The icy October wind lashed at Sue’s cheeks as she made her way across the parking lot to her car. An unseasonably cold evening in which was planted the spore of an unseasonably hot romance. She had caught a glimpse of him from the coffee shop and tried to go out to him, but by the time she’d reached the threshold, he was already gone – evaporated into the gloaming.
In the brief magnetic instant that she’d seen him, he appeared loping purposefully down the sidewalk, his head turning slightly from side to side as he observed everything. His eyes were concealed behind a big black pair of sunglasses, but she imagined them to be green and intense. The collar was turned up on his leather bomber. The swing of his arms was a counterrhythm to his long stride. She could see even from a distance that he had a tattoo on his right hand.
She felt her heart crumple as she stepped out into the crisp afternoon air and craned her neck in vain to catch a glimpse of this man. She’d been harpooned with the most powerful of feelings, like this man would write the next chapter in her life, could shape her sadness into something towering and worthwhile. He was gone, though – slipped away like the lifesaving rope from a doomed mountaineer.
--
Ch. 2
All the heartbreak of years past came galloping, trampling back all of a sudden. Sue’s mouth turned down like a baby’s does when it’s about to wail. She could not prevent the single hard sob that escaped her throat. A terrible wave of loss settled through her body like poison.
She bumbled heavily back to her chair and gripped the paper cappuccino cup for support. That man in the sunglasses was receding ever further from the possibility of togetherness, and dragging, unravelling along behind him a feeble thread of her hope. She could feel it pulling out of her, like the stringy guts of a bee after it’s stung you.
Sue sat in the chair for another half-hour, bruised. Then she forced herself to get up and leave the coffee shop, moping on down the street in her car, back to her apartment. She flopped onto her huge couch and stared at her blank computer screen on the coffee table. She didn’t move for two hours. Then, the leaden blanket of sleep slipped over her. It was a fitful slumber. (33,060)
A penetrating fear gripped me as I stared at Doctor Cartwright's face, now twisted with cruelty. It was a fear that in other circumstances might be called 'paralyzing,' but I was utterly unable to budge even a single muscle. Unfamiliar sensations blanketed me – why does it feel like there's a crunchy layer of tissue paper underneath my dermis? Suddenly, the nurse Edie wheeled back into my field of vision with a motion like a door swinging. Her nostrils pulsed as she spoke.
“I'd definitely say this one's ready to go, Doctor,” she sneered as Cartwright slithered his long hands into a pair of surgical gloves. She moved over to the other side of the doctor, and the click of her shoes against the linoleum resounded in my skull like a mallet hitting a temple block.
“OK, prep his jaw while I get the apparatus into place,” Cartwright said as he walked back behind my chair again. His voice seemed to flange and oscillate as he spoke, as if some unseen person was messing with the tone control on his voice while moving a fan in front of his mouth, or something. My vision began to change in ways that were barely perceptible at first, but soon became profoundly disorienting. Staring up at the light which the nurse Edie positioned over me, I was suddenly unable to determine its distance away from my face. The doctor began making clanking sounds behind my chair, and when I looked at the nurse Edie, her lips had turned an impossible torrid red and were pursed into a smirk of anticipation as she looked past me at whatever he was doing. I thought I heard Cartwright chuckle softly as a pulsing, whirring sound began to emanate from just behind my head.
“Come on, Edie, I'm almost ready here,” huffed Cartwright.
“Oh sorry, Doctor – I just love to watch you work!” replied the nurse Edie as she pushed her shoulders back ever so slightly just barely licked her teeth. She bent over me to reach some piece of equipment, and came up with an apricot-sized contraption of metal and white plastic, along with a big tube of blue gel. She told me to open wide, which I instinctively did in spite of the terror. Placing the metal thing in my mouth, she clicked a few ratchets on it and it sprung into shape, holding my mouth open to the point of discomfort. Then, she began to slather the blue gel on the outside of my jaw. I can't deny that, through the fear, I felt a subtle flush of arousal as she did this. A profound numbness began to dominate wherever the gel had been applied, and she gave the metal device a last jarring adjustment.
The nurse Edie parted her obscene lips for an instant before cooing : “Doctor – he's ready.”
Doctor Cartwright abruptly hove into my view, his mouth now obscured by an operating mask, but his eyes still ablaze with malice. He swiftly brought the whirring machine in front of my face.
“All righty,” said Cartwright. “Let's get this show on the road!”
And with that, he plunged toward me with the noisy tool. I couldn't scream. (30,595)
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