Mara felt uncomfortable,
embarrassed, and out of place. She leaned forward on her bed, holding the pile
of pillows that supported her weight, and tried to find a better position. She
could hear Joe’s breath in her ear, coming in rhythmic pulses, filling her head
with images of rutting animals, strange beasts that inhabited some dark, carnal
forest. His hand clutched her from behind.
“Ouch! Go easy on the left
breast,” Mara said. Joe’s hands were rough, more like a laborer’s hands than a
lawyer’s. She removed his huge paw from her chest and placed it on her thigh.
“Sorry,” came Joe’s voice
from behind.
Mara sighed. “You’re such a
man-handler.”
“That’s an appropriate
description,” he replied.
Mara couldn’t see him, but
she sensed a wicked grin on his lips. She shifted her position, and felt him
penetrate her deeper. “Good,” she thought. “Deep, is good. Less distance for
all those little tadpoles to travel.”
“What are you thinking
about?” Joe asked.
Mara paused for a moment.
“Do you really want to know?”
“Yeah.”
“Penetration,” she answered.
“Oh,” Joe said, continuing
the motion.
“Why, what are you thinking
about?” she asked.
She heard a small chuckle
behind her. “Do you really want to know?”
“Well, yeah, I guess,” Mara
said.
“You sure?”
“Yeah, tell me.”
“Okay then. Adam’s butt,”
Joe said.
“Oh, gross!”
“You said you wanted to
know,” protested Joe.
Mara thought for a minute
and giggled. “I guess he does have a cute butt.”
“The best,” he replied.
There was a pause in his movement. “Kinda furry…” he added.
Joe’s rhythm slowed and Mara
could feel him withdrawing.
“Hey, don’t stop,” she said.
“That’s good. Keep thinking of Adam’s butt. Put on a porn tape if you want.”
“No,” Joe said.
“Imagination’s better.”
Mara let him concentrate,
secretly relieved that she wouldn’t have to endure the leather-clad
machinations of Joe and Adam’s gay porn on her tiny bedroom television. She
felt him go deeper inside her again.
She closed her eyes and
thought of Lucy, her full lips, the curve of her breasts, the way that she
walked into class. In her mind’s eye she saw Lucy coming towards her with her
mouth slightly open. Mara felt herself becoming aroused.
Then, unexpectedly, she saw
Beth’s face in her fantasy. She saw Beth’s ebony skin, her short dread-locked
hair, the long line of her neck that ran down to her smooth shoulders. She saw
a tear in the corner of Beth’s eye and a hand that reached out to Mara,
longingly.
“Here it comes,” Joe said.
Mara snapped out of her
daydream and changed position again, taking him deep within her, soaking up
every last drop of the precious fluid.
#
“Chamomile tea?” Joe’s tall
frame stood silhouetted in the doorway. The living room light was dim, and
Joe’s tanned features looked even darker that usual, his short black hair
surrounded by a halo from the kitchen fluorescent.
Mara rubbed her eyes, and
reached for the TV remote to turn down the volume. “No, sweetie. I’m tired. I
have to be up early tomorrow. Think I’ll go to bed.” She extracted herself from
the sofa and made her way up the stairs.
She stopped on the landing.
“Adam home yet?”
“No,” Joe said. “He must
still be at Beth’s.”
“Oh. Okay then, g’night.”
“’Night. See you in the
morning.”
Mara closed the door of her
bedroom, unzipped her jeans, and tossed them into the laundry basket. She cast
off her burgundy sweater, pulled back the purple velvet cover of her bed, and
slid between the crisp new sheets that she’d changed after Joe had left,
savoring their coolness against her naked skin. She lay flat on her back, arms
outstretched like a bed-ridden crucifix, and stared at the ceiling. Suddenly
she heard a low groan overhead, the sound of a tree branch scraping the roof.
“Must remind Joe to pull out
the chain-saw,” she thought as she turned on her side and nestled her cheek
into the pillow.
A February shower pattered
on the roof, as she drifted off to sleep.
#
Joe lay on his side, facing
the window, as Adam crept into the bedroom. The rain was a steady downpour now,
and the sounds of Adam taking off his shirt and removing his jeans were barely
audible. Joe only just heard the tiny thud as Adam’s jeans fell to the floor
beside the bed. He felt the mattress bounce as Adam slid in beside him.
Joe opened one eye and
looked at the clock.
Midnight.
He opened his mouth to
question Adam about where he’d been, but then changed his mind. He remembered
Adam’s words a few days previous, how he’d told Joe he needed to learn to
control the ridiculous monster of suspicion that lived inside him, how he
needed to simply have more trust.
Joes closed his eye again
and told his monster to go to sleep.
The room was freezing. A
blinding light pierced Mara’s eyes, as if she was about to be interrogated. The
ceiling hovered in a creamy diffusion above the light and in the corner of her
eye she could see the walls, tiled old-fashioned-butcher’s-shop white.
Mara lay flat on her back on
a metal slab, her body cold and numb below the neck. Thick leather straps
secured her arms to the sides of the slab, and her legs hung somewhere below
her. The pungent, stifling smell of newly minted rubber filled her nostrils.
She looked down to view her
breasts, laying flat, her nipples desensitized. She wished she had something to
cover them. Below her breasts hung a thick, black, rubber sheet, suspended from
a metal frame. She tried to move her head to see what was beyond the screen,
but she could not.
She sensed a presence in the
room, distant at first, but getting closer. It came closer still, and she grew
frightened.
The presence hovered over
her, below the rubber screen.
It touched her.
She felt a pressure on her
abdomen; then something patted the area between her hips. A coldness spread,
just above her public hair, as if she was being cleaned with a wet cloth. Then
she felt an object, like a fingernail, being drawn across her, horizontally
from hip to hip.
She felt nothing for a long
time.
Then a nauseous feeling
arose in her throat. She felt a hand reaching inside her, pushing up into her
abdomen. Then another hand entered the wound. Her head pounded; she wanted to
shout in protest, but her mouth wouldn’t budge.
She decided to summon up all
her will, and move her mouth to scream out one word. The word that she wanted
to scream was “No.” She concentrated, feeling her jaw muscles engage. The hands
inside her stopped, as if responding to her preparation. Her tongue moved to
the top of her mouth, like a giant, pink-gray slug.
“Yes,” she uttered.
Her breathing stopped, and
she heard a distant sound, like a mill wheel grinding to a halt.
What was this? This was not
the word she wanted.
The great wheel lurched
again into determined motion. The hands moved inside her, pushing her body
about on the slab, overjoyed at their new license to take over her body.
Mara just lay there. A
feeling of immense failure came over her, resounding blame within her for her
inability to move, her inability to do anything. Then, as the hands bullied her
body, the sense of failure was replaced by a sense of loss. With each thrust on
the cold hard metal, she felt herself slipping away.
The hands withdrew from her
body.
The smell of rubber
re-emerged, and as the vapor became thicker, she grew frightened again.
There was something else.
Something was coming,
something even more sinister than before.
The hands entered her again,
quickly this time, as if impatient to finish their business. They pushed
further into her, reaching higher until they were right up under her breasts.
Then they pulled. The pulling became more determined. The hands were a long way
inside her now and couldn’t find what they wanted.
Mara didn’t attempt to
scream. Her traitor voice was of no use any more. She just let them pull. She
imagined her organs being put into small plastic screw-top jars, labeled and
sent off to distant cosmetic companies and research laboratories. She was
tired. She was cold. She no longer felt human.
She felt nothing.
She was nothing.
#
Mara eyes flickered open.
She stared at the rivulets
of rain that poured down her bedroom window.
“What is a family?”
The question rolled over in
her mind.
Mara thought of Joe. She
thought about the night before, about being in her own bed. She had felt happy,
contented, the bed-sheets nestling around her like a cotton-wool blanket.
Was Joe too rough, too
insistent? Was that what had brought on the dream?
No, that wasn’t it. Joe’s
hands may have been rough, but his heart was gentle. He was her family; there
was no doubt about that.
Joe liked to call their
interludes baby-making sessions. Mara never disputed this label and it
was only when she was by herself that she privately referred to it as lovemaking.
She never told Joe this. He probably wouldn’t have minded but Mara didn’t want
to apply labels of exclusivity. Adam may not have appreciated the label. Mara
kept it to herself and cloaked herself in it when Joe had left the room.
The rain continued to pour,
and Mara pulled the cover closer to avoid the February chill. She turned onto
her side, her voluminous chestnut hair spilling across the clean white pillow.
The phone rang. Then came the sound of Joe staggering down the stairs. Mara
looked at the clock and realized that it was still an hour before her alarm was
due to go off.
She heard Joe downstairs,
fumbling to find the phone, the sound of a muffled conversation. She pulled the
cover closer. She didn’t know what the conversation was about and she couldn’t
have heard it anyway. The house’s tin roof made the rain sound all the more
deafening.
The roof was only one of the
house’s many quaint “features,” along with bad plumbing, crumbling
paintwork, rotting floorboards, and windows so tiny that little light
penetrated. The house, an old Oakland mansion built before the turn of the
century, was fitted with only a few narrow windows along its entire length.
Even the large box-shaped windows that decorated the front let little light
into the living room. Several eucalyptus trees grew in the garden, and one in
particular hung dangerously over to the roof. Friends had warned them that they
should remove the tallest tree but they hadn’t had the time. So far, Joe had
made several trips to the dump to get rid of the bark that the tree shed
constantly. He’d even bought a chainsaw in anticipation of the tree’s removal.
Their friends had dubbed
them “The Addam’s Family,” an indication of the house’s brooding nature.
“That’s the sort of family
we are” thought Mara. “Just like the Addam’s Family, strange to the outside
world yet essentially sweet, harmless and loyal.
The family house was
situated in the heart of West Oakland, California, just a stone’s throw from
the Bay Bridge, leading to San Francisco. The three friends were forever making
plans to remodel the interior of the house. Like so many projects, the more
they discussed their plans, the more the work dragged on.
The rain pelted so hard now
that it sounded like bullets on the roof. Mara reached for her dressing gown.
She wrapped the gown around her and flicked out her hair, shrugging off the
dream of the night before.
She carefully inspected her
hazel-green eyes in the bedroom mirror. Although she was tired, it didn’t show
in her face. Her skin was clear, and her eyes bright. “No makeup today,” she
thought, “except, perhaps…” She reached for her clear lip-gloss and applied a
light sheen to her full red lips. “This is addictive,” she mused. She knew that
the layer she’d just applied would wash off in the shower, but the damn stuff
felt too good to resist.
#
Downstairs, Joe dealt with
the early morning call.
“Mmmm…” Joe couldn’t even
summon a “hello” at this hour. “Yeah. Do you know what time it is? Mmmm… No I
don’t. No I don’t need that. What?”
The rain pounded harder as
Adam entered the room. He’d wrapped one towel around his waist and carried
another, drying his hair. Beads of sweat had gathered on his torso. Adam was a
good-looking man, fit, early thirties, with sandy-blonde hair that flopped
roughly to one side. His blonde looks gave him a boyish quality and this,
combined with his “who-gives-a-fuck” attitude, made Adam seem younger
than his years.
Joe was still busy with his
phone call. “I can’t hear you…” Joe said. “The rain… it’s too loud… What? Yes,
too loud… I’ll have to call you back… YES… CALL YOU BACK LATER!”
Joe hung up the phone, and
went into the kitchen to make coffee.
The rain eased a little.
“I wish you’d put the phone
back where it belongs” Joe flicked the switch on the coffee maker and reached
into the cupboard to choose a cup.
“Sorry,” Adam said. “I was
half asleep when I went to bed. What was the call about?”
“Nothing. We need
voicemail.”
“Put it on the list,” Adam
said. “Oh by the way, good morning.”
Joe put down his empty cup.
He’d feel more human after he had his first coffee. The blur of the early
morning call started to fade and he could see more clearly now the shape of
Adam, standing in the kitchen, freshly shaven and showered. Joe sidled up to
him and put his arms around Adam from behind, enveloping his broad back.
“Good morning,” he purred.
“You smell good.”
Adam slid around to face Joe
and kissed him squarely on the mouth.
“Now this is a better start
to the day,” Joe said.
The familiarity of Joe’s
embrace warmed Adam. Adam moved his head down past Joe’s face, kissing him on
the neck. He lingered and started to kiss Joe’s shoulder.
“Don’t go much lower than
that, you’ve got company.”
Mara headed for the coffee
maker.
“You could have knocked.”
Adam laughed as he pulled his second towel around his shoulders in a display of
mock modesty.
“I didn’t know it was a
formal breakfast,” she replied.
Mara gave Joe a peck on the
cheek as she poured herself a coffee. “Mornin’ sweetie,” she chirped.
“Mornin’,” Joe replied.
“You too” she gave Adam a
friendly pat on the butt as she passed by him on her way to the refrigerator.
“Sleep well?” Adam asked.
“Not really,” she replied.
“I was up half the night dreaming I was having a C-section from hell. If I
don’t get pregnant soon then we’re just going to have to call it quits and
adopt a Lithuanian baby.”
Adam looked over at Joe.
“Did you?” asked Adam.
“Uh huh,” Joe looked away
and poured himself a coffee.
The word “lovemaking”
popped into Mara’s head when she noticed the look in Adam’s eye. She dismissed
it instantly, putting her hand affectionately on Adam’s shoulder to reassure
him.
“Don’t worry babe, it was
your name he called out when he came,” she said gently.
Adam laughed nervously. But
then a mischievous smile appeared on his face as he put his arm around Mara and
turned to Joe.
“We all yo’ bitches,” Adam
quipped, shaking his butt like a go-go dancer.
“I’m not,” protested Mara.
“I’m nobody’s bitch.”
“Yes, y’are,” Adam said.
“I’m his hoochy-mama and you his baby-mama.”
“You’ve been watching too
much Ricky Lake,” Mara said.
“That’s what we should do!”
Adam said, his eyes lighting up with glee. “Go on Ricky Lake. I can just see
the title of the show… Stuck in the Middle – Boy-Girl-Boy Families and the
Men Who Abuse Them.”
Joe rolled his eyes. “Adam,
you make us sound like… like…”
“Mormons?” Adam said.
Mara laughed. “I’m not
moving to Salt Lake City.” She was relieved that Adam had come to take it all
so lightly. She knew it must be difficult for him. The possibility of having a
baby together had first been voiced about three months after the friends had
bought the house. Mara and Joe had, separately and unknowingly, always wanted
children, and Mara had raised the subject one day, as a joke. The joke had
rapidly become a reality, and had led them to their current situation, which,
unfortunately, excluded Adam. He usually went out with friends on Joe and
Mara’s “conception nights” or paid a visit to Beth.
“So did you have fun with Beth last night?” asked Joe. “I called
her and she said that you were over.”
“Oh yeah, that kid of hers
is great. We played Lego for ages. They’ve got much better sets now than when I
was a boy: space stations, rocket launchers. I think I wore him out in the
end.”
Mara felt a pang of remorse.
It should have been her. She should have been the one to be helping out with
Beth’s young son. Mara hated the thought of Beth as a single Mom, of all the
years that she had missed with Bisi, but she hadn’t had the nerve to hang around
after she’d split with Beth and married Keith. It was all so long ago now, and
Bisi had grown. Mara had seen the boy only a month ago, when Adam had been over
to visit Beth. She remembered how he’d looked up at her as he held her hand.
She remembered the innocence of his touch. It’s amazing how children of that
age can still be so trusting, even when their parents’ trust is worn out.
“Uncle Adam never gives Bisi
his toys back,” joked Mara. I bet she had to kick you out in the end.”
“Yeah,” Adam said. “She was
falling asleep after Friends ended. We put the kid to bed and I left
then, she looked so tired.”
Mara looked into the
distance, her coffee cup balanced on her lip. She had to admit that she was
more than a little jealous of Beth’s fondness for Adam. But secretly she was
also glad of their friendship. It made her feel that Beth was not so completely
alone, that someone was taking care of her in Mara’s absence.
Joe looked puzzled. “Friends
ends at about nine, doesn’t it? You didn’t get home until midnight.”
“I went out,” Adam replied.
“Met Chris in the Castro. Pretty boring though, nobody was out last night.”
Mara poured herself another
coffee and left the kitchen.
The sound of the rain grew
louder again. Joe sipped his coffee, pretending to read the junk mail on the
kitchen bench. Adam looked at Joe. The kitchen, like the rest of the house, was
dark, too dark to be reading anything.
Joe shot an accusing look at
Adam.
“What?” burst out Adam.
“What now?”
“Nothing,” Joe said. “I’m
just surprised that you didn’t mention that you’d been out.” He finished his
coffee and exited to the living room.
“I don’t have to explain
this,” Adam said, following him.
“No,” Joe agreed.
“So am I going to get the
silent treatment? I didn’t do anything, all I did was meet up with my friends
for a drink.”
Joe smiled. The rain
bucketed. The damp smell was worse in the living room.
“This is your problem, not
mine,” Adam said.
“I don’t have a problem,”
Joe protested.
“Yeah, and I’m Britney
Spears,” Adam said. “This is just bullshit! I always get this treatment. You
just don’t trust me. I get the third degree every time I go out. I mean, you
know Chris. Why don’t you ask him?”
“I will.” Joe was sullen.
“Wrong answer,” Adam said,
in a sarcastic tone. “You shouldn’t have to ask him.”
“Why not,” Joe said. “At
least then I’ll know one way or the other.”
“Know?” Adam was
incredulous. “You won’t know anything. Joe, you can’t go getting worked up like
this every time I go out. You just have to believe in me. You can’t tie people
up in your suspicions.”
Joe seemed unmoved.
“Why can’t you just believe
in me?”
Joe looked up at Adam
sheepishly. He wanted to believe him. He just couldn’t. Not after what had
happened when they first met.
Adam knew what he was
thinking.
“You just won’t let go of
it, will you,” Adam said.
“I’m trying,” Joe said. He
really meant it too. But the truth was that he hadn’t forgiven Adam. It had
happened once and then it was over, but he’d never really let it go.
“You know what’s ridiculous
about this?” Adam said. “I’m the one who has cause to be jealous, not you. I
mean, you’re the one that’s screwing your best friend right under our own
roof.”
The rain was heavy now. A
distant lightning flash indicated an approaching thunderstorm.
“That’s not fair,” protested
Joe. “It was your idea.”
“Yeah, and how do you think
that makes me feel?” Adam said.
Neither of the men noticed
Mara in the doorway, her eyes darting back and forth between them. Joe looked
at her, suddenly ashamed.
“I just came to get my bag,”
she said.
“Shit,” muttered Adam. “I
didn’t mean…”
Mara didn’t give him the
opportunity to finish.
“Look,” she burst out. “I’m
getting fed up with this. I thought we agreed when we began that this would be
difficult on us all. I’m not going to be a punching bag between you.”
A fork of lightning flashed
close by.
She sighed. Both Joe and
Adam were silent.
“This happened long before
any talk of the baby,” Joe said, just loud enough to be heard over the rain.
“I know that!” Mara was
livid. It was ridiculous that Joe was the one with the jealousy problem, and
not Adam. “Joe, what the fuck is the matter with you? This is an exercise in
trust for God’s sake. For all of us.” She glared in frustration at Joe. “JUST
WHAT ARE YOU SO AFRAID OF?”
Joe never got a chance to
answer her question.
The heavens opened above
them. With an almighty crash a bolt of lightning struck the tree hanging over
the house. A loud creaking sound followed, like the shifting of a great wooden
boat on top of the roof, then the room lurched sideways and debris started
raining down. The damp wooden boards splintered and swung down to the floor.
The heavy branch of the
eucalyptus tree crashed through the roof and into the spare room. The branch’s
weight carried it immediately down, through the second story.
Simultaneously Joe and Adam
leaped from where they were standing, grabbing Mara and pushing her out of the
way. Mara let out a gasp as the fall winded her. It was as if the entire room
had imploded.
As the debris cleared, the
three friends looked on in shock at what remained of the living room. A small
section of the upstairs floor swung precariously, and then let go, falling onto
the sofa.
They looked up.
The rain pelted now, falling
straight onto the carpet. The giant branch sat lodged against the side of the
hole, its bark thrown in loose shards across the space.
Mara’s hands shook as she
drew both Joe and Adam close to her, sheltering under the remaining roof. They
huddled in silence, watching the pellets of water splash onto the carpet.
The stranger introduced
himself as Chase.
“That’s probably not his
name,” thought Simon. “Chase” was far
too sexy. It must have been invented. The stranger’s real name was most likely
something like “Harold” or “Ralph”.
Dark, muscular, clad in a
leather jacket and black jeans; the stranger led Simon into his house and
offered him a beer.
The stranger didn’t talk
much, and Simon hadn’t met him in his usual drinking place. Simon had been out
for the evening with his best friend, Kurt, as usual, at the Midnight Sun.
Simon shouldn’t have been out. He still had the remaining sniffles of a cold
and he’d decided to go because he couldn’t stand the thought of one more night
cooped up at home, alone. He’d stashed a pouch of Theraflu in his pocket, and
dosed himself with a sinus suppressant. Sniffles aren’t a turn-on when you’re
trying to pick up.
Meeting the stranger turned
out to be ironic. Simon had been talking to Kurt all evening about his ideal
man, his perfect sexual fantasy. He’d jerked off in bed the previous evening,
dosed up with Theraflu and not really able to stand. Simon let out a small
shudder, as he felt the chill from the rain outside. He disguised a sniffle as
he rattled on.
“You know, he has to be tall
and dark,” said Simon. “I know it’s a cliché but that’s my fantasy.”
“But you always go for
fair-haired men,” Kurt had protested.
“No I don’t,” said Simon.
“They find me. It’s not really what I want. You wanna know my dirty little
secret?”
Of course Kurt wanted to
know.
“I just want some tall dark
stranger to carry me off and fuck my insides out, rip me limb from limb. I want
him to really damage me.”
Simon hadn’t met the
stranger at the Midnight Sun. Kurt, seeing Simon’s condition, had eventually
told him to go home to bed and Simon was on his way home when he stopped by a
bar he’d never seen before.
Simon shivered from the
cold, as he sat on the sofa. The stranger lingered over his beer for a while,
and tousled Simon’s fair hair as he undressed him. He unbuttoned Simon’s shirt
roughly and pulled the sleeves from his arms, almost tearing the shirt. He then
lay Simon on the sofa and pulled his jeans from his body. The Theraflu packet
fell down beside the sofa. Neither of them noticed. He threw Simon’s jeans into
the corner of the room.
The stranger leaned close to
Simon’s ear. “You’re a filthy cocksucker.”
Simon’s dick bounced to
attention. “Yessir.”
“What are ya?”
“I’m a filthy cocksucker.”
Having removed all of
Simon’s clothing, the stranger stood before him and perused his charge. The
stranger had not removed any of his own clothing and Simon leaned forward to
try to unbutton his jeans. He knocked Simon’s hand away brusquely. Simon
obeyed, his raging hard-on confirming his willingness.
The stranger tousled Simon’s
hair again and extended his hand. He pulled Simon’s naked body from the chair
and led him down the stairs, into the basement below.
The stranger opened the door
onto a dimly lit room. It was bare, apart from a single chair made of stainless
steel and leather, bolted firmly to the floor, and a solitary window, draped
with a heavy curtain.
The stranger sat Simon in
the chair.
“Stay,” he commanded, as he
left the room.
He returned with several
lengths of rope.
Simon wasn’t frightened.
He’d been tied up before. It wasn’t the thing that he liked to do most but he
was willing to participate. He was willing to do whatever the stranger told
him.
He tied Simon’s feet first.
The ropes were tied just tight enough so that Simon couldn’t move, but were
loose enough to be comfortable. He then tied Simon’s arms to the flat arms of
the chair, using two knots for each arm, one to hold his elbow in place,
another to hold his wrist. Now Simon could not move either his arms or his
legs, but he still felt comfortable.
The stranger stood back and
surveyed his captive. He leaned close to Simon’s ear again. “You’re a filthy,
shit-eating pig.”
Simon did not respond. The stranger slapped him lightly on the
jaw. “What are ya?”
“I’m a filthy, shit-eating
pig.”
He left the room again and
returned with a rubber strap that had a bulbous attachment.
“Open,” he commanded.
Simon opened his mouth. The
stranger put the rubber object into Simon’s mouth and tied the straps around
the back of his head. Simon now had some difficulty in breathing. He tried to
speak, but could only make muffled grunts.
With Simon silenced, the
stranger’s mood changed, as if he’d made a decision. He bent down at Simon’s
feet and tied the knots that held Simon’s legs tighter. Now Simon couldn’t move
his legs at all. The ropes bit into his ankles, cutting the circulation.
He retied Simon’s arms,
pulling each knot tighter. Again Simon tried to protest. The knots were far too
tight. Simon felt his hands becoming numb.
The stranger left the room
again, and returned with a roll of duct tape. Slowly he wound the tape around
each of Simon’s hands, so that they were fixed, palms down, to the flat arms of
the chair, with only the fingers exposed. He taped Simon’s feet to the floor,
leaving his toes sticking out through the tape.
“Filthy pigs like you need
to be cleaned,” he whispered into Simon’s ear.
Again he left the room.
This time he returned
carrying a container full of liquid. A strong chemical smell wafted from the
container, making Simon’s eyes water. The stranger placed the container in the
corner of the room.
He turned calmly to Simon.
“This is formalin solution.”
Simon squirmed in his chair.
“I’m going to remove certain
parts of your body and put them into this solution first. This will clean you,
get you ready for further processing.”
Simon tried to scream, but
the only sound he managed to produce was a muffled moan. Nobody would have
heard him anyway.
The stranger exhaled, as if
bored. He left the room again and this time returned with several metal
objects: a surgical saw, a scalpel, and a collection of steel clamps.
He selected the scalpel.
Simon tried to scream again.
The stranger knelt before Simon and grasped one of his toes.
He withdrew his hand, wiped
it against the leg of his jeans, and gave Simon a disgusted look. Simon’s torso
may have been perfect but his feet were not. Simon had a bad case of athlete’s
foot and the underside of his toes often bled painfully. At the moment, his
weakened state had allowed the fungus to develop and the skin on the undersides
of Simon’s toes was cracked open.
For a crazy, fleeting
second, Simon thought the man was going to attend to the wound. The stranger
inserted the scalpel between the flakes of skin hanging from the underside of
Simon’s toes. Simon winced at the sting. Then he felt a sharp jab as the
scalpel sliced off his toe.