The Possession of derelict, man-made terror over others and the command of fears, it comes from a day of snow and destitution in a land of legends. Mila Mari was a strange young woman. Romanian, Bulgarian. I am not sure. I do know that she was from that area of Europe and her accent was thick. Long, jet black hair cascading over her shoulders in front of big buttons on a thick black coat, she was short, slender, sensual, and very full of her sense of feminine power over men, she sat in the coffee shop at a table in front of me. That is how I met her.
Curiosity and a confused conversation between the salesperson serving her order brought me over to help. For some foolish reason, I thought that I could help translate. It worked out somehow as I was able to understand her attempts at English. The order was taken care of and she sat with me.
“I thank you for assistance…..I am pleased you can understand my words.”
“I am glad that I could help,” I told her…pleased with myself…I pressed on.
“How long have you been in our country?” I asked.
“I have been in United States for one month – you are very nice American,” she said, smiling at me.
“Are you alone here? Or do you have friends or family with you?” I asked
“I am alone.”
As most foreign visitors usually travel in groups the oddness of that statement at the time did not register in my mind and I sat with her all afternoon. I bought her hot chocolate and pastries. Her skills at flirtation were very keen and she used my attention to her to the fullest. She would occasionally flash me a seductive look with her brown eyes and lick the chocolate from her red lips. She called me Liska, as it matched my name in translation to her language and she told me hers.
She worked me good….sending chills down my spine with light touches to my arm, down along my fingers. I invited her to my place for a drink and she came home with me. I noticed after she had removed her coat that there were odd shapes of scars on her wrists, ankles and neck. She made attempts to cover them quickly and said that they were the effects of a bad automobile accident. She changed the focus of the conversation as she sat on my sofa, crossing her legs and making sure I was watching. She laughed – and I went to get two beers from my refrigerator. There was something in those scars….what was it?
She would cause me to believe in the projectile wants or pouring of heart, so near, or dear, I am saying, so dear with every evolution of emotion stronger at each ring of a bell from her voice, which caused me to act. Foolish in love? Foolish an intuition at best. The tremendous center of each tumultuous creation in passion shook me like that blue charge in the making of Frankenstein’s monster. Was I out of control?
Mila Mari is the most sexual woman I have ever encountered. Her desires in lovemaking set me free. I was taken in by her dedication to her passion as if hungry for release of something…what? Something from a restricted childhood? I did not care. I held on for the ride of my life. Her body was exquisite in form and delightfully pale as I expected from her region of descent. She seemed to fit into me like a missing puzzle piece as I hovered over her, my movements matching hers. Warm and giving, she held me into her as I shuddered at my final thrill. She continued to grip me tightly and I noticed her shaking…she was crying. I reached for her face and she covered it with her hands.
“What’s wrong?”
She did not speak and rolled over on to her side facing away from me. I noticed a long scar from her neck all the way down her back. It was an odd thing to see in the glow from the candles on the dresser. I touched her gently, running a finger along the scar. She flinched and moved away. I settled back onto my pillow in awe of this. We slept soundly with an occasional cuddle throughout the night. Yet, I had the most unusual of dreams that night involving Mila Mari. Sitting alone in a lifeboat in a vast green Sea, in the water she swam up to me. Naked and glistening in the moonlight, turning and swimming like a seal. She sang to me in a language I could only half comprehend.
Comfortably stretching out, at home in the water, she arched her back as she slipped backwards under the waves, her breasts showing the results of the cold water. She disappeared, and then resurfaced to smile at me. She floated on her back facing me…teasing me even more, she then disappeared again under the green waves. I sat against the side of the boat holding steady against the rolling of the sea as I waited for her. She surfaced again and was attempting to show me more when her arms detached themselves. Then her wrists floated away. Her legs followed, then her head. All of these parts separated at the very places I had seen the scars. As she floated away in different directions she cried…sobbing heavily, she asked me not to tell anyone. I agreed absolutely…and called out after her. A heavy rain, portentous and dark, fell upon me. It beat down hard onto my skin. It began to sting as I watched it fill the boat to almost sinking
.
I awoke to the sounds of Mila in the shower.
She left me that morning to go where? I do not know. I worked hard at my computer job that day to finish several projects. The evening was set with my acceptance of tuna sandwiches and crackers for dinner. I was not expecting the knock at my door. She came in and sat. She had cut her hair up to her chin and was wearing a short skirt with tall black boots. Her blouse was crimson and somewhat see-through. She had changed herself – for me? To be more American? Whatever…..she looked good!
“Did you miss me Liska?” she asked, as she leaned forward to put an elbow on her knee.
“Yes I did, where did you go?”
She threw up her hands in protest.
“Do you not see – my new look?!!”
“Yes. Yes, you look fantastic!”
She sat back on the couch.
“Did you enjoy me last night?”
“I enjoyed being with you…is that what you mean?” I asked.
“Whatever – you like my sexy boots, yes?” she said, holding a leg out for me to look at.
“Yes, I like them a lot.”
“Better than my sexy underwear?” she said again, as she opened her legs, and then shut them.
She wasn’t wearing any – she smiled at me.
“I ask this again – did you enjoy me last night?”
“I enjoyed you very much,” I answered as I moved to her, trembling, to take her hand and place a kiss there. She moved in to kiss me full on the lips, slipping in her tongue, creating tingles at the back of my neck. Mila Mari kissed with real fire.
We did play with fire that night and she seemed to soften up a bit after sex this time. We slept together with much more cuddling. She somehow seemed like a wounded child to me as she responded to my affections that way. I held her and ran my fingers through her newly cut hair, telling her that I liked the cut and kissed her on her on her temples. She mumbled something and fell asleep. When I slept that night, it was heavy.
There were more strange and eerie visitations in my dreams. And always her body parts fell away in some sort of bizarre fashion, multitudes of steel tables, cutting saws, tubes and tubes of pink and green liquids flowing to nowhere in particular. In one strange and unusual place in the frame of a dream she was being tested constantly by unseen faces in white clothing. Measuring tape and the pulling of stitches was constant. Laboratory smells of chloroform and distilled alcohol were always present as far off sounds of a child crying lingered in my brain. When I awoke in the morning she was gone – again.
She was secretive to a point as to where she always went during the day. She told me little. Something to do with a job at a pharmacy on the far side of town which she did not want me visiting; she said that I would get her in trouble with her new manager. I never pushed the issue with her and always picked her up at the bus stop as people stared…she looked young for me. “Mila Mari is twenty three years old,” she said. I held no regards to that as she had all of her belongings with her now in my home. She did not have much. Some clothes, which she kept in the closet and in my dresser. An assortment of shoes cluttered the floor. Make-up, feminine things and no jewelry – she never wore any. Strange? maybe, she said that things made her scars itch and turn green. No piercing in her ears, nose or even belly. No tattoos, no identifying marks or moles anywhere. That in itself was interesting. She used my shampoo, soap and razors. She shaved her legs but not her arm pits…she hated that. I never knew what perfume she wore but it drove me to fantasy and she was generous with it when she sprayed herself. Mila Mari cooked quite well. I was grateful for that. Her English improved daily and I enjoyed her company very much. I grew very fond of her and I think she was very fond of me as well.
She still cried on occasion and would never tell me why. She said that I would not understand. She even said that I would not like her anymore if I were to know. Of course I was even more curious now but accepted her requests against prying. There were times when she would be in the tub and would not let me in to talk with her or anything else. She was doing something I wasn’t supposed to see, something that had to do with the scars. Those scars! She had become more and more paranoid of me seeing them up close.
Yet, our three months together were wonderful. She was happy in her new life here and we did many things, trips to the ocean, trips to amusement parks, concerts – the opera. We went camping once and made love on the mountainside as the sun went down. We made love on the beach as the sun came up. We saw many movies together. We danced at parties. She painted. She seemed content – until that one afternoon – the scars! They had become badly infected. I offered to clean them for her with peroxide but she refused and ran into the bathroom again – crying. I stood at the door begging her to let me in and help her. She cried even harder and told me to go away. I did wait a long time in anxious dilemma. I went to the door and pressed her again to tell me what was going on. I lost my temper – how could she hide from me like that…..ME…of all people. Desperation took hold of me and pushed heavily on the bathroom door, twice, then put my shoulder to it….it banged open.
Mila Mari sat in the tub half covering her naked body with a meager wash towel – surprised at my ability to get in so easily. Tears had made her eyes a deep red. She sat in cold water as she shook. Large portions of her hair had fallen out and were floating in the water. She was almost completely bald.
Rotten flaps of skin were peeling away from her back where the long scars were; now green with uncontrollable rotting infection. Several of her toes were missing from her left foot. She looked at me helplessly and in fear for her life.
“My God….Mila!!!......what is happening to you?”
I sat on the tub beside her. She looked at me and burst out crying…………
“I’m dying!!!!....................” she buried her face into the wash towel, shaking violently as she sobbed.
“Mila….tell me what is going on – why is this happening?”
She told me everything.
My dreams had been right on as far as her falling apart. She was the result of a bizarre medical experiment. Efforts to bring her back to life after a deadly accident were successful. They had recreated a good portion of her body. Parts of her torso were hers as was her head; the other parts were of different sources, from other bodies. One day she had escaped from the labs…she wanted to live a normal life – another chance. She fled to the United States to have the things she had seen others have. They did not know where she was, and she still would not tell me where she was from.
Yes…I was completely horrified. The girl that I had been sleeping with and sharing so much feeling for was a man made creature pitiful and helpless now, sitting in front of me – disintegrating. It took me a few moments to really understand this.
“Sweet God in Heaven Mila…what can I do to save you…..?”
She sat silent as she pulled one the last strands of hair out of her head and dropped it into the water with the rest. She had resigned herself.
“There is nothing you can do Liska.” She looked up at me with her eyes more swollen and sunken with their expression of doom…”Just stay with me.”
“I am yours my angel…I will stay with you forever…….!” I sobbed heavily.
She reached a hand up to take my tears on her finger. There was nothing to be done….nothing at all She sat before me rotting, the cold water doing little to preserve her. She lay back in the tub shaking, her body now turning black and blue – her eyes sinking deeper into her skull. I held onto her and she laid her head on my hand. She slowly began to sing a song. I had heard this song in one of my dreams…I sobbed heavily again.
“Don’t cry my sweet Liska…..I will be home soon.”
She was delirious, the death and decay rapidly taking her. She raised her pitiful head and looked up at me …..
“Thank you for my life in America………..you have made me very happy………….you helped me live all of my dreams……………………………………I love you Liska.”
She said this in a struggle of a whisper.
Mila Mari finished her last breath and dropped her head onto my hand.
She was dead.
In a pouring rain, I took her to the ocean and let the tide take what was left of her.
I sat there and cried for hours.
The End
Other books by this author
Please visit your favorite ebook retailer to discover other stories by E.R. Fox:
Short Story Series
Ugly Saturday
On the Choke at Cutter's Point
The Dilemma of Dorias Nimble
E.R. Fox, (Edward) is a writer/illustrator currently living in the south with his Amazon Parrot, Cocoa Bongo. Read Edward's Smashwords Interview or Friend me on Facebook: http://facebook.com/edwardfox
