“PUT ME BACK TOGETHER THIS INSTANT!” Marrionetta’s voice pierced Lorelei’s inner eardrum. Several of his favorite flasks exploded. A shard cut his cheek in a low arc.
He brought his hands to his ears after the fact. He squidged around inside them with his fingers. “Ahh,” he whispered in pain.
“I mean this instant!” Marrionetta followed up her demand with a rasp. She was dismantled on the wall. Her legs open at contorted angles. Her hands disconnected from her wrists disconnected from her fingers (a safety precaution). He had mapped out her ribs along the wall like a museum display. Every part of her wriggled towards freedom. So much so that the walls were as alive as soil germinating with earthworms. He made a point to remount her pieces every morning and every night before he slept.
Her pelvis was sitting on his desk. He had hooked it up to several wires. Prior to the ear piercing scream, he had been sketching out an elaborate electrical blueprint with her pelvis at its center.
He menaced her with a screwdriver but it was useless. She was free to scream and rage and he was not able to restrain this one part of her. Anytime he got close to her mouth to unpeg her tongue from the incessant jaw, she would bite him with such force that he had already had to resew some fingers. He had even tried to stuff her mouth with cotton but she had worked free of it each time and he no longer valued the effort. Still, the power of her shrillness needed dealing with.
She spat at the screwdriver. “I’ll take you apart, love. I’ll take you apart in ways you never thought possible. You think I’ve got seams? I’ll show you perforation as its never been attempted!”
“For the last time, be silent.”
“Last time! Last times! He wants to talk about last times! I’ll show you end times, you maggot eating, velvet stricken, sodden splatch laden filthy evil urine drinker! I’ll feed you to hairless moles and strap your mother in a briar’s patch of dildos as big as tree trunks!”
“If I’m learning anything, dearest, it’s that I should never put you back together again. In fact, when I’m through, I think I’ll just toss you in for kindling.”
Marrionetta fell silent for the first time in weeks. Kindling. Is that what would become of her? Ash at the bottom of a fireplace? Perhaps he’d make tea with her. The idea was so undignified. So preposterous. Everyone would know it was him. Blame clearly didn’t bother him but he did not even fear being caught? So he meant to flee then. He would use her, destroy her, and then take off to some other spot, a different circus maybe, leaving behind a signatured murder of an acclaimed performer such as herself. What a colossal bastard, she realized. He really thought his actions would never catch up with him.
Her extended reflection turned the room a deadly chill. Lorelei noticed her vibrations had changed. He became agitated.
“I won’t use you for kindling,” he blurted and then immediately wondered why he would say anything to comfort her. He wasn’t even sure if he meant it. Then he felt uneasy. He hadn’t felt anything less than certain in….in…. the unease gave way to a panicky, quickend pulse. Momentarily, he felt faint.
“Unless I want to,” he asserted and took a deep breath that he hoped was inaudible. He furiously dedicated himself back to his work to put the strange atmosphere out of his mind.
But something unspoken had already passed between them and Marrionetta remained frighteningly silent for the rest of the evening.
x9dread 