Chapter 2

Shortly after Mr. Cochon phoned the Medical Center, the future arrived in the form of two young black men wearing identical long leather jackets and identical expressions of insolence and ennui.

"We here for the bitch," said the taller of the two.

"And to deliver a package to me," said Mr. Cochon.

"Right," said the tall one. He handed Mr. Cochon a bulging leather pouch.

"Thank you," said Mr. Cochon. "Now you understand that the young woman must be delivered alive. Alive and in good shape."

"Yeah, man, we understand. Where is she?"

Mr. Cochon ushered them into the living room. The two young men looked at SG silently for a moment, then the shorter one said, "This is gonna be one fine fuckin' assignment."

Mr. Cochon was annoyed. "It is not a 'fucking' assignment, it is a simple matter of delivering merchandise. No rough stuff. She is to arrive safe and intact at the Medical Center, or you will pay - not to me but to your employers, and you know what kind of people they are."

He didn't need to elaborate.

They wrapped her in a bed sheet, an oversized sheet from Mr. Cochon's oversized bed, and the black men left without a word.

Mr. Cochon opened the leather pouch. He didn't count the money. There was a lot there, and he trusted the Medical Center. They had done business before.

The black men dumped SG into the trunk of a '79 Pontiac that looked half a block long.

The tall one got into the driver's seat, turned to his accomplice and showed just the shadow of a smile. "We do a little detour," he said.

"Absolutely, man," said the short one, "a detour to Fuckland."

And so they drove west on Third Street, instead of south on Begala, and in five minutes they were in neighborhood even more rundown than the one Mr. Cochon lived in - rundown and sparsely populated.

They pulled into the side yard of a house with boarded windows and a sagging front porch. The back door had been boarded, too, but the wood had been torn away. The short man carried SG over his shoulder, stepping over what was left of the doorframe. Inside, it was dark and smelled bad.

They let their eyes adjust to the dark. Just enough light came through slits in the boarded widows to enable them to see the broken glass and unidentifiable trash on the floor — and, sagging against one wall, a mattress that looked like it might harbor more urban wildlife than an entire block of abandoned tenements.

The tall one flipped the mattress onto the floor, and his companion dropped SG onto it. She cried out softly and lifted one hand, then let it drop.

"She's comin' to," said Shorty.

"That just makes it better. I like it when they're awake, and scared."

SG was indeed awakening. She opened her eyes and saw two shadowy figures in the gloom. She had no idea, of course, where she was or who these figures were, but she suspected she was once again in trouble.

"What do you want?" she asked.

"Yo pussy, yo mouth and yo sweet white ass," answered the taller of the men. Then he reached down, slipped two fingers inside the leather collar around her neck and pulled her to her feet.

"We can start with yo mouth," he said.

He slapped her hard across the face.

"Kneel, bitch," he said. She knelt, and he unzipped his fly and pulled out a large uncircumcised dick. "Suck it. Suck it like you've never tasted anything better in yo whole fucking life."

Tentatively, she took his dick in her hands and stroked it.

"I said suck, bitch."

She took the head of his dick into her mouth and sucked softly. Then she took in more, stroking the head with her tongue, while her lips massaged his shaft.

He came quickly, more quickly than he had wanted. He angrily pulled out his prick, then smashed his knee into her jaw.

"Bitch, you too goddam good."

Now it was Shorty's turn. He spread her legs, licked her cunt to lubricate it, then plunged his dick into her.

"Wiggle, slut. Move or I'll cut yo tits off."

SG tried to move, but the blow to her jaw had left her dazed and weak. It didn't make any difference. Shorty, like the tall one, shot off a wad of cum in less than half a minute.

He withdrew and, kneeling between her spread legs, reached into his pocket and pulled out a shiny black object. There was a click, and a blade appeared.

The tall one slapped it out of his hand.

"You fuckin' crazy? You cut her and we gonna end up on one of those slabs at the Center, with no kidneys, no livers, no eyeballs and probably no dicks. Think, you stupid mutha-fucker."

So Shorty thought.

"Okay, we don't cut her. We don't leave no scars. But they ain't interested in her asshole, right? We can do what we want with that, so long as it ain't cut or bleeding?"

"What you got in mind?"

"Is the water still on here?" asked Shorty.

"Yeah, I guess so."

Shorty stepped through the doorway, looked around, then disappeared. He was back in a few seconds with a garden hose.

"Stick this in her asshole, and I'll go out and turn on the faucet."

"Man, you are bad," said the tall one, with newfound admiration for his companion.

He stuck the corroded metal nozzle into SG's rectum. She cried out in pain. Seconds later, the hose vibrated as it filled with water, then it did a sort of hiccup and SG began writhing on the mattress. The nozzle slipped out, and water spurted over her back and head. But the tall one jammed it back in, and Shorty arrived and held her down to prevent her from escaping. "Push it in more, push it in more," Shorty cried. "Push it up to her fucking tonsils."

The tall one laughed and shoved it in further. He pushed a foot and a half of hose into her, and her efforts to wriggle free were weakening. Shorty lifted her head from the mattress, looked into her pain-filled eyes and said, "See, honey, I knew you could move if you really wanted to."

They wrapped her back up in the sheet and took her out to the car. The tall one had worried that the hosing would act like an enema and she'd be covered with shit, but the water that came out of her ass was clear. Guess she hadn't eaten in a while - except for his cum.

They put her in the trunk. Before the tall one closed it, she asked, "Where are you taking me?"

"Where you can serve yo fellowman and fellow-woman. You gonna be a blessing to a whole bunch of folks, and you gonna travel all over the country."

He laughed. "I just hope they save a part for me, honey."

They pulled into a section of the underground parking garage reserved for special deliveries like this one, then took the elevator to an even lower level. When the elevator door opened, Dr. Hammond and Dr. Cutler were waiting.

"You're half an hour late," said Hammond, a large middle-aged man with thinning hair. "Where have you been?"

"We got lost trying to find his house," the tall one lied. Then, reading the skepticism on their faces, he added, "Then we, like, started jiving and not paying attention."

"Put her on the table," said Hammond. Cutler, an attractive dark-haired woman with the merciless eyes of someone who enjoyed vivisection, pulled the sheet from SG.

"She's conscious," Cutler said, as SG raised her head. "Why wasn't she sedated?"

"I dunno," the tall one answered. "She was out when we picked her up. Guess the stuff the fat man gave her just wore out."

SG tried to sit up, but Cutler pushed her back.

"Lie down," she commanded. "We've got an examination to do." She ran her hands expertly over SG's body, then told her to turn over. "There's rawness here around the rectum," Cutler told Hammond. "And, ugh, there's something seeping out of her vagina. I think it's semen."

Hammond was very annoyed.

"Jerome, Khalid, I've told you before, you're simply to pick up and deliver. This will go in your job evaluations. I don't know how much longer the Center is going to tolerate this kind of undisciplined behavior."

"Sorry, boss," said the tall one, Jerome.

After the black men left, Cutler said, "Let's get to work. We've got a helicopter on call for her liver and the kidneys are staying here in town." "I don't know," said Hammond. "It seems such a waste. She's quite beautiful."

"And expensive," said Cutler, icily. "We've got 20 grand invested in this piece of meat."

At which point, SG, whom they seemed to have forgotten was awake, offered helpfully, "I don't want to make trouble. What do you want of me?"

Her voice startled them. Cutler said, "We're going to have to sedate you. Then we're going to do a little operation. It won't take long." She opened a cabinet and pulled out a hypodermic.

"Wait a minute, Helen," said Hammond. "Maybe there is a way we can recoup our investment and still allow this young woman to enjoy something approaching a normal life span. What about the Sexual Response Clinic? She seems made to order for it."

Cutler frowned. "People are counting on her organs. People we can help."

"Cut the bullshit, Helen," Hammond said. "You just enjoy carving, especially when it's an attractive young woman."

"Is that a sin?" Cutler asked innocently. "Is it so terrible to enjoy your work?"

"No, but there's more to this center than harvesting organs, profitable though it may be. The Sexual Response Clinic is doing quite nicely, but it hasn't yet won a national reputation. This young woman is just the sort of talent we need to break through to the top tier."

Cutler knew that Hammond was weak, but he was also stubborn. Tactical retreats were sometimes necessary to keep him under control in the long run. "As you wish, Harry. I was just trying to be helpful," she said.

Hammond's faith in SG's sexual potential was richly rewarded. She was a natural. They made several instructional videos in a studio deep within the Center, with well-hung actors from New York or California flown in for the purpose - or with another young woman for lesbian instruction. But mostly SG performed live, in a small room in front of a two-way mirror. Behind it were the clinic's clients and one or two therapists. Hammond, though he had many other obligations at the Center, dropped in on these sessions as often as possible. He found them immensely arousing, and he had insisted that SG keep her leather collar. The hint of slavery and degradation added so much to her allure.

Cutler came by occasionally, too. She was biding her time, waiting for SG — or the Foundling, as she called her — to make some major blunder and embarrass Hammond into agreeing she was worth more as transplant meat than as a porn star. But that wasn't the only reason for Cutler's interest. The Foundling fascinated her from the very first day, when she tried to draw a blood sample and discovered that the needle wouldn't penetrate her skin. Quite remarkable.

Hammond, of course, hadn't been interested. He wasn't a blood-and-guts sort of doctor. Administration and public relations were his forte. That and occasional sexual bouts with Cutler. These had become rarer and rarer, until the Foundling showed up. Now he seemed re-energized. Which was another reason Cutler hated the Foundling. Who wanted a man who was good in the sack only when fantasizing about another woman?

It was late on a Friday afternoon, when Cutler looked into the small auditorium where the sex clinic clients sat to watch the Foundling perform. The auditorium was empty, but there, on the other side of the glass, artfully illuminated, was the Foundling, on a chaise lounge, practicing. She caressed her pussy and moaned softly. Foundling, hell, the Fondling was more like it, thought Cutler.

Then the door to the small studio opened and a man peered in. Cutler recognized him as the new man on the janitorial crew. There was something creepy about him, but Fletcher, the head of maintenance, said he was the sort of young man who might come in handy one day for other assignments. The kind of assignments Jerome and Khalid had carried out until they were terminated and put to better use.

SG opened her eyes when she heard a floorboard creak. The stage lights made it hard for her to see who had entered. But they were perfect for Jake - yes, the same Jake the police had given up looking for. He saw SG in all her glory, lying there and staring in his direction.

It was the bitch he was accused of murdering. It was the bitch Loopy and Irv and that asshole Pete were now in jail for supposedly having helped snuff. And here she was, like she was some kind of porn queen, wearing nothing but a leather collar.

SG rose just as Jake stepped into the light. She gasped and looked frantically for a way to escape. There was none. He was between her and the door.

"Fancy meeting you here," he said quietly. "I heard you was dead."

On the other side of the glass, Cutler could hear as well as see as this dramatic reunion unfolded. She wondered if this were a rehearsal for a video the clinic was producing.

Jake quickly made it clear that this was for real. He grabbed SG around the waist as she tried to rush by him, then slammed her to the floor. Cutler moved to the glass to see what would happen next. She was breathing heavily. It was wonderfully exciting.

What happened next was that SG got unsteadily to her feet just in time for Jake to slam his fist into her gut. Back down she went, this time on her face. He grabbed the collar around her neck, pulled her up, then sent her careening into the back wall. The impact was more than the thin stage wall was built for. SG plunged through it and into a maintenance storage area behind it. Jake followed quickly. He held her collar while searching a pegboard full of tools. Cutler could barely see them, since they were beyond the range of the stage lighting. But Jake dragged her back into the studio. He was carrying a large pipe wrench.

SG was begging now, offering any and all kinds of sexual favors, anything to avoid a beating with the wrench. Jake seemed amused.

He smiled as he raised the wrench and brought it down on her upturned face. The thud was sickening, and Cutler turned away with a cry — a cry that Jake heard.

He froze. Someone was watching. He stepped close to the one-way mirror and tried to look through it. He could see only his own reflection, and the reflection of SG lying unconscious on the floor.

Cutler slipped out of the auditorium and headed down the hall to Security. McKinnon and Jones were on duty.

"Quick," she said, "a janitor has just bludgeoned one of our employees at the Clinic studio. Get him before gets out of here, get him and kill him."

Then she grabbed the phone and called upstairs to Transplant Express. "Get down to Lower Level 2 fast and bring a crash cart. We've got an unexpected donor."

Then she punched Hammond's extension. She hoped he was in. She would enjoy this.

"Harry, our little Foundling's had an accident... No, I didn't have anything to do with it. But Express is on the way down. I'll meet you in the OR. This should be fun."

By the time Hammond arrived, Cutler was already scrubbed and ready. SG's seemingly lifeless body lay on the operating table. But one of the OR nurses was objecting.

"We don't even know if she's dead," she said. "You haven't even taken her pulse and pressure."

"I saw her bludgeoned by a pipe wrench," said Cutler impatiently. "Now, if you're not going to help get the fuck out of here."

The nurse appealed to Hammond. "Look," she said. "This woman doesn't even seem to have any visible injuries. Just a little swelling on her forehead and over one eye. You can't just rip her open."

"Just watch me," Cutler said angrily. She grabbed a scalpel, pressed it against SG's sternum and sliced downward, toward her navel.

Nothing happened. No incision. No blood. The knife pushed in but didn't cut. Cutler tried again, slashing from SG's navel all the way down to her pubic hair.

Again, nothing.

Cutler reversed her grip on the scalpel, raised if above her head and brought it down with all her strength. SG cried out and her knees jerked up. But the knife didn't penetrate.

Cutler, Hammond, the nurses and two young surgery residents all looked at SG with amazement. She was indestructible. She was not of this world.

"That's impossible," Hammond said hoarsely. He took the knife from Cutler. With one hand he softly stroked SG's blonde hair. Then, with the other, he jabbed the knife into her side.

She made a little yelp and looked at him with hurt surprise.

SG was now an even more valuable commodity than an organ donor or sex clinic star. After locking her in her room near the studio, Hammond and Cutler called the top medical staff gathered to brainstorm.

Hammond opened with the question on everyone's mind: "What do you do with a woman who can't be hurt? How can we profit as a medical center? How can we profit as individuals?"

Dr. Bowles, who was new to the Center, said this was much too big a discovery to be confined to one medical institution. He suggested calling in other researchers. The others glared at him.

Dr. Distruggio suggested further tests. This extraordinary being had survived a massive blow to the head and was impervious to the knife. What about burning, electricity, drowning?

"Does she feel pain?" Dr. Tickler asked. He had done important research on pain and was looking for examples of people who felt little or no pain, or who were exquisitely sensitive to it.

"Oh, she feels pain, all right," said Cutler. "I heard her when that janitor was roughing her up."

"And she cried out as if she was in pain when Helen stabbed her in the OR," said Hammond. "By the way," he added, turning to Cutler, "that was an especially nasty piece of work."

"And you were just showing affection when you tried to open up her side?" Cutler said frostily.

The discussion went on for another half hour, and the meeting ended with agreement that the "Foundling" would be subjected to a series of tests to determine her vulnerabilities, if any, and her pain threshold.

Cutler was delighted to be chose chairman of the experiment. She had so wanted to get to know the Foundling better.

The days that followed were a living hell for SG. She was burned, first with disposable cigarette lighters, then with a cutting torch. She shrieked with pain, but survived, and with no permanent scars.

The hospital's emergency generator was cranked up to provide a separate source of power, and she was chained to a metal screen and subjected to huge jolts of electricity. Her hair stood on end, her saliva turned to steam in her mouth, and her eyes seemed about to burst out of her head.

But she was left with no lasting damage, beyond a few bad hair days. The drowning experiment at first seemed to expose a fatal weakness. She was handcuffed, a 75-pound weight was attached to her collar, and she was dumped headfirst into the hydrotherapy pool. She thrashed around, and soon bubbles poured from her mouth.

After 20 minutes, they removed her from the pool. She appeared irrevocably dead. Indeed, 45 minutes later there was still no pulse and her body was turning cold.

An EEG revealed no brain wave, and Cutler delivered mocking last rites: "We commend this little slut to the obscure grave she deserves, regretting only the lost opportunity to inflict a little more pain before she left us."

But she hadn't left. Six hours later, in the Center's morgue, SG awoke with a violent fit of coughing. Water spurted from her mouth, and she convulsed with desperation and pain, her every cell crying out for oxygen.

It was 2 o'clock in the morning, but the orderly, following instructions in case such an unlikely contingency happened, called Dr. Cutler. She was furious, not at being awakened but at the Foundling's insistence on living. She'd pay for that, Cutler said to herself as she drove to the Center, though how SG could pay any more than she already had was almost impossible to imagine.