When Doves Cry

I spend every day crying for men I've only just met. Way back when, the selling of emotions was a complex affair. My grandmother was a lust seller - although she wouldn't have described herself like that. Bedecked in feathers and fake jewels, she gyrated on celluloid. She's in the background of that Monroe film, showing off her legs in a Hay's Code Compliant manner. Enough to titillate without getting anyone in trouble.

Half a century later, someone figured out how to sell anger and outrage. People would stream the worst possible humans directly into their eyeballs. You could listen to an unending river of hatred which was precisely calculated to drive you mad with fear, anger, and other socially poisonous emotions. It was weirdly profitable. I never understood why people wanted to mainline such negativity into their lives; but they did.

Personally, I'm quite happy selling sadness.

It isn't a new job. Watch any old movie made during the war and you'll see actresses attempt to liberate the audience's emotions. They gave war widows an acceptable outlet for their repressed emotions. But acting on screen is the sort of emotional manipulation which is only suitable for babies.

These days I shove a cable into the back of my skull and let anyone experience my pain first hand. For a fee, of course. Hey, emotional labour is labour and deserves to be well compensated.

I tell my friends that it is liberating. It is like being paid to do therapy. The Johns are all anonymous drones who don't know me and I don't know them. That's all bullshit.

It is ridiculously lucrative. That's about the best thing I can say about it. But then, how much money would you want in order for people to rummage around in your head while you relived the worst days of your life?

Everyone I ever loved is dead. The world is on fire and madmen are in charge. Frankly, I don't understand why people don't spend the day screaming in terror, fear, and rage. That would be the rational response to the evils of the world. As a kid, I'm fairly sure I cried every day. I'd cry when I got homework, when I got a poor mark, when cartoon characters got hit on the head, when my parents left for work, when they came home.

They put me on pills to calm my mood. The loneliness and whimpering sadness still bounced around my brain, but no longer found an exit through my eyes. I wandered through my life like so many other drugged up zombies. Unable to find an outlet for my inconvenient emotions, I poured everything into my schoolwork. The day I graduated, I poured the last of the pills down the drain, walked out of my parents' place, and let myself feel.

The world is a scary and confusing place when you spend the days weeping on the streets. I was book-smart, emotionally stunted, and easy to take advantage of. My days were spent bouncing between selfish "friends" and uncaring foes. I broke down every day until I got the cranial implant surgery.

You probably remember "OnlyFans" - a turn-of-the-century website which rented the simulacrum of intimacy. Pay to talk to a pretty girl, let her pretend to care about you, pay her to reveal herself, let her pretend the anonymous transaction was the height of romantic entanglement. Pretty grim, but nothing the world hadn't seen before in one guise or another. The Neural-Emotional Telelink changed all that. The net allowed you to transmit data between computers. The NET gave men the power to transfer emotions between brains.

You know how agencies send scouts to look for pretty girls in bars, and offer them modelling jobs? That's what happened to me. Only, without the good looks and the glamorous clothes.

"Excuse me, are you OK?"

I was sat snuffling on a train platform. The line was one I'd heard a million times before. It usually ended up with someone proffering their help and ended up with me running away with tears flowing freely.

The NET guy carried on.

"I don't mean to intrude, of course. But I've noticed you a few times around town and you always seem to be crying."

I couldn't quite summon up the courage to tell him to piss off. I muttered a brief "leave me alone" and turned my head away.

"I think I have a job for you. We're looking for recruits who are in touch with their emotions and… well… the pay is pretty decent. Would you take this pamphlet?"

I took the glossy cardboard and stared at it. It didn't explicitly say it was a medical experiment, but that was the impression it gave. The money was exceedingly good, and came with an offer of free accommodation during the trial. The next day I showed up at their offices. A week later I was having a hole drilled in the base of my skull.

Bones don't have nerve endings, so there's no pain when the medical instruments start excavating their way to your brain. You can't feel anything. That's not strictly true, naturally. You can't feel pain, but you can feel your entire skull shaking. The skin around the incision is numb, but the rest of your scalp can feel the pulling and stretching. The brain can't feel the probes being inserted, but as they snake their way through your cerebellum, you can taste colours and hear flavours as various bits of your meat get short circuited.

I cried all the way through.

Even when they told me it had been a success and that the graft hadn't been rejected, I cried some more.

They let me loose on clients pretty quickly. Before too long, I was crying for money.

Today's pretty typical.

The client comes in. We've usually been emailing and video chatting for a few weeks prior to ensure we're compatible. They're informed that it isn't a sexual thing. The chats are monitored and anyone who tries any funny stuff is kicked up - with no refund.

Today's client is some flashy CEO of a tech company. He's been in the news recently for firing half his staff, or sexual harassment, or some other scandal. His therapist tells him that he lacks empathy and needs to find a way to connect with the common folk. This is a polite way of saying that he's an utterly irredeemable sociopath with no regard for his fellow humans.

His life, so I've learned, has been a gift. He's suffered no hardships, had everything handed to him (including the seed funding from his parents), and the only thing that's ever made him remotely sad is when his LinkedIn posts don't get enough fawning praise from his underlings.

He doesn't need the same brain surgery as me; his head is shaved instead. He's already posted about how he's trimmed off his famous flowing locks in support of a kid with cancer. The kid doesn't exist, but his social-media team has invented something plausible. Like I say, a sociopath.

We sit back to back in reclining chairs. Our heads loll back as though we're in a hairdressers. Technicians bumble around us calibrating, testing, and technobabbling. The NET is prepared with reverence.

His bald head is festooned with metallic patches, each one designed to stimulate various parts of the brain. He makes a half-hearted joke about how cold the equipment is. No one laughs; they've heard the same spiel from a hundred different clients.

Jimmi, my favourite technician, sets me up. He hooks up a IV to replenish the fluids I'm about to lose, opens up the porthole in my head, and inserts an unfeasibly long probe. Once the readouts show that the NET has made contact and the connection is secure, he sits next to me and tenderly holds my hand.

We don't bother asking the CEO if he's ready. The best results come when the client least expects it. He's nervously chattering away to the staff. I'm preparing to feel terrible.

Jimmi whispers in my ear, "Copenhagen."

Some people have a safe-word when they're involved in exciting activities. It's a cue to stop the action and let everyone take a breather. "Copenhagen" is my anti-safe-word. It reminds me of a terrible time in my life. Jimmi is deliberately triggering me. A giant whelp of sadness tears out of my mouth involuntarily. 17 milliseconds later, I hear the CEO start to cry. The Neuro-Emotional Transfer is one-way - all of my sadness is flowing directly into the CEO's brain via a chunky cable.

Jimmi continues to prompt me with reminders of my tragic past. Each one sets off a cavalcade of emotions. I scream, I hiss, I wail. And moments after me, the CEO does the same. I can feel the emotions draining out of me and into him. For once in his charmed life he is actually feeling pain and terror. He isn't reading my mind, or seeing what I saw. He's just feeling my pain. He now knows what it is to be cold and alone, unloved and scared, terrified and bewildered. For an hour or more I let my fear overwhelm me. The IV keeps me hydrated as all my pent up sadness flows through my eyes. Behind me, I can hear the CEO's voice crack and strain.

Every fear I've ever had is dredged out of the recesses of my brain. Jimmi, bless him, is merciless. He knows all my nightmares and relentlessly plays them back to me. I want to curl up into a little ball and hide away under my bed - but Jimmi keeps a tight hold on my hand while he drips poison in my ear.

And then it is over.

I remain calm and serene as the equipment is extracted from my brain-stem. I am no longer sad. It is unlikely I'll cry for several weeks now. The CEO is still weeping behind me. Sometimes they want a hug, or to shake my hand, or - surprisingly often - to palm over a tip. I walk out of the room without looking back.

Some people feel dirty after selling their body.

After selling my emotions to the highest bidder, I feel cleansed.

Thanks for reading

I'd love your feedback on this story. Did you like the style of writing? Was the plot interesting? Did you guess the twist? Please stick a note in the comments to motivate me 😃

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