Static

By Darien Cox

Jonathan’s life isn’t exactly exciting, but he’s content with what he has. Decent job, some good friends, nice house, and a cool Halloween party to look forward to. But while the October weather is mild, chills blow through when the glitches on his new computer escalate to include a chatty hacker who wants to discuss Jonathan’s private sexual proclivities—and won’t take no for an answer.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Darien Cox
• Release date: Oct 16, 2017
• ISBN: 9781370169382

Darien Cox

Author Darien Cox lives in New England and enjoys using romantic fiction to explore the intensity, insanity, humor, and chaos that accompanies cupid’s arrow. http://dariencox.com/

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STATIC

Darien Cox

STATIC

Copyright © 2017 by Darien Cox

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

Cover Art © 2017 by Skyla Dawn Cameron

First Edition October 2017

SMASHWORDS EDITION

All rights reserved under the International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the author.

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

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Chapter One

I’ve always kept secrets. But I suppose everyone does. I would never dare approach a man for sex in real life, but I like gay porn. I get off on it. Does that make me a coward? If so, I guess I must be comfortable with that. It hasn’t stopped me from succeeding professionally, buying my own house, making friends. If I am a scaredy-cat who has to draw the shades to indulge his true feelings, I like to view it as a compartmentalized flaw, a small piece of the puzzle that forms my identity.

Society tells us we should strive for perfection inside and out. Go to therapy. Do yoga. Self-affirm. Stare into the mirror until we’re convinced we like what we see. So, maybe I should be making an effort to expel my cowardice. Carve off that unsavory slice like a bruise on an otherwise perfect peach. Acknowledge the growing intensity of my attraction to men, and venture to experiment in a real-world setting.

But I question whether this is something I actually want. Maybe it doesn’t have to be that complicated. Everyone has masturbation fantasies they keep to themselves. We can’t control what gets our bodies off. It’s too ancient. Somewhere deep in our genetic memory are grunting cave people with hairy backs and bad teeth, rutting together simply because it feels good. But the body demands satisfaction regardless of partnership, so maybe there’s also a lone caveman in the deoxyribonucleic mix, isolated and confused by his horniness as he humps a rock or a tree branch. Go back farther, all the way to the beginning, and perhaps you’ll find a couple of limbless aquanoids sliming against each other to begin humanity’s birth.

We didn’t invent sex. Sex invented us.

I pondered these philosophies to rationalize my more extreme behaviors. Because the truth is I don’t just watch gay porn—I watch a lot of gay porn. So much that I acquired a computer virus. At least I assumed a virus was responsible, since for the past week, weird shit had been happening.

I thought I’d fixed it with the new virus protection I purchased. Ran a thorough scan, and after purging a few tracking cookies and Trojan Horses, it reported my computer to be free and clear of invaders. For two days there were no anomalies, no sluggishness or indecipherable error messages. No damn buzzing sounds. I’d even been avoiding the porn sites. I have a good job and could certainly afford a new computer if need be. But I’m not rich, and I only just got this machine a month ago. I’m not about to let it die of cyber-syphilis simply because I can’t control my porn addiction.

But this evening it was becoming clear that something was still amiss with the damn thing, and I was beyond annoyed. It was Friday night, and I’d turned down beers with my office friends in favor of a quiet night with my leather recliner and a Netflix detective show I’d been binging on. I’d agreed to go into work tomorrow to finish up a project, so even though it would be a skeleton crew on Saturday and pretty laid back, if I went to the pub there would be shots and drunk colleagues trying to make me stay late. I didn’t want to be hungover.

It was still Friday night though, so I planned to indulge in a little wine while I lounged in my sweatpants. I was all settled in, feet up, drink at my side, computer on my lap. Halfway through the episode, I had a theory who the killer was, fully engaged in the story and waiting to see if I was right. Then the computer began buzzing, screen stuttering with flashes of static, and the actors’ voices started to sound like robots.

God damn it.

I paused the show then started it again. Refreshed the page. I left Netflix, then logged back in, wanting to believe the problem was with the stream. But I’d gotten that buzzing static before, and not only when I was watching movies. It had happened while checking emails, browsing work documents, or playing music—like a hornet’s nest in my hard drive. If it wasn’t a virus, the only conclusion was that I’d purchased a dud, and would have to go back to the store and have it replaced while it was still under warranty.

But damn it, I really wanted to finish my show, at least to find out who the killer was, and I didn’t like watching films on my phone, it hurt my eyes. So I rebooted and tried again. To my delight, Netflix looked normal now and the show resumed, with no apparent glitches. I relaxed back into the chair, sipping my wine and sighing contentedly. I wasn’t fooled into believing my computer was cured. It was a dog that would have to be put down, and I still planned to return it. But I might as well beat the piss out of it in the meantime before things went dodgy again.

I watched without incident for fifteen minutes, then just on the cusp of the big reveal, the show paused. I hit the play button repeatedly, but the screen stayed frozen. Oh, you fucking bastard. Not now.

A text bubble popped up on the bottom right of the screen—white with black letters.

‘JONATHAN.’

I frowned. I wasn’t currently running any messenger applications. More likely, this was the result of Microsoft’s increasingly invasive upgrades. Maybe there was some app running in the background I wasn’t aware of, and this was the culprit causing me so much grief. It wasn’t entirely shocking that the computer knew my name, I’d registered it as such. But I’d already disabled the virtual assistant because it was annoying. Maybe it reinitiated and turned itself back on when I installed the new antivirus?

I clicked on the text bubble, but like the rest of the screen, it seemed frozen. Damn you. I tried escaping, but nothing was responding. I attempted a hard shutdown, but even that wouldn’t work. The frozen frame of the detective show’s hero chasing a perp down an alley remained—along with the bubble housing my name.

Come on! I slammed the escape key. Fuck off Cortana. Cockblocking bot.

Right click—nothing. Left click—nothing. Power button—nothing. Now I couldn’t even shut the damn thing off.

At least I wasn’t watching porn when this happened. It would have been embarrassing if I had to bring the computer back to the store locked on a frozen screenshot of some guy gobbling another guy’s cock.

The text bubble sank and disappeared. I was momentarily relieved until another immediately popped up.

‘I AM NOT CORTANA.’

I jumped from my chair, carried the laptop over to my desk and set it down, backing away. Had the fucking thing heard me? Tentatively, I crept toward the desk, leaned over, and tried clicking the text