Even though she hadn't pilfered any of Marcella's bathtub moonshine the previous night, Olivia had what felt like a serious hangover. "I must be dehydrated." She thought sluggishly. Pulling back the covers she stared blankly at her completely naked body, blinking blearily at her fuzzy crotch. "What the?" Her hoarse voice echoed faintly off the plastic walls. All her memories came flooding back in such a rush that she barely avoiding throwing up.
Groaning loudly she searched fruitlessly for her underwear, finally giving up and heaving her body over the side of her bed. Flopping awkwardly onto the floor and nearly falling, she stumbled over to her tiny dresser and rifled through the top left drawer. She scowled at all her panties, rejecting each in turn, they were all so plain and ugly and ratty. At last she settled on the most exciting pair she owned, a faded lilac with glossy black elastic, one of only three pairs without holes.
She pulled them on then dressed the rest of the way as quickly as she was able, opting for loose olive-drab duck shorts and an old training bra she'd modified into a kind of halter top. "Water. I need water." She rasped dryly, her lips actually felt cracked. A few minutes later she was outside in the back yard cranking hard on the hand pump, steadily filling an elevated porcelain basin. Absently she took a couple of iodine tablets out of a pouch on her belt and tossed them into the frothing tub.
Olivia's head was reeling a little less wildly, she forced herself to count to one hundred as she stared sullenly into the basin, willing the bubbling liquid to still itself. While she counted aloud she silently reviewed the events of the previous night. Her face reddened as she remembered all the obscene poses she had improvised while her impassive cyber-junkie of a mother had snapped countless pictures under the pretext of a totally fictitious request from state medical.
It was true, she definitely felt embarrassed by the memory but she couldn't deny that she also felt a deeper sense of satisfaction. It was absurd, but it was probably the most time she had spent with Marcella in months; and even though she knew her mom had ulterior motives, being the center of attention had been pure heaven. Beyond that though Olivia felt something even more exhilarating: she had taken control of Marcella, her mother had become her unknowing marionette.
Marcella believed that she was acting on her own selfish impulses, but in reality she was playing right into her daughter's hands. Olivia nearly squealed with delight as she fantasized about the possibilities. None of this had been planned really, nonetheless she had haplessly stumbled upon an ingenious way to draw her mother out of digital seclusion and into her pocket. Suddenly Olivia realized she had counted to two hundred.
Laughing cheerfully she cupped her hands in the algae-tinged trough and brought them steadily up to her mouth. She drank deep and long, until she felt bloated. In all likelihood it would be another day in the triple-digits, might as well fill up. She used the rest of the water to wash her face and drench her sponge-like poly head wrap which she bundled expertly around her skull; it would protect her from the worst of the sun and the afternoon heat.
Smiling triumphantly she realized that she was forgetting something important. Quickly draining the last of the water into the communal rill that fed their raised beds she frantically jammed her fingers into her phone pocket and extracted the flimsy device. The Datebook app was still open and active, her mother was long gone for work but she had left 'him' a present. Olivia did squeal out loud as she scanned the chat. "Look at my beautiful girl, she posed like this herself if you can believe it."
There were three pictures. Three pictures of herself, totally naked, flaunting everything like some red-light window dancer. She blushed but also surprisingly felt a slight heat welling up between her legs, it died down almost immediately as she snorted with disgust. "Getting turned on by pictures of myself." She scoffed, flipping back and forth between the images. It was weird seeing her nude body like this, through her mother's eyes. She had to admit they were excellent shots, her mom had deftly captured the eroticism of the moment.
There was more text underneath. "I took dozens more like these, she is very photogenic don't you think?" She smiled, how solicitous! Marcella was clearly trying to get 'him' to ask for more, but Olivia was too wily for that. She pondered letting her mom hang until after midnight, only bothering to reply after the older woman had a chance to stew for a bit, but her blood was really pumping now and she simply couldn't resist the urge to indulge herself.
"I hope you didn't tell her about me." She typed rapidly. "You probably think I want to fuck your daughter but the truth is I only wanted to test your loyalty." She snickered, this was good, she was telling the truth and winding her mother up. "You've proven yourself worthy but now I need to punish you for holding out on me." Olivia's typing speed increased, she made several mistakes but the adrenaline rush was more than compensating.
"I'm not into young women, they're too innocent and naive. What turns me on are degenerate sluts who do depraved things to please me."
Olivia started laughing hysterically. The more she wrote the more impulsive and rude she became. The funny thing was that while most of her outrageous statements were intended to shock and offend Marcella, the one who always ended up being shocked and offended was Olivia. Shocked that her mother seemed to have no morals whatsoever and offended that her mom didn't think twice before responding to her messages.
"Here is your punishment:" She wrote, her thumb slowing dramatically as she struggled to think of something wildly inappropriate. Olivia bit down on her lower lip painfully and felt a familiar flash of anger. Her thumb picked up speed again. "Your daughter would make a great whore, so go to the bazaar and buy her some sexy underwear." She snorted, this was almost too easy. "If she asks you why, just make something up. Don't bother taking any more photos, I have something else in mind."
Olivia put her phone away and took a deep breath. That was enough fun for now, if she didn't get a move on she would be late to work. Glancing quickly and fearfully down at her left wrist she noted the unmistakable teardrop-shaped scars left by the tip of a soldering iron. There were two on its sensitive underside. She didn't work for the Favelos but her employers did, and they had adopted some of their more unsavory business practices.
One more burn and she would be demoted. Since she was already at the lowest rung being a mere 'clipper', using her trusty bolt-cutters to snip off finger-thick component wires after they were soldered into place by 'melters', demotion amounted to being burned and then kicked out the back door. Oddly enough this did not fill her with motivation, instead she found herself scuffing stray rocks as she trudged towards the skyline annex.
Overhead a string of cargo gondolas trailing an iridescent advertising banner glided silently past, a momentary flash of reflected light catching her eye. Olivia smiled, it was one of those horribly oppressive ones featuring a grinning computer-generated white woman. This 'woman' however was wearing lingerie. "The sooner I finish my shift, the sooner I get my present from mom." She said out loud. Suddenly the idea of cutting hard metal wires for the next ten hours had a strange appeal. Olivia started running.
The air was humid, the temperature still in the hundreds. Olivia stared at the sky through one of the fist-sized portholes of the gondola that was taking her homeward. Absently she munched on a cricket cake, it was sweetened with the honey from killer bees and contained trace kernels of Teff, a rare treat. It had been a reward for breaking her quota. The sun was sinking into a terrifying layered pit of pinks, yellows, blood-orange, violet and crimson, it was beautiful even if it meant the world was dying.
Olivia smiled softly only half-seeing, her mind was somewhere else. She was trying to picture what her new underwear might look like. Momentarily she imagined her mother holding out both her cupped hands, inside pooling like blood, the pair of panties from the picture her mother had sent the previous night. Olivia felt a pang of something slithering down her belly, followed by a flush of warmth that gathered neatly in her crotch.
"Yes, something like those." She mused, finding the prospect of her mother buying her the same underwear she wore herself both comforting and exciting. She shifted uncomfortably on the hard plastic crate that passed for economy seating in the bowls of the sleek aluminum cable car. Her thick baggy shorts had somehow bunched up right against her tingling clit. It was made less pleasant thanks to the pool of sweat that was steadily accumulating between her legs.
Olivia sighed dejectedly and decided to simply accept the state of affairs, her crotch was like soup, she could piss herself and not even notice. Glancing at her time-patch she contented herself by noting that her mother had already gotten home. Since Olivia wasn't in range of their favela's mesh network she wouldn't receive any texts, but she'd sent all her own messages from home so she knew that her mom would certainly read them as soon as she checked her computer.
That would have been about 45 minutes ago, which would give her ample time to walk to the bazaar and do a little shopping. In spite of her miserable conditions Olivia smiled until her face ached. Thanks to the strong Southern winds pushing the balloons so that the aerial cable bowed in a graceful arc, off in the distance the annex spire came into view, sparkling like a heap of broken mirrors. This time Olivia sighed with relief, it had been a long day, one for the record books.
