“They say the eyes are the windows to the soul.”
Hana slides the shoji screen aside with lean fingers and enters the room.
“What do you think, Crick-san?” she says.
I can’t help but look away from her two eyes, my gaze falling on the third one implanted on her left cheek. It's closed, but I can see it moving back and forth beneath the shimmering lid.
“It sounds poetic,” I say.
“Did the android ask you about the soul?”
“I-“
“Go on," she says moving towards me, her kimono rustling on the tatami mat. "Tell me what you told her. Define your soul for me."
She wraps her arms around me in a perfumed embrace.
“I guess, it’s a kind of like a force," I say reaching up and catching her by the waist, "independent of our bodies, which guides our thoughts, feelings, and actions.”
Her hips sway in the most delightful way.
"Did she tell you the soul is immortal?"
“She told me it could be measured and quantified, stored and processed, retrieved on command."
"Did you agree with her?" she says leaning forward and falling gently on the cradle of my lap.
"I don't remember to be honest."
She laughs, and the sound of it rings like tinkling bells. Her fingers slide up my neck, firmly gripping the back of my head like a melon. I feel them writhe like tentacles across my skull. Prodding.
click click click!
My neural ports snap open, and before I can prevent it, I feel her penetrate me with her fingers.
“Would you like to look into my soul?” she asks me.
I cannot speak. Utterly under her control, her Geisha spell.
"Look carefully," she murmurs, and her third eye opens wide.
In convulsive spasms, I feel balls of energy explode in my perineum, coil around my intimate parts, then quickly flash up along my spine like lightning, rising up to my heart, my throat, my lips, electrifying the crown of my head.
“It’s all one. Isn't that what they say down on Earth?"
I can hear her thoughts clearly inside my head as if they were my own.
My arms begin to move of their own accord, up and down her body. The curve of her breast. My hands caress her madly, but it's not me doing it, she's the one controlling my limbs.
My body grows taut, erect, unable to do anything but violently shake as Hana revs up my motor cortex and rides on the waves of yab-yum bliss.
A shower of liquid cherry blossoms splash on the display.
"Did she tell you about cognitive wormholes?"
Pink light emanates from the crack on her cheek. The cherry blossoms begins to spin as if caught in a whirlwind.
I get the uneasy sensation that my life-force is coalescing in the middle of my forehead like a vortex.
Her blinding light engulfs me.
When my third eye opens, I feel as if my soul is pouring out of it like melted gold. It flows out in a stream and fuses with Hana Sensei.
It's all too much! This loss of ego. This dissolution of self. Will I disappear like a fleeting sensation or be swallowed whole into a new state of being?
With my last ounce of self control, I manage to pull back and push her away.
She falls on the mat laughing, wires dangling from her fingers.
As I stumble towards the door, I hear her say,
“Remember, Van, things are never straight forward in this universe, and they’re certainly never what they seem.”
Image by @litguru
NFT Art in body of text: Delicate by nachi.art in the NFT Showroom gallery.
Owner: @litguru
Published under Limited Reproduction rights
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6
Part 7
Part 8
Part 9
Part 10
Part 11
Part 12
Part 13
Part 14
Part 15
Part 16
Part 17
Part 18
Part 19