The Dark...Reloaded: "Gladiatrix." Lights! Cameras! Slaughter!

Actually, as with the previous blog post for "The Sunglasses Girl," this one could also have "Sex, Survival, Something More" as a description of what it deals with as well.  Yet they are totally different stories thematically.

The sex here is of an abusive nature, before turning to the tease, an inhuman twist by a woman who is no longer a woman. Shannon Olivier's torturous past helps unleash within her a primal force, something that harkens back to whatever we were in the beginning that took a breath and fought for survival and...now it's all a Game Show?  Yeah, I don't think I had any idea what this was when I was writing it, but I wanted to tap into that ancient self as well as some crude nod to sexuality used as a weapon, because this is all Shannon, and later She--her individuality deemed unnecessary as she embraces this primal force--has known in her life, it's just the tables have been turned, flipped over, splintered...

Deep psychological scars contorting the person she was and now is into something of a killing machine, in white bra and panties.  Okay, blood drenched white bra and panties. 

This one sinks down into the grime and enjoys it.

If I was to describe it in generic terms, think of any female revenge movie such as I Spit On Your Grave, cross it with a a game show--I usually envision something like The Running Man, but for the life of me, I can't remember much of that movie at all, but it seems more appropriate than, say, the current rage, The Hunger Games, which I've yet to read the books or see the movie, but know I eventually will--but with a more potent psychological foundation.

Here's a couple of takes from the reviews:

"Again, a powerful piece, delving deep into the psyche of an exploited woman, and how she was turned into, a gladiatrix of sorts. The descriptions and language are superb, but I do have a slight reservation - it almost seems that the long (and quality) descriptions of the woman and her background in the first half of the story, seem too disjointed from the narrative revelations later. They seem more disconnected than what I would have appreciated.
Nevertheless, well worth the read."

"Gladiatrix in particular was disturbing."

Here's a clip of Shannon rediscovering who she is, what she...is...

***

     She looked at herself as best as possible.  She was adorned in a white bra and white panties drenched in so much blood as to make the distinction irrelevant. 

     She glanced up and noticed the vents, passageways for unwarranted sleep, gases that brought her brief moments of blackness and ephemeral amnesia.

     Eyes tracking, circling the ceiling, she noticed the video camera, God’s monocle glare watching her regain her senses and what she had become. What she had always been.

     Shannon Olivier, a quiet, damaged girl who had grown into a quiet, damaged woman, stared hard into the Cyclopean eye and sneered.  Shannon Olivier was no longer present, though.  What she had become now took precedence and as such, scanned the room, eyes flitting, nostrils flaring, invigorated by the sights, the smells.  She saw the machete, stuck in an indecipherable limb, leaned over, planted her right foot on the limb, and pulled up on the machete.  A sickening sucking sound slurped against the fetid air.

     The woman who had once been Shannon Olivier put the blade to her lips and licked it, feeling a deep moistness wet her panties. 

     She glanced back to the video camera and swung the blade up to it, shattering it as she did.  She laughed.

     “I would appreciate it if you stopped breaking the cameras, Shannon,” said a voice, heavy and authoritative.

     “Fuck you, God!  If you are everywhere, you don’t need a fuckin’ camera to see me,”  the woman growled. It was an exclamation pulled from a place of atavistic, primal freedom.

     She felt it in her bones, in her body, ancient coliseum architecture whittled into her sinew and synapses, antediluvian skincage anecdotes etched into her flesh, remembrances long forgotten.  She felt it in her veins, like the blood of history; blood licked off the whips that lashed Jesus’ back, inspiring a resurrection hard-on; engorged labial arousal.  She felt it in her soul, the cold waste that preceded thought, the spiritual climax sloshing forth, raping the heavens in a collision of ecstasy and origin.

     She twisted the knob and kicked the door open, striding with intent down the unlit corridor, no fear in whatever might lurk in the darkness.  After all, darkness was her only true friend.

***

Another one for whom The Dark Is Light Enough, eh?  ;-) 

I'm a firm believer in no inhibitions, nothing held back when it comes to writing or life--let's be all-inclusive. I see this coming up even sharper in more current writing projects.  What I enjoy in fiction is writing and writers who go all the way, without reservations (and with wild imaginations, too!).  Even the tiniest offhand comment or description, it needs to be laser focused for maximum impact, maximum resonance, perhaps, much like the paragraph in the sample that begins, "She felt it in her bones..."  I really enjoy when a writer goes to that place we might not want to acknowledge, yet we know it's there; that place where the nub of discomfort, dread...honesty and harsh truths lives.  And so much more.  No inhibitions, I tell you.  It's the only way to leave a real impact. Emotionally and viscerally and along the many branches that extend out from those foundations or...well, look as usual, winging it here, trying to make sense of it all myself. Thinking out loud. 

I want fiction that delves within my psyche and soul and demands reaction, response--my participation in some way.  Even, as noted, if it's just a tiny reaction.  Something, please! 

So much doesn't but that's a blog for another day...

This story is a good example of just getting raw and relishing it and letting it take shape organically, which might explain the first snippet from the review commenting on a bit of imbalance.  Well, as I always say, I'm a work in progress.  We'll see where it all leads over time, eh?  You along for the ride? 

I'm sure The Bride from Tarentino's Kill Bill movies is related to Shannon...well, to what Shannon becomes.  Both know how to handle sharp implements with style, as well...

Enjoy!

Perhaps we'll tap a vein with the next teaser/sample... Hmmm...