Pushing the door with an outstretched hand, a glowy warm light washes over her body, painting her pale cheeks with a smidge of pink. Blowing onto her aching fingers that are cracked, sore and ready to bleed, the mist follows her in and tries to pull her back onto the street, but with a swift kick of her left leg, the door slams shut and she makes a dash for the elevator at end of the entranceway. The art studios are on the top floor. She could take the stairs, and yet feels as though she hasn’t the energy, so she impatiently presses the button on the wall until the elevator door slides open. Stepping inside the small room with mirrors on the walls, she spins around and tilts her head as the door slides back and seals her in. Gazing at the myriad reflections that reflect all around, she looks at the copies of her that swirl into nothingness. If she squints, she can see the porno woman’s noonie amid the mushy colours that spin the way a kaleidoscope does. She feels the elevator rising. It’s not a long trip. Only twenty seconds or so, but as she breathes in the aroma of stale beer and disinfectant, time begins to falter. The rumbling of the glass room as it lurches upwards is disconcerting yet organic. She imagines she’s journeying deep into the woman’s womb. Like a tiny sperm, she’s whistling her way through squishy inner tubes along with those the same as her who have found themselves enticed by the sight of a simple wonder. Holding out her arms, she touches the cold glass as her belly grumbles and groans. Puffing out her cheeks, she’s both sick to her stomach and on the brink of orgasm—one of those tickly ones she gets by not touching herself but instead thinking of something erotic that thrills and scares her shitless at the same time. With one side of her brain imagining being deposited out of a pulsating noonie in a creamy glob that trickles down gloriously tanned thighs, the other half pictures the cable carrying the lift snapping, and her body being crushed to a bloody pulp in the bowels of the building as shards of glass cut her into an infinite number of pieces as her bones snap like Twiglets in the mouth of a fat kid.

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