Trinity Ch. 05

This time it was spiders. They were everywhere in the room, under the futon, about to burst out of the closet. She took me out for a walk to air me out. It was worse. There was this tree in one of the gardens, its dense branches hanging out over the sidewalk. No way would I walk under it. They were all there, millions of them, a dense, voracious, flesh-eating black swarm ready to drop onto me as I passed underneath. Or maybe just one big one. Yes! That's it! Shelob was up there, oozing green ichor, blind, clustered eyes staring into the night, fangs dripping - just waiting for me to pass underneath! The Angel desperately tried to convince me that Shelob was only in a book, but the dope was telling me I knew better - that with my brilliant intellect and all, I'd the instant power to materialize any Monster of the Id I cared to dream up. I was getting so bad, she had to take me to hospital. The doctors took one look at me and laughed.

"It's OK pal, you'll get over it," one of them said. "Go back home and have fun with your girl."

I did and I recovered. But a short time after that, I came round to the Angel's and found her colder and more distant than usual. She didn't seem to want to look me in the eye.

"What's up?"

She spun round to face me.

"Look, it's high time you made up your mind. Her or me."

I couldn't bear to lose the DA yet. I had to say something.

"OK. Look, I'll talk to Ela about getting a divorce." A huge chasm opened up in my belly.

"When?"

"Tomorrow."

Now I needed to drown out the pain in flesh. I moved towards her and we kissed. My cock promptly shot up into the 'on' position. But as I began pulling off her sweater she suddenly pulled away.

"No, no Paul. Not just yet. It's premature."

"Whaddya mean, 'premature'? Just how many times have we fucked each other black and blue already?"

"That's just it. I've had enough of all this raw fucking about. It's time for something more. We'll get it on again all right - you bet we will - after you show me you've started divorce proceedings."

Believe it or not, that was it. I didn't see her again from then on.

It was absolute fucking agony, but you see, I just couldn't seriously ask Ela for a divorce. But things weren't so easy to patch up. She was also so cold and distant towards me now that I felt I'd lost them both. Yes, we'd been having some serious rows for some time now and yes, I admit I'd lost it once and actually hit her - not seriously of course. I'd hit myself far, far worse.

I began drinking even more heavily and going out to visit other friends. The wilder the better. And the farther away - none from our block, God forbid! There was this female friend of mine who loved throwing these wild parties. They'd often turn into orgies - you'd wake up in the morning in the living room with a pile of naked people lying around, on the floor, draped on chairs and settees, limbs and bare feet sticking up all over the place. Who'd fucked who? God only knows. Did I? I vaguely remember some bodies, some faces - of both sexes.

I was up Shit Creek without a paddle.

One thing I do remember though. It was at one of these parties I met this really cool Jamaican girl. We didn't want to hang around there boozing away, so I took her home. We were both more than a little pissed. When we got to her place she just kicked off her boots and crashed down onto bed - on her back. She was looking at me expectantly. I just couldn't believe my luck. The Lord was in His Holy Temple again.

She lay there and let me undress her. And there she was - naked, rich, pure dark chocolate, big, full breasts, large black nipples. Then I stripped - nice, slow and steady. Now we were naked together, two big bodies wide open to each other, black and white together. The usual, welcoming, thick, carnal smell enveloped us as I moved on top of her and I felt this warm, crawling tingle all over my skin as my body touched hers. My skin was supersensitized. I lifted her legs up around my neck and kissed each one carefully. Then I worked my way up her body this time, not down, from feet, though legs, juicy vagina, though clit, belly, breasts, neck and finally - mouth. As my tongue entered her mouth, so did my cock enter her vagina. I rocked gently but deeply, savoring the image of our bodies - pale white on cool black, and the steady relentless approach of this terrific orgasm. It worked alright - class I joint supernova.

And so it came to pass that for the first time in my life I tasted chocolate - although I prefer to think of it as coffee, just the way I like it - hot, black and sweet. She never took those superdark eyes off mine the whole time. We passed out, twisted together like black and white rope.

I saw her only once again - about a week later, when our eyes met briefly in the street. You know where. No, shame on me, I don't even remember her name. Pity. She deserved far, far more than I had to give. At least her juices still course through my body.

Then I spent a weekend out in the bush with a mate of mine. He was tall, well built and good-looking in an almost feminine way, with black hair and green eyes. Ela had met him once.

"You know," she'd told him right out front, "I think you're really beautiful." She knew the bush all right - and didn't beat about it.

"I know," he'd relied sadly. "That's my problem."

She'd laughed. Then she'd grabbed him by the shoulders, looked him straight in the eyes and breathed on him, dead slow and serious, that he shouldn't worry about it, that he could have her anytime. Then she'd skipped gaily into the kitchen winking at me. By this time she'd already got a PhD in cock teasing, honoris causa.

He'd a cabin by a lake, so we drove out there with enough crates of beer to sink a tanker. He knew all about what was going on with Ela and me. We sat out on the balcony of the cabin, knocking it back. It was a very warm, sultry night - with a full, pale moon. The crickets were crackling and buzzing away all around. No mozzies, thank Beelzebub.

"Fancy a swim?" he'd asked.

"Sure."

"Let's take a skinny-dip. It's just the right night for it."

Wow! So we did. We stripped completely and marched off down to the lake. As I walked behind him, I watched the rhythmic flow of his back muscles and the jiggle of his buttocks. I couldn't help myself. My cock promptly came 'online'.

The warm water enveloped our bodies and we swam out to a small raft in the middle of the lake. We climbed up onto it and lay down together. There was just enough room for the two of us - we couldn't help half lying on top of each other. Our moist, white bodies glistened in the moonlight and a soft breeze cooled our skin. The touch of our flesh was warm, electric and soothing. Then we saw we both had erections and giggled. I can't even remember whose hand moved to whose cock first. Maybe it was both of us at the same time.

Whatever it was that started us off, he seemed to understand what I wanted. He edged himself between my legs. I stuck my cock between his thighs, while his was squeezed between our bellies. Then he grasped my buttocks, while I caressed his moist back. We began rocking gently back and forth, the raft rocking with us, splashing gently. Our tempo increased and we began grunting. The raft was rocking more furiously now and our bare feet splashed together in the warm water. Then we clutched each other tightly and shot our loads with a groan. I could feel out hearts thudding and the combined throbbing of our cocks as our sperm spurted and mingled, flowing between our stomachs and thighs. A nice, gentle brotherly fuck, and the nearest I ever got to the Big W, I suppose. We tumbled back into the water, giggling helplessly, then swam back.

We got through the rest of the beer that weekend - no problem.

"You know, Paul," he said when we were on the last crate, just before we parted. "I can see a way out of hell for you, if you wanna hear it."

"I wanna hear it."

"Just go home and ball the living daylights out of that fucking gorgeous wife of yours. She's just panting for you to do it, you know."

So I did - that is, from that moment I stayed in the apartment. I apologized and tried to make it up to her any way I could. I made it clear I wanted to stay and rebuild things, and somehow, Ela knew I was serious. She was still cautious however (which now she had every copulating right to be). I was obviously on some type of 'trial period'. We still slept apart - but didn't go out tomcatting, as far as I knew.

But we couldn't keep our hands off each other for long. She was just too fucking desirable. So we eventually got it on - for the last time, as it turned out, and somehow both of us knew it. Never, never, never, never, never did she taste so delicious, did she smell so fragrant, did her body feel so firm and warm, so full of real and latent power, as during that last time. I tried to suck every last drop of juice out of her - I was now sensitive to girls' ejaculations. I drained her all right, but her body was stiffer than before. More latent, less enfolding - like a bomb ready to go off. She was holding something beck. Nevertheless she also managed to drain me of everything, of sperm and tears, of life and of grief.

You see, it was the day after that I found it. Her 'secret diary', bound in rich, sexy crimson leather.

As I read it, my hands were trembling violently, my heart tried to burst out of my chest and my insides dissolved in sulfuric acid. Talk about hot flushes and wrenching pains. I felt like that face in Munch's 'The Scream', howling away on this vast plain beneath blood-red skies, utterly alienated, utterly alone. The frail shell within which my life had been contained was totally smashed and this vast coiled nest of snakes and worms rose up to devour me. The girls' faces just disintegrated before my eyes, turning into laughing, horrific demonic masks, like that kid in 'The Exorcist'. They'd all well and truly got me. Pubic scalps! Now I knew whom she'd got that one from. I just couldn't read it all. I felt I was going to have a heart attack, and dropped it. The Night of the Twister - that bastard Jeff! Alan and Marie for God's sake! Dave of all people! Never mind what was listed under 'A Few Consolations'. Thank God I didn't recognize any of the names. But how could she? And worst of all...the very worst of all...you know what I mean! The night of the Bike Ride! Impossible! Impossible!

"How could you do it?" I wept. "You filthy, disgusting slut!"

She blew her top completely. She screamed at me.

"How could you do what you did? You fucking, stupid bastard! It was you that left me, not the other way round, remember? If you abandon me I'm entitled to my own life. What was I supposed to fucking well do when you weren't here? Kneel and pray in a corner of the room like some fucking Mother Theresa, flogging myself? If I'm a 'filthy, disgusting slut' - it's you that made me one!""

"But how could you...with her...with her...and that...that fucking..."

"If you ask me, I think they fucking well planned it, the two of them. I told you she was only out for Number One but you wouldn't fucking believe me. He was the same. They wanted to split us up, once and for all, and they've fucking well succeeded, haven't they? I was just too fucking weak at the time - that plus the booze and the drugs. It wasn't just my fault. You and I had everything going for us. It was you who had to go ahead and open the can of worms - not me. Oh yes! Now both of us have been well and truly fucked over, body and soul."

Then she'd told me what I' always suspected but didn't want to know - about Maria and Robin - and what she suspected they'd always wanted from us.

Yes, yes, I saw it now, of course why not? Why not? It all made perfect sense. The fool's cap I'd been wearing grew so large it dropped over my entire body. It was made of white-hot metal.

I had to go to hospital. There was this terrible raging pain - at the base of my spine, in my balls, in my belly. I couldn't breathe, I thought I was going to have a heart attack. But there was nothing physically wrong with me of course. It was all psychosomatic. When I recovered, I moved into my own apartment for a while. But I couldn't stick it any more in that city or anywhere else in that country for that matter. I went back to Europe.

I spent some time in that old country where we'd met, but couldn't stand it there for long either - O my brothers and sisters, I'm sure you know why.

I couldn't resist going over old ground, and yes, I met her again back there. No, no, not the original Ela. She was lost, truly lost now, over there, in that vast glittering matrix of my premonitions and dreams. This one was practically her double. Same name - and same nickname, if you'd believe it - the one I'd always used in bed with the original. I've told you this entire relational web was weird. We even ended up fucking each other's brains out (as if I still had any left to fuck out) in the same hotel where my first Ela had had her first ...her first orgasm (as far as I knew). But this one wasn't her of course. This one was already exactly what I'd stupidly pushed my own first Ela into becoming. I was only a brief diversion between biggies, and ended up as another notch on her bed, a minor addition to a very hirsute collection of pubic scalps.

I took her to the concentration camp at Auschwitz. I've no idea why I did this. We went over to the lakes at Birkenau - the place where no birds ever sing. I lifted a handful of dark grey mud from one of them, squeezed it in my hand and recited the Kaddish. I wasn't Paul anymore, you see. Ka-Tzetnik 271182 - that's what I'd become. The stuff I held in my hand was what my heart was now made of. My beautiful surrogate was perplexed, mystified, revolted - by the whole place, and by my actions. She just couldn't work me out.

This is really another story of course - but then, O my brothers and sisters - aren't all our stories linked together through a single vast web of sexual encounters? Through these encounters, aren't we all related to everyone on the planet? Who's ever going to write The Big One?

I became a monk for a while, if you'd believe it. Visitors to these places are politely asked not to invade the cloisters themselves, not to intrude upon the private griefs of those within. I'd been told this before. I'd never known what they meant by this - until now. When I'd done enough desperate howling with a bunch of crazy wankers in front of bits of wood and stone, I left.

Anyway, celibacy sucks.

I'd tried praying, but it was no use - He just wasn't listening - not now. When I prayed, I found I was just talking to myself. Ah well! I thought. Maybe I'd chosen the smartest person to talk to anyway. Or maybe not. I didn't discover any more about human nature there than I already knew before - except that if you dream up the worst thing imaginable, you won't be far wrong. That if you look into the very darkest corners - the places you're just too scared to look - there'll be something there all right and it will be just exactly what you'd feared.

Well, that's not exactly true. I did find out something - that we're a deeply split species. That the split happens in the womb, long before we see the light of day. That the two separate strands of that split are always trying to reconnect - like two strands of DNA - but somehow they never do, never perfectly. That in the unfolding dramas of our lives the amino acid strands of the psyche get enmeshed, but never match up. This is why we're so complicated. And those of us who think they're not have only woven a dense protective cocoon around the core - around the unbearable pain of that initial split.

Romantics like me haven't a hope in hell of healing that spit. We love our sugary dreams, we idealize others, but at the same time we're irrepressibly drawn to those we think of as 'dark' or elemental'. I once read a poem by this freaky guy - Castis something-or-other - which said 'we love the things of Heaven, but can't help falling in love with Hell', or some crap like that. Nevertheless, I believe it. That's me all right. I wanted Ela as angel and whore at the same time. A lot of men are like this. Sorry, as she herself told me, you can't have both.

I work with AI now, and my work cocoons the pain, as before. But alone in bed at 3.14 a.m. - 'dark-night-of-the-soul' time, I fantasize how the AI will replace us sometime soon - and the sooner the better, I hope. I reject all human gods. I prefer oblivion and the abyss to any form of biological life. Any eventual resurrection will not, sadly, be mine, but when my time comes, my neural structures will become embedded within the entities I'm helping to create. I'll lose my human nature, but I've little use for that now. I can't bear the pain of living as a human and I'm too much of a wimp to just do myself in. Whether I'll weep or exult in my possible, eventual transformation - that will be my own affair. Rather ten minutes as a failed monster than a hundred more years of life as a man. I've embraced the Dark Side of the Force.

What a fucking, bilious load of bollocks, isn't it? But I have to keep those other fucking dreams at bay somehow - you know, the 'matrix' dreams - the ones I told you about in the first part of my story. And there's more to these dreams. The DA often turns up in them. No dense, twisted matrix stuff - she's got a really neat pad in a street I know only too well. I come knocking at the door. Sometimes she'll let me in to have a look. It's a lovely place. Sweet and twinkly - flowery, embroidered bedspreads, the lot. No more goth, satanic SFX. I can't stay though. You see, I've long been replaced by now - which is as it should be I suppose. Never in these dreams do I catch a glimpse of my latest replacement. Yup, I've lost her too - and who else above all in this story deserved far, far more than I had to give?

ELP's 'For You'. 'How could you do what you did?' and so on. A pile of fucking, excremental crap, sure. But like it or not, it's 'our story' - both sides of it. I just can't bear to hear it now. It kills me.

I understood all right, in the end. Couldn't Ela and I have found some another way of sorting ourselves out, other than just pelting each other with pubic scalps like Moses with the commandments? But I see now it was me that had the power to stop it all along - and just couldn't. It would have taken just one single, loving, forgiving embrace - the morning after the Big W thing, or reasonably soon after - or even the other chances I'd had. Pride kills. When put to the real test, I just didn't have the inner strength, the courage, the wisdom and humility, to claim the one I really loved.

I still miss her terribly. In the mathematics of chaos the trajectories of our lives are always separating, constantly moving apart. Lambda is always positive. I just can't accept this. Sorry about the math, folks, but sometimes it teaches us things we'd rather not know.

We're still in touch of course. I know time's being good to her, that she's getting fucking lovelier as the years pass, that there's no shortage of 'boyfriends'. But I tell you, O my brothers and sisters, even if she'd banged half the fucking continent by now, it wouldn't be a question of 'taking her back' - I'd ask her, beg her, to take me back if she would. I court her all over again, chaste and romantic-like, roses, dinners, the whole bleeding shit, no matter if she was screwing half a dozen other guys in the meantime. She'd be the one in charge now. She'd teach me how to love.

We both have our 'spies' - all over the fucking planet if you'd believe it, from Hawaii to Vladivostok - the long way round. Maybe this is a good sign. Obviously, we still care enough to try and keep tabs on each other. Maybe there's hope yet. We're internationals, you see, and our tentacles spread wide. For us it's a small world out there, even if a dense one.