The Bride’s Prosthetic

Chris Tannhauser

 

 

When it starts, it’s with the twitch of some forgotten thing deep inside, recognizing itself across the æther; when it ends, it’s the thing settling into the muck of an emotional seabed, not so much dead or rotting as simply leaden and inert, like Ahab’s leg finally coming to rest in absolute darkness and unendurable pressure.

Tiff had a smile that could weld steel, with eyes like emerald afterimages; her wild mane of red hair was shot through with sparks of blonde.  And her complexion—a skimmed cream so fair that after sex she would no doubt look like she’d fallen off a bicycle.  Brandon fell for her before he saw she had a fake leg, but by then it was too late.  Smitten doesn’t count limbs.

They both lingered as the bar cleared, the last-call couplings pooling into pairs and dripping out the door.  Something stupid warbled on the jukebox.  By then Brandon had learned she lost her leg as a child, got it pinched off in a car accident as the void of the passenger cabin collapsed at speed and chewed her like a mouth.  She mentioned a bunch of other stuff—struggles and whatnot—but Brandon’s head was ringing from the facts of her current situation:  it turns out that if you’re going to go for an insurance company’s balls, get yourself a one-legged little girl crying on the stand, and then get ready to live life like an antidepressant commercial.

If there was one thing Brandon knew, it was that the world was also a mouth than could chew, and the secret was to get wet and ride the tongue—don’t get pulped by the teeth. Once you get torn open it’ll suck the juice right out of you.

That night in bed, her stump stood up like a hitchhiker’s thumb, begging to be taken for a ride.

* * *

Tiff never wanted to get married until she suddenly did, right after she got into that “fringe religion” (totally not a cult) that Brandon didn’t give a shit about.  It wasn’t the UFO-stacking one, or the one with the murdered alien soul-parasites, or even the god-gnawing one.  No, Another Way Enterprises was most definitely not a cult—they even had a T-shirt that said so.  The advertising worked its desired magic:  anyone who was going to be trouble said no thank you, while those who knew you shouldn’t ever join a not-a-cult were secretly intrigued by the word “cult” fishhooked into their susceptibility lobe and jerked for reeling in.  Belonging is belonging, after all—regardless of the shape or flavor.  But what the fuck, it kept her out of his hair, leaving him free to play video games in peace at her beachside condo.

Truth be told, her reluctance to wed was the only thing he begrudgingly respected about her; it meant that if he wanted to maintain his lifestyle he had to put in the minimal effort, pretend at being the dutiful partner, and keep her just the right amount of happy-sad to stay.  So when she proposed, he said yes with a viper’s reflex.  He didn’t even have time to consider it; most of his personality was coiled and bent above that sweet sweet no-leg money.  The final trick would be to fuck like there’s no tomorrow on his wedding night while keeping his lawyer on speed dial.

Tiff had legs, or at least “leg”, with the one that was left being pretty good, just like the rest of her.  But she also had legs like a cyber-Barbie wet dream—legs for walking, running, climbing, dancing, weight-lifting, fighting, and even a pre-programmed Kama Sutra leg from China just for fucking.  It was eerily intuitive and dirtier than he would’ve liked—she kept it... fragrant... for some reason.  Which is why he was surprised when she turned up with an extra-fancy bridal leg.

“Whaddya think?”  She was nude, still deeply distracting, and he felt the slightest twinge that he was going to miss her as he looked up from his video game.  But that leg—it was long and blindingly white, lacy with worked filigree and bejazzled from quadriceps curve to the smooth sweep of calf terminating in a delicate ankle with luxury mannequin foot and wicked stiletto.  The dollar signs cascading off it made him wince.

“Huh,” he said, still beeping and booping with his controller, “I figured you’d just wear your regular fancy leg.”

She froze mid-prance.  “But it’s for a special day,” she said.  “Don’t you think it’s a special day?”

“Sure,” he shrugged as he edged toward some kind of high score.

Her face darkened and she put her fists on her hips.  “So which leg should I wear for our wedding?”

Eyes still on the TV, he tilted the controller with his tongue out.  “I don’t care,” he said.

Faster than he could think the leg was off and in her hands, cocked back over her head like an axe and hurled overhand—he barely ducked as it whirled end-over-end into the TV, scattering his unsaved progress into ribbons of unrelated color.  He snatched it up and chucked it back, narrowly missing her as it whipped out the open window and onto the beach two floors below.

With a growl, she rage-hopped to her leg rack and pawed past her fighting leg to grab her fucking leg—not because that’s what was about to happen, but because it was the heaviest one—which was Brandon’s signal to skedaddle and make himself scarce for at least 24 hours.

* * *

When Tiff came down the aisle to the strains of some weird New Age crap, her stride was impeccable.  She walked like a princess about to receive her kingdom, lady of all she surveyed.  All eyes in the chapel were fixed upon her magnificent form in motion—she imbued that voluminous cloud of a dress with supernatural grace, making it look, for all the world, alive.  And somewhere under there, her gorgeously expensive bridal leg ticked along flawlessly.

Brandon thought it was okay.  The chapel was new, and bland as a dentist’s waiting room.  Built on remote desert land recently acquired from a Native tribe eager to sell it for some reason, Another Way Enterprises—the cult—hastily threw up a building that didn’t so much inspire as numb.

The priest—or whatever he was, he looked like a used car salesman in his cheap off-the-rack men’s store suit—was muttering something about “and your god shall be my god” and Tiff was reciting along and then cocking her head and raising her eyebrows at Brandon as he missed his cue.

“Uh, yeah—that,” he said.

He had to admit the aggressive backroom beige of the decor and the synth-noodling music was making him sleepy—he really should’ve chugged that Four Loko in the limo instead of opting for the Jägermeister.

And then the priest said something that changed everything—it was a word, maybe, something like “Excelsior!” but more like a croak that went sideways through his throat and came out elsewhere like a ventriloquist.  The lights changed, flicking the walls to red and deep purple-blacks; the music was suddenly a stunning double-bass heavy metal riff and everyone had peeled their clothes up and off like male strippers, leaving only Tiff and Brandon anomalously clad.

The music thundered and the altar fell away like a cheap prop, exposing a stone slab that exhaled æons and looked for all the world like it had been chewed.

The priest continued to growl and grunt and wrestle with sounds beyond pronunciation—one particularly broken-glass word fixed Brandon to his spot, his limbs suddenly heavy and unresponsive.

“What,” Brandon spat.

“Shhh, Baby—” said Tiff through her room-effacing smile, “—this is gonna feel so good.”  Her eyes shone with Kool-Aid sparkle.

And that’s when it happened—when the thing every little kid feels under the bed, every driver feels tugging at the wheel, every sailor feels in a bad knot emerged from around the corner of Brandon’s confusion.  It was the sort of thing only ever seen in demodex cave paintings, a thing like a shaggy, headless bear with a riot of genitals.

Everyone but Brandon greeted it by name.

The thing rose up and stood behind him, setting its heavy paws on his shoulders.  When he looked back he could see the chaos between its moist hind legs swell and unfurl into a shape he vaguely recognized, a Halloween decoration basket-weave of fine tendrils, curling and uncurling, pulsating like breath, inflating with each straining push—with a cold jolt Brandon realized where it was supposed to go, a mesh shaped to slide inside a human skeleton, even the teeth, grinning.

“There’s-there’s no way that’s gonna fit in me!” he shrieked.

“It’ll fit,” said pretty much everyone simultaneously.

“It’s what you’re for,” said Tiff with an acetylene smile, wadding up her copious skirt hand-over-hand and lying back on the stone slab.

It was then Brandon knew he was gonna come, but it was gonna feel the opposite of good.

 

*