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BY DAVID LISS

There was never a tiht to o, but there were no good deals, and this was the least-bad deal going I couldn&039;t let her stay out in the world, knohat she knew, blurting out what she did It probably would have been fine if I&039;d left it alone, but I could not live with such a flis would not be fine that nagged at ht, thatI had a wife I loved, and we had a child on the way I had a life, and I wanted to keep it A person can&039;t live like that, waiting for the other shoe to drop, and so I did the only thing I could do - the only thing I could think of It was the right call, but it just so happened that it didn&039;t turn out the way I wanted

It should have been fine Everything I knew about reanimates told me it should be fine I&039;d been around them almost all my life My parents could barely make car payments, but they rushed out to buy a Series One from General Reani up today can&039;t even iy and twitchy, with those ugly uniforreen tuxedos I was only five at the time, and the reanimate creeped the hell out of ht or when it would babysit whileit shamble toward me, a TV dinner clutched hard in its shaky hands I wasn&039;t phobic the way some people are I simply didn&039;t like them Dead people should res that alwaysto that apart else, was hard to afford and which I had to hide froed most of the household finances I&039;d have rather been anywhere else - at the dentist, the DMV, a tax audit, a prostate exam But I was there, at the apartment I opened the front door and walked in, smelled the weird che washed overthere My name was on the lease, but I felt like an intruder

It was a crappy apart side of town, cheap, but not too dangerous The place was a one bedroom - more space than Maisie needed, since she supposedly didn&039;t need any space at all She wasn&039;t supposed to, but I alondered Sometimes when I came to check on her, the chairs around the cheap kitchen table would look out of place I always pushed les or even halfway across the floor, as though advertising that they&039;d beena seat or s around if that hat she wanted to do, but she wasn&039;t supposed to want to do it That&039;s what botheredprecisely where I last left her, her back to the far wall of the living area, her face to the door, light fro over her I watched the dust h the

Maisie was a black-reen-and-white uniform of a licensed General Reanireen-and-white mask, which made her look, to my eyes, like a Mexican wrestler Plenty of people, even people who liked having reani, but they all admitted it was better than the alternative No one wants to check into a hotel and discover that the reanimate bellboy is one&039;s own dead relative No one wants to go to a cocktail party and see a dead spouse offering a tray of shrimp pate on ciabatta

I hated the uniform - slick and stain resistant, y,it almost impossible to tell that Maisie was female I hated the full- face mask, but I had her wear it in case there was a fire or the buildingor even if there was a break-in I didn&039;t want anyone knowing I owned an illegal reanimate I didn&039;t need that kind of trouble

I stepped into the apartment and closed the door behind me &039;Hello, Maisie You may take off the mask if you like&039;

She remained motionless, as still as a mannequin

&039;Maisie, please take off the mask&039;

With her left hand, she reached up and pulled it off but held on to it I hadn&039;t told her to put it anywhere, and so letting it go would not occur to her dead brain Underneath theloose fro curls of reddish blonde hair, her pale blue eyes - I&039; in life - dull and cloudy in un-death

I came to check in on Maisie ht to have been able to leave her alone for et soum up That was part of it The other part was that I wanted to be sure she wasn&039;t up to no good Renanimates weren&039;t supposed to have it in theood, but if she hadn&039;t been Maisie, had not acted like herself, she wouldn&039;t be in the apartin with

&039;How have you been, Maisie?&039;

Of course there was no response What was left of her brain couldn&039;t process so abstract a question That&039;s what Ryan said, and he see about

&039;Maisie, get et my own beer, of course, but I needed to find excuses to erator because otherwise she ht end up looking for a beer in the medicine cabinet

Maisie walked off to the kitchen I followed but only for so to do I was always bored and uneasy when I ca for so to recapture theI said to her or did with her felt natural Christ, I could talk to a dog and feel less like I was talking to myself That&039;s why I kept the visits so short I would drink the beer, order her to do so about how et back to my wife, when I walked into the kitchen and saw the fresh-cut flowers on the kitchen table They were a gaudy assortht and fresh, very new They&039;d been arranged carelessly, and water fro: I had not put the flowers there

No one else had a key - no one other than the aparter or the super Neither of them had any business inimportant to do, they would have called first (They had my cell-phone number, since I sure as hell didn&039;t want my wife to know I had an apartment, let alone an apartment where I kept my black- market reanier nor the super was about to leave a vase filled with flowers on erator and handing me a beer She did not open the bottle, because I had not asked her to open it That was how they worked They did not do anything you did not ask them to do So where had these flowers come from?

I twisted the cap off the beer and looked at Maisie, who, in the absence of orders, remained perfectly still &039;Maisie, where did these flowers come from?&039;

She stared at me It was a difficult question for a reaniain

&039;Maisie, did you put the flowers there?&039;

It was a yes-or- no question, and she should have been able to answer it, but she said nothing

&039;Maisie, answer the question Did you put those flowers there?&039;

Again, silence Dark, loo answers froave speaking to a stuffed ani answers frohed This was serious More than serious It wasn&039;t just that maybe , sootten out of the apartone to the store, spent money - money she&039;d earned fro it with her fro vortex of Maisie chaos, and I had to know I had to

&039;Maisie,&039; I said &039;Go into the bedroom, remove your clothes, and lie on your back on the bed&039;

The first thing I need to make clear is that I am not a pervert I don&039;t have any desire to have sex with reanimates Given the choice between sex with a reanimate or sex with a real woiven the choice between sex with a reaniood long while Like S&M or rubber fetishes or whatever, if you&039;re not into it naturally, it&039;s hard to fake the enthusiasly hot woman, and she says, &039;Sure, let&039;s have sex, only I want to tie you up and stick needles in your dick,&039; you&039;re probably going to, with however ret, take a rain check Unless you like that sort of thing Plenty of guys like sex with reanimates They prefer them to real women It floats their boat It does not float mine

That said, I should point out that in most ways it&039;s kind of like sex with anyone else It has sos thatwo sex with so at it objectively, it&039;s a trade-off That day, I looked at it objectively I didn&039;t want to have sex with her I wanted to have sex with my wife and no one else I liked sex with my wife Sure, I would look at an attractive woman when I saw one on the street, but I wasn&039;t about to make any moves There had been some parties, so, but I never pursued them I was in love with Tori I was happy and I didn&039;t need couilt and lies

If you are like s you don&039;t know about reanimates Ryan says you are happier that way He says the less you have to think about what they are, the easier it is to ignore them, to enjoy the convenience Ryan says you probably don&039;t know much about their history, for exa the history You also probably don&039;t knowThere&039;s a percentage in that one for you The key thing that I&039;reater clarity of thought when their feelings are intensified You can tease out this clarity either with pain or with sex - at least with the females I&039;m told it is impossible for the males to have sex, not unless the penis is artificially inflated There are ruically crafted boners, but I&039;m not entirely sure this is true

Reani sex This is a big part of why guys who like to sleep with the and compliant sex slaves whose needs and preferences can be handily dis the fact that they&039;re dead But foris that reanis, they start to remember themselves, and they - well, I hate to be crass, but the bottouys just love it Not me Itvile and rotting Even now I don&039;t like thinking about it in too much detail, and the less I say about the particulars, the better

Adulthood, however, s you don&039;t want to do So I had sex with Maisie As soon as I slid into her, it was like a switch flipped inside her soul She was so that felt not alive but rather live, like a stor electricity That was how she&039;d been when I&039;d had sex with her at the Pine Box She groaned and moaned and , aard violence I didn&039;t want to be there any longer than I had to, so I waited until she seeood and worked up, and then I asked, &039;Maisie, did you get those flowers?&039;

&039;Fuck off, you asshole&039;

I guess saying that she surprised me is an understatement I leaped off of her in astonishment and fear, and I lost - shall we say - my will to continue She, in turn, fell back on the bed like a puppet with her strings cut Just like that, she faded back to her norhtly bloated, not breathing hard like I was, since reani, I was sure, about nothing

I began to gather up et dressed,&039; I said, &039;and come sit at the kitchen table&039;

She couy I like children and animals I don&039;t especially like violentI enjoyed It wasn&039;t so I had to do I thought it over I looked at all sides of it and tried to find another way, but it just wasn&039;t there

When Maisie sat at the kitchen table, I told her to place her right arm on the table, on top of a thick bathroom towel Then I asked her to roll up the sleeve of her uniforrabbed her wrist in one hand and, with the other, thrust a sharp kitchen knife into her ar person, but I&039;m pretty sure it feels different Her flesh offered alh I felt the knife nick the bone, but it kept going, all the way through, and I felt the tip of the blade make contact with the towel

Ryan says that pain works as well as sex, but sex, troubling though it is, bothers in to think that I was a bad person should keep that in mind I went for pain only when I had no choice

Maisie did not screaht Instead, she looked at me and winced &039;You asshole motherfucker&039;

&039;Maisie, did you put those flowers there? How did you get them? How did you pay for them?&039;

Her eyes were noide andwo like a blink Heron some color

&039;Fuck you, Walter,&039; she said without much inflection

I twisted the knife in the wound I could feel the flesh pulling and tearing, twisting along with the knife &039;Maisie, how did you do it? How did you get the flowers?&039;

She let out a cry of pain, and then gritted her teeth together in a sick smile &039;The more you fuck me, the more you tortureyou what you deserve And it doesn&039;t all go away Each tier&039;

I yanked out the knife

Eight months earlier, I was a different ined he would soal reani sex with her, but life throws you curveballs That&039;s for sure

Things were pretty good, and they were getting better I was married to a woht would look twice at me I swear I&039;d fallen in love with Tori the first time I saw her at a birthday party for a ood fortune that she&039;d fallen for me

Tori was a cellist with the local symphony How&039;s that for cool? She was not, perhaps, the most accomplished musician in the world, which was fine byaccolades wherever she went, being adored by ent than I She&039;d long since given up on dreams of cello stardo sonant We&039;d only just found out, and it was too early to tell anyone, but ere both excited I was apprehensive too I think most men are more uneasy about their first child than they like to adht it would be an adventure It would be an adventure I went through with Tori, and surely that was good enough for reat I was an account ency, one that dealt exclusively with local businesses There was nothing creative or even challenging about my job, and the pay was no better than decent Mostly I tried to get new clients and tried to keep the clients we had happy It was a grind, trying to convince people to keep spendingthey probably didn&039;t need Most of h My boss was a dick if my nuets Mostly I hit ht The job paid the bills, so we could get good credit and, consequently, live way beyond our ht a house we could hardly afford, and we had two SUVs that together retailed for about half as much as the house We usually paid our monthly balance on our credit cards, and if we didn&039;t, we got to it soon enough

It all changed on a Saturday night It was the randouys ata bachelor party He was one of those guys I couldn&039;t stand: he had belonged to a fraternity, called everyone &039;dude&039;, lived for football season and to tell dirty jokes I don&039;t think he really wantedFrankly, I had no desire to drop a bunch of et him drunk, but it would have been bad office politics to say no

It started out in a bar and inevitably atory bullshit of lap dances and stuffing G-strings with bills and drinking too uess it was an okay ti out with Joe and his knuckleheaded friends at a strip club or spending an evening in front of the TV with Tori - I&039;d have taken the night at houys there I&039;d never ine I would want to ain He was tall and wore his blondish hair a little too long - to look rakishly long, I guess - and had the body of a guy who spends too rown up with Joe, and the two of theo to the Pine Box He said he knew a place that was just insane We wouldn&039;t believe how insane it was We had to check out this insanity

It was a bachelor party, so ere drunk and tired and disoriented from an hour and a half in close proxiht minds, and no one had the will to resist We drunkenly piled into our car and followed Ryan to his insane place about three as outside to indicate it was anything, let alone a club It looked like a warehouse We parked in the strip- lot across the street - Ryan said we had to - and then crossed over to the unlit building Ryan knocked on the door, and when it opened, he spoke in quiet tones to the bouncer Then ere in

None of us knee were getting into, and in all likelihood, none of us would have agreed if we had, but ere now fired by the spirit of adventure, and so ent into the ware house, which had been turned into aelectronic music and the smell of beer in plastic cups Tables had been set up all around a trio of ugly, slapped-together stages, and atop them danced strippers Reanimate strippers

&039;Dude, no way!&039; Joe cried drunkenly but not without pleasure &039;This shit is sick&039; Even while he complained, he forced his way deeper into the crowd Had anyone else spoken first, had anyone objected, we ht have all left But Joe was in, and so we all were He found a large table and sat himself down and called over to a waitress You could tell he was loving it - the pulsing hts, the smell of beer spilled on the concrete floor

The waitress, I saw after a few seconds, was a reani a skimpy cocktail dress and no mask Somehow I hadn&039;t noticed that the strippers weren&039;t wearing , but this waitress, with its brittle blonde hair and dead, puffy face exposed, seerotesque It had not been terribly old when it died, but it had been fat Now it ait, like a mummy from an old horror erness or error

The music was loud, but not so loud that you couldn&039;t talk, and I had the feeling that was important People came here to look, but also to make contact with each other They were reanimate fetishists I&039;d never heard of theht, but as Ryan told us about his friends, about his Internet groups, about the other underground places in town, I becauys out there ere just into reaniure

Joe seemed drunkenly ae and put s He paid for a blocky, jerky reanimate lap dance He had reaniht he was the biggest asshole I&039;d everI hated looking at the pale, bloated, strangely rubbery bodies Even the ones who had been beautiful at the tirotesque now, and many of them bore the scars of the injuries that had taken their lives One was a patchwork of gashes and rips One of them, perhaps the one who had been most beautiful in life, had vicious red X-marks on its wrists It wasbeyond s, and I knew full well that we only tolerated reanimates because they were hidden behind et what they really were

Ryan saw s He offered to buyfun, and I wasn&039;t going to pretend to have fun

I stared into space and tried not to look at the dancers, though once in a while I would sneak a look just to ht It was But then, out of the corner of my eye, I saw one of the dancers stop It caused a little coe of the stage, its ar out into the audience Staring, I saw, at ht it was led, and it took a few seconds for ernails into the soft skin of its pale A couple of esturing violently, but it remained still, its dead, pale eyes locked on mine

And then I knew it - I knew her, kneho she was or who she had been It was Maisie Harper Knowing that felt like falling, felt like a plummet toward my doom I remembered that face, and, more horribly, she rerave, but then she had left the grave and brought the secret with her She stared, and her eyes locked with mine, and I could not turn away And then she opened her mouth and said one word Even from a distance I could see what she said: &039;You&039; That&039;s when I kneas in trouble It hen I knew things would never again be the sa at that weird, unclotting reaniotten onto my pants After I&039;d stabbed her and Maisie had openly defied me, I&039;d wrapped up her arone to stand in the living area, in that spot where she seemed most contented - or whatever passed for contentment with reanimates Ryan said they couldn&039;t process much information They had very low brain activity, and their ability to feel or experience from moment to moinning to get the feeling that Ryanabout

I cleaned up as best I could and went home It was a Saturday afternoon, and Tori had been out shopping for baby things with a friend, spending ht once have bothered s on ot there, and she wanted to knohere I&039;d been She stood there, still strangely thin despite her advanced pregnancy, looking like a toothpick that had sed a grape She wanted to knohat I&039;d been doing to get blood all over ot angry I hated to get angry with her, but I was frustrated I ht have told her to fuck off I was not patient, thatShe accusedirrational because she was pregnant and hornant wo

The bottoht like that I didn&039;t usually speak to her that way, and it left her confused and angry

Sunday was no better, and Monday at as a disaster I hadn&039;t been sleeping well, and when a client called in with a complaint, I probably wasn&039;t as sympathetic or attentive as is appropriate for a couh he was probably right in this case Things were falling apart, and I was going to have to figure out what I could do to put theether

The Pine Box had a Web site with a password You got the password for the site at the club, and you got the password for the club at the site The passwords changed every teeks or so It was a clever systeht and to insure that regulars kept co back I had to know just how much Maisie could recall

Almost every time I went I saw Ryan It wasn&039;t like ere friends or anything, because I couldn&039;t stand hiht he was a dick, but he didn&039;t have to know that Truth was, I needed hih this fucked-up world, and if buying hih at his jokes hat I had to do, then I illing to take my lumps

He was into reanimates That much was probably obvious, but he was into thee, and he was into theuys are into Hitler or the Civil War He loved the infors and articles in scholarly journals He liked facts and dates and statistics and hidden histories

We would sit at the bar with nearly naked dead woo on and on about reanimate history Sos I&039;d never heard before

&039;Were you old enough to rean to capture pictures of the soul leaving the body?&039; he asked uess I was six It was a to remember it, but we&039;d all seen the pictures, watched docuht television The first pictures were taken by an MIT grad student whose grandfather was dying, and he set up his modified camera in the hospital rooht it was a hoax, but then they found the process could be repeated every ti and that it left the body upon death It changed the e thought about life, the afterlife, dead bodies - the whole deal In soed the nature of humanity Our mortality defined us, but with that mortality seriously in question, no one was really sure ere any more

&039;It was all a crock of shit, anyhow,&039; Ryan was saying &039;No one knehere the soul went, did they? It could just go up to the clouds and disappear or turn into rain or whatever Maybe everyone goes on to eternal suffering ine No way to tell, but all those assholes iels and harps and heavenly choirs sewn up, and that&039;s what opened the door for all this Soul photography was in 1973, and by 1975 the first-generation reani on the market&039;

&039;I alondered about that,&039; I said &039;It only took theure out how to turn dead people into product&039;

&039;That&039;s because they already knew Here&039;s what they don&039;t teach you in Sunday school: the technique was actually developed by the Nazis during World War II They were plotting soe offensive in which they would overwhelm the Allies with an army of the dead, but fortunately the war ended before they had a chance Americans had the secret for years but knew they could never do anything with it, that the public would flip out But after the soul photography began, they saw an opening Christ, do you have any idea howthe procedure? And then there are all the regulations, you know?&039;

&039;The regulations,&039; I echoed &039;What was that, like the Alaba?&039;

&039;The Atlanta Convention - a big round rules When you buy a reani Three, they&039;ll warn you never to remove the mask, that it messes up the preservative process, and I think just about everyone obeys No one wants their reanimate to fall apart on thes If you miss even one of them, your reanimate becomes unlicensed and can be confiscated by the cops&039;

Ryan was also very interested in where the reaniht thousand to sign up, but not a whole lot of people in this country are willing to sell their bodies for eternal slavery, so most of the reaniht that was one of the reasons for the ht be more uncomfortable if they had to stare into a black reaniuess&039;

&039;So where do these come fro white woed &039;Soet because you need ones that spoke English when they were alive Still, you have any idea how lish just so they can sell their bodies? But the A addicts, people with ter for their families, whatever A lot of theet less, but there are no taxes Sonant and can&039;t afford an abortion? Maybe she hocks her body, hoping to buy it back That&039;s the teaser, you know You can always buy it back How many reaniet their bodies out of hock before they died? Even the black- market dealers let you do it, because they know people can convince themselves that they&039;ll be able to redeem their bodies Almost no one ever does&039;

I wondered if that hat happened to Maisie Harper - some crisis she couldn&039;t tell her parents about, so she pawned her body, sure she would have time to buy it back

&039;Bunch ofIt&039;s crazy to think that because some chick believed she would always havebuy her like you would buy a loaf of bread&039;

Until that moment, I&039;d had no idea you could buy a reani &039;You irls?&039;

&039;You thinking about it? Be hard to explain to your wife, but yeah I mean, it&039;s not like a showroom You can&039;t just point and say, "I&039;ll take that one," but they are so to sell if they have extra or if one of theers at Maisie &039;Like that one I guess you&039;ve thought about it&039;

I turned to hirinned &039;Oh, I don&039;t know It seems to have a particular interest in you, and you in it I&039;ve fucked it, you know&039; He grinned at ood stuff I bet you they would let it go cheap I mean, if you wanted a h I were floating outsidethat he knew aboutpossible? But if he did, so what? We were brothers in sick, fucked-up, reanimate enthusiasm, weren&039;t we? And even ht: they sold reaniood to be true It see up to ive me an out from unbearable coht be willing to sell Maisie in particular

Ryan hed &039;Before you do sooods&039;

&039;Saoods?&039;

He nodded &039;It&039;s only a hundred dollars They have rooirl you want If she&039;s on the stage, she&039;s available, but if you are thinking of buying that one, you should check her out first&039;

I looked over at Maisie She was dancing around a pole very slowly, and she was looking atsex with her, with any of them, was utterly repulsive to me &039;No way,&039; I said

&039;Don&039;t knock it If you&039;ve never had sex with a reani They love it, man You wouldn&039;t believe how into it they are It&039;s like they feel alive when they&039;re doing it They talk, almost like normal people Sex and pain do that&039;

&039;How do you know about pain?&039; I asked

He shrugged &039;Different guys have different interests You meet all sorts of reanimate enthusiasts here Sos&039;

I was already dis this If people wanted to torture the dead, that was their own business I was thinking about Maisie and sex I was thinking about what Ryan had said, that they see sex, and they spoke ThatI really didn&039;t want to try it myself, but I had to know

I paid io, one of the Pine Box&039;s owners He was a good looking Greek guy with long hair in a ponytail and a linebacker&039;s physique He looked like someone ould be curt and dismissive, but he was actually very friendly He spoke with a heavy accent, but he was very gregarious and casual, like paying to have sex with a reani deal He ood business but a G-string, she cao with Mr Walter Molson?&039; Yiorgio asked her &039;He is true gentleman&039;

I winced when he spoke nized my face, but until that moment, I don&039;t see how she could have known my name She did not react, and I hoped that maybe the information was lost on her dead brain

She followedunspeakably seedy - a dusty room with cinder-block walls and a stained mattress on the floor - but the space was actually very neat and pleasant, with a bed and some chairs The roos - landscapes and fruit and the kind of bland things you see in hotel rooio was clearly a class act

I closed the door, and Maisie stood there looking at io had told in the coht not listen I said, &039;Maisie, sit down on the bed&039;

She sat

There I was in that small room with Maisie She sat on the side of the bed, her face e as a doll&039;s She was all but naked, but totally oblivious She&039;d been beautiful when she was alive, I knew, and she was still beautiful in death - if you liked that sort of thing But even though I felt the surprising heat of her proxi sex with her - with it She was a dead thing, a corpse et uilt I didn&039;t want to be the sort of person ould both kill a woman and then fuck her dead body That wasn&039;t how I saw myself

&039;Maisie,&039; I said &039;Do you knoho I am?&039;

She did not react

&039;Maisie, do you re It was better than getting an answer, but it didn&039;t putsex, and I kneas procrastinating I was looking for some other way to find out what I wanted to know, but I didn&039;t see it Taking in a long, deep breath, I told her to take off her G-string and lie on the bed She did that

I took offto be able to perforoing Her body was strangely warm, almost hot, but it didn&039;t feel like body heat It wasjust below her skin And the texture was all wrong It didn&039;t feel like skin, and her flesh didn&039;t feel like flesh Lying on top of her felt like lying on top of a water balloon I didn&039;t want to lick or suck or bite or even run my hands over her I just wanted to do what I had to do and see what happened

It was like Ryan had said: she was into it Really into it She bucked wildly, grabbed onto roaned, and an to speak &039;God da you, and you killed me Walter Molson, you killed ered backward to the wall It orse than I thought Far worse By arranging to have sex with her, by putting her in a position where she could learnto have to do so to have to do it soon

The real beginning of the story o years before all this Tori&039;s sister was going through a bad patch with her husband, was o out to California to be with her for a few days We hadn&039;t beento be my first ti with her, but I was also excited for the solitude, which Iabout it and you realize you can&039;t remember the last time you spent more than an hour or tithout soone I was exhausted froht, a Saturday, was so up a couple of friends and going out, but somehow it seemed a waste of an empty house to leave it I was in it for the quiet, for the privacy, and I didn&039;t want to waste it with socializing I ordered a pizza, turned on a baseball ga up afterthe pizza box on the coffee table until

I took out my bottle of Old Charter, and I swear I only planned to do one shot Two at thedrunk, and I was sure that drinking too ht to sleep But so, and one shot followed the next with an unreood and drunk

Coainst humanity that there was no ice crea to cos I understood that I was drunk, very drunk, and that driving under those conditions was so moronic I also understood that there was a convenience store not half a ht shot out of ns, and there you are No need even to turn the wheel I ood, but since the idea didn&039;t occur toI was too lazy to walk Sohts