Body Art (2 page)

Its been a
while…

I deserve
it.

The tiniest of
smiles cracked Jeff’s face, the prospect of going in search of a
perfect beauty almost cheering him up. The mood was quickly
shattered as he rounded the rear end of the huge warehouse and was
confronted with the empty waste ground.

Where’s my
fucking car?

**

Ruth was
worried about Jeff. The previous night had been a surprise, a
pleasant one and everything had been going so well until they’d
reached the tube. His entire mood had changed just like that and
he'd been quiet ever since. Having the car stolen had done little
to improve his state of mind and he sat in his office drinking all
afternoon. It was now early evening and the bottle was down to the
last quarter when the phone rang.

“
Jeff,
its for you,” Ruth shouted up to the office.

“
Who is
it?” Jeff asked gruffly as he stumbled down the stairs.

“
The
Police.”

“
About
fucking time,” Jeff snapped and snatched the phone from Ruth,
waving her way as he raised it to his ear.

“
This is
Jeff Reardon,” he grumbled. “You found it yet?” He listened for a
moment. “I understand.” He gripped the phone until his knuckles
turned white. “No, that won’t be necessary. I’ll arrange to have it
collected.” Jeff hung up the phone and immediately reached for his
jacket.

“
You
going to be alright, dear?” Ruth asked from the kitchen
doorway.

“
Going
out.”

“
Where?”

“
None of
your business.” Jeff walked out the front door and slammed it
behind himself.

**

The officer had
given Jeff the address of where the car had been dumped. He’d had
no need to write it down. He knew it well. His company had put in a
tender for the design work on the new Olympic site and he’d scouted
the area whilst researching the project. They hadn’t got the
contract but Jeff knew the area like the back of his hand.

Taking the tube
would have saved time, but Jeff needed to think so he walked.
Things were getting out of hand and he had to bring it to an end
sooner rather than later. When he found the person responsible he’d
teach them not to fuck with Jeff Reardon.

The car had
been left where Jeff would see it upon his approach, displayed like
a work of art in a gallery… a gallery that was intended for Jeff
alone. The car was stood in the centre of a concrete desert and
surround by three walls. The scene was lit by cracked street lamps,
a dirty orange glow that gave it a sense of the unreal.

The walls
featured the faces and more of each stranger he'd ever spent his
special time with. It was a mural history of each life he'd taken
when the need had become too much to deny.

So many…

Jeff had never
kept count of his conquests… never taken a souvenir. He liked to
think that each one night stand was just that, a few hours with
that special person and then back to normal life. He wanted no
reminders of how it had felt to be with each beauty. Reminders
tended to dilute the experience.

Now he was
reminded from every angle and they all looked down at him with
accusations and hatred for what he'd reduced them to.

But the car
that was the coup de grace. She'd been rendered as if sprawled
across the body of the vehicle. Her head was on the hood, her hair
draped lusciously over the wing and across the wheels. Her pert
breasts covered the windscreen, the nipples seeming standing proud
of the glass. Her flat stomach arched across the roof and her legs
dangled wide down the rear of the car, revealing her damp sex.

Jeff walked
closer, eager to reach out and touch her once again.

“
Beautiful, wasn’t she?” asked a male voice from the
shadows.

“
What do
you want?” Jeff didn’t bother to look around.

“
I want
nothing from you.” The voice replied. “I just paint them… give them
new life.”

“
Then why
am I here?” Jeff shouted.

“
Because
it is what they wanted,” explained the voice.

“
What the
hell does that mean?”

“
Ask
them,” the voice whispered. “Only they know.”

Jeff stepped
closer to the car, watching as the skin began to peel away, the
paint bubbling as if heated from within and running down the
bodywork, only to reveal the tender flesh beneath. He reached out
and placed his hand on the roof of the car, his palm resting over
the swirl of her belly button.

“
What do
you want from me?”

“
To
feel.” The reply came from all angles, a harmonic sigh that
whispered to Jeff.

“
Why are
you doing this?” Jeff cried out. “You were the special
ones.”

“
How dare
you,” she snarled, her bloodied eyes snapping open and glaring at
Jeff. “You had no right.”

Jeff staggered
backwards, falling to his knees as tears blurred his vision yet he
still saw her raise from the car, paint becoming flesh as she
separated from the metal canvas. He swung his head from left to
right and witnessed them all being reborn, climbing down from the
walls and moving towards him.

“
I loved
you all,” Jeff sobbed, looking up into her eyes. “But I loved you
the most.”

“
Then let
me return that love,” She hissed at Jeff, dropping to her knees and
staring him in the face. “Let me show you how your love feels.” She
thrust a hand forward, penetrating skin and muscle.

Jeff felt the
searing pain in his gut and looked down at where her wrist
disappeared into his torso, blood staining the white shirt fresh on
that morning. His mouth opened and closed but no sound came.

“
Can you
feel me inside?” She probed with cold fingers. “Is it good for
you?” She leaned forward and ran her tongue along his check, the
unnatural roughness feeling like a thousand barbs as it tore the
skin away from the soft tissue under the surface.

They surrounded
him, hands reaching out to tear at his clothes and skin just as he
had with them. He wanted to scream but fingers pushed in around his
Adam’s apple and crushed it with inhuman pressure.

They continued
to crowd in on him, suffocating him with their eagerness to return
his perverse love. They tore at him with abandon, taking the flesh
and returning to the walls with their trophies and smearing the
remains over the concrete surface, using his fluids to paint a new
picture.

The entire time
she never left his side, holding him upright in her intimate
embrace, waiting until he was truly naked, exposed as he had once
exposed them.

“
Enough,”
she said, lifting Jeff to his feet and leading him towards the
wall, bloody footprints left in his path.

“
But I
loved you,” Jeff coughed through a throat full of blood.

“
You
don’t know the meaning of love,” they said as one. “But you will
come to learn the meaning of suffering.”

She pushed Jeff
against the gore smeared wall. The pain was like nothing Jeff had
ever felt before and he finally managed to scream, spraying the air
with a red mist as the sound bubbled up from his tattered
windpipe.

The scream died
as he became one with the wall, the wet blood drying around him as
his flesh bled into the concrete and he joined those he had once
loved.