Chapter 8: Punishment of the Unworthy
The smell of coffee, usually a comfort, felt like an accusation. Mark’s hands trembled as he measured the grounds, his knuckles white. The memory of the living room—the television, the sofa—was a fresh brand on his mind. He could still feel the cool, sentient leather gripping him, the violent, shameful release. He’d scrubbed his skin raw in the shower, but the phantom sensation clung to him like a film.
He jumped at the sound of laughter from the dining room, bright and unburdened. It was Lisa’s laugh, but it was different. Fuller. It had a resonance he hadn’t heard in years, a throaty joy that was entirely new.
He carried two mugs into the dining area, the steam rising like feeble prayers. Lisa and the two Deloreses were seated at the table. Before them, the polished wood was covered not with the toast and cereal he’d been attempting to make, but with a spread that belonged in a dream. A silver platter held pastries that glistened with dew-fresh glaze. A cut-crystal bowl overflowed with fruits whose colors were too vibrant, too perfect—starfruit that shone like polished metal, figs that pulsed with a deep, bloody purple. There was a platter of smoked fish, translucent and rose-colored, and a wheel of cheese that seemed to breathe, its rind moving with a slow, fungal rhythm.
They were feasting. Lisa, nestled between the two identical, red-headed women, was popping a grape into her mouth. She looked… radiant. Her skin glowed. Her eyes, once reserved and often tired, sparkled with a wicked, knowing light. She was wearing one of his old dress shirts, buttoned haphazardly, and nothing else. The two Deloreses were in similar states of undress, their robes hanging open. The air around them hummed with a shared, sated energy.
“Morning, honey,” Lisa said, her voice a lazy purr. She didn’t look at him, her attention on the piece of cheese one of the Deloreses was offering her on a knife tip.
Mark set the mugs down with a clatter. Coffee sloshed onto the table. “I… I made coffee.”
One of the Deloreses—the original, he thought, based on the way the other seemed to subtly mirror her movements—glanced at the mugs. “How quaint.” She picked up a porcelain cup that hadn’t been there a moment before and sipped from it. The scent of dark chocolate and exotic spice filled the air. “We’re fine, thanks.”
The other Delores leaned forward, her gaze sweeping over Mark’s disheveled appearance, his shaking hands. “Rough night?” she asked, a smirk playing on her lips.
He ignored her, his eyes fixed on his wife. “Lisa. We need to talk. This… this has to stop.”
Lisa finally looked at him, but her expression wasn’t one of concern or fear. It was one of mild, detached pity. “Stop? Why would we want to stop? I haven’t felt this good in… well, ever.” She stretched, a languid, cat-like motion that made the shirt ride up her thighs. “It’s amazing what you can accomplish when you’re not wasting a third of your life unconscious.”
Mark stared, the meaning of her words not quite computing. “What?”
The original Delores placed a hand on Lisa’s arm, a possessive gesture. “Tell him, sweetie. Tell him what you wished for when you found the ring this morning.”
Lisa’s smile was brilliant. “It was just lying there on the bathroom basin. Still warm. It was so… obvious.” She took a bite of a glistening pastry, flakes of it catching in the corners of her mouth. “I wished that the three of us no longer needed to sleep. Isn’t that brilliant?”
The floor seemed to tilt under Mark’s feet. No sleep. The concept was so simple, so utterly monstrous in its implications. It wasn’t just about more time for sex, though that was certainly part of it. It was about removing the only respite, the only quiet, dark hours where the world might, just for a moment, reset to normal. It meant the party, the transformation, the relentless energy, would never pause. Ever.
“The nights are just… endless now,” Lisa continued, her voice dreamy. “No fatigue. No fog. Just pure, clear time. We read for a while. We talked for hours. Then Dolores showed me how to—”
“That’s enough,” Mark choked out.
He looked at the feast, at their vibrant, awake faces, and then down at his own pathetic offering of burnt toast and slopped coffee. He was an anchor they had already cut loose. He was a ghost in his own home, a spectator to a celebration he could never join.
Without another word, he turned and walked back into the kitchen. He leaned against the cold stainless steel of the refrigerator, the hum of its motor a dull counterpoint to the laughter behind him. His gaze fell on the small, wooden ring box sitting on the counter where he’d left it after his own disastrous wish. It was empty.
The ring was out there, moving between them, granting wishes that were steadily erasing the life he knew. His wish had been a blunt instrument. Theirs were surgical, precise, carving away at the foundations of reality itself.
He heard a chair scrape back and soft footsteps. One of the Deloreses stood in the kitchen doorway, watching him. She didn’t speak for a long moment, just let him feel the weight of her presence.
“You look tired, Mark,” she said finally, her voice not unkind, but utterly devoid of warmth. It was a clinical observation. “You should really get some rest.”
She turned and went back to the feast, leaving him alone with the humming appliance and the devastating truth. They had all the time in the world. And he was running out.