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Like some animal licking matted fur, the softness of the tongue on the softness of the wound.

The sum of the wounds is a ball that expands according to its own clock, whenever it damn well pleases. Asserts itself always at the beginning of the day, I wake up to it, chattering its bad news into the ether.

The ether is created by the imperative of the system; by the whoosh of blood and air through the tunnels of the body. This intent movement, going places, distribution.

I lay on my bed trying to attach myself to the imperative of the system. To its triumphant design. Pretending to understand how I fit into the world. I am caught by the inertia of the ball. Weighted by my gut.

Women, and I suspect some men, are not built for frenzied non-stop sex with a lot of partners. Women actually let people inside their bodies when they have sex. Have you ever had a house guest? That feeling when you see their alarm clock next to your bed or their socks bunched up on the floor.

Does anyone ever think of what we take on when we fuck? Or what we leave behind? We see the animated meat before our eyes; the slick swelling of flesh and the miraculous sensation of all consciousness surging to the genitals. But the protein on protein aspect of sex, does anyone ever think of this?

If you've ever been present after a birth you will know this. Having gone through the anticipation, the little foot kicking out at the side of the stomach like some kind of pointed gas bubble. Once the baby arrives you are faced with the strange imperative of sex. The proof that something has happened as a result of letting the guest in.

The oscillating proteins. Have you ever tasted caviar? Pressed the beads against the roof of your mouth with your tongue, that richness. Scrambled eggs are never the same. And the infant, fish-like but with no sense of grace or light, blood-matted hair and fingers exploring an oxygen-filled dimension for the first time.

In these first moments outside the creature becomes human. Humanness defined by air and light. Then you recognize the chin as belonging to your uncle.

If this is the biological imperative of sex then what on earth is happening when biology is sidestepped by people like me? People that don't wager pregnancy. People that don't deal in free-ranging sperm. People just having sex for the sheer sake of hormones. What on earth are their cells doing?