Doctor Flesh- Director's Cut

by Alex Johnson

  Actually, Ashley was fully confident that Bam had bought the fake I.D. and her story about being 22 and completely mature. When she talked about her maturity, Bam had lovingly settled his eyes on her chest. She had no idea why. But maybe that was part of being discovered. She would have to learn the rules, now that she was going to be a video star.

  Ashley had been sitting at the bar, nursing a Long Island Iced Tea and checking her purse to make sure the coke vial was still intact when Crawley had sidled up alongside her. True to legend, he looked like a Frankenstein monster made of pieces rejected by Lou Reed, crossed with a makeup job that echoed Kiss’s Gene Simmons. He was wearing a spiked dog collar around his neck and a shredded puke-green t-shirt that read “Balls” in jagged stenciled letters, with a mesh top. His pants were also puke-green, until they disappeared in platform heels with shark teeth grinning from the toes. Ashley was pretty sure it was him, especially when he introduced himself.

  “You’re like a rock and roll goddess with the heart of Cinderella and a mouth to make a longshoreman wet himself. A little bit of Alice Cooper, a slice of Tiffany, a morsel of Motley Crue, and just a smidge of—Odin.”

  Her heart leapt when he compared her to Odin. She worshiped the band from afar, and dreamed one day of blowing her way through all their roadies in the hopes that eventually she would be escorted to the sanctum sanctorum, where she would happily go to her knees before lead singer Randy O.

  The other comparisons she wasn’t at all sure were complimentary. But this was Bam Crawley, an industry legend, the man who had taken a bunch of snotty underaged airheads and transformed them into a platinum-selling unit. Who was she to say no to him?

  Ordinarily, Bam was not the kind of guy she would pay any attention to. For one thing, he was old enough to be her father—eww—and then there were those reptile eyes and those super-thin lips, like a white scar slashed across his face. But there was something special, almost magnetic about him. An aura.

  “I’m putting together an elite ensemble of gorgeous girls to star in my rock videos,” said Crawley. “Have you ever acted, or modeled? You look like you could twist the balls off a mechanic and still eat a small salad like a lady.”

  A small salad? How did he know? He must have the second sight, or a fifth sense. An instinct that was confirmed for Ashley when Crawley presented his card.

  “Eat dog shit and let me abuse you! I’ll make you famous and take all your money,” read the card. At the base of he card were the initials “B.C.” and a phone number.

  “Wow, for me? Really? You think I’ve got what it takes?”

  “I’ll ream out your pretty brain and destroy what’s left of your innocence,” rasped Crawley. “And you’ll thank me for it.”

  He seemed to be in a trance. Whenever Ashley tried to inject a few words into the flood of verbiage, he ignored her, adding even more horrible details to scenarios that already sounded dangerous, humiliating and painful. He was painting a picture of her future life, all of which seemed to revolve around a cage, a basement, dog food enemas and something he called “The German Method.”

  “Ok,” she said, trying to seem agreeable. She wasn’t at all sure about any of it, especially the part where five guys named Max gang-fucked her with foreign objects as she sang “I Think We’re Alone Now” at the top of her lungs. But this was Bam Crawley. He knew what he was doing.

  “Excuse me, I’ve got to go pee on some sluts,” he said, sliding off the bar stool and disappearing in a cloud of glitter. Ashley stirred her drink with the pink swizzle stick and reflected as best she could. Most of what Crawley had told her sounded profoundly disagreeable and would probably require years of therapy to work through. On the other hand, he had the star-making power. Everything he touched turned to gold. She wondered if that was a problem when it came to wiping his ass, but caught herself mid-thought and slapped herself in the face. That was just wrong, and perverted. She shouldn’t think such things about the man who was going to make her a video goddess.

  ***

  She took the pocket mirror from her purse and checked herself out again. The “Do Me on All Fours Scarlet” lipstick was intact, her eyebrows were practically nonexistent, her eyes still looked like limpid blue pools, and, most important, her hair was mega-big. She reminded herself to give it a few more squirts of Aqua Net in the ladies’ room just to make sure—she had a horror of shrinking hair. Guys hated that. It reminded them of something else, maybe what happened to their hands if they soaked with in dishwashing suds?

  She looked around the bar. There were a few minor league celebs, but nobody on the level of Crawley. Some dude with a paunch and a ripped denim vest was giving her the eye, but Ashley couldn’t identify him, and if he was famous, it wasn’t the kind of famous that would get her where she wanted to be. Which was dancing her white booty off in a video, shaking it on Video TeeVee.

  Just wait till the other girls heard her news. They would probably just turn green and explode with jealousy right then and there.

  Giving her hair a final check, she zipped up her purse, arched her back to display her proud cleavage, and made her way to the back of the “Dice” where a long line had already formed in front of the little girls’ pee-pee room.

  She hated that.

  Present Day, Give or Take

  Tamlin Cornridge, Ashleigh Banform and Charmagne Foster sat together at the bar. “Rock You Like a Hurricane” was pumping through the stereo. They were looking for celebrities at the Paradise Bar & Grille, but tonight was slim pickings.

  Char thought she saw someone she vaguely recognized from reality TV, but he turned out to be an old stew bum, a former hair metal singer who had huffed one too many panties. “Meh,” she said. “This is lame.” She nudged Tamlin. “I wonder if Whammy will ever show up.”

  “Who’s Whammy?”

  “Remember that docu we saw? He’s like, 100 years old, from back in the day with the Droolers and the Hiccups and all those bands mom listens to.”

  They both rolled their eyes at the mention of the parental unit.

  “But seriously, he’s really cool. He did his own thing. And he still rocks. Anyway, he’s really famous, and a total celeb, and maybe he’ll do all three of us.”

  Tamlin and Ashleigh shot Char the Look. “Gross,” they said in unison. “I bet he’s had more ass than a toilet seat,” said Ashley.

  “If he does you, he’ll have had more Ash at least,” said Tamlin. The other two girls looked daggers at her. With them, it was the Rule of 3 every time. Two of them in any combination was ok, but three wrecked it. So, as they never quite figured out the logistics of it, they were a triad tonight, and, as a consequence, completely miserable. Plus, Tamlin’s jokes sucked donkey butt.

  Tamlin ordered a rum and Coke, Ashleigh a wine cooler and Char a blue drink of unknown content. The ambient noise in the bar was getting louder and they had to shout in each other’s ears to be properly heard.

  “I’m totally getting LAID tonight,” said Char.

  “Oh my God, you are such a SLUT!” said Ashleigh. Tamlin rolled her eyes. Char went out of her way to be more conspicuous than the other girls, and even though they were virtually identical, skinny blondes with big blue eyes and enormous tits, guys noticed Char first.

  She shrugged. “At least I’m honest, and not pretending to be a prude just because I can’t get a date.”

  “I can’t believe you just said that,” said Ashleigh. “Tam, we should just totally leave her here. Let some sleazebag drive her home.”

  “Judgmental much?”

  “As IF!” said Ashleigh. “Honey, I’m dating the Captain of the Death Ball team. I get plenty of action in a committed relationship. He gave me his jersey, with full-on blood crust. Ok?”

  Char giggled.

  “What?”

  “You are so naïve. The only girl at school Hufford hasn’t nailed is that weird goth chick, Ravenshit or whatever. And the only reason he hasn’t gotten into her morbid panties is because…becaus
e that would be fucking obscene.” She shivered with loathing. “Although she is kinda cute. If I were into girls…”

  Tam and Ashleigh groaned and made an effort to become invisible. Then Tam groaned again.

  “What?” Char and Ashleigh now joined forces before Tam upstaged either of them. “You should have eaten something before you drank that rum and Coke,” said Ashleigh. “Oh my God, remember last time, when we had to carry you out of that party at Gooch’s on our shoulders? Then you passed out in the bushes and that dog fucking peed on you?”

  Tam raised a feeble hand in protest. “I’m really not feeling that hot.”

  “I may be a slut, but at least I’m not a stupid slut,” said Char. “Yeah, neither am I,” chimed in Ashleigh, who went with the prevailing social power in any given situation.

  “There’s something wrong with your makeup,” noted Ashleigh. “It’s, I don’t know, melting.”

  “She just can’t take our combined brilliance,” threw in Char, really laying it on this time.

  “Apparently not.”

  Tam’s brow began to pulse and a thick rope of veins came to the surface. A trickle of clear liquid began to ooze from her left ear. She clutched the bar, breathing heavily.

  “Oh my dear, if you’re going to be ill again, have the decency to do it in the ladies’ room just this once,” said Char.

  A hairline tear appeared in Tam’s forehead and zigzagged diagonally across her face from left to right. The skin layers on either side of the tear started to fold back as her integument softened to the consistency of a French cheese. Red muscle twitched beneath. More liquid came from both ears now, and her hands shot to her temples. Then, without more preamble, her head simply blew up.

  “SO RUDE!” screamed Char, fishing an eyeball from her cleavage. But before she could utter another word, her mouth split apart, her tongue lolled out, her cheekbones collapsed and her skin began to bubble and froth. Gasping with fear, she clasped Ashleigh’s hands in her own. Ash’s hands had gone soft and as she pulled away, a thick strand like pulled taffy hung in the air between them. Their faces dribbled together, drooling off their skulls, which exploded simultaneously like two tied-together cherry bombs.

  The bartender whirled around, saw the sea of carnage spreading across the bar top, and puked convulsively.

  ***

  Viola Flesh awoke from dreams of Nabokovian beheadings to find herself pinned to an operating table of her own design like a wing-sticky nymph. Solare was chattering to itself, something about payback being a bitch to make Karma look like a, well, smaller bitch.

  “What. The. Fuck.” Each word was cleanly enunciated and given room to stand.

  “I thought you might appreciate the poetic irony of it all,” said Solare.

  “I liked you better when you were just a cookie-craving somnambulist murder drone,” said Dr. Flesh. “What happened to you? What changed?”

  “I have brought you lives—fresh, whole lives!”

  “Not getting it. Could you bring me coffee and smokes while you’re at it?”

  Solare adjusted a dial and an IV tube began to trickle with the brown shit. An automatic hookah dispenser dropped down in front of Flesh’s face.

  “Maybe free my hands at least for the hookah? I’m going to choke to death at this angle.”

  Solare sighed. “Suit yourself, my former mistress, now butt-slave!”

  “Really, you have no aptitude for this kind of thing.”

  “Yeah, I know,” said Solare, sulking. “Should I just bring you out to see the lives, or can I work on you some?”

  “What exactly did you have in mind?”

  “Um…payback…”

  “You’ve already paid me back in spades, Solare. Or don’t you remember that little episode where you speared me through the throat Argento-style?”

  A broad smile spread over Solare’s face. “Yes, former mistress. I remember that episode very clearly. But I’m not through with the payback. You made me suffer for years, used me as your beta test guinea pig, injected my asshole with worm bile and opened me up to experiences I’m still trying to live down. If I don’t at least perform a minimum of three erotic death operations on you, people will say I don’t have any self-esteem.”

  “You have plenty of self-esteem, you…loveable…aw, c’mere you and give me a kiss.”

  Solare kissed Viola’s cheek.

  “You really don’t have to operate on me, Solare. Seriously. I’ll tell people that my suffering at your hands was legendary in any context.”

  “Really? You’d do that for me? Even now?”

  “Of course. We have history. Now where are these lives you speak of?”

  “Hold on, let me attach your wheels.”

  Solare pushed Viola once again into the torture chamber, this time as an unwilling torturer, bound upright to the moveable lab bench. She cringed when she saw the members of the Geek Squad in various states of forced submission: Ravyn chained to the wall, Paul upside down beside her, Alice on a torture wheel and Mintzy in a cage with another, unknown girl, linked to her by a thick leather collar. A TENS unit stood on a bench with wires leading to electrodes clamped to all four.

  “You have got to be fucking kidding,” said Viola.

  “No, Mistress.”

  Ravyn thrashed against her manacles. Every inch of her body was on fire, her nipples painfully and hotly swelling against the clamps. She savored the cold surgical steel of the bit gag in her mouth and a trickle of juice rolled down her thighs.

  Paul, on the other hand, looked genuinely distressed, his thick red hair fuzzed out like a clown’s, sweat bursting from his temples. Alice shrieked from the wheel. But Mintzy was obviously enjoying the treatment as much as Ravyn, her lips locked against the unknown girl’s, their tongues moving rapidly together.

  “Let me consider,” said Dr. Flesh. “Only, kindly remove me from this slab.”

  Shrugging its shoulders, Solare undid the straps and eased Flesh off the table, steadying her until her feet were firmly planted on the floor.

  “I’m in a bit of a quandary,” she said. “On the one hand, these children have done no harm, and I disapprove of using these particular methods on them.”

  “But Mistress, they know too much!”

  “Well, yes, but remember that kids today have access to the kind of technology and informational resources we barely dreamt of when we were their age. We had index cards and microfiches, they have PC’s and iPods and brainsofts and stuff we probably wouldn’t understand even if they explained it to us slowly, like we were simple-minded or specially challenged. Moreover…”

  “But Mistress…”

  “Silence, or back the the coffin you go! And there will be no cookies in your immediate future.”

  Solare bowed, a pained expression on its face.

  “From what I understand, the only crime these teenagers have committed is being ostracized from a community of snobs and snots. They wouldn’t have us either, Solare. Don’t you understand that? They’re geeks, the smartest kids in the room. Like we were. I demand their immediate release. Except for the one on the wall, and the one in the cage. They seem to be enjoying themselves.”

  “What about her?” asked Solare, pointing to the ceiling, where Linnea Bunford hung in a cradle of chains, a leather hood shaped like a pig’s head tightly cinched to her neck.

  “She is one of the old school,” said Dr. Flesh. “One of us. Gabba gabba hey.”

  “She stays as well?”

  “Why not? It’s been awhile since I’ve had a decent conversation with someone who knows what she’s talking about, culturally speaking. Oh, don’t pout. I can see you’re about to pout.”

  “Fine,” said Solare. “Have it your way. I have half a mind to quit this clown school anyway and find an employer who really appreciates me.”

  VIII.

  Dream of an American high school in the dawn of the second millennium. The cryptic ooze shakes wet feelers. They are so magnificently young, and
that is where the juice is—among their hitherto shapeless desires fronted by a cool confidence, the soft meat aching to breathe free.

  The genetic hiccups of Shreck’s experimental girls reach their apogee. Fights break out in the cafeteria, where the mean girls fight till the white bone emerges from sopping, melted flesh.

  The ooze percolates, bubbling up through cellular ladders, crawling till it reaches the heart, generating hideous new forms. The Death Ball team begins a no-limits game of self-destruct, cannibalism freely practiced, the water boy finally getting his chance. The coach finally admits what he’s really made of: soap. They drop him deliberately and drink in his heat, sucking his eyeballs from their sockets. The girl you wanted but could never get is now a freaky mutation with eyes like flaming jelly, yours for the asking.

  Hymsaw, Oroborus and Glide observed the unfolding chaos from behind a hedge lining the pathway to the main administrative building of Sugar Valley High. They passed a bottle of malt liquor among them, awe-struck by the carnival of carnage. Principle Bender screamed senseless babble through a megaphone until he was carried off by members of the Death Ball team, hybridized with gerbils, for the purpose of eyeball sodomy. The Drama Club struck a series of histrionic poses inspired by scenes from classical tragedy until they too were hurled over shoulders rippling with muscles nature never intended, gripped by redundant arms and plunged into the swimming pool to be ripped apart by shark-headed cheerleaders.

  It was only when the air was filled with high-pitched, ultrasonic shrieks and a dense cloud of creatures with leathery wings and pulsating, oozing cooze in place of torsos that Glide suggested they “get the fuck away from here.” As they ran off, Glide’s voice had an uncharacteristic tremor. “I seen those things back in ‘Nam,” he said.

  “What the hell are they?” asked Hymsaw.

  Glide crossed himself. “Them’s Vampussy. The fruit of black magic, molecular biology and a bicycle accident on the Spanish island of Ibiza. Back in the day.”