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CASPIAN

She left me behind. She’s never forgotten about me before. I can’t believe it. All these years with her hand wrapped around me, twisting me, wedging me in a seam so I can break shit apart, and tonight she put all the other guys in the box and left me alone under the bed.

Not even under her bed. If I was there, hearing the soft rise and fall of her breath above me and the hum of her YouTube ASMR playlist, it’d be fine. She’d find me eventually and I’d go back in the box with the guys in the morning.

No. I’m under Jaeger Duke’s bed, and it’s shifting a little, back and forth. A thirty-thousand-dollar mattress isn’t going to creak, but I know what’s going on up there. I remember that much about having a body.

Julia hates Jaeger Duke as much as I love her. That’s a lot. Everyone calls him Duke, but Julia and Tonya call him JJ McDick and Jaeg-off behind his back. She called him both names under her breath as she put together this very bed.

She takes us to the best parts of Los Angeles. With our help, she hangs pictures, puts together furniture, smooths corners, and straightens molding. She’s a finishing contractor—best one in the city—and JJ McDick was her most recent job.

Past tense. It’s over now. Today was the last day and she was so relieved to get out of here that she left me behind.

I’m not one hundred percent sure she’ll come back for me.

She can buy another screwdriver. One time, she misplaced Enzo and bought another hammer.

Fucking thing sat there like a hunk of heavy, inanimate shit.

Eventually, she found Enzo. I don’t know what happened to the non-sentient one. I don’t care either. That hammer wasn’t real like we are.

Duke grunts. The woman giggles. Her feet appear and walk toward the bathroom. Above me, a tap-tap and a long snort. Cocaine. Just like Julia suspected. I may rot down here, but I’m glad she’s away from him. Having been around JJ McDick, I can say, without question, he should never touch her.

One time, Julia went out for lunch with her team and left us on the kitchen counter.

Duke came in from the pool with a woman with long brown hair and a face looked like the top of a muffin, if the muffin was polished to a dark-beige shine.

He was saying “you’re gonna, you bet you’re gonna.

” She laughed nervously and got some ice from the fridge.

He got behind her and pawed at her. She elbowed him and walked out.

He grabbed her arm and pulled her into another room. It made me angry.

She came through the kitchen again with her mascara running down her face and her lipstick smeared. Duke came in whistling and got a beer out of the fridge.

Julia’s right to not like this guy.

Something falls off the night table and into my field of awareness. It rolls under the sham. Money twisted into a tube.

“I got it,” the woman says on the way back from the bathroom. She crouches down and swipes away the sham, grabbing the bill, and then, unexpectedly… me. “Look what I found.”

Duke’s leaning on the headboard with his dick in his hand. He grabs me with… thankfully… the other. “That’s must be what’s-her-face’s.”

“The hot fixer?” She clamps the rolled-up bill in her teeth like a cigar and straddles him. He puts me on the night table.

“You jealous?” His jaw’s grinding like a pepper mill.

“Yeah, duh.” She’s not kidding. She’s really jealous.

“I like that.” He takes the bill from her teeth and tosses it next to me. “I’ll bring it back to her personally tomorrow, and when I get back, maybe you’ll taste her on my dick.”

She pouts and tries to get off the bed, but he grabs her and fucks her again. She resists, but he forces her. It’s hard to watch. Getting turned by Julia’s left hand is more arousing. I’d rather she spins me on her fingertip the way she does before palming me.

The woman doesn’t seem to like getting fucked this rough. Her mascara runs and she cries. All I can think is, he wants to do that to Julia.

My flathead goes cold.

Duke walks out. The woman puts on her clothes and follows him.

I hear them fighting downstairs on the kitchen where Julia used me to straighten the switchplates.

Her hand used my ridges to maximize the torque, pushing down with the exact right pressure so she didn’t strip the screw threads.

Her twisting didn’t even stop when she talked to her team.

She learned Spanish to be better at her job, but it’s choppy.

Still, every word from those lips is a song.

And when she smiles… fuck, it’s like she’s singing in every language in the world.

I don’t even care that she doesn’t know I exist. My life ended a long time ago. I know she exists. That’s what’s important. She exists and she needs to be protected.

In the morning, a lady with white AirPods comes in.

She makes the bed, vacuums, dusts, sings a Spanish love song in harmony with whatever’s in her ears.

She picks me up, wipes the coke off the night table under me, and puts me back.

When she leaves, I’m still here. Left behind.

Forgotten. As the sun changes position, I have to admit I’m feeling a little sorry for myself.

A fly lands near me, rubbing its spindly legs together.

“Hello, Caspian.”

Is it talking to me? That’s my name but… how is that possible? I can’t even answer back. I don’t have a mouth.

“You don’t remember me.” It hops a bit, then stops to do more rubbing. What is this thing that knows my name? It can’t be just a housefly. It thinks I should remember it. Do I? The voice is sexless. There’s no accent or emotion in it. I’d remember a person like that. “Tools aren’t the brightest.”

When it flies away, I get nervous that it had something to say but lost patience with me. I enjoyed being seen and known again, even if it was just by a shit-eating insect.

It returns.

“It’s a good curse. Very sensible, I admit.

Maybe, however, a little too permanent. I didn’t know my own strength.

Sue me.” It pauses to hop in my direction.

“So, anyway. I’m up for what you might think of as…

a promotion. This puts me in a position to undo some of the things my power’s been used for. ”

I tense from the top of my handle to the edge of my flathead.

Am I being set free?

“I can’t just wave at you and make you a man again. You have to do something. You were cursed unjustly, but you and your friends were guilty of many human crimes. You must participate in your freedom.”

How?

Tell me.

How can I be a man again? If I was a man, I could speak to Julia. I could tell her that Duke wants his dick to smell like her. If I had fists, I’d punch his lights out before he even tried.

Tell me!

The door opens. The fly lifts off.

Duke grabs me.

I’ve kept up with the world as much as I can from the television, the conversations of people around me, and the YouTube videos Julia watches when she’s eating lunch.

That’s how I know I’m in the passenger seat of a Cybertruck. A man is yelling on the radio about communists and supplements. Then Duke changes to a music station.

I don’t remember much before I became Julia’s.

I remember even less about life before becoming a screwdriver.

I know the guys and I were in a box for a while.

We belonged to a man who loved us and cared for us and used us well for many years, but somehow resented us because he wanted to be doing something else with his life.

Then we belonged to Julia, and my world changed.

I found I had a heart again. I had a purpose. I was useful to her.

Me and the guys can’t talk to each other, but I remember their names, and when we’re all together, I can sense them around. I can tell they change when she’s using us. Enzo, the hammer. Tony, the level. And of course, Giancarlo the chisel. Their worlds revolve around her as much as mine does.

One thing I can’t do is tell them is that Julia’s in danger. I can’t tell them what the fly told me. They’d help me figure out what we have to do. I know they would. But unless the fly visits all of them we’re not on the same page.

So it’s up to me—a screwdriver bouncing on the passenger seat of a Cybertruck.

I’ve seen these on the TV and when Julia leaves me out.

I didn’t think the ride was this rough though.

Are the tires made of sheet metal? Is the road just a line of speed bumps?

Does anyone need to play Kid Rock this loud?

I don’t even have a nose or a digestive system and his cologne is making me sick.

I have to trust Julia.

She’s strong. She’s smart. She’s capable.

I have a fantasy of her driving my sharpest point right into his eye.

Me and her. A team.

“Hey there,” a dust mite says as I bounce near it. It’s the fly, but not. I’m glad to hear its voice again, because it was telling me something important before Duke walked in. “Sorry I had to bolt. Some bodies have more instinct than brain.”

What was it saying when it was a fly?

Yes. How to be free. Something about a curse, and participating in my freedom.

“Your crew turned your backs on your home. Your family. For what? A little trouble? You wanted to be forgotten, and now you are.” It pauses as if letting me think about what I’ve done.

“Personally, this isn’t a thing that concerns me, but for me to get my promotion, the breaking has to relate to the making. Thematically, if you know what I mean.”

Frankly, I do not.

The car jolts. I fly and land right on the mite. My weight doesn’t seem to affect it at all.

“You all must actively rejoin society. You must take up space in the heart of a community.”

How would that even be possible?

The mite speaks as if it heard my thoughts.

“When Julia gives you her full attention, you will be free to begin.”

She gives me attention every day.

I’ll be a man again in no time. I’m jittering with excitement. Though, of course, nothing about my jittering is visible to the naked eye, the talking dust mite can tell I’m eager for the next job.

“Not like that,” the mite says. “Not like a tool. Like a man.”

What?

How?

“You’ll have to charm her into using you.”

I can’t even talk to a magic bug. And even if I could, how will me “charming” her lead to her using me when everything she needs to use about me is…

Oh.

“You are concerned about your physical limitations. That is understandable. You will have one opportunity to gain her consent. You’ll know it when it comes. Don’t blow it. Disappointing me will have consequences.”

The car stops.

JJ McDick has brought me home.