Ad Nauseam (19 page)

She’d been the one lying to him, saying they would try for a baby while secretly taking the pill for years. She’d even let him go to the doctor and get tested, when he believed their failure to conceive had been because of him. It was only natural he would feel betrayed upon finding her birth control, tucked deep in the cabinet behind her tampons where she thought for certain he would never look.

It was even her fault that he had come to the conclusion he had about
why
she did it. She hadn’t corrected him when he said she was vain and didn’t want to ruin her body with a child. That she was selfish and didn’t want to be saddled with the care of another human being’s needs. It was even almost true.

If only Stella had been honest with Michael. She could’ve shared her deepest fears with him. He was her husband, the one person with whom she was supposed to hold back nothing. She knew in her heart he would’ve forgiven her. He would’ve maybe reassured her, and she could’ve left all those fears behind. Michael had loved her. Despite whatever failings he may have had, he always loved her.

Stella stepped back and looked at her reflection again, cupping first one small breast, then the other and releasing them, observing for any sign of sagging. Maybe she should get that boob job Michael had refused to let her have. Her breasts still looked good, but they could stand to be a bit bigger.

What Michael hadn’t known was, at the root of her vanity lay fear. The terror of being thrust back into poverty, to struggle for everything she ever had, like she did before she married Michael. He had never been poor. Never known what it was like to have nothing but your looks to get you by. Never had to use his looks to fight his way through the world.

What if she had a few kids and Michael stopped loving her? What if her stretch marks and sagging tits made her so unappealing that he started having affairs? What if he left her for a younger woman? It happened every day. Men almost routinely left the women who had borne and raised their children for younger, more attractive girls. What would she have then? In the end, it was a risk she hadn’t been able to take, and when Michael found out, he had been devastated. Though she’d calmed him and promised to work it out, she knew that he would’ve left her soon. The rift was too much to repair.

Leaving her robe on the hook behind the door, Stella walked through the house, stepping out onto the back porch where floodlights reflected off the swimming pool’s blue water. The ocean’s surf crashed a few blocks away, another thing Michael had taken exception to. She could hear him in her head:
Having a swimming pool this close to the ocean is pretentious, dear. We will look like assholes.
Stella didn’t care. Deep down, she
liked
pretentious. She
deserved
pretentious. The high fence around the backyard prevented all but those in the upper levels of the neighboring houses from seeing her nudity, though their windows were dark.

The night was warm, but the water made her gasp when she entered, each step submerging more of her, until the cold slipped over her breasts in a pleasant sensation that took her breath away and chased off any lingering, brooding thoughts. Stella swam laps until her limbs felt rubbery with exhaustion, then reclined on the steps, allowing her body to float out in front of her as she rested her buoyant weight on her elbows. She wondered what it would be like to just let the water soothe her to sleep, slipping under to drown in her slumber. Something splashed into the far end of the pool, a soft noise she heard but disregarded without opening her eyes.

The floodlights flickered, then went out, leaving Stella to float in the dark. Her heart lurched and began to pound with fear.
Don’t be a ninny, it’s just a rolling blackout. Too many people in the city running their air conditioners.
She laughed to herself, but the sound did little to calm her nerves. With the moon behind a cloud, the night was pitch black, and the sound of the surf seemed to swell in the darkness. She reached out a hand and could barely see it before her face.
Time to get out.

As Stella sat up on the steps, a strange sensation made her pause. A tickling started at her hip, before slowly spreading up her side to her breast, as if someone were lightly running their fingertip across her bare flesh. Goosebumps rose along her body as a wave of heat followed the path to her nipple, pleasure exploding from its peak to wash over her.

She laid back slightly, the pleasant feeling causing her to moan. There had been no one since Michael’s death, no lovers beside her own infrequent masturbation, and the unexpected rush paralyzed her with pleasure. It spread to the other breast and she nearly cried out from the intensity. Twin lovers suckled her breasts, though no one shared the pool with her and her hands floated by her sides. The tickling wove from her hip around her thigh, where it traced its way across her clit and into her vagina. She gasped and let her thighs fall open, arching her back and thrusting her pelvis upward as the first ripples of orgasm flowed through her body.

Her breasts throbbing with pleasure and her pelvis awash in ecstasy as wave after wave of climax rocked her body, Stella whimpered, all thoughts of the darkness and leaving the pool lost in a haze of sexual splendor. The lights came back on, but she didn’t notice, shuddering in the water as her phantom lover worked his magic on her senses, making her cry out her joy. The sensations battered her until she feared she may lose consciousness, drowning in her own pool to be found blue and lifeless in the morning when Andrea came for their shopping spree.

Reluctantly opening her eyes, bewildered by the power of her arousal, Stella glanced down at her body where it floated in the water, and a scream bubbled out of her throat. Something small and strange had attached itself to her tattoo, a jelly-fish like creature with short tentacles and a translucent body. She flicked at it with her hand, but it clung to the flesh, unwilling to be dislodged.

With a cry that was part terror and part revulsion, she squeezed its soft body, gagging as it let go with the sound of a suction cup peeled off glass. She threw it over the edge of the pool, her eyes wide in shock as she looked at what the awful parasite had done to her body. Her legs numb as orgasms continued to rip through her, she crawled up the steps and got to her feet, making her way unsteadily into the house and to the bedroom. Standing before the mirror, hands braced against the wall, her legs threatened to give out as yet another climax rocked her body. Her breasts still throbbed with sensation, though it now bordered on pain.

Stella began to cry as she gazed at her reflection in disbelief. She took one hand off the wall and ran it over her flesh, sobbing as she traced the lines of the tattoo.

Thorny vines that had once encircled the small rose bud on her hip, now streaked up her torso, encircling both her breasts and darkening her nipples. Her torso resembled a demented puzzle, thorny lines covering it in crazy jags. The vines also trailed over hip and across the shaven mound of her sex, disappearing in the cleft.

She bent her knees slightly and spread the fleshy lips apart, crying out when she saw the tattooed vines disappearing into her vagina. Her slick flesh visibly rippled with the force of the pleasure/pain that gripped her pelvis.
No, no, no. It can’t be! What the hell is going on? This can’t be happening to me!

Movement on her chest caught Stella’s attention, and she looked up at her reflection, her eyes wide in her pale face as she watched the vines grow, dark ink sliding under the skin, across her chest and up to her neck.
Crazy. I’m going crazy!
Large buds began to form on either side of her throat.
Her legs gave out as orgasms continued to shake her, now more painful than pleasant. Dropping to her knees, she pressed her forehead against the cool glass of the mirror, watching as the buds continued to grow, starting to bloom on her skin.

An unwanted vision rose in her head.
Andrea finds her dead on the bathroom floor and shakes her head, a voodoo priest replete with painted skull face and feather bedecked staff stands beside her and points at Stella’s lifeless form accusingly.

The buds bloomed fully, revealing a pair of hands that wrapped around Stella’s throat, the ink moving fluidly as it spread under her skin. Her face turned red, then purple as she began to cough, no longer able to draw breath as she felt pressure on her windpipe. She could see small blood vessels rupture in her face, dark blotches appearing in spider web patterns. Sliding down the glass, she fell to the floor, her face pressed against her own reflection.

Her own face faded from view, replaced by a ghostly reflection of Michael in the mirror, his face purple with death, but his eyes boring into her own, accusing,
knowing.

Though there was no way he could’ve seen into the living room from where he had collapsed onto the floor that night, Stella knew that he knew exactly what happened. And he knew why. Looking into those hate-filled orbs, she saw herself rushing from the kitchen and finding his coat slung over the chair. Grabbing the Epi-pen from the pocket, she watched herself freeze, a look of panicked consideration on her face. She knows what was going through her own mind at the moment.
He’s going to divorce me. He will leave me with nothing.

Stella stands for a moment with the rescue syringe gripped in her hand, then she throws it under the couch, tears streaming down her face as she walks back to the kitchen. Michael reaches a clawed hand toward her, his mouth moving, but no sound emerges. She can read his lips. He says, ‘Please.’ Grabbing the phone off the cradle, she waits another five minutes after Michael has ceased moving to dial 911. She sobs into the phone asking for help and really wanting it, wanting someone to undo what she has allowed to happen, but it’s too late. The events can’t be undone.

Stella lay on the floor, unable to breathe as the blood pounded in her head and her chest burned with the effort to draw in air. Her face was pressed against the mirror, but she could no longer see herself or Michael as bright flashes of light overtook her vision. She heard a roar in her ears and a cracking sound as the cartilage of her windpipe gave way.
I take it back. I didn’t mean it. I was afraid. I’m so sorry! I take it back!
Darkness took her sight as she drifted into unconsciousness, a searing pain in her chest as her heart sputtered and stilled.

I’m sorry.

BONE PHONE

“Goddamnit!” Emily tripped over the box on her way out the front door of her duplex. Hot coffee sloshed over her hand, causing her to drop the mug. It didn’t shatter, but the remaining liquid spilled out, soaking the package that had caused all the trouble.

Picking up the coffee mug and placing it on the glass-topped patio table alongside her cigarettes and ashtray, Emily turned back and got the box from where it sat. She carried it over to the table and set it down. She shook a menthol out of the pack and lit it. Taking a deep drag and holding it, she closed her eyes to relish the first cigarette of the morning. With a sigh, she turned her attention back to the package.

The bottom wasn’t too wet from the coffee, and it didn’t really seem to matter all that much, since the box wasn’t in the best shape to begin with. Stained and torn, its construction appeared to be more masking tape than actual cardboard. Nearly illegible, a name and address was scrawled in the lower right hand corner in black marker, but nothing else. No return address. No post marks.

Emily pulled her reading glasses off the top of her head where they were perched more often than not, and squinted to make out the writing.

Dominik Bettancourt
. The address was in the city, somewhere downtown.

So how the hell did it wind up out here in the ‘burbs?
she wondered. Her house was at least an hour and a half drive from downtown, and that was if the traffic was light. Emily shook her head and took another drag of her cigarette.

Lifting the box again, she tested its weight in her hands. Slightly larger than a shoebox, it was fairly heavy, and something inside rattled when she shook it. A frown creased her brow.

Can’t exactly open it. It’s not mine.

“Good morning.”

Emily nearly dropped the box as she spun around to find the postman standing at the bottom of the steps. He smiled and held out a wad of letters for her.

“Um, yeah. Thanks. Say, maybe you could help me with something.” She held out the box to him, tipping it forward so he could read the top. “I found this on my porch this morning. I don’t know what to do with it.”

The mailman looked at the writing and scratched his chin for a moment before shaking his head.

“Not ours. No postmark. Doesn’t look like UPS or FedEx, either. No marks at all.”

“Well, could you take it with you? Maybe drop it off at the post office?”

“Nope. Sorry, Ma’am. If it’s not ours, I can’t do anything with it. Maybe you could run over to the address and leave it there. Be quite a drive, though.” He shrugged his apology, already turning to walk away.

“Yeah. Well thanks anyway.” Emily tucked the package under her arm and grabbed her coffee, heading back into the house where she dropped the box on her kitchen table. Refilling her mug, she perched on the edge of a chair and stared at the box for a long time, wondering just what she should do.

I’m sure as hell not driving all the way into the city for this shit. I have work to do,
she thought. Then she smiled as an idea occurred to her.

Emily wandered down the hall to the spare room she’d converted into an office several years ago upon moving in. She sipped her coffee as her computer booted, then typed the name and address into a search engine. There were hundreds of hits, but she found a link halfway down the first page that looked promising. Crossing her fingers, she clicked it and watched as a website opened. It looked like some sort of voodoo or witchcraft store called Dominik’s Dark Arts, and the address matched. There was a phone number listed just below the hours of operation.