Favela Pt. 01

Olivia snuck in through the kitchen window, it wasn't necessary, no one would have noticed if she'd kicked down the front door, which was unlocked. Her mother was most likely shut away in her dark bedroom with the curtains drawn, using her computer, lost in that Virtual World. Her father, well he'd been around a bit when she was younger, but then the Favela had gotten its meat hooks into him.

"Ollie girl." He'd said one morning while they ate grilled crickets on skewers for breakfast. "You might not see me for awhile. I feel a shadow falling." He swooped his hand over his head almost like a scythe blade swinging down to lop it off. "Better if it falls somewhere else. You dig?" He finished, eyes darting south and away. Was he sad or just ashamed? She was still wondering.

Not long after that her mom had found an old computer in the communal dump. One of those retro one-piece things, but rugged. God only knew how it got there or how her mom had managed to wrestle it away from the Favelos. Maybe it had been used for something illegal and they didn't want it up in their business. Somehow her mom had wired it up to their stolen electricity and got it working.

One of Olivia's brothers had disappeared in the jungle (probably eaten), the other had been killed in an airstrike. At least that's what the text had said, it's not like the Chuteiras delivered a body. She was almost thankful, he'd been some kind of sociopath, could hardly wait to enlist and start killing Povos. So to make a long story short, the house was practically empty. She snuck in through the window because she liked to pretend that someone was expecting her, and that she was late. Also it gave her a little thrill.

Poised precariously on the edge of the sill her phone vibrated in her bandoleer, it was so startling that she squealed and almost slipped into the kitchen sink. It was positioned right over her left nipple which was oddly sensitive and erect for some reason. She cursed silently, slinking down to the tile floor with all the grace of a Jaguar. She fished the flimsy device out of the clear sleeve which had originally been designed to hold a state ID card. The phone fit with room to spare.

A text from her mom. "Cricket tamales in the fridge." It read somewhat cryptically. Although she had seen it countless times before. For some reason her fright moments before along with the glib message triggered a totally unexpected fit of rage. Tears suddenly gushed out of her eyes and Olivia screamed gutturally throwing her phone at the door of the refrigerator with all her might. It spun with weightless impotence through the air and bounced harmlessly off the gray gunmetal, spinning into the living room.

Trembling with rage Olivia stood stiffly in front of the sink with her feet planted widely and her arms stabbing rigidly down her sides. The house was eerily silent. No one came to investigate, no one yelled out to see if she was okay. No one cared. Her shoulders slumped and her tears stopped even though her eyes were still stinging. Stumbling forward with blurred vision she chased after her device. It was on the carpet in front of the couch, unharmed.

She didn't sigh with relief, she didn't even care. Olivia stuffed it back into its pouch and kept walking forward until she ended up in front of her mother's bedroom door. It wasn't entirely closed, in fact it was open about 20 centimeters. Temporarily jolted out of her fugue she squeezed her head into the space until the door opened enough for her eyes to peer around its ragged edge.

There was her mother, as expected, almost the living picture of her imagination: slumped back in her old rocking chair, her face obscured by an olive-drab Virtual Reality band, her mouth hanging open stupidly. The computer sat in front of her, monochrome screen glowing faintly, amber lines of text appearing line by line on a black background. Overtaken by curiosity her daughter craned her neck forward until she could read the writing.

"Datebook: A Place to Meet." It said at the top of the screen. On the left hand side was a grainy pixelated picture of her mom including a caption: "33, F, Bowa Villa. My name is Marcella and I'm looking for that special someone." On the left was an apparent in-progress conversation. "No, of course I don't have any kids. Didn't you read my profile?" In dull ocher and then on the other side in canary yellow: "What about your boobs, are they big?"

Olivia suppressed a snort, her mother's baleful scowl was visible across the room despite the band covering one fourth of her face. Marcella was practically flat chested, it was one of her most sensitive areas. That fool, whoever he was had just signed his death warrant. The right side of the screen went blank. She had ended the exchange. Olivia smiled, it was a small thing but it had pleased her greatly for some reason. "Serves you right for lying about me!" She thought, maliciously.

Now a list had materialized, scrolling by rapidly, she could make out small pictures of faces with short descriptions next to each. It was a dating site, she'd heard of those. An artifact from the old world, only hipsters and old people used them now. Out of morbid curiosity she pulled out her phone and did a search, to her surprise an app was listed, although it was almost 30 years old! It might run with emulation she mused, before installing it on a whim.

"So you don't have any kids, is that right?" She murmured quietly into the darkness as she moved away from her mother's door and headed back towards the kitchen. "We'll see about that." Acting mostly on auto-pilot, with one hand Olivia put two tamales on a plate before squeezing a couple drops of thermic enzyme on each. A few seconds later she was seated at the table, occasionally forking a mouthful of steaming cricket and maize into her maw while typing away rapidly with her thumb.

By the time she took the last bite she had created a fake profile on Datebook.btc, replete with a stock-photo picture of a handsome dude that looked a little like her AWOL father and one of her spare forged ID codes that she used to buy luxuries like toilet paper and chocolate at the Gray Bazaar. It might be true that her mother had grown distant lately, but that hardly meant she was a stranger. Olivia knew Marcella as well as anyone and far better than most.

For a moment she paused, thumb hovering over a glowing red button, a twinge of doubt tugging at some long-neglected corner of her heart. "What am I doing?" She asked out loud, almost laughing, then clapping her hand over her mouth, afraid that her mom might actually hear her. A moment later she realized that her mother, safely wrapped in her digital cocoon, might as well be on another planet. She wouldn't leave her bedroom even if her daughter were screaming and on fire. Olivia scowled and clenched her teeth, angrily her thumb mashed down.

A few minutes later she received a notice. "Marcella has accepted your date request." And that was how it started. At first she tiptoed, pouring on the charm, digging deep down into her earliest memories, searching for those precious nuggets of intimate knowledge about her mom. Everything she liked and disliked, her dreams, her fears. The sky began to darken, the stadium lights switched on outside, the loudspeakers announced curfew.

Olivia leaned back in her chair, kicking dangerously away from the table until her head almost hit the oven. She smirked, they had been 'talking' for hours. She imagined her mother in the other room, drooling onto her chest as she subvocalized each new line of text. Olivia herself had switched to passive IR scanning, her thumb long since exhausted. Suddenly she realized that she was enjoying herself.

Inside she felt all warm and fuzzy, her earlier pangs of fury and despair had completely dissipated. She reread a few of her latest messages, all her guile and bravado had fallen away. It didn't seem like she was trying to trick her mother at all, they were just having a regular conversation about life in the Favela. Her mom was talking about how lonely she had been feeling. "Fuck this." She thought, being careful to control her throat muscles to avoid accidental transcription.

"What are you wearing?" She sent instead, smirking. It was funny because she knew exactly what her mom was wearing: dirty gray sweatpants and a dingy white tank-top sans-bra. Rarely wearing a bra was one of the few perks of having a washboard for a chest and her mother definitely took full advantage of that fact. Olivia giggled, eager to see what half-baked lie her mother would cook up to keep her fake Mr. Right on the hook.

"You really want to know?" Her mom's response materialized into view a few seconds later.

"Yes!" She replied, stifling another outburst. Suddenly her phone's screen began to dance with light as line after line of visual data streamed across the display. "Holy shit!" She hissed, her face heating as she stared fixedly at the image slowly congealing before her eyes. "I can't fucking believe it." She murmured out loud, not even bothering to prevent the IR from capturing her surprise. It was a picture of her mother's lower body from her belly to about mid-thigh.

Marcella was wearing obscenely sexy red lingerie, a silky looking fabric with blood-red lace around the edges, her perfectly shaped crotch right in the center of the picture with the outline of her labia just barely visible. The eroticism of the photo was only slightly derailed by the sight of one of her mother's hands off to the side clenched around a handful of her filthy marled sweatpants. Olivia was still blushing, but this brought her snapping back to reality.

Still the photo was undeniably seductive, to her chagrin Olivia realized that her heart was racing. Even though she'd been a little flirty the whole night she had never actually expected something like this. Things had taken a turn, she sat frozen, unable to reply or even think. Still she kept staring, the image had entranced her, she was captivated. Never had she imagined her mother might be wearing such a thing underneath her disgusting hobo sheik.

"What's the matter? Are you too busy wanking to respond?"

Olivia's face turned a shade darker. She took several deep breaths and willed her heartbeat to slow. This wasn't how things were supposed to go, how had the tables been turned so completely? She squealed and scrunched her eyes shut, forcing her mind to focus. "No." She started to reply. "I had no idea you would be so aggressive." She smirked in spite of her panic, it was just the simple truth.

Her mom wrote back instantly. "Don't get the wrong idea, I wasn't being aggressive, just the opposite. When you asked me what I was wearing I imagined you demanding I show you. That was all it took to bring out my true submissive nature."

Olivia's brow furrowed. Submissive? What!? Her mother was submissive? The idea was baffling, she could barely understand it. But before she had a chance to mull over this revelation more deeply her mom sent another message.

"I know this probably seems sudden, but the truth is I've never felt such a strong connection so quickly. It's almost like I've known you my whole life. This is crazy but I can't deny how I'm feeling right now. Even though we've never met and I know next to nothing about you, my body is telling me that I can trust you."

Her daughter felt a mixture of emotions that were so powerful and conflicting she almost fell over. Then when she finally did find her balance she thought she might throw up. She felt anger that her mother would let down her guard so easily. She felt proud that she had managed to 'seduce' her mom so completely. She felt shame and disgust both at herself for her growing excitement and at her mother for being such a shameless slut. And most surprising of all she felt pity and love. It was the worst.

"Submissive. Submissive. Submissive." The word just kept bouncing around inside her head, with each repetition she found herself becoming more and more mesmerized. She was afraid of what that might mean and it gave her pause but her curiosity was overpowering. And there was something else. She had been trying to deny it, but a smoldering ember had sparked into a tiny flickering flame. She had felt something too, a sense of control and freedom that made her dizzy with desire.

Then in a flash her composure returned as she remembered with agonizing solidity the feelings of rejection and abandonment as her mother retreated deeper and deeper into her squalor. "If that's really true then prove it. I won't pretend I didn't love the sexy picture, but I want more from you than sex. Tell me your most important secret if you don't want this to end."

It seemed like barely a second passed. It was just four words, but it shook Olivia to her core. "I have a daughter." It read.

For the second time that night Olivia's mind went blank. The minutes passed, and slowly her reason returned. "I don't understand." Was the first thing she thought. "Are you ashamed of me, or are you protecting me?" Her mind reeled. No matter what it somehow made her feel horrible either way. But beyond that, it was the truth, her mother had told this fake stranger the most important thing she could think of. Olivia groaned, her anger rekindling. Feeling an inexplicable stab of jealousy she replied without thinking.

"Is she hot?" A moment later she realized what she had said in her anger and then immediately half-hoped that it would end this farce. Her other half, well she wasn't sure what it was hoping for. Continuing with the theme of the evening her mother did the most shocking thing imaginable.

"You really want to know?" It was the same question she had posed before. Olivia scowled and bit her lip, this had been her game and yet she was the one getting played. It was aggravating! Sullenly she responded with her own question.

"I asked didn't I?"

Her eyes were momentarily dazzled as another picture appeared line by line. A picture of herself. Olivia blinked in disbelief. It was an older picture maybe two years old, she was wearing a one-piece swimsuit, it was cornflower blue with coral colored moons and stars in a random pattern, there was one big star conspicuously placed right on the crotch. She blushed at the smiling oblivious girl in the photograph. "Was I ever really that innocent and carefree?" She questioned. Still she remembered that exact day although it felt like a dream in retrospect.

"She's cute." She replied, feeling somewhat numb, perhaps in shock. Was this what betrayal felt like, or just the inevitable sensation of being used? "Is this how people really are? Is everyone like this?" She mused detachedly. "Do you love her?" She voiced errantly into the chat, at this point unable to guess or even imagine what her mom might say.

"Everything I love seems to disappear." It wasn't really an answer, but Olivia felt a pang of compassion. It was clearly the truth. Her mother's sadness seemed to churn in her belly, twisting and turning, writhing and pounding against her insides until she suddenly seemed to get on top of it. The gut-wrenching angst transformed back into that warm and gentle flame. It licked at her heart, both soothing and enticing. It was perverse, she acknowledged that, but she was no longer ashamed.

"I can tell you don't appreciate what you have, but I can open your eyes." The message hung, pregnant with provocation. It was a challenge of sorts, but also a test.

"Are we going to play more show and tell??" Her reply was playful, but also a provocation in its own right.

"Yes. I want you to show me just how submissive you can be by doing exactly what I tell you to do." She imagined her mother in the other room, possibly digging her fingers into the upholstered arms of her rocking chair, anxiously biting her nails. Or maybe she was sticking a hand down her pants? Olivia snorted, the image of her mother's ostentatious red underwear flashing once more before her eyes.

"I wasn't joking." Her mom replied instantly. "Nothing gives me more pleasure than doing what I'm told." Olivia grinned wickedly, their conversation was becoming surreal, her mind started producing a variety of outrageous suggestions for things she could make her mother do. She decided to stall while she thought up the perfect thing.

"Even if it's humiliating, dangerous, or wrong?" There was not the pause she had been expecting.

"As I said before, my body is telling me I can trust you, and when I submit to my body I submit to whoever is controlling it, unconditionally." This was unbelievable. Olivia simply could not accept that her mother could be so totally fucking stupid. "You may think I'm afraid, but you're wrong, I know I'm perfectly safe putting my life in your hands because my body never lies." What! Olivia swore several times, this was the dumbest fucking woo woo bullshit she'd ever heard.

She was starting to get angry again. How could her mother be so irresponsible!? It was maddening. How could she be so selfish! Didn't she know that she wasn't the only person who cared if she lived or died? Olivia's head was spinning, she felt sick again, it was starting to feel like a bad habit. In her rage she had terrible thoughts, her jealousy once again rearing its ugly head. Ironically it gave birth to a brilliant if not twisted idea.

She would have to make good on her promise after all. If her mother couldn't see reason, she would have to rub her face in it until she got the message. "You have a beautiful daughter, but that picture you sent was just a tease, she'd look much better without the ugly swimsuit." The truth was she'd loved that swimsuit. Ha! "I want another picture, only this time make sure she's naked."

It was the most absurd request she could think of, and one that was practically guaranteed to snap her mom out of this ridiculously self-destructive state of mind. There was no way she'd accept this, no way in hell. "Give me until morning." It hadn't even been a minute since she'd sent the message! Olivia glanced at the clock, it was 1:48 AM, how had she lost track of the time? In the back of the house she heard the sound her mother's bedroom door creaking open.

Like a bolt of lightning Olivia slammed her phone into its pouch and bounded up out of her chair as quietly as possible. Practically racing through the murky living room she darted into her bedroom, tearing off her clothes even before the door closed behind her. It was a struggle but she just barely managed to shuck off her boots, coveralls and tank-top before diving into bed. The light was already off which was lucky because no sooner had she pulled the covers over her head than her mother pushed open the door and activated the overhead.

"Wake up baby." She said, shuffling over to the side of her daughter's bed, her voice wasn't loud but it wasn't exactly quiet either. She pulled back the covers exposing Olivia's head and the top of her chest.

"Mom? What the fuck!?" Olivia did her best to blink blearily and slur, she couldn't be sure but it seemed like she did a pretty good job of acting like she'd just woken up. "What time is it?" She yawned, pulling herself into a more upright position. "What's happening?" She put a note of fear in her voice, nailing it perfectly. Marcella grimaced but then knelt down so that they were on the same level.

"Ollie it's nothing bad. Oh no, sleeping in your bra again? That's not good for your body." Before she could protest Marcella had leaned forward and reached out with both hands, in one fluid movement she unhooked Olivia's bra and then unceremoniously pulled it off her body and tossed it over a nearby stool. "That's better, I mean you don't want to end up like me do you?" The plaintive note in her voice was heart-wrenching, Olivia could almost believe it was genuine.

"I didn't even notice." She said weakly. Her mom grinned.