Hollow Dolls, The (34 page)

Beyond everything that Kim Li grappled with in her conscious, in
all the realms of her existence right at this moment with no regard for beast
or fancy, she was still capable to construct this one knowledge. There was a
grain of truth inside her that would never be shaken. It was that she was a
killer. Even in her present state, she had the desire to rip away from her
bindings and kill them all. To kill everything. There was a nothing that came
with it. No feeling, no emotion and no chance of a stricken conscience.

Alejandra, stroked Kim Li’s hair and brushed it away from her
naked breast. “I want the Li empire. More importantly, I want your grain of
solitariness. After today, we will be one.”

Kim Li remembered her first trips to Myanmar, long ago with her
uncle. Training for her future as Dragon Master. She went back to a time in her
life that was buried deeply in her subconscious from when her uncle trained her
in rituals with the Wa Tribe on the China-Myanmar border.

Today the Li Triad and Wa Tribe continued relations. The Wa tended
poppy fields on the sloping hills outside of Kunlong for Ben Li. Their village
was accessible only by foot and was a five hour hike into the forest beyond
Alejandra’s camp. It was in that Wa Tribe village, at ten years old when Kim Li
had been made to eat the heart of a freshly killed goat. After, her body was
placed inside the carcass in preparation for tribal sex rituals. She was
brought there year after year, hardened with torturous abuses.

Alejandra knew all about Kim Li’s experiences with the Wa Tribe.
Before her was a body, a form tied to a few sticks of wood. The form was
secondary, practically meaningless. Forms could be changed but the seed of the
powerful killer inside Kim Li was the jewel for Alejandra’s crown. The heir to
the Li Empire. Alejandra was determined to possess her.

She traced her finger around Kim Li’s breasts and belly. It was a
body that pleased her and she had the desire to mingle with it always.

Winnie had finished. The elven girl’s legs below her hips had been
secured with three gut strands each. A series of tourniquets, below which, a
single line had been drawn on each leg with blue dye from flower petals.

Winnie held the scalpel out to Kim Li.

“Begin,” said Alejandra as she sat by the fire.

Kim Li knew what she must do. She looked into the girl’s leg,
where the incision would go. She saw the bone and the arteries. As she sliced
into the elf girl’s leg with the scalpel, blood gushed down, only for a moment.
The tourniquets held most of the blood in her inverted body tied to the cross.

This was a ritual. A special day for the girl having her legs
removed. The elf girl felt nothing. She had no sedative. No drugs of any kind
in her system. Her mind existed away from the pain in a different realm. And at
the same time she coexisted deep inside every nuance of the pain.

Winnie was charged with carrying out the procedure for the second
leg, which she relished. Winnie had her mother’s blood and whatever it was that
Lauren had, Winnie had it tenfold.

The Wa tribe had an ancient ritual practiced by only a one elder shaman.
In modern language they called the practice apotemnophilia. It was referred to
as a paraphilia, something which gave sexual pleasure and was only a fantasy—an
aberration of sexual practice amongst civilized societies. This Wa ritual had
nothing to do with apotemnophilia. In much the same way that modern society
described Winnie and her mother’s nasty habits as Vorarephilia, but Winnie’s
family blood line was mixed with Lian blood. They were far removed from simple
human psychological explanations.

To these beings, now nestled in the hills of Myanmar, modern human
civilization was like a tiny noise being made in an inconsequential quantum
space elsewhere. In reverse, at the other end of the wormhole, if those minds
in human civilization were to see any of these rituals and old truths, their
minds simply would simply register it as ‘somewhere else’. Something they’d
imagined on the internet along with their Photoshop reality. Perhaps a fantasy
was what their minds might formulate. A fantastic story. Even standing in front
of Kim Li and Alejandra and all of it, they could be taken back to their
ordinary reality and what they’d seen would disappear into a virtual reality.

Winnie finished cutting the other leg. She had that look. All that
was left to do was saw through the girl’s femur. Kim Li and Winnie were brought
to the water to bathe and the elf girl’s ritual was completed by two males. She
smiled as they took her legless body off of the cross and brought her to a
sacred hut for healing. Her limbs were fed to the animals.

For a full day’s time, Alejandra fed Kim Li mushrooms and potions
and sexually abused her as she had on the forest floor. She thrashed her
mercilessly on the cross to gain her submission. The sun passed over high above
them and the hut rose with feral screams and growls and grew silent, time and
again. This was the same ritual process Winnie had been through. She’d tried telling
Melanie, only things had been happening so quickly. She hadn’t included it in
the memoir. When Winnie’d had her turn, everything went too quickly. Like
eating ice cream on a summer day. She never told Alejandra what it was really
like for her. How she really was with pain and blood. Melanie was the only one
who knew Winnie’s true inner strength. The only one she’d let see that far
inside her.

Kim Li was fed drinks and broths as the final night went by. She
now lay by the fire. Her body encrusted with blood—some her own, some that of
animals, and some of Alejandra herself. She slept for hours, then her
perception of the hut and the fire returned. She was back.  Winnie sat on
the skins next to Kim Li and spooned broth into her mouth. Kim Li saw the elf
creatures fuss over her, wiping her feet and legs clean, and licking the compromised
flesh of her naked body. She smiled at them and the elves made giggling sounds.
They whispered kind words back to her. It was their nature to heal, to love.
Kim Li believed that elves had been created from the imagination of humans long
ago. Imagination creates reality. The Man-Rabbit had told her. The elves could
take whatever form the mind saw, and create it in matter. But matter was only a
human word and to the elves—it didn’t matter.

“Where are we?” said Kim Li.

“Training camp. And you’ve performed well,” said Alejandra.

“Who are they?” 

 “My helpers. They have been taking care of you, keeping your
body intact.”

“Do you like them?”.

“I do.” said Kim Li, smiling.

They smiled back at her and began fussing over her again.

“You will learn much with me,” said Alejandra. “How well we travel
together!”

Kim Li sat up and held her Mistress while Winnie and the elves
gathered round them.

“My love,” said Alejandra.

“Love,” said Kim Li as she looked into her Mistress’s eyes, “What
is it?”

“That is why I chose you Kim Li. No matter how much power the
individual amasses, the perception of love can destroy it all. Human love on
earth is for the weak. That is why you do not feel it, why you have wondered
all your life about it. You may have thought, “Why not me? Why do I not love?”
Humans foster a shared concept that if one says, ‘I love you’ and the other
says in return, ‘I love you’ it means some union has been formed. Nonsense. You
know that already. I call you my love because my love is about the power of the
universe. A power that is at now at your command. That is my love.

“Then, I do love you,” said Kim Li.

Alejandra lay with Kim Li holding her beside the fire. Out of all
her possessions from over the years, all the acolytes and initiates, none had
ever pleased her as much as Kim Li. The others were mere servants. Kim Li was
her child, her progeny.

Alejandra placed her hand on the scarred heart of Kim Li and
softly sang in Spanish:

Your phosphene stare, charm
pretty amulet.
I am your lover, mercuric dispach packet.
Dream dream, you say dream my pet
We are not both full aware yet.
Queen of the awareness lake,
You wear no disguise
I bathe in your emerald green bliss,
The fish with the gold seeing eyes.
Abracadabra absinthium tea
Flowing lotus flowers around me,
All the worlds and all the seas
Forever her joining me.

Whatever will that Kim Li’s body possessed had been broken during
the night. Kim Li gave herself fully and watched the elves as they cleaned and
licked her wounds. Through the night she drank fruit juices as they restored
her skin to its previous ivory perfection.    

“Look,” said Winnie. She opened her leather jacket exposing a
brand on her chest and touched the identical one on Kim Li’s chest. The skin
had been struck with red hot iron during the night. Kim Li looked down at hers.
It was a small letter ‘A’ brand on the skin.

Jack tried to console Mel. She was fubar in every way. He was so
placid compared to her. She felt crazed.  “I want you to fuck me.” She spoke in
her low growly tone that was almost a beg.  “Hurt me,” she said.

It made him laugh and he mumbled a few things he’d remember about how
wild she was five years ago.

Great—he was reminiscing and she wanted fucked.
Mel worked her
way into an oxy and scotch purr, grabbed his hand and pulled him toward the
bed.

 “I’m
Bad Bunny now,’ she said. “Did you know that?”

“I
know,” said Jack. “You’re not going to hurt me are you?”

Jack
said it coyly only it didn’t fit him. He was cute anyway.
“Not if you behave,” she replied. Mel straddled him on the
bed. For now the only definition of sanity Mel could grasp was sex. Hard, hard
sex. Mel slid the thin black belt out from under the loops on his pants and
undid his button and zipper. She wrestled his Mr. G-man pants off and tossed
them to the floor.

He lifted up to his elbows and tried to kiss her nipples and she
pulled away.

“Uh-uh.” She pushed him back down and folded the belt in half.

Mel slapped the belt hard on the bed. “Payback’s a bitch, Jackie.”

Next morning, Mel bumped into Jack inside her bedroom door on the
way back from the washroom. For that moment as they stood face to face she felt
she wanted to tell him what had really happened with Peter. Jack didn’t know. It
would only complicate things now. It didn’t matter because Jack was starting to
make his own confession.

“I have something to tell you.” Jack said it like he’d been
rehearsing. “I’m here for another reason as well.”

She tucked a lock of hair behind his ear. He put his arms around
her waist. “What is it? Tell me,” said Mel.

“You know there was never very much time for us. Even when you
were younger we were only able to sneak off for a few days.”

 “And?” she said.

“Now that Alejandra’s gone off the reservation and the Russians
have Kutha gunning for her, everything will just get more complicated.”

“What do you mean Jack?”

“I’m not sure what will happen next for me or us. I feel like this
may be our last chance for a while to be together.”

Mel kissed him. He wasn’t finished.

 “You know Mel, I shouldn’t really be here, Claudia will—”

Mel pulled away cutting him off.

“Claudia? Don’t you dare say you’re married!”

He tried to kiss her. She pushed him back again.

“She’s my boss,” begged Jack.

“Is she Ixchel?”

“Egg shell?”

“Never mind. Just come here.”

Mel laid down on her back, slowly settling herself on the bed in
front of him. He watched as she placed her hands palms up on the pillow on
either side of her head. Surrender began with her hands and swam through her
chest, making its way south. After a few moments her whole body was in a state
of submission. She wanted to be opened, folded flat on the ground.

“I could deputize you,” said Jack.

“Be rough,” said Mel. She could have screamed and went for his
throat. She wanted him that bad. She wanted to bring Nigreda out to play. At
The Ball in the darkness of Horus Hall, and when Alejandra had put her on the
cross, those experiences had somehow amplified that greatest desire. Nigreda
had become more powerful than ever. On the cross Melanie felt that Nigreda was
the true sister that she had always wanted in Cara. Why she’d played at being
Alejandra in the first place with Winnie. And now Nigreda was the embodiment of
all Mel’s sex and death impulses. All her desires for blood sisters and a pure
truth to feel her existence inside her own body. Jack was the only man that she
might trust totally now that Georgy was over with. She yearned to explore her
darkness with Jack, to let a man see her completely. Last night was just a
reunion fuck. Today was where she would get down to business. When Jack’s body
touched down on hers Mel closed her eyes. Inside it was their first time
together on the island.

Jack and Mel played hard love games throughout Vancouver. They spent
nights in whatever hotel was nearest. He’d gone dark as a lover and as a CIA
operative off the grid with no surveillance. The Agency and the rest of the
world would have to wait.

Mel had given up on Scott. He was the one who’d touched her heart
first. Jack was literally the dream come true. He was the one who’d been in her
heart, mind and dreams all along. Here she was in a happy place.

Over the days and nights she learned that Jack liked to play. In
the end she pushed him as far as she could—Jack was more of a vanilla creature.
Mel became confused again. Happily satisfied in the vanilla way, but confused
about how to get what she really desired.

“I have to go back,” said Jack.

“Where?”

“Onto the grid, back to the Agency.”

“What about us?” Mel held out hope that she could change him.

“We’ll have to wait. There’s too much at stake.”

“It’s like they own you. I guess I should talk—little slave girl,
right?”

“They’ll start tracking me down by the fourth day. Standard protocol.”

She rubbed the dash with her foot and said, “Tweetie, welcome to
the crew.” It was a toe christening.

Jack looked over.

“Insurance money,’ she said. “I think I’ll keep her. Where are we
off to now?”

“South of the border. A little place called Lynden, Washington. It’s
out of the way.”

Mel hung her leg out the window as they cruised south on the
highway. They’d just played Putt-Putt golf and gone to Flintstone’s Village on
the Trans Canada Highway. Mel always wanted to be a tourist when she grew up. She’d
never done any of the touristy stuff so Jack did it up for her. She sat up and
lit a cigarette. The afternoon air brushed across her face. She watched the Abbotsford
fields roll by. She felt a warmth in her eyes and two single tears rolled down
her cheek. She had no idea what they really were or why they were there. They
blew back into her hair. She guessed it was like having an orgasm—it just
happens. Puffing on a Marlboro she turned her head purposely so he wouldn’t
see.

“What’s up?” said Jack. He put his hand on her bare thigh.

The skin tingled under his touch. How much time did they have
anyway? This was the last day. Maybe they’d never see each other again. She
felt
wrong
growing in her like a baby she didn’t want. Wrong to get so
close so quickly. To let go of Winnie, Scott even...

“Nothing,” she said finally. “I’m fine, really.” She felt the
white comb on her leg. The burning pain of her fresh cuts was her escape.

Jack slowed, easing toward an exit. Mel  looked at the green sign
pass over head.

264
^th
Street U.S. BORDER.

After Tweetie purred south over the border they passed through
farmland that looked pretty much the same as Abbotsford.
The land of the
black comb.
That farm was only half an hour away from where they were right
at that moment.

She blurted it out.

“I was here before! Peter took me to a farm and I was raped.”

Jack looked at her seriously. He knew her history inside out
already.

“I know,” she said. “Fucking classified right?”

“I saw her at the farm with him. Alejandra!”

Jack saw something he’d never seen on her face before. She had
always been like his little doll only now she was growing up.  He slowed on a
straight stretch and pulled over on the shoulder. She already knew that he knew.
The whole Peter’s abuse and the ‘slave’ story. But it wasn’t the kind of thing
you’d believe the first time. She was still trying to formulate her past and
accept it in her mind. Jack waited a moment after he parked. Looked over at Mel
and held her hand.

“Peter and Marlene,” he said. “They sold you to the Russians. They
both knew about it. Peter negotiated it with Alejandra, back when you were with
them in Vancouver. Then when you were fourteen, the move to London was part of
a plan. He was from the UK originally Mel, and he handed you off to Lilly five
years ago to collect his end of the agreement.”

“Peter was a stupid ass,” said Mel. “I can’t believe he was even
capable.”

“That’s when I came across you at
Club Lick,
”
said Jack. “The first time.”

“I’m ok,” she said, looking at Jack feeling angry that he wasn’t listening.

“I don’t believe you! Then why did Alejandra’s thugs put a beating
on Peter and take me home from the farm. She didn’t have anything to do with
Phillip’s business. I don’t think Lilly knows about any of it.” Mel still
wanted to believe in her ‘mum’s’ innocence.   

"It's like Occam's razor Mel. Sometimes you just take the
facts, make the fewest assumptions and that's your answer. We operate that way
in The Agency all the time. Otherwise we’d end up at a standstill. And when you
don’t move. You’re an easy target."

She turned away looking out the window. All Jack’s CIA spook-speak
didn’t matter. As Jack pulled off the soft shoulder and hit pavement, Mel saw a
rooster tail of gravel in the mirror on the passenger’s door. Dirt shot out
behind and sprayed the underside of the bumper.  A tear floated down mercifully
on the right cheek where he couldn’t see. She watched the sun go down in the
little mirror. It was going down over Melanie’s elephant family.

“Pink sky at night,” she said looking into the rear view as Jack
drove.

“We have to stick together.” It was Nigreda’s voice inside her.
Maybe Alejandra’s. She didn’t even know now. Jack reached over and tucked his
hand in between Mel’s thighs. He had no idea what was going on inside her. Not
a clue. It was ok. She still loved him in her way. For sex.

After they crossed the border Jack tried to take her to the local
diner. She’d have no part. She wanted to drink JD and eat greasy chicken. So
they got KFC and hit Bill’s Liquor Barn. Jack picked The Blue Motel outside of
Lynden, Washington. The place looked practically abandoned.  

“You couldn’t find anything grungier for your white trash huh?”

He rented a room in the motel office while Mel waited in the car.
Inside the room, she  threw her suitcase on the bed and cracked the bottle of
JD. She chopped and snorted an Abby and drank straight from the bottle. Jack
turned on the TV and stretched out on the other bed. She looked over at him.

“One for fucking. One for sleeping,” she said. “No wet spot.”

Mel flipped her suitcase open and pulled out a large clear plastic
Ziploc bag. Inside were crops, clamps and cuffs and an assortment of other
bondage toys. She took the bag over to Jack and emptied it on top of him while he
gazed at the screen.

No more fucking around. “I need some discipline,” she said, and
tossed the empty bag to the floor. She couldn’t wait forever. Jack picked up
the pink ball gag off of his lap and examined it, then looked up at her. He
didn’t say anything. They’d played lots before when she was fourteen and he was
the Man-Rabbit. She  went back and sat in the chair by the long dresser with
umpteen drawers and a double wide mirror, lit a smoke and took a chug on the
JD. The Abby was making her feel invincible and perfect and that was disturbing
because she wanted to be broken, laid flat out, with cum all over her and
Nigreda.

“The reason we’re here is because this place is off the grid,”
said Jack. “It’s an Agency safe house cloaked by an electromagnetic field. Nothing
get’s in or out of here that isn’t hard wired.”

“Don’t tell me,” she said. “It’s classified.” She was sick of the
spook stuff.

“That television show,” he said. “It’s cable.” Go ahead and try checking
your Twitter through the wireless on your iPhone. It’ll say, ‘no signal. In
here we’re cloaked. That means no cell phones, no internet, no nothing.”

Jack got up and stood by Mel. He slipped the cigarette out from
between her fingers and took a drag, then had a swig of the Jack Daniels and
blew the smoke out. He held the cigarette out to her lips and she took it
between her teeth. Then he sat on the dresser beside her feet, facing her. With
his serious Agency GQ dude face and his shirt unbuttoned to his belt, he looked
down at Mel. Jack took her hands. She looked at his abs. Strong for an old guy.

“The reason I brought you here is if anything ever happens, we get
separated and we need to find each other—I’ll meet you here.”

Mel was quiet.

She looked into his eyes and a smile slowly came to the corners of
her mouth.

“That’s pretty hot,” she said.

She started unbuttoning her blouse.

On the way back to Canada Mel’s bum was
burning hot and uncomfortable to sit on. And she loved it. She watched the
farmland roll by in reverse. The old self she’d knitted together for the first
part of her life was paling with a whitewash. She knew parts were missing still.
Some details needed to be etched in but it was fading nonetheless. Data scrambled.
Encryption beyond description. She figured the Man-Rabbit was right. There’s
just the Lian bad wolves and them, the good guys. She looked at Jack. He
was
the Man-Rabbit. She wished they could go to the island. The one that nobody
knew about. She looked at her own reflection in the glass up close. It looked
back.