by Dan O'Shea
Doc tore open a sterile emergency tray, grabbed a chest tube, swiped the guy’s lateral chest wall with betadine, made a small incision with a disposable scalpel, widened the opening with a hemostat, then slipped the tube into the pleural space, anchored it and hooked it up to a small suction machine, flipping the switch on.
He found a finger electrode on the portable machine next to the table, clicked it on then clamped the small monitoring device on the guy’s index finger, which gave heart rate and blood oxygen saturation readings.
“Swing that machine over.” Doc pointed at a respirator. It looked like a mini gas pump on wheels. Dials, gauges, corrugated tube hanging. Doc took a laryngoscope and endotracheal tube from the kit.
The two guys paced, got back in Doc’s face.
“Come on!”
“Move back, gentleman.”
“Let’s go!”
“He’s crashing, step back please.”
“Come on, old man!”
One guy had a pistol, started waving it. Doc got at the head of the table, leaned over the victim’s face. Doc felt dizzy, all the excitement. The other guy had a gun out now too. Doc’s hand started to shake a bit.
The lead guy said, “Ya old bastid. Get it in, it ain’t that hard. I seen this done before.”
“Give me a damn moment,” Doc said, agitation building, making things that much more difficult.
“He’s dyin!”
The metallic blade clanked teeth. A front tooth chipped. The tube wouldn’t go.
“Come on! Gimme that!”
The guy shoved Doc while grabbing at the endotracheal tube, sending Doc stumbling back.
Doc’s arms flailed, grasping air, foot catching under the respirator, free fall now, back into glass cabinets, instruments clinking on tile, glass shattering.
Doc went for a long surgical blade on the floor. Doc slapped his hand on it, grabbed, tried to stand, turned and the guy shot him, spun Doc round, and he dropped the instrument with a clank.
A flank shot. Pain seared a bolt through his side. He sat.
The guy, satisfied, turned back to his buddy, said, “Pick up that knife,” which he did.
Doc could see the guy now working the tube into his buddy’s throat as if he were pumping a tire, in and out, pushing, face serious as could be. Doc closed his eyes and put his head back, pain rushing in.
• • • •
Honey stirred.
First the banging. Then a fitful sleep. Now a crash. A shot? It had been more than fifteen minutes.
Something wasn’t right.
Honey stood, slipped on some light nightwear. Retrieved the double barrel shotgun from the closet. Slid his feet into cherry red pumps. Honey stopped in front of the wall mirror, admired his reflection, hitting a couple of tough, but sexy, poses. He smiled. He positioned the shotgun across his chest like some badass warrior bitch and pumped it, CHIT-CHIT, excitement welling up.
• • • •
“Doc. Wake up. Sorry I shot you, man. You’ll be okay. Flesh wound, I think.”
“Huh?”
“I got it in,” the guy said. “I got the tube in, man. Now you gotta turn on that respirator thingy. Get it going. He bleedin’ man. You need to get back in the game. Real sorry, Doc. Got excited.”
Doc wiped his eyes. Looked at his side, some blood, but not terrible. The asshole guy helped him up. He saw the intubated guy, tube jammed down his throat, ambu bag on his chest.
“Keep bagging him till I get the respirator on,” Doc said.
The guy jumped back, connected the bag to the end of the endotracheal tube, started furiously squeezing, pumping air with both fists.
Doc noticed that the chest was not rising with each squeeze. He knew what that meant. The tube was probably in the esophagus. Then he noticed the other guy was gone.
“Where’s the other guy?”
“Just went to check the house.” The guy had a sneaky smile going. “Make sure nobody else is here. You got anybody stashed away upstairs, Doc?”
“Just my sick wife. She’s old. Leave her alone.” Doc said this with confidence. It wasn’t too far from the truth. Ethel had died two years ago. Ravaged by pancreatic cancer. Her last months were horrific, with all the chemo, bless her soul. “Tell him to leave her alone, please.”
“He just gonna say hi, then. Check in on the old lady. Don’t you worry.”
“Leave her. She has cancer.” Doc hoped Honey was up. He couldn’t bear the thought of something happening to him. “He’ll frighten her.”
“Just routine, Doc old boy. Hook up this goddamn machine now.”
• • • •
Honey could hear shuffling footsteps on the hardwood down the hall at the top of the stairs. He rested the shotgun on the bed. Change of plans. Honey hid just inside the doorway at the first room off the hall. He hovered in the dim light, which resulted in subtle and soft shadows arcing across his surgically enhanced lady bumps. Well, mountains really. The lace teddy was wide open, cinched at the waist by a silk belt, allowing his breasts to protrude freely in all their glory.
The red heels, black thigh-length stockings and garters completed his sultry look. His junk dangling from the crotchless panties was obscured in low shadow.
Honey waited.
The man approached. Honey leaned ever so slightly from the doorway and could see the pistol. Honey used his female voice. “Heyyya there.”
The guy, initially tense, fisting the pistol out front, visibly relaxed when his eyes found Honey’s breasts. The pistol lowered, down to his side. Then the goofy face of every man who has just set eyes on a pair of unexpected boobs. Honey slid closer.
Showtime.
“You lookin’ for me?” Honey said.
“Ah, well. I guess.”
“Well come a bit closer, you man you.”
A quick snap of the head crushed the guy’s nose. Honey grabbed the gun hand, angled the wrist, twisted, forcing the fingers to release the pistol. A quick knee to the balls and the guy went down with a grunt. Gave Honey a moment to regroup.
The guy was on his knees, wiping his face, trying to catch his breath. Honey slithered directly in front, allowing an eye-level unobstructed close-up view of Honey’s dangling man-package. The guy looked up, wiped blood and spit from his eye, then saw.
“What the…?”
Honey gyrated closer, gave his hip one gentle thrust. “You like that, big boy?”
“Hell no!” The guy spat, arching back, twisting his neck, looking for his gun. “You a freaky girl-man!”
Honey inhaled. Took in the comment, freaky girl-man, absorbed it. Then the look of horror and disgust. It was all Honey needed.
Honey swung around the back of the guy, like a tiger pouncing on prey, got him in a firm chokehold from behind. Honey applied steady pressure and after an initial struggle, with the guy clawing at his arm, trying to take some awkward reverse punches, he started to soften. The lack of airflow combined with the compressed carotid circulation did the trick.
Then the years of similar horrified looks, murmurs, disgusted faces all came back. Images flooded his brain like a bad fast forward movie, accelerating, all seeming to converge as a pent-up energy force in Honey’s taut arms that couldn’t be contained and burst forth as a single torque-laden twist and audible crack.
Honey relaxed, spent as if post-orgasm, softly let the limp body crumble on the floor like a broken puppet. Honey stood, straightened out his robe, fixed his belt, smoothed his stockings. He picked up the pistol from the floor and the shotgun off the bed, headed for the stairs.
• • • •
Doc said, “We have to call an ambulance. I’m bleeding more now.”
“Just keep workin’ on my bro. Fix him up. You’ll be just fine, Doc.”
Doc could see the guy’s abdomen distending, blowing up like a float for the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. Yup. The guy intubated his esophagus. The respirator was relentlessly forcing air into the guy’s stomach. Doc stepped up to t
he intubated guy’s side.
“Why’s his stomach doing that?” The guy said.
“Air.”
“What?”
“You placed the tube wrong.”
“The hell does that mean?”
“Hey!” Honey was on the steps, half-way down into the room. Legs crossed, his junk tucked out of site. Silk robe open, voluminous smooth breasts practically filling the room, nipples unnaturally high in position, pointing skyward. The pistol was in his hand, behind his back, shotgun on the step above.
“Where’s Pug?” The guy said, somewhat confused, slipping into some kind of breast trance.
“Pug?” Honey said in the sultry voice, subtly swaying his shoulders to and fro. “How cute. He’s, well let’s just say, he’s resting.”
“Really?” the guy said, the goofy man-smile ripping across his face. He turned to Doc. “Wait. You said your wife was sick and old.”
“Well,” Doc said, forcing a half-smile. “Didn’t want your guy to…well you know. Take advantage. I’m an old man. Look at her.”
“Wooo!” The guy laughed. “She don’t look sick, that’s for sure. Come on down, baby.”
“Suuure,” Honey said. “First, I wanna show you something.”
“What’s that? Hmmm?” The guy rubbed his hands together, licked his lips, putting it on now. “You got somethin’ to show me, eh?”
“Uh-huh.” Honey separated his legs, swung a knee out to the side, allowing a clear view of his dangling cock and balls. “Say hello to my little friend.”
The horrified look. Again.
“Holy Jesus what the fuck is that!?” The guy whipped a hand to his mouth. “DAMN!”
Doc yelled, “Holdit!” and spun toward the table. The guy’s abdomen was massively distended, the air-filled stomach ballooning up outside the abdominal cavity through the puncture wound, which had widened under pressure. The abdominal wall gave in to the sustained tension, began to tear down midline, a shredding sound, the stomach inflating more and more, escaping outside the body, straining upward.
Doc screamed, “The tube!” and made a motion for the endotracheal tube before there was a loud popping sound, an explosion really, resulting in a misty blast of bloody tissue bits and body fluids, including gastric acid. The stomach had ruptured.
Doc and the guy were forcibly slapped with debris; face, hair, chest. A hideous stench overcame the room. The acid burned their eyes and they clamored at their faces with fluid covered fingers, making it worse. The guy spit chunks of tissue onto the floor and the ceiling dripped viscous material.
It took a moment for Doc and the guy to get their bearings. Honey had a small amount of debris stippled across his lower legs, given the distance and angle from the explosion.
They all looked at the table, the guy’s abdomen now fully evacuated, an empty shell, shredded flaps of abdominal wall musculature draped over the flank, dripping. Stripes of yellow-reddish gunk spread out like a star from the gutted abdomen. He looked like a riddled carcass, something you might come across in the woods after night scavengers have had their way.
When the guy turned to the staircase, aware again of his surroundings and that chick with the little friend, he could make out Honey sitting sidelong on the steps, shotgun aimed his way, in position, bearing down on his chest from twenty feet.
Using his deep man voice, Honey said to Doc, “You okay, baby?”
“Okay, Honey.” Doc patted his bloody shirt. “Little flesh wound, but I’ll be fine.”
The guy whirled his head to Doc, back to Honey, back to Doc. “That your Honey?” Then he laughed, a mocking deep belly sound.
“You bet,” Doc said, and then toward Honey, “I love you. Glad you’re okay.”
“Love you too.”
The guy said, “Love you?! Hooooly shit!” And he had that disgusted horrified look on his face. Honey nodded.
Then the sirens. High-pitched wails outside the building, on the street in front of the brownstone. Some tires screeching to a stop.
Honey smirked at the guy, who had the gun hand at his side. “Yessiree. Dialed little ‘ole 911 before I came down.”
The guys dripping splattered face tightened into a ball of rage and fury, registering the sirens, the shotgun. Then Honey.
Yup. Honey preferred the guy’s face of fury and rage to the horrified and disgusted. Oh well, too late.
Honey smiled, lifted his knee, swung his leg, thrust his pelvis and said in his best, most sensuous female voice, “Go for it, big boy.”
The guy’s gun hand started to rise, and he managed to utter the word, “freak,” as he stepped forward with accentuated manliness, swinging the pistol gangsta style, before the room exploded again, this time with a double-barreled BOOM and blinding flash of light.
REGRETS ONLY
Holly West
Tammy Valero liked to say she had no regrets in life. Not the abortion at sixteen or the Oxy that ravaged her twenties, not the subsequent alcoholism or the occasional hooking, not even the good-for-nothing boyfriends. She’d made plenty of mistakes, but she didn’t figure there was much use in crying about them, so mostly, she didn’t.
In truth, she did have one regret: she didn’t kill that sorry-ass bitch Paula Murphy when she had the chance.
Oddly, this was the first thing that came into Tammy’s mind when Dr. Randall issued his grim diagnosis. She’d developed a rare cancer, he said, a kind for which there was no reliable treatment and little hope of recovery. She thought about Paula, with her $200 blue jeans, her expertly highlighted hair and her surgically enhanced tits, all financed by Tammy’s ex-boyfriend Scott. The two-carat diamond engagement ring that should have been hers on Paula’s perfectly manicured finger.
But the realization her life was about to end quickly displaced these thoughts. She’d seen plenty of death in her thirty-six years, but she’d never given much thought to her own, and she was ill prepared for this news. A wave of dizziness overcame her and she grasped the arms of her chair to steady herself.
“How long do I have?” she asked when the shock began to dissipate.
“That depends,” Dr. Randall said. He rested his elbows on his desk and made a steeple of his fingers. He was handsome in a fatherly sort of way. “There are experimental treatments available, but without health insurance I doubt you’d qualify—“
“How long?”
“A month, maybe six weeks.” He paused and his sad expression appeared genuine. “I’m very sorry, Ms. Valero.”
• • • •
Tammy treated herself to a cab. She sank into the back seat, flipped open her compact and focused on her reflection. The whites of her eyes retained the strange golden tinge they’d had when she’d visited the free clinic for birth control pills and wound up submitting to a round of tests and an MRI to find the cause of the jaundice. The results showed that a tumor had snaked around her insides, squeezing her liver like a boa constrictor until it could no longer function properly, staining her face yellow.
She glanced up and the driver’s beady black eyes met her own in the review mirror. The plastic encased license affixed to the glove compartment revealed his name as Jaswant Singh. Could he tell she was dying? Tammy returned the compact to her purse and turned toward the window so he couldn’t see her face.
Once home, she stripped and got into bed. She pressed her fingers into her abdomen until it hurt, feeling around for the tumor that would shortly kill her. There was only a vague squishiness.
Paula Murphy had nothing to squish, and Tammy wondered how Scott stood it. He’d always said he loved her curves, couldn’t get enough of them, and yet he’d dropped her faster than you could say “push-up bra” when Paula came along, wagging her skinny ass.
Scott and Tammy had met Paula eight months previous on a yacht in Marina del Rey, where his law firm was hosting an employee appreciation dinner. Paula, outfitted in a pressed white dress shirt, baggy black slacks, and a black bow tie, sauntered by them with a tray of chicken satay bal
anced in her hand.
It turned out chicken satay wasn’t all that was on offer.
Tammy saw the spark that ignited between Scott and Paula immediately. It was so palpable that she found herself stuttering a pathetic “no thank you” as Paula brandished the tray in front of her. Meanwhile, Scott smiled and helped himself, his fingers delicately brushing Paula’s in the process.
At the time, Paula wasn’t the image of a perfect woman she was now. Her hair, while thick and reasonably well maintained, was a plain chocolate brown color, obviously lacking any chemical enhancement. She was slender, with a chest as flat as the pounded chicken on sticks she was serving, but she moved with a confidence that belied her apparently modest station in life. She was pretty, even charming.
Later that night Tammy and Scott fucked like two strangers; shameless, uninhibited, nasty. She would’ve liked it if she hadn’t suspected Scott was thinking of Paula with every thrust. Even now the memory excited her and her hand crept to the wet spot between her legs. She rubbed until she came, then took a deep breath and closed her eyes.
The funny thing was that Tammy recognized herself in Paula, despite the brevity of conversation during that first meeting. Like Tammy, Paula appeared to need a savior, or at least a boost in life, and Scott loved projects. He was a regular Henry-Fucking-Higgins.
Isn’t that what Tammy was when they met? A project?
She’d been working at Crazy Girls, a divey yet somehow iconic titty bar on La Brea. She was mostly a waitress, fetching watery well drinks for already-drunk customers, but sometimes she filled in as a dancer if someone called in sick. When Scott and his buddies came in looking for a cheap place to finish out the night, she was onstage gyrating to Lenny Kravitz singing American Woman, her nipples strategically covered by star-spangled pasties.
