Porcelain Gel

Life was just life before the age of 18, and then that porcelain gel was introduced, and life became so much more. Ace wondered if it was new, if it just came about, or did everyone hold out on all the kids… up until the time they hit the age of 18? But there it was. That porcelain gel. Beauty in a between-states kind of substance.

Some called it a drug. But it came with its own set of rules. Unlike most drugs, it was encouraged to be taken. Some called it essential. But too much… well, too much would be too much. And it wasn’t one of those things where it became too much too quickly. No. People had heaping helpings of the porcelain gel. But there was a limit, it could hurt you. Ace wondered, isn’t that like most things? Dark, leafy greens are good for you, but you can have too much. Hell, you could even have too much water and essentially drown yourself.

But no, the gel was different. Because people got hooked on it. They yearned for it.

People like Ace.

There was the real porcelain gel, it was raw and authentic, and it delivered the best high. The knees wobbled, the hips and sides of the buttcheeks even got sore from the excellent workout… the workout of jumping for joy. Just from the mere ingestion of it. This shit was so fucking pure. Unlike anything humans had ever experienced. The taste was unmatched. Like your favorite savory meal and your favorite sweet dessert, both done to perfection, and lying in union on your tongue while warm, orange lights cascaded across your heavy, soft eyelids.

Then, there was the synthetic stuff. Almost just as good. No one had the synthetic porcelain gel and complained. It ripped through your body like a furry lightning bolt and stabbed warm, loving needles into every orifice and every pore on your body. It lacked a bit from the real stuff. Maybe more than a bit. But it was still heaven-adjacent. And you could still have too much of that. The maximum recommended capacity was lower than the authentic version… and somehow… it hooked even deeper into the skin.

And Ace knew a new shipment of the real stuff was coming. The actual heaven. He got himself ready and waited. His apartment never felt so quiet. But the porcelain gel would be there… in a few days. He had activities lined up for when it arrived, his anticipation and giddiness were that of a schoolboy’s.

And then the commercial came on. How to make the synthetic stuff. And it was so easy. The commercial made it look so tantalizing.

Ace tried to ignore it, but the commercial followed him everywhere. Why couldn’t he shake it? Why was it appearing everywhere? TV’s, other screens, his phone… he hid under the blankets but it inevitably followed him there too. The commercial glowed on a non-existent screen… and it glowed brightest under the covers. The glow was beckoning… inviting… chilling. A wispy finger reached out from the glow and motioned towards Ace’s phone. A prisoner to its allure, he obeyed it, flipping his phone back open. There was the commercial once again.

The synthetic porcelain gel.

The recipe itself was a joy to partake in. A lot of stop and go… having to find the right ingredients… some ingredients looked like they were a match at first but after examining for several seconds, Ace saw irregularities. But the search was fun, because he even liked finding the irregularities. Each one was a different spice, each one brought heat inside his throat like he had just ingested a gallon of cayenne pepper.

And then he finally located all the right ingredients. The process began. The process itself was electrifying. Getting those ingredients onto his fingertips, under the nails, pressed up against his palms, the gel was already emitting its wonder in the process of being created. Ace mixed and he sculpted and he swirled and he sculpted more and more until he finished it!

The gel.

And oh, thank heaven-adjacent he did. What an experience. Smooth as ever. Almost as filling. The flavor was nearly unmatched.

But as he sat with it, despite the incredible feel it sent surging through his veins, a different feeling sat right beside that good feeling. In fact, it sat right in the center of it. A fantastic feeling circled through his body like a long, winding snake. But in the center sat a sad feeling, a pit, a seed, a rock. No matter how much the good feeling circled around the rock and warmed his entire body, deep down in the abyss of his soul there was a slight cold tickle that couldn’t be ignored.

He went for the synthetic stuff.

The pure delivery was canceled.

It would be a long time before it would come back around.

But Ace was patient. He waited until the day the pure gel would come back, partaking in the synthetic only occasionally… well, it was occasionally at first… but he had to keep waiting for the pure gel. So, his synthetic usage increased, more and more, nearing daily. By the time the pure gel was on its way, his habit couldn’t be kicked. He was partaking in the synthetic porcelain gel so often, he didn’t know how to stop. It littered the avenues of his mind, day and night. His body trembled and turned to icicles of pain when he attempted to cease with it. He was making it at home while the commercial continually blared on in all corners of the apartment, showing him the recipe, showing him the joy of making it at home.

He sculpted his porcelain gel with expertise now. He did it just as well as they did in the commercial, even better! Ace could be doing his own commercial for it now. The idea even thrilled him. But he was so wrapped up in his synthetic gel, ensconced in it, he couldn’t get out. He had sunken into a safe place, a safe place that shielded him from a better place.

And he missed that next pure delivery.

And the next one.

Ace wanted nothing more than to have that pure porcelain gel once more, but he had tucked himself away under the rock where the synthetic gel lived, it had a stranglehold on all his energy and ambitions. He was a prisoner to it. And he didn’t mind it at all, all the while he hated it, all the while he loved it.

All the while he missed the pure.

He’d need to devise a strategy to escape the clutches of the synthetic.

And meet up with the pure once more.

He’d need to wean himself off, little by little. He’d need self control. He’d have to go days without it, think of other things, occupy himself with other facets of life.

But that would be so hard.

Life was just life without the gel. With the gel, pure or synthetic, life was so much more.

Shouldn’t he want more?

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