Bodies Are Disgusting (8 page)

"Is this not to your liking?" Instead of
trying to form words and risking vomiting, you shake your head.
"Oh, that's all right, we can change it. What would suit you
better?" You hazard a glance at Ori. Their face is pinched just a
little, as if caught in deep thought. The tension releases after a
moment, their features smoothing and a wide grin takes hold. "Ah,
yes, of course, how could I forget?"

It feels like falling, but then you're in a
room with which you'd become intimately familiar several months ago
(and with which you've become increasingly estranged since Amanda
broke things off). It even smells like her, though she isn't there.
It's just like you remember it: small, neat, cleaned to within an
inch of its life. The comforter is even folded on top of the
blanket made into the hospital corners you recall taking great joy
in wrecking. Your knees give out, and Ori lets you collapse onto
the carpet next to Amanda's bed. You glance at Ori's knees. They're
bony and the skin on them looks dry and scaly.

"Perhaps now we can discuss the fact that you
have met some of our competition," Ori says, their voice dropping
in what is probably meant to be dangerous but sounds more like a
child pretending they're an adult. "It saddens me that it happened
so soon."

"Competition?" you ask the shark-child's
knees.

Ori takes a few steps so their knees are
outside your field of vision. Instead, you're now staring at the
faded old ivy-print on Amanda's bed linens. "Don't play coy,
dearest. I know you're well aware of the game we are all playing.
Some of the players have been... shall we say... less than
circumspect." They reach down and dig their fingers into your scalp
like you are a favored canine companion. It makes your stomach
lurch, and their touch does not follow when you shy
away.

"We are playing a game, Douglas," they say.
"Its rules are complex beyond your understanding, but the
principles are very simple: whosoever is invited in first will win
possession of this world. We choose our players to increase our
chances of being invited in, and those who allow us to lay claim to
their home are richly rewarded." As Ori speaks, they begin pacing
across your field of vision. "It is a game as old as the universe,
and I have chosen to share it with
you.
"

Ori continues to talk, but the words roll off
your brain and refuse to stick. You know you've heard this story
before. Or rather, you've read it. While you've made a valiant
effort to forget your first encounter with Lucien, you clearly
remember that (
stupid
) forum thread. Of course, it seems
like your imagination –you are quite obviously hallucinating at
this point –has provided a few new details, but the essence of it
remains unchanged.

The pacing slows. Stops. Ori kneels before you
such that you're now staring where their navel would be if they'd
been spawned in any sort of way resembling mammalian birth. One of
their hands comes to cup your chin and tilt your face up so that
you've no choice but to stare at that serrated grin. "Douglas,"
they say, and the sound of your name is like the rumbling in the
chest of a particularly hungry lion. You shiver and say
nothing.

The fingers holding your chin tighten, Ori's
blunt fingernails (how is anything about this creature blunt?)
digging into your cheeks. They continue grinning down at you. The
moment stretches, a growing sense of dread mixed with a hint of
anticipation starting to curl in your abdomen. Your arms begin to
shake, you've been on your hands and knees so long, but you don't
want to move first. The shadows in the room flicker at the
periphery of your vision as if they were a fire in reverse. The
room grows chilly. Out of the corners of your eyes you can see the
dark fire crawling up the walls and across the ceiling and onto the
scrupulously vacuumed carpet. A tendril reaches Ori's leg and
slithers up one thigh. It snakes over their sexless crotch, around
their torso, and down the arm that holds your jaw.

You flinch.

Ori wrenches your head to the side with such
force that you find yourself flat on your back before you can even
suck in a startled breath. They sit astride your chest, their knees
squeezing your ribcage, their face hovering close enough to yours
that you can feel your breath reflected back to you. "Douglas,"
they say again, and this time it sounds less like ravenous rumbling
and more like seduction. Despite yourself, you shiver not because
of the cold. Your heart trips over itself to climb out of your
chest. You want to scream, to cry, to do something, but Ori's
regard holds you in place like a lepidopterist's pin.

"This is a hallucination," you finally manage
to say. Your tongue feels thick and unwieldy in your mouth and the
denial taste like ashes.

"I assure you that it is not," purrs Ori.
"What could I do to make you believe me?" They appear to consider
the question for a few seconds. "Would you believe me if I sent you
home with your innards decidedly
not
on the inside? Hmm...
No, you're far too frail for that." Their eyebrows draw together
and they chew delicately on their bottom lip; you are certain that
it's an affectation that they believe gives the impression of
puzzling out some great mystery. Their fingers leave your face and
trace down your neck before settling on your right hand (you're
still wearing their ring). They grab your other hand with theirs
and bring both of your hands up to their flat chest. "Oh, I know. I
could give you myself. Perhaps that will show you how serious I
am."

They push your fingers into the flesh just
below their clavicles. It's firm and warm and a little rough, sort
of like fine-grain sandpaper. They press your fingers harder. The
skin beneath your fingertips gives way with an uncomfortably wet
slurping noise; your fingers are lodged in Ori's flesh almost to
the first knuckle and you can feel your nails scrape something
hard. "Jesus fuck!"

Ori doesn't pay attention to your outburst or
the way your legs flail uselessly as you try to push yourself away
from them. Their eyelids flutter closed, their brow wrinkles ever
so slightly, and their lips part just enough to allow you to see
the points of their shark teeth. You feel them shudder under your
hands as they draw in a breath. Gooseflesh prickles up on your skin
as they trail their fingers down to your wrists. In contrast to the
flesh in which your fingers are lodged (
oh my god
, your
panicked brain supplies,
oh my god
), Ori's hands are chilly
and unyielding. Their fingers close around your wrists with enough
strength that you think you feel your carpal bones grind against
each other.

Ori's breath hisses out through their fangs,
and they jerk your hands down. Skin rips as it follows the motion,
sloughing free of Ori's ribs as if nothing had ever actually
connected it at all. Ori's diaphragm shudders as they bend almost
double over you and pin your hands to to the floor at your sides.
The horror paralyzes you. Their skin has split far enough that
their intestines slither out onto your belly in a tangle. Instead
of looking pained, their expression is almost rapt. Like someone
riding the most exquisite orgasm.

They take your right hand and thrust it into
their abdominal cavity without even opening their eyes. Your
fingers graze something hot and wet and you try to cringe away. Ori
refuses to let you, forces your hand around something and tears it
out with a vicious cry. It's impossible to tell if the trembling
you feel is them or you.

Their head drops. "Take this," they tell you,
curling your fingers around a swiftly cooling lump. Their voice has
a husky quality you typically only associate with the aftermath of
a vigorous fucking, and it makes your stomach lurch to hear it
after what's just happened. "This is my spleen," they continue.
"Cherish it."

They dip forward a little further and nuzzle
lazily at the soft spot where your jaw meets your neck. The
shivering is definitely you. Between your bodies, you can feel
their innards writhing as if they had a mind of their own. While
the spleen in your hand is losing warmth by the second, the rest of
Ori's viscera are still hot and living. You hazard a glance down
only to squeeze your eyes shut against the sight. Everything is
slick with greenish black ichor streaked with red. Loops of Ori's
intestines squirm around and flop against your hips and thighs.
Against your neck, Ori sighs contentedly.

"I could stay like this forever," they say.
"It's been so long since I've felt anything like that." The arm
that has been propping them semi-upright slowly gives way, lowering
Ori's weight onto your chest. The ichor squelches and you swear you
could hear the intestines squeaking as they're trapped between you.
Ori's tongue flicks out, licks a quick swipe over your carotid
artery. "What do you think, dearest one?"

You hadn't even realised you'd begun to cry,
but then you feel the tears rolling down your cheeks. "Please let
me go." The words come out choked by the lump of fear in your
throat.

"You're no fun," says Ori. You can feel them
pouting against the vulnerable skin of your neck. "If I let you go,
will you consider what I've said? Have I proven to you that I'm
serious?"

"Yes! God, yes! Please let me go and I'll
think about it, I promise!" In this moment, you would swear fealty
to Adolf Hitler himself to wake up from this nightmare.

Ori sighs. "Very well, then."

Like that, you're slumped in the bathtub. The
water is hot enough that you can practically smell the steam around
you. The shower curtain hangs undisturbed and the only light in the
room is still that of the street lamp outside filtering in the
window. Everything is so painfully mundane that you actually manage
to think,
I am never falling asleep in the shower
again.

The fingers of your right hand still grip
something.

You don't need to turn on the light to realize
that it's Ori's spleen.

You have no idea what to do with a fresh
spleen beyond
get rid of it
. Kneejerk reactions flicker
through your brain and are discarded as quickly as they surface:
try to flush it (it won't go down), throw it in the garbage (what
if the trash collectors see it or someone reports the stench), put
it in a tupperware container and stuff it in the back of the
freezer (what if Simon finds it), just fucking leave it where you
found it (there are
so many
things wrong with that
plan).

For the first time in your life, you wish you
were a pet owner. They never held any appeal before, prone to being
dirty, smelly, and needy as they were, but now... It would be
undeniably useful to have a hungry little critter to just feed
Ori's organ to.

That thought brings all the rest to a halt.
It's not a bad idea, least of all when compared to your other
panicked impulses. The neighborhood is suburban enough that there
are bound to be strays, raccoons, hell, you've even seen a hawk or
two circle around once or twice. Just get some leftovers, chop the
spleen into tiny bits, and leave them out for the
scavengers.

The spleen is oddly bloodless, but you don't
risk setting it down. You use your other hand to turn off the
water, grab a towel, and clutch it to your chest in case Simon
passes while you're on the way to the kitchen. When he doesn't, you
drop the damp thing over the back of the sofa. You leave squishy
wet footprints in the carpet and slippery ones on the linoleum
tile.

There's one cutting board in the entire house,
a cheap monstrosity that dates back to the Paleozoic era which is
made of a plastic that you can't take the chance of contaminating,
so you just grab a chipped plate and drop the thing on it. A quick
examination of the fridge reveals something that might have once
been Chinese take-out. It's absolutely rank; probably the stuff
Amanda brought over when you think of it. However long ago
that
was.

(Everything is so liquid and surreal in the
wake of your shower. It feels like it was a hundred years ago when
you saw her last.)

There are a few other things that show signs
of growing an independent ecology, so you grab them as well.
Chopping everything up stinks to high heaven, and by the time
you're done there's unidentifiable slime squished under your
fingernails where the ink from the newsprint you handle at work
usually lives. It does not take long, however, and it leaves you
with a pile of mystery goo, the contents of which you feel vaguely
comfortable no one will question.

You take the plate with the
leftover-and-spleen slurry to the kitchen's narrow door and pause.
The back yard (what little of it there is) faces a few other houses
and basks in the dim glow of a distant street lamp. While you're
fairly certain no one is awake, you're pretty sure that tonight
would be the one night someone would glance out the window to see
you throwing things out in nothing but your bare skin. With the
slime on your hands, putting your towel on is out of the
question.

Instead of spreading the slurry in the yard
like putrid grass seed, you open the door just wide enough to scoot
the plate onto the stoop with your toes. As soon as it crosses the
threshold, you pull your foot back, shut the door, and throw the
deadbolt. It's out of your hands now. You can sleep now, you
hope.

You wash your hands in the kitchen sink, using
the vegetable brush to scrape the sludge off. A few paper napkins
take care of the grungy fingerprints you left on the doorknob and
deadbolt. The towel you take back to the bathroom and throw over
the shower curtain bar. Your dirty clothes get scooped off the
floor and thrown in the laundry hamper. Within a few minutes,
everything looks completely normal. You slither into one of your
favorite pairs of boxers and fall face-first onto your
bed.