' - Colours Run
'Papercord' - Colours Run
'Snookered' - Dan Deacon
'Periphery' - Fiona Apple
'Regret' - Fiona Apple
‘Bōkyō’ - Hako Yamasaki
‘Help Me’ - Hako Yamasaki
‘Tobimasu’ - Hako Yamasaki
'Passing Afternoon' - Iron & Wine
'Marlene' - Jackson C. Frank
'White Rabbit' - Jefferson Airplane
'Cut Connection' - Jesca Hoop
'Baby Birch' - Joanna Newsom
'Cosmia' - Joanna Newsom
'Does Not Suffice' - Joanna Newsom
'Kingfisher' - Joanna Newsom
'Monkey & Bear' - Joanna Newsom
'On a Good Day' - Joanna Newsom
'Only Skin' - Joanna Newsom
'Something On Your Mind' - Karen Dalton
'Always This Way' - Laura Marling
'I Speak Because I Can' - Laura Marling
'Nothing, Not Nearly' - Laura Marling
'Pray For Me' - Laura Marling
'Rambling Man' - Laura Marling
'The Valley' - Laura Marling
'All I Want' - LCD Soundsystem
'10 Años Después' - Los Rodríguez
'La Puerta De Al Lado' - Los Rodríguez
'Night Shift' - Lucy Dacus
'Tuesday's Gone' - Lynyrd Skynyrd
'Free Bird' - Lynyrd Skynyrd
'Fireworks' - Mitski
'3rd Planet' - Modest Mouse
'Custom Concern' - Modest Mouse
'Edit the Sad Parts' - Modest Mouse
'Talking Shit About A Pretty Sunset' - Modest Mouse
'Abel' - The National
'Apartment Story' - The National
'Slow Show' - The National
'In The Aeroplane Over The Sea' - Neutral Milk Hotel
'Holland, 1945' - Neutral Milk Hotel
'King Of Carrot Flowers, Pt. 1' - Neutral Milk Hotel
'Two-Headed Boy, Pt. 1' - Neutral Milk Hotel
'Two-Headed Boy, Pt. 2' - Neutral Milk Hotel
'The Bleeding Heart Show' - The New Pornographers
''Cello Song' - Nick Drake
'Mr. Self Destruct' - Nine Inch Nails
'The Past Is A Grotesque Animal' - Of Montreal
'The Last Living Rose' - PJ Harvey
'Kids' - PUP
'See You At Your Funeral' - PUP
'Airbag' - Radiohead
'Daydreaming' - Radiohead
'Let Down' - Radiohead
'No Surprises' - Radiohead
'Planet Telex' - Radiohead
'The Same Old Rock' - Roy Harper
'I Am The Resurrection' - The Stone Roses
'Sea Ghost' - The Unicorns
'Tuff Ghost' - The Unicorns
'Don't Lie' - Vampire Weekend
'I Found a Reason' - The Velvet Underground
"Oh! Sweet Nuthin'" - The Velvet Underground
'Who Loves the Sun' - The Velvet Underground
'I Lost You' - The Walkmen
'Seven Years Of Holidays (For Stretch)' - The Walkmen
'Silver' - Waxahatchee
'Swan Dive' - Waxahatchee
'Across The Sea' - Weezer
'Only in Dreams' - Weezer
'Undone (The Sweater Song)' - Weezer
'Baba O' Riley' - The Who
'Dear Songs And Daughters of Hungry Ghosts' - Wolf Parade
'I'll Believe In Anything' - Wolf Parade
'Happy' - The Wrens
'She Sends Kisses' - The Wrens

The train reaches Donostia's Amara station while we were listening to Laura Marling's 'Rambling Man'. Having to cut that one short feels like a sacrilege, and I can tell by Alazne's expression that she doesn't like it either, but when we step onto the station, Alazne holds on to my right arm as if she wants to keep touching me for the entire date. After we walk through the main building of the station and exit in front of the Easo square, she nudges me for us to cut through it despite the homeless-looking people that often tend to occupy those benches. As we approach the gazebo, Alazne looks up towards me with a shy smile.
"I'm very easy to please, I think, and you have already given me the most satisfying forty minutes in a long time."
Wait until I give you the five minutes of satisfaction I've been daydreaming about.
"I'm glad to hear you're easy to please. Takes a load off my shoulders. So you appreciate my music taste?"
"For the most part, it was mine."
She's right about that.
"I guess that some of those songs you heard for the first time," I say. "Did they fit your particular tastes as well?"
She nods, and touches my shoulder with the side of her head.
"I liked them."
I would have preferred more elaborate praise, but I won't complain.
"I'm not surprised that our tastes match to that degree. Like I told you, the first time I looked at you it felt like we were meant to be."
Her shoulders rise and fall as she takes a deep breath, but her smile remains there when she looks at me again.
We stand next to a construction fence and a group of tourists with backpacks as we wait for the traffic light to turn green.
"I get the feeling that music is very important to you," I say.
"It's one of the few things I can look forward to." She's only holding my hand now, and she squeezes it warmly. "Thank you for indulging me."
"I plan to indulge you in many things. Maybe too many from your perspective, but we'll figure out the balance on that."
My words make her laugh softly, and she stares into my eyes when the light turns green.
"Only if you won't have a problem with me liking you too much."
"I've had worse problems. I'm not the kind of guy who only wants the woman of his dreams for a rainy day."
"Well, that's good then."
Few pass through this area of the city without veering towards the large square that contains the Buen Pastor cathedral. A lovely mix of gothic, baroque and modern architecture. I suppose, I'm not a buildingsmith. I've never been inside the cathedral; I never cared that much even as a ghost. Still, I'm sure it has a real good churchy vibe.
Alazne focuses on a cathedral closest to her interests: that of a music store that shows off expensive Gibson electric guitars. I would never pay that much for an instrument, and I'm rich.
Alazne's expression, as much as I can tell from her profile, suggests that of a shivering orphan looking into a rich person's living room that's kept warm with a fireplace.
"This... This looks really cool," she says, staring at the display.
To my surprise, she sounds like she's never been here.
"Are you thinking of learning how to play an instrument?"
"I-I've always wanted to play the guitar."
"Wanted to? You don't know how to play it?"
"I... can't justify taking classes."
I'm not sure why she's pretending she doesn't know how to play the guitar.
"Do you want me to buy you a guitar at least? You can begin to figure out how to play it through YouTube videos, I'm sure."
She gets surprised, then shakes her head and tugs on my arm for us to keep walking.
"I can't accept that. It's not right, you are being far too generous. W-we have only seen each other in person for two days."
It's surprisingly easy to be generous with a dead person's money.
"So? I would also get you a keyboard, as well as some drums and amplifiers. Your neighbors would love it."
Alazne lowers her head.
"I already avoid looking at my neighbors in the face. They may join forces to evict me in that case."

A few minutes later we reach my intended bus stop, in a street lined with palm trees. The row of buildings in front of us hides the view of the beach. When I make a point of stopping to wait for the bus, Alazne is confused.
"You planned for us to go somewhere in particular? I thought we were just walking around the city."
For someone as reclusive as Alazne, I'm sure walking aimlessly through Donostia and getting to gaze at the bay would have been enough.
"One of the advantages of being a couple is that you can share experiences that otherwise might not seem worth the effort." When I stop to think about my words, they sound wrong. "I mean that visiting some places feels better when you are accompanied by someone with whom you want to spend time."
"I get what you mean. Sorry if I'm being a downer, I'm just not used to this."
I put my arm around her shoulders and kiss her head.
"Don't worry about anything. I want to show you a good time, or at the very least make your day better than it would have been otherwise."
She tightens her lips and turns her head away from me slightly.
"You are too kind. Too good for me."
"If you saw yourself through my eyes, you would know how silly you are being."
Alazne blushes. A middle-aged couple notices and they smile kindly towards her, which makes Alazne turn her head towards me in embarrassment.
"I would have spent my whole day at home, and the most I would have to look forward to would have been rewatching last week's episode."
"Well then, it's a good thing I came along when I did."
"My point is that I can't figure out how to do anything by myself," she says, but her eyes dart around as if she's uncomfortable with her own words. "I'm just boring, I mean."
"I don't care about how boring you might be as long as I can look at your pretty, freckled face."
Alazne's eyes widen and her cheeks grow a deeper shade of red.
"I'm not pretty enough for you," she says almost in a whisper.
"You keep being silly. What episode was last week's, anyway? The eighth?"
"Y-you are following it as well, huh?"
"Of course. I can't get enough of titans, even if there aren't many around any longer. Of the animal-minded ones, at least."
Alazne turns her whole body towards me as I'm resting my arm on her shoulders, then she rests her head on my chest.
"You don't have to be into everything I am, you know," she says seriously, but with gratitude. "It's not good if you are unauthentic."
"Hey, I did recognize that logo on your hoodie from the beginning, didn't I?"
"I just get obsessed about stuff like that because I lack a life of my own. I have to get my share of excitement from somewhere, I suppose."
"Well, I hope that as our life gets more interesting, you won't stop watching your shows nor reading your manga. That would get boring. I don't want to become one of those couples that only talk about whatever they say on the state-sponsored news."
She glances at me with a smile. She looks much healthier than that time I witnessed her testing how to strangle herself with a sheet.
"Yes, I'll keep obsessing over Japanese stuff. I couldn't care less about the news."
Our bus arrives, and it takes us on a scenic route along the La Concha beach. I never got tired of this view, so I wait in silence until the bus leaves behind the fancy, likely expensive as hell, beachside restaurant La Perla, and then the full view of the bay opens up. Beyond the dozens who are enjoying the water on this mostly sunny day, on the right side of the panorama, a green, foresty mound blocks the horizon. The base of the mound is encircled by a small town, and the nearby waters are scattered with shiny leisure boats. In the middle of the bay there's another green mound that from some angles looks like a cetacean, but from here it looks like a flattened breast with some serious skin infection. And on the left side of the panorama, the villas of the much richer than me have grown uphill on a large cape topped with our destination. I make a mental note to downplay my riches if Alazne brings them up, because I'm not villa-on-a-hill rich.
Alazne stares placidly at the view as she squints against the sun.
"This is one of those things they say..." she begins in a low, shy voice.
"What do you mean?"
"That the view looks better when you share it with someone."
I smile. I don't react, afraid to break the spell. We don't speak for as long as the bus ride keeps following the beachfront, but eventually it distances itself from the coast to climb the road that surrounds the fenced Miramar palace grounds. The ride takes us on a long detour that returns to the beachfront at the beginning of Ondarreta beach, similarly crowded on this nice day.
Alazne keeps checking out the sumptuous houses of this area, an area known to regular people because of the fancy options for night leisure. My woman then cranes her pretty neck on the direction of the Peine del Viento, even though you can't see it from here due to the heavy vegetation.
"Ah, we are going to the Peine," she says. "I haven't been there in so long."
"Not today, but I'm for sure going to bring you there some night for purely romantic reasons."
She blushes and averts her gaze. She looks cuter the more shy and embarrassed, so I'm surely going to create regular trouble for her.
The bus finally leaves us at our destination, close to the old cable car station. As Alazne and I head towards it, she wonders out loud what this place is, until she reads 'FUNICULAR MONTE IGUELDO' over the front doors.
Shortly after we enter the old-fashioned station we locate the cable car itself, which is painted red, is prominently sponsored by Coca-Cola, and has been built awkwardly angled to follow the upward slope of the tracks.
"This thing looks pretty cool by itself, huh?" I say to Alazne. "Reminds me of those scenes in which the main couple would get in a ferris wheel to sit shoulder to shoulder, then make out on the top."
"Not the most original of scenes, but I guess it doesn't need to be."
We get into one of the cabins as a group of teenagers exits it. When I sit next to Alazne, I'm a bit concerned with how uneasy she seems. Does she suffer from vertigo, or gets dizzy on these kinds of rides? As the cable car operator closes the doors and then the vehicle begins its climb, I scour my memory for any instance during the time I knew my beloved as a ghost that could give me a clue for what she might be thinking, but it's hard to extrapolate when most of what she did was stay at home, watch shows, cry and masturbate.
The cable car is moving uphill slowly in between old houses and spooky-looking vegetation.
"Alazne, are you alright?" I ask her softly as I hold her closest hand.
"I'm just thinking about… things."
"Things as in…", I say, trying to sound as conciliatory as possible.
Alazne is looking out of the window as if wanting to keep her head turned away from me.
"We are going to the amusement park, right?" she asks, her voice sounding weaker than usual.
"Yes, we are. Was that a bad idea? It's a nice place to spend some hours in. People don't get to do that often. Many barely visit one of these places once every few years. I've missed being in one, and I'm sure we are going to enjoy it much more together."
"I-it's a bit... I feel threatened, althought that's not the word I'm looking for. Because it's a place where people are supposed to have fun, but I haven't been able to feel anything resembling that excitement in a long time. Not because I don't try things that should be exciting. In fact, over the years I stopped bothering because they did nothing. It's hard for me to feel anything resembling happiness or joy."
Ah, this is about her seemingly lifelong struggle with depression.
"It has been ongoing," she continues. "I felt happy during one year, but I think that was the residual effect of becoming an adult and thinking I would leave bad memories behind. A foolish thing to believe, in retrospect... Everything has felt flattened and colorless for so long, devoid of meaning."
"That's depression screwing with your brain."
"Well, sure, but that's all there is. You can only feel as much happiness as your brain allows you to feel, right?"
I'm not sure how to answer that statement as a ghost inhabiting a man's corpse. Maybe my couple of decades in the afterlife aren't that distanced from Alazne's experience with major depression, with the added disgrace in her case that she's supposed to exist in the same reality as all those other millions of people who do enjoy or at least tolerate their day to day lives. Alazne lives among them as a ghost. There were times in the afterlife in which I felt that I was wading through mud during every second, and I know that I wouldn't remain sane for long if I had been forced to endure it constantly. I don't blame the insane, ancient ghosts I came across for how they behaved.
"Yeah..." I say, unsure of how to respond. "I guess that's true."
Alazne scratches her cheek absentmindedly.
"Back when I bothered to learn more about the subject, when I thought there was a point in doing so, I'm quite sure I learned that depression physically damages your brain. After so many years, my grey matter, or at least areas of it, must be shriveled and rotting. It certainly feels that way. I have trouble remembering most moments of my life, although unfortunately it doesn't erase how they made me feel, and I also have a tremendous difficulty feeling... any good."
"That's awful. And your concern is... that you will be reminded of your inability to feel joy properly?"
She turns her head to hold my gaze, although her furrowed brow suggests she'd rather avoid this conversation entirely.
"I'm concerned that you will be disappointed."
"Disappointed?!" I shake my head, then put an arm around her shoulders and bring her closer. "I'm not expecting you to pretend, Alazne. I don't want a fake you. And if you get used to pretending, you'll grow resentful soon."
"I would...?" she asks, and looks down. "Y-yeah, I guess so."
I maneuver to kiss her lips, and let it linger for a bit.
"I know you are tired in general, and like you said, you have trouble feeling happiness. That's fine. I don't see why we can't try this out and see how it goes. All I hope is that you get to have some fun, however fun feels for you."
She nods as she tries a shy smile.
"Just being with you feels fun enough."
"It just happens that having money allows you to try experiences you wouldn't go through otherwise, and I'm sure that a variety of these will do any brain some good. If anything, they fight against the onslaught of nonsense that the day to day throws at us. And I have to spend the money I have. Which as I said, is a lot."
Once we reach the station on top of the mountain, we get out and lean on a balustrade to admire the wide view of Donostia from up high. There is a pleasant cool breeze. Even as a ghost I took solace on the views from such heights, both in this city and many others. What strikes me is not so much the beautiful white city, nor the island at the entrance of the bay, which from up here does look like a green whale, but how civilization is huddled close to the coast. The further I gaze into the land, the more deserted everything looks, and the most I can see in the distance are overlapping mounds of hills and mountains which blend increasingly with the sky the further back.
I rest my head on my palm.
"There's the rest of Spain back there. I often travelled around it. Lots of sights to see. Beautiful ones, ugly ones, scary ones."
Alazne offers me a confused smile.
"One of these days tell me about all the places you've gone to, and the experiences you've had."
I won't be able to be truthful about almost any of those trips. I'll have to somehow erase every possible suggestion that ghosts were involved. And I don't know what lies I could tell about how I entered most of those buildings, which was what allowed me to witness so much crazy shit. I feel cold all of a sudden, and like a lying sack of garbage. Which I am.
When I step away from the balustrade, I make an effort to wipe every hint of unease from my face.
"Well, let's get into some rides, shall we?"
I wrap my arm around her shoulder, and I squeeze her into me.

Once I pay for the tickets, we walk around. Some rides are built with metal and plastic, but the remaining structures are castle-like, with ivy and moss growing on the old bricks. It looks comforting, though, as if we stand above all the problems in the world.
Most of the the rides are slow and simple, so people don't have to deal with those awful, stomach-churning drops at the end. Plenty of families are walking around while they eat candy floss and drink sodas. Some children are yelling excitedly as they crash into each other in the bumper cars attraction.
"This place looks good by itself," I say.
"Yeah. It's very pretty."
Shortly after, we get into one of the simplest attractions imaginable: a tank full of opaque water on which we move around slowly on a boat. I handle the steering wheel; I know enough of Alazne to understand that she wants to be on the passenger's seat. Maneuvering around while floating on the water and feeling the breeze is pleasant enough with Alazne by my side.
Later on we walk to a higher floor. A rollercoaster car is following its track both below and then slightly above our path. The track is built on a structure of stone and old wood that doesn't inspire much confidence.
"I want to ride this," Alazne says as she stares at the rollercoaster. "We should be able to fit in the same car."
Merely the fact that she wants to do it warms my heart.
"Sure. But I wanted to ask... You have been looking around as if you didn't know where you were."
"Yeah... I feel as if I were walking in a dream, as if this whole place was being created while we move through it. Built from my subconscious. It's so strange... I don't know if maybe I came here as a child and I have lost every conscious memory of it. I almost feel as if I were hallucinating."
"That's a recurring theme with you, huh?"
"Yeah... But it also feels more real than reality tends to do. I can smell the scent of the fairground. I can hear the children's laughter."
I hug her from behind and lay my chin on her right shoulder, then check out the rollercoaster.
"It looks safe enough," I say.
"I'm not sure about that, but let's get in it anyway."
The rails make us pass through narrow, wavy slopes, darkened tunnels, and an elevated stone path with a fantastic view of the rocky, broken coastline beyond Donostia. A short ride, nothing mind-shattering, but I don't need any more when I'm already hanging out with my girl.
Once we exit the ride, Alazne smiles at me as she holds her hands in front of her waist.
"I feel like I'm in some storybook. All a mix of déjà vu and jamais vu. You are not from here, are you?"
The question startles me. Is it lying time? Where am I from, that Alazne should know?
"I didn't tell you, did I? I live in Hondarribia."
"Ah, that's nice. A beautiful city, much more than mine. But before that?"
I put my arm around her waist and offer her a hopefully warm smile, but I am trembling inside.
"I was a ghost in the afterlife. Now I have returned to life in Asier's body. I don't think I'll ever get used to being on this plane again."
Alazne chuckles. She takes a deep breath, and nods as if she understands. She looks at me with an expression that I can't decipher. She's not smiling nor frowning, but it's somewhere between the two. Her eyes ask me a million questions for which I lack any good answers.
"And before your horrible accident in one of those death machines, which place or places did you come to consider your home?"
"I... did live in Donostia for a few years. I loved it here. You won't find a better place where people can live by the sea and not be excessively affected by the weather."
Alazne appears to think about that. Shit. Why would have I moved to Hondarribia if I already lived here? She doesn't question it. We keep walking around in silence, taking the sights.
"If... If I can be honest to a fault, I don't care where I was before I met you," I say. "It only feels like home when you are with me."
She stops us, then buries her face in my neck as I rub her back. Her breath warms my skin.
"I really like you too," she says. After a silence, she adds, "I know that this is moving too fast, but I don't care."
She pulls her face away and stares at me, then kisses me on the lips.
The sounds that surround us return to my ears: the mechanical noises of the rides, the animated voices of children. The teenager siblings of a family that passes nearby look at us with embarrassed curiosity.

Shortly after, we head into the haunted house attraction. I visited many amusement parks when I was a ghost, and even lived in one for a while. Never had to pay for any attraction, but sometimes it was hard to get an empty seat. In any case, I technically also worked in a haunted house attraction for a week as an unpaid intern: there was this stoner young adult who worked as an actress and whose mind already bounced in and out of reality, so it was easy to possess her and scare the visitors. I also used that girl to learn to tolerate the full body licking sensation that came with possessing a breathing person, but I never got over it. I was mad about how ghost powers had been distributed seemingly at random; why was I only be able to possess people, when so many ghosts that I knew could record their voices fluently, or poltergeist an apartment into oblivion? But I guess I was the lucky one, wasn't I? If only I had realized that I could possess fresh corpses...
In any case, inside the haunted house we come across a T-Rex head straight out of Jurassic Park, a reaper with glowing eyes, disturbing imagery involving a decaying corpse and some animatronic rats, two dirty skeletons somehow playing chess, a random octopus... In the darkness filled with scary ambient noses, Alazne clung tighter to me, but she seemed to be enjoying it. I must have loved it too much, because when we finally reach the exit and the midday's sun makes me squint, I want to go back in. I was never what I would call happy in the afterlife, but I came to feel attached to haunted, tenebrous places.
"That was fascinating," Alazne says, pleased.
"That much, huh?"
"It's so nice that people cared to put together those horror movie scenes just to make us feel things, isn't it? And they don't even know we exist."
"I guess that feeling something is better that nothing, maybe independently of how painful it gets."
"Maybe."
Alazne lowers her gaze to the pavement, and loses the interest in her surroundings. She seems deep in thought.
"I fear I may end up pulling you towards many scary scenes," I say. "That's just what I'm naturally drawn to, I guess."
"It's fine. But it was true what you said. I found some comfort in the darkest periods of my life, because at least then I felt strong emotions instead of nothing. It's like an abusive relationship, I suppose."
I only nod. I'm not sure what to say, and I want to keep her talking anyway.
"There is a presence of sorts," she says in a thin voice. "Others have mentioned it. The darkness embodied, returning as it had promised wordlessly. You know what I mean? It becomes the only reliable presence in your life, and you can't help but care back."
"So are you..." My voice has gone dry, and I gulp to bring saliva back to my mouth. I feel cold. "Are you in a relationship with both of us now? That's some heavy competition for me."
She looks at me with her sad hazel eyes as if to reassure me.
"I'm ready to move on, I think."

My Own Desert Places, Pt. 8 (GPT-3 fueled short)

Link for this short on my personal page, where it looks better

---

Ever since I parted ways with Alazne yesterday, after I got to look into her hazel eyes and kiss her holy lips, I have been tempted to kill myself so I could sneak into Alazne's apartment as a ghost. I would then find out all the facets of her reaction to how I interrupted her sharp decline towards a lonely death.
However, shortly after I woke up this morning in Asier's house, my base of operations, an employee of the postal service shoved a letter into my mailbox. At first I thought I could let it fester there; after all, who cares about Asier's relationships from before I took over his body. But fortunately I was curious enough to find out about the sender. It was Ainhoa, this body's ex-fiancée. One of them anyway. In her letter she had written that she felt like an idiot for forgetting that I didn't know her number anymore, because I had lost my memory, and she wasn't sure whether she should go ahead and keep contacting me anyway. She wrote her phone number in the hopes that I had bought a new cellphone, because my previous one had broken in the crash.
I had indeed bought a marvellous mobile phone that could take photos with astonishing resolution, as well as browse the internet. I can even play games on it if I want. Truly a wonder of the future. I only had my beloved Alazne as a contact, as well as a few treasured messages she had sent me after she got home, but I added Ainhoa's phone number into it.
Then I figured that I should call her. Ainhoa was glad I wanted to interact with her again, and offered to drive up to my place, pick me up and go for lunch.
My doorbell rings around twelve. When I open the door, I end up holding my breath for a few seconds. Ainhoa's straight, chin-length black hair looks as healthy as that of a model, and her bangs are neatly tucked behind her ears giving the impression that not a single hair is going to slip out of its position. She's wearing a silky, azure blue blouse with its neck open to show off a glistening platinum necklace. Her pleated skirt, navy blue, brings to mind that of a school girl from a private institution. It doesn't reach her knees. Underneath she's wearing black tights that hug her shapely legs. I get a whiff of her woody perfume.
Ainhoa has dressed to kill. The hesitant, slightly defiant look in her eyes gives me the impression that she bothered to look that good to make whatever remained in me of the previous Asier realize what he had lost. And what he had lost was one well put together, sexy woman.
"Aren't you a sight for sore eyes and all that, Ainhoa," I say.
Ainhoa attempts to hide her satisfaction. She's trying to remain aloof. After she opens her mouth to speak, something behind me attracts her gaze. She cranes her neck as if she wants to make sure of something.
"Asier..." she begins in a worried tone. "You haven't cleaned the mess in your house? There are papers, books, and other stuff all over the floor."
I try to look at the poltergeist-induced mess from a normal living person's perspective. I had embraced the random objects strewn about as charming ornaments, except for the wardrobe that had tipped over in my new bedroom, because it was preventing me from lifting weights on the exercise bench. The disorder also brings me fond memories of many abandoned buildings and ghosts who loved to sling shit around. But I understand that the living are picky about entropy, because they fear someone might point at them and order them to solve the universe's inevitable decline into heat death. That's far too much responsibility.
When I turn back around, the sun's rays are giving Ainhoa's skin a glow that only makes her prettier. Her eyes are fogged with concern, and her brow is wrinkled.
"Oh, don't worry about it," I say. "It's just a few things lying around. It won't kill me."
"Asier, are you feeling okay?"
"Sure! Never felt better, actually."
Ainhoa dares to step into my house, and I move to the side. She stares at the mess as if I had presented her row after row of piss-filled bottles.
"I don't think that anyone who is truly fine would tolerate such a disorder," she says.
"Maybe it's a guy thing. Or maybe I'm so secure with my masculinity and overwhelming attractiveness that I don't care about such things anymore."
"If you say so..."
I scratch my nape, then smile.
"Also, my ribs haven't healed properly yet, so it's not a good idea for me to go around bending over to pick stuff. Some rib might snap and plunge into any of my lungs, and then how am I going to justify drowning in my own blood just because I wanted to pick up a book from the floor?"
Ainhoa's lips twitch upwards.
"God, you're something."
"I try my best. So, how have you been?"
"Oh, you know. Good days, bad days." She sighs, then leaves her purse on the foyer cabinet. "I guess we aren't eating out today."
"Hm? Oh, no way. It's no problem for me, I assure you!"
"Maybe, but it'd be rude to make you suffer this mess. You're injured."
"I'm pretty sure I'll manage. And also, I have been the worst bastard imaginable to you, a completely wonderful ex-fiancée."
Ainhoa smiles, a sad one.
"I wouldn't have thought it possible, but it truly looks to me as if the old Asier is dead and buried."
"Gone into the beyond, for sure. With his tail between his legs. A real cowardly move."
"Hm. Well deserved." Ainhoa's face darkens. "I'm so sorry, you know. I should have figured out what was going on with you sooner."
"Oh, no. It's not your fault," I say as I wave a hand. "Besides, you have your own family to worry about."
Ainhoa sighs, then runs her fingers through her hair.
"Well, we better get to it. I am already hungry, but I won't be able to keep anything in my stomach if your house remains a disaster zone."

I guess this turned into a cleaning date, as we share moving from room to room and returning random objects to their approximate places. And by date I don't mean a romantic one. I'm not pursuing a harem route: I'm team Alazne all the way. I won't risk my fairy tale future with the best woman in the world just because Ainhoa happens to be attractive and in my house.
Knowing that this stolen body of mine no longer houses the bastard that destroyed Ainhoa's ability to trust seems to have lifted a weight off her chest, because most of the time she looks relieved and hopeful. Ainhoa is a classic beauty, a proper woman that you would be proud to show off to your relatives, and who would become a patient and kind mother. Close to perfect as a wife. Asier should have thanked his lucky stars that this gal fell in love with him. However, even if Alazne was out of the picture and I still somehow remained alive, I have never been in the market for an Ainhoa type of woman. First of all, if she knew I'm a female inhabiting a man, she would vomit. It would be too weird for her, I can tell. I like my girls lost and hopelessly broken, likely because I can't properly connect with anyone lacking such desperate fire. For me, love is an exchange of broken pieces. There's no other way.
As Ainhoa was picking up Blu-Ray cases from the carpet of my bedroom, her phone plays a notification sound. She straightens up, scrolls through her phone's screen, and keys in some reply. Then she pockets it again, as if she hadn't answered likely to her husband while she stood in the bedroom of her ex with whom she clearly remains in love.
"Ainhoa..." I say carefully. "Does your husband know you are here?"
"I told him we were going out for lunch in old town."
"'We' as in you and your utter garbage person of an ex?"
Ainhoa stares at me with a restrained expression, trying to figure out my intentions.
"That version of Asier was my ex-fiancée. We were almost as serious as can be. We were in love too, once. He broke my heart, but you fixed it again."
"By not remembering my horrible crimes?"
"That too. I am in love with my husband, you know."
"But you didn't tell him you are in my bedroom, right?" I share my concern, because I fear that I will end up destroying her life merely for spending time with me. "You have a year and a half old daughter."
Ainhoa puts a hand on her waist as she raises her chin a little.
"If you were the Asier that broke me, I wouldn't be here. That would be insane. Or the problem is that you would prefer for me to leave?"
"No, I want you here. I mean... I want you to be happy."
"I am happy. Don't worry about my husband."
Ainhoa closes the space between us and hugs me around my waist. I am so surprised about the sudden contact, as well as how her perfume invades my nostrils, that I can't tell how much it takes her to step back and return to picking up the mess I didn't want to tidy up. I won't deny to myself that although she isn't my type, if Alazne hadn't blessed my existence, I would try to figure out how to make Ainhoa lose her clothes and let me kneel in front of her warm opening.
As we keep cleaning, I imagine her faceless husband. The guy must have witnessed his wife dressing up carefully to meet the ex who destroyed her. The husband watched Ainhoa close the door behind her as he held their one and a half years old daughter. I have no doubt that if Asier and Ainhoa had gotten married and had a child, she would have stayed home to take care of the kid while Asier cruised the world trying to fuck as many floozies as possible.
Ainhoa's husband must be sick with worry. How on earth can he justify to himself not telling his wife in precise terms that she should stop meeting her bastardly ex? The guy must be chastising himself for even allowing bad feelings about his wife's choices to bubble up, because otherwise he would be 'toxic' and 'controlling'. Or maybe he's one of those men who fantasize about other men ramming their wife. Plenty of those around; in these last twenty years I've ended up sometimes walking through a wall only to land into such a situation. Ainhoa's husband might be waiting patiently at home for his satisfied wife to arrive so he can clean her with his tongue.
I get the feeling that if I happened to be lying about lacking any memory of Asier's life, no matter what a hotshot of an actress I would have to be, and I pulled some moves on the elegant woman who is now bending over close to me, in a couple of minutes she would be lying on my bed with her panties around her ankles, regardless of my seductive abilities.
Ainhoa notices that I'm lost in thought, but before she questions me, I bring something very important up.
"I suspect you aren't going to like what I will tell you, but I have started dating someone. I'm no longer the cheating clown that this body used to belong to, so I will treat my woman right."
Her eyes twitch, and she can't prevent herself from tensing up.
"Are you thinking of putting a ring on her finger?" she asks in a thin voice.
"It's a bit too soon for that, but I promise you she's the one. She's just my kind of gal: gentle but passionate, reclusive, severely depressed. I'm very serious about her."
"I see. Reclusive and severely depressed, you say. Yet you don't look as if you are joking. You would have never gone for such a woman. I can't imagine many who would."
"I know. Still, we have so much in common. I think you would have liked her, if you had met her. She's not one to bother others with her problems. Or like those who go around starting fires, anyway."
"If you retained your memories, you would have been able to speak at length about that," Ainhoa says icily. "You knew everything about leaving a trail of misery in your wake."
I triggered that bitterness. Asked for it, maybe.
"I'm sorry."
Ainhoa tries a smile, then sighs.
"Let's finish cleaning the two remaining rooms. Hopefully you can't hear, but my stomach keeps growling."

We had left the living room for last. After Ainhoa puts the remaining out-of-place object, a slightly cracked vase, on the dining table, she straightens her clothes. She stands next to the ouija board and the call bell that feature prominently in this room as if I had become a member of the Victorian aristocracy.
"Asier, I can't picture the dark psychological state in which you must have been before your accident so you thrashed your place like that," Ainhoa says seriously. "But I would have never expected that you were dabbling in this... esoteric stuff."
"It wasn't me, though. The mess was poltergeist-induced."
Although I had noticed a cold spot following us both around the house, I didn't expect Kateryna to attack Ainhoa or even intercede in our conversation. Eavesdropping into strangers' conversations, strangers who can't even see you, is way too much fun. I know it well. We have been Kateryna's daily dose of reality television.
I notice a bit too late Ainhoa's unease, but when our gazes meet, she chuckles softly.
"You know, I was being serious."
"Of course. I bought the ouija board, a couple in fact, some days ago. They perform their function perfectly, but I guess you need a talented poltergeister on the other end."
Ainhoa sits down heavily on the chair in front of the ouija board, and looks down at it sideways as if a teacher had presented evidence that her son ought to be expelled.
"You had a strong enough brush with death... Still, being into ouija boards..."
I don't appreciate her disrespect towards the spirit world. After all, I retain some pride as a veteran ghost.
"I wouldn't call it 'being into them', the same way I'm not into mobile phones just because I need them to call people and receive messages. They are both means of communication."
Ainhoa chuckles.
"You do realize that by that logic, you are into necromancy."
Is this a matter of her getting offended because it contradicts her religious beliefs? I never expect anyone local to be religious these days.
"Hey, I would raise the dead if I could. It would make them so happy. But no, this board is just me opening a line of communication with my roommate."
Ainhoa closes her eyes then stands up carefully, preventing her skirt from showing me anything succulent despite her black tights.
"I'm hungry, Asier. And we can't prepare anything too complicated given how late it's gotten."
"Well, we can have frozen pizza. But I hadn't finished speaking about the subject, though. My roommate's name is Kateryna. She's a lovely gal, lots of fun, and we talk on the board every day. She's staying here for as long as she wants. I do encourage her to travel the world, but sightseeing as a ghost can get very scary, because there are some ancient, insane spirits out there. It's not like ghosts can die again, but they will terrify you out of your mind! Some end up following you around for weeks. It's a fucking mess, to be honest."
Ainhoa turns around, then she rubs her forehead slowly.
"You must not be right in the head, Asier, and I say that as concerned as I can be."
I'm getting frustrated.
"It's not as if I have first hand experience with this ghost stuff, but... I mean, as far as it involves me being a ghost. I have never been a ghost."
"You need to call a doctor."
"Pretty sure priests are the ones that deal with exorcisms. But only because they annoy the ghosts so much that they just move on somewhere else." I imagine that Kat is staring me down with her eyes narrowed, and I turn my head towards the bubble of chilly air. "Not that I would ever want to drive you away, Kat!"
"This is silly. I..." Ainhoa shakes her head. "I should go."
"Wait a second, I'm not--"
The call bell startles us both, sounding too loud. We are standing close. It's not supposed to be used to call people who are already there.
Ainhoa has gone pale, and is gawking at the call bell as if it had threatened her. She witnesses the bell ringing again.
"How is...?" Ainhoa begins, stupefied. "That doesn't look automated."
"It's not, no. You need to push it down to make it ring. A piece of cake for a poltergeist master."
As if I had asked Kat to, she rings the damn thing again. Ainhoa shakes her head and sighs, but her hands are trembling.
"There must be some logical explanation."
Some people are just cut from the same cloth, comes to my mind. I don't like thinking like that about this woman.
"You are being silly, Ainhoa. I told you, it's my roommate Kateryna. You were dissing the whole afterlife thing, so she wanted to prove you wrong. If you were a ghost you would understand. It's like having a terrible disease only for random people who don't have it to say that you are making it up. It's insulting."
Out of the corner of my eye I spot the planchette of the ouija board moving. I had already figured out that Kateryna didn't need me to hold my index fingers on the board for her to move it; she's too talented as a poltergeistmith for that. Kat enjoyed the ritual aspect of it, though. In any case, I won't leave my friend hanging when she's trying to tell me something, so I hurry to sit on the chair in front of the board.
I look over my shoulder towards Ainhoa. She has frozen with her eyes wide and unblinking, her mouth twisted in a grimace, as she stares at the planchette. She's getting paler by the second. This isn't good. She may end up breaking down into a panic attack.
"Hey, Ainhoa, don't worry," I say in a calming tone. "I told you, it's just my roommate."
Kateryna had moved the planchette around to attract our attention. Now she returns it to the center of the ouija board to begin writing her message.
I can stop myself from talking nervously as I follow the planchette’s deliberate movements.
“Yeah, she uses the board to talk. Too bad that she doesn’t have the power to project her voice into a recorder. I won’t get to hear that sexy accent… But at least buying the recorder didn’t put a dent in my finances.”
NOT JUST ROOMMATE.
I wave a hand as I chuckle.
"Of course, we are connected on a much deeper level. There's also the whole--"
I stop myself. Am I seriously going to open up to Ainhoa, who is this close to freaking out, about that the ghost in my house is another one of my possibly huge list of ex-fiancées? Doesn't that spell by itself that Asier murdered her? Knowing Kat, she may even suggest it. Ghosts care very little about consequences, because nobody can cause them physical pain.
The planchette spells out DONT GET INTO THAT.
Ainhoa is trembling from head to toe, and her eyes are filling up with tears. When she starts whimpering, I stand up and put my hands on her shoulders.
"I didn't think it would affect you this much. I guess... I am as careless as the owner of this body used to be. Not as hurtful, maybe, but I can't judge properly the effect I'm going to have on innocent people. I'm truly sorry, Ainhoa."
A chill approaches me from behind, and the hairs on my nape stand up. I help the petrified Ainhoa walk towards the hall. She's not built for my world. She likely only wanted a stable husband, a nice family, and to grow old among grandchildren, but Asier cheated her out of that. Worse, her current family might simply be a replacement.
I rub Ainhoa's graceful shoulders.
"I wanted this to be a surprise, but... I found out I have quite a bit of money in the bank. It also happens that when I was trying to piece together this guy's life through the documents I found on the drawers, I stumbled across your bank account details. I'll give you some thousands. I haven't earned this money, and I owe you for the psychological damages that this fucker caused you. Go on a trip with your family."
I open the front door and stop touching Ainhoa. She mutters something over her shoulder, then stumbles forward until she reaches her car. When she finally gets in it and turns on the engine, I almost run towards her to take the keys away from her. In that state she will end up crashing the vehicle. But Ainhoa maneuvers gracefully out of this gated community and disappear past the ivy-covered wall. Muscle memory, I guess.
The previously frozen pizza is stale, and tastes suspiciously like cardboard. I would have been ashamed of feeding it to such a lovely lady.
Shortly after, I get into my bank's website and transfer fifty thousand euros to Ainhoa's account. It does sting for a bit. Even though Asier is gone, I inherited his body, and its debts need to be paid.

My Own Desert Places, Pt. 7 (GPT-3 fueled short)

Link for this short on my personal page, where it looks better

---

I had taken the bus towards Alazne's apartment building, intending to stake out the place for another afternoon. I was distracting myself with elaborate daydreams involving me mostly naked and Alazne completely naked, but my senses, tuned to run in the background looking for any sign of my beloved in the world of the living, forced me out of my delusions. Then I spot her, my queen: she's walking along the street in front of the Bidasoa trade school, towards the center of the city. A static shot lingers in my mind of her pale, freckled features, of her sad eyes looking down at the pavement as she walks, that awkward posture that suggests that Alazne wants to deflect attention at the same time as apologize for occupying space. She's wearing a grey hoodie that features the Wings of Freedom logo from her favorite anime, and she has tied up her light brown hair in a loose ponytail that leaves two locks framing her face, more out of carelessness than as a fashion statement.
The shock paralyzes me as the bus slowly passes her in heavy traffic. Now that I'm an exile from the ghostly plane, the holy vision of my beloved affects me as if I had visited my favorite monument after only having seen it in pictures. For a moment I think my heart has stopped, and seconds later, as the bus continues to the extent that I cannot see Alazne anymore, my heart threatens to stop permanently because this may be the only time I come across my woman.
I run to the nearest closed doors of the bus and try to pry them open. It doesn't work. I try to walk through them with my ghostly powers, but the body I'm currently inhabiting gets squeezed against the solid obstacle, and now both a half of my face as well as my ribs hurt. Two passengers seated nearby stare at me with confusion and worry.
"Wait, stop this vehicle!" I shout at the driver.
"What?" he asks as he looks over his shoulder. "There's a stop just a minute away."
"This is an emergency. I will lose her, I just know it. If I wait too long, whenever I get out my beloved will have disappeared!"
The driver points ahead towards the stop in front of the La Salle school, where a bunch of students are waiting for our bus to arrive.
"It's just there. You are disturbing the passengers."
I feel that if I keep insisting, the driver will slow down just to spite me, so I bite my lower lip and keep tapping on the closed doors until the bus turns towards the stop. As soon as the doors open, I jump out and nearly crash into a fat guy who was walking too close to the road. I break into a sprint following Alazne's footsteps. My ribs hurt almost immediately, even though I'm high on painkillers as usual. I push the discomfort away and continue jogging.
I finally spot the back of her gray hoodie as well as her soft ass in jeans as she walks in front of the dingy bars of Serapio Múgica street. Alazne has gathered enough courage to leave her depressing apartment, and is allowing the unworthy sun to bathe her freckled skin. I have her so close I can almost smell her stale sweat, and the musky smell of her underwear that she might or might not have changed to venture out of her apartment.
I slow down to a fast walk and then to a normal pace, trying not to make any noise with the pair of black boots I found in Asier's house. They suit me well, giving off an air of sultry mystery. I also check my reflection in the storefronts in front of which I pass, hoping that I look like the kind of mature, confident man that Alazne would fall for. Although the combination of shirt and pants I chose for such an encounter look sophisticated and as if I have money to spare, which I do, I unfortunately notice the growing pit stains, as well as the still prominent wound on my head from Asier's suicidal driving. Even when it heals entirely it will still leave a scar.
I shouldn't have tried to obsess about it, because I can't do anything about my image at the moment. When I look up again, I can't see Alazne, but after I quicken my pace I realize that a group of retirees gathered in front of a bar were blocking my view of her.
The only plan of approach of those I have considered and that could work now is running into Alazne deliberately. She tends to follow the pavement with her gaze, which in the past has made her crash into people. In any case, I'm stalling. Running into her it is. In a couple of minutes I will finally look into my beloved's eyes as she acknowledges my existence for the first time. I may as well die right afterwards.
I retrace my steps so I can run around the apartment block to intercept Alazne. Twenty or so teenagers hanging out next to the entrance of a grocery store, right in front of the Pío Baroja high school, almost doom my approach by slowing me down, but as I finally turn the corner I realize that I'm going to make it, because Alazne has turned in my direction. She seems to be heading to the comic shop. She may have left her apartment only for that.
Stumbling deliberately into my unsuspecting Alazne now feels like a sacrilege, but it's too late to back down.
I walk towards her, and then I feel her solid body as it crashes against my manly torso. My ribs complain, but as I find myself staring down at her hazel, puppy-like eyes, a warm feeling bursts in my heart, an echo of how I felt the first time her guitar playing called out to me and I sneaked into her apartment. The memory couldn't retain the strength of the emotion now coursing through my body. I'm looking down at Alazne's pale, freckled face, and she now knows I exist.
"Ah... Excuse me," she says with her soft, shy voice. "I wasn't paying attention..."
For a moment I panic. I imagine her hurrying up to walk past me. I imagine myself asking her to please stop for a minute, and in my daydream she mutters 'no, no, no' and picks up the pace, as if offering her any degree of human interaction was on the same level as trying to burn her precious skin with a lit cigarette.
However, Alazne's mouth is slightly open as she keeps staring at me. Something in my expression seems to have stunned her. Maybe my devotion shows in my eyes, that threaten to well up.
I force myself to push my fear aside and speak.
"I'm sorry," I say in a deep voice that I didn't know I was capable of producing, until I remember that I have been a man for a while.
I want to continue speaking, but Alazne's skittish gaze jumps from my eyes to the still healing wound on my forehead, near the hairline. I see myself from her perspective. I'm some almost middle-aged man who clearly hit his head and who now caused a collision with Alazne's holy self. How could the man in the vision proceed to declare how much he yearns to know her intimately? She would believe me to be some loon with brain damage. But thankfully Alazne's gaze slides down to my strong jaw and chiseled features in the face of a man nearing forty. I have witnessed around two hundred instances of Alazne either browsing PornHub videos to find the kinds she prefers, or playing from her hard drive those she had saved to rewatch over and over. I know what she's into.
I open my mouth and I speak from the heart.
"You have an angelic face that could cure men from their darkest depressions."
Although I wish to have introduced myself with almost any other sentence, Alazne looks taken aback. She has never expected to hear someone compliment her like that, or in any way for that matter.
"Looking at you made my heart stop," I admit. "I had never felt that with anyone before."
Alazne's hands rise to her face, as if trying to hide herself from my view.
"I-I'm sorry...?" she asks sheepishly.
Although I want to put my hand on her shoulder, I don't.
"I didn't want to disturb you, but I also can't ignore what I suddenly feel for you, even though I have never met you before. What's your name?"
"A-Alazne," she answers, the tone of her voice resembling that of a kid who has just been caught stealing from a cookie jar.
I swallow a lump in my throat as she looks up at me with her big hazel eyes.
"Well, Alazne. I'm Asier. Let me invite you for a coffee. I want to know you better. Thankfully we are right next to the Pío XII square. We can sit comfortably at one of the outside tables, where we'll be able to speak at length."
Alazne gazes around her as if she were looking for an excuse to decline my invitation.
"I think you were heading to the comic shop," I say. "If you want to buy something now, I'll wait outside and then we'll go for a coffee. I'm not in a hurry."
"No, it's fine. L-let's go to the square."
Alazne starts walking towards my chosen destination. I try to contain my joy. When I adapt my pace to hers, she looks at me timidly.
"Was it that obvious that I was going to the comic shop?"
I smile.
"Nothing wrong with it. Besides, you are sporting the Wings of Freedom, so it's obvious you are a woman of culture."
She blushes, and lowers her gaze to the pavement.
"I-I prefer to think that I have refined taste. I'm surprised that... I mean, you don't look as if you would know what that represents, I wouldn't have thought."
"Hey, hey! There's a lot you don't know about me yet, although I'll happily tell you more as we go forward."
We are entering the wide square. We slow our pace at the same time. Alazne has shoved her hands into the pockets of her hoodie, and the locks of her light brown hair sway with each step. I want so bad to embrace her and kiss her all over that it's a struggle to contain myself. Alazne is here, she's truly here, and I'm alive.
There's a few people crossing the square in diagonal, but thankfully most of the outside tables of the couple of bars and coffee shops are empty.
"I'm sorry, but... have we ever met before?" Alazne asks me. "I get the feeling that we have..."
"I don't think so, but it certainly feels like we were meant to."
"I-I can't say I disagree. It feels as if..."
Even though she doesn't finish her thought, her words give me such delight that my heart wants to explode. I have to focus. I point at one of the tables under an awning, distanced from the people who are occupying a couple of these tables. I pull away a chair for Alazne, and I sit close enough that I won't have to turn my head much to hold her gaze as we speak.
The waiter comes immediately. We both order coffee with milk. When the waiter leaves, I hold on tight to Alazne's gaze.
I have to somehow let her know how rich I am, and how happy I can make her. But how? I haven't attempted to court a woman in around twenty years, and back then it wasn't so much courting as just making out and occasionally finding a way to fuck some girl who didn't want anyone else to know she was shoving her tongue into another girl's mouth, not to mention what we both were doing with the rest of our bodies.
I take the most direct approach I can think of, and tell her the truth.
"I'm very rich."
Alazne had lowered her head for a moment, and she raises it sharply.
"Huh?"
I'm an idiot, and yet it can work. Alazne needs assertive, strong men. She yearns for them, diddles herself thinking about them. I will be the man of her dreams.
"I'm rich," I repeat, lowering her expectations slightly.
"Yes...?" she says cautiously.
"I'm not some young guy that's struggling to make ends meet. I want to make that clear. Almost everyone has a process running on the back of their mind that attempts to figure out how to extract enough money from society so they can pay the bills. I don't have to worry about that."
Alazne is struggling to hold my gaze, and her eyebrows are trembling slightly.
"W-well, that's..."
"I already know I want to share experiences with you that would require certain resources. When we date, you won't ever have to think about paying for anything."
Alazne throws a hand over her mouth.
"D-dating? You are so forward... W-why would... I mean, I'm not..."
The waiter, failing to read the mood, interrupts my queen's holy words to place our orders on the table. I have to contain myself from glaring at the guy. He's just doing his job, that's probably how he justified this blasphemy. I will never forgive him, though. When he finally leaves, I calmly pour sugar on the damned coffee with milk I ordered.
"Are you dating someone?" I ask her firmly.
"No..." Alazne says, probably shocked that I would ask her such a question.
I lean forward as I look into her eyes.
"Well, you're mine now."
Her lips part slightly in surprise as her pale face turns red.
"Y-you... Y-you can't just..."
I can almost smell her panties getting damp.
"Had you given up on meeting someone? I only needed to look at you once to realize that you are real in a world lacking true individuals. If nobody else had snatched you up it's only because people are getting dumber and dumber. I'm not one to let an opportunity like this go, and I know I can make you happy."
As if wanting a break to put her thoughts in order, Alazne hurries to sweeten her coffee, and then stirs the liquid.
"I... You're very kind, but I just don't know if I can... I mean..."
I place my hand on hers. I'm sure she notices how the contact with her skin, one I have yearned for, makes me shiver.
"Go out with me."
Alazne's eyes widen and her eyebrows arch up. In an instant, the blood in her face drains, making her paler than usual.
"I will take good care of you, Alazne," I add confidently.
She casts her gaze down, and to my distress she retracts her hand, lowering it to her lap.
"You don't know anything about me," she says softly. "I won't deny that... something happened when we looked at each other for the first time, but I assure you that if you truly knew me..."
"I wouldn't want to date you?"
Alazne gulps, and something like fear runs through her facial features for a moment. She rubs her right eye, then raises her gaze towards my conspicuous wound.
"Can I ask what happened? You hit yourself, right...?"
I wonder if she's picturing me bonking my head against a wall.
"I was in a nasty car accident a couple of weeks ago," I say. "My car crashed against the highway divider, and I almost died. You could say I visited the afterlife for a bit. In any case, I spent a few days in the hospital. The experience shook me, made me reconsider everything. It was an inflection point. There was a life in this body before I crashed that car, and now another life occupies the man you are looking at."
Alazne blinks nervously as she heaves a deep and heavy sigh. She shifts her weight in her chair, and she must feel tears coming, because she stops blinking entirely.
"Ah... My parents... They were in an accident when I was a teenager. A car accident as well. They both died. Instantly, I hope. So I..."
I already knew her parents are dead, of course. I accompanied her a few times to their graves. However, I had no clue they had perished in a car accident. It may be fate.
"I'm so sorry to hear that, Alazne," I say with a distraught tone I don't need to fake. "How are you holding up?"
I shouldn't have asked that. Not to her. But I can't stop to think about every damn word coming out of my hijacked mouth.
"Well, I... Terribly, to be honest. That's part of the point I intended to make. Ah... I hate cars, that we are supposed to learn how to drive and risk our lives along with strangers that are heading to their destinations way too fast, even though they can die in less than a second if any obstacle shows up in front of them. I don't know how people stand it. They must have so much confidence in other people. I have been terrified of cars ever since..."
She fades out as she stares at me from the side. She's expecting me to jump in and complete her thoughts, offer a solution to her fear. I never got a driver's license before I killed myself those many years ago, and this new life started with my current body getting dragged out of a ruined car. I'll take the public transport.
"You are right about that. Those things are death machines."
"They are. You know what else are death machines? Microwaves, electric blankets, coffee makers... I don't use any of that stuff."
I blink for a few seconds, unsure of how to react or if I should even react at all. Alazne, making a joke?
"A Luddite, huh? Wishing to go back in time to a comfortable life behind a wall, or three, where people haven't discovered electricity yet?"
"Something like that." She shrugs. "I think we are too late to return to such times, though."
"Maybe the best things have already been invented."
Alazne drinks more coffee, then shakes her head as she licks her lips.
"You know, I even lost a job a few years back because they wanted me to drive around the province to do some tedious, meaningless work at other offices. They hired me under the condition that I would get my driver's license in a few months. I found the whole thing so ridiculous... But somehow I was surprised when they let me go."
I sigh. Let's just say, my life hadn't been sunshine and rainbows since I killed myself.
"What's truly ridiculous is waking up at six in the morning and returning home at around four or five in the afternoon because you need to spend most of your energies at an office, where you do stuff that doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things, in order to earn enough money to survive."
She nods, but then averts her gaze as if embarrassed.
"At least you have a job. I'm on unemployment benefits. And they won't last for much longer."
"Yeah?" I ask casually.
"I have never managed to land a stable job. I feel that I would need to be someone else for that to happen, have been born a different person. I've had quite a few, and they treated me like a loser. The other women pushed me away, bonded over mocking me. Nobody wanted to have me around. I always feared I would get fired at the end of the week, right as I was picking up my things to leave for the weekend." She sighs. "I just don't know what to do anymore. I feel like I would be better off dead."
It only takes a couple of seconds for her to raise her head, startled, as she realizes that she wasn't talking out loud at home. She hasn't spoken with anyone outside of an office, let alone a man, let alone a man who wants her, for a long time. Maybe ever, but I wouldn't know. She had been single the whole time after I came across her that one day, when I heard her play the guitar while I was roaming this city as a hopeless ghost.
I keep looking at Alazne calmly, and when she dares check the effect her words had on me, I share some warmth with my smile.
"I prefer you alive. The afterlife is colorless and boring. A punishment of sorts, one could say. And as I told you, you don't need to worry about money, nor about wasting your precious time working for someone else. I'll gladly keep you home, warm and safe."
I can't describe the expression that overwhelms her facial features for a moment, because I had never seen it before. But she quickly hides it behind her hands and takes a deep breath.
"Why are you doing this...?" she asks with her voice muffled. "Why would you want to be with me...?"
"Alazne..." I begin in a soothing tone. "Let's take a walk."
Once I stand up next to her, she lowers her hands, showing her face again. I grab her left hand. She flinches as if the contact had shocked her, but she doesn't make any effort to draw back her hand this time.
"Let's go," I say.
I lead her away from the square, from the couple dozens of people that either walk around or enjoy their beverages at the outside tables. So close to the center of the city, we are in a poor location to isolate ourselves, but nearby, in Aduana street, I find a narrow path that curves around a residential building on its right side. Beyond the fence to our right there are buildings related to the many railways that occupy a huge chunk of this area. As we hide ourselves from people behind the residential building, we walk a bit further. A natural wall of unkempt wilderness hides the railways. A small cat hurries to cross the path in front of us, and sneaks through a gate into a car depot.
I squeeze Alazne's warm hand.
"You were saying?" I ask.
She smiles shyly, then looks down.
"I'm a forgotten pot in the corner of a darkened room," Alazne says in a thin voice.
"We're all pots in a darkened room. The difference is that some have been carefully brought to the light, and others have been forgotten in the corner."
"Well, I have been forgotten. Back when they forced others into dragging me for social occasions, nobody ever noticed me. If some guys called out to whatever group I was in, they made a point to address the other girls and never me. But I can extend moments like those to every aspect of my existence, no matter how much I struggle. It's like my birth was a mistake, and for the rest of my life the universe has been trying to correct it."
Alazne loses a tear as she squeezes my hand back.
"I want to kill myself," she admits.
I stop and turn towards her, but she lowers her head to hide her face. I inch closer until I rest her head on my battered ribs. I dare not embrace her until she accepts me.
"Maybe you just need someone to listen to you?" I ask gently.
Alazne sniffles, then nervously rubs her eyes with one hand.
"I hide, I pretend, because otherwise I will be replaced," she mutters. "I don't want to see in other people's eyes the reflection of how much of a disgrace I am, that I'm humiliating them by bothering with me. I was never good enough. I can't be loved. It is better to disappear from everybody's gazes and thoughts. It's better to be alone than to house that pain."
"It is not."
"It is. That's why I want to kill myself. Because I have to live with myself for the rest of my life."
I don't have to think about it before I find myself hugging her. I run my fingers slowly along the back of her head. I had never felt this tenderness towards anyone. I wouldn't have thought it was possible for me.
At first she hugs me back by reflex, but when she realizes what's happening, she gets scared and pushes herself away from me. Her face is contorted with disgust and shame.
"I'm sorry," she says. "I just..."
I shut her up with my mouth. Her lips are soft. A shiver moves through her body as I press my own against hers. I feel her heartbeat quicken. Alazne doesn't resist, so I deepen the kiss. I taste the creaminess of her saliva, I feel the living muscle of her tongue as it caresses mine. I pull her tighter to me; she's the only thing in this world worth keeping. I wish I could do nothing for the rest of this stolen life than experience the warm wetness of her mouth.
I break away from our lip lock. Alazne is staring at me, her face flushed. I can't tell if it's embarrassment or arousal. I rest my forehead on hers and get to watch the freckles on the bridge of her nose from up close. I look into the hazel irises as if daring her to blink.
"Even if you can't help but hate yourself," I say, "or others can't stop themselves from disliking you, I will love you anyway."
A sob escapes her lips.
"But why...?"
"The whys don't matter remotely as much as people like to pretend."
After I move back, Alazne exhales and looks up at me through tear-filled eyes. I touch the tip of her nose with my index finger.
"I kept you from buying some stuff at the comic shop," I remind her. "Let's go. Afterwards you'll get my number and I'll get yours, and this friday I'll take you out so we can have some fun."
She nods.
"Just don't hurt me," she says.
I smile.
"Nah, I will hurt you a bit. Just the way you like it."

My Own Desert Places, Pt. 6 (GPT-3 fueled short)

Link for this short on my personal page, where it looks better

---

When I woke up from my first proper dreams in around twenty years, I felt as if I had been born again. Even ghosts should enjoy such breaks. Now I truly understand what some shadows had meant when they went on about how remaining in the grey, dreary afterlife was their punishment. As I lay on my back on the bed of a man whose body I had hijacked, and despite the pain in my injured ribs, I couldn't stop smiling. Being alive was a wonderful thing.
Even as I take a shower I voice my plans for the day, because I'm quite sure my ghost roommate must be appreciating my new body. Ghosts care that little about privacy. In any case, today I intended to walk to the library located in the city's old town, so I can use their computers to order a ouija board as well as a monitor. I also brainstorm out loud other ways I can ensure a smooth flow of communication with my exceedingly attractive new ghost friend, but I can't come up with anything new, and it's not as if the ghost is contributing. I suppose she just wants to stay in the past.
Once I leave my new base of operations, I walk along the outskirts of the city towards its center. Waves of green countryside to my right, and fancy, private housing developments with pools to my left. A bit further, happy children play in a colorful playground under the watchful eye of their relatives. By the time I pass in front of restaurants and a supermarket, both the constant discomfort in my ribcage as well as the effort I need to put into moving this body cause me anxiety. Now that I'm alive, I have to carefully manage how much time I can reliably spend outside given my energy reserves, which I will need to refill and preserve. It feels as if a clock was ticking right next to my ear. Had it been this way around twenty years ago?
I check Asier's wallet, which now belongs to me, and I realize that it still contains the prescription that the doctor gave me. At least I can look forward to being pumped full of painkillers like some video game protagonist.
Once I reach the path that passes along the half-ruined wall that encloses the city's old town, I come across more and more living people. My anxiety increases. It feels wrong that so many consciousnesses can locate me in spacetime and look at me. And this world is way overpopulated. I guess human beings endure because we can get used to any old shit. I just hope that I will learn to tolerate it as well.
As I venture through the narrow streets of the old town, I avoid a group of tourists with cameras hanging from their necks. I already know that the library is located near the church; I had visited this area a few times as a ghost to pass the time, only because I had been feeling lonely, and it soothed me to watch people pulling out their cell phones and taking selfies in front of the old buildings. You never know when the stars will align and your dead mug will show up in some random Instagram photo.
I enjoy my first time using a computer in two decades, but after I create a new Amazon account, because I don't know Asier's account nor his password, I find out to my dismay that I can't pay with Asier's credit card, because I don't know his PIN. I almost panic in public. You need money to live, and I have spent many years dead. Everyone who could remotely write me a recommendation for a job application is a ghost or moved on to the beyond.
How on earth am I going to steal this guy's money? Should I get rid of my current body and find some conveniently dying rich guy to possess, one who carries in his wallet a paper with his personal codes?
I wander around in a daze, and I eventually decide to order a coffee at an outdoor bar with a beautiful view of the nearby, sparkling Txingudi bay.
"What would you like to order, sir?" the blonde waitress asks me with a kind smile.
"Sir?!" I blurt out absentmindedly. "Ah, nevermind. Just some random coffee, please."
"Rough day?" she says as her gaze focuses for a moment on my conspicuous head wound.
"You have no idea. You can still pay things with coins, right?"
"That's right. It's worse for us if you pay with a credit card for an order of an euro and sixty five."
"An euro and sixty five?! Do you personally piss on the coffee or something?!"
The waitress laughs.
"It's pretty much the same price as everywhere else."
"Well, that's messed up."
"I don't make the rules, I'm afraid."
"Then maybe you should, if you would write on the rules that coffee should be cheaper. People need to constantly earn money to keep existing. It's a nightmare."
"A nightmare indeed..."
I check out the waitress. She seems mildly amused by my rant. I need to dispel this awkwardness I'm feeling right now. I should ask her out, but I'll probably say the wrong thing and piss her off. Maybe I could compliment her on something, but what? Her eyes? Her hair?
"Your eyes are pretty..." I say awkwardly.
The waitress chuckles at me.
"Um, thanks?" She smiles. "I'll bring you your random coffee, sir."
I watch her sashay away from me while I feel like an idiot. I slump down into my chair, wanting nothing more than to never move again.

I end up spending most of Asier's cash on groceries, because I'll need to shove food and at least water into this body every single day. As I was walking back home, near old town's wall I feel someone's intense gaze upon me. A burning hatred. I stop and shrug as if to cover my neck. Is a murderous ghost hunting me down?
When I look around discreetly, my gaze stops on the face of a blond man who seems Eastern European. He keeps staring at me with furious eyes, and as soon as his companion, a younger, scrawnier slavic man notices why his pal isn't paying attention to him, this second man glares at me as well. He comments something to his partner while gesticulating towards me as if I wasn't witnessing this interaction.
They must have confused me with someone else. I don't care what their deal is, but I want nothing to do with this shady pair. They might be robbers or kidnappers. Who knows what's going on in this shitty country nowadays. I hurry up towards Asier's home while trying to lose myself in the crowd.

Once I've returned to my stolen base of operations, I realize that I forgot to buy the painkillers. Oh, well. I prepare myself a proper meal, which I botch because I haven't cooked anything in two decades, and I was never into cooking to begin with. In the end, my stomach doesn't care much.
After I sit on the sofa and I put some ice on my battered chest, I find myself being able to think more clearly. I'm technically the credit card's owner, or at least it would seem so to the average bank employee. Also, I have a note that the doctor printed and that explains that my brain doesn't work well any longer! I'm sure the bank will agree to change my PIN to a new one, if only because they feel sorry for me.

The bank fell for it. Fools! I walk away from the employee's counter with a new magic code that will open the doors for me to steal as much money as I want from this dead guy. Near the entrance, I shove Asier's credit card into an ATM, then I anxiously wait until I can find out how much money is waiting for me.
Asier had hoarded nearly three hundred and twenty thousand euros.
I blink, and keep blinking for a while. That can't possibly be right. I study the screen: it doesn't seem to be a mistake. I take out the card, insert it again, push the PIN code on the keypad. None of those things change the figures on the ATM screen. I made nearly three hundred and twenty thousand euros just by stealing a dead man's corpse.
"Oh fuck, I'm rich! I'm fucking loaded!"
The middle-aged woman that was using the ATM to my right gets startled, but then smirks.
"Is that right? Can I get some?"
"No."
She rolls her eyes.
"I meant money."
"Either way, no."
This random woman tries looking at my screen, even though I couldn't be clearer with my body posture that I don't want her to do so.
"Are you really loaded?" she asks.
"Yes! Three hundred and twenty thousand euros is a lot of fucking money, you know."
My newfound friend's jaw drops.
"Shut the fuck up. There's no way you have that much money."
"Wanna bet? Check for yourself, decaying woman," I say as I step aside and let her see the figures on the screen.
"Well, I'll be..."
"And the best part is that I don't deserve any of it."
I immediately regret that someone knows how rich I am, so I leave the bank in a hurry and then walk around until I return twenty minutes later. I check Asier's recent movements. No entries suggest a regular paycheck. The dead man must have been a bum, a wealthy one. I sigh. Maybe I'll do some good with this money, starting with buying plenty of things I want. I may burn it all, one stack per week.
I run back to the library, and Amazon finally allows me to order not only a couple of fancy ouija boards, but also two call bells and a voice recorder. And a new monitor, one of those aimed at gamers. My heart beats loudly. I will buy the entire world.

Ever since I hijacked this guy's life, I hadn't felt that the decision to approach Alazne was available. As if I were in a video game, I needed to fulfill the condition of being able to pay for the date to which I wanted to invite her. How could any guy show his face to the beloved he wants to conquer, if he can't even flaunt his disposable income? That I remained a woman inside didn't change anything: Alazne didn't know I existed, and she needed an excuse to care. Everyone cares about money. Once she's trapped by the money pit, I can entice her with more juicy and intimate treats, like this penis I can't wait to test.
There must be something ingrained in men's brains regarding the peculiar relationship with their hanging boy, because I feel the urge to photograph it, print like a hundred and paste them all over the city. I need people to look at it. Strangers, even. I am so proud about it that I can hardly contain myself.
In any case, I have unlocked the decision to approach my beloved Alazne. With the amount waiting to be wasted in Asier's account, and assuming that I would spend exactly a hundred euros per date, I could invite Alazne to two thousand and three hundred dates! Wait... That doesn't sound like much at the end of the day. Is my math off? That's like six years worth of dates. How the hell will I bankroll the rest of my life? I should look into investing.

In the present, I have bigger worries to handle. For example, how to keep my pulse steady as I finally get off at the bus stop from which it will only take walking for two minutes until I reach the apartment building where my Alazne lives. It's an unremarkable five-story bulding almost sandwiched between a parish church and a Civil Guard station, the kind of home where I always imagined that mainly employees of small shops as well as retirees live. At this hour of the morning, close to midday, the only ones in these streets are housewives, old people and those perennially dependent on the welfare state. And as I stand awkwardly next to the front door, which likely came with the house when it was built in the seventies, I miss for the first time all my former privileges as a ghost. Alazne must be inside of her grotty apartment, and yet I can't see her, hear her nor in any way anticipate her state unless she decides to come out through this doorway. Given someone as reclusive as my beloved, who when she could get away with it wouldn't leave her home for a few days, it may be a matter of pure luck whether I end up finally meeting her in person as I wait outside of her place.
I didn't bother coming up with a plan. I simply hoped that I would fulfill my dream of staring into Alazne's eyes while being acknowledged by her. And even if she does come out, what the hell could I say to her? I'm a stranger. I know her enough that a tall, mostly well-built man close to ten years older than her would make her feel small and insignificant, and hopefully horny.
"What the hell are you waiting around here for?"
It's an older man with white hair, dressed in a blue tracksuit and walking his brown Maltese dog.
"You are glaring at me too confidently for someone who walks such a small pet."
"Do I know you?" the man asks.
Back when I was a ghost I never had to bother getting a feeling of this neighborhood, but the gated residential building right in front, as well as the bunch of new security cameras, a couple pointed my way, suggest that living around here has gotten harder.
"My girlfriend lives in the area," I say while trying to hide my annoyance. "I'm just waiting for her to arrive."
"You don't need to wait so desperately. I've seen this girl of yours, and she's no beauty."
"What?"
"I said she's no beauty."
Now I'm glad that I inhabit a well-built, taller than average man with hair on his chest. I turn to face the guy and stare down at him.
"Old man, piss off or I'll clog your large intestine with your pocket dog."
"What did you say?"
I transform my hands into fists.
"I've had it with people listening to me and looking at me when I'm talking in public, and now people bother me when I'm merely standing in silence?! You human mosquito!"
"What did you call me?"
"Leave me alone!"
I walk off while shaking my head. I don't think about my destination until I face that wandering away from Alazne's apartment building would defeat my plans. I end up leaning against the wall on the opposite side of the building, and I just hope that the nosy, self-appointed neighborhood watchman doesn't bother me again.
I don't know how many minutes pass as I rub my eyes slowly to contain my anxiety. Even the traffic noises sound like they demand something of me. I can't stand here and loiter for much longer.
"Damn it, what am I doing? I'm a fucking pussy."
At first I think that I've fallen into my habit of daydreaming to escape from an unpleasant situation, which has been my main defense mechanism for decades, but as I perk up and hold my breath, I can't deny it: that's the sound of someone tuning a guitar, and it's coming from the third floor. My Alazne is preparing herself to disturb the entire neighborhood with an hour long session of playing and singing other people's songs. It's the first time I hear her play without the faded filter that the afterlife applies to everything, but it's not the first time since I met her that I have been envious of an instrument.
I sit with my back against the wall of her apartment building, on a pavement coated with decades of dried dog piss, and I remain there for as long as Alazne plays. Her muffled voice sends chills down my spine. A few people pass by and shoot me glances, but I couldn't care less.
When my queen finishes her improptu concerto and I hear her closing her window, I can't control the grin plastered across my mouth. As I stand up carefully to avoid further pain to my ribs, a couple of old women chatting nearby look up at the third floor, and one of them tsks while shaking her head.
"That girl... What a lost cause."
"A pain in the ass for the whole neighborhood," adds the other.
"I feel bad for her parents... But then again, they should have seen this coming."
I take a deep breath. I'm leaving for the day, having failed my mission. I'll have to figure out a better plan. It's a shame that despite being allowed to listen again to my beloved's gift to mankind, I was reminded of how this planet needs a new cycle of meteor impacts.

I only got to stake out Alazne's building one more time, after midday, and I didn't even listen to her play the guitar. At least I know she's alive, well enough that she can bother the neighborhood with her music. Still, she must be depleting her unemployment benefits to avoid returning to the workforce. I can't imagine how she's going to handle lacking money to pay even for food. But that's where I come in! She can have most of my money, and also my body, and my soul, and so on.
I end up staying at Asier's house the following day, because Amazon informed me that one of their minions was going to bother himself or herself driving up to my place and handing me my shit. Except for the monitor, that is supposed to arrive another day in a different package.
I pace up and down the house. At one point I almost slip on a book lying on the floor. The painkillers make me feel all drowsy, although it isn't unpleasant. When my doorbell finally rings, I pump my fists and jump for joy before running to the door. I open it. A small man is holding my package. When he asks for my signature, I just draw a heart with Alazne's name and mine in it. The delivery man doesn't seem to care. I take the package.
"You have no idea how glad I am that you performed this task for me, good man," I say gratefully. "It saved me the effort of figuring out how to locate these individual items and bring them to my place by myself! Truly, the civilizations of the living are magical constructs."
"Uh... thanks," replies the delivery man, and then drives off.
After I close the front door, I turned towards the living room to leave the package on a table when I spot my reflection in the mirror. I don't know how my opinion about this body's features changed so quickly, but I find myself not just good looking, but downright handsome. My cheeks are chiseled, my jawline firm and rectangular, my eyes deep-set but piercing...
"My whole body is pretty damn hot," I say to myself in the mirror.
I turn to the side and admire my toned chest.
"Damn, I am super good looking. I hope you are agreeing with this, my lovely ghost roommate. And speaking of ghost roommates, I want to communicate with you as soon as possible!"
While whistling a happy tune, I walk into the living room and I place the package on the dining table. After five minutes of joyful unpackaging, I set up one of my fancy new ouija boards. I sit comfortably, rest my index fingers on the planchette and speak clearly to my ghost friend. I feel the characteristic chill; my roommate must be standing next to me.
"I am ready! This should be easy for such a poltergeist geek like you, girl. Use my body, or however that works, to spell your name!"
The planchette starts to move by itself under my index fingers, and points at two letters: H and I. The small wooden board returns to the center.
"Well done!" I cheer. "Hi! Hello back to you! I want your name now."
The planchette moves to A, then L.
"Al? Is that you, Al?" I ask hopefully.
The planchette points at A, then Z, then N.
"An? Anal? What the hell kind of name is that?" I ask indignantly, then I scratch my forehead. "Wait a second, did I get that right...?"
The planchette stops at E. I almost fall from my chair.
"Wait, Alazne?! Ah, you have heard me mention her so much that you wanted to prank me! You little devil! You got me real good."
The planchette spells out KIDDING.
"It's not funny! You tricked me and I fell for it! Nah, it was quite funny. First impressions are very important."
The planchette spells out MY NAME IS KATERYNA.
"Ah, that sounds like the real thing for your Eastern European features!" I say cheerfully. "What a lovely name! I hope the voice recorder does its job properly whenever we get down to that, because I want to hear your sexy accent. I'm sure it will give me such tingles..."
YOU ARE A DIRTY GIRL.
"At least you noticed that," I wink in her general direction. "Well, is there something pressing that you wanted to make me understand to begin with? We can get that out of the way."
I WAS FIANCEE.
"Another one?!" I yell, angry. "This Asier bastard must have been used to setting up beautiful girls as his solid platforms, promising them a long relationship cushioned by his hundreds of thousands of euros and this nice house, while on the side he fucked whoever opened her legs for him! Dirty scumbag!"
I DID NOT KNOW.
"Yeah, of course not. That's why you killed yourself. I can understand how you feel, or rather, I can't understand because this isn't something that should have happened to you, and it's all that fucker's fault!"
I shouldn't be this upset. I'm supposed to be the experienced ghost here, Kateryna's senpai. I'm making a mess out of this meeting, as usual.
The planchette spells out KILLED.
"Huh?" I ask, almost dazed.
KILLED.
Kateryna killed Asier and then herself. That's what all this means. No, wait a second. I'm jumping to conclusions.
"A-are you saying that you want... for me to kill myself?" I ask nervously.
The planchette spells out WHAT.
"What do you want me to do?" I ask with a dry throat as my heart beats rapidly. "By killing myself, it would bring us together in death and we could fulfill your love for me. Is that it? No, that's ridiculous. Stop being so depressed and think rationally!"
SILLY.
That word calmed me down. It means Kateryna is not asking me to kill myself.
"Alright," I proceed. "Let's get down to serious ghost business. You hated Asier, so you remained on the afterlife plane. But now that Asier has gone to the beyond, why do you remain as a ghost? Not that I'm complaining, mind you."
The planchette spells out STUCK.
"You're stuck here?"
WANT TO LEAVE.
"Why haven't you left already then?"
NO CHILD.
"Ah. You are bound to this world as long as you don't bear any children so your lineage would continue. That solves the case of why there are so many random ghosts roaming the afterlife, I suppose. Well... Maybe I could figure out how to impregnate you, if you would have my seed."
The planchette's metaphorical jaw must have dropped. It spells out REALLY.
I chuckle.
"Just a joke, Kateryna. I don't think you would be able to carry a kid, being a ghost and all."
I sink my teeth into my lower lip as I try to figure out how to get Kateryna off her plane of existence so she could go meet her loved ones in the beyond. I wipe the sweat from my forehead.
"Where are you from anyway, Kateryna? I need to know for some reason."
The board spells out UKRAINE.
"I should have known. Hottest women on the planet. I spent some time there during my first years as a ghost, you know? I wanted to have sex with all of you."
NOT ALL OF US ARE HOT.
"Yes you is, girl."
YOU JUST HORNY.
"Yeah, that too."
I ponder Kateryna's words. This ghost has been trapped in the afterlife for some time. She is bound to stay unless she manages to get pregnant. How was it fair that some ghosts could just float away into the skies, metaphorically speaking, and never look back, while other spirits got trapped on their dreary plane?
"Well, I'm a bit dizzy. I've been gulping down those painkillers, and I hadn't read this much in decades. Don't worry, I'll figure out how to transmit this body's semen to you. Even though I'm in love with Alazne, I will gladly do you this favor. Anything for my lovely roommate."
The planchette moves on its own.
YOU ARE A SWEETHEART.
My heart skips a beat.
"Oh, I would kiss you if I could! You know I would. I hope you have been sleeping next to me these past few days, or at least witnessed how I touched myself. I want you to feel real welcome here."
I AM.
"Well, I want to also provide for you. I want to be a good man. I know that spending the afterlife alone is harrowing, so I will never leave you. If only there were more men like me around, the world wouldn't be so terrible." I sigh, then roll the tension out of my shoulders. "Anyway, Kat, I need a break. You have gotten me all heated up."
I stand up and stretch my arms, then I walk down the hallway towards the bathroom. Ah, this life is so great.