Halloween Series 2022

Perfect

“I delight in what I fear.”  -Shirley Jackson

 * * *

Jordan J. Teague was born with a birth defect. Nothing that required surgery but did require constant monitoring. For the first nineteen years of his life, it seemed to be one doctor’s appointment after the next. There had been other complications, therefore more tests with additional monitoring. It affected every aspect of his life, none more so than his inability to maintain a relationship. He was gay, something that only made him a minority in society, one of a group that was outside the norm for general society. But people categorized themselves in smaller and smaller groups until most seemed to be in a minority.

But for Jordan, it was his health issues that caused him to be a pessimist, always fearful of having some medical issue yet to be discovered, surfacing at the most inopportune time making his life more miserable. It drove away guy after guy, leaving him alone most of the time.

Last week his doctor sent him a message in the URChart website, informing him his last test had shown deterioration of his heart since the previous run of tests, but there was good news. The government had passed legislation making nano-tech legal in humans. It could be used to repair bone, replace limbs, and repair organs, even the heart. It was that very night commercials began to run, touting the benefits of nanotech, and how it would make a person whole. It would make them healthy and vigorous. It would give them a perfect life, never having to worry about medical issues again.

Jordan sat in the stark white corridor in one of twelve white composite chairs and looked down its brightly lit length waiting for his doctor. A few people moved up and down the corridor, and down near a treatment room, he saw a man being pushed in a wheelchair toward it, one he had visited many times in the past. It was a wing of the hospital for testing, laboratory work, and based on the new signs, nano-tech procedures.

“I’m not going to be like that,” Jordan whispered as the man was pushed into the treatment room.

“Jordan; are you ready?”

Jordan looked up to see his doctor. Mid-forties, the start of grey hair at the temples and a friendly open face.

“Yes.”

“Then follow me and we’ll get you all fixed up.”

Jordan followed his doctor until he found himself in a room that looked like a mix of laboratory and computer mainframe. Touch screen monitors lined one wall over a counter. As he came in, a nurse, or was it a technician, turned on the monitors.

“Hope up in the chair and lay back. This will be the easiest thing you have ever done,” said his doctor.

Jordan sat in the white lounge chair and laid back. The nurse came over and repositioned it, feet brought up and head lowered. A scanning grid was positioned over him, and he saw an image of his body on one of the monitors. It first appeared to be a photographic image, but he noticed after a closer look it was more like an MRI, all of his internal organs and skeletal structure visible.

“Okay, Jordan, there will be just one injection. It’ll take about thirty-six to forty-eight hours before you start to feel something and depending on the damage and on how fast your body accepts the nanotech, we estimate a week or two at most for it to make you good as new. You ready?”

“I’ve been ready,” Jordan replied turning his arm up where he expected the injection.

“Oh, it doesn’t go in the arm,” said the nurse as she came to his other side. “It goes at the base of neck.”

“Oh,” Jordan replied, suddenly feeling a bit nervous.

“Relax,” said his doctor, “we’ve been giving the injections for a month now with no problems.”

“Okay,” Jordan replied, laying back and closing his eyes. He had seen the hypodermic needle and the barrel was shockingly large in diameter, and more discerning was the size of the needle.

“We’ll give you a small anesthetic first to deaden the area, and once it is working, then we’ll inject the nano-tech,” said the nurse as he wiped an area at the base of Jordan’s neck.

“Why is the shot so large?” Jordan whispered as the anesthetic was administered.

“There is a base solution that sustains the tech, for it they are crowded too closely together they tend to try to fix each other,” said the nurse. “Can you feel this?”

Jordan felt nothing. “No.”

“Good; we ready.”

Jordan felt the push against his skin as it tried to prevent the puncture by the large needle, then he felt a strangeness, like his neck was expanding, swelling up. Then it stopped and the nurse pulled away.

“All done. You can sit up now.”

Jordan sat up and looked over at the nurse who was disposing of the hypodermic needle, then over to his doctor, who was rolling up on a stool.

“Let me look at the injection site…oh yes, nice. They are repairing the damaged skin. Looks good.”

“So, that’s it?”

“Yes, Jordan, that is it. I want to see you in a week but in the meantime, if you experience anything that doesn’t feel right, call me.”

“Okay.”

Jordan found himself leaving the hospital as he had done so often before. The descent down an elevator, then crossing the large lobby through scanners and out the doors. The sounds of the city rushed at him and for a moment he felt dizzy, but it subsided quickly. He was going to call a shuttle but decided to walk the ten blocks to his apartment. He would take his time, stroll along the sidewalk looking into shops and cafes, maybe stopping for lunch on the way. It felt like this was a new start for him; a new day, and he turned his face up at the hot sun feeling it warm his skin, then set off on his journey.

A week later, Jordan left the doctor’s office feeling healthier than he had ever felt in his life. There were no times he was gasping for breath or his heart racing in his chest with an irregular heartbeat. The doctor’s visit was the first time he had every smiled at what was reported on his health. This time he was healthy and getting better.

He strolled down the street, legs moving with a stamina and strength he had never been able to possess before. It made him happy, smiling at strangers and noticing other people and who looked happy, who looked sad, or confused, or angry, or lost. He realized he had not been alone in his misery, not the only person to have problems, who suffered some unfairness.

At the rail line, he started for the platform, but turned to look along the opposite side of the plaza to a line of businesses, the one he searched for on the end. Sanctuary read the sign over the heavy metal door within a wall containing no windows. It was a bar that catered to gay men, one of the few with such an exclusive focus on one segment of the population.

Jordan had been in it before, sitting alone at the end of the bar, ignoring the stare of other men, or making excuses to blow off those that approached him. He had felt damaged, afraid to exert himself with another man in the throes of sex. But today, that old fear was gone along with his physical defects. He strolled across the plaza as the train pulled into the station, heading to the large metal door.

The bar was designed to look like an old English pub, or what one would envision one to look like. Dark faux wood walls, a tile floor in planks made to look like a wood floor and a low ceiling, flat black reflecting no light from the few that were on. Jordan ambled into the small bar scanning the other patrons seeing if anyone looked back. There were a few and he smiled at them as he moved up to the bar and took a seat midway of its length between two other men.

The bartender took his drink order and while he waited, he looked left then right, checking out the men. On his left, the man looked mid-thirties, professional in a white shirt and khaki pants. Short brown hair and a five o’clock shadow wearing thin wire framed glasses. Jordan wondered if he was in finances or maybe a professor at the nearby college. To his right sat a man who looked a bit older, maybe early forties with a bit of grey at the temples. With just a quick glance, Jordan couldn’t help but notice the bulging biceps stretching the sleeves of the blue work shirt, or the short beard and wavy black hair. A construction worker or a laborer from one of the warehouses of the import/export district.

Choices, too many choices, Jordan told himself, nearly laughing aloud.

The bartender sat his drink in front of him and as he picked it up, he knew the man that approached him first would be the one. He’d let fate decide for him.

“Excuse me, but I saw you come in. I’m Samuel.”

Jordan looked to his right and smiled

Jordan pushed Samuel onto his bed seeing the massive body bounce once before settling on its back. He moved over the naked man, kissing the cock, the abdomen, around the navel and up along the chest until at the right nipple. He took the bar that pierced it between his teeth and tugged until Samuel moaned and shivered. He kissed the neck, until at the edge of the beard then he moved to the mouth.

They kissed as Samuel submitted to him, raising knees, and spreading them wide. Jordan toyed with Samuel, teased him, pushing his rock-hard cock against the tight opening, letting the drooling head slide over it. He moved over him, body undulating with his primitive need. Every touch, every caress would inflame his arousal.

“Fuck, stop teasing me…do it. Do it motherfucker, stick me,” Samuel pleaded after Jordan had him worked up.

Jordan rose to his knees, put his cock to the wet opening, his slick smeared all over it, and pushed. Samuel shuddered with the penetration, clutching at the bed, and letting a low guttural moan escape his open mouth. Jordan was relentless, not stopping until every inch was buried in Samuel’s ass. He grabbed the held-up legs by the ankles and held on as he began to fuck.

Jordan fucked and fucked, never tiring. His body grew hot, almost feverish, sweat trickling down his face and chest, but he felt no loss of stamina. No fatigue. He felt powerful, as he fucked and fucked and fucked. Samuel came, once with little self-manipulation, and the second stroking his cock with desperation, begging Jordan to come. Jordan came, and came again, and kept fucking.

Jordan fucked until Samuel lay exhausted and flaccid, begging him to come.

Jordan pulled out and stroked his cock. He wanted to see how he came. He felt like it was his first time, not the third. He felt it, the surge of release, and he came again. Cum spurt from his cock in thick wads. It rained down on Samuel, hitting him in the face, the neck and over the chest. Cum puddled and trickled down the sides of his chest as Jordan stopped, finally spent.

“Fuck, that was nice,” said Jordan as he climbed off the bed. “Thanks. I needed that.”

“How could you…so much and…” Samuel stammered, laying still exhausted.

“I’ll just get dressed and see myself out.

For two weeks, Jordan picked up one man after the next and fucked them until they begged him to come again, or in the case of a banker in town for some bullshit conference, begged him to stop, to just stop. He never felt so alive, so healthy, and wondered if this was how others felt, knowing it was not the case. No one had his stamina, his ability to refill the tank, so to speak, with every release being like the first. It was perfect. He was perfect.

It was 4 A.M., Sunday morning, and Jordan was walking back to his apartment. He had been to the Rainbow Club, then to his latest hookup’s apartment. He fucked the college student until once again being begged to stop. He had pumped four loads in the guy’s ass, and felt like he could have gone again, but he couldn’t handle the pleading to stop.

At Garden and Liberty, Jordan looked at the sign telling him not to cross the street, then up and down the desolate street, seeing only one car several blocks away. He started across, whistling in perfect key a song he had heard at the club. Then he began to see stars, not in the sky, but in his vision. He felt something was wrong, like his body was fighting within itself. He stumbled, feet not working right. Stopping in the middle of the road he tried to focus on the red sign in front of him, but it blurred, then his vision began to go dark. First the things directly in front of him, then his periphery went dark. He felt himself falling, then nothing.

“But doctor, he’s healthy. His heart rate is perfect, blood pressure, chemical balances, sugar and cholesterol counts…everything is perfect” said the nurse standing by the doctor shining a light in Jordan J. Teague’s eyes.

“But he’s gone.”

“What do you mean?”

“His brain functions appear normal at first but comparing scans to his previous ones, they are different. Whoever Jordan Teague had been, however his consciousness worked within his brain, it is changed, or replaced, and he is just gone. There is no response of any kind to outside stimuli.”

The doctor stands and steps back next to the nurse. Before them sits the body of Jordan J. Teague, eyes blinking infrequently while staring ahead. There is no attempt to move or utter a sound.

“What will we do with him?” asked the nurse.

“I have no idea. I’ll call legal but…normally someone brain dead has other physical deterioration, and it is only a matter of time before they shut down. But he is in perfect health and with the nanotech, he could live a very long time.”

“Has there been other cases like this?”

“Not that I’m aware of and for everyone’s sake, let’s hope not. But I’m going to write up a report for everyone involved with its use. There will have to be some precautions in the future. Let’s get a feeding tube inserted and get him set up in a room until we know what to do.”

“Yes, doctor.”

The doctor left the room first and the nurse looked at the perfectly still body sitting upright, staring ahead. She grimaced, then moved to the door. She was going to leave the light on but saw no reason to do so. As she reached for the switch she looked back.

“But he’s perfect,” she whispered as the lights went out.