Mind and Flesh Read online

  The funeral is over. My old, broken body is destroyed. I need to get over the change in my life and get back on my feet.

  I can’t sleep. I don’t want to dream. I don’t want to be tomorrow. I am afraid to face the next part of my life. There is no certainty, no objective to hang onto. No easy future that I can simply follow. No one to guide me and tell me what to do, how to feel. My heartbeats have accelerated. I am panicking. Need to calm down. Need to stop thinking. Need to breathe. My heart is beating too fast.

  I get up, find my desk and my computer. I open the drawers, move away notebooks and pens until I finally find what I was looking for. I grab my stress ball and squeeze it. Its texture is soft and nice. I let my fingers shrink it under the pressure then remove them to let the ball take back its round shape. I press it between the palms of both my hands and press as hard as I can to make it look flat. My heart is still resonating in my ears, but not as ominous as before. I sigh. After a few more minutes of channeling my thoughts away from anything else but the ball, I decide that it is time to get back to sleep.

  ***

  I drop the urn in the garbage bin.

  It cracks open and the ashes spread.

  A neighbor sees me.

  I yell that I tripped and it fell from my arms.

  Some people raise their heads out of the bushes.

  They are judging me.

  I need to correct what I did.

  I run back home and grab a dustpan and a brush.

  I come back to the garbage bin and reach inside to collect back the ashes.

  I flinch and retrieve my arm in surprise.

  There is a naked body in the garbage bin, huddled up on himself. I know that this body is mine.

  The brush and dustpan softly fall on the body.

  The body stands up and looks at me with empty eyes.

  The people in the bushes are asking to each other what is happening.

  The body stretches its arm and touches my forehead.

  I am in my bed, eyes open. The room is softly lit with the early radiance of the sun. I remain motionless. Another nightmare. Fucking ashes. I think about the empty eyes of the body. Empty eyes, empty soul? What was the significance of that dream? Bullshit, dreams have no significance or meaning besides being triggered by lingering thoughts. There is no higher life form sending messages through dreams.

  This makes me wonder. As some sort of a clone, would I qualify to have a soul? Am I different from a normal human being? What people identify as the soul is the disembodied spirit of an individual. Which means the faculty to think, have a personality and emotions as an individual, and bag it all together as a non-physical whole. To me, using the word soul is just a way to interpret a mechanism that eludes basic understanding and define it as an esoteric concept. I have always found it jarring that people always easily believe in imaginary concepts rather than only accept what can be proven or makes logical, scientific sense. Is it a lack of education? Or am I biased from my attraction to science? Even some of the best scientists believe in crazy nonsense. Or maybe they don’t want to believe that their existence is only attached to their physical body, they need a higher purpose than being a vessel for their genes?

  Never mind the reason people believe in souls. I want to analyze how I can link it to my situation. First, brain injuries have been proven to change how the brain functions in different ways, from the inability to carry on certain activities to changes in personality and behavior relative to others. Alzheimer’s disease is also physical evidence that neurodegeneration affects memories and personality. I am certain that I can add myself as another living proof that the ability to think is directly linked to the neuronal network. In my case, the neuronal network was copy pasted from one brain to another and that was enough for me to maintain my memories and ability to think. I physically modified the neuronal network of the host brain. I didn’t even move or create neurons, I forced them back in blank state, a reset, and then I trained them to work in the conformation that characterizes me. Thoughts, memories and personality are all physically tied to how the neurons interact together. I did not transfer any esoteric spirit from one body to another. Actually, the original body was still alive during the first moments of the copy, nothing was taken from the original. So there is no base for the existence of a soul that would be disembodied.

  All that matters is the factual state of the neurons. A change in how the neurons communicate together leads to a change in the thoughts process. No neurons communicating together, no thoughts. Death. The neurons placed in the configuration that could be identified as my wife have lost their function, my wife is dead. Brain and body of my wife are now mine and there is no soul of hers inhabiting there. However I still had to keep a bit of her. The machine kept some of the areas of the autonomic nervous system, responsible mostly for organs that function under the consciousness level. Such as sexual arousal or respiratory rate. There was no need to replace areas of control that were specific to her body or not similar to mine. So there is still a little bit of her in the nervous system, but nothing related to consciousness. Additionally, since our genes are different, the expression of the molecules produced in our cells could vary. The base level of a given molecule, as well as the amount that could be produced in response to certain stimuli, could vary between this body and my old one. Some emotions linked to the level of those molecules could be affected, such as a natural lower feeling of happiness. This means that I was wrong when I thought that just the neural system configuration would keep my personality fully intact. I am definitely not a carbon copy clone of the original, even though the variations should be minor. My reasoning confirms again that I am a new individual, the brain of one and the body of another. Despite not coming to existence from the natural way, being in part a clone does not make me any less human. I have my own individuality and I have feelings.

  I am still in bed. My only objective for now is to get food. However, this reason is not enough to make me want to get up right now. I lack motivation to do anything. I huddle up in a different position, but I feel some discomfort as a piece of cloth got stuck under me while moving. I lower my hand to rectify its placement and notice that my panties are pulled on the side of my labia. My hand stays there without putting the panties back in front.

  I touch the edges of my labia where I feel the strain from the panties. A gentle tingly sensation spreads through the area. I slowly drag my fingers closer to the center. I am starting to feel horny. I prod the clitoris with the tip of my fingers. A wonderful sensation radiate from that spot.

  My whole pussy is throbbing. I touch it a few times slowly and feel waves of pleasure overwhelming my senses. I stop removing the fingers and rub them faster and faster. My breath gets noisier. I let out a squeal of pleasure…

  …which puts me off. The female tone of the sound coming out of my mouth startled me. What, I am playing with my pussy, and I still get surprised from having the body of a woman? I should get used to it by now. And I should get used to that whole new area of pleasures. I slowly bring my fingers back to work, but this time the movement is not instinctive, I guide my fingers on purpose. On a sudden inspiration, I move up my second hand that was idling on my thigh, and start squeezing softly a nipple. An intense sensation radiates from the spot. It does not exactly feel like pleasure in the way my pussy does. It just feels like extreme tactile sensitivity. I guess I am not used to it yet and will come to like it more if I keep touching there. On the other hand, the sensation down there is again overwhelming with pleasure. My fingers are starting to slide quicker on the wet. I know what I want to do next. I feel stupid for not having done it before. After a second of hesitation, I enter the vagina with my finger.

  The trumpets are not blasting in my ears. Fireworks are not tearing down the sky. The sensation of the finger sliding in was good, but far from the explosion of senses I had fantasized. I still need to apply more movements to make it feel better. I move down my second hand to play again with the clit
oris while I focus on creating pleasure by moving back and forth the finger in my vagina. I might be doing it wrong, most of the pleasure comes just from rubbing the clitoris and not the penetration. I focus back my efforts on the clitoris. Indeed, the amount of tingling sensations radiating from it keep increasing, as if it was pulsing between my fingers. I cannot control my breathing anymore, letting some noisy moans come out. It gets more and more intense. My body is on fire. And then suddenly, a deep feeling of ecstasy triggers at my clitoris and spreads across the rest of my pussy. I take my breath back. I am sweating.

  My pussy wants more. That was not enough. It is throbbing under my fingers for me to get back in action. I retrieve my finger back from inside the vagina and spread my hand on the vulva, playing with the wet and the labia while my other hand is busy rubbing the clitoris again. I come once more. So strong and intense, even better than the first time.

  My back is wet too, from sweat. I am merging with the bed sheets. It doesn’t matter, I feel great. I have not thought about sex in a while. I am glad that despite the change of body I can still masturbate. And the sensations from this body are new and different! And just touching myself or looking at my breasts is arousing me again. I was in love with my wife, now I am in love with myself.

  Time to get up though. I can explore more later on. I look at the bed sheets, deciding that they will dry on their own. I remove my t-shirt and the misplaced panties, and slip in the shower. Warm water feels great on my body. I look down and contemplate my breasts again. I take extra time to clean my nipples and the outskirts of my pussy with soap. It feels really nice. Different from my experience as a male. Gentler, warmer, a pleasure that is more continuous and less imperious. When I was male, the intense pleasure seemed to come mostly at the end, around the time of the ejaculation. Ejaculating felt like an intense relief, then there was a big sensation of emptiness. As if I had a forceful need to burst out and the pleasure was only there to trigger the burst, followed by relief that the pressure had stopped. Pleasure from the female body feels more nuanced and, most importantly, continuous even if it peaks as well. I take a towel and dry myself. I put on new clothing when I notice a disturbing sensation of drench on my back. Ah, I forgot again that these hair are longer and get wet more easily. I blow-dry my hair and get something else to put on. I painfully brush my hair, grab the wallet with a credit card on, put it in a new handbag and set out to finally buy some food, feeling happier than I ever did in a good while.

  ***

  I enter the bar and scan the place with my eyes. The setting is full of colors and dynamic shapes, giving a modern look. However I don’t dwell too much on the bar itself as I quickly look from face to face, trying to find the one I am looking for. As some heads rise up to look at me quizzically, I start to feel embarrassed. Thankfully, I see some movement from a corner, a hand signing me to come. I walk through the place and stop next to a pretty woman welcoming me with a smile and waving frantically. She has a glass in front of her, empty except for a few melting ice cubes.

  “Thank you for coming,” says my sister, “I am glad you got in touch with me.”

  Her deliberately planned laid back position radiates a certain confidence, and she seems both unapproachable and easy-going. I blush a little as I sit in front of her.

  “Thank you for reaching out back at the funeral,” I tell her. “I didn’t know who to talk to.”

  Actually, she is the only one I want to talk to. Since I aimed to take distance from my past life and get a chance at a second life, I was not sure if I should contact her or not. I missed talking to someone, and I don’t know any new people yet. And I really like her…

  A waiter comes across. I order a beer, she orders another vodka and he soon comes back with our glasses.

  “So, is there anything in particular you wanted to talk about?” she says softly.

  I didn’t think that far.

  “Errr… no. I suppose that I needed to talk about someone that also knew him well.”

  Her face gets more tense.

  “What do you want to know?”

  That came off quite abruptly. I thought she would obviously prepared for the wife to talk about her late husband?

  “Are you alright?” I ask her.

  “Yes. No. I am sorry.” She remains silent for a few moments, then “I should not be selfish. The situation must be pretty hard on you.”

  “You are not being selfish.” I guess that I should first divert the conversation into a more relaxed territory. “How is work going?”

  Her eyes lit up. “Ah, pretty rough lately. There is a new inmate picking up fights with everyone. She wants to show them all she’s tough as nails, see.”

  “Did you get into a fight with her?”

  “Nah, not me. I don’t personally intervene. I am the admin of the prison but I don’t personally get involved in the action. Thankfully, because that woman is a fury. She had to be stopped by four guardians until she would let go of her victim. Poor girl had a broken nose and her face is now swollen like a watermelon.”

  “Why does that woman want to show everyone she is tough?” As I see her almost going down her drink in a few gulps, I start drinking mine.

  “Well, I have seen quite a few like that. They don’t know how to socialize normally, their only way to bond to others is to create fear and assert some form of dominance. They beat up a few people, rumors spread, and everyone knows they mean business, that they are strong. So without having to talk, they build themselves a reputation and people then treat them with respect.”

  “Do they plan that ahead?”

  “No I don’t think so. It is just the only way to be in a group that they have experienced in their lives. Once they have shown that they are the strongest, others start to seek their presence. For protection, or to feel like they belong, or because they find that person interesting and charismatic. Many reasons can push others to gather around the biggest brute, see? And these brutes end up having a circle of followers that feel so special to be accepted by them. And then it’s a social group, and they calm down. Except if there are other brutes. They see each other as competition. Someone that doesn’t bow down and doesn’t respect them. So they eventually end up in conflict.” She is getting really talkative. Her cheeks are red, I think she is getting tipsy.

  “The groups fight each other?”

  “Nah, not always. Sure they can, but sometimes it’s like middle school quarrels. They occupy their spots in the gym, steal their soap or whatever. Oh, I am talking and talking, but how is your job?”

  “I quit.”

  Her face darkens again.

  “It hit you quite hard, I guess.”

  “Yes. I felt like I needed to isolate myself.”

  “Then I am glad you still contacted me! What will you do now?”

  “I don’t know yet. Taking a break at the moment.”

  “I see. You can count on me, talk to me whenever you need.”

  “Thank you. Say, are you seeing someone these days?”

  The atmosphere suddenly changes. I blush and try to look innocent while the beatings of my heart accelerate. She squints her eyes a little, as if trying to read my expression.

  “No,” she answers after a deep breath. “I broke up with my ex-girlfriend two months ago.”

  I repress a smile. My heart is still beating very fast. I want to ask her why she broke up, but I fear that I shouldn’t push my luck. Instead, I feel like I should gingerly change the conversation. At this moment she signs the waiter and asks him for another vodka. For a split second his face looks very judgmental, but he nods and soon comes back with another glass. I am only drinking my beer very slowly.

  “How was he when you were kids?” I ask her. “Did you two were close?”

  She pushes herself back in her chair a bit, sips some vodka and arranges her hair a little.

  “Yes we were pretty close,” she says. “We were inseparable from kindergarten to high school. In high school we started driftin
g apart. He was sent to a prestigious school, see. Since he was all so clever and such.”

  “It doesn’t surprise me.”

  “Well actually, until middle school I was always ahead of him. The difference was that I would just rely on minimal work, while he also was smart but a hard worker on top of that. Quite uptight, looking down on everyone, if you forgive me for saying.”

  Hey, that’s mean! However I see where it comes from. And we already joked plenty on that matter when we were young, me the intellectual bookworm and her the strong leader type. I smile.

  “It’s fine, go on.”

  “We would often wander in the forest on exploration missions. He would carry around a magnifying glass and some tubes to collect insects. I would lead the way with a stick, sword-fighting against forest trolls and water demons.”

  “Are you the tomboy type?” Her mouth stays open as if she was displeased by my categorization. Shit, I must have offended her. “I mean, that’s pretty cool, you seem like a strong girl.”

  She looks a bit confused, finishes her glass and then smiles.

  “Thank you. Well, I even protected him against bullies at school. Mostly in middle school. Kids are really horrible there.”

  Yes, they are. I have pretty bad memories from that time. And then the prestigious high school was full of vicious pricks and the violence changed from physical to psychological. My sister wasn’t there to protect me anymore, and all it was even worse. No support, no help, just the endless teasing and setting me apart because I was unlucky to puke on the table on my first day. All of that because our parents wanted to celebrate the start of my school year and took us to a Mexican restaurant. I was not used to strong spicy food and I was sick the entire following day, earning me the reputation of The Puker. No girl would get close to the puker, and all the boys liked to make fun of me. My only friends were the other rejects that were picked on. Not the greatest friends, just… friends under circumstances. I only got better friends in College. Not people I admire or trust, just… normal people that accepted me. The only two persons I ever really trusted were my sister and my wife.