text: Clipping #6 (from a leading monthly magazine)
  
  An interview with Laurent Malherbe
  
  Mr. Malherbe, how would you describe your current condition?
  
  Malherbe: I feel great! No, of course, that's not what you wanted to hear. Let me put it this way then: I'm a man without legs, without arms, without private parts, without hair, without... well, let's just say I'm a man stripped down to his bare essentials. I am still fully alive, I am happy, I still harbour ambitions I'm itching to carry to their limits, I still have hopes and dreams, I have everything it takes to be a full-fledged human being.
  
  But without all this medical equipment you're hooked onto, you would die within moments.
  
  Malherbe: That's true, but isn't that also true for many handicapped persons who are yet considered full human beings? The fact that I arrived at my present condition on purpose is totally immaterial. A man is more than his mere outward physical appearance. My soul is intact. My mind vibrates as it never has before. My thinking is of crystal-clear lucidity. I am more convinced than ever that I chose the right path for my personal fulfilment. And I will walk that path down to its very end.
  
  You still think you have not proven enough?
  
  Malherbe: Have I proven anything yet? I've proven you can cut off a few bits here and there and wash them down with a glass of water, so to speak. The hard part is yet to come. Can I eat my lungs and survive? My heart? My brain?
  
  Surely you cannot be serious?
  
  Malherbe: Be assured that I am. To quote an old movie star who shall remain nameless, "You ain't seen nothing yet." I will indeed attempt what some still deem impossible, and continue eating body parts considered vital. I am determined to take this experiment to its very limits.
  
  Will you go "all the way," as your fans keep chanting?
  
  Malherbe: I will go as far as humanly possible. It will soon become clear exactly how far that is. No doubt it will be a lot further than people have assumed. My experiment will have tremendous scientific value, besides its profound ethical and philosophical repercussions. I hope I will have the time and the opportunity to convey all my thoughts and theories regarding this matter to viewers and readers out there.
  
  Do you have any final thoughts to wrap up this interview?
  
  Malherbe: Oh well, let me put it like this. My ambition is now foremost in my mind, pushing all other considerations into the background. It has become the focus of all my thoughts and actions, to the point that I no longer have any interest in what you might call a regular guy's worries and woes. In a sense I transcended that kind of existence. My ambition to eat myself has become my true raison d'être. I know very well that I've come in for some criticism in certain quarters, and I'm not deaf and blind to their accusations, but basically it doesn't matter to me anymore. What matters is my burning ambition, how to make my dream come true, and how to do that tomorrow rather than the day after tomorrow. To put it succinctly: I truly live for this all-consuming passion of mine.
  
  Thank you for this interview, Mr. Malherbe.
  
  Malherbe: You're welcome. I hope we'll meet again... before the Last Supper!
  
  Clipping #7 (from a national magazine)
  
  Laurent Malherbe, once a curiosity happy to see his follies covered in regional papers, has by now become a regular guest in all national and even international media outlets, a caricature of man's desire to push his own limits and transcend himself, and an insult to the medical profession, all rolled into one. It could be said this is quite an achievement for a man who is, strictly technically speaking, no longer alive... depending on one's definition of life. Malherbe, who roped in vast amounts of money with the sale of exclusive coverage rights, subsequently hired a legion of doctors and surgeons to execute his "will," a term apt only for those who consider him dead, by all accounts a dwindling minority. Ever since the medical team known as the Malherbe Foundation started removing some of the vital organs of their patient (or their client?), as per his instructions, what remains of Laurent Malherbe's body is kept alive artificially, a near-empty hulk devoid of what is usually considered "life." Malherbe's growing hordes of fans, however, worship the man as if he represented God on earth, and applaud his every move, however posthumous. Is this man, as his fans claim, still eating himself, as highly paid surgeons remove yet more slices of quivering flesh and force them down a throat that is attached to a stomach and a reduced set of intestines, with a brain and a heart thrown in for good measure? Or is this a joke perpetrated in bad taste, a scientific experiment gone awry, a waste of medical and surgical skills unavailable for more pressing needs? Needless to say, Malherbe's fans are unwilling to even listen to any criticism of their idol's progress, and hard cash appears once more to prevail over ethics and common sense.
  
  Clipping #8 (from a Laurent Malherbe fan club magazine)
  
  The most thrilling news is, of course, that the long-awaited moment is imminent: Laurent's body has once more been stripped of some of its parts (considered vital by the narrow-minded), such as his lungs and a large chunk of his brain. What's left of our dear friend, his digestive system, his heart along with a rudimentary bloodstream and a handful of braincells, is kept alive and fully functional thanks to state-of-the-art medical technology and a handsomely paid crew of doctors and paramedics. Dr. Gomez, who heads the medical crew, has confirmed in a recent interview that "nothing can stop Malherbe from carrying his ambitions to their logical conclusion. Modern technology will allow him, however unlikely this may seem at first sight, to eat his own last shreds of body tissue. For contractual reasons I am not at liberty to divulge any technical details of this procedure. But be assured that we will do anything necessary to achieve total success. Mr. Malherbe will definitely go down in history as the man who ate himself." Obviously, we will cover the final phase of this awesome experiment in extensive detail, complete with full interviews of all those involved. No other paper or magazine has the kind of access to reliable sources that we do, so stay tuned for further news. Preparations for a mega-"Eat Your Heart Out, Humanity"-party are already well underway. If this doesn't prove our unshakeable faith in the outcome of Laurent's big plan, then what does?
  
  Clipping #9 (obituary from a national newspaper)
  
  Yesterday Laurent Malherbe died in a private hospital in London. He was 41. Malherbe had become a national celebrity by eating parts of his own body, a bizarre habit which quickly grew into an all-consuming obsession. As Malherbe's rise to fame and fortune has been extremely well-documented, we need not repeat the details of his final year, which he spent devouring himself. It is debatable whether that is a fitting description for his condition in the last months of his "life," when he was hooked up to a battery of machines, a Frankenstein's monster in reverse, having its flesh and blood artificially removed and consumed until nothing was left. The video footage of the final phase of Malherbe's descent into his own digestive system, released shortly after his death, is rumoured to be "digitally processed," meaning that special effects-like elements have been added to the original footage. This is firmly denied by Malherbe's vociferous fans and followers, but observers less blinded by worship, and spokesmen of the scientific community in particular, harbour serious doubts about Malherbe's alleged success in "swallowing his own digestive system thanks to a cutting-edge technological sleight of hand," discarded as "tabloid-style pseudo-scientific gibberish" by at least one acknowledged medical authority. It appears rather unlikely that the complete truth about Malherbe's death will ever be revealed, considering the amount of idolatry (not to mention financial interests) among those who guard the facts as though they were sacred teachings.
  
  Clipping #10 (from a published letter in a newspaper's readers' column)
  
  Frankly, I fail to see what all the fuss is about. Does it really matter then whether or not some ultra-high-tech contraption was made allowing old Laurent Malherbe to serve what was left of himself by way of his own private Last Supper? All right, I admit I wasn't immediately convinced when I heard about this fabulous machine that broke down Malherbe's last strips of flesh so incredibly fast and raced these particles down his not-just-quite-vaporised-yet throat almost instantly that, strictly technically speaking, this procedure could count as "eating yourself completely." It sounds like pure hogwash, but even if such a machine was indeed developed and this process (a giant leap forward in "fast food!") was indeed applied to our ever-hungry friend Malherbe, what difference does it make in the end? Lots of money was wasted that could have been better spent, lots of attention was paid to a man out to immortalise his name through an act of unmitigated sensationalism (without any redeeming qualities), lots of people did their best to create or get involved into a hype that by all accounts ought to have been ignored for the cheap thrill of a media-saturated and money-driven society it was. As I said, I fail to see what all the fuss is about. Now that Malherbe is gone to Fast Food Heaven, can we please get on with real life? Thank you so much.
  
  ⁂
  
  [ NO STRINGS by Josh Shiben ]
  
  "I've got no strings," muttered Evan to himself through gritted teeth as he hauled his heavy body roughly up the side of the metal structure. The song had been stuck in his head, on repeat, for days, just endlessly looping like an annoying commercial tune. "To hold me up." Sweat of the exertion dripped from his body, making it sheen in the baking Virginia sun. He watched as his forearm gleamed in the light, watched it ripple and distort as something inside him slithered just beneath the surface. It was one of the worms, or parasites, or whatever they were. He wasn't sure. It didn't matter.
  
  Evan grunted and continued climbing up the ladder. His mouth was so dry. So thirsty. They used to hurt, the worms. He remembered the pain they'd caused as they stretched his skin and bored through him. He remembered the fear, as he lay there on the hospital table, worrying that some parasite was turning him into a human-shaped block of Swiss cheese. But then, the doctor had given him drugs and it'd stopped. The pain. The crawling under his skin. They'd assumed the worms had died, but now Evan knew better. Poisons didn't kill them. Antibiotics just drove them deeper into his body. They were still there—still hiding inside of him. Burrowing into the very core of him. But when they came back, the pain stopped. Evan knew why—he was getting used to them. He was numb. Even the thought of pain was fuzzy—he knew it was an unpleasant sensation, but like a blind man thinking of color, he could not summon any impression of it. Pain, like most other sensations, was something that had passed out of his life. It had become alien. He tried to worry about it, but all he felt was dry. Like a leaf in the fall, threatening to crumble to dust in the slightest breeze. He licked his lips and continued his climb.
  
  "I've got no strings." He only knew the two lines, so he sang them over and over like a skipping record.
  
  His hands were blistering on the rungs of the ladder, but he ignored them and climbed on. They didn't hurt, and he was too close to the top to stop now. It was so hard to climb with the heavy tools strapped to his back and his stomach distended the way it was; too heavy and awkward, and the writhing inside sometimes pushed him off balance. He had no attention to waste on something as trivial as blistering hands—he had to focus on gripping the ladder tightly, dragging himself up one rung at a time. Evan needed more water. He had to hurry.
  
  He'd tried submerging himself in his bathtub, but it hadn't been enough. He'd just lay down there, watching as his breath bubbled to the surface, staring up through the ripples at the ceiling. He had drunk until he vomited the water back up, and then kept drinking, desperate for any kind of relief. After all of that, he'd still felt parched.
  
  One summer, years ago, Evan had gone to the beach and gotten a nasty sunburn. But the burn hadn't hurt—it itched. The itch couldn't be scratched—it was under the skin, down deep in the muscle, and so he had paced his room in agony, thinking that if only he could cut the skin back, flay his chest and shoulders like a butchered animal, he might cure the irritation. That was his thirst now—a deep-seated, unquenchable itch, burning in his throat and mouth. It permeated every solitary cell in his body—his entire being cried out for water. He needed more than just a bathtub or a pool. He needed something drastic. He needed the impossible weight of thousands of gallons. He wanted to be buried in that crushing, impossible wetness—that black, freezing gulf, where even the sun cannot penetrate.
  
  Evan had once seen a submarine flood in an old World War II movie he'd watched with his father. The hull had been breached by a depth charge, and the crew frantically sealed bulkheads to stop the implacably rising water from taking them all. As a child, Evan had stared at his ceiling, shuddering at the thought of being surrounded by the icy depths in that cold prison. He would lie awake, trying to exorcize fears of a black tide sliding up to consume him. Now, he fantasized about it. The icy cold grip of the water rising, promising more than he could ever drink.
  
  He reached the catwalk, and with some effort, rolled himself onto the structure, where he rested only a moment before rising slowly to his feet. His legs were so weak and he was so heavy. He wondered-how much of him was still Evan, and how much was worm. Two-thirds? Half?
  
  He looked at his bloated, bulging stomach, wriggling with alien mass, and considered how much it must weigh. He'd been fit before all of this. Not in great shape, but good enough. He would have at least passed for a healthy person. Not now, though. The lesions on his flesh and undulating shapes under his skin removed any doubt as to his condition. He wanted to feel angry, or sad, or anything about it, but couldn't seem to muster the emotion. The thirst outweighed it all. He moved along the catwalk, to the small ladder leading to the top of the rounded tower, and with some effort, began hoisting himself up.
  
  "No foreign travel or anything?" the doctor had asked. Sitting in his hospital gown, looking down at his feet glumly, Evan could only shake his head "no." He'd never even left the state. He didn't have the money or the time away from work to go anywhere exotic. That was back when he still felt—the pain, the fear, the anger—it all bubbled up in him like a volcano. He was alive, then.
  
  "Have you had any water that was maybe contaminated?" the doctor had tried. Again, he'd shaken his head. He only ever drank tap water—provided by the city, and purified by chlorine. The worms couldn't live in chlorine, could they? Tap water was clean.
  
  Evan wet his lips again, and his tongue felt like sandpaper rubbing over a cracked and dried riverbed. With a grunt, he hoisted himself up another rung on the ladder. Some part of him realized he was dying, but he couldn't bring himself to be upset or bothered by the insight. The knowledge only gave him more motivation—better to receive this one last satisfaction than to die without it; a baptism to cleanse him, to wash away the wretchedness. It would bring relief. It had to.
  
  "To hold me up," he whined out deliriously, his hands only two rungs below the edge of the structure. He looked down to see the tiny town beneath him, and briefly considered just letting go. The fall would certainly kill him—end this struggle in a splatter of worm-infested meat. But then, he'd never get his satisfaction—he'd die, never knowing relief. That thought alone was enough to spur him upward, toward the salvation only a few rungs above him. He tried to swallow, but his throat was too dry—his tongue felt like a burned piece of leather in his mouth, and he had to hold on tightly to keep from retching.
  
  He pulled himself up the last two rungs and then clambered up on top of the hot metal structure. His arms and legs were weak with thirst, but with some effort, he hauled himself into the center of the circle. There was a round door in the roof, with a spinning handle on it that reminded him of the door of a vault. It was held in place by a simple padlock, and with a satisfying click of the bolt cutters he had brought along for just such a complication, Evan was through. His hands trembled with anticipation as he took the heavy crowbar he had carried up all this way and used it to force the wheel to slowly turn, unsealing the door with a metallic groan. He eased the door open, and was almost knocked backwards by the scent of chlorine that assaulted him.
  
  When he'd first found out the worms were living inside of him, Evan had researched parasites. Now, as he looked down at the dark body of water, he remembered the Horsehair Worm. It reproduced in large, freshwater lakes, but grew inside the carapace of crickets. Sometimes, it would grow to be nearly a foot long, coiled tightly inside the little body like a spring. The problem was that, in order to complete its life-cycle, the worm had to return to the water. The solution was simple—it would convince its host to hurl itself into a lake; the vessel apathetic to its own self-destruction.
  
  Evan remembered reading about the Horsehair worm and wondering, how could something subvert an organism's drive for self-preservation so effectively? What did a cricket feel, when poised at the edge of the lake? He wondered, now, if it felt anything at all. Perhaps, only thirst. The thought almost stirred anger inside Evan's mind, but instead he gazed down through the open portal, and the feeling passed almost as quickly as it had started.
  
  The water looked so calm and cool, and Evan was so thirsty. A soft drip from somewhere inside the water tower echoed through the door to Evan's ears, and without any more hesitation, he threw himself into the black water, mouth open and eager. His stomach ruptured when he entered the liquid, and Evan felt the tightness in his gut relax, as thousands upon thousands of worms fled the confines of his body for the cool freedom of the water around him. They spilled out of him, like flies fleeing a rancid piece of roadkill that'd been kicked, uncoiling from his belly like a disemboweled man's intestines.
  
  The water tower echoed with the splashing of the worms as they undulated through the drinking water. Salvation choked Evan, pressing in on him from every direction. But he didn't thrash—he only opened his mouth as wide as he could. He'd finally found enough. He wasn't thirsty anymore. He'd never be thirsty again.
  
  ⁂
  
  [ BABEL by Ian Steadman ]
  
  Ptolemia used to be known as a party planet. That was before things went south in '92 and it dropped off the map. No contact for over thirty years, then some bright spark had the idea of sending an expeditionary team to see what was left. I'm guessing the dancing girls are all long gone. I'm also guessing we're heading for a vast, hollow pit of nothingness.
  
  "Welcome to Vegas, baby!" Maxi shrieks into the comm as we drop out of orbit.
  
  That was one of its nicknames from back in the day. Others weren't always so polite. Preachers tried to convince us that its excesses were the start of the Second Coming, a modern-day Sodom. Given the way things ended, they may have had a point.
  
  "What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas—right?
  
  That's Sarge. His name, not his rank. I guess his parents were on a military fix when he was born, which might explain why he's turned out the most gung-ho of us all. He's recently had a new graft added to his upper arm, insignia and rank molded into the musculature. We give him grief about it, but privately I think it's kinda cool. The only 3D augment I have is a slightly elongated trigger finger on my right hand. I had it done to meet the minimum physical requirements for the corps. Go figure.
  
  Burnsie is the silent one. He has more augments than the rest of us put together: extra-wide kneecaps, protruding collarbones of an unbreakable polymer, a scary-looking bone ridge down his forehead. He doesn't say much but he scares the shizzle out of anyone we come up against. Sometimes we joke that he's more plastic than flesh and blood.
  
  The ride is bumpy, but the landing's smooth. It's all sand out there. At least that hasn't changed. Burnsie once told us a story around the food-synth unit, about a desert planet so blasted with nukes that the entire surface turned to glass.
  
  "Got anything on the readouts?" Maxi says, once we've all unstrapped and moved to our stations. "Something's wrong with mine, can't get a fix. Is that stuff out there breathable or not?"
  
  "Nothing here," I say. "Get suited up, we're going to have to take readings manually."
  
  Burnsie had his suit custom-made, to accommodate all his augments, but the rest of us just chop and change as we see fit. I think Sarge had mine last. It stinks of sweat and synthesized barbecue.
  
  The sand outside is grittier than the stuff back home, rising and falling in gentle drifts. There's barely any wind to speak of. Ptolemia had a near-breathable atmosphere when it was colonized—one of the reasons why it was selected—but they were meant to have been running purification filters nonstop. Given the lack of any visible cities or dwellings when we flew in, I can't imagine that's been happening. If anyone's still alive, they'll be relying on personal filters or lung augments by now.
  
  Maxi has been waving the gizmo around, holding the screen up to her visor from time to time.
  
  "Okay, I think it's breathable, just. Not toxic, anyway. Maybe the filters ran for a decade or two after the collapse? Who wants to try it?"
  
  Burnsie is first, as usual. There's the click and whoosh beside me as he releases his helmet clasps. He coughs, and for a moment we all think this might be the time, his last first breath on an alien world. Then I hear him growling over the comm.
  
  "You can breathe it, but it stinks. Man, this place reeks worse than Sarge. I'd stay helmeted if you don't want to puke."
  
  He still keeps his helmet off, though. Maybe he finally got those nasal augments he's always been talking about.
  
  It's not entirely clear what we're supposed to do, now we're here. Look for survivors, obviously. That goes without saying. Beyond that, they just want to know what the hell happened. Before all the links went down and the planet went dark, there were all kinds of rumors circulating about this place. Weird alien drugs, year-long parties, augments that would make your eyes water. The last delivery shuttle dropped off sixty-two bio-printers, a custom order for whoever was in charge. Clearly they were either as high as a drone or physical augmentation was trending in a major way.
  
  The rest happened so fast there wasn't time to do anything other than sit and watch. Explosions levelling the major cities. Armed militia chasing survivors through the desert wastes. Fires, screaming, a planet in collapse. Then all the news feeds went silent. The final message came two days later, via an old satellite, from an unknown sender: "Ptolemia is all one. Dead planet. Leave us."
  
  There were the normal conspiracy theories—did they mean to say, "all one?" or "all gone?" who were the "us?"—but it amounted to little more than a mildly interested buzz. Business as usual: we wrote the planet off, worried about colonizing the next one. Sometimes the colonies thrive, sometimes they implode. We've learned that the hard way.
  
  Sarge is already kicking at the sand like it's done something to offend him, and I'm about ready to call us all back inside when Maxi waves the gizmo at me.
  
  "Come look at this. Maybe I'm going crazy, but I think there's something out there. A building. A structure. Something, anyway. We should check it out?"
  
  I'm hoping she's got it wrong, but when she shows me the screen there's no mistake. We can't tell what it is from this range, but it's registering a footprint big enough to be a military base, or maybe a small city. Now I've seen it, we can't ignore it. Cursing our luck, I give the order to unpack the rover and wheel it out. None of us like using it—the seats are hard and cold, even with our suits on—but it's either that or spend the day wading through this sea of grit. This way we can be there in under half an hour.
  
  I don't know why, but I let Sarge drive this time. Usually Burnsie likes to rip it up, but his helmet's off and I have a feeling that we might need someone more responsible at the controls. Call it intuition if you like. Burnsie moans in frustration as Sarge trundles us along at regulation speeds, while Maxi and I whoop it up to amusing effect. It's like a school outing, minus the teachers. All we need is for the food-synth unit to rustle up a packed lunch.
  
  We first see it after about twenty minutes. It's clear that it's a tower of some kind, a spindle reaching a kilometer or two into the sky. Even from this distance it looks immense.
  
  Maxi whistles. "Told you there was something. You think the colonists could have built this? There's nothing in the file, is there—not of this size. Who the hell builds a tower in the middle of the desert?"
  
  Who indeed. I've examined the files front to back a hundred times on the way out here, and none of the registered structures were higher than a couple of stories. None that we knew of, anyway.
  
  We're still getting nearer, and the detail is coming into view. It looks pieced-together, as if someone has assembled it from a pile of junk, the odds and ends of a wrecked civilization. What appeared symmetrical from a distance is gradually distilling into individual turrets and ridges, openings and what might be air ducts.
  
  "Will you look at that?" This is Maxi again—she always did like to talk more than the rest of us. "Something this size... who has the time to make that? Or the manpower? I mean, the number of people involved in something this big—"
  
  And then she stops. She's seen it. We all have. And we're still moving, drawing closer and closer faster than we can think, and that arm becomes two arms, fifty arms, a hundred legs, a thousand torsos.
  
  Finally, Sarge brings us to a halt. We're only half a kilometer or so from the base of it now and we can see it all.
  
  The tower is constructed of human bodies. Thousands of them, grafted together with untold augments—bones stretching from head to ribcage, tendons connecting wrists to ankles. I see two heads joined at the temples by what appears to be a section of intestine. I see a child, no more than two or three years old, emerging from the stomach of an adult male, suspended in the air by a narrow bridge of gristle. I see things I cannot—will not—name, until I can't take it anymore and I close my eyes.
  
  Over the comm I can hear Maxi crying, Sarge cursing. Burnsie is close to silent, but even he is muttering under his breath. There's the sound of retching and someone's breakfast splatters against the inside of their helmet. My money would be on Maxi, but you never know. None of us truly knows how to deal with this.
  
  It's Burnsie who turns us around in the end. Sarge is wailing now, his head in his hands, so Burnsie reaches over and wrestles the controls from him. My eyes are open but I can only stare at the floor. As the sands rush beneath me they blur into nothingness.
  
  Back at the shuttle, we don't speak. We pack our suits away. Maxi rinses the inside of her helmet with the water jet. The rover is stowed. I find my hands are shaking, so badly that it's difficult to undo all the clasps. I know the others are struggling with it too.
  
  It's Maxi who speaks first. Her voice is subdued, sitting quiet and heavy in the recycled air.
  
  "How could they do that? I mean... why? I can't understand this, I can't..."
  
  Burnsie fills the silence. "Did you see? At the bottom? In the sand? There were marks there, tracks dug into the desert. Like it had been moving. Whatever it is, it's dead now. But it wasn't. It lived. What could it have been like? Existing as... that?"
  
  None of us speak. My imagination is conjuring answers but I don't want to share them. I don't want to poison anyone else's mind. We don't talk about this as we take off and set our course for home. We won't tell stories about it around the food-synth unit.
  
  "What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas."
  
  I will not be including this in my report.
  
  ⁂
  
  [ A POUND OF FLESH by Edmund Stone ]
  
  I should not have let her go. When she needed me most I, too stupid or prideful, let her slip into oblivion. She offered her skin for a canvas and I used it willingly. The perfect foundation for my greatest artistic achievement, a tattoo to rival anything I had ever created. But I went too far and twisted it into something abhorrent. Now I brood and the anger I feel only fuels my disdain; my memories of her are locked in my heart.
  
  For two years, I've kept a tattoo shop on the edge of town, where most days I plan designs and troll the internet for inspiration. Lately, I've found the same designs lame; either some tribal circle or a letter-type tattoo. The people who enter my place are, by design, destined to ask for the same thing; some letters, typically in Roman typeset, to remind them of a date. Be it their child's birth or a date that reminds them of their anniversary.
  
  I always agree to do what the customer wants, because any other response would end in no business. I would then have to resort to some other living. I can think of nothing else I could do that would bring the same money. There are others that produce tattoos in this city, but most say that my attention to detail makes me the most sought-after artist in the area.
  
  But say what they will, a good tattoo always begins with the canvas. If the skin is lumpy, then the tattoo is harder to line up properly. When Aryn walked into my shop, I fell into a stupor. Her skin was the perfect canvas: smooth and free of blemishes. She had a color that would blend perfectly with any ink. I knew I could produce a tattoo that would rival anything I've ever created.
  
  I've always dabbled in the occult; old symbols and hieroglyphics of the ancient world, things that have fallen out of context to the modern day. I have a wonderful collection of prints that I've spent years collecting. My plan was to incorporate them into a spectacular tattoo, given the right flesh canvas came along. The benefactor of this gift would have to agree to have their skin bombarded with writings and symbols that made no sense to the common person.
  
  Aryn, perfectly suited to the task, had a trust in my abilities that bordered on fascination; I think she had a desire to tear an envelope that needn't be opened. In so doing, we unknowingly introduced an evil power to a new realm of possibilities.
  
  She came to me from the urging of a friend. Her interest in the occult slightly mirrored mine, and our attraction was immediate. Aryn, an archaeology student and self-proclaimed Wiccan, more than willingly volunteered to be my canvas, when I explained to her what I had in mind.
  
  Her beauty mesmerized me, with long black hair to her waist and dark eyes that enchanted the soul. She stood an even five foot seven; tall by a woman's standard, but only two inches shorter than me. Her legs were her most prominent feature: long and luxurious, a canvas that begged to be painted.
  
  I'm not the best-looking man, and Aryn could have her pick of suitors. For some reason she wanted me. I have no explanation. Perhaps my art attracted her; the darkness I attach to it. But darkness made sense to her. She invited it, but never understood it. I only wish I had.
  
  When I first introduced her to the idea of my illustrious plan, she couldn't contain her enthusiasm. Aryn jumped up on me, wrapping those million-dollar legs so tight, that my breath momentarily left me. It was settled, she would be the canvas, although she didn't know I planned it that way. We made love that night and talked afterward about the tattoo. It would take several days to accomplish such a feat, but Aryn didn't care. In fact, she couldn't wait to get started.
  
  In the morning, I made coffee and began to go through my collection. I reached for an old box of supplies by my work table. I opened it to reveal a stack of prints, copied from old papers. I spread them out on the table and Aryn and I scanned the symbols to see if we could find a suitable design. Her eyes were drawn to an interesting configuration. It had two triangles and a circle that encompassed the perimeter. Inside, the head of a goat presided. She said it reminded her of Wiccan texts, but had not seen anything like it in her archeology books. There were symbols of unknown origin, at least to me, adorned inside and outside the circle. They were strange and I shuddered to think of what each of them meant. But the artistic expressions that abound in each symbol drew me in and captivated my soul.
  
  Aryn stood leaning over the table in only a short silk gown that hung open slightly in the front, revealing one of her breasts. I marveled in her perfection. She caught me looking and grinned. Then she stood and released the gown to the floor. Her perfect form glistened in the morning sunlight that beamed in from the window. She placed her leg on the table and bent forward over it, as a ballerina would warm up before a performance. I studied that leg for a moment and anticipated drawing on it. Aryn, satisfied in the spectacle of my erection from the sight of her, only smiled.
  
  I grabbed a roll of drawing paper and stretched it out the length of her leg. Picking up a pen, I started to work. I aligned the drawing on the paper in as perfect symmetry to the leg as possible. I would complete the tattoo in four parts, starting from the pelvis to the mid-thigh. Then work my way down until the design encompassed the entirety of the leg, from the top of the thigh to the ankle.
  
  I drew feverishly, a man with purpose. Aryn had put her leg down, but still leaned up against the table, disrobed and apparently aroused by my work. She breathed heavily in my ear and whispered naughty desires she wished upon my person. I grinned, but stayed focused on my work. The symbols and pictures that she and I picked were prints derived from a book called the Necronomicon. This book claimed it contained spells to conjure the dead. I never believed such things, but thought the pictures very cool. The drawings were mostly bereft of color, but some symbols did contain a red and black tinge, although faded together. A drawing of a dragon devouring its tail caught my eye; an elaborate circle with another circle inside. A crude sketch of a tortured creature mummified and bandaged up to the waist. Its head uncovered and the chest splayed open with the skin pinned to the side. The entrails of the thing hung out and sprawled down to its feet.
  
  In the space of an hour, I created a drawing for the basis of the tattoo. I presented the drawing to Aryn and it pleased me to see her face light up. She ran her fingers along the paper and traced the symbols and figures. She was so pleased, that she pinned me to the table and gave me no choice but to make love to her. Not that I minded, my love belonged to her and I reveled in our perfect union; she the canvas and I the artist.
  
  I planned to start on the first part of the tattoo the next evening, after my last customer of the day. The insipid day dragged with laborious skin paintings of cartoon characters and a tribal band that made a man twice my size cry like a baby. I so longed to decorate Aryn's fresh skin. It consumed my thoughts to the point that my lack of concentration nearly turned a pink bunny into a greenish reptile. I closed the shop at my normal time and waited for Aryn to arrive. She left that morning to work a waitressing job in the city. It wasn't her favorite thing to do, but the tips were good, especially for a young beauty like her.
  
  I prepared a small meal for the two of us, complete with white wine. When she arrived, Aryn could hardly contain her enthusiasm. Famished, she ate the meal hurriedly and after several glasses of wine, readied herself for the leg tattoo. I requested that she cover herself, as the distraction of her womanly parts may cause me to lose focus. I prepared my ink gun with the needle and laid out the supplies I would need. I began to work on my masterpiece.
  
  Aryn never flinched, even though the work proved laborious. She stretched out and relaxed, as my needle hummed and embedded the ink into her skin; she my Mona Lisa and I her daVinci.
  
  Two hours later, I finished the first part of the tattoo. I marveled at the creation and how Aryn's skin complimented the superb design. Star symbols, goat-like creatures, and unspeakable things from some unknown afterlife, sprawled down that perfect leg. I covered the fresh art with bandages to ensure no infection could occur. Aryn rose from the table and kissed me, long and deep; the same kiss that Leonardo may have received from his painted muse.
  
  We slept that night, our bodies intertwined. We never made love, only held one another; the exhaustion of the previous hours had taken a toll. I for one tossed in my bed waking up on occasion; my sleep invaded by vicious entities. The creature I painted on Aryn haunted my slumber. I woke in a cold sweat. I considered the room and found nothing there. Just a crazy dream, I assumed. Aryn lay next to me, sleeping soundly with a silky sheet covering her naked body. She lay perfectly still, unaffected by my movements. I did notice a small twitch on her leg, under the sheet. It bobbed up and down and then stopped. The sporadic movement turned to a fluid one, like the locomotion of a snake, writhing under the sheet.
  
  It journeyed up Aryn's leg and toward her hip, and followed the contour of her body, until it stopped just short of her breasts. My curiosity piqued, I felt compelled to pull the sheet back. When I did, I saw something incomprehensible. The skin over Aryn's ribs distended out in a distorted fashion, and I couldn't understand why she wasn't feeling this, because as I watched in amazement, she lay still, sleeping, as though nothing was happening. The tumorous thing began to move again and I heard the skin, that perfect over layer that I painted the night before, begin to tear. The terror of the canvas being torn was more than I could bear! Trickles of blood produced small drips down Aryn's side. It pooled on the bedcover and still she slept. Her flesh ripped with ostensible audibility and a large splash of blood covered my face. I pushed back against the top of the bed, cringing with horror.
  
  There it was, the flayed man looked at me, his flesh pinned to the side of his body; blood dripping from every orifice. He was the same size as I had drawn him and he had teeth that were chomping on Aryn's tender flesh. He considered me, then jumped for my head. My arms went up in front of my face, anticipating the death that followed.
  
  But instead, I woke up. Lowering my arms, I looked around the room and then over at Aryn. She still slept, as quietly as ever. No part of her body had been harmed. My heart hammered in my chest and I trembled with goose-bumped flesh. I switched on the lamp sitting on the nightstand. Rolling over, I put an arm around Aryn, and pulled her close. She woke and considered me sleepily.
  
  "You're shaking. What's wrong?" she said.
  
  "Nothing, just cold," I said. I held her tighter and tried to sleep.
  
  The next morning Aryn woke before me and made coffee. I couldn't get the dream out of my head. The flayed man still hung heavy on my mind. I had created several tattoos, but his was the first to ever mess with my head. She sat at the table when I entered the room, investigating her leg.
  
  "I think it's healing faster than you thought it would," she said.
  
  "Yes, I think you may be right. About the tattoo, I'm wondering if we should go any further with this." I said. Aryn considered this and turned her head to the side.
  
  "What do you mean? I thought you were as into this as I was?"
  
  "I am, but maybe the design should be different? Have you ever wondered what those symbols might mean?" I said.
  
  "I've never thought about it before. I guess they are just random things, why does it matter?" Aryn said.
  
  "I had a terrible dream last night, there were monsters and you were in it, and I..." my voice trailed off and I looked down at the ground. She came over to me and sat in my lap. She caressed me, running her fingers through my hair.
  
  "There, there. It's all right, I'm here now and no monsters will get us. It was only a dream, no doubt brought on by fatigue, you've been working too hard," she said.
  
  "I suppose you're right," I said.
  
  "When can we start on the next part of the tattoo?" Aryn said. She kissed me and looked into my soul with eyes that held a need for something beyond my control. How could I say no to her? How could I possibly say no?
  
  The next two weeks brought the same schedule. I worked in the shop by day and at night designed and implemented the tattoo on Aryn's leg. I feverishly labored to make every detail stand out. There were more symbols and a tentacled creature that wrapped the full of her calf. The text itself was printed in a way that started from top to bottom. I didn't understand the writings, but the design held true; a flawless structure of artistic achievement, laid out on that perfect leg. The canvas always makes the difference.
  
  "I think I know what that says," Aryn said one time. "It says: To play with death is a way to invite Hell. I saw that in one of my Wiccan textbooks."
  
  "You surely don't believe such nonsense, do you?" I said.
  
  "No, don't be silly. I just love the design of the whole thing. Once it's done, I can tell everyone about that," she said.
  
  After every new application, Aryn would make love to me with a new fervor. I responded in kind. But then, wouldn't DaVinci do the same? Is that why Mona Lisa smiled; anticipation or annoyance from waiting? Though Aryn proved to be a patient subject, she bent her fair share of frustration toward me.
  
  All seemed right, until that fateful night. I should have held her tighter, I know that now. But life doesn't give second chances and what we sow can be reaped by the most unlikely benefactors. I should not have let her go, I know that now.
  
  The tattoo was finished and my labors had proved extensive, but well worth it. We lay in my bed after an exhaustive sex-capade; Kama Sutra and forms of geisha. Things I never knew, but felt enriched to understand better. Aryn never seemed to tire, but this night she gave in to sleep. Perhaps some wine made that easier. I held her, closer than I ever thought possible, and felt her push her hips and buttocks close to me. There we were, a tangle of flesh that seemed endless; if only that were the way of it.
  
  Sometime in the middle of the night, I felt a tug. At first I thought Aryn had another burst of energy and I would do my best to take her again. I would hope my stamina made a miraculous comeback. But this was something else; something entirely different.
  
  "Why are you pulling at me?" she said groggily.
  
  "I'm not, my love. I thought you wanted another go," I said.
  
  Then she screamed; a bloodcurdling cry. I pulled back the blankets and couldn't comprehend what I was seeing. My creation had come to life! In every form of evil entity that existed in this and other realities! The flayed man chomped at her thigh and Aryn renewed her anguish. The tentacled creature rose from the picture on the leg to form as a three dimensional being before me. I reached for Aryn, but the tentacles pushed me back and set me into the floor. I landed on my backside and hit my head on the nightstand.
  
  Aryn screamed again and though my head reeled against the pain and near blackout, I found my feet. I jumped back up to the bed and saw the dragon figure swirling furiously on her leg. Aryn was being dragged into her own skin. The flayed man gnawed on tender flesh and the tentacle creature pulled toward the inner part of her thigh. The monstrosity's appendages flailed about all around him, but three of the tentacles held Aryn tight and had no plans to release her. I grabbed hold of her.
  
  "Darling, please hold me, don't let them take me!" Aryn cried. I held her and had no intentions of releasing. I then heard something, which caused my stomach to turn. Her flesh, that tender, flawless skin; the canvas I used and caressed over countless nights, was tearing, separating from the pelvis. Aryn wailed in pain. I held her though, and still held no thought of letting go.
  
  "Don't let them take me!" Aryn howled with tears streaming down her face. "No matter what, don't let go!" she screamed.
  
  I held her at the waist, but felt my grip slipping, as the leg continued to rip, making an unholy sound. All of the creatures were angrily agitating in the air around Aryn's leg. I tightened my hold, but to no avail; I was losing. I considered Aryn's eyes; full of fear and regret, much like my own. Why did we play with something neither of us understood? My fingers raked her side and dug into the flesh, drawing blood. My hands slipped to her arm. I tried to renew my grip, but lost it. I looked into those eyes, as I grasped her hand. Never had I wanted to hold something more. I needed her, but something from beyond desired her body. Aryn sobbed uncontrollably; her eyes pleaded with me, but I had no power in this struggle. I kissed her and lost the grip on her hand.
  
  "No!" Aryn protested, and then began to disappear into the ball of ink that used to be her leg, her body up to her waist, completely swallowed; the dragon encircled her form. She clawed at the bed taking the sheets with her. I lunged for her again, but fire shot out of the dragon's mouth, preventing me from going any further. She disappeared into the vortex of dragon and ink-created monsters. The room spun with a spiraling force; several items floated in the air and vanished into the oblivion. Then a loud pop and it was gone.
  
  There is nothing now; my canvas and muse forlorn and forgotten; the pain of her skin ripping, more horrifying than I could ever have imagined. I contemplated calling the police, but what would I tell them? This story is too fantastic; I would be locked up right away if I mentioned one part of it. I only have the sadness and realization that I let go. Aryn talked of inviting Hell, but neither she nor I believed that possible. I feel she may have gone there.
  
  I've sat here for a week, trying to consider what to do. I've read and studied the prints, but can't figure out why they turned on her. I guess I know only one way to find her. I've known it all along, but was too afraid to admit. My Hell is hers and I accept it willingly. I place this gun to my head to take my life, feeling the regret that has haunted me. I will see you soon, my darling, in this you can be assured.
  
  ⁂
  
  [ CONDITIONED APOCALYPSE by Aric Sundquist ]
  
  The police officer tells me to stay in my apartment. He's tall and muscular and grips a mean-looking tactical shotgun. He gives off an aura of entitlement, like all men in uniform do, and stares at my breasts as if they're a crime in progress. But I don't hide them. Actually, I do quite the opposite.
  
  I lean against the doorway and stick my chest out and ask him if I can leave to go and run a few simple errands. He frowns and tells me that I can't go outside because the visitors are extremely dangerous. That's what he calls them—the visitors. I tell him that I call them slithering alien shitheads and he smirks a little at this. Then he says they're downright hostile and I should stay indoors for the time being.
  
  I'm not really afraid of the visitors, so I feign some emotion and begin sobbing. It works beautifully. He takes a step closer and reassures me that I have nothing to worry about, that they will all die by the end of the week. Then he insists I keep out of sight and he'll check up on me later.
  
  I tell him that would be great. And then I ask about his wedding ring.
  
  He is startled, just long enough to cue me in on a lie forming on his lips. He says his wife died of cancer, just recently, and he wears his ring in her memory. Then he puts his hand on my shoulder and asks if I'm alone and if I have any weapons in the house. I tell him that I'm alone, that I don't like guns, but I do have a protector named Max. But all he does is take naps on the rug and beg for table scraps.
  
  The policeman grins, because I'm an attractive young woman in need of rescuing. I bite my top lip and he gives me a weird look, so I switch to the bottom lip and play with my blonde hair and this time it works beautifully. I can tell I'm getting his blood pumping. I tell him to make sure to come back and we'll have a nice time together.
  
  He agrees. He wants more.
  
  The officer moves to the next apartment, a little flustered, he still eyes me up good. He knocks on my neighbor's door. Nobody answers. He moves to the next apartment and repeats the procedure, but this time he is greeted by an elderly woman wearing dark sunglasses and holding a potted plant that looks dead. I don't know her, and I don't care to know her, so I shut the door and try not to laugh.
  
  Men.
  
  Max comes to my side, unsure of what to do. Eventually he nuzzles my hand and licks my fingers. I hate being licked, but I keep my hand completely still. Licking is a sign of affection. That's what I want in a new pet.
  
  I make sure to lock the door and wedge my desk in front of it for an added level of security. The desk holds my mother's antique sewing machine. It's heavy as hell and makes a good doorstop. Then I sit at my kitchen table and begin sorting through my remaining food.
  
  This is what I have left: a couple boxes of corn flakes, four cans of expired tomato soup, a box of rice, and a half jar of crunchy peanut butter. That's it. Not great.
  
  The electricity went out two weeks ago. And all of my perishable food went with it. That's when I discovered a set of empty canning jars while scrounging through the cupboards. At one point during my early college years I had wanted to make raspberry jam, but never got around to it.
  
  So here they are—the empty jars. I use them to collect rainwater out on the fire escape. But what I really want to do is sneak outside and pilfer some of the untended gardens around town and do some canning. Or maybe set up some snares and catch a squirrel or rabbit to cook for dinner.
  
  Thinking about food makes my stomach grumble, so I pour out a handful of corn flakes into a bowl and nibble on a few. I place some of the corn flakes on the floor and Max slinks over and gobbles them up in a second. I pet him behind the ear and he curls up on the floor and falls asleep. At least he pretends to fall asleep.
  
  I dump out a second helping of corn flakes into the bowl right when gunshots go off outside. I hustle to the front window and peer through the shutters.
  
  In the street below, a military unit weaves through a series of abandoned vehicles. They move on foot, with handguns and rifles and tactical vests. It reminds me of one of those ant farms—the kind with interconnected paths and tunnels. I cheer them on in silence, but I know what's going to happen.
  
  I whistle to Max to come over and watch, but he doesn't move, just pretends to sleep on the rug. He hasn't been feeling good of late.
  
  Outside, something happens. Figures slithering out of an abandoned garbage truck. They're not human anymore; they're in the process of changing. Tentacles swarm from craterous slits in their stomachs and resemble sea lamprey. It looks pretty weird, but it's actually kinda neat.
  
  I watch the military men fire their weapons. They're winning at first, but the gunfire only attracts more of the creatures and the men begin suffering heavy losses. They retreat. A few survivors left behind start bleeding out. The others flee to a parking lot. Then more gunfire. And more screaming and dying.
  
  By this time my eyelids are getting heavy and my stomach is doing cartwheels, so I lie on the couch and Max settles down next to me, more out of habit than anything else. I clasp his leash around my wrist so he'll wake me up if he moves, then I close my eyes and slip into the world of dreams.
  
  When I wake up, it's dark, and Max's collar is on the ground, unclasped. I light a few candles and eventually find him trying to get out through the bathroom window. The window is nailed shut and won't budge. His bandages are bloody from pawing at the sill. He sees me and curls up into a fetal position and pisses on the floor.
  
  It's useless. He just won't work.
  
  I clasp the collar back around his neck and tighten it up. The spikes underneath the leather clamp down into his skin. I lead him from the bathroom to the living room and his whole body begins to shake, so I sit him back down on the floor and rub his back and try to calm him down, but he isn't having it. He lashes out and bites my hand. I take no offense at this; he's scared and the only thing he can do is retaliate.
  
  Luckily, his bite isn't serious. I pulled out all of his teeth with a pair of pliers two weeks ago, when he first tried to bite me in my sleep. Shortly after, as just an extra precaution, I had him declawed, cutting off the first joint of his fingers and toes. Then I sliced his vocal cords with a razor. It's called debarking, in case you didn't know. I read about it online before the power went out. There was lots of blood. It drew ants.
  
  Thinking back, maybe I should have done the procedures sooner. Maybe I should have done them when he first kicked his way into my apartment, full of lust and rage and his breath reeking of cheap whiskey. He was a wild dog back then. But not anymore.
  
  I tased him and tied him up with an Ethernet cord, then with a pair of sewing shears, I snipped off his balls and fried them in olive oil. They made a strange popping sound in the pan, but didn't taste half bad. After that, he calmed down a bit. All pets are captors until they learn how to love you back.
  
  That was also the day the lights first appeared in the sky.
  
  Earlier that morning, a bunch of us climbed up on top of the roof and watched those strange yellow orbs swirl through the atmosphere. They looked like dying comets. I didn't know what they were—spirits maybe? People online kept saying the lights were possessing people and making them go crazy. But of course, we didn't believe them. And then we all went crazy thereafter. The whole world did.
  
  We started killing each other off in record numbers. Cities burned. Everything reduced to rubble and ash within weeks. Then the change started with a select few. Supposedly, they were believers in some old god, and had given up their bodies as vessels for the yellow lights to possess. I thought it was all bullshit at first, until I saw for myself. Then I became a believer, too.
  
  Or maybe I'm just imagining it all—all the violence and the lights and everything else. Maybe it's how we've always been, how we've always treated each other. I don't really know for sure, and I can't think too clearly anymore. My mind is slipping away. All I can do is think about food. All I can do is react.
  
  As for Max—I'm going to give him a handful of sleeping pills. When he finally slips under, I'll place him in the bathtub and slit his throat. Once he's drained of blood, I'll cut off the pieces I can eat. I have plenty of canning jars left so it won't be a problem storing the leftovers.
  
  The lights didn't possess him. They only drove him mad.
  
  As for myself...
  
  Something stirs inside me, like a snake uncurling in the pit of my stomach. But it doesn't feel like one snake—it feels like a whole pit of them. Maybe they need to come out? Maybe I need to perform another procedure, but this time myself? One long incision down the length of my stomach should do the trick.
  
  I ponder this and rub Max's head until he eventually stops whimpering. He pretends to go to sleep, but his trembling gives him away. Then I think of the policeman; he'll be stopping by soon, no doubt. It remains to be seen how a man of the law will fare on his knees and bound in servitude to something like me. Hopefully he'll be a better protector than my former neighbor.
  
  But if not, it'll be fun housebreaking him.
  
  ⁂
  
  [ LENGTH by David Turton ]
  
  Dylan Turner stood in his small, untidy bathroom, holding a tape measure against his small penis.
  
  It had definitely grown. Maybe not to the naked eye, maybe only by less than an inch, but it was definitely bigger than it had been two days ago. He pushed the tape measure as far back towards the base of his penis as he could and stared down at the numbers on the yellow tape, which clearly read 1.8 inches in large black letters. What had it been before? One and a half perhaps? He wished he had written it down. Determined not to make the same mistake again, Dylan made a note on his phone. Tuesday 7 November 2016. 1.8 inches.
  
  It had been three days since he'd seen the gypsy. Stumbling across the woman as he walked home through the woods from his local pub, she had known. The small, scruffy old woman had stumbled into his path in the dark and she had known. She had raised a gnarled, bony finger, pointed towards Dylan and said, "A darkness haunts you."
  
  She pointed to Dylan's crotch. "Shame. Oh, great shame." She began to shake her head with genuine anguish. "Oh, great shame," she repeated.
  
  "Look, I don't know who's told you what but I—"
  
  She cut his words off by grabbing his penis, making him gasp. "No more shame. No more shame. No more shame. Grow! Grow! Grow! Shame will go. Shame will go! Dylan will grow and shame will go."
  
  She let go and let her head roll back, the whites of her eyes flickering in her dirty, blackened sockets. Suddenly she released a bone-dry, bloodcurdling cackle. Her long finger rose once more and pointed at Dylan who stood quivering with fear.
  
  "No more shame, Mr Turner. Dylan Turner will be shamed no more! Go and live. Go and conquer. Go!"
  
  Dylan looked at the old hag. She seemed to be getting older, her nose large and swollen, her clothes were falling off her haggard, skeletal body. Her thin, grey hair fell around her shoulders revealing large patches of dry grey scalp on the top of her head. Her remaining teeth were an awful combination of black and yellow and her cracked lips were thin and pale. She was still cackling as Dylan pushed past her and ran the half-mile through the woods and into his house. As he ran he could hear her cackle become fainter and fainter. The little sleep he had that night had been plagued with dreams of the old woman. His penis tingled with the pain her bony fingers had caused, the long dirty nails had dug through his jeans into the soft flesh.
  
  He had woken the next day feeling disturbed. How did she know my name? he wondered. And the shame thing. About my dick...
  
  The size of Dylan's penis had been a source of depression since his teenage years. A micropenis was the technical term for it, something he'd learned after several private internet searches. At twenty-three years old, Dylan was still a virgin; he had never wanted to let any member of the opposite sex see where he quite literally came up short. And as a black man, he had to put up with countless comments from white people about the size of a black man's penis. He would just smile and feign an embarrassed look whenever these comments emerged, giving a non-committal laugh. But inside he was dying. How could the size of one body part affect a human being so much? A small nose, small ears, small feet. Even some kind of deformity. He would take all of them over his micropenis. He remembered with some pain the first time someone had seen it. He was thirteen in the swimming pool changing rooms and Billy Stephenson had pointed it out to the entire class. They had crowded round and laughed. He had glanced at their penises, each were at least twice the size of his. Billy himself had what could only be described as an elephant's trunk hanging out of his groin. Word had soon spread around school; Dylan had a tiny cock. Of course, as teasing and jokes tend to do, the joke soon died and people forgot. But Dylan had remembered. He had cried himself to sleep for weeks, and told no-one. From that day on, not one person had set their eyes on his naked penis; Dylan fully committed himself to ensure this would never happen.
  
  In his later teenage years and early twenties he had had some relationships, but had always broken them off whenever things got too steamy. He hoped he could find someone one day who would understand. A woman who could look past his tiny penis and fall in love with the man attached to it.