The I of the Storm
Chapter I: Homophones and Hurricanes
As the wind howled outside, James was just happy he’d remembered to put up shutters and buy a generator. This hurricane might affect other people, but it wouldn’t harm him. Not today; he was prepared. So as he sat playing some random indie first-person shooter video game on his laptop, he smiled. And then his smile faded when the lights cut out and his laptop showed him the error message, “No Internet Connection Found”, kicking him out of his game. “Shit!” he yelled, but he waited patiently for that generator to kick in. It didn’t.
Groaning, he removed his headphones and headed towards the front door to check the generator. He looked through the peephole to make sure it was safe to go outside... it wasn’t. Not at all. The storm was raging, and the technical problem was obvious: a tree had falling onto his porch, uprooted, and crashed into the generator. James sighed; at least it hadn’t crashed through his window. But he couldn’t go outside now to try and fix it, so he’d have to live without power or internet for a bit.
He turned to head back to his laptop, planning to listen to some music until his battery died, but he stopped in his tracks. Sitting on his living room couch, casually as though he lived there, was a strange man. Strange in that James had never seen him, but also just plain odd. In a weird way, it was like looking into a mirror: some people might say they were brothers. But the man’s hair, despite being in the same style as his own, was a bright blue, and though he was clearly more muscular than James had ever been, his clothing seemed to flow around him, like a breeze incarnate.
James, startled, just stared for a moment. “Well, are you just going to stare at me all day, or at least say hi?” The man grinned.
“Um...uh... who the hell are you?” was all James could manage to make his mouth say.
“Okay, straight to the point, then!” the man said, rubbing his hands together, but not leaving the couch. “I am the I of the storm!”
James narrowed his eyes. “No, the eye of the storm is still miles away. They said it on the weather report a few minutes ago, before the power went out.”
“I didn’t say that, James Franti. I am not the eye of the storm, e-y-e. I’m the I of the storm, as in... I. As in... you.”
“Okay... I’m not going to pretend that made any sense, but I am going to tell you that you can’t be here. I don’t even know how you got in, but this is trespassing.”
“Oh,” said The I, feigning sadness. “So you’d kick someone outside in weather like this? You’d let a poor, lonely man just... die? Perish away with the clouds?”
James sighed. “No... no, I wouldn’t. But as soon as the wind calms down, you really do need to leave.”
“Great!” The crocodile tears were replaced immediately with an alligator smile, full of teeth that shined impossibly, covered in a slightly unsettling amount of wet saliva. “Then I guess I should explain why I’m here, eh?”
“To escape the storm?” James guessed. He wasn’t really interested; he was just a little creeped out that the man was in his house, but mostly, he just wanted to ride out the storm in relative peace.
“Oh, how incredibly wrong you are, James Franti.”
“Wait...” A crank had just turned in his brain: that was the second time the man had used his full name. “How do you know my name?”
“Because, James, like I said: I am the I of the storm. And this time, the I is the You.”
“Stop with the riddles! Just tell me who you are!”
“The world isn’t the way you’d like it, is it? So many things are different from how you’d prefer. People think differently than you. Morals are immoral, modesty is prudish, the people you like don’t like you, and the people you love don’t know you exist. Money goes to the people who don’t deserve it, while you toil away working for your next meal in sweat. The world is upside-down, compared to how you see it. And that’s why I’m here: because from now on, the world will be My World... that is, the world will be Your World.”
James wanted to yell, “What the actual fuck are you talking about?!”, but all he could do was crinkle his eyebrows in confusion and mumble, “Wuh?”
“I see a demonstration is in order. And that won’t be hard to do, since your morals are so misaligned with the rest of the world. Or rather, theirs are misaligned with you; it’s all relative, really. Come, sit next to me and let’s watch some television.” The I clicked his fingers, and the TV came to life.
James wouldn’t normally have sat next to the strange man. But how had he gotten into the house? How had he turned the TV on with his fingers? And how had he turned the TV on at all when the power was out and the generator was down? Something was very, very wrong here, and James knew he didn’t need to question it, because he was about to find out what. So he silently made his way to the couch and sat next to his visitor, reluctantly taking his eyes away from the man and looking at the screen instead.
“Have you ever watched ‘All in the Family’, James?”
“A... a few times. It’s an old show. Boring.”
“Ah, but this episode is wonderful! Watch with me.”
James watched as the intro played, that old-timey theme tune about missing the “good ol’ days” where life was great and people were better. Ironic now that the show itself was part of the “good ol’ days”. And as the intro faded and the show began, James nearly had a stroke.
The camera panned in on Archie Bunker, the main character, fucking his daughter from behind. They were having a normal (if a bit racist) conversation while going at it like dogs, interspersed with various exclamations along the lines of, “Oh, Daddy! Harder, deeper, please, Daddy! I need your cock!”
The strange man on the couch grinned wider at James’s incredulous reaction. “Incest. You never saw a problem with it, so now thanks to me, neither does the rest of the world.”
“I don’t... but I...”
“Okay, fine, you’ve twisted my arm: we’ll have another demonstration.” He clicked his fingers again, and the channel changed to some science and discovery station. “Oooh, I love this show! Isn’t nature just glorious, James?”
He watched with barely a breath as the narrator spoke: “Wild dogs, of course, have bitches to mate with when in heat. But domesticated dogs may not, so most often their owners will provide bitches for them. While any slut off the street will do, a woman the dog has an emotional bond with will provide much better ejaculation odds for the hound.”
The narration was overlaid on a video clip of a naked woman—a very human woman—being mounted on all fours by a large Labrador retriever. Though the clip’s audio was lowered for the sake of the narration, you could still clearly hear her moaning in time with the dog’s panting, and muttering, “Yes, yes, yes Rover yes, gaahhh!”
The strange man interrupted. “Bestiality; never had a problem with that, either, have you? At least she seems to be having fun.”
“A smaller dog may have trouble mounting a human,” the documentary continued, “and in those cases, a simple blowjob can help. A sexually frustrated dog will hump everything; but one whose cum has been swallowed or pumped inside a bitch of any species will be much more docile.”
“Well, I think my work here is done,” said The I, and the TV turned itself off. “I think you get the point. This world is yours now; if you think something is wrong, so does everyone else. If you like something, so does everyone else. And as far as they know, that’s how it’s always been; you’re just another normal person in another normal world. Far better than the way things were before, when you had to hide your interests and beg for romantic exploits. If you could call that romance, I suppose.”
James was still speechless, but he didn’t have to say anything more, as the man jumped out the window. No, not out the window; he jumped through the window. Without breaking it. Like a ghost. And James watched him fly up into the clouds and fade away.
Suddenly, the electricity returned. The lights came on, and so did the TV again. He thought about flipping through the channels and making sure he wasn’t going crazy, but if he were crazy, he’d probably keep seeing the same strange television shows anyway, right? He needed something outside himself... someone outside himself... to confirm that his sanity was intact. So he turned the TV off and picked up his mobile phone from the coffee table, dialing his sister’s number.
“Hey, Jennie, are you okay?”
“Yeah, yeah, we’re all good here. Still have power and internet and everything, but it’s rough outside. What about you?”
“I’m... good. Power flickered off for a bit, and the generator’s down, but I’m okay.”
“Good. I’m glad we stocked up on supplies, too.”
“Yeah. I have more water here than I’ll ever need. I could make my own ocean if I wanted.”
Jennie laughed. “Yeah, me, too. And food. And lube.”
“Okay, I did not need to know about the lube. Save that for Tim.” Tim was his brother-in-law, his sister’s husband, and he and James never really got along.
“What, are you worried I won’t have enough left for when you come over? I’m telling you, I have plenty to go around, you can both share me.”
“Uh...what?”
“Ugh, fine. Worth a shot. I wish you and Tim got along better, though, because I’d love to have both of you inside me at the same time. I’d even let you pick the hole you want, Tim can pick second! Just think about it, okay?”
“I...uh...” So it was true. His most incestuous, bizarre fantasies (minus Tim, of course) were now just a normal part of everyone’s everyday. Jennie was practically begging for her brother’s cock, and she didn’t think there was anything out of the ordinary about it. Because there wasn’t. Because “the ordinary” was now “his ordinary”. But if that was true, then that meant...
“I’ll think about it, you slut. Maybe Tim can choke you with his dick to keep your mouth quiet while I pound your sexy ass.” Definitely a bit overboard, but how else could he be sure?
“Aw, why are you being so sweet all of a sudden?” She sounded pleased. Not a drop of sarcasm in the slightest. James always liked dirty talk, so now everyone just thought it was... romantic? Or just polite? James pondered that for a moment and decided it was just polite, because he never saw romance in it, and so why would anyone else?
“I don’t know. Maybe it’s the storm... the I is coming, you know? I guess I just miss you.”
“Aw, I miss you, too,” she said, missing the difference in homophone usage. “When the weather clears, we’ll meet up and have a crazy 12-hour fuck session like we used to when we were kids, okay?”
James didn’t remember ever doing that, but he wished he did. “That sounds like a great plan. I’ll think of you while I jack off tonight.”
“And I’ll think of you while Tim is fucking me tonight, too. You know, you really should get a girlfriend, or at least a pussy pal, for those days you stay in.”
“Yeah...working on it...”
“Anyway, I won’t nag. I’m glad you’re okay. Talk to you soon.”
“You, too, cock-loving bitch.” He couldn’t help testing it one last time.
“Love you, too, James.” Click.
There was more to this than James realized at first. Not only was the world now aligned with his desires, but because it was, he could do anything. Anything at all. Because anything he thought was fine, everyone else did, too, so there could be no consequences for him. Ever. If he thought it was right for him to steal a million dollars from the bank vault, he could literally walk in and ask for it, because the teller would agree.
Not that he cared much about money. He was low-maintenance, and as long as he had the basic necessities and a few hobbies, material goods didn’t interest him. What he wanted was love, companionship, a hot piece of ass to stick his cock in. Not necessarily in that order. Being introverted and alone had taken its toll on James, and now he would shred that toll and take back his social life.