There exist several characters that weave throughout my practice, I imagine they are kind of like the multiple John Malkovich’s, in the film of the same name, myself again and again; in drag, pregnant with sexuality, fornicating within internal abscesses, a reverse birth canal of abject arseholes.

My main character the Detective; explores my fantasies of masculinity and of coming to terms with my own femininity. The only ‘male’ in the story, although his lack is substituted with a bulging cock-sock lest his true gender be displayed, and his apparent masculinity called into question. Girls swoon in his presence, he only has to adjust the curve of wadded material and they moisten in anticipation. He is the super stud of my pubescent dreams, with the swagger that I always wanted to possess. In a family unit of misogynistic males, the role of the subordinate female was not within the grasp of my desire. I wanted to be the pandered male. I only understood sex as a projection of male desire. I began to develop a kind of simulated hermaphroditism, where I could be at once both male and female, existing in a constant state of in-between. I did not feel as if I was born into the wrong gender per se, nor did I feel I wanted to become a boy. I was a girl, but the freedom of masculinity and its ideals seemed to appeal to me more than what I perceived as femaleness. As puberty encroached, and I [b]loomed toward womanhood, the balance began to shift as my interaction with the world as a ‘female desired by men’ took on shape. I no longer held the masculine gaze, I was in the male gaze, where men do the looking and women are looked at. Images to be consumed. The make-believe characters within my hyperbolic narrative explore this journey, trying to order and make sense of what is it is to be fe-male, or anything in-between.

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CASE FILE #484

My initial findings:

Entry System:

The Enchanted Forest is a very exclusive club, almost mythical. No one knows of anyone firsthand, who has actually been inside, only friends-of-friends stories passed on like a chain of Chinese whispers. The location of the club is kept a closely guarded secret, invitation only. Invitation comes through a form most strange, they say you mysteriously find a golden object, sort of like a key, but more for human doors than wooden…what ever that means. I am not sure how this object comes in to your possession, some people say it comes from within, and the pain is in the passing.

Once you have come in to possession of this ‘key’, they say you are then constantly on the lookout for the possible apertures that it could open. This apparently could take years; there are no clues as to its whereabouts, some people forever searching for the entrance to this mythical world, I wonder how many of them actually find it.  Once you have found this entrance -much introspection is required for this apparently, whether that gets me any closer to where this entrance may lie, I am still unsure – you then have to go through an initiation process of sorts in order to be granted full entry, upon which a beautiful golden hostess greets you, and leads you into a gilded antechamber where I am told she slowly, seductively begins to dance for you. This sexualised ritual culminates with the smooth flesh of her bottom being exposed. I am told that her flesh has a most unusual pallor, a glistening golden colour, most unlike any other flesh one has ever encountered, the perfect puckered ‘o’ of her arsehole greets your eye, dilating, it opens up to reveal a blinding golden light that penetrates your vision, through the light you catch a glimpse of what you presume to be the Enchanted Forest, and this vision leaves you wanting more. This is when I am told one begins to find that there is no turning back, you will do whatever it takes to enter in to that luscious golden hole.

This, so far, is all my preliminary investigations have uncovered. The proprietor of the Enchanted Forest wishes to meet with me tomorrow, where I hope, all will become clear.  Although, I am still left bewildered about how I will find the entrance, as yet I have had no key.

….notes missing…

CASE FILE #484

I have been working on this case for a month now. It’s been an entire month since I first set foot into The Enchanted Forest, a whole month since I first laid my eyes upon the devastated body of The Golden Girl.  Her face, even in death, a testament to her idolized beauty, her projected innocence. I remember the moment when I first leaned down to examine her gold clad body, sniffing the air I could smell the faint whiff of her gold scented blood as it caught in my throat, crawling over my tongue, I rolled the scent, the liquid essence of it around my mouth for as long as I could hold it there, savouring its unique flavour.  I was overcome with a desire to consume her, my every pore wanting to drink her up. It took all my power not to descend upon my knees and begin lapping up the patina of golden blood that had billowed out of her skull. Her skin shone like marble, illuminated in the brilliance of her crystalline bodily fluid. I steadied myself and regained my professionalism. Never, in all of my 20 odd years of detective work have I been so deeply penetrated by a case as this one. I am not sure if it was her demonstrable beauty, or the exclusive strangeness of the world she inhabited that turned my own upside down. I haven’t been the same person since. The first day I saw her body I lost my voice, a month has passed and I haven’t been able to utter a single world since. My throat seems to have seized up in horror at the utter nihilism of such a death. The Evil Queen, the owner of The Enchanted Forest has kindly arranged for me to have an interpretative voice in the form of one of her club singers. I write down my thoughts for her, and she sings them for all to hear. At first it seemed like a strange way for me to communicate, the process rather slow, everything has to be first synthesised through the written word and then through the voice of another. If I have an errant, wild thought half way through her sentence I cannot interject so easily, it takes time to commit the thought to paper before I present it into her scopic field. Often I get frustrated and flail hopelessly, trying to use my body as a way to communicate my thoughts that at the time seem so urgent.  Now, it would seem strange to be without this other voice, as if she belonged to me all along. I have almost forgotten what my own voice sounds like, its rhythms and idiosyncrasies now a foreign substance to my own ear.

My time spent trying to solve the case of The Golden Girl within the confines of The Enchanted Forest has been wrought with strange tales. The interiority of The Enchanted Forest is like no other I have ever experienced. As soon as I entered the Forest I was reminded of Lucy’s explorations within ‘The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe’.[1] This fleeting memory made something stir within me, a sharp nip in the side, as if I was supposed to remember this thought, its significance eluding me at the time, but I had the feeling its importance would emerge as time progressed. Indeed as time went on many images from my childhood surfaced, lying like flotsam in the annals of my mind until their re-emergence was warranted. Their presence helped partially to piece together the mystery of The Enchanted Forest, although I had a haunting feeling that it could never be fully resolved, and this case, for me, would never be over. What would I become I often pondered, would The Enchanted Forest in all its devastating power consume me, enveloping myself within its fleshy insides, only to spit me out again when it has tired of my taste? The only way to proceed is forward, so onward I progress, further into the forest, trying to solve the demise of the beautiful Golden Girl.

….notes missing…

CASE FILE #484

There seems to exist a strange system of relation within the Enchanted Forest, like the set of Russian Dolls I had as a child, the inhabitants of the Forest encompass one another. There seems to be no separation here, each one inextricably linked to the other, I am unsure where one ends and the other begins, I have found this same relationship developing between myself and my Songstress (the singer that the Evil Queen appointed to me on losing my voice). There is an unusual amalgamation that seems to occur. I cannot explain it, I am afraid that further rumination on this is required.

So far I have come across only seven characters that reside within the boundaries of the Enchanted Forest:

The Songstress – my voice/club singer
The Evil Queen – club proprietor (indeterminate gender)
The Golden Girl – hostess. Deceased
Little Red – club performer
Little Blue – club performer
GoGo – club performer
Fancymouth – club performer

The source of sustenance in the Enchanted Forest is rather strange – bringing back memories from my sisters’ tea parties, and my own boyish desire – they eat only French Fancy cakes. They are exquisite little things. Pink, soft and delicate, perfectly formed squares of iced sponge. Although their methods of making them, disturb me somewhat; like a production line, there are various points the cakes have to visit in order to take form, these exist between Little Red, GoGo and Fancymouth. It begins with Fancymouth, a rather frightening creature who resides in the depths of GoGo’s anal passage, from within that dark hole, she starts off the process: ingesting and then regurgitating the mixture out of her mouth and then spitting it into GoGo’s exit point, who is quietly laying strips of molten sugar onto her supple legs, pulling off the hairs and ingesting the finished objects in order to contribute to the productive cake lineage, she then excretes these concoctions and subsequently, as she also resides in an anal cavity of her own, namely Little Red’s;  the mixture then falls out of Little Red’s hole as a perfectly formed French Fancy.  There is something about Little Red’s rectum that is most fascinating, and almost feels as if it is deceiving me, I wish to find out the process that occurs within this dark passage, the process that permits the cake to turn from a formless entity in to a formed beauty.

[1] CS Lewis. The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.

Image credits: Image 1 (top), Alice in Arseland, 2009, (Papier mache, sequins, ribbon, gold foil curtain, cardboard, icing sugar), Prefix-poly.  Image 2, Cream Queen, 2009, (Film still) Prefix-poly  Image 3 – 5.  The Enchanted forest’, 2009, Installation shot, video piece, Prefix-poly.  Image 6, The Enchanted forest, 2009, video still, Prefix-poly.  Image 7 – 8, Gogo, 2009, Sculpture (Plaster, fabric, video viewed through aperture of anus), Prefix-poly.