ljidol; Living rent-free in your head
Oct. 4th, 2019 11:39 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
yachiruxenomelia: a love story
First Alex smelled bonesand, hot flecks of hard white bone misted in the air around him. His body stilled. He'd paid for this and he wanted to get it right.
The Doc's face was hidden behind a white surgical mask. His eyes were cold, concentrating on veins and suction as his surgical saw bit into Alex's leg.
No anesthesia. Technically, this was body modification and the funny rules governing what could and could not be pumped into his body said the the shots were only for really important things like wisdom teeth or appendectomies.
Still, he was loaded. Benzos. A rainbow of anti-anxiety meds. Pain pills of dubious origin and age.
Oxana gave them to him. Wished him luck.
His mouth quirked. He thought she was beautiful and foreign and exotic. She'd lost a leg somewhere in Russia.
He'd envied her. Not for the tits (though they were nice). Or the booming prostitution business she operated out of that one-room flat.
They pay extra for crips, she'd told him, brushing the hair away from his forehead.
The saw made a particularly loud whine and Alex winced, the sharp pain breaking through the fog.
"My friend, I tell you, do not move. You want Pietro to cut off your manhood instead of leg?" Doc said, raising an eyebrow.
Alex blinked. "Sorry. Maybe tighten the chains?"
Doc sighed and tightened the chains holding Alex down. "I know men who would pay good money for this but no you want dismemberment. Americans, you are strange. Pumpkins disguised as gold. Why do you all hate what you are? Women are men. Men are women. I tell you I had one man implant a unicorn horn on his forehead? Some rich fellow keeps him as a pet now."
Alex made what he hoped was an agreeable sound. He couldn't explain. Not to the shrinks or his mother. Not to his lovers or friends. When he looked in the mirror, he only saw what did not belong. His leg, the insult attached to his body. He saw it as deformed, blackened. A demon sucking the life from his body.
Under Doc's saw, healthy blood flowed. Alex knew he saw things no one else saw. He knew they all thought he was insane.
Not Oxana. She'd understood. She'd given him Doc's number.
You should be as you want, she'd said, smoking that strange long cigarette. Your body is the only thing in this world that is truly yours. Keep it how you like it. Rather like decorating a house. Sometimes you need to move things around.
Smoke had curled out of her nostrils and he'd known then she was a dragon. Hoarding secrets in her den. In her eyes.
Fire burned his leg. He screamed at the smell of his own flesh as Doc cauterized the wound.
Doc threw something on the table next to Alex. The black flesh on the slab hissed and spat ichor that sizzled on the stone floor.
Alex whimpered, trying to crawl away from the awful thing that had come from him.
"Do not worry, my friend. This I do for free," Doc said. He held a torch in one hand and a mask in the other.
The blaze of heat was a lion. Alex closed his eyes and hoped they'd open again.
First Alex smelled bonesand, hot flecks of hard white bone misted in the air around him. His body stilled. He'd paid for this and he wanted to get it right.
The Doc's face was hidden behind a white surgical mask. His eyes were cold, concentrating on veins and suction as his surgical saw bit into Alex's leg.
No anesthesia. Technically, this was body modification and the funny rules governing what could and could not be pumped into his body said the the shots were only for really important things like wisdom teeth or appendectomies.
Still, he was loaded. Benzos. A rainbow of anti-anxiety meds. Pain pills of dubious origin and age.
Oxana gave them to him. Wished him luck.
His mouth quirked. He thought she was beautiful and foreign and exotic. She'd lost a leg somewhere in Russia.
He'd envied her. Not for the tits (though they were nice). Or the booming prostitution business she operated out of that one-room flat.
They pay extra for crips, she'd told him, brushing the hair away from his forehead.
The saw made a particularly loud whine and Alex winced, the sharp pain breaking through the fog.
"My friend, I tell you, do not move. You want Pietro to cut off your manhood instead of leg?" Doc said, raising an eyebrow.
Alex blinked. "Sorry. Maybe tighten the chains?"
Doc sighed and tightened the chains holding Alex down. "I know men who would pay good money for this but no you want dismemberment. Americans, you are strange. Pumpkins disguised as gold. Why do you all hate what you are? Women are men. Men are women. I tell you I had one man implant a unicorn horn on his forehead? Some rich fellow keeps him as a pet now."
Alex made what he hoped was an agreeable sound. He couldn't explain. Not to the shrinks or his mother. Not to his lovers or friends. When he looked in the mirror, he only saw what did not belong. His leg, the insult attached to his body. He saw it as deformed, blackened. A demon sucking the life from his body.
Under Doc's saw, healthy blood flowed. Alex knew he saw things no one else saw. He knew they all thought he was insane.
Not Oxana. She'd understood. She'd given him Doc's number.
You should be as you want, she'd said, smoking that strange long cigarette. Your body is the only thing in this world that is truly yours. Keep it how you like it. Rather like decorating a house. Sometimes you need to move things around.
Smoke had curled out of her nostrils and he'd known then she was a dragon. Hoarding secrets in her den. In her eyes.
Fire burned his leg. He screamed at the smell of his own flesh as Doc cauterized the wound.
Doc threw something on the table next to Alex. The black flesh on the slab hissed and spat ichor that sizzled on the stone floor.
Alex whimpered, trying to crawl away from the awful thing that had come from him.
"Do not worry, my friend. This I do for free," Doc said. He held a torch in one hand and a mask in the other.
The blaze of heat was a lion. Alex closed his eyes and hoped they'd open again.
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no subject
Date: 2019-10-05 12:33 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-10-05 01:51 pm (UTC)Did you know this is a real thing? I read about it years ago. People who truly believe one of their limbs doesn’t belong? It’s an intriguing idea.
no subject
Date: 2019-10-05 03:57 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-10-07 12:35 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-10-07 07:33 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-10-07 11:30 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-10-09 05:15 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-10-10 12:18 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-10-10 04:53 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-10-10 10:14 pm (UTC)Ooh, what a nice touch.
By the end, I couldn't tell whether Alex was deluded... or whether he wsa right all along, simply seeing more layers under the people and things around him than anyone else did. And the idea of that intrigues me!