From Eiriel with Hate
A new blast of perversion from Cesare Weltschmerz
The day room reeked of antiseptic and stale hospital food. Brendan had gotten out of a DUI, but it came at the cost of spending Valentine’s Day—which was also his birthday—in the psych ward. Not to be discouraged, he intended to make the most of it, starting with this first group session.
“Not proud of it, but this is...like my fifth time being committed in the last eighteen months,” he explained. “Three of those times, it was my co-workers at the hospital who had me committed. I loved my job—I’d even signed up for nursing school—but with the long hours, I’d forget to take my meds sometimes.”
He hadn’t forgotten; he just hated the way they made him feel, like his mind was being consumed by the sterile grayness of a cold, autumnal void. So he’d stopped taking them.
“I want to get better, I really do. It’s just that I’ve been fucked up for so long that I don’t even know what normal is anymore. I hate being like this.”
He paused to gauge the reaction of his intended target—Sheri, was it? Sheri’s jet-black bangs, her septum ring, her sympathetic smile, and the self-harm scars on her arms were all green flags for him. Brendan had hooked up with plenty of girls like her while he was a tech in the ER. The nurses couldn’t always stop him from slipping into the rooms of certain psych patients on busy nights.
“You’re a goddamn liar.”
It was Nick with the stringy brown locks and silly backwards flat cap. He glared at Brendan from his chair by the window. Brendan had hardly slept thanks to him. They shared a room, and Nick, who suffered from night terrors, spent most of the night talking crazy shit in his sleep. Now he dared to try calling Brendan out in front of everyone.
“Now, Nicholas,” said Tabitha, the ward’s therapist, who, despite approaching middle age, maintained an athletic, petite frame. “Brendan didn’t interrupt you during your turn.”
“Yeah, Nicky,” Brendan sneered. “What’s your deal?”
Nick got up and stood over Brendan, almost hyperventilating in anger.
“Don’t call me that.”
A dedicated bodybuilder, Brendan could have easily punted Nick across the room. Not wanting to ruin the chance to get closer to Sheri, he tried to stay calm.
“Please sit down, Nicholas,” Tabitha interjected.
“Shut up, you ugly skank.”
“Man, sit the fuck down!” Brendan shouted, shoving Nick hard enough to send him reeling back into his chair and knocking his hat off. The other members of the group snickered at the sight of Nick’s unfortunate hairline. Even Tabitha had to cover her face with her clipboard.
Nick lunged, grabbing Brendan by the throat, who was caught off guard by the smaller man’s rage-induced strength.
“Cameron, we need you right now!” Tabitha yelled down the hall.
Brendan had pried Nick’s fingers loose when Cameron rushed in and grabbed Nick under his arms.
“Cocksuckaaaaa!” Nick shrieked, nearly succeeding in thrashing and kicking himself loose. Hal, another orderly, entered the room with a syringe at the ready. Nick lay prone with Cameron’s knee in his back. Hal injected him in the buttocks.
“Cocksuckers,” Nick growled, his voice beginning to falter. “You’re all gonna...all gonna...be...sorry.”
“Little motherfucker bit me.” Cameron spat, examining his arm.
The orderlies hauled the now snoring Nick to the observation room.
“I think that’ll be enough for today,” declared Tabitha, adjusting her glasses. “Are you okay, Brendan?”
“I’m good,” he replied, rubbing his neck.
Tabitha stopped Brendan as he was heading to his room.
“Would now be a good time to go over your treatment plan?”
“I got nowhere to be,” Brendan said with a grin.
Same as his last visit, Brendan fucked Tabitha on her desk with all the vigor circumstances would permit. When she came, she crossed her ankles, digging her heels into the small of his back and biting down on his shoulder until she drew blood.
“You never called,” she said while pulling on her slacks.
“My bad. As I said, I’ve been off my meds. You wouldn’t wanna deal with all that, trust me. Lemme make it up to you. We could have a lot more fun if we weren’t in this tiny office. So, can you help me out?”
“Fine,” she said, removing the pill bottle from her purse. When he reached for it, she snatched it away.
“If you don’t call, you’d better get yourself sent somewhere else next time.”
“Aw, c’mon, Tabby.”
When she handed him the bottle, Brendan grabbed her under the jaw and kissed her hard enough for their teeth to scrape together. Parting with a mischievous smirk, he returned to his room to wait for the shift change.
*
“You can go seven-a-pill on these, easy,” said Brendan, slipping the bottle to Devin, the night orderly. “I just need like two hours without anybody snooping around.”
Devin pocketed the pills.
“I got you. Just make sure you’re back in your room before one.”
Sheri had a room to herself. It was completely still in the dimness when Brendan entered. A sliver of light from the bathroom shone on the linoleum.
“Sheri,” Brendan whispered with a light rap on the bathroom door. “It’s Brendan. You wanna fool around?”
“Just a sec,” she slurred. They must have had her on some strong meds. All the better, as far as Brendan was concerned. “I want to ache ‘yself ‘retty or you.”
Brendan found himself with a hard-on he had to conceal in his waistband. Two psych ward conquests in a single day was a new record.
The bathroom door squealed open. Brendan’s arousal was instantly hijacked by horrified disgust.
“What the fuck, Sheri?”
His late-night lover embraced him with a skeletal leer, all gleaming, cadaverous forehead and exposed muscle tissue. In her dripping hand, she clutched the razor blade she’d used to deface herself.
“What’s wrong?” she implored, bulging, lidless eyes welling up with tears. “Don’t you think eye’n ‘retty? He said I’d ‘ee ‘retty!”
“Devin!” Brendan screamed, sprinting down the hall.
“Devin!”
No answer.
Brendan ran to his room and pressed the call button, nearly tripping over a piece of clothing.
A straitjacket.
Nick stood in a beam of moonlight with his back to the hall, staring out the window in nothing but his boxers.
“Nick? What the fuck are you doing here?”
“I have wandered dissonant worlds where mad gods hold sway over the blind, stunted abominations of their own making,” Nick spoke in a voice that was not his own. The room’s shadows began peeling away from their rightful places to converge in a swirling mass above Nick’s head. Brendan knew it was long past time to retreat, but his limbs refused to obey his mind’s frantic imprecations.
“Where the oceans and rivers belch sulfurous winds that rend flesh from bone.”
The twisting knot of shadows protruding from Nick’s head took on a definite shape.
“Where mothers must devour their newborns before their brood can devour them.”
A human form, black with a darkness beyond all earthly reckoning, floated upside down, tethered to Nick at the head by a writhing, semi-translucent umbilicus. The figure slowly righted itself until its feet touched the floor. Brendan stood face to face with a man wearing a trench coat and a black trilby. His eyes glowed yellow from a face like a rotten gourd, ringed with the greasy fuzz of a scarlet neckbeard.
“Where the sky is a vault of perpetual gloom, alive and storming with phosphorescent visions that presage madness and carnage,” the man proclaimed. He placed a hand on Brendan’s shoulder, his expression wrought by jovial malignancy.
“You weren’t really about to run out on your date, were you?” he asked. “This is an evening for romance, after all. Now go get her, tiger.”
Turning to face the darkened doorway, Brendan beheld Sheri, her lipless grin concealing unspeakable desires.