A Glint of Gold
(Author's note: I wrote this story in the span of nine straight hours after a sudden spark of inspiration. I can't guarantee it's any good, but I had a fun time writing it. This is my first full horror short story and I'm excited to share it with my fellow Creep Cast viewers. I should also preface that although this is written in first person, I don't condone the protagonist's beliefs/actions. I hope you all enjoy it! ---Fauve)
“Dr. Maelstrom?”
I shift my gaze from the notebook sitting atop my desk and toward the woman before me. Her dress, a grey woolen thing, provides a shapeless quality to her body, making her appear almost indefinable to my sharp gaze. Her light brown hair is pulled back into a tight bun, the packed strands gleaming in the fluorescent light. Eyes so blue they seem piercing. She would look straight out of the 60s, if not for the laptop clutched firmly against her chest. Next to it, a folder, presumably empty.
“Ms. Lassandra…publicity?”
“Yes, I’ve only been working here for a few months,” she replies, her posture impeccable as she confidently stands before my seated form.
I glance down at my notes once more, riffling through a few pages, my jagged scrawl tightly packed along the thin paper, the letters like marching ants seen from a distance. Sensing no forthcomingness on her part, I look back up, exasperation building in my chest.
“Why are you here?” I gaze at her expectantly, my long fingers softly trailing the edge of a pen as I await her answer.
“I’m sorry for bothering you, but I need more information for the report I’m building on the state of male sterilization in the United States.”
I raise an eyebrow as I stand and close my notes, walking towards the bookcase on the opposite end of my office, “Was the database not enough?” I ask as I nestle the notebook into place and turn around to face her.
“No, it wasn’t,” She replies, her voice firm and unwavering, “I would like to look over your notes on the matter.”
“Well, I’m afraid my notes on male sterilization are at home. If you would like, Dr. Bradshaw should have some of his own notes in his office,” I move toward the phone, ready to dial his number.
“That’s alright,” she interrupts, causing my hands to still on the handset, “I wouldn’t mind dropping by your house to pick them up.”
I glance at her again, my gaze vaguely questioning. For someone who dresses so professional, she’s certainly not acting professionally.
“There’s no need, I’ll bring them tomorrow.”
She laughs a little to herself, “I was hoping to complete the article tonight.”
“Tonight? Why not at work tomorrow?”
“I find I do my best writing alone,” she replies, looking up at me, “besides, it’s easier to focus.”
I pause, considering my options. It’s late into the afternoon and there are very few people in the office. My secretary, for one, has already left, and phoning Bradshaw was only meant to humor the woman, he is long gone as well.
“Well, I suppose I could be agreeable,” I nod, stroking my chin, “However, I have to ask, what is your stance on the matter?”
She tilts her head, confusion flickering across her face, “The matter?"
“Male sterilization,” I grin, “Surely you have an opinion on it.”
“Well,” she begins, clutching her things closer to her chest, “I’m completely for it. If a man already has children, it shouldn’t solely be the woman’s responsibility to ensure no more are conceived through contraceptives or pills.”
My face hardens, “The pill is a temporary and reversible solution. Male sterilization is quite the opposite. Anything that lowers the potency of the male is barbarous, completely and utterly barbarous!”
Her face is an impenetrable mask. Her eyes drill into me with unrelenting passion, “Then what do you suggest is the solution?”
I return her gaze, “Education is key, as is effective communication with the public. If we appeal to their sense of responsibility, greater effort will be made to rein in sexual proclivity,” I idly pick up my pen, “If all else fails, then the pill.”
The cold, hard metal warms up in my fingers. From the golden tip emerges a nub of steel, a droplet of ink already emerging from the ballpoint. I quietly retract it and set the pen back down, glancing back up at the woman, “The fertility of the man cannot be touched.”
She’s quiet for a moment, her eyes trained on the pen, cast forlornly to the side and full of unspent ink. Finally, she shifts her attention back up to me, “The report will be made to your satisfaction, regardless of personal opinion.”
I nod, “Good, good. Are you available tonight?”
“Yes, I am.”
I hand her my business card, “Then be at my house at seven o’ clock. I’ll have the notes ready for you.”
“Thank you,” she says, turning to leave.
“Oh, and Ms. Lassandra, don’t tell anyone about this…meeting,” I add, grinning good naturedly, “I don’t need any rumors being spread about my relationship with my staff.”
A small smile, barely perceptible, graces her perfect lips, “Of course. I wouldn’t dare.”
She exits, closing the door behind her. As soon as she’s gone, my smile drops and I sit in my chair, my fingers tracing the pen once more. Seven o’ clock. Seven o’ clock. Seven o’ clock.
################################################################
“Would you like a drink?”
“Please, whiskey if you have any.”
I nod and reach for the bottle on my wet bar. Minutes ago, Ms. Lassandra—please, call me Diana—arrived at my home at seven o’ clock sharp. Letting her in, I noted that she wore the same clothes as she did in the office. Her expression was one of vague amusement, and as I brought her to the living room, she asked, “Do you live alone?”
“Yes, why do you ask?”
“No particular reason.”
Now, as I pour her a whiskey, the interaction still plagues my mind. It’s an innocuous question, even a warranted one, but still, the thought of it clings to me like a leech to flesh. I try to shake it off as I walk over to where she stands and hand her the drink.
“Thank you,” she accepts the glass graciously, gazing at one of my many paintings.
“Do you like it?”
“It’s fascinating,” she says, eying the greens and blues, purples and reds, more reds, more reds. The subject is but a pulpy mass of tissue and viscera. Bright hues dance across the amorphous blob of mottled, pocked flesh. Speckles of blue cluster around strips of bone-like white. She turns to me, “What do you call it?”
“Mary,” I reply, “Bloody Mary.”
She nods appreciatively, inspecting the careful brushstrokes and harsh splatters, “It’s unique, I’ve never seen anything like it.”
“It’s the fifth installment of a series I’ve been working on. I’m currently on the ninth painting.”
She glances around, seeing the other paintings strung up along the walls. Each canvas is splattered with the sinewy horror of an indescribable, unknowable event, each sprawled subject barely distinguishable from the others yet somehow inherently different.
“I never took you for such a talented painter,” she says, taking a sip of her drink.
“We don’t know each other particularly well. The only thing I know about you is that you have a strong work ethic.”
“I know more about you. You’re a doctor, you’re a bachelor, and you like to paint.”
“All surface level, nothing terribly in-depth,” I reply with a dismissive gesture.
She laughs softly, her finger tracing the rim of her glass.
“For example,” I point, “this painting here, it’s rather simplistic when you–”
The glass slips from her fingers and smashes, shards of glass bursting in every direction. Her eyes roll up as she falls limp, my arms catching her easily before she can reach the ground.
Perfect.
################################################################
“Your supple flesh against the long steel bars, curves countering linear, movement countering stillness, life countering lifelessness—aesthetically, your position is perfect.”
Handcuffed to the bars of her prison cell, she gasps and squirms in fright. Her eyes questioning, pleading as I sit before her, eying the subtle movements beneath those once boxy clothes, the stretched fabric revealing her most feminine qualities.
“What are you doing? Let me go!” She cries out.
“Let you go? Not now, when I have you captured. When I have you in a place you can hurt nobody else!”
“You’re insane!”
“It’s not me who’s insane. It’s you who’s insane. You and all other women! You want independence, you want power! You’re parasites, sucking the masculinity from men and leaving them dry and lifeless.”
I stand up and walk toward the bars.
“You’ve been trying to make yourselves self-sufficient. With men no longer necessary, you’ll throw them aside, you’ll take over the world!”
“What the fuck are you talking about?”
“You talk amongst yourselves,” I hear the edge in my voice and immediately smooth it out, “You build groups and communities of support and communal living—you’re emotionally self-sufficient. Pornography, toys, artificial insemination—you’re sexually self-sufficient. Where does that leave men?”
“I don’t know what you’re saying! That’s insane!”
“It’s not insanity, I can assure you, it’s not. I know it’s not. I know.”
I clutch the bars, peering into the darkness of the cell and into her frightened face, “You’ll see. You’ll admit it. They did. They all did.”
She looks at me sharply as realization floods her features.
“Yes,” I grin, “They all did.”
“What have you done?” She whispers, eyes glaring.
“You’ll be my ninth,” I smile wider, my grip on the bars tightening, “My beautiful, terrible ninth.”
################################################################
“There is nothing better than watching a woman drown in fear. I am the water that fills your lungs, that forces you to choke up your foul deeds. Like a priest, I am exorcising the evilness within you, but how can I purge your demons when they are one with your flesh?”
I sit beside the cell, inches away from her laying form. Her hair, now undone, flows in waves underneath her, and her clothes are ragged and torn, the grey cloth splattered and splotched with bile and blood.
“Come, Diana, turn your face toward me, let me see your eyes.”
She does as I say, the days of torment finally relinquishing her hold.
“There we go, perfect,” I say, adding a stroke of blue to the canvas, the perfect contrast to the bright red already marring the white surface.
“Why do you do this?” she asks, her gaze meeting mine.
“You know already.”
“But that’s not why.”
I pause, suddenly lost for words. This is a trick. It must be.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“You do this to all of your victims, the paintings?”
“Yes,” I set down the paintbrush, turning toward her completely, “Of course.”
“In the end, all of the victims end up looking the same, don’t they?”
“To a point,” I contend, watching her closely.
“You can’t go on forever. Soon you won’t get the same thrills and you’ll be caught.”
“Even if that were true, I have no alternative.”
“But you do,” she sits up, gazing at me passionately, “You’re attractive, rich, you could have any woman in the world if you wanted to. You could find women who want to do these things, who are more compliant, who require less effort. You don’t need to torture and kill to fulfill your sadistic drives. You can find compliant, willing, lustful women who can do all you want and more.”
I gaze at her silently for a moment, mulling over her words.
“You’re lying. You’re lying to save your own skin.”
“I’m not! You must have faith in your own virility! Think of the satisfaction of dominating a woman with your superior strength.”
“Do you really think I would believe a performance like that?” I stand, picking up my painting and brushes.
She stands, meeting my gaze, “Think about it. You are powerful, masculine. You have the world on your shoulders and the ability to share the load.”
I stare at her. Her eyes are not cold and calculating, they’re desperate, almost concerned. I turn away sharply, “Don’t pretend to care.”
“I’m trying to help you.”
I laugh harshly and carefully set the painting aside, “You’re trying to manipulate me.”
She looks between myself and the painting, “When you paint, you’re not painting the women. You’re painting yourself.”
Great, another tactic.
“What are you talking about?”
She gestures to the painting, “My eyes aren’t blue.”
I look back at the painting and then back at her. Neither of us speak. I feel fear roiling in my stomach, twisting along my intestines like a hot, slimy serpent.
“My eyes aren’t blue,” she repeats, “they’re brown.”
“No…”
“Don’t you see it now?”
I look at her again. Her eyes, good God her eyes. Weren’t they blue? But no, they were brown, they were dark, muddy brown. Nearly black.
“This is a trick. You’re tricking me.”
“All the paintings had blue eyes, didn’t they? All the women had blue eyes.”
I stare at her, numbness spreading through my bowels. I feel like my spine is misaligned, my ribs too small, my heart beating too fast.
She leans against the bars, staring me down, “Your eyes are blue.”
“I–”
"Brown wouldn’t have looked good in the paintings,” she says softly, “It wouldn’t have contrasted enough with the red.”
My hands are shaking, why are my hands shaking? I drop the paintbrushes, they clatter on the ground like sparrow bones. I grope for my pocket. The pen. I need to feel it, I need to scribble out those eyes, all those eyes.
I pull out the pen, my pen. I kneel down over the canvas. I just need to—I drop the pen.
It rolls beyond my reach, it rolls to the bars of the cell. I lurch for it but Diana picks it up quickly and backs away.
“Give it to me!” I hiss, desperately trying to reach my hand through the bars.
She idly twirls the pen in her fingers, the golden tip reflecting the dim cellar lights. She clicks, clicks, clicks it. Those lips, those perfect, terrible lips. They smile.
“Come in here and get it.”
I shove my hand in my pocket and pull out my keys, the tinkling of metal filling the stale air. Quickly, forcibly, I shove the key in the lock. With a final click, it turns, and the cell door swings open.
“Give me the pen, Diana,” I say, moving forward.
She clicks, clicks, clicks it. I see the tip, the ballpoint tip, go in and out, in and out, again and again and again.
“If I give it to you, you let me go,” she says firmly.
I lick my dry lips, watching only the pen. I nod.
“Yes.”
I step closer and she holds out her hand. We’re close, closer. I reach for it, for the pen, for myself.
A glint of gold, the pen is raised, I see it in an instant.
An impact, bursting hot pain in my left eye, spreading across my face. I stumble back, groping for face, my flesh, my eye. I fall on my back, my head ricocheting against the concrete, blood spurting across my face.
Through the film of blood and spotted darkness I see Diana, the pen still gripped tightly in her hand, the golden tip now obscured, red. She steps closer, her face a blank mask once more. She kneels and I feel as she tucks the pen back into my shirt pocket, the metal still warm with my blood.
She whispers, “For all it’s worth, you’re also my ninth.”