Iglesia ………………Episode 4

(Last weeks episode)

She woke from a dream about babies with fins and gills.

That had been happening more and more often since they had met with the genetic designer at Paul’s hospital. She made a mental note to try and observe if it happened on nights after they made love. Then she forgot it. Like almost every other couple on earth, they wanted a baby. Unlike many, they actually had a chance to bring a new soul into this world without it being a tragedy. Or at least a bad joke. They had been cleared by the government, and when Paul finished his residency, and assuming she made her promotions on schedule, they would have the money to afford one child. It had been Paul’s idea to talk to the geneticist, since he was a friend and there had been no charge.

The rich had been designing their babies for years, but from what she had observed in her nightly wanderings through the gossip of popular culture, it hadn’t seemed to improve them much. The talk with the geneticist had creeped her out. And, it seemed, on a pretty deep level, judging from the dreams. She wished they would stop. But then, she wished a lot of things would stop.

She rolled out of bed and padded into the bathroom. Ever since she had read the word in a book when she was a kid she had always tried to pad to the bathroom, rather than just walk. She always wondered if she was padding correctly. Yet another thing you can’t really ask other people about, padding. The only thing she knew for sure was that you had to be barefoot to pad. Maybe there was something on the nets about padding. She made a mental note to check. Then she forgot it.

Ah….the morning mirror, teller of truth and destroyer of egos and illusions, what would it report today? The profile was still good, all the years of muay thai boxing had kept the gut in check, and even though she hadn’t really worked out religiously since she had gotten stabbed last year, there was still a satisfying residual taughtness. Another reason to get the promotion before having a kid. The perkiness tank on her boobs was slowly emptying, but slow was the key word. Her butt still even turned her on….so that was all good. As she leaned in and checked her face, she made a mental note to stop showing any kind of facial expression at all.  Lines, there were definitely PERMANENT LINES forming in the creases of her face. Permanent ones. She wondered if she could design those instead of a baby. It didn’t seem fair to her that what you looked like….eventually, anyway…was directly related to whatever expression you wore most. Or maybe it did. She made a mental note to keep her face as still as possible at all times. Then she frowned deeply at the mirror and sat down to pee.

Ablutions and toilette complete….and with shoes on to prevent padding, she made her way down to the kitchen. Flakes. She remembered when they used to be frosted or corn…now, just… Flakes. But.

Coffee.

As she inhaled the aroma of brewage, she performed her every mornings silent thanks to the Goddess that she had designed the world so that coffee grew on hills and mountains, and consciously surrendered herself to the coming ecstasy. It was their one shared extravagance since the corporation that owned Paul’s hospital “frowned on” drinking booze. Paul and her shared a deep abiding and passionate love of coffee, even though they were rarely able to enjoy it together much any more. In a world where so much had been lost, everything you could still hold on to from… before, was precious. Her spirit danced in the smell. Each of her individual cells could be felt to lunge forward and open as provocatively as possible on its own, and as a collectively unmistakable invitation and enticement to the pre-programmed pleasure and promise of synapsual eroticism and stimulation offered by the exotic substance. Her taste buds actually arched achingly upwards towards the smell….even as the centers in her brain that responded to ritual abased themselves at the prospect of the addition and co-mingling of cream- (-like substance) and psuedosugar to the ancient witches cauldronlike combining of essences in a cup that created something new and magical and merged it into a sensual experience of comforting familiarity that was also a source of deep penetrating pleasure. An undeniably primal and brain chemical-level pleasure, that culminated euphorically in the first encounter of the very surface of her tongue and the silky smooth, warm and strong, dark and musky, satisfyingly liquid raw pleasure. The combination of the strength and confident subtlety, the powerful yet delicate and somehow vulnerable complexity, the viscerally potent yet artistically controlled flavor…..pleased her.

The second sip was even better.

To be continued Saturday…..