Posted by Sawney Beane on October 15, 2006 at 01:31:38:
The Collected Works of Sawney Beane: Volume #85
UNCERTAINTY
by Sawney Beane
30 December 2001
997 words
DISTRIBUTION NOTICE and DISCLAIMER: Sawney Beane requests that any distribution of this work of fiction remain within the realm of social responsibility. This story is suitable neither for minors nor for the seeming majority of adults who have difficulty distinguishing fantasy from reality. It is pure fantasy, which means that, for whatever reason, someone has found it interesting to think about the events depicted herein. It does not in any way mean that the author would like to see this fantasy become reality, so if you are the type of person who might be swayed into doing something irrational by reading a work of fiction, the author respectfully requests that you decline to read further.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Sawney Beane, originally a native of Edinburgh, lived for twenty-five years in a cave on the coast of County Galloway, subsisting on the flesh of unfortunate travellers, roughly a thousand of them all told. He and his wife raised a large family of eight sons, six daughters, eighteen grandsons, and fourteen granddaughters. Eventually, the family was captured, and the whole lot was brutally and unjustifiably tortured and executed without trial. Since his death in the early 17th century, Beane has reformed his ways and now confines his atrocities to his literary endeavours.
WARNING: This story contains scenes of consensual snuff and gynophagia. If you find such things offensive, please steer clear; you have been warned.
AUTHOR'S NOTES: Another attempt at describing a psychological state. A brief, reasonably decent portrait of an emotion.
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"Will it be today, Mark?"
The man looked down at her with a neutral expression on his face. He didn't offer an answer to Holly's question, but then again he never did. He ran his fingers through her long blonde hair contemplatively and then slipped his hands under her robe at her shoulders. The blue silk robe slid down her back and collected itself around her feet. She stood nude and unashamed in front of him as she had every morning for the last six months. He stared expressionlessly at her smooth skin and her shapely breasts and trim belly. Then he placed his large hand gently on the back of her neck.
It was a signal, of course. He didn't need to force her in any way. He never answered her question before engaging in some sort of sexual act, ranging from a kiss if he was in a hurry to full intercourse. More often than not, today's choice was selected. She went down to her knees and unzipped his pants. He seemed to have lost interest in her by the time she began, but she knew his attention was focused on her.
Holly asked the same question every morning, and the answer had so far always been the same. However, one day it would be different, and the feeling that the uncertainty created in her was the most exquisite thing she could imagine. The creation of that feeling was her main reason for placing herself under Mark's control, and she savoured it every morning.
She knew she was Mark's third such mistress. The two skulls on the mantelpiece in the den memorialised her two predecessors. Janet had lasted only two weeks before Mark had lopped off her head and roasted her in a special oven. He often talked about how delicious she had been. The second, Kelly, had been with Mark for nearly three months before he'd impaled her on a spit and roasted her for his friends in an outdoor barbecue. Everyone talked about how succulent Kelly had been.
Now Holly had voluntarily sold herself for a handsome fee, which would feed her family for years, and had entered Mark's household. She'd been there for six months, and she knew that each morning could easily be her last. That was the knowledge that thrilled her so much.
She wasn't motivated by the money. That was a bonus that kept her family from complaining too much, but she was really there for that feeling she got every morning as he looked her over. That interminably long interval between her daily question and Mark's answer was what she lived for.
As he gazed into her eyes with his poker face, she could see her life flashing before her eyes. She felt a chilling dread that tingled her spine in an oddly pleasant morbid thrill. Her entire body felt this immense anticipation. It was anticipation so unthinkably immense. Her entire life hinged upon the answer to this simple question. She found ecstasy in the simple finality of that response. It was "yes" or "no", and regardless of which it was, there would be no pleading, no desperation, and no reprieve. There would be only acceptance of her fate. She would live another day or she wouldn't, and that was that.
Mark was not cruel. He didn't create the horrible uncertainty in her mind to hurt her. He knew the thrill she derived from not knowing whether the sunrise she was watching would be her last. Consequently, he prolonged her anticipation.
Oddly, it was the very uncertainly under which she lived that caused her to enjoy each day to its fullest. Because each sunrise could turn out to be her last, she watched each day with the appreciation of one who is seeing the sun rise for the last time. Each morning's affirmation that she would indeed survive the day gave her only one more lunch, one more dinner, one more sunset, each of which she would enjoy as if it were her last. Her self-imposed death sentence gave her more life than she could ever hope to achieve.
Holly greedily slurped up the last few drops of her breakfast and stood again, wiping the semen from her lips with the back of her hand. Mark took her chin in his hand and peered into her eyes. She felt as if she were under a microscope as Mark examined her face as if he had never seen her before.
Now was the moment. Soon she would find out, but now she was hovering between life and death like Schrodinger's cat, half-alive and half-dead. She was torn asunder by the wonderful terror she felt in every cell of her body. Such horrible pleasure! Would she live or die? Did she have a preference?
Mark looked into her eyes and gave her a hungry smile. The verdict came: "No, Holly, not today; you're not quite ready; perhaps tomorrow." Without another word, he sat down at the kitchen table and began to devour the breakfast of sausage and waffles that she had prepared for him.
Holly's inner bubble collapsed into a sigh of relief-or was it disappointment? She had a brief twenty-four hour respite. She would do it all again tomorrow, but would the answer again be the same or would that one different answer come at last?
Holly enjoyed the uncertainty that ruled her life and death, but there were only two things in her life she knew with certainty. One was that sooner or later, she would share Janet and Kelly's fate. She didn't know when or in what form it would occur, but eventually, she would end up on Mark's dinner plate, and her skull would join her predecessors' on the mantelpiece.
Holly's other area of certainty was that when, sooner or later, the fateful response finally came, she would be ready for it, and she would cheerfully play out the final, long-delayed scene of her life.