Orgonomicon by Boris D. Schleinkofer

front of the TV;
there were a handful of damp bills crumpled in her hand. She didn't
think about them. She had her rent taken care of for that month.
That was all that mattered. The man on the TV, too, was reassuring;
he held the woman tightly in his arms, stroking her hair and the
sides of her face, passionately whispering to her over and over the
words: "No matter if you fall, you will not be hurt." It was
exactly the words she needed to hear–it seemed like there was no
limit to how far she could fall.
    And then the phone rang again, and Scott said
he was coming over. He made up some lie about needing some of his
junk, but of course it was lies, he just wanted to get in and mess
with her head. He only wanted to use her up until she had nothing
left—that was what all men ever wanted from her. How could he be
any different? It was the way men were, all the men who were
attracted to her. And still she told him to come over. Of course
she did.
    When Scott got there, she almost didn't
recognize him. It was amazing how much difference three weeks could
make in a person's life; in his case, those three weeks had beaten
the shit out of him. His face was a lumpy mass of scratches and
bruising; his clothes were torn and bloody. "You look like shit.
More than usual," she said to him, regretting it immediately. She
didn't need to kick him when he was down; it was just so damned
easy. He invited it.
    "Yeah, same to you. I don't know why you
always have to be so mean."
    "I'm not being mean, you look like you've
been dragged down the street behind a truck. What have you been
doing?"
    "What do you care? I look like this because
you threw me out!"
    He was exasperating. "Look, Scott, it's not
my fault you can't take care of yourself."
    "Don't give me that. You like seeing
me suffer. You've been looking forward to this, when I come
crawling back all beat to shit and you get to laugh at my
misfortune."
    Not only exasperating, but a crybaby. "You're
such an asshole. When are you going to start taking responsibility
for yourself? I don't want you crawling back, and I don't want you
to suffer. I don't want you at all. How many times do I have to say
it before you get it through that stupid head of yours?" And then
something clicked in her head, and clicked again and again and
again and again and so many times and so rapidly, and it set up a
bad vibration that brought on her headache and with it the urge to
hurt. "All right, dickhead, time to pick up your shit and get the
hell out of here. Do what you came to do. You can't hurt me anymore
so you must be fucking useless otherwise. Get your shit and get
your stupid ugly ass out of my house, you fucking leech. Do what
you came to do and get. The fuck. Out! Get! The fuck! Out!" She
hadn't realized it, didn't know how it had happened, but she was
striking him repeatedly, punching him in the chest, in the stomach,
the face. He never raised a hand to her.
    The whole time they'd been together, he'd
never raised a hand to her, the whole entire time, even when she
knew she'd deserved it. She had to admit: some of the shit she'd
pulled on him, if it had been between two women (or two men!),
somebody would have gotten their ass laid out. But he'd never so
much as threatened her with a harsh look. She'd actually once
clubbed him over the head with a meat-tenderizer until she'd
knocked him unconscious. He'd kept his hands to himself the entire
time.
    "Do what I came to do," Scott said, and
wrapped his sick, thick fist around her throat.
     
    He looked deep into the eyes of the woman
who'd brought him into the world.
    "Do what I came to do," he said again,
squeezing his mother's throat until he was sure he was cutting off
not just her breath but the circulation in her veins, too. The
awful bitch had to die, for what she'd done to him growing up, but
there was no need for extra suffering…
    Was there? She'd given him over to the
doctors; she'd been the one who gave them permission to take his
whole life away