Fuck. The key was jammed in the door…again. “I’m just sick of this shit,” I think to myself. Gray was still at work, and would be for another two hours. Damn it. I take off my boot, and somehow beat the key into turning. The hallway is quiet, except for my incessant banging. Finally, with a horrendous noise, the door opens and slams into the inside wall. I would care more if there were tenants on this floor of the building. I hadn’t seen another tenant for weeks. Sighing, I took a last glance down the dilapidated plaster-peeling hall to the half-boarded up window at the entrance to the stairs. A sole tractor moved like an ant in the construction site at the bottom of hill. Phase III of Edgewater Towers, in a few years. This building was a relic from the war days of the ’40s…in five or six years it would be torn down to build more apartment buildings for rich New York stockbrokers. We knew it, but we didn’t talk about it. This tiny flat with a garage ran $1600 a month. I entered the apartment. There was an old couch, a small TV, and the old computer from my college days. I hated and loved this place, so far removed from my dreams of New York. Gray had always hated the city, and now he got to watch it grow towards him.

There were clothes all over the living room, and more in the bedroom. The piles of clothes depressed me. I sat down on the couch, too tired and lazy to root around in the clutter to find the remote. Gray wouldn’t be home for a while, might as well take a nap. I snuggled in, using a pile of dirty t-shirts as a pillow.

I woke up, Gray had put on a record. “Ah, Sleeping Beauty awakens,” he said. I gave him a look, and went into the kitchen for a snack. “I’m bored,” I said, lazily preparing a sandwich.

“We could go see a movie?”
“I don’t have time for that ersatz Hollywood trash, I’ve seen all the movies we own a million times. You know how I am with Hollywood.” He smiled forlornly as I returned to the living room, munching on the sandwich.
“We could go to the shore and ride some rides.”
“Eh, I’m not really in the mood. Too many people. It’s very depressing, the sheep walking around in preparation for the slaughter.” I offered him the sandwich, he shook his head.
“We could watch some porn,” he suggested. I smiled.
“Eh, why not.”

Porn was the last form of entertainment that at least partially assuaged my ennui. It was tied to the beginning of the drive to survive, DNA and the libido. Only homocide, I imagined, could give that kind of high. He liked hardcore torture, I was more into scat and bukakke. Being libertine was almost as much of a responsibility as was religion. For us, there were always new depths to reach, new depravities to invent. We felt it was necessary, as humanity spiralled into its destruction. He popped in one of his favorites, sat down next to me and started to rub his crotch. He looked at me. We stared demurely at each other.

He licked his lips and put his hand on my leg, slowly moving it upwards, beginning to kiss me. He never broke eye contact. I was bored by sexual overtures, but I was a skilled fake. Everybody is, they just don’t realize it. We began to embrace. I was profoundly bored. I’d suffered with it for years to no avail. He began to remove my pants. We’d tried everything to feel again. We had started with bondage and torture, but this soon grew mundane. He pulled off his shirt as he massaged my crotch. We had started to go out to bars to seduce men who we would prick as they slept with dirty needles we’d found on the street. I removed my underwear. We were bored with everyone and everything, blasé to every form of human emotion and experience.

He helped my shirt off and started nibbling on my nipples. Nothing fascinated me; I’d read every book, gone to every web site, seen every movie. Human existence was pointless. I drifted away in thought as I slowly entered him. You can only have sex so many times before it becomes montonous. We’d realized that years ago. The look in his eyes wasn’t passion. I noticed that the record had stopped, and suddenly wanted to get up and turn it over. I was fucking him though, and too lazy to go through the ordeal of walking across the room. After all these years it was effortless to fake interest. Fake being happy, fake being sad. I mean, what was the difference? Real and fake, a lie and the truth, they were all just opinions. True, sex felt slightly good, but after the years it had just turned into a meaningless activity. Brushing my teeth, taking a shower, going to the store, taking a shit, fucking…it all just blends together after so many years.

I stared at the TV screen, trying to find something to interest me. A man was strapped to a gigantic metal cross, and other men were whipping him and yelling insults at him. I knew it was all staged, that the whips were covered in a black substance that, when the whip hit the body, turned into fake blood. I knew that the faked screams of agony were as hollow as a political speech. All the years of my life just seemed to melt into a meaningless muck. There had to be an answer. My mind churned as we moved back and forth. I guess I’d known it all these years, but just wouldn’t admit it to myself. Sex was the last thing that had piqued my interest. Now that this was gone, I could easily see what was the last thing that could make me feel. I begain to inch my hands down his back as I fucked him. The muscles were tight on his neck as I caressed it. I knew that in some inescapable way he knew what was going to happen, it seemed we’d known each other since the beginning of time. I gripped his neck tighter, and he let out a gasp. I knew it would be his last. I began to feel something. It was better than anything, even better than the feeling of control. I’d become bored of that years ago as the leather ropes, masks, shackles and handcuffs of years ago sat unused in the closet. I knew I was getting close.

His body turned red, I could see the veins in his head. He never resisted, not even at the end. He knew he was the gateway to my salvation. He knew he was my own personal savior. My Jesus. He would die so that I would descend yet again to the level of perfection, of feeling, of emotion. As I came, I knew he was dead. He’d slumped into a mass on the couch five or ten seconds or so ago. I arranged his body on the couch so that I could lay with him. Rising, I looked into his glassy eyes and kissed him, his lifeless lips pressed into mine. I rose to look into his eyes again. “Thank you,” I whispered. I now knew what it felt like to be alive. I closed his eyes with my hand and cuddled with his body, hoping to keep it warm with my newfound humanity until the end of time.