yachiru

xenomelia: 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.

Ma started to turn to stone around October. Or at least that's what she remembers.

She never was a moveable sort of woman. All I remember as a kid is her in that lumberjack shirt sitting on the porch, watching the treeline like Pa was gonna come back through carrying his old sack and some fresh rabbits to skin.

She's what you'd call a handsome woman. Still got a full head of hair though it's mostly white instead of black.

I checked in on her as a good son should. Brought her to church until she fell out with Doris over her extensions and how they shamed Jesus in the house of the Lord. Sherrif Bean said as long as she never went near the church again he wouldn't arrest her for assault.

She sure was mad about it. Talked about calling a lawyer and suing the Catholic Church.

Then the priest started calling her on Saturday night to discuss scripture and she settled down okay.

That's how I knew something was wrong. He called me one morning and said, Jim, you gotta get out here, your mom is real sick.

I dunno what I expected. Maybe that she'd fallen or broken something. Maybe that old rotwood swing she kept sitting on broke into a million pieces and she was all cut up.

Strange thoughts come to you when you're driving over to something like that. I had some and more.

When I got there, I saw maybe a half a dozen trucks in her driveway. All I could think was she's dead. And I felt an awful kind of relief. She was gone and one day I would forget her and she'd be really gone.

Got that sour feeling in my stomach. That guilt filling me right up.

I found them all standing around the porch. The Sherriff, the priest, Daryl from down at the Qwick E, and a couple of farmers.

"Is she possessed?" I heard Earl yell.

I figured she was alive then if she was givin' them hell.

The priest, he held up his hands. "I'm sure she has an explanation. A non-demonic explanation."

At that point, I had to step in. Ma could be mean but she weren't no minion of satan.

I pushed past them old boys and saw Ma sitting in that same spot. She looked fine. Almost happy. For a woman of her temperament.

Then I saw what they were staring at. Her right foot, it was pure stone. Quartz, all marbled in the middle. Some tools were around the stone. Bits of cheap metal where they'd probably tried to chip away at it.

"Ma," I said. "You stop this right now."

I knew she'd made up her mind and you couldn't move Ma when she had a notion. But I tried. I can tell the Lord I tried. I used my most stern voice. The one I use to shoo varmints from the shed.

She blinked and gave me an almost smile.

"I don't know what you're talking about, son."

Then she hummed. Hummed! She hummed a Dolly Parton song right at me.

Me and the boys tried pulling her up then. She kept complaining that Derry was copping a feel but he weren't. His hands were as respectable as pie on her lower legs.

She wouldn't budge. More people came over and we all tried all sorts of different things. Even that one with the mayonnaise. Ruined an entirely good jar of mayo on that one.

Ma was a mountain. The more we tried, the harder she stuck. She'd made up her mind and the stone followed, inching up her legs and arms.

At first, people cared. Or at least pretended to. Mostly they came to gawk at her and watch robins rest on her shoulders.

After a while, even the preacher stopped coming.

Only her eyes were left.

They were still looking at that forest, waiting.

"He ain't never coming back," I told her. "Not even if you turn into one of those gargoyles with the wings and claws."

The stone moved over her eyes, turning them gray and then a milky white.

"I'll take care of your place," I said.

"I know you're particular about how you sort the pantry. Might get a dog, though. Been a while since we had one."

I lit my cigarette, staring out at the same woods Ma was.

"Remember when we had George? Cute little bastard. Pa got him for me when I turned five. Said every boy should have a dog. Remember how mad you were that he hadn't asked you first?"

Her face had turned so red. I thought she'd explode for sure.

I knelt down at her feet, spreading some birdseed around for the robins that lived on her body.

"I wonder why he took George when he left?" I asked. "I wonder why he took him and not me?"

Her eyes closed. Some of the birds perched on her shoulders started to call out. It sounded like sobbing.

I was ten when my father gave me a gun.

"You're old enough," he said. "You hunt or you don't eat."

I hunted real careful. We'd found a red hand print on one of the burnt up trees. Usually meant the People were around and I didn't want to be ate up.

From the darker part of the woods came this awful howl. Sounded like a cat being strangled but manlier.

Following strange sounds into a forest of ash wasn't real smart but I was never real smart either.

The sounds ended under one of the giant trees. In the dark shade underneath was a wolf. Or maybe something mixed in with wolf.

It watched me with yellow eyes. Its paw was caught in a trap with sharp teeth.

"Ain't ya'll supposed to chew that off? I heard a tale somewhere," I said softly.

The wolf followed my movements with its eyes.

"I ken get ya free but then you'd probably eat me."

I sighed and sat down across from the beast. It still watched me.

"You need a name. Names are important. Father says mine came from a kind of sickness. Sundown. Sounds right pretty for a sick thing. I think Beast is a good name for ya. Strong."

I talked and talked and talked. Finally, the wolf seemed to tire a little.

I pulled my small knife and opened the trap, backing away slowly.

Beast stood and shook his head. He limped back into the dark.

"You're welcome," I muttered.

Damn and I still hadn't killed anything. I couldn't go home until I did.

And since I'd been talking and moving around so loud all the game had run away.

It was dark by the time I gave up and started home. I could sleep by the river and maybe catch a deer in the morning.

Out of the night came the wolf.

Beast stood, not letting me past. He was as tall as me so there wasn't much I could do about it.

His muzzle was stained red with blood. He spat out a plump rabbit.

"Huh. He ain't never gonna believe I shot this thing though."

I bent to pick up the carcass. "You though, he might like. Ain't gonna last long with that paw anyway."

My pa did like Beast. Well, after he saved us from some cannibals.

"Bullshit!"

Missus Lupi Gabriella Vasquez gazed down her long nose at me. Her upper lip curled up in a snarl.

I stared in fascination at the dark black hairs that stood up on her upper lip.

Were they vibrating? Could she sense things like a cat?

"Edward Noble Egg Silvenius III, I will have your respect! I am Guild Mistress and your elder!" She sang the words, spit flying at my face.

I rubbed my palm over my face, considering again my decision to become a knight and join a guild.

It was supposed to be different. I wasn't supposed to be in dented armor, looking up at some sort of hellbeast as she gave me the worst assignment every single time.

Rein. He was to blame. Yes he was. Strutting around in his golden armor with his perfectly coiffed fur.

He's one of the lion people. Not in a gross way. Like a really majestic way. He could be a unicorn and I could be the virgin sacrifice. If we were being lenient with the "virgin" part.

I mean what is sex really? Is it rutting against the pretty stable lad's flank in a horse stall? I think not.

The Wolf was mad. That was important right?

Damned if I wanted to take the assignment but I needed the money.

I bowed and gave her my best "I am cute and harmless, love me" smile. "I apologize, Guild Mistress. I am of course happy to take any assignment you desire me for."

Her whiskers twitched.

She grabbed a file and slammed it on the desk in front of me.

"You're going into the underneath again. Have fun, trash knight."

I slowly took the folder. I was not a trash knight. Yes, my armor was two sizes too big and literally anything stained it. I wasn't a trash anything. I wasn't.

Knights killed dragons and even trash dragons were considered technically dragons.

Damned Wizards.

We've sent them letters. Put flyers on their doors. We've had meetings. Nothing worked! Wizards were still flushing magical discharge, clogging up the tunnels with their waste. Every now and again BOOM dragons were born. I fought a newspaper dragon who cut me in places I am still aching from.

Rein got to go kill the big ones. The dragons with names like Gilda the Gold and Blackheart and Gump.

Me? I got sewer duty.

I was going to kick the next Wizard I met in his bony knee.

The sewers had only one real entrance. I used my key to open the iron door.

The rounded walls were stone to stone, in various shades of gray. My magelight bounced off it.

I hoped this dragon wasn't in one of the lower rooms where the water got even deeper. I was already splashing in dark brown water that smelled like things I didn't want to think about.

I went deeper and deeper, passing bones and vicious rodents. No dragon.

I turned a corner and saw an odd watery blob so tall it almost reached the ceiling.

"Don't tell me it's a poop dragon. I hate those."

I sighed and approached, poking at the gelatinous sides with my sword.

The blob exploded, spraying dark liquid. A dragon appeared in the middle of it all. Not a trash dragon. No way. Its scales were hard leathery things. Its yellow eyes were slitted.

"It's in my mouth," I wailed. The water covered every part of me. My eyebrows were soggy!

The dragon breathed, launching a fireball at me. I ducked and landed back in the dirty water.

Foolish boy. I am DEATH. I am FERGUS!

Fergus? Names meant power. Names meant age. What did we do with real dragons? Virgins? No. Didn't Rein rub dragonsbane on his armor? Shit, I'd been too cheap to buy any.

I rolled, avoiding another blast.

Oh god, the smell.

I lurched to my feed and gagged, vomiting water on the wall.

I held my hand up.

"Hey, I surrender. It's fine, kill me. Kill the whole block. The whole city. These people are jerks. I had an old lady spit on me yesterday because I wouldn't buy her dead flowers. She said I had a rosy bottom! Burn it all!"

I paused. "First her though. I think her name is Liberty. She has grand kids. They're jerks too. Also there's this Wolf who was mean to me earlier. She has it coming."

Fergus stopped. His sides shook, making a low chuffing noise. The vibrations shook the stone walls. I could feel them in my chest.

Laughter. I'd heard enough of it at my expense that I'd recognize it anywhere.

He shrank and shrank and shrank until only a small piece of him remained, reflecting diamond bright against the dark of the water below.

"I like you," he said. He'd transformed into a man a little taller than me, with a wide mouth and bright yellow eyes.

"Sparkly," I breathed.

He smiled. Even his teeth were shiny.

I shook my head. "Why are you a person now?"

Confusing. Hot. Confusing. Dragon?

"Oh dear, have I broken you? I hope now. Come, boy, I have decided to have adventures with you. We shall find the lost Cult of Muldoon and convince them to buy a time share in the Nether realm. It's near a nude beach but honestly you can't see anything with it being the realm of eternal darkness."

"Adventures?" I asked dumbly.

Sexy adventures? He wasn't wearing a shirt. The lack of nipples disturbed me somehow.

"Any kind of adventures you like! Even sexy ones." He whispered that last part I was sure.

I give blood once a week. It's like an addiction, seeing the red and blue. Almost like we all have a coloring book inside our skins.

My arms are scarred from it. Too many pinpricks, too little time between donation.

I cover up the scars with friendly bandaids. Hello Kitty says there is nothing wrong here move along.

But sometimes I see a red lady. In empty windows. Mirrors. Reflecting from Roderick's eyes.

We're going to be married. At least I think so. He hasn't asked yet.

Roderick meets me at his apartment. We haven't moved in but I practically live here. I have left signs like discarded lipsticks and neatly folded laundry. This is to
show other predators that I have prior claim.

At first, I'm too busy watching his brown hair as he tears through it. I can't hear what he's saying.

I read his lips.

It's over.

I mouth them back.

Really? My hands move, scratching at his face. His blood sprays and he pushes me back, into the mirror behind me.

Glass shatters and my arms hurt. I am an emergency of blood.

Pieces of the red woman are in the mirror, all shouting at once.

I reach for her, my blood sister. Jam pieces of her into Roderick until he stops screaming.

I can teach you, she says.

I want to learn.