Zippered Flesh 2: More Tales of Body Enhancements Gone Bad (33 page)

“No!” cried Frank. “No, no, no!”

“What’s the matter?” asked Xiulan in a high-pitched voice. “Aren’t I the perfect size?”

He lowered his eyes in revulsion, to be spared the abominable sight, but there in each shard of mirror on the floor was reflected the dreadful truth. Like a congregation of nymphs, each image of her laughed at him in unison.

Xiulan, with her perfectly proportioned body, was now as small and fragile as a little girl’s doll.

PIPER AT THE GATES

BY DAVID BENTON & W.D. GAGLIANI

In every grain of wheat there lies hidden the soul of a star.

~William Gillman

He pushed his index finger into the wetness and waited, knowing he had to find the exact spot and not wanting to disturb the subject too soon.

The anticipation burned just under the surface of his skin and he started to sweat, his body reacting to what it would feel when the circuit was closed.

If only this was an exact science.

He swirled his finger around in a circular pattern, feeling the flesh and other matter part for him, warm to the touch and inducing both a squeamish and an almost erotic response from him, as if he were manipulating genitalia. He shivered with expectant ecstasy held at bay, waiting, waiting, for his skin to make the desired connection. Below the pad of his finger he felt the top surface of the metal plate that kept Rick Dempsey’s brain from bubbling up through the crack and cavity in his war-ravaged skull.

The metal plate was heating, sending its signal up through his index finger. Cedric Lindstrom trembled. He felt an erection beginning. He felt sweat trickle down his back and pool under his armpits.

His finger spread some wet, fleshy substance aside and penetrated further into the cavity.

Dempsey’s eyes sprang open, but he could not move.

Lindstrom knew he was almost there. He swirled sideways, and suddenly the circuit was closed and his expectation was exceeded once again.

The sensation grew, and suddenly it was as if a bolt of electrical current had leaped from the metal plate (and whatever was just underneath it—presumably the clump of shrapnel they had been forced to leave inside) and discharged through the skin of his fingertip and into his phalange and on to the metacarpal, and from there into his arm like lightning.

His body jumped with the energy that coursed through his veins, tendons, and bones, and his eyes rolled up into his head.

It was the greatest, best high he had ever experienced, even after decades of experimenting with both street and the most advanced designer drugs available to him, given his medical practice.

It was the greatest, best high ... and it seemed to encompass every cell, every sinew of his being. It was sensual and erotic and led to an immediate orgasm, which would have been a
bummer
... except that as long as the current flowed, there would be another orgasm right behind the first. And then again.

As long as his finger remained in that position, closing the circuit between the brain, the skull, the plate, and most likely the shrapnel itself, Lindstrom rode the sexual roller coaster that was Private Dempsey’s ruined brain.

As he jiggled and shivered through a series of orgasmic episodes, Lindstrom’s eyes refused to acknowledge that below his hand—buried in the soldier’s head almost to the palm now—the young man’s head was shaking rapidly from side to side and his eyes were nearly bursting from their sockets, open and staring with stark horror that would have been reflected in the endless scream from his gaping mouth ... except that his vocal cords had been severed by other shrapnel, and the scream would forever remain silent.

Dr. Cedric Lindstrom rode the high of the brain-crack now jolting through his system, oblivious to the horrific visions that his incursion was causing his young patient.

The circuit stayed open for nearly an hour.

Byron Stevens strode across the parking lot to the towering office building. He double-checked the address, comparing it with the one on the pamphlet he gripped in his sweaty hand. Though it was warm in the late-afternoon sunshine, he felt a chill that cut bone-deep.

A shadow passed over him, but when he glanced up to see what had cast it, he found nothing but an endless expanse of pale blue sky. He hastened his pace.

At the corners of his vision dark shapes moved, tailing him and then vanishing when he turned to look their way.

He jogged now, closing the remaining distance between himself and the building quickly. The doctor ducked in through the glass double doors, staring behind him as the entrance slowly hissed closed.

Wondering whether he was out of its grasp.

Not wanting to be.

The therapist’s office wasn’t exactly what Dr. Byron Stevens had expected. He’d imagined himself reclining on the proverbial couch, the shrink seated next to him in a plush high–backed chair, taking notes on a legal pad. Instead, Julia Chambers sat facing him across a cluttered desk—a computer monitor and a paper-stuffed inbox won the top-of-the-heap contest.
Overworked, maybe?
Framed degrees shared wall space with an oil painting of a sailing ship teetering on a roiling sea. A bookcase sagged with a hodgepodge of psychology textbooks entombing framed photographs of what Byron assumed were her now grown children.

“So, Dr. Stevens,” Chambers said. “What did you want to talk about today?”

“Umm ...” Byron hesitated. He’d never seen a shrink before and honestly he didn’t want to talk to her about anything. His appointment was mandated as part of his rehab and probation. Really, he was damn lucky he hadn’t lost his medical license yet, though a review board could still pull the trigger. He should have known better than to write himself all those scrips in a vain effort to recapture the ...

The high. Call it what it is.

Problem was, there was only one way to relive the
high
.

Lord, his hands and feet itched at the thought of what he was missing.

Sure, the VA had cut him some slack. He was under a lot of stress after the deaths and the trial. He’d been acquitted of the worst of it, but still lived under a cloud of suspicion. His career hung by a thread.

“Why don’t you just start at the beginning?” Chambers prompted.

He was distracted by her tan pantsuit and gaudy low–hanging silver pendant that resembled a primitive bird, some kind of stones forming its eyes. Her hair was obviously dyed, reddish-brown with a little gray sneaking in near her temples, thick makeup attempting to cover her age lines. When Byron realized that she was watching his hands, he stopped wringing them, which was what he did in lieu of scratching them bloody.

“Don’t think too hard, Dr. Stevens. Just start talking. You’ve been through a lot and it’s completely normal––all things considered––that you should feel emotions that are hard to deal with on your own. Opening up and talking about it will help you face your inner turmoil. So, where do you think this all started?”

Byron sighed. “It started when I first met Private Rick Dempsey. Hell, he’d already endured a dozen surgeries and a year and a half of physical therapy when I first saw him at the VA hospital. That kid had been through a lot. I already knew that from his file, but actually seeing him drove it home.” He licked his lips, suddenly dry, and Chambers handed him a bottle of water. After pausing to drink, Byron continued.

“The explosion had almost killed him outright. It was a worst-case scenario: Now he was a quadruple amputee with extensive damage to his chest, abdomen, and face. He’d lost his ability to speak due to damage to his throat, had lost his left eye, and he still carried a fragment of shrapnel in his frontal lobe—removal of the shrapnel would kill him, they decided. A metal plate was what kept his brain from being exposed. His previous doctor had just retired due to illness and I had taken over the young man’s case.”

Private Dempsey had come in for his regularly scheduled visit. Seeing his war-torn body—scar upon scar upon scar—jarred Byron. Trying to be kind, he had told the soldier that he was lucky to be alive. “His single remaining eye damned me for my poor choice of words,” added Byron.

He continued. “It wasn’t a long visit. A quick blood pressure test, pulmonary, respiratory. Though he’d come in with a powered wheelchair, I had him ambulate a short distance on his prosthetic legs. Rick’s lack of vocal cords required that he wrote down answers to any questions that I had. He was on a waiting list for a speaking valve, you know, God bless the USA, but he was reasonably skilled—considering the circumstances—with a pen in the stainless steel hook that had replaced his right hand. In this way he complained to me about headaches, which I’d seen in his charts. And he brought up a newer problem that he assumed had been caused by his head injuries: hallucinations.”

“What kind of hallucinations?”

“Well, that’s a large question, isn’t it?”

Chambers tilted her head at Byron’s defensiveness. She waved for further details.

“Okay, so, I had him scheduled for an immediate set of new X–rays and other imaging to make sure the shrapnel in his head hadn’t moved or caused hemorrhaging in the brain.”

Byron felt a sudden presence behind him, looming over him in the chair. He snapped his head around and quickly scanned the room. A cold, clammy sweat squeezed from the pores on the back of his neck. His breath hitched and then sped up.

“Dr. Stevens. Are you all right?” the therapist asked.

Byron swung his head slowly back around. Disoriented, it took him a moment to remember where he was and why.

Byron shook off the question, and the fleeting paranoia. “Yes, of course!” He glanced at his watch. “Where was I? Umm ... oh, yes, the results of Dempsey’s imaging panels were inconclusive. But I was concerned, so I sent him to see a longtime acquaintance of mine, a specialist in brain trauma. Dr. Cedric Lindstrom, head of the trauma unit at University Hospital. Shortly afterward, Dr. Lindstrom and I met privately to discuss the case.”

“Cedric, it’s great to see you.” Byron extended his hand across the table. Cedric had surgeon’s hands, soft yet strong and undeniably skilled. Though it was two o’clock in the afternoon, only the faintest trace of sunlight reached their table in the back corner of the restaurant, rendering the air around them hazy.

“It’s been a while,” Cedric said.

“Too long.”

Byron pulled out a chair and sat.

“I hope you don’t mind, I ordered a starter for you,” Cedric said. “Glenfiddich—neat, wasn’t it?”

“Perfect,” said Byron, lifting the glass to his lips. Then: “So how have you been? How are things with Marcy, and the dogs?”

“Well, the divorce was finalized six months ago. And she got the dogs.”

“Oh, shit, Cedric. I’m sorry.”

“Ah, it’s for the best. Things were getting rough, near the end. You know, we all work too much. It’s hard to maintain a strong relationship and a big career. The career always wins. Besides, now I can trade up for a younger model!”