What Remains

“The marriage of reason and nightmare.”
— J. G. Ballard

The sun pierced through the gaps in the bamboo blinds across our bedroom window. Though I was already on the precipice between the waking and the sleeping world, I allowed myself the leisured pleasure of basking in the quiet contemplation that came only from lying alongside the slight but warm curves of my dear Marguerite.

Her breath, her strong but relaxed frame tucked in against my own, neatly and beautifully.

These moments were precious to us both.

Before she woke and before the cycle began.

Again.

I’d whisper lovelorn poetry, and we’d share humorous thoughts and childish jokes while we could.

Once we rose, were nourished and hydrated, we entered the ceremonial bathing pavilion and cleansed ourselves, before our skin was purified and sanctified in the finest natural oils and ointments.

Before we entered the altar room, I squeezed her hand extra hard. “I’m sorry,” were the only words uttered.

Once inside the altar room, she took her place upon the altar with her delicate, glistening skin — an engaging but heavy sight.

I took my position above her, our bodies interlocked, and I sensed the burden on her shoulders as ritual — our communion — began.

Before the hour was up, our constitutionals drew to a close, as our sacrificial discharges poured out. We were spent and drained as we made our way back to our quarters for dinner and hydration.

Before long, we were laid out, tired and weary, in bed. Whispered “I love you”s and shared minutiae of devotion were exchanged between us. Night fell and we drifted off to sleep.

The sun pierced again through the blinds, alerting my slowly waking body to the fact it wasn’t long before our apotheosis began.

Again.

Still time, though short, to etch my love upon her heart through bold and underrated prose. The sound of her heated, nervous laughs and the kisses we shared beyond the ceremonial bathing pavilion and altar room reminded me of the why.

Once bathed and moisturised, we were slaves to the tightened rules of reverential congress.

Everything was timed precisely.

Once we entered, sanitised for our daily veneration, Marguerite lay on the glorified shrine within the chancel. She was beautiful but burdened behind the eyes. Only I could see it. Our rite, our sacrament wore us down, but we drew from it what we could — worked through the erasure and distortion.

One hour.

If we tried to stretch it beyond that time, there were consequences. So within the hour, we completed our daily offering. Then took dinner by candlelight, hands clenched in silence before night fell and sleep offered release and relief. Reclamation. If temporary and temporal.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered as Marguerite gave way to sleep.

As the sun swept through the gaps of our bamboo blinds, slowly stretching across my eyes, I became aware as ever of Marguerite’s slight but warm presence against my limbs and chest. My favourite time of each day was these moments — these stolen seconds outside our sacrificial observance.

Before we entered the sanctuary and gave of ourselves more than we could, I felt Marguerite had drawn progressively away internally. Still, there was affection. Still, there was devotion.

But rationed. Rationalised rations of emotional tête-à-tête.

Because. Soon.

Again.

Our ritual would be performed. Our value established and legitimised upon the altar. Where she would be laid out, sublime and supple, for one hour.

Expectations would be met. Because they must. Again.

Embraces were left until after, despite the pained keratosis that arose following each sacrificial congress.

“I’m sorry” was never enough. Never really.

But she knew.

Our dinner in arms tightly wrapped, as night and sleep were welcomed.

—
We try, and we might — try as we fight to sustain the poetry of our youth.

The meaning of why we set out on the journey we chose.

The meeting of minds and hearts, becoming one — a singular heart, soul, connection.

Long nights spent together, embraced.

Days crafting and creating a future that felt impenetrably pure and beyond corruptible.
—
So much becomes flotsam and jetsam in time — tumbleweeds and driftwood carried away and lost. Memories that become pinpricks in rear-view mirrors in the passage of time.

At once so close, then so far away.
—
You try to remember.
You try not to fight the inevitable.
—
As the grinding of the machine becomes indecipherable from the grinding of flesh on flesh, in celebration and reverence of your love.

What becomes of the passion and the promise when performance is perfunctory?

When expectations are met, regardless of held hesitations.

Demands quietly asserted as consent forcibly affirmed.
—
I remember between silken sheets, our bodies pressed in and entangled.

Before the tagging, the branding, the sensors fitted to adjust the lighting and atmosphere — from everyday to dry-ice, smoky, hazy, low-light boudoir.
—
Before that, there was just us.
Private and intimate.
Instinctive, not institutionalised.
—
I remember.
In my youth, when love was unexplored territory and lust and sex went hand in hand with genuine emotional response.
Before bankruptcy.
Before stunting.
The paths we took to reach where I had led us.
—
Gianna lay prepared.
—
I misread it as arousal — what was dissociative performance.
My balls felt heavy as I pierced through and felt her collapse beneath me.
—
Her heart hitched, her breath strained, but her emotions dissipated.
As the tension and inertia crept, as she became a trophy and atrophy forced entropy to reverse.

As before, so again, as she rolled over and took her place again beneath me.
—
My pummel-horse mule.
Wanton beast of burden.
—
My sweat dripped down her back
as her body sank down,
one with the mattress,
collapsed through reluctance and
acceptance
of nothing better
ever a possibility.
—
His weight over me felt like a comfort in the beginning.

Familiarity.

His weight over my mouth, my widening hope and hips, my belly pressed down underneath.

Looking out at the faceless faces engaged in our dissociation through the safety of the partitional barriers around our enclosure.

—
“I am here as an observer only.

Subject A and Subject B are still functioning fully but are showing signs of fatigue. Their genitalia have shown the same signs of degradation as previous exhibits.

The enclosure remains safe and meets sanitation standards.

There is no sign of early obstinance as the subjects are now fully compliant.

I only record names when requested. Though it seems very arbitrary, as they change so often.

It is not my place to question what happens to occupants of the enclosure when they are sent away.

I am here as an observer alone.”

—
Silent observers, absolved of blame, guilt, and shame, because
we never were forced —
coerced into inhabitation —
as our habit ideation became
our only sensation.
—
There’s a brutal honesty in the cessation of sensations, devoid of the liminal gasps between chase and capture.

Inhibitions stripped like a ceremonial dissection.

Love without chase, without capture, is unremarkable.

Our bedding was well maintained and our habitat sanitised — not just of germs, but bacterial emotions.

Ann.

Who is Ann?

The question remains.

Typo, or bleeding memorials of before —

Ann, who didn’t survive, as Gianna took her place.

Can you separate the user from the whore?

What came first?

Who cares,

as long as someone does.
—
As long as hope is waning and weighed down by the weight of my body.

The acceptance of her sanctuary, exposed and devastated.

Laid bare — skin to skin — ripened and ruined flesh.

Moral and mortality decayed as lessons in what happens when love is forgotten, and the body is reframed as machinery.

The stench of our habitat, despite sanitised on the surface, was of ripe bodies. Acridity and salivary mixed with the menstrual, seminal, and vaginal.
—
Until it’s forgotten.

The captors continue to keep us locked away as the system crumbles around us. The stench of purchased power — of coercive authority swollen with greed.

Just as we have seen when zoos and so-called nature reserves and conservation projects expand and eventually impose, that was the path we were on.

Ann was another stop, another pivot — a plot point with one purpose.

One use.

The spoils and exhibitional treasures of the hunts for those who are ripe for use and eventually discarded.

We were of no consequence, as Gianna and Ann were mere avatars of flesh; so too were the hundreds of others on display — younger and older.

But without end in sight.

Our habitat would be abandoned eventually.

We were aware — but for now —
—
Night or day, when the candles are out, and the spectators leave, the cuts and bruises never fully heal, and when I look into her eyes, I see only an empty husk:

a toy that has served its function and purpose.
—
Night or day, when the candles are out, and the spectators leave

What remains

*

Thanks for reading!