Albrecht
Smith is widely recognized as the pioneer of sexual genetic performance
art when it came into its own in the 22nd Century. He set loose
collections of genetically modified humans. The performance art
installation was the society as it developed. Some today argue that
these stories should not be shared because of the egregious ethical and
moral violations they were based on. We feel each epoch has to be
judged by its own standards, and we can appreciate artistry wherever it
is found.
The modifications to the human form in this installation are more extreme than in any other he attempted.
Smith
confided independently to two friends that the inspiration for "To Have
And To Hold" was the conversations between the genders around the turn
of the millennium.
Five-year-old
Chrissy was nervous as her wedding day approached. There had been
possibilities before but it had never quite worked out. Now it looked
like it would really be happening. Her friend Stacy just got married a
few months ago. She said it did hurt at first, but you got used to it,
and then it was kind of nice. Now Stacy could use the urinals, like
most of the big girls, while Chrissy still had to sit down to pee.
At
last her mother Jane got the call saying that the mother of the groom
Katie had started her labor. So Jane and Chrissy drove to the birthing
center and waited as Katie's labor progressed. They were ushered into
the birthing room as Katie was in her pushing phase. Katie was lying in
one bed, and the other was for Chrissy. She lay on her back, naked, and
her mother fastened the restraints on each foot and hand and one around
her middle. Then she hugged her, kissed her, and told her it often
wasn't so bad, and in any case it would be over soon. The baby's head
started crowning, and with a final push the baby slid out, Katie's
husband stroking him gently as he went by. He couldn't cry, because he
didn't have lungs. His most striking features were his long floppy
birth arms and the shorter inner arms. He had no real legs and quite a
small body. The midwife cleaned him off quickly, then carefully held
his arms so they did not touch anything. He was still getting nutrition
from the umbilical cord, which seemed to be working well, so the
midwife held him up for Katie to see, and then moved him over to
Chrissy. She placed the baby boy low on Chrissy's abdomen, partly
against her pubic bone. She then deftly slid one of his long birth arms
around each of Chrissy's hips and fastened them together in back, each
arm having a hook on the end. The baby reacted to that and tightened
until he was hugging Chrissy firmly. The midwife told Chrissy to get
ready, and Jane told her she loved her. After a few seconds of
instinctive palpating a little with his inner arms to make sure he was
in the right place, the sharp points on the inner arms on both sides
stabbed into Chrissy's groin where her legs met her torso.
She
jerked hard against her restraints. She cried a little, but as she had
promised herself she didn't scream. She felt pain in her whole groin
area, and now pressure and tugging inside where his inner arms were at
work. The umbilical cord reaching out from Katie was gently stroked by
her husband as it left her vagina. But it connected her still to
Chrissy's new husband, sustaining him as his inner arms groped. One set
of appendages found Chrissy's tendons to wrap around to physically hold
them together. Another set found what he needed to find very soon: the
vein leading to Chrissy's right leg, and the artery leading from her
left. The husband's arms quickly grafted his vein to hers, her artery
to his and the two became as one flesh. Chrissy's heart started pumping
blood into her husband and absorbing the return flow. He had
transferred from dependence on his mother to dependence on his wife.
Now
supported by Chrissy's blood, his body cut off the circulation to the
umbilical cord. Chrissy was still pretty uncomfortable, but the panic
was gone, and now her mother unfastened the restraints that had held
her arms. As custom required, Chrissy and Katie now joined hands, and
Katie asked if she agreed to love and honor her son as long as they
both should live, and Chrissy said the classic "I do". Chrissy thanked
her. Katie's husband slapped against her body and Katie interpreted for
him that he thanked her too. Chrissy could have cut the cord herself,
as some of the "natural birth/natural marriage" books suggested, but
she was a bit squeamish. Her mother did it instead, observing the more
venerable tradition. The beds had wheels, and Katie rolled off in one
direction, Chrissy and her mother in another.
There was no need to give a name to Chrissy's husband. He was forever bound to her and could never be confused with anyone else.
Having
performed his vital tasks of attaching to Chrissy, her husband could
rest. He was as helpless as any baby, but would quickly be far less
disruptive. He had no lungs to breathe or cry with. He had no digestive
tract, so there were no feedings, no spit-up, no burping, no diapers to
change. He had no kidneys, relying on Chrissy to filter his blood for
him. The urgent connections to Chrissy had been merging the circulatory
systems, and holding the two of them together internally. Gradually
over the next couple weeks they continued to join. Within a day his
head was largely flattened against Chrissy's pelvis, and wherever the
skin of the two of them touched it started fusing together, including
his outer arms that were wrapped around Chrissy's rear just above her
butt cheeks. Within three weeks the skin would be seamless.
He
had no eyes or nose or taste buds. But he did have a sense of touch and
he had hearing through two small ear holes out near Chrissy's hips. And
he had a capable brain. It was smaller than a girl's brain, but largely
because it was missing parts it didn't need. It needed no visual or
olfactory cortex, no cerebellum and no brain areas for fine motor
control of hands or tongue. This smallish brain was flattened against
Chrissy so the two of them would present a sleek shape. As he got older
he would come to learn and think and understand. He had only one
working appendage. The part nearer her body was a single small muscular
protrusion called his leg, its upper part was his penis. The leg would
grow to at most eight inches long. Its main function was to move his
penis back and forth -- well, to not beat around the bush here, in and
out. At this point it was poorly developed and uncoordinated, but as he
grew it would provide his only means of expression to the outside
world. He had a private way of communicating to Chrissy, because he
could tug on her tendons with the inner arms that held him in place. As
he grew he could talk to Chrissy by tugging on the two sides more or
less hard, in patterns, and also by moving his little leg. Completing
his anatomy was a pair of testicles in a scrotum.
One other
means of connection between Chrissy and her husband was a tube that
grew out from his left inner arm towards the centerline of her body. It
was a urethra, and it attached to Chrissy's urethra above her
sphincter. Chrissy's sphincter and lower urinary tract soon atrophied
and the "pee-hole" closed. The urine for both of them now flowed out of
his penis, and his sphincter was the only valve that kept pee from
leaking out. So for the first few months of her married life Chrissy
herself had to wear a diaper, but her husband soon learned to keep the
sphincter closed and open it when Chrissy signaled, typically by
bearing down with her abdomen as any girl does to expel urine. So as
Chrissy sidled up to a urinal and unzipped her fly, her husband felt
his penis being handled and pointed in the right direction, felt the
pressure of the urine as Chrissy bore down, and he knew to release his
sphincter to let the urine pass. He felt it pass through the ureter and
along the length of his penis and out the end. He was fundamentally
oriented with his front against her, so the penis was fundamentally
pointed towards her, but it could easily enough flip backward to pee.
The
symbiosis of touch was important. Chrissy had no nerve endings on any
of her husband's skin. If his skin got cut or irritated, his reaction
was to tug on Chrissy's innards, which would get her to investigate and
solve the problem. As he got older, he could indicate by the pattern
where the discomfort was and its nature, as in "scratch the left side
of my head, it itches". If he had a sudden major pain, he would yank
hard, which would cause Chrissy major pain herself and motivate her to
quickly figure out what was wrong.
The traditional marriage
concept of "'til death do us part" was here an understatement. Both
would die together when they went. Her husband was obviously dependent
on Chrissy for the most basic metabolic functions. But Chrissy could
not divorce him either. Faced with an attempt to pry him off of her,
her husband's inner arms would by reflex rip her arteries apart and she
would bleed to death. That sounds horrid, but of course he would only
do that when in mortal danger. Any married man or woman in our society
can take a knife and stab the other one, but they hardly ever do. The
same applied in Chrissy's world. She could hurt him by slapping his
skin, or whapping his testicles. He could hurt her by tugging hard on
her innards. But they had to live with each other, so even in times of
trouble they rarely did.
A girl might get married as young as
three, or possibly as late as eight. In either case her brain was far
more developed than her husband's, and she could easily cajole and
manipulate him. But soon he would start catching up. As a baby and
small child his wants were fairly simple. His skin could get irritated,
or he could get too hot or too cold, though his desires in that regard
were rarely far out of line with Chrissy's. His main source of
knowledge about the world was his hearing, although she could teach him
a few things about spatial relations by tracing patterns on his skin.
He learned to understand the language. He could get bored, so he wanted
her to talk to him, or play music, or read to him, or listen as she
talked with the other girls and women in her life. He also slept a lot,
which allowed her if she chose to live fair portions of her day in a
purely visual world of working, reading or just admiring scenery. He
also developed his own opinions in music and stories, or he might come
to dislike certain of her friends or get fond of some others. They had
to negotiate. His only real form of leverage at this age was to hurt
her by tugging on her innards, but that was enough.
The entire
world was populated solely by women and girls, unless you looked
closely near a woman's pelvis. Women had to do all the work, all the
daughtercare, all the laundry. But they were also the ones to see all
the sights, taste all the food, and make all the decisions. Their
husbands did not belch or fart, watch TV or leave dirty dishes around.
There
were somewhat fewer boy than girl babies, which was a blessing. A boy
at birth would die if he couldn't be married within a couple minutes.
But girls could live without a husband. All the prime athletes were
unmarried, as well as most of the women who did strenuous physical
labor. Unmarried women achieved adult strength and size and wisdom, but
they never went through the sexual aspects of puberty, and sex just
wasn't part of their world view.
Around
age twelve Chrissy's breasts started growing, her hips got a little
wider, she grew pubic and underarm hair, and she got acne. Even though
her husband was only seven, her hormones stirred him to puberty as
well. His voice couldn't deepen and he couldn't start growing a beard.
He did grow pubic hair, which was right next to hers, his reddish and
hers brown. But the biggest changes in both were the sex organs
themselves. Chrissy's vulva enlarged, and her vagina got deeper, the
walls thicker and more elastic. Her husband's testicles enlarged and
hung down in their scrotum, his penis got larger and erect more often,
and the "leg" muscle that moved it got stronger. Before puberty the leg
muscle didn't have much to do. All his penis was good for was peeing,
and Chrissy would just aim it where she wanted the pee to go. As
puberty began she found herself intrigued by other potential properties
of this penis between her legs, and her husband was definitely
intrigued by the two flaps between Chrissie's legs and what they
contained. When they had been taught the facts of life as kids they had
both thought the idea of his penis going into her vagina was gross, but
now it was definitely an intriguing possibility.
We urge our
children to delay sex for a number of reasons. It can engender too
close of an emotional bond to an inappropriate person; Chrissy and her
husband were already bound for all time. There are sexually transmitted
diseases; Chrissy and her husband had been and would always necessarily
be faithful to each other. It can lead to unwanted pregnancy, and this
was a concern that Chrissy and her husband shared. Chrissy got an IUD
implanted, though going on the pill was another option.
With all
those obstacles removed, there remained the question of when the two
would first have intercourse. They started with lesser forms of
intimacy.
Chrissy could stroke her husband's penis and it would
get hard, and if she kept going he would get a little dry orgasm; later
it was a wet orgasm. His instinctive means of showing happiness was to
vibrate the inner arms that held them together, and the vibration
during orgasm was unmistakable. Before puberty Chrissy had even less
reason to pay attention to what was inside her labia than girls do in
our world, since her husband had taken over the urination business. But
now she explored inside with her fingers. Her husband began tentatively
exploring it with his penis as well, his "leg" allowing it to poke
around her labial regions. Her sighs of pleasure told him when he had
found her clitoris.
At a certain point in puberty, they had a
conflict. He had a strong urge to press his penis into her, and by
poking her labial areas he quickly discovered where the flesh would
give way if pressed further. She told him she wasn't quite ready yet,
as it hurt when he started to. Following the usual advice, she took to
giving him hand jobs when he got horny, which helped satisfy him. She
could shield her vagina from him to some extent, for instance by
pressing her legs together tightly. Her animal self was ready for sex
even if she wasn't, and the instincts ruled her a little more at night,
and he noted she often slept with her legs spread wide apart. On one
occasion he woke up when she was deeply asleep, and in his half sleep
he started pressing in. His glans felt the warm flesh of her labial
areas. He just couldn't resist pushing in a little more. When it made
contact with the hot wetness at the mouth of her vagina, his instinct
took over and he plunged hard all the way into her, and in his
excitement he ejaculated inside her within seconds. She struggled out
of her deep sleep. Her vagina hurt and she was very angry at him. He
had taken her virginity by rape. Yet there wasn't much she could do;
she couldn't send him to jail or ask for a divorce, and she knew she
would have wanted starting having sex soon anyway. She consented to sex
again when she was less sore, and then again, and like most girls in
puberty, she began to like it. A lot. When his penis was all the way
inside her, a part of his leg was positioned just right to rub her
clitoris if he chose, and they quickly learned an arrangement where
they both had orgasms. And so the two of them discovered the joys of
sex. With adolescent hormones raging, they could both eagerly look
forward to sex every morning and every evening -- at least.
There
is the potential for conflict in all marriages. Much of the potential
was reduced in Chrissy's world. She had no reason to accuse him of not
coming home at the time agreed, of spending money unwisely, of failing
to do his chores. She cared far more about where to live, where to
work, and what to eat than he did. She certainly had the last and only
say on the wallpaper and curtains. He could not complain about her
cooking. He could have felt she talked too much, but he didn't have any
competing priorities and was happy for the involvement in the world
outside his home on Chrissy's pelvis.
There were some areas of
conflict. He might not like her music or her friends or the sort of
bouncing motion inherent in whatever physical motion she was doing, but
he usually relented.
There was only one area of life in which he was master.
He
woke when it was still dark, though he estimated it to be near dawn.
His penis rested lightly against Chrissy's labia. He moved his leg ever
so gently so as not to wake her, penis and labia rubbed together, and
his penis lengthened. Yes, he would like to use that length. He made
sure to include Chrissy's clitoral area in his strokes to get some
lubrication going. Her slit began moistening, and soon he could slide
his tip smoothly into her vaginal opening. He was fully hard now, and
he pressed in, Chrissy's tissues parting to admit him. He began his
slow in and out motion, reveling in the pleasure. Chrissy was trying
not to wake up, but with a sigh that betrayed some irritation she did.
He started thrusting fast and furious and stretched deep inside her as
he ejaculated up inside her. It felt so good! He might have gone on
longer, but he had been quick in deference to Chrissy, hoping she could
now go back to sleep. She reached down to pat his head and he drifted
back to pleasant dreams. He hoped she would go back to sleep, but he
didn't stay awake long enough to find out.
He came to
consciousness aware that Chrissy was moving. From the sound of it she
was heading to the toilet as she usually did first thing in the
morning. He felt her hand on his penis and the usual urinary pressure
on his sphincter. He let go and felt the warm urine coursing down his
penis and heard it plunge into the toilet bowl. She was now headed to
the shower. "Good morning," she said. He tugged gently on a tendon with
his left arm in acknowledgment and greeting. He heard the water running
before she stepped into the shower. Warm water cascaded down her front
and over his head and body. She soaped and rinsed him, and he tugged
rapidly a couple times to signal his pleasure. She then lathered his
penis and scrotum and washed them before washing herself, humming a
pleasant tune. After she dried both of them off he heard the rustle of
clothing as she dressed, then her footsteps going down the hall and the
preparation of breakfast and coffee. Before long he felt the
invigorating effects of the caffeine. Going to work was the next order
of business. "It's really cold out today, so I'm going to put on long
underwear, OK?" He didn't really like to feel all cooped up inside
underwear, but on the other hand it could get very cold out. He
assented with a single gentle tug. It was chilly out, and he felt the
chill of the cold car seat through the underwear before his and her
body heat warmed it. On the way she had the radio on, and he tugged
very lightly with his right arm in time with the music to show his
approval.
Their usual pattern was to have some mutually
satisfying sex not long after she got to the office, but today there
was an email indicating a minor emergency which required her immediate
attention. He did give his long-short-long tug pattern to remind her to
take off the underwear, which she did. Now his skin could breathe again
freely and he could hear better. She did her part in solving the
immediate work problem, but as often happened in an emergency one task
led to another and then another. He tugged several times to indicate
his impatience for sex, and she could feel his erection. "OK," she said
with a little exasperation. "You can do me now. But don't distract me
so much, OK?" He very much wanted her involved, and took his time
massaging her clitoris, then surged up inside her vagina, now
especially wet and hot from her excitement, and made sure to give her
maximum stimulation as he glided in and out. She was typing in two IM
windows, but her concentration faltered and she typed more slowly,
losing her train of thought. The phone rang, and it was her boss. "Hi
Ruth. ... Yes, ... I think so ..." She pressed her legs together as a
signal for him to take a rest, but he didn't. Sex was his decision, so
he tugged on her tendon hard enough to tell her he was going to get his
way. "... could you say that again? ... mmmm ... just a moment ... Can
I call you right back?" As she hung up, she went "Mmmmmmmm, Aaaaaaahhh,
OOO!" as her orgasm overtook her. She felt a flurry of strong thrusts
as her husband fucked her hard and deep before coming himself,
something she could detect by the pulsing she felt from his member and
the vibration pattern of his left arm. She called Ruth back as soon as
she could think straight. "So sorry. So could you describe that once
more? Well, um, yes, I couldn't put him off any more." She did not
report to her husband Ruth's advice about being more firm with him; her
suggestions would backfire with the particular man welded to her
pelvis. "OK, sorry once again" and she hung up. "That was not very good
timing!" she said. He gave a moderately hard tug with his left arm,
which could be interpreted roughly as "Tough!"
She got up to get
coffee, chat a little, then head to the toilets. He was of course
dangling over the toilet bowl as she had her bowel movement. He heard
the plop. Chrissy would have been grossed out to be have her head that
close to the toilet bowl, but he was used to it, and couldn't for
instance smell anything unpleasant as he couldn't smell anything at all.
At
lunch Linda was going on at some length about the troubles at home with
her mother. They had heard this basic story many times before. He gave
a slow sinuous tug with his right arm to say roughly "Boring!" Chrissy
gave a similar sinuous press on his head down between her legs to
indicate that she agreed.
To relieve the boredom he started
stroking his penis along her labial crack. She gave him a rap on the
head to indicate her displeasure. He gave a sharp tug back to show that
he was in charge here, and continued to stroke, then gradually slid
into her, reveling in the pleasurable sensations her vagina gave him.
He began thrusting with deliberate slapping sounds so the other women
at the table could hear. For a while they chose to ignore the sounds,
then they smiled but didn't say anything. Chrissy clenched her hands
and rolled her eyes to indicate her exasperation. Chrissy's husband did
seem to want sex an awful lot of the time. She tried to go back to
following the conversation. Her husband knew the other women could
hear, and the women knew that too. It was Linda who finally said, "What
the heck, Chrissy. Why not enjoy it!" and all the women laughed. Then
one of the other women rolled her eyes. Her husband figured he would
take advantage of the amorous pause being given on Chrissy's behalf.
She and Chrissy both hitched their skirts up, under the table, and each
used her fingers to enhance the pleasure she was getting from her
husband's thrusts. Chrissy stroked her husband's testicles, which had
now risen in their sac in preparation for his climax. Her face took on
an air of concentration and she said "Oohh!" as she came, her husband
coming too with a noisy bunch of final strokes. A couple of the women
clapped their hands a few time in mock amusement, and the conversation
resumed. The other woman's husband apparently came quickly without
waiting for her, as her hand reappeared on the table and she resumed
her composure.
"Not in the car!" ... "Well, OK, but can you
leave my clitoris alone? I'm trying to concentrate on driving" So
Chrissy's husband penetrated without much preparation. It chafed at
first, but then as his penis dipped within there was semen and vaginal
fluid from earlier in the day to spread back over her labia on the
backstroke. He thrust into her pretty hard and deep before another
orgasm gripped him. Chrissy was able to keep driving, though she slowed
down a little.
The tension between husband an wife eased a bit.
Her husband had considerately done it in such a way so as not to
distract her. When they got into bed that night they started the real
lovemaking of the day. She caressed all over him, while he used the tip
of his penis to rub her clitoris in the way he knew she liked best.
Before too long she was ready to take him inside her, and they
continued with a dance of thrusting slow and fast, her squeezing with
vagina but also hands, and finally they both came with deep shuddering
orgasms. He fell asleep first, which she sensed from a profound
relaxing of his grip on her tendons.
She thought back to the day
of his birth and their wedding, remembering how his penetration of her
groin had hurt so much, how she had felt invaded. But ultimately it was
what she needed to be a full woman, of course. She had felt so
protective of him when he was a baby, less so as he grew. Now he had
pretty good taste in music and literature and friends, and even when
they disagreed his views were interesting and she respected them. He
could be a little uppity, and he was a sex maniac, but he was basically
good company and a good lover when she wanted one.
This weekend she would talk to him and see if she could get him to agree that it was time to have a baby together.