66SICK Read online

  66sick

  By A. R. Braun

  Copyright 2017 © by A. R. Braun

  All rights reserved.

  Kindle Edition

  This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook cannot be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book (not just the sample) and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Cover design by Raffael Coronelli

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6(66)

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  Chapter 1

  Tyler couldn’t take one more day of this.

  He’d found himself in an awkward position: divorced at forty-nine. He hadn’t exactly had his pick of the babes. Tyler had surmised that being a doctor guaranteed studhood, but with that bald head and paunch, he’d been rejected all over the small city of Mowquakwa, Illinois—seventy miles east of Peoria—as well as the suburbs.

  That’s where Morgan came in.

  A gorgeous woman of thirty-three that looked no older than twenty-three, she’d been the jackpot he’d been hoping for, or at least that’s what he’d thought. He’d found out later about her bi-polar/mania and half retardation; the truth had been revealed in her behavior. Then he’d taken her to a doctor and she’d been certified: he’d married a loon. She picked arguments for no reason (the bi-polar part of her personality), shopped till he dropped (the mania; add to the mix a phobia of abandonment; she dragged him along every time she shopped) and the third part of the unholy trinity: she never learned and got better, no matter how much medication she took (the half retardation).

  As he stood with his hand on the steel knob of the door of his study, he wondered how he’d explain why she’d never be allowed inside. He also wondered how he’d come up with an excuse for the surgical table and the instruments lurking there, as well as the anesthesia I.V., if she ever broke in.

  An ENT surgeon, Tyler had been studying training books for other types of doctors: cardiopathic surgeons, endocrine surgeons, upper-gastro-intestinal surgeons and urological surgeons, specifically those specialists who removed internal organs. He’d been practicing on animals. Tyler wondered how Morgan would react if she knew about that juicy tidbit.

  And before he could muse over the situation—he never had more than five minutes of peace—her footfalls stomped down the hallway. She couldn’t just walk, she had to clomp. She also couldn’t just sit in the La-Z-Boy chair; no matter that he’d recently bought it to read in. She’d stolen it; she had to practically jump into it, then kick her feet down and crash out of it. He’d had to advise her not to break it, and she’d murmured her agreement, then had done the same damn thing next time. Too, when she put away the silverware, she threw them into the drawer. One of these days, he’d grab a steak knife and …

  … “Ho-nee,” she chided in that schoolgirl singsong, “why do you spend so much time in your study?”

  Tyler shrugged. “I’m a doctor, babe. I have to keep up on surgical procedures so I don’t miss any new developments and so I don’t forget techniques.”

  Morgan sighed, tossing her shoulder-length blond hair. “You’re just an ear, nose and throat doctor, honey. How hard can it be to take a kid’s tonsils out?”

  There it was, that lack of confidence in him. How he hated her. She hadn’t even been intelligent enough to do nails for a living. Not only would she have flunked beauty school, but also she hadn’t even the confidence to sign up. The bitch simply sat around and obsessed about Tyler the whole time he was at work.

  “There’s more to being an ENT than taking tonsils out. Sometimes I remove throat tumors, salivary glands and thyroid glands.”

  Morgan heaved a heavy sigh. Ironically, he couldn’t help stare at her tanned body, clad in short-shorts and a hoodie that screamed “COED.” Some coed, at damned near thirty-five. Simply put, she was puerile—was that the bi-polar in her or the retardation? Her generous rack aroused him, stinging him in the crotch; her breasts had increased in size now that she was in her third trimester.

  “Here comes the lecture,” she said.

  Oh, the loathing.

  “I’m not trying to argue,” he answered. That was the nub; you couldn’t debate with her; it would set her off. “I’m just saying …”

  “I know,” she yelled and rolled her eyes.

  The kill switch went off in his brain; he longed to strangle her. If it was only legal! “You can’t yell in here, Morgan. I’ve told you over and over. What if the neighbors hear?”

  “Whatever, honey.” With that she shook her apple butt down the hallway.

  Tyler balled his hands into fists. “Bitch,” he muttered under his breath.

  From down the hall: “Did you just call me a bitch?”

  “No, babe,” he answered, trying not to clench his teeth. “I said I itch. I never took a bath today—too busy.”

  “Yeah, right. You’re arguing with me, and I’m not gonna go there. I don’t wanna suffer through another separation. I’m gonna listen to my iPod. It’s my sanity.”

  “You don’t have any sanity,” he whispered.

  The most maddening part of all: She’d act as if she was trying to work it out with him. But wait till Sunday. That’s when she loved to argue with him like the devil, her way of letting him know she wasn’t of the Lord and that she regretted him taking her to church, even though she claimed she loved it. Sure, uh-huh. She was about as UCC as Glen Benton. The woman was possessed; before she’d married him, she’d been a stripper at eighteen, a hooker for a street gang at nineteen—the Gangster Disciples—and would have sex with any man or woman (not that men minded the latter). She’d often “regale” him with tales about how she’d gone to prison for domestic violence against her first husband, or The Hooker Chronicles. Wonderful. He’d have to shut her up then—at least about her ex-hooker tales, the other an impossible task—because he couldn’t listen to those grotesqueries.

  A terrorizing thought plagued him.

  She converted to my religion, the United Church of Christ, just like Jodi Arias joined Travis Alexander’s Mormon congregation.

  That was when Tyler had second thoughts about Christianity. What she’d said to him played over and over in his mind as he white-knuckled the knob of the study door.

  Insanely, she clomped back up to him and said, “No, you’re not gonna treat me like that and get away with it!”

  “Babe, I’m not trying to hurt you; you’re being unreasonable.”

  “Whatever, you’re just an ENT surgeon, and you’re so bitter about not being a real doctor you’re tryin to start a fight.” That bomb dropped, she stomped away.

  Tyler fumed. Morgan had pushed his buttons again.

  No way out of hell on earth, short of killing himself.

  Or was there another way?

  Chapter 2

  “Ahhhhh,” Tyler breathed as he exhaled the smoke from his cigarette. That devil’s fog tasted so good—bittersweet, actually. He stood at the open window in their bedroom, blowing smoke out of the screen because the mongoloid was an anti-smoking Nazi. Then Tyler spotted Morgan walking her shiatsu on the front lawn. He swore, she loved that useless mutt more than she loved him. As if in answer to his thought (My God, is she telepathic?), Morgan looked up, staring right at him and catching Tyler in the act of exhaling into open air.

  Busted. Goddamn that bitch. I can’t have one second of peace.

  As soon as his wife had seemed to materialize on the lawn, she was gone. Again, it was as if she could read his mind. She probably could—anything to ruin his fun.

  Tyler celebrated her absence by lighting another cigarette. She couldn’t see him up here; he had the light off, unless …

  (But that’s impossible)

  … she was telepathic.

  This was his sanity, his five minutes apart from the estrogen queen every four hours. Sometimes he’d sit on the porch, other times he’d come here. Both times he stared at the Christmas lights across the street if it was nighttime, for they’d gone whole-hog. They had lights like snowflakes falling, Xmas trees, candy canes, presents on the front lawn and moving lights that lit the sidewalk.

  “Pretty,” he whispered.

  Tyler didn’t celebrate the Xmas holiday himself, but the joyous sight of the house over yonder got his mind off the bitch. In fact he’d just bought a necklace that bore an insignia that looked like a wrapped Xmas present—one vertical line and two diagonal lines—but it was the sign of the witch. He was a disciple, all right: a disciple of the watch. She’s done it to him. Speak of the devil, she’d found the jewelry and enquired about what it meant….

  The door opened and Morgan burst in on him, the way she’d done this morning at eight a.m. on a Saturday. Now he was sleep-deprived. What the hell, he never slept anyway. A doctor’s hours were akin to Chinese water torture.

  Morgan smiled. “Whasup, whasup, whasup. I know you
sneak in here to smoke. I can smell it through the door. Got an extra one?”

  No, they didn’t give me an extra one.

  Now she wanted to bum a smoke? Could’ve fooled him; she’d given Tyler the silent treatment the first time she’d caught him having a butt. After the divorce from his first wife, he’d smoked because his life sucked. Now he smoked because his second wife was a bitch.

  “Get out of here!” Tyler said. “This is my alone time!”

  She dismissed this with a flap of her hand. “Oh, you’ll live. You’re tempting me with that square, you sexy, sexy, hubbie. Come on, let me have one.”

  “You’re pregnant! You want our child to have a birth defect? Scoot!”

  Morgan pompously walked over and stood right next to him, interloping on his only chance to have peace in the last four hours. Then she opened her mouth and blah-blah-blahed all up and down the room; that was the rub: She never shut up. Something about her second cousin joining the military when he turned eighteen and how he’d given her a U.S. Army cup. Big deal.

  He was tempted to smack her, but thank fuck, he was able to resist it. Tyler put his cigarette in his mouth and held his hands out, palms-up. “Babe, just give me five minutes. It’s the only time I get any peace. Just five minutes.”

  She shook her head. “Whatever, you just wanna get away from me. After all I’ve done for you, saving your sanity when you weren’t man enough to get a second wife.”

  “I’ll show you who the man is!” He quivered, dropped his hands, made fists, then shook them in her face. He hoped she was proud of herself; she’d done it; he’d lost it.

  Nothing was more maddening than her bawling, so she started with the waterworks. “You don’t love me, honey. You hate me.”

  “GET OUT, GET OUT, GET OUT.” He took her gingerly by the arms and moved her toward the door. He was going to strangle her if he didn’t.

  She tried to fall down a couple of times, endeavoring to make it look like he was throwing her onto the floor, but he picked her up. She was shrieking like a murder victim. She tried to slap him, but he karate-blocked it. Now he had her outside the door, but she punched and kicked it with all her might, screaming her head off, saying she was going to go snap, crackle, pop on his ass.

  That didn’t even make sense. What was she going to do, throw Rice Crispies at him?

  Now she’d done it; this time, she’d gone too far. But tonight, he’d have his revenge. Served hot, not cold.

  He’d purchased a cast-iron skillet.

  m/ m/

  Tyler waited until Morgan fell asleep.

  He sure as shit couldn’t rest, the way she rolled over every five seconds because she was pregnant and uncomfortable. Tyler had formed the theory that sleep was a habit manufactured over the years, a myth perpetuated by the lazy. If he’d been an orthopedic surgeon, he wouldn’t have known the meaning of the word sleep; they worked like dogs. In his private practice, he saw about fourteen patients every morning—follow-ups, snoring evaluations, placement of ear tubes in two-year olds and things of that nature, then Tuesday was surgery day. Thanks to his wife, he’d lost the ability to rest. If he did get to sleep, she woke him up by rolling over or requesting sex. If he tried to catch up on his sleep on Saturday, she’d barge in to tell him to fix breakfast, as well as ignoring his remonstrations.

  That was another thing he couldn’t tolerate any longer. Tyler could tell himself sleep was a myth till doomsday; still, one needed it for sanity. And one way or another, he was going to get it. Before he could get out of bed, however, his eyelids became heavy and his brain went foggy. Good God, sleep struggled to overtake him! Yet he knew he’d be awakened by the goddamned ball and chain.

  He went to the land of dreams.

  The rapturous joy of the dream building to a crescendo, thwarted and brought to naught. Tyler found himself being pulled out of it as he was about to cum from having sex with his twenty-three-year-old tanned secretary he could never get in real life. Sweaty, he woke and turned his head to behold his snoring wife. He sighed. “Christ!” he mumbled, “God really does fuck up a wet dream!” He probably sounded mentally challenged. His wife had told him how he talked when he’d just woken up. He was going to have to get more into the occult. Perhaps Satan could put him to sleep. So far, he’d just fucked around with minor invocations and black candles.

  Tyler endeavored to remember his dream, but couldn’t; it faded away a little more with each passing second. Like his happiness. Like his youth.

  Groggily, he rubbed his eyes and wiped the scum from his lips. He deposited it on a tissue. He stared around the plush bedroom. He saw everything posh and perfect-twee: the hamper, purple with a fluffy lid; silk curtains, also purple, as if this was a teenage girl’s room; purple walls and unicorn models and posters. He realized this wasn’t even his house anymore. That fueled his rage even further. And how dare she talk to him like that? She never should’ve done. All he wanted her to do was be a dutiful wife and wash the fucking dishes, then spend time with him. Was that asking for too much? Apparently. The ceiling fan had blown away his sweat; amazing, how one perspired even though the cooling was on. As amazing as Morgan’s bad attitude.

  With that he rose, walked to his study and unlocked it. He stared at the immaculately clean operating table—along with the gleaming instruments of death in the hybrid surgical lights—and grabbed the gurney. He pushed it out, then shoved it through the living room, headed for the bedroom….

  “Here I come, bitch,” he said under his breath. “Looks like your tonsils are going to have to come out. Even though they’ve never given you trouble. Or perhaps your appendix needs to be withdrawn. Or your kidney. Lord knows, you drink too much.” He snickered like a madman. “Well, we’ll start with the tonsils and work our way down. Onward and downward.” He snorted, fighting not to cackle.

  The chloroform cloth came out of the pocket of his doctor’s coat, meaning the beeotch would stay in dreamland for quite some time. That was good, very good, for there’d be less of her to hate tomorrow morning. He picked her up and loaded her onto the gurney. Good Lord, she was fat. How the hell did the bitch not work out like every other doctor’s wife? He’d told her to stick with salads, but she’d been a junk-food junkie, eating fatty TV dinners because she couldn’t cook; she’d burn salad. That was Tyler’s job, along with cleaning and laundry, damn the moron to Hell. She couldn’t do anything right. She’d even found a way to blow up a vacuum cleaner, had called him at work and expected him to rush home.

  Uh-uh. Unplug it, stupid bitch. I’ll be home when I’m home.

  Her little fake dog snored beside the bed. Before he had a chance to back out, Tyler was rolling Morgan out of the bedroom and toward his study. His mind had tried to talk sense to him, make him stop before he did something illegal, then the fog of sleep-deprivation had squelched the voice of reason. He unlocked the study and lugged her heavy body—dead weight as far as he was concerned—onto the operating table. That done, he turned on the surgical lights.

  His eyes glanced over the two walls. Well, walls was too proper a name for them; they were huge bookshelves full of occult tomes and surgical guides. Wow, he really needed to get an eReader! The shelves practically groaned, cramped tight and overstuffed.

  Tyler started the general anesthesia, a combination of several medicines so she’d stay under and immobile, administered through an I.V. full of anesthesia after puncturing her arm. He inserted the breathing tube, then turned on the monitor that allowed him to watch her breathing, her blood pressure and her heart rate. He brought his steel table of tools over and used the tongue depressor to keep her mouth open. Then he grabbed the tonsil forceps and the tonsil guillotine clamps. Without nurses, this operation would be crude, but it would have to do. Poor little nut job. She’d be getting psycho surgery, like it or no.

  Tyler grabbed the scalpel.

  “Lights, camera, silence on the set. Tape rolling, 3-2-1 action,” a line from a Suicidal Tendencies song called “Send Me Your Money,” playing over and over in his head.

  Doctor, you’re on.

  This being ENT surgery—his specialty—he went at it like an automaton. He cut the tonsils away from the surrounding tissue with forceps and used the tonsil guillotine clamp to stop the bleeding. Because they caught germs—fighting infections—she’d probably be sick more than usual, poo-poo-poo, poor little bad wifey. She could die on a rusty nail in an alley for all he cared. She’d obviously never had tonsillitis, but that didn’t matter to Tyler. This would fix her for that shitty attitude. And hey, what the hell, he decided to remove the adenoids also, for they were often taken out at the same time as the tonsils. How do you like that, Morgan, a double cursing?