Oliver carried Lana into the basement one last time. When she came up the stairs again it was in pieces.
Marilyn watched from the couch, silent, as the doctor carefully lit a small flame in the fireplace. The small flame grew to a larger one until she could feel the heat of it on her face. The fire roaring now, Oliver slowly unwrapped each piece from its clear plastic sheet and placed them one by one into the fireplace. He did this with a sort of quiet reverence that both calmed and terrified her.
She watched as long as she could until the smell of burning flesh began to overwhelm her. One hand over her mouth, Marilyn got to her feet and rushed to the sliding glass doors, opening them just a crack to breathe fresh air that didn't reek of death.
"Can't keep that open for long," Oliver said softly. Behind her, she could hear the sound of plastic crinkling and a quiet thump when the body part - arm, leg, whatever - was dropped into the fire. "Neighbors might smell."
"I know," she gasped, sucking in as much air as she could.
Crinkle. Thump. Marilyn took two more heaving breaths, then slid the door shut again.
Flames glinted off the lenses of Oliver's black-rimmed glasses as he stared at her. The floor was littered with sheets of bloody plastic, but at least they were all finally empty.
"She's gone," he said in a strange toneless voice.
A sudden sharp wave of jealousy swept through her. Lana was gone, he was right about that, she was finally gone and there was nothing left of her but ashes and yet somehow she was still here. Marilyn tried to stop the words from escaping her but she could no more have stayed silent than change the color of her eyes at that moment.
"Yes, she's gone, and good fucking riddance," she spat, drawing the curtains closed with a snap of her wrists.
Oliver pulled himself from the crouching position by the fireplace, his head tilted to one side.
"Why did you make me bring her here?" Marilyn demanded, all at once in tears. "Why? Why couldn't you have left her in the asylum?"
Before he could speak, she gave the coffee table a savage little kick. The bowl of mints, a strange rounded bowl she'd never cared for anyway, rolled off and fell on the floor, scattering candies across the brown carpet. Oliver began to move towards her.
"Marilyn-"
"I never asked for this!" she wept, closing her hands over her stomach. "I had a life, I was happy, and... if you... if you..." The words caught in her throat like tiny bones. Her eyes darted from the doctor, to the fire, to the doctor again. "If you wanted her why did you take me?"
"Marilyn," he repeated, putting his arms around her, but she shoved him away. His dark brows twisted into a little frown and he advanced on her again; this time, she struck him on the chest as hard as she could.
"Why did you take me?" Marilyn felt the hot tears running down her cheeks, her heartbeat loud in her ears, fists clenched in fury. "If all you ever wanted was her why did you take me?"
Oliver stared at her with wide dark eyes, but he didn't say anything. She let out a little sob and hit him again, and again, until finally he took her wrists in his hands and held her still.
"Marilyn, stop," he pleaded softly, and this infuriated her more - where was the anger? The white-hot rage that was always bubbling just below the surface? Why was he so calm and gentle with her when she was hitting him as hard as she could, trying to cause him pain, trying to make him upset with her so at least he'd be feeling something?
She wrestled one hand free and slapped him across the face, the sound of it ringing through the house like a crack of gunfire.
When his eyes met hers again they were bright and yes, angry, angry at last, but he made no move to strike her back.
"You don't know what you're doing," he said in a low voice. "After the first trimester, hormones can fluctuate wildly, causing mood swings." Her face glinted back at her from the lenses of his glasses, tight and pale.
"Fuck your diagnosis, doctor," Marilyn spat. She drew her hand back to hit him again but then he was upon her, forcing her back onto the couch, his hands pinning hers above her head.
"I love you!" he shouted, his face only an inch from her own. "Don't you see that?! Don't you feel it?! All the others, they ended up the same way, even Lana, but you, you're still here! Don't you know what that means?!"
She felt her chest heaving against his, smelled the dark exotic scent of his aftershave over the burning flesh, and felt suddenly - powerfully - aroused.
"It means," Marilyn said, struggling to control her ragged breaths, "that you're mine. And no one else's." She mashed her mouth against his, parting his lips with her tongue in an angry heated kiss, a kiss that was more about possession than passion.
Oliver bucked his hips against hers, returning the kiss eagerly, before withdrawing suddenly and releasing her wrists.
"The baby," he whispered, but his breath was ragged too now.
She grabbed him by the dark tie around his neck and quickly reversed their positions, putting him beneath her on the couch. Marilyn straddled the doctor with surprising ease and worked her fingers at the zipper on his crotch.
"That's right," she said breathlessly, wrapping her fingers around his hardened length and pumping slowly. "I'm going to have your baby. I'll be his mother, and yours."
Her words and light touch rolled his eyes back in his head. Oliver grasped blindly for her face, running his fingertips along her cheekbones.
"Marilyn," he moaned.
When he was hard enough she adjusted his throbbing erection and guided it carefully into the slick space between her legs. They whimpered quietly together; slowly, carefully, aware of the rounded belly that held the small life between them, she began to rock her hips.
"I don't... ever... want to hear... her name again," she panted, the pleasure blooming like a hot flower between her thighs.
Marilyn moved her hips in an almost painfully slow circle and the doctor gasped quietly.
"Yes," he agreed almost at once. She leaned towards him, grasping the collar of his shirt, and placed her lips against his.
"Because you're mine," she whispered.
"God, yes," Oliver moaned, his strong hands encircling her waist.
"Say you're glad she's gone." Marilyn pulled back slightly to see the look of surprise on his face. Something inside her knew this was cruel, it was too much to ask of him, but she had killed for him, god damn it, and if she was ever going to stay here with him to raise his child, she needed it. She needed to be cruel.
Oliver looked like a lost child, his dark eyes somehow sad and excited all at once. She touched the skin next to his right eye tenderly, the pads of her fingers trailing along the scattered little scars that Lana had left the first time she escaped. The cut on her own chin left by the reporter's dying struggles would probably turn into a scar, too, and then they would have something in common, a bond that no one could ever sever.
She began to wonder if she, too, was as close to the breaking point as the doctor.
"I'm glad she's gone," Oliver said after a long pause. The words seemed to soothe him even as they left his lips, as though perhaps they held some truth.
Marilyn rewarded him with a long, deep kiss, and bucked her hips faster on his.
"You're glad she's gone," she whispered.
"Yes," the doctor murmured, and squeezed her waist, grunting softly as she drove him close and closer to orgasm.
She was caught in this spider's web, whether she wanted to admit it or not. He would never let her go, and at a certain point, she had ceased wanting to leave. This was her life now, and if she was going to live it, it was going to be on her terms.
"Mommy loves her baby," Marilyn murmured. She tangled her fingers in the hair on the back of his neck and began kissing him deeply, pumping her hips, utterly losing herself to the sensations as she felt herself coming, tumbling recklessly over the edge of ecstasy just before Oliver let out a weak moan and the telltale pulsing began between her legs as he came too.
And then it was over, the two of them breathless and spent, wrapped around each other and unwilling to let go just yet.
Behind them the fire crackled endlessly, the remains of Lana Winters nothing more than ash and bone.