Page 1 of Broken Heat
1
Elon –Tears Inside
The bathroom’s inset, full-length mirrors were perfectly angled and well-lit. I’d had them put in years ago when Coah was still alive.
Fresh from a run, dripping from the shower, I dropped my towel.
Next was a ritual that no longer held meaning:
A depilatory treatmentevery two weeks except my scalp and eyebrows.
Anal bleach cream twice a week to keep things bright and uniform down there.
I’d already donethe body hair treatment after my run and before my shower.
Now, I put a drop of the butt cream on my finger and reached back, spreading one cheek to rub it in. After the application, I checked myself in the angled mirrors. Total self-indulgence.
My tight pucker seemed to wink at me, the wrinkle matching the rest of my skin tone. It was in perfect form, clean and shiny, the skin around the rim no longer dark like nature intended for every human on the planet.
I was in perfect porn star shape, my lean torso, arms and legs sun-tanned, my hair conditioned with three different solutions, my cock circumcised at birth to supposedly please the western alpha cultural demographics.
Another part of my ritual used to be to take enemas before sex. But that wasn’t an issue anymore. I hadn’t had sex in three years beyond my own hand, and even that was rare.
All my habits had been for Coah, the way Coah liked it.
At first, when I’d met Coah, I hadn’t been sureIliked it. Coah had made demands. Coah had taken the role of being in charge.
I was college educated and independent when I’d met him. I’d had a mind of my own. I thought my mind would lead me to a mate with the same ideals.
And it did.
Except in the bedroom.
I’d faltered and fought. At first. His patience and steadfast strength of mind won me.
He had liked that word.Won.As if I’d been an object, a thing he owned. But I told him a week before our official bonding ceremony that he had never won me. No. He had impressed me with his strength and fire. With his confidence. With his command of my body.
He wanted what he wanted, and that was me. I couldn’t help but be flattered.
When he asked me to do certain things, I always asked why. Always. I was that sort of omega. Then he would show me why.
“See?” he would say. “Like this? Isn’t that better?”
Yes. It was always better with Coah. Or maybeforCoah. And though I didn’t always get my verbal answers as to why, I couldn’t deny it. Our sex life had been good and proper, and I had pleased my alpha.
When he died, life as I knew it was over. The world became new and alien. I’d been twenty-seven and still childless. Too young to lose my mate.
But not only that, I’d lost my heats. They never returned. Nor did my sex drive. I kept myself groomed and in porn star shape for a ghost who was no longer there. I liked feeling pretty and like I was doing things right, but what was the point?
After several therapists and heat doctors worked me over, gave me exercises—both mental and physical—and even put me through group grief counseling, nothing changed in the sex department.
I learned everything else necessary to get through life. How to cope. How to miss Coah without feeling too angry or too sad or guilty for not feeling either of those things. How to discard old shells and try on new ones. I rediscovered moments of awe and wonder and beauty. But not sexually. Not through mate-love.
My heats had died with Coah.
Finally, after three years, I saw yet one more heat doctor.
“Have you ever heard of Omega Island?” Dr. Sedonis asked me.
