Last Night's Episode

By Shalane L. Weidow

What happens when the thin line between reality and nightmare no longer exists?



She's sitting backstage, in costume, of a small-budget play, waiting for her cue. Recognizing the lines before, she stands, straightening her dress and ready to play to an empty house. It's only one of a week of dress rehearsals and she's not too worried about remembering a line or motion, since they're like second nature now. She pauses, waiting for the cue and walks calmly into the scene.

The lady, main character of the play, motions towards her and she walks forward, remembering the customary curtsy and delivers a mundane line; nodding and then finding a way off the other side of the stage. Scene done. There is a smattering of applause from the stage manager and the costumers biding their time in the first rows of the auditorium, watching the way the scene plays, checking the balance of costumes and seeing what needs to altered through the material, written or worn.

She sighs, off stage again and waits to take her turn at the dressing rooms, removing in minutes what took a half hour to put on just right. She's stripped down to the plain cotton slip the director insisted on, for authenticity, when the knock on the door comes. She can't be surprised, the knock always comes. She calls out she's getting changed and she'll be out in a minute. The voice on the other side of the door, which she recognizes as the assistant stage manager, Judy, calls out the director wants her on stage. The lady of the play has fallen and twisted an ankle. They need a replacement and want her to try for it. She's shocked.

The main reason the female lead was chosen was for her singing ability. She can't sing! How do they expect her to fill this part? Still, she puts her outfit back on and wanders out to the stage, which has been emptied in preparation for the next scene. The stage hands stand around, watching her progress and she holds up a hand to shield her eyes, peers out into the auditorium, seeking the face of the director. She sees him, the sandy blonde hair brushed back from a face too smug in it's self-assuredness. Her stomach flip-flops and she determines to badly damage whatever scene they want her to play. She doesn't want this part and they aren't going to saddle her with it.

He calls out the scene to her and asks her to play the lines for him, go through the movements she knows so well from watching her counterpart on stage. The scene before her own entrance. Despite her determination, the scene walks out smoothly, she knows the stage direction and mapping too well to able to mess it up. Half asleep and mind-wandering, she goes through the motions with a modicum of emotion.

There's a moment of nightmare as the scene ends and she realizes what she's done. The director is impressed and immediately tells her she's been recast. The director leers at her with something akin to a foreknowledge realized. She shivers involuntarily at the interminable hunger in the shadows of his eyes. Another creature hovers there, feeding off her fear and confusion. The lights dim and the stage disappears.

Her eyes recover from a blind spell provoked by a chance encounter with a dying sun outside the theater. Her director finds a spot outside the door behind her and calls out for her to wait for him. She pauses, reluctantly, and feels his approach before she sees him. He congratulates her on the increase in pay scale for the play and lets her know the girl she's replacing will be fine in time, but only after the play. She gently reminds him she cannot sing. He brushes it aside with a waves and says he promised the girl her full pay if she would still sing from behind a curtain. All she'll have to do is mouth the words.

She's dismayed and disgusted at the deception, but also relieved. She pauses at the bus stop and the director looks confused for a moment. He motions her on and says he'd like to buy dinner for the two of them and talk over her promotion in the play. She refuses, saying she really needs to get home, as she has a class at the local college within an hour. He looks impressed, though the feeling never reaches his eyes. He says he'll accompany her part of the way, as he should probably go home himself. She's never seen him take this line before and almost remembers his car in the parking lot outside the theater.

She says nothing more and waits for the silver chariot to speed her through the downtown traffic towards home. An empty seat at the front seems to prompt the director to sit with her, chatting constantly although she offers no response - he doesn't really seem to need one, answering his own questions for her.

Abruptly, there's a moment of confusion and her vision blurs, head swims and she emerges into a darkened slide of reality. The director lends twisted smile her way and reaches into the front of her shirt, trapping a nipple between thumb and forefinger, easily manipulating the twisting of her body against him into a tight embrace.

Attempting to writhe away from him is having no effect and the betrayal of acceptance her body portrays only urges him onward, his free hand sliding between her legs and prodding furiously. She squirms, trying to work free of his questing hands, but only succeeds in triggering the sensitive spots on her body. He eagerly responds and he whispers in her ear that her response pleases him. He is delighted her body recognizes him and is ready to bear him children.

Unable to think coherently through the electric current surging through her veins, she stills slightly to listen to his words - anything to distract her from the fire settled between her thighs. There's a flutter in her stomach she doesn't recognize as disgust or fear and concentrates harder on the breathy voice caressing her ear. He knows her body will welcome his seed and they will produce powerful children. She will be queen over all she cares to dominate and he will bring an ecstasy to her body she has never known - nor will ever know from anyone else.

The flutter in her stomach grows to nausea and she pleads with him to stop his ministrations. He laughs cruelly and turns her to face him. His eyes have gone a flat black tinged in red around the cornea, the air from his mouth foul and fetid. He slides a hand up her leg, under the modest skirt and she feels his fingers caressing the most intimate part of her. But something is wrong and she leans back against the cold steel of the bus wall, pulling the skirt aside to see what is moving besides his fingers.

Fighting back the revulsion threatening to spill her lunch onto the floor, he watches him pull a tiny, pink squid-like body from inside her. He looks disappointed in her and clucks his tongue like a faultfinding father. Yet, without hesitation, he puts the tiny body into his mouth and swallows it whole, reaching back into her to pull out a handful more; each is consumed with the same care.

Unable to resist any longer, she vomits forcefully, coating the director's shoes and pushes his groping fingers away. She stands, catching herself before she falls painfully against the bars by the bus steps and demands to be let off. The driver leers laviciously at her, but complies, dumping her onto the steps of a bed-and-breakfast she recognizes.

She stumbles at the curb and catches herself on hands and knees, vomiting again. Her head swims and a faint, friendly voice calls out to her. The proprietess comes down the stairs of the old Victorian quickly and kneels next to her, placing a comforting arm around her shoulders. She resists the temptation to push the lady away and hears the brakes of the bus release behind her, pulling away from the curb.

A stronger pair of hands find her waist and helps lift her from the ground. It's the director. All the malice has drained away from his face and the eyes are back to the neutral blue she recognizes. The concern and genuine wish to help come as more of a surprise than if he had been the self-same sexual terrorist on the bus. He explains to the frightened proprietess they had been sharing a seat on the bus coming back from the theater and she had fallen into a fitful sleep, from which she had woken violently and expelled her hasty lunch all over his feet. Indeed, as he shows the residue left and the friendly lady offers the hospitality of the establishment to let him freshen up and her to rest for a while.

She pushes herself away from the gentle, patient arms around her waist - now too familiar from whatever waking nightmare had occurred on the bus and stumbles forward of her own accord toward the eyelet opening of a stained-glass door in the front of the building.

Finding a soft divan in the front hallway, she collapses, knowing her legs will not support her much further. The director squats, distressed, in front of her and offers to find some refreshment to help settle her obviously upset stomach. She nearly cringes away from his politely offered words and refuses, she would rather continue on her way home and notify her professor she won't be attending class tonight. He offers to make the phone call for her, from here with the lady's permission and then she may take her time finding her way home - he'll even hire a cab if she wishes and pay for it himself.

She has trouble deciphering this kind creature at her knee from the gruesome figure on the bus, tasting the foul produce of an infected womb. There's a flutter in her stomach she recognizes now and pleads the use of a bathroom from the lady returning from the kitchen with a steaming cup of tea. Immediately the lady shows her the facilities and offers assistance.

Brutality surfaces and she screams at the lady to leave her alone, in peace, if for only a moment. The door clicks closed behind her and a soft voice on the other side asks her to call if assistance is needed. She slides down the nearest wall and settles into a pool of boneless flesh on the cheery yellow-tile floor. The color reminds her of a sunflower and she thinks back to the towering flowers on her grandfather's farm in Kansas. She shakes her head, trying to dislodge the thought, then desperate to think of anything but the fluttering in her stomach, snatches it back quickly and stores it in a quick-access corner of her mind, in case a pleasant thought is desired.

Dementia settles in with the solid thump of a snowflake, gentle and chilling, with no remorse or reason for it's presence other than to simply be. She resorts again to hands and knees to carry her to the white porcelain water-goddess just beneath a darkening windowpane. Leaning her head against the goddess' cool side, she sends a trembling hand between her legs, praying she finds nothing. Her fingers come away wet but empty; and though it is no comfort, she sighs in relief.

Perhaps the episode on the bus was what the director claimed; nothing more than a fitful nap comprised of a torrid phantasm and a bad lunch. She wills the creatures in her stomach to still, but their playtime has not yet ended and they romp through the folds of bruised muscle. Unexpectedly, a struggling starts stains at her thighs and she fears reaching the hand back to the dampness she found there before. But they will not be ignored and a damp plop sounds on the tile. Silent tears find the minute crevices and imperfections in her cheeks; and turning slightly, she finds the infant of an incubus awaiting her attentions.

The tiny, pink squid-like body wails in it's determination to make something more of itself and it's mother sobs in unsounded screams. In fear of dying of the mortifying embarrassment in giving birth to her brood on the sunflower-yellow tile of the goddess' temple, she gathers the tiny moist body to her bosom and slinks into the hall outside. Finding the stairs, she wanders, unseen, looking for a safe place to deliver her children and wait for the imminent arrival of their father.

Her children are quick and silent with their birth, nearly painless considering the inclement conception they endured. They are delightful progeny, hairless and gentle, she tries not to flinch in pain as they take to her breast, biting out the holes where her blood and milk will mix to nourish them. Off in the distance, like the mournful roll of an on-coming thunderhead, she hears the plaintive calling of the proprietess and the director. She does not care to answer their soundings, but rather pulls her offspring closer, urging them to drain the life from her and take it into themselves before they are discovered and taken from her. Silently she entreats their father to come quickly to protect their family.

There is a rush of heat at her toes and an answering fire at the portal by which her children entered this world. A dark shadow engulfs the bed, she pushes her children aside gently, willing their father to come and take her one last time before they are separated by death. Her lover is brutal and pain mixes with pleasure, their progeny keening in sympathetic misery as their mother surrenders to the black mantle of surcease.

But her body will serve yet one other purpose before the father will take possession of his children. The white of her eyes eclipse like the moon passing over a sun and she moves to the door, positioning herself so the director and proprietess may see the glory of the being she carries. They shrink back, unable to compete with the raw-veiled sting of sex gleaming in the malevolent eyes. Softly, she begins to sing.

The director knows now the incident on the bus was no dream...

The End

Copyright © 2001 by Shalane L. Weidow

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E-mail: penchant_shalane25@yahoo.com

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