Velvet Dogma About 3300 wds

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"Weston Ochse is one of the best authors of our generation."
- Brian Keene, Author of
Ghoul
and
The Rising

"Weston Ochse is a mercurial writer, one of those depressingly talented people who are good at whatever they turn their hand to"-
Conrad Williams, August Derleth and International Horror Guild Award Winner

"Weston Ochse is perhaps the fiercest and most direct of the latest generation of dark fiction writers."
Rocky Wood, author of
Stephen King: A Literary Companion
.

"Weston Ochse is to horror what Bradbury is to science fiction —an artist whose craft, stories and voice are so distinct and mesmerizing that you can't help but be enthralled."
- Dani Kollin, Prometheus Award-winning author of
The Unincorporated Man

"Brilliantly rendered. What was so impressive about the piece was that I did not doubt the incredible heroism of the protagonist... nor his motivation.
- Andrew Vachss on
"Family Man"

"Ochse succeeds in creating a complex plot that casts a brutal overwhelming spell."
- International Thriller Award winner Tom Piccirilli on
Scarecrow Gods

Velvet Dogma

Excerpt from Butterfly Winter by Weston Ochse

Excerpt from Appalachian Galapagos by Weston Ochse and David Whitman

Excerpt from Mirror Me by Yvonne Navarro

Excerpt from Scattered Earth Novel

Visit the author on Facebook

or at
www.westonochse.com

Thanks also to Chris Golden and Julie Barrett for giving me the nudge and for loving the idea. Thanks to a host of readers including Nanci Kalanta and Kevin Mcalonan for making it as good as it is. For my science fiction heroes, Joe Haldeman, John Scalzi, Robert Heinlein and Neal Stephenson, thank you for the excitement and wonder you've given me over the years and please accept this as my humble contribution to the tradition. To the little girl who argued over the proper color of the Hulk, thank you for your individuality. To my fans who I talk with online and in person, keep the questions coming and the friendship warm. And to my wife, thanks for damn near everything.

"S
tand very still," Kumi said as she ran the palm-sized instrument across Rebecca's naked torso.

At first, nothing happened. Rebecca wondered if they'd made a mistake. Perhaps they hadn't levied her organs. Perhaps she'd be free of that grotesque burden.

Kumi cursed, apologized, and then tried once more. As the scanner passed over Rebecca's kidney, an indecipherable series of red glowing letters and numbers and Chinese characters appeared on the small screen. And then the rest of her organs' inventory numbers appeared on the screen as the scanner passed over them. Her kidneys, her liver, her lungs, her heart, her pancreas, even her spleen. Finally, Kumi ran the scanner over Rebecca's head, reading the indicators assigned to the eyes as well as the different parts of Rebecca's brain. Through the entire process, Kumi had remained dispassionate and professional. But when she reached the back of Rebecca's skull, she paused, her hiss and rapid intake of breath giving away something out of the ordinary. Rebecca waited for the woman to tell her what it was. Instead, Kumi hurriedly finished, passed Rebecca a new set of clothes, and told her to change.

A little later, Rebecca stood in the bathroom and began pulling on the clothes. Similar in style to Kumi's, the only major difference was the neckline. Where Kumi's blouse plunged revealing the curve of her breasts, Rebecca's blouse ran straight across her neck in a crew-style cut, just enough to cover her parole collar. The sleeves fell to mid-forearm. The end result was a strange combination of aesthetic and athletic. The pants fit snugly around hips kept trim from a bland diet of prison food and daily Tai Chi regimens conducted out of sheer boredom. The boots were made from a glossy rubber material that was both firm along the edges and form-fitting around the soles and ankles. They were perhaps the most comfortable shoes she'd ever worn. The end result made her feel taller, the taper of the pants accentuating her legginess.

Staring at the effect in the mirror, Rebecca couldn't help liking what she saw. Her prison haircut left her with few hairs longer than three or four inches, with the longest on top of her head. She'd used some water from the sink to tease them and appreciated the way the blonde hairs spiked. Her cheekbones had always been a little higher than the other women she'd known. Her father said it was from the Sioux ancestry. Her mother had said it was from the French. They'd never agreed. But then her parents had never agreed about anything, their displays of unmitigated obstinacy the reason for their divorce when Rebecca was six.

Rebecca had always felt her eyes were the wrong color blue. Her lips seemed fine...until she smiled. Then they twisted into something that hardly resembled beautiful. She hated her smile, and tried to keep serious as often as possible. She'd once taken to hiding her smile behind her hands, but a casual glance at her reflection in a subway car window when she was fifteen cured her of that mistake. Instead of hiding what she'd considered a defect, it had brought attention to her. The action that had been meant to hide instead looked silly and coquettish. She'd never felt, and never wanted to feel, that way.

But not everything was as it was. Small lines at the corners of each eye and the corners of her mouth reminded her that she wasn't the thirty-year-old girl who'd been sent to prison. Interspersed within the blonde hairs were traitorous slivers of gray. The skin across her cheekbones had tightened and shone with the wear of age. Not all bad, but enough to remind her that she'd definitely changed.

She took a longer more critical look at herself. Then after a minute, shook her head. What had she expected? It had been twenty years. Of course she'd age.

She teased her hair once more, and then unlocked the bathroom door. After a moment to steel herself, she opened it and stepped into the room.

Kumita Rasangawan, or Kumi as she'd asked to be called, sat at the table speaking into a slender phone. When she saw Rebecca, she quickly bid farewell, then shoved the device into her pocket. "You look great, Rebecca," Kumi said as she stood. "That color is perfect for your skin."

"Sure. Rust always goes well with a prison tan," Rebecca said, allowing the old smart side of her to surface.

Kumi's smile faltered. "It's not rust. It's ochre," she said.

"Then rust is the color of ochre," Rebecca snapped, but as soon as she said it, she regretted it. This time Kumi's smile completely fell. Sometimes Rebecca could be her own worst enemy. "Listen," she said, "I'm sorry. The stress of everything, you know? Maybe we can continue my re-education program or something."

"Reintroduction," Kumi corrected.

"Right."
 
Rebecca stepped over to the table and snatched up the scanner that Kumi had left on the table. "So are you going to tell me what all those numbers and letters meant?"

"What numbers?"

Rebecca stared stone-faced.
So it's going to be that way
, she thought. "The numbers assigned to my organs. I'm sure you know what they meant."

"Not really."
 
Kumi shook her head rapidly as she stepped over and tried to snatch the scanner back. But Rebecca pulled it away and turned. "They refer to ownership and a transmittal number. Without a computer, I can't tell who they belong to."

Rebecca shuddered and made a face.

"What's wrong?"

"I don't know," Rebecca said, returning the scanner. "I don't really feel like I own my own body anymore. It's a weird feeling to be free, but only on the outside. Very strange."
 

"I know what you mean."

"Do you? Who owns your organs?" Rebecca asked.

"No one. Mine aren't worth anything," Kumi said, her voice so low that Rebecca couldn't help but feel bad for the woman.

Were useful organs a sign of status in the world? What had Kumi said earlier about Rebecca's organs? Something about how they were unspoiled by toxins. Did that make Rebecca special? She kept her face impassive, but her insides squirmed with the irony of the situation.

"
No one
as in no one wants your organs?"

"I grew up in Sri Lanka," Kumi said as if in explanation. She quickly changed the subject. "But you asked about your organs. Nothing I saw was out of the norm, except that
all
of your organs have been levied."

"That's not the way things usually are?"

"Not really," Kumi admitted. "Most people have one or two organs that have been cataloged and found to be valuable, but you, probably because of your incarceration and solitary confinement, have almost perfect organs. All of them have been levied, and although I don't have the codes, I can tell that some very high prices have been bid."

"Wait. I can get paid for these?"

"Of course you can."