October was passing quickly. The trees which had been brightly colored were now turning brown…
Jezzibella Trollope
“Bite my hoe, you blbblblblblackckckckckc bastrdrdrd!”
“Blaspheeeeeeemingingingingngngngngng poofoofoofterterssss!”
“Fuckckckckckck you!”
A rake paused in mid thrust before my chest, juddering back and forth. Attempting to dodge the prongs I moved slightly to my left, but also juddered in time with the rake. Time was suspended during the glitch, leaving my eyes fixed on my assailants and my body frozen in mid leap. Then, like a coiled spring suddenly released, the rake jumped forwards as I hopped to the side. I received yet another scratch to my bare arm. I breathed deeply to calm myself, but then found I was unable to exhale for a few moments, during which I saw hands and feet beyond the bars of my cage wave rapidly and repeat small movements. Sounds rattled and drilled like something by the Aphex Twin. I exhaled finally and everyone else resumed the movements they had been making before the glitch. The entire site suffered glitch after glitch, freezing and shaking everything at roughly two second pauses. I was beginning to get quite a headache.
Megahard Mary, useful as ever, merely stood beyond the villagers, along with a steadily growing crowd of spectators, repeating, “Megahard strongly recommend you shut down your system to prevent further damage!” over and over again.
It was exactly such an action that Beau, Mary and I had been trying and failing to perform for the last few hours. If only we could have shut down our operating systems we could have escaped from this insane world that was threatening to damage our neural implants. Such damage could leave us returning to the real World drooling and fumbling hopelessly over the simplest task. And it was these crazed Christians that were also preventing us from escape, leaving us trapped.
Beau’s nylon pantyhose were developing holes as he tried and failed, like me, to avoid being poked by the villagers. The three Christians were using the same avatars they had in the church. One, a young woman, resembling Morticia Addams but with a chunky mahogany rosary around her neck, the crucified Christ reclining between her breasts; the second, an elderly man in a grey cloth cap, khaki body warmer and Wellington boots; the third, a twenty something geek in a pale grey suit, red tie clipped to his cheap shirt and a ‘Smile, Jesus loves you’ badge on his jacket lapel. They were odd choices of avatar design, I thought, considering one could choose any appearance one could wish for.
Beyond the religious zealots’ heads Rosie looked on, concerned but helpless. We heard Mary’s cries of distress in the distance, but were unable to see if she had been injured. To our right the cum bath orgy continued, its participants apparently oblivious to this predicament of three of the site’s users.
There was a scuffle in the crowd and the zealots were thrust aside, their tools slipping from their hands and clattering on the tiles. Beau and I were confronted once more by the vampiric minions of Lord Tyranny, their faces inscrutable behind their chic Balaclavas. They formed a wall around our cages, then a passageway to allow their master to pass unmolested. With his hands in his slender hips Royce strode up to my cage and peered at me as one would a caged animal. His long lips curled into a sneer to reveal the glinting gold canines.
“Oh dear, dear, dear, what have we here?” his deep, feline voice enquired and tutted. “Your hopelessly inadequate virus protection,” he opined, pacing from my cage to Beau’s, “really is in need of correction.”
Royce looked a question at his men around him and was answered by vigorous nods all round. He turned his attention to the zealots who seemed indignant and perplexed at his interference with their mission. They gazed up at him as he licked his fangs with a forked tongue.
“Get thee gone, thou Devil!” said the old churchman.
Royce’s men hardly needed a signal. The three villagers were dragged by the hair, boots and tie to the pool where they were raised back to their fumbling feet. They did the same with Megahard Mary, obviously assuming she was as dangerous as the Christians, as she continually parroted her alert message. The men pulled the eye holes of their Balaclavas down to expose their mouths. They bared fangs, gold like their master’s, and plunged them into the necks of their four victims who screamed and fought futilely. They soon went limp, but remained conscious. The gothic woman was held above her attacker’s head as she moaned a ‘Hail Mary’ before being plunged into the bath of lukewarm cum. Mary, our Mary, our Lady of Perpetual Climax, indisposed as she was, did nothing to help. The Megahard avatar and the two men followed the woman to their deaths. Struggling and spluttering they re emerged briefly, spitting and hawking blood and cum into the Balaclavas. They were held under firmly before their thrashing limbs went feeble and sank into the strawberry milkshake of the pool which, by this time, had virtually emptied of avatars, their users now horrified at these proceedings.
A woman’s voice called, “Oo oo!” brightly to us and we saw our Mary jumping and waving behind Royce.
She was allowed to approach us. She ran first to Beau’s cage, then mine. We kissed through the bars. Then the cages lifted and rose into the domed ceiling allowing us to embrace. I was so happy and relived she had survived the attack. I assumed some of Royce’s men had helped her too. I was also relieved to have been saved from the Christians but, like the other users, I was shocked and revolted by the measures used.
I asked Royce, “What will happen those people?” and he shrugged his narrow shoulders.
“They’ll just wake up and resume their boring lives,” he chuckled. “Crawl back into bed with their husbands and wives.”
The men laughed in response to this.
I tapped my right nostril to bring up my virtual keyboard and discovered that, indeed, I was now free to tap myself out and resume my own boring, comfortably predictable life. At least, I was according to the virtual screen before me. I made it vanish with a further tap to my right nostril and wondered if such good news could be true.
I regarded Royce more closely and wondered how anyone could find it in themselves to trust such a face. It was the face of a cobra, just before the death strike. I saw his men exchange glances and realised they had more than likely infected the villagers with a virus. I looked down to see his pet, Madame Prence, clinging to his side with her stubby fingers like a deformed, shaved koala. She whispered something to her master, or servant, I had yet to determine which, and Royce decisively clapped his hands.
“To the lounge, everyone!” he ordered. “I shall entertain our guests before the day is done.”
“Yeah, thanks,” I said, tagging along with Royce and his entourage and followed by Beau and Mary. “It was very nice of you to help us out with the Christians and all, but we really need to be going, don’t we Beau?”
“We do!” my friend agreed.
“Etiam vero!” concurred Mary.
As we walked I found myself being enfolded in the firm grasp of Royce’s long arm.
“Yes, yes, of course,” he purred. “Your wishes I fully endorse, but you simply must stay and sample some more of the pleasures we have to offer here. I’ve taken quite a shine to the three of you, I haven’t I, Madame Prence, my dear?”
The creature gazed at me with a level malevolence and lowed like a cow. I struggled against Royce, unsettled by his close proximity and nauseated by that of Prence.
“We’ve arranged a little show for you, you and your friends.”
“Oh yeah?” I wondered casually, still anxious to tap myself out.
I glanced at my friends who looked dubious, but somehow I had the feeling, assessing the manner in which we were being escorted to the lounge, that leaving was not an option just yet. I sighed with exasperation and decided to comply with Royce’s wish, though mainly as I could hardly bare to tear myself away from Beau. My friend was clearly not happy about lingering here, but he had not tapped himself out, simple and easy as that would be. We exchanged looks, the meaning of which I was unsure.
We all trooped back into the lounge which was now heaving with revellers, many of them cum soaked from the pool they had just vacated. Some glanced at us nervously and a wide gap was opened up for us. Royce took to his stage once more and held his talons high. The music ceased abruptly and everyone gave him their full attention. His hand then shot to the mike stand about ten paces to his left. His arm had no difficulty reaching it and he pulled it swiftly to him. The stage was now swathed in an eldritch, green smoke that writhed in wispy tendrils about the feet of the men.
“Now, my fellow Uranians gay,” he told the huge hall, his voice booming and thundering, “some of you may be distressed at the news that we had some unwelcome visitors to the site today. They were asked to leave nicely and did so five minutes ago precisely. There is no cause for alarm. They were not done any harm. They were Christians, worshippers of the Judeo Christian God, that fictitious boogeyman and low down lying sod.”
He emitted a sharp, piercing shriek, but managed to stifle it quickly.
He smacked the lump in the side of his coat, then resumed, “So this is just a little reminder to anyone who may be thinking of worshipping anyone or thing other than me.”
“Except for that talking parsnip you got hidden under your coat, ya freak!” shouted some wag in the crowd.
Before this comment had even finished reverberating around the hall Royce’s arm shot out above the heads of the crowd, found the critic’s neck and lifted him with hydraulic strength high into the air. The man screamed and kicked his legs as the arm retracted, pulling him to the stage where he found himself staring terrified into the face of Royce. The Uranian overlord stuck out his two pronged tongue to lick his razor thin lips, grinned like the skull of a reptile and sank his teeth into his victim’s neck. It took the avatar surprisingly long to finish struggling in Royce’s grip. The body was thrown to the steps like a rag doll.
“Is that enough, or have I anyone else to snuff?” demanded Lord Tyranny in a menacingly low voice, little more than a whisper, while his fangs and lips dripped blood.
Once more a deathly silence hung over us like a sword ready to strike. No more challenges were made. Royce Tyranny held the gaze of everyone in the hall. A few people tapped themselves out, leaving holes in the thick throng, but surprisingly few. I could only assume their curiosity in seeing this freak perform outweighed their concern over physical pain.
Masochists! I thought contemptuously.
“I now have a surprise, to make amends,” Royce announced, failing to drop his menacing tone as, without needing to search, a spotlight was turned on Beau, Mary and I, making us blink into the darkness of the crowd around us, “which I’d like to dedicate to my special new friends.”
A dangerously danceable beat insinuated itself gradually into one’s hearing, as if it always been always been there. One felt it in one’s feet before it reached the ears. On the stage Tyranny’s booted foot was tapping while he maintained his mesmeric hold on everyone. The spotlight blinked off to my relief. Nothing else dared move until Madame Prence, herself staring into the crowd, began clicking her short fingers in time to the steadily building music. No one else dared even twitch their heads, though the groove was hard to resist.
“Psst!” hissed Beau in my ear. “We need to get out of here!”
“Changed your mind about him, eh?” I said. “OK, so the guy’s a pyscho, but he still saved us from the those Jesus freaks.”
“If we don’t leave,” Beau insisted, “we could be in a world of shit!”
I nodded absently, already a slave to the rhythm, and hoped my interest in the show would indicate to him my lack of interest in any further advice he had to give.
To Royce’s left part of the stage was shining through the smoke like candlelight through absinthe. The floor appeared to have a large trap door now open to the bowels of Uranus. The light dimmed fractionally and something black began slowly rising from the hole. Square in cross section it resembled a blocky version of our Dildo before it had turned pink. It grew, then bifurcated and revealed itself as an inverted black ‘Y’, about six feet tall. Then, like the Dildo, it began throbbing a lurid pink, an unpleasant effect with the bottle green gas, clouds of which were clinging to its sides. By now the music was deafening and I could feel my internal organs rattling from the heinous vibrations. The inverted ‘Y’ floated a foot above the stage as Royce glided over and danced around it coolly in a Fred Astaire like shuffle, using minimal movement, yet maximum style. His men had left their seated positions and now resembled a fleet of stealth bombers ready for attack as they danced in formation.
Royce assumed a dramatic pose and, still staring at his audience, pointed his five claws at the throbbing pink ‘Y’. Bright blue white forks of electricity crackled from his nails to the floating object. The flashing bolts leapt up and down it, arcing through the green smoke and sending sparks across the stage. Bright white lines appeared around the side of the ‘Y’. The lines broadened and the light reached a blinding intensity. The strange object was cracking open into two halves at seams so fine they had hitherto been invisible, like a bizarre egg being opened from inside by someone with a powerful laser. Hinged at the base of the two downward pointing arms, the inverted ‘Y’, still throbbing, opened further, the front half dropping slowly to the stage to reveal the brilliantly illuminated contents.
With such bright light the figure was hard to discern at first. As my eyes became adjusted to the glare I saw a woman inside occupying the coffin like object, her legs parted wide, her arms crossed on her chest and her eyes glazed. She wore a black leather bikini, black stiletto sandals, dark gothic make up, her hair straight and black. Her entire body save her marble face bore black, concentrically circular tattoos, their point of focus, her pussy. The crowd applauded, slowly at first, as they recognised the ‘Y’ shaped sarcophagus’ occupant, then more enthusiastically, as Royce appeared to be busy with his strange dance.
“It’s Jezzibella Trollope!” screamed Beau excitedly in my ear and jumping up and down.
Mary also jumped for joy at the sight of the highly successful recording artist.
As Royce’s lightning spat and sparkled across Jezzibella’s form she shook and spasmed violently in the box like a marionette in the hands of a clumsy child. As her movements became more controlled Royce ceased energising her with his electricity to offer her his hand which she took. She then slowly stepped out from the coffin onto the stage and was greeted by wild cheers from the crowd. Without the need for a microphone she began to sing an old classic to the pounding beat.
“Let’s have some fun, this beat is yum, I wanna take a swim in your disco cum!”
Everyone clapped in time, now considerably more relaxed at the sight of their heroine. Jezzibella and Royce tangoed together, grinding their hips and simulating sex, while he duetted with her, also without a mike. Her back was similarly tattooed, the bull’s eye on that side, her anus.
“Let’s play a love game!” growled Royce infernally, making Marilyn Manson sound like Minnie Riperton.
Singing all the while, Jezzibella spread out her arms, rose into the air and moved forwards to levitate inches above her audience. She glided horizontally above people’s grasping hands, casually regarding the adoring upturned faces below. She sank a few inches to allow fingers to grasp her bikini top and rip it from her. The bottoms soon went the same way leaving her naked. After a flight of roughly fifty metres she returned to an upright position facing the stage where Royce was engaged in a choreographed simulated orgy with his men. He reached into his fly, pulled out an impressive dick and began fondling himself in Jezzibella’s direction. He came quickly, firing white, blue and green cum at her floating body. The love bullets reached their target, landing squarely in Jezzibella’s pudenda. She pirouetted prettily in mid air, then stopped with her back facing the stage. Royce fired off more psychedelic semen, the purple, yellow and orange globs fizzing through the air like fireworks and easily finding the target of the singer’s ass crack. She dripped multicolored cum into upturned mouths and beaks.
Meanwhile the ‘Y’ shaped coffin had clammed shut and, still glowing, was assuming a new shape. The two legs, branching from the upper trunk, were closing and the corners were softening. Its surface rippled like a puddle of liquid metal being blown by a child through a straw. It broadened at one end, thickened slightly at the other and became long and tubular. Soon the pink metal coffin had become a perfect copy of our Dildo, hovering on its side just above the stage.
Jezzibella, still singing, flew lazily back to the stage to resume groping, and being groped by Royce. They straddled the cock with her in front while the men continued to dance wildly, tumbling over each other and grinding each others’ hips together in a wanton display of homoerotic lust. The metal cock and balls glided slowly from the front of the stage and moved across the hall, floating miraculously above everyone’s heads, while Royce and his human lust target sang and rapped rapidly, matching the increased tempo of the music.
“Disco disco didididisco didididisco cum cum!” they gabbled at an inhuman speed, like a pair of demented motorheads.
Their bizarre mode of transport also sped up whilst circumscribing the entire hall. They circled many times, faster and faster. The crowd struggled to keep clapping to the frenzied music. Royce fondled Jezzibella’s boobs from behind. He also appeared to be fucking her, yet they both managed to keep singing in time while panting lustfully. The cock and balls flew in an ever tightening circle, at an ever increasing velocity and at an ever increasing height, until they would have been lost in the clouds of drug smoke were it not for their bright pink strobing.
Fireworks burst from somewhere just in front of the balls. It was Royce’s ejaculation, this one as fiery as the bolts of light from his fingers, fizzing up Jezzibella’s back, over her head and into the smoky air where his sperms exploded in all colors imaginable. Everyone screamed, whistled and cheered in amazement. The music reached an intense climax, accompanying Jezzibella’s howls of orgasmic exultation. The genitals dived, threatening to squash some of the crowd, levelled, then flew at an even greater speed, perilously close to people’s heads, towards the exit. They shot from the hole, into the wide green yonder of Uranus.
There was a minor stampede near the door as people fought for one final view of Royce and Jezzibella. Many people tapped themselves out, or decided to make their way to some other venue. Beau, Mary and I followed the crowd outside for one last view of the extraordinary website.
“I got to hand it you, Beau, sweetheart,” I breathed, “you’re a genius, but maybe it might be an idea to be more selective when you’re allowing people access to your sites?”
He smiled ruefully.
The street outside was even more crowded than before. Uranian night had fallen, but the clouds were occasionally illuminated by flashes of lightning. Immediately outside Royce’s Bar there were few street lights and one had to feel one’s way through the heaving mass. A bright pink shooting star at the zenith that held many people’s attention betrayed Royce’s and Jezzibella’s passage through the sky.
“I don’t know where they think they’re going,” said Beau with a giggle. “There’s nothing out there.”
As if in direct answer to this the star grew larger and soon the pair on their giant pocket rocket were flying over our heads again in one last lap of honour. Men and women blew kisses at them, their lips leaving their faces and fluttering through the air like butterflies to alight on the cheeks and lips of their idols. Despite the gloom Royce saw us and waved. The tip of the cock turned and they made for where we were standing. We were cheering and clapping like everyone else. Royce bit Jezzibella’s neck, but she appeared to love it, leaning back against him and closing her eyes in rapture. Flying low and slow Royce reached down to Mary and tweaked her nose affectionately. Jezzibella bent down from the craft and did the same to Beau and I. I felt honoured to have had my nose tweaked by such an international superstar. Madame Prence, incapable of reaching us, placed her thumb to her pug nose and waved her fingers at us defiantly. The craft moved on carrying the blood and cum dripping couple while their feet and legs were kissed by a multitude of adoring fans.
In the darkness Beau, Mary and I turned to each other. Beau jumped up and we kissed while I hugged him and spun him in my arms. Then Mary kissed us both warmly but chastely.
“Well, goodbye, my friends,” I said sadly, wondering at the slightly nasal tone of my voice. “I do hope to see you again.”
“So do I, Ian,” said Beau, his eyes welling with tears. “I’m sorry we had so many,” he thought for a moment, “technical difficulties.”
They both planted more kisses on my cheeks that felt slightly odd.
“Keep in touch.”
“Servo in tactus.”
“Sure,” I said, and noticed their sudden frown of concern.
I reached up to tap my left nostril. My finger swiped nothing but air. I tried again. I felt my face. Completely flat! Peering at my friends in the dark I saw they too were missing their noses. Prompted by my shocked look they also felt their faces. For a few moments we stood amidst the bustling throng, poking our faces in the middle, trying desperately to tap ourselves out. We soon realised these attempts were futile and were left standing, looking at each other foolishly.
“It’s that freak and his Trollope!” I burst out angrily. “They’ve done this to us! God damn it!” I howled, despairing of ever returning to the World.
It was a filthy, decaying, desperate World, but at least it was real. I was pushed violently against a passer by.
“Hey!” I protested.
Rough hands gripped my arms, pinning them to my back. I fought and managed to free myself. My friends and I were surrounded by some of Royce’s men. I stood protectively before Mary and Beau.
“Here we go again, Beau,” I said, attempting to stifle my feelings of almost overwhelming panic. “Where’s that fucking Dildo?”
The men rushed us at once, baring their teeth like rabid dogs. Individually none of them were a match for my strong, muscular body and I punched them many times, knocking them sideways, causing them to fall against each other like bowling pins. None fell to the ground, however, nor did they seem dazed from my punches. They attacked me incessantly from all directions until I was wrestled to the ground. They lifted me high and bore me back inside Royce’s. I called out to Mary and Beau.
“They’ve got me too, Ian!” called Beau tearfully.
“Ego sum captus quoque,” said Mary as if she were reporting a minor inconvenience.
We were taken through the still emptying lounge, past the stage and through to the swimming pool dome. With no word of explanation we were thrown into the depths. But there was no semen to break our fall. The pool had been drained. We plunged into the giant plug hole at the centre and plummeted down a black pipe, ricocheting violently against the sides and each other. Our screams reverberated through a seemingly eternal tunnel of night. The air became warm and, in the far distance below, a red star twinkled. The temperature and the star grew until suddenly the rushing walls of the pipe gave way to a broad, bleak, mountainous landscape.
We now fell in silence. Smoke rose from the top of each mountain while white rivers of spunk and some anonymous brown liquid flowed down to fill the valleys. Immediately below us was the upturned face of a monstrous giant. His face was strangely familiar to me, but there was no time give this further thought. Our screams resumed as he opened his maw and swallowed us as easily as a child would raisins. We slid down the soft tongue to the back of the throat. No organ, no matter how huge or bulbous could break our fall. A rush of air told me when I was passing the entrance to the trachea. I called out to my friends in the pitch blackness. They hollered back and, though I was terrified, I was faintly relieved to know I was not alone in this predicament.
I plunged into a soup of bile and acidic digestive juices. When I resurfaced, spluttering, I again called out to Beau and Mary.
“We’re in it’s tummy!” Beau wailed.
“Is est nequam!”
If I ever survive this, I said to myself, now thankful for the loss of my nose, I’ll get a job as Moby Dick’s dietician.
“Did you construct this, Beau,” I asked, fighting to suppress my rage, “or is this Tyranny’s idea of a cool website?”
“I think you could say we’re a bit off the map now,” he said apologetically.
My desperate laugh bounced from stomach wall to stomach wall.
“What are we going to do, Ian?” pressed Beau with mounting panic.
“We’re going to think about this rationally and sensibly,” I said, concerned that Beau sounded on the verge of hysteria.
“OK,” he said unhappily.
I thought desperately while treading bile.
“The quicker we get out of here, the less chance this thing has of digesting us. Agreed?”
“Agreed,” said Beau, sounding a little comforted.
“Congruo,” agreed Mary.
“So,” I hacked and spat foul liquid, “we don’t want to spend a minute longer in here than necessary. We need this thing to shit us out, and quick!”
The vile soup in which we were adrift was making my skin sore and was stinging my eyes. We had no time to lose. We were slowly being drawn across the pool by irresistible currents that I surmised were flowing in the direction of an exit, possibly the creature’s intestine. I struggled against various floating detritus, a skeleton of some kind, dismembered soft baggy objects that felt like organs and ropes of thick mucus, and eventually found Mary’s hand and Beau’s shirt. I tugged and told them to follow my lead.
The further we swam the quicker the current flowed. There was a dramatic acoustic change and I guessed we had reached a tunnel of some kind. The soup had thickened considerably and soon we were smothered in a bath of loose excrement. Though we could no longer swim there was no need as the sludge was moving quickly. I held my breath, terrified of dying from shit inhalation. We shot down chutes, were hurled around countless twists and turns before finally coming to rest in a thick, glutinous substance. I sank slowly and the substance thickened further until it was an almost solid mass. I struggled violently, creating vibrations and hoping this would encourage our host to defecate. I heard a rumbling groan, almost beyond my hearing range, and the disgusting substance around us pressed in tightly. There was a titanic convulsion and I felt myself propelled forwards as if from a cannon.
Light and air burst in upon me as I was thrown from the black tunnel. I slithered down a fleshy valley, then dropped into nothingness. I landed hard in a heap of shit that was just soft enough to cushion the impact. Wet blankets of excrement splattered onto me, threatening to drown me. I crawled frantically away from the deluge to some comparatively clean rock. I had landed at the foot of a jagged mountain range. The giant through whose digestive tract I had just passed dominated the landscape. Naked, save a pair of black boots, he was squatting with his feet many paces away to my right and left. These feet were balanced on stiletto heels like telegraph poles. His parted legs formed a cyclopean arch against the stars and his hairy buttocks were two barren acres of land, yielding nothing but grass and weeds. The black hole of his rectum, the width of a subway tunnel, spewed forth one final series of giant turds, then tightened and shut.
The landscape was illuminated by faint sunlight reflected off the clouds of a jade sphere I took to be Uranus. I appeared to be standing on one of the planet’s moons. From the zenith there trickled a thin stream of semen glowing in the dim green light, the only indication of the hole to the sperm bath we had fallen through. Of the bath itself, Royce’s Bar, or the flying island there was no sign.
As I stood and attempted to assess this new hostile environment I saw two large lumps amongst the final deluge land where I had few moments before. I ran over to aid my friends who were floundering like dying fish. Poor Beau and Mary were dazed, breathless and barely capable of standing by themselves. I picked up Beau and threw his light body over my shoulder, whereupon he vomited. I barely noticed this comparatively mild smelling fluid as it trickled down my arm. I placed Beau on a reasonably sanitary rock nearby and went back for Mary. She had lost the shirt I had given her and was now totally naked, though there was not a shitless inch of her skin or hair. I carried her over to where I had placed Beau. I watched them slowly grow aware of our surroundings.
I placed my hands on my hips. My tough leather pants had resisted the corrosive stomach acids of the giant, but Beau’s once pretty white outfit was now in shreds and the remaining threads were steaming.
“Hey Beau,” I said with a grin.
I was strangely happy. Somehow I felt sure that, whatever happened next, nothing could be worse than being shat from a giant’s rectum.
“Guess what?”
“Huh?” Beau managed, wiping his face with a rag torn from his hotpants.
“We’re in a world of shit!”
Copyright © Irma Cerrutti 2010