'You'll be with me. And you'll be thoroughly entertained. You'll love it. You'll see.'
Even though I had ended that conversation by swearing I wasn't interested, I went. And so I found myself a few days later in the midst of hundreds of possessed freaks. People were screaming, some were banging on the iron shutter that was keeping them separated from the commodities they so violently craved.
'Once again Jon: why?!'
'Because,' he grinned impishly, 'ah, well, just wait. Wait and see.'
'You're an idiot. I can't believe I'm here.'
I wanted to say something else, but I was interrupted by an obese woman who cried:
'if you don't like what we do here, why don't you get the hell out of here?!'
Before I was able to respond Jon held up his hands and implored us to remain calm.
'Lady,' he said, 'there's no need to be upset. We all just want to have a good time. Here, let me revive your spirits by offering you a nice, ice cold beer.'
The woman was obviously just as surprised as I was as Jon opened his enormous sports bag that turned out to be filled with cans and cooling elements.
'I thought you brought that bag for your shopping, I hadn't realized it was stuffed already, ' I said.
'It will be mostly empty before we enter the store,' Jon said.
Meanwhile, he handed a can to the lady, who seemed utterly confused, but did not refuse the beer. Jon began to engage with more bystanders and soon about a dozen people were drinking.
When I opened my can I noticed that there was a tiny hole in the lid that had been covered by a minuscule piece of tape. After two beers I felt as if I had ten. The people around us became loud and cheerful.
It had always been obvious to me that Jon was a bit of a lunatic. And perhaps I should have known he was up to something when he called me and invited me to the next Black Friday sale at our local electronics superstore.
'Why on Earth would we go there?' I asked him.
'Well,' he grinned, 'because it will be fun.'
'No, it won't. It will be fucking annoying.'
'Trust me. It is going to be hilarious. You will want to see this.'
'What is there to see? A mob of crazy idiots who storm a store in a mall... Why? What's with you?'
Then I noticed that we were not the only ones: as far into the crowd as I could look people were drinking. And I saw others with sports bags who were handing out cans. Then the shutters opened.
The rowdy shoppers became like several thousand pixels that all tried to converge into one dot. The security gates were shattered as hundreds crashed into the store. Everywhere I looked I saw twisted limbs and contorted faces.
Suddenly the screams and cries were drowned by a sound wave formed of synths and bass. I recognized the song Sadness by Enigma. It reminded me of the “Andrew Blake” porn movies that I had been an essential part of my sexual upbringing.
Was it this song that made me focus on the fact that there was a disproportionate amount of insanely sexy women involved in this brawl? They were everywhere, dressed as if they were frequenting a nightclub.
Some of them were hardly clad at all... and many were losing pieces of clothing. Initially, I had thought that this was a result of the tussle, but now I wasn't sure anymore. I felt an overwhelming desire to be closer to these voluptuous damsels. I was half aware that I was already inside the store.
Then I was fully aware because in a moment of clarity I noticed that this was not at all an ordinary sale: none of the goods that would normally be presented in this store were there; no flat-screens, no laptops, no camera's; there were only sex-related products.
It was by far the most impressive array of sex-related objects I (or probably any of us) had ever seen: besides a vast range of sex toys, there were robots and holographic projections of porn videos.
Then I blanked out for a moment. I was in a blur of bodies, I no longer knew where I was, what was going on, or even who I was. I kissed a girl, or did she kiss me? Had we already been kissing? Did she ask for consent?
Well, whatever it was, we certainly were kissing now and it was not at all bad. Her tongue was just the right amount of wet, her lips were full, firm but soft. I wanted to know who these lips belonged to, so I moved my head back.
I was not at all displeased: it was as if one of the women from Andrew Blake's universe had suddenly stepped out of the screen and had materialized right there on that spot.
She was a gorgeous, tall brunette with long curly hair and thick black mascara that accentuated her slightly oriental eyes. She stood on high heels and wore nothing but black stockings and velvet black lingerie.
And she was not the only one of her kind. Neither was I: all around us men and women were undressing and some were already completely naked. The stampede had metamorphosed into an orgy.
From underneath a pair of rather oversized breasts Jon's head appeared.
'I told you you'd like it!' he shouted, 'this is not just any Black Friday: this is the adult version. Hahaha!'
Then he disappeared again. I turned and heard another familiar voice say:
'do you like my wig? Is it convincing?'
Was I even amazed it was Trixie? It's hard to say in retrospect. She was dressed like the woman I had been kissing, but she was about ten inches shorter.
'How did you do those eyes?' I asked.
'Very futuristic make-up!' she laughed, 'I think you should fuck me now,' she added.
It had never been a day for subtleties and none ensued. It was one big, relentless, filthy orgy. People had been unboxing the toys – that is probably too civilized a description: boxes had been torn to shreds and toys were flung into the crowd.
Ah, and those poor robots... They were assaulted by the mob in ways that would make the producers of Westworld blush.
After a while, I was on my knees doggy-styling a blonde who looked like China Blue in Crimes of Passion. A dozen feet away from us, Trixie and her tall lookalike were engaged in soixante-neuf on a revolving stage.
The long brown curls of their wigs curled all around them like snakes; the two of them themselves resembled a curled up snake that bites its own tail: the Ouroboros.
Later Jon told me that all of this had been his doing. He had utilized his large network of friends and acquaintances to organize the orgy. A large number of participants had been in on the joke. There had been actresses, models and professional sex workers.
People had been handing out cans of beer... that had been “spiked” with vegan non-synthetic herbals. For a while, I was affronted that I was drugged without prior knowledge. But then again, I thoroughly enjoyed this "Flesh Mob" so I could find it in my heart to forgive him.
I still think he must have been employed by a company that promotes sex events, but Jon insists that he organized the Black Friday orgy because he lost a bet.
WRITTEN BY
Basilio Valentino
