Wednesday, December 14, 2011

Interlude Stories: Callan

PURGATORY SEX TWINS - CALLAN

My sister and I hold hands as we walk up the long flight of cold, white, marble stairs. The stairs gleam in the perpetual blackness. I can not see the bottom of the steps when I am at the top and I can not see the top of them when I am at the bottom. When we reach the last step I let go of her hand, and the great empty dark space grows still dimmer.

“I can’t go with you any further.” My voice booms out in the cavernous darkness much louder than I intend.

My sister fixes her large dark eyes on me for a moment then she turns and lifts one foot but midstep she pauses and turns back towards me. “I am not sure if I want to go upstairs. I am not sure that there is an upstairs.” Her voice was thin and tear-filled.

We walk back down the long flight of stairs. When we get to the bottom of the stairs, she begins to pontificate about what might be upstairs.

Again, I would take her small cold hand in mine and lead her to the top. And, again, when we reached the final step, I would have to tell her that I could go no further. She was afraid to go alone.

I beat her to death with a shovel.

I killed her in the kitchen. As she lay dying, I kissed her. I ripped her thin, blood-soaked blouse.

Buttons exploded into the heavy air saturated with the scent of her blood. She raised her hand to my face and smiled. I wound myself around her and sucked on her bloody tits. I kissed her neck, the salty taste of blood sent an erotic charge through me. I pulled the rest of her clothing off and held her. I had never loved her more than when she was my murder victim. She spread her legs for me and I thrust myself inside her. I could feel her ebbing away.

I loved my sister so much.

After she was dead, I held her and wept. Her body was still warm and blood poured out from her.

I went into the bathroom and took a shower. I watched the pink-colored water flow down the drain.

My sister’s blood was running down the drain. My body convulsed thinking of her cold. I loved her. I loved her as much as I hated myself. And for that, there could be no measure. The absence of her heartbeat was unbearably hollow.

She could not live without me. I could not live with her without succumbing to my most disgusting sexual desires.

We tried to live apart. We tried to be normal. In the three years we lived in different parts of the country, she overdosed twice on sleeping pills and slashed her wrists. Each time, at the final moment when death had come for her, she had called an ambulance. She could not make up her mind.

What no one understood was that we could feel each other’s heartbeats, feel each other’s pain. If she banged her wrist on the side of the table, pain shot through my wrist. When she was angry at me and feeling neglected, she would stab herself, pull her hair. If she suspected I was with a woman, she would squeeze the lips of her pussy, making it difficult for me to maintain my erection. If I managed to come, she would feel it. She would feel what I would feel and I would feel the special brand of rejection and self-hatred that women have made their own. Other times, she would masturbate when she knew I was at work. I would feel the build, feel the straining of my muscles. She would take a long time to climax. It was agony. I would call her and tell her to finish herself off.

“Please, please just finish!” I would beg her.

“Talk to me, tell me about the first time when you fucked me, describe what it felt like. Tell me.” The desperation in her voice repelled me, but I would do it. I would tell her how it was, then she would come and the line would go dead. We were so connected that, when I fucked her for the first time, I could feel her pain. I could feel the pain of a young girl losing her virginity and the gratification of a rapist. What delightfully sadistic agony to feel both sensations at once!

Our folks died and we inherited the house and money. I moved in with her. We did not have to work, plenty of dough. We were alone together in the house, day in and out. I could see no point in trying to lead a normal life. After three years away from her, I knew that it was no use. A few times when we had been apart, she had taken men to bed with her. She went out of her way to debase herself. I could feel her pain. I could feel the emptiness such encounters left inside her. I had raped her when we were children and no other sexual experience could match that memory, so I gave in. I gave in and began living with her. We slept in the same bed, we avoided people. We pretended that we were in love.

I grew bored. I could not enjoy sex without hurting her. I could feel her pain, and it hurt like hell but she could feel my excitement and, when I came, she came in response. The only problem was that each time I had to go further to get aroused.

First, I held her down. Soon that was not enough. I had to tie her down. That held me for a long while, over a year. There is something really exciting about watching thin, bruised wrists strain against ropes. There is something intoxicating about genuine cries of pain, of humiliation. I would cover her mouth with one hand and lean against her throat with my arm. I would watch her eyes bulge. See her face drain of blood. Then she would be still and fix those dark eyes on me. She was feeling what I was feeling: disgust and sexual gratification. This was enough for awhile. Her favorite part was afterward, when I would bathe her. Satisfaction would invade her as I gingerly lay her in the water. I could feel her. I could feel love, the love she felt for me and I loved her then. I would scrub every inch of her. Often, while I was scrubbing between her legs with hot water, she would come, which in turn would make me come. These were the salad days.

Two years passed before I truly began to hate her. She could feel my hate. I felt the hopeless feeling, the despair she felt. I knew I had to kill her; every waking moment was agony for her. Hate is the wrong word for what I felt for her. There isn’t a word deep enough to describe what I felt for her. Everything she felt, I felt. Everything I felt, she felt. It was too much sensation. She felt my hatred and repulsion for her. She felt the hatred and repulsion I felt for myself. Her capacity for love and hate went much deeper than mine.

What created us? I had done research on other twins. I could not find evidence of anything even approaching the physical and emotional connection we shared; we were truly one person in two separate bodies.

The incest continued becoming more and more depraved. One afternoon, I convinced her to let the dog fuck her. I could feel her self-hatred I could feel the erotic charge of ultimate humiliation. The sensation was so powerful that, for a fraction of a second, we were both able to feel what the dog was feeling. We could hear with a dog’s ears smell her cunt with a dog’s nose. The canine’s primitive thrusting was a new high, but it was also the final low. I had to pour water on them to separate them. She was bleeding. I kicked the dog. Then I fell on top of her. I could feel how raw she was. I could feel everything. The sensory experience was so intense. I felt every hair on her body growing, every muscle twitching, the lungs taking in air to scream. The empty space in her chest when the screaming ended.

I dragged her by the hair into the kitchen. She lay on the floor. It was as if she was possessed. She was trying to speak but the words were guttural, demonic, primitive. She tried to stand pulling herself up on the counter, smearing blood everywhere. I could not look at her. I was the cause of this. I created this so it was my job to put it out of its misery.

I went outside to get a shovel. Somewhere between the house and the garden shed the idea of sodomizing her with the handle of the shovel sent a charge through me and I could feel her again. I could feel her cringe. I could feel that intoxicating current of self-hatred and sexual arousal. In my mind, I spoke to her. I comforted her. I was able to soothe her.

After I had killed her, I felt free. I was no longer weighed down by an extra set of emotions.

When the night came, I still had not cleaned up the mess in the kitchen. Rather than cook dinner, I ordered a pizza. Then I went down to my local watering hole and I drank and drank. I did not feel the double feeling of getting two people drunk and behind my eyes was the image of my twin sister. For the first time, it dawned on me that I would never have her again.

When I got back home, I fell onto the couch and slept but my dreams were only my own. I woke with the dawn and went to the garden shed. I grabbed a bottle of ant poison and swallowed as much as I could. For a fraction of a second, I could feel her. I went back to the house sat on the couch and drank the rest of the poison. An intense pain seized my gut. I could feel her feeling my pain.

I was on my way back to her.

Next: I was standing with her at the bottom of a staircase; we were together, again, in death. We mounted the marble staircase. It was a long flight of stairs and we held hands. When we got to the top, she paused. “I don’t know if I want to go upstairs after all,” she whispered.

We never discussed it but we both understood that I would not be able to ascend the staircase with her; if she went upstairs, she would leave me behind for good. We would be apart forever more. I killed her and myself. I would never be allowed upstairs. “Let’s go down one more time, ok?”

“OK,” I said. There was nothing but time now.

Perhaps eons of time have passed, perhaps mere hours, how can I know?

Even in death, we are not free of one another. Until she goes upstairs, we will never be free. But neither of us is willing to part. So up and down the stairs we go. Up and down the stairs for all eternity.

11 comments:

Paul D Brazill said...

Wonderful writing. Involving,bitterweet story.

Anonymous said...

Glad you published this. Sure it's disturbing but so what? It's still a damn good story.

Anonymous said...

Brilliantly surreal Noir writing. Richly told.

Anonymous said...

Being weighed down by an extra set of emotions sounds pretty damn oppressive-enough to drive anyone to insanity. Totally twisted, loved it!

Chris Rhatigan said...

Man, this is sharp. Really gets inside the depravity.

Anonymous said...

Spider Robinson said once that if he ever met a true telepath he would kill him or her instantly. I think this story shows why.
Being born to a telepathic link with another person -- a direct link which could not be tempered or turned off -- could have no other consequences that those which Callan described.
There was a another story I read a long time ago, about a well-respected black college professor -- a brilliant, prize-winning scientist -- who made himself telepathic. The morning he did this, he rode the bus to campus, walked across the Quad, into his room and shot himself. Both of these stories make me think I agree with Spider and Callan that true telepathy has no survival potential for us chittering apes.
A brilliant evocation of madness and corruption that neither asked for but both inherited.

Al Tucher said...

Fearless. This one if going to stay with me for a long time.

Katherine Tomlinson said...

Powerful and provocative. Going down the up staircase...for eternity. Thanks for publishing it and giving us the oportunity to read it.

Dot King said...

This is an excellent piece of writing. That it disturbs some to the point of protest and even banishment is only proof of its effectiveness.
It takes real talent to achieve the detachment necessary to write about incest, violence or any subject readers might find distasteful.
Here the character is detached from his acts while letting the reader know how much he revels in them. That's a writing skill to be admired.
In fact, there could be many a statement held in police files with similar harrowing detail.

Cindy Rosmus said...

Beautifully written & felt. Even the part about sex with the dog was done well. I felt so sad when the narrator was finally, totally ALONE, without his twin/soul mate's emotions/feelings inside his. How horrible.

Keith Gingell said...

Superb writing, a true horror story. The horror of knowing you (the MC) are the only monster in the story. Deep and dark ... and brilliant.