She’s not long gone from this world. Perhaps little more than an hour. When she comes around, her heart feels heavy—so heavy it’s almost as if it’s escaped her body and is sinking through the bedroom floor. Attached to a thin strip of flesh, it swings to and fro from her chest like a pendulum. A big one. Like the kind you find in museums. To make matters worse, she’s dribbled in her sleep. It’s covered her entire face. Like come, she thinks. Rolling onto her side, she clutches her belly thinking of all the men she’s had despite her tender years, and the thought of their dead, tiny sperms littering her insides like miniature shipwrecks. She’s never allowed a man to wear protection in her company. The desire to keep a part of them for herself, something real and tangible, unlike the falsity of memory, has always been too much to resist. When she was a little girl, the doctor told her she wouldn’t ever have kids. The idea didn’t bother her much back then, and when she came of age, she used it to her advantage, but the older she’s got, the more it niggles the back of her brain that the sole purpose of her being here has been denied. She can catch all manner of nasties from letting guys do their thing inside of her, but she doesn’t care. It’s never been love, and it’s never been enough. Not even the thought of picking up something she should be ashamed of has put her off the idea of being so reckless. She’s deeply ashamed of her antics, and yet life at times is so utterly pointless, there seems not much of a reason to change.

X and I: A Novel and A Journal for Damned Lovers on Amazon UK

X and I: A Novel and A Journal for Damned Lovers on Amazon US