Board the car

What flavour of humiliation would be worse, to be publicly called out on her shameful modesty or interrogated while locked up with an older woman? The final calculation came down to strength in numbers: although the crowd offered anonymity, in the worst case scenario one woman alone could not lynch her.

“I live a little north of the Tantalus asylum...”

“Perfect, I’ll drop you just shy of that then,” the woman said, “Hop in beside me let’s go.”

Christy walked around the car, treading with care on the ice, and got in. After sitting down and slamming the door shut she realized her temperature issues would not be helped. Inside the cabin was a furnace. The simple freedom to regulate temperature away from prying eyes would be a boon indeed. Humming gently, the vehicle got on its way.

“What’s your name dear?”

“Christy.”

“Lovely. I’m Helena. My friends call me Hel, because it goes with my Terran heritage, you know. I’m very cold-sensitive, so I like to maintain an inferno around me – in more ways than one. Speaking of which, you look like you’ll roast under that coat. Would you like me to turn down the thermostat? I can deal with it for a while. There we go.”

Helena pressed a button on the control desk, and then rolled down her window for quickened effect. The air thinned and Christy felt a little weight lift off her chest.

“Thank you,” she said.

“You worked yourself into quite a sweat didn’t you?”

“I’m in a bit of a hurry,” Christy ceded. It was true.

“Yet you keep yourself covered up head to toe. Have you considered opening a few vent holes strategically? If my tits were wrapped up in so much wool I think they might melt. As if they hadn’t given me enough chagrin, eh? Look at them drooping like that...”

Christy looked. She could confirm there was a very mild sag going on. Then, without thinking, she said “I’d rather be all hot or all cold than have some bits frozen.”

“Ah,” said Helena. She was silent a few minutes as she took the northern exit of a roundabout. It led over a canal trench and then up the hill in zigzags through narrower and narrower streets. Soon there was a fraction of the pedestrian traffic outside, and the road surfaces were nearly white with unsalted ice. She rolled up the window, sealing up the cabin.

“I take it you don’t see any change in body temperature in the region of your breasts and vagina, Christy?”

“No.”

“And you are not especially inclined to engage in sexual activity with individuals within or without your direct daily entourage?”

“No.”

Helena stopped in what used to be the private parking space for the Tantalus asylum’s staff. She cut the engine, and leaned over toward Christy.

“Me neither, dear,” she whispered, and let her words hang in the air. Only the endless fall of snowflakes melting on the windshield broke Christy's impression that time had stopped.

“Do you know anything...?” she dared at last.

Helena shook her head, “We’re lucky. That’s all.”

“I want to get out of town.”

“That’s the first thing I tried to do after I left hubby fucking my daughter. The roads are jammed and there are no trains.”

Christy tried to ask about the trains, but the earlier remark hit her. Eyes widened, she stammered instead “F-fucking your daughter?”

“Yes. First thing he did when he woke up is fuck me, as per usual, then he goes next door to my daughter’s room and they start fucking like there’s no tomorrow. I went to ask them what they were smoking and she told me she had a week off from Uni. I went crying to my neighbour’s and she offered to eat me out.”

“And we can’t leave.”

Helena reached over to the glove compartment, and got out a pack of post-its and a pen. While scribling she explained “Mag-Lev crashed this morning. One hundred and thirteen dead, no survivors. Upwards of a month before they rebuild the tunnel." Handing Christy the slip of paper, "Call me as soon as you can."

"But what do we do now? Pretend like we’re ok with this?”

“Got to lie low, so yes.” said Helena, “For a start you’re going to do like me and change all your clothes so you look as crazy as everyone else. They won’t look at you twice after that – especially if you’re as flat as you look. That’s going to be a world class asset, now, that modest bust of yours. You’ll do a lot better than me. I’ve already had to suck two complete strangers off today...”

“And if I meet the token guy who actively likes my ‘world class assets’?

“Then you bloody well placate him, girl. We don’t know the price for disobedience. We don’t know what's up? We don't know if this a natural thing or deliberate. If there's a conspiracy, we don’t know how to tell who's running the game, who's playing who, and what comes to renegades. I intend to find out – we'll find out together. We’ll be each other’s eyes and ears, we’ll meet and discuss observations, we’ll look out for others like us, but for now we keep our heads down, even if it means sucking a damn dick once in a while. You can do that, can’t you, or do you need a lesson? I could literally call the first twat I see in the street, offer him a blowjob and teach you to give the worst head imaginable. That’d keep them off your back,” and as Christy emphatically shook her head, “No? Then you know what to do: act. You did go to school didn’t you?”

“Yes..?”

“Then remember the theatre workshops. Make it fun...”

“Fun?”

“Of course. How else are you going to cope? We must have some sort of trick to fool ourselves what we’re doing is normal. Now, you’ve got my coordinates; if you meet anybody sane pass them on. Go hide now, Christy, I’ve got to get back to my husband who will be aching to watch me have sex with my own daughter. He said so on the phone at lunch.”

Christy pocketed the post-it and got out of the car. As she closed the car door the window rolled down and the engine revved into life again.

“Good luck dear. Send me a text roundabout midnight. I should be free by then.”

“Thanks for driving me, Helena...”

“Not at all. You and me, we’re sisters now. Sisters in prudish sanity, you might say. Ciao.”

The car rolled away on its indestructible tracks. There was next to no one around in the streets up here, so Christy felt doubly free: there were no bug-eyed stares and she could breathe a little more normally now out of the furnace. It occurred to her when she started walking the rest of the way homewards, that Helena probably kept the heat so high because of her exposed private parts. The stuff about her earthly ancestry must be a convenient cover.

In the street where Christy's flat was, a man appeared. He was on the opposite side of the road, and shouldn't have glanced her way any other day. But he stopped dead in his tracks, and fixated her as she approached her apartment-building's front door. The sudden halt made his penis flop like a grotesque fleshy pendulum from side to side. Chest on the verge of bursting with panic, Christy struggled through the door, rushed up the stairs, entered her den and slammed her door behind her, engaging all the locks both mechanical and numerical. Panting and sweating tenfold worse than before she sank to the ground, shutting her eyes. Nowhere was safe.