The Memoirs of Doctor M.

By Rotwang (Zardreth@Cyberking.be)

She must've been gorgeous once ... I looked at the left side of her face ... Pale, sharply chiseled feminine perfection. The right side, when not hidden by her long shiny black silken hair, was a mass of horribly scarred flesh, descending over her body, with its twisted limbs and gnarled posture. I glanced for a split second into her pale gray eye and shuddered. Without any fingers left, she used tool extensions which fixed onto what remained of her hands.

"Will you help me ?" She asked me again, her damaged vocal chords replaced by a buzzer.

I couldn't answer, not now, not while looking at her in this state. "I'll think it over."

"Let me rephrase my question. Will you help me willingly ?" She asked, and I felt incredible willpower shine from her eye. "I told you I want to think it over, it's a very unusual request." I grabbed my coat. "Helmut ?" She said.

Helmut was huge, with arms as big as my chest. He grabbed me by the arm and I felt him almost crush the bone. "Show the good doctor to his room." She said and swiveled her motorized wheelchair back to the window, where she first had been watching the ornate garden.

My room had barred windows and the door was solid oak. On the table were the papers and all her medical files ... Somebody had done all the preliminary work for me, leaving the actual work to the renowned surgeon, me in this case.

As I read the file, I started to fully realize what she wanted me to do. It was a mad plan, written by a genius. Everything was worked out in detail and all I basically had to do was connect the proverbial dots.

If word got out that I was involved in something like that, I would be banned from practicing forever. Strictly speaking, she wanted me to mutilate her further, using state of the art medical techniques of questionable ethics. The more I read the more it fascinated me and the more I felt it would be a challenge for me.

When I turned over the last page, I could only agree to her plan. It was so logical ... So pure ... So monstrous ...

A horrible doubt came over me and struggled with my own ethics. But even as I wavered then, I knew, deep down I could never pass up such an opportunity.

Helmut took me to her again. As we walked back to her study, I saw a picture of her before the accident. The artist must've been brilliant, because I saw the same fire in her pale eyes. I paused for a moment, but Helmut pushed me forward.

"Will you do it ?" She asked me directly, not wasting time on greetings. I waited for a short moment ... "I'll ... do it." Part of me rejoiced at the opportunity, while another part shook its head in frustration.

My first examination of her was gruesome. I wondered how she had survived the accident. But I understood how a jealous husband might try to kill her. She had somehow retained her grace and regality, showing that her beauty was more than skin deep. I tried to imagine the pain she went through every day. And she told me she took no pain-killers.

Helmut showed me the lab. If ever, this was state of the art. Some of the machines were brand new, and some were only prototypes. A giant computer database and all the reference works I would need was gathered here. A cat-scanner and a fully-equipped IC-unit.

That day, I planned the operations and the recovery times, but when I counted up the days and weeks I realized I would be at it for more than two years.

It was a chance for me to work out new techniques, which might benefit other people, I reassured the part of me that feared ruining his career.

I don't think she ever doubted it for a second. If she had been strong enough to survive a car-bomb and being shot twice, she was strong enough for the operations to come.

I got a look at pictures of her before the accident and I couldn't stop myself thinking about the old Icelandic legends, where seven incredibly beautiful women dressed in black with black hair would roam across the island. People would feel chilly and animals would retreat towards the fire, whimpering. And one could hear the faint footsteps of a black horse coming closer. And then she would ride through the town, silent, beautiful, cold as ice ...

Perhaps she was the last of them, a forgotten Nordic goddess, trapped in a world of mortals, with eyes like frozen lakes and hair like onyx.

I watched her slowly fall asleep. Her gnarled limbs and scarred body bruised my sense of aestheticism, making me want to heal her. She had ordered me to rid her of all this dead flesh ... And so I did.

I had become the mad surgeon, so many times depicted in movies ... Trying to cheat nature and fate.

Useless limbs were amputated. A damaged spine was fixed by means of state of the art neural implants, implants that had barely been tested out on mice, let alone humans, but she knew it would work.

Damaged lungs and heart were replaced by artificial ones. The digestive system was also replaced by a more efficient artificial implant, allowing basic nutrients to be inserted directly into her bloodstream. But then her blood had been replaced by artificial blood, more efficient than the original stuff that threatened to spill out whenever I cut her.

Sleepless nights followed as I scraped the scarred flesh from her face, removed the blind eyes and replaced them with miniature cameras and a new artificial face. A new skeleton was built around what was left of her, activated by myomers, perfectly mimicking human musculature. And then she was draped with new skin, an artificial one, impervious to the wear and tear of age.

Countless days I spent in the operating theater until I felt numb, so deeply numb, I wished I could sleep forever.

***

My hands trembled ever so slightly as I put my finger onto the off switch of the life-support system. "So be it." I pressed.

All the pumps stopped and her plastic heart took over. The lungs pumped oxygen into her lungs and I watched her bosom rise up and down a few times until her eyes opened.

I looked down at her and although she was beautiful, I felt I had nearly failed to emulate what nature had made perfect. "I'm alive." She said softly. "Yes, you're alive." I said. She grabbed my hand a bit clumsily, unused to a plastic and steel hand and squeezed. Her skin felt warm and soft.

She tried to get up, but I had to restrain her. "Not now, you're too weak." I said. But she raised herself nevertheless. The myomers made her stronger than me and she sat up, still disoriented by her new body. "I want to see myself." She said, her voice carrying a lot of authority. I grabbed a mirror and held it up to her.

I don't know how she saw herself in the mirror, seeing through cameras, but her face didn't betray emotions.

I watched her pale face and unreal eyes. Her face was but a doll's mask, delicate and pure, but not alive, yet her glass eyes containing miniature cameras showed her soul somehow.

She took off her gown and tried to get as I fumbled to put the mirror down. I barely caught her, trying to stand up. I felt her again, smooth and unblemished, like a mannequin.

A step forward, the first in many years, rehearsed inside her mind over and over, until this moment. And then, for the first time, I saw her smile ... Her face seemed to light up and I felt my heart skip a beat or two.

Another step and her smile became a triumph. She had cheated death and infirmity.

The tips of my fingers were barely supporting her arm as she took her third step. "I AM alive !" She said, freeing her emotions.

The next few days, she learned to move again. It was sometimes hard to control her new artificial body, but she was so eager to live again ... It seemed that her melancholy had vanished with her old body.

I was attending to her most of the time and I caught myself staring at her, slowly blooming back to life, at first smiling, then laughing. She had a golden laughter and her movements became more controlled, more elegant. Yet, she retained her doll-like appearance, like Galatea come to life.

She had become a living, breathing statue.

If her melancholy had vanished, her strong spirit was undiminished and I could only remain in awe of her, any lesser mortal would've curled up and died, but she had survived, determined to live again. Perhaps more than she ever had.

"Your sense of touch is only about 80% of normal touch. Smell is about 125% and so is hearing and seeing." I explained to her what I had learned from the database myself. She sat opposite me, focused on me and wearing the most elegant dress I had ever seen. Three months had passed and everything seemed fine. "And taste ?" "Taste is linked to smell, but they are separate systems inside you. I guess it would be about 75 % at best." "I've gained some and lost some." She said. "That's it." She paused to think. It was those moments I strangely felt attracted to her, for in that instant, she froze and became an object. And then almost like a miracle over and over, she came to life again, watching me and ... understanding.

Barely asleep, I heard a soft knock on my door. It opened and I saw her figure silhouetted in the door opening surrounded by a halo of transparent silk. I reached for my glasses and watched her walk inside. She walked up to my footend and watched me. "Make me live." She said, slipping the silk gown from her shoulders. And then she climbed into the bed, slowly crawling over me and staring at me on my back, trying to swallow as if I had forgotten how to. "Make me feel alive." She said and lowered herself onto me. Her lips touched mine and I grasped her.

I felt her soft caress over my body and I stirred as her eyes locked into mine, no longer looking at me, but into infinity. Suddenly she had become inert and although her state aroused me deeply, I wanted her to live. Holding her gently, I rolled her over, adjusting and posing her limp body, with staring unblinking eyes onto her back. For a long moment she was a statue of unequaled beauty, smooth and perfect. I began to kiss her body, from the feet upwards, rubbing and caressing her skin, which felt so pleasing to the touch. Everybody has some substance they like to touch, and to me, her skin was one of them. I paused as I reached her sex. Naked and hairless, it looked so delicate I felt reticent to approach it already. So I went over her belly and over to her well-shaped breasts. Average in size, but firm and inviting. I squeezed and held them for a long time, gently playing with them, their consistency for once more pleasing than all the real ones I had ever touched.

I pulled her long straight black hair from her face and kissed her gently on pale lips, as all the while she remained still. I grasped her slender sides and gently lifted myself over her. Properly stiff, my penis entered her slowly and I felt no reaction from her. I felt her body against mine and fearful of failing her, I slowly pumped her, as gently as I could, with all the love I could muster. I had restored her life, and now I had to restore her femininity.

Slowly, ever so slowly, I made love to her. I don't consider myself a great lover in the strictest sense, but I tried to give her all my life, all the while underplaying my own pleasure, trying not to rush it all.

And then came the faintest of shivers. The pace of my love-making increased like Ravel's Bolero, dancing in the back of my head. With every increase in intensity, she would live more and more, slowly joining in with me.

I gasped as her skin rubbed over mine and I still shiver at the thought of it. Perhaps my memory fails me, but that night's love was the purest thing I had ever done in my life.

But as she began to actively arouse me, it became harder to postpone my own pleasure and I tried to prevent it from bursting too early. I watched the eyes that saw the world unlike anybody else and I was truly fulfilled.

And then as I couldn't contain myself any longer, I heard her scream in ecstasy and hug me so hard the air was pushed out of my lungs.

I jerked up and felt the climax catch up with me, with interest. But then she released me and fell, smiling at me. And I knew ...

Time stopped, the universe ground to a halt as I watched her smile at me, with eyes completely devoid of the spirit I had seen in them only moments before.

I screamed in pain as she left me. Some system failure in her experimental body, some overload taking her from me forever. Death finally claiming the one that had gotten away. And I have cried many tears since.

That night the ancient goddess had died and gone to a place beyond my reach ...

But that night, she was alive ...

Alive ...