Gentaro narrowly avoided a house search via the lack of a warrant and a flimsy I just could not take the trash out for a couple of days! despite showing up unbathed, half-obscured by the metal screen door. The clock seemed to tick louder after that. He was, however, willing to let Ramuda and Dice in. Ramuda could barely pass through the main door and almost expelled his unhealthy lunch of café sweets by the vestibule. He excused himself and made a playful remark about how this has got to be Gentaro’s worst writing rut. In a minute he was gone. Dice kept his stomach intact, as much as humanly possible. Gentaro, hair mussed and yukata starched and stained with a muddy colour, welcomed Dice, unfazed by the stench of rotting meat—worse than rot, a worrying kind—seemingly permeating from the walls as if the house was breathing through its festered mouth. Dice didn’t question this. He was also not new to accepting Gentaro’s requests of having chores done if it would get him seed money or a warm meal. And besides, he liked Gentaro’s company. He liked it a little too much. Gentaro liked him too, to some degree. They fended off boredom with their tryst-like arrangement, wrapped in each other’s limbs and holding back sighs. “Sorry about the smell.” Gentaro made no delay in locking up the door. “So...was it a feral animal? Got stuck around here?” “Close.” The genkan creaked. Dice kept his coat on. The temperature felt no different than it was on the outside. An unusually chill early autumn. Nothing out of the ordinary. Save for the beer cans and used plates on the coffee table, the living room looked the same as it was. A pungent smell did circulate here seeing all the food waste, though tamer and much more familiar, a far cry from the overpowering...aura, to exaggerate, of enormity. Dice had his share of food past its freshness in his worse days, none came close to this. They passed the kitchen. The counter was wiped haphazardly, leaving streaks of dark residue. Somewhere a waft of ammonia. He could start cleaning from here. But they pressed on. The lights in the hallway crackled once Gentaro turned the switch on, which then emitted a dim glow that communicated it needed changing sooner. Blurred shadows. The house seemed to swallow all manner of sounds like a vacuum, leaving nothing but the muted rustling of their clothing. “It might be faster with Ramuda’s help...” Gentaro murmured, a glazed look in his eyes. “Though maybe he had the right call.” “What?” Gentaro fanned a hand before his lips. “Do you think Ramuda would have wanted to help us?” They passed the study. “Sure. He misses ya.” Gentaro hadn’t been contacting the outside world for weeks, save for some line messages. A hiatus, he called it. “But I don’t think he’ll enjoy cleaning up.” “Cleaning up,” Gentaro repeated. “Always heedful, our dear Dice.” “Don’t wanna be rude but this ain’t the first time.” They arrived by the doorstep of Gentaro’s bedroom. Here, it felt, was the diseased area of the house. “I had a messy, intimate encounter, you see.” Dice shifted, hands in his jacket’s pockets. He gnawed on the inside of his cheek. He found his pair of dice amidst the trash and crumpled bills in the chasm-like pocket, sliding his fingers between them. “Uh-huh, and? You don’t mean the guy you sent on Line? Forgot his name. Haven’t seen him in a while. He died or something?” Dice caught himself cringing at the joke. “Shat himself?” Gentaro only shook his head. “Promise me you won’t tell a soul, once I open this room. I am to blame for it.” Dice’s skin started to prickle and sweat. Keep it playful. Keep the lucky spirits close. “Don’t care what kinda kinks you got that would need help cleaning up with two people, Gentaro. You can trust me.” Gentaro slid the door open to an otherworldly stench that made Dice finally double over, bile sour in his mouth. The lights were closed. Outlines barely formed in the half-light, though he could faintly make out a large non-specific shape straggled on the floor before Gentaro’s shadow covered it completely. Stomach lurching again. Dice swallowed thickly the spit filling his mouth, breathing shallow but only to taste the unpleasant tartness of both his bile and the heavy, fetid air around them. A force of the greatest potency pressed against him and seemed to stiffen his whole body, suddenly wracked with fear of the unknown, an instinct hidden in every person with a functioning panic reflex. Gentaro switched the lights on. A body. Introduced as a short-time lover only two weeks ago, the man’s body in Gentaro’s private quarters was reduced to a putrid, marbled mass visible where skin was still present, a tar-like liquid pooling beneath and around it, hardly human in the form Gentaro’s christened him: lacking in fingers, bitten in chunks like moth-eaten cloth, an abdomen split open to display viscera separated with surgical precision from the sac which contains it. The man’s ribcage was exposed and shattered, what might be a clumsy attempt to reach what was once the beating heart within it. The organs, like the rest of the muscle fibres visible from the jagged incisions, had turned black-red from exposure, others pale from being drained of their fluids, collapsed like washed-up jellyfish. Mutilated genitals. The face, framed by thick black hair, has been thoroughly scrubbed off with an abrasive material, leaving it caked with the same black-red, the colour of congealed blood. Who knows how many days. And Dice could only think, in that span of time, the family and friends waiting for nothing to come home to them. With no food filling his stomach in over a day, all the composure he mustered wrung out from him. He retched so violently to the point of crying, cursing under his breath. This should’ve been a good day. He expected a good day. Dice tried to keep his eyes open, as if beholding the cruelty long enough would throw him back into a thrashing mess in some park bench, open his eyes to transparent blue sky, skin damp in morning dew and cold sweat— a hunger nightmare and nothing more. He turned to Gentaro, who stood stoic, eyes lowered at the horrid spectacle of his own doing. Dice had seen dead bodies before, but in medical sterility— clean, peaceful, respected. Pumped with a cocktail of chemicals. Every strand of hair in place, with a nice outfit and cradled in the plush insides of a casket. The very few blood in Dice’s hands he had done without looking back from terror. Running away from those who could hurt him. Butchered livestock—even roadkill—preserved more dignity. His stomach heaved again. Only acid in his throat. Taking a deep breath he choked and coughed the burning fluid, when Gentaro helped him up and brushed his warm palms on Dice’s bowed back. Dice squeezed tears from his eyes. Gentaro stood not a foot from him, in his green eyes the expression of worry underneath the all-consuming leer of a man capable of ultraviolence. “It’s consensual,” Gentaro started, showing his own left hand. A pinkie finger gone; ring finger reduced to its first knuckle. The bandages were uneven, dirtied by dried blood. Dice didn’t notice them until then. Was he supposed to believe that? “I apologize you had to see this but there’s no one else I can turn to—” “What d’you want me to do?” Dice wiped sweat off his forehead. The room was spinning in his vision. Yet it’s hard to take his eyes away. Gentaro’s arms slipped underneath his. He smelled rank and shared the same odour of rot. “Help me. I think I regret it.” ‡ Dice saw Gentaro’s efforts in the shower. The room smelled of paradichlorobenzene from the hanging air deodorizer— a small disc wrapped in red cellophane— but through it one could single out the smell of iron, of mildew. The washer-dryer held stagnant clothing, hadn’t dried properly lending an added redolence of mustiness in the air. That’s what the house was: layers on top of layers of odours attempting to mask each other and ultimately failing— alcohol, unwashed bodies, sex, and mould, covered by a heavy blanket of human decomposition. A perfume chemistry straight from hell. At one point, Gentaro did try cleaning up, maybe days ago. The shower retained a brown discoloration, surrounding the metal drain like brush strokes painting the flow of water, as did the sink. At one point, too, he must’ve stopped. Gave in to the bloodlust then stayed in that room again doing...well, Dice couldn’t bring himself to admit it. wWhat Gentaro meant by showing his hands with two fingers less. How it happened, he gave the floor to his imaginations and let it run free, free from his consciousness, leave it untethered from his mind far enough he could reason that he’s just helping a friend out. He searched the medicine cabinet for a mask, and a pleasant-smelling product to rub on it. Gentaro kept a whole box of ointments and liniments of varying scents for different soothing effects, which didn’t matter to Dice. He picked a slim, rectangular glass bottle filled with a dark green fluid. The yellowing label showed an illustration of a white flower, and removing the metal lid unleashed a strong scent of camphor and menthol which refreshed Dice’s senses. ‡ Gentaro took the initiative to saw the man’s body into parts that fit into garbage bags. He laid the bags in a row intending to group them in some ‘logical’ way, oblivious of how or where to start. The organs went first having been already scooped out clean the past days, leaving a cavity in Horiki’s middle— not before he swallowed morsels of it, down his throat like cold, raw oysters. Cut pieces of liver which had been once a healthy rusted colour gone pallid, the gum-like heart, a pair of deflated lungs; they were all quickly falling apart between his fingers. The mouthfeel had changed. After a few days, it felt nothing special. Only a little degree different from poorly aged meat, with its bitter-sour pungence. Whatever waft of heat he first enjoyed in their dissection existed only in memory, now that they laid lifeless and jelly-like. Horiki, he mumbled his name like a prayer, picking pieces of him up and trying to recall what ignited in him behind the alcohol haze. Yes, Gentaro took a knife to his lover somewhere along the lovemaking. Dead or alive? He scarcely remembered its stench if his senses even registered it as such, but the enveloping softness, of warmth, and the sensation of peristalsis around his fingers when he curiously put a hand in that mess of viscera beneath the sheet of sickly yellow omentum peeking through ripped skin, past the layer of fat. A teardrop-shaped hole just above the belly button lined with hot red blood, which pooled in his navel and caught in the tangle of hair leading to his groin. Horiki was still breathing, indulging, and seemingly kept alive by that singular want, and the will to— what exactly? That, or he had ingested something else before without Gentaro’s knowledge. A man like him had connections, none who cared for him if not for the money he’s set aside for a few minutes above the clouds— but where’s the fun in that? Lovesick under Gentaro’s spell, that he liked more. No amount of alcohol or illegal substances could have enabled their depravity, only the want, want, want. Fingers first, prodding the soft, wet cavity, then his cock in a moment of unrestrained white-hot lust— inside, mucus slicker than any kind of lubricant, than a gagging mouth full of spit, so ecstatic he felt all ounces of his shame shed and pool below him like the blood draining from his lover’s belly. He felt organs being pushed aside, and a discernible wall keeping them together, the mesentery against the weeping head of his dick. Gentaro felt volumes of his personhood shed off him like snakeskin, despite catching Horiki’s sleepy, fluttering gaze also lost in mad pleasure, his arms around Gentaro’s neck like it was nothing at all out of the ordinary; rock hard as well and begging to be touched. Horiki moaned slack jawed in pain or pleasure or both. Organs convulsing, and the most obscene squelching of flesh. When they kissed, it was all Gentaro’s teeth and tongue. Horiki drifted in and out of consciousness, neither of them really trying to keep him alive. They slept in the filth of blood and fluids and limbs over the futon. They dreamt of darkness that stretched out for miles and miles. Navigating, mapping out the vast nothingness, barren but for the glare of morning light seductive in the edge of that infinite space, vague imitations of colours in stark contrast with the backdrop of the void, hordes of impossible geometry dancing beneath their heavy eyelids... The high wore off and loneliness more immense than the pleasure which preceded it, took its place. First and last, Gentaro thought. Cold, pale Horiki laid beside him. None of that happened. Not all of it. It crossed his mind once but never while they’re busy making love— yes, that’s what Gentaro called it. Love, like a sacred ritual because he wanted something deeper, for their mingling sweat to stick their bodies together into one entity. Gentaro swore their hearts beat in the same hasty pace, pumping blood into the same tangle of red and blue vessels under their skin, muscle, fat... Gentaro’s teeth ripped Horiki’s jugular beneath him, tbeir hips flushed, finally giving in to the temptation of something fresh and less chemical than embalmed bodies, and out came a hot spray of blood, a chunk of meat soft and metallic on his tongue. For a moment ecstasy welled from deep within Gentaro at the taste of warm flesh. An orgasm like no other. Horiki didn’t even have the time to react, and his beautiful body shook in the throes of death. Gentaro lapped at the soft opening of the wound, which was beginning to split at the edges, dripping bright red like arils in a burst pomegranate. Gentaro took a long look at the life leaving Horiki’s eyes as it began to cloud, if he had any more to say with the last synapses firing in his brain and the twitching from his nerves, a final message written in his marbling skin, but it returned nothing. There was nothing. None of the fanfare of his imaginations. The selfsame loneliness set in. ‡ Blood was no problem anymore as the body rested long enough to drain most of its disgusting ichor into the tatami. The floor underneath which had probably absorbed it a problem for later. Dice thought the only solution could only be to replace the floorboards altogether to remove all traces of the smell, and, feeling superstitious, to remove a curse borne from the inhumane conditions of the man’s death. Cast away evidence. Cast away spirit turned evil. It must be cruel fate— or luck— that it happened in the middle of autumn. The house sheltered a chill even with the windows and doors shut. Miraculously, no insect had bore itself under the corpse’s skin nor feasted on its meat, even more greatly reducing the speed at which the body decomposed. Though that kept it in a... ‘better’ than expected state, it couldn’t prevent the scent of carrion from being taken downwind. Gentaro told Dice about the suspicions, of his shallow excuses, and wordlessly, how little he wanted to part with his lover. After collecting himself in the bathroom, Dice headed straight to Gentaro whose eyes locked in a singular focus, his fist tight on the handle of a hacksaw. Checking up on him. Doubt he’ll be fine. Dice reluctantly offered an extra mask he prepared but Gentaro declined. “What’s gonna happen?” Gentaro’s grip briefly loosened. Dice dawdled around the back of the room, eyes on the dusty, yellowed tatami mats (damaged from furniture scraping the straw, at least what he could discern from the white lines against the fibre), his foot stepping on a piece of clothing. A white undershirt, recumbent like a deflated tube, slightly yellowed where sweat collects: collar, armpits, chest. The rest of it strewn around the same perimeter of his eyeline. All of them clean, a pair of bleached denim jeans, grey boxers still crumpled inside as if it was taken off in a fit of frenzied passion. Packets of condoms, one of them ripped half-open, peeked from within one of the pockets. Dice felt his jaw clench. Just a preamble to silence. While Dice took care of the general house cleaning— plates washed, counters disinfected, bathroom and toilet scrubbed off its mold and mildew, all of the floors, walls too, bleached except for one room which rendered his efforts null for the place was never truly clean with the offensive smell— he would peer through the bedroom again and watch Gentaro’s methodical movements. Blade through ligaments and cartilage. The tip of a knife forced through a disc in the man’s spinal column, a quick pivot pulling the vertebrae apart then twisting the joints like one would behead a large fish, and with a wet click, split the body into two. The grating sound of a hacksaw forced into raw ivory and crimson marrow. The man stood at about 172 centimetres alive, his back like that of a swimmer’s, the shape of a cobra’s hood over Gentaro’s soft, pale body; lean arm muscles which caged him in other nights; and downwards thick thighs and legs full of coarse black hair which Gentaro lovingly caressed, fingers running feather-light on his shaped calves, while he was dismantled like a mannequin. Sweat sticks to Gentaro’s forehead as he exerted all his energy into sawing a femur in half, but a different kind of wetness on his cheeks dripped into the explosion of muscle and crushed bones below. He was weeping, the reason behind it lost to Dice but he had ideas. Mourning, anger, ecstasy. He brushed the assumptions aside as nausea returned to him seeing Gentaro’s fingers occasionally travel from bruised flesh to his little mouth. Gentaro’s form begins to collapse. The tooth of the saw barely made a dent in the bone. “You’re struggling.” Dice held the saw and l With nothing left to take care of as far as Dice’s hunger-addled senses could tell, he sat outside the bedroom door. If he had recovered from the shock, it happened quickly, and by the time Gentaro’s near-finished with his chore, contents of the black garbage bags indistinguishable from deli cuts, the last of Dice’s disgust had already left him. ‡ The night ocean lipped at the shore with immutable calmness, leaving in its wake a thick layer of white foam, its sussurations a healing spell for Dice after staying far too long in Gentaro’s putrescent home. He didn’t know where Gentaro took him, or which river carried the butchered remains of Horiki, but he could care less when the vast moonless heaven which merged with the unseen horizon miles and miles away, made him feel insect-like in scale. There was nothing to feel, nothing to want. Gray sand between his toes. Gentaro stripped to his undergarments, sat on the shore, and let the pulling waves drag his insubstantial frame closer and closer to the open water. He never felt the threat of a rip tide, he had worse thoughts to nurse. The surf was freezing against his gossamer-thin skin, snatching away the warmth of his blood, though even before this spontaneous trip to the sea the sensation in his hands and feet had been numbing. Spending days on end with nothing but the scent of decomposition— and feeding on it— might as well had turned him into a living corpse. But nevermind that...Dice’s voice pierced through the impenetrable noise of the waves. The words did not reach him, minced by the sharp, cold wind. “Dice—” “I want to leave.” (Gentaro and Dice seating Gentaro’s car. They’re both smoking, Gentaro still crying. Dice mentions his previous affairs with Gentaro wondering if it would have come down to that. Dice decides to not see Gentaro anymore for an indeterminate amount of time, tells him to pretend they don’t know each other when they meet in the city.)
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