Joanna Kavenna - The Birth of Love

Once again on behalf of the Protectors we must explain that such digressions are not required. Now tell us clearly, who is Birgitta?

In Darwin C she worked in the Sexual Release Centre. She was fucked twenty times a day. Twenty-five-minute sessions, five minutes to wash herself between each person, ten-hour days. A rest day every week. One hundred and twenty fucks a week. No one must see her more than ten times consecutively, lest an attachment develop. She had been working there all her adult life. Her routine was very precise.

Why are you using these base terms, Prisoner 730004?

I was not aware they were offensive to anyone. This is what she did.

We are aware of the procedure at the Sexual Release Centres and how some individuals are allocated roles in this aspect of the struggle for the survival of the human species. We do not require your explanation, unscientific and deliberately emotive as it is.

When we took her away and gradually as she opened up and told us about her work, it became apparent that she was subjected to what — in the old days — might have been called horrible degradation and assaults. That anything was permitted, so long as the client felt sexually relieved by the end. That she was often torn and beaten. That she was not permitted to set any limits at all, because everything was justified as necessary for the survival of the species. For the heightening of morale through sexual release. An important role to be allocated, I believe.

These are lies. The workers at the Sexual Release Centre find their work fulfilling. This has been extensively proven and calibrated. They are aware that the sexual instinct is a basic human urge, and that if it is not required for procreative purposes then it must be fulfilled somehow, and the Protectors in their generosity understand this. The suppliers of sexual release are performing a useful function in our battle against species extinction, as they know. This enriches their work.

I am sure you are right. Perhaps Birgitta secretly enjoyed being ritually raped and abused …

Correction, deployed in the battle against species extinction.

… Perhaps she felt that way she supplied more sexual release than in other ways. Perhaps she felt that way she could best serve the Protectors. Anyway that’s all I know about Birgitta before we escaped together. That she was raped many times a day.

Correction, supplied sexual release.

We do not know which of the rapists …

Correction, seekers after sexual release.

… impregnated her.

Prisoner 730004, it is unfortunate that your delusions have proved so resistant to treatment.

You will not find the drugs to rid me of this conviction.

What is Birgitta’s real name?

I do not know.

You are aware however that Birgitta is not her real name?

Yes.

But you do not know her real name?

No, I do not.

Why was she given the name Birgitta?

She took it from an ancestor of hers. Her great-great-great-grandmother …

Correction, egg donor.

… was a woman called Brigid. So she became Birgitta, to us. Brigid was the earliest ancestor she knew of. Those who lived before are no longer known to us. The name of her great-great-great-grandfather, Brigid’s husband, has been lost.

Correction, sperm donor. Where was this DNA relative Brigid from?

I believe she lived in the former city of London, but that is all I know.

So how did this egg donor’s DNA relatives end up in Lofoten 4a, Arctic Circle sector 111424?

Birgitta’s great-great-grandfather, who was I believe called Calumn, went to the Arctic sector when the climate evacuation protocol was announced in London. He was one of the last to leave the city, before the borders were closed. He was an old man by that stage, and Birgitta’s mother remembered him weeping quietly as they left the house, which they knew would soon be destroyed. He had lived in the house when he was young, and had moved back in there after the death of his parents. Birgitta’s mother told us many stories of how it was to leave London — she was only a small child when they left, but she said the experience was scored across her memory …

We are not interested in these stories. Correct instances of ‘parents’, ‘great-great-grandfather’, ‘mother’, ‘child’ for the record. Once more on behalf of the Protectors we ask you to confine yourself to the facts, Prisoner 730004.

Who are the Protectors?

You are not entitled to ask questions.

I am confused and ill but now I wonder — who are the Protectors?

As we said, the nature of your position makes it entirely inappropriate for you to ask such a question.

But if I had another position?

Your meaning is unclear.

What sort of position would I need … my head … I wish I could clear my head … What position would I need before I could ask such a question?

As before, we must emphasise that the nature of your position makes it entirely inappropriate for you to ask such a question.

But I cannot understand. Why are we all here, you too? When we have passions and old desires and once we had lovers …

Correction, partners in sexual release.

… and families …

Correction, DNA relatives.

… parents …

Corrrection, sperm and egg donors.

… we loved, children …

Correction, progeny of the species.

… we loved — we were protected by our parents …

Correction, sperm and egg donors.

… and we protected our children …

Correction, progeny of the species.

… we would have died to protect our children …

Correction, progeny of the species.

… and now we are dependent for protection on — I cannot think it through, it is too clouded … These drugs make me spill out words, and some of them I do not want to say, some of them are drawn from me by your drugs, but others — these others — what is it you are so afraid of, that we must speak your language? That everything must be processed in these phrases. ‘Sperm and egg donors’. What are you afraid of? What menace do the old words hold for you? Why will you not let me use them?

Prisoner 730004, we have explained to you that you are ill and delusional and we are trying, on behalf of the Protectors, to help you, but we cannot permit you to ask questions.

I am merely wondering, though my head hurts and I think they have killed me, have they not poisoned me fatally, it feels as if something is slowly stopping my heart, but I am wondering just why we have to look for protection to these Protectors we do not know and cannot see, who do not hold us or kiss us or tell us they love us they simply offer us protection and a place in the battle and sexual release and food and drink and this is our life this is meant to be a life. Who are they?

On behalf of the Protectors, we assure you that such questions are not appropriate and will not be answered.

Cannot be answered. You do not know. I begin to think you do not know who these Protectors are you work for. You have never seen them? I think — yes, I think it must be true that even you have never seen them. Have they seen each other? Are they bodies and humans or something else? My head, I think you must have killed me. Am I dying and is this where I must die?

On behalf of the Protectors and for the protection of the species, we must advise you that unless you cease such unscientific talk we will be forced to commit you to an Institution for the Improvement of the Reason.

But I have never thought more clearly. Suddenly I see it. All this, everything you believe, it is just a gauze, a film separating you from the real forms of things, and if you could only see, like I am seeing … I am seeing something, I am not sure, but it is so beautiful … If you could only see it … You would understand … You would understand you are deluded and you have never thought clearly yourselves. And perhaps you would despise these Protectors, whoever they are. Whatever they are … You would understand that there was a time when love was the generating spirit of humanity — I believe it, though you have changed everything — that children were birthed in — through — this prevailing love. And you would perceive what is at least clear to me, that the Genetix is an atrocity because it cannot love and deprives every human born on the planet of this love …