Black Iris: Chapter Two
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CHAPTER TWO
Four weeks ago, I woke up from a night I couldn’t remember with a throbbing erection. Every drop of blood in my body had been siphoned away from my other extremities, leaving the rest of me cold and gray. I was light-headed and dizzy, but mostly I felt like my dick had been slammed between two bricks. Masturbation seemed to be the obvious solution, but it hurt too much to even touch myself. Walking was impossible and crawling wasn’t much better.
It was 5:00 a.m. and Lincoln was furious at me. At first, I couldn’t figure out why, but when I checked my phone, I realized the night I couldn’t remember was actually two nights before. Those Viagra ads say to call your doctor if you have a boner lasting longer than four hours. I didn’t know if I had been erect the entire time I was asleep, but I knew I needed to go to the hospital.
From the damage already sustained, the urologist estimated that I had been hard for at least 24 hours straight. Priapism. Stale blood trapped in the penis, causing severe tissue trauma, which left untreated, leads to erectile dysfunction and, eventually, impotence. The doctor said it was the worst case he’d ever seen. He wasn’t hopeful, but he did his best.
First, he attempted a procedure called “cavernosal aspiration” where he stuck a needle the size of a fencing foil into the side of my penis to drain out the excess blood. The lidocaine he injected me with took the edge off of the superficial trauma from the incisions, but it did nothing for the internal pain caused by the tissue dying as it starved for oxygen. Time was of the essence, and the doctor couldn’t afford to be gentle. With all the pulling and squeezing, it felt like I was being jerked off by a lobster. After ten minutes of this, my dick was still a hot mess.
Next, the doctor tried something called “shunting.” This one actually hurt less but was harder to watch. I dug my claws into the bedding as he jammed a scalpel through the head of the penis, twisted it 90º, then pulled it out. I almost fainted, which made me wonder why he kept me awake in the first place. I never did get an explanation.
When shunting didn’t work, there was only one option left: a technique ominously referred to as “tunneling.” This involved jamming a rod the size of a butter knife into an incision along the shaft, and clearing a path through the dead tissue and clotted blood so fresh blood could reach the area. It was a Hail Mary pass, but it was too late. My cock was too far gone.
It took days for the swelling to go down and weeks for the pain to subside. As scar tissue formed, my dick shriveled up like a worm baking on a sun-soaked sidewalk. At this point, it’s half the size it used to be, and it feels like a piece of jerky. It can no longer get hard, but that hasn’t stopped me from trying.
***
My friend Mandi and I sometimes hook up when we’re both single and bored. Among other things, she enjoys what we refer to as “sandpaper cunnilingus.” Most women don’t want my abrasive cat tongue anywhere near their clits, but Mandi can’t get enough. It’s her toughness more than anything else that gets my motor running. Or at least it used to, back when my engine worked.
“Maybe a little slower,” I say as her full lips glide up and down my shaft. I may as well be watching it on a tablet screen because the only thing I feel is her warm breath on my stomach. “Ok, now try faster.”
Drool trickles out of the corners of her mouth and runs between her breasts. I grab one and squeeze it like a stress ball. She looks up at me, her giant green eyes gleaming with impatience.
“You might as well stop,” I say.
She wipes her mouth with the back of her wrist and comes up from her knees to join me on the arm of the couch. We both stare straight ahead.
“I’m sorry,” she says, “I didn’t mean to seem… it’s just… nothing was happening.”
“I know.”
She puts her head on my shoulder and strokes the fur on my back. Her soft jet-black mane spills over me like a blanket. “Did you ever figure out what caused the priapism?”
“No. All I know is I don’t have sickle cell anemia, and I’ve never taken Viagra.”
“Have you talked to anyone in Aaru?”
Aaru is thousands of years ahead of Earth when it comes to medical science, and penis transplants are as commonplace as appendectomies over there. “Yeah, but the waiting list for a donor dong is seven years. Apparently, there are thousands of resurrected mummies that need new dicks.”
“Can’t your mom get you bumped up the list? She’s the boss of the whole damn dimension.”
“She said she doesn’t want to be accused of nepotism. Apparently, Aaruvians get really pissed about that sort of thing.”
Lately, Aaru has been pretending to hold its gods and ruling class to some kind of ethical standard, but it isn’t really a democracy. Bastet doesn’t have constituents, she has subjects. Seeing as how I saved her cult from a mass murderer last summer, I don’t think it would kill her to help me out this one time, but she’s made up her mind.
“Well… seven years isn’t that long when you’re immortal.”
I’m actually what I like to call “vampire immortal.” I won’t die of old age and I’m immune to human diseases, but I can be killed by sharp things. There are differences. Unlike draculas, I need oxygen to survive, and I need to keep my spinal cord intact, and my blood and organs on the inside. The good news is I have no problems with the sun, crosses, or holy water, and while I’m not a fan of garlic, it can’t hurt me. Also, because I’m a cat, I started out with nine lives, though I’ve lost quite a few of those recently.
“Seven years is Seven years. It’s not like I experience time differently than you do. Would you want to go seven years without sex?”
She sighs. “I guess not. What if you got fixed?”
“How does that solve the problem?”
“Not fixed fixed, I mean like chemical castration. Medroxyprogesterone acetate reduces sex drive, and it’s not permanent. Judges sometimes require it for pedophiles as a part of their sentencing.”
“I’m not a pedophile, Mandi.”
“I know, but… if you can’t feel anything, you might as well get rid of the desire.”
That used to be my position regarding ordinary house cats who, I figured, were too dumb to know what they were missing. Now, I realize how unfair it was for me to assume this because I definitely know what I’m missing. Maybe what I really need is a lobotomy.
“I have another idea, actually.” I gaze out the window. The 8:00 p.m. sky is bitter like cocoa powder.
“Oh yeah, what’s that?”
“I could kill myself.”
“Shut up.”
“I’m serious. I’ve got three lives left, and this one’s fucked. I don’t see why I shouldn’t just start over.”
“Because you’re not a character in a video game. Do you have any idea how disrespectful that would be to people who don’t have nine lives? It’s like when one of those tech billionaires throws away their Porsche because they got a little bird shit on the windshield.”
“It’s nothing like that. My Porsche doesn’t have bird shit on the windshield. My Porsche was crushed by a monster truck.”
Her nostrils flare as she takes in a deep breath. “All I know is if I woke up tomorrow morning with an exploded clit, I’d have to live with it. There’d be no reset button. And you actually have other options, but you’re too damned impatient.”
“Cats are impatient. I’m just being true to my nature.”
“Bullshit. Your mother’s a cat, too. What do you think she’d say about this? Think she’ll be cool with you throwing away one of your lives like a pair of old jeans?”
Mandi’s right — Bastet would lose her shit. And it’s not like I can keep her from finding out. When I die, I end up in Osiris’s waiting room so he can prepare me for resurrection. He’s not always watching me on Earth, so maybe he wouldn’t know that I had killed myself, but it would be bad news if he did. And he definitely wouldn’t keep something like that from her.
I sigh. “She’d be pissed. Listen, I’m just thinking out loud here. I haven’t decided to do it or anything.”
“Good. Because it’s a terrible idea. Maybe the worst you’ve ever had.”
“Even worse than the time I fucked one of my clients in the children’s reading room at the library?”
“Maybe not worse than that.” She takes my paw and smiles, forming adorable cheek dimples.
“Hey, if I’m going to be celibate anyway, maybe I should convert to Catholicism and become a priest.”
“Ha. I think your mother would rather you kill yourself.”
My father, a normal human who’s lived his entire life here in Kibble, was actually raised Catholic. He had already lapsed by the time he met my mother, so it was never an issue. It’s possible my suicide would upset him even more than it would her, though, because once all my corporeal lives are gone, my soul moves to Aaru forever. That means he won’t see me for a while. After he dies, he’ll eventually join my mom and me, but because he’s mortal, he’ll first have to spend hundreds of years alone in a mummy case down here on Earth. He won’t be aware of the passage of time, but it’s daunting for him to think about. There are limits to what his human mind is capable of understanding. Even though he’s married to a goddess and knows for a fact that an afterlife awaits him, he lives under a haze of doubt that can’t be reasoned away.
Mandi yawns. “This couch is disgusting. Move over, Lincoln.”
Lincoln coos as Mandi lies down next to him on the rug, which I’ve covered with a comforter and some old sheets. I join them in the pile, spooning her from behind. As she’s shifting to make room, she finds something pressing on her hip.
“What the… Oh. Another one of these things. Aw, and it’s a used one!” She throws the wooden rod across the room.
“Sorry. Believe me, if I could get drunk like a normal person, I would.”
“Hey, Snowball, can I ask you something?” she says through another yawn.
“Sure.”
“Is all of this — the drinking, the depression, the talk of suicide… is all this because of… her?”
“Who? My mother?”
“No, not your… no, I mean…” Her words fade into the buzzsaw breathing of sleep.
I’m glad. I didn’t want to hear the name she was about to say.
***
The light coming through the blinds tastes like melted butter and fried eggs. It’s 5:30 a.m. and I’ve been drawing since dawn, hunched over sheets of newsprint on the ground. The spaces between the floorboards are causing unwanted lines as the charcoal scratches across the paper. It doesn’t matter anyway—it’s not about the drawings themselves, it’s about the process.
It’s been like this for weeks now. I wake up at the crack of too fucking early and start drawing even before I take my morning piss. The image is always the same: a somewhat abstract flower with long elegant petals that almost look like lips. It’s not a type of flower I recognize, and I have no idea why I feel so compelled to draw it. I just know I can’t stop.
Mandi sits up and stretches. “G’mornin’.”
“Good morning.”
She crawls over and sits behind me. “More flowers, huh.”
“Yup.”
“How many have you done so far today?”
“Don’t know, I haven’t been keeping track. More than one, less than 50. How’d you sleep?”
She cracks her neck. “Fine. I mean, I’d prefer a real bed, but whatever. Maybe you should get one. Or at least a new couch.”
“Couches and beds don’t grow on trees, and I’m broke. You hungry?”
“Not really. I can’t eat this early.”
“Good, because I don’t think I have any people food in the house right now.” The truth is I very much prefer people food. Bacon, sausage, cheese—the fattier and saltier, the better. I even like baked goods and starches despite not being able to taste sugar. The thing is, most people food takes effort, and lately, I barely have enough energy to open a couple of cans (Friskies for myself and Alpo for Lincoln). Some days, I only manage to open one can, which means Lincoln gets cat food because there’s no way I’m eating that Alpo shit.
Mandi picks up one of my drawings. “I like this one.”
“I think that was the first one I did today. The first ones are always the best.”
“I wonder why. Are you dreaming about them?”
“I don’t know if I’m dreaming about them exactly, but I’m picturing them as I wake up.”
“How long has this been going on?”
“About a month, I guess. The first time it happened was the morning after my dick broke.”
“Weird. Think there’s a connection?”
“Maybe. Both things happened after that night I can’t remember. At first, I thought it might have something to do with that Georgia O’Keeffe exhibit at the museum because her work’s pretty much all flowers. But that went up weeks before I started doing this, so I don’t know.”
“Maybe you should see a therapist.”
I squint at her. “You want me to see a shrink? Why, because of the suicide thing? Or is it—”
“No, it’s not that. I just think a therapist might help you remember that night.”
“Isn’t that something a hypnotist would be better suited for? Besides, it’s no mystery why I can’t remember. I was drunk.”
“Well, you’ve been drunk pretty much nonstop for weeks now, and that’s the only night you can’t remember.”
“I haven’t been drunk every night…”
“Whatever, I’m just saying maybe something bad happened that night.”
“So then why would I want to remember it?”
“Fine. You’re right. Anyway, I should probably head out. I’m working another double today, and I’d like to go home and shower first.”
My kitchen/bathroom has a toilet in the middle of the room, but there’s no bathtub. It’s not an ideal setup for people who can’t groom themselves with their tongues.
“Ok, then. Have a good day.”
“Can I keep this?”
“Sure, take the whole pile if you want. I’m going to keep making them.”
“One’s good for now.”
I don’t have the energy to walk her to the door, so I let Lincoln do it for me.