Nocturnes and Other Nocturnes Read Free Page B

those who couldn’t see or didn’t know how to look. Invariably, they trusted him. In Ted’s desires, they found a comfort, a refuge, from the darkness that gnawed at them.
    In the case of his mother, though, it had taken him years to recognize his desire. Perhaps because it had been masked by their bond as mother and son. Sometimes, he had doubts that his mother had really intended for him to take her uterus. She had been so drunk that night (the last night of her life) and depressed at having been dumped by a co-worker after less than three weeks of dating. But his instincts had always been true, and the urge was so powerful that night as she sobbed and spewed her sorrow and loneliness, sitting across from him on her ratty old couch.
    His ratty old couch, now.
    ~
    Still, in the darkness, when sleep would not come, Ted found himself remembering Nicole’s naked body as she slept after sex. For brief moments, he relished the tenderness that accompanied the memory.
    Sometimes, his donors – both women and men – wanted to have sex with him. He often complied, but never again did he feel that tenderness toward anyone.
    To soothe his ache, he recalled all those beautiful body parts he kept in the basement and the intensity of the attraction that had compelled him to collect them. Summoning his desire for the items in his collection aroused him. He masturbated then and, after ejaculation, slipped into sleep.
    ~
    Ted was having a restless night when the doorbell rang at 2:15 a.m. It was getting harder and harder for him to sleep.
    He barked “What is it!” as he opened the front door, dressed in his pyjamas.
    Even in her thirties, she could grin coquettishly.
    With an awe that surprised him, Ted said her name: “Nicole.”
    ~
    He had talked to her about his collection for two hours before she interrupted him. Instantly, Ted was seized by both an insight and a realization. The realization: he had not even asked Nicole why she was here. The insight: what he missed was complicity. Only two people had ever offered him that: Doc ... and Nicole.
    He’d been stupid not to cultivate a relationship with her. The years he’d wasted!
    “Are you even listening to me?”
    Ted had missed her first few sentences. “I’m sorry. It’s a shock seeing you. A good shock, though.”
    She blushed, and then regrouped: “Ted, I need you. I need you to do this.”
    “Do what?”
    “Take it. Take my whole right leg. You have to do it.”
    “But...” Ted didn’t want to disappoint her.
    “But what? I was right! You’re still collecting. Collect my leg. Please.”
    “But I only collect when I feel the urge, the desire. It has to feel right. Necessary.”
    “So what? This isn’t for you. It’s for me. I need this. And you can do it. Do this for me. I can pay you. My husband is rich. We could hire anyone to do it, but I want it – I need it – to be you.”
    There it was, the complicity. But – “Husband?” He blurted the word out as a disdainful question. Immediately, he regretted it.
    “Yes. But it doesn’t matter who he is. I told him about us, and he agreed that you should be the one to do it. We need this. It’s not enough anymore, just the toes. We need more. Please.”
    There was a terrible feeling in the pit of Ted’s stomach while he mouthed the words of his acquiescence.
    ~
    She really did pay him. Or, rather, her husband did. One week after the amputation, a fifty-thousand-dollar cheque came by courier.
    Still, Ted felt impoverished. He knew he would never see Nicole again. But that was the lesser of his two losses.
    On the floor of his basement, he laid out the items in his collection. (Nicole’s leg was not among them.) He had amassed more than half a whole human body. He was still missing a head, a torso, a neck, and several internal organs. But he had a brain, two lungs, both arms, a stomach, an eye ... and so much else.
    He rearranged the items. He stared at them. Focused on them.
    He had feared this, yet he