Extratone – Stuart Buck

August 4, 2022

        Friday nights were bass night at Charlie’s Arcade. You waited until the last customer left then Charlie opened the back of the Street Fighter 2 machine. Instead of a computer board and assorted wires, inside was a tiny door. Open the door and there’s a spiral staircase carved into the earth. Go down that and you come out in a massive room, lined with egg cartons to reduce the noise. Charlie rents the place out to a guy named Flea. It’s not him from the Red Hot Chili Peppers though. It’s another guy.  

        The room’s pretty empty except one guy at an office desk with a tiny machine in front of him – that and five Sybian machines at the front. I should probably explain the mechanics of a Sybian machine at this point. It’s a machine they use a lot in porn. Looks like an old toaster with a cock on it. You sit on the machine, slip the cock inside you and the whole thing pumps you to within an inch of your life. The most popular use of these machines in porn is BDSM porn – specifically torture porn. They put all sorts of stuff on the cocks and these poor girls sit on them and off they go. I won’t go into much more detail, but don’t ever forget how depraved we are. 

        These machines were modified. But not for BDSM – or any kind of porn – although you couldn’t get away from having it inside you. But these were special. Flea had changed the way they worked. Instead of a pumping action, now they vibrated to any given music. You slipped yourself on – courtesy of a great deal of lubricant and some naughty language – and Flea stood behind his desk taking requests. 

        The night would usually start with a few classics, just to start the party. But dependent on how we were feeling, shit soon got nasty. Pretty soon the whole fucking room was drowning in the kind of bass that you could see dripping from the ceiling. The kind of bass you sync your heartbeat up to. Black coils of filthy fucking effluence, a long, languorous wave of gut churning majesty. Up we’d go – from Skrillex and the ket-step boys to Gabber and Happy Hardcore. After a while we’d all need a rest so we’d play “Porcelain” by Moby while the tears came. 

        This week was different though. After what had happened with Crazy Bob and the drugs, we needed a release. It was past midnight and the big black Sybians had been stirring our guts like a Martini for two hours. We knew what was going to happen, knew one of us would request it. So when Sue screamed ‘play some fucking Extratone” we all just laughed. Extratone started out at 1000 beats per minute and could crest 10,000 if it was left playing long enough. It was an icy hot sickness, every single cell getting fucked over and over until you became gelatinous – an oozing pulse of wet thrombosis. 

        ‘Are you guys ready?’ Flea shouted over the roaring of the machines. I was ready. I was sat in my own blood, I knew it. But the week had flattened us. Crazy Bob was dead and I wanted to make jelly of my insides. 

        ‘Do it’ I screamed. 

        The song started. It’s not a song. It’s a fucking chemical reaction. The Sybian machines started throwing spastic waves of disintegrating warmth through my body. The roar in the room was deafening. The egg cartons took most of the sound and reversed it, causing an echo chamber. But even then some escaped. Charlie sat upstairs counting his pennies, the arcade jack-hammering around him. Stuffed animals fell from the walls. The jackpot machines sang tinnitus. 

        Downstairs, the five of us had become one. When you move in sync like that, your hadrons combine. You become entangled on a quantum level. The Double-Slit Experiment. Schrodinger’s Sodomy.

      Skip was the first to fall, screaming and crying in a wet puddle on the floor. Then Rachel simply got up and walked to the corner of the room Blair Witch style. I could take it. I knew a few techniques. I rose slightly, feeling the Extratone pounding at my anal wall. My eyeballs shifted about three inches to the left — I briefly saw out of Simon’s eyes. Then Simon himself withdrew, pants around his ankle, ejaculating awkwardly in his hand. 

Just me and K. She would win. She always did. But I would give her a run for her money. I looked over at her. She was crying the thick tears of a sexual assault victim. But her smile was all H-I-G-H. She had forgotten about her day. She was worshiping at the only altar that mattered. Jesus Christ was a Sine Wave. A chainsaw ripping through the night. Outside the sea wretched up on the beach. In Out. In Out.