You meet on the commute home, after a movie production briefing. You didn’t talk during the meeting, you didn’t think he saw you from across the room. He’s not your type but he’s entertaining. Ultimately, he doesn’t get the job.
For your first date, he takes you to see dead babies in formaldehyde. This intrigues you. There’s an uncaring attractiveness about him.
You don’t really like Paris, not enough trees, wicked dry and hot in the summer. Noisy streets. Bad people. You like Paris even less when Mélanie gets her first job. Still a student, you’re left out. When Mélanie finally states she wants to be independent, get her own life, is when you move into Alex’s flat.
Alex ain’t what you sought in a boyfriend but you feel safe with him. His blabbermouth prevents you from thinking too much about the mountains or Valenton or Mom. You regret the hikes, the surreal cries of the forest.
You date a guy. You say you’re ace. He says he gets it.
Nonetheless, dating Alex implies a sex life. You suck him off from time to time. Not out of desire, this is the protective mechanism you developed around his aggression. Against his “But you have to understand me too.” Against his “I could fuck other girls, y’know.”
Blowjobs enable you to retain control. You’re the one giving the rhythm, the one handing out orgasms, the one keeping safe. Even on the 24th of April, when you ask him to facefuck you upside down.
Alex is a nice guy. He yells when he’s angry but that’s probably because he’s an only child. There are no only children in Valenton, you wouldn’t know.
He spits out terrible things when furious. Or drunk. You help him work on this. Sometimes, you notice the pause he takes when he’s about to insult you. You like this about him, the effort he sometimes indulges in.
He’s always there to make you laugh when your job becomes a burden. After the sweaty smell from the commute, the musk of dirt and rats. The flat always smells like panned onions when you get back. For this, you’re grateful.
“The hardest thing about a relationship is figuring out what’s for dinner,” you both often joke.
Being an ace means every time Estelle screams, “Am so wet, right now!” You only nod. You get the need to touch, to kiss, to be hugged. The feeling of belonging. Nothing makes you wet. Not even making Alex come.
Being an ace means your boyfriend lets you go out clubbing since he doesn’t think you’re fucking other boys.
Or so he says.
Alex says a lot of things, about geopolitics but mostly about horror films.
He’s still saying things on this night when he wakes you up by kissing your right cheekbone.
Your dry labia hurts.
You’re scared at first because, in the dark, you can’t see if it’s really him. But you hear the constant drone of his voice permeating the damp obscurity. As if his soothing words could deter you from what’s happening.
You feel the thrust from a distance like a medical procedure. You think of bells. He kisses you and you don’t kiss him back and you hate yourself for not biting him, and he still goes on as if his childish “Sorry” matters. In due time, you’ll build a castle around this moment, re-enact it, hate yourself with a passion for every second.
There’s this angry you who’s jumped out of bed, shrieking like some inflexible Medusa. Only she’s screaming at you. The you, lying there awake, unmoving. She screams at you because you do not move.
You take in everything, the scent of dried nettles from his armpits when he gets away from your still body, the tired feel of the fabric of the sheet you both put on that evening, the sad shade of green light that pierces the window, and covers his body in spots like a skin disease.
“What’re you doing?” you finally ask.
“You know how long I’ve been waiting for this?” he answers, his breath rotten.
You don’t move since you don’t exist.
You date a guy. You say you are ace. He says he understands.
When his crotch gets stuck on you, when your vagina finally takes hold of the smooth part that’s his pelvis, is when Alex panics.
“The fuck is happening,” his first genuine sentence. “Leave me the fuck alone.”
When it doesn’t work is when he hits you for the first time. Cloc, cloc, Alex’s fists connecting with a cheekbone. It reminds you of your fight with Estelle back in Valenton. Cloc, cloc, tiny fists, tiny knuckles.
When he tires, your eyes are closed and purple. Your face is swollen. You didn’t move.
“What’s happening?” he asks your limp body, shaking it, searching for an answer he should have sought an hour ago.
Alex doesn’t realize it but his feet are gone, they melted like wax onto your calves.
You really are a two-backed beast now.
“Feet are the first to go,” you whisper through bloodied teeth. “Otherwise, males could escape.”
Pushing on your right arm, you get up. What remains of Alex’s body, his torso folds toward the ground like the upper part of unbuckled overalls.
“Sarah, please,” he begs like you ever had a say.
Your index finger slithers upon the sweet skin under your navel that links both your bodies. It is smooth under your digits and your finger now smells like Alex.
~~~
You call in sick. People will underestimate how easy it is to knock out your rapist with a remote. You call in sick ’cause you know the process is gonna take some time. Alex hasn’t lost his arms yet.
He cries and gulps a lot, probably because he’s upside-down and saliva is hard to deal with. When he wants your attention, he’ll scratch around your navel. Alex never liked the way your skin felt. Never cared for giving you smoochies. It’s weird, it’s only now you get the tactile attention you wanted all along.
When you’re bored, you wonder how he’s adjusting to the world. The motion sickness now that the world slithers ten inches above his head. You wonder how he feels about having his agency taken away from him.
You date a guy. You say you’re ace. He says he gets it.
One day, his arms fall off. You watch the bloody stumps stuffed with shattered bones and hope whatever’s doing this will make it rot fast enough you don’t have to deal with the lone limbs.
You feel for him, more so when the assimilation melts his jaw in your belly. With this hole full of teeth in your abdomen, you realize all of this took you away from exercising.
You cradle Alex’s head, you feel more for him since he can’t speak. Since he stopped crying.
One evening while watching some flick, you absentmindedly place your fingers on his scalp, into his hair. You find it a chore to have to think about dinner. Soon it becomes second nature.
When only his face remains as a flat stain across your sternum, you wonder if you should get a tattoo.
Since Alex is invisible now, you get back to work. You realize you won’t take the elevator with a lone male anymore. No one notices. Slight details.
Watching Friday the 13th Part 6, Alex’s and your favourite, you decide to work on your abs. You realize you never called Estelle through all this. Maybe you should have, maybe you should now.
Sometimes, when the flat smells like fried onions, you cry for no reason. You don’t play certain video games anymore.
In due time, you begin to breathe again.
You’d date a guy. You say you’re ace. He says he understands.
He leaves his mark inside of you.