Zippered Flesh 2: More Tales of Body Enhancements Gone Bad (42 page)

“Are the bulbs malfunctioning?” She studied the machine as he ran his hands across her, coating her tanned flesh with a generous layer of fragrant oil. 

“No, they’re supposed to look like that. That’s why they work so well.”

She was completely relaxed now, allowing his hands to reach every spot on her body as he massaged more oil into her skin. He relished the feel of her under his palms. Unlike most of his clientele, Aubrey possessed natural beauty. Her strict health regimen rewarded her with perfect skin and supple curves. No part of her body was enhanced, lifted, or tucked. 

“That smells familiar. What’s in it? It’s wonderful.” She leaned into his touch.

“Some herbs and oils, lots of nutrients. It’s my own personal recipe. You’re gonna love the results,” he murmured. As he helped her slide onto the bed, his lips brushed her neck quickly. Placing the goggles over her eyes, he smoothed her blonde hair away from her face and whispered in her ear,
“Désolé, mon amour.”

“Hmm?”

Without reply, he lowered the heavy cover until it closed completely, and then buckled a hasp lock at either end of the bed. On the control panel, he entered a new temperature and set the timer. As the wire coils hidden behind a panel beneath the bulbs roared to life, he heard the faint sounds of her protests escalate to screams. He calculated she’d pipe down after, maybe, fifteen minutes.

After some time, her screams died to whimpers, gurgles, and then eventually a faint sizzle. He slid out of the room. The stillness of the hallway and the cool air-conditioning revitalized him, like stepping into a swimming pool. 

A towel girl passed with a customer in tow, and a customer exited one of the nearby tanning rooms. They smiled at him politely, murmuring shy hellos as they went about their business. He laughed softly as he headed for a glass of scotch.

Soundproofing. Best investment he ever made.

His cell phone buzzed in his pocket. He glanced at the screen before answering. “Teddy, my man. What’s going on?”

“Can I talk to you?” Teddy’s voice wavered. 

“Sure you can. Shoot,” Bryce said.

“It’s about Aubrey. She’s been acting weird lately. I think she might be seeing somebody.” Teddy sniffled. “And I think I know who it is.”

“That’s rough, buddy. Why don’t you meet me at the salon after closing time?” Bryce looked back at the locked door. “I’m having dinner here tonight.”

RAPTURE

BY CHARLES COLYOTT

The tip of the blade—not a sterile scalpel, but a carefully honed and disinfected utility knife (which would just have to do)—found the hollow just beneath and to the interior of the jawbone. A gloved finger pressed the utility knife into place, and the kiss of the steel elicited a sharp intake of breath. Fat droplets of blood hit the plastic sheeting with loud pats, coming more frequently as the blade began to move, to cut.

Gloved fingers stuffed cotton inside the gill-like incision, mopping up the worst of the blood and holding the wound open. The gloved fingers held up a mirror and turned it so the man could see.

He opened his mouth and raised his tongue. Tufts of the cotton peeped at him from the floor of his mouth, little gore-tinted bits near his back molars. The man reached inside, wiped away the globules of glistening yellow fat, and fingered the two gills, one on each side of his lower jaw, before grunting with something like satisfaction.

He consulted the diagrams laid upon the metal table in front of him and then looked back to the mirror. He bared his teeth—stained pinkish now—and used one latex-clad finger to draw his upper lip aside.

The bit pressed into the gum tissue just above his front teeth.

Its tip stung.

With a deep breath, the man pulled the bit away and found the tube of topical oral pain-relieving gel, and squeezed a liberal amount onto his gloved fingers. He rubbed the gel over his gums (and even applied a little to the fresh gill areas, though it burned), before taking up his tools again.

He fit the bit back into the correct location and took a deep breath.

Then he pulled the drill’s trigger.

“Man, those movies used to scare the shit out of me. You were pretty badass, back in the day.”

Brennan smiled. It was not his best smile, the one he practiced in the mirror sometimes to put timid people at ease. No, this was a thin, tired smile. An annoyed smile.

“Thank you,” he said.

“Whoa. Even your voice is different. Did they, like, make you sound all grungy and shit with computers or something?”

“No, that was my voice, too. I just don’t go around growling like that all the time.”

The kid, a long-haired stoner in a heavy metal T-shirt, just stared at Brennan. Then, slowly, he looked down at the table, down at the line of 8x10 photos. His eyes scanned the photos, stills from each of the
Razor Dawn
films as well as candid, behind-the-scenes snapshots, before glancing back up at Brennan to say, “Are these free or something?”

Brennan’s jaw was beginning to ache; he realized he’d been clenching his teeth again.

“They’re twenty dollars,” he said.

“Apiece?”

“Yes.”

“For what?”

“Well, for the photo and an autograph.”

The stoner stared at him for a long moment before saying, “What the fuck ever, dude,” and walking away.

Brennan let out a long, slow breath and looked over at Kim. She smiled sympathetically and crossed her legs. They were good legs, still, after all these years. She’d taken care of herself, and it showed.

Brennan wasn’t so bad himself, of course. He’d managed to keep it together, anyway (though, of course, having a decent plastic surgeon helped).

He had to.

Brennan glanced across the way, to the empty table, the apologetic sign taped to its surface letting convention-goers know that, due to unforeseen circumstances, Donald J. Praggert had cancelled his appearance.

Unforeseen circumstances.

Prick.

The convention had pretty much allowed Brennan and Kim to set their prices because Don had promised he would show up. The publicity—“First
Razor Dawn
reunion! In honor of the twentieth anniversary of the film!”—had bumped the convention up from the B-level crap festival it really was to something higher, something sublime.
Fangoria
was set to write a piece on the reunion. So was
Rue Morgue
.

And Don fucked it all up.

In accordance with the Shit Rolls Downhill doctrine, the convention folks took out their frustration on Brennan and Kim. The pissed off reporters would probably do the same ... they’d already written crap reviews of the last four
Razor Dawn
sequels (
“For a supposedly tireless hellspawn, Brennan O’Rourke looks like he could use a nap,”
one of the kinder ones read
)
.

When the con wrapped up at five, Brennan packed up his photos and posters and toy figurines, and turned to Kim Torrence.

“Want to get a drink or something?”

His former costar had risen to scream-queen fame at the ripe age of seventeen, when she spent half of the first
Razor Dawn
running in terror from Brennan’s demonic character, “The Prophet.”

Kim gave him an apologetic smile and said, “I wish I could ... but my flight’s in an hour, and I have to teach tomorrow.”

“You’re a teacher now?” Brennan said.

“Have been for almost ten years. First grade.”

“You ever miss the business?”

Kim’s eyes widened. “Goodness, no. I mean, it was fun while it lasted, but ... I just didn’t feel like there was any longevity there.”

Brennan glanced away and nodded.

He hadn’t done much work yet this year, but he was counting on “The Horror Show” to hire him again to host its all-night Halloween movie marathon again. It wasn’t much—basic cable didn’t pay for shit—but it was something. It kept his face and his name out there.

Until the next film.

The big one.

The reason—Brennan hoped, anyway—that Donald had pulled a no-show.

The magazines had lost interest a few years back when, after promising something for so many years, Donald J. Praggart, eccentric horror genius, still hadn’t delivered.

But Brennan knew.

He’d seen the drafts of the script.

And Praggart’s glorious return to the
Razor Dawn
franchise would blow everything out of the water.

All the shitty sequels? Forgotten.

The scandals surrounding Praggart’s bizarre behavior? Forgiven.

Brennan’s status as horror icon par excellence? Reinstated and cemented.

“Have you seen him lately?” she said.

Brennan shook his head.

“You were friends, right?”

He looked at her. “Sure. We still are ... it’s just ... well ...”

“He’s Donald Praggart?” she said, with a hint of a grin.

Brennan returned her grin. He remembered the endorsements of all the big name horror folks proclaiming Don to be the next Lovecraft, Poe, King, etc. How surreal had all of that been? Especially for his friend, the kid who, in school, had been relentlessly bullied and mocked for being sickly and bookish.

As she gathered the last of her things, Kim rose up on tiptoes to kiss Brennan on the cheek.

“It was nice to see you again,” she said. Her perfume was sweet and spicy, and Brennan couldn’t help but take note of the way her breasts pressed against him as she hugged him. “If you see Donald, tell him hi for me.”

Brennan tried to remember that this was Kimmy ... little Kimmy Torrence from Oxfart, Nebraska (or wherever the hell it was). He’d helped her with math homework on the set of the first film, for God’s sake.

But that was a seventeen-year-old girl. This was a thirty-seven-year-old woman.

And that reminded Brennan that he, too, was twenty years older. He still had decent muscle tone. His hairline had gone to hell, but that was okay. Fans were used to The Prophet’s clean-shaven (well,
skinned)
head, so cutting his hair was the best move Brennan had ever made. People had started recognizing him on the streets again.

He watched Kim go, remembering the scent of her, the feel of her body against his for that briefest of moments.

Then she was gone.

With a sigh, he packed up the rest of his things and left.

The convention high waned. Brennan was forced to, once again, admit the truth: Real life sucked.

Sure, cons had their problems—especially for someone like Brennan—but they were a lovely distraction from the pointless banality of everyday life.

Still, it wasn’t as fun as it used to be.

The
Razor Dawn
films had created a peculiar subculture within the horror community. The people who came to Brennan’s table usually fell into one of two camps. The first, like the annoying mouth-breather who had closed out this last con for him, were of the stoner/metalhead persuasion, for whom the films represented a kind of live-action version of their favorite album cover artwork. Those kids were annoying—and boring—but generally harmless. The other camp, though ...

Brennan could spot them from miles away. He could
smell
them. The clove cigarettes. Benzoin, myrrh, and patchouli. Black leather, chromed chains, and pale, pale flesh penetrated with bits of metal.

Razor Dawn
had created a generation of fetishists, viewers who believed in the films’ “philosophy” and lived by Praggart’s strange, dark mythos.

And they worshipped The Prophet.

On screen, anyway.

In real life, Brennan had discovered that they were some of the whiniest, most pathetic, and thoroughly goddamned boring people on planet Earth.

He yawned as he climbed the steps to Praggart’s house, a modest, comfortable little two-story in Woodland Hills, California. He tried the doorbell, but there was no answer. He checked the voicemail message again, found the key that Don had slipped under a flower pot, and let himself in.

Furfur met him in the foyer, crying loudly. Brennan stooped and scratched the black-and-white cat’s head before heading into the kitchen to get him a can of food. After feeding the cat, he helped himself to a ham sandwich, ate it by the kitchen counter as he nursed a Heineken taken from the fridge, and lingered a bit, allowing as much time to go by as he dared before putting his plate in the sink, brushing the crumbs from his hands, and walking toward the back of the house.