Deed was only slightly aware of Madie’s siblings on the other side of the bed. He was more conscious of Joe, Sylvie and Father O'Malley outside the room, looking in through the cross hatched glass. Their feelings for Madie were a positive wave which he knew he should soak up. Sylvie had her palm pressed to the glass as though to push her love and loyalty into the room by sheer force.
The room was so still. Every sound seemed muted. The two nurses and the doctor worked in solemn tandem, not needing to speak. The more senior nurse muttered something at Frankie as she handed her the pen. And Deed saw Frankie’s fingers tremble with the enormity of the task being placed upon her. And how Allie rested her head on Frankie’s shoulder in tearful support and Brendan wept openly, with tears coursing down his cheeks. And Deed wanted so much to stride across to the group and add his own bulk as ballast. But his limbs refused to move and his mind screamed out his rejection of the inevitability of events.
As he turned towards the bed Deed let his eyes take in every last aspect of his Madie. His look was drawn to her lips. Though her face was pale they seemed tinged with a life of their own. Perhaps it was the pallor of her skin and the blue plastic of the breathing tube which accentuated them. Her lips seemed fuller than he remembered, as though they had been a bud and now they were coming into full bloom. He ran the back of his forefinger along the edge of Madie's bottom lip and thought about what it would be like when they removed her breathing tube. Deed imagined he heard how it would come away with a sucking sound. And he saw how her body would arch in the beginnings of a convulsion as her brain became aware of its waning oxygen supply. The doctors had explained how it would be a quiet slipping away, but he had seen enough death to doubt the veracity of their words. A lump lodged in his throat.
Then the senior nurse took up her position near the monitors and the doctor at the head of the Madie’s bed. They looked at each other and then at the siblings standing in a huddle. The family glanced over at Deed before leaving the room as a unit. He did not want to watch them go. He focused his attention on the medical staff.
With a nod to the nurse and swift practised moves the doctor removed the breathing tube and indeed, it did make the sucking sound Deed thought it would. But the beeping of the machine had gone silent and Deed realised the nurse had unplugged it at the wall. Better perhaps not to hear that horrible flat line beep that confirmed what everyone knew but did not want to acknowledge.
Steadying himself with a deep breath, Deed cupped Madie’s face in his hands and began by kissing each eyelid. He moved to the tip of her nose. Then he kissed the corners of her mouth. Finally he let his lips touch hers. Deed felt the kiss pull at him, rip at the inside of his mouth, burn into his throat. His eyes flew open and he pulled back from the kiss. There's still power in your kiss. That's what I'm feeling isn't it? Maybe that's all it will take . I'll kiss the princess. I'll... An idea was blooming inside his mind. The flash of it hurt him yet released him. Are your eyes opening Madie? Tell me your eyes are opening. Tell me your eyes are clear and aware. Tell me you know what I'm thinking. Tell me you want me to. Tell me you're smiling up at me and clutching at my arm. Just don't leave me... don't leave me. Tears blinded him.
Then again, leaning in, Deed finished the kiss he had started. He lingered over it, allowing the memory of their first true kiss to swamp him with remembered emotions, till he was feeling again the bodily sensations he had felt then: the way his skin seemed to ripple because of her closeness, how every inch of him tingled in anticipation, how he also felt a need to hold back, to stem the lava threatening to rush through his veins. And once more there was the warmth of her breath against his cheek; the press of her body against his shirt, the delightfully searing imprint of her hand against his flesh where she had managed to pull his shirt from his trousers. Deed was in that moment again, where he had feared their combined heat would ignite the world and leave them the only survivors on some craggy rock.
Deed drank up all the memories the kiss had to give. When it felt as though he had robbed Madie of every last breath in her body he pulled away drunkenly and staggered from the bedside. As he stumbled against the chair he was vaguely aware of hands reaching for him, voices calling but he ignored them, knowing with immediate and absolute clarity, what he had to do.
*****
Madie’s naked body was strapped to Terry’s weight lifting bench with a set of belts he had customised for just such moments.
Terry stripped methodically. He sat down in his father's 1950s office chair and slipped his shoes off.
The strap across her breasts was so tight it made her breath come in short sharp bursts. He knew the gag was enough to make her feel as though she could not breathe while still giving her room for air. Terry liked his victims to be conscious while he played with them.
He peeled off his left sock, stretched out the wrinkled fabric and rolled the sock before placing it in his left shoe. He repeated the process for his right sock Then he tucked his shoes precisely under the chair.
The belt across her belly had shifted slightly and he could see the friction burns where she had struggled as he had tied her down. Feisty little madam eh. Her distress was evident in the width of her eyes and the muffled whimpers she was making.
Terry stood, unbuckled his belt and slung it over the back of the chair. He removed his trousers. These he straightened before folding and placing them on the seat of the chair.
Madie’s arms were pulled up over her head where they clasped a dumbbell which Terry had gaffer taped there. He had her legs spread eagled with another set of weights strapped to each foot with yet more gaffer tape. This forced her back to arch, her arse to lift off the bench and her pudenda to rise into the air invitingly. He watched the muscles in her legs tremble as the weights tied to her ankles pulled against the one attached to her wrists.
Terry glanced over at the set of probing and spiked tools on the Ikea side table. Some were standard dildos which he had customised. Others he had ordered from fascinating American sites. His penis had been twitching for some time now. Nearly ready my boy. Just a few more adjustments.
He unbuttoned his shirt, starting with his cuffs and moving on to front of the shirt. Terry folded the shirt in half by gathering the sleeves together at the cuffs then he wrapped the sleeves round to meet the rest of the shirt fabric. He laid the shirt lovingly against his chest and stroked the arms against the body of the shirt before folding it in half. Terry looped the folded shirt over the right arm of the chair.
He looked down at the bulge in his Calvin Kleins. "Ready for the off my boy." Tucking the middle and ring finger of both hands inside the elastic of his underpants Terry slid off his briefs. Folded in half and half again they were placed on top of his trousers.
Finally he retrieved the belt from the chair back, tucked the buckle into his palm and rolled it into a neat coil. This done he placed the looped belt on top of his underpants.
Terry felt the hairs on his body rise as a breeze shifted the air. It made his erect penis tingle. He turned his back on the breeze and faced the prostrate figure in his lock up.
Ire was startled from this thrilling dream to find Deed leaning over him. Deed's eyes flamed within their sockets and he radiated searing heat from every pore. Where Deed's arm touched his Ire felt the scald of red hot iron through the skin and into the paralysed muscle. Is the fucker trying to kiss me? Is he from Queer Street? I don't believe it. He's going to kiss me!
Ire began to struggle, using his considerable upper body strength. But Deed had him pinned against the bed. And his paralysis was affecting him more than he cared to admit. Stronger than I thought he'd be.
Why does my body have to fail me now? All that work in the gym and I can't shift him. Balling his good left hand into a fist Ire battered at Deed's shoulder. Fucking cunt! Cunt bastard!
Even in the midst of his anger the kiss tantalised him. It did not feel as though Deed was kissing him but rather that it was Madie Bricot. Just the way I knew it would fe
el. Ire felt a stirring in his penis. Well, that bad boy's still working. He bit into Deed's bottom lip and felt the satisfying yielding of flesh against the sharpness of enamel as Deed began to release him from the kiss. The taste of Deed's blood was like acid and rather than lick at it as was usual Ire spat it back at Deed.
“Your blood is vile.”
“It's your blood too Terry.” An exhausted Deed rested above Ire, his hands on the pillow in a push up position on either side of Ire's head. Then Deed smiled down at him.
“Don't know why you're smiling. When I get up off this bed you're going to wish you were dead.” Ire watched as more blood gathered at the corner of Deed's mouth. A droplet splashed below Ire's good eye, making him blink.
“You fucking queer cunt!” Ire put every bit of venom inside him into the words.
Deed laughed hoarsely. He stood up and sucked at his bleeding lip. “You like the taste of blood don’t you Terry? Well drink deep, this will be the last drop you ever have. That was a little parting gift from Madison Bricot, via me to you.”
“ What's that bitch got to do with us? What the fuck did you just do to me?”
Deed backed away but slumped unsteadily against the foot of the bed then toppled.
Ire felt the thump of what he thought was Deed's head connecting with the edge of the foot-board. He heard Deed groan. Then there was silence.
“Serves you right you bastard.” Ire waited. He tried lifting himself to see where Deed was or what had happened to him. Jesus Christ. Why is it taking my body so long to sort itself out? What the fuck's happening around here? Where the hell is the dick of a constable they posted outside?
Ire was finding it difficult to push Deed's words from his mind. For some reason they chilled him. A parting gift... What did he mean? The words kept whispering in Ire's head like the taunt of a bully.
Ire waited... Nothing, there's nothing . Just a pleasant tingle on his lips. Amazing how much Deed's kiss had resembled Ire's fantasy of what the Bricot bitch would be like. Just words.
But the lip tingle was changing, becoming prickly, more of a burn which was beginning to spread.
Poison! Was it poison? Maybe they'd cooked this up between the two of them. He'd seen something on telly once about some woman who wore this lipstick that had poison in it. But that was telly wasn't it?
The sensation was moving to the more sensitive inner part of his lips and was beginning to engulf his gums, to swell his tongue. And Ire began to think more seriously about poison.
“Hel-p!” The word felt strangled by the bulge his tongue had become. And his lips now felt as though they were doused in fuel. The heat of them seared his cheeks. The burn was spreading to his throat. The fingers of his unparalysed arm searched for his call button but could not seem to reach it. Ire gathered every ounce of strength and screamed. “Hell!”
The p of the word got lost in the little licks of flaming pain now scorching the inside of his nostrils. An image was growing in Ire's mind. He began to see his flesh melting away from the bone, the muscle sizzling and twisting. There's fire in me. It's in me!
"Ger i ou me! Som hel me!”
Ire wanted to escape his own body. But his skin, even though he could feel heat bouncing off him, was containing this hell within him. The spread of it was so, so agonisingly slow. He could not help but chart its progress through his body. There, there, only now reaching the muscles of his shoulders. When would it finally end?
"YO AN'T DO GIS ME! YO CUN! WOE LE YO!"
As the pain inched its way through his body and the searing grew in intensity with each passing moment, Ire's incoherent words became screams of agony.
At this point the policeman stationed at Ire's door rushed in and ripped the privacy curtain aside. "What the.."
A nurse followed hard on his heels. “What's going on?”
“I needed the loo.” said the constable.
“Jesus, his readings are off the chart.” She toggled a series of levers and pressed buttons on the machines alongside the bed.
The constable dragged Deed's unconscious body into a corner just as several health care professionals scurried into the room with a crash cart and surrounded Ire's bed. The constable was left to find a gurney for Deed while mayhem ensured round Ire's bed.
“What the hell's wrong with him?”
“Give him a sedative.”
“I have.”
“What was it?”
“Morphine - 25mg.”
“Shit, and he's still screaming?.”
“Maybe I should up it. - Another 15mils maybe?”
“I can't sign off on that. I'm just an intern.”
“Well get someone who can — he's screaming the place down.”
Through all this Ire's wild screams rebounded off the walls.
Chapter 28
Beneath her the badger felt a tremor in the earth; the steady, rhythmic thud of boots impacting on forest pathways. She knew whose boots made that rhythm. She looked up at him in the sunlight of the glade; his legs spread wide in an easy stance, his flat cap tilted at a jaunty angle, his jacket riding up over the forearm of his left hand because he had his hand carelessly tucked into the pocket of his jeans. His right arm was loosely crooked at the elbow so his shotgun perched there like a falcon waiting for its hood to be removed before the start of the hunt. He bent and set the gun aside.
Still kneeling he stretched his hand out towards her, palm up. As her nose touched his fingertips he turned his hand and let it slide along her jawline, around her ear to rest at the nape of her neck, his thumb massaging a pulse at the side of her head.
The badger’s body trembled beneath the man’s touch though she knew she need not fear him. Their bond of trust had been built up over time. She had come to recognise him in his many guises; to see his reassuring shape outlined in the haze of the morning mists of summer, to hear the rustle of his well shod feet in the crunchy leaves of autumn, to smell the burnt wood smoke scent of him in the sharp crisp air of winter and then finally to taste the salty lick of sweat on his palm where she munched at his dried fruit offerings in the spring.
She grew brave and pressed her snout to the fabric of his shirt and breathed in every reassuring ounce of his familiar scent.
Madie's snore stuttered as she turned against Robert and flung her arm over his chest. She was awake. But she did not open her eyes. She felt herself smiling and breathed deeply to absorb all the well being she was feeling.
“Your curls are tickling my nose.” His voice was still heavy with sleep.
Madie heard the steady thud of Robert's heart in her right ear.
Not a dream. Her smile widened. She felt the care with which he eased his fingers between her tangles. Madie arched like a cat. When Robert massaged her head in this way it always sent a tingle along her spine and down to the tips of her toes.
Using the palm of his hand Robert tilted Madie's head back. This made her open her eyes. He shifted his weight and leaned over. His gaze held hers. Rather than move to meet his kiss Madie waited for it.
Sometimes Robert would pause too. The waiting held its own kind of power. In each others' eyes they could see the past and the future reflected there. While the past held monsters and terrors they had faced alone; the future was a corridor of doors waiting to be opened together.
And when Robert's lips finally touched hers, Madie closed her eyes and released a soft sigh.
The End
Six Dead Men Page 19