Brad Goldberg

Mariah checked the dress in the mirror. Exactly the effect she wanted—sexy but not obvious. The black fabric hugged her figure. The Lumafilaments® created a subtle moving light that spiraled over her hips and waist. It glowed more intensely as it swirled upward to draw attention to her breasts, then circled the choker collar with a pulsing radiance. Her bare shoulders and the delicate features of her face floated on the aura that surrounded her body.

She still needed to decide on the ani-ink. The damn things were expensive as hell. And the programmable ones like on her right arm could cost—well, an arm and a leg—which would defeat the purpose. She had downloaded a butterfly, but that seemed too cute for tonight. The preloaded animations that came with the living tattoos where all corny and cheap looking. She decided to go for broke. She put her right arm into the printer and called up the Siberian tiger that was on her Wish List. She could feel the heat as the printer micro-injected the ink into her skin. She didn’t mind that, but the tingling as the subcutaneous chip was programmed with the animation always made her lips itch. The discomfort only lasted until the software was installed, but she hated it.

“Four hours,” she answered when the saccharine voice of the website asked her how much time she wanted to pay for to have the ani-ink activated. That should be more than enough time, she thought, and about as much as she could afford.

“For only fifty dollars more, you can take advantage of our twelve-hour special with free snap anies.”

“Four hours,” Mariah repeated. After the charges were added up and the site confirmed her account number, she signed with a quick retina scan and completed the purchase. “Confirm.” The browser disappeared back into the Omniwall with a stupid animation that she hadn’t gotten around to deactivating. The wall went back to displaying the soothing autumn forest that was her default.

The tiger paced up and down her arm. She adjusted the speed so it wouldn’t be too distracting. She wanted to look dangerous, not like a Saturday morning holoshow.

Finally, she put on the long black wig. It changed her look enough that only her friends would recognize her, and then only when they were close enough to see her face. And she didn’t expect to see any actual friends tonight.

She smiled. She was totally in control.

 

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The party was in full swing as she had hoped. She didn’t want to make an entrance. Quite the opposite. The lights were low so that the women could show off their Lumafilament® dresses or their vidshirts. That would help with her plan. She scanned the room. She didn’t see anyone she knew. It seems like Jeffrey had stepped into his new life with abandon—abandoning his old life and his old friends entirely.

One woman was wearing only a full body ani—a jungle scene that made her seem to be clothed in vines and wrapped midthigh to throat by a boa constrictor that slithered around her torso with more sensuality than one would expect from a serpent. She was surrounded by a knot of horny men, each hoping that he’d be the one that would get to turn that tattoo off for the night. And, of course, Jeffrey was one of them. He’d be a lot easier to avoid than she had feared.

Mariah smiled. His new wife, Brittany, would soon learn that Jeffrey was a sucker for anything in a skirt, or in this case not even in a skirt. It was a lesson that Mariah had learned too late. At first, she was furious at herself for not seeing the signs. Then with the help of a few months of heavy drinking, a couple of disastrous revenge fucks, and many tearful hours with her girlfriends, she saw clearly what a predator and a leech Jeffrey was. She stopped blaming herself and directed her anger where it belonged, at Jeffrey—and Brittany.

“No thank you,” she told the server who breezed by with the hot hors d'oeuvres. She also passed on the champagne that was offered even though she was sure it was delicious—and expensive. Under other circumstances, she would have enjoyed indulging herself. But not tonight.

She’d only been to a few parties like this in her life. She couldn’t figure out what all these people did to get so much money at such an early age. Of course, most of them did nothing. They were the offspring of wealth. They could party their way through the best schools, debauch away their twenties and thirties, and still end up in platinum jobs and gold-lined marriages.

She wanted to hate them. She was still paying off her Computer Engineering degree and Jeffrey’s MBA. One of the accountants at Jeffrey’s company had suggested they put all the debt in her name for tax purposes. Did Jeffrey already know even then?

She wanted to hate them, but they all looked so beautiful, glowing in their designer clothes with the latest tech fibers and exclusive ani-inks designed by famed Hollywood directors that made a fortune putting their names on living tattoos. They even looked happy. It was hard to hate someone who would never have the self-awareness to understand how reprehensible they were. Or perhaps it was so easy that she didn’t even notice anymore.

What a sucker. All those years of living in shitty apartments, making almost no money, spending long nights to meet ridiculous launch deadlines, while he partied with his friends—networking he called it— all while she put him through school. And it amounted to nothing. When Jeffrey finally made it into the middle ranks of executives at his company, it took him exactly three months to meet Brittany, daughter of a Senior Executive VP, and lure her—or be lured, she was never sure which—into bed and out of their marriage.