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The Third Martian Dick Temple Rust red Martian rain pelts my hardsuit like birdshot as I trudge through the mud, trying to get a visual for base. An ancient building, exposed by the terraforming storms. "The surrounding hillside's melted away," I say, pointing my cameras towards a pair of pillars that look like dicks. "You seeing this, Base?" "We're receiving, Steph," Base says. Cheers and applause and amazed curses. I can't help but smile. The mud of the hillside looks like it could sludge over at any second, covering the opening again. "Structure looks stable," I lie. "I'm going inside." No one back at Base objects. With the surface as volatile as it is, this might be our only chance. My heart is pounding in my ears. Adrenaline hitting my system like atropine. I go up three crumbling steps and huddle in the opening. Runnels of red water trickle down the narrow corridor, piles of ancient dust swelling, growing tumescent. At the end is a single cavernous room. I pray that what waits in there will be a trove of art or books or recordings they held dear. Historical records that might tell us how they lived, and what it was that caused their collapse and extinction. Shining my suit lights all over, my heart throbs in my chest at what I see. Shelves all along the walls, and on the shelves, little statue things, each about as tall as my glove. I pick one up and brush it off. It is a perfect specimen. "Steph," Base says, all broken up. "Steph, do you copy? We lost visual. Can you describe?" "It's just more dicks," I say. My mouth is dry, all my enthusiasm drained in an instant. "Say again, over." "It's more dicks. Most of them are about three-inches tall, but some are bigger." "Can you get pictures?" A long silence. I want to argue that I have better things to do than take pictures of mummified Martian dicks, but I know what the response will be. Some of the dicks might be different. One of the dicks might have a deformity that might inform us about Martian physiology and their susceptibility to disease. Or it might indicate dietary changes that caused nutritional deficits, or changes in the atmosphere brought on by pollution. For all we know, the Martians might have preserved these dicks precisely because examining them will closely reveal the secret to why their world died. Those are the arguments that Base will make. This is not my first dick temple. Base will make me come back to the site in a few days, like they always do. I will be ordered to carefully collect the dicks and place them in a vacuum-sealed container. I will take the dicks back to Base to be studied and dissected by our scientists, who will confirm that the dicks are dicks. They will try to make inferences about the size or the quality of the dicks, comparing the dicks to the dicks they found at other sites. There's a short-lived media frenzy when the announcement of the third Martian dick temple is made. I go on television, on some dumb talk show. The host asks what it was like to hold a Martian's dick in my hands. I pray that the nanny put my daughter to sleep early, that she's not watching me publicly prostitute myself for funding. "Which dick was your favorite?" the talk show host asks. "Do you think we might find a fourth dick temple?" The question crushes me. I start crying on camera. Because I know we will find another dick temple. I know we will find hundreds upon hundreds of dick temples buried just beneath the surface. The Martians buried those dicks for us to find. A hundred million years ago they looked into the abyss and saw their own mortality. They knew the end was coming and they met it with raging hard-on after raging hard-on. I return home from my interview exhausted. My daughter runs out to meet me in her astronaut pajamas with footy slippers. I hug her and carry her to bed. She asks for a story about when I was on Mars. I will hide the pain and the sadness, and tell her that we found something other than rooms and rooms full of dicks. Dick friezes and paintings and frescoes. Dick engravings. "What were they like, Mommy?" I search for words to explain to her why a civilization went to such lengths to preserve their dicks, and nothing else. "We're still learning about them," I say, holding back the tears. "But I think that they were just like us."
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Apr 3, 2022 16:45
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| # ¿ May 16, 2024 22:07 |
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Schrödinger's Pants Shay’s thick forearms bulge as she tightens a prominent bolt on the strange contraption. It looks like an MRI machine built by H.R. Giger. Her face is smeared and shining with engine oil, and her hair is a tangled, greasy mess. I want to make love to her under the harsh fluorescents where no detail can be hidden. I want her to give me a back massage, a really rough one that leaves me aching for hours. But I know she won’t spend time with me unless I give it some attention—another invention that does god knows what. My girlfriend, super genius. “Almost finished,” she says. “What do you think?” I pretend to inspect the machine. Give it a really good once over. But really I am just getting close to her. Smelling the drying sweat on the back of her fuzzy neck. “I’m afraid I ain’t half as smart as you, gorgeous. What’s it do?” She gives the wrench another crank. “It phase shifts your genitals.” “Why the hell would anyone want that?” She tosses the wrench down and reaches around me to grab a screwdriver off the workbench. “Imagine if you didn’t have to be male or female anymore.” “Whoa. Are you saying this thing can turn me into a chick? Like, for the weekend?” “Sure. Or, you know, whatever. Transition to the quantum state and you’ll be every gender at once in a super position.” My mouth fills with saliva. A million deliciously obscene fantasies dance through my brain. “I want to put you in a super position so drat bad right now it hurts.” Before she can respond, I’m already wriggling out of my skinny jeans. She rolls her eyes at me as I drape myself over the machine’s conveyor belt. “It’s not a toy. It’s the end of gender politics. Don’t you see why that’s important? Imagine if you could go anywhere without being labeled. Without anyone assuming your gender just because they think you look a certain way.” “I got a bottle of red wine when I was out. You know how red wine makes me. I already drank half of it.” She sighs. “This is about more than sex, you know.” “Look, just pull that lever. Show me how brilliant you are. Then let me appreciate your brilliance by coming to the bedroom and letting me bang the snot out of you. Or, you know, vice versa.” I lift my eyebrows. “We could do a double slit experiment.” She gives me a stern look. “It’s not properly tested. Anything could happen.” “Any sex worth having is inherently unsafe.” I kick the lever with my foot. She gasps. A torrent of clacking sounds echo from the bowels of the machine like a million mechanical keyboards being pounded by a million nicotine-addicted monkeys. My naked lower half is whisked inside. A row of pink and blue LEDs wink on and off at random, and I start to feel really weird down below. “What’s happening?”I ask. “If things go right?” Her angry eyes add you idiot to the sentence. “Your gender will exist in every possible state at once.” Steam billows from a hundred orifices. The machine hisses. Then it makes a dinging sound like the bell at a hotel desk. “How do you feel?” She looks worried. “It’s done? I feel exactly the same.” She jots something quickly into her notepad. “This confirms that gender is merely a social construct.” “Sure is. Get me out of this thing and lets go bang.” When the machine spits me back out, I am no longer naked. Surprisingly, I’m dressed in a pair of white corduroy pants. The fit is very snug, but very nice. I roll off the belt and try walking back and forth. The pants make a pleasant swishing sound. “Neat,” I say, and start to unbutton them. “Wait! If you take those off, the quantum field will collapse!” “In English?” “The observer affect will apply to your genitals.” “Yes, please.” Shay punches me on the arm. “If I see your…whatever… you’ll revert back to a single physical gender.” “Hmm,” I say. “Ok. I think I get it. A person uses your machine and then—“ “And then they don’t ever have to worry about someone assuming their gender. Because they are all genders at once. In a quantum state.” “Right. Amazing.” I scratch my crotch. “How’s that different than normal pants?” She frowns. “What?” “Well, with normal pants you can’t really tell, right?" I can tell she’s getting flustered now. Beads of sweat stand out on her thick neck. She needs to shave again. It is so incredibly hot. “People might still assume your gender, true,” she says. “That’s just human nature, collapsing an analog reality to a binary fact. But this way, no matter what they say, they’ll always be wrong.” “So this is your way of winning an argument?” “The final solution.” “It’s brilliant, baby. You’ve really cracked it.” “You really think there’s a market?” I laugh. In my mind’s eye I see our stocks rising, our bank account growing tumescent. “A market? Every possible sexual experience will be just a lever pull away. Bored, super rich people will be the first adopters. For everyone else, we can charge per use. And the best part? It’ll be a surprise every time.” “That’s not why I made it.” “Doesn’t matter. It’s amazing." I grab her narrow hips and pull her close. “This is just a prototype,” she says. “The next iteration will be much smaller. Eventually, I think I can incorporate the entire device into a pair of ordinary cargo shorts.” “Why stop there? Someday you might be able to fit it into a pair of panties.” “Or briefs.” “Hell,” I say, leaning in to kiss her. “Why not both?”
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Apr 3, 2022 22:25
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