Ryan Boudinot - Blueprints of the Afterlife

Bickle stood and stretched, then disappeared into a Native art shop. Abby checked her wrist for her pulse. Seemed high and what the Chinese doctor she consulted would have called “slippery.” She left her coffee unfinished and let her body go through its routine of visiting her favourite shop, the one that sold old music and movies on formats only geeks like her bothered with anymore.

All her student loans, paid off!

That night Abby watched an episode of Stella Artaud: Newman Assassin. She hated herself for liking it, and prided herself on recognizing that she hated it. This was the opening episode to the second season, the establishing sequences padded with expository dialogue. A quick flash of credits then a fade-in to reveal two women reviewing a contract in the back of a limousine. One woman wore a powder-blue pantsuit and matching lipstick, blonde hair a hive held aloft with chopsticks, permanent eyeliner tattooed onto the ridges of her eyelids. This was Henrietta Stoner, agent for Third Eye Communications. (Nobody on the show ever explained what Third Eye actually did. Some minor character in season two, episode three, opined that the organization “made stuff happen metaphysically,” whatever that was supposed to mean.) Henrietta penned an X next to each line Stella was to sign. Stella Artaud wore a tiredly sexist anime getup: dog collar, black push-up bra, latex skirt, stiletto boots. Both of her arms up to the elbows were covered in tattooed reproductions of Gustave Doré’s woodcuts from the illustrated Inferno , souls in torment in the inner ring of the seventh circle. A close-up of Stella’s pen leaving her signature on the contract, ink seeping from glossy to matte black.

Henrietta. “When you arrive there will likely be some rough suffocation play. Just pretend you can’t breathe. The client may knock you around a bit. You need to make sure to react appropriately, crying out, gasping. It’s important that you approximate, as closely as you can, a typical human response to consensual sadism.”

“I’m a professional.”

“Intercourse may occur at this point. You should do what you can to prevent him from ejaculating. He will want to ejaculate later, into your dead body or dismembered head or neck cavity.”

Stella initialed the line.

Henrietta. “At this point he may want to start dismembering you. Most likely this will begin with the fingers and toes, and move on up the extremities. You are expected to react with appropriate terror and beg for your life.”

Stella. “I can do that.”

Henrietta. “Then he will likely decapitate you. Please, at this point, if you could, feign death. As I mentioned, it may occur to him to copulate with the orifices of your dismembered head. You are encouraged to reduce your body temperature and remain still, human-like, while this occurs.”

“Not a problem.” Stella stared out the window. The art director had done a pretty decent job re-creating Central Park. The limo pulled up to an apartment building across the street from a CGI Guggenheim. It was raining, a cinematic drizzle originating from sprinklers above. Stella stood for a moment in the rain, staring up at the penthouse as the doorman opened the door. The camera followed her gaze to a shadow of a man who was watching her from one of the high windows.

The elevator doors opened into the penthouse. Stella emerged in slo-mo, stilettos Foleying hardwood. Three of the client’s assistants appeared, each of indeterminate gender and with a shaved head, monk-like in loose-fitting garments. Eunuchs. Quickly they towelled Stella off and took her handbag and vinyl jacket. One clasped her hand and led her to a sitting room. The penthouse was done up as one might imagine the digs of a 1970s porn magazine publisher. A lot of neo-Classical faux Greek shit, ornate tapestries, chandeliers, marble columns, fountains.

Abby pulled her knees up to her chin. This next part chilled her every time.

The client appeared from behind a shoji screen. A young white guy, boringly handsome, wearing a white cotton bathrobe, tan, confident. “You’re the new one,” he said.

“I am here to fulfill your pleasures,” Stella said.

“My name is Quinn Hunt. You’ve no doubt heard of Hunt Investments, owner of practically all the world’s energy sources?”

Stella was silent.

Hunt continued. “Of course you haven’t. You never do. The last time you were here I asked you the same question. I got the same blank look. Tell me, Stella, how many times have you been here?”

“This is my first time.”

“Well, good. I’m glad they’ve got you thinking that. I want to show you something.”

Hunt waved his hand and a screen descended from the ceiling. With a couple more motions images appeared. Here was Hunt mounting Stella, or a previous version of Stella, on a plush canopied bed.

“We had fun the last time you were here. See?”

More pornographic images. A close-up of the in-the-present Stella’s expressionless face as the reflections swam over her corneas. The camera remained on her as, off-screen, the recording of her previous self cried out, the sound of a cane striking artificial flesh, begging, more beating. A close-up of Quinn Hunt’s cold face. “Here comes the fun part.” The buzz of an electric blade, screams at a higher pitch. A close-up again of Stella’s face, unbudged from its blankness.

Hunt. “You wonder why I’m like this. Why I keep bringing you out here to abuse you. I was designed this way. I was an experiment. They isolated the serial-killer profile and engineered me in utero in the lab. But they also engineered incredible health and an astounding mathematical mind. Someone who could swim freely in the world of high finance. Someone with real earning potential. But my pleasure centers are wired to light up in the presence of others’ suffering. And they get really lit up when I’m inflicting that suffering. And when I’m lucky enough to kill someone, why, then it’s a state of pure nirvana. Do I wish it were another way? Certainly. I curse these pleasures! I pass people on the street and observe their uncomplicated motivations, their children and possessions. I wish I could be one of them. My life would be so much less demanding if I could get off on what everybody else gets off on. It’s a hassle bringing you out here every week. It’s expensive. It’s become a chore. But it’s something I’ve been designed to do. And since killing flesh-humans involves breaking laws, I have to make do with the likes of you.”

The eunuchs rushed to disrobe Hunt and Stella. Soon the two stood naked before one another, Hunt’s cock erect. The camera lingered on their bodies. Hunt took a step forward. Then a quickly edited series of shots. Stella reached to her crotch. An outburst of brass on the soundtrack. The eyes of a eunuch going wide with shock. Stella whipping out a short dagger she’d smuggled inside herself. Hunt, startled. The dagger flashing, then buried in one of Hunt’s eye sockets. Screaming. The eunuchs opening their robes to reveal machine pistols and—why not?—samurai swords. Stella whirling naked through the air, landing roundhouse kicks. Hunt screaming, twitching on the floor. Stella having some difficulty retrieving the dagger, as it appeared to be stuck in Hunt’s eye, having to brace her foot on his neck to get the proper leverage while one-handedly jiujitsuing the shit out of those sword-wielding eunuch guys. The knife slurped out. Stella swiped it like a debit card across Hunt’s throat. A blood puddle spread across the floor. Close-up of a eunuch lifting his machine pistol, getting off a smattering of shots, a round ripping through Stella’s bicep, revealing the machinery and circuitry within. Stella backflipping, snagging one of the eunuch’s swords while midair and upside down, then decapitating all three with a single swipe of the blade. An alarm. Stella snagging a couple machine pistols just in time to blast the security guards appearing in a nearby doorway, globules of flesh spattering oil paintings of landed gentry.