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Blood sacrifice
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Relates how it came to be that Blackheath kissed Giulia. Follows Four Beginnings.
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Warning!! M for a reason. Surgical gore, violence, themes of sexual violence. Not a happy little tale.
This story takes place between Thaw and Degrees of Freedom, but should be read after Four Beginnings to avoid spoilers.
"Some think that blood sacrifices are a thing of the past, the distant past, the time of Abraham, or cannibals, or the Temple of Doom. The most powerful way to appease the gods, the renewal of existence by passing through death. But let me assure you, blood sacrifices are most certainly a thing of the present. A blood sacrifice is the most ultimate gesture you can make. The most powerful plea, the most rigorous requirement, the closest substitute for the most sacred thing of all, human life. 'A pound of flesh', and all that. Therefore, it should not surprise us that just as situations still exist, and will always exist, where ultimate gestures are necessitated, so, blood sacrifices continue, and will continue, to be made…"
***
It was uncertain who was to blame, exactly.
It was Dorsey who had provoked the situation, continuing to tempt him. And though she had known his leg was injured, she had thought it was getting better all the time. Exercise could only be good for it, build it up. She had even cajoled a dingo pup from a reluctant housewife, presenting it to Ally as way of creating time for themselves: puppies required much time spent Outdoors.
Blackheath had known his leg was getting worse, but thought he could manage it. That morning, his leg had felt like one huge bruise, and he had kept her hands away from it, so she never had the chance to know how bad it was.
He felt he should have been able to resist her temptation, and though he did, he never did for very long, because the truth was he had missed her too, and so when he succumbed to her attentions he was already over half way there himself. He loved the mischief in her eyes and the wickedness of her touch, and he wanted her just as much as she wanted him. They both felt they had some catching up to do. Though he had thought he could get her out of his system quickly, and rest then, he had forgotten how addictive she was, and how, like a drug, his need for her, and thus her power over him, only increased with each dose. Perhaps if he hadn't tried to resist her at all, things would not have built to such a head.
So that morning, when he stopped pretending to himself that he would resist her, he did so violently, pushing her up against the wall. And at the same time, she had wrapped her legs around his hips, and all the weight of his action was suddenly, forcefully, put on his legs. He had fallen to the ground beneath her, swearing wretchedly, having felt his thigh muscle tear itself apart. Beneath his dizzy eyes and clutching hands the blood was already spreading in spongey marks beneath the skin, and his thigh swelling darkly with heat and pain.
And it was because both felt the other should admit to some blame, and secretly felt that it had been their fault, that there was this silence between them now. The silence had quickly become a distance, because there seemed little point being close to each other when neither had anything to say.
***
The distance between them was echoed in the distance between the doctor and the leg. Dorsey stood on the far side of the room, silent, arms folded, and the doctor secretly wished he could do the same.
The local doctor spent much of his spare time hoping such cases never came to him, so he was living through a nightmare the longer Blackheath stayed his patient. Though he was an uncomplaining patient, accepting without a word the tight layers of bandaging that made his leg throb like a second heart, accepting indefinite, endless, insanifying bed rest, the doctor could not help but feel that Blackheath's dark eyes saw through his dithering. And sure enough, they both eventually had had enough, and forced him to do something practical.
Guarding his work with dire predictions, the doctor dug out fist sized blood clots from inside the thigh with shaking hands, trying to see between the connective tissue like taught violin strings the body had thrown down in a last ditch effort to hold things together. He saw as much as he needed to confirm his suspicions, then closed up the leg with broad, ugly stitches, like those on a corpse.
There was not enough blood supply to keep the muscle alive, he explained, with a measure of relief. Now he could confidently advise what he had wanted to do all along, but had needed to wait until circumstances forced his treatment to be appropriate. Without enough blood, the muscle would begin to die, its rotting fibres poisoning the rest of the body. The leg would have to go.
"Amputate?" Dorsey repeated, in a high brittle voice that would have blown away in the slightest breeze. But the doctor knew what needed to be done, and she was easily persuaded that this was the case.
Blackheath was not.
"You are not cutting off my leg," Blackheath growled, his voice rigid despite the giddiness of the pain and the fever. And through pleading and threatening and reverse psychology, he maintained his stance. And despite pleading and threatening of their own, the doctor refused to try anything more. They had rejected the treatment he had advised, and cherished, and he had stopped looking for anything else. Secretly he wished his patient would die and leave him in peace.
"Take me to Giulia," Blackheath told Dorsey, and finally she could see it was the only thing he would do, and therefore, the only thing that could be done.
Strapping the leg as firmly as she dared, she packed him into the backseat with stolen pillows, put Ally in the front seat, puppy at her feet, and drove.