by A. R. Braun
Tyler stopped before the door. He turned around slowly and saw her coughing into her hand. “It’s just where I study my medical journals and read articles on my desktop. It’d bore you.”
Unmercifully, she felt, then scratched around her nose and mouth. “And why does my face itch?”
He shrugged. “Maybe you got some bad facial cream?”
She shook her head and ran into the bathroom. A few minutes later—what seemed like forever to Tyler—she came back into the bedroom. “Now I’ve got red marks around my nose and mouth! Wanna explain that to me?”
He held his hands out—a what, me worry? gesture. “Perhaps you’ve got rosacea.”
“Yeah, right!” Morgan became squinty-eyed and she scowled. “I’ve woke a few times with some funny chemical over my mouth. Then I’m knocked out. I’m callin the police!”
Tyler ran toward the bed and dove for her. He ripped the phone away and yanked the cord out of the wall. “You’ll do no such thing!”
Obviously exhausted, she fell onto her back, hacking up a lung.
“You need bed rest right now, and by God you’re gonna get it!” Tyler stomped out of the bedroom and slammed the door. He went downstairs, found her purse and put her cellphone into his pocket. He took her laptop and brought all three into the garage. That done,j he grabbed the aforesaid sledgehammer and went to town, bashing the electronics to rubble.
“Goddamn it! I can’t even depend on Satan’s fucking protection!”
That did it. She’d need ten days bed rest, and after that, he wouldn’t let her leave the house anymore. Tyler could lose everything: his practice, his freedom. He’d crossed the line and become a hardcore criminal.
Extreme conditions demanded extreme responses.
Lately, he’d been licking her arm when she was out cold—the ambrosia of salty goodness—and craving that addicting skin of hers.
The hunger for large quantities of Morgan’s flesh continued to nag at him.
How much longer could he resist?
He pulled his hair and ground his teeth.
Chapter 8
Ten days later.
Eating cold cuts, Tyler sat in the kitchen on a late Saturday morning. He looked up when screaming came from the bedroom. Morgan did that when she couldn’t win an argument and when she’d upset him so much he’d said, “That’s it; I want a divorce.” It had gotten that bad a couple of times, and that’s how he’d been keeping her obedient during the ten days it had taken for her to recover from having her kidney out. She’d had the flu the whole time, but raised the issue again and again—how she needed to report him, how her family wouldn’t take kindly to what he’d been doing to her—and why were all her electronics smashed?
Holding her backside, she ran into the kitchen, doing an insane dance while shrieking her guts out. Her face had gone beet-red as it always did when she got herself upset, but this time she hadn’t made a big deal out of nothing. Finally, he’d given her something to scream about.
“Where’s my ass?” she shrieked.
It happened to be the cold cuts Tyler dined on. The wannabe cannibals on the Internet were wrong: human flesh didn’t taste like chicken or pork, it tasted like sweet beef. And how delicious it was with a fizzing glass of champagne, to celebrate his ultimate revenge on the whore who’d made his life a nightmare!
“Where is it? Where is it?” she screamed.
Morgan tripped and sat down hard. On what, he didn’t know. As far as her backside was concerned, it was probably her tailbone, otherwise known as the coccycodynia. She bawled and keened as she lay on the floor.
“Where’s your butt?” he mocked as he rose, wiping his chin with his monogrammed napkin bearing his practice’s crest. “Why, I just ate it, along with a heaping helping of sweet potatoes and rice. It sure wasn’t with a side dish of meekness-weakness. By the way, your family’s been dropping by, and I’ve been telling them you’re down and out with that flu, maybe avian bird flu.”
“YOU WHAT, YOU WHAT, YOU WHAT, YOU WHAT, YOU WHAT?!”
“Now, babe, calm down. You’ll upset yourself.”
Suddenly, she bounded up. “I’m going to the cops, you sick fuck!” She glowered at him with eyes the size of pearl onions for the longest few seconds he’d ever endured, then ran for the door.
Tyler took off after her. He almost tackled her when she got the door open, but she was sweating like a whore in church and slipped out of his grasp, the slippery eel. She moved like lightning across the front lawn; she’d run track in high school. As Morgan left him in dust, she screamed like the damned as she sprinted along the long front lawn,
Tyler rushed to his car. He fired it up and took off after her. Now she was crossing the street, ready to run through the neighbor’s lawn and pound on the door, then the jig would be up. He sped over to her, braked, threw open the door and yanked her inside. Snorting, he held her face over his crotch. As he did, the neighbors came out onto their porches. That was close; he’d silenced her just in time. He cranked the car stereo—that Suicidal Tendencies song “Show Me Your Money” in fact—waved at his nosy neighbors and drove away slowly as they waved back. He’d have to be hypervigilant. Next time, he might not be so lucky. He drove up his drive, opened his garage door with the remote and pulled inside. He got out and shut it. That done, he put her in a headlock, her soft flesh warm and flushed. Now clear, he yanked her into the garage.
He worried about the neighbors hearing her screaming and said a prayer to Satan to blind their minds, to make them think it had been the sounds of rough sex. Besides, they’d heard her scream before; the whole neighborhood knew she had mental problems, and they’d often called the police on her, not Tyler. Initially, the men of the block had threatened to be on him if he beat her the first time she’d screamed, but once they’d crossed the lawn and come to the front door, hearing how she called him every name in the book—and in front of their children—they’d had to take his side. They wouldn’t be a problem.
“Settle down, you mongoloid.”
He snatched some rope and hog-tied her, then grabbed a gas-stained cloth and gagged her. For good measure, he placed duct tape on her mouth and wrapped it around her head once, twice, three times a rotten crotch. (It figured RC was her favorite brand of soda.) Then he hauled the wannabe diesel dyke through the house and up to the bedroom. Breathing heavily, he hurled her onto the bed.
Tyler fought to catch his breath. Morgan’s face was the color of a ripe tomato, her eyes so wide he thought they’d pop from their sockets. His heartbeat crashed against his ribcage, and he was sweating profusely. Finally, he got himself under control.
“You made my life a living Hell with your bitching,” Tyler told her, “and I got my revenge. You’ll let me get away with it, or I’ll fucking kill you!” He stared her down; she turned her face from him as she writhed upon the bed. “You can’t even fry a hamburger or chat on Facebook by yourself, and when you tried to clean up, you broke the damned vacuum and had it spitting out smoke! You’re stupid, your family’s nuts and you’re a terrible housewife.”
Morgan continued to thrash and flail. It wasn’t doing her any good; she wouldn’t escape in this lifetime.
He’d been right about her family. Maybe her niece—Kaylie, a minor—wasn’t the problem. But Morgan’s real father had raped her when she’d been a baby and had thrown her across the room. Her stepfather had broken her nose when she’d been in high school and had come into her bedroom one night when he was drunk, mistaking her for her mother, as Morgan had told it. Also, she’d said he hadn’t done anything to her. Tyler didn’t believe that one whit. And then there was the crazy aunt who’d threatened to cut her with her switchblade every time Morgan had acted up, and in fact had one time, slicing her knee to shit. Her family had made her every inch the idiot and bi-polar/manic nut she was now, and he’d let them into her life no more. If they came calling, it would be the last thing they’d ever do.
“Now quit your struggling and think about that,” he continued
. “If you let me get away with it, you can continue to live here, but you can’t go outside any more. If you keep fighting me, however, you’ll be deader than your precious goddamn gangsters—who’ve ruined the world with rap music—after a shootout in Vegas.”
He knew those rappers weren’t worthy of life. His copy of Mein Kampf in his study had told him so. Along with his tomes on famous serial killers, it had made damned good reading.
“So you’ll take what I dish out and like it. If you fucking understand me, nod. NOW.”
Tearfully, she nodded.
“Get it, got it, GOOD,” he added. “Wrap your head around that! Come getcha some of that! Be the ball, be the ball, be the ball.”
Rapturous joy, straight from Hell, filled him at finally being able to tell her he’d cut her up and dined on her. He’d wanted to gloat over that for so long, and the time had finally come. He relished in her nervous breakdown; he fed on her suffering. Why, he drank the wine of her tears! It made him feel like he was in control for once, by God!
“And you can forget about having our baby,” he said. “It’ll be good with some hot sauce.” He cackled like a lunatic. No matter. He’d become one, and that was fine with him.
She blanched, her face resembling bleached bones.
With that he left her to her whimpering.
m/ m/
One month later.
“So you don’t have any tits,” he told her as she lay on the bed, still hog-tied. “Yeah, I took them,” he snorted. “And so I shot your aunt and her boyfriend when they broke in and kidnapped you when I was at work. Satan told me they’d taken you, by the way. So what? I had to kill a couple worthless members of your family. The bitch cut your knee with that switch, and her boyfriend was half her age! They were scum and deserved to die. I covered my tracks, wore double sets of gloves and left no prints. Plus, I’ve never been arrested, so the prints wouldn’t do them any good if they have enough superb technological skills to get the prints anyway. And I got rid of the bodies, thanks to sodium hydroxide and my sledgehammer. They’re gone without a trace, and without a face. And so I took one lung, your gall bladder and your appendix, as well as your kidney and your liver? You won’t miss ‘em. You don’t need ‘em to live.”
Morgan—with stitches where her breasts used to be—continued to bawl and writhe on the bed. Her eyes were bloodshot as fuck. Sometimes he had to remove the gag because she regurgitated into it. Morgan always had the flu now—constantly bore a fever and a cold, also, every damned day. Oh well, tough shit, said the clit.
Tyler held his arms out in a what, me worry? gesture. “I’m addicted to your flesh, it’s plain and simple.” He dropped his arms and sighed. “I’m trying to quit, and I’m sure I can. I mean, I can’t keep eating you. There won’t be anything left.”
Her uttered a maniacal laugh that surprised even him; he sounded mad as a hatter.
“I can quit anytime I want,” he added. “But I’ll have to do it myself. After all, there aren’t any clinics to detox from cannibalism … except prison. And I can’t go there and be somebody’s bitch. I’ll kill myself first.” He heaved a heavy sigh. “They say in AA that one needs a higher power. Maybe it’s time I quit worshiping the devil and went back to church. I mean, this is really becoming a problem.” He chuckled and gestured her way. “Well, as you can see.” He snickered. “But seriously, Morgan, I’ll stop eating you, and you’ll be a happy little shut-in, you’ll see. You were never productive anyway. All you did was sit around and obsess over me while I was at work. Why, you wouldn’t even let me pay for you to go to beauty school so you could do nails for a living.” He gesticulated toward her. “You’ve got no ambition. You’re Mayberry R.F.D.—real fuckin dumb.” He threw his head back and barked laughter.
He started to move away, then turned back. “Oh, and about your dog. Yes, I got rid of it, but it was nothing but a rodent. There are cats bigger than that thing was. I’m sure you won’t miss your Angel Baby too much. After all, it was so small, you’d have to sit down to pet it, you see, and … um … well, you can’t do that anymore.”
She tried to scream through her gag. Morgan managed a bit of keening, but not loud enough for the neighbors to hear. Oh, how disappointed they’d been when he’d turned down their dinner parties, telling them his wife had taken ill with the worst bird flu he’d ever seen. Tyler enjoyed scaring them by letting them know Morgan had the first case of H-5, an avian bird flu that would kill 100,000 Americans. It happened every century, a plague in every generation. It had struck just before 1920, and Tyler reveled in letting them know it had come around again. Their blanching faces had been priceless.
“We’re gonna have to go on a road trip soon,” he added. “Your family’s dropping by too much lately. The cops haven’t started coming yet, but I’m sure that nasty little surprise is down the road. But don’t worry, love, you’ll be fine, we’ll be fine, your blood will be my wine.” He shook his head as if trying to shake off the horrifying thought. “Whoops! Now there I go again, getting carried away. I swear, I’m a cannibal junkie.” He nodded to himself, ignoring her wrecked eyes that glared at him. “Yes, that’s right, I think I’ll go back to church.”
Morgan pissed herself, and Tyler walked out of the room.
Let her marinate in it.
Chapter 9
“I haven’t gone insane,” Tyler told her, leaning into her crib. “I went back to church, and though I slipped back into my criminal ways, it was just newly-born-again Christian backsliding. That will abate as I become stronger in the Lord.” He leaned in closer to her in the crib. “Da-da goo-goo. Da. Da. Goo. Goo.”
Morgan lay in the crib, nothing but a head and a torso. He’d stitched the stubs of her arms and legs shut. And so what if he’d gotten sloppy and cauterized her vaginal wound with a blowtorch? Oh, were those twat hors devours ewey-gooey-rich-and-chewy!
Stop it! Remember your faith!
Morgan keened behind the gag, her red face and eyes a wreck. Every once and again, the baby-formula sucker threw up into her gag, and he had to change it. He used baby wipes to do so. After all, she’d become the child he’d always wanted.
He’d had to murder their actual baby, for he’d studied the practice of abortionists. Tyler was right, it tasted delectable with hot sauce; he must’ve been hallucinating, however. It had to have been a delusion, not a newborn. How can a baby have a baby?
“Does her need a sponge bath?” Tyler baby talked to her. “Yes, her does.” He covered his eyes, uncovered them, rinse and repeat. “Peekaboo!” He laughed. “That’s a-baby.”
m/ m/
A week later.
Morgan’s crying was driving him over the edge. Tyler hadn’t slept in three days, and he’d had about enough of her whining. As he walked into the bedroom, she screamed behind the gag, not amounting to much volume-wise, but enough to grate on his nerves.
He sighed and frowned down on her. “Oh, don’t worry. You may not have to suffer for much longer. I feel another backsliding fit coming on. Now, I’m gonna try to fight it, but I don’t think I’m gonna make it. I’ve been up the whole weekend, and you’re working my last nerve.”
He nodded to himself as she turned as red as the lipstick she used to wear.
“Yes, I think I’ll take out your heart tonight, then your misery will be over.”
Morgan’s eyes became golf-ball sized and she shrieked herself hoarse behind the gag.
“That’ll shut your whiney ass up,” he added.
Tyler exited the nursery. He didn’t notice he was laughing till a half hour later, when he couldn’t stop.
m/ m/
In the garage, with Morgan’s heart in his mouth, he grabbed the sledgehammer after melting his wife’s skin from her body in a chlorosulfonated polyethelenene tub, using sodium hydroxide. He’d also taken the bones and set them in the outer edges of a pentagram he’d drawn with black chalk. In the midst, her mp3 player burned bluish-orange fire, enhancing the flames. He’d doused it with
gasoline. So much for her sanity; he hoped she writhed in damnation.
Tyler didn’t think he’d fallen into a trap, succumbing to the nightmare where he’d disposed of his wife’s body; he was elated, filled with Satan’s fury, now completely backslidden on the Lord Jesus Christ. His god dwelt in those flames that came from the symbol of evil. Just before he’d slain her and crudely cut out the heart—the fuck with the delicate art of surgery; his anger roiled after four nights without sleep, and his hands weren’t too steady—he’d tried to say a prayer, then realized it was too late. He’d turned his wife into a pseudo baby, nothing but a vestige of what she’d been, just a head and a torso. The cops had stopped by a couple of times, but he hadn’t answered the door. Soon, they’d break it down.
He paused to glance out one of the windows of his garage door. He spotted a couple of gorgeous young women about his first wife’s age when he’d married her. They walked in blissful abandon, not past the point of no return as Tyler was. One of the blondes turned her head his way; she must have been psychic; she seemed to see him through the window, although that couldn’t be. The window, like the others on the garage door, were dirt-smudged and hadn’t been washed for months. But she fixed her eyes on him nonetheless, a young honey with her whole life ahead of her. Tyler’s life had an end. Complete and utter imprisonment and desolation awaited him, as well as Hell.
Let that fuel your fire, she spoke into his head. Or did she?
Was the blonde telekinetic? Or had he lost his mind? He didn’t feel he had. The sinister project he labored on was just something that had to be done. He hadn’t wanted to kill Morgan, but she hadn’t laid off him with the screaming. Unable to take one more day of it, he’d found a solution. Some women hated men, as this sorry, dead beootch had. And, just like that, he knew the young lady on the street was right, for she turned and looked straight ahead after projecting her thought into his mind, as if saying there you go; you got the message; now do what you have to do.
