Bête Noire
Bête Noire
By Jeremy Bennett.
Copy right: 2014 Jeremy Bennett
Published by: Slightly Sadistic Publishing.
About the Author
Jeremy Bennett was born in Alaska in 1982, and he graduated from UAA with a degree in Anthropology specializing in Archeology. Even as a child, he loved horror and had wanted to be a horror writer since fifth grade. It was a dream that was realized with the publication of his first book Maleficarum: Hunger of the Witch. If you like this story, leave a review. It would mean a lot to him. If you would like to chat with the author, he will respond on his Amazon Author page or Substack, and he’d love to hear from you. So, don’t be shy. To purchase his first book, simply follow the link. http://www.amazon.com/Maleficarum-Hunger-Witch-Jeremy-Bennett-ebook/dp/B00H4HH8XO
Bête Noire
“Love, it’s dangerous, and I… don’t think I can watch you do this,” her agent Larry said. Was it the cell phone that added the vibrato to his voice, or was it genuine concern? No, he wouldn’t watch, but he sure as hell would cash the checks. Kim paced up and down the hardwood floor in her living room. It was a cold place devoid of personality; at least, that’s what Larry told her.
The smile dove from her lips as his words sank in. “Then don’t. I’m a big girl. Just come back when it’s over.” He’d been a hell of an agent for her, but he always… always doubted her. He doubted her when she made the statues from her hair and nails. The little lacquered pieces of shit--he called them--made him over three hundred thousand dollars. What the hell was he bitching about?
It’s a postmodern world, baby. Because the concept of meaning wasted away as if it were a cancer patient years ago, art today has no actual definition; in its place, novelty and salesmanship reigned supreme. Larry understood the salesmanship. He could promote a turd in a box and get people to show up, but he never got the novelty part of the equation. You’ve got to put some sparklers on that turd to become truly epic. He came from a show business background, so he knew little about the postmodern art scene.
“You’ll have the key, so stick close. You don’t have to be in the same room, but you need to be close,” She said.
“Look, I like you, and that’s why I can’t watch.” His voice took on a strange echo. He’d probably moved to the bathroom. “You know I don’t understand your… stuff.” He always refused to call it art. “But I think you’re getting out of control on this one.”
“You ever hear of the piece called Gnawed by Janine Antoni?”
“No.” Water bubbled on his end of the line. He was, without a doubt, in the bathroom… gross.
Kim scratched at the back of her arm as she said, “It’s perfect. An artist took 600 pounds of chocolate, and she ate on it a few days. Whatever was left by the end, she called art. People hailed her as a genius. It’s nothing more than a block of chocolate with teeth marks, and it made her famous!”
“Sounds dumb.”
“It is, but it works,” she said.
Gnawed was how Kim came up with the idea of puke art for her last show. If people paid to see food going down, then why not coming back up? She starved herself for several days to get rid of any unwanted artistic touches, and on the day of her exhibit, she ingested milk to keep up her strength. On the stage, the lights dimmed. Soft classical music played, lulling the schmucks into feeling safe, and she then drank different color dyes and gagged herself with her fingers. The blotchy smears of stomach acid and red dye NO. 40 splattered on the canvas and became art. The reaction was phenomenal. Better yet, the paintings sold well.
She told the art world puke paintings were a statement about losing touch with our bodies in the modern age. Religion taught that the body was to be feared or ignored, and science engaged only in Ontic and Metaphysical Reductionism, lowering the body to only the sum of its parts.
How vomit on canvas captured that was a mystery, but she had used both big words and a cynical worldview in her explanation. Really, that’s all she needed for the yuppies to shake their heads in agreement.
Larry sighed, then said, “I don’t like seeing you come into my office with burn marks and bruises.”
“What’s the worst they could do if I’ve done it myself?”
“It’s sick.”
“It’s practice,” she said with a harsher tone than intended.
The new show came quicker than she had hoped, but she could handle anything. The museum agreed to her demands without even hearing them; because Kim Bail was putting on a show, after all. She brushed her hair from her eyes and said, “The spectacle is always more important than the message. It always has been, and this is going to be one hell of a spectacle.”
“That’s what I’m afraid of. I love you, girl… You’re nuts but I love you.”
“I know you do. Look, I got to get. The car will be here to pick me up in an hour, and my hair is still frumpy.” Her hair was perfect, but he didn’t need to know that.
“Bye… Be safe, and don’t feel you owe it to anyone to keep going. Stop if it gets out of control.”
“Will do.”
Thank God he’d gotten off the phone. Now she could get some work done. Zero hour was here, and teeth still needed to be brushed.
***
At the Museum 8:00 PM.
“You ready?” Larry said as he adjusted his tie.
“You know it.”
She dressed in a tank top and black jeans, and her lengthy hair, with Bettie Page bangs, covered her eyes. She could still see but not well. Every bit of her was crafted to look as demure as possible, and the retro haircut was part of it. However, it wasn’t the most essential part of the exhibit. No, the most critical part and the best artistic touch she’d added was the clacking logging chain that hung around her neck. The chain was massive and latched to a dog collar, and she’d bolted it to the floor. It weighed on her neck like a millstone, but what’s slavery without chains?
“Ok, give me a kiss,” he said, bending down.
“I don’t give kisses to dirty old men.”
He smiled as he said, “dirty, yes, but old… come on.” Kim smiled back.
“Let the floodgates open. I’m ready to see the people.”
“Ok, I’ll tell the doormen to let them in. Goodbye and good luck.” She leaned in and pecked both his tanning bed orange cheeks. His smile broadened.
“Thanks,” she whispered.
“Ok, no more talking. I’ll get the doors open,” he said. As Larry left the room, Kim pretended to zip her lips with her fingers.
Although the space had once been a lovely display of the evolutionary process showing how human beings went from primordial ooze to thinking beast, it was removed, and in its place stood Kim. Behind her, she’d hung a gray backdrop that looked suited more for family pictures than an art exhibit of this magnitude, but Kim needed all the attention. Everything was designed to draw the eye to her, or at least not be a distraction. You couldn’t have wandering eyes after all.
Four feet in front of her sat a table, and on that table sat 101 items Kim picked out for the occasion. There was everything from black sharpies, razor blades, feathers, stickers, tin cans, sex toys, and tea bags, but the most malevolent implement of torture was the MP3 player that only played Black Eyed Peas songs. Two feet in front of that, she’d placed a black sign with red letters. The sign said in a plain Georgian font, Do what thou wilt.
The first snobs came in, watched for a moment, and then wandered off, most likely feeling let down by the show. However, as time passed, a small collection formed, and they waxed intellectual about the exhibit. Were the blank walls symbolic of race relations or modern disenfranchisement with the capitalist system? Was the lone blue tarp that sat under her feet a commentary on gender inequality, or was it meant to be the sea, thus symbolizing America’s poor foreign policy?
“What’s it mean,” they whispered, but it still took an hour before a girl understood by using the radical epistemological tool of taking things at face value.
“We’re supposed to do whatever we want to her,” she said, pointing at the sign with a smile. “I’ll prove it to you.” She turned away from her giggling friends and marched up to the table.
“Don’t do it; you’ll get us kicked out,” one of her friends said. However, the petite rebel ignored her pleas and marched on.
The girl brushed the implements on the table with her fingers, scrunching her face as she made her pick. She selected a feather. Of course, she did, it was the least daring thing, and the little blond had already impressed her friends just by walking up. There’s no reason for her to get outlandish now. Kim stood in the same position as the blond crept up, often looking back, probably to see if a hidden authority figure would spring from nowhere to apprehend her. The closer she came, the wider the girl’s smile grew.
“Are you ok with this?” she tentatively said. Kim met her question with the best stoic forward stair worthy of the Queen’s Guard she could muster. She’d practiced the look for hours at home. The girl glanced back at her friends one last time and then made her move.
The girl giggled as she poked Kim’s side with her lean fingers trying to get a reaction, and then she tickled Kim’s neck with the feather. Nothing happened. She sprinted back to her companions, and they all chuckled at how clever, daring, and out of control, she was. The feather fluttered to the floor.
Kim had a horse as a child, and its trotting form rushed behind her eyes. The smile chipped at her lips had to be defeated, and the horse’s graceful form was the only way to stifle it. The blond girl’s manic enthusiasm was a challenging foe to slay, but she couldn’t give in. she needed to keep her lips straight and, above all, make no sound.
The show would work. Minutes passed, and the crowd grew. The promise, do what thou wilt, sucked the masses in with its love song. They’d watched the girl mess with Kim, and nothing happened. No cops, no museum employees, or upstanding citizens made a fuss.
“I swear to fuck I’ll do it...just watch me,” said a middle-aged man. He strutted up to the table and snagged one of the black sharpies. He brushed her hair from her eyes, and he pressed it to her forehead. He drew with strong marker strokes, then stopped after a moment. He glanced around the room with an oily grin. What he spelled was an enigma to her, but there was a mixed reaction from the onlookers, whatever it was. The young man rushed back to his friends, giving a few high fives as they moved to the next exhibit. She wished she could brush her hair back into her face so she didn’t have to look directly at the museum gawking patrons. They were better filtered through the strands of her bangs, but if she even twitched, it destroyed everything. For this to work, she needed to be a blank slate onto which they could project their frustrations and desires; so, there was nothing she could do. Her only safety net was gone.
A greasy fat man walked out of the horde of “art lovers” and rushed up to Kim with all the previous assurances that nothing would happen. He went straight for her and skipped the table. The Ill-fitting clothing, the comb-over, and scowl told her he had a vendetta against all female kind, and as he came closer, He brought with him the stench of B.O, stale alcohol, and wet dog.
“You’re a whore,” he screamed as he thrust a chubby finger into her face. “It says so right on your head.” The onlookers went silent with the outburst of anger, but no one made a move to defend the honor of the one hundred and twenty-pound girl. She didn’t want it anyway. The fat man turned to the crowd to see what his works wrought. “She never moved!”
He scratched at his unkempt facial hair as he turned back to her. “But I bet I can make her move,” He said with a devilish smile. The slimy smile set a rush of liquid nitrogen down her spine, and every muscle tightened until they felt as if they were paving stones. He leaned in and whispered, “I eat little girls like you.”
He grabbed her by the cheeks with his meaty paws until her mouth pried open. With all the joy of a child torturing an insect, he hocked a wad of spit into her mouth. He had just eaten peanut butter. It was extra chunky, to be precise.
Every involuntary bodily function revolted from the abomination that sat in her mouth. The fat loogie clung to everything, and she almost gagged as she tried to force it down. She wouldn’t be beaten by this grotesque subhuman. She would ride him to the top, and when she made it there, she would smile, knowing he spent his sad life beating off on the internet. No, not him. He wouldn’t stop her. It slid down her throat like watered-down jelly, and the chain around her neck rattled as the fat wad of spit forced itself into her.
Why was this man even here? He looked like a hobo that had found a dinner jacket in a dumpster rather than the kind of person that went to museums. Her fists clenched, and her body flushed with heat. She wanted to plant one of those clinched fists right upside his noggin, and if the circumstances had been different, she would have.
There were a few gasps from the multitudes and a few chuckles. Five or six people walked away, gagging and shaking their heads, but more jockeyed for a better viewing position. He’d crossed a line. He would have done more--much more-- if they were alone, but with all the heavy eyes of the crowd on him, he blushed in shame. Shaking, he rejoined the ranks. The fat ass was beaten.
No one dared to come up after him, but the multitudes paced with a predatory hunger now. They saw the true possibilities of the exhibit, and there was no pulling out now.
The fat man was like a malamute her neighbors had when she was a kid. The loathsome thing had knotted black hair; because the hillbilly’s next door never took care of it. It lived in their fenced-in backyard all year round, no matter how deep the snow fell. Piles of dog shit and half-chewed kid’s toys cluttered their yard.
It made the whole neighborhood reek, but nobody did a thing to stop it. They never played with it, pet it, or brushed it. Its hair was a matted clump of dreadlocks suited for only the hippest of hipsters. Eventually, the dog lost its mind snapping at anyone that came close. It sat waiting for her to play in her backyard and attacked the fence with every intention of gobbling her up. Every day the beast battered the fence over and over until its face was a clotted mass of blood and hair. The chain link became slack and barely clung to the metal posts. After he noticed, her dad refused to let her play back there because of the stupid dog. The thing cut in half the playable area in her world, and she hated it for that.
The dog was so mad even its owners didn’t walk out their door to feed it after a few years. They just tossed table scraps from one of the back windows. Kim’s mom suspected they were drug dealers and used the dog for protection. Although the beast was crazed, there appeared to be a method to the madness. It bashed its head into the fence at the same spot every day. It owned that backyard, but it wanted to expand its territory.
One day, while taking out the trash, the Dog ripped a hole wide enough to fit through, and like a plague from an angry god, it came. It raced towards her as a streak of black fur and fangs. It leaped with its jaws open wide, then latched onto her shoulder. The beast shook its head in a murderous rage, and it seemed to go on forever. Her limp and fragile body was jerked around by the hulking thing, and she gave up hope. Death was there, and it was eating her.
However, before it drained the life from her, her dad rushed out the door and grabbed the dog in a chokehold. With all his might, he wrenched the hundred-plus pound dog off, and body slammed it like a pro wrestler. He scooped her up and ran for the house. With the dog trying to bite into her dangling legs, her dad kicked open the door and then jumped inside; after a flurry of kicks to the dog’s face, he threw his shoulder into the door, locking the beast outside. Her dad screamed for her mom, and she came in a blind panic.
“She’ll be ok, but we still need to get her to the hospital,” he said, “bandage it, and we’ll take her in.”
Without another word, he stormed off to his bedroom with vengeful eyes. Before her squalling mother grabbed a rag to bind Kim’s wound, her dad stormed back out of the bedroom. He clenched his old pump-action shotgun, and out the door, he went.
Bam! Bam! Bam!
The rednecks never said anything. Why would they? They knew they had a hell beast in their backyard, and if they said shit in, it would open them up for criminal prosecution. She never saw the dog again. After all, it was dead. At least she never saw it in the flesh. It was dead, but she still refused to play in the backyard. The monster’s stink still hung around, and out of the corner of her eyes, she was convinced she could catch fleeting glimpses of a black blur darting behind trees and shrubs. It was stupid and childish. She knew that, but it did nothing to stop the trembling that took her hands every time she took out the garbage.
Although she would tell herself every night before bedtime it was just a dead rotting dog filled with gnawing yellow grubs and maggots, it didn’t help.
She knew the truth. It still hated her even as its muscles putrefied and its eyes withered in its sockets to the size of small brown raisins.
At night, sitting there in the blackness, she swore its untrimmed nails clicked across the wood floor inside her room. She swore its heavy breath grew deeper in the cool night air as its predatory hunger increased. She’d flick the lights on in a panic. Although, when they popped on there was only her ordinary pink bedroom; however, in the dark, it was alive and well. It always would be, and it could take her at any time.
The fat man had gone. He probably slunk off to a dark corner of the world to find something small and helpless to torture. Sharp pains shot from her knees up her legs, and a dull but ever-growing burn knotted itself around her spine. She’d stood motionless for too long.
An older woman looked around the room with a horrified expression, and she let go of, what Kim assumed was, her husband’s arm and, full of purpose, walked up. Her sequined dress rattled with each stride, and when she came close enough, she leaned and whispered, “They’re buzzards waiting to see if a wounded animal has any fight left. When they find out you don’t, it’ll get bad, darling. Stop this before you get hurt. God help you.” Then she gave Kim a light kiss on the forehead.
“I can’t watch this. You people are sick!” the old woman said, rushing back to take the old man’s arm.
“Get lost, you old dried up slut!” Someone shouted as the old couple left. The decrepit old lady was right. They would rip her apart, but that was the point exhibit.
She stared at the clock behind the hordes of restless people. It sat there so she’d know when the museum closed, and she could finally take off this stupid chain. She needed to make it three more hours, not a peep.
It took a while before anyone tried to do anything after that. The fat man disturbed the mood too fast. The show needed to go in that direction, but it needed to be a slow descent into madness. As it was, the show plodded along with nothing happening until a group of new young men came up. They snickered as they picked several items off the table. Markers, glitter, and a big pink boa were inflicted on Kim, and they chuckled maniacally as they made her “pretty.”
The unpleasant feeling of the unkempt misogynist and the condemnation of the old lady took only a few moments to break down after that. Soon others came. Most just poked at her and called her a few names before retreating. However, as more and more people took the stage with Kim, the line between participant and observer blurred. The crowd shouted suggestions, and the sadists devoured everyone as if they were bloody red roasts. A woman of about forty came out of anonymity and joined the revelers. She said nothing, but she didn’t need to. She pushed in front of Kim and then pinched her right breast. The woman looked for any sign of a struggle, discomfort, or objection, and in finding none, she smiled like a shark ripping into a seal. They all did.
She snatched Kim’s shirt and ripped at the shoulder strap until both of her breasts fell out, revealing Kim’s black bra. The act hit her like a fist wrapped in sandpaper, but she refused to look that way. Not for them. It was destined to happen, really, so she’d have to suck it up. Someone, she couldn’t tell who, reached up and snapped the bra exposing her breast to the public.
A cry from out of the masses came. “Fucking boobies!”
Kim lived in a sea of groping hands and struggled to stay standing. She pushed back into her mind and found a happy place, and Kim rested there awhile. People came and went in an endless march, poking and prodding before they moved on. It was thirty minutes until closing. She could do this, and nothing would stop her.
A dozen different perfumes and deodorants mixed and burned her nostrils, then churned her stomach, and the bare walls were more like a prison to her now than an artistic touch. From the gathering horde of participants, a hand sprung out and popped her in the mouth. It didn’t matter.
The fat man wobbled back into the room. He leered as he shoved a hand into his pants pocket and caressed something. The pervert. The sight attacked her eyes as if it were a swarm of red wasps, and it became hard to stay focused now with his heavy eyes molesting her.
One person bit her on the arm, a man licked her breast, and an old woman threw a lighter at her. Civilized behavior fell down around her like a skyscraper in an earthquake. Kim’s eyes pooled with tears, but she wouldn’t blink. If she did a tear might roll down her cheek, and she couldn’t let these people know that she was hurt, tired, and even a little frightened. Every time someone new approached, her muscles strained as she braced for the worst. The creeps had taken over the room, and no one acted nice anymore. The ordinary people were shamed or shocked into leaving some time ago, and all that was left were the deviants.
She glanced at the clock, fifteen minutes until closing time. She locked her eyes on the clock. A few people poked and mocked her, but little of the abuse registered anymore. She would make it. She had to.
That hideous, stinking, shuddersome fat man had a grimace on his face that made it evident he wasn’t satisfied with how their first encounter ended. He planned to do something. He’d had time to build his courage up, and his rigid posture showed Kim he built that confidence on rage.
Fifteen minutes to go, and the show is over. She hadn’t moved, she hadn’t spoken, and she hadn’t shown any emotion. She would finish what she started and become even more successful. Every part of her hurt, and she would cry deeper and harder than ever when this was over. But now, she was in the thick of it. The chain around her neck was so heavy it seemed to pull her closer to the ground every moment.
She found her happy place again. It was her first trip to Florida as a kid, and the ocean was just so big. Stars never made her feel small like they did for many people. They were just tiny specks of light, and she needed to use too much imagination before feeling anything. On the other hand, the sea crashed around her massive and immediate, and she couldn’t take it all in, no matter how she tried.
A hand slid up the inside of her thigh, a plastic fork jabbed her ribcage, and a roll of tape was shredded and knit into her hair. However, the sea rolled behind her eyes. It was so vivid the thought it might spill from her head and drown the hordes of sadists that tortured her. Within her mind, she ran along the beach, squishing wet sand between her toes. The rolling waves mimicked the push and pull of the current batch of people that had decided to inflict themselves upon her.
Up! Way up in the blue sky, black specks glided on the wind currents. She peered up at them, trying to decipher this minor mystery. They were too big to be blackbirds or seagulls. Pelicans maybe? However, their necks were far too long for pelicans, and that’s when it hit her. The true nature of the birds leaped into her mind. Vultures!
Behind her came a deep and baleful… Grrrrrrrrrrirrrr. Her spine locked, her muscles clenched, and her teeth ground. It could only be that dreadful bête noire. That hideous Malamute. It wanted to rip apart the flesh of all creatures weaker than it, and now her flesh was so very weak. Its padded feet crunched the sand as it came closer and closer, and soon its hot wet breath hit the back of her naked legs.
The loudspeaker crackled and broke her free from one hell, but it made her cognizant of another. “Hello, sorry to interrupt your learning experience, but the museum will close in ten minutes. So, please make your way to the exits,” The voice said. The crowd looked around puzzled, and their conversations broke up. This lasted a moment, and then an evil thought congealed within their minds.
It was closing time. That meant they had one last shot at doing something to her. Whatever horrible acts they’d fantasized about needed to be evaluated; because this would be the last time they got this chance. Anyone that felt like they had something left came forward, and they did in mass. She was once more awash in a sea of hands. A finger wormed its way into her pants, a squishy wet something slapped her back, and a penny smacked her forehead.
In the crowd, the fat man grinned again with his hand, rubbing something in his pocket. He looked into her eyes as he pulled his liver-spotted talon out. Clinched within it, he held a long thin knife. He lumbered forward on a fiendish mission. Kim’s heart sank as he entered the mass of people. She couldn’t run. There were too many people around her, and the chain had her bolted to the floor. Why had she picked a chain of all things? The key sat in her agent’s pocket, but that dick hadn’t even come to check on her. Ohh, she was going to fire his ass if she lived.
Screaming wasn’t an option; because the near frenzied horde jabbered so loud, they wouldn’t even notice her weak cries of panic. Nothing she could do would stop this. Fear closed off her windpipe.
Closer and closer, he wormed his way through the people. The horde ripped and pulled at her as if mindless zombies, and in most ways, that’s what they were. The dead-eyed people gave into their most base and grotesque instincts. It was the human need to have power over something and subject it to all manner of degradation to assert that power.
He pushed within five feet. She couldn’t see all of him at any given time. There were too many people, but she sometimes glimpsed his beard or black evening jacket, but that was it.
She had to find the happy place again. She closed her eyes and concentrated on the lovely little beach, and it materialized behind her lids. Sand, salt water, and blue sky came through more than ever. However, it wasn’t the only thing that came rushing from her subconscious. The black beast stood in front of her, its eyes ablaze with all hell’s fury. The beast’s lips curled, bearing its pink gums and glinting fangs. It sprang from its sitting position, barely touching the earth as it bounded and leaped, latching onto her neck. Its railroad spike-like teeth sunk deep and ripped into her in the most savage of ways. Blood gushed from her neck as the beast shook its head from side to side, and the crowd screamed as all went black.
***
Four days later, she moved around her hospital room like an old man with dementia, tottering from here to there with no discernible pattern. The doctors preened her like a show dog, and she couldn’t stand it. The news droned in the background, but the journalist only told her shit she already knew. Two days passed before she woke up, but she had been pumped so full of painkillers a few days after she’d come to that it didn’t count as being awake. By the fifth day, she was wrecked, but she was truly awake. Over and over, the news story ran. Her story.
The fat man who stabbed her twice in the neck--named Richard Foucault-- was an ex-pediatrician from Hartford, and he was driven out of his own practice under allegations of possessing child pornography. After the attack, the cops raided his home to find the bodies of two dead prostitutes he’d pickled in fifty-five-gallon barrels. The talking heads on the news said he was suspected of at least six other murders. A natural-born predator. You know-until the people in the museum beat him half to death for what he did.
Proof he’d brutalized those six other girls would come soon; because a man like that was more frenzy than a methodical Hollywood-style serial killer. The knife wounds ached every time she twitched her neck, but she’d live. Heck, the blade didn’t even go that deep.
Her cell phone nagged like a child demanding to be picked up, so she rushed to it, smashed the touch screen with her thumb, and raised it to her ear.
“Love… I got you a spot on Dateline. Also, how you holding up,” Larry said.
“Dateline?”
“Date… line girl! Yep, you’re more popular than porn right now, and we need to ring out this rag for all it’s worth. I mean every drop,” He said with no small amount of pride in his voice. Dateline! Maybe she could fire him later.
“That’s awesome.”
“You’re telling me, love. They want your story as quickly as they can get it.” The phone slid from her grasp and landed on the bed with a dull thud.
“They want my story,” she mumbled. Her agent’s voice became little more than muffled gibberish that rose from her tangled bed sheets.
“They want my story.” It’s a story she’d be happy to give, but she’d have to craft it first. What kind of story was it? It’s about a poor artist who got stabbed, but it could also be more. Could it be a narrative about women’s liberation, or perhaps it was about how unjust abortion was? Hell, she had been a human sacrifice for art like some kind of hipster Jesus. People wanted something sacred, not factual, and sacred could be any God damned thing she wanted.
Under the fatly packed bandage taped to her neck, a burning itch grew. Limping into the bathroom, she shut the door behind her. The wounds crawled as if a thousand ants moved across the scabs, so, she pulled at the bandage. Blood trickled as the red-yellow underside of the cotton stickily pried up. Attached to her shoulder and glued by her crusted blood to the dressing were five or six long black hairs. The hairs clung to the cotton as if out-stretched power lines. Her heart thumped in her chest, and her breath became wet cement in her lungs.
Something slashed the inside of her lower lip. It was her teeth. Bearing them in the mirror, she saw her k9s had grown into stalactite-like formations that jutted an inch and a half further than usual, and the panic melted away. What had happened to her was clear and almost inevitable. She smiled a big toothy grin as a meaty ideal hobbled past her mind like a wounded animal. The story she’d tell the press would be about racism. That’s a hot-button issue, and it garnered a lot of media attention. She didn’t understand how it was about racial oppression yet, but that was nothing a few belts of gin and some Vicodin wouldn’t accomplish.
The end
Authors notes
I got this idea from an actual art exhibit, and I wanted to play with some different themes. One aspect of this was as simple as how much I hate postmodernism today. It is not the art itself that I have such loathing for. Some of them are pleasing to the eye, and I will not deny this. It is the underlying filthy philosophical bed that it wallows in that disgusts me.
The other aspect I wanted to play with was who was exploiting who in these kinds of debouched art exhibitions.