"Sure, of course!"
Livy swiveled around and gestured to the seat just as the bartender came and took their order.
"If I’m buying you a drink, can I at least get your name?" she asked.
"Daphne," the girl said.
"That’s funny, you really look more like a Velma," Livy said.
Daphne shrugged, tilted her head, and instantly Livy knew that she wasn’t the first or even the fiftieth person to ever draw that comparison.
"Well, at least a sexy Velma," she said, trying to salvage the situation.
Daphne smiled, and Livy was certain that smile was sincere.
The bartender returned, Livy paid, and the two clanked glasses before sipping their respective drinks.
"You come…" Livy asked.
"You a townie or a uni?" Daphne asked at the same time.
The two laughed, each took another sip.
"Your question first," Livy said. "I was a uni, now I’m a townie. You know, couldn’t get away and all."
"Okay," Daphne laughed. "I guess you were gonna ask me if I come here often?
Livy nodded.
"Not really. I work a lot of odd hours, don’t often have the time to get out and do this," Daphne said.
"Yeah, I come here…well, a lot, I guess. Never seen you before. Glad I did."
"Me too."
The DJ took a break, and the two spent the next fifteen talking about themselves in the kind of rushed generalities reserved for two people circling a pick-up before the music began again.
As Livy felt she was close to closing the deal, Daphne did something unexpected. She reached out and touched the hairline scars that crisscrossed Livy’s arm.
At first, she said nothing, just let her fingers brush softly across the raised bits of dead, pink flesh, playing them like a tonearm across the grooves of a vinyl record. Livy felt goosebumps race across her skin, and she exhaled loudly.
Daphne leaned in, even though the DJ was still on hiatus.
"Do you cut yourself for pain or pleasure?" Daphne asked, so close that Livy breathed in her warm breath, redolent of cheap whiskey and lemon-lime soda.
"Both, but not anymore," Livy said before she realized the words were spilling past her lips.
Daphne raised an eyebrow, but said nothing, didn’t stop tickling Livy’s arm.
"Not cutting, anyways. You can only cut so deep before things get too serious. Nah, I’ve moved on to other stuff."
"Such as?"
Now it was Livy’s turn to raise an eyebrow. "Let’s just say more pain. And if you want to know more than that, there’s a place I can take you to talk about it."
"And where is that?" Daphne said, clearly knowing exactly where Livy hinted.
And in about twenty minutes, they found themselves there.
#
The next morning, Livy opened her eyes onto light streaming through the blinds of her bedroom, carving paths in the dust that spun lazily in the air.
She breathed in and smelled something that was not familiar. Turning her head, she saw an unexpected lump under the covers, then remembered that she’d brought someone home with her.
Darnelle? Dolores?
Livy leaned up on one elbow, stared across the bed. She saw the girl’s spray of auburn hair across the pillow, her glasses folded neatly on the nightstand.
Daphne.
Her movement stirred the other girl, and she rolled over, blinked.
"Good morning," she said, breathing in deeply, breathing out slowly.
"Yeah, so, if you’re the kind to linger in bed, grab breakfast together at some local café…" Livy began.
"What time is it?"
"I dunno, about seven, I guess."
"Shit. I gotta get going. Work and such," Daphne said, throwing the covers off and bending to the floor to find her clothes.
"Well, I had a great time," Livy said, watching her backside as she found her jeans, slipped into them, pulled her bra and shirt on.
"Yeah, me, too," Daphne said, pulling on her boots. "But I gotta say, your scary talk of pain never really materialized."
Livy rolled her eyes. "Yeah, well, about that. I think I just wanted the company."
"Sure thing," Daphne said.
Livy bristled at how breezily the other girl accepted that. As if she didn't believe her claims of pain-induced pleasure. "Well, I mean, I normally do get into stuff that scares a lot of other girls away."
"I’m sure you do…really," Daphne said, lacing her boots.
"Look, I’ve broken fingers, cut down to the muscle, hammered my toe fucking flat. How’s that?" Livy felt a little flare of anger now, as if her credentials were being challenged.
"Okay," Daphne said, turning to face her on the bed. "It’s just that, in my profession, I see a lot of people addicted to pain and pleasure. A lot. It’s no big deal."
"Your profession?"
"I work on campus. I’m a lab assistant for a scientist who’s studying pain."
Livy blinked.
"Dr. Alan Atryx?"
Daphne’s brow furrowed.
"How’d you…?"
"How’d you like to grab a quick breakfast at a local café?" Livy asked, fumbling for her own clothes.
#
Livy watched Daphne slide the meticulously cream-cheesed half of her French toast bagel into her mouth, then chew methodically, rolling her eyes and bobbing her head before she swallowed and answered the question.
"I can’t really tell you too much about it," she said, licking a smear of cream cheese from the heel of her hand, nearly derailing Livy’s train of thought. "It’ll screw up your responses."
Livy frowned. "But it’s definitely a study on pain, addiction to pain?"
Daphne cocked her head. "Sort of."
"Well," Livy said, reaching across the table and staying Daphne’s hand from sliding in another bite of her bagel. "Can you get me in? Can I be part of the study?"
"You want to be a lab assistant? Or…do you want to be part of the study? I mean, a subject."
"Yes!" Livy said, so loud and excited that other coffee drinkers, at least the ones without their ear buds in, turned and stared. "Yes, a lab subject. I’m a natural."
Daphne considered this, her hand still clutched by Livy, the half-eaten bagel poised in mid-air.
"Okay, if you let me eat my breakfast, I can see what I can do about that. But I need to finish so I can get over there. And I should warn you that Dr. Atryx is particular. Very, very particular."
"That’s okay," Livy said. "I doubt he’s met anyone exactly like me."
"You’d be surprised," Livy said, looking doubtful as she shoved the bagel in.
#
When does it become too much?
Have you ever thought of that? I doubt it. Few addicts, myself included, do. Why would you?
But think about it with me for a minute. When does the need for something, the raw, aching desire for something, become an addiction?
What’s the razor line between the two? When do you finally reach the point where you need a substance to fill that huge, gaping hole in your life? And nothing else can?
When does the desire for two doughnuts become the obsession, the need to eat two or three or a dozen every day?
That sounds silly, I know.
So when does the happy, playful let’s try a hit of meth turn into the overwhelming need to tweak until you’re scratching at the lesions under your hair, staring at your suddenly loose grey teeth in the bathroom mirror, shaking, shivering, desperately needing that next one, that last one, that only one?
It’s as subtle and shifting as that indefinable line between pleasure and pain.
What a question.
If an addict knew that, knew the invisible line, where it was, what lay beyond it, do you think they’d ever cross over? Do you think they’d willingly trade simple need for addiction?
If you are an addict, you know the answer to that question.
Yes. Resoundingly yes.
&n
bsp; #
And that was how Livy found herself, three days later, in a cold, antiseptic room deep in the basement of the extraordinarily secure Cognitive Physics building, strapped to a table, stripped down to bra and panties and hospital gown, wired from head to toe.
She looked across the room to the large window that opened slightly above, overlooking where she lay. It was just plain glass, the technicians behind not embarrassed or discomfited by what they were doing, at least not enough to demand one-way glass. Three of them milled about back there, white lab coats, hair pulled up, all wearing glasses.
Livy waved at Daphne, who waved timidly back evidently cautious about showing too much deference to Livy.
The two techs in the room, one of whom was obviously the medical lead, strapped a blood pressure cuff around her upper left arm, making sure the finger sheath measuring her pulse was taped snugly. He reached above her head to click some apparatus on a table behind her, then leaned in close.
"Okay, we’re ready. Are you?"
"Yep. Ready and rarin’ to go," she answered, to which he frowned a little.
"Now, you understand we’re going to hurt you, right? Things are going to be…well, unpleasant."
"Counting on it, doc."
His frown deepened.
"The panic button is strapped to your left arm," he said, indicating the almost comically large red button on an elastic strap there. "Punch it, and you’re done. We’ll end the test as quickly as is possible."
"Got it."
"The first few tests will be purely chemical. We have some pretty nasty pharmaceuticals that can cause all sorts of internal pain without leaving any permanent debilities. The other three tests will be more…physical."
"I read all the literature and signed all the waivers, doc. I’m good to go. Really."
He looked at Livy, curious yet doubtful.
"All right, then," he said, rising and turning away. "Let’s begin."
He made a motion toward the folks behind the glass. Livy raised her head and looked back toward Daphne again, smiled broadly for her.
Daphne nodded briskly, turned her attention to a bank of computer monitors.
Livy heard a chime from the intercom in the room, and the last tech came close, lifted the first of four syringes from a neat row of them arrayed on a small stainless steel table to her right.
Livy felt the needle slip in, a little tickle of pleasure, nothing more.
It took a few seconds, but Livy squirmed on the table. She felt a curious itch build in her skin, as if it crawled with formication. The sensation was unexpected. She was prepared, aching really, for some initial bomb of pain that would overwhelm her, but she saw this for what it was. Testing, cautiously measuring her ability to absorb pain.
But it grew until it felt like every square inch of her skin was crawling with ants. And not just swarming, stinging, piercing her, filling her with their venom.
Twisting atop the table, she vaguely noticed her arms and legs were strapped down, inhibiting her movements. As awful as it was, it was still fairly mild on the pain scale, ultimately only tickling at her pleasure center.
After the letdown of knowing that this wasn’t going to give her the experience she sought, she relaxed on the table and lay there passive, staring at the ceiling.
She could hear the quiet ping of some instrument, the muffled voices of the techs in the next room. She sighed, hoping it wasn’t all going to be such a letdown. Anxiously waited for the next syringe.
She heard the click and whoosh of a door opening, the sneaker-clad footfalls of the tech re-entering the room. A hand lifted the second syringe, and Livy barely felt its tip slide into her, blurred by the dying sensation of creepy-crawlies. The tech wasn’t even out of the room when the substance injected into Livy’s bloodstream exploded like a fireball.
Almost literally, Livy thought, remembering how shots of that cinnamon-laced liquor felt as they landed in her stomach. That initial blast and wow! of detonation, then that delicious wave of heat spreading from it.
Whatever this stuff was, it seemed to burst out not from her stomach, but from all of her, as if the explosive was in every artery, vein and capillary. It lit her blood afire and burned there, lingering like that liquor did on her breath, her lips. But this stuff…oh, this stuff was liquid pain, intense and unremitting.
She twisted a bit at its whole-body embrace, felt it ignite the neural pathways within her that only moved in one direction, like the slam of a body against a pinball machine can only lead to Tilt!
Pleasure sifted down from all this, a soothing sprinkle of snow against a sunburn. Her twisting atop the table turned to writhing, stretching her legs against it, curling her toes. A moan escaped her lips, became a burst of gathered breath that gasped from her like an exhalation of her very soul.
She closed her mouth to tether its end inside her, felt the feeling disperse, ebb, ebb, slip away finally.
She shivered on the table, as much from the shadow of that pleasure as from the cold.
Another chime, then, and the door opened behind her.
She breathed heavily, not quite panting but desperate to get that feeling back, desperate to cling to that life raft of pleasure adrift on the expanse of the bleak sea of her life.
The tech leaned in.
"This one takes a moment. It’s two drugs. The first counteracts the injection you just had. The second…well, you’ll definitely feel it when it kicks in. I’ll be nearby with the counteragent for it. If you want to tap out, end the experiment, slap the button there on your left arm. I’ll give you the shot immediately."
"Please, please just do it," Livy moaned through clenched teeth. "Please, I need it. I need you to do it. Give it to me."
Vaguely embarrassed by the junkie tone of her voice, the wheedling, almost sexual need there, Livy swallowed hard, focused straight on the tech’s face.
"Please."
The tech acquiesced, plucking the third syringe from the table, bringing it to her arm, plunging the chemicals into her.
She had time to watch the tech step back, place the empty syringe onto the table, then take up the fourth one, the last one.
Livy saw that her hand was shaking, the tip of the needle wavering, sparkling in the creamy light of the fluorescents.
And then it all went blank.
What fluttered through her mind, like short glimpses revealed in the burst of a strobe, were those images seen on grade school videos about nuclear war. The blistery, ascending, expanding burst of a hydrogen bomb. The strange, midnight shots of the pressure wave rippling out, bursting over houses, utterly shredding them, carrying the now disparate parts off into the radioactive night.
Livy felt the way it might have felt to be inside those images. Whatever the substance was they’d injected her with detonated in her body like the death of a star, first imploding, collapsing into her center, then violently exploding, throwing everything that was her, all of her, out, out, out.
Livy shrieked, and her body arched up on the table, head jittering on its surface, her heels drumming against the bottom. And in between, frozen like an electric arc, Livy’s body strained against the restraints that held her to the table.
She knew she’d bitten her tongue, could taste the blood trickling down her throat. But the pain was lost in that cataclysmic, annihilative supernova of agony. It eclipsed anything Livy had ever felt in her life, wiping her mind clear of the first syringe’s pathetic effects and even the more robust effort of the second syringe.
The pleasure from this was also more than she’d ever experienced, nearly more than she could take in. Almost as if she was a keyhole that was capable of accepting only the first few cuts of the key.
But those few cuts released all of the tumblers inside her.
Her body arched like that for an entire minute. Livy was vaguely aware that the tech had stepped forward, the syringe in hand, waiting for some sign that Livy wanted to end this.
Livy didn’t want to end this,
though. Never wanted to end this. Ever.
But she was aware that the pressure wave of the detonation had swept through her, the vanguard of that pain had passed.
But as that faded, the curtains of her closed eyes raised, and she could see.
Something unimaginably huge and unbelievably sinuous twisted across her vision, completely filling it. She could sense the movement almost more than see it, so close was her focus on whatever the thing was.
It seemed segmented or composed of sections, moving together as smoothly as water. Iridescent midnight purple where colors shifted across its surface like oil on water.
And then it was gone, and she was left staring at the blank insides of her eyelids, her muscles taut and exhausted.
Slowly, she lowered herself to the table. Her back ached, her calves burned.
But more than that, she felt the usual aftereffects of one of her highs. Slightly anxious now, exposed atop the table, cold. Her mouth was completely dry, and she felt panic setting in. At the edges of her frayed senses, an overwhelming lethargy was creeping in. She knew that she needed, more than anything else now (except, let’s be honest, another hit of whatever that drug was they’d injected into her last) was to crawl into bed, pull the sheets up over her head, and crash.
That, at least right now, was not going to happen.
Her eyes fluttered open onto the unforgiving fluorescents. She blinked and licked her lips with a tongue that felt like a lizard’s.
Someone approached. A shadow fell over her. She assumed it was the tech, maybe with some other syringe meant to slip inside her and make her feel better. She prepared to wave her off.
"That’s all," came a reedy, male voice. "I’m afraid we can’t use you in my study."
Livy lifted her head.
It was the man she’d seen in the staff listing on the department’s internet page. Dr. Alan Atryx. He looked down at her, a bit fussily she thought, then looked over to the window where a few of the techs still clustered.
"Wait," Livy said, but he ignored her and walked back toward the door.
As he reached for the knob, she said the only thing she could think of.
Lullabies for Suffering Page 15
