The Burning Heart of Night by Ivan Cat

Author:Ivan Cat
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Published: 2011-10-31T16:44:18+00:00

PART FIVE:

DANCE OF THE LITTLE WORMS

XXXVIII

She imagines Feral lovemaking as she lies on the cold surface. She imagines a year's bottled passion, brewing, building, like magma doming up under bedrock, then releasing in a single glorious night of union. She imagines tenderness. Orgasms of radiance.

No restraints, no muzzles, no blindfolds.

Those are Sacrament.

Tables side by side. Medical spotlights glare in a sterile operating room. A figure in hooded surgical greens inserts the needles, runs TVs from human veins into those of a domestic. A litany of pseudo-religion spills from the hooded figure's mouth. The Body Pure. The Body Pure. Blessed be the Body Pure. The domestic makes no sound, tries to be brave.

Her mind wants to flee, but every cell in her body thirsts, giddy for the nectar that will keep her alive.

The hooded figure activates the transfusion. Milky ochre flows in the tubes from the domestic to her. Machines pump worthless plasma back into the alien. A faint salt and blood smell burns in her sinuses.

Now the domestic whimpers. It hurts. And there can be no anesthetic. That would taint the transfusion. It will hurt the domestic a lot more as the process nears its end. But that is not the worst thing about Sacrament.

The worst thing about Sacrament is how much she loves it.

When the immune venom hits her blood, it hurts for a while. A horrible burning, as if each and every one of her cells is on fire. And she is glad of this, for while there is pain, she feels less ashamed, less guilty. At least she is suffering for her sins. But once enough of it circulates in her veins, it turns off switches in her brain. Her conscience disappears. Boundaries crumble. And the euphoria hits. Glorious, self-preserving, self-centered bliss. She cannot stop now, no matter how the domestic wails.

And it wails.

(In her state she wishes to think of the quadruped only as "it." Not as "him." Not as "friend.") She cares not.

Sight and sound accelerate the rush. How much horror-pleasure time elapses, she cannot gauge. She wants it to go on forever, to draw every last succulent drop of immune venom. No matter the consequences.

But the hooded figure stops the flow.

The golden sense of well being trickles away. She rails. Threatens. Begs. Despicably. But the hooded figure will not reopen the flow. And she cannot. She, like the domestic, is also strapped to her table.

Doesn't the figure understand? Doesn't it know how badly she needs the Sacrament to go on?

Against her will, she ramps down.

Of course the figure knows. All the colonists know. This is the way they survive. Some, this knowledge breaks. Others, it makes hard. How long, she wonders, can it go on?

When is enough too much?

Her mother believed that never was too much. Her mother let herself die to prove her conviction. Sometimes, the woman on the Sacrament table wishes her mother had taken her with her. And sometimes, like now, the woman hates her mother for abandoning her to face the misery alone.

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