the car in the stream

“Chamie! Damn! How are you! I caught that thing about giving that stud road-head and the cum on your chest! That was just yesterday, wasn’t it? Goddamn, I thought I had a vivid imagination.”

Chamie’s head jerked up when he heard his name. His eyes were still several miles away before they caught up and focused on the taller man, who had blonde hair and a sharp sense of style, and who was grinning down at him. Chamie nearly dropped his newspaper, which bumped his coffee, which left him scrambling as he muttered a hello in response. He would have tried to pretend that Jad hadn’t startled him, if that would have done any good.

Jad plopped down at the table next to his, never looking away and never wavering from his expression of warmth and knowing curiosity.

“Reading, again,” Jad pointed at the paper with his chin. “You hipster.”

Chamie had been reading about a sensational court case, whose controversial defendant had caught the public’s interest, and whose alibi had become the topic of water cooler scrutiny. The case spoke to many social questions of the day concerning the veracity of organic memory, and designer sequence implants. Chamie folded the paper, with regret. He didn’t reply to Jad, guessing, correctly, that a response wasn’t required or expected.

“Yes, I have been thinking about you,” Jad repeated. “Have you noticed? Well, I couldn’t get it out of my head after I saw it. But you couldn’t either, could you?”

Jad laughed. He was very clever.

“I just admire the heck out of the way you picture every detail, down to the upholstery and the sweat and the feeling of acceleration, all that, “ he continued. “And that grand flourish at the end, with your man finishing all over your chest; so powerful…so visceral. It’s happening in a Mercedes, isn’t it?”

Now, his turn was done, and he wanted Chamie to speak. Jad would wait for a response, and Chamie was obliged to fill that gap, just as he had been obliged to stay silent a moment before, or to return the greeting a few seconds before that. He glanced at his newspaper, which now sported an orange crescent moon coffee stain. As Jad finished his review, Chamie kept his eyes on the newspaper, much like a convicted felon behind bars might look at the interstate through a window. He wished he knew how to push back at the irresistible rhythm, pace, and framing of these sorts of conversations. But, delay spoke volumes, more than just speaking, itself, and that delay was amplified in full color and sound on his Public Access Stream.

“It was nothing,” he said, shrugging his shoulders with the careless ease of a cat in a bath. “I’d forgotten about that.”

Chamie held his breath without meaning to. He knew by the time the last word left his mouth that Jad was not going to relieve him by accepting what he’d said at face value. Instead — and he could feel it, now, like hot pins under his arms and neck — instead he’d eventually take the bait — or the order, it almost seemed — and in the next two seconds he would blurt out something he’d barely thought through, when he didn’t really want to say anything at all…

“…It was just a fad-tasy. Barely registered,” Chamie concluded.

Daily Anachronism, the company that printed the newspaper, claimed to make it look and feel authentic to the period. He liked the odd grayish paper, and the ink that rubbed off on his fingers, and the crude black and white photography composed of distinguishable dots. The paper sat there in silence, even though it had plenty to say.

In his mind, Chamie cursed himself. It was nothing, I’d forgotten, it was not a real fantasy, and it barely registered. If the defendant from the case in the paper were so clumsy and transparent, the verdict would have been cast before the body was cold. If a cock had crowed after his third denial, he would have drowned it out with feverish reassertions.

Jad noticed, too. The common knowledge bounced back and forth for a few moments, like a rubber ball finally coming to a rest. Jad leaned back and crossed his legs.

He’ll start lecturing, now, Chamie thought.

“Well, you know, people throw that term around, but mostly they misrepresent the actual neurophysiological concept of a ‘fad-tasy,’” Jad lectured. In between phrases he took long, thoughtful suckles at the straw in his drink bottle. His cheeks buckled in under the pressure on each draw, and he looked a bit like the inversion of a bullfrog when he did it, Chamie thought. He quickly pushed the thought back down and hoped that Jad hadn’t noticed.

“…distinct differences, like intensity, level of detail, various signs of physical arousal, and duration and frequency. You’ve had that same daydream before, right?

“I guess,” said Chamie.

“And from what I saw yesterday, it is just about as intense and detailed as you’ll find on the market.”

“It wasn’t so much — “ Chamie trailed off. He sipped at his coffee, but it had gone room temperature and limp.

“I’m not bothering you, am I?” Jad leaned in, then, and his face was full of the concern of a saint, and with the fascination of a great sinner. He wore a tailored button down of the trendiest fashion, in a subtle color that complimented the very expensive, retro wrist watch that he had won in a raffle at the office christmas party. The gold watch, in turn, complimented his hair.

Chamie said, “No,” because there was nothing else to say.

“You see, Chamie, I’m actually telling you about this because I consider you one of my closest friends,” Jad said, “And I am actually deeply concerned,” (he emphasized those words as if they were shockingly grave and important, even coming from him), “Deeply concerned that you’re getting Blocked Up. I’ve been keeping an eye on your stream so that I can provide a bit of feedback, and frankly you seem to be in complete denial about these urges. Fad-tasies don’t manifest multiple times a day, or due to just any random trigger.”

“It isn’t multiple times a day,” Chamie objected.

Jad looked like he had just won another gold watch, one which Chamie hadn’t even known he’d been competing for.

Jad smiled, and snapped his fingers, and stared off into space. Chamie could see his iris cycling through colors, changing from his natural light blue to a vivid red, green, or yellow each time he snapped.

“Not more than once a day, then? Well, let me scroll back through your stream, here, I actually made a few bookmarks from your last forty-eight hours — “

“Why don’t you mind your own business?” Chamie snapped. He instantly regretted it, and he looked back at his newspaper and kept his hands busy rolling it up and then smoothing it out again. “What’s the matter with you? You’re obsessing over my stream like some kind of freak.”

Chamie looked silly when he got angry, and he knew it, and Jad knew it and knew that he knew it. His face turned red, and his eyes got watery. Rage withers under mockery, and Chamie might as well have played a scissors after clearly seeing that Jad had played a rock. Jad had started to respond when a powerful, vivid image of two sets of hands playing rock-paper-scissors popped into Chamie’s head, unbidden, and they both noticed and they both knew that the other had noticed, too. Jad smiled again.

“I see. What do you think, hon, am I being…obsessive?”

Jad leaned back, and in one smooth motion he draped his arm over Khalala’s shoulder, while she slipped both feet out of her business casual designer thong sandals and rotated on her chair to perch both on Jad’s lap, just below the khaki bulge. Khalala leaned against his shoulder, and his free hand settled on her bare ankle. The entire maneuver took less than two seconds and brought to mind the image of two powerful, graceful swans landing side by side without a sound on the surface of a placid lake. They both looked at Chamie as if he was a beautiful painting and there was no shame in staring.

“Oh, my gosh, Chamie, I didn’t know you were so sensitive about these things.”

“And look, hon, he’s blushing!”

“Stop it, Jad!” Khalala slapped Jad’s arm. Chamie wished desperately to be able to think of any excuse to leave, all while avoiding the act of thinking, itself. He would have admitted to any crime or perversion if they would have let him leave in peace. The food court was not busy; other than Jad, Khalala, and himself, the only other person nearby was alone at a booth, hands resting on his lap, lost in someone’s stream. The man chuckled out loud. Both of his eyes were pale white and stared straight ahead, like a blind man. He was seeing some view of the world through some other set of eyes. He could have been watching anything, in China or Russia or anywhere, almost anywhere at all, except of course the world from the exact coordinates that he himself currently occupied at his booth in the food court.

“You know, Chamie,” Khalala went on, “It is super unhealthy to write off your intimate fantasies like they aren’t important; ‘Nothing is inconsequential, if it is a consequence of you.’”

“Yeah, I know.”

“‘Shame is a slap in the face of the Eternal Now.’ My professor always used to say that.”

“Yeah. I guess.”

Khalala never once stopped looking at Chamie.

“You just can’t let yourself go into denial. Denial is heresy against the stream itself.”

Chamie didn’t know what she wanted him to say. He wished that this, whatever this was, was over.

Khalala’s voice became light and sweet once again.

“Anyway, how can you be embarrassed when you have everyone else’s streams to watch? Like this one,” she said, slapping Jad’s chest. He grinned. “Oh. My. God. Have you seen the things he thinks about me while I’m out of town for work? You seriously have to tune in the next time I’m away, he is such a disgusting monster!”

They kissed. She wiggled her toes. He flexed his forearm and Chamie could make out the individual sinews rising to the surface of his skin, twisting around like coiled ropes on a ship at sea, and the gold watch slide down half an inch on his wrist.

“What was that fapper you thought of last time, with me and with Tassie from marketing? Ugh, I so wanted to be pissed at you, but we both watched it over and over and we were like, um, yeah, that was hot.” She shrugged, a victim to her own liberality and tolerance.

Jad nodded.

“Yeah, it was hot. I still see it around. Every few days it pops up on the forums. Do you remember the clip where you and Chassie were taking turns with me, you know, and all of the sudden I thought of a beach and you two were going down on me in the surf at Waikiki?”

“We’ve never even been to Waikiki,” Khalala pouted for Chamie’s benefit.

“That clip is still ranked on the local 100's…”

“That’s my man,” Khalala rolled her eyes in mock exasperation for Chamie’s benefit.

“…because it is fucking hot,” Jad finished, with satisfaction.

“He’s so confident. He really owns his stream, you know? I love it,” said Khalala.

“Chamie, here, he knows what I’m talking about,” said Jad. “That stuff with the guy and the Mercedes and the sucking and the cum all over the — you watched it, right, hon?”

“Of course!” answered Khalala.

“That was some hot stuff, too. If that doesn’t place on at least one local chart, it is only because the material is too similar to his other stuff.”

“It is always the same. Always the car, the highway, gag-gag-gag, the big finish…that is why we are telling you that it is a full fledged fantasy, Chamie, not just some fad-tasy or a manual fapper.”

“When you accept that it is more than a fad-tasy, you can accept yourself. So, you are really into this guy, whoever it is?” Jad said.

“Look, in this scene, if it is about anything, it is about guys, not some specific Guy,” Chamie corrected him.

“Now, I don’t buy that,” Jad replied. “You know, earlier, I said that this fantasy of yours could be brought on by any random trigger. Actually, the more variations that I watch in your archive, the more I think he looks familiar.”

“I thought he looked familiar,” said Khalala.

“I’m sure of it,” said Jad. He clasped his hands behind his head and made a show of thinking back.

“Now, take your last repetition of the fantasy as an example. You fought so hard against it, it was really sad,” Jad continued.

“Very sad,” Khalala echoed.

“You were on your commute, from what I could tell — that is right, Chamie? Yes? — anyway, your stream kept fading in and out. One minute you were thinking about the train, and then about that horrible boring court case, and then the fantasy about getting into the car with this Mystery Man, and then back to the court case. Now, obviously, headlines in the news aren’t the trigger. You were straining to distract yourself to get the fantasy out of your head.”

“You shouldn’t strain like that, Chamie.”

“So, it stands to reason,” Jad continued, “That your actual trigger was close by, and that is what kept throwing you back into the fantasy. Was it the train? No? No, I don’t think so. Was it a person on the train?”

There is no fucking way that he this figured me out, Chamie thought.

“There was a guy a few seats ahead of you on the subway. With his back to you. It was him, wasn’t it?”

Chamie didn’t say anything. The guy at the other table across the court had been cackling and talking to himself for five minutes. Chamie wondered if the man was lurking in his stream right now, or if he was being paranoid.

“I noticed, and I’m one-hundred-percent sure about this point, all you could really see was this guy’s profile, and the back of his head and hair,” Jad said.

“I thought he looked familiar,” Khalala repeated. Jad shrugged and ran his fingers through his own thick, blonde waves.

Chamie had to say something. He could tell, now, that they would not stop unless he found a way to stop them. If he didn’t leave or think of some excuse they would both keep picking deeper and deeper until he bled out in front of them. He had to say something, and, above all, he had to stop thinking about what he was going to say.

“Khalala,” he said, “Stream-heresy is defined as a failure of self-actualization, right?”

They both peered at him, entertained and benevolent, and both sucked at their straws in their bottles, and gulped.

“So, it would be heresy if I control that stuff, and deny it, right? But, I also can’t control it if I don’t want to talk about it, or rewatch it, or whatever. So, if I’m not supposed to control the fantasy, why should I control how I feel about having it?”

Khalala looked at Jad. Jad looked back at Khalala.

“What?”

They both laughed, laughed until their faces turned as red as Chamie’s, and kept laughing as they asked him what the hell he was talking about.

It happened in a flash, powerful and too quick for Chamie to bury; he imagined sitting behind the controls of a subway train, speeding down a tunnel like a soul from a body, only to plow into both of these people sitting across from him, popping them like balloons of guts, smearing their surprised faces on the glass.

“Oh, shit! Jeez, Jeez, hon, did you see that?” Not a single hiccup of Jad’s laughter was forced, and he gasped for air like someone dying, or climaxing.

“We better…give him…some space,” Khalala managed to stutter as she tried to catch her breath.

They went away, together, waving goodbye as they walked to the elevator, and still repeating, “Jeez, a train. Murdered in the subway. What the hell?”

When they were gone, Chamie still heard laughter. The guy at the far table was staring directly at him, or through him, with his sightless, cloudy eyes. The man snapped his fingers, and one retina flashed purple as he scrolled through applications.

Chamie snapped his own fingers, and the cold coffee and newspaper and table and the food court and the whole world in front of him dissolved into the homepage of his live stream interface. He tried to ignore his notifications and messages, which flashed and danced with great urgency.

He browsed entertainment streams, and squeezed his red fucking face and bit his cheek to try to push back in the tear that was threatening to leak out. He stopped the tear, but of course he couldn’t stop the thought, and in the upper right hand corner of his vision — in his notifications panel — a swarm of purple and green weeping-emoti and hugs-emoti blossomed and floated away like a video of a dandelion in the breeze.