The Year of the Flood

The Year of the Flood

By Margaret Atwood

Then he started bringing a woman – an Asian Fusion body type with a foreign accent. He said she wanted to familiarize herself with Scales because ReJoov had picked us as one of their primer test venues, and she'd be explaining a new product to us – the BlyssPluss pill, which would solve every known problem connected with sex. We had been awarded the privilege of introducing it to our clients. This woman had a ReJoov executive title – Senior VP Satisfaction Enhancement – though her rel job was Glenn's main plank.

I could tell she'd been one of us: a girl for rent, of one kind or another. It was obvious if you knew the signs. She was acting all the time, giving nothing away about herself. I<d watch them onscreen: I was curious because Glenn was such a cold fish, but he could have sex all right, just like a human being. The girl had more moves than an octopus, and her plankwork was astonishing. Glenn acted like she was the first, last, and only girl on the planet. Mordis used too watch them too, and he said Scales would pay this girl top dollar. But I told him he couldn't afford her: she was way out of his price range.

The two of them had pet names for each other. She'd call him Crake, he'd call her Oryx. The other girls found it strange – the two of them being lovey-dovey – because it was so out of character for Glenn. But I thought it was kind of nice.

“That Russian or something?” Crimson Petal asked me. “Oryx and Crake?”

The Year of the Flood. Photo by Elena. Three Barbies.

“I guess,” I said. They were extinct animal names – every Gardener had to memorize a ton of those – but if I said it the girl would wonder why I knew.

The first time Glenn came to Scales I recognized him right away, but of course he didn't recognize me, in by Biofilm Bodysuit and with green sequins all over my face, and I didn't let on. Mordis told us not to forge personal bonds with the customers, because if they wanted a relationship they could get one elsewhere. He said that Scales customers didn't care about your life history, they just wanted epidermis and fantasy. They wanted to be carried away to Never-Never Land, where they could have sinful experiences they'd never, never be able to have at home. Dragon ladies winding around them, snake women slithering over them. So we should save our private emotional crap for people who actually cared about us, like the other Scalies.

One night Glenn arranged an evening of extra-special treatment – for an extra-special guest, he said. He ordered up the feather room with the green bedspread, plus the most powerful Scales and Tails martinis - “kicktails,” they called them – plus two Scalies, me and Crimson Petal, Mordis picked us because Glenn said this extra-special guest preferred the slender body type.

“Does he want the schoolgirl sailor suit thing?” I asked; sometimes that's what “slender body type” meant. “Do I need to bring my skipping rope?” If so I'd have to change, because right then I was in full glitter.