This is exactly what it claims to be. A fragment from something of much larger in scope and depravity. These are just some fun notes that I discovered while going through unlabeled CD-Rs this afternoon.
I issue a warning about spelling and diction. I looked it over for about five minutes and it is has a couple of decent juicy parts and I thought I would share. I think that it has a charm in its present state.
Thanks. Any feedback is appreciated...
C2K
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
fragment from Satyricus
"Remote Control"
"There is nothing that you can say," Miranda said. "I have heard enough of your lies, and I have found a new man anyway, one that truly appreciates me."
"You mean Cleveland?" K asked, dumbfounded, "The guy is a joke. I thought that he was handicapped the first time I met him."
All that came back from the receiver ear piece was a final click and the sharp monotone of the dial tone. That was the third time Miranda had hung up on him that evening and K figured that he would call it a night. He had prostrated me enough for one evening; he needed to preserve enough intestinal fortitude to put up with another day of groveling to the whims of customers and middle management at his job at Record Barn. K switched on the television and quickly grew bored with the three channels he picked up since they turned off his cable.
K hadn't paid rent on his box in the sky yet either. When Miranda broke up with K and starting fucking the hulking, dull-witted Cleveland McDaniels, K was understandably devastated, unable to even leave his tiny apartment near the highway. K was lucky to even have a job, his semi-hot manager Annabel told him, her tits looking very nice in her black Record Barn polo shirt, when K again swallowed his pride and asked her for an advance. He was fresh out of ideas for producing capital. He had no real friends in Portland; they were all part of Miranda's circle and now that they had broken up, K would be shunned by the good-looking artist types.
K clicked off the television and looked around his apartment. CDs and tapes that the pawnshop wouldn't buy lay strewn in a frustrated pile on the floor, the second-hand furniture that had come with the apartment was in poor repair and covered with trash and porn magazines. Piles of pizza boxes sat near the door, next to a couple trash bags of old garbage. He wished that his ulcer allowed him the luxury of getting drugs or getting a hooker to take his mind off of Miranda.
It had taken months to convince Miranda to go out with him and even then, she only gave of herself reluctantly. To put her at ease, K landed a job at Record Barn and saved his wages to buy her presents. When she mentioned it, K upped his hours and rented a small studio downtown in the Pearl District so that she and her wanna-be friends would have a place drink and smoke weed.
On several previous occasions, K suspected the beautiful Miranda of fucking around on him. There was that blonde haired sculptor named Harold or Arnold or something, and that black guy, Clifton, and the guy that worked at KBOO, the local alternative radio station. He could never prove anything because he was too busy alphabetizing the Gospel section at Record Barn. Miranda developed an enormous sexual appetite since they moved to Portland together. They were having sex thirty or forty times a week. They were like chimpanzees, mounting each other at whim. They still somehow had sex when they were in bed together, between his shifts at record barn, but K wondered deep inside where she was filling the other 80% of her appetite.
There could be no doubting when he walked in on Miranda and Cleveland McDaniels, a local club owner and general moron with deep pockets. She was taking it up the ass grunting so furiously as he pummeled her rectum with his penis K could hardly hear the Everclear album blasting on Miranda's stereo. She started laughing when she saw K standing in the threshold of the doorway. "Don't stop!" she grunted at Cleveland, who stared at K dumbfounded. K went to his room and packed his things. He rented his evil little room on 14th the next day from a sexy older woman named Bernice Dover. His window looked out on the constant stream of traffic down I405.
He tossed his possessions in a pile on the floor and went into mourning. He called into work and crawled into bed. He played hours of the playstation game Metal Gear Solid and would cry uncontrollably when the female character would flirt with the main character of the game, Solid Snake. Overtly soon joined his nest of ills and he was forced back to Record Barn, only to be looked upon now as a slacker and a weakling. He was put on the inventory and freight team and his life soon approached hellish parameters. He had no means to dig himself out of the credit hell he had dug himself into except to unload boxes of KISS boxed sets and Pink Floyd anthologies. The constant parade of teenage shoppers did nothing but frustrate him more. Miranda had been a fluke, he realized, a fluke that wised up and dumped him for someone richer and dumber. God, he had loved fucking her lithe little body. It almost physically pained him to remember the joy he got from there coupling. The total lack of interest from every desirable female that went anywhere near the Jansen Beach Mall only confirmed his fears.
There seemed to be no hope that afternoon in July when he sat in the food court over his thirty minute lunch break watching the carousel, empty turning in the middle of the malls center. It was the largest carousel in the world, but no one longer cared. He unwrapped his Philly Steak sandwich and salted his Cajun fries. Mindlessly he scanned the usual contents of his lunch at the mall. He then noticed that the piece of paper that they had lined the tray with was unusual, for it had a list of advertisements, most of them for bizarre sexual arrangements with a tendency toward body sculpture. Yet, one was somewhat different. It read:
Down on your LUCK? Other people holding you back? Do men and women refuse your sexual advances? Do you crave respect and power? If so, send $35 to XJ-1189 remote company, 1136 SE Broad St. Seattle WA, and we will mail you your solution today. Supplies Very Limited, act NOW. All orders shipped next day air."
K took a drink of his Diet Pepsi and wondered what kind of device this XJ-whatever was and how any company could get away with actually promising those kind of results. But Steak Hut was a national chain, in malls all around the US and Canada. Surely, they would not allow a disreputable firm to advertise on their tray liners. But then again, what about the personals?
Could it be that someone wanted K to see this advertisement page? K thought of no one who could have possessed a motive. He surveyed the gangly troupe of employee at Steak Hut, each one a worse case scenario than the next, total losers. Retail would always be better than food service. That was the mall hierarchy, but he could think of no reason why that group of under-achievers would want to turn him on to human body sculpture. K wasn't even very sure what that was...
K wiped off the ketchup from the paper as best he could with napkins, and folded it neatly and put it in his pocket. That night as he was writing out checks to pay bills he chose the XJ-1189, instead of USWest. He wasn't really counting on getting anything thing in the mail in return. He was probably just being framed, that was his luck... But there was something strange about it. That afternoon he looked at the tray liners of the other mall diners, and hung out over his second ten by Steak Hut, watching tray liners. They were all the standard issue, nothing like the weird ad page that was on his early in the day. Something was strange about it. He found the check and placed it in the envelope addressing it in red pen.
The box arrived on Tuesday with no return address. K tore off the brown paper wrapping and pulled the small contraption out of the box. It was a metal remote control with what looked like a lens on one side. On the opposing side of the machine was a dial, which could be turned to any of four settings, labeled in black lettering "1. Off 2. Fear 3. Suggestion 4. Amnesia. The small remote was uncommonly heavy, but felt comfortable and powerful in his hand. He carefully set it down on the bed and looked further into the box. Wrapped inside the brown paper wrapper was a folded piece of paper with the following statement typed by a dot matrix printer, barely legible.
