From great failure to great success, it’s Geriatric Subtropical TSF Party Time!
Disclaimer: This work contains adult materials including sexually explicit activities, strong language, racist terminology, and human trafficking. This work is not suitable for minors. Reader discretion is advised.
Random #010: The Island of Doctor Bitz
Chapter 1: Welcome to Bitz Isle
A deep blue stretched on as far as I could see, uninterrupted by any clouds and stretching on until it was interrupted by the ocean below, sunlight shimmering off its placid waves. I tried for a moment to appreciate the sight, but with my vision being what it was and being hundreds of meters above the ocean below, it all looked like a mesh of color. A mesh of color that laid over the reflection of an old man named Caleb Jones.
With a flare from my nostrils, I moved my attention away from my window and looked passively at the plane I resided within. Colored off-white and lined with wooden accents, this was a rather nostalgic place for me, one where I facilitated deals worth billions, and the vessel that brought me around the world countless times. However, it has been neglected in recent years. As I retired, my desire to see much of the world diminished, proportional to my inability to truly experience all it had to offer. I clenched my misshapen arthritic hands as I reminded myself of this and gripped through my pants to clench the loose skin that encompassed my rigid legs.
While the sorry state my father and grandfather were in during their twilight years ought to have informed me of what fate awaited me as I aged, I remained optimistic, doing what I was ordered to by physicians, and never doing much more, only taking action to retain my mobility once it began slipping, and long after I could have truly limited the deterioration that had overcome my person this past decade. I knew it was natural, needing glasses to read, hearing aids to hear, and a walker to walk, but that fact did little to build comfort with the reality I lived every day. Which is why I was on this plane today.
I had wealth, I had two distant generations beneath me that never needed to work a day in their lives, and at this point, the only thing I desired in this world was to feel better, to be able to do things on my own, and I had people search for ways and methods to accomplish such a goal. They found a lot of bullshit remedies and treatments that did little to help my degenerating form, at least until someone finally discovered a facility, a resort, located on a private island that was said to have coveted methods of ridding a body of age, of restoring one to their youth.
I was naturally skeptical of such methods, but as I pursued this information further, and spoke to the supposed head of this island, who went by the name of Doctor Bitz, a likely pseudonym, my opinion began to change. They provided me with evidence of their results, showing a video recording of a man my age before and after the transformation. What was once a decrepit old man in his 80s became a spry young man who looked to be in the prime of his life, while still looking like the same person. This example was followed by several others, and whether due to desperation or faith, I began to believe in the results.
I wanted to believe in what I was hearing and seeing, but after the Doctor did not answer any questions about how the method worked, claiming it was a most vital trade secret, I was at an impasse. I sought additional comfort and certainty by broaching the matter with my wife, Raven, my lifelong friend and former business partner, Anthony Appleton, and his wife, Penny. It was during one of our periodic dinners together, and while my wife treated the subject with as much scorn as she does for everything else, the Appletons were supportive of the idea, as was my personal assistant, Melody.
Whether due to the wine we drank, the growing sense of desperation we felt as our biological clocks continued to tick ever so close to our deaths, or the detachment we all had to our wealth, we chose to pursue this venture, wiring over 50 million dollars for all four of us in exchange for a trip to this island, and a full guarantee that we will be satisfied by the month we spend at the resort and the transformation we underwent.
As I recollected the circumstances that brought me here, I looked upwards to see Melody standing next to me, offering me a small smile. She was a Ukrainian woman, age 39, had been assisting me with household activities for the better half of her life, and to say that I didn’t hire her at least partially for her looks would be an outright lie. She was a stunning woman when I first hired her as a household maid, and while she had lost her youthful luster, she still understood what I liked in her, and sought to accentuate that. Today, however, she was definitely dressing for the tropical climate, wearing her hair in a tight ponytail, dressing in a white buttoned shirt with the top two buttons undone, exposing plenty of her breasts, and leaving her legs largely exposed by wearing a black skirt that stopped a hand before her knees.
“Caleb, we should be landing in about five minutes,” Melody said in a sweet voice, her accent subdued, but still audible. “The local time is 11:11, the temperature is 25 degrees Celsius, and it will be incredibly sunny. You might want to wear these.”
As Melody spoke, she handed me one of my glasses cases, placing it gingerly into my lap. By the time I thanked her, she had already moved over to the rest of the people traveling with me, letting them know that we were landing soon and handing them their sunglasses, starting with my wife, Raven.
There are three regrets that haunt me throughout my life. Not striving to preserve my body, failing to secure a vital deal that would have made me a billionaire by age 40, as opposed to age 60, and marrying Raven. Our relationship was founded on maintaining good business, on our fathers wishing to pair the two of us together for the sake of business relations. It was a positively archaic practice at the time and contested by both of us, but we happened to take a liking to each other and got along well enough to not vehemently object to our father’s wishes, causing us to be wed at age 24 and 22 respectively.
However, we were both ambitious individuals, striving to succeed in our respective industries, and made little time for each other. We were busy, and whatever spark between us had diminished. Normally this would result in divorce, but in an effort to avoid the hassle and monetary losses that would follow such an action, we have remained together, living in the same home, and have not so much as slept within the same room for nearly 30 years. On one hand, I blamed myself for being too consumed by work, but she was as guilty as I was, and while I had attempted to reach out to her, she never offered me the same luxury.
Instead, she became a miserable old crone, her once prided looks having faded into a wrinkly sack that she too failed to stave off, with her nose, in particular, having ballooned into what could callously be described as a beak. Her default expression was that of contempt, rarely looking at anyone or anything without narrowed disapproving eyes. She was a woman who was always judging others, but never let her emotions billow out. Instead, they stewed, fermenting into a persistent disdain for all she came across. It could be seen with the scoff she gave to Melody as she placed sunglasses on her armrest, refusing to even look up from her book to acknowledge her. I would say this was simply how she treated Melody, as she never liked her from day one. But Raven didn’t like anyone.
Her bitterness was somewhat reflected in her outfit, dressing very plainly and unassumingly despite knowing the vast amounts of money we had spent on a trip. It was a far cry from the pride she once took in her outfits and appearance, but as everything about her began to sag, she abandoned such ambitions.
I next brought my eyes to Anthony, who giddily smiled and spoke to Melody, immediately putting on the sunglasses she gave him. Anthony was always the lively sort, and that remained true even as he aged, boasting a peppiness and energy that left me at least two decades ago, yet it still remained in him, despite only being three years younger than me. I suppose that was one of the many things I was jealous of Anthony for. Though gray and thinning, he still had a full head of hair. While clearly overweight, he was still more spry and mobile than I was at his age. And despite being only a fraction as wealthy as me, I envied how he used his money, having gone on numerous trips around the world in his life, and filling a modestly large home with art that he displayed with passion, as opposed to living in a giant empty mansion painted in art as a display of stature above all else.
I did not bear any animosity towards Anthony for what he had— he is like the younger brother I never had— but I still yearned for what he had, especially his relationship with his wife, Penny. Penny was not a child born from wealth like the rest of us. She was a free spirit who worked at a restaurant Anthony frequented, and from small interactions, their relationship blossomed into a strong friendship, and eventually romance. She had not the mind for finance and business, and made her living as an artist— a painter— one who found success only after I put out a press release claiming I would buy her most recent work for millions. I never did buy that painting or any of her work, but this lone press release was enough to grant her access to a very profitable career she continued to this day, still being lively and mobile enough to paint gorgeous images and walk without so much as a cane.
As I finished these observations, the jet slowly descended onto a runway and came to a smooth stop. As Melody and the pilot both came out to aid the four of us in getting off this plane, I looked out at the window and saw just where we landed. The lush jungle, the golden sand, and the cerulean waves that gently brushed along the shore. It was a calm and melancholic sight, reminding me of the first summer I spent with Raven after we married. We invited Anthony and his then-fiance Penny along the trip, and spent days together at the beach, ignoring and forgetting about the world around us. I lost a lot of money by not taking any calls, but I still cherished that time, and part of my drive to embark on a venture as rife with uncertainty as this was because I desperately wanted my life to be filled with more days like that before it came to an end.
Once the more able-bodied on the flight were escorted out, Melody came to me with a wheelchair in tow, supporting it as I shakily made a few steps to my another. I thanked her as she wheeled me off the plane, but as she did so, I passed by a mirror, revealing the strained and sagging mess that my visage had crumbled into. Wrinkles, spots darted across my skin and a head that I had fully shaved two weeks ago, rather than cling to something I had long since lost. All of this was confined to a chair, my body too weak and frail for me to safely do something as simple as walk more than a few feet. Despite this, I still tried to dress as properly as I always had, but as I saw myself slumped in my chair, I did not see a man who warranted respect, I saw a man who was bitter and broken enough to spend over 12 million on a chance to reclaim something he rightfully lost.
As Melody brought me off the plane, down the lift onto Doctor Bitz’s island, I was greeted by an intense light that momentarily blinded me even with my sunglasses, only clearing up once I was brought to the small huddling group of Raven, Anthony, Penny, and several suitcases.
“Oh my goodness, this place is so BE-A-U-TI–FUL!” Penny cheered as she looked past the flat land surrounding the airstrip we landed along.
“And that air too!” Anthony remarked as he took in a deep breath. “You can really smell the sea with every breath.”
“Yes, quite,” Raven sarcastically remarked. “Are we simply meant to stand here or are we going to be escorted to the resort? For the price we paid, it would be utterly inexcusable if we had to walk.”
“The Doctor said that we would be escorted to the facility shortly after arriving,” I replied. “I’m sure they have cars here considering the size of this place.”
While I had not looked out the window as we neared our destination, I still knew this island was 3 square kilometers large from Doctor Bitz and had paved roads connecting its various facilities, including the airstrip we landed at. Still, reminding her of this did little to appease Raven’s temper, which was so sour that she greeted the sight of a white van driving towards us with an annoyed sigh, as if waiting 4 minutes for something like this was unreasonable. As the van came to a steady halt, a door popped open almost immediately, and the driver came tumbling out, startling us as she walked from one end of the vehicle to another.
The driver was a young woman, no more than 1.5 meters tall, with curly brown hair that fluttered down past her shoulders, wearing a bright yellow sundress that, when combined with the intense sun pouring down on us, melded with her pale skin. The five of us looked at her with confusion, as she did not strike us as the sort of person who would work on a resort such as this. Her frame was dainty and thin, devoid of anything to express her age, her complexion was fair, almost alarmingly so, and her face made me question just how legal this resort was. …At least until she started speaking with the confidence and inflection of a mature woman.
“Hello everybody, my name is Winter, and I will be your driver for today. I can see that most of you have mobility aids, but don’t worry! We here at Bitz Und Stücke Ltd. view the safety and comfort of our guests as our number one priority, and have prepared a vehicle that adheres to globally recognized paratransit safety standards.”
As Winter concluded her introduction, she opened up the van’s back door and pulled down a ramp, revealing something not dissimilar to the one time I had to call for a handicap accessible taxi before retiring. It was similar to a standard minivan, but with only the driver, passenger, and back row of seats, while the center of the vehicle was empty, aside from several holes and notches placed along the flooring. It was all so the vehicle could fit and secure individuals bound in wheelchairs, such as myself, and while I bore a bitter expression at the sight of this, I knew it was for the best.
Winter then began asking everybody where they wanted to sit in the van, and it ended with Raven taking shotgun, Melody, Anthony, and Penny crammed themselves into the back seat while I had to be strapped in by this young woman who leaned over my person haphazardly in order to secure me. While such a thing would have once riled something in me, this girl was assuredly young enough to be my great-granddaughter.
Once the prolonged safety precautions were taken care of, and after our luggage was shoved in the trunk, Winter finally began to drive, taking us away from this land of asphalt, shrubbery and scattered sand and into the resort proper, passing by a scattering of buildings, including a general store, a clothing store, a restaurant, a platform several meters into the water, full of solar panels, a pair of wind turbines, and numerous buildings marked only by a mixture of a letter and number.
It was all an impressive establishment that had Anthony and Penny chatting between themselves, oohing and aahing at every new sight. However, more notable than the trappings of the island itself were the people walking around it, as all of them looked so… young. Nobody looked to be a day over 30, and while this may have been expected for a resort that rejuvenated people, the sight was still most curious and stirred something within Raven, who began asking questions before I could.
“So, I take it the methods of this Doctor must be very thorough considering how everybody looks, including yourself, Winter ”
“Well, what can I say? The Doctor is exceptionally good at what they do, and they share the benefits with those who work under them.”
“Hm, yes. And looking at the crowds, I cannot help but notice how… diverse they all are. Considering the price tag of this establishment, and its location off the American border, that is a bit odd, is it not?”
“Not really. Even though English is the primary language of this facility, the Doctor positions this facility as a global destination, and people from all over the world come here. Not just Americans like yourselves. I’d love to say more, but I am under contract to limit the details of the transformation to new guests. The Doctor prefers to dish out the details themselves. But worry not! We are just a minute away from our destination, and the Doctor should be waiting to greet you all.”
The drive itself was pleasant and roused a number of questions we hoped to answer, but the process of unloading everyone was still a slow and procedural one. Having everybody shuffle out one by one, securing and unpacking Raven and Anthony’s walkers, and unstrapping me out of the vehicle— it easily took longer than the drive from the airstrip to this facility, a fairly small building located right next to the port of the island, dubbed ‘Arrivals’.
After Winter directed us to the automated doors of this building, staying behind to transport our luggage to our room, we were met with a modest lobby with music playing softly in the background, but nobody we could see other than a beautiful young blonde woman attending the front desk.
“Good day and welcome to Bitz Isle!” The woman shouted as we shuffled our way to her desk. “You must be the… Joneses and Appletons, correct?”
“Yes, that’s us,” I answered as Melody pushed my chair.
“Wonderful! Any troubles in your travels, or was it all smooth sailing?”
“Don’t try to make friends with us,” Raven sourly croaked. “You know why we’re here. Just check us in.”
“Oh, Raven, be nice to the girl, would you?” Anthony jauntily requested. “She’s just doing her job.”
“No, no, it’s okay,” the receptionist said as she poked away at her terminal. “Some people don’t like the cheery attitude, and it’s our policy to cater to our patrons’ every desire. The doctor has been informed you’ve arrived, but I need to scan your IDs before you can see him. It’s just company policy, checks, balances, verifying your identities, that sort of thing.”
“Didn’t I already give you people everything when we made this arrangement?” Melody mentioned. “You should have their IDs and then some…”
“It’s just to verify you are who you actually say you are. So, if it’s not too much trouble…”
As the receptionist trailed off, Melody began gathering up our IDs as we pulled them from our wallets and handed them to the receptionist. She did something with them from behind the counter while squinting at us, likely in an attempt to verify we are who we said we were. As if somebody would try to steal our identities for something as hyper-specific as this. Regardless, after a minute we were sent free, with the receptionist telling us to head to room 111.
It was an unremarkable and mundane room that looked to be for presentations of some sort, with a projector jutting out of the ceiling, a projector screen on the wall, a lectern in the front of the room, and a scattering of a dozen padded dining chairs in the back.
“Oh, Doctor Bitz isn’t here yet,” Penny interjected, stating the obvious. “I suppose that’s not too surprising. Never in all my years have I met a doctor who could be described as ‘punctual’.”
We all sat down, except for me, I was already sitting, and made idle chatter while waiting for the Doctor. Or more specifically, Anthony and Penny were yucking it up about how they can’t wait to see more of this island, and asking about just how thorough this de-aging process is, smiling as they reciting methods they’d read or heard about, trying to uncover a mystery we would solve within a few minutes. Raven, meanwhile, stuck her face into a large print book, scoffing periodically as she indulged in trashy literature. Not because she enjoyed it. But because it gave her something to be mad at and feel superior to.
This calm for only a few minutes before the door was slammed open, immediately grabbing our attention as an enormous Latino man entered the room. He was no less than two meters tall, had the honed body of an athlete, and his hair was less than a centimeter in length. As I looked closer, noticing his tight black t-shirt and jeans, he drifted his eyes across the room, looking at everything, including the five of us, with a blank expression. After giving himself an affirming nod, he pulled the door all the way open and looked outside it.
“It’s all good, Doc,” the man said, gesturing for someone else to enter the room.
A young woman, one easily dwarfed by the man, then entered the room. Her thin figure was coated by a lab coat, and her exposed legs revealed dark skin only interrupted by a pair of sandals and lavender toenails, and a hand clutching the handle of a wheeled cooler with a black box attached to the top of the lid. I already had several questions about this individual, this supposed Doctor Bitz, but they only expounded as she finally turned to face us.
She was a Filipino woman with a finely crafted face, rich blonde hair that flowed down to her shoulders, dressed in an open lab coat, tight dark capris, and a pair of sandals. Her wardrobe clung tight to her person, revealing prominent curvature along her lower body, yet her chest, exposed by her form-fitting lab coat, was flat and bare, lacking any breasts.
I looked at her with my jaw agape, struggling to believe that the woman I spoke to was the same one I saw, let alone that this woman was even remotely respectable. She looked like a child tainted by youthful indulgences and radicalization. A woman who believed her unearned education made her more enlightened than those who controlled the world. A woman who had yet to live yet was filled with ideas that the world was corrupt and in dire need of a revolution.
I looked over to Anthony and Penny, whose eyes widened with surprise as they looked at this woman. Melody’s face twisted as she tried to mentally justify what she was seeing to herself. While Raven was looking at me, saying “you fucking idiot,” as well as one can without words. I wanted to say something to reassure her, but with my expectations betrayed, I could do little more than sit where I was and wait for the woman before me to finally speak.
She parked the cooler near the lectern before pulling one hand through her hair and another into her lab coat pocket, where she pulled out a small device she pointed at the overhead projector, which sprang to life, revealing an image projected on the white wall showing the island we were on at this very moment and text reading “Welcome to Bitz Isle.” She exchanged looks with the large man, presumably her bodyguard, before redirecting her attention towards us for the first time since she entered this room. She let out a loud clap as if she did not demand enough attention with her eccentric appearance and began to speak in a casual tone.
“Hello and welcome, one and all, to Bitz Isle. I am your doctor, and master of ceremonies, Doctor Bitz. But you all can just call me Bitz. Now then, I can see that all four— wait, no, there are five of you— what the fuck is going on here?”
As Bitz seamlessly flowed from joy to frustration, she began stomping her way over to us, more specifically towards Melody.
“Um, hey, so, you only paid for four treatments. I was only expecting four guests. Care to explain what you’re doing here, fifth wheel?”
“I am Caleb’s caretaker. I go with him everywhere. That includes on long plane rides and on vacations. It is what he pays me for, and has been that way for ever-so-long. I spoke with you, or at least someone who works for this establishment, and I believe I made my terms very clear.”
“Well, ya didn’t. Did Seita even try stopping you?”
“I assume you mean the blonde receptionist who greeted us just a few minutes ago. She did not stop us, even after I gave her my ID.”
“Oh for the love of turtle taint… Zachary, be a dear and fetch me Seita.”
The large Latino man, presumably named Zachary, then left the room in a huff, while Bitz directed her attention away from Melody and towards us.
“My apologies, my beloved patrons, but it appears we have had a bit of a communication error. All of you will begin your transformation soon, but first, I need to check a few things.”
Bitz then turned her back to us and began to sway her prominent hips left and right as she pulled a phone out of her pocket, poking away at its screen while making grunting noises to herself.
“I knew this was a waste of money, but I still let you talk me into it,” Raven bitched as she leaned over to my ear.
“Oh please,” I groaned. “Like you, of all people, would pass on a chance to look younger. This is just as much your mistake as mine.”
She let out a guttural grumble in response before we returned to watching this eccentric young woman poke away at her phone, only to lower her head and arms a few seconds later.
“Oh, MOTHERFUCKER!!!”
The banter persisting between Anthony and Penny ceased as Bitz’s voice boomed through the room, only to turn to the five of us with a twisted expression.
“I guess I’m the one who fucked up here. Goldarn it!”
The door burst open once more, this time revealing both the large Latino man Zachary and the blonde woman Seita, both of whom rushed to Bitz due to her outburst.
“I-I’m sorry Master Bitz,” Seita exclaimed, short of breath. “Everything looked good on my end, and while I did think it was weird that Melody was younger than our usual clientele, I—”
“Screw it, we’re skipping the intro,” Bitz said nonchalantly. “Zachary, open up der Kühler and get ready to jar these five. Seita, get some baggies and start folding. I’ll handle the Evocation.”
“Doctor Bitz, please,” Melody began. “I’m sure that we can arrange something. If an additional payment is needed, I just need to contact our bank. If there is a shortage of rooms, I have no problem sleeping on a chair or—”
As Melody tried to find a peaceful solution to whatever the problem was, Bitz drew closer to her and pulled something out of her lab coat. It took a moment for Melody, for all of us, to notice it, but from its shape alone, it was clearly a gun. A purple handgun with what looked to be a… water bottle sticking out from under the grip, aimed directly at Melody’s head, touching her skin.
“Sorry sister, I need to speedrun this shit if I want to maintain my reg sched. But don’t worry, this is only temporary.”
Even as the four of us voiced our surprise and told Bitz to stop, she showed no hesitation in pulling the trigger. While this would normally be met with a loud bang… that’s not what we heard. Instead, it was a slurping noise, something akin to water rushing down a drain rapidly. For a moment, this filled me with a false sense of security, assurance that Melody might be okay. That she, the one woman who kept me going in this world, the one person I’ve relied upon more than any other, might still be okay. Then, a second later, her body was left crumbling to the floor… but not in the way I expected.
It was as if she were drained of all flesh. As if the bones had been removed from her body. The only thing draping the carpeted floor of this room was her clothes and… her skin. The layer that was Melody, her face, her arms, her entire body, but all wrinkled and folding in on itself as if it were a thorough costume, reprising every one of her features from head to toe, with the exception of her mouth and eyes, which were black crevices.
I could not comprehend what I was looking at, how this was possible, how all her mass and volume could simply disappear like that, let alone how she could be drained like this from a fucking gun. All I knew is that Melody had been hurt in some way, and I could not allow this transgression to go unpunished. I pried my eyes away from Melody’s body to look up at Bitz, who was unscrewing the bottle from the bottom of the gun. A bottle that was once empty, yet now contained a glowing green substance.
I yelled at Bitz unintelligibly, asking them hows and whys as I stood up from my wheelchair, shakily placing my legs on the ground in an effort to get closer to her. She smiled at my gesture as she handed the full bottle to Zachary in exchange for an empty one she screwed onto the gun with ease. I raised my hands out at Bitz, reaching out to them in an effort to stop them as I moved like a frail shambling Frankenstein’s monster.
As I grew closer, as Bitz was a single step away from my grip, she leaned forward and stretched out her hand, pressing her gun against my forehead. I paused as I felt the cold metal gripping my person and locked eyes with Bitz, who widened her smirk as she spoke to me.
“Bis zum nächsten mal, Herr Jones.”
As a slurping sound flowed through my ears, my consciousness faded and everything was replaced by nothingness. At that time, I thought this was the cold grip of death embracing me, and for as much as I dreaded this moment, I could not righteously complain. I lived a long and prosperous life. I achieved much during my 84 years. I wanted to live longer. I wanted to live better. I wanted a second chance at life, another opportunity to prevent my body from falling into its dismal state. That is why I came to this island. But for all my trouble, all I got was a gun shoved in my face. I thought my life would have ended then and there… but it didn’t. It started anew.
TSF Series #010: The Island of Doctor Bitz
Chapter 1: Welcome to Bitz Isle
Chapter 2: In With the New
Chapter 3: Double Degeneracy
Chapter 4: Post-Coitus
Chapter 5: Bitz Und Stücke
Chapter 6: Third Embrace