Heart-to-heart

Martin winces slightly with each step. I stop him with a hand to his shoulder. "Do you feel well?" I ask. "The boots are not too tight for your toes?"

"No, that's not it." His eyes dart away from me. "Dammit, I was going to have to ask eventually. Uh, there's no good way to put this, at least not to you--"

"You have to shit?" I ask.

"Never mind, I guess I was mistaken about that. Yes, yes, I do. Uh...How does that work around here?"

"There are shit stations out in the fields. Away from the pollies."

"Yeah, that's not a surprise, I suppose."

I scan our surroundings and spot a striped pole in the field to our left. "There's one. Let's go."

"You're coming, too?"

"Why not?" I can feel some pangs in my lower tummy, not critical yet, but pressing. "I could stand to shit as well."

"Jesus Christ, you people," Martin mutters. He says some other things under his breath, too faint for me to hear.

The shit station is simple, but at least it has two seats so we won't have to wait our turn. I sit in one, and motion for Martin to take the other beside me. He does so reluctantly. His thigh presses against mine. Suddenly, his entire body quakes and he drops his head to his hands. "I...I can't...Fuck! Man up, Martin! This is your life now!"

I pat his knee reassuringly. "Perhaps we could talk about something? As a distraction?"

"Sure..." He laughs--a single, short bark. "So...I guess no indoor plumbing? No flush toilets? Do you even know what those are?"

"I do, actually. I've seen them in Lakepolly, but not elsewhere. Auto says they require too much water and labor to maintain. Better for the shit to be collected in the fields, where it's needed."

"But it still has to be pulled from the tanks below and turned to fertilizer, right?"

"Ugh. Aye. I've had that unpleasant duty before. The stench is indescribable. I hope to Auto I'm never tasked on such a thing again, but I know it will happen."

By this time, I've completed my business, but I remain seated to provide support to Martin. His body still shudders.

"This...This isn't helping. I'm sorry I brought it up. Maybe we can talk about something else, that isn't shit-related?"

I think for a moment, and my mind flits to a topic potentially no less fraught, but my curiosity overwhelms me. "Yesterday, you mentioned this 'obsessive love'."

"...Yeah."

"And that you'd had it, one time before."

He sighs. "Sure, you deserve the story, though it may be difficult to explain to you." He pauses to gather his thoughts. "I had a fiancée--that is, I had a girl who was going to be my wife in marriage. Marriage...uh, that's when two people live together and promise to be emotionally and sexually exclusive to each other. Usually. Does any of that make sense to you?"

I think. "It sounds similar to hole agreements. I have never done this, but some people will grant sole right to one of their holes for a period of time--'sole cunt', 'sole ass', 'sole mouth'. Or a man might similarly promise that his cock will only visit the cunt of a single woman, but still have access to any asshole. These agreements tend to be more popular among men who prefer men and women who prefer women."

"But never an agreement for all holes at once? And not indefinitely?"

I shake my head. "I have never heard of such a thing."

"Okay, well...close enough maybe. Anyway, I was desperately in love with this girl. She was so beautiful and smart and kind and funny. We planned our wedding--the ceremony to begin our marriage. Then a few days before, I walked into our bedroom and found her cheating on me--fucking my best friend! And later I found out she was fucking my younger brother, too! And none of them were the least bit sorry! She mocked me, for caring!" His face wrenches itself in grief at the memory, tears forming once more in his eyes. I drape my arm across his back. "Sorry, sorry, I'm okay." He sniffles and looks at me with a sad smile. "I don't suppose that makes much sense to you, huh?"

"Look," I say carefully, "I may not be from your society. I may not understand its taboos or rules. But she was. And she knowingly broke those rules. That's something I can understand."

"Thanks," Martin says. "You're a smart cookie, Marissa."

"And I believe you're now done shitting," I point out.

"Oh, uh...yeah. I guess that worked." We both stand and use wipes from our utilities to clean ourselves before resuming our journey along the path.

"So this woman was the object of your obsessive love," I continue after a few moments, "and she didn't die, but she was ripped from you."

"In a sense, she did die. Or, at least, the woman I thought I loved all that time turned out never to have existed. Which is maybe even worse than dying. The grief was no less acute."

"Aye, you mentioned losing that object would feel like dying. But you survived."

"Did I?" He laughs bitterly. "I immediately quit my apprentice job at a prestigious aerospace, signed up with Gadsden Enterprises to ship out on one of their interstellar colony ships as a frozen corpsicle 'subject matter expert', never to see anyone from my previous life ever again. And at twenty-six years old! What is that if not suicide?" He gestures broadly around. "And what is this if not purgatory?" His eyes flick over to me. "Alright, maybe one of the nicer flavors of purgatory, I admit."

As grateful as I am to Martin that he would share such important and intimate details from his life with me, something tickles the back of my mind. "Before, you offered 'obsessive love' as the explanation for your standoffishness, your reluctance to fuck me." Someone inside of me is screaming, Don't be a fool, Marissa! I plunge ahead anyway.

"Martin." I stop in the middle of the path. He turns to face me. "This 'love'--are you afraid you feel it towards me as well?"