Charlie, Forever and Ever

By Natalie Sierra

Charlie, a young doctoral student of mixed race with schizoaffective disorder, in 1990's Manhattan, is on the brink of discovery when she meets- and falls in love with- boygod; the troubled heir to a tech company ruled by his beautiful and ruthless mother, Daphne Fitzgerald-Turner. The pair immerse themselves in an intense relationship,

• Language: English
• Publisher: FlowerSong Press
• Release date: Mar 1, 2022
• ISBN: 9781953447005

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FlowerSong Press

Copyright © 2021 by Natalie Sierra

ISBN:

Published by FlowerSong Press

in the United States of America.

www.flowersongpress.com

Cover Image by Luis Aguirre

Author Photo by Heather Joy Layton

No part of this book may be reproduced without

written permission from the Publisher.

All inquiries and permission requests should

be addressed to the Publisher.

Acknowledgements

This book would not have been possible without these two books being in existence:

Broad Band: The Untold Story of the Women Who Made the Internet, by Claire L. Evans. Critical information of the late 80’s, early 90’s technology boom, the women behind the scenes and in front, were gained from Claire’s research.

The Diary of Vaslav Nijinsky, by Vaslav Nijinsky. The searing, personal account of the great virtuoso as he loses his grip on reality. It is the only record we have of a legendary artist’s battle with such a terrible disease. His story served as a backdrop for Charlie’s journal entries.

Charlie, Forever and Ever, is a work of science-fiction; a mirror world, a look at ourselves from the outside in. While some people mentioned in the story are real, like Tim Berners-Lee, Wendy Hall, and historical events such as the bombing of the Twin Towers in 1993, the beating of Rodney King, and the massacre at Waco are true, the main characters are fictional and any resemblance to people living or dead is purely coincidental.

I would like to thank and acknowledge first my family, especially my father Victor Sierra, for letting me steal a computer from his business to write this story and many more; the hours I spent working there, when in actuality I was writing this novel. The truth comes out. Sorry, but also thank you, dad.

Thank you to my friends who read early drafts of Charlie; special thanks to my friend Frank Rosas who helped me edit the first draft until I was confident enough to send it out.

Finally, a list of books, albums, and films that sustained me during the writing process:

Slaughterhouse-5, Kurt Vonnegut.

The Carrying, Ada Limon.

The Dark Tower, the series. Stephen King.

The Essential Leonard Cohen, the album. Leonard Cohen.

An American Prayer, the album. The Doors (a few lyrics from Latino Chrome’ and ‘The Movie’ are paraphrased in Charlie’s stream of consciousness while in New Orleans.).

Tranquility Base Hotel and Casino, the album. Arctic Monkeys.

Acid Tongue, the album. Jenny Lewis.

Lemon Cotton Candy Sunset, the album. Richard Edwards.

Jacob’s Ladder, 1990. Dir. by Alan Marshall.

Contact, 1997. Dir. by Robert Zemeckis.

I’m sure there are more, but I can’t think of them right all now.

Say sorry.

Charlie, Forever and Ever

The earth trembles and shakes; with each tilt of the

axis, a new possibility is born.

They live like monsters, fairy tale creatures, puckered in the icy wind of a dollhouse city snug in a forest glen. When they love you, it’s like a dream divine; otherworldly, deep as the ocean and full of unimaginable creatures who cannot wait to swallow you alive.

See them now, the elegant blonde woman and her twin, her son, the boygod, as they move through crowds that part ways for them. You are not there, they do not see you, you are of no consequence to them. They pass right through you in a Dickensian way; you are a ghost, have always been.

Their sprite, alien eyes do not take you in the way yours do to them, assessing their fine clothes, their purposeful walk, perfectly coifed hair, lips unsmiling. Mustn’t smile, it causes wrinkles, and darling, who wants that?

She’s been living in my head, that one. Living in my head, already.

Cold eyes hidden behind reflective lenses like a twoway mirror expensive frames around the glass, held up by new noses. The money apparent in the very air around them, a forcefield of green, crisp (Ah! Refreshing as a bottle of Sprite!) American dollar bills sheltering them from the mean streets of New York City. They are the gods on earth that we secretly worship, the tabloid creatures, the ones we pretend to despise, though we follow their movements with our own twin lovesick orbs until they disappear from our sight. We are left breathless, wondering what our lives will be like in their absence.

You also think how lonely it must be to be them. How in your hovel you are warm and surrounded by the warmth of the bodies of your loving friends and family. How lonely it must be to be a cracked god, a marble edifice against the backdrop of yolk skyline, like a sunrise over the Parthenon, the home for ancient beings we never understood. Empty now, terribly empty for thousands of years.

I felt a shimmer film over my eyes, a mirage, sick déjà vécu momentarily paralyzing me. I shivered into my bones from an alternate reality, a place where I had already died.

When I first saw him, I was stricken with hunger. The hunger of days, weeks with nothing to eat but Kraft singles and oranges from the street vendor. Ravaged! I was starved for his touch. My flesh cried out for his long-fingered grasp, demanded it with the petulant rage of an overgrown child- actor; the fingers that passed through the aisle, grazing every article of clothing. Feeling it between his fingertips. I had never seen a human being like that before. No, not human, too perfect to be human. The way he moved slithered stroked prowled pounced; the slightly bemused, pursed lips as if everything was a joke and I mean, of course, right? Everything must seem foolish to you when you look as though you descended from heaven and these scurryingant things that surround you are trying to make sense of their little beast lives. I was hungry for him I tell you—Starving. This is not a love story. This is a murder.

The glamorous woman by his side was his mother, I learned later. Tall, Nordic seeming woman with blank blue eyes like flint; his were the steel. Twin pairs of Arctic so cold as to asphyxiate; you could plunge into them and disappear forever. I felt myself drawn to the dressing room, pulled by a gravitational weight I could not disrupt. My boss Mr. H, a little, rotund man with panicked brown eyes and thinning hair scurried around them like an obliging mouse, fetching them this and that. This? The finest silk, straight from the runway in Milan.

Italy is a place for gigolo trash, the Nordic Goddess said, letting the blouse drop on the carpeted dressing room floor. Mr. H’s face tightened and reddened in embarrassment. Of course, Mrs.--

I prefer to be called Daphne, you know that, Harving. Mrs. ages me. Have that nosy little shop girl bring me the latest Von Furstenberg, I shook with fear. How had she known I was there? She must have seen my shadow behind the curtain. My curiosity will damn me.

Mr. H rushed out of the dressing room, his desperate hands clutching at my shoulders like a life-saving raft in the middle of the ocean.

Charlie, what are you doing here? Never mind, get the dresses Mrs. er Miss Daphne requested. I looked past his shoulders into the large dressing room. It had mirrors paneling the wall where I could see Daphne’s long bare legs reflected back at me. She raised them up slowly and pointed her toes like a dancer. My god, it was as if she knew I was watching her. The young man was seated directly in the center facing the mirror, watching me watch her. Our eyes locked. His eyes were hidden behind sunglasses, though I could tell he was matching my gaze. Hesmiled, funny, amused boygod laughing at the people below. I am the people below.

Gwennie had already locked the shop door and closed the drapes when I returned to the main floor to collect the dresses Miss Daphne requested.

Is Daphne in the dressing room? she whispered darkly. I nodded. I had no idea who these strange creatures were. Gwennie let out a breath and stood at the register, beckoning me near. She likes to come out, fully nude and select dresses from out on the floor. Mr. H decided the best thing was to simply close the shop when she comes in.

Oh my god. Who are they? Gwennie’s eyes darted nervously about before she leaned in to answer.

Charlie! The dresses! Mr. H’s nervous voice cut through from the dressing area behind us before she could reply. I rushed back, thousands of dollars’ worth of clothing in my arms and stood before the curtained entrance of the dressing room.

Bring them in here, shopgirl. I heard her light, musical voice from inside. Mr. H looked stricken with shock and a twinge of jealousy, perhaps? I don’t know the dark emotion that passed before his eyes, but he made no sound as he parted the curtain and motioned me to enter the room.

The dressing room was large, brightly lit with a chaise lounge on the left where Daphne lay; her nude, tone body and long legs spread decadently like a queen tempting a king before feeding him poison.

I averted my eyes but not before gazing at the spray of golden hair that shielded her most private part. She did not seem to mind if someone looked. The boygod sat on the round settee sofa, linen against silk, blue against scarlet, his long-fingered hands nestled in his lap, quietly contemplating the scene reflected at him. The nude woman, the shopgirl. The Nordic Goddess and the course peasant with dark eyes and a wild shock of dark hair,kept as neatly as possible in a bun. Mud flung against marble.

The year was 1990. I was a PHD student at NYU, studying Biomedical Engineering and Computer Science. MIT and Stanford had courted me, but the large, sprawling campuses frightened me. I had briefly considered entering a space program and finding my way to NASA, but that would bring me back to the burning heart of Houston, a city I wished to avoid as much as I could. I eventually settled on my true passion: the computer. My dissertation was nearly complete, The Future of Biological Medicine and the Computer are One: Systems for Deciphering DNA and Computer Code.

Manhattan beckoned to me in a way those other places did not. A small but renowned university on a tiny island packed with intriguing people in the center of the greatest city on earth. There was never enough money or any time to explore as much as I wished, as my days were filled with school and work. My grades throughout my childhood and adolescence, and a few helpful teachers, aware of my home situation, helped me get me a full ride at NYU. They’d called me gifted, talented, studious. Charlene, the genius. But I did not feel that way. I felt tired, lonely, broke. Egghead, my classmates had teased throughout my dismal years in the Texas public school system. Charlene is a fucking weirdo.

Others had scoffed at me, shooting spitballs that got tangled in my masses of curly brown hair. Those goodhearted teachers helped me though, helped me leave the heartbreak of Houston and my old life behind me. It had been years since I had gone back, afraid of the past that swelled there, like a tidal wave waiting to sweep me from the safety of the shore.

I didn’t know if the luck I’d had at that point in my life amounted to good or bad, as I was in a prestigious school that I did not have to pay for, couldn’t have afforded if I’d sold my pitiful little crumb of a soul, but here I was, in the grandest city in the world, studying my passion. Computers had changed the landscape of America, and I was primed to be part of that. Prepared, preparing myself to be the future. I knew I was going to be part of it. I could taste it. The future was shimmering before me like a mirage, but instead of moving further and further from my reach the image became clearer as I neared. The source of the Nile would be discovered.

Of course, my present was right now, and right now I was staring at the two most beautiful people I had ever seen in my life. What are you waiting for, shopgirl? Dress me. Daphne, the woman god, stood up, extending her long legs beneath her. I half expected to hear the crack of stone as she moved, but there was nothing but the soft depression of bare foot on carpet and the rustle of clothing as I selected a garment for her to wear. The muzak settled softly above our heads like phosphorescent clouds.

Daphne’s arms were smooth and bereft of any hair, the material glided up her skin, silk against silk, as I put the sleeves of the navy-blue wrap dress for which Dianne Von Furstenberg is most famous for on and wrapped the garment around the statuesque figure. I stepped back as she smoothed the fabric along her midsection and the tops of her thighs, twirling in front of the mirror, intensely studying her reflection. Was she looking as herself, or how she would appear to someone looking at her? She turned to the boygod who up until that point had uttered not a single word.

Jeffy, my love, what do you think?

Blue always looks good on you, Daphne. he said, his warm inflection sending ripples of heat down my body. I felt my face redden with blood. Embarrassed to be aroused by these two strange creatures. Daphne quickly disrobed and motioned me to pick up the discarded clothing on the floor. I will take all of these, her voice now stern, businesslike. Let the shopgirl go back to being shopgirl instead of observer to the divine, it said.

Right away, Miss Daphne, my voice careful, moving over the syllables like a stone skipping across a lake. The boygod handed me a red silk scarf that I hadn’t noticed while I had been gathering the other clothing strewn about, as it blended in with the settee. He graced me with the presence of his earthly body, his hands, fingers long, pulled the silk along my palm, ecstasy, Don’t forget this one, shopgirl. His mouth curving seductively around girl like the promise of something more, something that beckoned discreetly, futures waited around that word and that mouth ready to reveal…what? What it was I didn’t quite know, but I was perplexed and drawn and there was nothing in the world that would change it. My destiny was now slipping through my hands like the red silk scarf, pulled by an iron Apollo, stoned, bloodshot eyes behind dark Wayfarer sunglasses.

The boygod paid with American plastic, a rectangle of manmade material embossed on the imprinter by Gwennie’s practiced hand. Jeffrey Fitzgerald-Turner. So, the boygod has a name. A good name, a strong name. A name that anyone would be proud to carry. My own name felt stupid in my mouth like a dull tooth, Charlene Wood, Charlie Charlie Charlie plain boring Charlie like tap water. Charlie. I stood behind Gwennie as she ran the card across the machine, helped her box up Daphne’s clothing while Daphne’s tinkling laughter echoed brilliantly throughout the shop. The boygod stood silent, a grin fixed across his Byronic features, as sedate as a coma patient.

When the boygod and woman disappeared from my view, their private car turning the corner and vanishing as if it was the edge of a medieval map and not, in fact, New York City, the shining beacon of light in an otherwise dim coast, Mr. H and Gwenevere (who I affectionately called Gwennie), both breathed an intense, comical sigh of relief. The sign was turned back, ‘open’ to the world outside, the drapes pulled apart, cold sunshine once again poured in, though it could not compete with the radianceof the two that had just departed.

At least she didn’t come out naked again,