RED ROOM

Bones: It’s hard to believe that a man could die of loneliness.

Kirk: Not when you’ve sat in that room.

Star Trek (Dagger of the Mind by S. Bar-David), 1966

It had a low hanging ceiling, a minute window which barely allowed any light in and a precise 9.1 by 8.4 feet, summing up to a grand total of 76.4 square feet. And, of course, the four walls were consistently painted red.

All the other features he obviously faced with a deep sense of disgust. The red walls, however, he found charming. Kind of artistic. He had never been an artistic person. That had always been more of Emilio’s department. Perhaps he expected that it would rub off on him? The same way that he had expected it to happen when he and Emilio were still together?

No, he had never been one for subtleties. He was more down to earth and practical that way. His natural dominion belonged to everything mechanical. Give me a contraption of any kind to tinker away with and you have made me a happy man, that was what he always said. Well, perhaps not exactly happy – happiness did not come easily to him, he had learned – but, at the very least, contented.

Anyway, he did not have many other choices at the time. It was all that he could afford for the time being. So, he tricked himself into thinking that it was a temporary arrangement and took the room. When things would finally start to look up, he was sure to find a better place. The problem was that things had not looked up. Things always seemed to have their eyes close to the ground whenever he was concerned.

The quaint novelty of the red walls lasted for the first couple of days. After that, it slowly but steadily began to get on his nerves. He would try to exorcise the hefty vex of the crimson wave by playing around with it in his mind. There was nothing really playful about it, though. The supposed exorcisms were obsessive in nature. He would find himself humming, and then mouthing, the first verses of Paint It Black, replacing door with wall, not even stopping to think that black would always be a much worse alternative. But it was hard keeping a positive attitude about it when he had to turn on the ceiling lamp after midday, if he wanted any light at all in the room.

On most nights, very late and already close to dawn, he would forsake The Rolling Stones altogether and merely play with the sound of the words themselves. He would lie in bed, his eyes lost in the deep crimson, articulating each syllable with methodical precision.

Red Room… Redrum… Red Room… Redrum… Red Room… Redrum… Red Room… Redrum… Red Room… Redrum… Red Room… Redrum…

When Christmas started getting nearer, he convinced himself that all that red might come in handy. The perfect season theme. And, for a while, he managed to keep a wholesome mind frame about it too, even if he did not have anyone to share it with. Both his flatmates had gone back to their families for the holiday’s fortnight and he was inevitably alone. Then, walking home on the last hours of the twenty-fourth, he stumbles upon Emilio, a mere twenty feet from his building’s door, and everything just comes crashing back in.

Sometimes, that is all it takes. Sometimes, something just breaks.

He manages to elude the anger and the hurt. At least, in appearance. He does not want to seem frail in Emilio’s eyes. So, he pretends that everything is alright – at last – and that he is actually happy to see him. They exchange a few mild and meaningless pleasantries. He mentions that he is living a few feet from where they are and, since it is getting cold, how about we go up and talk for a while…?

Emilio agrees, even if a bit grudgingly. So, they walk to the decrepit building’s door and go up.

He does not have time to see the look of bewildered repulsion on Emilio’s face as he contemplates the miniscule quarters. He is too busy reaching for the baseball bat behind the half closed door. There is an unexpected deftness to his swing. For a moment, he is sure that he could have hit a homerun with that swing, but that is before he hears the hollow sound it produces against Emilio’s skull. After that, his ability to think simply ceases. He watches Emilio’s body waver as if hanging by an invisible thread. It takes but a second or two, but it is enough to give the impression that Emilio is floating mid-air. Or, worse still, that time has frozen and he is watching the whole thing from the outside. That is when Emilio drops heavily to the floor.

He waits. He does not know what comes next. He has not programed this. He fantasied about it. But he had not planned it. He kneels and finds that Emilio is still breathing. He remains there, kneeled by his side, thinking hard. When the midnight bells eventually start tolling, welcoming the twenty-fifth of December, he realizes that it is the first day of Christmas. He looks at the inanimate figure on the floor and whispers: Does this mean that I have to give you a partridge in a pear tree? Or is it the other way around?

That is when he makes the decision.

By the time Emilio finally starts coming around a few hours later, he is bound to a chair in the middle of the room. Everything has been moved aside and stacked against the four walls, trying to make a decent clearing in the constricted space of the seventy-six square feet. Even the bed – more of a cot, really – is now turned on its side, the ragged blankets sliding from the mattress against the wall. And, of course, in the middle of the clearing, there is the chair. Emilio in the chair. A nice title for one of your plays, he finds himself thinking. Emilio’s arms are tied to the armrests, the ankles to the chair’s legs and there is a gag in his mouth, expertly sealed with a double turn of wide black scotch tape.

Emilio looks up at him, incredulous. He can see that he is having a hard time processing his newly-achieved status. He stands against the door, his arms behind his back, looking at Emilio with deep sadness.

I am not, by nature, a violent man, he says at last. Never was. You know that, right? For a moment, he seems unaware that Emilio is gagged and cannot speak, since he appears to be honestly expecting an answer from him. When he does not get it, he goes on. This will hurt me a lot more than it will hurt you. I know it seems a cliché from some cheesy second-rate horror film… but it is true nonetheless.

Emilio starts wrestling against his restraints and there are muffled sounds trying to escape from his gagged mouth. He watches as Emilio struggles, not in amusement, but with detached curiosity. When he speaks again, Emilio at once stops. Remember how you always said that you did not mind losing any of your other faculties as long as you kept the ones that allowed you to write? That, without them, you would rather die? Because nothing else would matter?

He finally takes out his hand from behind his back to reveal the pruning shears. He had brought them with him, when he left the house that he had shared with Emilio, even though he did not have a garden to tend to anymore. He had considered it a keepsake. As soon as Emilio understands what he is holding, his eyes widen. So that is what pure fright looks like, he thinks.

It is at that precise moment that Emilio truly tries to escape, to get free, to fight with his improvised manacles. It is also when he advances and kneels before him. He grabs Emilio’s left hand. He has to do it forcefully, because Emilio keeps trying to pull it away, notwithstanding his tight restrains. He opens the shears so they can comfortably accommodate the width of Emilio’s little finger. He considers telling him this will hurt, but once he notices the uncontrolled tears running down his cheeks he understands how futile the remark would be. Instead, he just squeezes the handles, forcing the blades to close. Even though it efficiently cuts through the flesh, there is an unexpected resistance once it hits the bone. A coarse howl manages to come through the gag. He has to open the shears and close them again to try and get across the bone. There is a crushing sound on the third attempt and he realizes that one of the blades got stuck. He forces it open one last time and finally succeeds in severing the entire finger, which falls to the ground with a timid sound.

There is a generous flow of blood coming from the stump that quickly creates a puddle on the floor. For a moment, he thinks that he is going to throw up, not so much at the sight of the maimed hand, but because the only surface in the room yet untainted by the crimson wave is now turning red as well. He suddenly realizes that Emilio is no longer fighting, that he has been silent for a while, and that is when he fully understands that he has lost consciousness. The blood, however, keeps pouring. Once again, he did not predict this. Be that as it may, he knows that he has to do something about it. Otherwise, Emilio will simply wither and die. He grabs one of his shirts and wraps it around the bloody stump but quickly grasps that it is not going to do the trick. His mind races, trying to find a solution. He recalls something he once saw in a film. He is not sure that it will really work, but he has not much time. Maybe I should have thought this through first, he ponders as he rushes out of the room. He comes back with the clothes iron, which he quickly connects to the socket on the wall, turning it on to the max. Praying that it will get hot speedily enough, he once again grabs the shirt and presses it to Emilio’s hand, but the only thing he accomplishes is to get his hands bloody from the fully soaked shirt. The puddle is now a wide pond but, fortunately, as it is absorbed through the wooden floor, it stops being red. It is now a mere darkish and undefinable shade. The thought alone allows him for a sense of calm. He checks the iron, hoping that it is hot enough to do the trick. He thinks it is. He is not sure, but he thinks it is.

When he discovers that the extension cord is not long enough to permit him to adequately perform the task, he unplugs it and carries it with him. He once more kneels by the chair. This time he does not have to deal with Emilio’s resistance. Emilio no longer moves. He grabs his hand, the blood still cascading, and presses the scalding metallic surface of the iron against the stump where the finger used to be. Two things happen at the same time. There is a sharp scorching smell, both sweet and disgusting, as the iron sizzles against the blood and exposed flesh, and a train of smoke rises up in front of his eyes. Also, Emilio’s body jumps as he is forced out of his unconscious state. The chair almost falls to the ground, dragging the weight of Emilio’s body along with it, and it is mere luck that he does not get burned himself in the process. However, it does seem to do the job. When he checks it, the blood spillage has been averted at last. And, to top it, Emilio has mercifully returned to unconsciousness again.

He sets down the iron and crawls back to the wall. He just sits there, his arms tightly wrapped around his legs. He thinks that he is going to cry but, as soon as he lays his chin on top of his knees, it miraculously goes away. He looks at Emilio. Dormant Emilio. There is a strange peacefulness to his face. He is reminded of all the mornings that he woke up to his slumbering features and how beautiful he had always looked in his sleep. Was that not what made him fall in love with him? That and his sweetness? How far away his sweetness now was.

The practical corner of his mind alerts him to the fact that Emilio will eventually wake up to excruciating pain. Once the shock and the adrenaline rush fade away, the pain of the severed limb will kick in. He knows that he will have to give Emilio some painkillers if he wants him to endure the next few days. He had not planned this, but he starts to now. There is an array of ideas that have been silently populating his mind (he just has to decide which one he will try first). The problem is that he does not have much at home – perhaps a couple of Diazepam pills – and everything will be closed until the twenty-sixth. He knows that he should go and check it, that he should take care of it before Emilio comes around, but he suddenly starts feeling very sleepy and tired. He registers that it is once again getting dark outside his bedroom window. Before he can do anything about it, everything goes dark inside the room as well and, softly, his weary mind follows.

◊

He wakes up with a soft nudge. His whole body hurts, as he forces his eyes open to see Stig standing in front of him. His first instinct is to jump up and away but, as soon as he tries it, he is reminded of his restraints and there is a deep flash of pain that starts in his left hand and quickly travels the rest of his body.

I did not have two turtle doves, so I had to settle for these. Something tells me that it’s going to be more useful to you.

Stig holds out two pills in one hand and a glass of water in the other. Not that he sees it right away. For some reason, his eyesight is fuzzy and he has to squint in order to focus. He wonders what it might be. As if reading his mind, or the puzzlement in his eyes, Stig reassures him that it is only Diazepam and urges him to take it. I will get some Paracetamol tomorrow but, for now, this will have to do. I am not sure it will make the pain go away. But, if you’re sleeping, you won’t have to worry about that, right?

He considers refusing it, fearing a trap of some kind that will only bring him more suffering, but the pain is settling more and more aggressively in his hand and he welcomes the hope of relief that the pills might bring about.

I will remove the gag now. I don’t want you to scream, okay? If you do, the only thing you’ll accomplish is allow yourself some more hours of unsoothed pain.

He nods and obediently allows Stig to remove the scotch tape and the gag. He swallows the two pills from Stig’s palm, tasting his skin’s saltiness at the same time, one that he knows only too well. He does not really need the water to force the pills down, but he is thirsty as well, so he accepts it gratefully. Some irrational part of his mind tells him that he would welcome a caress or a soft kiss too. That Stig would say everything was going to be alright, that it was all but a dream and that he could go back home. He starts crying at the thought, as Stig efficiently gags him again. He suddenly misses the sweetness. Why can’t you be sweet to me right now, he asks him in his mind, since his mouth is once more forbidden by the gag to express words.

Stig stays there for a while, just looking down at him as he cries. He tries to will his mind to black out. He does not want to acknowledge the reality of his present situation. He does not want to think of his severed finger and refuses to look down – he knows that it is there somewhere, lying on the floor. What happened to your sweetness, his mind insists.

Yet again, Stig seems to be reading him, because what he says next resembles an answer. You know… Never have I loved anything or anybody as I have loved you. As I still do, even if it does not seem so right now. I gave you the best of me and you threw it away like garbage. You shouldn’t throw away sweetness. It is too precious a commodity to dispose of in such a reckless fashion.

Little by little, he feels his old-rational-self taking over. Whatever Stig has in mind, he knows that he has to get away. He knows that his life is at stake. There is no way to know what is in store for him if he just remains there, manacled to that chair. His best chance is to reason with Stig. He knows that if he manages to speak, he can talk him out of whatever he has planned. He should have taken advantage of it when Stig gave him the pills. He feels like hitting himself for not having thought of it in time, but he was too numb and dizzy to think straight. He motions his head towards Stig, trying to convince him. He knows that Stig can read him like a book. He hopes that he understands what he is trying to say.

Stig, however, merely shakes his head and, before he can pursuit it any further, exits the room leaving the door half opened. He checks his restraints and surroundings, trying to find an alternative way out, but there is not a single one that seems realistic enough. Stig did a good job at immobilizing him. Any kind of attempt to get free from the chair would only throw him to the ground, produce noise and, most importantly, hurt him even more. That is something that he is not prepared to deal with. His threshold of pain was always been very much reduced and he has just taken a lot more that he suspects he could endure. The thought that the worst awaits him still scares the hell out of him. And he has no doubts that there is more pain ahead. He could tell by Stig’s eyes. The finger had just been the beginning.

Still, his mind races against hope. After a while, however, the pills seem to start taking effect. Between starting to feel drowsy and actually falling asleep it takes him no more than fifteen minutes. He welcomes it and once more fades out.

◊

He stands at the door frame, watching Emilio sleep. His breathing is steady and he does not seem to be in pain. At least, not for now.

Without warning, he finds himself recalling the first time he saw him. Emilio had been asleep as well, back then. He allows for the memory to quietly reconstruct itself before his eyes. He was taking the train to town. Emilio had been sitting right across from him, restfully asleep, his head limp against the trepidating window beyond which an endless rush of monotone landscape sped by. For some reason, he had just remained there, watchfully considering his unprotected slumber. He remembered thinking how peaceful he looked, how unguarded. When you let yourself drift into sleep in a public place, there is a part of you that does not allow for true rest. Somewhere deep inside, you know it is not a safe environment. Yet, that did not seem to apply to Emilio. He had merely let himself go. It was like watching a child sleep. There was the faint sketch of a smile on his lips, as if the dreams were pleasant or the rest rewarding. He found himself smiling too. Had that been it? Was it at that unexpected moment that he had fallen in love with Emilio, before they even had the chance to exchange a single word?

As far as he remembered, he had spent the best part of an hour just looking at him. Steadily falling into the comforting peacefulness of Emilio’s features. He was still smiling when Emilio finally woke up. There was no preparatory eyelid flutter, no restless jerks or lazy stretches. Emilio’s eyes merely opened and found him there, looking at him. The faint smile broadened. He did not say a word, though. None of them did. Yet, for the rest of the trip, they did not stop looking at each other. It was the weirdest thing that had ever happened to him. It was not so much as if they were measuring or considering one another, but simply sharing the silent company, enjoying the other one’s presence.

When his stop came, Emilio got up and grabbed his backpack, not once breaking eye contact. Just before leaving, though, his first words surfaced: Thanks for watching over my sleep. He had been struck by the unexpectedness of it, the sheer cheekiness of the retort. Anytime, had been his only answer. And, then, Emilio had disappeared from his life, supposedly forever.

He had spent the rest of that day chastising himself for not having done more, said something else, somehow make sure that they would get a chance to see each other again. He had suddenly and irrationally realized that those were the features that he wanted to meet every morning upon waking up, no matter how ludicrous it would sound to anyone’s ears. He was adamant about it in a way that he had not been about anything else in his entire life. Yes, he had fallen in love with Emilio, back then. Just like that.

The next day, he made sure that he got on the same train at the very same hour. And the day after that. And, then, the one that followed. And every other day for a whole week. All in the hope of once again finding Emilio’s slumbering features waiting for him. He had started by sitting in the same carriage but, once that proved useless, he would spend the trip traveling back and forward, searching for any sign of him. He had even started considering taking the train at different hours, lest Emilio had made that first trip too early or later than it was usual for him, not even considering that it was not a usual thing at all, that it had been a onetime thing. Eventually, he gave up on it, realizing the foolishness of his desperate efforts.

He considers Emilio’s slumbering features as he had that first time on the train. He allows for his back to slide against the door frame until he sits on the floor. It was all a series of haphazard events, he says to himself. For all intents and purposes, they should have never met. He had made that first train trip by accident, as so had Emilio. Yet, they must have been destined to meet, because little more than a month after, and in the most unlikely of places, their paths crossed again.

One of his odd jobs had led him into the library. A faulty wiring, as he recalled. He was standing on a ladder, precariously trying to reach for a loose extension cord that hung from the ceiling, when he suddenly noticed Emilio siting at one of the tables, his laptop opened before him. It was not on the screen that his eyes rested, though. Instead, he was intently looking at the trail of hair which rose from the waistband to his bellybutton, exposed by the uplifted tee-shirt as he tried to reach for the cord. He felt self-conscious by the appreciative look and, yet, he delayed finally reaching for the cord for as long as he could. It was a pantomime of sorts, an act which Emilio got on to eventually, smiling amused. He had never been one to blush, but he had back then, embarrassedly allowing his arms to fall to his side. Emilio had signalled him discreetly, as if to say that it was alright, that he was enjoying the show and that there was nothing wrong with it. Amazing how much can be expressed without the usage of words.

Whatever Emilio had intended to do at the library that day, he did not. The laptop remained a decorative item before him, as he watched the progression of his work on the ladder. As for him, it took double the time it should to have the wiring problem fixed, since he found it hard to dully concentrate under Emilio’s watchful eye. When he was finally over, he stood by the ladder gazing into Emilio’s face, considering if he should go over and try to start a conversation. However, the library did not seem the most adequate place for such a venture, with all its imposed silence and hushed voices. He packed his tools and trailed out of the room, planning on waiting outside for Emilio to come out.

He did not have to wait long. He had been on the street not thirty seconds when Emilio emerged from the library door, eyes darting around. As soon as Emilio saw him, his face brightened with the smile that he had been dreaming about for the last month. He saw him slowly approaching and opened his mouth to say hi, not really sure of what should follow. He had no chance to actually speak, though. The moment Emilio stopped in front of him, his right hand reached towards his face and he saw as his lips drew near his own. Without warning and unashamedly, Emilio kissed him, a soft sweet kiss that he would remember for the rest of his days. After that, there was no going back.

The verse of a song - I wish I had missed the first time that we kissed – suddenly flashes into his mind and shatters the memory into millions of ragged shreds. He is so angered that he jumps to his feet and rushes to Emilio. He slaps him once, hard, across the face. Then, a second time. By the third time, there is a gob of blood that spits out of his nose. It is also when Emilio starts coming around, an obvious look of bewilderment on his face. By then, however, the slaps have turned into repeated punches that Emilio uselessly tries to avoid. He watches as the previously slumbering features steadily become bloodied and bloated, almost to the point of unrecognition. It does not stop him, though. The wall of his ire has come down and there is nothing he can do about it but to let it all out. It is only when he notices the chocking sounds that he detains the repeated blows of his arms against Emilio’s face. He looks down, confused, not really sure of how much time has gone by. Emilio is having a hard time breathing and there is a worrisome purplish shade colouring his neck. When he rips off the scotch tape and takes out the gag, there is a cascade of blood and vomit that immediately hurls out of Emilio’s mouth.

He just stays there, as it flows to the floor, waiting for Emilio to resume his normal breathing. It takes a while, but it happens eventually. He does not bother with taping Emilio’s mouth shut again. He does not have the strength for it anymore. There is a sparkle of lucidity very deep inside his mind, as his wavering voice allows the words to escape – I’m sorry – and he leaves the room in the faltering steps of a sleepwalker.

◊

He hears the sounds in his mind first, before he realizes that they are actually coming from outside the room. As if someone is going through a drawer of silverware? His face feels numb and sore at the same time. He does not lose time considering the contradiction, however. He is haunted by the unexplainable forewarning that something bad is about to happen. Over the years, he has learned not to forsake his instincts and, now more than ever, he finds it wise to pay close attention to them. The continuing rustle outside the room allows him no rest.

Last thing he remembers before falling into unconsciousness is seeing Stig going out of the room. And his words. The deep sadness in his voice as he uttered them. Had it been the fact that he did seem truly sorry which allowed him to let go so easily this time? As if it had been a sign that it would all end soon? That Stig would let him free at last? Even if it had been the comforting notion of such a hope which had allowed him to slip back into unconsciousness, now that he is awake once more, he cannot relinquish the sense of dread. That noise. What is Stig doing? What is he preparing now? He cannot fathom how long he has been out. What has Stig been doing that whole time? Had he come back in the meantime or had he just stayed out of the room until now?

As if answering the summoning of his troubled thoughts, the door slowly opens to reveal the half-obscured silhouette of Stig.

I have been thinking, he says from the darkened hallway. It is the third day of Christmas. So, three French Hens, right? Well, I was never much of a poultry man. Besides, I think this whole twelve days of Christmas thing is getting pretty old and kind of in a way of what I really want to do. So, what about a 3-D tattoo, instead?

He had not noticed it before, but he can now catch a sparkle of light on the white surface of the object that Stig is holding in his hand. He cannot quite make out what it is, just that it does not bode good news for him. He had been right to be scared. There was no way that it was going to end anytime soon. In a way, he has the feeling that Stig is just warming up, taking his time, getting everything ready for the greater tasks which he has set up for himself.

It is only when Stig crosses the threshold that he sees it clearly, at last. The ceramic knife, the smooth white blade deeply contrasting with the solid black handle. How those things had always seemed to him like toys, unrealistic as true kitchen utensils. Yet, he knows full well the scalpel-like quality of such blades. That is also when the meaning of 3-D tattoo loses the metaphorical quality he assumed at first and terror fills his mind. He jerks his feet against the floor and tries to push the chair back. He no longer worries about the noise or pain. Maybe, with luck, the chair will break and he can get a fair turn at fighting his way out. If he has the chance, he will make good use of that knife and stick it deep into Stig’s throat. He just has to catch him off-guard.

Expectably, Stig seems to keep reading his every thought. Was it the fact that they had spent so many years together? That they could read things into each other that nobody else could? If that is so, why had he not been able to predict that Stig might do something like this to him? He had hesitated when Stig asked him to come up, not really knowing why, that much he could remember. He should have hesitated more.

Stig launches at him and, with both his hands, secures the chair down before it falls, the white blade of the ceramic knife accidently scraping and gashing his forearm.

Now, look at what you made me do, Stig spits out.

He hurries out of the room leaving the ceramic knife on the floor. If only he could get it, he thinks. He does not feel ready for another frustrated attempt at escaping, though. He does not think that he will have the strength for it. It does not really matter, anyway, because Stig comes back almost immediately, carrying a basin of scalding water. He can see the heavy fog that rises from it. Inside, a wooden stick peeks out.

I saw this on Oliver Twist when I was a kid, Stig informs him matter-of-factly. It made me cringe at the time, but I’m hoping it will work as well as it did on the show.

Stig grabs the stick dipped into the basin and he can see that there is a mesh of rags coiled into a ball around the submerged extremity. It is soaked with the searing water. He sees as Stig directs it towards the bloody gash on his forearm. He feels and hears the sizzle when the burning hot rags touch the wound. He screams in pain and is surprised by the fact that he can hear it so clearly echoing in the restricted expanse of the room. He realizes that he has not been gagged this whole time and not once it had occurred to him to speak.

Wait, he cries out frantically, trying to make good use of his chance. Please, Stig, wait. Don’t… don’t do this.

He does not realize it, but he is crying as the words come out in a wet uncontrolled babble. He is hoping against hope that he can finally turn the situation around. He has to make Stig see reason. It is his only chance at survival, he knows it. He knows that inevitable death will be at the end of the path, otherwise.

Just… just hear me out. You can do to me whatever you want afterwards. But, first, hear me out. Please…

He can see the puzzled surprise in Stig’s eyes and realizes that all might not be lost yet. He sees him waver, uncertain, disrobed of his previous assurance. This is your chance, he thinks to himself, don’t screw it. He irrationally hears Tim Gunn’s voice in his head ordering: Make it work! It is inappropriate, he knows, and it might cost him everything, but he finds himself laughing and crying at the same time, as the ludicrous image pops up in his mind. He is propped like a mannequin in the middle of the workroom, all naked and skinned alive. Stig is patiently sewing flaps of his skin back together into a new arrangement, as Tim and the other designers eye the final work appreciatively. Is he going crazy? Is that what is happening? Has he crossed that border already?

I love you, he lies. I know you don’t believe me, but I still love you. There hasn’t been a day when I have not missed you and ached that everything was as it once was. He does not lie this time. He knows it to be true. He just hopes that Stig cannot tell the difference and ably circumnavigates the subtlety.

Not all is lost, he tells both himself and Stig. There is still time to make things right. I understand. I really do. And I don’t blame you. I just want… Let’s just go back. We can do it still.

Back to what, Stig asks sceptically after a brief moment. He tries to read him but Stig’s face has become unreadable this time. Something inside him breaks.

I’m scared, he finds himself helplessly admitting. I don’t want to die here. I can take no more pain. I don’t deserve this. You must know in your heart that I don’t and that this – everything you’ve been doing and plan to keep on doing – is wrong.

I know you’re scared, dear. And I’m sorry about that, but you do deserve it. The fact that you don’t think you do… well…

Stig does not finish the sentence. He simply picks the mouth rag from the floor and expertly muffles him again, before he can react or say anything else. In less than a minute there is once again a double turn of scotch tape sealing his mouth shut.

Now, my advice is that you keep extremely still. This is a very delicate job and I don’t want to accidently stick the knife inside one of your eyes.

Stig kneels in front of him, ceramic knife in hand, appreciatively weighing his face. He seems to change his mind all of a sudden and gets up, exiting the room once more. When he comes back, he is holding a humid towel. He is taken aback by the gentleness with which Stig starts to carefully wipe his face with it.

There, Stig says once he finishes the task at last. Now you look like the pretty little boy you always were. Well, sort of. Enough, at least, for me to conveniently draw on your face. Don’t worry, he says as if answering his startled look. I will bring you a mirror once it is done, so you can judge for yourself. Hold still.

He sees the white blade slowly drawing near and he instinctively closes his eyes. As he feels the first cut into his sore skin, he orders his mind to escape to some safe place. Oddly enough, what his mind summons is the image of them both hugging at night. He does not question the pure irrationality of it and surrenders to the apparent peacefulness it provides him. After the third gash, he does not seem to feel pain anymore. He wonders if he has become used to it but, then, the knife draws away and he feels the burning wetness forcing the wounds to heal, as Stig uses the ragged stick. Stig’s voice comes through the pain as if from very far away.

I have always admired those New Zealander tattoos, the ones that are carved directly into the skin. That’s what I am going for here. And it looks pretty good so far. I’m actually quite proud. You know how good I’ve always been with my hands. Mouth too, if you still remember… but that’s not important anymore, right? It’s not as if I’m ever going to blow you or tongue your ass again. Well, your loss. But I guess you know that. I don’t really have to tell you, right?

Stig shuts up and resumes the carving. It goes on for hours, he assumes. He has lost track of time long ago. His body is not his anymore. He feels as the blade etches his face and the ragged stick sears each new gash, knowing full well that he is very close to unconsciousness again. He welcomes it. He aches for it. Even if pain does not seem to really bother him anymore, he just wants to run away into the hospitable darkness. Before he can consider it any further, the oblivion gates softly open and order him in. He obediently crosses them.

◊

How had he gotten to that dark place, he keeps asking over and over in his mind. He remembers the time of purity and sweetness only too well not to feel mystified by the deep blackness his heart now swims in. He walks the quiet holiday streets with such a practical purpose and, yet, his mind cannot drift away from the obsessive pang for his former self, the nostalgic ache that haunts his every waking second, even if he chooses to ignore it in order to fulfil his most immediate aim. And what is that oh so important aim? The same which had chased him through the weeks and months ever since Emilio said the words: no, I don’t want you here anymore. They taunted and harrowed him until he could take it no more. They had forced him into submission. And he had yielded to their oppression.

He had spent so many hours building it in his mind. All the ways through which he would make Emilio suffer and pay for what he had done to him. First, however, he had gone through the steps of his own personal Passion, each movement forward a deeper stride down the pained realization of loss. Loss and loneliness. They were, he had come to understand, such strong motivators.

He had gone back to the library almost every day. He stood outside for hours looking at the spot, by the door, where Emilio had kissed him for the first time. He had made it a purposeful calvary to recollect each shred of memory that he could summon up. And, thus, within the soiled remembrance of his previous life, he had started allowing for the rage to seep through, drop by drop but steadily.

However, he had never really thought that he would do it. That he would, in fact, put it into practice. He had merely assumed it to be a therapeutic exorcism, something to be done with once the healing had been accomplished. He had not healed, though, and the exorcism had become something else. Once again, how had he reached such deep and irremediable darkness? Had it been the room?

He keeps coming back to the room, it seems. He cannot stop wondering if it has some kind of hidden power which has subdued him into it. All the hours spent looking at those four red walls have taken a toll. He realizes that now. He once again murmurs, as his steps echo down the street:

Red Room… Redrum… Red Room… Redrum… Red Room… Redrum…

It is a mesmerizing chant that seems to calm him down, somehow. He has forfeited sanity. He knows that by now. It is understandable in some perverted way. After all, he has already forfeited everything else. A loveless life does that to you. It expertly erases one’s soul.

He stands in front of the hospital. He needs some help if he is to proceed. Something to efficiently knock Emilio out, to numb him and, afterwards, to spruce him up a bit. To keep him on his toes. To make sure that he will still be there and aware.

Time to get busy, his mind tells him. And, then, he goes in.

◊

It is the secret aim of every writer: to turn out the perfect sentence. That well-crafted array of words which will stand alone and above all else. The one which will be quoted for years. That people will savourily roll off the top of their tongues with almost pornographic pleasure. He has spent all his life chasing that perfect sentence and that is what his mind turns to when he finally wakes up again. How strange that he should think of such things. He is not even sure that he can make an expert use of words anymore, let alone be able to craft that utopic perfect sentence.

He suddenly realizes that he will never write again. There is no longer any doubt in his mind that he will not survive it. That he will die in that room.

He weighs the silence in the house. Stig is not there. He is alone. Wisdom dictates it to be the ideal moment to exact the necessary efforts to escape. A desperate attempt will always be a better choice than acquiescing to doom. Yet, he finds himself dreading the loneliness instead, wishing that Stig was there with him. He does not want to be alone.

He tries to distract himself by imagining it as one of his plays. There should be a monologue there, if his mouth was not gagged. Cinema always allows for more effective resolutions to such obstacles. A voice-over can take you a long way, when everything else has failed. Theatre, however, is not a gentle pasture for voice-overs. They always come across as lazy.

He would do it as a one-act play, he realizes, with mini-scenes buttressed by convenient black-outs, each a literal equivalent to the ones resulting from every new torture session. Twelve of them, he wonders, like the twelve days of Christmas that Stig seems so obsessed about?

Stig was right. He would rather die if he could no longer write. Because nothing else would matter. Over the years, he has learned to rely on it as some kind of life-support system. As vital as breathing in and breathing out. It has allowed him to survive all the harsh traps of life and build a world within the world where he is the one controlling the game. I live vicariously through my characters, he had said to Stig once with a flair of ill-conceived lyricism. He had meant it as a pretentious joke, ready to be dismantled by a keener mind, but Stig had merely asked what vicariously meant. Yes, that had always been the problem, and not with Stig alone. How often had he heard the same words over and over again? You’re a writer? I love reading. You really must be a very interesting person. However, it always played out the same. It was more of a morbid curiosity, like meeting someone famous, than any actual interest in what he did or himself as a human being. He had stopped having any illusions about that a long time ago.

At least, Stig had never faked an overwhelming interest in books and, as far as he remembered, had not even read more than two paragraphs of anything he wrote. Not for the lack of trying, though. He had always felt as if Stig desperately tried to get it, to be more learned, to step up his game and reach that higher level where they could at last consider each other equal. It had not happened. In fifteen years, it had not even come close.

Had that been it? Or had, at least, contributed to it in great part? He did have a hard time imagining any kind of partnership where that part of him was not, not only acknowledged, but dully validated. He had always imagined someone with whom he could share the inception of each new idea, who could read every page he wrote first-hand, both a trusted companion and the quintessential reader.

What had made him weather it out with Stig for so long, then? For one, he did try. To be interested. To appreciate his efforts. To boost his confidence whenever he needed. And that was no small deed, he fully understood. Yes, the sex was great (the sex was fucking amazing, in fact) and he had always been a sucker for sweetness and tenderness, which Stig had in spades. However, and above all, Stig truly worshiped him, catering to his every whim. It was hard not to succumb to that kind of devotion and it had efficiently carried him through for the whole of those fifteen years.

Until he found the deception no longer acceptable and decided to move on.

Ironically enough, everyone he had met ever since had only proved to be slight variations of what he already knew to be true. That there was no real soul mate for him out there. He had sort of reached that conclusion when he had met Stig on the street three days before (Was it three? Time had gone awry). That had been, basically, what had made him accept his invitation to come up. Had he been considering a backtrack on the whole situation, without even realizing it?

He hears the steady steps up the staircase and, then, the jingling keys on the front door lock. Stig is back.

◊

He would have allowed for the surprise of discovering the deep peacefulness in Emilio’s eyes had he not been so excited. However, the trip to the hospital had been more than profitable and he had returned home with a generous supply of much needed tools. Having so many odd jobs and not a specific steady career had ironically paid off, it seemed. Some years before, he had worked for a stretch as an orderly. He knew where everything was at the hospital, especially the medicine storage room containing much of what he needed, and, most importantly, where they kept the keys. Also, Lucy had always liked him and he was sure that she would happily welcome his visit.

You remember Lucy, don’t you?

All he had to do was show up there, with the convenient pretext of the season’s greetings, and wait for the right occasion to make his move. It had been his Mission Impossible kind of moment. He might have enjoyed it more had he not been so damned hungry. He cannot remember when he has last eaten, probably before he met Emilio on the street. However, now that he thinks about it, he does not believe that he would be able to take a single bite of the most delicious meal. In fact, he is sure that his stomach would not hold it in. Well, he would just have to wait until everything was over, whatever over might mean or represent in that particular case.

She asked about you, you know? About us. I told her, of course. That we had broken up a year ago. Amazing how time flies, no? She seemed really distraught by the news, which was actually quite sweet of her. She always liked you. Not at all surprising. After all, what’s not to like about you, right? Anyway… I couldn’t resist telling her the good news. That we met again recently and are in the process of mending bridges, so to speak. That soon we will be together again. As before.

He shuts up, very suddenly, surprised by the endless flow of words. What has gotten into him, he wonders. He nonsensically feels as if he is again with Emilio at their old place, their home, just casually imparting the trivial details of his day. How absurd it all is. He can see in Emilio’s eyes, in the way he is following his every word as if he is trying to memorize it all, that that rant of his will eventually end up in one of his plays. Well, one that he will have to write inside his mind, since there is no chance that he will ever commit anything to paper again. He is making sure of it.

He has read enough of Emilio’s work to know how his mind works. He just pretended otherwise because it had seemed wiser somehow, especially when he realized that most of his words and whole situations from their life together ended up in his plays, sooner or later. He is not quite sure if Emilio himself realizes to what extent his writings so perfectly mirrored their daily routines. Whatever the case, he had felt raped upon realizing it. It was no less than pornographic, as far as he was concerned. Notwithstanding, he would not turn it into a battlefield, he had quickly decided. Instead, he preferred to act as if he had never read the damned things. Better that way.

It really doesn’t look half bad, he says at last. He can see the puzzlement on Emilio’s face, as he slyly contemplates the bloated and bloodied etchings. It sort of amuses him. I mean, now that the scabs have started to form, he eventually explains.

He drops his satchel to the floor. My own personal Santa’s bag, he says merrily. Have to keep the season’s spirit alive, right? He opens the satchel like a magician revealing a sleight of hand. He does not really need to do it there, mainly because most of the things have to go into the fridge anyway, but he wants Emilio to see. He needs him in the role of the well-behaved audience. And nothing says well-behaved like gags, manacles and restraints. He does it all with processional slowness, carrying each item separately to the kitchen and then coming back in order to proceed. He feels like one of those fictional sociopathic gods Emilio was always raving so much about (Dexter or Ripley, perhaps), weighing his every move and inflection as if in obeyance to a carefully laid out ritual.

Sorry to go all National Geographic on you, he apologizes as he continues to take out each item and detailedly explaining what it is for: the sedatives, the anaesthetic, the hypodermic needles and syringes, the serum IV bag, the parenteral nutrition bag…

…for later, perhaps. Sure, it has lots of vitamins, minerals, lipids, amino acids, glucose… but the serum bag will do perfectly for starters. It has all the proteins, electrolytes, and such, that your body might need for now. Aren’t you amazed how I know all this? Aren’t you going to ask me how I found out? Quite simple, actually. Lucy was kind enough to explain it all to me in full detail. I told her it was for you, that you needed it as research for your next play. She was just thrilled that she could be of assistance, she said. I assured her that you wouldn’t forget to include her in the acknowledgements, even if she bashfully waved away any need for it. Such a sweet dear she is. But we both know that there won’t be any next play, don’t we?

The last couple of vials that he takes from inside the satchel he neither names nor explains. He wants them to be a surprise. Once he is finished, he takes a deep sigh, hands in hips, as he looks down at Emilio. What he wants to do next he wants it to be quick and thorough. And that requires very specific steps. A rigorous preparation. So, his excursions between the room and the kitchen start all over again, thoughtful, measured, precise.

First, the local anaesthetic that he administers directly into the back of Emilio’s left hand. Not before he elaborately choreographs the motions of unwrapping the hypodermic needle, attaching it to the syringe (have to slowly unwrap that one too) and, then, inserting it into the vial’s top. Final touch: the cinematic slight push of the plunger to assure that there is no forgotten air inside (don’t want to cause you an embolism, dear), the clear thick liquid spurting momentarily from the needle extremity. Fireworks, he jokes.

Second step, the sedative. For some reason, he does not feel like watching – or dealing with, for that matter – Emilio’s contorting efforts to elude ache and horror. He is sure that the anaesthetic alone will not be enough to completely subdue the pain. He comes back from the kitchen with a new set of hypodermic needle and syringe, as well as a new vial. This one he administers into a vein in his left forearm.

Same arm, I know. But, hey, closer to the heart, right?

Only then does he proceed to get the clothes iron again. This time, he will do it right though, bringing along enough extension cord and making sure that it gets fully heated before he starts the procedure. Procedure… he likes that word, it seems befitting. All through it, he can see the horror surging on Emilio’s features, but it does not last long. Eventually, the sedative starts to work and Emilio has no other choice but to let go.

He slowly counts to ten, pruning shears in hand. No use precipitating.

He checks the clothes iron one last time and, then, speedily goes on to sever the remaining four fingers of Emilio’s left hand. He does it with such brute assurance that there is no resistance to the blades this time. In under a minute, the four fingers are lying on the floor and he is expertly applying the scorching iron surface to the bloody stumps.

Emilio is still under, even if achingly moaning through his unconsciousness. Good, he thinks. He will give it a couple of hours before waking him up. By then, the anaesthetic will have worn off and he wants Emilio to feel the pain.

◊

His mind lazily seeps through the heavy fog, registering the chirping birds outside. Is it morning again? How time flies when you are having fun, he cynically considers and at once hears Conan saying in his mind: For the record, it’s my least favourite quality. The hallucinations are becoming more frequent, it seems. He is aware that they are a pretty sure sign of alarm – a dead giveaway of how far gone he must be – but, at the same time, cannot help thinking that they are a most natural consequence to the last few days. The harbingers of common sense had been right all along. Man can get used to anything and everything. He is the living proof of it. At least, for the time being.

His eyelids eventually steady the hectic fluttering and he is able to focus on Stig’s still figure standing in front of him. His words come out at once.

I couldn’t help myself. You were so quiet and well-behaved – thank god for chemical aids – that I just went ahead and extended the tattoo.

Either because Stig has mentioned it or because his brain is slower in registering sensitiveness, only now does he feel the burning tingling in his chest. Big mistake, since it brings about with it the dull pain in his left hand. He does not want to look down. He is too afraid of what he might find there. He guesses it somehow – it does not take a genius – and, yet, he is also certain that any fantasy would be milder and more endurable than the aching realization his eyes can supply. It is usually the other way around, he knows. Imagination races you to darker places than any reality can withhold. Well, apparently, reality has not yet met Stig, his mind jests.

Wait, let me get you a mirror, Stig says, leaving the room right after.

It seems like an Ionesco or a Becket play, those constant comings and goings of his. The same situation repeating over and over again. Ad nauseam. Minor variations here and there, just enough to give the delicate illusion of difference, but everything else nonetheless the same. The pathetic inevitability of routine, a quotidian trap of sorts. Very existentialist of you, Stig. Bravo! Evoking the name evokes him as well and Stig shows up at the door hazardously carrying a huge standing mirror, at least six by two.

One of my flatmates is very vain, he justifies. All the better for us. Did you fall asleep again? Open your eyes.

He had closed them shut as soon as he saw Stig crossing the threshold with the mirror. He does not want to see. He is not sure that his sanity will withhold the shock. What sanity, his mind asks with a smirk.

You really want to see this. It’s amazing, Stig insists.

There is a silence in which he imagines another of Stig’s unexpected rages slowly building. A building is a house is a building is a house, the Gertrude part of his head taunts and rants. Architects make them. No. Architects design them, construction workers build them. I want to suck a black construction worker… where has he heard that before? He remembers that it made him laugh. A lot. LHFAO. Stop, he shouts inside his head.

He has to open his eyes. Otherwise, he knows that there is a very good chance that Stig will find a sadistic way of making it happen for him. He takes a deep breath. And, then, he looks.

Had it not been for the gag over his mouth, the gasp would have been quite audible. Where to start? So many wounds, so little time. It’s raining fingers, the Weather Girls sing in his mind. Oh, his mind, his mind…

Because he tries so intently to avoid his face, the first place his eyes drop to is the reflexion of the floor in the mirror. His five fingers lay there, purplish and unreal, in what once was a puddle of blood and is now no more than a blackish stain that crusts the old wood floor. Even if his mind tries to warn him against it, the logical connection takes over and forces his glance towards the maimed hand. There it is, wrist tightly tied to the armrest, each of the five stumps a deformed scar. In one of them, part of the bone still protrudes, a tree spurting from a barren field of dead muscle and nerves. Sometimes, the domino effect of cause and consequence is unavoidable. Seeing the stumped hand brings back the pain with a searing intensity that makes him grimace, forcing the etchings on his face to burn again and launching his whole body into a convulsion that kindles anew the sores in his chest. He tries to steady himself, willing his mind to conquer the pain. He manages it precariously and takes another careful look at the mirror.

After considering the parts separately, he spends a minute or two to take in the whole. Consonantia, Joyce whispers in his ear, the synthesis of immediate perception is followed by the analysis of apprehension… complex, multiple, divisible, separable, made up of its parts, the result of its parts and their sum, harmonious. Was this what he had meant when defining a work of art? It is what it feels like. As if his body has perennially become an art piece. We should record it, he thinks nonsensically. We could make an installation of it. He can almost hear the raving critics. An absolute tour de force. The pangs of contemporary angst turned living flesh. And, obviously, the ever dissonant voice: just a parochial rehash of the much more pertinent nineteen-nineties postmodernist endeavours.

He faintly understands that Stig has started talking again – soliloquizing – but he is already trying to visualize it. A blank room, squared preferably. Over the chair, a mellow spotlight softly caressing the contours of the man strapped to it. His face deeply carved with tribal sketches that eventually travel down his torso, revealed by the opened and bloodied white shirt. His pants soaked with the piss of days, which has trailed to the floor where it mixes with the blood in a wide puddle of light yellow and dark red. By his left foot, five fingers laid out in apparent casual design, but proficiently mirroring their absence in the maimed hand above. There should be a sign above him, he suddenly realizes. In neon: the lovelorn martyr.

Art, art, art… How charmingly useless you are. How devastatingly cruel. How people got thrilled with the artsy stereotype. How they got off on the gut-wrenching films and plays and books. How pertinent and tragically human they were consistently labelled and how highly praised, how singled out amongst the anodyne herd, the artist was. However, those same heralds would quickly curse the tortured author’s moods and glooms if ever they were faced with the actual fact of having to deal with it. It had always seemed like an unjust distinction to him. A heartless denial of who he was. Two weights, two measures, that’s what it is. What had he said to that journalist once? All writers are either bipolar or schizophrenic. Whoever doesn’t get that, doesn’t get writers, period.

True, Stig had been supportive most of the time, but not truly patient with his changing moods, his troubled thoughts, his ever fragile emotional balance. He had to go to his dark places, from time to time. That was what he did, who he was. That was what made him write and turn out the so much praised portraits of contemporary angst. That was what made him a writer, after all. You cannot write if you have not lived, but you are not able to write either if you are not permitted to step away from it. From life and the living. And into the darkness.

He is not allowed another thought because that is when the pain sears through at last – whatever anaesthetic Stig gave him is finally wearing off – and he starts to scream through the gag. How deep is your love, the Gibbs brothers screech in his ears, trying to overpower the stifled screams.

So, I think it’s about time we make this more interesting, he finally registers through the haze of pain and deliriums, as Stig concludes his lonely rant. And again he departs. Tous les Stigs sont commis voyageurs, chérie. Et il n’y est jamais fini, Clov. Jusqu’il est tout terminé, bien sûr.

Stig comes back carrying the translucent serum bag with the IV drip attached to it. He hangs it precariously from the ceiling lamp and it is as if he is once again defying gravity on top of the ladder as he reaches for the extension cord. Stig’s hairy fishbone is still there, as always, but he has no will to brush his lips tenderly against it as before. How fickle and ephemeral lust can be.

There, Stig utters once he is finished. Now, all we have to do is attach the IV to your arm, he goes on, at once  distilling the words into action, and I can put you down or bring you back at the snap of a finger.

He watches Stig as he grabs the hypodermic and sticks it in his forearm and, then, proceeds to administer what he supposes is some kind of sedative into the junction in the IV drip.

Say: Goodnight, baby, Stig orders with a smile.

He mumbles Fuck You through the gag, immediately angered by the notion that Stig might think that he has actually complied with his instruction. No matter. Soon, he will be going to Nemo’s playground. He summons the wide expanses of colourful Slumberland while he waits for the darkness.

◊

He stands at the centre of the room, right behind Emilio’s chair, trying to take it all in. He wants to see what he sees. The endless wave of red, broken only by the door that leads into the dimly lit hallway. Through it, the familiar chords of the Goldberg Variations he put on the living-room CD player. He remembers it being one of Emilio’s favourites. He could hear it for hours on end, going back to the start as soon as it finished. Enough to drive one crazy and, for a while, it did get on his nerves. To the point that he could no longer stand hearing it. Actual nausea would take hold of him as soon as the first bars started echoing in the house. Eventually, he got used to it. More than that, it became inextricably associated with Emilio himself. He had chosen it thus in a very purposeful manner, interiorly dubbing it an Ode to Emilio.

Emilio who sleeps. Who is not there for the time being. A decorative piece at the centre of the crimson sea that is his minute room. Emilio whom he loves. And who no longer loves him.

He is steadying himself, he realizes. Getting ready. Trying to will the action out. He feels the reddish immensity soaring, as if the walls are growing higher and higher, until it smothers him once more into submission. Deep inside, he knows that it is a direct result of the hunger. Rationality is of very little use at the present moment, though. It will not get him through it. And he has to. He really has.

He feels the syringe ready in his hand. He has researched it methodically, to make sure that he knows how to do it right. Still, accidents do happen and it would be a sad thing if Emilio did not make it to New Year’s Eve. No, there will be no violent jab to the heart. Nothing as exuberant. That was good for fiction but plain impractical in real life. Lucy has coached him thoroughly about it. So that he could later convey it to Emilio, obviously. For the play, he sniggers in his mind.

You should administer it either subcutaneously or intramuscularly, never directly into the blood stream. If he wants the suddenly wide-awake jerking effect, Lucy had said comically mimicking the reaction, the secret is in the dosage. Now, listen very carefully…

And he had. He could be a devoted student if he really put his heart into it.

He quietly circumvents the chair until he faces Emilio, bending down to insert the needle in the upper arm – really go for that deltoid muscle, Lucy’s voice boosts him – and presses the plunger in one calm and continuous motion until all the adrenaline is driven into Emilio’s body. He then takes a step back and waits. He does not have to wait long.

He watches Emilio’s body at once spasm rigidly. One. Two. Three times. And, right after, the deep breath wafting out of his nose. And… he’s back, he ironically says to himself. Emilio is huffing and puffing against the gag, his heart assuredly racing beyond control. Adrenaline will do that you, dear. He realizes that he should get busy lest the rush wears off. He drops to the floor and expediently picks up the scissors. This time he will not explain in advance what he is going to do. He wants to take advantage of the element of surprise. Surprise adds to horror, he has learned. So, he merely applies the open scissors to Emilio’s left nipple, the two crisscrossing blades hugging it close and, without further ado, clips it off by a hard squeeze of the handles. It drops to the floor with a ridiculous plop sound as blood starts trickling from the wound. Emilio is looking down at his chest, an unbelieving astonishment slowly giving way to pure terror. Before it can fully develop, though, he does the same to the other nipple. Plop, it once again makes as it hits the floor and a new trickle of blood travels all the way down towards Emilio’s belt. This second time, Emilio has tried to jump back from it, tears pouring and fright contorting his carved features, but only too late. You are now nippleless, he concludes darkly in his mind.

Is that an actual word, he asks Emilio. Nippleless, I mean. You are the word specialist, after all. You should know.

Emilio is in no state to provide an adequate answer even if he was not gagged. Are you in shock, he wonders. Most likely he is. Yet, it is amazing how he still remains there, available and ready. The miracles of adrenaline. The pain has not yet kicked in, he is sure. Whatever Emilio is feeling, it has nothing to do with any variation of physical awareness. His mind is presently sovereign, dictating feeling and sense. Oh, but what a messed up mind it should be by now. He considers if he should keep on taking advantage of the effects of the adrenaline shot. What else could he do? His hands seem to take over before he can reach a decision and drive towards Emilio’s belt buckle. He opens it, unzipping the piss-soaked pants and pulling them down a bit, along with his briefs. Emilio’s cock and balls drop on the chair seat, between his scattered thighs, like a dead weight. He resists the temptation of touching the welcoming softness of Emilio’s cock. How many times had he made it grow with his mouth until it choked him? Even dormant, it was amazingly thick. How he had loved his cock. Almost as much as he had loved him.

That is when he realizes that he cannot hurt it. If there is a part of Emilio’s body he cannot see himself maim… that is it. Which is actually kind of sad. He had been toying with the idea ever since he caught those videos online. It had disgusted him and dazzled him at the same time, as morbid attraction will often do, by subduing you into a hypnotic stare into the abyss. People apparently did it for sexual fulfilment. Make an incision from the urethra’s opening, all the way down the shaft, sometimes as far down as the balls, exposing the channel through which piss and cum were supposed to travel. The videos most commonly showed a guy jerking off and cumming after such a procedure, cum spurting and dripping from further down than what is normal. A couple of them, though, showed the actual motions of opening up the cock with a scalpel or a very sharp scissor. It was a horrific sight to behold. No, he could not do that to Emilio, not to his beautiful full-bodied cock, no matter how much he had played around with it in his mind. That was one punishment he would withhold. Besides, there were other things he could entertain himself with.

He realizes that Emilio is finally surrendering to pain, now that the adrenaline rush is starting to fade away. For a moment, he considers the possibility of sedating him as usual, but ends up deciding against it. It is about time Emilio gets to feel some real pain.

He is getting ready to stand up and still Emilio’s cock seems to call out for him. It is as if it does not belong to him anymore but has become a separate entity instead, all-knowing and alluring. He wishes that he could taste it one last time, try the velvety feel of the foreskin in his mouth and the moistness of the head as he plays with his tongue around it. It is all sticky wet from the piss. He can smell its tinge as it plasters the shortly cropped bush against the skin. He remembers how Emilio tried to seduce him once into watersports. After many insistent requests, and just to shut him up, he had allowed Emilio to piss over him in the bathtub, enduring the hard streams as they travelled up and down his body, mercilessly soaking his face and hair from time to time. He remembers how disgusted he felt by the whole thing, how the mere smell of piss impregnating his pores had almost made him throw up. He had made sure Emilio would never ask for such a thing again. Yet, now, the smell of the piss alone is enough to send his own cock into a ragging hard on. He is mesmerized by how much he wants to have Emilio’s cock once again inside his mouth, to taste its present moist saltiness, to feel it grow until it busts deep down in his throat. He thinks he could even withstand if Emilio decided to allow for a stream or two of piss while he is there. He is sure that he would welcome it, swallow it willingly, no matter how weird and irrational it seems to him.

He has to force himself to get up and away from it. From Emilio’s cock. He cannot falter now. He cannot allow for distractions. He walks away, leaving the room, trying to conciliate his steps with the tight hardness inside his pants, as he hears Emilio contorting against his restraints and trying to deal with the ever more present pain.

◊

He is sure that he is dreaming. He must be. He knows he is because he is walking. In the dream, he walks. Are you there, Stig? Do you remember still? How it used to be? As if by magic, Stig appears at his side. Walking along with him. I know you, I’ve walked with you, right? He is tired and, yet, he is happy that he walks. Footstep, footstep, little path. They walk the less travelled roads, the ones between cities. They see a group of ragged figures in the distance. They all wear breathing masks. Is this your dream or mine, he asks not really caring what the answer might be. He is just contented with the fact that he is once again walking, that he can feel the fresh breeze soothing the skin on his face. He knows that if he chances upon a stream and looks into it, he will be pleasantly surprised to find that there are no etchings there. Just his usual features. Yes, it is a dream. He knows because his eyes disclose for a few seconds and he is once again inside the room. There is a table there, a white and red chequered tablecloth covering it. Even when he is awake, he is dreaming. Awake. A wake. His wake. Soon, very soon. That is called hallucinating, dear. No more Foucault for you, you have had enough. Try some Musil instead. They are eating unleavened bread and pancakes, while drinking tea. No tea, thanks. Too diuretic foh pooh little ol’me. I can’t hold mah piss anymo’e, bubah. No tea, no tea. The tablecloth slowly goes from the chequered white and red to dark red. The colours, oh, the colours. So saturated it weighs on the eyes. Makes you squint. There is a little boy there, in the middle of the desolation between paths. He cannot be more than seven but looks centuries-old as he talks to two men. Are those us, he asks Stig. He hears the beep beep of a life-support machine. Is he in the hospital? Does that mean that he has been saved after all or is it just part of the dream? Or is it heaven? There is a beautiful Asian man dancing a tango all by himself, eyes closed. He softly cries as he does, even if there is a soft smile colouring his lips. Heaven, I’m in heaven, he whispers through his haze. It comes and goes. His consciousness does. Like Stig, his consciousness also is a commis voyageur. Wunderbar, Lipschitz. Can you rock me back to sleep with your arms instead of using a hypodermic? Pretty please? Stig says nothing and once again holds out two pills to him. One makes you smaller? Take the blue pill! Take! The fucking! Blue! PILL!!! The ventilating and beeping sounds from the life-support machine go on forever. He wills himself to wake up. Okay, little Susie. Whatever you say, dear. Initializing. A slight flutter of the eyelids and the gauze-like haze flooding a semiconscious dizziness. Even when he is back, he has the feeling that he is hallucinating most of the time because nothing of what he feels and sees seems to make sense. Then again, there was nothing really sensible in the whole matter from the start. He is still inside the red room, helplessly strapped to the chair. All his books are there, piled up around him, his entire library, one of the piles a chronologic arrangement of all his plays. They are all blank, though. White covers, empty pages, no print to be seen. What happened to his books? The red wave eventually takes over and the books start dripping blood. In a minute they have gone from blinding white to soaking red. When logic and proportion have fallen sloppy dead, Grace Slick screeches. One last play. Third act, baby. Close to curtain. Will I take a bow? One last one? He walks, he walks, he walks. He is drained and, yet, he walks. He walks the hills and the plains. The macadam roads and the deep blue sea. He walks the subway tracks, balancing over the third rail as if he is a funambulist. I teeter and wither and I huff and I puff. Should he not be dead? High voltage is not what it used to be. Catherine Deneuve is at the station singing as she cries and waves the poor soldier goodbye. He has Stig’s features. Je te cacherai et je te garderai? Was that not what you did to me? He faintly remembers opening his eyes at one point only to find that his right hand was fingerless too. Nipleless and fingerless. Poor, poor Emilio. Nipleless… I am nippleless. Hurray for neologisms. He is an author. He can take such liberties. He wants his fingers back. They are on the ground. All ten of them. The boy is there again as well. He says: you’ve got no fingers left. It’s just a flesh wound, he answers and laughs. You should always laugh, you look beautiful when you laugh. Was that something he used to say to Emilio? Or was it Emilio who said it to him? He cannot remember. Perhaps something he once saw in a film or read in a book. Yes, that seems much more likely. Neither of them laughed all that much, after all. He wonders for a moment if Stig will make sure that he will be toeless as well. Is that the next step? Got it? Toe. Step. Footstep. As he walks. No, wait… am I sitting or am I walking? He cannot tell. Not really. Everything is so confusing. Is he awake now or still trapped inside the dream? As he walks. Walk-a-bye-baby, on the tree top. Tree tops. Now, why is that familiar? He is sooooo fucked up. Are you really with me, Stig? Remember when I asked you if you wanted to marry me, and you said that it was only a piece of paper? That we were more than a piece of paper signed and stamped by a clerk. His head hurts. Inside. With all the wounds that cover his body, how silly that such a menial thing as a headache can bother him so much. As if he has an iron ring tightly pressing against it. He considers the possibility that Stig might be doing something to his head. Are you going to eat my brains? How Hannibal Lecter of you, boy. But, no. Stig is not there now. He knows this because his eyes are open and he can see the room around him. It is empty. He is alone. O Stig, Stig! wherefore art thou Stig? I’m pathetic, he thinks. Think? Is that what he is doing? Can he even consider it thinking still? I mean, proper – wholesome – thinking? He is nauseated too. His stomach is clenched into a tight fist. He needs food. He is sure that the serum is not enough, useful only to keep him barely alive but a poor substitute for true sustenance. A nice steak. Juicy. A perfectly elegant nut of butter melting on top of it. A glass of wine. French fries. Tons of them. Millions. Yellow. Crispy. Salty to a fault. Oh, how can you forget me, when there’s always something there to remind you? Or something Italian. Lasagna. Ravioli. Even a pizza would do. With extra cheese and sprinkled with prawns. And a Sunday. Or a tiramisu. Or a chocolate mousse (hold the squirrel). Or a Sunday-tiramisu-chocolate mousse. That would be so much better. A calorie bomb to blast him to kingdom come. His mouth waters helplessly at the parade of tastes and smells his mind summons. Feed me, he pleads in his mind, as Stig used to, on his knees and mouth open, obediently waiting for his customary thick spurts. He will die in that room. Not from the wounds. Not from the endless torture. Not due to the constant blood drainage. Not even from his deeply settled and unsettling insanity. He will die of loneliness. And sadness. His world has become bleak and helpless. And he is ready to let go. He just wants one final blackout from which there is no reveille. From whose bourn no traveller returns. He is walking through a maze of corridors. That is what he does in the dream, he walks. He knows that he is searching for Stig, but he is nowhere to be found, because every time their paths cross he wears a different face. You sly deceiver. One of the doors is open. He goes in. There is a hole in the wall. He unzips his pants and sticks – Sticks, Stig’s, Styx, oh, the endless possibilities – his cock through it. He feels the wet warmth of the mouth on the other side. He gets rock hard. Rock me, rock me, harder baby, oh-by-baby, on the tree top. Is he actually getting hard? He considers how ridicule it is that he might be having a wet dream inside the hallucination. Or is it a wet hallucination inside the dream? That is when he realizes that he is not doing it on his own. That something is tugging at his cock, moistening it, making it grow. Grow, grow, baby, grow. He is so hard that it hurts. Everything is red around him. The room. Always the room. Who paints a room – a bedroom of all things – all in red? And he is there. Kneeling. Stig is. His head bobbing up and down, as he takes the whole length of his cock and then comes up for air. Is that still the dream? Fuck… is he dreaming slash hallucinating all that? Stig keeps his eyes closed as he swallows it deeper and deeper. You are a magician, dear, you have just made it disappear inside your throat. Where is cock? No more cock. Cock a bye-bye. Oh, there is cock! Cuckoo pick-a-boo. Nope, gone again. Stig goes faster and faster as he gets harder and harder. It hurts. His erection hurts. How fast his mouth travels. I have travelled oceans of time to swallow your load. Paint it white? I will. Deep in your throat, dear. He is too far gone, he knows. That’s some weird shit. He feels very close to it. He wants to relinquish pain and suffering and merely surrender to the pleasurable feel of Stig’s mouth on his cock. He knows that it makes no sense. That he should not feel such things. Yet, they subsume him beyond the few shards of reason he still has left. He wants to cum. He craves the release. For a few seconds, he just wants something good in his life. Something pleasant and fulfilling. One last happy moment. He cannot hold it any longer. He just lets go. Fuck, fuck, fuck, his gagged mouth moans. He gets taken over by the release. His body is drained. His cock is drained. Stig takes it all deep in the throat. He feels a wide smile warming his face and fighting against the gluey restraint of the scotch tape. Kiss me too, he thinks all of a sudden. Can you kiss me, one last time? He stares down at Stig, suddenly horrified by both his weakness and the sight of the mouth slowly letting go of his cock. Horror gives way to sorrowful tears. How it shocks him so much more than all the other humiliations he has been subject to. Stig is angrily pleading: Smile! Smile! Smile, you prick! You have to smile, godammit! He feels the scabbed etchings bursting open again as Stig uses his fists on his chest like a child throwing a tantrum. He does not see the movement. He simply feels the stab on his left cheek, near the jaw – the blade managing to find its way between the upper and lower teeth, but eventually grazing his tongue sideways – and, then, the hard pull as it cuts through his flesh all the way to the other side of his face. He…

◊

He looks at Emilio baffled. He resembles some outlandish cartoon character. There is nothing reasonable about it and his brain has a hard time processing what he sees. Like a train wreck, he just watches it. It is horrible, but there is nothing he can do to stop it (take it back!), so he just stands there, frozen on his feet, helpless and unable to cast his eyes away.

He measures the wide joker smile, ear to ear, the jaw drooping lifelessly, now that there are no muscles holding it in place. The cut-through scotch tape still sticks to the upper and lower lip, the tongue falling over the teeth, as the drool mixes with the blood. And the eyes. That is the hardest part to behold. Wide bugged, perfect amazement giving way to shock until they become vitreous. As if some hidden button inside Emilio’s head has just been flickered off. From time to time, the eyeballs turn nervously, the pupils searching for some sense, but then it just stops. It goes on for a while. Turn, turn, turn, stop. Turn, turn, turn, stop.

What brings about what he says next he is not quite sure. Like some ever unsettled argument, he drives into it full force. As if it has been going on for centuries. As if it never stopped. He does not realize it, but he is trying to force away Emilio’s grotesque face. Should he pretend that he is an unfinished puppet, shamelessly gauche and disjointed?

You are so fucking hypocritical! Always raving about Dexter and the devilishly charming Mister Ripley. Quite a different thing in real life, no? What’s the use of making gods of such clay footed saints, if you cringe like a baby when you’re the one in the frying pan? This is what you don’t understand, what you will never understand, no matter how hard you try to wrap your head around it. Sometimes, there is this path before you, you see? No crossroads. No alternative side road. Just this one – very clear – path. And you just have to take it. You cannot even go back. You simply move forward, because that’s what you have to do. You just have to. No matter how painful (Is he crying? Is that what he is doing?), how gut-wrenching, how incredibly hard. You move forward and do what has to be done. Like a good little boy. That’s what I am. Seriously. A good little boy. Your good little boy once. Long ago. Until you decided I was not good enough anymore. And threw me away like garbage. I am NOT garbage! I am NOT dispensable! I! (first) AM! (second) NOT! (third swing of the blade)

Suddenly, there is a hole in Emilio’s belly. He refuses to acknowledge it and merely goes on.

All your plays… always so dark and pessimistic and downright depressing. How you got off on that. As long as you were the only one entitled to the darkness, of course, and everything and everyone else should just be bright and luminous, your own personal source of untaintable happiness. Well, guess what? You do not have a corner on darkness. So, you wanna blame someone? Blame yourself! Better still, blame Dexter!

Without truly registering what he is doing, he dips his hand inside the hole in Emilio’s belly, soaking it in the dark viscosity. He turns, his hand dripping with blood (freshly squeezed) and his fingers expediently trace the letters on the red wall: DEXTER DID IT!

Not me, he shouts back at Emilio. But Emilio is no longer there. Not really. Yes, he breathes still. His eyes remain open - turn, turn, turn, stop – but he is long gone. He wants to shout READ IT to him but he knows it to be useless.

Okay, he says with a tired sigh. I will read it for you.

He turns again to the wall but there is nothing to be read anymore. Once the dark blood dried, the letters became undistinguishable from the crimson wave. He feels the rage building inside, taking control. Before he can process it, he sees his hand as it reaches towards the mesh of organs that are slothenly falling on Emilio’s lap. He realizes that he has part of Emilio’s intestine in his hand and his mind absurdly rants: you cannot get more intimate than that. Then, he lifts his foot in the air and kicks it hard – full sole – on Emilio’s chest, as he tightly grabs the slippery and bloodied gut.

Emilio flies back with the chair, as he hears the slosh sound of the insides being ripped away. There is an elaborate blood spatter – Dexter would have a boner – colouring floor and walls and his own body and face. One good thing: in that position, Emilio’s jaw is again shut, even if a little droopy. As if the teeth do not quite fit together. He allows for the intestine to slip off his hand. It slithers to the floor, snakelike, the sound a parody of some stock effect from a Tex Avery cartoon.

Outside, the New Year’s Eve bells strike all over the city. Emilio did not make it to the coming year, after all. Poor, poor Emilio. He steps back once. Then, once more. And another time until he feels the familiar red wall against his back. He is drained, there is no energy left in his body. As on the first day, he slides against the crimson and to the floor. He is just going to sit there, that is what he tells himself. He knows that he should eat. His body knows it. His mind too. However, he will not do it. He will merely sit. His flatmates should be back in five days or so. Maybe he will then, if they feed him. Feed me, he thinks as he feels the sweet and sour of Emilio lingering still in his throat.

For some unknown reason, Sushi comes to mind. The dog, not the food. During their first year of living together, they started noticing a little Terrier hanging around the back of a restaurant near their place. Like Tramp, he waited wistfully for the employees to throw him some scraps. Since it was a Japanese place, Emilio had gotten in the use of joking that the poor dog would be turned into a Sushi dish should he continue to test his luck like that. It was truly a joke but, even if he knew that there were little chances they would actually serve dog, he could not stop thinking that the day would come when the dog would be mysteriously gone. It was an irrational worry, he knew. Yet, he could not shake it. Emilio had unsuccessfully tried to ease his mind, even if in his own particular way.

Well, it is not at all the myth some people would like us to think, Emilio had argued. There are lots of cultures that do eat dog. But, when it comes to restaurants, all the food has to be dully inspected and certified. They can’t just pick dogs off the street.

Maybe not to serve it as a dish at a restaurant, he had counterpointed back then. But what’s to stop them from cooking them at home?

Oh…, had been Emilio’s insightful and comprehensive answer.

The fact was that he became so obsessed with it that he eventually contaminated Emilio. So, one day, they just picked the dog up and took it home with them. Perhaps it was an exaggeration to say that they only adopted him out of fear that he might be turned into actual dog food. The truth was that they had come to find him so amusing that hardly a day went by when they would not walk near the restaurant just to say hi to the little terrier. Be that as it may, whenever they had to take him out for a walk, they always made him wear a leash and made sure to steer clear from the Japanese restaurant. Just in case.

The name, however, had stuck.

Sushi was so playful and sweet that it was hard not to be in a good mood whenever he was around. Their life together radically changed, from then on, since every decision had to account for Sushi’s existence. That which might have become a burden, became a source of joy and fulfilment instead. They unwittingly shifted from being a couple to being a family of three. So, and since he was already an old fellow at the time of his adoption, when Sushi died not two years later, he did not really die. He passed away. Like some cherished close relative.

He, more than Emilio, had been heartbroken. Sushi had become such a big part of their lives. Not until then had he fully realized what people meant when they compared having a pet to having a child. Then, one day, Emilio just pushed a handful of pages in his direction. I know you are not really into reading, he had said, but this one I wrote for you. It was a short story. It was called A dog named Sushi.

It’s Oliver Twist meets David Copperfield but with dogs, Emilio had explained with a smile.

He had never read any of those, so he did not quite know what Emilio meant by it. Whatever the case, it was a sweet story about a little terrier who, after many hazardous and perilous adventures, finally found happiness. It was a bit silly in its obviousness and almost childlike, but it somehow made him feel better. Above all, it had made him love Emilio even more.

For the life of him, he cannot understand how he had forgotten it all for so long and, most importantly, why it had come back to mind just now. Both the dog and the story. He feels darkness drawing nearer and nearer, once the New Year’s Eve bells silence and the commotion outside dies down. No use, darkness, he says at last, I’m already here. [And, then, he says no more.]