A distinct lack of attraction

Been thinking a lot about how it feels to be asexual in honour of asexual awareness week. 99% of the time I feel very positively about it, but I think it's important to acknowledge we're allowed to be sad sometimes too. So have a short story about monsters.

Disclaimer: The religious imagery used in this is a reflection of the way some people of some religions use their religion as a way to validate their hatred, but I wanna be clear that the majority of the religious people I know of varying religions don't hold bigoted views.

There is a woman alone in a flat.

Or well, not a woman. That word’s too loaded. She doesn’t mind it on herself, doesn’t like it when other people use it. Feels like freedom and friendship and a bone deep understanding written into her genetics when she says it, feels like a box saying smaller than, lesser than, shut up when other people do- but that’s a different story.

There is a person alone in a flat.

Or well, not alone. There’s no other people there, technically. But she’s having the kind of thoughts that linger on the walls, the shadows thickening, something like a predator’s stillness. Won’t be clear whether she’s the prey or not for a while yet.

(She is.)

It’s nighttime, because of course it is. Or maybe not, you can choose, whatever you think is scarier. The overheard lights aren’t on, at least, she’d say ‘they’re homophobic’, the ones who get it, laugh, the angels who don’t, don’t.

She turns on the TV. There’s a monster on the news. There’s been more and more of them as she’s grown up. People say she’s lucky to have grown up in such times. He’s an ugly thing, clawed mass of shadows, teeth stained with blood, roving bloodshot eyes, smelling of fire and brimstone. One of the devil’s creations for sure. But he’s dressed himself in a three-piece suit, and he makes sure not to leak his shadows onto anything, and the rest of the presenters seem to accept him. They, the angels, might still wrinkle their noses, just for a second, when the stench of him first enters the room, but they’re doing their best. It’s impressive, really, how accepting they are of him.

How accepting the angels are of all monsters, they stress, over and over again, and particularly during the hottest month of the year, when the devil and all his hellish creations are the closest to the surface (at least on this hemisphere, don’t worry about anyone else), and the monsters on earth are at their most tempted to go back to him, they’ll be very consistent with their messaging. After all, society couldn’t function without monsters now. Where would they be without this darling news presenter, or that one monster that acts in that show, or the one who’s running for office? The ones who’ve proved themselves worth having? (Where would they be, without this entire consumer base to market to, everything covered in monster branding so the monsters will buy it, yes, the first ones to tap the market were those selling legal poison but everyone’s capitalised on it nowadays and no-one looks too closely at the generation of monsters born holding the drink-)

Well, when they say all monsters, they mean all monsters who try their very best to be angels, even though, of course, they never can be- and don’t forget, they’ll never let you, the boundaries may have been moved but they still exist, there’s still a gap between the holy and the Other- all those good monsters, those grateful monsters, will be accepted. The angels let them out of Hell after all. Of course, the devil was an angel himself, but it’s a bad idea to point that out. Having spent so long fortifying the gates, the angels finally let them crack open and so that’s the same thing as acceptance and don’t argue the point.

All the monsters who contain themselves into three-piece suits and say thank you and patiently spend tireless hours explaining the very basics on monsterhood to the few angels interested enough to listen, they’re alright. They must never get angry of course, a sure sign that the devil is drawing them back, and any monster who does a bad thing is a representative for all monsters.

(No, the devil is not a representative of all angels. Shh it’s not the same thing, don’t argue the point.)

Monsters must always be welcoming to any angel who wants to come into their spaces. There are no monster-only spaces; the monsters may congregate, of course, to find a mate, in their pathetic attempt to mimic the angels’ mating rituals, but any angels who want in should always be allowed; why, have the monsters got something to hide? No? Then why can’t the angels be there? And of course, if an angel is mistaken for a monster in the dark under flashing lights, the angel has all the rights to be offended. How dare you assume for a moment that one of us could be one of you?

The good monsters have to denounce the bad ones of course, as well. The ones who won’t wear the suits, the ones who don’t have hearts, the ones who shapeshift. The ones whose names are too long, or too complicated for the angels to understand. The ones who don’t want to get married or have children or say that the system they’re trying to assimilate to is broken. The good monsters denounce them all. It’s the final price of acceptance, and the one on the news is doing a great job of earning his keep.

The person in the flat looks at her clawed hands. He’s not talking about her species of monster right now. He’s talking about her friends, he’s saying they’re going too far too much too scary. She struggles to understand him, and all the while the thick shadows on her walls whisper you’re next.

She gets a call from one of her angel friends. She turns off the TV before she answers, plunging the room back into darkness. She hates talking on the phone, but she loves her friend, so she picks it up. They talk for a while. It’s innocuous, just called for a chat. There’s a natural lull in the conversation, she stretches out on her couch, phone on speaker and resting on the warm matted fur where a different person might have a heart.

“You know,” her friend says, into the silence, “I met another monster like you the other day.” She’s an unusual breed for a monster- not many of them made it out of hell. This is an interesting titbit. She goes to make a rumble of interest, remembers her friend won’t understand what means; she doesn’t speak monster.

Says, “Go on.” Instead.

“Yeah, they’ve just started at my work. I don’t know how you do it, to be honest.”

“What do you mean?”

“You know, be a monster. Like I totally get that you’re happy and everything, but could never be me. I think I’d rather die than be a monster.” Her friend laughs. Maybe she doesn’t have a heart, but she certainly feels hollow. But she also knows how to play the game, she’s an old hat now, even though she’s still young by anyone’s standards.

So she doesn’t say that’s really hurt my feelings because she knows what she’ll get is it was just a joke/ I didn’t mean it like that/ you took it the wrong way and they’d hang up the call and her friend would go grumbling to another angel about how monsters are so sensitive these days/ she can’t take a joke/ she jumped down my throat and her friend would never listen again. She knows how to dance around the angels’ egos, pander to them. She’s been taught to say thank you when she’s given an inch, and contort herself to fit into it.

“It’s not for everyone lol.” She replies, and they both chuckle and they call it a night. And once they’ve hung up she lies there in the dark, and the dark gets closer.

Earth’s better than hell, she’s not stupid. Monsters don’t get tortured (often) on earth, they have (most) rights on earth, her ancestors fought for the life she now gets to lead.

But when it’s really dark, and she’s alone, and for once none of the angels can see her, she wonders whether her ancestors won the wrong battle. And in the stillness like this, with the gnashing jaws of the shadows just grazing her skin, she wonders whether they ever won at all. Or whether the angels let them, opened those gates they’d spent so long protecting, for a different reason than acceptance. A reason that tasted a lot more like exploitation.