Deep Cuts

by Angel Leigh McCoy

  She stirred. Her two blackened eyes fluttered open. He did not remove his hand. More blood was rushing to his cock, if that were possible. He was swaying with desire. The room spun. Those black eyes, staring at him, filled with tears as she smiled weakly.

  “It’s…okay,” she whispered.

  He jerked his hand away and drew it beneath his chin as if it had been severely injured.

  “It’s okay,” she said again.

  “I…I…” He averted his head as bile rose in his throat; he was sick to death; God, what had he been doing?

  Her voice came again: “It’s okay.” Pleading. The hair rose on the back of his neck.

  Oh, Christ, she wanted him to hurt her.

  He wanted to do it.

  At this time, the vomit flooded his mouth; he ran from the room.

  ◙

  He didn’t take a shower or change his scrubs. In the cold light of his car, he avoided the rearview mirror. He dropped the house keys twice. His mouth tasted of sickness; he thought of Mrs. Magnuson’s cream of spinach soup.

  His roommate, Katrina, who was also a doctor but was not his girlfriend, had left on the TV without the sound; a strange habit of hers—she did that when she studied. There was a note that someone had called about the bicycle he wanted to sell. The bicycle. His patient had died and he had molested—

  —tortured—

  —crash cart—

  He opened the fridge and grabbed a beer. Put it back and got Katrina’s bottle of vodka out of the freezer. Swigged it. He felt so sick. He felt so disgusting.

  There were sounds in her room. Deliberately, he reduced his noise level; if she asked him what was wrong, he wouldn’t be able to tell her.

  Because he didn’t know.

  ◙

  An hour later, puking his brains out. Katrina hovering in the background, muttering about God knew what. Praying to the ghost of Mrs. Magnuson, dreaming of Ms. Bell.

  Of her versatile heart.

  Of the power and the need of that heart

  that so often stopped…

  that so often started.

  Oh, God.

  “What happened tonight?” Katrina was asking, had been asking, over and over and over. “What happened?”

  “Lost a patient,” he managed between bone-rattling heaves. His knees knocked the tequila bottle, and it arced as if they were playing Spin-the-Bottle; they had agreed to be platonic, and it had never been a problem. He liked her enormously, respected her.

  “Oh, God, Alan. Oh.” She stroked his hair. She had a glass of water at the ready; she was solicitous that way. If she’d known what he had done, she would probably move out. At the very least. Maybe she would have him arrested and thrown out of medicine.

  “Mrs. Magnuson.” He had told Katrina about her.

  “Oh, I’m sorry.” Soothing, sweet. He could feel himself shriveling inside. He was sick.

  He was sick.

  “Alan, drink this water.” Rubbed his back, rubbed his shoulders.

  It’s okay.

  He sobbed.

  ◙

  A few hours passed; he dozed, then slept. Finally at about seven, he woke and realized he hadn’t been very drunk; except for a draining sensation of fatigue, he was all right. Katrina had left him some toast and a couple of aspirin and a note that said, “I’m really sorry. Hope you feel better.”

  He showered and changed his clothes, forced down the toast but not the aspirin, had coffee, and drove to the hospital. He had to talk to her, to apologize, to make what couldn’t be right, right.

  No one paid him much notice when he went to the hospital—a few bobbed heads, a mild expression of surprise that he was back so soon. He pushed the button for the staff elevator; as he waited, a young nurse whose name he couldn’t remember joined him. She said, “Did you hear about Dr. Bell?” His terse nod cut off the conversation.

  The elevator came. They both went in. He pushed five and stood apart from her, his hands folded. He watched the numbers; at four she left with a little smile. She was very pretty. As pretty as Ms. Bell might be.

  The doors opened. Her room was to the left.

  He turned right and walked into one of the supply rooms.

  Got a hypo.

  He put it in his trouser pocket and headed back toward the left. Perspiration beaded his forehead, and his hands were wet. He felt cold and tired.

  Filled with nervous anticipation.

  Sick, Sick. He was almost to her room. He felt the hypo through the paper wrapper. He was going to stick it someplace. Into her shoulder, maybe, or her wrist.

  Or her eye.

  His erection was enormous; it had never been this big, or hard, or wanting.

  God. He sagged against her door. Tears spilled down his face. He held onto the transom and took deep breaths.

  He was going to go in there, and she would want it.

  “No,” he murmured, but he was about to explode. “No.”

  “Hey.” He started, whirled around. Anita Guzman stood in the hall. “You okay?”

  “Man.” He wondered if she could see his erection; as she stood looking at him, it started to go down.

  “They’re going to fry him,” Anita hissed, lowering her voice. “Fucking fry that chingada asshole.”

  “What?” he asked faintly.

  She blinked. “You don’t know.” She made a helpless shrug. “I had to pull an extra shift. Alan, Bell’s wife died last night.”

  His heart jumped. “No.”

  She nodded vigorously. “It was her heart. They took her to ICU but—”

  “No.” He ducked his head inside the room. The ivory curtain was there, the form stretched behind it. He walk-ran toward her, his chest so tight that his breath stopped.

  The dark curls, the small face. He whirled around. Anita stood in the doorway. He said. “But she’s still here.”

  “No. I had the room wrong,” she whispered, wrinkling her nose in confession. “Mrs. Bell was up on the sixth.”

  His stomach cramped, and the room began to tilt crazily; with a trembling hand, he gripped the edge of the bed. “Then…who is this?”

  Anita came around the curtain and barely looked at her. “I don’t know. But it isn’t Bell’s wife. This place is full of battered women, you know? Well, I gotta get back.” She gave him a wave, which he didn’t return.

  Not Bell’s wife. Not Bell’s work.

  But partly his.

  Dr. Bell, so kind and generous. Dr. Jones, so sensitive.

  This place is full…

  The woman opened her eyes. Her gaze met his, held it, would not let him look away. His penis bobbed inside his underwear.

  “It’s okay,” she murmured. Her broken mouth smiled weakly. “Please. It really is.”

  Sandra M. Odell on Tanith Lee's “The Princess and Her Future-Asia: The Eighteenth Century”

  Tanith Lee snuck into my dreams to whisper dark and wondrous things in my early teens, and “The Princess and Her Future-Asia: The Eighteenth Century,” from her collection Red as Blood: Or, Tales from the Sisters Grimmer, has stayed with me ever since. Here is a retelling of “The Frog Prince,” told with one eye on the shadows and the other on the rich details woven into the telling. The princess does indeed lose her golden ball in the well, and it is returned by a prince, but that is where the similarities end. Tanith Lee draws the reader in with her deft use of setting, offers a cup of honeyed wine, and only after the drugged wine has taken affect does the reader realize she can’t move, and there are other shadows in the corners of the page. And the fairytale will never again be the same.

  ◙◙◙

  The Poison Eater

  Sandra M. Odell

  Doby eats half a pack of cigarettes without so much as flinching. Camels, breaks them in half and eats them filters and all. Same with a Marlboro Menthol Spence pulls out of a pack he unwraps himself. Three bites, chews, and washes it down with a swig of Mountain Dew.

  A swallow of dish soap, then an air freshener s
tick, then cigarettes. The rest of us stare.

  Doby burps and wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. “Pay up.”

  We do, even Spence, though he doesn’t look happy, which is messed up because this was his idea in the first place.

  Doby stuffs the wad of ones into the front right pocket of his jeans.

  Spence frowns. “So, that’s it?”

  Marty’s Mart closed at one so we have the back lot to ourselves, us and a couple of cats sniffing around the dumpsters. The night smells like garbage, Scotch broom, and diesel exhaust from the semis passing by on the 422 overpass on their way to Akron. That’s all the world does any more is pass Youngstown by. And my folks wonder why I want out so bad.

  “That the best you can do?” Spence says.

  Doby’s got to be pissed, I would be, but I can’t really tell in the shadows. All we got is the moon and the streetlights on the corner for light. “Like what?”

  Spence can be a real jerk sometimes, and the mosquitoes are getting to me, so I say, “Stop being an ass. He did it, didn’t he?”

  “Big deal, he ate soap and a couple of cigarettes. I got a kid cousin who can do that, then he shits himself for a week and it’s all good.”

  D-Jay, Carlos, and the rest nod like they agree. Doby’s face looks bunched up, like maybe he’s gritting his teeth. Spence reaches into his backpack. “You want a real pay up? I got something for you.”

  He pulls out a fat white plastic bottle with a blue cap and sets it in front of Doby. I catch the edge of the label in the light. Bleach?

  “You think you’re the man and shit, let’s see you down some of this,” he says.

  That’s too much for me. “C’mon, man. That shit’s poison.”

  The others look about how I feel, even D-Jay, but not Doby. Doby cuts a look from Spence to the bleach and back.

  Spence taps the lid and smiles like a shark. “He’s the one who said he can eat anything, made a big deal of it, so let’s see him do it.”

  He’s playing Doby is all. Before I can tell Spence what he can do with his bottle, Doby reaches into his jacket and pulls out a thin yellow and blue can. “All right. You want it so bad, let’s make it interesting.” He tosses the can into D-Jay’s lap. “But you gotta make it worth my time.”

  D-Jay picks the can in his lap like it’s a snake. “Cigarette lighter fluid?”

  This time Doby taps the cap on the bleach bottle. Even in the shadows, his smile is cold and crazy. “Squirt it in, as much as you want. Ten bucks a swallow.”

  Suddenly the night’s real quiet. No trucks, no mosquito buzz, no nothing. Spence isn’t smiling so much now.

  I stand up. “All right. That’s it. You guys are crazy if you think—”

  “Siddown,” Spence says to me without looking away from Doby.

  “He’s not going to do it, and you’re a ‘tard for thinking he will. I got better things—”

  “You pussying out, Connor? Sit your ass down.”

  Everybody’s looking at me, even Doby. I want to kick Spence in the teeth, want to pour the bleach down his throat, and watch his stomach eat its way out his ass. Spence is a ‘tard, but Jenna says she loves him. Besides, Mom wants me to hang with him so the baby has a father when it’s born, like anything I do will keep Spence around.

  Pete and Jamal and Eddie look like they want out, too, but Spence leads the pack. If I back out in front of him, I do it in front of all of them, and then word gets around school.

  Maybe I’m the ‘tard. I sit down.

  Doby nods and smiles like a razor, white teeth in a dark face.

  “Show me the money,” he says.

  We dig in pockets and wallets and come up with a wad of bills Spence passes to me. Bastard. I count it out. “Sixty-five bucks.”

  “Seven swallows,” Spence says.

  Doby shrugs, nods. “Whatever.”

  Spence looks even whiter, if that’s possible. He’s got to know Doby won’t do it, but it’s his turn to put up or pussy out. Doby’s playing him now.

  D-Jay’s always been Spence’s bitch, but he just stares wide-eyed from Doby to the lighter fluid in his lap until Spence punches him in the arm. “Do it.”

  D-Jay flinches. “I, uh, I…”

  “Squirt it in,” Doby says again.

  Eddie squirms and says, “Listen, I got to get goin’—”

  Spence twists off the bleach cap like he’s wringing Doby’s neck. The smell cuts through the dumpster stink. “Do it,” he snarls at D-Jay, and D-Jay does. His hands shake so bad he squirts lighter fluid down the side of the bottle before he gets the red nozzle inside. The smell of the two together has me rethinking if I should leave.

  Doby grabs the bottle, swirls it around. “Seven swallows.”

  Spence kind of nods.

  Doby brings the bottle to his mouth. He’s not going to do it; he can’t do it. I’m reaching for the bottle, Hayden and Jamal telling him to stop. Doby tips the bleach back, and we’re groaning and swearing and gagging as he chugs it down. The smell fills my head, coats the back of my throat; my stomach twists and burns. Somehow my cell phone is in my hand, and I’m calling 911, but I can’t look away. Four, five, six…

  “Nine-one-one. What is the nature of your emergency?”

  Seven.

  Doby lowers the bottle and smacks his lips, looking straight at me. “Pay up.”

  “Nine-one-one. What is the nature of your emergency? Caller, are you there?”

  I wait for Doby to scream or hurl or burst his stomach or something. He lifts his eyebrows and holds out a hand.

  “Hello? Caller, are you there?”

  Eddie drops his phone. I close mine, and pass the cash to Doby.

  Spence stares, mouth wide open, and then gets all pissed because he got owned. “You crazy or something?”

  “I’m sixty-five bucks richer than you, that’s what I am," Doby says.

  Spence grabs the backpack and stands. “Well, you call or do whatever you want. I’m not stickin’ around for the ambulance when you explode. I didn’t do nothing."

  He looks around like he’ll kick the shit out of anyone who says otherwise, then takes off without looking back. D-Jay, too, then the rest one at a time until it’s Eddie, me, and Doby.

  As Doby arranges his money into one roll, my cell goes off, so does Eddie’s. I check the number: 911. Eddie looks at me like I’m supposed to know what to do, but I got no ideas, so I hit silent and stuff the phone in my pocket.

  Eddie won’t look at Doby. “You should really go see a doctor or something, man.”

  Doby stands, kicks the bottle of bleach over, and it suddenly smells like a Laundromat on a Saturday. “I’m fine.”

  “No, seriously, Dob. I can drive you.”

  “No thanks.”

  Eddie doesn’t look like he wants to take Doby anywhere, and talking wastes time. I wipe my hands on my jeans. “We got to get going before they send the police or something.”

  That’s all Eddie needs. He takes off, and it’s me and Doby.

  Doby zips his hoodie. He lights a cigarette, a Camel. “What are you waiting for?”

  I have no idea. Spence put him up to it; I didn’t do nothing but hold the money. It wasn’t my fault, yet I can’t just leave him. “Maybe you should stick a finger down your throat or something. I got a pencil if you want.”

  Doby takes a drag, the ember making wicked shadows across his wide nose and cheeks.

  “You really need to get to a doctor.” It sounds lame, but I can’t exactly knock him down and drag him to the emergency room when that might mess him up more. What’s the number for Poison Control? How long do I have before he starts screaming? Maybe there was more water than bleach, and the lighter fluid was really vegetable oil.

  Doby French inhales another drag. “I said I’m fine.”

  Lit end first, he eats the cigarette in two bites and walks away.

  ◙

  I catch hell when I get home because 911 called my house when I wouldn’t answe
r my phone, and Mom was late for work because she waited for me. She takes my phone and tells me Dad is going to “set you straight” when he gets home from his back shift. Later, Dad rolls his eyes and tells me not to worry Mom so much.

  I don’t expect to see Doby at school the next day, but he shows up for homeroom like nothing’s wrong. He looks straight at me on his way to the back row in math like he’s daring me to say something.

  Carlos lets on how Spence rags on Doby in American history, but won’t go near him. “Not like Spence gave a shit first off, but I feel where he’s coming from,” Carlos says around a mouthful of fries at lunch.

  “That’s bogus, man.” I finish my cheeseburger, roll the tomato up in the lettuce for a salad burrito.

  “I’m serious. What he did, that was messed up. I mean it.”

  “You scared of Doby?”

  “What? Oh, hell no.” Carlos downs his milk.

  “You totally are, aren’t you?”

  “Gimme a break.”

  “I’m serious. You’re just like Spence.”

  Carlos stuffs his napkin in the milk bottle, doesn’t look at me. “What you think?” he says almost too soft to hear over the cafeteria noise.

  Yeah, me too.

  We talk about something else.

  Five minutes before the end of lunch, I walk by Doby on my way to drop off my tray. He’s alone at the table, earbuds leading to a hoodie pocket, tearing apart a slice of pepperoni pizza and eating it a greasy piece at a time.

  He doesn’t look pale or sick or anything. “Hey, Dob.”

  Doby stops eating just long enough to make me think he hears me, but doesn’t look up.

  As far as I know, Doby’s an okay guy. He’s odd man out, even dweebs think he’s not cool enough to make up for being smart, but I don’t have a hard spot for him or nothing. Really never gave him much thought until he mouthed off to Spence. “You got, um, a partner yet for the environmental presentation?”

  He pulls out an earbud and stares up at me with that same look from math. He’s the kind of thin my dad calls no-chin pencil neck. My dad’s a dork sometimes. “No. Why?”