Hellthirst

Monday night I noticed that Timo, the gentler and more fragile of my chinboys, has been gnawing at his tail. Skin is intact, but the tail is bare as if a streak had been shorn off by a razor in one spot. I feel like a bad parent. This can happen to the best cared for chinchillas; it’s a stress reaction, and I will respond with extra TLC and new toys and more cuddle-time. When I got him – I am at least his fourth home, poor thing – he had been chewing his tail as well, but the hair grew back in my care. There´s a decent chance it will grow back again as soon as I figure out what caused the stress and remove the stressor. But as Timo has always had a tendency for emotional transference – he screams when I have nightmares, chews at his cage bars if I am anxious, and so on – I wonder if the sorry state of his tail is reflecting the insane sexual and romantic frustration that I feel, and yet am unable to express anywhere but in these letters to your warm ghost. I know it´s crazy of me to miss you when we´ve never even met in the flesh – but here we are.

In Hades, where he was in torment, he looked up and saw Abraham far away, with Lazarus by his side. So he called to him, ‘Father Abraham, have pity on me and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, because I am in agony in this fire.’ – Luke 16:23-24, NIV

It just occurred to me today that I don´t know what denomination of Christianity you hail from, culturally speaking that is. You just don´t seem like a product of an atheist home to me, and you know I don´t slander atheists when I say that, but neither do I slander you. I know from firsthand experience how that kinda stuff runs deeper than the ways we express ourselves spiritually as adults. There are inherited fears, hopes, shames, lusts… Our ancestors´ faiths shape us up to the seventh generation. I wish I knew your history and how you were as a child, as a teenager, as a younger man. What were your personal politics? Did you believe in God or not? Did you believe in something else? I wish I could grab your hand – unless you are touch-averse – and drag you on a long stroll across the fields and into the forest while listening to you losing yourself in an explanation of how you relate to the other world that may or may not be. I want to give you my fire, and my excitement, and I want to infect you with the vigor with which I approach the ways that people believe, and the things that people believe. It doesn´t matter how much of any of it is real, because our poor brains operate on so little actual knowledge about the world anyway. My friend, my love, my beautiful dove – we don´t as much live in reality but make pacts with it. If I give you the light of my fire, will you dip your finger in water and cool my tongue?

I mentioned a demon by the name Berith in my previous letter. It´s kind of exciting to me that I don´t know how you feel about this stuff. What if you are extremely devout and just keep quiet about it, and to you the straw that breaks the camel´s back when it comes to your ability to tolerate my tomfoolery will be me telling you that tonight my fairy lights refused to work until I whispered his name – and not only that, but for a moment they flickered on while not plugged in? Or that when I asked my Tarot deck about the condition of Timo´s tail, I pulled the Devil card surrounded by the Five of Cups on the left and the Chariot on the right, indicating that the sad situation will improve, but that something subconscious and animalistic, fettered and dark is at the root of the problem? To some people, trans people are of the devil. I don´t literally believe in any of that stuff, but I do believe in believing. All grimoires, psychiatric manuals and love letters are attempts at reshaping reality. To me it´s clear that if I upset your spiritual sensibilities a little, that wouldn´t be such a biggie really, but if I crossed any of your sexual boundaries and made you feel uncomfortable about that – well, that would make me incredibly upset with myself. Sex is real in a way that demons are not. Demons stand for things, symbolize things, contain echoes of past religions, past cultures, past knowledge, past fairytales. But sex is in the here and now, and it´s hurt so many, myself included. Transitioning is like moving house or country. I don´t want to take old bullshit with me into my new life. I want sex to be beautiful and fun and innocent. But I don´t think I can do it alone, so I am sparring with your warm ghost. I´m trying to transfer the gentleness of my imaginary kisses on your eyelids and apply it towards myself as well.

Before Christianity renamed and repurposed and catalogued old deities in grimoires and called them demons, they were benevolent, neutral at worst. I´ve mentioned before that Berith is associated with horses. He´s also associated with the color red. I wonder if you´d be able to eat a strawberry for me and make a sincere wish that Timo´s tail will grow back to its gorgeous and bushy state post haste. After all, being as poor as I am, my stables are the size of my boys´ cages, but chinchillas and horses operate on the same logic: hay goes in, poop and speed comes out, skittish, beautiful, and free-spirited. We are doing magic here, not pornography, so a fuzzy facsimile in diminutive scale is a perfectly suitable horse substitute for our purposes. Similarly, if you are allergic to strawberries, pick another fruit, as long as it can be said to be red in good faith. What matters is this. Don´t just chomp down on that thing like an oaf. Do it in private. Part your lips and stick the tip of your tongue out so slightly it´s barely even past your teeth. Relax your face and your jaw and let the scent of the strawberry hit your nostrils as you bring it close to your face. The berry won´t be any warmer than room temperature, but the warmth of your fingers holding it will intensify the aroma. If you were approaching something human-temperature, the experience would be different: there would be a solid mass of a living, breathing, blood-filled person pulling you in with their enticing heat… But we are sticking to strawberries for this exercise. Take the strawberry to your lips and feel the seeds and the fine little hairs on its surface. Don´t move anything yet: let the strawberry grow a little bit frustrated, let it writhe in anticipation, generate warmth in your heart and your thoughts, prepare to lose yourself in the pleasure of eating, but deny yourself for just a little longer. Feel the breath from your nostrils bounce and spiral off of the surface of the fruit. Your lips feel the very same strawberry as a completely different texture than your tongue does. Isn´t that amazing? The moment you give it the tiniest lick, the whole experience changes. Your lips and tongue now experience the fruit synchronized, as active creators of a harmonious sensory heaven. Were you the strawberry and not the eater, all of these actions, all of your tiny, feather-light movements, would create sensations for it too, given that it was a sentient, sapient fruit. Once teeth are involved, we should move on from the oral sex implications and just focus on the primality of feeding. Crush, swallow, repeat, eat your fill – that is if you got yourself more than one strawberry, I have no idea about the cost of those over the Steel Wool Sea! In any case, enjoy yourself, my Zauberlehrling. I want you to be happy, and fresh fruit is good for you.

Please report back whether or not you ended up doing this innocent little mindfulness exercise with a red fruit of your choosing. I promise to keep you informed about the bushiness of the tail we´re trying to enchant back to good health and lushness. Sleep well!