Such a Connection

Greg MacDonald

I’m awake before she is. The drugs won’t wear off for another hour or so. I’m too excited to sleep

any longer. As she lies beside me, beautiful and still, I brush away the hair hanging across her face and

gaze at how the light reflects of her now almost porcellaneous skin.

We finished the earlier than expected. I shouldn’t really say ‘we’. Wallace, as always, did most of

the work. Everything went perfectly. I still can’t believe it’s done. She’ll be so happy.

Once she understands.

The hair falls loose again drifting back over her eyes and cheek but I quickly smooth it away

making sure to secure it behind her ear more firmly than before. I should shift her head a little but Wallace

reminded me not to move her too much until she regains consciousness. I've been known to be hasty in

the past.

Better safe than sorry.

With the errant strands tidied away I can see her face properly again. She‘s so utterly beautiful.

The arc of her cheek, the shape of her lips, the sheen of her hair.

Immaculate.

My side hurts a little. I desperately want to itch. I lift the sheets for a moment and look down at

where the bio-tube enters my flesh. Drying blood sponges through the dressing. The tube itself is covered

with a dermal membrane that will become more pronounced as time passes. For now I can still see

through the outer layer. Plasma spews back and forth between our bodies.

I can’t wait for her to wake up. She’ll be surprised at first, maybe even a little angry, but once I

explain everything she’ll understand. She has to.

I move down and kiss her gently on the cheek. Colour has not yet returned to her face so when I

come back from kissing her there is a fleeting blushed imprint of my lips on her skin but it quickly fades.

It’s as though she has absorbed it, as though her body assimilated the kiss and made it a part of her. I

smile again and stare at her alabastrine flesh. My perfect Mona.

I am so in love with her.

I remember the night I first realised it. A restaurant called The Cedars. I’d read up about it online.

Amazing reviews. We’d been together nearly three months. We had promised to take things slow. She'd

just come out of a messy relationship. Me too. Let’s just have fun, she said and we had but when she

walked in to meet me wearing that red dress for the first time I knew immediately the fun was over. You

can’t deny love when it envelops you. To bury it beneath some forgery of indifference is next to

impossible.

I tried to keep pretending, tried to mask my ecstasy, smuggle it beneath a brittle veneer of casual

behaviour. Whenever love grew desperate to croon its nascent notes I smothered it. I feigned ‘like’ with

all my will. I played along. It was agonising.

The first time I felt her body naked against mine my blood danced to a matchless rhythm. There

was excitement, of course, but beneath that there was comfort too, a feeling of ease, of a familiarity

shared. Though we knew each other only a short while our bodies seemed as old friends reunited.

I know how it sounds but I can’t help it.

Passion tends to flense away the deeper diction of its victims.

Beside me her hand moves slightly. The drugs are wearing off. I pull away the covers and look

back down at the tube again, watch the fluid jet from her to me and back again. It’s mesmerising. I reach

down and move it slightly to make sure there’s enough slack. The still infant film of skin is moist to the

touch and I shiver a little while handling it.

Should have known better.

My whole left side is really starting to ache. I should just lie on my back and turn my head

sideways to look at her but I can’t help myself. I like to look at her this way. A twinge prickles through

my ribs. Any longer and I could get a cramp. I should take a break.

As I lie back the relief is instant. Even the desire to itch subsides. I stare at the ceiling and try to

collect my thoughts, work out what I’m going to say to her.

First of all I have to make her feel safe. Once she realises what’s happened she will be perturbed

so it’s important to put her at ease fast.

A brief dart of worry pierces my musings.

What if she says she doesn’t love me?

No, that’s just paranoia talking.

She loves me.

She’s just scared to say it.

I sense her shift beside me again and look across. At first I’m taken aback. Her lips are moving as

though she is eating something and then her tongue moves around inside her mouth poking against her

cheek. When she finally stops her mouth remains ajar and small trickle of drool slides loose. Shame

briefly unsteadies me. I think of what I did the night before. The betrayal.

No, don’t dwell on that.

You had to do it.

It was the only way.

The only way to be sure.

I quickly shift back on to my side then use the edge of the pillow case to wipe the spillage away.

Then, because I don’t like the way it makes her look, I lightly push the bottom of her chin so her mouth

closes again.

Much better.

Carefully, cautiously, I return to a recumbent position and after a few deep breaths I relax again. I

try returning to the rehearsal studio of my mind to test out some opening lines but the image of Wallace's

needle puncturing her flesh pops into my head. Then I think of what I did before that.

In order to prep her I had to get a sedative into her system. We'd just finished having something to

eat and I suggested she head into the lounge while I grabbed some wine. Off she went and off I snuck to

retrieve the small phial of pills from my bag. In that moment, with one of the pills gripped between thumb

and forefinger I felt absolutely terrible. I nearly abandoned the entire project. Then I remembered how

much I loved her and I released it into the wine.

Such memories are futile.

They serve only to unsteady my purpose so I turn my head to look at her again.

Flushes of colour have returned to her skin. It won't be much longer. As I stare at her the hair

comes loose again. I move my body closer to her. I lightly push the hair back again and stare at her. Such

uncommon beauty. The longer I stare the more irresistible she becomes. I move her head so that her lips

face towards me and I start to kiss her. There is a light tension to her mouth as though some part of her

unconscious mind returns the kiss, as though she knows it's me. I move my hand through her hair then on

to her neck then down along her skin until I reach her breast which I gently squeeze. I caress her nipple

with my thumb. The anxiety of before fuels my excitement and I continue on down her body to her hip. I

pass over the bio-tube and start to kiss her more deeply moving my left hand to keep her head in position.

I move from her lips and start nuzzling her neck, lightly kissing the soft sacred flesh beneath her ear as

the fingers of my right hand slip into her panties. I softly touch her hair at first then more roughly then

down to plunge into her silk.

Nothing exists in these moments.

No guilt. No worry. No fear.

I have to release her. The pain has come back again and the tube is at an awkward angle. Letting

her go is difficult. While kissing her I can forget everything but as I place her back down on the pillow the

ugly memories return. I just want to get it over and done with. It’s the only way to banish these thoughts,

the only way to cauterise my sins. I pull the duvet back over the two of us up to the neck and try to relax.

I know that she loves me.

I know it.

There’s nothing to be afraid of.

She's not like the other women.

Mona knows me. She appreciates me on a deeper level.

Her smile is unlike any other I have beheld.

When she wakes up and sees the commitment I’ve made to her she’ll understand. Not at first, I know that,

I’m not naïve, but once she relaxes and hears what I have to say then she’ll appreciated that all of this was

motivated by …

A sudden spasm beside me perforates all thought.

Her arm jerks up and moves to her face again then her leg shifts across the bed towards my thigh.

I quickly grab the bio-tube and whip it out of her way. Terror invades me. I freeze. I can’t even sit up and

face her. She wipes her mouth a few times. Her eyes split open then try to blink free of sleep's blear.

No words in my mind.

No clever lines and my own eyes are roller coaster wide as I dart microsecond glances across at her face

which is suddenly alive with returning animation.

A groan.

"Fuck ... how much wine did we drink last night?"

Panic quickens through me. Moisture forsakes my tongue.. The tube tightens, rears up slightly as the

gushes between us momentarily intensify in concert with her returning wits.

Her hand moves to my face to touch my cheek.

Is there any way I can pretend to be asleep?

"Well? Are you going to give me a kiss or what?"

No escape. She knows I’m awake. I have to turn now. I have to look at her woken face, her living eyes,

her moving parts.

I close my eyes before turning to kiss her.

Foolishly I try to prolong it.

"Steady on Romeo! No need to smother me"

She shuts her eyes and nuzzles into my chest and as I lie back again she drapes her arm over me. This

could be the last time I ever hold her like this, the last time I ever experience this singular cocoon of

intimacy.

It is both exhilarating and petrifying.

"Do you know what I think I’d like to do today?"

I shake my head.

"I think I’d like to head down to the park and go for a run"

I nod.

Inside I’m falling apart.

Why, of all days, does she feel like going for a run today? I briefly imagine us jogging along

beside each other with the bio-tube swinging loose between us. It’s a ridiculous image.

How can I tell her what I‘ve done?

"I know I’ve been threatening to get back running for an age but today really feels like the day. There’s

nothing else like it. Just you and the track ahead. It clears the head better than any aspirin.”

She starts to shift in the bed. I recognise the movements. They signal that she’s going to start

getting up soon. Underneath the covers my horrible revelation awaits pumping plasma between our

supine frames.

"First things first. I need a monster breakfast. I’m absolutely starving. What’s on the menu?"

Tell her now, damn it. Stop procrastinating.

It’s no use.

I’m speechless. I can’t force sound through my throat and her question hangs in the air too long

then slowly descends through the silence dragging down a veil of awkwardness between us.

"What’s the matter?", she asks.

Finally my lungs push air through the templates of the words jammed in my throat.

"There's something I have to show you. Something that might frighten you. I need you to stay calm"

She smiles nervously hoping that I’m just joking around.

"You know if you really want another kiss you don’t have to put on this big performance. I mean it’s cute

that you think your erection is going to scare me but …"

I cut her off and tell her I’m being serious.

Her eyes narrow.

"What is it you have to show me?"

I sit up on my side again and she fixes my eyes with hers. Worry simmers in her expression. By

now the bio-tube should look better, not as transparent as before. At least that's what I hope.

"What’s the matter?", she asks and starts to sit up, "what is it you want to show me?"

Slowly, like some perverse magician, I peel the duvet away. At first she still thinks, still hopes, it

is all part of some elaborate joke and she keeps her gaze on my face but as I move my head down to look

at our bodies she does likewise and when the bio-tube is exposed her eyes flash into wide, white orbs.

"Holy shit!! What the fuck is that??"

The dermal layer has still not set and she can see the interpenetrative spurt of fluids. She can’t

take her eyes off it and after her initial exclamation there is a grisly silence. Eventually she pulls her gaze

loose and focuses on my face. Her eyes are less concrete, blots of turmoil dizzy her.

"Is this … is this a dream? I mean … am I still asleep or is this … what’s going on? It feels like a dream.

My head … ", she rubs the side of her head with her palm, "my head… I don’t … I can’t …"

Her eyes return to the bio-tube.

"... what’s happening ..?"

As she finishes her question her eyes roll in her head and she flops back against the pillow in a faint.

I can barely breathe.

I hadn't counted on this.

She thought she was having a nightmare.

I quickly grab the duvet and cover the bio-tube once again. I move my ear over her mouth and

listen for her breath. It is steady. I lift her wrist to check her pulse. It too advertises normality. She’s fine.

Physically speaking.

I can feel the pummel of my heart in my temples. It consumes me. No thoughts stick to the

shivering page of my mind. I can’t decide anything. All I can do is bite my nails and glance anxiously

down at her. I check her pulse again, this time at the neck. Still fine, nothing to worry about.

Bullshit.

There's everything to worry about.

You'd think I'd be used to this after all the trials.

She's different, I tell myself, that's why I am.

She's the one and I know it.

I have to relax. A deep breath. Exhale. A deeper one, hold it, see if it can trap the thick slabber of

panic clogging my comportment. After a moment I let it out imagining that a chatter of tension will depart

in its wake.

It doesn't.

The tumult persists.

I look down at her again but I can’t stay focussed and quickly look away again. What the hell do I

do? How do I tell her that I have biologically interfused her body with mine? How could anyone even

begin to explain…

She jolts awake again and I have to constrict a small yelp that very nearly squeaks from my throat.

‘Oh my God …", she says, "I just had the weirdest dream"

Sweat now swims eagerly from every pore in my body. I can feel the colour draining away from

my face, feel the nausea greening my features, feel the smog of shame filling my lungs. She isn’t looking

at me yet. Instead she blinks and rubs her eyes and yawns. Then, in a flash, she remembers and grabs the

duvet and lifts it.

‘Oh no’, she says, ‘Tell me I’m dreaming? Please ... please tell me ...’

Her voice vanishes.

I summon the last crumbs of my will and I speak.

As though conforming to her changing impression of me my voice, when it finally comes, is

unrecognisable. It is a husky, rattling sound that promises no comfort but I persevere. I tell her not to be

worried. I tell her that I have done this to us but that everything is perfectly okay.

"You've a pretty fucked up idea of what's perfectly okay", she says looking like she wants to vomit.

"It’s all perfectly hygienic", I find myself saying, "there’s no danger of infection. I helped perfect the

technology myself. We’ve done over twenty tests on human subjects and they’ve all been successful"

I can’t tell if she hears what I’m saying or not. I move my hands toward her arms to comfort her

but her skin goose bumps in repugnance. The familiar warmth of my touch is long gone. I am an intruder

now, a cold imprint, a stranger.

"Take it off", she says, "take it off now"

"Just hear me out", I plead, "I can explain everything"

"There’s nothing you can say that will explain this"

I try to say something but she cuts me off with a shriek.

"You sick fuck! How could you do this to me!?!"

"There’s no need to panic, just listen to what I have to say …"

I’m wasting my time. The full realisation of what I’ve done has set in and she starts asking me all

the uncomfortable questions I worried about earlier.

"And while I was asleep too. How did you this? Did you drug me?? Did you knock me out so you could

do this to me???’

Her eyes fill with revelation as she talks and she leans toward me to punctuate her words with sharp,

knuckly punches.

I raise my arms to protect myself.

"Take it off!! Take it off !! Take it off me NOW!!!"

Oh how I long for her to be asleep again. I think of the earlier her, the perfect skin, the hair tucked

neatly behind her ear, how she kissed me back instinctively through her drugged slumber. The only hope I

have left is for her to start crying. At least then she might let me hold her again. It could resuscitate some

feelings for me

I look in her eyes, implore her.

No.

She’s not going to cry.

She just keeps hitting me and swearing.

Gradually the torrent weakens. She glares down at the bio-tube.

The look in her eyes tells me what she's going to do before she does it.

She grabs the tube where it enters her side and starts to pull at it. I grab her wrists to stop her. The

bio-tube rears up again in distress. Blood begins seeping from her wound as the tube rips muscle and

tissue loose before I can stop her. It starts to come out of her body, blood and pus ooze free and a scream

escapes her but she keeps trying to haul it out. Agony explodes through my body.

"STOP!!"

It’s no use, her crude excision continues.

"STOP!!"

I have to wrestle her to the bed to halt her frenzy. Even when I have her pinned down she still

manages to wriggle a hand free and grab the tube again.

"Don’t do that. You’ll kill us both!"

"I want this fucking thing out of me. NOW!!!"

"If you do it this way we’ll both die"

I manage to grab her arm and pull it away from the tube.

"GET IT OUT OF ME!!!"

She jerks and squirms beneath me but I manage to secure her.

"Just listen to me, please, just listen for five minutes. That's all. Five minutes"

The tensed coil of her body starts to slacken. The pain subsides. The bio-tube goes limp again.

A horrible silence expands.

"I have to check that you’re okay"

"I don’t want you to touch me"

"Please, I have to make sure there’s no internal bleeding"

She pauses. Her breathing is still heavy.

"Be quick"

She spits the words at me.

I move off of her and proceed to inspect the entry site. Amazingly there doesn’t seem to be too

much damage. I come away and move back to my side of the bed.

We lie wordlessly side by side for nearly a minute before she speaks.

"Five minutes. Tell me what you did"

I stutter at first. Now that I finally have the chance to explain everything my words come in

disfluent pockets giving her the worst possible impression of my motives. For some bizarre reason I

decide to start off with the moment I drugged her wine. What am I thinking? Straight away I hear her

breath take on a tempo of disgust as quick pulses of odium waft through her teeth.

"No, no’, I say, "it wasn’t like that. It had to be done, one of us had to be anaesthetised for the procedure"

"And why wasn’t it you?"

I start to explain that I couldn’t be sure she would go along with it but she cuts me off again.

"I know that you sick fuck"

I wish she'd stop calling me that. Every word she speaks buckles my position. I ask her again to

be calm but this only makes her angry.

"Why should I be calm after what you’ve done?", her eyes are vicious, "How did you really think I was

going to react, you sick fuck??"

I grow a little irritated.

"Will you please stop calling me that"

She snorts in derision at my request then tells me to finish what I was saying.

I tell her about Wallace, about him coming over and performing the operation. I re-iterate how

careful we were, tell her that there is no chance of harm coming to her as a result of what we’ve done but

every time I do so she snorts again and looks at me like she is going to hit me.

"Safe", she says, "what has safe go to do with anything. You’re twisted, utterly twisted.’

‘No, I’m not. I am a good person. It’s because I am that I …’

"Oh just shut up will you"

"I know this is hard to appreciate but ..."

"I can’t believe that you did this to me. You and your sick, twisted friend, treating me like a lab rat.

Operating on me, using me against my will. What kind of people are you?"

It’s pointless. No matter what I say she won’t listen. She doesn’t hear me the way she used to. I

think about the syringes sitting in the drawer beside me. Maybe I should just take the blue one out now

and sever the link?

No, she has to know why I did it first.

I can’t lose her like this.

"I know you don’t believe me but I never meant to hurt you. You’re not a lab rat to me. I chose you

because I care about you so much"

She shakes her head.

"The link is connected through our nervous systems to our brains. After a while we will be able to sense

one another’s feelings. The longer the link exists the more potent its effects will become, we’ll be able to

hear each other's thoughts, communicate without speaking, share imaginings and ideas in an instant. We

can experience the sort of relationship that most people can only dream of. We will understand each other

perfectly."

"You're so fucking stupid. Are you even listening to yourself?"

I tell her about the results on our test subjects, tell her how much progress we've made.

"There are no risks, only benefits. We will be unlike any other couple. There will be no confusion, no

doubt, no suspicion"

"No doubt? No suspicion", she replies, "After what you've done?"

I tell her that she’s wrong, that she doesn’t appreciate the communion we will share, how profound it will

all be, but she’s already shaking her head before I finish.

"You tricked me. You drugged me. You performed surgery on me without my consent. This wasn't about

communion it was about appropriation. It was about your raging egoism, your blinkered theft of my

body"

"No, no. You don’t understand’, I say, "when the link has set we will know everything about each other.

You’ll understand all my reasons for doing this"

"Even if I did I'd never be able to forgive you for what you've done"

I tell her that she has to. I lie and say that there is no way back and that given time she will know

me as well as she knows herself. She will see that I am a good person.

"There’s nothing to worry about", I say, "I love you"

"Love? You love me? You really are deluded."

I implore her to trust me.

Steel fills her eyes.

"I will never trust to you. I will never understand you. To me you aren’t even a human being anymore.

You’re just a sick fuck"

I tell her again not to call me that.

"Stop calling you that? Why should I? Give me one good reason?’

"Because I love you."

She looks at me in disbelief.

"No-one could do this to someone they love"

I keep trying, keep repeating my arguments but my words make no dent in her. I feel stranded,

trapped between the contempt of her callused expression and my own aching desire not to lose her. I

should just reach over to the drawer and grab the blue syringe. Let her free.

"There has to be some way you can cut this thing out of me", she says, "you couldn’t do this to people

without being able to undo it"

She smiles.

"If you don't then I'll quite happily kill us both"

I remember the strands of loose hair that kept falling over her face earlier on. I think back and feel

my hand on her skin, summon the taste of her lips. It can’t be the end. There has to be something I can say

to make her believe me, some verbose magic that will save us.

She sits beside me waiting for me to speak. I burrow deep into my mind trying to quarry

revelation from the mess of thoughts that pollutes it.

"You're so unbelievably obtuse", she says, "How could you think this would be alright?"

Her words jar in my ears.

I suddenly feel like shouting at her.

But I don't.

Because I'm better than that.

I pull the red syringe from the drawer and after a short bout of amateur dramatics I tell her that

injecting this into the bio-tube will sever the link.

"It will take forty hours for it to die", I say, "after that you're free to go"

"I'm glad there's still some decency left in you"

"I'll have to call Wallace first. We can't move until the bio-tube expires completely. We'll need his help"

I call Wallace and slip the codeword into our conversation. She relaxes somewhat after I hang up.

"Don't expect much conversation from me", she says as I insert the syringe into the bio-tube.

I remember her face as she slept earlier. That sacrosanct limp flesh, the beautiful stillness of her

body, the half knowing kiss, the feel of her silk. I turn to face her and utter the same worthless words.

"I really do love you"

She shakes her head in disgust and then we both drift off into the blissful comfort of anesthesia.

Wallace will take care of everything.

He always does.