Moist by Mark Haskell Smith

she’s . . . she’s just the bomb, man.”
    The mean dude burst out laughing. It was a loud, deep, joyous laugh. He laughed until tears sprang from his eyes and he almost choked. Bob watched and, as the laughter continued on and on, he started to get nervous. Maybe he’d put his foot in it this time. Finally the mean dude got control of himself.
    â€œThe gringo’s in love with Felicia.”
    The mean dude took his glass and poured some tequila into it. He slid the glass over to Bob.
    â€œDrink.”
    Bob knocked back the tequila. It burned, in a soothing kind of a way. Bob looked at the mean dude.
    â€œSo you know her?”
    The mean dude gave Bob a serious once-over, laughed again, then extended his hand.
    â€œAmado.”
    This was how Bob became introduced to everyone. Amado, Norberto, Esteban, and Martin. Bob felt better knowing their names, but he wasn’t sure if they’d given him their real names or some kind of fake names so that if he went to the police he would pass on misinformation. But then, on reflection, Bob felt worse because if those were their real names, that meant they were probably going to kill him so he couldn’t give their names to the police.
    . . .
    Morris was desperately spinning shapes into place, clicking the keyboard in a trance. He didn’t even look up when a delivery arrived from the Cedar-Sinai Medical Center. The delivery man, a teenage Latino in elaborately baggy jeansand a Che Guevara T-shirt, looked at the screen and snorted derisively.
    â€œTetris?”
    Morris didn’t even look up.
    â€œI know, I know, it’s old school. But it’s a rad game, man.”
    The teenager wasn’t buying it.
    â€œMy dad likes it.”
    â€œDude, Tetris challenges your brain. It’s like a spatial-relationship road-race disaster movie.”
    â€œYeah, right. Sign this. Then you can go play Pong.”
    Morris didn’t look up from the screen.
    â€œI can’t.”
    â€œI got places to go.”
    â€œOne more minute.”
    â€œNope.”
    â€œDude, cut me some.”
    â€œNope.”
    The delivery man waved his clipboard in front of Morris, almost obscuring the computer screen. Morris grabbed a pen off the desk and tried to sign the clipboard with his left hand without looking.
    â€œThis it?”
    â€œDown two inches.”
    â€œHere?”
    â€œClose enough.”
    Morris scribbled his name.
    â€œThanks, man.”
    â€œNo sweat.”
    The delivery man left. Morris continued to play. He didn’t notice that what he’d just signed for was a well-developedhuman fetus in a jar. The fetus floated in solution. Morris concentrated on his game.
    . . .
    Bob was now pretty toasted. He and Amado had killed the bottle of tequila and were sipping beers. Amado had his shirt off and was giving Bob vivid descriptions of each and every tattoo on his body. There must’ve been a hundred of them. When Bob expressed his admiration, Amado told him that he hadn’t even started commemorating women in ink until he’d notched his first hundred on a leather belt. Bob looked at Amado as if he were some kind of rare athlete, someone who had accomplished what few could ever achieve.
    Bob thought about his own slight string of conquests. A paltry six or seven. Never torrid one-night stands, always those first tentative meetings, the courtship, and then the relationship. Sure, there had been passion, but nothing worthy of a permanent place on his body, nothing worth the pain of needles and ink, nothing he could call art. Bob longed for something like that. He wanted to abandon himself to animal passions. He wanted to thrust wildly with a voluptuous woman who felt the same way he felt. Bob didn’t want to worry about orgasms or foreplay or any of that. He wanted to be inspired to fuck wildly and to inspire someone else to do the same.
    Bob watched as Amado drunkenly tried to reattach his arm. The arm dropped to