The Mammoth Book of Frankenstein (Mammoth Books) (68 page)

“Then why did she bury my steel in your back?” Despair made Mavrsal reckless. “She hates you, sorcerer – and she loves me! Keep your lies to console you in your madness! Your sorcery can’t alter Dessylyn’s feelings toward you – nor can it alter the truth you’re forced to see! So kill me and be damned – you can’t escape the reality of your pitiful clutching for something you’ll never hold!”

Kane’s voice was strange, and his face was a mirror of tormented despair. “Get out of my sight!” he rasped. “Get out of here, both of you!

“Dessylyn, I give you your freedom. Mavrsal, I give you Dessylyn’s love. Take your bounty, and go from Carsultyal! I trust you’ll have little cause to thank me!”

As they stumbled for the secret door, Mavrsal ripped the emerald-set collar from Dessylyn’s neck and flung it at Kane’s slumping figure. “Keep your slave collar!” he growled. “It’s enough that you leave her with your scars about her throat!”

“You fool,” said Kane in a low voice.

“How far are we from Carsultyal?” whispered Dessylyn.

“Several leagues – we’ve barely gotten underway,” Mavrsal told the shivering girl beside him.

“I’m frightened.”

“Hush. You’re done with Kane and all his sorcery. Soon it will be dawn, and soon we’ll be far beyond Carsultyal and all the evil you’ve known there.”

“Hold me tighter then, my love. I feel so cold.”

“The sea wind is cold, but it’s clean,” he told her. “It’s carrying us together to a new life.”

“I’m frightened.”

“Hold me closer, then.”

“I seem to remember now . . .”

But the exhausted sea captain had fallen asleep. A deep sleep – the last unblighted slumber he would ever know.

For at dawn he awoke in the embrace of a corpse – the mouldering corpse of a long-dead girl, who had hanged herself in despair over the death of her barbarian lover.

Roberta Lannes has been teaching junior high school English, art, and related subjects in her native Southern California for more than twenty years. After a short stint in stand-up comedy, her writing career began in the early 1970s with contributions to literary reviews and material for other comedians
.

She made an impressive horror debut with her short story “Goodbye Dark Love” in Dennis Etchison’s 1986 anthology
Cutting Edge,
since when her distinctive and very dark fantasy has been published in
Lord John Ten, Fantasy Tales, Splatterpunks
and
Splatterpunks II, Alien Sex, The Bradbury Chronicles, Still Dead, Dark Voices 5, Deathport, The Mammoth Book of Werewolves, Best New Horror-3
and
The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror Seventh Annual Collection,
amongst others. She is currently working on a dark fantasy novel entitled
Perversion of Angels
and is the occasional co-host, with Steve Barnes, of 90.7 FM KPFK’s
Hour 25
radio show in Los Angeles
.

The author explains that “it was during a heated argument over the origin of homosexual behaviour and lifestyle that ‘A Complete Woman’ first crept into my consciousness. Long ago, in my naivete, I believed being gay was solely a result of conditioning, environment, opportunity, and preference. When challenged about the genesis of preference, I fell back on the psychological terms of ‘modeling’ and ‘reaction-formation’. I was summarily blasted for relying on an inexact science. I realized then, I didn’t know enough (as we all know, knowledge is power)
.

“
Disgruntled, I went home and read. Recently an article on the genetic
predestination theories, now being touted loudly by gay activist groups and their spokespeople, put things in perspective for me. Sexual preference is predominately determined in our cells. This story was written for all those idiots who still believe that all gay people, and transsexuals, have a choice
.”

I
AM BLIND
and mute. I have not yet been given arms or legs, and I miss wiggling my toes when I wake up. There’s so much I miss, but to think of running my fingers through my hair, or watching a sunset, is to make worse my pain. And after all, I chose this path.

The day nurse arrives at six in the morning, she tells me. I have no way to judge time except by what I hear. And I know well how words can fool. At night, the doctor’s sister sits with me. She says she’s an insomniac, that to sit and read as I sleep is a joy. I don’t believe that, but then doubting the veracity of what these women tell me is the only sport I have sometimes. I am at this point, essentially, not much more than a mind.

The morning rituals revolve around bathing me, feeding me, and removing anything I’ve evacuated during the night. One of my two day nurses puts classical music on the radio. I smile and make approving moans. Of the two, she is my favourite.

My bath is alternately soothing and painful. The tubes that snake from my shoulders and hips are cleaned, as are the unique dressings of synthetic skin, the areas round them scrubbed of my dead skin and anti-bacterial salves are massaged in. This portion of the bath is agonizing, and only my anguished groans communicate that. If it is too painful, I’m given opiates.

When I’m doped, I cannot enjoy the best part. The one nurse, my favourite, moves her hand, with the soft soapy cloth, over my new nipples, down to the tender hungry flesh between what will be my legs. She knows the pleasure it brings me and lingers at her chore. I believe the great spasms that contort my face and torso in climax bring
her
pleasure. I can hear her breath go ragged in its rhythm.

After the morning ministrations, I am left to the darkness. The music plays softly without much distraction so that I can dream about the future and lament my past. Until the doctor arrives.

The doctor. Ah. His face remains clear in my mind, as do his pianist’s hands, tall rangy body and wavy brown hair. Though I did not choose to do this because he was handsome, brilliant, and eloquent, these things made my decision easier. I can recall the evening he came to me. And our every word.

Cancer had robbed me of my breasts and lymph nodes, and I was in chemotherapy. I had a gloomy prognosis and no hair. The doctor came in just after visiting hours. There was no one to visit
me, my having reached the age of seventy-eight and successfully maintained a reclusive existence as a writer and researcher. So when two strangers in street clothing approached my bed, I was addled and nearly shouted for the nurse.

The older man spoke. “Please Miss Craig, I am a doctor.” His voice was deep, timbre soothing.

I was my usual harsh and uninviting self. “What is it?”

He watched me cross my wizened arms over my sexless chest.

“I am an admirer of your work. I’m quite fascinated by the lives of renaissance artists, particularly musicians, and your books have a wonderfully gossipy tone to them.”

“Well, a man of taste and questionable ethical standards. You like your history presented with a bit of sensationalism and sometimes slanderous speculation.” He grinned at that. I remember feeling sad at that moment, dismayed that I hadn’t the form nor visage to attract such a man any longer. A man who shared my greatest obsession, as well.

“I hope you won’t be upset, but I took the liberty of going over your chart. I’m not an oncologist, but it seems you let things metastasize a bit too long.”

“Yes, well, I’m paying for that gaff now, aren’t I?”

“Yes, unfortunately. I’d like to offer you some hope, though.”

As I struggled to sit up, he reached over to the position controls and raised the head of the bed for me. I cocked an eyebrow, scrutinizing him.

“What makes you think you can give me something a whole phalanx of physicians hasn’t been able to do?”

“Your prognosis is poor, your age notwithstanding. But I have given others the potential for a new life. I’d like to give that to you, as well.” He nodded to the young man beside him. I squinted, my glasses misplaced somewhere in this unfamiliar place, but saw nothing extraordinary.

“What is it, magic spells? Youth serum? More surgery?”

“I’m not offering you a panacea, Miss Craig. Without getting into serious medical jargon, I’d characterize it as a full brain transplant into a viable alternative head and body system.” He waited for my response, his manner guarded.

Had someone told me of this possibility before my cancer, I don’t know what I would have thought, but as I lay weakened, old and depressed, in a bed I might never get out of again, I considered it. After laughing heartily.

He was surprised by my laughter. I believe he expected me to be horrified or amazed. I don’t know why I laughed, but it felt marvelous.

“This is really quite serious, Miss Craig. I chose you for so many reasons, one of them your sense of pragmatism.”

He seemed so young, vulnerable, and self-righteously indignant just then, I simply fell in love with him. “My dear doctor . . .”

“Dr Chernofsky . . . Kenneth.”

“Dr Chernofsky, it’s obvious you completely believe in what you’re doing, but I don’t think you’ve ever been in my position before. It’s not every day one is approached with such a fantastic offer.”

“Yes, it
is
fantastic. Rare and marvelous. But so are
you
. Minds like yours are so extraordinary, they shouldn’t be allowed to pass into oblivion. And think of it. I can compose the kind of body you want. I am Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo when it comes to surgery.” He put his arm around the young man and moved him closer. “I brought along one of my completed works.”

I looked the young man over more studiously. “Then you’ve done this ghoulish surgery before?”

“Yes, but you should know it isn’t sanctioned by any medical board or school in the United States.”

“It’s illegal?”

“Not illegal in the sense that it’s been outlawed. It’s just not
done
. But it will be when I can establish the basis for its acceptance. Simon, the others, and hopefully you, will help me there.”

I turned to an example of the last chance I was going to have. “Young man, tell me, is it painful?” The pain I’d already endured seemed to be fading as I considered this radical move.

He smirked. “I wish I could tell you otherwise, but it was very painful. Tranquilizers and pain killers were given to relieve the symptoms, with much success. And I must admit, now, this long after the surgeries, it was worth it.”

I turned to the doctor. “Hooray for modern chemistry. How long does this Frankensteinian feat take?”

His shoulders tensed ever so slightly. A touchy area, I assumed. He looked at the young man.

“Simon took almost a year to be complete.”

“A year? I don’t understand.” I was growing wearier by the minute.

“When I began my experimental work, professionally I was reattaching severed limbs; bone to bone, muscle to muscle, artery to artery, and reconnecting things, like detached eyes to optic nerves. My expertise is lauded here.” He had a copy of a medical journal. I dismissed it. “Gradually, I learned plastic surgery techniques to make the reattachments almost invisible. The brain attachment was highly experimental for two years, until I perfected it. Even then, it required
doing the entire assembly work limb by limb to a torso and head. A long and tedious process.”

“Pardon my silly question, but wouldn’t it save time just to put a brain in a head that’s already attached to an entire body?”

“That’s not a silly question at all. Of course it would expedite things. But as yet, I haven’t stooped to finding an Igor to slip into graveyards or hang out at accident scenes. I am donated bodies and parts of bodies through private hospitals all over the world. I have never been sent an entire body in the condition of health and appearance I require. That
you
would find worthy.”

“I suppose if I were to go through with the pain and gore, I would want it to be worth my while. So there’s no getting around the bit-by-bit procedure?”

He shrugged as he shook his head. “As portions come in of the quality I need, I use them.”

“What if I die before you find a great head?” I chuckled.

“That’s not going to happen. You see, I have the perfect head and torso right now. You must decide within the next few hours.”

“
Hours
?” I was suddenly filled with adrenaline and rest was far from my options.

“She’s perfect. Came to me this afternoon. Her brain is dead, essentially, so I’ve got the remainder of her body on life support. I don’t want any deterioration, so I need to operate soon.”

I began to ask myself questions I couldn’t imagine anyone asking themselves, except in some piece of fiction. If I had the chance to live another fifty years, would I take it? Could I exist in another person’s body? Would I be able to do all the things I do now, and more? Would it be worth it, ultimately?

And was I really going to die as soon as I guessed, if I did nothing? I know my troubled face showed my confusion.

“Simon, talk to Miss Allison Neary Craig.” By way of introduction, he went on. “Simon Le Fevre. My latest completed man.”

My jaw dropped. “The novelist? He’s
dead
.”