Stories

When she offers you the chalice, the liquid within tastes like nothing you can recall tasting before—a heady blend of hothouse flowers, their sweetness tainted by the humid decay of their growth, and thunderstorm petrichor, all shot through with a thick and hungry musk. You swirl it on your tongue, trying to understand the scents seeping up into your mind; your eyes close for a moment, and when they open she has left your side, gone over to busy herself at the stove, suspiciously nonchalant. She doesn’t look at you, but she doesn’t need to. ...

When she first took a knife to herself, she did not think to find anything more than the release of pain; so she was quite surprised, not to say a bit taken aback, when the knife’s passage through too-rough flesh was interrupted by the wholly unexpected presence of a gearbox, a plastic-sheathed assemblage quietly ticking away just before her wrist’s joint. When she was done being astonished—done listening to the gears and seeing how her fingers twitched when she poked at it—she went looking for more. ...

When scientists first started experimenting with genetically programmed radical body plan modifications (which isn’t what they called it—they had a catchy acronym and a billion-dollar PR firm and everything you don’t), the first dozen generations did not go particularly well. They jabbed needles into eggs and grew monsters: pathetic, mewling things with their bones on the outside or no bones at all, with the wrong number of limbs or the wrong number of hearts, things which were little more than bundles of cancer clawing at the womb that held them. ...

“Are you sure?” “Yes, of course.” “Really? There’s no backing out, not after this.” “Y-yes. I’ve wanted this for so long. I need this.” “Well.” Her last word, spoken from a hundred mouths, echoes around the large chamber. She draws it out, letting her bodies desynchronize to add emphasis. Or maybe to give you time to speak, which, of course, you don’t. Then she comes forward to embrace you. Not all of her – most of her bodies stay lounged on couches and pillows, wrapped around one another – but enough arms and hands and mouths to short out your gay little mind for a long moment, to fill your body with taut warmth in longing reflection of her bodies’ heat. ...

Notes: I wrote this back in ‘17 and haven’t rewritten or substantially edited it since. It’s heavily inspired by the stories “drip” and “vending machine woman” in Trashgasm #2, if you’ve read that. The date on this piece is not reflective of when I posted it anywhere or even when I wrote it; it simply feels appropriate to claim that I wrote it one year after beginning my transition. It’s late in the day when I finally remember to eat. Busy, busy, busy, and I can feel the emptiness in my account. My last meal didn’t last as long as it should have. Shouldn’t have expected anything else from a street vendor. ...