"Testimonial ff, guro"
By robblu (https://pastebin.com/u/robblu)

URL: https://pastebin.com/9wjuRGyQ
Created on: Wednesday 18th of November 2015 11:35:23 PM CDT
Retrieved on: Saturday 31 of October 2020 03:42:35 AM UTC


Right from the start, it seemed too good to be true.

A new kind of vibrator for sale, medium-low price, no batteries. No wall outlet either. "Powered by clean, eco-friendly bioelectricity!" the ads said. "Pseudo-intelligent circuitry automatically adapts to your preferences while in use." If you're not completely satisfied after four weeks, return it for a 110% refund. JadeCo doesn't even ask for a reciept. Well, there's too good to be true, and then sometimes there's too good to not try.

It looked like a lumpy golden-brown egg. No switches or other visible controls. Shake it around and it sloshes, slightly, like it's mostly full of liquid. Pick it up with your bare hands and it starts to hum; squeeze it in a clenched fist and it escalates to an angry buzz. But only bare hands. Grab it with rubber gloves? No response.

Condoms shut it down too. That could be a pain. How am I supposed to keep clean? Oh, wait, use and care guide says it's dishwasher safe. Just have to remember to run enough hot soapy water over it to scare off yeast infections and butt-juice.

Soon enough, I lined up a long weekend worth of vacation time and got down to business. Just like the ads said, it adapts. At the end of the first hour it seemed to know all my weak points as well or better than any of my old girlfriends, and by saturday morning it had even figured out when to calm down and back off without me needing to ask. It could vibrate in dozens of different rhythms, turn warm or cold... I didn't have any idea how the mechanism inside might work and I didn't care.

Sunday afternoon I found a crack in the casing. Droplets of some dark green resin leaked out, smelled like honeysuckle as they dried and hardened. The use and care guide said it was self-repairing, nothing to worry about. I flipped through it over and over, almost panicking. My precious new toy was hurt! Surely there had to be something I could do. At the back of the guide I found another page I hadn't seen before. A recipe for rice pilaf, with a few herbs and spices I'd never heard of.

After three days of marathon masturbation I realized I actually was pretty tired and hungry. High time for a grocery run. Had to stop at the health food store for some of the obscure ingredients... and a few other things that caught my eye. There was this feeling, in the afterglow, like I was... flawed. Weak. I hadn't been taking proper care of my body. Too much desk work and convenience-store junk, not enough fresh air. Before I knew it I'd loaded up two shopping carts and plotted out a whole diet-and-exercise regimen.

Tuesday I started burning sick days. I wasn't really sick, of course. It didn't even have the buzz-and-crash of addiction. I was waking up every morning feeling better rested, more alive than I'd ever been. Called up Adelaide, told her what a fool I'd been to leave her. Scheduled a date.

Wednesday night, the crack had spread. It wasn't a plastic casing at all, I realized, it was an eggshell. Now that I'd figured out the rice pilaf recipe, gotten rid of the big stressors in my life... I realized I'd used to smell like sickness, like a dying animal, huddled in a cave atop it's own filth. Now, I was almost clean. Almost ready.

Friday. Date night, my big reunion with the woman I'd never felt worthy of before. Dinner and a movie, but romantic comedy is just a tedious series of contrived misunderstandings - can't these people just drop the script, shut up and fuck? - and the fancy restaurant food tasted like sand. We came back to my place and I introduced her to the Egg.

It hatched. The honeysuckle-scented thing crawled up inside me, as she watched. She pulled away, stumbled to the bathroom and vomited into the toilet. It's okay. It'll be okay, she just doesn't understand yet. I helped her clean up, led her back, answered her questions. I'm stronger than I was a week ago. When she started talking about doctors and police, I wrestled her down and tied her to the bed. Pulled up the JadeCo website and ordered another one, overnight shipping. It'll be here in the morning. Attune it to her, then she will be able to see. She's still weak, not as bad as I was, but... human. We can become host to something more.

{*}

Weeks later, Adelaide and I aren't feeling so good. Jaundiced skin, bellies swollen like a couple of beached whales, joints ache, delirious with fever. Someone called on the phone, some human who used to have authority over me. He said I'm fired, now. Fired like a bun in the oven, a pot in the kiln, a bullet out of a cannon into the sun. I never liked that job anyway. It feels like my brain is on fire. Adelaide says we're out of pilaf. That can't be right, I made a great big batch just... four days ago. Shit. I waddle over to the kitchen. Fridge is empty. Cabinets are empty. Freezer. Cold air clears my head, a little. I lean in and lay my cheek on the ice cube tray with a sigh. The only food left in the house is a frozen hawaiian-style pizza and half a bag of green peas. Gas line was shut off when I forgot to pay for it, but we still have electricity. I laboriously peel off packaging, dump the peas in among the pineapple and pork, shove the mess in the toaster oven.

Stumble back to the living room and slump down next to Adelaide. Our bare thighs brush together, and she understands the situation. We can't speak out loud, other than a hoarse wheeze or croak; the jade-honeysuckle-thing takes up so much space, once it's grown, host's lungs get squeezed out of the way like a kiwi bird. Fortunately, skin contact is enough. Better, really. Clearer than words ever were.

I realize I'm still holding that big knife from the kitchen. I planned to cut the pizza with it, or... something like that. Adelaide leans over to kiss the side of my neck, and tell me that she can feel something moving where her womb used to be. I feel it too, hers and my own. Something wants go come out, but there's no way forward.

I hold up the knife. Oxo brand. My mind drifts off into thoughts of oxen, cowboys, herd animals, cigarettes... "More doctors recommend Camel than any other brand." I stare at my reflection in the broad, sharp, triangular blade. When will that pizza be done? When will this bun be out of my oven? We'll be waiting until the cows come home. I twirl it around, lost in idle musings. What would a knife say, if it could skin-talk? Fat sausage fingers slip and stab the tip down into my solar plexus.

Blood wells up, deep reddish-black, but it doesn't smell like it should. Just thick and musky and smoky and, okay maybe that's the pizza burning. There's no pain in the cut. It actually feels good, like scratching an itchy bug-bite. The feeling radiates out, relieving aches across my distended ribcage. I realize I wasn't hungry at all, I just needed... this. Adelaide understands instantly, reaches over to help. Our four feeble hands knot up, grip, guide the knife in deeper, downward, splitting skin and muscle as easily as cheesecake.

After my pathetic flesh is out of the way, the first thing is the steam. We've been running the air condiitioner full blast, though it's snowing outside, and now that the jungle in my guts is exposed, vapor swirls out and visibly condenses. Next is the maggots. They're so tiny and translucent and adorable! They burrow in deeper, hiding from the cold, and fleshy purple fiddlehead ferns unfurl to cover them. A snail slithers out, trailing slime toward my left nipple. It's a whole ecosystem. A miniature world, aching to be born.

While I'm lost in this reverie, Adelaide grabs the knife and rips open her own belly. Sure enough, it's the same. Almost. A thousand subtle differences, the smell of pollen, the color of that snail's shell, the shape of that fern's leaf. Primitive creatures crawl across the chasm where we touch, grind against each other, devour each other. Cooperation, competition, exchange of genetic information.

{*}

Another month or three rolls by. Mantis-like things stitch my wound shut. With most of the weight off, I start to feel functional again. It's early spring outside, but autumn in what's left of my gut. I pull my mind back together, learn to cover up the marks this alien divinity has left on me with hat and scarf and makeup and a trenchcoat. Adelaide and I take turns dealing with anything that requires going outside. Our pooled savings are running low.

On a shelf in the bedroom, there are three eggs. Mine, hers, and, I only bought two. Where did that third one come from? In fact, the first two shouldn't even be here. They hatched! The shell crumbled! Hatched, and grew inside us, and... bred. Of course. That third one is the hybrid, the offspring.

I drive, all day and all night, to visit the JadeCo main office in the big city. The receptionist can neither confirm nor deny much of anything, but she winks and I see the bulge of a maggot crawling across a cheekbone under the skin of her face. I hand over all three eggs, they give me cash for each one, no paperwork and no questions. I run some numbers. Permutations and combinations... I empty my bank account and max out two credit cards buying more eggs, as many as the car trunk can hold.

It's not a toy at all, you see? The money-back guarantee has nothing to do with satisfaction. They pay us to be hosts. To breed. I don't know what their larger plan is and I don't care. I'm happy to do my part.

All this can be yours, and the kingdom of heaven too, for only $49.95+S&H.