Fungal Love

Add the spores to the 24 x 69 compost container sitting atop several heating pads.

Ensure to water the compost regularly, always have it moist. Always wash hands before and after.

Seal the container and leave it sit for three weeks at 70°F. Never more. Never less.

When mycelium appear in the compost and fill the container, lower the temperature to 55°F-60°F by removing the heating pads.

Cover the growths with potting soil, about an inch.

Three to four weeks later, I'm able to harvest.

*

In total, it only takes 61 days, 10 hours, and 14 minutes for you to show among the white caps. I wonder if your mother would be jealous if she knew your second birth is done in less than half the time as your first. It isn't supposed to be like this. It never was. Accidents happen.

But it takes someone who truly loves another to correct their mistakes, to rectify what has been broken. I love you, always. Before we even were together, I loved you. Love at first sight, right? Soulmates. Other phrases that futilely attempt to describe the indescribable. And, it only grew when you and I became us; when we bought a home, got married, made the house ours from the garden out back to the giant oak tree out front.

The cellar is ours, too, now. I made it so.

Your pale skin among the malleable shrooms, stark against the black soil; strands of raven hair spread out around your head; doughy, thin arms and legs spread as far as the container will allow; breasts as perky as they once were, though the delicate shade of pink your nipples had are now faded into white-gray; your groin clustered by fungi spiraling out from you.

You're almost as perfect as you once were, but compromises must be made for the ones you love.

*

In the melancholy hours of the morning, I gently unseal your second womb. Loam and soil flood the air. Not a hint of fruit anywhere. Your eyes are closed, but there's movement beneath your eyelids. Your fingers twitch, and your leg spasms. I smile. Your body did the same when falling asleep alongside me. Your cold feet falling on my legs. I always told you to put them back on your side, but still relished your touch.

Your eyelids part, and your blue eyes are now umber, earthen. Gray lips move until parted, and a grating noise escapes your mouth. You reach for the container's lip, to pull yourself up, but I put my hands on your cold shoulders to keep you still.

'Don't move, yet,' I say. 'Let your body adjust.'

You must listen, since you become still. You swallow nothing, and lick your lips.

'Water?' you ask.

I retrieve the wide glass from the ground, a straw already lulling inside, and place it to your lips. You draw out the water little by little until you start coughing, and I pull the drink away from you. You look at me.

'Where am I?' you say, blinking unusually. 'What's going on?'

'You're home. We're in the cellar.'

'Why?' You move your hand to your boney hip, run your fingers down your smooth thigh. Your other five fingers coil around stalks. 'Why am I in this?'

'There was an accident, and you needed to be healed.'

You move your pointer up your shallow belly, past your breasts, to your jutting clavicle. The other tears the white caps from the soil, lifting them enough to see them without moving your head. Your eyes search for something I can't see.

'What accident? I feel fine.'

I take your hand, the fungi falling from your grasp, and lean towards you. The copper, crescent moon necklace you bought me slips from my shirt, dangling between us. Through the compost smell, I still catch a hint of your coconut lotion. Our eyes scan one another, although I have been looking after you for almost three months.

'What accident? What happened to me?'

'We'll talk about it soon,' I say. 'Once you've had a bath.'

*

You sit in a warm bath, the soapy water blackened by dirt. Lavender fills our small bathroom. Water slips over the rim of the clawfoot tub. I help wash your short, dark hair, no sign of the accident, then your ears and back. You tell me you can do it when I attempt to wash your front.

I watch, from the wet, linoleum floor, you rub the loofah on your chest and belly, sink below to your legs and groin. Your arm stops.

'What's this?' you ask, eyes widening. The loofah bobs to the surface, but your arm remains below. 'What is this?'

'A small change,' I say, 'from the accident.'

Your eyes search for answers in the soil speckled foam, brows furrowing. 'You keep speaking about an accident, but I don't remember any accident.' You turn to me and tears line your ears.

'Tell me what happened, right now.'

'But--'

'Tell me!' You slam your fists into the water, spraying the daffodil painted walls. 'Tell me right fucking now!'

My heart races and I recoil from your outburst, reverting to old ways. You never were one quick to anger before, but the rebirthing must've made more changes than I know. My hands are kept to my side, fighting the urge to hold them to my chest. I want to freeze up, but I don't allow myself to. I want to speak, but anxiety keeps the words in, as though they will only kindle your rage.

'I... it was...'

'Tell me.' Your voice lowers, calms. Your gaze isn't anger but longing, pleading. 'Just tell me.'

I sharply inhale.

'Okay... This is what happened.'

*

It was Tuesday night, and you were late coming home from work. You are an English teacher at an elementary school. Sometimes you stay later than usual to finish paperwork, make schedules for the week, and so on. I was in the kitchen, putting away the leftovers of the dinner you weren't home to eat. It was your favorite: sweet-and-sour chicken with fried rice and vegetables.

You tossed your jacket on the coat rack, and kicked your shoes off beneath it.

'How was work?' I called.

'Tiring,' you said. 'I think I'm just going to bed, if that's alright?'

I stood in the doorway at the end of the hall. 'You sure? I can heat up--'

'No, thanks.'

Then, you went upstairs. I listened to you move into the bathroom, then into our bedroom. The box fan switched on, and the floorboards creaked when you got into bed. Soon, your snoring and the whirring were the only sounds in the house.

You had these types of days often, yet I couldn't shake the feeling I had done something wrong--that there was something wrong with me. Had I said something? Should I have had dinner prepared, regardless of the hour? Should I have been more comforting, warm? You know I have issues with physical touch, so...

I became curious. I always trusted you, but I couldn't help the agitating thoughts that maybe there was more than I knew; that what you told me time and time again had been a lie; that there weren't papers to grade or schedules to make.

Don't look at me like that. You wanted to know.

Your jacket smelled like strawberries, distinct from your typical coconut lotion. You didn't use perfume and, if you did, it was only for special occasions and wasn't fruity. I went upstairs into the bathroom, and sifting through the hamper--the same one right there by the sink--I pulled out your ruffled, white dress shirt and navy blue slacks.

Strawberries.

I flipped them inside out, searching, hoping but not hoping, wanting my suspicions to be true but false at the same time, and it was only until I went over the collar of your dress shirt I found a smudge of pink-red lipstick. I never wore such a color, and you definitely didn't wear lipstick.

My legs went numb. I sat on the same floor as I sit on now and felt every ounce of warmth drain from my body. Tears fell but I didn't feel them, and the sickening bile in my stomach churning like a maelstrom licked the back of my throat. The walls closed in on me, the ceiling lowered. The floor crumbled beneath me, and I fell and fell, plummeting into an abyss opening in my chest--

But, then, darkness gave way to burning red, flaming orange. The distant walls blared with radiance, and I was pushed back to the bathroom, back to reality, back to my body. Feeling exploded throughout me. Heat and pressure against the inside of my skin. I clenched my teeth until my gums hurt, and tears vanished.

How could you do that to me? After all these years; after everything we've been through? Look, I'm crying, even now.

I tossed aside your clothes and stormed into the bedroom. I threw the blankets from you and slipped on top of you, and before you realized what was happening, I held your face in my hands and shoved my lips to yours. You didn't question it. You didn't stop me to take a piss break. Nothing. Your arms went to wrap around me, but I grabbed and pinned them down. I pushed into your mouth with mine, tasting the back of your throat with my tongue.

I wanted to show you you were mine; that I was not the wrong one--but you or anyone who believed otherwise were wrong. Holding your wrists one with hand, I used the other to tear the tank top and panties from your body. I ripped my panties off, and sat on your chest, your breasts pressing against my inner thighs. I grinded flesh against flesh, your warmth quickly making me wet.

You broke our embrace, asking for my touch, for me inside you. Ignoring your pleas, I moved my pussy up onto your mouth, pressed your arms into the mattress with my knees, and grinded on your lips. Forcing you to take me. Forcing you to appease me. Forcing you to know who I was and what I am and what you deserved and what I deserved.

Moaning between gritted teeth. Ramming my fingers into you, clawing your inner walls; rubbing your clit, raking my nails down your thighs. I force fed you what you wanted all along, right? That is what you wanted. Why else would you pursue another? Why would you want to ruin what we had? You wanted pussy, so you were going to have it.

My lips against yours. Your tongue licking my squirting juices as they cascaded into your mouth, nose, matting your hair. You moaned and I moaned and my body shook and trembled and like lightning lancing through me, I came but kept atop your face, kept grinding and pushing down onto your mouth, feeling your tongue lapping up the fluids inside me. Then, as I squeezed your head between my knees, I came again and every ounce of strength left me. I collapsed onto the bed, releasing you. My head swam, my heartbeat pounding in my ears, in sync with the throbbing between my soaked legs.

You wiped your face, sitting up on your elbows. 'What was that about?'

'Power.'

'Power?'

My arms dangled off the bed, now dried fingers touching the hardwood. The fan did nothing for the swollen heat radiating off us.

'Yes,' I said. 'Power, taking it back.'

'Taking it back? What are you talking about?'

My hand found the baseball bat we kept under the bed, just in case of an intruder. You always wanted to buy a gun, but having a gun in a house, even locked up, was anxiety inducing. You were so caring. Kind. Considerate.

'What you ruined.'

You sat completely up. In the light falling in from the hall, your face and chest glistened, your hair askew and damp. I loved you more than anything, and I love you now just the same, if not more. You were and are my fucking everything, but you went and fucked it up and... I gripped the bat and lurching up, I swung and it smashed against your skull.

You were gone before you hit the floor.

*

'Yes, there was a wound on your head. The soil healed you. No scar at all.'

You sink your hands back into the cooling water. I lean over the tub and turn on the warm water.

'You wanted to know,' I say.

'I did,' you say, staring into the suds. 'I did, but... you did this to me. You killed me!'

I stop the water, sit back.

'You did this to you. If you would have stayed faithful to me, our marriage, we wouldn't have ended this way.'

'You swung the bat.'

'That I only did because I found the lipstick, smelled the strawberries. And, I brought you back, didn't I?'

'Did you even call the police?' You laugh, dark tears descending your pale cheeks. 'Did you at least try to bring me back, not this way?'

'No.'

Palpable silence accompanies the humidity. I wonder what time it is, if it's evening yet. It would be nice to watch the sunset with you. I slip my hand onto your shoulder.

'I brought you back, because I love you, but you must accept you created the accident. This was your responsibility, like my responsibility now is wholly you.'

You close your eyes.

'Now what?' You say. 'What do I do now?'

'You love me, like I love you. We'll be together always and forever.' My fingers dig a little into your doughy skin. 'I will tend to you, ensuring your growth happens smoothly.'

'My growth?'

I dunk my other hand into the water, slide it down your belly, and spread my fingers through the troop between your legs.

'You gasp. Stop--'

I use my pointer and pinky to spread the stalks, and slip my middle and ring into you.

'Please, don't.'

You grasp my wrist, but you're far too weak to stop me. Muscle replaced by gills and teeth.

The delicate, wet mycelium lining your inner walls pulses with your increasing heartbeat. At the back, where your cervix once was, is a veiny mound, coarse yet soft against my fingertips. Here is where everything stems from. What will always be mine.

'This is only the beginning,' I whisper into your ear. 'No accidents this time.'