“Are…y-ya fuckin’ h-h-happy now, s-s-sir?” Donny stammered out, staring at himself. “Ain’t no one g-g-onna want me now.”
“No–No, fuck you, no we’re not finished.”
Donny flinched at the edge in Walter’s voice. It hadn’t been there before–and neither had those steel grey eyes he was looking at him with. Appraising him with, like an object. Like an object, trying to figure out what part of it he hadn’t quite vandalized completely.
“That face,” Walter said, “I still see you in that fucking face.”
With a cry of pain, Donny’s facial features began rearranging themselves. His mouth grew wider and his lips thinned, his nose growing out, the point turning up and flattening, nostrils flaring wide to either side. His brow thickened considerably, hiding his now beady eyes in shadow, even as his forehead grew shorter. His ears flapped out to either side, one noticeably larger than the other.
“Too young too. You don’t fucking deserve youth. No–there’s nothing uglier than awkward middle age.”
His hairline receded, but left a noticeable tuft of hair behind offset to one side, and a few strands of grey appeared in his hair and sideburns–not enough to form a pattern, but enough to be apparent. His gut and moobs sagged a bit further, his skin growing cracked, dry and weathered, spotted with moles and freckles. Donny no longer recognized himself in any part of his body, and yet, looking at his own reflection…he knew this life of his intimately. No one had ever loved him. No one had ever touched him without also wanting to hurt him.
“Fuckin’ ugly pig,” Walter said, giggling for some reason, feeling unhinged in his own mind. What a name for you! Fuglet! The fuckin’ ugly piglet. What’s your name, slave? I want to hear you say it.”
“It’s…Fuglet s-s-sir,” Donny said…and it was true. Somehow, that nickname had followed him his entire life. He’d forgotten his real name often enough, and it was easier just to introduce himself as that–it got the messy business over faster…sometimes.
“Fugglet, oh my fucking christ, what the fuck have I done!” Walter said, still giggling. “I…I knew this was going to…to be rough, but fuck, I can’t even look at you.”
“I k-k-know sir, I’m g-g-g…” he tried to say, but couldn’t get anything past his lips.
“I fucking did this, fuck, I have to get the fuck out of here, I need some fucking air,” Walter said, and stumbled for the apartment door, intending to run and never come back. He’d done what the curse had wanted, hadn’t he? It didn’t need him anymore. He couldn’t stay here, he couldn’t stare that thing in the face everyday and…and not see himself reflected in it. He grabbed the door handle and hauled the door open six inches, but the door slammed against some immovable and invisible force, which slammed it back shut. It was in him. It was in him, the curse was in him, and it was angry. Now he knew what Jack had meant, when he’d told him not to resist, that the curse only wanted to use him. In the end, he hadn’t been the right tool, even if he’d been close. The curse was realizing this now, and decided to fashion him into something which would better suit its needs.
“You have to stay.”
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’ll stay, I’ll be your tool!” he shouted into the room, but he could tell the curse was rather unimpressed, and it was right. He couldn’t do this. He hadn’t imagined it might be this intense, this terrible, watching the man he loved…destroyed like this. This wasn’t what he’d wanted, not really, but it was the curse calling the shots. It was the curse which had seen this in him, deep inside him, and called it forth. This had come from him, but he’d never had to stomach to grapple with it–that the only way he could know–truly know–that someone was his, was to make sure no one would ever desire them.
“You cannot leave. You won’t leave. You don’t want to leave.”
The curse was pulling him away from the door, dragging him back towards the room, back towards Fuglet, back towards the mirror.
“Fuglet needs to be punished.”
“Please, I know, I’ll do it.”
“You both need to be punished.”
“No…no…” he whined, but he could already feel it, his body changing in ways he could barely understand.
“You hate. You hate, it is what you do. You hate, you wound. You are cruel. You are waste. You are wasting. No one would ever submit themselves to someone like you, no one other than someone who no one would want to dominate. You will both be cursed to have no one but one another.”
Thinking back on the moment–often after waking up from nightmares in the middle of the night, trying to scream through a dry, empty throat–it was like he had been set on his knees in a sandstorm, being buffeted by the wind and thousands of sharp, cutting grains of glass. Every cut removed a piece of him–thoughts from his mind, strength from his body, kindness from his soul. He would imagine being buried, but they were simply stripping everything away from him that was no longer necessary. The best tools, after all, were lean and efficient, honed for a single purpose, and obvious in intent. The storm disappeared, leaving him curled up in a ball on the floor, Fuglet backed up against the wall, unable to understand what had just happened, but terrified all the same. He just stared at his Master, wondering if he was dead. It looked like it could be dead, and then there was a rasping breath, and his Master uncurled himself with a groan.
Bracken's Corner 