Clarissa
1.
For quite some time, Clarissa has been convinced that she has all the makings of a serial killer. This doesn’t particularly disturb Clarissa, which, she figures, is just another sure sign of her sociopathic tendencies. Most of her friends would probably laugh at the notion, but then again, they’re not exactly privy to all goes on in Clarissa’s head.
Many personality and intelligence tests show that Clarissa is exceptional. There was no denying that Clarissa understood things in a way that could only be explained as inherent. She certainly didn’t acquire her knowledge in school. Moreover, despite her apparent reservation and what seemed to be occasional social withdrawal, Clarissa had an astute awareness of everything and everyone around her.
She liked to make a game of it with her friends sometimes. They’d laugh and beg her to give them a Tarot card reading or interpret their dreams, and she’d oblige. She’d reveal just enough half-truths to satisfy and impress her friends, keeping the rest for herself. She found it funny that people could know so little about themselves that they’d ask an outsider to give them insight. Clarissa’s own self awareness bordered on obscene. She knew every corner of her mind in explicit detail. She didn’t have one thought that she couldn’t explain.
Reason is very important to Clarissa. To her, every action has a cause and an effect. She didn’t waste time with ambiguity or explanation when, as far as she could see, the natural order of the world could be broken down to a simple calculation.
This bluntness occasionally worked against Clarissa, particularly when her friends were looking for sympathy. There was only so much emotion Clarissa could feign when her friends bucked logic. They’d say she didn’t understand their pain, that she was stand-offish and cold, only to come back later and ask for her help in finding a solution. Somehow, Clarissa always knew how to sever an issue.
And it was never that she didn’t understand pain, she just didn’t care. Clarissa saw no point in getting emotional over an issue when all one had to do was take action to correct it. She had an uncanny knack for being able to break everything down into a natural equation. Nature made sense to Clarissa, who preferred flesh to clothing, and sometimes, blood to flesh. The possibilities of the human body kept her awake some nights.
She was often reminded of her personal heroine, Elizabeth Bathory, the first documented female vampire. Vampire lore didn’t fascinate Clarissa so much as what she felt was Bathory’s unequivocal ingenuity. In a time of unenlightenment, she found it utterly impressive that a woman could reason that the key to maintaining her appearance came not from alteration, but from nature. Blood is, of course, the natural life force of us all, and Bathory would bathe in it regularly to maintain her seeming eternal youth.
It was fascinating to Clarissa that this woman created such a logical plan. The fortitude it must have taken to select the right girls for her purpose, lure them to her castle home, to open their flesh and revel in their blood, astounded Clarissa. She was certain, that had she lived in that lifetime, she and Bathory would have been friends.
She thought this just the other day in fact, upon meeting a new friend at the gym. As they changed out of their workout attire, her friend remarked on Clarissa’s nearly flawless skin. Clarissa did not immediately respond. She was momentarily distracted by a small red stain on the cuff of her shirt. Try as she might, she was unable to keep from being just the slightest bit untidy.
Covering the stain with her hand, she smiled at her new friend. The girl was rather pretty, Clarissa thought. It’s all organics, she told her friend. Perhaps she’d like to come over one night for dinner? Clarissa promised the meal would be completely natural. Her friend agreed with enthusiasm, and they set a date. Clarissa was pleased.
2.
“Is this how it starts?” she wondered. The website Clarissa was viewing promised “elite suffering” and it most certainly delivered. The authenticity of it all pleased her tremendously. She was tired of watching staged whippings, where what should have been screams come out as giggles, and needle “play” was nothing more than a few glorified piercings. Those fanciful downloads catered to people who lacked Clarissa’s reserve. She found it absurd that someone would prefer to experience the illusion of pain when the real thing was so much more fascinating. The so-called elite suffering website delivered a far superior presentation than any she’d witnessed thus far.
Indeed, the needle and black thread being woven through a writhing woman’s labia was as real and vivid as Clarissa desired. As she watched blood bubble and smear in bright streaks along the woman’s spread thighs, she knew the resounding screams were genuine. The only downside Clarissa could see was that none of the dialogue was in English. The human body has such possibilities with the right ingenuity. There was pure energy to be had in testing its tolerance, in seeing, smelling and feeling the results. Clarissa often solicited stories about medical procedures from people she knew just to be one heartbeat closer to the experience. But in asking “Did that hurt?” Clarissa was not interested in the well being of her friends, as they thought. She more enjoyed seeing the recollection of fear that built in their eyes; liked hearing the pitchy tremble in their voices as they recalled the sensation of pointed steel against skin.
Clarissa could feel her enthrallment with physiology and blood leading her to more tangible means of appreciation. She’d already made the arrangements, in fact. Her girlfriend was stretched out on the procedure table that Clarissa kept in her White Room. Although she had already cleaned and marked her, Clarissa continued to eye her friend’s skin.
She focused her gaze on her breasts, taking in their fullness, and let her eyes trail the expanse of her body. Had her friend’s eyes been open, she might have squirmed under the investigation. Certainly, it wasn’t entirely necessary to stare so long at the girl’s prone body. Clarissa leaned forward and pinched the skin between her friend’s breasts with her thumb and index finger. The sensation wasn’t quite what she’d hoped for – she found her surgical gloves to be a mild annoyance. Sadly, they were a necessity, not just for appearances, but to appease Clarissa’s own fastidious nature. She was, above all else, practical.
She watched her friend’s breathing grow deeper. Her chest rose and fell with each breath, and at the top of her next exhale, Clarissa forced a dermal punch directly through her supple skin and twisted it into the subcutaneous tissue. Removing that circle of flesh was more satisfying than she envisioned. She smiled at the pooling of blood that seeped from the gape; it made it easier for her to insert the cold, hard steel of her elevating tool into the hole. Slowly, Clarissa worked her way across the subdermis, separating the skin layers coolly, as though it were the single most natural thing she could be doing.
She almost wanted to giggle. There was a distinct pleasure to forcing the skin into new positions. Even the subtle sounds that came from tearing flesh to create the pocket for the steel rod she now slid into her friend gave her a heady buzz. She was finished far too fast for her liking. It was only a 12-gage rod she inserted, externally threaded on one end so that she could screw a small jewel into it. Daubing the wound off with a saltwater solution, she felt minor disappointment. There really hadn’t been so much blood, and Clarissa could think of far more things she’d like to do.
Clarissa’s friend sat up. She was handed a mirror and considered her reflection. The trendy microdermal chest anchor looked just as perfect as Clarissa had promised. This was, after all, just a glorified piercing, so Clarissa couldn’t muster the same enthusiasm her friend did. But she smiled at her as she busied herself cleaning the room.
Her White Room was a work of medical art, stocked precisely and more thoroughly than a doctor’s office. Clarissa was pleased at how easy it was to acquire the tools of the trade, though her sharps did require somewhat more… creativity to obtain. Now that she’d had a chance to really look at her surroundings, Clarissa’s friend was unnerved. The sterility that had initially seemed so reassuring now seemed blinding. There was no comfort to be found in the room, no color of any sort aside from the industrial glare of stainless steel.
Nervously, she chattered on while Clarissa wiped down her trays and counter. “You did such a good job,” she told Clarissa. “You must do a lot of piercings. Do you have a lot of customers?” Clarissa, who had just slid a cauterizing pen from its place in a drawer, turned to face her friend. She figured she may as well let her in on her little secret.
“Actually,” she said with a small wink, “I’ve never done this before. You’re my first.” Her friend started to back away as Clarissa approached her. “Don’t worry about it,” said Clarissa. “I knew I’d be good at it.” And that, Clarissa knew, was only the beginning.
3.
Clarissa was restless. Her superiority complex had increased in the past month. Too many thoughts, too much interest and not enough outlets left Clarissa in a state of aching impatience.
It seemed that any effort to alleviate her mood lead only to annoyance. Conversation exhausted her. If people weren’t shocked by Clarissa, then they were in awe of her, and neither was satisfactory. She craved a match to her presence, a mutual intelligence or shared experience that might somehow excite her. She found only endless prattle and a lack of common sense that made it far too easy to bend people to her will. But mental manipulation held limited amusement to her now, and consequently, Clarissa spent much of her time in silence.
And that was why the girl on the table before her now was mostly unconscious. Clarissa was disgusted at how easy it was. The girl had responded to Clarissa’s online advertisement for a partner in “blood play” and shown up at the agreed meeting place wearing fangs and a cape. Clarissa ingested her laughter.
She believed that anyone who would meet a stranger in a dark bar earned their fate, and felt no remorse about stirring crushed Rohypnol into the girl’s drink. Her research proved accurate, and Clarissa was ready to escort the wannabe vampire home when her head lolled to the side 20 minutes later.
The restraints probably weren’t necessary, Clarissa realized. Her plaything was agreeable and limp, fazing in and out of consciousness. She didn’t even seem to register the blade of Clarissa’s scalpel biting into the flesh of her right breast, which was a slight disappointment, but made tracing the rings she’d outlined somewhat easier.
Scarification is indeed a labor of love, and Clarissa made a concentrated effort to open the skin shallowly at first.
She had opted to scar each of the girl’s breasts with a bullseye, leaving the nipples intact at the center. Her breasts were large enough for Clarissa to cut two circular rings around each. She especially enjoyed the initial cutting of each circle; liked the smooth sensation of her scalpel tearing into the curve and underside of the breast.
It was curious to her how there was such a distinction to each layer of skin. It was all the more obvious when she started to peel small sections of it away from the circles she’d traced. Methodically, Clarissa used the blade of her scalpel to separate the layer of tissue, then lift a corner with her hemostats to peel the flesh away. She developed a rhythm to it: cut, lift, pull, cut, lift, pull, cut, lift, pull. There was a catharsis to it, and she paused only to blot the bright red blood that ran from the wounds.
She worked to remove small strips of flesh at a time; she knew that if she tried to remove too large a section, the wound would be too deep and would heal unevenly. Though she doubted that when awake the girl would treat the open wounds with the correct care to ensure a perfect scar, she felt obliged to work meticulously nonetheless.
Clarissa quickly built a small pile of removed, bloody flesh on the tray beside her. Had she more time, she would have been tempted to dip her fingers into it, maybe squeeze pieces of skin between her fingertips. She admitted to herself that she might even like to place a piece between her teeth – not to eat, but to experience the texture, discover its resistance and consistency.
It was unfortunate when Clarissa completed her designs. Her sense of accomplishment was so strong she could practically hear it. The fresh wounds were vibrant and shiny red, the product of intelligent attention and skill. They were perfect, and Clarissa was proud. It was only too bad she didn’t have more time to decorate her girl further.
Clarissa encased the girl’s breasts and chest with Vaseline-coated plastic wrap. It was a simple way to keep the wounds clean and reasonably moist, without affecting the design. She dressed the girl again, dropped her into a wheelchair, and rolled her out to her car. Clarissa knew she had limited time to return the girl to their initial meeting place.
The bright light of the sun woke the girl later. She found herself seated in the front seat of her own car with an uneasy recollection of a strong bright light, similar to the blinding light over an operating table. A thick fog clouded her senses; she wasn’t sure where she was, what had happened, or what was real.
It wasn’t until she took a deep breath that the pain gripped her. Stinging, burning pain ripped through her like evil. She tore off her clothing, revealing her wrapped chest, bulging with blood like a vicious blister. The open weals around each breast throbbed and oozed, and the girl began to scream.
Clarissa, miles away and cleaning her Room, paused in her work for a moment. She bristled, smiled, and for a moment, felt satisfied.
