CW: cannibalism, violence.
This piece was one of my Clarion West Workshop stories, for one of the days we issued a challenge in the group to write something erotic for a particular week (shout out to Samit for being amazing during “Chaos week”) and this was the result of it. The idea of writing something sexual came from the first week of the workshop when our instructors Mary Anne and Ben had us list words of a sexy nature. It was something new and challenging for me to write a piece with sexual and/or erotic aspects since I normally don’t.
• • • •
To my Beloved Newly Arisen One,
The problem with blood is coagulation. Immediate contact with oxygen begins the process, unveiling all its extrinsic secrets. Within, however, lie the intrinsic whispers: the reason why bleeding to death is both easy and not, even with precise incisions.
Let us begin with the process that first got you here, onto my onyx table: cool, black and polished to perfection, reflecting the constellations that swing above.
Your eyelids are sewn shut. They have been since you took your first step, and it was decided what you would do when your hand could hold up a jagged, thin blade, the end of it a toothy old friend waiting for your arrival. Since then it has been decades.
Forgive me for not addressing the glaring issues you are soon to encounter when waking, but as the Lord Before Me once said: To each their own way, to each their own skin, to each their own until the next comes.
Trust that you will find solace in the deep waters of Xochimilco, as the weather turns and the sky cracks above into hummingbird-coloured plumage of grey and green and blue. Your skin blooms with vegetation, the seeds warmed and nourished by blood, ready to burst.
Porous volcanic rocks form the basis of your future temple that is currently still mine. Hold the knife with steady fingers. Be the guillotine that accompanies you to bed every night. When you wake, remember the mantra below:
Advocation.
Evocation.
Silence.
The world is at peace.
I promise the wait is worth it, you will find solace in the murky waters that cradle axolotls from womb to tomb. Above, chinampas will traverse, the crops of your first year will be the most vigorous, most lush. Remember this.
Carry the brilliance of the beginning in your memory to propel you forth through this next century. When the ships drop into our atmosphere, welcome and feed the weary travellers returning home. Allow the floodlights to dim the Tzitzimimeh, a momentary blind spot in the firmament.
Now, let us get back to your body. That is the only memory that should remain at the end of this account. Record and testament of the passing of the seasons embodied by our godhood. Your phalanges fit so well between my teeth, cartilage crunching, but the bones . . . your bones are spongy. Soaked and softened. The cooling sweat of your skin on my tongue, you are not blessed by my kiss but I by yours.
• • • •
To my Most Exalted Lord,
The warmth of your body arches beneath mine, reaching out, wanton. We are slick with blood.
Cock and void.
Among your many devotees I alone have risen to the occasion more than once and reaped the rewards. When you gently took out the stitching of my eyes during our first fuck, the cotton black and crusted with the blood of decades. You were the first thing I beheld since birth. Your own eyes were black empty holes that could be filled with precious stones. Sight was irrelevant, you said, only the skin matters.
I know, my Lord, your name sticks to the roof of my mouth, full of your seed, and I swallow and swallow and swallow and swallow and swallow—the least one can do to get as close to touching your heart.
You picked me over all others, before I had even left the womb, because the scans already showed how steady my hands were. Because the fruit of promise was embedded in me from conception. I have never known how to want anything else but you.
Though I was not the only one among those who willingly flayed our skins that loved you. Is my love for you presumptuous? Is the fact you return it even more so?
Nothing anyone can offer would ever sway me from your side. My brother has donned the bright emblem of Tlaloc, helping to usher in the rains and storms over the lake where below your temple rests. But the cold ozone scent of rain has never compared to the sweet, metallic tang of your skin.
Tonight, you and I will be one step closer. These are the last records of my living self, the shedding of skin at your command.
May this ritual enucleation place me closer to your grace, my hand is steady for this task. Fuck the pain out of me after. I know this is close to impertinence, but you said once, when I swore myself to you, that I could request one thing. This is what I want: to be yours in all the ways that matter.
• • • •
To my One Future Lord,
I have taken your self-mutilation as a form of affection. Then, your eyes settled nicely on my tongue where they remain: vigilant, mingled with my papillae, and they have never tasted before but they shall from now onward.
Men from Azcapotzalco came with what are to be your shield and ornaments from gold. Centuries ago, the very first of their lineage came and asked to worship, cutting out their own hearts as proof of their devotion while they still drew breath. That is the blood that fed the first fields. Our mouths are open now, no words as we bear witness to the change of seasons.
You cannot stop loving me, but you should. Things cannot remain as they are, and we have spent far too many decades as supplicant and benefactor. Though you have loved and allowed me to take everything from you. Every part I devoured before putting it back in you, imprinted by teeth and full of heavenly bile.
Even now, the shape of your mouth is like the moon crowned by quail feathers. What am I to do with you in this vulnerable moment? When you read this it will be far too late for any words to matter; such is the nature of time. You will devote yourself to keeping the passing of seasons, when the earth turns a dull, tired red you will bring it back to bright crimson with precision: rebirth.
Above us, Citlalicue and Citlalatonac usher their children, sending them to accompany people on their journey. One day, after many centuries have passed for you, you’ll see them return with starmaps and ships with golden bowels and quivering teeth.
Do not bid me farewell for this is not an end. All that I am will press against that skull of yours.
• • • •
To my Fading Lord,
This moment has long been coming and yet I still mourn when the knife runs from under your chin all the way down, over your pelvis and still further—left leg, then right. The cuts are all straight, and I yearn for a reaction despite the unmoving mouth that greets me as I do this.
I wrote this all down so I would not forget once I become you. This becomes difficult already; you begin and I end; you end and I begin. Before my mind runs out and joins those above the stars that traverse where they should not there is:
Silence.
You lie, pliant and supplicant as I sit up and slip into your discarded skin. The rustling sound of drying epidermis, the scrape and scratch of salt sprinkled to preserve and harden it like cured meat.
Your cock looks larger on me than it ever did inside me. Gold adorns my ears, and the shield weighs nothing with our combined strength.
With each of my red-tinged steps the ground becomes fertile again. Just like you promised me in your letter. That’s just the beginning of it, I know, we see now from our star-shaped gaze reaching across the lake, over hills and up through planets light years away. The vastness weighs down on me without your hand on my shoulder.
My last line, my last words before the supplicant becomes the benefactor, before the acolyte becomes divine, reshaped. What is yours is mine, and I am infinitesimally small, but utterly yours.
• • • •
To the Past, Present, and Future Lord,
You told me what to expect. The truth spilled from your mouth like slashed arteries under the obsidian knife. Serrated-edged, it parts the skin with little pressure, the epidermis giving way as blood wells.
From our skin, the earth grows strong, and from the memory of us, I walk ahead. This century and the one after, until my time to become past arrives with the birth of the right acolyte.
These words, may they reach the next one to covet the love of Xipe Totec: We all aspire to go from votary to god and bring subjugation to those who refuse this warring embrace of ours.
