Masochist: A Contemporary Young Adult SciFi/Fantasy (Swann Series Book 4)

by Schow, Ryan

  All her life, she had been cursed by cruelty. Her mother’s breast cancer. Her brother’s death. Her father, even though he was rich beyond measure, didn’t have the resources to save his wife’s tits. Or his son’s life.

  So he circumvented God. Bought Georgia a new body, a new face, a new life. Now, with the help of Gerhard and his experiments, she was supernatural.

  Extra-human.

  The most special of Gerhard’s dolls.

  Finally, for the first time in her life, she felt sure of herself. She felt in control.

  “Georgia, dear, what’s that smell?” her mother asked again from the other room, something more excitable in her voice.

  “I’m burning your precious plant,” she announced, as if it was the most natural thing ever. Her mother rushed into the room.

  When the woman saw the charred leaves of her destroyed, smoking plant, she stifled a cry, then looked directly at Georgia. The sight of her daughter caused an even greater cry of disbelief. One her slender hand could not suppress.

  “Your face!” she whispered, her voice low, layered with a kind of visceral terror.

  “What about it?” Georgia said. She knew though. It was the way Georgia was seeing the world that let her know her face was like Alice’s face. Grey, translucent skin. Pupils the size of marbles, and black.

  Black as polished onyx.

  “You…your…” And then she passed out, hitting the carpeted floor with a thud.

  When Georgia was finally able to raise her mother, the woman had that dazed look you get after passing out, the look that says your brain is still skipping gears. Then it cleared. Her mother turned and looked up at her precious plant, the one extracted from the deep tropical forests that made up Mexico’s womb, and then she started to sob.

  “What did you do that for?” her mother asked.

  In the kitchen, a smoke alarm went off. Georgia didn’t even flinch at the piercing sound. Her mother did, though.

  Georgia barely understood the feelings sweeping through her. Joy never felt so rich, so vibrant, so…justified. The smile on her face, it was the first she’d made since coming out of the glass canister. Until that point, all she managed to feel was indifference and rage.

  “It’s what I can do now,” she said. She said this the way people on drugs said things. Like some sixties flower child on acid. She was seeing the world in a new light, feeling religious feelings.

  Seeing God. Seeing herself.

  The smoke alarm finally shut itself off, bathing them in a thick, burnt silence.

  She helped her mother to her feet, then pulled her into a sort of exhausted embrace. “I think I’m going to be alright, mother. I’m sure of it.”

  Her mother never stopped crying, but Georgia didn’t care.

  Fight Club

  1

  The first week of training just might have been more painful than my physical transformation. Never in my life would I have thought such a thing possible. At least when I was changing, I had pills for the pain. But here, under the sadistic tutelage of ninth degree black belt and Isshin-ryu practitioner Sensei Naygel, I learned there are worse things than getting skinny fast. There are sustained bouts of physical pain and exhaustion, mixed with nausea, dizziness, and dehydration headaches.

  In a word, Sensei Naygel is unrelenting.

  The first day of training, I pooped my pants. This was not the only time I pooped myself. Sensei hit me in the solar plexus for another slipped f-bomb, and like before, I ruined my bleach-white gi pants with a wet push of the brown. With the burning, acidic mess squished uncomfortably against the insides of my thighs, I just stood, caught my breath and said, “I need another gi and another set of underwear.”

  Just like that.

  No embarrassment.

  For the first time, he smiled. Then he got me a new gi. And new underwear. As he was handing me my new clothes, he said, “Just remember, you wanted this.”

  “I know,” I replied.

  That entire week, I trained four to five hours a day. Most days, I fought the unrelenting need to quit. Like I was going to die if I didn’t. Then again, all I had to do was remind myself of the multiple attempts on my life, and of my greater goal: to get Rebecca back. Heim bested me before.

  He won’t do it again.

  For the first few days I filled the puke bucket, but on day four, we got through the full four hours with me having filled only half of it. For some reason, I was disappointed with myself. Like not filling the bucket was me letting myself down by not accomplishing enough.

  “Did you think you would always throw up so much?” Sensei Naygel asked.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Your body is getting stronger, more conditioned. Surely you have noticed.”

  “My body fat percentage is officially in the low single digits if that’s what you’re asking.”

  He shrugged his head, like I didn’t get it.

  Apparently I didn’t.

  “I’m not sure how you transcend the pain you do, or why your body is more resilient than every previous student I’ve had before. Whatever the reason, your body and mind are responding well. You haven’t had previous martial arts experience, have you?”

  “No.”

  Nowadays I’m thinking Gerhard must be a god to have given me his healing serum. And why? Because Julie Satan hit me in my newly forming face and smashed my nose? Or was there something more? Was it the radiation poisoning thing? Did Gerhard know the effects the serum would have on me, or that it might very well save my life one day?

  All burning questions with no immediate answers.

  Even though my body feels depleted most days, the aches and pains running so deep they’ve most likely scarred my soul, all of this is short-lived compared to what it should be. Normal people would break under Sensei Naygel’s tutelage. Normal people would quit.

  Not me. Nope.

  “You are a unique girl,” Sensei Naygel said at the end of my last class yesterday. “And so tomorrow I shall give you a treat. I believe you are ready.”

  2

  When I arrive at class at eight o’clock the next morning, which is a Friday morning, there is a hardened, fit girl of at least twenty. She is pretty in an athletic sort of way. But her eyes are the same as Sensei’s: cold, calculating, totally emotionless. She’s in her gi, although hers looks worn, frayed on the cuffs and sleeves. Wrapped around her gi top is a black belt with three yellow stripes on each end.

  Third degree black belt. Okay…

  The look on the girl’s face says she could kill you as soon as look at you. When our eyes meet, her mouth smiles and she introduces herself as Ms. Small (no first name) and says, “Sensei says good things about you.”

  “Is this my treat then?” I turn and ask Sensei Naygel. “A new workout partner?”

  “It’s what you get to do today that is the treat. Today, you and Ms. Small will be sparring.”

  “Sparring?”

  “Mock fighting. You’re going to apply the basics that you learned this week into a simulated fighting application.”

  My stomach sinks into my underwear, then slides down my leg and falls into my socks like some gigantic phantom turd.

  “Great. Thank you.”

  Ms. Small smiles, and I smile, but deep down, I have no idea what I’m in for.

  Sensei Naygel lays before me a plastic bag filled with brand new, painted red foam fighting gear. Head gear. Hands and feet gear. Mouth piece, still in the package.

  I watch Ms. Small putting on her gear. I do the same. The mouth piece barely fits. Sensei tells me I’ll need to soak it in hot water tonight to mold it. He says for now it’s fine.

  “When you fight her,” Sensei Naygel says, “rely on the basic techniques you have learned. And whatever you do, don’t fight angry.”

  My head nods, but my colon is suctioned closed. We face each other, bow, and then Sensei says, “Fight!”

  Swinging hard, kicking hard, moving fast…I should have hit her. B
ut I don’t. She’s always just out of range. Bounding on the balls of her feet and calmly studying me. I miss her by mere inches. Yet I have the feeling my misses felt miles wide to her. She remains untouched. Staring with that thousand yard stare like it’s nothing at all to have me doing what I’m doing. Which right now is starting to look pretty pathetic.

  I push harder. My body fights for balance. Like my feet aren’t cooperating with my hands or any of the rest of my body for that matter. My timing is off and pretty soon I’m stumbling all over the place like some carnival drunk. Embarrassment scalds my face. I should quit from the shame alone.

  These are not the techniques I have been taught.

  The minute my guard drops, Ms. Small punches me in the face. Not hard. Just enough to irritate me. I go after her again.

  My punches miss. My kicks fall short. My cardio eventually fails me. That’s when I get hit again. Not hard, just two solid shots in the ribs, enough to let me know what I know is exactly shit in the real world of karate.

  When Ms. Small looks at Sensei Naygel, I take a swing at her, quick and solid. Because I’m pissed. Because I’m frustrated. Without even looking, barely even seeing it coming, she moves back just enough for my fist to swing a half-inch wide, and then she counters me with a shot to my face so hard I’m certain it splits my eye open. I feel my feet staggering backwards, the ground this unsteady, shifting plane beneath me.

  The world pushes out, pulls in. For a second my vision is crowded with dark spots.

  Off balance, the big fall imminent, my face smashes sideways into the floor-to-ceiling mirror, which cranks my neck sideways. Everything goes black for a minute as I drop to the mat.

  “Push ups,” sensei barks at Ms. Small. She drops and starts doing push ups. No hesitation, not an ounce of expression. It’s like she expected it, like she’s not even sorry.

  I hold my arm against my head wound, which is bleeding a lot. I spit out my mouth piece, try pulling off my gloves.

  “Don’t do that,” Sensei says. I feel stupid in all this gear. Like a retard all padded up so when she falls down she doesn’t hurt herself or others.

  Sensei gets a towel and stitching equipment and still Ms. Small is cranking out her push ups. Like they’re a breeze. She isn’t slowing and she doesn’t look tired. She glances up at me and it isn’t a kind look. For the first time I see a crescent run of acne scars along her temple. It’s the light. All the sudden I’m wondering if she’s jealous of how I look. Of Sensei Naygel’s attention. Or is she just an angry girl? Who knows.

  By the time Sensei returns, my body is overheating, but the bleeding has stopped. Perspiration sits like a weighted sheen coating my brow, my underarms, my lower back. All areas start to roll with sweat, to drip.

  Sensei wipes at the source of the injury and then reels back, his face contorted with confusion. The wound is already shutting. Already healing. Dammit, I knew this would happen.

  “Hmm,” he says. To Ms. Small, he says, “On your feet.”

  He walks over to her, whispers something low.

  She nods.

  “Can you continue?” he says to me. Of course I can, so I nod. “Good, no more cheap shots. This isn’t high school.”

  My mouth stays shut because cheap shots are really all I have against his third degree black belt whom I can’t touch. We start sparring again. Sensei Naygel coaches me, and Ms. Small compliments my pace. She’s obviously going light. Her face is made of stone. Not a single expression.

  After a few minutes, about the time my feet start feeling extra heavy and my swing looks like it’s moving in slow motion, Ms. Small hits me twice as hard as before…in the same spot!

  My vision spikes and the next thing I know, I’m sprawled out on my back with both of them over the top of me. Sensei Naygel is looking at my head, wiping away the blood intermittently, watching the cut stitch itself back together at inhuman speed.

  “What are you?” he finally says to me. Ms. Small is looking on, watching not my eyes but my head. The way my body is heating up, I know I’ve been injured.

  “I heal fast. It’s a genetic anomaly,” I mumble before I can sensor my thoughts. He looks at me, perfectly silent. Then he glances at Ms. Small, whose expression stays unchanged. “Why do you ask?” I say, sitting up.

  “I’m realizing I’ve been too kind in my training,” Sensei Naygel says.

  “I didn’t want to tell you that, but now that it’s out there—” the smart ass in me replies. Sensei doesn’t know this, but I use sarcasm as a protective mechanism. Suddenly I’m thinking maybe this isn’t the best time to speak. I should really learn to shut my mouth sometimes.

  Sensei goes in back, brings out the puke bucket and a fresh gallon of water. I hope to Jesus that he doesn’t make me soil my pants in front of Ms. Small. I’m not sure my already ruined ego would take it so well. Genially, he places these two items at the edge of the mat and says, “Let us begin again.”

  Um…okay.

  After an hour, with the proper coaching, the quality of my fight escalates. I can breathe again. My legs and arms get through the initial shock of the fight and things are going right. Finally.

  Ms. Small looks at Sensei once more and he nods. The next thing I know, she’s cranking out a spinning heel hook at my face. Her bare heel smashes me in the eye, splitting open my other eyebrow. But not before it’s freaking lights out. Again. When I wake up, it’s with my face in a pool of my own blood. I lift my head up off the mat, try sitting up.

  “No,” Sensei says.

  “I’m fine,” I say, sitting up anyway.

  Apparently I’ve become a human piñata to their curiosity.

  Sensei kneels down, wipes the blood continually, watches it heal before his eyes.

  “Mmmhmm,” he says quizzically.

  “I’m starting to feel like a lab rat, Sensei,” I say, dizzy. Perhaps that’s all I’m good for anymore. I wipe my bleached white sleeve across my face, adding to the smears of blood already on it. Something about me bleeding this much and not quitting makes me feel proud.

  “Interesting,” he finally says.

  That’s all he says.

  After four hours of sparring, half a bucket of puke, and two full gallons of water, Friday is done. I am spent, ashamed. Ms. Small isn’t even breathing hard. She barely broke a sweat. She and I bow to each other, then she goes to the other room to change. When she leaves, she bows to Sensei, then heads off the mat without a word.

  If Friday was a horrible, unexpected day, then Saturday became the ninth circle of Hell. It was the sort of blue ribbon day I never thought was possible. It shaped up to be so brutal and so intense, my mind jumped tracks from the day before, and the day before that, and every single minute of that class, I dreamt of quitting.

  Not that Sensei Naygel would let me.

  Not that I’d let myself.

  3

  The first thing Sensei says when he sees me Saturday morning is, “Where are your bruises?”

  “Healing,” I tell him.

  “Show me,” he says. The thing about Sensei Naygel is, when he hardens his eyes, the look alone can send you running for the hills.

  I can’t show him because I don’t have any bruises, so I shrug my shoulders.

  “Let me see your eye,” he says. He grabs my face, turns my head looking for the swelling that should be there, but isn’t.

  “Cuts like that don’t heal overnight, much less before my eyes.”

  “I know.”

  “You know,” he says, sarcastic. At this point we’re alone. No Ms. Small.

  “Today we spar,” he says. “You and me. Gear up.”

  On a scale of one to ten, I’m scared out of my freaking mind. Putting on my gear the way I do, slowly, all the while wondering how fast I can get to the exit, it’s a monumental moment of cowardice I’m having. OMG, I so don’t want to do this!

  When I stand up, he sees it in my eyes. “To break a person before you’ve even begun the fight is a skill that takes ma
ny years and much training to develop. In doing this to you, please know that I take no pride. You should be scared. You should want to run.”

  “I do.”

  “Yet you won’t, because I am faster. Stronger. More resolute. You will not make it to the door, and you will not leave until there is ample blood on your uniform. This is the old way.”

  I swallow hard, fight off shots of dizziness, waves of nausea.

  “Tell my about these attacks you survived,” he says, moving around me, his hands up. I put my hands up, too, then counter his deliberately slow moves the way I’ve been taught.

  “The first person tried to grab me, but I got away. I bit off his pinkie finger and shot him in the head. The bullet grazed him, enough to make him run.” I don’t tell him later I killed the man, or that he was a feat of dark, misguided science.

  He takes a few shots at me, bare knuckled, and they connect with my ribs. The pain hits hard, then rolls like an earthquake through my organs, disrupting the natural rhythm of my body. I get all Gumby shouldered and rattled. Currents of unease roil over my organs, making me feel like hurling.

  How the hell did he do that? I’m left wondering. The pain stays moving through me long after his fist is done. It feels like it’s doing damage to my organs.

  “And the second attack?”

  I’m still trying to catch my breath. “A man tried to…strangle me. My friend…came to…came to my rescue. I barely escaped with my life.”

  I throw a kick, but he swats it away. It’s like a housefly he can’t stand. I throw another kick and he chops down on the side of my shin with enough force to hobble me. For a second, I can’t put weight on my leg. I stumble, nearly go down because it’s now a bitch to try moving while feeling like this.

  “Those are your nerves,” he says. “And the third?”

  I draw a deep breath, try to talk and hobble at the same time without losing my wind or undoing my focus. “I was tied…to my bed…and he tried to…burn me to death.”

  “Where?”

  “Stomach,” I lie, the sweat pouring into my eyes and mouth. I swipe it away, counter a slow punch, a little faster kick. I draw a deep breath. It hurts.