Unwelcome Bodies

by Jennifer Pelland

  Big Sister shook her head, the familiar anger burning away the tears.

  “I’ve shown them anonymously to a couple of surgeons. They were horrified. They couldn’t believe that any doctor would perform such a grossly unethical procedure. Still…” He let out a long breath. “None of them could figure out a way to get your sister out of there. And even if they could…”

  Here it came.

  “I mean, what would we do with her?”

  With mock innocence, Big Sister asked, “What do you mean?”

  “Well, she’s alive in there, isn’t she?”

  Big Sister turned around and pointed to the spreading drool stain over her belly. “She’s been brain dead ever since the operation.”

  Uncle Roy clapped his hands over his mouth and nose. “Oh my god. Your mother said—”

  “Mama lied to herself so she wouldn’t have to believe that her precious was gone.”

  “Oh god.” He staggered back, one hand dropping to clutch at his stomach. “Oh god. I’ll…I’ll keep looking for someone who can cut her out, no matter how long it takes.”

  “No,” Big Sister snapped. “I can’t wait any longer. I’ve waited long enough already.”

  Uncle Roy shook his head helplessly. In a near-whisper, he said, “I know, but what can we do?”

  Big Sister suppressed a smile. She knew the Zanatra only paralyzed Little Sister’s muscles. It didn’t do anything to her mind. It was time for her to hear her sister’s plans for her. “I’ve thought about this, actually. I can just cover her over.”

  “Cover her?” He looked down at Big Sister’s belly with a wince. “You mean wall her in there?”

  “I can cover her with artificial skin. I have access to it at work. It’ll be easy.”

  “But—”

  “Uncle, I swear to you, she is completely brain dead.”

  Big Sister lifted her shirt and forced Uncle Roy to look at his other niece for the first time in a decade. Forced him to look at her slack mouth, drool dribbling from the corner, at the eyes rolled up in their sockets. He retched and spun away, face buried in his hands.

  With a satisfied smile, Big Sister lowered her shirt, then stepped forward and put gentle hands on her uncle’s back. “I’m sorry, but you had to see that.”

  “Do whatever you want,” he gasped. “Oh god, I can’t believe my sister did that to you. I can’t believe…” He raced to the bathroom, and Big Sister heard him throwing up between his sobs.

  She patted Little Sister gently on what once was her forehead and headed home to wait for the Zanatra to wear off.

  * * * *

  “Please don’t do this. Please! You can’t!”

  Big Sister smiled. With mock sympathy, she gazed at Little Sister’s reflection in the full-length bedroom mirror and said, “I’m really sorry, but there’s no other way.”

  “It’s not my fault! It’s Mama’s fault!”

  “Wrong answer. Would you like to try again?” Big Sister carefully laid out several sheets of artificial skin that she’d nabbed from work.

  “I’m sorry! Oh god, I’m sorry!”

  “I can tell.”

  “You’re right. I should have told her not to do this to you. I should have begged her to let me die instead.”

  “But you didn’t.”

  “I wasn’t thinking! I was just a kid!”

  “I know. I was there.”

  “You can’t hold that against me. I was only fourteen!”

  “Sure I can.” Big Sister pulled a surgical cautergun and a portable skin-sealer from her handbag and placed them next to the artificial skin. It was amazing the things she could get her hands on at work.

  “Oh god, you’re really going to do this, aren’t you?”

  Big Sister chuckled. “You just figured that out?”

  “Kill me first! Please! Don’t leave me conscious in there!”

  “Even if I knew how to do that, what makes you think I’d want to have a rotting lump of flesh in my gut? Besides, this is a much more fitting punishment, don’t you think?”

  “Please! Have mercy!”

  Big Sister fixed Little Sister’s reflection with an icy stare. “You don’t deserve mercy. Now, this will go faster if you don’t struggle, but frankly, I’m hoping you do.”

  First, she used the cautergun to slice off Little Sister’s nose and ear. It wouldn’t do to have lumps protruding from her abdomen. She gazed at her sister’s reflection, at her lips working in a whispered scream, and realized that they’d have to go too. Finally, she gouged out Little Sister’s eyes and cauterized the sockets clean.

  “This must hurt,” she said without sympathy.

  The skin-sealer came next. It wasn’t easy to seal the eyelids closed over the empty sockets, but with the aid of a couple of well-placed safety pins, Big Sister managed. And the pins came in handy for holding the flapping remains of Little Sister’s mouth together while she sealed them shut.

  She picked up the first layer of artificial skin and gazed at the reflection of her sister’s butchered face, the face that had so thoroughly dominated her life for these twenty-four years.

  Freedom was only a few sheets of skin away.

  “See you in hell,” she said, and laid down the first sheet.

  * * * *

  Big Sister lay back on the bed, the lights dimmed, and reached for the waistband of her shirt. Jonas helped her pull it over her head, then kissed her, his hands roaming over Big Sister’s breasts, her back, her belly.

  He stopped and cocked his head as Big Sister’s belly squirmed slightly under his fingers. “Hunh?”

  “Oh, that,” Big Sister said. “I have a weird intestinal condition. My stomach moves around a little. It’s nothing.”

  “Is it?” He moved his head closer, turning one ear toward Big Sister’s belly. “Wow, I thought I heard something.”

  “Yeah, it’s part of the condition.”

  Jonas pressed his head against Big Sister’s slightly bumpy stomach. “It sounds almost like a whispered scream.”

  She was glad she’d forgotten to seal what was left of Little Sister’s nostrils shut. “Freaky, isn’t it? Just ignore it. You’ll get used to it.”

  Jonas smiled. “Get used to it. I like the sound of that.”

  Big Sister held her arms out and pulled Jonas to her, his weight crushing against her belly, against her captive, who she could feel squirming ineffectually against her fleshy prison.

  Mama had always wanted Big Sister to include Little Sister in everything. And now they could lose their virginity together. Really, if she hadn’t walled Little Sister up, they would never have been able to share this.

  Together forever. Just like Mama wanted.

  Notes on “Big Sister/Little Sister”

  I’m convinced that every eldest sibling in the history of the planet carries around memories of all the things they had to give up for their little siblings, of all the slights they’ve suffered in the name of fairness. “I don’t care that she hit you first. You’re older and bigger. You shouldn’t have to hurt her to get her to stop.” And like all unpleasant childhood memories, they don’t ever go away.

  That said, I’d like to state for the record that I have a fabulous relationship with my younger sister and would never do any of the things in this story to her. Although I don’t think I’d volunteer to house her in my abdomen, either. If nothing else, I’d have to stop belly dancing.

  Immortal Sin

  IT’S EASY TO DISPOSE OF a dead body when you’re a doctor.

  There was no way Alex could let Cassie live after she’d humiliated him so completely. He’d even divorced his wife for her, and the penance his priest had laid on him had been steep. But when he told Cassie this, she just blinked and said, “But sir, we’re not even dating.”

  “Alex. My name is Alex Denton. I’m a surgeon and researcher at the New England Medical College, remember?” A small whimper crept into his voice, and he hated himself for it.

  She demu
rely bent at the knees to set his whisky sour down on his mahogany table, the small gold cross around her neck glinting as it caught the light. “I think it’s kind of sweet that someone your age would have a crush on me, but I have a boyfriend already.”

  “Is it the divorce?” Alex asked, the plush seating beneath him suddenly feeling like shards of glass. “Because I’m getting it annulled, so our marriage won’t be a sin. It’s easy. We had to arrange one for my first wife, but—”

  “Marriage?” Cassie’s eyes widened, and her shocked expression quickly flowed into laughter. “Oh sir, that’s funny. You had me going there.” She wagged a finger at him and shook her head, her long, brown ponytail swishing behind her.

  Alex felt the blood draining from his face. “No, I—I’m not joking. We should be married before we—” He looked down at the hands twisting in his lap. This wasn’t going how he’d planned. The Church had rules for a reason. Cassie was Catholic, she should know that. Then again, when he was her age, he hadn’t cared much about the rules either. But now that he was older and couldn’t ignore his mortality, he’d had to work hard to make up for his earlier lapses so he could lessen his time in Purgatory and keep out of Hell. And this time, he’d get married before having sex. With Cassie.

  When he looked back up at her, her elegant eyebrows were raised high, and small furrows marred the corners of her perfect red lips. “You’re serious, aren’t you?” she asked. “You left your wife for me? We don’t even know each other.”

  He struggled to breathe, struggled to get words through his too-dry mouth. “But…we talk. When I told you that my wife didn’t respect me, you understood. And when I said I wanted kids and she didn’t, you—”

  “Small talk, sir. It’s part of my job.” She gave a one-shouldered shrug. “Honestly, the tips are better that way. I’m trying to pay for grad school.”

  “But—” His hand shot out for her wrist before he realized what he was doing.

  She startled back before he could connect with anything other than her cuff, darted a quick look over her shoulder, caught another waitress’s eye, and edged away from his table. “I’m really sorry,” she said. “I have to go bring someone else his drink. Why don’t I have Marlie take over your table, okay?”

  Alex watched her walk away, his porcelain-skinned angel, the woman who was supposed to bear his children, the bitch who’d misled him all this time just for tips. All this time she’d been listening to his problems, laughing at his jokes, wiping up when he spilled, and never once troubling him with her own problems—all things that sloppy, selfish Alison had refused to do. How could she treat him like that for money? What kind of a whore was she?

  Alex left immediately. He never went back to the Teardrop Lounge again. Not for drinks. But two days later, he hid in the shadows behind his car, a chloroform-soaked rag in his hand, waiting for her shift to end. As usual, she left ten minutes before her coworkers did so she could catch the Night Owl bus. He had her all to himself. When she passed his car, he darted forward and covered her mouth and nose with the rag, holding her tiny body tight while she briefly struggled, then sagged unconscious in his arms. Quickly, before anyone could see them, he stuffed her into a body bag with practiced motions, checked to make sure he’d left no sign of their struggle behind, carried her to the backseat of his car, then injected her with lidocane to stop her heart.

  No one saw him sneak through the New England Medical loading dock and stuff her body in the basement incinerator at two a.m. No one noticed him when he snuck back out two hours later with a paper sack. He dumped her bone chunks in Boston Harbor, then walked six blocks to St. Stanislaus Church to wait for it to open. He had one last thing to take care of and it would be over. All he had to do was make it through the next two hours without dying. He sat on a bench in the small park across the street from the church, two fingers on his pulse, two eyes keeping watch around him. He wouldn’t let death sneak up on him. He was going to make it through this. That bitch wouldn’t be his undoing.

  At seven a.m., he crossed the street, climbed the stone stairs, and pushed open the cool wooden door. The familiar stained-glass-filtered light greeted him, a light that never changed from church to church. When he had been a boy, that light had been such a comfort. He didn’t need to worry about Mother’s headaches and Father’s rages when he’d been sitting in the pews, swaddled in the dusty colored motes of light. But now that he was older and understood just how fragile a thing mortality was, the light served as yet another reminder of the penalty for not following the rules.

  He ducked into a confessional and waited.

  The panel slid aside. “Go ahead.”

  “Bless me Father, for I have sinned. It’s been three days since my last confession.”

  “Only three days? What’s troubling you?”

  Alex rubbed his palms together. “There was a woman. I… I loved her and I got a divorce in order to be with her.”

  “Oh. I see. I don’t recognize your voice. Have you spoken to your parish priest about this?”

  “Yes, but—no, that’s not the part I’m here to confess. I loved her and she…” Alex pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and mopped his brow. “I thought we’d be happy together, but she’d been pretending all along.”

  “So you left your wife for someone who didn’t love you back.”

  “That’s not it!” Alex snapped, then buried his face in his hands. “I’m sorry.”

  “Go on. I’ll listen.”

  “I killed her.” There. He’d said it. He’d confessed. He’d confessed to a mortal sin. Alex’s chest tightened, and he pressed his hand against his sternum, his shirt sticking to his clammy flesh. No, God couldn’t give him a heart attack before he got a chance for penance. God couldn’t be that vengeful. God was love, right? God had to forgive him. He had to. That was the rule. Rules were important. The world ran on rules. If you took something out, you put it away when you were finished with it. If you made a mistake during surgery, you went before a board of inquiry. If you made noise when Mother had one of her headaches, Father spanked you. And if you sinned, God forgave you.

  Finally, the priest said, “Son, I…This is…” He let out a long sigh. “You’re saying you committed murder. I can’t just—”

  “Please, I need to be absolved. Give me my penance, quick.” Even though he knew it was a medical impossibility, Alex couldn’t shake the feeling that his heart was going to pound right through his chest.

  “I can’t do that.”

  “What? But you’re a priest! If you don’t give me penance and forgive me, I’ll go to Hell!” The palpitations quickened, and Alex found himself automatically checking to see if the beats were rhythmic, attempting to diagnose how God was trying to kill him.

  There was silence from the other side of the screen. Finally, the priest said, “I can only absolve you of your sin if you’re truly penitent.”

  “I am. I’m very, very sorry.”

  “Sorry that you killed her, or sorry that your soul is in danger of eternal damnation?”

  Alex froze, handkerchief clutched tightly in ever-whitening fingers. “Does it matter?” he whispered.

  “God can see into your heart. He knows if you’re truly sorry.”

  “But she—”

  “God knows.”

  Alex sank to the floor of the small booth. God had never cared if he was truly sorry before. Why did He care now? Why didn’t He play by the rules like He always did? Why was God siding with that bitch?

  “If you’re truly penitent,” the priest said, “you should start your penance by going to the authorities and confessing.”

  “You mean prison? I can’t go to prison.”

  “My son, there’s no other way. You killed a woman. There’ll be an investigation whether or not you confess. Better to do the right thing and step forward.”

  “But the body. I destroyed it. They’ll…they’ll never find it. I don’t—”

  “Her family should know what happene
d to her. It’s not fair to them to let them live with false hopes. They need to grieve. You must turn yourself in. If you’re truly sorry, there’s no other course.”

  Alex stumbled from the confessional, through the church, all the way to the curb. He had to get out of there. He couldn’t sit in the house of God anymore. God didn’t want him there. That was abundantly clear. Forty-one years of perfect mass attendance. Six years as an altar boy. A childhood spent praying for his grandmother’s soul to hasten her time through Purgatory. A spotless record of weekly confessions for the past twelve years. He’d even stopped having sex with Alison two years ago after she’d gotten a tubal ligation so he wouldn’t be committing fornication. He’d followed the rules when he could, and asked for forgiveness when he couldn’t. But none of it mattered. He would die unshriven.

  He crumpled onto the sidewalk, a sinner, the damned. God knew he wasn’t sorry. The little bitch deserved what she got. God was going to send him to Hell. There was no way around it.

  Unless he didn’t die.

  His head snapped up. That was it. He didn’t have to die. Some of his colleagues at the school were doing promising research in human longevity by working with telomeres. Some even speculated that with constant extension of telomeres—the tips on the ends of chromosomes that wore down with age—immortality might be clinically possible.

  It was time to jettison his own research and get in on their project. And he needed to get out of the OR. It was too risky there. Too many chances of accidental needle sticks, or dangerous infections, or even emergency patients brandishing knives. No, if this was going to work, he’d need to remove as many risk factors as possible from his life. No more surgery. No more alcohol. No more driving over the speed limit. No more cholesterol. No more slippery bath mats. No more long-term sun exposure. No more sugar. No more anything. These were the new rules. His rules, not God’s rules.

  He was going to crack the secret of medical immortality. God wasn’t going to damn him that easily.