Horror Stories - A Place to Stay

 The following story contains profound language, mild sexual references, and adult themes.

Some people are just born ugly. Others bring it upon themselves: eating shit, drinking and smoking. They deserve it. I’m neither of these people. My beauty was taken from me, and everything I had went with it. I can’t even look at myself anymore. I’m hideous, I might as well be dead. Nobody can live with a body like this. In all of Las Angeles, no surgeon can help me. “It’s the grafts, it’s a graft’s, Rose,” they’d say, “they’re not ready. Just a few more years.” They spit out offerings from their perfect lips with their perfect teeth and perfect fucking faces before I need their help, now they turn the other cheek when I actually do need it. They’re all fucking useless. All of them, except for William.

William Gem, my saviour. Oh god, I can’t even begin to explain my relief when William found me. He’d been a fan of mine before the accident, and wanted the old me back just as much as I did. I owe him my life. I’ll give him everything he wants. Fucking everything .

 

Standing naked in the doorway of this depressing clinical surgery room, I have a horrible feeling in my stomach. I’m not worried. I’m just stripped from cover, and repulsive. I know I am.

He turns around from one of his table trays, all dressed up in his cap and gown with his gloves. This is really happening. “Are we ready, darling?” he asks, walking over to me without a hint of repression; I have no idea how. If I looked the way I used to, he would be on his knees right now.

I feel ill. I’ve never been this open with my body after the accident. His adoring gaze assures me of innocence, the right to a second chance, that nothing is my fault. He’s so handsome and mature, so gentle and warm; the settling down type, the marrying type, the loving type. I so badly want to kiss him, but I can’t. Not like this, with these lips. My eyes start to water.

He wipes the tears away. “It’ll be alright, Rose,” he says in his soothing voice, smiling; and I can’t help but smile either, looking away, trying to hold everything in. I just want this to be over. “Ready?”

I nod, thankful we’re moving on. He takes my hand and leads me to the bed. I lay down on the papery cloth. From behind me, William holds the mask over my mouth, slowly caressing my hair while he sends me under. “William?” I ask, his gorgeous face blurring before my eyes.

“Yes, Rose?”

Falling from the world, my life in his hands, I try to thank him, and then I am gone.

The feeling returns to my skin: the wetness and the heat, and the sounds of music and shouting and laughter; all the things I remember. Bathing with the girls at the pool, I’m surrounded by love. Trisha, Dani, Crystal, everyone’s here with me. All our expenses paid by Francis for the three day shoot. Nobody can take their eyes off me. They know who I am. Everybody knows who I am. I’m in heaven. The way it should be. The way it was, and the way it will be again.

The studio camera captures my beauty, storing it for eternity. The soft studio lights warm my flawless hot body while Francis rubs up against me from behind. I’m gorgeous. I reach up and feel his neck, pushing my nails through his hair. I’m so fucking wet, and Francis knows it. He grabs and tears apart the $500 dress he bought me, and I don’t even care. The heat hits my bare chest and abs; and with eyes closed, I feel his lips on my neck, and those giant hands wrapped around my juicy tits. I want him. I am his.

He fucks me on the black suede sofa, his giant body on top of mine, both of us sweating under the lights.

I look into his fierce eyes, “Faster.”

A horn blares out of nowhere, and I turn to see two headlights obliterate us.

I scream in utter blackness.

“Rose,” I hear under a clattering noise. “It’s alright, darling. It’s alright.”

“William?” I call out, confused and blind in this abyss, trying to reach out to him and to take this fucking mask off—but I can’t feel anything. “William?!” I panic.

“I’m here, Rose.” He takes my hand, I think, and I hear him reaching over me.

“I can’t see!”

“It’s alright. That’s normal.”

“I can’t—I—What’s going on?” The gas mask grows louder, drowning everything out.

“You just woke up, darling. It’s fine, you’ll be back under soon.”

I can’t take it. I need to know. “William,” I quickly ask, his voice leaving me, “am I beautiful?”

“You’re looking gorgeous, Rose.”

I leave a sigh of relief behind as a proper place forms around me. I feel someone inside me again. It’s Lewis. I push him back and instinctively look out the car windows.

“What’s up?” He asks, puzzled.

We’re parked up the back at the drive-in theatre, with Judgement Day on the big screen, and the speakers next to the front windows. I start to calm down.

“What’s wrong?” He asks again.

I look at him, at his clean, cute freckled face and blue eyes. He’s still inside me, although a little flaccid. I smile, pull him in by his hair and kiss him, exhaling, “Nothing. Keep going.”

He leans back to grab his camera. I roll my eyes, “No, Lewis.”

Slowly he pushes into me, smiling back, “Come o-o-on , Lexi baby . You know the camera loves you.”

My shy smile disappears and I stop him, “What?”

He laughs, “What ?”

“What did you call me?”

The voices from the film become louder and more familiar, and I turn to see where they’re coming from. Lewis and I are in the kitchen back home, hand in hand at the table across from my parents, who both look exhausted.

I know why we’re here.

“School’s more important, Lexi.” Dad says, butting a cigarette in an already full ashtray. Mum’s cigarette has almost gone out.

“Dad, I already know enough, that’s what I’m trying to tell you.”

He speaks through his drag, “You won’t get any respect doin’ fashion.”

Says the fucking loser in the stained blue-collar shirt.

“I get more respect now than I ever did.” My voice is rising. I’ve been through this so many times with them.

Dad goes to speak, but stops himself and acknowledges Lewis for a moment. I look to Mum, expecting her to help me, pissed off she hasn’t spoken up yet. She never says anything. I can tell by the look in her face that she wants what’s best for me, but this look alone isn’t enough to persuade him.

Lewis breaks the tension, “The plans and contracts I’ve got lined up for the two of us can take us to America. She’s very talented,” he adds in his honest, compelling voice, “she’ll go far there.”

Dad sits there, tapping his cigarette over the ashtray obsessively, “And what’s gonna’ happen when it’s all over?” He looks at Lewis, “What’s gonna’ happen when she gets older and she’s not fit to do it anymore? What then? Where’s she gonna’ go?”

“I’ll stay in America and work in the industry,” I say, confronting him.

“Oh yeah,” he chuckles, “doin’ what?”

“Makeup, Dad! Jesus. Anything! I don’t care!”

“Makeup,” he says, unimpressed.

“Lexi, honey,” Mum tries to stop me.

“Why can’t you just be happy for me? I’m doing something I like , and I’ll get paid more than you do anyway!”

Mum raises her voice over mine, “Lexi.”

I can see her struggling, which makes it harder for me. Lewis and I look at her while the old man stares me down. Her voice breaking under a sore throat, “Can I talk to you for a minute, honey?” She stands up, and there’s a moment of pause. I look to Lewis, worried about him. He gives me a glance of assurance, one only we could understand.

Without even looking at Dad, I get up, and follow Mum into the passage, down into their room. I struggle to refrain from slamming the door behind us. “Why won’t you speak up for me?” Without even answering, Mum starts going through the top shelf in the cupboard. “Lewis and I are trying to tell him something and you’re just sitting there!” I don’t know what the hell she’s doing. I hope she’s looking for a secret stash of money to wish me well with, probably saved up from years worth of going through the old dickhead’s pockets after his drinking nights.

“I want you to go, Lexi,” Mum finally says, rummaging through the clutter.

“Then why don’t you tell him?!”

She comes away from the cupboard with a folder, “Come on. Sit down.”

I sigh, irritated, “Mum we don’t have time for this. Lewis is waiting and—”

“Just sit down,” she says again.

Wanting to get this over with, I just comply. She joins me on the bedside, then rests the old photo album on our laps and flips through to my kindergarten years. Something sparks from the warmth of her next to me, and makes me realise: Mum isn’t like me; she can’t run away. She’s stuck here. My god, I didn’t even notice I’d be leaving her behind all alone. Before I can even apologise she smiles through her worn face and says to me, “Look.”

In the photo, I’m sitting on Dad’s lap at the table with my childhood friends. “It’s your sixth birthday party,” Mum says.

Everyone’s laughing, there’s cake all over our faces, with streamers and party hats, and the whole shebang. I don’t remember this. I can’t remember Dad laughing, nor laughing around him. I don’t remember any of it.

“Look how happy you are,” She says, watching the tears build up in my eyes, blurring my vision. Christmas, birthdays, celebrations, weekends, all the fun we had together. “Lexi, look at me,” she says; and I do, trying not to fall apart. “I want you to be happy,” She takes me to the mirror. We stand before it, her hands clasped around my arm.

“But this isn’t you , honey.”

Next to her in skimpy clothes with a body pale and sickly stands a skeletal girl. My face withered and drained; my eyes sunken and dark. I am just skin and bones.

I run my thin fingers along my collarbone, then along the protruded ribs under my shirt. I’m a walking corpse.

I can’t breathe. I feel dizzy and sick. Struggling to keep me up, Mum holds onto me as I fall to the ground.

One of my eyes opens. I see a mouth—my mouth—dry reaching; choking in an eyeless head with empty sockets, attached to something horrible I can’t match with anything.

“William?!” I try to scream out, but watch and smell a searing ounce of bile erupt from my throat, landing back onto my face and the things around it, some of it splashing into the open sockets. Coughing up more, I hear clanging coming from somewhere, but can only hear it through one ear—I don’t know which one.

My other eye opens, but it’s somewhere else, blurring out and crossing everything over. I see a fat pulpy thing breathing profusely, pausing when my burning throat swallows, the thing next to it beating faster and faster beneath the skin. Coughing, choking on the stomach acid in my mouth, I scream out as loud as I can, hearing more clatter and banging, but no voice.

“William!!”

I try to move. A hand rises up from out of sight in front of me—wherever I am. I see him, and try to reach out, “William,” I plea, but he ignores me as he approaches one side of what I now am. He refuses to look at me as he sticks a syringe into something on this thing I’m apart of, and pushes my hand aside to inject something else into whatever’s behind me. Unknowing if I’m crying, in the dying vision I watch my mouth tremble as I beg him to kill me.

My sobbing carries me into Mum’s arms again. I’m wrapped around her, my face buried into her stomach. I look her up into her eyes, and bawl from the bottom of my heart, “Mum, I’m so sorry!” I hold onto her tightly, “God, I’m so sorry I left you! I’m so sorry I ran away! I love you so much! ”

She holds me, “Hey, it’s alright, honey.”

I fall apart in her arms, “Please, don’t let me go back! Don’t let me go back, Mum . Oh god I don’t want to go back there again!”

“You don’t have to go anywhere , Lexi honey,” She caresses my hair as I wail. “You can stay here for as long as you want. You can stay here forever.”