#pigheart

When she was born she had a brother, Miss Giddy said. She didn’t remember what it was like to have a brother anymore, she didn’t remember her Whelper- some Wretched woman who gathered too many debts and paid them on her back- but Miss Giddy said that’s where Perfection got her looks. Her eyes like Aqua-Cola, and her hair like rust, and her unmarred, unmutated face and body. Miss Giddy told her that The Immortan Joe saw her in the Whelping Bay and Chose Her Special, that He Himself had named her Perfection and brought her to the High Vault to be a Wife for his own son when she was just seventy-seven days old. 

Perfection had just turned five years, and when she asked Miss Giddy what a year was the woman had explained that a year was three hundred and sixty-five days. Perfection had lived three hundred and sixty-five days, five times over. The Immortan Joe had brought her chrome gifts: a sparkly suncatcher and a soft thing that Miss Giddy said was called a Teddy Bear, and a whole watermelon just for Perfection. The Wives had come together and sewn her a new blanket and slippers, and asked The Immortan Joe if they could have ham that night to celebrate. He had nodded and ruffled her hair with a chuckle, “Anything for my Perfection, of course.”

So Perfection and The Wives and Rictus (who Miss Giddy said was eleven years old, and she was going to be his Wife when they were grown, and give him many babies) and even the Immortan Joe all sat down to a Special Meal while Miss Giddy played happy songs on the piano. Perfection was thrilled, Special Meals only ever happened when The Wives were going to have a baby. The Immortan Joe always did Special Meals when they told him, even if the baby died later or was born wrong. None of the babies that she gave Rictus were going to die early or be born wrong, Perfection decided. Her babies would be Perfection, just like her. 

When Perfection was nine she was allowed to sit in The Immortan Joe’s lap during meals and sing for him while he ate. She loved The Immortan, and she loved that Rictus stared at her the whole time she sang. Her husband should pay attention to her always, even if he was more like a kid her age than a Grown Man of fourteen. They played together alone now, since she was older and he had once even kissed her! He blushed afterward and said that he was sorry.

“Why are you sorry, Ricky? I’m going to be your Wife and have your sons.”

Rictus blushed harder and ducked his head between his knees, “Dad said that I haveta wait until we get married to give you any babies, and I heard one of the Warboys talking about how doing… That. What I just did. Is how you get babies.”

Wildly Worldly Perfection had asked Miss Giddy last year how to get a baby, because The Immortan Joe had said it would be time for her to have Rictus’s babies soon. “Just a few more years, my Perfection. Then you will be my daughter, and give me fine Gransons.”

“Oh, Ricky! It takes more work than that! And besides, I can’t give you babies yet. Miss Giddy and The Immortan said it isn’t time.”

He peeked at her over his knees, eyebrows raised, “Really?”

Perfection laughed and butted her hip against his, “Yeah, I asked Miss Giddy how to get a baby and she explained it all.”

Sitting close to Rictus, Perfection could see the bump in his pants that Miss Giddy said was called an erection, and in a fit of boldness she placed her soft, pale hand on his thigh. Rictus flinched hard away from her, eyes wide and gasping, “Persha! What are you doing?!”

“Miss Giddy said that I have to touch you. To make your erection go away. With my hands or put it inside me, and some people put it in their mouths, or their butts!”

Rictus was stricken, “But you… You poop. From your butt? And I piss from there, why does it go in your mouth?!”

Perfection shrugged, she really didn’t understand it either, but Miss Giddy said that it was supposed to feel good and she told him as much. Rictus only looked more confused and he chewed on his thumb as he thought about it. “I don’t know about all that other stuff, but I know kissing felt good. And I like when you hug me. And when you sing. Maybe we should save everything else for when you can give a baby?”

“Okay,” Perfection said brightly. She just wanted Rictus to be happy, and obviously he wasn’t happy when she tried to touch him like The Wives and Miss Giddy said you could touch your husband. “D’you wanna hug? And then I’ll sing the Mountain song?”

Rictus nodded and opened his big arms, her future husband was so strong, he could lift her in the air with one hand. Perfection sat squarely on his thighs, her own skinny arms wrapped tightly around his neck. He smelled like the Garage, motor oil and sweat, she loved when he smelled like that even if Rictus thought he was stinky. They sat like that for a while until Perfection noticed him squirming, and she readjusted to sit in his lap just like she did when she sang for The Immortan Joe. 

Softly, slowly, she hummed “Listen, baby. Ain't no mountain high. Ain't no valley low.

Ain't no river wide enough, baby.”

—------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Later that evening Perfection was seated on The Immortan’s lap, being gingerly fed fresh strawberries from his fingers when Rictus -who had been staring at his Wife and his Dad with a gaping mouth until Corpus had told him he’d catch spiders if he didn’t shut his gob- cleared his throat and looked frantically from his Dad to the table. 

The Immortan sighed, the heave of his belly threatening to unseat Perfection, who scrabbled at his shoulder and twisted her fingers in his hair to hold on. He favored her with a soft smile and untangled her fingers before addressing his son. “Rictus Erectus, you will stand proud and look me in the eyes like a man if you wish to speak.”

Rictus stood and took a shaky breath, “Dad…”

“Speak up, boy.” Perfection smoothed away invisible dust off of The Immortan’s chest. It wouldn’t do for him to be upset tonight, Glorious was going to tell him about her baby later and The Immortan didn’t give as good Special Meals when his sons had upset him. 

“Dad. How do you get a baby?”

The Immortan Joe stiffened and Corpus began to cackle madly, “How- heh-heh-gak-heh-heh- Rictus have you not had a woman yet?! Even I’d had a woman at your age! And I’m in a fucking chair!”

The Immortan glared at Corpus and his hand on Perfection’s hip tightened until she whimpered at the sting, “Corpus Colossus be SILENT. Rictus Erectus, I will teach you later tonight. You’re old enough to observe The Wives at their duty. But not around my Perfection, your Perfection. Women are jealous creatures, son.”

He gently lifted Perfection off his lap and sent her off to bed with a kiss to her hair. She swished herself down the table by Corpus and whispered, “You don’t need to be mean, Cory.”

Corpus rolled his head to the opposite shoulder and whispered back, “Wouldn’t need to if he wasn’t such a baby, sweet Perfection. Goodnight.”

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Perfection was dreaming of a Green Place hidden in the mountains where she ran through pools with her lost brother and played hidey-seek with Rictus through a grove of lemon trees when she heard a humming. It wasn’t bees, though she had seen hives in the boughs, and when she looked around the grove she noticed that Rictus was nowhere to be seen. The humming grew louder, and she willed her eyes to open. 

Rictus was sitting on his heels in the corner of her room, his frantic rocking making jumpy shadows in the moonlight that streamed through her window. He flicked a glance at her, catching her confused gaze and, with a muffled screech, rocked harder. He was chewing his thumbnail, humming tunelessly and staring at her like she was scary.

“Ricky? What’s wrong?” Perfection had never seen him like this, and she silently slipped from her bed to kneel in front of him. 

“Uh-Uh. No. Won’t. He hurts them, Persha! Uh-Uh. Won’t,” Rictus stared resolutely at the wall behind her, refusing to meet her eyes, still rocking on his heels and humming as if the movement and sound would drive the things he’d seen away into the waste.

Perfection remembered that The Immortan was going to show Rictus what The Wives’ Duty was. Why would the Wives’ Duty upset him so, she didn’t understand, wasn’t it meant to be wonderful and filling and an honor? She had to get him calm, Rictus’s feelings mattered more than her questions. “Ricky, I’m going to touch your hand okay? And I’ll sing the Mountain song. It’s okay. You’re okay.”

Perfection waited until he nodded to touch him, sometimes touch frightened him worse and she remembered the time The Immortan Joe had beaten him for accidentally pushing her before she knew to ask. She’d resolved then not to touch him without asking first, he hadn’t deserved to be hurt over her, even if she was Perfection. She gently rubbed one finger over the back of his clenched hands as she sang and sang and sang. It felt like forever, and Perfection had nearly sung herself back to sleep when Rictus relaxed and pulled her against his chest like a Teddy Bear. 

“Persha. If I gotta do the things Dad does to the Wives I don’t want you to be mine. I won’t hurt you like that. Dad said she were happy, that she loved it, but I could see that Righteous was hurting. She cried and yelled and flinked away and it was awful! And then he said he changed his mind! That you’s big enough now to practice Wifing!”

Perfection was confused, “But that’s how you get babies? And I can’t give you a baby yet?”

“He said it don’t matter, practice makes perfect and Perfection makes sons!” Rictus started to rock again and his breath came quicker, “An’ if I don’t do it he’ll take you away from me! He’ll make you his Wife, Like Glorious and Righteous and Heavenly and Merciful and Pleasant. He’ll hurt you if I don’t, and I’ll hurt you if I do and… And.. NO! NO! I WON’T!”

Perfection wriggled loose enough to wrap her limbs around Rictus’ torso as tight as she could, “Shhh. Shhh. It’s okay Ricky. I love you, and if The Immortan says you have to do it for me to be your wife, we will. It’ll be okay. It’ll be chrome. I just wanna be your wife, and I bet we can make it not hurt, It’s okay, Ricky. It’s okay.”

They sat there like that until Perfection figured out how to keep Rictus’ promise to The Immortan and help him relax. She hushed and rocked with him until he looked down at her with steel in his eyes, resigned but determined, and pressed a clumsy kiss to her lips. 

She kissed him back, that’s all she could do. It was not graceful, their first foray into lovemaking, far from it. But they, a child of nine and a child of fourteen, managed. Rictus was timid, deathly afraid to make her flinch or cry as he had seen his father do, and Perfection -while well-versed in the theory- struggled against demands made of her body that she was too small and too young to accommodate. It wasn’t until dawn, when the pair was exhausted and tearful that they could relax. Rictus spooned his naked body around hers and sobbed into her hair, while Perfection could only hum and rub mindless nothing-shapes into his encircling arm, eyes on the wall, her gaze a thousand miles away. 

Part of Perfection was happy, Rictus loved her enough to do what it took to keep her. But she felt sick and stretched like old rubber. Sore and wobbly and too tired to do anything but appreciate her husband’s warmth at her back. 

In the four years since The Immortan Joe’s drunken demand of his son Perfection had learned to enjoy making love to Rictus. He refused to call it any of the names the Warboys did: fucking or tumbling or even simply “sex”. Rictus said that he wouln’t tumble Perfection, or fuck her or sex her, he would only make more love with her.  But she got her First Bleed just days after her thirteenth birthday, and Miss Giddy had convinced The Immortan to wait to announce their marriage for a year. 

“She’s more likely to survive if she’s past the first year of her bleed. Strong sons are not born from weak mothers, My Immortan. Your late Wife is proof of that.”

Miss Giddy meant Delight. Delight was a sweet girl, just older than Perfection, with tight curls of black hair and rich, dark skin that The Immortan Joe had plucked from the pit of Wretched. Perfection had liked her smiling brown eyes, and appreciated having someone her own age around for the few months before Delight had fallen pregnant and died pushing out a deformed daughter. Perfection was reminded daily by The Immortan that she would never fail like that, and she didn’t need to be afraid of having a Mutie or a girl, because she was Perfection. She was better than any Wife from the Wretched, because He Himself had chosen her for Rictus when she was a baby. She would have a thousand strong, smart sons to grab the sun like their grandfather before them, and before that she would watch over his Vault with Rictus as Alpha and Omega. Rictus’s eyes had never strayed from his Wife, but The Immortan Joe, her Second Greatest Love, was a jealous man and only allowed Rictus to guard The Vault from the outside while his Wife In All But Name held sway over the Wives inside. 

Perfection ruled over her little queendom with an iron fist, sharp eyes and ears like a hawk. There was no whisper she did not hear, and no secret that she kept from The Immortan. The Immortan Joe loved her best, above even his own Wives, calling her to sit in his lap and sing or be fed from his plate, though it drove Rictus to distraction, fearing even now that The Immortan would steal his Wife away. But The Immortan had his Five Wives, and Perfection was for Rictus. 

As soon as Miss Giddy could be convinced to Kibosh the rule about making love to her husband before marriage. 

She and Rictus had gotten used to making love as often as they liked and sleeping in Perfection’s bed since the morning after they had first made love and Perfection waddled in like an Oldworld penguin with a sore bottom and stiff legs. Miss Giddy, silly fusspot that she was, had wanted to put a stop to it that very day, but The Immortan laughed and said that meddling old women minded their tongues or lost them. And Miss Giddy grudgingly allowed it until Rictus had woken from a midday nap positively covered in Perfection’s menstrual blood, screaming that she was going to die. Once Perfection got her First Bleed she couldn’t so much as touch her husband until they were Announced. 

It was inconvenient, but The Immortan Joe had explained that he allowed Miss Giddy’s overstep because He wanted Perfection to stay alive. “No Granson is worth the loss of Perfection. Not My Perfection, the Best and Beautiest of all Wives.”

Sometimes Perfection mulled over whether or not she would be better off as Wife to The Immortan, not Wife to Rictus. Obviously the Wives as they were didn’t appreciate his Greatness or Legacy, and they had no respect for the V-8, or the Warboys who would soar Fury Road with The Immortan Joe to Valhalla. She had crouched in secret once, listening to The Wives whisper treasonous thoughts amongst themselves and they had scoffed at the Warboys dying for Valhalla. Whelping children was a far harder, and far more worthy reason to die than something as stupid as guzz or bullets, Manifess Dess said. 

Perfection was astounded to hear a buzz of agreement from the other Wives, and nearly fell over when Heavenly - who should have never spoken, she was about to be Retired having borne two Mutie Girls and just last week bled one child from between her legs- laughed and suggested, “Maybe Old Joe should put us shotgun when we die birthing his get!”

Now wasn’t that something? To ride shotgun with The Immortan to Valhalla, Witnessed and Mediocre. None of the Wives who had died in her thirteen years were worthy, but surely she would be? She asked it of The Immortan that night when she was sat on his lap at dinner, stroking his fleshy chest with her head pillowed on his shoulder.

“My Immortan?”

“What is it, My Perfection? What do you need?”

She was unsure the second she had spoken his name, feeling like a foolish child, but she pushed past the lump in her throat, “If I were to die birthing your Granson would I be allowed to ride shotgun with you to Valhalla? I overheard the Milk Mothers saying that birth is a Woman’s Fury Road.”

The Immortan Joe stared deeply into her eyes, searching for some joke or deception. He was silent, gravid and heavy before he smiled at her toothily, “Birthing my sons may be a Woman’s Fury Road. It’s not something I had considered, My Perfection. But if any Wife was ever worthy of being Witnessed it would be you.”

He was still for a moment, and he wore his calculating face, “What would you say, My Perfection, if I told you that I would attend the birth of every child you carry? So-ways, if your Whelper’s thin blood overtakes you I will Witness You into Valhalla myself?”

Perfection felt tears well so hard that her vision blurred. She launched herself into his arms, burying her face into his thick neck and fisting her hands in his hair. The Immortan chuckled as he rubbed her back, “Anything for My Perfection. Anything.”

She was fifteen and it was deep in the dark of night when she felt a wrenching pull in her enormous belly. Miss Giddy had warned her over and over for what felt like an age that the contractions would be horrendous, and the Braxy-Hizz “practice” contractions had been… Strange. Odd more than truly painful, and the twinges she had vaguely noticed for most of the last two days were intense, if short-lived, but this. This was another beast entirely.

“MY IMMORTAN! RICTU- AUGH! RICTUS! MISS GIDDY!”

Perfection could only stumble from bed and clutch at her tight belly, the next wrench-pull followed by a fierce kick from her son stole her breath. Poor choice to sleep in the Vault that night, not beside her Husband as was her custom since their marriage. But Perfection was determined to show the ungrateful, weak Wives that there was glory in carrying Blood of The Immortan Joe. She’d been too tired afterward to walk back to Rictus’s rooms, and he wasn’t there to carry her. Perfection gasped through another contraction. She was dripping… Something. From between her legs. It dribbled slowly down her thigh, over her calf and her ankle and when she dared to look it was clear like Aqua-Cola. No blood. She wasn’t bleeding out Rictus’s son, Blood of The Immortan Joe. Perfection fell to her knees, bracing her hands against the floor of the Vault and rocking back and forth. For ages, it seemed, she rocked and keened and screamed for The Immortan, for Giddy, for Rictus, for a Wife, anyone. 

Manifess Dess stormed out of her room to see Perfection on all fours, whimpering, and she ran to the Vault Door. Deliriously Perfection thought she looked like an Impala, the fastest of animals and the fleetest of cars, graceful. Manifess Dess pounded and hollered for Giddy, The Immortan, SOMEBODY NOW! IT’S PERFECTION, COME NOW!

“Hold on, Persha! They’ll be here!”

She opened her mouth to correct Dess for using her nickname. Only for Rictus, and The Immortan, if he ever called her anything other than Perfection. Rictus gave her that name, it wasn’t for lowly Wives. What came out was not an abrupt and haughty reprisal, just a moan. 

 Flurry of movement, horrible pain, uncounted eons, voices raised and the staccato snap of broken bones and the fwump of a body hitting the soft sand of the Vault floor. Walls blurred through tears, sobs echoing, panicked gasps that did not come from her throat. Aqua-Cola dripping. Dripping. Drenching. Everywhere. Blessedly cool. Praise The V-8. Perfection felt her body being moved, belly wrenching tight and a high, thin scream tearing from her lungs. 

“Shhh. Easy, My Perfection. My Granson is coming, that’s all. It’ll be over soon, breathe and listen to Miss Giddy now.”

EASY FOR YOU TO SAY. FANGING PENIS-HAVER. I HOPE YOU CHOKE. 

The Immortan chuckled and rubbed her head soothingly. It wouldn’t occur to her until later that The Immortan could not read thoughts, that she had shouted directly in his ear those, and many more, hateful things. “Where is Rictus? Where is my Husba-AAAAANGHH!”

“Rictus! Your Wife calls!”

Distantly she heard Rictus retch up his dinner against the far wall.

FANGING-FUCKING PENIS-HAVER! CAN’T EVEN BE HERE! HE WAS HERE TO PUT THE VALHALLA-DAMNED BOY INTO ME! LEAST HE COULD FUUUUUUUCKING DO IS HOLD ME WHEN HE COMES OUT!

She labored in the Vaultpool for many vague and blurry hours, braced against the chest of The Immortan, catching only fleeting impressions of sight and sound. White powder floating on clear water, mixing into galaxies with red ribbons of blood. A high voice screeching profanities and The Immortan’s throaty, deep chuckle. The animal urge to bear down and roar like a lion of the Oldworld. Squelchy-pop. Slick slug of Something slipping out of her body. Relief. Cheers. The Immortan’s words of praise, his arms around her tightly before he handed her over to Miss Giddy.

Through her lashes she saw Her Immortan lift her squalling son in the air and shout triumphant. 

“HE IS CALLED EQUITUS AURELIUS! HE IS OUR GOLDEN RIDER! MY GRANSON IS BORN, UNMUTATED AND WHOLE! PRAISE PERFECTION! PRAISE RICTUS! PRAISE THE V-8!”

When Perfection was seventeen she labored against The Immortan again, this time in her own quarters, and birthed the howling Filius Superbus. A second strong, unmutated Granson to carry The Blood, and there was no prouder Grandfather than Her Immortan. He praised Perfection to the high heavens, and anything she wished was hers for the asking. Perfection was shown off to The Wives, and the three new ones were in awe of her. 

“How do we make him love us like he loves you?” They begged.

“The Immortan will never love you as he loves me, silly girls. I am Perfection, chosen when I was only a baby to birth strong sons for Rictus Erectus, who carries The Blood of The Immortan. But if you work very hard to please him, and give him strong sons, he might come to care for you.”

The girls looked disheartened, and Manifess Dess- heavy with her third and final child before Retirement- scoffed, “Don’t be stupid. Joe doesn’t love any of us, not even you Persha. We’re bodies for him to fill with his rotting seed and discarded when his Muties rip us open. The best you can do is lay quiet while he gets ‘em on you and be grateful that you aren’t still down with the Wretched. The rapers there don’t bring you watermelons and ham when they see your belly round.”

Perfection screwed up her nose, affronted at Dess’s constant disregard for her status, but let the comment go with only a pointed look to the woman’s belly. The Immortan, as a show of graciousness, gave each wife three years, three miscarriages or three mutated or female children before he Retired them to the War Boy Pleasure Pits or they could be shuffled into the ranks of the War Boys, serving The Immortan as warriors until their death upon the Fury Road. As far as Perfection ever knew there were only two Former Wives who had chosen that path: a woman called Jive, originally Wife to the Organic Mechanic before The Immortan Raised Her Up, she disappeared on a scout patrol and had been presumed dead for nearly twenty-five years. Jive herself was unremarkable, except for the son she had given to the Immortan, a son that He had named Rictus Erectus. 

And the other was the newest Fleet Imperator, Furiosa. While the woman had utterly failed as a Wife -bleeding out all three of her hard-won pregnancies before they had so much as quickened- she was fearsome as a War Boy, a Blackthumb and now as an Imperator. Perfection vaguely recalled the acerbic, often verbally violent woman. No Wife before or since had fought The Immortan so hard and, if she hadn’t been a particularly vigorous Full Life despite her missing arm, Perfection suspected that The Immortan would have rather tossed her from a window after her third failure. She had defied him with mind and mouth, and it would seem that her body followed suit, but she was a boon to the War Fleet. 

“Dess, you of all people should be grateful to be here, under the shelter and protection of The Immortan. I was here when you were brought in from the Wastes; dirty, sand-scraped, halfway dead from thirst and hunger. Here you are cared for. Well-fed. We do not scrabble for our survival, we only have to rest and pray that a child catches in our belly and grows strong, healthy, and male. A simple tradeoff, don’t you think?”

Manifest Dess stood to her full height, towering over Perfection and glaring down with rage-bright grey eyes, “GRATEFUL?! YOU SAY WE SHOULD BE GRATEFUL?!”

War pups, fresh-weaned off Touching Soft and Mother’s Milk, were tossed from the Whelping Bay and into the Pupyard by one thousand days, if they lived that long. Fobber shouldn’t have.

His Whelper was young and Senty-Mental like all first-time Whelpers were, and while she didn’t make enough to be a Milk Mother, she had managed two healthy pups even if one was small and the other was a girl. The other Whelpers and the Milk Mothers encouraged her to do the kind thing and give them to the sands so that they didn’t struggle and hurt her worse for their failings. But his Whelper fought for him, nursed him on Touching Soft and what little milk she made. She didn’t give him to the sands and hid him from Culler. The girl survived because The Immortan himself was brought down to inspect her, and he declared her Perfection, to be taken and raised in The Vault as a future Wife for his young son Rictus. His Whelper cried when The Immortan took Perfection away, seventy-seven days old and her future decided.

While his sister easily grew fat and strong on the thick of plentiful Mother’s Milk, wrapped in white and comfort, the tiny boypup struggled and fought for every breath, every inch, every pound. But he too grew strong off of stolen sips and smearings of gruel, indulged by the Milk Mothers only when he beat other Pups to the tit. When he was coming to his nine hundred and fifty-sixth day his Whelper, carrying heavy another pup - her third since his own whelping- cried out and collapsed, soaked in red, clutching her belly. Bad luck, the Milk Mothers and other Whelpers whispered. She shouldn't have been back in the rotation so soon after her last whelping- another boy, born perfect but still as stone- and such a hard one at that. She died, but managed to whelp a living boy before she did. Another strong back for The Immortan, if he should survive.

A shame, they whispered. She was good for boys, and they stuck well in her belly. There were rumors that -had she lived- The Immortan himself was going to raise her from the Whelping Bay and into the world of Wives. Such a shame, though, and her first son so near Weaning couldn’t be kept in the Whelping Bay.

So the unlikely tiny boypup was tossed unceremoniously into the Pupyard. He didn’t earn his name for four hundred days, after he had learned to scrap for his scraps, knocking teeth and taking bruises, tasting blood and breaking bones to earn his place. He was called Fobber, and he never forgot his Whelper; the smell of her hair, the kindness in her eyes -blue and shining like Aqua-Cola-, the warmth of her pressed against him as they slept.

On the day that Rictus was announced to have a Wife, Fobber looked up and nearly cried for seeing the ghost of his Whelper on the platform. Perfection was plump and healthier than most, smiling on the arm of Joe’s son who bounced on the balls of his feet in excitement. Fobber felt sorry for her then, even though she would be cared for and unwanting for all her days, she was too young. He knew he wasn’t older, he’d been told about his Whelping by the Milk Mothers when he did a Milkrun, but she seemed so frail next to the hulking Rictus Erectus. So frail and so young.

Time passed. Fobber blackthumbed, he stared out at the vast yellow expanse of the Fury Road eagerly waiting for the day he could ride Lancer and be Witnessed to Valhalla. Days and days uncounted were a whirl of black and grey and red and white.