The Beautiful People

"I love you."

Those three worlds could make mountains move and fleets sail, so trying to keep myself from orgasming, when they were whispered into my ear by my beautiful sister, was impossible.

As I tipped over into pure bliss, she held me close, her fingers digging at my back. I heard her own cries of pleasure, and then we both fell silent to gasping pants for air as the last shivers of pleasure gave way to shivers of cold as the frigid air of the room began to caress naked, sweat-dampened bodies. Sliding out of her, I lay down next to her and covered us both in the blanket. She snuggled in next to me and buried her hands against my chest, no doubt feeling the hard thunder of my heart as it slowly quieted.

"I love you," she said again quietly.

"And I love you."

"Even though I'm one of them? One of the Beautiful people?" She asked, looking up at my "normal" face.

"You were always beautiful, my dearest sister." I placed a gentle kiss on her lips. "And you always will be."

"But I'm like them, like those Monsters." She laid her head on my chest listening to my heart. "I wish I was was like you."

I brushed my fingers through her slightly damp hair. After a few moments I looked down and saw that she was sleeping, her head pillowed on my chest. So beautiful, so perfect, so infinitely untouchable by someone like me, yet I had done just that. I had taken something so innocent and done something primitive, primal, animalistic to it. Had I done something so carnal as to be forbidden by every society in history, and all to make her less so? Less Perfect?

As good as it had felt, at that moment, I hated myself for what I had done...mostly because I knew that I would do it again. Without a doubt that I was going to do it again and again.

"But you are like me." I said in a soft whisper. "Because I'm also a monster."

As I listened to her breathing, soft sleepy sounds, I knew something else I was going to do. To protect this woman next to me...I was going to show the world just how much of a Monster I could be.

** ** ** ** ** ** **

Her Perfect face hidden behind a "normal's" mask, my sister leaned her back against my chest and I held her in my arms as I watched my former leader, Toliver, being dragged by his heels into Golgotha Square. Stripped to bare skin, his whole body was a soaked mess of ragged, bloody-flesh from the gravel he had been dragged through.

The Grundles picked him up and carried him to the raised stone platform. The white stone steps, long stained brown with the blood of hundreds, if not thousands, caught at the broken feet of my old friend, and he cried out.

The Grundles, ignored his pain, dragged him onto the raised platform and pushed him to his knees. The large ,iron caldron full of coals stood nearby with the buried ends of the irons already white hot within the coal bed.

His New man face shining, the magistrate stepped up to the microphone. He opened a black leather-bound folder. His silk on silk voice was thunderously loud, echoing off the surrounding buildings for miles around.

"The criminal Pariah, Jackson Toliver, shall now be executed for crimes again the New State, in accordance with New State law. His crimes include terrorism, murder, and the kidnapping of True Citizens. His guilt is incontrovertible. His trial was swift. Now let his punishment be a warning to all. Brutal actions shall be meet with brutal consequences. Executioner, do your duty."

Bellatrix turned her head to look up at me when the black-shrouded man moved forward towards the kettle of hot irons. "Now?"

"Now." I said simply.

Nodding, she lifted her hand to her throat and pushed the button on her hidden mic. Her single codeword signal...was a soft whisper.

"Zeus."

Like the very thunderbolts of the bespoken god, a terrible rumble shook the whole of the square. Before the sound faded, every Grundle in the square had fallen, many with no heads. Their blood splattered across his horrified face, the magistrate stumbled back from Toliver only to fall screaming as two more rumbles sounded within seconds of each other, and his knee caps disappeared into bright sprays of blood and shattered bone.

Moving through the stunned gathering, poor people whose lives had become so jaded that only violent death could make then feel anything, my sister and I approached the platform. Sensing something about us, they began to part in front of us, getting out of the way of anyone that moved with focus in a time of no focus. As my feet mounted the blood-soaked, life-stained steps, I imagined I heard deep cheering in my mind. Adulation from all the innocents that had been dragged up these very steps.

As I went to Toliver, my sister stood over the writhing magistrate looking down at him with curiousity. Kneeling down, I freed the restraints from my friend's torture-broken hands. My old leader looked up at the blank mask in front of him.

"Thank you my brother, but you shouldn't have done this. This risk for one person does not justify the possible compromise of the whole." He hacked up a gob of bloody spit.

As I looked over the bloody mess of his skin, I felt a sympathetic shiver at the pain he must be in. Lifting my hand to his head, I gently brushed his hair back from his eyes. Then I took my mask off so that he could see my face. "Forgive me, but I don't believe that. Never have and never will."

"Ares?"

Catching him under his arms I helped him into the waiting hands of my fellow Freedom Fighters. They had swarmed the stage behind Bellatrix and myself, guns held plain to see. As Toliver was passed from hand to hand and taken away, the sounds of agony he made tore at me. Grabbing an iron by its handle, I moved to where my sister stood watch over the New Man.

The magistrate was crying, clawing at the stones under foot to try and pull himself away from this horror, this disruption in his, Perfect life. The trail of blood he was leaving was immense and growing by the second.

"Going somewhere, Magistrate? I thought you wanted to see an execution?" I held the glowing iron rod before his face. He flinched back from the white hot point. "Hold him."

My men swarmed in on him, holding him down. Ignoring his screaming, I stood my booted foot on his thigh and applied the hot iron to the ragged holes where the .50 caliber rounds from the two sniper rifles had all but amputated his lower legs. The hideous shriek when the metal touched him was no pleasure to me, but I could hear the shrieks of joy from all the souls in hell that he had killed with these very irons. I got a second iron and cauterized the other leg.

Again his screams, and the cries of vengeful joy from the dead.

I grabbed a third iron and knelt down next to his head.

"Listen to me." I grabbed his head and silenced his weeping by putting the white hot iron near his face. He shook in fear. "I want you to deliver a message. To your Martyr Ambrose. Tell him that the time of all New Men is about to be end. That the Lord of War has come and that the Resistance has truly just begun. Tell him that."

"We'll kill you! We'll kill all of you! You can't stop us! We are Perfect! We are the Beautiful People, the Masters of All!" He shouted at me from a throat screamed horse. He tried to spit at me. "I'll remember your face, Pariah. Your death will be the slowest in the history of man! You and your Pariah whore!"

He jerked his chin towards my sister.

Bellatrix moved forward and knelt down on the New Man's chest. Sensuously she leaned towards him and slipped off her mask revealing her Perfect features to his astonished eyes. When his face began to show anger she flashed that chillingly Perfect smile.

"Then they shall bring out the damsel to the door of her father's house and the men of her city shall stone her with stones that she die..." My sister leaned down and licked a bright point of blood off his cheek. She closed her eyes, savoring the coppery taste, then ice blue eyes flashed open, filled with hate."Whore? Bring your worst, and I'll fuck them all!"

Coming quickly to her feet, Bellatrix caught the iron in my hand. With a shriek of rage she buried it through the magistrate's groin and bent the tip against the stone underneath. Leaving him to scream in pain, she got to her feet and calmly walked away. As she moved among our followers they all reached out to lightly touch her shoulder, a thing I had seen them do more and more often of late. As always, I felt a pang of jealousy at their touching someone that I loved so fiercely. But then, they loved her just as much as I did.

She was their pale Angel of Death.

I looked at the faces of my men as they turned to look at me. The near worship from a few was frighting, but I didn't let it show.

To them, I was their God of War.

Getting to my feet, I looked out over the stunned faces of the crowd. I moved over to where the mic had fallen and set it to right, with a thunderous clatter as it was still turned on. I was about to tell them to disperse when I thought better of it.

"Can you hear the bells?" I asked, my voice almost painfully loud. "Can you hear them? I can. I can hear them clearly. You know who else can hear them just as clearly, but he won't listen to them? President Ambrose."

The members of the crowd looked from side to side to see if their nearside neighbors understood what I was talking about.

"The bells of Revolution are ringing. The bells of Revolution have been ringing for years, but you have all been too asleep to hear them. Even now you can't hear them? I can hear them, I hear them clearly. My men hear them, my sister hears them. Jackson Toliver heard them, even before I did, and for that he was nearly executed here today!"

I lifted my head, my "normal" features plain to see.

"We have heard the bells of Freedom ringing and we, the Resistance, have gotten up from our bed. We've had to answer the wolves of President Ambrose that are at our door. The people of the Resistance have and will continue to be bitten for doing such, but that is the price of hearing the bells of Freedom. They only ring for innocent blood shed for the freedom of others. Can any of you hear the bells? Can you? Who among you can hear the bells!"

From among the crowd came a cry of "I can!"

I pointed towards that voice. "Then you, my brother, I shall stand shoulder to shoulder with and we will listen to them ring in the cold, clear air. I will do such with any man, woman or child that can hear them! That can hear the bells ring because the have let their blood fall to see another person live free. Free of the madness that is the New Men! Free of the insanity that is the Perfect people! Free to not have to enslave yourself to them so that your children can be Perfect. YOU FOOLS! Your children were already perfect! They didn't need to be surgically altered by morally corrupted, medical lunatics, to some standard of beautiful embraced by the rich! By the powerful! BY THE INSANE! Your children were perfect and you gave them to those deranged people because they said they could make them...better...more Beautiful. WHY?"

The square was silent as a tomb as my voice came back to me in muted echoes.

"When you looked upon the face of your newborn child was there ever a more beautiful sight? How could you ever think that a surgeon's knife could improve up that?" I shook my head. Then demanded. "CAN YOU NOT HEAR THE BELLS?"

"I CAN!" came back the cry from a hundred throats.

"If you can hear them and still not answer their call then you are no better than the Grundles we shot here today!" I pointed to one of the dead police officers near my feet. "These were not bad men, they simply wanted their children to be...not perfect, they were already...but rather what President Ambrose told them that had to be. Ripped from their parents' arms, their bodies mutilated by his surgeon's scalpels and drugs. Told lies in their schools, brain washed in their churches of the Perfect Man. Taught to hate the very parents that loved their children enough to make such a terrible sacrifice for them! That is the fate of your children! To be taught to hate you! Is that what you want?"

"NO!" Came back the cry from almost every person gathered within the sound of my voice.

"THEN WHO AMONG YOU CAN HEAR THE BELLS AND WILL ANSWER THEIR CALL?"

"I CAN! I WILL!"

As their impassioned vow reached out I looked up at the light pole mounted cameras overseeing the whole of this square. One swiveled to get a better closeup of my face. I didn't hide from it, but stood square on. The days of hiding were over.

"President Ambrose, can you hear the bells? Can you? THE BELLS OF ST. SEPULCHERE'S ARE TOLLING FOR YOU, AND MAY THE LORD HAVE MERCY ON YOUR SOUL!"

As I walked off the platform to join my sister I whispered "For I will have none upon you for what you did to her."

Bringing my lover in under my arm to protect her, we hurried from the scene as the sirens began to get closer. As we left, I thought about the coming storm my actions and declaration had just set into motion. It was going to be a long fight ahead, but I would not quit so long as Bellatrix was at my side. For like me, she could hear the bells.

But unlike me...she heard them Perfectly.

*****

I would like to thank patientlee, not just for her editing but for the challenge that brought this story about. She offered up a challenge, to several writers, to turn up the radio, and write a story based on the next song we heard. I got "The Beautiful People" by Marilyn Manson. As weird and twisted as this story was I hope it was enjoyable. Again, thank you pl.