by Anthology
Big Sister stopped injuring Little Sister, at least in ways that left marks. Using her medical connections at work, she managed to get her hands on some Zanatra and tested it to make sure it still affected her sister the same way it had when she was in her own body.
It did.
She called Uncle Roy to arrange a visit and made sure to take a Zanatra exactly one hour before their meeting.
They met at Mama’s house. Uncle Roy was already there, waiting on the front porch, dressed in one of his ubiquitous cardigans. He leaned over to kiss Big Sister on the cheek, and then visibly paled as he cast a quick glance down at her belly. “Is this about...it?”
Big Sister schooled her features into carefully rehearsed anguish. “Can we talk about this in private?”
He nodded and pressed his thumb to the lock. The door swung open, the musty, medicinal smell of the house rushing past them as if trying to escape into the clean air outside. “Doesn’t look like you took any furniture.”
“I didn’t.” Big Sister turned her back to her uncle, unzipped her jacket and carefully draped it over a dusty armchair. She’d turned the house filters off when she moved out. She wanted the place to decay. She looked at her uncle over her shoulder and said, “Uncle Roy. I...” Big Sister bit her lip and turned away, her shoulders tense with what she hoped looked like distress.
The floorboards creaked as he approached her from behind. “Please, just tell me,” he said.
She let her head droop and shook it slowly from side to side. “I can’t live this way anymore.”
Uncle Roy let out a long breath, and two heavy hands fell on her shoulders. “Sweetheart, I...” He sighed again. “My sister butchered you. I just wish she’d said something to me before she did it so I could have tried to stop her.”
“I...I know.” And she really did believe him. It almost made her feel bad for what she was about to do.
“I wish I could do something to help, but I don’t know what. The doctor who did this to you died two years ago.”
The tears of frustration that sprung to Big Sister’s eyes surprised her.
“Your mother left me the holos from the procedure in case something went wrong with your sister and she needed surgery.” He snorted. “She never did care about you, did she?”
Big Sister shook her head, the familiar anger burning away the tears.
“I’ve shown them anonymously to a couple of surgeons. They were horrified. They couldn’t believe that any doctor would perform such a grossly unethical procedure. Still...” He let out a long breath. “None of them could figure out a way to get your sister out of there. And even if they could...”
Here it came.
“I mean, what would we do with her?”
With mock innocence, Big Sister asked, “What do you mean?”
“Well, she’s alive in there, isn’t she?”
Big Sister turned around and pointed to the spreading drool stain over her belly. “She’s been brain dead ever since the operation.”
Uncle Roy clapped his hands over his mouth and nose. “Oh my god. Your mother said—”
“Mama lied to herself so she wouldn’t have to believe that her precious was gone.”
“Oh god.” He staggered back, one hand dropping to clutch at his stomach. “Oh god. I’ll...I’ll keep looking for someone who can cut her out, no matter how long it takes.”
“No,” Big Sister snapped. “I can’t wait any longer. I’ve waited long enough already.”
Uncle Roy shook his head helplessly. In a near-whisper, he said, “I know, but what can we do?”
Big Sister suppressed a smile. She knew the Zanatra only paralyzed Little Sister’s muscles. It didn’t do anything to her mind. It was time for her to hear her sister’s plans for her. “I’ve thought about this, actually. I can just cover her over.”
“Cover her?” He looked down at Big Sister’s belly with a wince. “You mean wall her in there?”
“I can cover her with artificial skin. I have access to it at work. It’ll be easy.”
“But—”
“Uncle, I swear to you, she is completely brain dead.”
Big Sister lifted her shirt and forced Uncle Roy to look at his other niece for the first time in a decade. Forced him to look at her slack mouth, drool dribbling from the corner, at the eyes rolled up in their sockets. He retched and spun away, face buried in his hands.
With a satisfied smile, Big Sister lowered her shirt, then stepped forward and put gentle hands on her uncle’s back. “I’m sorry, but you had to see that.”
“Do whatever you want,” he gasped. “Oh god, I can’t believe my sister did that to you. I can’t believe...” He raced to the bathroom, and Big Sister heard him throwing up between his sobs.
She patted Little Sister gently on what once was her forehead and headed home to wait for the Zanatra to wear off.
“Please don’t do this. Please! You can’t!”
Big Sister smiled. With mock sympathy, she gazed at Little Sister’s reflection in the full-length bedroom mirror and said, “I’m really sorry, but there’s no other way.”
“It’s not my fault! It’s Mama’s fault!”
“Wrong answer. Would you like to try again?” Big Sister carefully laid out several sheets of artificial skin that she’d nabbed from work.
“I’m sorry! Oh god, I’m sorry!”
“I can tell.”
“You’re right. I should have told her not to do this to you. I should have begged her to let me die instead.”
“But you didn’t.”
“I wasn’t thinking! I was just a kid!”
“I know. I was there.”
“You can’t hold that against me. I was only fourteen!”
“Sure I can.” Big Sister pulled a surgical cautergun and a portable skin-sealer from her handbag and placed them next to the artificial skin. It was amazing the things she could get her hands on at work.
“Oh god, you’re really going to do this, aren’t you?”
Big Sister chuckled. “You just figured that out?”
“Kill me first! Please! Don’t leave me conscious in there!”
“Even if I knew how to do that, what makes you think I’d want to have a rotting lump of flesh in my gut? Besides, this is a much more fitting punishment, don’t you think?”
“Please! Have mercy!”
Big Sister fixed Little Sister’s reflection with an icy stare. “You don’t deserve mercy. Now, this will go faster if you don’t struggle, but frankly, I’m hoping you do.”
First, she used the cautergun to slice off Little Sister’s nose and ear. It wouldn’t do to have lumps protruding from her abdomen. She gazed at her sister’s reflection, at her lips working in a whispered scream, and realized that they’d have to go too. Finally, she gouged out Little Sister’s eyes and cauterized the sockets clean.
“This must hurt,” she said without sympathy.
The skin-sealer came next. It wasn’t easy to seal the eyelids closed over the empty sockets, but with the aid of a couple of well-placed safety pins, Big Sister managed. And the pins came in handy for holding the flapping remains of Little Sister’s mouth together while she sealed them shut.
She picked up the first layer of artificial skin and gazed at the reflection of her sister’s butchered face, the face that had so thoroughly dominated her life for these twenty-four years.
Freedom was only a few sheets of skin away.
“See you in hell,” she said, and laid down the first sheet.
Big Sister lay back on the bed, the lights dimmed, and reached for the waistband of her shirt. Jonas helped her pull it over her head, then kissed her, his hands roaming over Big Sister’s breasts, her back, her belly.
He stopped and cocked his head as Big Sister’s belly squirmed slightly under his fingers. “Hunh?”
“Oh, that,” Big Sister said. “I have a weird intestinal condition. My stomach moves around a little. It’s nothing.”
“Is it?” He
moved his head closer, turning one ear toward Big Sister’s belly. “Wow, I thought I heard something.”
“Yeah, it’s part of the condition.”
Jonas pressed his head against Big Sister’s slightly bumpy stomach. “It sounds almost like a whispered scream.”
She was glad she’d forgotten to seal what was left of Little Sister’s nostrils shut. “Freaky, isn’t it? Just ignore it. You’ll get used to it.”
Jonas smiled. “Get used to it. I like the sound of that.”
Big Sister held her arms out and pulled Jonas to her, his weight crushing against her belly, against her captive, who she could feel squirming ineffectually against her fleshy prison.
Mama had always wanted Big Sister to include Little Sister in everything. And now they could lose their virginity together. Really, if she hadn’t walled Little Sister up, they would never have been able to share this.
Together forever. Just like Mama wanted.
Yes, much of Jennifer’s fiction is as visceral as this story. Somebody once called her the David Cronenberg of SF. See for yourself, check out her collection of dark SF UNWELCOME BODIES from Apex Publications.
Pain. Pleasure. The sensation of touch…we feel everything through our skin, that delicate membrane separating “I” from “other,” protecting the very essence of self.
Until it breaks. Or changes. Or burns.
What would you do if you were the one called on to save humanity, and the price you had to pay was becoming something other than human? Or if healing your body meant losing the only person you’ve ever loved?
Wander through worlds where a woman craves even a poisonous touch…a man’s deformities become a society’s fashion…genetic regeneration keeps the fires of Hell away…and painted lovers risk everything to break the boundaries of their caste system down.
Separate your mind from your flesh and come in. Welcome…
“Pelland handles difficult topics with assured storytelling chops, bringing us to the brink of tears, fear, desire, and beyond. Worth your time AND money AND sincere attention.”
—Steven Gould, author of Jumper
Available today from Apex Publications
http://www.apexbookcompany.com
Table of Contents
Introduction: Five Years and Counting
It Tasted Like the Sea
Summon, Bind, Banish
To Every Thing There is a Season
Life’s a Beach
Kusatenda Uroyi
Lottery
Cerbo en Vitra ujo
The Spider in the Hairdo
The Dark Side
With the Beating of their Wings
Enough to Make a Devil
Flash of Light
Transylvania Mission
Inside Looking Out (or: Falling Through the Worlds)
Powered
Disturbing Things
Eulogy for Muffin
Hands of Heritage
The Junkyard God
Bessie Green’s Thumb
Big Sister/Little Sister
