I had fun last year trying to answer the above questions for my twitter, though I only got about as deep as #7. So ahead of a longer and more intense post about two all-time great bands coming to this blog, I figured I'd share some short, sweet reasons why I like these forty songs. Here we go.

I cry almost every time to this one. Beach Boys producer Jack Rieley's vocal makes it sound like the tree is really dying. I also can't help but feel like humans are a disease, and it's disturbing.

Absorbing seminal matter, the Duchess of Queensbury wailed flatulently and worked her tendrils into the crusty sinuses of the assembled machinists of the Steel Menagerie. There, they wrapped around the errant tracts of their shaken guts. She brought forth the intestinal tunnelage of the forsaken men and nonbinaries to her festering pile of decomposing biomaterial, from which she would birth the next World Mother.
          Errol Matthis receded from her grasping, suckling opening and regarded the devastation. The Menagerie laid in ashes, thick roiling clouds of evaporated blood rising to the sky. THe despot king Joe Gallow and all his insipid heirs were dead.
          "How do ya like that?" cried Errol, "'Yer feckin' wealth asn't done ya no favors, ya eedjit. There's only room for one man in this World To Come, and it ain't you! It's 'ole Errol with his magic cock!"
          The Duchess inverted her orifice and wiggled down into her bio-pile. She craned her long neck down, low enough for Errol to see her face clearly for the first time.
          Her sockets were dark and eyeless and betrayed some of the Cataclysm's horrors so irrevocably witnessed in their depths. Above them, the deep punctures left by the duchess's old crown circled her forehead. From each wound sprang a rivulet of congealed blood and cerebrospinal fluid within the trenches of her sallow skin. Her new crown was six black spikes that started where her ears should have been and curved upwards. Her full beautiful lips were crusted yet wet with purplish ichor. These she parted to address Errol:
          "There is no room," spoke the duchess, sliding a tendril around his waist, "For you, 'nor for anyone. Only my lovely daughter and I shall persist in the World That Has Come."
​           And with that, the world came.

​Edwin's mistress bade him do violence unto her. He trawled the mocking pedway, so unyielding to the needs of pedestrian traffick. 

"My lady," he muttered good-naturedly to himself, "Is a sorely desperate sort. She rots to mere gummatous fibrin without my loving."

He crossed unperturbed above the lanes and lanes of self-directing chariots below, each one the host of a lonely and insulated individual. 

Edwin was different from them, for his purpose was granted divinity through brutality and ritual. He reached the pedway's end and sank through the yellow hatch to the pavement below. There he grinned at an unassuming gate and was swiftly granted entry to her dominion.

Vibrant and teeming as it was with simulated phosphorescence and the rapidly blooming-then-decaying phalaenopsis, she seemed a tame sight in her comfortable outerwear. What was underneath could inspire either feeble longing or resentment, though, for the uncomplicated state-mandated features the bourgeois could access for their progeny.

"I was musing," she began, "That you could do to me what the fascists did to my mother." Her mother had refuted the unborn their right to live, ten or twenty times. There was a distinctly horrible punishment for that type of thing.

Marc is almost thirty now. The last time we interacted was when he texted me to let me know he'd read my last interview with him. He didn't tell me whether or not he liked it. Now he's texted me again, to let me know him and bandmate Dan Becker are doing the final mix for their new album, Aux Nero Theos. It' been four years since their last album, and there's a lot to talk about with their new one. I agree to another interview. I'm curious.
​
I'm curious about Marc because I've never really gotten to know him. I met co-founder and guitarist Dan at one of the first Spak shows and became good friends with him, collaborating a lot from 2015 to 2019. But despite Dan's significant artistic influence, I always find myself more drawn to Marc's work, particularly the range of his emotional output. It's sometimes confuses me where his lyrics come from, and that certainly applies to the album I have now listened to multiple times. 

​Marc and Dan recorded Aux Nero Theos in a small property (possibly a shed?) near Rochester, Minnesota, where Dan lives with his wife Joanne. They completed the last of their additional sessions with drummer Saahir Manjani and bassist/singer John Hadel in early December 2022. After that, Marc flew back to Seattle for the holidays, which he spent with friends, and to mix the album on his laptop, as well as record two more songs, "Waiting" and "Your Holes", with friend and fellow Seattleite Mako Wanata (open mic regular and artist in her own right). This gave us a great opportunity to conduct our interview in person, which we did at Marc's friend's apartment, where he's currently staying.

The wind was blowing. Cherry blossom trees,​ brought from across the sea centuries ago, were in abundance. Their flowers drifted down in clusters, catching a stiff breeze and vaulting ahead towards the decayed buildings in the distance. Other leaves and assorted detritus from the ground joined them in great flurries. I pitied the squirrels who had no chance to collect nuts in all nature's commotion. Yet I relished this day. The crisp air which was beginning to take on the mystical properties it had at night invigorated me from within. 

As I approached the wide, looming building on the hill, I heard voices that told me I wasn't alone. It wasn't until I passed the last of the decayed smaller structures that I saw their owners, three older sapphics and a young man with gauges and a septum piercing. These were the first people I had seen in almost a year. I made no attempt to engage them but instead stopped and admired the edifice they were conversing beside.

The cracked and ancient single-story was mostly brick with some cement. The corners of the building had mostly crumbled to ash but here they had been replaced with newer wooden construction by locals. The wood was painted over colorfully, with overlapping patterns and even some crude character art here and there. It didn't fit perfectly, but it was quality work and gave the place a unique charm. Over the door hung a sign advertising "Live Music + Performance". I pulled the flyer I had found last week out of my jacket pocket. The place seemed to match the crude drawing on the front.

"Hahaha wow it's been so long since I've been to one of these shows! I can't believe it!" the queer guy said excitably.

"This is literally the first place like this there's been in decades, Slayden," replied one of the sapphics, a woman with purple bangs and an Invader Zim shirt.

"Hahaha wow that's so cool!" said Slayden.

"Yeah,"

The two stared at each other intensely, Slayden's head bobbing up and down slightly in silent emphatic agreeability whilst his goth acquaintance stood perfectly still. The other sapphics and I turned our heads this way and that, taking interest in the blossoms in the air and the remarkable stitching of our rolled up pant legs.

"You wanna go in?" asked the goth.

"Not yet!" said Slayden, "Too dark!"

"Okay,"

"You're very pretty!" said Slayden.

His sapphic acquaintance nodded serenely in thoughtful agreement. Her friends flashed each other a look and walked into the venue. I decided to follow them in, hoping at least to escape the overwhelmingly powerful and off-putting sexual tension of the highly height-differentiated pair. As I stepped past the door held politely open by a sapphic woman in a maroon coat I croaked a meager "Thank you," and the wind grabbed the flyer out of my hand. In its rush to fill the dark lively room, the wind shot my flyer under a table in the corner, where the name of tonight's act could not be viewed.

"Whoops!" exclaimed the milf in the maroon coat sympathetically.

"Thanks! I mean, shit!" I said. She looked confused and unnerved and walked away. I slunk over to the bar and ordered a Moscow mule. I brought it to the nearest empty table and nestled it in both hands. The bar patrons were all chatting and flirting happily as though seasonal affective disorder was a distant memory. Meanwhile, my eyes were glued to the stage, where I examined the gold glittery curtain for any sign of movement. I brought my drink up to my lips.

"GOOD EVENING, LADIES AND GENTLEGAYS!" boomed a deep voice over the PA, making me spill my drink. "THANK YOU ALL FOR COMING TO THE OPENING NIGHT OF FREDDY FUCKBEAR'S DRINKS & DRAG!"

There were cheers and general commotion. A few "Yass Qween!"s from the patrons. The milf in the red coat shouted, "Slay!" It had been years since I had heard such generic gayspeak. Wait, I thought, am I a milf now too? Shit, I think I am. A childless milf, at that.

"TO HELP US CELEBRATE OUR GRAND OPENING, WE HAVE AN ACT HERE THAT WE'RE SURE YOU'VE ALL MISSED DEARLY! THE SUBJECT OF A HUNDRED WET DREAMS AND THE MAN EVERY BOTTOM THINKS ABOUT WHEN HE'S GETTING FUCKED FROM BEHIND! HE'S HOT, HE'S KIND OF A LOT, HE'S GOING TO SHOW YOU WHAT HE'S GOT! THE ONE AND ONLY... GRAHAM COCKS!!!"

The curtain flew open to louder cheering and a burst of nostalgic music. Standing there on stage was Nash as Graham, with mustache applied, chest bound, and wearing full twunk regalia. Suddenly my heart started pounding in my chest and my cool demeanor disintegrated. I was reduced to a yearning, mewling beast.

Nash left the green room half an hour after the show. She still had gel in her hair but had changed into a white tank top and black pants with suspenders. I was still at my table, my heart still pounding and my glass still empty. Our eyes met. She ran at me and slid over the table, knocking the glass to the floor where it shattered on the concrete. She grabbed me by the waist and lifted me off the ground. I started laughing, but my eyes were watering too. She put me down and held my face between her palms. When she saw the tears she kept smiling but wiped them away with one hand while she held my hand in the other.

"C'mon, kid," she said, "Let's go home."

I nodded. She took me home and fucked me with a strapon. It was pretty nice. 

Chapter One || Previous Chapter

In mere moments I faced the man in black in the White once again. The impossible emptiness of the place, the sight of which had taken on a dreamlike unreality in my memory, filled me with unease. The man himself, and the feeling he was now observing me from both the inside and outside, made me even more uncomfortable and self-conscious. I farted nervously, and a dollop of cum fell out of my naked posterior and blipped out of existence near my feet.

"Oh, my- fuck I'm sorry-" I sputtered, trying to cover my bare tits.

"Hey, really- it's fine," said the man in black, "I literally don't care at all. I just want to-"

I started backing away stiffly, hunched over with my knees pressed together as I tried to cover my tits and my dick while holding in a fart. The man in black gave me an offended look. I straightened my back in faux confidence and attempted to strike a Venus of Botticelli pose.

"H-hey, do we have to do this right now?" I asked, "Could you send me back to the bathroom real quick so I can deal with, uh, the stuff? The stuff that you kinda made me put in my butt, and stuff?

"What? I didn't make you put that dick in your butt. I was just going to test how long you could survive in a room haunted by the sight of your lover's disembodied penis!"

"Oh," I said.

The man in the black peacoat shook his head and looked toward his wagon, pulling on the handle slightly. I blinked and found myself on the cliffside of a soaring mountain. Behind me there was endless unspoiled sea and before me a sprawling untamed forest. There was no hint here of man's destructive influence, only nature's raw beauty. In the distance I could hear the noises of some prehistoric creature and I saw the silhouettes of pterodactyls, like ancient birds in their flight pattern. I breathed in the clean air. 

"Look!" I said, spying a huge feathered biped below, "a Pachycephalosaur! It looks like a giant chicken!"

"That's a T-Rex," said my tormenter.

I frowned and then motioned for him to turn away. I backed myself toward the edge of the cliff and squatted while I stared out at the churning blue waves of the ocean to relax myself. It worked and soon I expelled the remainder of my dead lover's seed. I stood up and was about to tell the man he could turn back around when I heard a voice yell from far down the mountain.

"Agh! What the fuck!" came the voice.

I peered over the cliffside and saw a head of dark gray hair now besmirched with a large splatter of white. Next to the crouched and sullied man was a resting triceratops. I was confused, and then saw several more men surrounding the scene, all in modern garb. One was wielding a giant camera from the late 20th century. I noticed neither the triceratops nor the T-Rex were moving and the T-Rex had an exposed wire skeleton. It seemed the men were filming some kind of fake movie about dinosaurs in dinosaur times on this island. They started scuttling about and looking up towards the cliff and I hurried back to my tormenter.

"Yeah," he said, "I think we can leave now."

I nodded frantically and we were consumed by whiteness. I expected it to remain and yet it gave way, this time to massive limestone columns and a checkered marble floor. Before us was a meticulously sculpted statue of Zeus on his throne. His figure was almost obscured by the darkness on that side of the room, but the brightness of the marble shined through. Behind us bronze firepits by the entrance to the temple glowed in the night. We were alone in the emptiness of this grand structure.

"Now we can chat," said the man.

Still naked, I looked around for a place to sit. With no sign of a cushioned seat available I did as I supposed the ancient Greeks did and reclined on a short set of marble stairs leading toward the area with statues. I thrusted one leg out to steady myself and curled another one under my bare buttocks for comfort. I splayed my arms out in mock ease and confidence. In truth I had already been humiliated so thoroughly it was all I could think to do.

The well-dressed man seemed to appraise my form for a moment and then pulled on his wagon again, manifesting a lengthy plush couch which he reclined on, pushing the wagon away. He unbuttoned his coat and quickly seemed much more comfortable than me. We were almost level now, and my eyes met his expectantly.

"Well, you passed," he said, "You have to understand, I wasn't trying to torture you. This week was pretty fucked up, but once you process it I think you'll see I wrapped things up for you neatly. I just had to be sure you were as serious about your plan as I was about mine. Every generation or so someone with a crazy powerful will comes along, and I have to pay attention to them. It turns out, your will matched his. I can't say I'm not a little happy."

"...Most of the time I was just really confused," I said.

"I know. But you didn't let that stop you. I usually pay more attention to the ones that think they have it all figured out. But, well look where we are-" he motioned to our surroundings, "-sometimes it's worth listening to the ones who know they know nothing."

"I know... things! I know how to beat the Ender Dragon in Minecraft!"

"Shut up. My question is: what are  you going to do now?"

"So... you'll send me back? I, uh, think I need to find where Joyce went."

The man in black stared at me, tense but reposed.

"I mean-" I stammered, "-maybe I should try to find Ashe first? They're probably out looking for me, how long has it been? But then I need to find Joyce. She could be-"

"Shut up, Riese. I gave Joyce a gift. A curse, whatever. She's got her own path to walk now, and it's a really fucking long one. If she ever needs you again, she'll know how to find you. You just have to let her walk it. She'll find someone else."

"...and Ashe?" I asked, shifting uncomfortably as a tear began to well up in my eye.

"You're right, she is looking for you. But she's still at the beginning of her journey, and in the end the destination doesn't really matter. But she will find you, when she's ready."

"...Okay," I said, and wiped my tear.

"I think you know someone who does need you to find them, though."

I lowered my head for an instant and then nodded. The man in black smiled, a small but genuine smile. I smiled back. We both looked towards the wagon, and I stood up, naked and mentally renewed on the marble floor. The man looked back towards me.

"Before you leave," he asked, scratching his stubble, "You wanna fuck?"

"N-no," I replied, "I've probably been doing too much of that lately. And it wasn't that funny."

"Or hot, either," he noted.

"O-okay..." I said, and the man reached for the handle of his wagon. Before he reached it he tugged on the collar of his shirt and stretched his arms in that way guys sometimes do that I found so attractive. It was like he was hot but didn't give a shit, you know? Anyway...

"On second thought," I faltered, my exhausted and estrogen-addled dick rising again predictably but perplexingly like the sun after the darkest night.

"That's what I thought," he smirked.

Chapter One || Previous Chapter || Next Chapter

As I rushed straight up at the ceiling, it became mostly transparent. I could see the midday sky through it, with the sun overhead. I passed through this apparition and continued my ascent until I had almost reached the clouds. I felt a moment of weightless anticipatorily before I swerved back down steeply. The blackness had given way to the night sky. Claustrophobia gave way to agoraphobia. The ground I was falling toward was black too, and shutting my eyes changed nothing. I could feel the earth about to hit me.

​I opened my eyes again just as I swerved a final time- toward a building. The window was open but small. As I approached the unlit opening I yelled and felt the force propelling me release. Now I was flying toward the window with nothing but pure inertia, and would soon fall. I shot my arms out and latched onto the sill. The rest of my body jolted forward- my head poked into the building while my legs slammed against it. When the numbness faded my right leg hurt so bad I almost let go of the window. After some frantic scrambling I managed to get the rest of my body inside. 

​I looked around and saw the living room of the apartment I used to share with Michael. I couldn't believe I hadn't noticed our old building sooner, but when I looked back out the window I saw the single neon sign in the brewery window at the bottom of the hill shining. There was little light within, however, and flipping the switches didn't change that. I guessed the bulb hadn't been changed in years. I lit an old candle I had left on a stand ages ago. I hadn't been back here since long before I had actually terminated things with Michael. It had become too painful to go back to after Joyce's death. The couch still had the imprints of our butts on it. Michael's toned ass had worn into the sharp leather on the right, angled slightly toward the TV. My own butt print was angled towards his, as I always used to rest my legs on his lap. I put my ass there without thinking, pulling my throbbing leg up on the couch.

The television was still plugged in and I wondered if it might still work. I flipped on the screen to illuminate the apartment a bit and also figured I might as well check on Michael's viewing history. I was a little disturbed by the amount of porn featuring very young-looking Asian women, and worse yet my ex had watched eight seasons of The Big Bang Theory.

I got up to get a snack. My leg was throbbing a bit less, but I still had to limp to the kitchen counter. Everything in the fridge looked disgusting and the shelves all seemed empty. There was a big upside-down bowl on the counter blocking one shelf, though, so I picked it up. Under the bowl was Michael's disembodied head, cut off right where I had sliced his neck. I dropped the bowl and it shattered, somehow slicing open my palm. I didn't even realize where the blood was coming from. I just knew there was a lot of blood and the head of the man I had killed. I stepped back and hit my foot on the fridge. I looked down at my right foot for a second and when I looked back Michael's eyes were open. His mouth was open too. 

​"Why?" asked the head.

I stared in shock. Blood drained from my palm onto the floor while I stood perfectly still, praying this wasn't real. I felt my stomach gurgling but my throat was too tight to heave.

​"Why did you kill me?" asked the head.

​I ran out of the kitchen but Michael's head hopped to the edge of the counter and glared at me. I spotted a knife block across from the fridge and lunged at it, but Michael's head flew up into the air and over to the opposite cover, pushing the block into the sink. I ran back to the couch and picked up the remote, pitching it at the head. I missed and he flew back up, then rocketed into my chest, knocking the air out of me as I fell back onto the couch.

"Cut that shit out, Riese," said Michael's head, "Why won't you talk to me? I need you to talk to me already."

"Okay, okay- give me a second?" I pleaded.

The head of my ex lover nodded and flew back up off my chest, resting himself on the coffee table. He looked at my bleeding hand.

"You oughtta put a band-aid on that," he said.

I complied, covering my wound with an extra large Hello Kitty band-aid. Then I fetched myself some water while the head watched me intently, as if he was daring me to reach for the knife again.

"Man, you're fast," I blabbered, sipping my water, "That really hurt, when you slammed into my tits."

"Yeah," Michael's head said, "I've got pretty tight control of this stuff. Psychic powers and shit."

​"Whoa, that's cool dude."

"Riese, why are you acting like you don't know me?"

"Do I know you?" I replied, sitting dramatically back down on the couch, "I'm pretty sure I dated a man named Michael, not just a head."

"Yeah, but c'mon. I always gave good head," said the head.

"Stop. No. Bad. You're a bad head."

"Okay. Fuck. Look, last thing I remembered we were in my office. I was training you for the new Permanent Solutions job. And then you go fucking Gustavo Fring on me. I wake up under that fucking bowl."

"No, no, you're not Michael. This isn't like what happened with Joyce. You're just a trick, a vision or whatever that guy, the big boss guy in black made. He's torturing me now! Jesus! I'm so totally over all this! I want it to be done!"

​"Shit, Riese... if you're talking about the new boss, maybe you're right. He could end you in an instant, he could torture you forever. But I don't think this is one of those situations. All I know is I exist, right now, in this moment, when obviously I shouldn't. I think it's because I want it. I want the answer."

"To why I killed you?"

"Yes."

I sighed and picked a book up off the coffee table next to Michael's head: Fucking Trans Women Volume 5, by Guy Fieri. I flipped through it and saw a neat diagram of Guy wearing a strap-on, with a helpful arrow pointing out the brand of his sunglasses. The head glared at me and I put the book down. The glaring didn't stop and I squirmed nervously.

"Okay, fine," I said, "Why I killed you. I'll tell you. I wish I had known how many people were in danger back then. What your new boss was going to do. I don't even know if you knew. I wasn't thinking about other people. I mean, I thought about Joyce. She's back, by the way. But, yeah, I've thought about her every day. That wasn't your fault, though. I know that. And when I stopped seeing you after she died, that wasn't because I blamed you. I felt like it was my fault. Stanley's too, obviously, but- I just knew if I went and saw you I would feel better, and I didn't want to. Not with her gone. When you finally showed up at my place I got so excited. At first I thought we were gonna run away together, or you'd at least fuck me in a bush or something. And I was still smiling even when you brought me back to your office, because it had been so long. Or it felt like a long time, who knows. You left the room for a minute or two, though, to get coffee. And for a second it was like when you left me, and I felt naked and afraid. And I realized I would do whatever you wanted me to, because you were all I had left. But what you wanted from me felt so wrong. After Joyce. So I killed you because, I guess, I love you. Asshole."

"I don't hate you, Riese. And I never wanted anyone to get hurt."

"I know. It happens, right? Maybe it'd be different, if I didn't have this thing for you. But I do, and I'm glad you're dead."

The head frowned and nodded at me, tilting slightly midair as he rose off the table. Cracks were forming on his cheeks, each crack producing a disturbing fleshy crunch.

"I think I understand what you're saying. This... none of this was what I wanted," he said.

I nodded back, tears forming in my eyes. I reached my hand out weakly towards Michael's heads as more cracks formed across his face.

"One more thing-" he croaked quietly, "Be careful in the bathroom, okay?"

I opened my mouth to respond but the cracks had already met across the bridge of Michael's nose. His face fractured like a block of coal. The inside of his head was an empty blackness, and in mere seconds the remaining pieces disintegrated. I wept, effusively, for the first time in years.

I sat on the couch for a while, staring at the spot where the pieces of Michael's head had fallen, my focus drifting in and out. When the tears had stopped stinging and my face was dry I stood up to use the bathroom. I turned the knob slowly, leaning back cautiously. The knob stopped turning and I pulled, but the door wouldn't give. I let go and the knob rotated quickly the other way, they kept spinning. Then it flew out towards me. It shot over my shoulder, narrowly missing my head. Looking at the door, I saw some of the wood around the door had splintered off too. Through the crack I could see a quivering mound of flesh, tight and tense. The shape turned towards me and quickly filled the crack. As I stepped away from the door it flew off its hinges and revealed the horror behind.

There was Michael's body, naked and bare and sans head. The light brown skin of it bulged over the muscles as they flexed, prodigious as ever. Each surged and stretched in fearsome sequence as the entirety of Michael's corpse stumbled out through the bathroom door's empty frame. It was disturbingly hairless besides some strands below the knees. As I looked down I noticed its lack of a penis or testicles, with the anatomy of a swollen headless Ken doll.

I backed out into the living room, giving the ghoulishly smooth remnant a wide berth. It swung out ferociously but clumsily, stomping slowly in time with its swipes. When it stumbled into the living room its shoulder slammed into the television, knocking it forward. There was a shattering of glass and Michael's body jumped, almost falling over. The room was much darker with the TV screen shattered but luckily the large triple-wicked candle still burned brightly. Michael's body, however, couldn't see, and when it regained its footing it stopped swiping. It held its hands outstretched, carefully feeling the side of the wall. 

All this I observed from the other side of the couch. I felt myself become actually annoyed by the cautiousness and clumsiness of the thing. I went into the kitchen and grabbed a butcher knife from the sink. It was sharp and keen. Calmly and slowly, I walked back into the kitchen and within swiping distance of the body which was leaned over on the rug, its hands on the coffee table. It was trying to figure out how to get around, with one leg lifted as though it meant to step over it. One arm was feeling the corner of the table while the other was closed into a fist.

I got so close I could have licked the dead man's spine. I slowly raised my hand and quickly slapped its ass. The thing tried to stand back up and turn around at the same time. I backed up before it could get to me and pulled on the rug with my foot. Michael's body fell forward into the coffee table, cracking it and sending shards of glass into its chest. It flailed on the collapsed table but could make no scream of pain. I brought my knife down into its back, sending gleaming crimson everywhere. The first few stabs didn't even register. The corpse was still jolting around with its considerable strength, trying to slam back against me. I kept darting back after each attack, until it no longer jolted, only shook as I painted its back red. But I kept stabbing, and tears began to flood my eyes. 

I started screaming and stabbing faster and faster. I actually brought myself down upon the red corpse of my former boyfriend, my mind blank with pain and rage. I couldn't understand why, but it was like I needed to do this to him again. This time it was bloody and direct. I couldn't run from what I had done, only stare into the gory red mass as I made my twisted love incarnate in flesh. I kept screaming and crying until my wrist was too sore and I dropped the knife. I wept softly into the blood, making little red bubbles in my ex lover's warm thick heart juice. 

I laid there and slept. It felt like a full and restful sleep but when I awoke the only lights outside were still the moon's and bar sign's. I wiped my crusty eyes, spreading blood across my face. Michael's corpse was gone, there was only a dark red spot on the rug where it had laid. I was covered in blood and smelled horribly. Slowly and shakily, I stood up and staggered to the bathroom. There, I turned on the faucet and let the warm water cleanse me. As it often did in the shower, my brain became clear and empty. The disturbing act I had just committed was nothing more than a trial at best, torture at worst. The man in black had confronted me with my own worst act, or my straightest and most failed relationship, perhaps to assuage some of his own guilt. Or was that even possible? But if that was the case, then why was I still here? Why couldn't I be brought home?

I decided to go lay in bed. I doubted that I'd be able to return to sleep after the stresses of my precarious situation had come rushing back to mind while I toweled off, but my body could still use some rest. First I looked in the shelf which Michael's upturned bowl hat had blocked earlier and found some old popcorn. I stuck it in the microwave, which was luckily still connected to our old street's generator, and nuked the bag for two minutes. I grabbed the hot and fattened bag and headed for the bedroom, cramming handfuls of buttery popcorn as I walked.

When I entered the bedroom the blinds were drawn. There was no light entering whatsoever and I had to feel around to even find the edge of the bed. From there I remembered the lamp on the side table and felt around for the switch. The lamp flicked on and I thanked God, but in a rote sort of way. When I turned to look at the bed, I was not prepared for the curious sight I beheld.

There upon the outer sheet, right in the middle, was what looked like a thick brown dildo. Only it must have been a packer, I supposed- who would buy a dildo that looked like it was flaccid? Only, why would there be a packer at the late Michael's apartment? I couldn't see him needing one, his pants had always bulged plenty. Had he desultorily decided to fuck a trans guy the day before he died, one absentminded enough to leave his big brown packer on the damn bed? 

Before my anger at this final posthumous outrage could flare up, I realized what the thing was. Michael's shambling horror of a body had been missing more than just one head. Here on his bed was the final bit of him which remained.

I felt that hot juicy vom rise up in my throat but swallowed it, covering my mouth just in case. After a minute sitting on the ground I managed to look back at the dick. There wasn't any blood on it or anything, just a dick and a couple balls. There wasn't even an exposed vein or muscle to indicate it had ever been attached to a man, much less the man who had defined years of my life.

As I drew closer to inspect the disembodied cock I actually saw it stiffen a bit. I could tell my warm breath was hitting it, and apparently it could too as it actually shifted towards me. There was no way it could sense me, I imagined, except by temperature and touch. No eyes to actually know who I even was. And yet I couldn't help feeling that if it were Michael's, somehow he would be able to tell. Right? Well, maybe as the saying went one truly did have to jerk off their ex-lover's zombie cock before they could truly move on.

I lightly grazed the shaft with my fingers. I could feel the skin shift under them as the cock stiffened again. It was now at half-mast, or half-cocked as Michael used to say. I rubbed the underside of it lovingly and brought in my other hand, with which I cupped those disembodied testicles. I actually felt Michael's dick warm in my hand, growing hard and almost hot. Feeling the weight of it in my hand actually got me a bit excited, which I tried to ignore. This wasn't even the man I had loved, it was his cock. Just his cock. Why, then, was this hotter than sex with that man had ever been? Why was it sexier, even without the emotional weight of connection? And why, pray tell, was I asking myself so many god damn questions to which there were no definite answers? Seriously, that shit was annoying.

​I reassigned my ball-cupping hand to shaft duty, working Michael's big lonely ghoul dick just like a Mennonite churning butter. I continued doing this for a while, even throwing in a nifty corkscrew motion I had picked up from a sex worker in Chicago. After that I grew a bit more desperate, spitting on the reanimated member and jerking as fast as I could. My hands quickly tired of that.

"Come on!" I yelled frustratedly at no one. The dick certainly didn't react to my outburst. Then my frustration made me realize that this could well be my final test. If the man in black was indeed trying to make me confront aspects of the man I had murdered, then this could be the last piece of the puzzle! I had dealt with both the mental and physical realities of my dearly beloved buff boy, all that was left was the sexual. And since this test of my will itself had been designed by a man, I supposed I would have to make the zombie cock come.

I tightened my lips in determination, then puffed them out like that sexy fish from Pinnochio. I slid Michael's dick between them, feeling the firmness of his big dick in my mouth, before pulling it back out and swirling my tongue around the head. This I repeated a few times until I could feel it harden even a little more. I knew this to be a sign and so redoubled my effort, pushing my head up and down, filling my cheeks with dick and spit and reaching as near the balls as I could with my lips and tongue. I stroked with my hand as I did and finally I felt the cock twitch and swell as it came in my mouth. Huge waves of the sticky stuff shot in my mouth and filled my cheeks, one after the other. This went on for almost half a minute. At the fifteen second mark I had to swallow, which I barely managed before more seed spilled into my face hole. At this excessiveness I rolled my eyes wryly at the ceiling before more cum flowed and made me tear up. The mascara I had put on at Ashe's was fully ruined. Finally, Michael's dick stopped coming and I released stood up, and looked up at the ceiling. I pointed at my mouth with both hands, as though telling the man in black, 'Watch! Look, I'm gonna do it!' and swallowed the remaining cum.

I stood there, still staring at the ceiling, waiting to be whisked away. Nothing. I waited more. Nothing. I grew angry again.

"What?!" I yelled upwards, "That wasn't enough for you? What kind of shit is this, anyway, making me suck my dead ex's dick? That's fucked up, man! Just send me home! What? What else do you want me to do?"

I frowned and crossed my arms, still staring at the ceiling. I sighed and looked back down, then at the bed. To my great shock Michael's dick was hard again.

"Fuck," I said.

​​I reached for the knob on the side table and pulled open the drawer. I pulled out an big ancient sticky bottle and squirted its contents out on the dick. I needed it drenched, and though it twitched a bit it didn't seem to mind. I discretely filled myself with lubricant as well and positioned myself squatting low over the still-erect phallus. I lowered myself down upon its considerable girth and let it enter me, inch by inch. Once it was fully inside I played with my tits in an effort to relax my asshole. It wasn't something I would have done with Michael or anyone, as I always feared it would come off as fake or desperate to impress. But as I pulled on my pink and puffy nipples and rubbed my breasts in a circular motion my butt did indeed loosen. I was able to pull myself slowly up and off the cock and then release, driving it powerfully back into me. It hit my prostate somewhere in its thrust and I moaned pleasurably. 

I worked steadily on Michael's dick, building in tempo and energy. I switched from a squat to a backwards lean with my limbs splayed. From here I would bring my ass down and forward, a motion which seemed to bring the dick in to touch my insides in all the right ways. Soon I was practically shaking, bringing my ass down fervently again and again, slapping it against my dead lover's sizable balls. Soon I felt the cock twitch and I brought my ass down one final time before it spurted inside me. I moaned loudly as cum leaked from my ass. Then, exhausted, I pulled myself off the dick and collapsed next to it on my belly. I peeked back at my butt to see the mess and observed that I would need to go fart cum in the toilet and take a shower soon. Before I did I turned back the other way to look at Michael's dick one last time, but it was gone.

"Oh, shit," I said, "Wait, not-"

​And I was gone.

Chapter One || Previous Chapter || Next Chapter

My stomach lurched as a screen of blue replaced the White. It felt like I was on a high-speed rail. Indeed, at points I did think I could see shadows of things beyond the veil- the legs of something feral, the face of something human. Each shadow disappeared after only a moment, as though I was nothing more than a gust of wind passing by them. Then my stomach settled and the blueness darkened and became material, forming actual walls of painted stone.

​I was in a small room, with a bed and a desk and a lot of clutter. On the desk was a fancy-looking monitor, far cleaner and sleeker than Stanley's or Michael's. There was a keyboard with pink and blue lights. The desk was the only flat surface without piles of junk on it- scattered across the floor were package wrappers, empty cans of energy drinks, full bottles of piss, books, zines, and trading cards. I thought I saw a rare Ancient Mew card. There was also an array of sex toys- vibrators, buttplugs with tails attached, a chastity cage or two, and various attachments for a strange piston-based machine in the corner opposite the bed. It appeared to be a fucking machine, built by hand, which had since grown rusty. Next to it was another machine, this one even more nebulous in its intended use, attached to the desktop by a thick black cord.

Sitting at her desk was Ashe, in the flesh (and blood and viscera, I assumed). She was wearing black leggings and a pink t-shirt. I tilted my head this way and that to confirm that she was indeed occupying the third of our dimensions and was not, as I had last seen her, merely a sorry collection of 2-D tiles representing a person. Somehow she had done it. She had reversed the digital curse wrought by Joyce! But how? I realized that before I got any answers I'd have to answer a few questions when Ashe turned around in her chair and saw my head tilted in dumb doe-eyed amazement.

"What the fuck?! How the fuck did you get in here?" she asked accusingly, though she was clearly scared shitless as well.

"Hey, hey, it's okay. It was guy- you know that- you know that guy? You know, uh...?" I said and made an indecipherable gesture, flapping my hands near my head.

"What? Who?"

"Okay, okay- he wears a lot of black, and he used to be your boss, and he has powers. Might be God. He has this thing, it's lumpy... it's black too, kinda just looks like nothing... he used it to talk to me, and then he sent me here. He said I need to kill you-"

"What? Fuck!"

"It's okay! I'm not gonna! We got all those files from your computer in the mountain, and Stanley's dead. So everything should be fine now! I think I just need you to tell your old boss you don't want to kill a whole bunch of people anymore."

"But I do!"

"No, Ashe, no," I said, shaking my head and gritting my teeth in a painful grin, "Because then that would mean I really do have to kill you."

I stood awkwardly frozen for a long minute as Ashe's fear and surprise turned to doubt and confusion. 

"Never mind," I said, "Let's try this again. Ashe, how've you been? I noticed you're not pixels anymore!"

"No," she said, "I'm not Pixels starring Adam Sandler anymore, thank God. No thanks to you or that bitch of a program you call your friend."

"Actually I call her Mistress, and I'm not sure if we're still friends. How did you, uh, reverse the curse, exactly?"

"Well it wasn't easy. I had to wait until your lesbian buddies got through massacring the shit out of my roommates, and then drag myself out of that God forsaken mountain all the way back here to my parents' old place, so I could use that machine I built to bring me back into the third dimension. They're dead, if that's what you're wondering. Died in the first Restructuring while I was away at college. Most of my classmates died too. I ended up moving in with my boss at my internship at the time. You know him- the man who apparently just told you to kill me."

"I'm not going to, though! You just need to tell him you've given up on this genocidal shit! Come on, another 'Restructuring' is the last thing we need!"

"Actually it's the first. The reason everything is fucked up now is because last time, people got killed indiscriminately. A lot of accomplished, talented people especially. This time we'd get rid of all the problematic people, that are holding the rest of us back and causing disorder!"

"Yeah, rich people died last time. Because they destroyed the planet and ruined life for everyone on it. Also, 'problematic'?"

"Well guess what. You wouldn't be scrounging around with your kinky problematic girlfriend for housing and hormones if we still had landlords and doctors!"

"What's wrong Ashe? Was your mommy a landlord and your daddy a doctor? Who the fuck builds a fuck machine at their parents' house, anyway?"

"Actually, they were both doctors because women can be doctors, whatever your name is!"

"It's Riese."

"Fine! Riese!"

The two of us broke eye contact as I tried to distract myself from my own sexism. I sat on the bed and looked around the room. My eyes landed on the rusty fucking machine again and when I looked back Ashe was gazing at me oddly.

"I hid it in the attic while they were alive, you know," she said, looking away once more, "And my sex toys used to be in the closet, I'm not a weirdo. I just haven't left this room in a while. I'm scared to. I know it's a mess."

"Makes sense," I said, "But why bring it out of storage if you're not gonna use it?"

"H-hey!" she said, flustered, "None of your business!"

I looked at Ashe. She looked back. Slowly, she got up from her chair and sat next to me on her bed.

"I was going to," she said, "But... I think I'm just angry. I... might've been wrong about some stuff. Not my code, my code was great! I've always been good at my job, I know that. But... I think I'm bad at life. I used to think I 'won' at transition. Because I'm hot, and I pass, and..."

"Yeah, yeah" I interrupted, and smiled.

"...and so on. But it feels like I'm missing something. Like... I forgot to transition into a nice person."

"Yeah."

"It just stopped seeming like it mattered. I was so focused on the code. But my code was going to kill a lot of people. It... it was going to kill you."

Ashe looked back up at me. I tried to ignore the revelation that her algorithm deemed me stupid and useless and gazed into her beautiful green eyes. Her bangs were even messier now, but the face below them was small and soft. Her eyeliner was still well done, but with a slight shakiness betraying her relatable imperfection. Her tiny mouth smiled slightly and I fixated upon her lips as we both sat there on her bed. I considered her long black lashes, took her by the hand, and kissed her. I pulled away slowly, but didn't get far before she kissed me back and brought my hand up to her tit.

I rubbed Ashe's nipple between my thumb and forefinger as I kissed her gently along her neck. When I nibbled on her earlobe she shivered in my grasp, overwhelming me with the softness of her body. She took off her shirt and I couldn't help but lap at her breast like an enthusiastic pup. She seemed inspired by the way I was gyrating there on the edge of the bed as I sucked and so she reached down to feel my crotch.

"Someone's excited," she said.

I smiled but pulled back a little. Despite my urge to do it in a way they might have shown on the Discovery channel, I was reluctant to do so with a bottom. After Joyce's death I had spent a lot of boring nights with recumbent pillow princesses, too ensconced in their own dysphoria to consider making moves. At some point I realized I was on the long narrow road to sexless lesbian marriage and had to stuff my own traumas concerning Michael and Joyce into the "deal with later" pile. I assumed a more active role in the bedroom, as I often had with Michael, but it was always a bit touch-and-go. The one good thing about almost everyone I knew dying had been the huge relief when no one left was expecting me to perform.

I looked at Ashe, who was looking back at me expectantly, her hand wrapped around my dick. I moved her hand gently and held it by my face. 

​"I... could we just cuddle?' I asked, lifting my hand off her breast.

"Yes, please," she said.

I laid on my side and Ashe pushed her back against me. I wrapped my arms around her waist. This time she didn't shiver in my arms but settled into them sweetly. The softness of her skin against mine actually made me shiver, and I felt that old warmth deep in my stomach. I slid a hand back up and held one of her boobs like it was a precious orb of smooth tinted glass. She moaned and pressed her ass firmly against me. She was submissive but hardly one of my inactive recumbent queens. I tapped Ashe lightly on the shoulder.

"Actually, do you mind if-"

"No, please do," she said, all her attitude and condescension replaced by eagerness.

With some effort I slid down her tight leggings and left them wrapped around her ankles. What I revealed beneath her panties turned out to be far more significant than what I had been expecting. Her two round and bubbly cheeks formed what must have been the cutest ass I'd ever caressed. Within a couple of hours I was fully drunk on the squishiness of it, rolling around on Ashe's bed with my cheeks pressed against hers and drooling like a dog. 

"Hey, Riese," she said, bringing out of my trance state, "I'm totally into what's been going on for the last two hours and forty-three minutes, but I was kinda hoping since I showed you mine..."

She looked down and I followed her gaze. I hadn't even realized her dick had been out the whole time. It was small, soft and cute. It laid nuzzled between her thighs like a store of food hidden between tree branches by a squirrel for the winter. Its cuteness actually made me hesitant to reveal my own womanhood, which had gradually stiffened and now rested hard against my belly. She had probably felt it against her leg at some points. Something about the hopeful way she had asked eased my anxiety, with some help from her ass.

I realized that beneath her jaded and contradictory nature, Ashe was very similar to me. She had acted as stubbornly as I did when I was alone with my back against the wall. Even though without Joyce and Nash I'd probably be dead by her hand, or her code, the patterns of her stupidity were familiar to me. Her heart ached as much as mine. We were both damaged and afraid but she had the bravery to be vulnerable with me in this moment and let me know what she wanted. And right now she was a woman, naked and beautiful, waiting patiently for me to open my chest and let my love out. 
​
By the time I had finished thinking it through and taken off my jeans my boner had diminished. When Ashe looked at its small softness she smiled up at me. Her reaction to its weak and dear state warmed me up inside again and I held her and kissed her again, this time while straddling her. I licked her tits and she shivered again. I pulled back and she looked up at me, panting slightly with her eyebrows raised in sweet wanting. She let out a long moan and I noticed my hardness had slipped between her butt cheeks on its own. I grinned at her and she blushed. I asked her if she had any lube.

"Oh yeah, the pile's right over there," she said, pointing.

I noticed a slimy sticky pile of a couple dozen bottles next to the bed. I pulled one out gingerly and read the label.

"Ah, 2017. An excellent year." I quipped.

"Was that a fucking quip? Would you fuck me already?"

I lifted Ashe's legs over her head and smacked her ass for disparaging my shitty joke. Then I squeezed the bottle and let some of the lube, cool and clear, drip down and decorate my dick with shiny transparency. I squeezed a couple long thin drips of the stuff onto Ashe's ashehole as well, pushing it in slowly with a finger. Ashe moaned and tightened, but there was enough lube inside her now to fuck her with my finger easily. Her hole was this tiny inviting abyss of a black eye in the center of lovely pink softness. I directed my cock to make its acquaintance and pushed the head in gently.

"Oooh fuuck... okay, keep going..."

There wasn't a great deal of it left and before long my pubic bone was bumping against her butt cheeks. I kissed Ashe gently on the lips as I pulled my cock almost all the way out. When I thrusted into her again it was much easier, and she moaned loudly as my cock slid deeply into her. She grabbed onto my shoulders as I held her hips and filled her, over and over again. Her moans grew louder and louder and as my thrusting pushed her to a frenetic tempo I slid my hand aside and rubbed the head of Ashe's dick with just my thumb like it was a clit, focusing on the spot where it met the shaft. The speed with which I rubbed increased along with my fucking and after a while Ashe's moans became shrieks as she came. I paused and after a moment caught the single drop of clear watery cum that leaked out of her. I licked it off my palm and it tasted like guava.

I wasn't done. I kept fucking Ashe until we were both sexy sweaty messes, kissing her with ever-increasing frequency and abandon. I came close to coming a couple of times but had to stop after a couple of hours from sheer exhaustion. When I pulled out and laid back on the sweat puddle we had made, she nuzzled against me with sweet affection. We laid there for a long time. She was happy and beautiful and lacking all pretension. I found myself vulnerable too and decided my exterior should match my soul's nudity. I finally took off my bra and my boobs spilled out, reveling in their newfound freedom.

"Whoa they're so cute!" Ashe exclaimed when she saw my pale tits and hard rosy nipples. She grabbed them both and smiled at me as if Christmas had come early for her. I placed an encouraging hand atop her head and patted her gently. This seemed to inspire something in her and she pushed me on my back and crawled on top of me.

"My turn," she said.

​Her cute cock, which had rested so peacefully during our sex session, had stiffened and grown a bit. It was still small though and with a little bit of lube she pushed into me. I beckoned her to choke me while I absorbed her strong, short strokes. This redirected more blood to my cock, which grew hard again. I stroked it a bit while Ashe brought me almost to the point of passing out. Soon after she found herself tired, and I mounted her and pushed her back up into me. I bounced on her dick, my tits bouncing in frantic rhythm along with my hard cock, which smacked repeatedly against Ashe's belly. This caught her attention and she grabbed it with her pretty little hand, stroking my dick until I came on her chest. There was more cum this time, and it was thicker and whiter. She ate as much of it as she could reach and then I helped her with the rest.

We collapsed together once again, this time both fully exhausted and satisfied. We quickly fell asleep in each other's arms. The next morning we got up with the sun and stepped groggily outside, where we took turns spraying the sweat and cum off each other with Ashe's late dad's garden hose. When we went back inside I taught Ashe how to make french toast with powdered eggs and powdered milk and powdered toast. We had sex a couple of times that day and then slept for ten hours, after which point a loose sort of daily schedule formed, with a morning fuck, a night fuck, and a midday fuck. This continued for what may have been months or years but was probably just a few weeks. I don't know, it's kind of a blur. At some point I was standing by the dryer after having just moved a load from the washer when I remembered something.

"Hey, Ashe," I yelled in the direction of her bedroom, "Did you tell your old boss that you don't want to kill anyone anymore?"

"What?" she yelled back.

I ran into her bedroom. Ashe was at her computer watching some anime about a cowboy at his computer. 

"The man in black?" I asked, "Did you call him? Or text?"

"What? I don't have his number!"

"Wait, what? Fuck! He probably thinks you still want to kill all those people! Remember, like you were gonna do?"

"Oh yeah! Fuck! He probably does think that!"

"Unless he really is omnipresent or whatever... Oh, maybe if you just say it? Could you, actually?"

"Yeah, yeah, of course! Okay... *ahem* ...I don't want anyone else to die anymore, dude! I'm fine! Just keep everything as it is!"

The two of us waited, looking absentmindedly up at the ceiling, waiting for some sign or acknowledgement. When none came, my anxiety began to rise.

"Fuck!" I said, "What if he's already killed people? I have to stop him! Shit, what did he say... it's been so long..."

"It's been six days, Riese."

"Oh, really? Okay. Uhhh... oh, right, I was supposed to kill you!"

"You were? Oh, right, you were."

"Hey, Ashe, listen... could you..."

"Yeah, lemme try"

Ashe laid down on her filthy floor. She picked up a empty energy drink cans and sprinkled them on her body. Then she closed her eyes and held still for a minute. 

"Um..." I said

"Wait! One sec."

Ashe grabbed a sharpie from her desk and drew X's on her eyelids. Then she laid back down in the rubbish.

"Well, thanks for trying," I said after ten seconds.

"Oh well. Maybe we can-"

Ashe's voice was suddenly muffled as a wall of blackness bisected the room. It's emergence was so quick I had no time to scream before it surrounded me and my body shot straight up into the ceiling.

Chapter One || Previous Chapter || Next Chapter

When I opened my eyes I was in the White. My feet were standing upon the mere suggestion of the ground. The hairs on my arms stood up as I felt a chill course through me, but there was no breeze to sway them. I shivered at the cold and at the feeling I was being watched. The featurelessness and indeterminate size of my surroundings made me feel more naked than if I had been stripped down to my Savage X Fentys. I was experiencing being known deeply by something I couldn't see or hear. This something knew every secret I locked away, the things I had never told any partner after even the most intimate lovemaking sessions. It shook me to my core.

I turned around, hoping to see whatever was here with me, and know it as it knew me in this void I had been delivered to. When I moved, the whiteness stirred and I could see the limits of it. There were walls some couple hundred feet out in each direction, though they shook and flashed between white and gray. Shocked, I stopped and turned the other way, then started walking. As I did so the walls morphed and the whiteness dissolved in flashes, revealing some world or image beyond. In between each flash of white, each reassertion of the boundaries of this place, I could glimpse people, larger than life. I kept walking, faster now. Before me were rows of white men in suits, staring solemnly at me.

Flash!

A man in a plaid shirt tending bar handed a drink to someone whose back was turned to me. He smiled at me, a wide but painful smile.

Flash!

A large man in khakis with a shock of white hair held an iron pole. He whacked at something on the ground, and a bumpy white ball came bouncing towards me with incredible speed. It was about to hit me when-

​Flash!

I was almost at the border now. Fuzzy gray lines darkened and coalesced into the shape of a man. The man stepped out, dragging something behind him, and the flashing stopped. I had stopped running, but shifting my vision yielded no more apparitions. I stared at the White's new occupant. He was young, pale, and wore a black peacoat and black jeans. It was the man from the house Jim Davis had built. He was pulling a little red wagon behind him, with something on it under a towel.

The man in black waved at me as I stood in the pure silence of the void and stared.

"Thanks for coming," he said, "Can I offer you some snacks?"

I looked around. The fuzzy gray borders had faded back to white. There were no shadows in which to hide a pantry or even a box of Chex mix. I looked at the wagon with the obscured mass upon it and stared back at the man inquisitively.

"You wouldn't want to eat that," he said, "Here!"

There were plasticky fruit-flavored hexagons of delicious sweet loveliness in his hand, the kind that explode into divinely saccharine sticky juice with the slightest bite. They had always been in his hand now, except I could remember when they weren't. But was that now, as I took them from him? I wasn't sure. Time had grown drippy and vague.

"Hey," I asked as I bit into some blue-flavored sweetness, "Are you God?"

"Yeah," he said, "That's me."

I paused a second, caught off-guard. I opened my mouth like a ventriloquist's dummy, then closed it and waited for him to say something else. When he did not, I loosened my maw again in protest.

"No, no, no," I said, "That's not right. You're not Him. He wouldn't say 'That's me!' Maybe He'd say 'I've Been Called So Before', or something. No, I don't think so. Which means... this isn't Heaven, is it? Or 'The Place You Call Heaven'?

"Whatever. No, this is a place I created recently. It's called the White. It's very White. As you saw."

"Oh, yeah... golf... hey, don't look at me! You created it!"

"Yeah, I did. Can't remember why. Good for business meetings. You know, focusing on corporate synergy and all that. Though I don't honestly know what that means."

"Wait a second... Jim's House, the Computer, that shit Stanley said- it was you! You were his business partner, weren't you?"

The man in black sighed and pulled his wagon out from where the edge of the White, swinging the handle around and stopping it in front of himself so he could rest a foot upon it and pull out a pack of cigarettes. He offered me one, which I declined. Choosing to look like a loser in front of God, I thought, that's the final test isn't it? What am I afraid of, cancer?

"Again, that's me," he said, lighting up a cigarette (whichever brand you think is the coolest), "Ashe, one of my smartest, could transmit all the numbers or whatever with that big computer they have up there, but in the end if you're talking about wiping seventy-five percent of humanity off the face of the earth, there's only ever been one way."

The man in black breathed out his first puff of smoke and stuck his cigarette right back in between his sexy lips. He leaned down and pulled the towel off his wagon, after which it stopped being anywhere. There exposed in the wagon was a slightly pulsating darkness in this white. Around its lumpy blackness the wagon and even the surrounding whiteness seemed to grow gray, as if it had sucked in the light.

"This thing is really dense," he said, "And heavy. You wouldn't believe how long I've been lugging it around. It's worth it, though. If you want more gross sugary cum-filled snacks it'll make you as many as you want. With it I made the White, but I could easily make a better place, any place at all. A titty bar, they still have those right? Or a dick bar? Best dick bar you've ever seen, bunch of Hanses and Franzes with stangenbrots between their legs. They would just exist! How about a luxury pleasure dolphin bar? Do you even know what that is? I could throw in the male strippers too, if you want! You know what? I know what you want, I could give them all dad bods and tails! And one guy, his head could be a Ms. Pac-Man Machine! One you could actually get a high score on! And everyone could care, somehow! They'd totally metaphorically suck your dick about it as they sucked your actual, chemically-softened female-identifying dick! Who needs the world, right? If you want I'll get rid of all of it, let's start off fresh! Eh?"

"No, no, no! I don't want any of that! I just want to go back to the world as it is!" I said, stifling my urge to ask him to bring Nash back from wherever she had gone to, or to fix things with me and Joyce. Part of me even wanted Michael back, as fucked up as that was. But this guy's whole deal had a real monkey's paw vibe to it and I didn't want to find myself on the wrong end of some after-school special-style lesson today.

"Fiiine," the man in black said, rolling his eyes, "I figured, anyway. Would have been fun, but I've always been a sucker for jumpy girls, still full of hope somehow."

The man, or whatever he was, dropped the burning butt of his cigarette and it was gone. He still stamped at the place where it would have landed, though, and sighed. He looked up at me in this unexpected sad shaggy dog sort of way that made me want to reach out and touch him.

"If you want to go back to Earth," he asked hesitantly, "I'm guessing you're going to want the population to stay intact?"

"Uh, yeah!"

"Yeah, that's going to be a problem. See, I already promised another girl we'd wipe a bunch of 'em out. And she's put in a lot of work... I'll tell you what, I can send you to her, and you two can hash it out?"

"What?"

"You know," he said, as a growing aura of pastel blue appeared and formed a wall that enveloped me, "If you kill her or whatever, you can go back, and I'll keep it all as-is. Or, you know, if she kills you, we do the other thing. Either way, good luck!"

Chapter One || Previous Chapter || Next Chapter

Joyce laid into me ferociously with the switch, then paused. She looked down at me with disgust as my freshly reddened ass radiated heat. There was something different in her eyes now. I shivered in delightful fear as I melted further into moldable putty in my mistress's presence. 

Joyce pulled on my leash and brought me down to the carpet we had laid out on the creaky floorboards of our shack. She eased one of her feet- large for a woman's but small for a trans one- onto my back, then stepped down hard. My already shivering naked body was beset my wave upon wave of effortful pleasure. She brought her other foot up and stomped a bit. She was shorter than me, but heavier. I groaned and pressed my face into the carpet. Her feet stepped carefully but heavily lower and lower until one was on my waist and one was on my ass. By this time I was already shaking uncontrollably. With one expertly conducted foot she pressed hard into the lower cusp of my ass, right by my thigh. I bit into the carpet fibers as I came forcefully under her foot's direction.

I laid there shivering from the aftershocks of my orgasm. I didn't notice Joyce had left the room until she came back with a lighter and a red candle. She lit the candle wordlessly and began dripping hot wax on my back, causing my head to jolt back with every burning sting of heat. Soon she had formed tendrils of wax that spiraled from my shoulders to the crack of my ass. A few more drops on my thighs brought me to another orgasm. When she had finished pulling all the wax off, she fingered me and brought me to my third.

Her duties fulfilled, Joyce lay back on the bed, spreading her arms wide and letting me fall lightly into them. She had been administering pain nightly, in as many doses as I could ask for. She had seemed eager to, even happy at times. I hadn't seen her smile so much in years. But over the last week she had been distant, an attribute I found worrying despite the alluring quality it held over me. She had never been the distant one- that had been Michael. I found myself bothered by the possibilities and so when a different topic drifted into mind I was grateful and opened my mouth to share it at once.

"Did you talk to Zoe's doctor friend about the clinic?" I asked, "What did she say?"

I had been too busy fussing around with ink pens in the shack to come with Joyce to visit the former doctor. They had been a lucky find, from a desk in one of the bigger homes closer to the City, and I had been drawing some dicks with truly impeccable crosshatching. Walking to the City and back took a full day, and I had been only too happy to lean on Joyce once again for support. The unbalanced nature of our current relationship weighed on me at times, but it had become impossible for me to pay back all her favors. I hadn't even fucked her in weeks, which had once been my usual payment for dominance rendered.

"With the stuff she has at home and the stuff we found at the clinic, she said maybe she could do it. But she really doesn't want to attempt it alone- I mean she's never even performed SRS, Riese."

"There's books. She can learn!"

"How to perform a surgery she'll never even do again? The woman is sixty-nine, Riese. I don't see the point."

"Why do you think she'll never need to do it again?"

"We're the last of a dying breed, Riese," Joyce sighed, "Let's face it- when was the last time you heard of someone coming out as trans?"

"Cilantro did! A month ago!"

"As nonbinary."

"And trans!"

"You're missing the point. They're not getting surgery. Or taking hormones. Because the first one is impossible and the second involves a shit ton of scavenging."

"So? They'll learn how to synthesize hormones again some day! We still exist!"

"Kids these days are raised by gangs, Riese. Or unions. Groups with group mentalities and goals, that the kids share. They're not going to give up that safety for the kind of lives we've lived- foraging, missing doses all the time, feeling like shit. Nah. Well, maybe some will. Not many though. You remember when liberals used to call us 'brave'? Fuck that. Trans kids these days are fucking brave. It's like the Wild fucking Northwest out here."

I winced, sighed, and offered no rebuttal. We got up, took turns pissing, then moved to the couch. Joyce brought out a joint and gave me a hit. I stared at the smoke, then at her. It had been three months since she killed Stanley, and in all that time I had come no closer to deciphering the riddle he had posed in his last moments. He had claimed God's computer was nothing more than a statue, housing a tiny processor. That couldn't be true, because Joyce had been resurrected by the mighty processor that stony laptop must have housed. Every time I asked her she confirmed this. If there had been any logic to what Stanley had said, she would know. It had probably been a desperate lie. Yet I couldn't shake this weird feeling that in this last attempt at self-preservation Stanley had shielded himself behind at least a partial truth. I decided I was going to question Joyce yet again.

"Riese," she said, interrupting my thought.

"Yeah?"

"I... I'm seeing someone else."

"...oh."

​We sat in silence for barely a minute. It felt like an hour. My emotions swelled up but got stuck in my throat. I swallowed them down and bit my lip. I couldn't manage to look at Joyce- her mere blurry presence in the corner of my vision was a fiery star that singed my retinas. It was too much to bare, so I got up and went outside.

I sat down in Bryan the Wise's old rocking chair. He had insisted we take it after Joyce and I returned his gun to him. Thankfully Stills and Young were unharmed and safe. Stanley had come shortly after I left, and hadn't appreciated Bryan's buckshot greeting with the same good humor I had. He had taken Bryan's gun from him but Cosby had managed to fight him off. They were lucky the shotgun took so long to reload and that Stanley wasn't a gun guy. So I rocked back and forth for a bit. Joyce came out and asked if I was okay. I managed a shaky yeah and we sat together a while. 

"He lives pretty close," Joyce said, "In one of those McMansions they got a bit to the south. Only he totally gutted it. It's dope, I feel shitty about leaving you alone in the shack."

"The shack's okay. We fixed it together. How long?"

"A couple weeks."

"Fuck."

"I honestly didn't know it was going to piss you off. We were never actually exclu-"

"Fuck that, Joyce! Michael and Stanley are dead! We're living alone together in a shack! Why do I have to ask you if we can be exclusive?"

"Uh, because we've never done that before? And I've definitely never done that with a girl before? Look, you're my best friend. We've been through some real shit. I like domming you. But this shit is messy as fuck. Thank you for bringing me back. I've got a whole new life now and I gotta figure it out."

"...I know. I wanted to help."

"Help yourself, first."

I cried a bit, and Joyce hugged me. Then she announced she was going to spend the night at her boyfriend's and walked off. The sunset kept me company after that. It grew more beautiful every year the atmosphere became clearer. Autumn had turned the leaves on the trees dotting the landscape to warm red embers of dying light. Soon the great fire on the horizon faded, but the night was warm and still and I stayed rocking. I felt my head grow heavy as I rocked myself to sleep.

Suddenly the night grew cold. Not just cold, but empty. I woke and everything in my vision was white. There was a wall of whiteness, growing, sucking the warm air away, leaving emptiness. I screamed, but the wall sucked that away too. I winced and braced off myself as my body was enveloped in the cold nothingness.

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