Love, at the atomic level, is an electron. Whether an electron shared, given, or stolen, is not an issue, for these are human descriptors and electrons are not human. The chemical reactions that magically create the illusion of love within the human brain require the mass transfer of these virtually massless particles.
Similarly, one may state that at a quantum level, love can spontaneously appear and disappear, pop impossibly into existence in a vacuum and then promptly and equally impossibly disappear, a phenomenon possessing a most elegant explanation that it does not actually need, for explanation is again a purely human necessity.
As we approach absolute zero, chemical reactions become less and less likely. Particles become inert. Still. Silent. And therefore, as we approach absolute zero, love inevitably dies.
However, such extremes are not in fact necessary, as love is essentially a fragile entity. It is widely believed that an increment of a mere two or three degrees will produce the same tragic outcome. If this is true, and if we carry on the way we are, we will soon witness love's demise first hand.
*
In the world I habitually inhabit, the harsh physical world where death is but a careless miscalculation away, one substance rules all. Its solid state does not cover the ground: it is the ground. It fills the air and blocks out the sky. Some days, it is the sky. Savage beyond belief, beautiful beyond words, it blinds, it burns, it scours. At its most violent, it can transmute bare flesh into bloody broken sores in a matter of minutes. At its most benign, it brings a sweet, numbing death in a handful of hours. Without a great deal of training and specialist protective clothing, one simply could not exist here. Without a particularly determined and enquiring mind, one would not wish to.
*
I saw her first.
An outline. A slight but sufficiently unnatural change to the icy landscape. My experienced eyes spotted her. My survival skills saved her. But, despite my unquestioned abilities, it was undoubtedly Chance who decided the moment. The moment our histories would collide. And that, I suppose, would normally have been the end of it and Chance would just as easily have set us on our separate ways. However, with that first glance into her frail and frightened eyes, our destinies had somehow become entangled. And the more we struggled, the more entangled we became. The ensuing knot was devilishly complex. Impossible to analyse. Inconceivably difficult to solve. In the end, I gave up. So did she. What our minds could not undo, our bodies mirrored with a jumbled skein of limbs, a muddled scramble of intertwined insatiable flesh. The first time took mere moments, yet its effects would scar us for a lifetime.
In short, I fucked her. And she fucked me. Just as we together have fucked everything.
Out here, where there is nothing, nothing but ice and cold and death, it is blindingly obvious that the world is irrevocably damaged. We are sitting on top of the evidence. Directly on top. It is moving, slithering, slowly sliding to the sea. Every month, we fire up the engines and caterpillar back to our home co-ordinates, and every second of every hour of every day, the glacier carries us away. Year on year, the ice beneath our mobile home is thinning. Year on year, replenishing inland snowstorms grow less and less frequent. One day soon the evidence will simply collapse into the ocean. And with its demise, the seas will rise. Cities will vanish between the waves and refugees will swarm inland like army ants, stripping the land, consuming everything in their path. Society will collapse as surely as the glacier will collapse, and civilisation as we know it will come to an end.
*
Like almost everyone on the station, Maria 'Mia' Sparrow was a scientist. Like her pseudo film-star-name-sake, she was blonde, short-haired, petite and waif-like, hardly the stuff of Antarctic explorers, and yet here she was, working, contributing, pulling her weight like some burly marine. Until the incident that almost claimed her, I had merely acknowledged her in passing, had stolen glances at the legendary nipples that almost poked through her too-tight tee-shirts, but that was all. She was simply one of the fifty-seven. Most of the time, I was too busy, too tired, or too distracted, to even care that she was female.
Sitting at her bedside, waiting for her to wake, aching to once again look into those fragile eyes, I knew things would never be the same. Now I cared. In that brief, incoherent moment out on the raging ice, she had given herself over to me, entrusted her future to me. I, in turn, had accepted. And so here I was, self-appointed guardian of this damaged woman, giving all of my free time to see my mission through, to monitor her recovery, measure her progress, till she was once again back on her feet and fully independent. Doc had assured me that the loss of the ring and little fingers on her left hand would be no impediment to her career, nor would the loss of her little toes. Her face, though seared by the elements, would soon be almost like new, while her half-ears could be easily hidden by longer hair. Internally, I had laughed at that: even I, who barely knew her, understood she would never grow her hair; she would wear her imperfect ears like a badge of honour.
*
'Mia?'
She was stirring, grimacing, as if suddenly aware of acute pain, though the analgesics in her system would surely be working hard to numb it. I tried again.
'Mia? It's okay. You're in sick-bay. You were a bit banged up when we found you, though Doc says you're going to be fine.'
I gently rested a reassuring hand on her bare shoulder. She calmed. She stilled. Cracked lips moved but no sound came.
'Thank you.'
Then she opened her eyes. She opened her eyes and gazed into mine, and I instantly knew I loved her.
After trying and failing to lift her head, her eyes closed again and she drifted into sleep. Alone in the hushed semi-darkness, I sat and cried for all I had gained, for all I might lose, then sat and cried some more, till the nurse came to change her dressings.
*
'We're going to fuck, aren't we?'
It was a statement rather than a question. A week had passed and she was sitting up, her unkempt head resting on plush pristine pillows. Most of the dressings had been removed and her skin was returning to its usual lustre. Only her left hand and forearm were still wrapped. She nursed it, flexed it, turned it around in disbelief then carefully rested it back in her lap. Every time our eyes met, I glimpsed again the terrified creature clinging to the frame of death's icy door, felt again the unbreakable bond that now tied us together. A single word contained everything I needed to say.
'Yes.'
Her warm brown eyes slowly closed. Long lashes brushed her blushed cheeks. As she sank back into the bed, the momentary pain that haunted her elfin face was exorcised by the sweetest smile. Her right hand reached out for mine. I took it, but she playfully cast my hand aside and pressed on, found my knee, my thigh, my crotch, where she deftly palmed my tingling bollocks like tinkling Chinese balls.
'Is there anyone else here?'
For some reason, I glanced around the tiny room then listened intently for signs of life beyond the slightly open door.
'No.'
A hoarse whisper trampled her usually sing-song voice.
'Then take him out for me. Let me feel what my tight pussy will soon be forced to accommodate.'
Again I glanced around. Again I strained my ears. Nothing. Nothing but my pounding blood.
My zip undid the silence. Nimble fingers undid the rest, skilfully unlocking my boxer's keyhole flies and wrapping around my hardening shaft. The smile splitting her serene features grew even wider as my throbbing cock expanded. Short jabbing thrusts soon had me fully erect. I sniffed apologetically.
'It's a been a while, Mia. I'm afraid I won't last...'
She carried on, regardless.
'Christ, Jim. This fucker's gonna hurt me.'
An emotive word triggered an emotional memory. My wife. Naked and on her knees. Her wide, loving eyes locked onto mine. Tits pressed to my thighs. Head buried in my groin. Skilled tongue working on me. Hungry lips sucking on me. A rigid finger entered my bowels and I was cumming. She swallowed. Sucked and stroked some more then swallowed again. On and on, relentlessly, till I was totally drained. My head was spinning. My knees were shaking. As I released my fingers from her long black hair and flopped back onto the bed, my cock left her mouth with an almost comical pop. For the longest time, there was silence.
'I'm going to miss you, Jim. Every time you go, I miss you more. It's going to... to... hurt.'
As she cried her silent tears, I stared at the ceiling and silently cried my own.
'I'm going to miss you too, babe. I love you.'
The woman with her hand around my cock broke both her rhythm and my reverie.
'I want to taste you, baby. Let me have it in my mouth. Stand up. Quick before you fill your pants. Give it to me.'
I stood. She opened wide. I shoved it in. She sucked and stroked. I filled her mouth. She filled my heart.
'Jesus Christ, Mia.'
As I pumped into her, my hands were in her flimsy nightie, feverishly fumbling with the most impressive nipples I had ever laid fingers on. She shuddered then quickly regained her composure before spitting out my softening flesh.
'That's for saving me from death.' Her damaged hand raised an imaginary glass. 'And here's to saving my life.'
*
On the station, every ounce of every commodity is accounted for. Every drop of fuel. Every grain of salt. Every degree Celsius. Every calorie. Our lives daily depend on it. And then there's the waste. The empty food packets. The cans and bottles. The scant leftovers. Right down to the shit and the piss. Everything is counted, weighed, measured, and carried away, extracted to the mainland. Nothing is dumped here. When we leave, we shall leave no discernible trace. Despite the difficult work we do in the most difficult of conditions, we will not sully this place as Man has sullied the rest of the world.
*
She entered my quarters like a ghost, her gossamer gown drifting gently to the floor as she silently floated towards me. The unmade bed mutely accepted her slender body and she smeared her nakedness across it, limbs stretching, back arching, her half-closed eyes never leaving mine. Lips moved. Air vibrated.
'It's time.'
But for the meagre angle-poise and my dimly glowing laptop, the room was in darkness. I dropped my pen onto the desk, swivelled my chair towards her and simply stared in wonder. She was toying with herself, enjoying herself in the literal meaning of the phrase. Nipping and tugging. Touching and tasting. Writhing and moaning.
'Hurry up, Jim, or you'll miss the party.'
I stood and quickly removed my teeshirt and trousers, peeled off my socks and thermals, till I too was naked. My raging erection spoke immeasurably more eloquently than my clumsy tongue.
'God, Mia, you are beautiful.'
One step and I hovered over her. She reached out with her half-hand then hesitated. It was the only time I ever witnessed her hesitance. In that moment, playfulness evaporated. The simmering woman solidified into the ice-cold scientist.
'I know you're married. Know the score. And it suits me fine. I don't want love. I want cock. I need cock. And lots of it. You okay with that, Doctor?'
Her mouth needed it first. Her cunt came a close second. In the briefest of intermissions, as I poured two steaming mugs of black coffee, she rolled gymnastically backwards till her knees clasped her half-ears then drank the cum that dripped from her innards. The mischievous wink was pure Mia.
'Waste not, want not, my mum always used to say.'
The resource she craved I had in abundance. It was infinitely renewable. Unnaturally inexhaustible. I gave: she took. And fuck the consequences. I would cope with the fallout. I would gladly reap the whirlwind.
*
Home is like Rome. Politicians fiddle while it burns. Excess is ubiquitous. Plates are piled high while resources run low. Unnecessary lights glare. Unnecessary packaging sells its pointless contents. Forests are ploughed asunder. Litter is scattered like seeds.
Despite my protests, my wife prefers the heating to be on all day and night. She buys - from amongst a million other everyday luxuries - baby sweetcorn flown in from Egypt, while insisting that a massive 4x4 is necessary for the two-mile drive to the mall.
Extreme weather patterns proliferate.
Similarly, one may state that at a quantum level, love can spontaneously appear and disappear, pop impossibly into existence in a vacuum and then promptly and equally impossibly disappear, a phenomenon possessing a most elegant explanation that it does not actually need, for explanation is again a purely human necessity.
As we approach absolute zero, chemical reactions become less and less likely. Particles become inert. Still. Silent. And therefore, as we approach absolute zero, love inevitably dies.
However, such extremes are not in fact necessary, as love is essentially a fragile entity. It is widely believed that an increment of a mere two or three degrees will produce the same tragic outcome. If this is true, and if we carry on the way we are, we will soon witness love's demise first hand.
*
In the world I habitually inhabit, the harsh physical world where death is but a careless miscalculation away, one substance rules all. Its solid state does not cover the ground: it is the ground. It fills the air and blocks out the sky. Some days, it is the sky. Savage beyond belief, beautiful beyond words, it blinds, it burns, it scours. At its most violent, it can transmute bare flesh into bloody broken sores in a matter of minutes. At its most benign, it brings a sweet, numbing death in a handful of hours. Without a great deal of training and specialist protective clothing, one simply could not exist here. Without a particularly determined and enquiring mind, one would not wish to.
*
I saw her first.
An outline. A slight but sufficiently unnatural change to the icy landscape. My experienced eyes spotted her. My survival skills saved her. But, despite my unquestioned abilities, it was undoubtedly Chance who decided the moment. The moment our histories would collide. And that, I suppose, would normally have been the end of it and Chance would just as easily have set us on our separate ways. However, with that first glance into her frail and frightened eyes, our destinies had somehow become entangled. And the more we struggled, the more entangled we became. The ensuing knot was devilishly complex. Impossible to analyse. Inconceivably difficult to solve. In the end, I gave up. So did she. What our minds could not undo, our bodies mirrored with a jumbled skein of limbs, a muddled scramble of intertwined insatiable flesh. The first time took mere moments, yet its effects would scar us for a lifetime.
In short, I fucked her. And she fucked me. Just as we together have fucked everything.
Out here, where there is nothing, nothing but ice and cold and death, it is blindingly obvious that the world is irrevocably damaged. We are sitting on top of the evidence. Directly on top. It is moving, slithering, slowly sliding to the sea. Every month, we fire up the engines and caterpillar back to our home co-ordinates, and every second of every hour of every day, the glacier carries us away. Year on year, the ice beneath our mobile home is thinning. Year on year, replenishing inland snowstorms grow less and less frequent. One day soon the evidence will simply collapse into the ocean. And with its demise, the seas will rise. Cities will vanish between the waves and refugees will swarm inland like army ants, stripping the land, consuming everything in their path. Society will collapse as surely as the glacier will collapse, and civilisation as we know it will come to an end.
*
Like almost everyone on the station, Maria 'Mia' Sparrow was a scientist. Like her pseudo film-star-name-sake, she was blonde, short-haired, petite and waif-like, hardly the stuff of Antarctic explorers, and yet here she was, working, contributing, pulling her weight like some burly marine. Until the incident that almost claimed her, I had merely acknowledged her in passing, had stolen glances at the legendary nipples that almost poked through her too-tight tee-shirts, but that was all. She was simply one of the fifty-seven. Most of the time, I was too busy, too tired, or too distracted, to even care that she was female.
Sitting at her bedside, waiting for her to wake, aching to once again look into those fragile eyes, I knew things would never be the same. Now I cared. In that brief, incoherent moment out on the raging ice, she had given herself over to me, entrusted her future to me. I, in turn, had accepted. And so here I was, self-appointed guardian of this damaged woman, giving all of my free time to see my mission through, to monitor her recovery, measure her progress, till she was once again back on her feet and fully independent. Doc had assured me that the loss of the ring and little fingers on her left hand would be no impediment to her career, nor would the loss of her little toes. Her face, though seared by the elements, would soon be almost like new, while her half-ears could be easily hidden by longer hair. Internally, I had laughed at that: even I, who barely knew her, understood she would never grow her hair; she would wear her imperfect ears like a badge of honour.
*
'Mia?'
She was stirring, grimacing, as if suddenly aware of acute pain, though the analgesics in her system would surely be working hard to numb it. I tried again.
'Mia? It's okay. You're in sick-bay. You were a bit banged up when we found you, though Doc says you're going to be fine.'
I gently rested a reassuring hand on her bare shoulder. She calmed. She stilled. Cracked lips moved but no sound came.
'Thank you.'
Then she opened her eyes. She opened her eyes and gazed into mine, and I instantly knew I loved her.
After trying and failing to lift her head, her eyes closed again and she drifted into sleep. Alone in the hushed semi-darkness, I sat and cried for all I had gained, for all I might lose, then sat and cried some more, till the nurse came to change her dressings.
*
'We're going to fuck, aren't we?'
It was a statement rather than a question. A week had passed and she was sitting up, her unkempt head resting on plush pristine pillows. Most of the dressings had been removed and her skin was returning to its usual lustre. Only her left hand and forearm were still wrapped. She nursed it, flexed it, turned it around in disbelief then carefully rested it back in her lap. Every time our eyes met, I glimpsed again the terrified creature clinging to the frame of death's icy door, felt again the unbreakable bond that now tied us together. A single word contained everything I needed to say.
'Yes.'
Her warm brown eyes slowly closed. Long lashes brushed her blushed cheeks. As she sank back into the bed, the momentary pain that haunted her elfin face was exorcised by the sweetest smile. Her right hand reached out for mine. I took it, but she playfully cast my hand aside and pressed on, found my knee, my thigh, my crotch, where she deftly palmed my tingling bollocks like tinkling Chinese balls.
'Is there anyone else here?'
For some reason, I glanced around the tiny room then listened intently for signs of life beyond the slightly open door.
'No.'
A hoarse whisper trampled her usually sing-song voice.
'Then take him out for me. Let me feel what my tight pussy will soon be forced to accommodate.'
Again I glanced around. Again I strained my ears. Nothing. Nothing but my pounding blood.
My zip undid the silence. Nimble fingers undid the rest, skilfully unlocking my boxer's keyhole flies and wrapping around my hardening shaft. The smile splitting her serene features grew even wider as my throbbing cock expanded. Short jabbing thrusts soon had me fully erect. I sniffed apologetically.
'It's a been a while, Mia. I'm afraid I won't last...'
She carried on, regardless.
'Christ, Jim. This fucker's gonna hurt me.'
An emotive word triggered an emotional memory. My wife. Naked and on her knees. Her wide, loving eyes locked onto mine. Tits pressed to my thighs. Head buried in my groin. Skilled tongue working on me. Hungry lips sucking on me. A rigid finger entered my bowels and I was cumming. She swallowed. Sucked and stroked some more then swallowed again. On and on, relentlessly, till I was totally drained. My head was spinning. My knees were shaking. As I released my fingers from her long black hair and flopped back onto the bed, my cock left her mouth with an almost comical pop. For the longest time, there was silence.
'I'm going to miss you, Jim. Every time you go, I miss you more. It's going to... to... hurt.'
As she cried her silent tears, I stared at the ceiling and silently cried my own.
'I'm going to miss you too, babe. I love you.'
The woman with her hand around my cock broke both her rhythm and my reverie.
'I want to taste you, baby. Let me have it in my mouth. Stand up. Quick before you fill your pants. Give it to me.'
I stood. She opened wide. I shoved it in. She sucked and stroked. I filled her mouth. She filled my heart.
'Jesus Christ, Mia.'
As I pumped into her, my hands were in her flimsy nightie, feverishly fumbling with the most impressive nipples I had ever laid fingers on. She shuddered then quickly regained her composure before spitting out my softening flesh.
'That's for saving me from death.' Her damaged hand raised an imaginary glass. 'And here's to saving my life.'
*
On the station, every ounce of every commodity is accounted for. Every drop of fuel. Every grain of salt. Every degree Celsius. Every calorie. Our lives daily depend on it. And then there's the waste. The empty food packets. The cans and bottles. The scant leftovers. Right down to the shit and the piss. Everything is counted, weighed, measured, and carried away, extracted to the mainland. Nothing is dumped here. When we leave, we shall leave no discernible trace. Despite the difficult work we do in the most difficult of conditions, we will not sully this place as Man has sullied the rest of the world.
*
She entered my quarters like a ghost, her gossamer gown drifting gently to the floor as she silently floated towards me. The unmade bed mutely accepted her slender body and she smeared her nakedness across it, limbs stretching, back arching, her half-closed eyes never leaving mine. Lips moved. Air vibrated.
'It's time.'
But for the meagre angle-poise and my dimly glowing laptop, the room was in darkness. I dropped my pen onto the desk, swivelled my chair towards her and simply stared in wonder. She was toying with herself, enjoying herself in the literal meaning of the phrase. Nipping and tugging. Touching and tasting. Writhing and moaning.
'Hurry up, Jim, or you'll miss the party.'
I stood and quickly removed my teeshirt and trousers, peeled off my socks and thermals, till I too was naked. My raging erection spoke immeasurably more eloquently than my clumsy tongue.
'God, Mia, you are beautiful.'
One step and I hovered over her. She reached out with her half-hand then hesitated. It was the only time I ever witnessed her hesitance. In that moment, playfulness evaporated. The simmering woman solidified into the ice-cold scientist.
'I know you're married. Know the score. And it suits me fine. I don't want love. I want cock. I need cock. And lots of it. You okay with that, Doctor?'
Her mouth needed it first. Her cunt came a close second. In the briefest of intermissions, as I poured two steaming mugs of black coffee, she rolled gymnastically backwards till her knees clasped her half-ears then drank the cum that dripped from her innards. The mischievous wink was pure Mia.
'Waste not, want not, my mum always used to say.'
The resource she craved I had in abundance. It was infinitely renewable. Unnaturally inexhaustible. I gave: she took. And fuck the consequences. I would cope with the fallout. I would gladly reap the whirlwind.
*
Home is like Rome. Politicians fiddle while it burns. Excess is ubiquitous. Plates are piled high while resources run low. Unnecessary lights glare. Unnecessary packaging sells its pointless contents. Forests are ploughed asunder. Litter is scattered like seeds.
Despite my protests, my wife prefers the heating to be on all day and night. She buys - from amongst a million other everyday luxuries - baby sweetcorn flown in from Egypt, while insisting that a massive 4x4 is necessary for the two-mile drive to the mall.
Extreme weather patterns proliferate.
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Humans and animals suffer alike. Floods. Typhoons. Hurricanes. Drought. The seas grow acidic. The air grows bitter and stale. The soil is already poisoned.
Recycling a few bottles and cans won't save the world. On its own, this futile act is actually worse than nothing: it creates the illusion that you care, that politicians care. The dangerous delusion that you are doing something about it eclipses the fact that you are doing nothing about it. Look at yourself. Look. At. Your. Self. And be honest. You don't fucking care. You never fucking will. Not till everything you ever owned is under water and your innocent kids are starving skeletons.
The impending disaster will be truly biblical. Like silly unicorns, we frolic as the deluge approaches.
Latter-day Noahs, scientists are feverishly cataloging every known species, analysing the genomes of every creature we encounter, stratifying the trophic levels of every ecosystem we can identify, but the world is too big, too complex, to log in its entirety. The world is too big, too complex to save. These days, two-by-two simply won't do. And it's too late to realise that the world - this once beautiful blue and green Eden - is our ark and that there's nowhere else to go. Too bad that we've shat and pissed all over it.
*
'Slide this in my ass as you fuck my pussy, baby. I need to feel something up there tonight. Something... different.'
She was peering back over her shoulder, her back arched, buttocks bared, the twin tight holes in her rear-end forming a delicious semi-colon. The boiling tube in her half-hand seemed to shrug its tiny shoulders. Mia twitched her half-ears and giggled.
'Think of it as an experiment.'
'What if it breaks?'
'Then I'll be doubly fucked. And I'll make you explain it to Doc. So make sure it doesn't happen.'
Reaching out, I accepted its meagre weight then placed the cold rounded glass against her hot dripping lips. Clenched loins denied entry.
'Hey! I said in my...'
I patted her perfect arse.
'Relax! I heard you. Just testing. Lubing it up too. It'll need lube.'
As if to consciously substantiate my accrued sexual wisdom, the smooth tube slid into her wet pussy with barely a hint of friction.
'Mmm, yeah. Okay, babe. You know best.'
The two cocks - the hot, vibrant fleshy and the cold, unforgiving vitreous - now rested against their allotted orifices. For once, I gave the orders.
'Keep still, baby. Dead still. I'll do the fucking. We don't want any,' in they both went, side by side, in one swift and fluid motion, 'accidents, do we?'
'Oh, oh, oh, fuck!'
Boiling tubes are tough, built for the job, but I reckoned none had ever experienced heat and pressure such as this. With both her holes stretched, her half-hand was attending to the more natural of her entrances and tirelessly toying with her clitoris. She maintained that the novelty of her depleted limb somehow enhanced the pleasure it gave, and who was I to argue? I loved to be wanked by it, experienced a similar unfamiliarity that quickly had me teetering on the edge.
She suddenly cried out.
'I'm cumming, baby. Don't stop. Please! Yes! No! Nnggg! Don't you ever fucking stop fucking me!'
As her cutting squeals of joy subsided, I whipped out both intruders, pressed the eye of one to the mouth of the other then pulled back on the living flesh and waited for the inevitable.
An incandescent burst of pleasure boiled my body into spirit, yet my frozen eyes were transfixed by the throbbing corporeal. Loins pulsed. Milky juice squirted. Five, six, seven times. The slick, wide tube consumed every drop. When I was certain my balls were empty, I held the glass up to eye-level.
'Fifteen cc's. Mmm. Better mark that on your graph as an anomaly, Doctor Sparrow: it is well beyond the expected range.'
'Then I will fix it, Professor Drake, like I fix everything around here.'
After wiping her half-hand on the pillow, she stole the tube from me. I protested.
'Save some for me, honey...'
But she wasn't drinking. Not just yet. Twisting her spine, she turned her face to the ceiling and - without spilling a single molecule of its cummy contents - slid the tube deep into her throat. On its deliciously slow egress, smacking lips sucked the fucker clean. Words simply spilled from me.
'I love you, Mia Sparrow.'
Smiling, she raised the neck of the tube to her lovely lips and sipped, eyed the contents again then sipped some more, savouring each and every glutinous globule.
'Mmm, fuck. You taste so good. Too good to fucking share!'
The glass tipped and in a half-second the bulk of the tube's contents were gone. Rolling over, she lay on her back, eyes closed in exaggerated ecstasy, mouth open in eager anticipation, and dripped the dregs onto her lolling tongue.
*
Again the figures are alarming. The ice shelf is shrinking, shedding floating progeny in unparalleled numbers. It will collapse, just as others have collapsed, but this one will be catastrophic. Surely no one can deny the cause? And yet, summit after summit, politicians continue to dither, and all the while industry continues to burn fossil fuels and churn out toxic gasses. When will they accept the truth? When their capital cities are submerged? When crops fail and countless billions are starving to death?
*
Home.
I thought the hardest thing would be pretending I hadn't had sex for almost six months, but that wasn't hard at all. It was surprisingly easy. On the station, I had fucked Mia every night. It was passionate, desperate, as though each kiss might be our last; as though any perfunctory penetration could tip the world into chaos. Now at home, I fucked my wife every night. Customarily. Proficiently. Sometimes indolently. As though we were eternal; as though there'd always be a tomorrow. The contrasting performances were as different as the two women who starred in them, as different as life and death, yet both women seemed equally impressed by my ardour, by my sexual dexterity. Perspective is indeed a funny thing. The fact that I sometimes thought of one while I fucked the other was of little consequence. It worked. And while it worked, everyone was happy.
So, despite my earlier trepidation, I had no cause for concern: the stark dissimilarities between the two women in my life made deceit effortless. Their differences maintained my interest and thus sustained my daily erections. It was akin to copulating with two distinct species.
Mia was bronzed and slim with not an ounce of fat on her petite body. Blonde hair was cut like a boy's and her smooth arse was tight as a drum. Despite her scars, she never wore make-up, had an intrinsic beauty that would have been polluted by it. Her muscles were toned. Her mind was painfully sharp. The harsh environment honed her, continually kept her keen. She lived every day to the full, squeezed every last drop from every moment, because she knew what it is to die.
My wife, on the other hand, was pale and perfectly plump. Long dark hair almost reached her cellulitic buttocks. Her muscles were mostly toneless. Her mind was mostly dull. Though once the possessor of an enquiring brain and an outstanding natural beauty, suburbia had spoiled her, bloated and blunted her. Cosmetics plastered her face; a dizzying range of lotions further softened her plush body. She existed day to day in a state of blissful ignorance, her head seemingly full of shoes, frocks and sticky cakes. To my wife, death was a distant, somewhat unlikely possibility.
*
'Guess what?'
Her quarters were exactly the same size as mine, but order and precision vacuum-packed its contents, virtually doubling the available living space. Like almost everything she did, it never failed to amaze me. I stepped inside, hugged her naked body then stooped to suck on a nipple as she closed the door behind me. The hand roughly parting her arse cheeks intimated my response.
'I already know. It's anal week. I have it in my diary.'
Smiling, she shook her head and I noticed how the light in this room somehow made her eyes shine with even more intensity and her skin glow with an even greater warmth. She pulled me to her and whispered to my chest.
'No, Doctor. It's not. Anal week is cancelled for the foreseeable future. For the next few months, it's whatever-you-want-whenever-you-want-it. It's open season.'
The final words took flight, soared in graceful accord, then panicked, veered, ducked and dived across a bare and blackened landscape of disbelief and denial. The twin barrels of her wide eyes brought the words tumbling back to Earth. She eased the hand from the crack of her arse and placed it gently on her taut, flat belly while nodding in earnest validation.
'It's life, Jim, but not as we know it.'
*
Every time I returned to the mainland, the colours jumbled my brain - after the endless icy monochrome wastes, I found myself endlessly dazzled and constantly confused. It was early autumn and the leaves had never burned so red, had never turned so golden. The grass between the silver-barked trees grew stunningly green; the wheat in the distant fields shone garishly yellow. It was like regaining my sight. I walked for hours, drinking it in, luxuriating in the welcoming warmth of the waning sun. The tender breeze was beautifully benign and carried myriad mingled scents. Insects buzzed. Hovering birds sang. Cows mooed and distant dogs barked. Weighed down by a mass of sensory information, I sank to my knees beside a sandstone stile, my eyes closed, my ears covered, till I regained a semblance of control.
At that moment, I thought of Mia, my darling Mia, trapped on the slowly-flowing ice amid a total white-out, a blasting, withering blizzard, with only the relatively flimsy shelter of the station to keep bodies and souls together, and I panicked.
I had to get back. I had to get back to protect her.
*
'So soon?'
I shrugged.
'Yes, I'm afraid so. The work is complex. They apparently can't cope without me.'
The woman's heavily-painted features darkened. From out of nowhere, a storm was brewing.
'I know.'
I pulled my best confused face.
'Know what?'
'The woman you saved?'
'Woman?'
Exasperation took over from anger and shook her weary head.
'Yes. The woman whose life you saved. You know? The one you've never even mentioned?'
A slippery droplet of truth oiled the wheels of deception.
'There was a rescue, yes, but it wasn't just me. I was in the search party, but it wasn't just...'
More silent tears. How I fucking hate silent tears.
'Bob Marsden's wife, Jenny... you know Bob? The geologist?'
I nodded.
'Course I do.'
'We talk on the phone sometimes, share our loneliness. It was Jenny who told me. Said Bob was full of it. Said you were quite a hero. Said you...'
My fear was camouflaged by a not entirely feigned anger.
'Look, Bob should keep his fucking nose out. He really should. Being away from you is hard enough without this... this crap!'
I grabbed her, held onto her, despite her struggling protestations.
Eventually she gave up, simply gave up, and stood like a pillar of ice. My voice slowed and softened.
'Look, there's nothing going on. Nothing. There is no woman. Well, there was a woman and I did help rescue the woman, but...' I let go of her, stepped away and opened my arms to her, palms facing up, fingers spread, in what is surely a universal expression of submission. 'Please! Believe me! There is no one else. No one. Only you. I love you.' Pulling her to me again, I lovingly smoothed her coiffured hair then gazed over her shoulder, out though the window and into the slowly dying world beyond. 'I love you.'
As the empty words formed and left me, and my contrite wife collapsed sobbing into my arms, I pictured Mia's beautiful brown eyes. Laughing. Crying. Burning. Dying. In agony. In ecstasy. In Antarctica. In love.
The woman I call my wife was on her knees, her blubbering lips stopped with flaccid flesh. I grabbed her hair and somehow joined her pitiful pleading gaze. Her remorse solidified. Hope liquefied. Distrust vapourised. And I pondered on the lies we hear, the lies we tell, and the lies we so readily believe.
*****
Recycling a few bottles and cans won't save the world. On its own, this futile act is actually worse than nothing: it creates the illusion that you care, that politicians care. The dangerous delusion that you are doing something about it eclipses the fact that you are doing nothing about it. Look at yourself. Look. At. Your. Self. And be honest. You don't fucking care. You never fucking will. Not till everything you ever owned is under water and your innocent kids are starving skeletons.
The impending disaster will be truly biblical. Like silly unicorns, we frolic as the deluge approaches.
Latter-day Noahs, scientists are feverishly cataloging every known species, analysing the genomes of every creature we encounter, stratifying the trophic levels of every ecosystem we can identify, but the world is too big, too complex, to log in its entirety. The world is too big, too complex to save. These days, two-by-two simply won't do. And it's too late to realise that the world - this once beautiful blue and green Eden - is our ark and that there's nowhere else to go. Too bad that we've shat and pissed all over it.
*
'Slide this in my ass as you fuck my pussy, baby. I need to feel something up there tonight. Something... different.'
She was peering back over her shoulder, her back arched, buttocks bared, the twin tight holes in her rear-end forming a delicious semi-colon. The boiling tube in her half-hand seemed to shrug its tiny shoulders. Mia twitched her half-ears and giggled.
'Think of it as an experiment.'
'What if it breaks?'
'Then I'll be doubly fucked. And I'll make you explain it to Doc. So make sure it doesn't happen.'
Reaching out, I accepted its meagre weight then placed the cold rounded glass against her hot dripping lips. Clenched loins denied entry.
'Hey! I said in my...'
I patted her perfect arse.
'Relax! I heard you. Just testing. Lubing it up too. It'll need lube.'
As if to consciously substantiate my accrued sexual wisdom, the smooth tube slid into her wet pussy with barely a hint of friction.
'Mmm, yeah. Okay, babe. You know best.'
The two cocks - the hot, vibrant fleshy and the cold, unforgiving vitreous - now rested against their allotted orifices. For once, I gave the orders.
'Keep still, baby. Dead still. I'll do the fucking. We don't want any,' in they both went, side by side, in one swift and fluid motion, 'accidents, do we?'
'Oh, oh, oh, fuck!'
Boiling tubes are tough, built for the job, but I reckoned none had ever experienced heat and pressure such as this. With both her holes stretched, her half-hand was attending to the more natural of her entrances and tirelessly toying with her clitoris. She maintained that the novelty of her depleted limb somehow enhanced the pleasure it gave, and who was I to argue? I loved to be wanked by it, experienced a similar unfamiliarity that quickly had me teetering on the edge.
She suddenly cried out.
'I'm cumming, baby. Don't stop. Please! Yes! No! Nnggg! Don't you ever fucking stop fucking me!'
As her cutting squeals of joy subsided, I whipped out both intruders, pressed the eye of one to the mouth of the other then pulled back on the living flesh and waited for the inevitable.
An incandescent burst of pleasure boiled my body into spirit, yet my frozen eyes were transfixed by the throbbing corporeal. Loins pulsed. Milky juice squirted. Five, six, seven times. The slick, wide tube consumed every drop. When I was certain my balls were empty, I held the glass up to eye-level.
'Fifteen cc's. Mmm. Better mark that on your graph as an anomaly, Doctor Sparrow: it is well beyond the expected range.'
'Then I will fix it, Professor Drake, like I fix everything around here.'
After wiping her half-hand on the pillow, she stole the tube from me. I protested.
'Save some for me, honey...'
But she wasn't drinking. Not just yet. Twisting her spine, she turned her face to the ceiling and - without spilling a single molecule of its cummy contents - slid the tube deep into her throat. On its deliciously slow egress, smacking lips sucked the fucker clean. Words simply spilled from me.
'I love you, Mia Sparrow.'
Smiling, she raised the neck of the tube to her lovely lips and sipped, eyed the contents again then sipped some more, savouring each and every glutinous globule.
'Mmm, fuck. You taste so good. Too good to fucking share!'
The glass tipped and in a half-second the bulk of the tube's contents were gone. Rolling over, she lay on her back, eyes closed in exaggerated ecstasy, mouth open in eager anticipation, and dripped the dregs onto her lolling tongue.
*
Again the figures are alarming. The ice shelf is shrinking, shedding floating progeny in unparalleled numbers. It will collapse, just as others have collapsed, but this one will be catastrophic. Surely no one can deny the cause? And yet, summit after summit, politicians continue to dither, and all the while industry continues to burn fossil fuels and churn out toxic gasses. When will they accept the truth? When their capital cities are submerged? When crops fail and countless billions are starving to death?
*
Home.
I thought the hardest thing would be pretending I hadn't had sex for almost six months, but that wasn't hard at all. It was surprisingly easy. On the station, I had fucked Mia every night. It was passionate, desperate, as though each kiss might be our last; as though any perfunctory penetration could tip the world into chaos. Now at home, I fucked my wife every night. Customarily. Proficiently. Sometimes indolently. As though we were eternal; as though there'd always be a tomorrow. The contrasting performances were as different as the two women who starred in them, as different as life and death, yet both women seemed equally impressed by my ardour, by my sexual dexterity. Perspective is indeed a funny thing. The fact that I sometimes thought of one while I fucked the other was of little consequence. It worked. And while it worked, everyone was happy.
So, despite my earlier trepidation, I had no cause for concern: the stark dissimilarities between the two women in my life made deceit effortless. Their differences maintained my interest and thus sustained my daily erections. It was akin to copulating with two distinct species.
Mia was bronzed and slim with not an ounce of fat on her petite body. Blonde hair was cut like a boy's and her smooth arse was tight as a drum. Despite her scars, she never wore make-up, had an intrinsic beauty that would have been polluted by it. Her muscles were toned. Her mind was painfully sharp. The harsh environment honed her, continually kept her keen. She lived every day to the full, squeezed every last drop from every moment, because she knew what it is to die.
My wife, on the other hand, was pale and perfectly plump. Long dark hair almost reached her cellulitic buttocks. Her muscles were mostly toneless. Her mind was mostly dull. Though once the possessor of an enquiring brain and an outstanding natural beauty, suburbia had spoiled her, bloated and blunted her. Cosmetics plastered her face; a dizzying range of lotions further softened her plush body. She existed day to day in a state of blissful ignorance, her head seemingly full of shoes, frocks and sticky cakes. To my wife, death was a distant, somewhat unlikely possibility.
*
'Guess what?'
Her quarters were exactly the same size as mine, but order and precision vacuum-packed its contents, virtually doubling the available living space. Like almost everything she did, it never failed to amaze me. I stepped inside, hugged her naked body then stooped to suck on a nipple as she closed the door behind me. The hand roughly parting her arse cheeks intimated my response.
'I already know. It's anal week. I have it in my diary.'
Smiling, she shook her head and I noticed how the light in this room somehow made her eyes shine with even more intensity and her skin glow with an even greater warmth. She pulled me to her and whispered to my chest.
'No, Doctor. It's not. Anal week is cancelled for the foreseeable future. For the next few months, it's whatever-you-want-whenever-you-want-it. It's open season.'
The final words took flight, soared in graceful accord, then panicked, veered, ducked and dived across a bare and blackened landscape of disbelief and denial. The twin barrels of her wide eyes brought the words tumbling back to Earth. She eased the hand from the crack of her arse and placed it gently on her taut, flat belly while nodding in earnest validation.
'It's life, Jim, but not as we know it.'
*
Every time I returned to the mainland, the colours jumbled my brain - after the endless icy monochrome wastes, I found myself endlessly dazzled and constantly confused. It was early autumn and the leaves had never burned so red, had never turned so golden. The grass between the silver-barked trees grew stunningly green; the wheat in the distant fields shone garishly yellow. It was like regaining my sight. I walked for hours, drinking it in, luxuriating in the welcoming warmth of the waning sun. The tender breeze was beautifully benign and carried myriad mingled scents. Insects buzzed. Hovering birds sang. Cows mooed and distant dogs barked. Weighed down by a mass of sensory information, I sank to my knees beside a sandstone stile, my eyes closed, my ears covered, till I regained a semblance of control.
At that moment, I thought of Mia, my darling Mia, trapped on the slowly-flowing ice amid a total white-out, a blasting, withering blizzard, with only the relatively flimsy shelter of the station to keep bodies and souls together, and I panicked.
I had to get back. I had to get back to protect her.
*
'So soon?'
I shrugged.
'Yes, I'm afraid so. The work is complex. They apparently can't cope without me.'
The woman's heavily-painted features darkened. From out of nowhere, a storm was brewing.
'I know.'
I pulled my best confused face.
'Know what?'
'The woman you saved?'
'Woman?'
Exasperation took over from anger and shook her weary head.
'Yes. The woman whose life you saved. You know? The one you've never even mentioned?'
A slippery droplet of truth oiled the wheels of deception.
'There was a rescue, yes, but it wasn't just me. I was in the search party, but it wasn't just...'
More silent tears. How I fucking hate silent tears.
'Bob Marsden's wife, Jenny... you know Bob? The geologist?'
I nodded.
'Course I do.'
'We talk on the phone sometimes, share our loneliness. It was Jenny who told me. Said Bob was full of it. Said you were quite a hero. Said you...'
My fear was camouflaged by a not entirely feigned anger.
'Look, Bob should keep his fucking nose out. He really should. Being away from you is hard enough without this... this crap!'
I grabbed her, held onto her, despite her struggling protestations.
Eventually she gave up, simply gave up, and stood like a pillar of ice. My voice slowed and softened.
'Look, there's nothing going on. Nothing. There is no woman. Well, there was a woman and I did help rescue the woman, but...' I let go of her, stepped away and opened my arms to her, palms facing up, fingers spread, in what is surely a universal expression of submission. 'Please! Believe me! There is no one else. No one. Only you. I love you.' Pulling her to me again, I lovingly smoothed her coiffured hair then gazed over her shoulder, out though the window and into the slowly dying world beyond. 'I love you.'
As the empty words formed and left me, and my contrite wife collapsed sobbing into my arms, I pictured Mia's beautiful brown eyes. Laughing. Crying. Burning. Dying. In agony. In ecstasy. In Antarctica. In love.
The woman I call my wife was on her knees, her blubbering lips stopped with flaccid flesh. I grabbed her hair and somehow joined her pitiful pleading gaze. Her remorse solidified. Hope liquefied. Distrust vapourised. And I pondered on the lies we hear, the lies we tell, and the lies we so readily believe.
*****
