# Soul-Whore

Zyn met her in a dance club, as she sashayed under slowly pulsing lasers. He matched her pace, drop-swaying with each sidelong flick of her jet black hair. He closed his eyes and let her rhythm guide his steps, finding he liked the gentler flavor it gave the music. It brought the deeper thrums closer to his attention, gave them a resonance in his chest that tilted his head back into the strobe lights. When he opened his eyes later he saw her watching him with sad, half-lidded eyes.

Her name was Lyra. They spoke in the back area, he bought her a drink, and they danced together. She draped the music over herself as she danced. They lost themselves for hours and as he floated on lasers and bass he knew this night would pay for itself. Nothing that would go viral, but a perfect low-key night that always got a smattering of downloads.

When they went back to her place she held onto him tightly when he took her to bed, like she was afraid to hope but couldn’t help herself. He took his time, starting gentle and progressing to firmer and faster as she wrapped around him and rose to meet him with little gasps. By the time they were done the sadness in her eyes had been driven out, replaced by a surprised wonderment.

“What was that?” she asked, almost confused. He smiled at her.

“Let me stay the night?” he asked in return.

* * *

She lived in a woodshop with two other artists, mattresses on the floor at one end in rough cubicles they’d constructed themselves. They created art, large installations made of wood and wire and various stains, making enough to live off of in their guerilla apartment. In the morning as he cooked her breakfast on their propane stove, he pitched the idea.

“The memories come with prosopagnosia by default,” he explained, “that’s the fancy term for face-blindness. No one can recognize you. But they sell much better if that’s turned off. People like to see faces. All you gotta do is say it’s alright with you.”

“And you’re only selling the memories of us in the dance club?”

“Yeah. I’ll cut you in for ten percent.”

“So you’re really a soul-wh…” she caught herself, “an experience-worker?”

“We create beautiful moments. We carve them from reality and bring them to everyone. Used to be only the rich and healthy got to enjoy most transcendent experiences. Now everyone can.” He slid the eggs onto a plate. “Qualia recording is the best thing ever,” he said, without a doubt. He caught her gaze as he brought her the eggs and smiled at her. “And I want to take you to Portugal.”

“Why?”

“Because you’re amazing.”

She *was* amazing. She glowed in his eyes. Three years his elder and determined to carve god from the wood they dragged in from cast-offs and beaches. And succeeding. Living off her art! She’d never compromised, never spent a decade selling away her life an hour at a time in a beige cubicle in a beige office. Create art or die, and she hadn’t died yet.

They spent the entire day in her woodshop, comparing their earlier lives and recent adventures. She’d just returned from a two month gig creating a huge custom piece for some millionaire’s daughter’s birthday party. It paid more than half her yearly expenses, and was seen by a few hundred people. He fell a bit deeper in love with every passing hour. Zyn stayed a second night despite himself, and left the next morning to return home, two hours away by train. He upload the qualia recording and arranged his life.

Four days later they boarded a train to Portugal.

* * *

They stayed at a yoga retreat deep in the mountains, which Zyn’s friend worked at during the tourism months. Zyn got a room at a massive discount as it was not yoga season. It only 80% bankrupted him.

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The first day they explored the grounds, met the local dogs, and fucked like bunnies.

The second day they found an old fort, and explored its vegetation-choked rooms and crumbling tower. In a room with half its roof missing he laid her down in the sun and went down on her. After the sun had shifted he pulled himself up into her, her eyes growing wide as he entered her without protection for the first time. They consummated on wood boards older than his home country.

He stroked her hair as they lay together after, watching birds flit overhead.

The third day they took acid and wandered into the forest. They found a hidden waterfall nestled in a shadow-wrapped crevice. The mist chilled them, and they worked their way back to the land of sunshine hand-in-trembling-hand. They returned to his room and made hot chocolate and watched the moon rise.

“Lyra, this is the best week of my life. We can’t hide beauty like this. You don’t lock it behind bars or in a single mind. Let me share us with the world.”

“What would you share?”

“All of it. Every time I touch you, every time you look at me. Every minute here. These moments will burn bright for all time.”

“If it’s important to you…” she took his hand, “then it’s important to me.”

“Yes?”

“Yes.”

The fourth day they shared their favorite music, and she sat him down to watch several episodes of her favorite animated show from her childhood. He found vague memories of it in his own past, wondering at the random sparks of memories it struck. They surrounded the bed with candles she’d found in a basement, and as they made love that night her gaze never pulled from his. She drank him in with sparkling eyes, her lids fluttering between half-closed and spread wide, breathing his name.

The fifth day they compared secret fears and dreams, cleaned up after themselves, and took the long train ride back home. He showered at the woodshop and stayed one last night in her bed.

* * *

Their recording did well. In monetary terms it did as well as the sculpture Lyra had created for her millionaire. But it had been so much more beautiful than any sculpture. It could be felt by so many. Zyn had never adored someone as deeply as her, never felt such searing passion. It was a love they wrote poems about. It was a poem anyone could live in, due to his recording. He’d never made a connection that strong with anyone, it was the most emotionally intense week of his life.

Lyra pounded on his door, screaming his name from the hall. He groaned and pulled on pants. She hadn’t been able to move on. Pounding continued without abating as he stumbled across his dingy apartment at four o’clock. He yanked the door open and peered up into the face of unrepentant addict.

“Lyra, Jesus, you’ve got to move on,” he said. Her hand whipped out to slap him across the face.

“You don’t even reply to my texts anymore!” she yelled, “you said we would text, and dance, you said it wasn’t over!”

The problem was that whatever he gave her, it was never enough. Her texts grew increasingly unhinged as she didn’t get to take over his life.

“It wouldn’t be over if you had any sense of moderation. I am not your property.”

He had told her that every sunset ends, every rainbow fades. Life is a cycle. He would love her forever, and they could still dance together when they were at the same club, still see each other at the same parties. He would have even been happy to go on holiday with her again every year or two, “reunion experiences” often sold well. But to keep hitting those same notes with the same person, over and over… it was chasing the dragon. It was desperately clinging to a high that wouldn’t return. It was downright pathetic.

Crucially, it was artistically offensive. Zyn wasn’t here to ease into lukewarm comfort-slop. His art was to live the most intense experiences, and share them with the world. To plunge headfirst into searing raw emotion and burn with it for all to feel. Any less was cheating his audience. Any less was cheapening his own life.

“You fucking whore!” Lyra spat. “You tore out my heart and fed it to incels and pedophiles!”

“You should go,” he told her, as he pulled back. “If you’re still here in five minutes I’m calling the police.”

Zyn closed the door, nerves on edge as Lyra screeched in rage in the hall. He’d been warned of this. Some people simply wouldn’t accept a withdrawal of consent once they’d tasted something they wanted. It wasn’t enough that they’d experienced this wonder for a while. It didn’t matter that the alternative was to have never experienced such a thing at all. They had created a flowering of some of the greatest emotions humans could share, made a perfect moment and caught it in perfect crystal stasis to shine for all, forever. And instead of basking in the wonder of being one of the few who could have this in her life, she turned it into this.

The greatest tragedy of all, he thought as the door shook under her blows, was that she wasn’t wired for qualia-recording. A rage this hot and pure would blaze across the internet for months. She could be a legend in her own right, bringing a depth of intensity that would tear the breath out of casuals and critics alike. She could be a peer in the industry, a rocketing star.

Instead she wasted it all against a wood door that felt nothing at all.