I was in my birthday suit and I was stimulated.
It wasn’t the sight of the nude corpse in front of me. It wasn’t that I was turned on by the idea that I was about to lay with it. It wasn’t even the thrill of stealing the body from the morgue. The stimulus came from something else. It came from the anticipation of it all.
Ever since that new Heterosexual Halting Act passed, that damned law, made by those bastard lawmakers, that banned heterosexual intercourse…
I understand why something had to be done. We had been drifting in space since before I was born. There should have been a planet that we could have inhabited long before now. But there’s not. I don’t think there will ever be.
We ran out of real food a decade ago. Everything we eat now is “made up” out of things I don’t know or understand. Even with all of the modern conveniences we have on this ship, it bores me; it bores everyone. The only hobby most people have on this floating piece of scrap metal is to fornicate with as many partners as possible.
Pregnancies skyrocketed (no pun intended). Babies were born left, right and center. Families have been forced to move into smaller quarters with other families. There are people everywhere! You can’t get away from them. The screaming children are the worst. Their cries… non-stop shrieking in my brain. I can hear them now. Many of them. All crying for this or that.
We are all like rats on a sinking ship…
Mandatory vasectomies were going to be the only way forward we thought. But after two Earth years of crowded debate within the hall of the lawmakers, they feared that if we did find a suitable planet, and we colonized, what if we couldn’t reverse all the vasectomies, what if something went wrong and we couldn’t reproduce?
We can build a damn spaceship to save humanity but these idiots in charge don’t know if we could sew a fleshy tube together?
These people are idiots.
The only way forward they agreed, was to ban sex between a man and woman. It would be the only way to ensure that not only we could live on this ship, but procreate once we got to where we are going.
I guess, if we don’t find any place in the next thirty or forty Earth years, they will lift the ban to make sure there will be people to still run this haunted vessel through space on it’s ridiculous mission. This ship will be a floating tomb of thousands upon thousands and nothing more…
I have no male friends. I have never been with a man sexually. I don’t think I could do it. This corpse is my practice run. This corpse will be my first kiss, my first… everything. It is either this or abstinence, and sex was the only drug that I had left.
His body looked cold. I was afraid to touch it. I swallowed hard and could feel my heart racing. I balled my fists and felt the sweat on my palms. I was still stimulated, but for how long?
My mind wandered back to the just a couple hours ago. The guard at the morgue. I hit him much harder than I expected to. He should’ve just taken the credits I offered him last week. He could’ve made a fortune being a pimp for the dead.
Idiot.
The guard looked like he was asleep after I hit him with that metal rod, but thinking about it now, when I walked by him again on my way out, with this corpse over my shoulder, his head was now laying in slumber on a pillow that was a pool of red blood.
Did I kill him?
I swallowed even harder than before. Was I a bodysnatcher and a murder?
One less mouth to feed. The lawmakers should give me a credit bonus!
I don’t think anyone saw me with the body over my shoulder. The corridors were very dark. The cries of babies hid the sound of my footsteps.
This supply closet is very small. I wonder if I had more room in here, if I would feel more like trying this thing?
Footsteps!
I pressed my ear to the door and listened.
The steps grew louder as they were getting obviously closer. They slowed, but thankfully, they didn’t stop. They continued and grew fainter as they marched further away.
My mouth was dry. I looked down at my future lover and just as I had thought, he hadn’t moved. His features were hard and sharp. His nose, quite large. Dark, thick and curly hair. I reached out to the lifeless thing laying on the workbench, and took it’s hand. I pulled mine back, not because of the icy coldness of it, but because of the size! It’s hand seemed to be twice the size of my own and the coarse black hairs that covered the top of it and the fingers, repulsed me.
I was no longer stimulated.
I had to try! I quickly leaned down to kiss his cold dead lips…nothing. I thought that maybe I would be sick in my mouth, but that didn’t happen either. Total indifference.
I stood there confused. Both of us in our birthday suits. Only one of us with a pulse.
Why didn’t I just steal the corpse of a woman? Maybe I could just be the guy that sleeps with dead women! They can’t get pregnant! What would the lawmakers think? I wonder if I could swap this body for an attractive woman?
Reality sunk in. This was supposed to be a one off thing just to see if I could do it. I couldn’t keep stealing corpses. I couldn’t keep “maybe” killing guards. They might be after me now.
Luckily, those idiot lawmakers passed another law along with the Heterosexual Halting Act, the Assisted Suicide Act.
