Mardock Scramble

–Do you mind if I take a little drive?

“Of course not. Do as you like. Let’s just get home before it gets too late.”

Balot’s car headed from the East Side toward South Street. The air outside, glowing with the lights of the city, seemed to Balot like brittle glass that would break at the slightest touch.

Balot switched the car heater on and attached the sleeves to her top. As if she were binding herself up.

“If you wrap yourself up too tight you might break the equilibrium in your cortex as it tries to repair itself. It’ll also put strain on your internal organs.”

–But I feel safer this way.

So saying, she stared at the glove. Her eyes were more focused than before, and she perceived Oeufcoque’s existence more keenly than ever.

–So you don’t think I’m crazy?

“No, I don’t think you’re crazy.”

–Hey, Oeufcoque?

“Yeah?”

–Have you ever seen a video? One with kids like me in it, I mean?

“A few times. In experiments to determine my sex drive. I didn’t really get what all the fuss was about.”

–Do you know what S&M is? And fetishes, that sort of thing?

“A little, not in detail—what about them?”

–One of the favorites at the house where I worked—she was called Queen Bee. She told me that I wasn’t suited for S&M. Clients who liked that sort of thing wanted their girls to be kicking and screaming, whereas my selling point was playing dead. I really liked that girl. Even though she was the cause of the last place I worked going bankrupt, no one had a bad word to say about her.

“Hmm.”

–Once I saw a Show where she appeared as the star. Alongside a number of M girls—masochists who received the punishment she dished out. She trussed them up, spanked them, whipped them, that sort of thing. Everyone in the Show was very pretty. One of the M girls liked needles, so she had these needles stuck crosswise through her nipples while she was tied up. “These are disposable syringes,” Queen Bee said. No one else had used them previously, so there was no chance of catching any diseases. Also, normal needles actually have quite serratededges, so they’d be unnecessarily painful. That’s why disposable needles were best.

“I see. And then?” Oeufcoque spoke in a serious tone that encouraged Balot to continue with her monologue.

–After the needles were removed she was tied up tighter, with blood pouring from her nipples. She was such a pale-skinned girl that she looked incredibly beautiful just then, as if her nipples were weeping blood. I think the reason that it seemed so beautiful was that Queen Bee acted the way she did. The M girl said so too. As the M girl was bound tighter she said it was like being held by someone who loved her. No one else could make her feel that way, only Queen Bee. Queen Bee made the ropes feel like the arms of her mother and father. She didn’t like being tied up roughly by men, though, she told me after the Show. She said they didn’t understand.

“And that’s why you wear your clothes so tight?”