In The End, Only Darkness

by O'Rourke, Monica

  Leaning in, he sucked in and exhaled loudly. Her pubic hairs bristled. Vaginal muscles clenched in anticipation of his touch.

  Using his thumb and index finger he separated her vaginal lips, shoving the middle finger of his free hand inside her. The muscles tightened around his finger. He jammed another finger inside, moving in deeper, thrusting them in and out of her.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Time for that shot now,” he said, removing his hand.

  He retrieved the syringe from the tray. Being finger-fucked by her doctor was likely a new experience for her, and she wouldn’t know how to react. He was counting on that, on her confusion.

  He lifted her arm and lay it above her head.

  “Wha-what are you doing?”

  “Quiet. Works better this way.” Swabbed the nipple with an alcohol pad. Flicked it with his fingers.

  Again she began to question him but he shook his head. “Hold still.” Grabbing hold of the breast, he injected the rather large needle into the nipple.

  She screamed. “The fuck you do?”

  “Relax,” he said. Then, moments later, he smiled, and quietly added, “That was nothing.”

  “Nothing?” Her cheeks puffed out a few times. “You’re a fucking psycho. Let me out of here!”

  “I said relax.”

  “No!” Her face was contorted in anger, and her robe fell open in her struggles to sit up. She tried to pull her feet out of the stirrups but her pregnant belly prevented it. “I’m getting the hell out of here, I … I’m—”

  But the shot kicked in and her body went limp, and she lay back on the table, her eyes bulging.

  “What …” was the last thing she was able to say. Tears streamed into her hair.

  “Curare,” he said to her. “Numbs the nervous system. Causes paralysis. You said you wanted something for pain, didn’t you?”

  She didn’t respond. Couldn’t.

  “Oh … You wanted something to stop the pain? Ah, well.” It was cruel to toy with her, but she’d made him work damn hard. So many questions. Such a difficult patient.

  “You’ll feel everything,” he said from between her legs, looking up and peering at her face, his breath hot and fast. Her face, beauty enhanced by terror. Pain would make it exquisite. He knew she wouldn’t thank him, even though she should.

  He lubricated the speculum with K-Y Jelly and inserted it, pushed it inside her, spread the vaginal walls so that he could see inside clearly.

  She didn’t move. Even her vaginal muscles were limp. But her eyes—he could see the fear in her eyes as they rolled back into the sockets.

  He picked up the scalpel next and approached her upper body.

  Moved her limp hands out of the way. He separated her robe, exposed her breasts. Unlike the rest of her, the nipples responded to his touch.

  Lightly he trailed the scalpel along her breasts, tracing delicate patterns in the skin, trickles of blood dancing on the surface of her flesh. He sliced an x into both nipples.

  “Now you’re mine. Branded.”

  He repositioned himself between her legs and pushed the speculum deeper, lifted the cervix, took in every bit of her. Blood tricked down her buttocks.

  Her eyes blinked in response to pain he couldn’t even begin to imagine. Using only his hand, he reached up inside her. He would use the instruments shortly.

  The baby kicked, as if squirming to escape him. He removed his hand and looked up again. Her eyes were focused, staring back at him as if pleading one final time for mercy.

  Raising the curette, he waved it in front of her face. “I don’t use most of my traditional tools,” he told her. “Not for this. A vacuum would ruin everything.” He studied the instrument, carefully tracing his fingers over the sharp curved hook.

  “This will have to do.”

  He pushed the curette inside her vagina, scraping the lining of the uterus, loosening cells and tissue. Careful not to perforate the delicate skin.

  Blood gushed, washing out amniotic fluids and tissue matter. He quickly removed the curette, waiting to catch whatever washed out. The placenta slipped out and he carefully laid it in the table beside her.

  The baby poured out next, and he caught it, severing the umbilical cord with the curette. The infant was still alive.

  He could see the mother screaming. Her eyes, screaming for the baby, the bloody pulp lying in the doctor’s hand. He laid it on the tray.

  “Oh God,” he moaned, bloodied hand pressed against his groin, head thrown back in the throes of orgasm. Trembling, he knelt at the end of the table and shoved his face into her mons. The inhaled flecks of gore and chunks of flesh filled his nostrils; blood washed into his mouth.

  Lifted his head, his face bathed in her viscous fluids.

  Her groans were barely audible. The curare was wearing off.

  The speculum jutted from her like a metallic dildo. How had one woman once described the feeling to him? Had said the exam had been like a never-ending cramp, an unrelenting spasm of pain and nausea.

  His eyes rolled, the only white on a face of crimson, baptized in her blood. Oh, how he envied these women, how he longed to feel what they felt. Not that he wanted to be a woman – only wished to understand this pain. To know the joy and agony of childbirth.

  “Bay …” she whispered, her teeth gritted, every nerve and muscle in her body frayed and alive and in agony.

  Baby.

  The air stank of babies. Of newborn flesh and rancid drops of new life. Damn thing was almost dead and it was infecting his air. He hadn’t cleared its nasal passages or its airways. He hadn’t checked it for abnormalities or for its sex. It wasn’t the baby he was interested in.

  He lifted the baby from the tray. Starting from the top of its head, he licked the remnants of the placenta and the amniotic fluids and sac, working his way down its prone body, cleaning it of all traces of birth and afterbirth. Inadvertently, he dislodged its air passages and it started breathing tiny gasps of air.

  Months premature, it was so little, molded practically to his palm. But it was whole, and appeared undamaged. The abortion had been untraditional; the fetus hadn’t been torn part by a vacuum but had been rejected from the mother’s body in one piece. Not usual, but not unheard of. He put the squirming baby back on the tray.

  Once more he stuffed his face into her groin, lapping greedily at her, sucking back soft tissue, avoiding the metal of the speculum. He felt rejuvenated. He felt alive. There were incredible healing properties in these vital fetal fluids; nutrients and vitamins and holistic antioxidant properties. People questioned his motives when he tried to obtain placenta, even in Europe. He’d had to be careful.

  He held the placenta in his hands and slowly ate it, savoring the taste and feel in his mouth.

  “Please …” she groaned. “Take it out.”

  He wiped the back of his hand across his gore-soaked mouth. He’d forgotten about the speculum.

  The baby mewled, kicking its impossibly tiny limbs. He leaned over it, and it pissed in his face. And just like that he fell in love with it. How instantly endearing; the little boy was all piss and vinegar. Impossibly tiny body, premature yet fully formed. He carried it to the portable incubator across the exam room.

  He returned to the baby’s mother and pulled the speculum out of her vagina. She trembled as it slid out of her body.

  Downstairs in his soundproof basement he maintained an apartment. He carried her down, dropped her onto a pile of rags and scattered newspapers now growing damp with her sweat and seeping body fluids.

  Waited for her eyes to focus, to remember what had happened. She would be delirious with fever, insane with pain and fear, and it would be deliciously gorgeous.

  Lightly he slapped her face, trying to bring her into focus. Her head rocked from side to side, eyelids fluttering, sweat tricking from her pores, her skin glistening.

  “Where am I?” she managed to whisper, licking dried lips with a parched tongue.

  �
�You’re home,” he said, wiping her face with a towel.

  “I – I can’t … move …” she managed, her head falling back again, too weak to hold it up.

  “I know,” he said gently.

  He slapped duct tape over her mouth. Breathing heavily through her nose, she tried to shake her head, to loosen or throw off the tape.

  She still couldn’t put up any sort of real struggle.

  He dragged her over to a drain hole in the floor.

  “Listen to me,” he said, trying to be heard over her muffled screams. He shook her, grabbing her chin and turning her face in his direction. Snot and tears coated her face. Her eyes were bloodshot with broken blood vessels.

  He leaned in and spoke into her ear. “Knock it off or I’ll kill the baby.”

  Her head jerked and she stared at him.

  “That’s right. Your little boy is still alive. If you want him to stay that way you’ll do as I say.”

  Groaned, in reluctant concession.

  “I’m going to remove the tape now. If you scream, I’ll put the tape back and I’ll snap his scrawny little neck.”

  She nodded, and he ripped the tape off her lips.

  “I’ll be right back.” Moved across the basement to work at the utility sink.

  “Can I see him?” she asked, her throat raw, voice scratchy.

  “Later.” He brought the supplies over. “We have some unfinished business first.”

  She started crying again. “No more. Please!”

  “What did I say? Think I’m kidding? Want me to kill him?”

  “No!”

  “I’ll do this as quickly as possible.”

  He knelt before her and injected a syringe into her neck. Lay her flat on her back and tilted her head back, as if he were about to administer CPR.

  “Good,” he said, slightly out of breath, trying to contain his excitement. From this angle he could still see her face … her eyes … distorted with fear and pain, dread plastered on features in a frieze of beauty.

  Drool dripped from the corner of his mouth. That was too much, even for him. Looked away, embarrassed, wiped the spittle away with his thumb.

  Her raw fear attacked him, crushed his balls, stroked his cock … and again he felt himself losing control. He rubbed his painfully erect penis against her thigh and it discharge. Shuddered from the powerful orgasm.

  Scalpel in hand, he leaned over her to perform the trach. He cut a hole beneath the crichoid cartilage, creating a new airway. He inserted a breathing tube in her neck and rinsed away the blood, packing the wound in gauze. This way, after she was healed, he would still be able to communicate with her by covering the tube. Her voice would barely be above a whisper – and she wouldn’t be screaming any more.

  He worked quickly, as promised, but she felt it all. One of the more unusual side effects of curare. He could tell by her eyes that she felt everything.

  Later he started an antibiotic drip to ward off infection. He didn’t want her getting sick. After all, she was his—he wanted to keep her healthy. And she’d given him a son, so it made her a little more special. In a way. Maybe in a few years he’d even let her meet the boy she had birthed. Probably not.

  He stroked her filthy hair. Watched her sleep. He leaned against the brick wall where the last one had lain after dying, after seven years of service. Used up. Heartbroken, no longer wanting to live. He could keep their hearts beating and could keep them somewhat healthy, but after they gave up, there wasn’t much he could do. What had her name been? He was so bad with names … he’d called her Number Four.

  This one—Cassandra was it? —seemed like a fighter. He hoped to be able to keep her for a while.

  He felt the placenta working its magic, its healing properties coursing through his system, keeping him healthy. He found the Fountain of Youth, but the problem was in its supply. People still frowned at fetal studies, as archaic as that was. That forced him to provide his own.

  He stuck his face into her vagina, inhaling the remnants of the earlier smells; of jasmine and garlic and semen, mingled now with blood and gastric juices. Later he would mix her foods with rosewater and primrose; would cleanse her in patchouli and milk baths, douche her in honey and chamomile. Would keep her healthy, keep the placenta healthy.

  In the meantime, his other tools were lined up and ready for use: the bone saw, acetylene torch, scalpel. For now, she needed to rest. In a week or two, he would finish.

  *

  It had taken several courses of antibiotics to fight the infections that had taken over her body, but weeks later she was finally coming around.

  Eyes almost perfect circles, screaming voicelessly at the horror at looking down and seeing her limbless torso. She looked up at him, her blotchy red face twisted in terror, her body trembling in shock.

  Raspy, mummified air poured out of her mouth and trach hole.

  She’d get used to it, just like the ones before her had. And in a few months she’d supply him with fresh placenta, which he would harvest, ripe with fetal antibodies and antioxidants.

  He rolled her onto her back, careful not to disturb the cauterized stumps that still were not completely healed. Retrieved a tube of K-Y Jelly from his pocket and lubed his fingers and cock. He stuffed the fingers inside her to get her wet, then massaged his cock, closing his eyes to imagine someone else—he still hadn’t gotten used to seeing this one without her limbs, but that was an easily made adjustment.

  He leaned into her torso, pushed his cock inside her.

  She lay there quietly, her face stone. Unable to fight him off, unable to scream her horror, she seemed to have accepted her station and waited for him to finish, gasping choked, stale air through the hole in her neck.

  He grunted, pulled out. In six months she would supply fresh placenta, rich with vitamins, full of nutrients, the Elixir of life.

  Hefted her in his arms—so much lighter without her limbs—and carried her into the adjoining room, hidden behind a wall of particle board and tools.

  The walls: adorned with black and white photos of his women in various stages of pregnancy, some with limbs, most without, bloodless, cauterized stumps like birth defects. His hobby, a way to enhance his fetish.

  And lying on their makeshift beds on the floor, in varying stages of pregnancy, his five other women stared at him without a glimmer of hope, mouths open and gasping, faces dry because tears now were wasted effort.

  Attainable Beauty

  The painting always reminded Molly of a dream, an unattainable goal, a yearning to touch an unreachable Nirvana. A feeling that all was hopelessness, that she was less than perfection.

  Yet she was drawn to White Camelia, effectively sucked into its beauty and grace, unable to avoid it just as she was unable to look away from the violent scenes on the evening news.

  White Camelia, a study not only in colors and textures but a reflection of the human spirit, the beauty of the human form. Blossoming spreads of dewy, silky petals, the center of the creation as deadly and alluring as the poison perfume of the Venus flytrap.

  Daily visits to the Museum of Modern Art during her lunch hour brought solace, but even that was short-lived; the exhibit wouldn’t be there forever. The print hung on her bedroom wall as well, and nightly she knelt before it, said her prayers to it, shared her innermost secrets and desires, her sacred cow in a cheap balsa frame.

  Crossing Fifth Avenue, she headed to her small one-bedroom in SoHo, the apartment nestled amid a dozen others on her floor in the five-story walk-up.

  Nights that David stayed over made her prayer ritual impossible; she didn’t want him to think her insane. So beneath the sheets, sometimes beneath David, Molly offered silent supplication to the print.

  He rolled off and breathed heavily, resting on the pillows. He turned back and smoothed the hair out of her eyes. “That was nice,” he said, reaching across her breasts to the night table to retrieve a pack of smokes and the ashtray.

  “Yes, nice.” She smiled wanly an
d thought, nice for you maybe.

  She could close her eyes and imagine he was somebody else, but even that failed most times. She wouldn’t imagine herself with anyone else, couldn’t imagine that she would be desirable. Such imperfection, Molly was.

  “What’s on your mind?” he asked, lighting the cigarette.

  “What?”

  “You’re so deep in thought.”

  “Nothing.”

  He cupped her breast and lightly stroked it with his thumb, an action he seemed particularly fond of. She wondered if he thought this was somehow comforting.

  “Are you staying over?” she asked.

  The room was free of light, the blackout shade pulled past the sill. She preferred it that way. Making love in total darkness, so that he couldn’t see her imperfect body. Groping clumsily was part of their sex ritual, and they had invented their own style, their own art form.

  When he didn’t answer her question—he often left after they made love—she assumed he’d shook his head, if he’d answered at all.

  The ashtray was between them on the mattress, and he stubbed out the cigarette. He slid away from her, and she heard him padding across the floor. Moments later the bathroom light overtook the darkness and she squinted, momentarily blinded. She pulled the covers up to her chin. Touching was permitted but seeing was off-limits.

  In the bathroom doorway he stood facing her. Every inch of him was visible, but her eyes trained on the penis dangling between his legs. He scratched his backside and leaned against the doorframe.

  “Come take a shower with me.”

  “What?”

  “Come on, Molly. Come out from under there and let me see you.”

  Cheeks burning, she pulled the sheets tighter, now up to her nose.

  “What’s your problem?” he blurted. “What’s wrong with you?”

  “You’d better leave, David.”

  He padded across the floor again and turned on the overhead bedroom light.

  Chills danced on her skin despite the blankets pulled over her body. Her heart pounded.