New York
She had never seen eyes like his before.
She shuddered slightly as the piercing orbs bore into her like lasers. As if they were staring at her soul, searching for something elusive.
His eyes sparkled like chips of sapphire, the whites surrounding them unblemished but for the tiniest red veins which dared to intrude from his eye corners.
His gaze was unbroken even by the movement of his eyelids and, as he extended a hand to guide her backwards, she felt as if she were drowning in those eyes.
As she lay on the couch she finally closed her own eyes, aware now only of his presence beside her.
The room was dark.
There was little sound.
An occasional cough, muted and self-conscious. And there was his breathing. It became more laboured as he stood over her and he spoke something softly to her.
Without opening her eyes, she raised her hands and began unbuttoning her dress, exposing her stomach. As she touched the flesh of her abdomen she winced and sucked in a painful breath. She almost screamed aloud as she felt his hands touch her flesh. His fingers stroked and probed the area around her navel, pausing every so often over one particular place.
Lucy West lay perfectly still, aware only of the hands which roamed her lower body with swift urgent movements but conscious of the three large intestinal growths which nestled like bloated parasites within her.
The first doctor had suspected ulcers. Nothing more. Tests had shown them to be steadily growing abscesses but a second opinion had revealed what she herself had always suspected.
The growths were tumours. Malignant and deadly. She had been told that they were too far advanced for surgery to make any difference. At the most she might gain a six month reprieve. But of that there was no guarantee.
She felt the hands on her stomach, moving gently.
This man was her last hope.
Jonathan Mathias looked down at the woman on the couch, his brow furrowed. She was, he guessed, forty-five — five years older than himself but the ravages of pain and her disease had carved lines into her face which had no right to be there. She looked twice her age.
Mathias wore a dark shirt, the sleeves Of which were rolled up displaying thick, hairy forearms. As he continued to play his fingers over the woman’s abdomen, the muscles of his arms began to bulge, as if he were holding some great weight. His eyes rolled upward slightly so that she was only in the periphery of his vision. He began to breathe more deeply, less regularly. A bead of perspiration popped onto his forehead and trickled slowly past his left eye.
He sucked in a long breath and held it, raising his hands over the woman.
For what seemed like an eternity, neither moved nor made a sound.
Mathias’ eyes twisted in the sockets, then he suddenly plunged his hands down, as if to drive them through Lucy West’s body.
He grunted loudly, his palms pressed flat to her stomach. His fingers were splayed, quivering wildly. Then, with infinite slowness, he raised his hands an inch or two.
Beneath his palms, the flesh of her abdomen began to undulate in small, almost imperceptible, movements at first but then stronger, more urgent motions.
A bulge appeared just below her navel, the skin stretching to accommodate the pressure from within.
Mathias was shaking now, his hands still positioned mere inches from the woman’s stomach. Perspiration sheathed his forehead and face, glistening in clear droplets on the light hair of his arms.
There was another movement, another undulation, this time an inch or two above-her pubic mound.
Lucy West made no sound. No movement.
Mathias grunted something unintelligible, his fingers curling inward slightly as the third bulge began to streich the flesh until it was shiny. And finally, his eyes swivelled in the sockets until they were glaring down at his own hands.
At the movement beneath those hands.
His entire body jerked spasmodically, as if someone were pumping thousands of volts of electricity through him. His eyes narrowed to steely slits, his teeth clenched together until his jaw began to ache.
The skin just below Lucy West’s navel began to split open.
Like tearing fabric, it began as a tiny hole then gradually lengthened into a rent about five inches long.
Mathias began to breathe rapidly, his cheeks puffing with each sharp exhalation. He noticed a pungent odour as a second tear began to form beneath the first.
There was no blood. Only the smell. A rancid stench of pus which rose like an invisible cloud to envelop him.
He watched as the third razor-thin cut began to open.
Still Lucy West did not move.
Mathias drew in a deep, almost agonised breath and held it, his face contorted unnaturally for interminable seconds. The sensation of heat which he felt in his fingertips began to spread until it seemed to fill his entire body. He felt as if he were on fire. More sweat dripped in salty beads from his face.
He glared down at his hands.
At her stomach.
At the three long thin splits in her flesh. ‘Yes,’ he grunted, his fingers twisting inward like hooked claws.
Something began to move in the cut above her pelvis. Something thick and solid. It was ovoid in shape, a reeking egg-shaped lump which nudged through the cleft of flesh as if coaxed by Mathias. His eyes bulged madly in their sockets as he saw the growth and his body began to shake with increased intensity.
From the cut below her navel another bloodied clot of dark brown matter began to rise.
The three narrow tears drew back like obscene lips, expelling their foul contents, and Mathias reached feverishly for the three rotting growths, scooping them into his hands like so many putrescent eggs.
His fingers closed around the lumps and a single droplet of pus dribbled through and ran down his arm as he raised both hands into the air above the unmoving body of Lucy West.
Mathias kept his eyes fastened on the trio of wounds, now slightly reddened at the edges. He closed his eyes tightly, body still shaking, the growths held aloft like grisly trophies. A vile stench surrounded him, almost palpable in its intensity, yet he seemed not to notice it. As he snapped his eyes open once more he looked down to see that the three rents had closed. The skin looked as smooth and unblemished as before he had begun.
For a moment he stood sentinel over her motionless form.
Another man, younger than Mathias, came forward carrying a shallow stainless steel bowl. He held it before Mathias who slowly lowered his arms, opening his hands to allow the growths to tumble into the bowl with a liquid plop. The man handed Mathias a towel, then retreated back into the shadows.
‘Sit up,’ Mathias said to the woman, his voice a low whisper.
Lucy West struggled upright, aided by Mathias’ outstretched hand,, and once more she found herself gazing into those hypnotic twin orbs of blazing blue.
‘It is done,’ he told her.
Lucy coloured slightly, aware that her dress was still open. With shaking fingers she began to button it once more. Mathias noticed her slight hesitation as she reached her stomach, the flicker of anxiety behind hei eyes as she reached her navel.
He beckoned to his assistant and the younger man returned, carrying the bowl.
Mathias took it from him and held it before Lucy.
She looked in at the growths. They reminded her of rotten plums but for their pale colour. The dark tinge which they’d had earlier seemed to have drained from them, creating the small amount of blood which was puddled in the bottom of the bowl.
She touched her stomach tentatively, both relieved and surprised to find that there was no pain. She pressed harder.
No pain.
It was at that point she broke down.
Tears flooded down her cheeks and she gripped Mathias’ hand, as if threatening to wrench it off. He smiled thinly at her, those brilliant blue eyes twinkling with an almost blinding iridescence.