Married In Death (Part One)
"Can we just decapitate
that one, she's French. Leave my son alone. He's not French." It was
the words my dad uttered in order to save my life, but on some level I
felt responsible for not dying beside my true love. My dad was
misgendering his only daughter about to die under the widow gun, the gun
of the guillotine.
It was then I remembered the memory I had before we both got caught, and were threatened by decapitation.
"Waste of energy, just
slit their throat. A few seconds, it's all over." It was a feeling I
wasn't used to having before. All my worries, all my fears. It was all
coming to an end. I felt I was about to die. I remembered it was Borges
that said the statement, yet it was a desperation statement I hung onto
after she died. It was a reality I turned turned to, when I thought of
those who hurt my Anna-Marie.
"It's OK papa. Don't
worry now, this will only hurt for a second." The sound of a young girls
laughter. Then everything fell silent. Everything came to an end.
"What's wrong Hemato, why are you so scared. Why are you so erect.
Hemato, get away from me. You're scaring me."
"You're the one that stabbed your father." I said.
She gave me a look she
was was heartbroken, forlorn. She didn't want to see me like this, on
some level ... she wanted to protect me from herself. "Hold me Hemato.
Please don't hurt me. I don't know what's happening to me. I feel like I
haven't been myself lately. I normally hide the real me from you. I'm
sorry. I failed you."
They spared me that day, but not my Anna-Marie.
"I understand if you
hate me for killing him, but you're the one jacking off to me losing my
head." A common misunderstanding of my condition, one that set my last
days with her forward. I don't like it when people die, I simply have an
attraction to other people's blood. "I don't ever want to see you
again."
And she never got the
chance to, the bladed widow took her life. We were merely kids then, her
being seventeen and I was nineteen. At first I thought that our love,
chosen by the stars, would last forever. I suppose I was wrong. At times
I felt my life had never started at all, and I would not be here if not
for James.
"There is so much in
life to live for. Don't stand on the edge." I lived my life constantly
on edge, and yet he wanted me off of it. He did not quite understand the
depth of my disorder, and my guilt. But he truly wanted to make me
happier.
He knew that I felt
I had failed her, and yet when I tried to take my own life months
before, he stood beside me and comforted me. Although I was a lesbian,
and he was straight, I found some attraction in him that was different
from the one love I had for Anna Marie. He wore a pair of stylish
virtual reality goggles, and would toggle different aspects on his
analogue computer. It was like completely changing cultures. I was lower
middle class, and yet found myself in the grasp of Steam-punks.
Society still has a
long way to go before accepting sanguophilia--or in more scientific
terms Hematolagnia. I earned the nick name Hemato as a reference among
friends. Homato Tomato, the dark red sauce of life at its end. The
attraction of blood, as the world believes you are attracted to acts of
cruelty.
And yet I am apposed to death and execution.
Before I had met her I
went through my whole life wracked with guilt. My original assumption
was that I was interested in beheaded girls, and not just their blood.
This caused uneasy relationships among friends, who always treated me as
secretive. But in a world where homosexuality becomes increasingly
accepted into mainstream society, people that actually have paraphilias
are left in the dust.
I am a blend of metal and flesh, the rusted robot of our time.
As I come to terms with my own humanity.
I am unassuming, some
might saying extremely so. Some other may find me raving mad, it depends
largely on who you talk to. We all live in our own personal
controversies, and yet there is nothing more sacred than the blood of
life, it's fluid the power and give and take your life away in an
instant.
Me and Ann would have
frog legs for dinner, and French bakery bread. For me the only positive
thing to really say about the French were fashion and food. And yet here
we were supporting the French at the edge of the world of massive
advertisements and general ubiquitousness. As ubiquitous as the
fascination for blood.
When I saw the blade
drop through her neck, I found myself having a mixture of different
emotions. Although certainly this was not the start of my sexual
attraction to blood. I felt a mix of attraction and repulsion I couldn't
explain. There was some unspoken rule of not going up and hugging her
decapitated head.
I merely hug and consume the bread of life.
Beyond the dreamer's
edge, I find myself in a strange fantasy world of overgrown leaves. A
world where there was still childhood, and the sacredness of youth was
still there. In the darkest corner of the human mind, I found myself
alone and wandering the dark. I could hear the giggles and the music box
melody of Anna Marie's favorite children's song. Like an old fashioned
country song.
I found her hug me
tightly, as if apologetically. And yet no words were spoken between me
and here, there was simply love in the here after. And yet like Edgar
Allen Poe's Annabelle Lee I found she was a child and I was a child in
this game of life and death. I found in my own personal dream world self
hate and pity. And yet I knew that her life was worse.
I had known that her
father would beat her senselessly, although reluctantly at first. Isn't
that how all child killers are born? And yet, and yet I became more like
James. As the images of me and Anna Marie were kissing as my vision
faded into the world of darkness. The darkness of the burnt out light
bulb.
I remember seeing her
hobble along the road as she walked in her wooden shoes, another aspect I
grew to obtain called finding wooden clogs kinky. There was something
in her poverty, and in her despair I found someone I could try to make
happier. And at first this effort seemed to be working. We were both
runaways.
She was now a runaway from life.
And yet I find that I
long to be with her again, and on some level I cared not if it would
effect James. As surely the courts would find him not guilty. And so I
climbed to the stairs that led to forever.
I tossed myself into the night.
I am now in the embrace
of my own true love, my darling Anna Marie. And this love beyond mortal
life, we life a new life of star-crossed lovers.
My dying vision, as I fade into forever. Then I wake up from the dream.
I tell James I will be going far away forever, that I'll miss him.
Author note: Has since been expanded into a novelette. The world is set in a Guillotine Western, an era of the US dominated by French Imperialism, and primarily takes place in Northwest 21st century.
It's direct sequel is Anna-Marie With Her Shotgun.
