Total Life Read online

  “Go upstairs, Jimmy.”

  You climb step by step, the rusty ladder creaking with each step of you. One of the steps breaks and your left leg slips. You hold the railing and thank God for not cutting your leg in this thing. Tetanus is the last thing you need right now.

  The gun swings into the pocket of your blouse when you reach the top.

  “Look forward.”

  It’s a large room that used to store meat. The double door is wide open, so you can see a girl cuffed in a bar suspended on the wall across the room. The bar that was used to hang meat, today is the sacrificial altar of a girl. The blond hair falls down her face, the small breasts still inflating behind the black tank top. She could be your daughter.

  “Go to her.”

  You feel your legs get wobbly.

  “Go to her!”

  You wipe your eyes and walk slowly, trying to avoid looking at the girl. She wakes up at the sound of your footsteps, raises her head and begins to squirm. Her feet are tied with chains on the floor and all she’s gonna do is to distort every muscle in her body. She screams, but the cloth tied in her mouth suffocates the sound.

  Steve says, “Point the camera of your phone at her. I can’t see in there through the satellite.”

  Even against your will, you obey.

  “This is Abby, old friend. A high school student, seventeen and a promising life ahead. Abby is the best student in school, intends to go to a good college, maybe Harvard, and become astrophysicist. She’s a record holder in winning science competitions. She’s also an Internet activist, always criticizing the misuse of technology and the role of women in the present day. She aims to contribute with the human knowledge about the universe, influence people for good and earn enough money to give her parents a good life, who work harder than they can to finance their daughter's studies. Abby is an admirable person, isn’t she? Her friends think so. She’s loved by everyone and she’s even dating a boy who does swimming. They wanna get married and have three children. You know that? Abby thinks she's gonna change the world and build a happy life. Poor Abby ...”

  Tears stream down Abby's face. Something that mixes hate, pain and fear.

  “Punch her face.”

  “I won’t—"

  “Put the phone by pillar and punch her fucking face, you motherfucker.”

  You put your phone by the pillar, facing Abby, and go back to her. You say, “This is crazy.”

  “Laura's relatives arrived five minutes ago. They are sitting in the living room, asking Peter questions while Laura sits down in the armchair. With a simple command I put the video on television, Jimmy. Don’t play with me or I swear I do it. I'll count to three and you'd better decide before the countdown is over.”

  One.

  Abby screams, her veins leaping on her red face. You're sorry for this, you're sorry they kidnapped her and put her in this situation. Abby didn’t deserve this.

  Two.

  Abby deserved a happy life. Like everyone else, she deserved to see her dreams come true. She deserved success, a husband who loved her and children who kissed her face every morning. Then they'd say “I love you, Mom,” and Abby's eyes would get full of tears every time they said it. This is the life that Abby deserves ...

  Three.

  But this is the life Abby cannot have.

  The punch hits her eyebrow, a sharp blow that makes her eyes swell immediately.

  “Another one.”

  You scream and punch Abby on the cheek. Her body sways back.

  “Again.”

  A punch in the nose, spilling blood all over Abby's face and splashing it on you. Her eyes roll, she got dizzy.

  “Take it easy, we want her to stay up for dessert. Now continue to obey my commands.”

  You punch Abby's stomach with force enough for her to squirm from pain without fainting. You kick her knee and feel when it brokes. You pull out her hair, bite her neck and spit in her face.

  You pause for her to continue with you. She bleeds, gasps and does her best to give you a look of hatred with her good eye.

  Then you pick up a rock on the floor, stretch out to Abby's hands and start sawing her nails. She screams with the cloth in her mouth and her nails are totally sawn, until the flesh is red and the blood flows through it.

  You hit another punch, this time in Abby's ear. She almost faints, her breath gets slower, but she's still awake.

  You take a piece of glass, tear her shirt off and skirt the brownish nipple with a cut. Then you suck the blood, the terrible taste that turns your stomach. God forgive me, you think, God forgive me ...

  “Here comes the cherry on the cake, dear Jimmy. Are you ready?”

  You gasp and try to control the shaking. Your body is dirty with blood, tears and sweat.

  “Take off her pants.”

  “No, Steve, please ...”

  "Take of her pants, Jimmy.”

  "I do anything, I swear to God I do, but don’t make me—"

  Steve whispers, “Take off her pants.”

  You obey and open the buttons with shaking hands. You whisper to her to forgive you when you open the zipper and lowers her pants to her ankle. Then you take off her white panties drenched in urine and your stomach threatens to come out of your mouth when the girl's vagina gets exposed.

  “Go ahead, Jimmy, fuck her.”

  You stand still.

  “Jimmy ...”

  You take off your pants and penetrate her carefully. She screams, squirms and you have to hold her body against yours. She cries out of control and you realize you do the same. You can’t stop sobbing while you do it. A strange mixture of pleasure and deep disgust takes over you.

  “Tell her to be a good girl, Jimmy.”

  Be a good girl.

  “Everything is gonna be okay.”

  Everything is gonna be okay.

  “Ask her if she's enjoying it.”

  Are you enjoying it?

  “That’s rights Jimmy, I can feel the pleasure from here.”

  You reach orgasm and Abby is not even awake. It’s a morbid, repulsive and painful orgasm. You've never felt so much pain. You've never felt so alone.

  You fall to your knees, the world falls on you. It's over, you did it. You signed your passport to hell. You are paying for your sins, you are being punished by God himself for your mediocre existence. You are the cancer of the world. You're nothing but a bunch of crap.

  “Jimmy?”

  You shake your head and grumble.

  “You're not done yet, old friend.”

  “Steve ...”

  “Take the gun.”

  You struggle to take the Colt Cobra, your vision is blurred and your head doesn’t stop throbbing.

  “Aim at her.”

  You do it.

  “Shoot.”

  And moments later, Abby is just a dead body.

  V

  In common cases, when a person is being virtually threatened, the first option is usually to contact the authorities. It turns out that the authorities quickly lose their power when: a) What is blackmailing you is not a person, but a ghost made of binary codes with conscience; and b) when the things he can use to blackmail you could never be shown to anyone, let alone the police.

  And that’s clear to me when Steve sends me a good morning message, accompanied by prints and videos of things I've done virtually lately. He knows I used to see live streams of fifteen-year-old girls stripping, he knows everything I've commented on social media saying I was thinking about killing my wife and knows I've visited banned sites. Steve has access to my bank account, can monitor my house and can hack whatever he wants with the only purpose of fucking me. He can get in touch with people and get things, just as he contacted people to kidnap Abby. He’s part of a whole that forms the great world-wide web, being able to walk freely through this whole in the same way that the electric current runs through electricity wires.

  You're mine, Jimmy.

  I sit down at the table with my cell pho
ne in hand, wondering whether or not to click on the Total Life icon and see my status. Entering the game seems to be too risky, even though I'm already completely fucked with…

  Steve. Maybe if I erased him or just canceled my account, I could get rid of him ...

  “Bob says using your phone a lot can cause cancer.”

  I look up, only now realizing that Peter eats a bowl of cereal sitting on the counter.

  “Oh, son ... I hadn’t seen you there.”

  “Bob talks a lot, actually. He's a psychologist, graduated from some major college in Europe. He likes to sit in front of you and analyze you, looking for signs of trauma even in the way you blink. My mother thinks Bob is a genius, but I think he just pretends to understand human behavior to date her. This is quite likely, coming to think of it. Bob said I should be a psychologist because women like to be analyzed. It makes them feel like a challenge to men and they like it. Bob sounds like a charlatan.”

  “Peter?”

  “What?”

  “Who the hell is Bob?”

  “My mom's new boyfriend,” he says, looking like someone who’s explaining to a stupid child that two and two make four. “That was the first thing I told you when you walked into the kitchen, remember? ‘Mom’s dating a guy', it was what I said.”

  I sigh and massage my temples.

  “Sorry, I don’t think I was paying attention. You know, I have a lot of things to worry about.”

  He rolls his eyes, pushes the bowl of cereal and stands up.

  “What a surprise.”

  “Hey, Peter, come back here. I didn’t mean ... shit.”

  Laura walks down the stairs dragging a garbage bag as Peter walks past her.

  “Will you do something useful and help me with that shit?” she says to me. “You leave that pile of useless junk in the attic when I'm sick and tired of saying that crap is all fucked up.”

  I wonder what she would say if she found the bloodstained clothes I hid in the attic last night when I got home and had to go through the side door so no one would see me. Laura and her family were having a barbecue in the garden, laughing and having fun while the world fell on my head.

  “Aren’t you gonna work today?” she asks as I put the bag over my shoulder.

  “It’s my day off.”

  “Day off? Why?”

  “It doesn’t matter, Laura.”

  She shrugs and walks to the kitchen.

  “Well, then maybe you can take your son out. Rachel is coming here soon and I want some privacy.”

  “I don’t know if I'm in a good mood to go out.”

  “I'm not asking you to do it, Jimmy. I'm telling you to go out and do something more useful with your day than sit on the fucking couch or bother me with your presence.”

  A nice love story, as you can tell.

  But I think Laura is right, Peter and I really need some time alone. Since he got here , we've barely talked to each other — a pattern that seems to haunt our whole father-son relationship. The truth, even though it’s weird to admit, is that Peter seems as strange to me as any other boy. I don’t know what his favorite basketball team is, whether there is any girl he runs away with every night in his dreams or what he plans to do when he leaves high school. If you ask me, I can only talk about the charges I do day after day at work and a bit about virtual escapism. Oh, also add on the list “vast experience in being blackmailed by virtual maniacs.” Maybe I deserve a doctorate degree in those things.

  I decide that I'm going to take Peter to go bowling at Rock Strike. I believe that spending time doing such an activity next to my child could be an interesting experience. Forgetting Steve is also a bonus of the program.

  We sit together to put on the bowling shoes. My son remains silent. Hidden in himselfself.

  “So do you think you can do it?”

  “I don’t know, I've never done this before.”

  “I'm not talking about bowling.”

  Peter looks confused.

  “180 degrees to the left.”

  He looks toward the direction where a dark-haired girl is putting her shoes. The braids in the middle of the head appear to be well made, as well as the eyeliner that highlights the green eyes as she lifts her face. Beside her, a short-haired blond boy touches the girl's shoulder and says something. Two adults approach, talking to them.

  “Don’t worry, they're siblings.”

  The girl gets up and heads for the alley. Her long legs make beautiful movements. The tight-fitting jeans on the body must be making Peter crazy. She pulls up the sleeves of her black shirt, grabs a ball and takes a deep breath. Then she tilts her body, throws the ball and crosses her hopeful fingers. The ball takes a zigzag course, threatens to leave the alley twice, but returns to the center just in time to hit the pins and leave only two standing. She turns to the family, celebrating.

  “She's good,” Peter says.

  I smile, squeeze his shoulder and stand up. I walk up to the family and try to maintain a pleasant expression.

  “It was a good move,” I say to the girl.

  She smiles, straightens her hair and thanks. The father approaches us, a large man with privileged bones, you might say.

  “This is the family business, boy. Rocking at bowling since ... when was this thing invented? It makes no difference, the point is we've been running this business forever.”

  “If you're as good as you say, how about a little dispute?” I suggest. “I bet my son and I can destroy you.”

  The fat man laughs loudly.

  “Did you hear that? He thinks he can confront our supremacy! Prepare to cry all night, my friend.”

  A doubles match, that's what we've got. Peter and I, the big-boned man and his daughter.

  As it's been a long time since I've been bowling with Laura — since we've done anything else as a couple, actually — my first moves are awkward. The ball threatens to leave the alley, goes back to the center and makes a curve again until hit only two pins.

  The fat man burst out laughing.

  “I'm just warming up,” I say to him, with an embarrassed smile.

  But the truth is that things don’t get much better in my next attempts …

  The fat man, on the other hand, seems to be able to bowl strikes even if he is devouring chops with one hand and throwing the ball with the other. He makes graceful movements, imitating a ballerina, and makes the family laugh.

  Strike.

  The blond girl doesn’t do as well as her father, but her long legs remain as graceful as before. The way her back tilts and her pants highlight the curves of her beautiful body is one of the things that would make any man sacrifice a few hours in Total Life for a little primitive pleasure.

  Peter could tell you that, I bet.

  By the way, if you're wondering how my son did ... well, maybe it's best not to get in this subject right now. The first time is always complicated; the balls don’t hit the right place and you are almost always doomed to be ashamed. That goes for both bowling and sex, I think. But truth be told, Peter's lousy bowling ability seems to amuse the girl. This is a something. Most love stories begin with men playing the fool.

  I slip my arm around Peter's shoulder as his father celebrates the humiliating victory.

  “We were all losers one day, my friend,” the fat man says. “The secret to victory is ... fuck, the secret is being fucking great at it like us!”

  “Phill, watch your mouth!” the woman warns.

  “Sorry honey.” He tucks the collar of his shirt and holds out his hand to me. “My name is Phillip Baker, by the way. This is my wife, Susan, this is my son, Samuel, and this is my daughter, Mandy.”

  I shake hands with Phill.

  “It’s a pleasure. My name is James, or Jimmy for friends. This is my son, Peter.”

  “After that game, I think we're friends now, right Jimmy?”

  I thought things like that just happen on Total Life. I thought that only avatars had the ability because their programming gives t
hem no other option — a condition, of course, that does not apply to Steve.

  Steve ...

  Steve talking in my ear and telling me to punch Abby's face. Suck the blood from her nipple and scrape the flesh under her nails. It could have been Mandy instead of Abby. She could have been buried with her disfigured face, murdered by a failed coward. A waste of atoms without life and without soul.

  “Jimmy, are you okay?” Phill asks.

  Blood streaming down Mandy's parted lips.

  “You look a little pale.”

  The broken eyelash and the black eye on Mandy's swollen face.

  “Are you sure you're okay?”

  Mandy's exposed sex, the excrement of my penis mingling in her pubic hairs as my tears stream down her back.

  “I'm fine,” I say, trying to force a smile.

  Phill examines me for a second, an eternal second in which he seems to see the filth of my rotten mind, but at last he ends up smiling.

  “So, how about eating something with us, you and your son? You know, to celebrate the victory of my family.”

  “Sounds like a great idea.”

  *

  Peter goes to the Baker's to spend time with Mandy and Samuel. I’m basically responsible for this new friendship, one of the few points in favor of me as a father. At least I can say I did something good.

  Laura is not at home when I arrive. There’s only the television with a satellite image showing an abandoned warehouse. Steve sends me a message as the television shows me carrying Abby's deformed body out of the warehouse and then burying it.

  Steve's message says:

  I'll have something new for you soon, Jimmy.

  VI

  The phone calling on the nightstand wakes me up, but my head is still dizzy when I pick it up. The blurry vision doesn’t let me read the name at first, so I wait until I can focus on Steve's name.