The Good Consort*
“We were lovers once, living almost as man and wife, happier than most wives and men.” Ian McEwan (1978)
We love each other, but there are cultural differences. One mate always cares more than the other, and I was given the short end of the stick. She distanced herself from me soon after I fired my English tutor. Having mastered comprehension, I felt more than adequate as a partner. Trying to train my glottis to enunciate properly was a lost cause, a deficiency that led her to obsess on my animal nature. We reverted to sign language, but most of the time she ignored me or screamed that I had misrepresented myself from the start.
Though I received excellent socialization in the lab, pleasing her has required continual compromise. I am her junior by ten years, but any Primatologist will tell you that human behavior is the most flexible among the hominoids.
We were never equals. Her needs always dominated--she, the Research Associate, I, the experimental Subject. Even after she was fired from the university for ethical violations, her self-esteem never wavered. Though I am naturally promiscuous, her calculated defense of our relationship kept her the singular object of my desire. But I have been shunned since I began to assert myself. Our sexual positions disgusted me, and I felt greater intimacy when sleeping in a nest of blankets beside her bed. Cuddling only accentuated our physical differences. Recently I have become the target of her verbal abuse, and she is especially cruel in restaurants when I tear meat with my teeth. Who cares if she is brighter and uses a knife? We are so closely related that differences are not easily multiplied.
Last Tuesday she boasted that she has applied for an online program in Gender Studies. A Ph.D. will allow her to study the causes and consequences of trans-species lust. Science always has been in her blood, and, with or without me, she deserves to be happy.
*Originally published in 34th Parallel (Fr), 2016
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