Black pixelated void between channels and then he falls into place block by block: distorted pan and scan stretched to the brink across widescreen. His edges jangled, non-Euclidian anyways. He chews his tongue, fingers distended curls.

Gavin Rossdale is very thin, his cheeks sucked in like they’re creeping up into his sinuses. His mouth is moving but the audio comes in broken jags, taking its sweet time to fall from the satellites. “- have been really different between Gwen and I, since her, uh, transformation.”

Oprah leans forward, hologram eyes unblinking and dilated like a ravenous bird of prey watching for movement below. “She was one of the first women to change, tell us a little bit more about that.”

He rubs at red nostrils that makeup can’t cover, scratches at the back of his neck for a long time. He takes so long that the camera switches back to Oprah’s smug features for a half-minute of dead air. “I’m uh. It’s taken a bit of time to adjust, but things are getting back to normal. Kingston’s starting to get used to mommy’s new, uh, look.”

Cut to a glam shot of a green mass of sinew and gaping maws modeling the year’s hottest garland of diamond-encrusted veils (undulating but still concealing Gwen’s more immodest maws.) Brief moment of disorientation and I shiver in my leather harness. Sticky warmth against my testicles as my wife’s tentacle stirs to give a lustful tug.

Oprah’s face flickers as the hologram’s processor struggles to interpret what passes for emotion from the Great Beast that Was Once Oprah and weakly renders a noncommittal half-smile. “Gwen was also the first of us to show the world her true form, to really embrace her new shape and show that you can be an unfathomable, monstrous being but still retain sexual agency in a male-dominated world. She’s done a lot to blaze new trails for the New Woman. No strangers to press scandals in the past, how has this been different? Has it been difficult for you and little Kingston?”

On screen, Gavin sweats through the makeup, exposing malnourished gray flesh in rivulets across his face. “I just need to, uh, make sure he doesn’t get into Gwen’s chamber near mealtimes. We’ve had a few, ah, calls – close calls. Child services dropped by a couple times.”

Gavin takes a sip while my wife and I stare transfixed at his gray face. I shift in my crouch as my wife’s tentacle gropes with greater urgency. The chains connected to my harness rattle like bones as they snake along the concrete.

Oprah mimics Gavin’s movement and reaches for the fiction that is her bottle of water, the camera tracking it; the bottle shimmers briefly as it aligns to the hand of her simulacra. Dasani. “Close calls, sure. So the change has caused some tensions in your marriage, yes? How are you coping?”

Gavin winces and stalls a few seconds taking a (now unnecessary) sip of water, his eyes shining, now, with excitement. “I’m working on a new project, working with some, uh, translators to become fluent in Gwen’s new speech. Then I’m going to write some lyrics in her language. I’ve got some guys signed on, and it’s going to be this really heavy, heavy shit. But with some softer vibes here and there. Y’know? Edgy and experimental, but very much like what I did in Bush.”

Behind me the fleshy mass of my wife undulates and sheds the few garlands of garments she wears to bed. I see her reflected in the television and I grow turgid.

“That’s all very exciting, Gavin – canIcallyouGavin? You know, there are rumours circulating that it’s possible still for men to breed with women and bring hybrid children to term. Have you and Gwen talked about this? Have you considered doing so with Gwen?” Oprah smiles a warhead’s grin. And the camera switches to Gavin, his eyes focused offstage right, ostensibly staring at The Great Beast that Was Once Oprah and then he vanishes as the screen goes black. My wife lets the remote clatter to the concrete floor and holds forth with a hissing slutter that I’ve come to realize is what passes for a come-hither call in her new tongue.

The chains jerk and I let fear – gibbering, incoherent – contort my face. I know she likes it that way. I turn a smile into a grimace as she tugs again at the chains. I start to scream and she pulls with greater urgency. Just before I crest the edge of her chitinous nest, I half-smile at the throbbing in my prostate – at the warmth spreading through me from the pit of black bottomless lust inside that threatens to drive me mad.

Rob Parker lives in Waterloo, Ontario with his girlfriend and cat. He has his Masters in English & Film Studies from Wilfrid Laurier University. He’s pretty into dorsality, grindcore and Rabelaisian dick jokes as affirmation of bio-agency.