Magical Realism - Novelette

This story is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are fictitious and any similarities to actual persons, locations, or events is coincidental. This work cannot be used to train artificial intelligence programs.  No AI tools were used in the writing of this story.

All rights reserved. The Boyfriend Copyright © Eddie Generous 2026

THE BOYFRIEND

The world had passed its prime and was forever looking backward. The city air reeked of gasoline and permanence. The trolley rattled and banged on its tarnished track and age-worn, time-pocked wheels. The entire transit system had seen better days. Cracks and scuffs marred the fiberglass seats while threads of itchy guts poked riders who couldn’t stand.

Justice watched them. Relationships confounded her. The flow of humanity on the trolley confounded her: the bumping, the looks, the smiles, the sneers. Patched and makeshift bags littered the aisle. The floor beneath was ancient steel signs from petrol stations and pubs—reinforcements to the decayed structure—that occasionally shifted and sent riders sprawling.

Today, the Niagara sky wore a rusty hue of roasted orange peels. Most days it was steely grey. Orange promised rainfall. Worry of rain had the trolley packed.

A man named Andre leaned against a pole, his hands nearly touching Justice’s hands. Justice peered up at his clear, honey-colored skin, large hands, and firm arms—so rare was this virtually unblemished flesh. Though, he was not perfect. His teeth poked. His eyes bulged. He had long lashes and thin, smooth lips.

Andre looked at Justice. Justice turned away.

The condominium complexes in the former Latin district were in better shape, but to afford rent there, one had to work for the government. Those offices were in the business district—a sixty-four-minute trolley ride. Most who worked in the business district had faith in ownership and bank savings, and eventually some scrounged enough money for a home to call their own, even a car.

Justice saw these people and felt sick. They were so skinny and gaunt, stuck on the hopeful homeowner diet like a junkie to a needle. Justice herself ate twice every day, sometimes three times a day. Priorities.

Eyes off Andre, she scanned the other familiar faces. A woman: scabby, seashell-colored skin, scaly and peeling lips, but eyes a crisp blue, a shade like pictures of remote lagoons and historical films of glaciers. Sisty—Justice had heard her talking to other riders enough over the years. A cleaner from the Walton Banking tower. Mondays, she’d start on the ninety-third floor and by Saturday evening, she’d see the lobby. Ten-hour days. Come Monday, she’d start at the top.

Justice met her eyes. Sisty gave a slight nod and Justice returned it. Looking at a woman was different from looking at a man.

The trolley shook to a halt and Justice banged her head gently on the post.

“Don’t give me crap!” a woman shouted from the front.

A man entered. Panting and sweaty. A smile played over his full lips. He wore no shirt and was obviously jobless. He said, “See that, mice in the maze?”

Caramel hued flesh, frizzy hair cropped close to an emaciated skull; his features protruded as if broken beneath the surface. Lean with muscle, a six-pack poked from his concave tummy.

“See that? You ride. I run and ride!”

Nothing new. This quick and agile man had played this game before. They rolled and the trolley bell pinged at the next stop. The man burst through the same doorway he’d entered.

“Damned Elvis,” Andre said under his breath.

Justice glanced at Andre. She imagined the normality of finding the flesh around her sexy. They started moving again and a woman fought through the crowd, avoiding known weak spots in the floor.

“Yeah, I know,” Monie said as she plunked down onto a tattered seat. She was small with a dark brown complexion, a wonderfully full, smoky gray afro that reached a foot high like an oil drip flipped upside-down. Her back hunched. Her hips and legs unable to prop her for longer than a few minutes. Her teeth had fallen out. She was twenty-six.

Justice had an urge to touch that afro.

She did not, having learned better some years ago.

The trolley reached the former unofficial Pride district. Nine more riders packed on. Familiar faces on their daily commutes. 

In bulky overalls, a man with a pink, shaved head, dull eyes, and non-descript features put hands to the ceiling, grabbing onto a reinforcement beam for balance. The chest patch read: Whiskey. Whiskey stood nearly seven feet. Nobody reached so high. Like the old buildings that shined while others toppled. Whiskey was big and solid.

Justice played a game in her head. Stacking and rearranging parts, there was a god or goddess in their midst, it simply had to be put together.

—

Justice arrived at 2352 Frank Avenue, passing through the mostly vacant parking garage, into the locker rooms. Men turned right and women turned left, others picked a side. Justice stripped at her locker, hung her battered travel clothes and slipped into white nylons, pulled on a plain white blouse, tugged a navy-blue pencil skirt to her hips, tucked her shirttails, and buttoned the skirt. A blue ribbon tie went around her collar. Pins forced her hair into a ball at the back of her head. Red lipstick accentuated her pucker and blush beautified her yellowy pallor.

Justice was a fortunate woman. A first-generation discrepancy investigator. Her genetics gave her a keen eye. A white lie to an employment manager put her somewhere she didn’t necessarily belong. In the office, each desk had a monitor, a keyboard, and a telephone. As the computer came to life, the first of nineteen men and one woman stopped by to say hello.

Navy-blue meant single and single meant courting visits.

Grey suit and navy-blue tie, Reginald Harper rested his left butt cheek and thigh on the corner of Justice’s desk. Reginald was a depressed man gone to anger.

“Looking boney today.”

Justice smiled, as was her part. “Oh, am I? I’ve worked to remain young and pretty.” This was true, but only because to keep her job, it was important to remain approachable until the navy-blue became forest green when a ring landed on her finger. Or, preferably, she found a way around the whole mess.

“I can’t tell if you think this is funny. Don’t test upstairs,” Reginald pointed to the ceiling, “they don’t like women bucking the system.”

They didn’t like anyone bucking the system.

“I have no idea what you mean. It was lovely to chat with you; I cherish this workplace relationship.” After a third reprimand, Justice had learned to quote the training materials during uninteresting instances of premarital waltzing. The government heads weren’t monsters per se, a woman could choose her mate, so long as said mate met the guidelines and reproduction only occurred within a socially accepted pairing.

“You should take what you can get,” Reginald said and left.

Justice whispered, eyes on her screen, “I can get better than you.”

While she logged the reported numbers of a food service business in the former construction district, Adam Holmes approached.

“Hey, girl.” Adam was a single male trolling like all others, but denying his orientation, hoping to be more like those at the top of the company. Monkey see, monkey do. “You ready to settle into a loveless marriage?”

Justice turned and frowned. She could be mostly honest with Adam. He’d opened up to her one afternoon—buzzed on B-12.

“Not today.”

“I could impregnate you and cry on your shoulder and hate myself until the end of time, but I’ll be a high-level manager someday.”

“Sorry.”

Adam straightened. “Picky broad.” He winked. Men and women all had their parts to play, eyes to appease.

Justice poked the tip of her tongue out but dared no extension beyond that. Heads everywhere took notes. Cameras watched for oddities.

According to the numbers, somebody did well with what they had, exceeding expectations. The bank often rewarded industrious individuals; the training videos featured dozens of ex-small business owners turned moguls. She began her report as Eldon Crothers leaned down into Justice’s personal bubble.

“I have a huge unit and I think about putting it places. I want you to think about putting it places, too.” A hand brushed a pant leg tight to thigh. The shape this revealed was bulbous and obvious.

“Your willingness to procreate is admirable,” Justice said

Eldon leaned back. “Right.” He offered a nice smile.

Men tried different come-ons all the time. Eldon had never been so gaudy, and to his credit, Justice had never before thought of his penis, one way or another.

Justice sent off a report and no more than a minute later, her telephone began to ring.

“Hello, department—”

“Sure, I need you to take the elevator up to the forty-seventh floor.” The voice was playful, mannish, and entirely unfamiliar.

—

An immediate and intense queasiness invaded Justice as she stepped out of the elevator. She’d been single too long. Straight, bi, lesbian, she had to state her case and choose a mate, it was the only way society would climb back to its former glory.

“Justice?” A woman sat at a single white desk, plastic lily in a white ceramic vase next to the slim white monitor, and a bulky white desktop phone. She wore a pink dress. “Justice from nine?”

Already taken aback by the situation—pink! What did pink mean?

“Justice, correct?”

Justice nodded and stepped on clumsy legs, stiff as pedestals.

“Mr. Bridge will see you now.” The woman was young and fine in a way Justice knew only from films and in the background of televised PM addresses.

“You’re perfect.” Justice covered her mouth with her slim, ring-less left hand.

“Thank you. Genetics and medicine, best not keep Mr. Bridge waiting. The forty-seventh is a busy floor.”

Heavy doors with great, shiny brass handles opened easily. In the office, a small man with a horseshoe pattern hairline sat behind an enormous cherry desk.

“Take a seat.” The man rose halfway and extended a hand, directing Justice.

Knees tight, she stared at the man’s upper lip. It was respectful to show attention, but not to make a figure of authority think you’re questioning their authority with eye contact.

The man leaned back in his reclining chair. Suit charcoal. Tie burgundy. He said, “I’ll get right down to it. I’m busy and you’re busy. Your work is tops, sincerely. You’ve caught two unsanctioned profiteers this month.”

This description was new. The company did not explain why she logged business reports, and she’d never really thought much about it.

“They’re being taxed as we speak.” Mr. Bridge leaned in. “Want to watch? I’ve got the feed from the bank officers. They wear cameras.”

He didn’t wait for an answer, hit a button on his desk, and the wall behind him filled with action. Men and women cowering. The bank officers in their heavy black riot gear taxed the people for earning above their class.

“Disgusting,” Justice whispered, too thrown to control herself.

Mr. Bridge hit the button, spinning around to face her. “I agree. How dare they? The system is what keeps the oil of the country moving.”

Justice said nothing. The man began tapping his desk.

“You’re without a doubt the top on sixth floor.”

“Ninth.”

“Ninth. Nobody’s close all the way to the twentieth. We’re looking at you for a managerial position on the thirty-sixth. How does that sound?”

“Wonderful.” Justice’s heart slowed to a regular beat. This was not trouble. This was a good thing, a promotion.

“Yes, but there’s a hitch. You’re still single. We can’t have a manager setting an example like that. Do you even have a boyfriend? A girlfriend?”

Searching for an answer, an honest way to express how she felt and why she was a square peg in a sea of ovular holes. “Boyfriend, but he works in another office. We’ve agreed to keep where we work a secret for now, until we know for certain we’ll wed,” she said with a confidence she did not have.

“Dating outside the company’s not always so wise.”

“He’s a manager, wears striped ties and polka dots on his handkerchief. I thought it might be a good business decision to keep with a manager. If he works for another facet of the bank, maybe I can convince him to switch here. He’s very personable. Very professional.”

Mr. Bridge slapped a palm on the desk. “Hot doggy, you’re a regular snake in the grass. Tact and good work ethic. This is fantastic. No wonder you’ve kept it a secret. I’ll memo the men on the eighth to leave—”

“Ninth.”

“Right, right, they’ll leave you alone.” Mr. Bridge’s smile faded. “Do you think he’ll ask you to join his company?”

“Oh, I’ll never leave here. This work is my life.”

“Cracker Jack!”

—

The elevator doors closed around her and she shut her eyes, trying to imagine a man to marry. A gag rose up her throat, full and painful. She heaved, opening her purse to catch what spewed forth. It was big and nasty, and it burned awfully.

She snapped her purse closed as the doors opened.

All on the ninth looked at her, differently.

—

Alone in the stairwell leading down from the roof, dark and dim, smelling of dust and damp rot, Sisty sat for a rest. The trolley was a pain. The job was a pain. Her life was a pain.

The nails of her right hand, index and middle primarily, scratched at the scabs caused by the ancient detergent used to clean the floors. Faded warning labels promised toxicity.

Her husband. The stillborn deformity. Acid rain. Trolley wheels. Bosses. Life was toxic.

“Ain’t going to eat if you don’t get to work,” Sisty said and stood.

Momentarily lightheaded, she took a downward step. Then another. A pain jolted in her sinus and her eyelids snapped.

“Ugh—oh.”

The pain dulled for six heartbeats. Sisty blinked twice and the pain returned in a wave. Rocked her. Her legs gave and she tumbled. Hands to her face, her skull worked as a pivot point on the sixth step. Legs went over all else and finally her focus shifted away from the pain in her sinus. Flailing, the left wrist snapped; jarred against the twelfth step. Her right shoulder popped from it socket at the thirteenth. Sisty toppled and rolled the final steps to the landing. She’d fractured fourteen bones, dislocated her shoulder, had dozens of bruises, and yet, with all of this, the sinus pain reigned. It felt as if a vacuum worked from within, caving and reeling.

From outside the stairwell, a co-worker flung open the door and light washed over Sisty.

“My eyes!” Sisty screeched, her broken wrist flopping before her face. “My eyes!”

“You get the cleaner in ‘em?”

In a snap, the sinus pain ceased. Sisty let her arms fall. She blinked at the woman before her but saw nothing.

The co-worker screamed in terror, “You got no eyeballs!”

Sisty blinked anew, making wet, swampy sounds.

—

In a fog, Justice went along to the points of her existence: worked without recalling the tasks, she held conversations, ate food, rode the trolley home, oblivious. In her apartment, she sat on the dusty couch with taped armrests. Reflexively, she turned on the wall monitor that filled a three-foot rectangular patch. The World Series, again. The Prime Minister stepped into the batter’s box, the image clear, perfect, unquestionably real.

The crowd was going insane.

The pitcher threw a fastball.

The PM swung.

“It’s gone! PM Goldman has won the World Series for the Ottawa RimRoils. Incredible. Pandemonium, here. Absolute pandemonium!”

Justice switched stations, switched again and again, looking for something, anything. The all-day Olympics channel aired a re-run of the PM and the rest of Canada’s gold medal relay team receiving their awards. On a hunting station, the voice-over actor described the barren wasteland of a former cityscape. The PM, shirtless and armed with a crossbow, tracked a mountain lion through blown-out apartment complexes.

She finally found a program about mechanical bees. Justice lay back and watched, unthinking. Her brain was tight on what she’d told Mr. Bridge—a massive white lie. For the entirety of her short existence, she’d studied relationships and never understood why people joined together in such a way. The carnal, animal pull, okay, maybe, but marriage?

Her throat was sore from vomiting earlier—a mess she still hadn’t dared to look at. She rose for a glass of water and said to nobody, “Boyfriend?”

—

Morning. Risking the terror of day-old vomit, she jabbed a hand in her purse to grab her wallet and keys. A slimy form brushed against her skin, and she shivered. The purse dropped to the floor. She broke for the sink. The moisture from her purse was less than what it felt like it should’ve been and left only a residue shine.

Out of the complex, on the street, she stood awaiting the trolley, her guts churning. It was as if someone turned a valve inside her, loosening her bowels. She spun and returned to her personal space. She sat on the toilet and the initial squirts sprayed, after that was pure pain. Justice howled to the lords of agony. Her backside was aflame and tearing at the seams.

The telephone rang twice, but she did not notice. The monitor on the wall of her washroom came alive. It was Mr. Bridge. Justice checked her screams, sweaty, embarrassed, and terrified.

“Oh! I’d worried Mr. Right stole you away…sick day, yes?”

“Please.”

He nodded and the monitor darkened.

Justice again let her body explode: physically from the bowel and audibly from the throat. She fell to the floor, semi-delirious with pain.

—

Passengers fled through windows and doors, screamed for the conductor to stop. An old Texaco sign had shifted. Wheels cut meat with the ease of an ancient Sunday Morning. The trolley continued onward, leaving behind a human mess.

The shocked whine became a painful moan. Walkers gathered around the large, battered lump. Whiskey’s day had been normal. The walk. The wait. Getting on the trolley. The ride. It had all been normal until butterflies flapped in the marrow of their bones and, in a snap, they sank in a surprised jumble. People screamed and Whiskey tried to look around from the puddle of their self but could not move.

Thinking had always been tough and this new obstacle was too much. Whiskey screamed until their air let out. It was as if someone squeezed them from within. The fleshy blob gasped as the crowd of slack-jawed locals watched, eyes greedy for pain.

—

The compact mirror in the desk came with the job, same as the lipstick and the uniform. Justice was numb, moving robotically. She avoided that mirror despite knowing she should look.

As a teen, Justice was a girl in trouble. The classroom was foreign, stern, and demanding. No room to seek and discover. Discovery had been her prime objective since infancy, making it a difficult need to snuff. But she’d figured it out. Learned to lie well and act naturally in the face of trouble.

Now it was all unravelling around her, inside her.

“Justice! Gees, would you believe that I thought you were on the fourth?” Mr. Bridge asked, resting a butt cheek and thigh on the corner of Justice’s desk.

“Sir, hello.”

“Sit, sit,” Mr. Bridge said. Justice had not risen. The man leaned in to whisper. “I trust the singles have left you alone?”

Justice hadn’t noticed. If they had, she had a million drilled-home rebuttals and pleasant denials of intimacy to offer.

“Yes.”

“I’ve come by to let you know that I talked to the folks up on the sixtieth, yes the sixtieth, and they’d like to see you moving quickly, they’d also like for you to bring your man in for a consultation.”

Justice nodded.

“Good, you think you could round out a marriage by the end of the week?”

Justice caught a gasp and choked it back. “The end of the week?”

“Oh, don’t worry about the lines. Take this when you go.” Mr. Bridge slid a black business card with the words MANAGERIAL RUSH in gold. “You keep that. Makes life much easier. Now, you get that man wed, then come see me on the forty-seventh and we’ll go up to the sixtieth, all three of us. Friday, say ten, no, better make it eleven. Got it?”

Justice nodded.

—

In the lunch line, three women offered to let Justice skip ahead. She politely refused. She was in no shape to create more gossip when this thing finally fell apart. Desperate, she scanned her mind for a man worth keeping forever. The notion made her gag and…made her chest itch.

Itch like crazy.

Incredible irritation budded over her small breasts and she rushed to the closest washroom. The itch terrorized her flesh while below the surface she had gone molten.

There were four other women in the washroom. Two stalls vacant. Justice took the first and opened her blouse to scratch. Fingers dug into flesh. The raking was pleasant, but not enough. Sweat began to creep from her scalp. She dug harder, instinctively demanding blood. Leakage was the only solution. Nails carved and an opening cracked. Hair sprouted like fresh grass in a time-lapse video.

“What is this?” Justice gasped.

“Need a tampon?” a woman from near the sink asked.

Justice moaned, “Yeah.”

The heel clicks crossed the room and an arm shot beneath the stall wall.

“I’m Peggy. I’m on your floor. Just so ya know.”

Still scratching, she investigated the hairy gulley. The blood ceased its flow as if admitting defeat at the appearance of a tampon. Justice dropped the tampon into the purse held at the crook of her elbow like a lazy appendage. No more scratching, she dug, peeling flesh like a tin can lid. The skin had become leathery and dry. The hair beneath was bountiful, dusty grey, frizzy, and horrendously itchy. She began yanking.

—

Monie worked behind the counter at the First Universal Health Center at 3152 Frank Avenue. She operated a large spoon before a heaping bin of orange macaroni with cheese flavoring. Over her greyed afro was a hairnet that camouflaged perfectly.

“You want?” she asked, over and over. Employees in their suits and skirts would either nod or shake their heads. “You want?”

As if sucked into the sky, Monie hopped from her stool on shaky legs, knocking a half-empty tray of yellow pasta sideways. The Universal Health Center employees watched. They were number crunchers and letter writers, not health care providers.

“Holy cow!” Monie shouted, hands on her head as she fell. “Holy, someone’s ripping my head off!”

Three co-workers abandoned their steamy trays and rushed to aid Monie. In a snap, the pain was gone. They helped her to her stool.

“What was—huh?” Monie put her hands to the deflated hairnet lolling haplessly over a smooth, bald head. “What?”

—

Justice called her mother upon arriving at home. Her mother had fooled them all, and with ease, for years. She was a natural unnatural. The line rang twelve times before clicking into the message service. Justice hung up and tried again to the same result.

The small apartment had a living area, a kitchen, and a washroom. The washroom had a tiny bathtub, sink, and toilet. In the bathtub were the bones of her long, bloody, and agonizing bowel movement. These bones had to do with the scalp of hair she’d dragged from her chest. Surely.

Thinking about the hair made her cringe. A sickness, perhaps mental, but more likely in her blood. From the washroom, she stomped into the kitchen where she’d left the purse she’d barfed into on her way down the corporate elevator. Every citizen had a blood test kit.

She dumped her purse on the counter and locked eyes on the test kit. The needle caps flipped back and she jabbed the trio of tips into her upper left arm. The lights on the wireless transponder flashed while she awaited the email read out.

Casting a wider gaze, she drank in the whole scene from the bag. No vomit. She tossed the tester and broke for the door. She needed fresh air, as what she saw was not only impossible, but mounting.

—

The block had reddened with pollution and acid rains. People walked. Nobody stopped. Vagrancy was a felony charge. Felons worked eighteen-hour days in the coal camps out west, so Justice had heard.

Justice stopped, trying to put together all that she’d mined from inside her body. “Those eyes.”

Ahead of her, near the trolley pick-up sign, a vaguely familiar figure used the steel pole for balance. She waved at people, randomly, and said, “You seen my eyes?”

Justice pulled up close to the woman and recognized her immediately.

“You seen my eyes?” The words came in an almost Shakespearean rhythm.

Justice gasped. Those eyes, yes! She had seen those eyes. She mumbled sounds without forming words.

A rubber squeal echoed over the street. A van featuring the Capital Security symbol had spun sideways against the curb. Two men and two women broke from a side door that slid open even before the van stopped. The women officers pushed Justice, stepping her from the scene in an almost gentle act, despite riot helmets and heavy boots and gloves. Each had a submachine gun and a baton on her belt.

The officers used zip ties for wrists and an unnecessary cloth bag to cover the eyeless woman’s head.

“No! What’s—No!” Sisty shouted.

The officers dragged Sisty into the van. In the matter of thirty seconds, all that remained for proof that anything had happened were black skids and Justice’s questionable memory.

Trusting her head was a slippery road and—other than the fact that I have that woman’s eyes sitting on my kitchen counter.

—

At the office, men and women came by her desk, abuzz. Word was everywhere. Justice was a somebody now. She relied on ingrained interpersonal skills attained during training and retraining seminars.

“Thank you.”

“It was nice to chat.”

“I’d like that, perhaps next month.”

“No, sorry, he doesn’t have a brother.”

—

Singin’ in the Rain was on the monitor at the front of the soup kitchen on Kaler Road at the heart of the former construction district. Most of the day, Elvis had run laps. Slack-jawed, sweaty, and stinking of hard effort, he stared up at the screen while awaiting rice rations. The singin’ was nice.

The steel window finally came open and a mannish voice shouted, “Come get some!”

Elvis felt slack and numb all over. His ears rang. He tried to take a step and crumbled to the floor. His blood slowed, suddenly too much to go around. Fluid leaked from his ears and eyes. His cheeks reddened and bulges formed beneath his eyelids. His tongue grew so fat that his mouth opened. Then, as if popped like a balloon, blood gushed from everywhere possible.

The man was dead within a minute.

—

At home, Justice paced, unthinking of the little grey lenses that picked up and transmitted data to…somewhere. It didn’t matter where; she had extremely pertinent issues and people seeing her stressed out changed nothing. She needed a man and fast.

“Think!” She flopped down onto her couch. Fingers rubbing her temples, elbows on knees, Justice awaited inspiration to strike like a wannabe poet. “Dangit, think!”

Sweat began to drip, thickly.

Oddity oozed throughout her body.

“Not again.” She broke for the can.

This time the pressure was at the top-half, though, not exactly from her mouth. She leaned over her toilet and gagged but could not vomit. The sweat ran faster. She was slick and greasy with fever. The tickle began in her face. From every pore, white strings streamed free as if she were a cotton wheel. She crab-crawled away from the soft, gooey twines. They continued, no matter how far she jerked away. Before her, they ran and roped, working together to make shapes.

Justice watched, sobbing steadily, but she dare not touch the stuff. At midnight, she passed out in an exhausted puddle. At six, she awoke to find the flow ceased and the outcome of what ran from her face in piles of oddly shaped weaves. Some were tiny, others were big as footballs, some were fat, some were thin.

—

The trolley rumbled up the street and Justice sprinted to reach the stop in time. She saw a possible fit.

“You’re Andre, right?”

He nodded, squinting at her. “Do I know you?”

“No, but I’ve heard you talk.” Justice reached out to touch the man’s thigh. “I need a man, a husband.”

Andre did not stop Justice from rubbing. “You do, huh? I don’t pay.” His big teeth slurred his words.

“No, not that…well, yeah that because that’s in marriage, but I need a husband, first. Today.”

Andre brushed her hand away.

“You don’t get it!” Justice screeched, shrilly.

Every passenger stared. Andre backed up a step. A piece of sheet metal slipped beneath him and he landed on the floor, his backside puncturing the surface. Stuck with his knees to his chest, the big man squirmed as his ass hung an inch over the rough road below. Justice shortened the distance, making as if she would smother him into agreement.

“Get away from me, lady!”

“Just a marriage, see, then you can be a manager and I can be a manager and it’ll all work out and they’ll never know I lied. They’ll never know my secret!”

“A manager?”

“They want…what’s wrong?”

The expression on Andre’s face went from coming around to her idea to unmitigated terror. His arms flailed. His mouth opened. Seams formed and the flesh on his face and arms began receding down toward his hips.

“Look’it that!” a man standing a foot behind Andre said.

Justice put her hands to her belly. The gas boiling inside was incredible. She was about to expel into her pants, and she knew this was not the regular brand of Number Two.

Andre’s muscles and ligaments, veins and arteries were suddenly exposed and leaking. Only his hair remained, though his eyebrows were gone with the precious skin.

“Must’a got his butt caught on the track!” the conductor said looking in the mirror

Justice crumbled under the weight and stress in her belly. Her gut loomed outwards and the button on her pants popped, rocketing across the trolley and striking an old woman in the mouth.

—

“Where are you?” Mr. Bridge said, shifting the viewing monitors, peering into the various corners of Justice’s home. A thought struck: what if the fiancé is from Iran Happy Oil?

Mr. Bridge bore a pang of protective urgency. He dialed up to the sixtieth floor, explained a change in schedule—espionage or maybe terrorism. From his bottom drawer, he retrieved a chrome revolver with a polished cherry handle that matched his desk.

Minutes later, Mr. Bridge wheezed as he climbed the stairs to Justice’s apartment. Number forgotten, he listened close at doors for the moaning of an injured employee…a future manager! There was a scent in the hallway: briny, salty, completely off.

He heard Justice moan and opened the door. The sight was unbelievable. Black fluid streaked every wall, dripping in thick, sea-stinking globs. A muscled skeleton with a grey afro atop its skull sat on a couch.

The fleshless man turned its icy blue eyes on Mr. Bridge. “Me fiancé,” it said.

“You’re a manager somewhere?” Mr. Bridge couldn’t believe it.

The thing on the couch nodded.

Justice’s wails took up a freshened voice. Mr. Bridge lifted his weapon, pointed it toward the couch and then shifted as he walked to the bedroom. Door nudged open, he saw something impossible. The room wept black ooze. The ceiling dripped fluid stalactites of salty leavings.

“Justice?”

Justice was on the bed, naked and writhing. There were three obvious seams to her flesh: neck to upper chest, abdomen to hips, and waist to the soles of her feet. The vagina bulged between her spread legs and an inky bulb pushed for freedom.

“What is this?”

“It hurts!” Justice screamed and a torrent of black fluid sprayed out from between her legs like a burst water main.

Mr. Bridge whined, brushing at his face. The fluid was thick and stinking and cool. The revolver fired into the ceiling accidentally. “What is this?” He was screaming too.

“It’s coming!”

Swiped clean, Mr. Bridge saw the bulbous sack push only so far before taking the bottom piece of the flesh suit away with it. Thighs, knees, shins…meat rolled down like a stocking and the filthy bundle fell free.

“Oh, thank you,” Justice moaned.

Mr. Bridge leveled the revolver and fired into Justice’s head. The bullet tore into her scalp. Justice lifted a partially parted head from the pillow and gawked at the manager.

“What the…what the…?” Mr. Bridge mumbled.

Unharmed by the shot, rubbery, flapping arms and tentacles reached from beneath the human masquerade.

“Me need,” the skinless man said, stepping close.

Mr. Bridge jumped at the touch, slipping on the muck and falling to his side. His breaths came in quick, agonized sips. The world was a firm and reasonable place. This was all wrong.

Above him, the slapping of oceanic arms and tentacles played in the puddle soaking into the bedspread. A second wet sound joined the first and Mr. Bridge shivered.

Footfalls slapped on the wet floor, rounding the bed. Mr. Bridge closed his eyes and shook. “Get away!”

A presence loomed over him and a hand touched his hand, taking it, shaking it.

“Me my name.” The freak paused and turned to Justice. “What me my name?”

The mess was incredible. She’d have to clean and it would be easier to do so without her costume—the squid was out of the bag now anyway. The suctions of her tentacles pulled the abdomen layer off. Below the mask, using a natural gaze, she looked at her boyfriend. He was too tall for his skin. The eyes stretched, dropping the lower lids to reveal muscle and blood trails. His teeth pronounced themselves like a stone wall, protruding an inch beyond the stretched thin lips.

“Umm, maybe Richard?”

“Me Richard. Soon smart. Soon talk oppa-toon-tees.”

Richard, the freakish conglomeration of Justice’s window-shopping, shook Mr. Bridge’s hand. The manager had had enough, scrambled to his feet, dropping his revolver as he did so, and broke from the room.

He got to the top of the stairs and a horrid pain filled his skull.

—

Justice stepped into the parking garage.

“Justice?” A woman in a security uniform waved. “And, uh, Richard?”

“Yes?”

“Mr. Bridge has informed us that you’re to go straight to his office, once in uniform,” said the rail-thin woman.

Justice led Richard. His skin had stretched into a semblance of normalcy, but no more than that. The elevator pinged and the woman in pink with the white objects on the desk told them to go right on in. “Mr. Bridge is acting a little slow today.”

Mr. Bridge sat grinning. His jaw slack and a trail of slobber hung from his mouth. “You new job. And you new job,” he said, almost grunting the words.

“Thank you, Mr. Bridge,” Richard said, bowing slightly. “This is a fine desk. Cherry is my favorite.”

Mr. Bridge clapped his hands and bounced.

Justice picked up the name badges from the desk. Richard was on the twelfth, manager of the entertainment sector. Richard grabbed Mr. Bridge’s clapping right hand and shook it. They’d wondered whose brain had dripped in pink coils from her nose, but the mystery was now over.

Justice read the second card, trying to ignore everything and enjoy the moment: Manager of Oceanic Licencing and Trade Ethics, Justice Gilliam, Thirty-third Floor. Genetics had always played a part and the best systems worked with the qualities of its parts, rather than against them.

Giddy, Justice squeaked, accidentally secreting ink into the foot of her flesh costume.

XX