The Mariner

by Ade Grant

  “It’s logical in a completely insane way.” Beth sighed again, shaking her head at the nonsense of her own life. Mind still locked in lust, he wondered if she’d make a similar sound when penetrated.

  “And the pills helped?”

  “Oh yes.” Beth brightened up at the mention of treatment. “They’re amazing. Little by little the compulsion lessened until I realised I didn’t want to cut at all.”

  “But what if your hurtful thoughts come back? What then?”

  “Maybe if they get bad enough I’ll cut. But I’ll take a pill while I do it to make sure the habit doesn’t return. Cutting’s now a tool at my disposal, whereas I used to be the tool for it. You get my meaning?”

  The Mariner did. Tetrazzini had expressed the same sentiment repeatedly.

  “Here we are,” said Beth, stopping in the street. “Your ship’s that way, my new home the other.”

  He glanced along both streets, concerned that she might evade him if he didn’t follow to her new lodgings. Fortunately the streets were empty and darkening.

  “I’ll accompany you a bit longer, there are plenty of undesirables in this town.”

  “Ain’t that the truth? I heard about what happened to Rebecca. How awful. I’m so glad you were with her. She should have known better than to go to a place like that.”

  “I should have done more,” he said sadly, though in his heart he wasn’t sure if he meant to help, or... the alternative.

  Beth seemed to assume he meant the more savoury option, and tried to reassure him, caressing his arm. “You did all you could.” He shuddered lightly at her touch, enjoying the warmth of her fingers.

  She wants it, his mind whispered. It can hardly be a crime if she wants it.

  But did she? He stared at her face, those warm brown eyes, and wondered just where reality ended and his lust began?

  Her hand was still on his arm, holding him slightly as they walked. Was this her way of being forward? Thoughts of placing his arm arm around her were weighed up in his mind. If he did, perhaps she would pull even closer? Perhaps then he could slide his hand down and caress the curves of her behind?

  But then she let go and resumed their previous distance. The Mariner’s heart was thudding, his nerves plaguing every thought.

  “Do you plan on staying in Sighisoara?” she asked him, unaware of the battle of urges raging inside her escort.

  “For a while. The doctor has a whole plan laid out for my recovery, and it might take some time.”

  “Well stick with it,” she assured him. “Do everything he tells you to, the man’s a genius.”

  “Yes, I think I will,” the Mariner replied, his lust surging. “And I agree. He certainly is.”

  “And this is home,” she said as they arrived at a large farm-like building. “Behind it is the orchard where I’ll work, from now until whenever.”

  “What do you get in return?”

  “A meal and a bed. As far as I’m concerned that’s a bloody good deal.”

  “You plan on staying here indefinitely?”

  “Where else would I go? This is the closest thing to the old world I’ve found. Do you know of anywhere like it?”

  The Mariner had to admit he didn’t. Never before had he found a community as built up as this.

  “Tell you what,” she continued. “If you find Manchester out there, come back and get me.”

  He nodded, although he’d never heard of the place.

  “It was a pleasure to see you again, Mr..?”

  Embarrassed by the situation, the Mariner could only shake his head. “I don’t know. Sorry.”

  “Oh well. Keep your secrets then. If you decide to share, perhaps you’d like to drop by sometime?”

  “I’d like that.”

  With goodbyes said, Beth fished a large key out of her pocket and stubbornly worked its way into the wooden door. With a shy and self-conscious glance back, she entered, closing it behind her, the sound of the lock turning a false chime to her safety.

  Inside he could hear voices, no doubt her new landlord and employer listing the household rules. The Mariner listened for a moment and reluctantly decided to go for a stroll. It would do no good to strike so soon, he would have to wait for the house to settle.

  He made his way down the street, marking the journey in his mind, keen not to lose his bearings. About him the town seemed silent, yet there were still signs of life. Candles were lit within homes creating thin strips of warmth between shutters. Wedged between the houses of Sighisoara, the Mariner felt as if he were once more within the make-do world of the Neptune, rather than in the comfort of Tetrazzini’s rehab centre, an abode otherworldly in its excess.

  Despite no longer being able to see Beth, the Mariner trembled with excitement. It had been a long time since he’d laid with a woman. He tried to remember any previous acts of intimacy, to recall the sensation, but an era of frustration separated him. He supposed at one time he could have been attracted to a woman out of respect, perhaps his cock might have stirred from admiration, but now the idea seemed too pale, too childish, too bland for his tastes.

  No. No admiration was necessary. He did not need to respect the woman he fucked, unless it was a respect he could tear down and defile. He would trample her pride, jizz on her dignity, make her understand that he was the master and she a place to shove his cock. She would bleed, she would scream. At first it would be from pain, but eventually, he was sure, it would be because she enjoyed it...

  Unable to control his lust much longer, the Mariner ducked into an alley and began rubbing his crotch through his thick trousers. His penis strained against the fabric, quickly becoming sore from the exertion. Transient fantasies ran before his mind, luring his want further. They emerged and dissipated seemingly as quick as each stroke of his hand. In one, Beth was pressed up against a wardrobe, her face against the wood, whilst he sodomised her from behind, clutching her hair in one hand, the other clasped about her waist. In another, her hands were tied behind her back whilst he thrust into her mouth, making her eyes water as he sank further and further into her throat. And in another he was wrapping his hand about her neck, choking as he fucked.

  With a frustrated grunt, the Mariner ceased his masturbation. He wasn’t going to let himself come in his pants. Not with a doctor’s instruction to indulge.

  He swayed on his feet, hips gently thrusting into the air, still intoxicated by the fantasies fresh in his mind. He had to have her. He had to break her.

  The Mariner stumbled out the alley and, as quickly as his erection would allow, made his way back to Beth’s new home.

  All was silent in the large farmhouse. The Mariner was aware of the risk, this building was probably home to at least twenty people, both masters and workers. If he slipped and allowed Beth to scream, all would be lost. They would disturb and ruin everything.

  Stealth was the key. And the pill. The pill gave this legitimacy. The pill made it all okay. The pill proved it a therapy.

  The Mariner crept around the building, looking for the servants’ quarters. The rooms didn’t have windows, but the wooden shutters could easily be pried open. As he approached each one, the Mariner would press his face up to the small gap and gaze inside.

  Most were dark, the occupants either out drinking or asleep in the gloom. Finally the Mariner spotted one interior illuminated by candlelight. Taking care not to step on any dry leaves blown over from the orchard, the Mariner took his voyeuristic spot, and peered inside.

  Beth was naked. Before her was a large metal tub, with several inches of steaming water pooled within. She was clearly being treated with an evening bath, something to put her at ease in a strange new home. Her clothes were piled neatly on a Spartan bed. Other than that, the room was empty except an old faded poster upon the wall. It depicted two figures locked in an embrace and a nonsensical statement written above. In smaller letters various names were bunched together in a section at the bottom. As normal, the Mariner could make little sense of it.r />
  His attention wasn’t held by the poster for long, the sight of the naked woman before him was intoxicating. His left hand resumed an absent-minded stroking of his crotch, more gentle than before, but still a form of foreplay before he indulged. The other hand toyed nervously with the medication in his pocket.

  Beth slid into the water, sighing slightly and closing her eyes as she did. He watched as she cupped water in her hands and dropped it over her shoulders and breasts, tiny rivulets running about her soft skin. As he’d seen upon the day of his arrival, each of her arms was littered with scars. Before, however, he’d only had a glance, but now he could scrutinise. It was fascinating, so much care and attention given to making a patchwork monstrosity upon her skin. The visual representation of a miserable life.

  You have to take her, now!

  He knew he had to move soon if he wanted to have her. The fantasies he’d entertained for so long were clamouring for attention, jostling like sperm to bear fruition into reality. His head throbbed as if blood wasn’t just flowing to his penis, but also filling his temple, making it ready to burst.

  You have to fuck her!

  Yes, he did. He would soon find release.

  Hold her under the water-

  It wouldn’t take long to pry the wood off, just one quick tug.

  -and fuck her cunt-

  Then leap inside and silence her.

  -and fuck her mouth-

  Once she was restrained he’d be able to do what he wanted.

  -fuckherhurtherrapeher-

  The Mariner held out a trembling hand to take hold of the wooden shutter, eye still on the oblivious bathing woman. Ready to strike.

  And stopped.

  Just what was he doing? How could this possibly be right? This was wrong, terribly wrong. True, he was only acting so that he could be cured in the long term, but wasn’t that nonsense? How could raping someone so that he never raped in the future, possibly make sense?

  But he wanted to. Oh god, he wanted to. Perhaps he should just embrace the madness? After all, he was no doctor, he was just a mariner, nothing more. Why not give himself over to the more intelligent guidance of another?

  But that wasn’t right. He felt it in his gut, even though his cock screamed the contrary. He shouldn’t be doing this. It was wrong.

  Yet despite his conscience, the Mariner still felt his hands moving towards the shutters, still his cock strained and grew harder. The acceptance of the act’s moral depravity only made it all the more alluring. He was going to act-

  Don’t!

  -and he was going to rape this woman. His lust was too great, his mind too trapped in the whirlpool of sordid fantasy. He had to taste her, touch her, violate her; nothing else mattered.

  NO!

  In a swift movement, acting on an impulse far beneath the fantasies of rape and torture, the Mariner pulled his knife from his pocket and yanked his left shirt sleeve up to the elbow. With barely a moment to think, he slashed, carving a deep red groove where before there was only dirty skin and ancient scars.

  Pain erupted in his mind, dominating the foreground. The fantasies, the images of fucking and hurting, were suddenly pushed back; where once they were bright and dazzling, they were now grey monochrome. Distraction brought with it blissful, yet momentary, respite.

  But colour began to leak back, so the Mariner slashed again.

  Biting down on his tongue to maintain silence, the Mariner carved into his arm, Each strike brought pain, but with that came release, a release from his thoughts and his urges, a release from everything but the blinding white agony.

  As the pain reached a cacophony, his lust finally dissipated. His penis, sore and tired, became flaccid once more.

  The Mariner slumped onto the leafy ground, blood thick around his arm. It ran onto his chest soaking his shirt, the scarlet fluid he’d expelled in place of another. Pain to bring control.

  And with the control came the guilt.

  Patient Number 0020644

  Name: John Doe

  I awoke this morning with the image of a wasp. I don’t know how it lodged so firmly in my mind, to my knowledge there are no wasps in Sighisoara, though it is entirely possible a nest could be aboard any one of the many ships that dock here. Still, something tells me that this wasp didn’t fly into my mind through sight, but through recall. A memory, something on the tip of my brain’s tongue, only just out of reach.

  It is hardly surprising that I should be thinking so much about memories, given the peculiar nature of our ‘John Doe’. His addictions have turned out to be deeply entwined with his personality, and problematic to treat. Though tragic, it is imperative that the conflict inside be resolved. Only then will we begin answering the larger questions.

  This evening I attended a sermon by the Reverend McConnell. I am not a religious man (though like many I have been sorely tempted by the madness that has grasped our world), but I wanted to speak to the reverend about his interactions with my latest patient.

  When I arrived, however, he was preaching to the ignorant masses about ‘The Shattering’. His notion is that our predicament is a punishment from God, a time in the wilderness before the return of Jesus Christ (who will sew reality together – what utter tosh); rather fanciful, but the name is apt. Shattering.

  Our world has splintered and fallen apart; if only we could grasp what it once resembled, might we piece it together?

  But that image is lost to us now. We’ve forgotten. Too far down the path, and we’ve lost the route back.

  And yet I awoke this morning with a buzzing in my head. Something about a wasp. Something I’ve forgotten. I reached out to grasp it, and for a moment felt its wings brush against my fingertips, but then it escaped, flying out of my mind and away into the forgetful mist.

  T.

  21

  NOT A WAGON IN SIGHT

  THE GRASS FELT COOL AGAINST the Mariner’s face. He breathed deeply, inhaling the fresh scent. Dirt went up his nose, but he didn’t mind. The pain in his left arm was a more pressing concern. He didn’t begrudge it though, it was a pain he deserved.

  Bloody and distraught, he’d staggered away from Beth’s quarters and made his way up to Tetrazzini’s rehab centre. There, shy of the building by around ten foot, he’d collapsed, exhausted.

  He’d failed.

  Completely.

  He clenched his fists in frustration, grass and soil scrunched between digits, and he let out a muffled groan into the ground, but the trembling earth gave no reply, instead it came from above.

  “Did you do it?” Grace’s voice surprised him, making him look up with a jolt, green strands sticking to his cheek.

  “Do what?”

  “What he suggested you do.” Grace stood in the dim, partly illuminated by lamplight coming out of the many rehab windows.

  The Mariner pulled himself into sitting position. “You listened?” He was too weary to be angry. Too ashamed for any further revelation to sink him further. There was nothing lower than him. “You spied on my therapy session?”

  “I often listen. He doesn’t think I can hear from the outside, but I can. That’s how I knew about Donna and your boat. Thank you for trying to talk to him about the zoo. It’s no good though. No-one ever remembers.”

  The Mariner swayed where he sat, trying to ingest the information. “You heard our session?” he asked again, dumbly.

  “Yeah. I’m sorry. Did you do it?”

  The Mariner looked to the ground and shook his head, chin scraping his chest.

  “You won’t get better if you don’t.”

  “I know.” He looked at the girl, amazed how calmly she talked with a man she knew to be a dangerous predator. “Aren’t you afraid of me?”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because you didn’t do it.”

  “But I wanted to. I really wanted to.”

  She shrugged as if this was entirely inconsequential. “You still didn’t.”

  The Marin
er looked up at the sky. The clouds had parted in a small patch, allowing a collection of stars to peek through. They glittered against the black and the Mariner felt small. Small and powerless.

  “A memory haunts me, and I’ve spoken to both a doctor and a priest about it. The doctor says I should cast the memory aside, because it only exists in my head. The priest says I should use it to find forgiveness. What do you think?”

  She took a moment to think. “That zoo existed.”

  “But it doesn’t any-more.”

  In the dark it was easy to imagine Grace as being four times the age she was, such was the world-weary sadness upon her face. When she spoke, her voice carried experience beyond her years. “We are made up of everything that’s happened to us. We can’t toss it aside and pretend otherwise. Nor can we force ourselves to feel something we don’t.”

  The Mariner stared at the girl, his breath short, realisation and suspicion running through his mind like heroin in the mainline. “You’re an addict aren’t you? You don’t run this place with your father, he built it to treat you! That’s why he’s obsessed with curing every addiction he finds. What was it?”

  “He helps a lot of people. They come and go, sometimes staying just a few days. Other times they’re here so long they become a part of you. You get used to their voice, their scent. But then one day they’re cured and off they go. He never helps me though. He never lets me go.”

  “Where would you go?”

  She shrugged. “I used to like visiting the zoo. The animals just wander around and you can stroke them if you want. I used to take some fruit and feed them from my hands like this.” Grace held out her palm, flat and upturned. “But now no-one remembers and he says I have to stay here and help.”

  The Mariner struggled to understand, so asked his question once more. “What were you addicted to?”

  Grace’s sad expression suddenly turned to one of loathing, a sudden rage that almost sent the Mariner falling onto his back. “I’ve never been an addict,” she hissed, tears welling in her eyes. “And he’s not my father.”