House of Skin

LITTLE MISS CHERRY

The apartment Cherry Hill was occupying was the upper floor of a cozy and clean little house. Lisa went up the stairs prepared for just about anything. Revelations. That word was beginning to lose its impact, she’d had so many surprises in the last few weeks. She set to knock and then tried the door. It was open.

She went in.

It was well-furnished inside and paneled in dark woods. Everything was dim and subdued. The shades were pulled over the windows and there were subtle odors of powders, perfumes, and cigarette smoke. Exotic, foreign brands all. Cherry always had exquisite taste.

She found her quarry sitting in a recliner, studying her face with a handheld mirror. She wore a satin robe and probably nothing else.

“Somehow I knew it would be you,” Cherry said. “I wondered when you’d track me down.”

“I think we’d better talk.”

“You start.”

“A mutual acquaintance visited me today. She knows both you and Eddy. Her name’s Cassandra.”

“Nosy bitch,” Cherry said. Her features were darkening. They looked ready to slide off the bone that housed them.

“I want to know what your part is in this, Cherry. Are you working with Eddy? I find the chance of you both descending on me at the same time a little coincidental.”

“We both belong to you in our own ways, don’t we, Dr. Lisa? I don’t know about Eddy, but I know you made me into what I am.”

“How so?”

“Do you remember the night I escaped from prison? The night you found me in your car?”

Lisa grunted. “How could I forget. You nearly strangled me.”

“But you took care of me. You hid me in your house. All so you could get inside my head and pick at my brain.”

“I studied you, yes. I wanted to do a book—”

Cherry glared at her. “It was more than a study and you know it.”

Lisa felt weak. She sat down. Yes, it was more than that. It had started out as a study of a psychopathic personality under controlled conditions, but their relationship took a major change when they went to bed together. Lisa wasn’t sure even now how it had happened or why it continued happening for some time. Cherry was beautiful, yes, but she’d never been attracted to women before or since. The memories of those times still contained a certain amount of heat. She marked that down as still further evidence of her own sexual obsessions.

“Yes, it was. For a time. But that didn’t last and you know it.”

“And what happened then? Shall I tell you? Should we talk about Hypothalamine?”

Lisa felt something drop inside her. “I never realized you even knew about that.”

“I’m not stupid, Doctor. I never thought for a moment those were tranquilizers you were injecting me with. You were experimenting on me.”

“You weren’t a guinea pig. HT was a new drug, experimental yes, but it had been thoroughly tested at the time.”

Cherry was grinning now. “Is that why it was never put on the market? Why it’s illegal now?”

Lisa was squirming. “There were unforeseen side effects.”

“You have no idea,” Cherry said.

Lisa wondered what she was getting at. Hypothalamine was a new antipsychotic drug that hadn’t completely passed the FDA at the time she’d used it on Cherry. Yet, it was considered safe and had been successfully used at Stanford and Johns Hopkins. It was pulled from the experimental market some time later when it was found to cause irreversible organic damage to the brain’s limbic system. Was Cherry suffering from this herself? It was possible.

Cherry rose and took Lisa by the shoulders. “I think Hypothalamine made me into the person I am today. I should thank you for that, Doctor.”

“Cherry, there was no way of knowing—”

“I don’t blame you. Not really. You were trying to help. No one could have imagined at the time what that stuff could do.”

What? What had it done? She had a terrible feeling she was about to find out.

“I never stopped desiring you,” Cherry whispered and pressed her lips against Lisa’s own.

Lisa pulled back. “Stop it, Cherry. That’s in the past.”

But she wasn’t stopping and her hands were everywhere—on Lisa’s breasts, between her legs, searching out territory that was still bruised and sore from Eddy Zero’s touch.

“Stop it!” Lisa shouted and fought in her grip as Cherry’s lips and hands played over her. She wasn’t about to be overpowered by this crazy bitch. She slapped her and shoved her away, knowing very well how dangerous it could be to stir Cherry’s primal passions.

Cherry was laughing uncontrollably. “You think you can fight me off so easily?” She took Lisa in her arms again and this time, there was no struggling free.

As bad as that was, there was something much worse afoot. Earlier, she’d thought Cherry’s features looked like they were about to slide free from the bone, and now they actually were. Cherry’s face was moving like wax, flowing, rippling, raging. The flesh was in fluid motion, sculpting itself into—

Into Eddy Zero, of course.

Into a perfect physical replica of the man who’d violated her. The shift, as it were, took no time at all. Cherry’s skin flowed and flexed with a mutinous plasticity that was more than merely alarming, but shocking. And the transformation was not merely concerned with her face, it took her entire body along for the ride. Cherry Hill no longer existed, there was only Eddy now.

“Fancy meeting you here, dove,” he cackled.

Whether it was fear or desperation that gave her the strength to break free, she could never say. All that mattered was that she did. She broke his grip and stumbled back, her mind reeling with confusion. “HT did this,” she muttered, more to herself than him.

He grinned and took a step in her direction. “What are you whispering about, Doc? Playing games with Eddy, are we?”

“The drug,” she gasped, “it did this. It did this to you.”

“What drug?”

“Hypothalamine.”

“What the fuck are you talking about?”

Lisa’s legs were ready to fold up. Her heart was hammering, her brain aching in its attempt to process and explain this new information. HT caused permanent organic damage to the brain, yes, but from what she’d read that was mainly damage to the hypothalamus which caused hormonal imbalances that resulted in fragmented circadian rhythms, sleep patterns, and sexual drive… but nothing like this. Unless, maybe, it had affected Cherry differently. Perhaps her brain chemistry was not ordinary to begin with or her insanity played a hand in things. Maybe all three of these things in concert. Cherry decided she was Eddy, hence, she was—physically and psychologically. The interesting and perplexing thing was that he was acting like he didn’t even know what HT was. And maybe he didn’t. Maybe only Cherry knew and this wasn’t Cherry. She’d been obsessed with Eddy and HT had given her brain some god-awful power of externalizing him in the flesh. Total and complete mastery over her molecular biology. A shapeshifter. And in the process her mind had splintered so that Eddy was very much a real entity, not just Cherry hiding behind a mask.

Lisa fought to get control of herself. “Eddy,” she said, forcing her lungs to quit sucking air like a beached fish, “where is Cherry?”

Eddy looked confused. “Cherry?”

“Cherry Hill.”

“How the fuck should I know? Haven’t seen her in years.”

“Is she inside you?”

He smiled and then frowned, a look of utter bewilderment crossing his features. “Cherry is… I don’t know where she is.”

Lisa swallowed down her unease. This, of course, explained the connection between them. How they happened to appear in town at about the same time. But if Eddy was only another face of Cherry’s, then where the hell was the real Eddy Zero?

“I want to talk to Cherry, Eddy. Can I talk to her?”

He swayed drunkenly on his feet. He started to shake his head and for a split second his features started to run like wax. “Cherry’s… not here.”

“You’re Cherry.”

“I am not! I am… I am… I—”

“You are.”

His features went all the way this time, sliding and sculpting into Cherry’s face. His body became hers.

“Bitch,” Cherry pouted, “you’ll ruin everything.”

“I want to help you.”

“Keep away from me.”

“Please, Cherry—”

Cherry was glaring at her now. She was angry and Lisa knew she was in very dangerous territory right now. Cherry shrieked at her, then turned and ran into the bedroom, slamming the door behind her. Lisa heard a key in the lock and then the sound of weeping.

Lisa stood there, feeling useless and ignorant at this new and puzzling phenomena. She didn’t know what to do or what to say or who to call. Maybe Fenn. Maybe the only thing to do was to call Fenn and let him have a good look into the face of insanity and see what he thought. But no, she couldn’t do that. Not yet. This was the revelation Cassandra had promised her. It was the final piece of the puzzle. She looked for a place to sit down and gather her racing thoughts. There was a Queen Anne style writing desk shoved under a window and she sat there. Tucked away with a variety of stationary supplies were a stack of letters tied with red ribbon. She undid the ribbon and looked them over. They were all written to Eddy.

She started to read.

By the time she had finished, it was quiet in Cherry’s bedroom. Lisa was stunned. Literally, completely stunned. Her body felt heavy and weak. Yes, this certainly was a day of revelations. For unless Cherry was writing fiction in the letters, Eddy Zero was dead and had been for nearly a year.

She tucked the letters into her coat and got out while the getting was good. In the bedroom, Cherry began to sing a lullabye.