“Really?” I was intrigued. “Is it the hot-wax treatment? The clamps? The dilators?”
Clara kissed me hard, her tongue exploring the recesses of my mouth like an octopus searching for a dropped shilling. She reached over the side of the bed and retrieved her handbag.
“We’re going to play a little game,” she whispered. “It’s called, ‘truth or consequence.’”
“Sounds like fun,” I responded gamely, but my enthusiasm was short lived as, to my horror, Clara withdrew from her handbag, not a riding crop, nor a pinwheel, nor any of the assorted devices or accessories of which I had become so fond, but a wicked-looking butcher’s knife, its polished steel blade glinting in the candle light.
“Erm, I’ve changed my mind about the game,” I stammered. “I don’t like the look of this.”
“There’s really nothing to worry about,” Clara crooned, seizing my assets and resting the knife’s blade against the taut skin. “The rules are very simple. I ask you a question, and if you don’t answer to my satisfaction…..” To illustrate her point, she gently drew the knife against the surface of my scrotum, splitting the skin and drawing a thin trickle of blood.
When one engages in restrictive procreative practices, it is vital to have a safe word, a word that one utters when the situation has crossed the line from painfully stimulating to intolerably painful. The use of the safe word indicates to the dominant partner that the game has progressed too far, and needs to be dialled down a notch or put on hold. Our safe word was, ‘Chegwin,’ and up until this evening, there had been no cause to invoke it, but invoke it I did, and with great vigour.
“Chegwin!” I yelped. “Chegwin! Chegwin!”
Clara pouted. “Oh, I’m sorry, Rupert. There are no safe words tonight.” She tightened her grip, and I felt the blood flow faster, down between my thighs and onto the bedsheets. “Let’s get started shall we?” she asked, somewhat rhetorically. “First question; where is Sir Godfrey’s list?”
“I-I-I-I…” I yammered like a loon, trying desperately to engage my brain. “L-l-l-list?”
“Don’t act stupid, Rupert. I shan’t ask again.”
“I’m not acting,” I protested. “What list?”
Clara tutted and shook her head. “Not the answer I’m looking for.”
The knife bit deeply into me, and I writhed and screamed and begged her to desist.
“Let’s try this again,” said Clara, holding up the knife to show me the dripping blade. “Where is Sir Godfrey’s list?”
“We never saw it.” I was shaking uncontrollably from head to foot, and I felt clammy and nauseated. “Sir Godfrey was dead when we arrived.”
“I know that, Rupert. I made certain of it.”
My jaw dropped. “You? You killed Sir Godfrey?”
“He gave me no choice.” She held the knife up again. “He refused to answer my questions. I do hope you won’t make the same mistake.” Once again, she pressed the steel blade against my flesh. “Tell me where the list is, Rupert.”
“But I don’t know,” I yelled. Again the pain, and I bucked and screamed and shouted for help. There was a sharp crack as Clara slammed the knife’s hilt down onto my forehead. Pain flashed across my scalp, my ears rang, and my vision dimmed for a moment.
“Shut up,” she hissed, “or I swear that I’ll slice your pepperoni to pizza topping.”
My underparts throbbed in time with my pounding heart, each heartbeat sending the pain bounding into the pit of my stomach. The room began to spin, and it took all my resolve to refrain from vomiting.
“Tell me, Rupert. Tell me.”
“He left a clue,” I shouted, tears streaming from my ears and nose, “scrawled upon the floor in his blood. Dwagon. Just the word, ‘dwagon.’”
“What the Hell does that mean?” she spat. “What sort of answer is that?” She slashed me again, and then once more, and I sobbed and cried for help.
“Yuck!” Clara wrinkled her nose as she wiped her hands on the bedsheets. “What a mess you’re making. Blood everywhere.”
“Please stop, Clara,” I begged. “Please.”
She leaned forward and bit me playfully on the nose. “Come on, Rupert. The game’s just begun. It’s time for round two.”
I shuddered as I felt the knife’s sticky blade pressed against my nether regions.
“Next question. Where is the Fourth Atman?”
I shook my head. “No, please.”
“The Fourth Atman, Rupert. Where is it?”
“No.”
Clara drew the knife firmly against my skin and I felt the blade bite once more.
“Nooooo!” I howled. “Please stop.”
“Where is it?” Clara cut me again, but all I could muster in response was a howl of anguish. “Where is it?” she growled. “I know that you spoke to great-uncle Konrad.” She rotated the knife so the tip of the blade was pressing into the pit of my stomach. “What did he tell you?”
Great-uncle? It couldn’t be. I gawped at Clara with revulsion in my mind and fear in my heart. “You are Saxon Schwarzkröte’s daughter?”
“That’s right. He sent me to keep a watch on you, but his patience is wearing thin.” She pressed the tip of the blade harder into me. “And so is mine. What did he tell you?”
“I got soul.”
Clara shook her head and furrowed her brow. “What?”
“I got soul. Your grandfather’s dying words. That’s it, I swear. That’s all I know.”
Clara’s shoulders slumped and she sat back. “Then our game is at an end. Goodbye, Rupert.”
I closed my eyes and waited for the blade to strike. Instead there was a thud and an, “oof!” and a great weight slumped onto me, then tumbled over the side of the bed. I opened my eyes and strained to look, but could see nothing from my vantage point.
As I lay still, panting, wondering what had happened, Clara sprung suddenly up from the floor at the side of the bed.
“Help me,” she gurgled. “Help me, Rupert.”
She coughed, a rasping, wet cough, and blood trickled from the corners of her mouth. My gaze travelled downwards to her chest, its beautiful symmetry marred by the handle of the butcher’s knife protruding from beneath her right breast.
“Help me,” she hissed again. “Please.”
“I can’t move,” I shouted. “You must untie me.”
She grasped the hilt of the knife firmly, and before I could stop her, she pulled the blade from her chest with a wet squelch and leant over, frantically sawing at the ropes that held me firm.
Her movements were weak, and I could see from her pallor that she would soon collapse. Her eyes glazed and she slumped sideways upon me, but not before severing the rope that tethered my left hand. I rolled over as best I could and retrieved the knife from her limp hand, and soon I was free.
Once I was able to sit up, it became evident what had occurred. Nell had managed to climb to her feet and, in a desperate attempt to salvage what remained of my reproductive organs, had hurled herself at Clara, knocking her sideways from the bed and onto the blade of her own knife. Nell now lay upon her back like an upended turtle, trying to right herself. Springing from the bed, I cut her from her ropes and removed her hood and gag.
“Rupert,” she sobbed. “Oh, Rupert.” She spied Clara, pale, waxen, sprawled face up on the bed.
“Clara,” she squealed. “What happened?”
“Quickly.” I grabbed Nell by the shoulders and turned her to face me. “Fetch a first aid kit and the telephone.” She ran from the room, returning swiftly with both items. “Phone an ambulance,” I instructed. “Tell them that there has been a stabbing, and that she has suffered severe blood loss.”
I pounced upon Clara and made my preliminary examination. Her pulse was rapid and weak, and her breathing stertorous. The wound in her chest was small but had penetrated deep into the lung, and bloody froth bubbled from it as her chest rose and fell.
With a penetrating chest wound, the priorities are
to maintain breathing, arrest blood loss and ensure adequate circulation of blood about the body. Unfortunately, I was not in a position to attend to Clara’s internal bleeding, so I gathered several pillows and placed them beneath her legs in order to improve blood flow to her brain.
Another hazard of this type of injury is the development of a tension pneumothorax, by which air escapes from the lung and becomes trapped between the lung and the inside of the chest cavity. As this air accumulates, it leaves less and less room for the lungs to expand until ultimately the lungs collapse, worsening an already precarious situation.
I opened the first aid kit and upturned the contents onto the bed in order to liberate some waterproof dressings and tape. I applied the dressings and secured them about three sides, leaving one side unsecured. A dressing of this sort allows air out from the wound when the victim exhales, but is sucked to the wound when the victim inhales, thereby preventing further air from entering the chest cavity; crude but effective.
“Is she going to be alright?” Nell was wringing her hands and shivering.
“I hope so,” I muttered noncommittally. “I suggest we both get dressed before the paramedics arrive.”
My body had been awash with adrenaline, habit and training taking over as I attended to Clara, but now the adrenaline was dissipating, and my pain and injury was returning to the fore of my mind. My loins were a throbbing bag of agony, and I felt as if I may collapse or vomit.
“Pain killers,” I gasped. “I need pain killers.”
Nell scampered to the kitchen, and I cautiously examined the extent of my injuries. It was ghastly, a mess of slashes and bloody gouges, the whole area swollen, misshapen and crimson. I managed to pull on my trousers, but it was agony as the material brushed against my traumatised vegetalia, and I sank to the floor with tears in my eyes.
“Here you are, Rupert.” Nell handed me some tablets and a glass of water, and I swallowed them all without asking what they were. I was beyond caring.
“Why did she do it?” wailed Nell. “Who is Sir Godfrey? What is an Atman?” but I did not answer. It took all my strength and sanity not to gnash and wail and gibber in what I fancy would have been a most ungentlemanly fashion, and Nell soon desisted.
It felt like several months until the paramedics arrived, but Nell’s bedside clock showed that it had been only a matter of minutes. Nell scurried to the door of the flat to grant them access, and I dragged myself to my feet.
“She’s been stabbed beneath the right breast,” I explained. “She needs intravenous colloid, and we need to contact the trauma team at A&E.”
“He’s a doctor,” piped up Nell by way of explanation.
The paramedics leapt into action immediately, one affixing an oxygen mask to Clara’s ashen face, then applying a tourniquet to her upper arm in order to find a vein. Fortunately, Clara’s arms were firm and lean, and despite her collapsed state, her veins were readily accessible.
The other paramedic attached an oxygen probe to Clara’s free hand and checked her blood pressure.
“Pulse one thirty, BP seventy over thirty. Get that fluid in, I’ll try for another vein on this side too.”
“I’ll contact casualty,” I volunteered.
“Thanks, Doc.”
There was a banging at the door, and two policemen in stab-proof vests materialised at the bedroom door.
“What’s happened?” asked the taller of the two, but at this point I had turned my attention to the telephone, muttering anxiously as I awaited an answer from the hospital switchboard. Eventually I was put through to the A&E department and spoke to the charge nurse, who agreed to prepare the resuscitation area for our arrival and inform the trauma team.
“We’ve got to get her moved.” The paramedics had stabilised Clara as much as they were able, but time was of the essence if she were to have a chance of recovery. “Are you coming with, Doc?”
“Yes, I’m coming.” I turned to Nell. “You stay here and speak with the police. I’ll call you later.” I gave her a peck on the cheek, located my mobile telephone and wallet, and scurried after the paramedics.
It was a long climb down five flights of concrete steps with a scrotum like a punch bag, but it was positively relaxing compared to the frantic rush through the perpetual London traffic in the back of an ambulance. My whimpering attracted the attention of the paramedic, and I showed him the fruits of Clara’s labour.
“Blimey!” he gasped at the sight of my mangled clock-weights. “It’s the Phantom of the opera.”
*
The hospital staff filled Clara with O-negative and whisked her away for an immediate CT scan, and thence to an operating theatre for a gruelling four-hour operation. In the interim, I was herded into a cubicle, where I huffed and I puffed at a cylinder of nitrous oxide while a mystified urology trainee probed and prodded at my undercarriage. Eventually, he decided that I should be prepped for exploratory surgery, on the condition that I agree to sign a consent form, indemnifying the hospital in the event that I leave the premises with fewer testicles than I entered with.
With this cheerful thought in mind, I was forced to change into a surgical gown, laid upon a trolley, and submitted to a brief examination by an anaesthetist who was scarcely out of short trousers, before being anaesthetised and wheeled away to meet my fate.
*
15. Revelations
Sunday the 4th
I awoke in recovery, still drowsy and nauseated from the anaesthetic, but pleasantly numbed from the pain due to a goodly dose of intraoperative morphine. A stout, middle-aged gentleman, who smelt strongly of fried food and cigarette smoke, wheeled me to the surgical ward on a gurney and deposited me in a bay with three other sleepy chaps also recovering from various interventions and procedures.
I dozed fitfully for a short while, until I was awoken by a light kiss on the cheek, and was heartened to see that my beloved Nell had come to visit me.
“Nell,” I croaked, for my mouth was dry and my throat painful.
“Are you alright, Rupert?”
“I suppose so. And you?”
“I’m fine. Clara’s out of surgery. She’s in the intensive care unit”
“Really?” I craned my head, but could not see a clock. “What time is it?”
“Six A.M” Nell stood and drew the curtains around the bed, then drew her seat towards the head of the bed. “Rupert,” she whispered, leaning in close, “what’s going on? Why did Clara attack you?”
I closed my eyes and groaned. “It’s complicated. I don’t know if I should tell you. I don’t want to put you in danger.”
“You’ve already done that,” she hissed angrily. “Tell me.”
I closed my eyes and spent a few moments gathering my thoughts.
“Nell,” said I, “you recall that ghastly LOL curse a few weeks ago? Well, it all stems from there.”
And I explained. I explained about the existence of The Fervent Fist and The Illuminati, I explained about the Apple of Eden and The Fourth Atman, and I spoke in hushed tones of the murder of Sir Godfrey Pingum. Nell wept and shook her head in disbelief as I recounted Clara’s subsequent confession to the murder and her connection to Saxon Schwarzkröte, the FF’s director of operations.
“I blame myself,” I said. “I should have realised that the tattoo was more than mere coincidence.”
“Tattoo?” Nell wiped her eyes and blew her nose. “What tattoo?”
“The tattoo on Clara’s thigh, the apple sporting an ear. It is called, ‘the all-hearing apple,’ and is the symbol of The Illuminati, representing their baneful and ubiquitous presence in all walks of life. Urban-Smith probed her as to its origin, but she derogated its significance.”
Nell sat sniffling for a while, pondering these revelations.
“I thought she loved me,” she muttered, “but now I see that she was after you all along. She used me to get to you.”
“I’m sorry, Nell.”
Nell rose. “I have to go home and sleep. I’
m due at college at nine.”
“Will I see you tonight?” I asked.
“I don’t know. Maybe. Text me later.”
“I will.”
She stooped to deliver a peck on the cheek, then pulled back the curtains and departed, leaving me just the scent of her perfume and a heart filled with melancholy and betrayal. I tried in vain to sleep, but ward life begins early, and there was too much toing and froing for me to truly nod off. Nurses roamed the shiny floors, distributing medication and comfort, the cleaners patrolled with their mops and cloths, and a lone junior doctor sat at the nurse’s station scribbling in drug charts, wide eyed from too much caffeine. Soon, I gave up and limped to the toilets to inspect the surgeon’s handiwork. My unmentionables had been swaddled in a cocoon of cotton wool and gauze, then wrapped tightly in bandages (hopefully not sealed with a loving kiss), leaving my right honourable member protruding sadly at the top, the whole sorry mess putting me in mind of a mummified Pac-Man attempting to gobble up an earthworm.
At around eight, I was visited by a uniformed police officer, who I recognised from Nell’s flat the day before. He introduced himself as PC Vincent and asked me to accompany him to the relatives’ sitting room, a small but comfortable room at the far end of the ward, where we could speak in private. Understandably, he was extremely interested to learn the circumstances that had led to Clara’s injuries, and I confess to not a little embarrassment as I outlined the evening’s events, culminating with me tied naked to Nell’s bed amongst the remnants of my Randy the Rabbi outfit.
After an hour or so, PC Vincent took his leave. I followed him out of the relatives’ room, and almost collided with Urban-Smith, who was searching the ward for me.
“Rupert,” he cried. “Are you alright?”
“I have been better, Fairfax. What are you doing here?”
“I have come to visit you, of course. Nell rang me this morning, and I came straight away.” He took me by the arm, steered me back into the sitting room and closed the door behind us. “Now, Rupert,” he said sternly, “you must tell me all. Spare no detail.”
And so I did. He sat patiently, his chin resting upon his hands and his eyes closed, until my tale was at an end.
Smoked Havoc Page 13