Adult Human Fruit Artist

From: @JILLY_AHF
To: You
Cc: <The Adult Human Huns (group)>

 The TRA (Trans Rights Activists) are always saying, “Shame on you.” But there’s not even a dandruff dusting of shame on these obviously female shoulders. We’re the Huns. The AHFs (Adult Human Females). The proud TERFs (Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminists). We were in-utero females who are now middle-aged genuine women. Crusaders wearing our conservative blouses with pride, along with our pearls, while we work part-time at a charity shop (not for much longer now the place has gone woke, welcoming “you/him/her/them/that” through its doors).

You can shove your “gender is one of life’s many nuances” crap up your GNA (Gender-Neutral Arsehole).

Anyway, I write to bring you news that one of them has been awarded a prestigious women’s art prize.

Yes, the world is burning, and we’re fighting over what a woman is and we won’t stop because fake ones keep stealing our prizes. We’re fighting on your behalf. No need to thank us.

I’m sitting in a gallery AHF toilet. Or should I say, on it.

While I wait for my ex-boyfriend’s unveiling—which I hope will also be his unravelling—I’m thinking about the thing that upsets me the most about this situation.

It’s not that Rhonda stole my boyfriend. Or the prize.

It’s that Rhonda is a better artist than me.

I feel shame and sick shame swelling in my chest and it threatens to spirt out all over the walls in the form of a poorly executed still life. Because I’m the kind of fake artist that would paint it.

I paint a wide range of watercolor or acrylic fruits—apples and pears to mangoes and coconuts—and I give them faces.

Still, bad art aside, when I tell you what happened, you’ll be ready to join Jilly (head AHF) for the online pile on. And the one IRL, which will be happening near to the bog on which I’m sitting and shitting.

You might even follow me @FRUITART (see what I did there?) and the place where I’m significantly more popular: @MARGOT_IS_A_TERF.

Maybe you’ll feel sorry enough for me to buy one of my paintings, some of which I have with me right now.

Faith is the name of my ex-AHB. Adult Human Boyfriend. A man called Faith, not to be confused with a man of faith – which, once you finish this story, you’ll know he definitely isn’t.

Rhonda “won” the prize in question (and dare I say, the hand of Faith) for contemporary artistic quilting, and for being the present darling of the woke mob.

Rhonda—I can’t bring myself to say “she”—exhibited these monstrosities—which had sewn upon them depraved scenes against floral backdrops—at a gallery in Waterloo. I was with Faith when he saw Rhonda’s quilts for the first time. One had some kind of pink hermaphrodite sewn upon it – a grossly elongated being, legs akimbo, a needle-cock and a grotesquely fleshy hole.

Rhonda was (and still is) sickeningly  lithe. Long black hair. Pale with a Barbie face. Trans Barbie. Smelled of the girls who bullied me in secondary school.

I, on the other hand, am short with greying cropped hair. Thin mouth. And I smell of plum crumble and mashed potato. But I’ve got a not-so-secret weapon. An absurdly good figure for an AHF of not just my age, but any age.

Faith is a sculptor. Sturdy. Long torso for a chap, skinny, a Jesus goatee. Long salt and pepper hair in a man-bun. Younger than me by about ten years. Silky calm voice and Aqua di Parma scent.

We met at a City Lit art class. He was the teacher.

I became his muse.

He had nimble and elegant hands, perfect for moulding.

It all started going downhill three months ago, after he told me to do it.

“Call yourself a real artist, Margot. Put it in your bio on your new Instagram account. The @FRUITART one. That’s such a witty name…” he said, while we ate a sushi takeaway on our perfectly set-out table with sake cups and all that. His apartment (that I was pretty sure I lived in) was a proper London artist’s flat. Fancy in a hipster way. All the books in the case that took up the whole dining room wall were neat, grouped by color.

“…Trust me. Those fruit drawings have a post-modernist bite,” he added, while distracted by his phone buzzing. Faith looked like he was reading a message. Started smiling as he chewed. A bit of rice fell out. He put his phone back into his pocket. His expression fell as he turned his attention back to me.

I had a suspicion AHB was just trying to make himself feel better about being successful by making out as though I could be too, if only I pressed the right buttons, called myself the right things.

“OK. I’ll do it.” I replied.

Faith didn’t know about my OG account, @MARGOT_IS_A_TERF. Although everything I say there is justifiable since I’m fighting the good fight—I’m on the right side of history—I was just worried my content might seem extreme. That he wasn’t ready for the truth.

He knew about my group of AHF friends. He once overheard one of our conversations and ever since has referred to us as “the acronym-loving-huns.” ALHs. I didn’t apologize for it – you know where you are with someone when you know their letters (not pronouns – pronouns are for snowflakes).

I did what he said. I switched @FRUITART up from personal to one of those influencer accounts, and changed my bio to simply say, “artist.” In the caption to a new banana painting, I wrote about the importance of this moment as the launch of my artistic career. The banana was half peeled. With a jolly face.

Immediately, he liked it (he was the only one who did) and posted a comment: “Nice!”

Nice? Was that the best he could do? I noticed that he didn’t share the post to his ten thousand followers – many of them big players in the art world.

At the time of my @FRUITART announcement, Faith was working on the piece. The one I’m now waiting to see while trying to fart out my nerves.

He showed it to me while it was a work in progress. I was standing in his chic downstairs workshop. Every splash of paint or glaze, every tool, the dirty rags, and half-eaten sandwiches, looked curated.

The sculpture was starting to look like a woman, but it had long breasts like socks. There was a magazine on the table near him while he worked. It was folded back on itself to display an article. About him.

“I’m dedicating this sculpture to you, Margey,” he said.

I wish he wouldn’t call me that. Makes me sound even older. “I was also thinking you could hang a couple of your fruits in the welcome area of the next show. On the night I reveal this baby to the world.”

“Really? I’ll get to work,” I replied excitedly.

He also said I shouldn’t be put off by how few likes I was getting on my posts. “It’s just the algorithm.” I’m aware it’s pathetic, how he tries to mould me, how I let him mould me. But I want it. I want him to look at me and say to himself, “I’ve made her a real artist.”

Next, I added a selfie to @FRUITART.

Like he said, I just had to walk the walk. The photo was of me painting in one of Faith’s fancy leather aprons, a bit of paint smudged here and there on my face for authenticity. The caption said: “Artist at work.” I made it my profile pic.

I look at it again now, as I push out another, wetter, fart.

Still no likes. Not even Faith.

I switch over to my @MARGOT_IS_A_TERF account. As usual, I’ve got several messages. Several likes on my recent posts. Comments, too. They love me there.

There I can get love.

There I can.

“I’m thinking of doing it with her,” said Faith, the day after I saw the sock-breasted work-in-progress.

He didn’t look up. He was whisking matcha on the kitchen island while wearing a Comme des Garçons shirt nearly open to his navel and some odd-shaped, almost hexagonal, trousers. Bare feet.

“Excuse me?”

“I think I’ll do the next one with her. Rhonda. Do you remember her? From Waterloo…”

The Abba song started playing in my head.

“…I thought Rhonda and her quilts would be amazing alongside my pieces. She’s just won a prize for gifted women artists.”

I felt a twist in my tummy.

“But… I thought you said we were collaborating at the next one. I thought you were going to hang some of my paintings? My fruits?”

He smiled. Paused his whisking and cocked his head to one side. Then laughed his smooth laugh.

“That’s not quite what I meant”

From: @JILLY_AHF
To: You
Cc: <The Adult Human Huns (group)>

Click <here> to see a photo of fake woman playing dress-up holding a Perspex award in front of round pushed-up tits. It was tweeted by some woke journo and the caption reads, “Let’s celebrate this gorgeous woman as she tears apart binaries.”

Comment. Quote-tweet. Let’s make this an Anti-TRAtio.

A few days later, Jilly and I were at the charity shop.

I’d just finished freshening up some pencil skirts and something occurred to me. Jilly—as our leader, and AHF married for thirty years to a man with a steady job in a solid industry—metalwork or engineering or something—would know the answer to my dilemma. Faith had been rejecting my advances. Even oral.

“I think Faith has gone off sex,” I blurted. “I mean, is that right? For a man of 45? We’ve not been together that long.”

Jilly took a long slurp of tea. We were both working the counter, although she’d made it clear that my portion of the role was more stockroom-leaning. “Of course, don’t worry. Now, there’s a real problem troubling me at night – do you think women who’ve had hysterectomies are still AHFs? Those born without ovaries? What size tits are too small to be AHF tits? How big a clitoris is too big such that we have to call it a penis and therefore decide that the owner of that body part is not an AHF? What is a too high testo count?”

Jilly thought it was nothing, so it was obviously nothing. So I said nothing.

But he continued spurning my advances every night leading up to the show.

When I couldn’t sleep for the pain of feeling Faith slowly withdraw, I thought about Jilly, also awake. That’s solidarity.

On the night before the unveiling, I went downstairs and into Faith’s studio.

I decided I’d paint the best fruit painting ever. A last-ditch attempt to seduce him back to me. If I did it in Faith’s studio, surely some of his magic would rub off on me.

I decided on a forlorn cherry next to a smug papaya.

I started searching his studio for a canvas. He always had them lying around. He sometimes did charcoal drawings and watercolors of his sculptures. Said he liked to capture them in their natural, just-finished state. Because afterwards, they’d change—in his perception—get “muddied,” he said, by other atmospheres and people’s judgements.

I pulled one out and as I did, a finished painting fell in front of me, one that I hadn’t seen before. Expertly rendered in oils. I didn’t think Faith liked oils.

It was of Rhonda. Topless, holding a pastiche of a badly painted—yet better than mine would be—winking pineapple.

Taped to the back of the canvas was a note: “We’ll show that silly fruit tart some real art xxx.”

“CUNT!” I shouted. “YOU CUNT.” The guttural force of the word felt as though it dredged up all my loneliness and turned it into hate. I slammed the painting on the floor and stamped on Rhonda’s stupid head.

There and then, I opened @MARGOT_IS_A_TERF. I outed Faith as a trans-loving fuckboy.

And Rhonda as an AHB-thief who hates AHFs.

I tagged Jilly.

@JILLY_AHF to @MARGOT_IS_A_TERF

We’re angry too.

Our revenge will be bloody. We’ve chosen the perfect moment. We’ll rip their genders from their sex from their bodies. Let’s take this to the next level.

RIP GENDERS.

I was drunk by the time I arrived at Faith’s show. My hair was a mess (still is) and I had my belongings with me in a hiking backpack along with a supplementary holdall in which I’d packed a hammer, nails, and a selection of my artworks bundled together.

I saw Rhonda. That’s when I headed straight for the toilets and locked myself in.

Three minutes to go.

I open my bag and take out the hammer and start walloping nails into the cubicle walls and door. It makes a hell of a noise. I hear gasps and muttering from those having a quick wee before joining the waiting crowd. I hang my fruits.

Then I head out into the main hall. Defiant, my art in place, ready for my huns to stand up for me, and looking like hot shit in my crop top with no bra and Lululemon yoga pants.

I have a thought, while I stand in the crowd, waiting for the cloth to be removed from the sculpture, that this could be my last day on earth. And if it is, then artfully re-claiming AHF space, while waiting for the show down of show downs, is exactly what I want to be doing.

Faith’s piece is called “AHF.”

It’s not what I’m expecting, nor what it seemed to be becoming when I last saw it. It’s covered in gold leaf. It’s an adult. But I wouldn’t call it human, let alone a female. The thing has long hair. A beard down to its five breasts—three on one side of the abdomen and two on the other—one is clearly cut away, leaving a mastectomy scar. Three penises of different sizes (the smallest one is carved such that it might be a clitoris – I can’t be sure and that annoys me). It holds out a hand and in the palm is the same winking pineapple Rhonda was holding in Faith’s oil painting.

Everyone claps. Flashes go off.

I rush back to the toilet.

I’m sick fruit salad. And then I feel something. I never find out what.

From: @JILLY_AHF
To: You
Cc: <The Adult Human Huns (group)>

When I tell you what happened, you might think we’re unhinged. But things had to get messy.

Our soldiers stood up from the crowd and roared.

Some blood was spilled. We used metal sculptures to clobber people. This was a stroke of my own genius. I had nine made. Each was steel or iron and about a foot long and in the shape of either an ovary attached to a fallopian tube, a uterus, or a vulva. I would like to thank AHH (Adult Human Husband) for his help with manufacturing.

Unfortunately, we killed a couple of our own—including dear Margot who took an accidental flange to the head—but that’s OK.

As long as everyone is clear what a woman is.

Thankfully, Margot’s paintings were also destroyed. I think I can speak for all of us in saying we thought them embarrassing. There was no chance of those fruits ever being worth anything, even now she’s dead.  

 We think that her true artistic creation was @MARGOT_IS_A_TERF. That corner of the internet was where she thrived. She will be remembered as a martyr, with her spirit living on, bravely defending the AHF toilet.

Apologies to all the huns who asked if we could, but we weren’t allowed to bury her under the floor of the cubicle.  

Wokeism gone mad.