Biohell (6 page)

Mel laughed. “You think I’m such
a great catch myself? Franco, I’m a
tax inspector.
We’re like the toilet
bacteria of the Quad-Galaxy. I’ve known war criminals get a better reception at
a party-than I do. The minute people hear where I’m from they usually run a
marathon... but not you. You... you showed me kindness. You invited me back
here, and despite it being a sixty-nine floor climb, I appreciated that.” She
shuffled a little closer on the couch. “And... I
do
like a man in
uniform.”

“Ahh.” Franco himself shuffled a
little closer.

Mel reached out. Put a hand on
his knee.

“Ooh.” Franco put his hand on her
knee.

Again, they shuffled a little bit
closer... until they were inches apart.

In a husky whisper, Franco said, “I
really, really want to kiss you.”

“Why don’t you, then?” breathed
Mel.

Franco leaned close, and their
lips brushed. Franco’s heart soared. It popped and crackled in his chest like
an open exhaust on a 5000cc Harley.

They kissed in candlelight for
long, long minutes. A gentle caressing of tongues and lips. A merging of
inquisitiveness and building lust. A soft and sensual connection.

Mel’s hand stroked Franco’s leg,
working its gradual way to his groin. Franco groaned. His own hand traced a
delicate trail down Mel’s arm, then came to rest on her flank. It was marble
smooth. The dress was soft as fur under his fingers. He groaned again. Their
kissing increased a notch. Mel’s hand came to rest on his ramrod erection.
Franco’s hand found her leg... then worked down to the hem of her dress and his
fingers walked their way up her calf, then onto the marble-smooth skin of her
thigh. “Touch me,” she breathed, a husky hot breath and they were kissing and
breathing and moaning and Franco’s hand slid up the inside of her thigh as she
massaged him through his ragged combat shorts. She unbuttoned the torn shorts,
tugged them free and Franco stood proud and huge and true. Her hand curled
around him. They lay down together on the sofa, a mutual floating of magic,
their meal and expensive wine forgotten. Melanie gave a little sigh as Franco’s
hand moved and he found the soft slick hot place. “Do it.” He massaged her.
Gentle. Firm. She squirmed in his hand, hot and wet and thrusting.

“Oh Melanie,” breathed Franco.

“Oh Franco,” said Melanie.

“Oh Melanie!”

“Oh Franco oww Franco oh, ow, ow
bloody hell Franco, it’s burning, it’s burning!” She sat bolt upright, horror
acid-etched on her face as she peered frantically down at her throbbing raw
genitalia. She leapt up and ran for the bathroom.

Franco groaned in horror. “What?
What happened?” Idly, he reached down and toyed with himself, keeping his proud
Roger erect in the hope that whatever was burning his true-love’s chuff would
bugger
off
and allow him the pleasure of consummating their relationship with red
hot fiery sex.

Suddenly, a shiver washed over
him. Something was wrong. Something was
very
wrong. Something was warm.
No, not warm, but
hot.
No, boiling! Burning! His cock and balls started
burning furnace-hot. Throbbed, as if pounded in a door. Pain smacked him with
waves of raw screaming heat and he kicked himself free of his shorts and ran
feet-slapping to the bathroom where he stood side by side with Mel and together
they splashed cold water on their bits, ululating soothing ums and ahs, and
then, in a flash of inspiration, splashing water on
one another’s
genitalia
with cries of easing cooling soothing relief... until, after long and torturous
minutes the hot and fiery sensations finally, ultimately, abated.

“What happened?” panted Mel.
Sweat glistened on her brow.

“Well,” scowled Franco, calming
his breathing, a now very
limp
Roger in his hand, “I’d like to have said
we were both on fire with lust, but it was something much simpler. I used fresh
chillis in the cooking. I chopped them—by hand. Obviously, chilli juice doesn’t
wash off
that easy.
I am so, so sorry.”

“So... you gave me a vaginal injection
of red hot chilli peppers?”

“Ha! Only the best for you, my
sweet.”

Mel laughed long and hard. “I can
see life with you is going to be far from dull!”

“Life with me?”

Their eyes met.

“Come to bed,” she said, taking
his chilli infected hands.

And for the remainder of the
night, they really
did
experience a union of hot and fiery lust.

~ * ~

It
was later. Much later.
Four days
later.

Franco lay on his back, in the
dark, staring at the ceiling. Beside him lay Mel, curled up against him,
snoring gently. She was naked, and he touched her flank. Her skin was cool.
Gently, Franco reached over and grabbed the thermal liquid-marble blanket,
pulling it over Mel’s exposed flesh. It hissed like a river over pebbles. Mel
sighed in her sleep, and turned a little.

Wow,
thought Franco.

Just... wow.

Said it would never happen. Love’s
for schmucks. Never happen to me. Take ten or fifteen girls to pin down this ol’
wanderer. No single woman could possibly have
all
the attributes this old
dog’s looking for in a gal. Never happen. Never ever
ever
happen. Shit.
Well,
it had. And now it had, Franco was over the moon. He’d become a walking cliche.
Now, he brushed his teeth
every morning
because he didn’t want to be
stinky for his new true-love. He even had a regular
bath.
And that was
not
Franco. In the scheme of reality in the universe, as all his friends knew,
Franco did not
do
baths.

But it got worse.

Now, the air smelled sweet,
fresh,
alive,
despite the toxic ash. Birds twittered in the trees and
their annoying squawking was
birdsong.
Franco felt
lighter.
There
was a spring to his step. He felt younger. Fitter. Stronger. Leaner. More
handsome. When he walked with Mel, he walked hand in hand. Their faces shone
with radiating
love.

But it got worse.

Franco started to go
shopping.
He’d push the trolley, whilst Mel filled it with titbits for them to “snackle”
on whilst watching late-night movies, curled on the floor of Franco’s apartment
in a liquid-marble blanket, scented candles lighting the air with romantic harmony.
In the past, a supermarket was a dark and foreboding gateway to Hell as far as
Franco was concerned. The only time he ever dared venture into a supermarket
was to purchase a trolley of beer, much to the tutting soundtrack of mothers ‘n
babies and the disapproving scowls of smiley-uniform clad staff. Franco
shuddered. No. Supermarkets had been a place of mystery. And misery. Until he
met Mel.

But it got worse.

Now, Franco was prone to
cleaning
his apartment. He owned... wait for it...
cleaning products.
He had
a nice set of marigolds. He did his washing up
after they’d eaten,
not
on a six-monthly rotational basis when the mould threatened to take over the
asylum. He cleaned the toilet. Not just that, but every
bloody
day... or
even, even, even
after
he’d used it in response to a bad case of
Vindaloo-arse! Franco had once thought a toilet brush was something for
de-greasing his motorbike chain. But no. Mel taught him the error of his ways
with a smile and a wink and slap to his rump. Now, Franco washed his clothes.
In a washing machine. Dried his clothes. In a drying machine. He
even
ironed
his
fucking shirts.
Franco never even used to
own
a fucking
shirt, never mind
iron
a fucking shirt. But there he was, whistling
along to the radio, applying steam here, squirting a jet there. Ironing, man,
fucking
ironing.

But it got worse.

This was the conversation as they
sat out in the BubbleCrane which arched from Franco’s apartment balcony on its
skinny alloy arm, like the distended, synthetic limb of some giant old crone.

“Franco, my squeezy love?”

“Yes, sweetie pie?”

“I’ve been meaning to mention
something.”

“Yes, my angel flowerpot?”

“It’s a bit personal, honey
wunny.”

Franco strained, peering down at
the thick ribbons of flesh which filled the streets far below, winding like an
albino snake between towering sky-blocks. Millions of people. Thronging.
Weaving. Jostling. The noise was a dull roar, muffled by the BubbleCrane’s
aural.field. “That’s OK, chipmunk.”

“It’s about your tooth.”

“My tooth?”

“Your missing tooth.”

“Oh, my
tuff.
Yeah. Got it
knocked out in a bar brawl hmm
hmm not that I do that sort of thing anymore
oh no I is a good boy now a reformed character a man of improved moral fibre.
Oh yes.”
He smiled. It was a noticeably
gappy
smile.

“Well,” embarrassed pause, “I
thought you might like to get it done.”

“Get it done?” The smile froze
and cracked Franco’s ice-lake face. Below, a tiny percentage of The City’s vast
titanic population seemed to be laughing, and not just laughing, but laughing
at
him.
The sound of a trillion organic life-forms from a thousand different
planets chuckled in parallel with his horror.

“Yes. You know. A cap. A false
tooth. A
denture.”

“Why,
in the name of Hades,
would
I want to do that?”

“To please little old me?”

“Oh. That. Yes. Aha. Haha.”

“I’ve arranged for you to visit
the dentist.”

“The dentist?”

“Yes. The dentist.”

“Why would I want to visit a
dentist?”

“To get your tooth done.”

“Ahhh. Right. I see. OK. No
problem. Grasped that idea. Got it.”

And so, like a good and wagging
dog Franco went along to the dentist. He sat in the sterile room sniffing the
sterile dentist stink and when the needle slid into his gum, Franco’s 9mm
H&K nudged under the dentist’s chin. The man’s eyes bulged, tongue sticking
out alarmingly from between
perfect
white teeth.

“Fuck this up,” growled Franco, “and
I’ll shoot out
all
of your teeth. Yeah?”

Franco didn’t like dentists.
Never had. Never would.

“Yes. Yes. Yes yes!”

“Good boy. Get on with it.”

He’d walked home a new man.
Smiled a full-tooth smile. Mel had hung on his arm and giggled as they planted
flowers in a window box on the balcony (she’d made him shift the old 3250cc
Ducati engine he’d been restoring, which had sat there on the balcony for a
good two years, untouched, sump full of old stinking oil, a project that’d
never be) and as the sun shone across the vast, jagged-tooth skyline of The
City, life seemed suddenly oh so
idyllic.
So
perfect.
So goddamn
nice.

But.

It didn’t last.

These things never do.

~ * ~

“It’s
The Quantum Carnival in four days.”

“Yeah. TQC is magic!”

“It was in the paper. Loads of
people are getting married!”