Surgery (Night 6)
Pumpkin and Diamond were patient, waiting in the lobby and they were so thrilled when their guests arrived at the party.
The room upstairs was set up for theatre, and the other surgeons had finally arrived.
Dr.Vasil was getting a taste of his own medicine as one by one, people streamed into The Blue House, dressed up in costumes, as doctors, nurses, orderlies, patients. It was a party, a joyous day, all set up by two people who shared the same trauma, and they were the most popular hosts in all of Atlaan that night.
Some of the people who had come into The Blue House were actual doctors, overseeing the entire operation, making sure that the right parts were taken out in the right order, so Dr.Vasil would get the best treatment available.
Drinks were shared, music was played, and a line was going up to the PIV room, where Dr.Vasil was held tethered to the bed. Cheers went out in the room when Pumpkin got out a needle and injected Vasil with a strange drug. He screamed in pain and terror, no longer excited for what they were to do to him.
He went soft and tried to escape, but the more he struggled the harder the ropes pulled against him, rough, scratching against his skin.
Diamond turned away, as she was afraid of needles. The fear was irrational since her Alterian skin was tough, but the one time a doctor stuck it in the few weak points an Alterian had, the back of her knee, was enough for her to never look at one again.
Next Pumpkin injected him with another drug, and Vasil continued to scream, spit coming out his mouth, legs shaking, naked on the bed, more cheers coming out. A real doctor, a former student of Dr.Vasil, smiled, and told him, we need to check your blood pressure now.
“I don’t think he likes needles,” Diamond mumbled.
“Don’t worry Doctor Vasil,” Pumpkin whispered. “No more needles. No more.”
Vasil stopped screaming, but now he was afraid he was going to die. Not by their hands, but by the heart attack he felt he was about to have from the drugs they put into his system.
Whatever they had given him made him feel like the sheets were much softer, the ropes around his wrists and ankles so much rougher, and all the lights a lot much brighter. One of the drugs returned his erection, further confusing him if he wanted to get hurt or if it was just a side effect.
Diamond walked away, out of his view and he relaxed. She returned with a hacksaw, and Vasil started to scream again.
“You know, I could just tear your limbs off with my own hands. Alterians are so much stronger than you strange, weird, soft people.”
“Hey, us soft people have feelings too,” said a woman in a nurse outfit. “You said you get to go first, and then we all get a turn. ”
Vasil shrieked even louder, their words confirming what was about to happen to him.
“Using a hacksaw feels so impersonal, doesn’t it,” Diamond shouted. “We need to add a bit of human touch!”
The crowd let out cheers of approval, and more people pushed into the room once they heard her in the hallway, and now it was hot, and the real doctors overseeing the party game were frustrated because they were getting in the way.
“This really needs a bit of charm,” Pumpkin agreed. “We’re here to get to know each other!”
Pumpkin gently grazed her pretty acrylic black nails over Vasil’s hairy, paunchy stomach. He screamed, the feeling a thousand times more sensitive.
He came and Pumpkin screamed.
Everyone else screamed and took pictures, and Vasil sobbed, feeling an inkling of shame he had put over his victims for the first time in his life.
“Gross,” she shrieked. “I knew it made him sensitive, but I didn’t think it would be like that. ”
“You can’t pick and choose your drug side effects dear, you should know this by now.”
They continued to talk and Vasil sobbed harder, listening to their plans of what to do with him.
“Don’t cry Doctor,” Diamond cooed. “We’re going to get rid of your extra parts. ”
The party-goers started cheering the words extra parts, extra parts, causing Vasil to pee himself, knowing that his actions had finally caught up to him.
His shame only increased as everyone let out a loud ew and Diamond covered her mouth in disgust.
“Let’s do this before he shits himself,” Diamond grumbled. “I did not sign up for that.”
Pumpkin leered down at Vasil and smiled.
“Dear patient, we know you’re nervous about your procedure, but we promise to let you know all the details before it begins.”
Vasil continued to cry, hoping that they would just quickly kill him, but he knew that wouldn’t be the case.
“We’re going to get rid of all those extra bits you don’t need, j ust like how you helped us. ”
“Don’t worry dear patient,” Pumpkin cooed, tapping his nose, then pressing her nail in, harder digging in deeper as she spoke.
“You will be awake for the entire procedure, and feel every cut, every muscle stripped away from your body. We want to make sure your medical consent is the highest priority,” said the doctor attending nearby.
Vasil turned to look and recognized the doctor as the woman with who he traded sexual favors or else he wouldn’t give her a passing grade in his medical class. He jerked rapidly and started to recognize faces, new and old, all there, just to see him .
“It’s okay Doctor Vasil. Everyone’s always nervous the first time,” she told him.
They laughed at the doctor’s dirty joke, and Vasil’s sweaty, smelly, hairy body shook even harder against the ropes. The ball gag made spit fall out of his mouth, and drool down his face, and muffled his screams.
The more he fought against the ropes, the harder they seemed to pull him back down.
Meticulously Diamond and Pumpkin put on latex gloves because they knew he was allergic to latex, and they didn't want to mess up their nails.
Dr.Vasil had no choice but to feel it all, to watch as they opened him up from the abdomen and straight down, splitting his skin open like a zipper opening a jacket. His blood poured out said jacket, raining down the sides, sliding onto the bed, making him shiver because it was so warm.
The guests all sprung into action. It was a bring your own beer medical equipment party, and it was a wonderful display of teamwork as they cleaned the blood and held out the trays.
Diamond and Pumpkin were first, as promised, and they grabbed onto his arms, Diamond on the left, Pumpkin on the right.
“Count down please!”
Three.
Two.
On one they both pulled. Diamond could feel her two extra phantom arms pull along with her, and she smiled, a final coup de grâce.
It wasn’t a clean break, it was their first time doing surgery, and the senior surgeons instructed them that they needed to break off the leftover bone and leave skin flaps so they could do a proper amputation.
If he lost too much blood, the others couldn’t have a turn.
A young phlebotomist made sure his blood bag was connected properly, the senior doctors overlooking the surgery were handed beers from the other guests, instructing which way to snap the remaining bone, and a cheer was let out when it was complete.
Dr.Vasil passed out.
“We can’t have him missing out on his own party,” Diamond said. She handed another needle from the trusty box they prepared long ago and handed it to the phlebotomist, who promptly stuck it in.
The lead surgeons sewed up Dr.Vasil’s arms while the guests had their turns.
He awoke, to see people taking more parts, debating who could take what. There was a certain process, magic to it all. It was like a game of Jenga! You can’t take one piece out before the other or else it all falls apart!
The first to go was his penis.
He didn’t use it much anyway.
An argument was had between two men if the testicles were considered two organs or a singular one because they came in a singular scrotum, and an actual doctor had to step in and clarify that it in fact was two.
So one man was upset, and the other was pleased, and Dr. Vasil passed out from the pain yet again.
One by one party gifts were taken.
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Gallbladder, the large intestine, one kidney, the colon, an appendix, a spleen.
His tonsils, the left ear, stomach, then the right ear, feet, and legs.
Someone took his nose, then lost it and was upset, and left very early into the party, because, what was the use if they couldn’t have a nose?
Last to take was his eyes because they wanted to make sure he saw it all.
Groans emitted from the crowd once the lead surgeons told their apprentices that they ran out of party favors.
“Remember what we came here for! We came here to get rid of his extra parts,” Diamond shouted.
“We can’t take everything. He needs the minimum of course, ” Pumpkin said.
With gentle and loving care, the lead surgeons, with their latex gloves, causing Dr. Vasil to break out with every touch, sewed him back together again and it was time to discuss outpatient care.
They decided he would do best with minimal care.
Many of his patients didn’t have any help after their surgeries.
Why should he?
Diamond dragged Vasil by his hair, or what little there was, and brought him downstairs. His sweaty body let out a thump, thump, thump, as they walked down the stairs, and Diamond moved her arm from side to side, trying to hurt him as much as possible as they walked.
“It didn’t feel as great as I thought it would,” Diamond said. “Too much screaming.”
“Then why did you do it,” Pumpkin asked.
“Nero seemed happier after he did it,” Diamond said. “I want to be happy. I want to have what he has.”
“ You want an angry husband?”
“No,” Diamond hollered. “Do you pretend to be stupid, or are you?”
“No clue," Pumpkin teased.
“I meant I want to be able to do something,” Diamond continued. “I don’t know what to do with my life other than this.”
“Killing people?”
“No...I mean doing tricks. All we did today was another trick, except we didn’t steal his wallet afterward, we just cut him up!!”
“Nothing wrong with doing tricks. Unlike before we got actual money now before we didn’t!”
“Maybe there’s more? Like traveling,” Diamond mused.
“Yeah, but, we’re going to work while traveling, aren’t we,” Pumpkin asked.
“If we want? Do you like this, or do you still think we have to keep on doing it?”
“I don’t know. I do know that I liked hearing him scream.”
“I did too, but what you said earlier made me think.”
Vasil groaned, and he woke up. Immediately he started screaming, and Diamond kicked him until he stopped.
“Rudeness,” she grunted. “Some people have no house training, I swear.”
Ignoring Vasil’s groans and the blood all over the pale blue floor, they went back to the conversation.
“What I mean is, I never really wanted anything . I didn’t think there was anything to want, ” Diamond continued.
“Yeah, I get it...you wanna go home? We can choose places to visit later.”
“I’d like that,” Diamond smiled.
Vasil decided now was a good time to scream and Diamond groaned.
“Call the pigs so they can take out the trash,” she told Pumpkin.
Pumpkin got out her burner and called the police. Once done she crushed the phone with one hand.
They left the trash outside.
The party was over, and everyone scattered, like the roaches they were, the lights turning on in the middle of the night. People and fish-people screamed once they saw the sausage roll impersonating a human man on the sidewalk, naked and bloody as the day he was born.
It was an easy escape, no one tried to stop them, because everyone outside was too shocked. The mass exodus of people dressed as doctors, nurses, covered in blood and glitter, throwing organs into gutters was a flash mob from the depths of Hell itself.
Diamond and Pumpkin ran in their heels, a feat cultivated after years of practice doing so, and got into Diamond’s brown car, with switched plates and tinted windows .
They flung their ruined shoes into the back seat, and Diamond, high on adrenaline and victory drove off, hitting the hyper way, pulling the lever, and flying her car into the sky.
Pumpkin looked back multiple times and wiped the blood off her hands onto the car windows and seats, and once she finally found her breath, she spoke her truth.
“I’m upset that you’re not happy, I only agreed because you wanted to do it. I kinda got into it as everyone else did though…”
“Then why didn’t you say something”, Diamond groaned.
“I tried…You never listen though. You keep going until something is done.”
“Yeah! I have ambition!”
“I think that’s why you’re not happy,” Pumpkin replied. “You focused on doing the thing, not why you wanted it…or the stuff in between.”
For once Diamond was focused on the stuff in between, which was the traffic on their way back to the penthouse.
She was simultaneously the best and worst driver in all of Atlaan, driving almost twice the speed limit and still avoiding other drivers. Pumpkin was so used to her driving she didn’t notice the angry honks nor the fact that they were halfway to their destination in a third of the regular time.
Diamond didn’t say anything until they arrived at the penthouse, deep in thought about what she said, and Pumpkin was afraid she made her angry.
When Diamond parked the car, turned off the engine, she put her hand on Pumpkin’s shoulder to get her to stay, and she wanted to talk.
“Why do I keep calling you by your street name,” Diamond asked.
“I don’t know. I miss hearing my name,” Pumpkin replied. “Do you miss yours?”
“Haha. Very funny .”
“I’m not joking.”
Pumpkin was serious, as serious as someone could be in a sexy nurse costume, and Diamond groaned, smacked the steering wheel, and shook her head.
“ You dumb, stupid, stupid, hoe . Diamond is my name!”
“ Oh.”
“You went all these years thinking that wasn’t my name. You really would have died without me!”
“You told me not to use my real name!”
“Yeah and I use mine because it sounds fake! ”
The two women argued about nothing, got out of the car, took their heels with them, and got into the elevator. Pumpkin hummed along to the terrible elevator music, and Diamond grinned.
“Natalia.”
Natalia’s lip twitched, she stopped humming and blushed, hearing her name was so odd after so long.
“What is it?”
“You said you missed hearing your name,” Diamond giggled.
So she repeated her name, over and over, the way someone did until it sounded like nonsense, and Natalia hugged her, covered her mouth, begging her to stop.
They were soulmates, but not in the sense of romance, the sense that one would always need another, impossible to imagine a life without the other. They were two very different people that bonded over their pain, and now that the source of it was gone they wanted something more.
The elevator let out a soft ding and they walked barefoot into the penthouse, stripping into their underwear, leaving the dirty clothes and shoes in the corner, off to finally get clean.
After very long showers, cleaning as much as blood as possible off, and angrily cutting off their acrylic nails because the blood was stuck underneath, they dressed in house clothes, their tank tops, and boy shorts, and stumbled into the living room.
They were exhausted after a long day.
“What are you idiots doing now," Diamond jeered. “You still having marital issues?”
Natalia giggled and this just further enraged Nero, made Unas’ complaints more specific and violent, and Adonis’ laughs erratic.
“Don’t be jealous just because we’re close," Nero sneered.
“I and she are close, but we ain't about to suck each other off every other day."
Adonis stopped laughing and his skin tingled, his face went red.
“I would rather fuck Alto before him," he mumbled.
“What does that mean," Nero asked. “ What do you mean? ”
Adonis realized that there was no way out of his comment and promptly left, citing he really needed to pee.
“Liar," Nero shouted.
“It’s nice to see you’re around each other more often," Natalia said. “You’re sad when you’re not together.”
“It’s okay...it’s normal for families to fight,” Nero whispered.
Natalia let out a soft oh my, and Diamond raised her eyebrows.
“So bold," Diamond teased. “Don’t tell Alto."
They walked off leaving Nero embarrassed and at the mercy of Unas’ threats, and went to the kitchen to get something to drink, staving off a headache from the stress of some light murder.
Natalia flipped on the light switch, looked at the modern white and red kitchen, the high-end appliances, and went to make hot chocolate for herself, and Diamond took lemonade from the fridge.
They sat on the countertops and told each other that they argued because they were family too, agreeing with something Nero said for the first time in their lives.