DOA III

by Bentley Little

  Spent the next hour in the shower washing glue out of my hair with baby shampoo. The only thing that does the job, apparently.

  After the tests I was given breakfast (toast and cereal) and my first dose of meds. Two nurses came in white coats with red armbands (means they are doing something important and can’t be disturbed) and gave me a capsule to take with a cup of water. After I took the capsule they looked in my mouth to make sure I had really swallowed it and told me to stay in bed for thirty minutes. I imagine that’s so I can’t throw up the capsule. After that they took more blood, and would continue to do so another five or six times, the last being taken at 2 am. There can be nothing scarier than waking up in the middle of the night to a stranger standing over your bed with a syringe saying, “I want your blood.”

  Day: 2

  Nobody plans a life like this. I suppose I should briefly explain what I’m doing here. I need cash, and fast. I know, doesn’t everybody? Before I was a “subject” I was a writer on a national magazine. I got head-hunted by another publishing company planning a new launch. Promotion, pay raise. I was ambitious, so I took the gamble. It didn’t pay off. I didn’t see eye-to-eye with my new editor from the start. Guy called Ted Readham. Great name for an editor, right?

  Ted was full of unreasonable demands. Looking back, I’m convinced he made things deliberately hard for me. It didn’t matter how long or hard I worked. Twelve, fourteen hours a day. Weekends. Every piece of writing I submitted came back with jagged red lines through it. It turned into an impossible job. I started cracking under the pressure, and missed a few days’ work. That was the excuse Ted Readham needed to terminate my contract with immediate effect. No second chance, no reprieve. No severance pay. The ruthless cunt. It was a Friday afternoon. I spent the rest of the day walking around the city in a daze.

  No ECG today. No print-outs or polaroids. Just a blood sample, and dosing. Felt a little woozy afterwards, though I don’t know if that’s because of the drugs or all the blood I am losing. One of every four subjects is given a placebo. Double blind, they call it, which means neither the staff nor the subject knows who’s actually getting it. Placebos work. It’s been scientifically proven. Isn’t that weird?

  I stayed in bed all day, reading and watching TV on my laptop. I tried to write something. The next great novel, perhaps. But the words won’t come. I never believed in writer’s block. I always thought of it as a myth, an excuse. I told people that when writing is your bread and butter, your only source of income, writer’s block is a luxury you can’t afford. Whoever heard of a bricklayer getting bricklayer’s block? Or a bus driver getting bus driver’s block?

  I’m not afraid of boredom. Only boring people get bored. I have a million things to do. Websites to surf, job boards to check. This is pretty much what I do on a daily basis anyway. It doesn’t matter where I am as long as I’m logged on. Being active helps keep my mind away from slipping into the Dark Place. The place where all hope is lost, where I’ve fucked up my life and things will never be the same again. The place from where you can never really come back. I know it’s there. It always is. The Dark Place isn’t too far away from any of us.

  We go for meals individually, at staggered times. Not sure why, but I like it that way. Saves me having to socialise and answer awkward questions like, “So, what do you do for a living?” I guess most of the other people here are in a similar position to me. Or else they’d be at work.

  Day: 3

  There are seven on the ward now. Not eight. Last night someone must have walked out, or been kicked off the trial after being caught smoking in the toilet or something. I can’t place who it is. It’s someone on the other group I never talked to. All I know is that now, there’s an empty bed.

  Blood sample, vitals, dosing.

  Same routine. Like a ritual.

  Another ECG day. Same room as before, same routine with the electrodes stuck to my head and face. Test one, silence. Test two, I count forty-four high-pitched bleeps this time, and I’m right again. Still giving me a headache though. Then more of the pictures. Some looked the same. Dismembered bodies, flayed skin, gaping wounds. I saw someone’s brain for the first time through a skull that looked like it had been shattered with a hammer. It was white and mushy.

  This time, the doctor, a fifty-something with a big hairy mole on his cheek, asked me a load of questions and took notes. How do the pictures make you feel? Do they upset you? Have you ever actively sought out anything like this before? Do you think this person suffered before they died? What would you say was the ultimate cause of death?

  Apparently this drug is supposed to override certain receptors in the brain, or so I am led to believe. What that has to do with pictures of corpses in car wrecks and war zones I don’t know. I suspect it might have something to do with stimulating emotions. And while I have to admit the whole thing made me a bit uncomfortable, I didn’t feel depressed. If anything, there was a sense of relief that I was the one looking at photos of them, and not vice versa. Perhaps the drug is working.

  When I signed the consent forms I basically agreed to let these fuckers do whatever they wanted to me. I am not even a subject; I am a Guinea pig. A lab rat. I left my identity at the front door. I just have to ride it out. Just doing my bit, you understand. And earning a few quid in the process. Another week or so and I’ll be out of here, and over three grand richer. That will keep the wolves at bay. For a while at least.

  Had a brief conversation with Farting Dwayne in the next bed. I don’t think he’s the type to talk a lot. Which is cool, because neither am I. He’s a self-employed plumber by trade. This is his thirteenth drug trial. He says it’s like a holiday. The easiest money he earns.

  Dinner was pork chops with potatoes and carrots.

  Day: 4

  After I got fired, I freelanced for a few months. Got a few gigs here and there. But then the work dried up. Maybe it was just bad luck, or maybe Ted Readham had more influence than I thought. I wouldn’t put it past him, the manipulating bastard.

  My savings didn’t last long, and the bills didn’t stop coming. Rent, utilities, loan repayments. The car was repossessed. I applied for jobs everywhere. Most potential employers told me I didn’t have the right skill set. I’m a good writer. But that’s all I can do. Print journalism is dying a slow death, thanks to the Internet. Websites don’t pay enough. The meagre advertising revenue they pull in doesn’t allow them to.

  So I applied for manual labour jobs. Then, potential employers started telling me I was overqualified. I mean, what kind of assessment is that? You are too smart to do the job? What if I wanted to do something that didn’t require much in the way of thinking? That’s when the depression really settled over me like a dark cloud. It came as a relief when Susan took the kids and left me.

  I’m having a bit of trouble sleeping. I guess I managed two hours. It sounds like such an easy thing to do, doesn’t it? Just switch off and drift away. But for some reason, sleep wouldn’t come. Maybe it’s worry, nerves, apprehension.

  At 7:30 I was called for breakfast. Toast and cereal. No coffee. Well, they have decaf. But that’s not real coffee, is it? It’s like smoking a nicotine-free cigarette. Fucking pointless. Do they have nicotine-free cigarettes yet? If not, why not?

  After breakfast it was blood sample, vitals, dosing. The ritual.

  After that, I did nothing. I don’t have any AEs, as they call them. Adverse Effects. Apart from not being able to poop. I don’t know if that counts. We’re supposed to tell the staff about every little detail, but I don’t think they need to know that. They’ll only give me a laxative that has me shitting through the eye of a needle.

  Get this: one of the nurses is a tranny. I mean, a full-on man with tits. Looks Southeast Asian. His/her name tag says his/her name is Libby. Libby was given away by his/her thick, hairy arms, black stubble, square jaw and Adam’s apple. I’m not homophobic or anything. Live and let live is my motto. But meeting Libby added an extra layer of surrealism to t
he whole experience.

  Day: 5

  Someone else has disappeared off the ward. This time, I knew him. We were admitted at the same time. He was in the bed at the end of my row. Young guy. Sean, Sam, Steve. Something with an S. When the nurse came around at 7 am to open all the curtains, he was gone, along with all his stuff, and his bed was stripped. I guess he couldn’t handle it.

  Didn’t sleep well again. An hour? Probably less. Developed a headache. Thought I should mention this one, in case the drugs they have me on cause a brain bleed or something. A doctor came and logged everything then gave me some painkillers. After that it was the usual blood sample, vitals, and dosing. Worryingly, I am beginning to enjoy the little stab of the needle. It makes me feel alive. Then another ECG test. First, silence. Second, fifty-seven high-pitched bleeps. Is it me, or is this bit getting progressively harder?

  More images. And more questions. Except this time, they were different. The guy in a white coat asked if I was getting sexually aroused. Just came out and said it. I mean, what the fuck? Who in this world could or would get turned on by pictures of mutilated bodies and severed limbs? After he said that, I realized for the first time that there was a sexual undertone to many of the photos. I was just so fixated on all the blood and gore, it hadn’t registered. There was a guy (or a girl?) hanging upside down in a rubber gimp suit. A hole had been made in the ass, and something protruded rudely from the victim’s rectum. On closer inspection, I saw it was a rolled-up newspaper. And a very substantial one at that. Obviously one of the Sundays.

  Another sequence started with two men kissing. In the next photo, one was sucking the other’s cock. Then he was biting the end off and chewing it while the ruined member squirted a stream of blood into his face.

  These photos have to be fake, right? Prosthetics.

  The strange thing is, I was getting aroused. I didn’t even realise until he asked. After that, fucking was all I could think about. Maybe it had something to do with being shut away with no… home comforts. Not that I had much comfort at home. Our sex life disintegrated long before mine and Susan’s marriage did. Not like we ever experimented with anything like I was shown in the polaroids. I mean the gimp costume, not the dick chewing.

  Though things hadn’t been right between us since I found out she’d slept with her manager two years ago.

  Dinner was pork chops with potatoes and carrots again. As I ate, I couldn’t stop thinking about the images they kept showing me. And other stuff. Human flesh. Don’t they say it tastes like pork?

  Day: 6

  Couldn’t sleep last night. Not a wink. And I still can’t poop. I can feel it inside me, like a compressed ball.

  Blood sample, vitals, dosing. The ritual. This time, when the needle was buried in my arm, Libby the transsexual Asian nurse did something wrong. Not sure what. But a little jet of blood spurted out, hitting him/her in the face. It reminded me of the cock biting photos. Libby just smiled and wiped it off. He/she must get that a lot. What a trooper.

  Even stranger is the fact that I like it, too. The sight of my own gushing blood? The thrill that often accompanies the unexpected? I don’t know what it was exactly, but something gave me a rush.

  Another ECG test. The silence, then the bleeps. This time, I get the answer wrong and had to do the whole fucking test again. Twice. Got it right at the third attempt. Sixty-seven bleeps. Sixty-seven! Then came the images. They are getting steadily worse. Or better, depending on your point of view. This time, the one that stood out portrayed a woman, sitting on a white leather couch, naked from the waist down. Her legs were wide open, and she appeared to be masturbating with a severed arm. That took fisting to a whole new level, but I must be getting desensitized, because they didn’t make me feel sick any more. I even kind of enjoyed answering the ridiculous questions. It felt good to talk about it. Stimulating. Exciting, even. I started to get the strangest feeling that I’d always wanted to talk about this stuff, and see images like this. I just didn’t know it before. I knew something was missing from my life, but I didn’t know what.

  Now, I know.

  There was one photo in particular. A decapitation. It was a dude. I could tell because he was wearing a smart suit. Looked designer. Expensive. When you see a dead rich person, it makes you realise that in the eyes of the Reaper, everyone is equal. It doesn’t matter how rich and powerful you are, how many people you manipulated to get there. When your card is marked, it’s marked. The end.

  I don’t know how it happened, but the rich guy’s head had come away clean, like it had been sliced off with a sword or something. You could make out white flecks of vertebrae in amongst the gore and actually see down his windpipe. To me, it looked like a vulva. A big gaping cunt. Wide open, glistening, and ready to receive a cock. I could feel myself stiffening. Weirdly, the fact that I was getting hard for a guy felt more unusual than the fact I was getting hard for something that wasn’t meant to be fucked. When I told the guy in the white coat this, he didn’t seem surprised. He didn’t even flinch. Just scribbled it down in his notebook.

  I imagine he’s heard much worse.

  Day: 7

  Woke up during the night needing a piss. I say I “woke up,” but I’m not sure I was really asleep. Probably not. Sleep is a stranger to me now. Instead, I have these weird fugues where I surrender to my thoughts and let them take me where they want. They usually want to take me back to the images I get shown in the sleep room. In particular the headless guy in the suit. So I let them. Why not? Nothing else to do here. I don’t think you’d want to know exactly what I was thinking about. At times, I even shock myself.

  I went to the toilet to find some guy having a wank. He wasn’t even in the shower, or a cubicle. He was just standing over a sink, looking at himself in the mirror and tugging himself off furiously. That isn’t even the strange part. He’d cut himself. On the chest, I think. Or arms. There was a broken disposable razor in the sink and he’d rubbed the blood all over his cock and balls. When I walked in, he didn’t even stop. Just looked at me and grinned. There was a look in his eyes. Manic, unhinged, gleeful. I hope I don’t look like that when I’m cumming. So I’m not the only guy in here having uncontrollable sexual urges, but at least I was keeping mine in check. For now.

  I had a piss and went back to my bed without a word. I didn’t want to disturb the guy. He looked disturbed enough as it was.

  When I went back to brush my teeth a couple of hours later, just as sunlight was beginning to stream through the bars on the window, the guy was gone. Along with any trace of him ever being there. No blood, no tell-tale globs of semen hanging off the sink. I began to wonder if I’d dreamed the whole thing. Maybe I’d been asleep after all.

  Two more disappeared off the ward last night. Now there are only four of us left. That means we’ve shed half our original number. Where are they all going? Nobody seems too concerned, and nobody talks about them after they leave. While she was doing the ritual, I asked one of the nurses, and she just said something about not being able to discuss it because of a confidentiality agreement. All the secrecy in this place is enough to make a man paranoid.

  Pork again for dinner. I must have eaten half a pig by now.

  Day: 8

  Stayed awake all night wondering if Libby still had a cock and balls or if he/she’d had them chopped off. Not that it makes much difference to me either way. I still wouldn’t fuck it. Or let it fuck me.

  Would I?

  Slightly awkward when he/she came to do the ritual. Blood, vitals, dosing. When he/she was taking my blood pressure he/she leaned right over and pressed his/her fat tits against my chest. It felt good. Really good. After being starved of attention for so long, my cock sprang to attention right away, despite the hairy man arms and prominent Adam’s apple. He/she didn’t need to lean over me like that. I mean, it could easily have been avoided. Makes me wonder if he/she wants to fuck me. Is that weird?

  Then I started wondering… do I find it weird that someone wants to
fuck me? Or do I find it weird that someone of a questionable gender wants to fuck me? I mean, a fuck’s a fuck, right? Every hole’s a goal and all that. And who looks at the mantelpiece when they’re poking the fire?

  Saw the guy I caught having a blood wank. He was in the TV room. I only popped in to catch the lunch time news. He was in there alone watching that French film Irreversible on DVD. I remember it well. That film fucking traumatised me as a teenager. The part where the guy gets his head smashed in with a fire extinguisher. Wanking guy was watching the rape scene. Frame-by-frame. I left before he got his cock out and started tossing off again. On my way out he tipped me a wink, like he was letting me know that he remembered me from the night before. Should I be worried?

  Pork. Again. I don’t know what their cooks are doing to it, but it tastes fucking delicious.

  I am reminded of an internet meme I once saw. Someone making a chicken omelette. The caption said: I WILL COOK YOU IN YOUR CHILDREN.

  Genius.

  Day: 9

  I am awake. I am always awake. I can’t remember the last time I slept. Usually, I’m thinking about fucking. I moved on from fucking glamorous movie stars and lingerie models a long time ago. Boring. I even stopped thinking about Libby’s equipment. Or lack of. Now I just think about fucking body parts. Obviously, the windpipe that looks like a cunt ranks highly on my “to do” list. But I also think about making incisions in a plump belly and sliding my cock in good and slow. Then I would fuck the hole gently. Like a teenage virgin. Until I get to that point of no return. Then I would bang that thing like a raging madman, the cut becoming bigger and more accepting with every thrust, warm blood running over my balls and down the insides of my thighs, gathering in a pool at my feet.