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Helen is in her study, typing the latest plot for some mind-numbing autobiographical slop. This time, not her own. She has taken ghostwriting to pass the time. It’s been decades since they disappeared from the public eye. She also works on her own writing and publishes under different pen names.
Her heart sometimes breaks for Madeline, she has found outlets for her creativity, she has written screenplays and even founded her own production company that promotes women-led crews and leading women over fifty. It’s still not the same, she is a performer and her mind numbs.
She has befriended some immortals and they sometimes put plays up together for the rest of the group. Elvis is surprisingly a great actor, Viola never attends.
Which is why Madeline has her nose buried in a gigantic Astronomy book, she dangles her feet and twirls a blonde curl in her finger.
“Hey, Helen,” her voice singsongs. Helen stops typing. Her work for the day is done, whatever Madeline has in mind will derail her afternoon and evening plans.
“What?”
“I read that the Sun will one day explode and the Earth will end.”
“Yes.” Technically it’s more complicated than that, but Helen does not understand astrophysics and the most simplistic explanation probably makes the most sense.
“Do you think we’ll die then?” Her blue eyes look terrified. Since they took the potion they don’t think about death or at least not in the way of dying. They think a lot about being immortal, which is directly linked to being unable to die. Will they have an ending?
“You haven’t really heard any of my existential rants over the past fifty years?” Helen goes to sit next to Madeline.
“You’re always anxious.”
“You played an astronaut, didn’t you do research for the role?”
“You think I needed to do research for a movie called Dogstronaut?” Her nose scrunches in disgust. Helen smiles. It will never stop amusing her how her favorite film of Madeline produces such a gut reaction in her. “The screenwriter was twenty three, he was no Stephen King!”
“You mean Stephen Hawking?”
“Tomato tomato.”
“Yes, Mad. The Earth will cease to exist. I’m not sure about us.” She tucks her hair behind her ear, not because the blonde curls are ever out of place. It centers Helen, to reach out and remind herself that Madeline is real. She is here. She won’t disappear.
This line of thinking keeps Helen awake at night. She doesn’t like to think of eternal life.
“I’m going to Viola’s.” Madeline closes the book with a firm thud.
“No, Mad. We have bothered her enough.” The first two decades they constantly consulted Viola on different terms and regulations about the potion. She made the mistake once to invite them to her rejuvenation ball and Madeline took it as an open invitation to be close friends.
Viola tolerates them, when she is in a good mood, which proves to be quite hard to find her in. She likes that they have gotten really good at bodily repairs. It’s vulnerable, her clients come to them for advice. Viola has even stolen their airbrushing techniques and looks even more dazzling each year.
“Alright.” Madeline thinks. Helen hates it when she thinks, it means she’s getting ideas to make a plan and her plans—“I’ll call Chagall, then.”
They will undercut the rest of the week. They will find out that not even the most ancient immortals know what awaits them. Viola advises not to worry their pretty heads over it. Madeline doesn’t stop worrying about it. She has never worried about death, she feared aging out of survival in show business. Now that she no longer has to worry about her looks or belonging to such a shitty industry, she ponders about immortality.
Helen will never tell Madeline. She has asked Viola if there is a way to end it. Viola had raised an eyebrow, called her ungrateful for her gift, and strutted to the other side of the room. No immortal has been able to answer her query, either.
They lay naked, post touch-ups, post ruining the touch-ups and redoing them again, post trying not to ruin them and mainly succeeding but still ruining a couple of details.
“I don’t think it’s the universe that scares me, if we end up floating around.” Madeline runs her fingers through Helen’s hair, softly detangling the knots she formed fifteen minutes ago.
“You’ve only mentioned it thirty times in the past five days.”
“I mean it. I’m scared of being detached from my body.”
“You’re already detached from your body, Mad.” Helen touches the little line across Madeline’s neck. She laughs, then her eyes get dark. She did that. She did all of this.
Madeline anticipates it and brushes Helen’s hair away. “I’ll just really miss doing this.”
“What?” She buries her head in the crook of her neck and sucks, while placing her hand on top of her thigh, gives it a gentle squeeze. “Oh.”
She should be tired of Helen. She’s been her only sexual partner in the last decades. Instead, she craves her more and more each day. Touching her, feeling her clench around her finger, thighs squeezing around her body. It’s invigorating. Her parted lips allowing pants and moans to fall freely. The glow on her skin as if she had a layer of sweat, when in reality the heat just melted the paint. Her energy, once she worked past her own barriers, she gave herself so fully. She was hers.
They will try everything once. They have experimented plenty. New toys, kinks, positions. They establish safeguards as they go. However, sharing is a problem for both of them. On their first threesome, with another woman — for Madeline’s sake — Helen found her hands constantly at the base of the woman’s neck, the idea of erotic asphyxiation was suddenly most enticing. Madeline on the other hand kept pushing the woman aside, calling her the wrong name, mocking and imitating her sounds.
They tried again, and a couple more times. All unproductive encounters. They have also discussed the possibility of an open relationship, agreeing that if either ever feels interest in another person, they can talk about it. Neither has once thought about it.
“Won’t you?” Madeline prompts, parting Helen’s thighs. She sighs, her body caves.
“Definitely.” She kisses her, hungry— always. She separates and grabs her by the waist, signaling for her to move to straddle her thigh. “I’ll miss your body too.”
“Duh!” Madeline moves and sits on top of her. “I’m only the most stunning woman ever.”
She poses as the Venus by Boticelli, her hand delicately laying across her chest. Helen looks up and she is living art. It’s incomprehensible how Madeline is just a woman, no wonder she had been a breakout star. Helen makes a show of being annoyed, but pulls Madeline down for another kiss.
Her fingers squeeze into her back as if they could bend marble. Madeline wishes they could be immortalized as such, two statues that against every law of physics, blend together and emanate as one. The indents of her fingers on her skin will be compared to the ancient masters, but the beauty will have only been known to them.
Madeline grinds down and peppers kisses and nibbles all along Helen’s neck. Then she cups her breast and starts teasing her nipple with her thumb.
“Does this feel good, baby?” Helen’s selective mutism in bed is best combated with an ease of conversation and gentle questions.
“Yes.” Helen nods her head, her thigh adjusts and presses into Madeline. She smiles as she kisses her way down to draw her nipple between her lips and teases it with the tip of her tongue. Helen shudders. “I was scared we would lose sensation with the potion.”
“But we didn’t.” Madeline swirls and licks around the coral peak, until she hears a long exhale. She moves to the next.
“Thank God, we didn’t.” Madeline’s free hand moves to her center, parting her folds to start making lazy circles on her clit. “I would have found a way to kill Viola.”
Madeline stops and examines Helen’s expression. She doesn’t like it when she jokes about killing, general violence usually gets a pass. It’s not a trigger — she doesn’t believe in those — it’s distasteful. She knows it’s a delicate balance and though Madeline had also killed an undead Helen, she had been provoked.
Helen’s intention had been a ten year plan in the making.
“It’s a joke, Mad. I’m stable.” Madeline narrows her eyes, teasing her now. “Please continue.”
She does, she continues the movement of her hand, while sucking on her nipple once more. She teases at it, pulling, tugging. She could dedicate hours to just Helen’s breasts.
“You’d really miss those,” Helen notes, her voice low and caught in her throat. Madeline releases it with a wet pop.
“I’d miss it all. I used to love your belly button, I’m sorry it got…”
“‘S okay.” Helen’s head falls to the side. She thrusts into Madeline’s hand. She takes the encouragement to slide her finger into her. Her back arches. “Hmm… yeah, I’ll miss my body.”
“What about mine, will you miss it?” She adjusts her hand so the heel can still press to her clit with each thrust. Her fingers curl.
“Of course. I –uh, so so good— Mad.”
“What will you miss?” She drags her teeth to the side of her neck as she starts a steady rhythm. She has learned how to get exactly what she gets from Helen.
“Your calves are– just like that, yes — all those years of wearing heels really paid off.” Helen’s hands roam down, trying to search for them, but the furthest they can reach are her ass. She squeezes, Madeline rewards her with another pointed thrust.
“Hmm,” she hums. “What else?”
“Mad, Mad. Your back, the muscles are– oh— so defined.” Her hands search for the specific muscle, somewhere near her lower ribs. She digs her nails, not scared of having to repaint the scratches. That’s why touchups are a whole day event. “And — this is torture— your ass, your breasts. I want it all, I need it.”
Madeline smiles and bites her neck before picking up the pace. Helen becomes a mess of whimpers and huffs, she’s always most beautiful when she can’t articulate and blabbers. Madeline continues to prompt — what do you need, baby? Like this? Do you want to come for me? — until she’s genuinely speechless.
Her eyes shut tight, her legs wrapping and pushing Madeline into her as if she could melt into her.
Madeline might miss this the most; Helen Sharp at a loss.
She rests her forehead against her cheek as she comes down. They can take their time. That is all they have guaranteed.
“You love my freckles, you always paint them on and get upset if they smear.” She kisses Helen’s nose, moving the damp curls of red hair aside.
“It’s the rainbow sprinkles on top.” Helen is breathless, she smiles and looks into her sapphire eyes. Adoration taking over in a second. “You paint mine too.”
“It’s true, I’m equally obsessed.” She rests her forehead against Helen’s, their skin a little sticky from the heat produced and melted paint.
“If we are to end— with the universe, it’s not your body I’ll miss. I’d long for your energy. I’d search for your soul.”
Madeline rolls her eyes and shoves her with her shoulder gently.
“I hate when you get poetic after coming.”
“I’m afraid it won’t ever be enough time.” Madeline is up again, she rests her head on Helen’s shoulder.
“We have eternity.”
“Not enough.” She bites her lover’s arm. “You’re not afraid of dying, it’s easier for you, Hel.”
The truth is Helen made peace with dying long before Madeline even came into her life. Death feels like a reliable friend. She always saw death as a resource. Now, it made her spiral that she had no other option but to keep on living.
It’s easy, sometimes. On nights like this, when she has Mad in her arms. A love she never thought she’d find. Some see it as obsessive and all-consuming. Helen knows it’s radiant, brilliant, magnificent. She loves and she is loved. It brings tears to her eyes how pure it feels. If she could describe the burning and warmth she feels, it would be some astral body.
It’s hard, obviously. The petty fights, her spirals when she gets dark and numb and everything suffocates her. Madeline is patient, most times. Sometimes she knows she’s hard to love because Madeline is tired of picking up her pieces and reassuring her that she matters. She consoles her with less patience and focuses on her own activities. She never leaves. She holds on to that.
She’s known a fate worse than death. The loneliness of the mental facility and the vacant years of Madeline. Madeline on her mind. A Madeline that never materialized, no matter how hard she fought. The prayers were only met with sedatives and irritation from her doctors.
“I’m still afraid of losing you,” she punctuates with a kiss on her lips. She can’t bring herself to think of it. She still waits, for the moment when Madeline has enough of her and leaves. Gets bored of their life, and finds another woman. Someone new and shiny.
She doesn’t.
For millenia, Helen is constantly holding her breath. That one day she’ll wake up and Mad won’t be there. She is, through all their travels, moves, Ice Ages, evolutions. Madeline stays by her side. Helen learns to accept that although their futures and lives are completely unpredictable (dinosaurs made a comeback to Earth about 75 million years after humanity ceased to exist), they’re each other’s constant. Their vows never have to be repeated. They carry them with every action.
They hold on tightly through the years. They lose track of the events. Time becomes irrelevant.
All that matters to them is that every morning they wake up next to each other.
“Mad, I dreamed of the final night.” Helen buries her head in what is supposed to be Madeline’s neck. Everything has deteriorated so much, they mixed so many different technologies and materials, and the upkeep has been extremely jarring in this barren era.
“I knew we should’ve taken X-2D2 Musk’s shuttle to the neighboring galaxy!”
“We never heard back from them. I don’t think they figured out intergalactic living on time.”
There had been so many attempts —too late into what would be humanity’s last century— to slow global warming. The billionaires built bunkers, the trillionaires flew into space and never returned.
“Have you heard from Viola?”
She hasn’t thought of her in decades. She wonders if she took the bunker invite. She has heard terrible rumors about how those places became experimental facilities in the end. The billionaires couldn’t keep their employees as servants anymore. They were all on equal ground, all just needing to survive.
“No. It’s hard to navigate the land.” The Earth was volcanic now. “I don’t even understand how we have survived.”
The eternal life weighed heavily on her shoulders, or what remained of them. Helen glances at Madeline’s discombobulated body. It has stopped resembling anything human. She knows her body might slightly look better because Madeline has always been better at the touch-ups.
Madeline has persisted on covering her body with whatever materials she finds, afraid anyone outside of Helen will witness her in such a state. Helen reaches out, to peek under the gauze what remains.
“I miss makeup.” She slumps. A lot of their bodily functions stopped about a billion years ago, the tears don’t come, but Helen knows she’s crying. She wraps her tightly around the gauze, her Maddie, she deserves to be remembered for the outshining beauty she once was. Is.
The Earth is almost dead and Madeline’s light still devours her.
“You’re beautiful regardless.”
The sex ended abruptly too, the mechanical limbs and titanium joints rusted, they redefined it. Their nerve endings have died, their muscles have lost their shape. They have intimacy, nothing anyone in the history of mankind could perceive as sex, it doesn’t reach orgasms, it doesn’t become animalistic. They’ve shed that part of themselves.
Madeline feared when it stopped, Helen would figure a way to fly them to a Black Hole, learn a new theorem that solved the key to finalize their immortality. She’s here. Reassuring her that whatever she has turned to, a lump of dermis and prosthetics, is beautiful. In Helen’s eyes, she’ll always be the Madeline Ashton.
“The final night?”
“It’ll be a blast.”
“It will be, Helly! I will make sure we have the best last night on Earth!”
“No, Mad. A literal explosion.” Madeline disappears. Helen gives her space. She knows Madeline has wished for Death more recently too. She fears it, but she could welcome it. There’s so little to be done and when there was no one outside of Helen to adore her, something shifted. Madeline tried to fill it with different ways to make herself the center. She tried contacting Aliens and broadcasted performances into space so she could be “discovered” by some intergalactic beings.
It breaks Helen’s heart to see her so lost, somehow still not giving up to be irrelevant even though their whole existence now seems null of meaning.
She comes back with a steel rope.
“What are you doing?” Helen observes as Madeline ties it around her wrist and Helen’s.
“You swore eternity. I’m not getting blasted into a different galaxy without you.” It’s her turn to slump, her sobs now sound like laughter. Madeline settles in her exposed sternum, her hand toys with the edges of her hole.
She doesn’t have the heart to explain that when their bodies disintegrate, so will the rope.
Of course they cannot predict when the final night happens. They could have seen the signs coming but neither are particularly versed in Astrophysics.
The absorption of the Earth into the Sun wasn’t painful. The wonders of the potion, they couldn’t feel pain, but pleasure was always at their fingertips. It’s quite the sight.
The colors that burst are positively the second most beautiful thing Madeline has ever witnessed, for she has witnessed Helen Sharp undone in her post-potion prime.
The pull she feels next is bigger than anything she’s ever felt. She could compare it to the first time she took Xanax, her body completely surrendered and everything felt light and in control. She had chased that first high for years, in bodies, bottles, and every other synthetic drug. This, however, this is better. It’s a release she has never experienced, acid and multiple orgasms and overstimulation and burning. She hasn’t felt anything in ages, has not felt this alive. This. The first sip of the potion, her fatal fall down the stairs, the first time touching Helen.
Helen.
She sees novas, moons falling into orbit, gas giants, waste. All the documentaries can’t compare to the absolute beauty that veils her eyes.
Eyes?
Human life is so little, why had she ever worried about aging? The most beautiful phenomena are the eldest in the universe.
She looks around. She would love to share her thoughts with Helen. She needs to find her.
How?
They had held hands tightly, the rope attached securely. They separated almost immediately.
She doesn’t have a body, she’s not even sure how she sees or feels. She is. In spite of it all.
It’s a shame none of the immortals ever became obsessed with Science, perhaps they would’ve found a way to flee, intact. Find a parallel universe to inhabit a second Earth. Planet Madeline would have made a great name.
She can’t grasp control over her new form. She floats for light years, past black holes and systems. Is she star dust? She better at least be a star.
She finds others floating, indescribable beings. She doesn’t understand them. They don’t perceive her. The universe is infinite and she begins to wonder if she will ever find Helen.
Helen must be distraught, she never wanted any of this. She pictures her alone in some void in the vastness of the darkness. She needs to find her, she promised.
Even as her concept of time warps and blends, she finds strength in herself to learn to navigate this new body. She will be the most magnificent astral body the universe has seen.
She tries to memorize the paths, seeks her light, that’s what they had said. Her light. She bumps into something, a gravitational pot hole, she tries to get out of it, but she falls into orbit. It feels familiar, she’s been in this place. The faint scent of rain with musk and white floral notes, the pit of her stomach sinking due to excitement, the comfort of the arms around her. This is her lover. She beams.
Hel?
Mad!
She wants to cry, hold her, kiss her. How is she supposed to do any of that when she doesn’t have a body? She tries. Allows the gravity to pull her as close to whatever Helen is now. She should’ve recognized her. She burns as brightly as she imagined she would.
We’re not human.
To be fair we stopped being human a while ago.
How are we communicating?
I don’t know.
She knows others couldn’t communicate with her when they had seen her pass by. She had also tried reaching out, no one had replied. She wonders if Helen had also spent all that time frantically searching for her or she resigned herself to a lonely existence.
I looked for you everywhere. I was so scared I would never find you.
She snuggles closer, the fabric of space bending to accommodate her next to Helen. It feels odd, to be a celestial body, or a piece of consciousness that floats freely.
We promised each to find each other’s light, forever. What do you think I spent all this time doing?
Damn her. She could cry. She had carried on for her. She had been so sure Helen was somewhere in a corner of the universe trying to put an end to it all. Madeline wants to squeeze her, she leans — somehow -- against Helen.
I miss your body.
Madeline has imagined their reencounter for centuries, a kiss that would put any Hollywood romcom to shame. She can’t do anything, except contemplate Helen's current amorphous state.
One second
Meteors, and star dust close in on her. She witnesses as Helen’s outline is built with surrounding astral matter. Until, she recognizes the curves she had spent millenia devoting herself to, the lines of her clavicle, the roundness of her hips.
How’s this?
Helen can’t twirl, so instead the stars and planets she’s pulled to create her outline twinkle.
How did you do that? Let me try
Madeline huffs and puffs as Helen watches her struggle to gather materials to make her own outline. She sinks deep into the void and realizes that she can just allow all of weight to sink down and pull matter around her.
She realizes there’s no mirrors, she thinks she remembers most of her body. In reality, she could’ve reconstructed Helen’s out of memory. She had repaired that body more than hers.
As good as new?
She asks Helen.
You’re missing one of my favorite details, your shoulder mole—
Beauty mark—
Mole—
Beauty mark.
Helen swipes and places gathered matter where the mole used to be. This small action pierces through her and she finds herself slumping, shooting meteors all around.
Mad, are you crying?
I thought I had lost you forever.
You’re stuck with me
Helen caresses her. It’s soothing, though unexplainable.
You touched me. Which means I can touch you.
Do you feel that?
Yes, it doesn’t feel as good.
Damn the stupid bodiless essences they were now. They probably won’t have sex in this form either.
She looks back at Helen and she is her universe, finally. Madeline is content, through their last million years on earth they had looked so foreign, so disheveled. This might not be the favorite body Helen will inhabit, she can’t deny her beauty. She can learn how to accept this.
Madeline curls into Helen.
I’m so tired, that took so much energy.
We can rest, Mad. For however long we need.
Can we build an Apollo constellation tomorrow?
Helen smiles. How could she forget her favorite Saint Bernard?
We have eternity.
The universe will also end one day. In trillions and trillions of years. Eons, eras. The fabric of science will extinguish and everything that will be left will be the incomprehensible mystery of life. Until it’s nothing. Eternal life and void will be articulated as synonyms.
Their consciousness drifts after the first trillion years. Thoughts, memories, they become unknown. The communication devolves into shining lights.
They embrace, their gravities settle and moving the stars, galaxies and dark matter becomes a harder task. They allow themselves to just be, as one.
They become a supercluster of galaxies: the Sleeping Women. It gives the appearance of two women, laying next to each other, holding tight. One red, one blue, a river of purple in their clashing mega gravitational bodies. Red stars are usually older, but they are oddly the same age as the blue ones. It will never be explained why the blue stars shimmer brighter when they remember this fact.
The only galaxy that creates life in that supercluster is what appears to be the mole of the left shoulder of the woman on the right.
After ages, the universe expands and expands, all lights dim and nothing remains. Every molecule, particle, atom, electron separate and vanish. Except, two quarks; one red, one blue that refuse to let go, they collapse over and over each other. A vicious cycle, that creates energy to spark—
A new universe.
Or maybe it will all be the same, unchanged, bound forever.