This Relationship is Dead

My relationship with Garith is a little complicated. Since the summer of 2002 he's been my "illegitimate spouse" and a partner in crime along with Duckie. The three of us work well together, and that's all that should really matter. So far we've gotten through five years without killing one another (at least, for real) and our household is nothing if not very interesting.

That being said, I'm going to tell the tale of why Garith and I are always making jokes about necrophilia. Due to a strange set of circumstances. our first projects on camera together dealt with the sordid subject of loving the dead. And we've certainly caught a cryptful of teasing over it.

Ever since I first laid eyes on Garith's slender physique, I wanted to use him for corpsework. When the opportunity arose to do a series of photos illustrating perversions, I cast him immediately as the leading cadaver.

The commentary outlined the various stages of necrophiliac activities, from viewing the dead right on through to eating corpses. I put Garith in body makeup and rotted out his face, then Duckie whipped up some gawdawful "putrid corpse guts" using bread and chocolate syrup. Then we went on location to shoot next to a dumpster.

Although it was not planned, the "Recycling Program" sign on the dumpster was absolutely perfect.

The obligatory joke shot with the after-sex cigarettes.

Later on that year I was working on an e-zine called "Lust Magazine" and volunteered to not only stage a lot of illustrations for the publication, but also to do some research articles on the less-desirable proclivities. I would write about phlebotomy and a bloke who surgically implanted goat testicles in his patients as an impotency cure. You should see this coming now... I also wrote an article on fantasy necrophilia.

Having promised to stage illustrations, I had the Siren team running around shooting all sorts of fun photos. But when it came time to do the necro fantasy, it just seemed fitting that Garith and I should trade places.

The really funny part of this story... while I was doing research for the article I found places online where I could converse with real necrophiles and necro-fetishists. It turns out that the photo of the corpse I used to plot out Garith's makeup is known as "the blonde" in certain circles. It also turns out that they knew exactly who I was before I knocked on their virtual doors. The photos we took by the dumpster had turned me into some sort of necro pin-up girl.

The original idea was to illustrate a fantasy death fetish. Garith "drowned" me for several takes in a pool without heat during the winter.

When the publication was going through final editing, this part of the photo layout got cut from the article. But it continues to be Garith's favorite of the batch, and he even used it when asked to send in a "recent photo" of himself while applying for an organization membership.

Below are some of the other photos from the shoot. The tag line to the article ended up being: "Love means never having to say...anything."