Thirst: a short story.
Thirst: a short story.
Written in 2017. Unedited. Uncensored. NSFW.
Author’s Note:
This short story is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. This short story also includes references to rape culture & power dynamics.
Please proceed with sovereignty & self-responsibility.
Copyright 2017, 2022
I wanted you to taste me.
I figured you might know me.
Or get to know me, rather.
Or want to, even.
I thought that my flesh in yours is, was, would be, freedom. That touch, made flesh, sanctified in –and by- its specificity, my juices rolling down your chin, would make you, me, ‘we’ feel something.
Beautiful, preferably– but I wasn’t that picky.
Sex and sense and sensibility don’t often come together. And if they do, the sex is shit.
It needs to be, feel, epitomise the word ‘immersive’. I didn’t just want you to fuck me. Hell, I didn’t even want you to know me– not really. I was scared of you knowing me, scared of what that might mean. They say that “beyond fear lies freedom”, but ‘they’ are proverbial; I can’t call up for a reference, or advice beyond said oblique testimonial.
Okay, so “beyond fear lies freedom”– so what? Beyond platitudes lay brokenness. Lay or lie; I want to lie by your side. Equal, reciprocal, space taking; and beyond taking we’re making, space I mean, maybe even love, for, and with, one another, and we’re embracing your, my, our warmth. As if this were, could be, a love story.
A thing of beauty is a joy forever, even without the happy ending.
And perhaps it is more beautiful for that very reason.
It is simpler, clearer, more free. I hunger for you, but do not need. This is not thirst, but gluttony; I am not dying, but wet and crying. Out, in: the breath, the movement, the synchrony. A symphony, albeit wholly internally. I want, I want, I want, emanating.
Please.
Begging.
Taste me.
Make me feel something, anything, everything– I’m not picky.
Beautiful, ugly, whore, princess: perhaps all on rotation.
It keeps things interesting.
Can you tell that I get bored easily?
But yet I wanted you to know me.
Or I wanted you to taste me.
Maybe I thought that you would know me, instantaneously.
That sex was love and love was sex and this was self, your, our mutual means of expression.
I begged.
You liked it, you said.
I liked it, I thought.
When you liked it, I mean.
I think it made me feel special.
That sounds pathetic, doesn’t it?
I told you I liked it when you called me that, too.
To you, I really did have it all.
Or maybe it was the other way around.
Hindsight doesn’t just blur. It clouds.
I miss you. I’m sorry. I love you.
I don’t understand anymore.
It doesn’t matter.
This is recalled in hindsight: who I was then defined by, and on the basis of, who I am now.
It is a retrospective account, the truth of which is –at best– subjective, if not wholly erroneous.
It’s a matter of perspective, its truth quantified and validated only as, and in relation to, my own.
You believe me because it’s simpler, easier and clearer for us both if we do so.
You are complicit; we are in this together.
You believe me because ambiguity, not comparison, is the “true” thief of joy– and I don’t blame you.
I can’t imagine being you… but if I could, I would respond similarly, I’m sure.
As sure as the sun rises in the East, it sets in the West.
So, we rise and fall with depressing regularity.
It’s our own fault: we want to know.
We want to understand.
I am no different.
Cat can’t bite its tongue. I bit off more than I could chew.
I tell myself I wanted it.
I told you I wanted it.
I wanted it.
Right?
I wanted it; I wanted you; I wanted you to touch me, taste me, feel me, drown me in you, you, you; breathing mass of solid flesh and blood and sweat and separation with whom I knew I wouldn’t, couldn’t, stay. Self-sabotage is a fine art; I studied it at Cambridge.
Art, not sabotage.
But I probably would’ve done better had I framed it as such.
What we see when we look back.
What we learn and what we remember and what we take with us, for us, forever.
Forever is a long time. Who knows what I want?
I didn’t.
Maybe I still don’t.
I tell myself I didn’t want it, but it makes no difference.
It happened. It was what it was; it is what it is.
I told him, myself, everyone around me that I did: I refused to listen.
I raped myself over and over again, in the name of liberation.
This was not what my foremothers went to war for.
It was a hollow victory– if at all.
Without definition, edges are empty; hearts and minds no longer disheartened by the abrasion of reality.
It was my fault: I was not the victim. I refused to take my place.
I had something over you, in my grasp; thicker than water and full of blood.
I held on, grip tight, resolute. I almost refused to let go.
I wouldn’t let go even if I wanted to.
Phallus is power is weakness.
I do not deserve your forgiveness.
I made you happy, for a moment. Isn’t that enough?
A moment is never enough; its singularity is dizzying. Life is but a collection of moments, fleeting. Love loss meaning: the lost; the found; the freedom.
I hunger not for forgiveness, but understanding.
I lust not over love, but respect.
Futility is aimless, shameless, self-perpetuating; The Hollowness ™, my crowning glory.
I tasted you but I was greedy.
I wanted too much; I wanted everything; I didn’t know how –or where– to stop, let alone how to get it.
I put you on a plate and arranged you delicately.
You luxuriated; I masticated.
It was over before it begun: the rush, then just bitter, phlegmy spunk.
The aftermath? I got up, dressed, wiped myself down, and left.
I didn’t want your love or your revenge.
I no longer wanted anything.
At that moment, I ran straight into the arms of my own emptiness.
It was comforting, enveloping: the anaesthesia of safety. I felt nothing; I was free.
There was no hunger, no desire, no drive in me; a sexual awakening-cum-lobotomy.
I took and I took and I took; and finally, I got what I needed.
I’m sorry.