Plastic Love

Their penetrating gazes seemed to mock the visual X-ray capabilities of any Kryptonian pariah. Their senses were programmed to detect the slightest variation in the behaviour of members of the opposite sex.

Alex could hear, through the demoniac barrier of decibels, some of the overlapping dialogues:

'Look at that chick over by the booth. The redhead with the green dress, talking to that other one! Did you see that?'

'Eh?'

'That girl, man! Are you blind? She's talking about us!'

'You're just having a laugh, ain't ya? What are you on about? Which one?

'There. Over there!' He pointed the potential prey. 'She's...'

'Tasty!'

'And just take a look at her friend...'

The boy smiled approvingly; his friend's bright teeth, catching in the beam of the purple UV lights, gave a silent reply.

As the scientist he was, Alex thought it possible to anticipate their moves and the impending events, quickly developing an empiric but rigorous model. He turned his attention to them, as U2 turned into Roots Manuva's "Witness".

Instinctively, on queue with the seamless shift in music, torsos set themselves straight and shoulders recoiled to their proper place.

Facial procedures followed the pre-established algorithm for such occasions. They didn't look their targets in the face, but from a four-fifths position, slightly tilted to the right.

Bodies stiffened at approximately three-quarters.

Mouths subtly shifted downward.

A practised seen-it-all-and-found-it-too-dull-for-words look, ornamented with an expression that should render the formula:

       x = y·(A+B²) + z·[(C+D³)·E⁴] - rⁿ·(F+G²)

       where

       x = Probability of getting some;
       A = I've noticed you and I like it;
       B = I've noticed you've noticed me and I know you like it;
       y = Doubt: Do you like me as much as I like you?
       C = I don't need you at all;
       D = I want you now!
       E = I know you want me now!
       z = Doubt: Do you want me as much as I want you?
       F = You're making the first move;
       G = I'm making the first move;
       r = Doubt: Are you ever going to make a move?
       n = Relative importance of r.

Small gestures, looks, details: Alex strained to take it all in, through the noise, through the smoke.

The techniques used to lift cigarettes to their mouths, for example, could be of the utmost importance, due to its influence on the marker signals of A, B, F and G.

If these motions were to be imperfectly executed, the result would be an aggravating cloud of smoke left hovering about their eyes; the instinctive movement to wave it off alone could seriously compromise the aforementioned variables, as well as reinforce z in an uncontrollably exponential way.

'That's it! They're definitely looking this way!'

'Nah...' (Extremely high value of y)

'Look! Just take a good fucking look at them! Man, I'm telling you: this is it!' (Impressive control over E)

'Keep dreaming. They'll be with someone. There's no way women like that would look twice at you.' (Introduction of an endogenous variable, due to the increasing value of n; were it to reach any value above 2, the entire performance would be irreparably jeopardised)

'Fucking hell! They're coming this way!'

'What?' (Escalating value of F)

'Come on, let's go over.'

'Eh?'

'They're gagging for it!'

'Hang on!' he cried, gaze shifting nervously from the girls to his friend. 'Listen! Not tonight. I came in to get wasted, not to get laid. You go, if you want.' (Dramatic situation, in which n tended to plus-infinity, y and z to minus-infinity, and all other variables were pulverised)

'Fuck off, you homo! Always waiting for me to make the first move! Every time it's the same fucking shit...' (Given the soaring values of A and D, one would have to agree...)

'I don't speak French...'

'Ah, for fuck sake! Who gives a rat's ass? You wait here, if you want. Watch and learn, mate. Watch and learn.'

Witness the fitness, the cruffiton liveth...

Alex's disciplined mind absorbed with scientific glee the data fluxing all around him, collecting the variables at stake and correlating them in analytic models. He gulped down his drink and beamed one way and the other, in search of a witness for his own fitness, a friendly face and/or body to which to put his algorithm into practise.

He pushed past the group of people frantically dancing on the edge of the catwalk and stumbled down the metallic winding stairs that led to the main dance floor.

On the other side of the room, he spotted a devastatingly beautiful blue-eyed brunette in a blue-hue tie-dyed t-shirt and black miniskirt, leaning against the bar. He inhaled deeply, decisively.

He waded his way over to the bar and ordered a refill of his drink, along with a flute of champagne. The woman looked vaguely in his direction with her head tilted to one side, running her fingers along the tanned skin of her shapely neck. Oh, he wanted her.

He smiled, and had barely taken a step toward her when a tall African man came and wrapped his arms around her from behind, kissing the side of her neck. She giggled, melted back into his embrace.

Boyfriend. It figures...

Alex tried to play it cool and turned around, holding both drinks in his hands, and immediately saw a model-type black-haired young woman flashing him an intense smile, her figure backlit by a multitude of video monitors flashing an endless reel of fashion shows. High on N-methyl-3-hydroxydopamine, he scurried over to her, cutting right through the middle of the dancing crowd.

Witness the fitness–

Wham! Coming out of nowhere, a rogue elbow slammed against his chest, projecting his body backwards through the air. On contact, the entire content of his lungs rushed out. Both glasses audibly smashed against the ground, spilling shards and spraying alcohol in all directions.

A roar erupted through the floor and both overlooking mezzanines as, high above them, a timer mechanism kicked in and down came a spiralling rain of red and black confetti, the signal the DJ was waiting for to morph into Primal Scream.

Lying with his back on the cold dance floor, Alex closed his eyes, defeated. The woman had disappeared amongst the revitalised dancers.

The next two hours wasted away, slouching in a black leather armchair in a corner, sipping his drinks out of paper cups.

Submersed in the inebriant atmosphere of the crowded club, Alex was a spectator, an assortment of scientific knowledge, useless in the real world. Being in contact with something he thought he knew so well but could not manipulate was an endless source of frustration. It was as if he was surrounded by preschool toddlers able to solve university level equations on intuition alone. They operated within the practical world of knowledge, whilst he but touched its intangible essence.

Sadly, what he sought was extremely tangible.

Finally decided to put an end to the miserable outing, Alex pushed his way out the back to the alley that led to rue d'Antibes and his hotel.

The sudden rush of fresh air hit his intoxicated brain and threw him out of balance. For a moment, he felt disoriented and, after risking three uneasy steps, Alex stumbled into the nearest wall. With his back against the jagged red bricks, he tried to calculate exactly how much he had had to drink. His mind was a blank.

For the first time in his life, he thought simple arithmetic was way beyond a normal human being's conceptualisation range.

'Yes! That's it...'

Alex held his breath and tried to listen closely above the buzz-crackle-buzzing sound of the defective neon sign of the club. The low female voice had come wrapped in soft moans, from somewhere very near down the alley.

Stricken by momentary lucidity, he treaded cautiously in the direction of the hushed sounds. Along both walls of the alley, stacked wooden crates and steel dumpsters were ill lit by much too distant sodium lights and the flickering pink neon. Receding into their shadows, Alex felt confident he could get closer without being spotted.

The first thing he saw was the bare back of one of the boys he had observed inside. The redhead girl he had been eyeing was prompted up with her back against the wall and had him tightly locked between her naked thighs, his hands squeezing her full breasts through the thin fabric of her green dress, his pelvis meeting hers with vigorous thrusts.

'Fuck me!' she whimpered at his ear. 'Faster, now. Harder.'

Her hands were wrapped around his back, her metallic-varnished nails leaving a visible trail across his skin. Her body thrashed uncontrollably. Her moans, progressively louder, were cut off by strings of whispered profanities dripping from her partially chewed silver lipcoat lacquer and promptly silenced by a forceful kiss.

Alex made himself breathe, gasp the night air that carried the potent scent of uninhibited teenage hormones. For the second time that night, he felt his cock stir, his scrotum grip his testicles like a fist. His eyes widened, trying to take in the scene. In a daze, he felt his hand settling of its own accord over his crotch and slowly unzipping his fly.

With sweat coating his muscled back and reflecting the distant lights in patterns as irregular as his breath, the boy placed his hands on the wall on each side of the girl and increased the pace and strength behind each thrust, impaling her deeper and deeper.

'Fuck! Me!'

Never averting his eyes from the tangled bodies in front of him, Alex reached inside his trousers and freed his semi-rigid cock.

Each of his thrusts was accompanied by a build-up of hungry, loud, lustful cries.

'Fuck me harder! Fuck my cunt, you bastard.'

Completely rapt in the moment, Alex jerked his cock with abandonment.

With one final plunge, the boy tensed up and burst into orgasm. The girl cried out, her nails breaking the skin of his back like claws, drawing out blood.

A group of inebriated young men and women stormed out of the nightclub in a cloud of smoke, confetti, and loud voices.

Startled, Alex lost his balance and stumbled crashing into a stack of crates.

All eyes turned to him. With his cock still buried to the hilt in the redhead girl's cunt, the boy first looked at him stunned, and then burst into laughter. The girl smiled tartly.

Awkwardly trying to put his rapidly shrivelling member back into his trousers, Alex turned around and desperately ran towards rue d'Antibes and out of his own very special nightmare.

Welcome to the City of Dreams, was announced in the gargantuan Ville de Cannes billboard, golden lithe bodies sunbathing in a Mediterranean beach across the street from his hotel. Pacing about beneath it, a lacklustre fifteen-year old prostitute.

'Two-hundred,' she said coolly has he passed by, her dry voice coming from a great distance.

Alex stopped and looked at her, something in his brain straining to process this bit of information.

She moistened her lips. Yawned.

He staggered to the gutter and vomited, fallen on his knees.

Back in his room, the dull silver surface of the large Victorian mirror that greeted him resembled a lost pool, clouded by time. Alex leaned into it and stared at the livid image reflected back for several minutes, trying to remember exactly when had he fallen through.

When Alex finally collapsed onto bed, he sunk into this pool of dreams, pulled down by the massive block of frustration and resentment shackled to his feet.

10:55 AM. Alex awoke to the pounding of a full fanfare of acute and persistent pain marching up his spinal cord, whirling around both cerebral hemispheres and slowly down the front to dedicate a special attention to his pulsating forehead.

To open his eyes seemed a disrespect of the Geneva Convention, and was rivalled only by the attempt to keep balanced in a close-to-vertical position. He had had hangovers before, but never anything quite like this.

'Fuck...'

He sat in bed, and immediately felt nauseous. He looked around the room, unsure of where he was, and brushed off the black and red confetti from the wrinkled clothes he had slept in.

The disjointed image reflected by the antique mirror added a few extra tons to the already massive weight of his skull.

'I look like shit.'

He did, actually, but on some strange level Alex was also almost glad for experiencing the torment to which most of the human race willingly submitted on a nightly basis. Although he didn't doubt the added benefits of his quiet life, intellectual- and physical health-wise, he understood that social integration required a periodic communion in such rituals. Given enough time and/or psychotropic chemical aid and he would become as socially skilful as anyone.

He felt the need to get rapidly in touch with the unfamiliar world from which he had hid behind the hermetically sealed doors of his laboratory. That night he would have to go back to that club.

This new urgency filled him with motivation, but could do very little about the splitting headache that clouded his vision and judgment. Only after a hot shower, consuming the monthly water provisions of an entire Berber tribe of Western Sahara, was he ready to face the Mediterranean sun.

Alex skulked into the dining room on the first floor of an eighteenth century building in Le Suquet. The acetaminophen tab that he had taken to heroically get through the day's worth of seminars, talks and presentations at the Palais des Festivals had started to wear off in the middle of the afternoon, and his mouth felt thick and dry as he steadied himself against the doorframe and slowly scanned the room. The rough yellow ochre walls and the antique furnishing lent the small but fresh-looking restaurant an air of indigenous intimacy, although it was clear to him that none of the patrons was.

A couple, handsome in their mid-forties, sat in the far side of the room, dressed in stylish beachwear. The man was pointing a camcorder at the woman who clowned girlishly, hiding her face behind the leather-bound menu.

At another table, a young couple wearing wrinkled formal evening clothes and an unmistakable post-orgasmic radiance sat oblivious to the world, exchanging excited little smiles. The cheerful brunette girl held a small clamshell to her mouth and slowly suckled on it, her deep green eyes locked on her male companion's, a coy smile insinuating on her lips.

By one of the windows that overlooked the old harbour, sat a blonde and a redhead, two drop-dead gorgeous, blue-eyed young women with jovial round features and insubstantial summer dresses that revealed as much of their fit, succulent figures as of their airbrush-perfect suntanned skin.

Alex smiled as he thought of Lana and Rita as they were in 1946 and every morning over his bed.

He nodded imperceptibly at the waitress and took the vacant table next to the girls, cool and confident.

He ran his thumb over his lips, in what he hoped was a sensual Martini-ad type gesture, and glanced in their general direction as he summoned the waitress.

He looked at them from time to time as he browsed the menu and ordered dinner.

He openly stared as he slowly spread a considerable chunk of butter in a warm bread roll, but they remained utterly unaware of his presence, chatting, sharing a colourful shrimp brochette.

Alex let his eyes roam freely down their bodies, in wonder at the way their dresses clung to their full, round breasts, bikini tops showing through the gossamer fabric. He lost himself in the melodious sound of their laughter and in how those perfect globes heaved when they leaned to whisper in each other's ear, in how those legs curved from under their dresses, the redhead's hand surreptitiously... caressing... the inside of the blonde girl's thigh...

'Rita, Rita,' he sighed disheartened as the two briefly kissed. 'I always knew.'

He tried to look away.

The desires and frustrations he had buried under the long hours of lab work for most of his hidden life and that had been preserved as in cryogenic stasis in the cold sarcophagus of his self-imposed seclusion, though, decided enough was enough.

Why should he continue to cowardly submit to the torture of daily exposure to indifference. How dared they? He could will them to savour, nibble, swallow and absorb the passion and all the corresponding array of conflicting emotions that he was being denied yet again. If he wanted, he could make himself as necessary to their life as oxygen itself. All he needed was a drop of his elixir, and upon his departure, his ultimate revenge, the love-struck nymphets would suffer in a Purgatory of memories and fantasies that would consume their souls and rip their hearts out!

OK. That was a little bit over the top.

He shouldn't compromise his scientific rigour like that. He should wait until later that night at the club.

Only two more hours.

But on the other hand, what the hell.

He took a deep breath, got up, and walked to the restroom, resolve engraved in his face.

A halogenous haze dominated the improbably spacious compartment, stretched to infinity by perfectly aligned wall-to-wall mirrors. Alex felt inside his jacket pocket, and the soft texture of the small leather case sent his heart racing. He opened it, as if in a precise ritual, and produced an unlabelled clear glass ampoule. Briefly caressing the round glass surface, he held it in his hand and, finally, with the flicker of a finger, he broke it open.

He felt a sharp sting, as a minute shard of glass lodged itself in the pad of his thumb, and he put the ampoule down on the counter. He turned on the faucet and looked in the mirror for a long time, focused on cold water as it rushed over his hands, until he saw the circular shape of a drop of blood in deep contrast with the black slate countertop, right next to the glass ampoule, but as he reached for it, he noticed it was only another red confetto. He watched as his mirror counterparts picked the countless glass ampoules atop countless black countertops and splashed calculated amounts of crystalline cobalt-blue liquid onto their necks.

He closed his eyes to escape vertigo.

The aroma of the elixir, mixed with the cologne he was wearing, produced a bizarre bastardy of odours, but in no way unpleasant or unexpected.

He had to wonder, though, if the stomach-churning fried oysters smell that was starting to insinuate itself from the kitchen could turn out to be a threat to the aphrodisiac emanations.

An expectant, nearly mystic determination guided his return to the dining room, disappointingly uneventful.

Nothing happened, not even when Alex exaggeratedly leaned over the two young women's table.

The strange pose was instead met with slightly bothered looks. He withdrew and slumped back into his chair, resigned.

The entire dinner came and went, and the wondrous effects of the love potion persisted in their absence. He could get no reaction at all, and he was sure that damned fried oysters smell was to blame. There was absolutely nothing wrong with his formula.

Out of sheer habit, Alex ordered a digestive coffee, wanting to get out of that place quickly and considering if he should even go to the club next.

As she walked across the room to bring him the coffee, the waitress, a dark-haired elfin teenager, appeared to have a truly Archimedean revelation and finally noticed the strong scent coming from the kitchen. She made her way to the window behind Alex and opened it.