The woman I had procured to be the frame for my female creation had hung herself in an abandoned cottage about two miles north from my own. The overwhelming stench suggested that it had been at least several days since her suicide and I felt pressed for time to restore life before her body began decomposing and was no longer of use to me.
I found myself more dedicated to assembling the woman to be appealing to the eye in a way that I had not been with my first creation. The woman should be a testament to my abilities as a creator. I needed to make something with my own hands that was more beautiful than what had existed before or could exist again, except by my own will.
She lay on the table, reeking for some time before I undressed her. Even though she was quite dead, I felt a touch shamed, as I had intended to gaze only upon Elizabeth’s body alone once we were wed. The woman had been very young and even decomposing was of exceptional beauty.
I found myself drawn to the possibility of creating a woman who might embody everything I admired in my beloved Elizabeth; my genius would be beyond doubt and my work of art nearly immortal. She would be the best possible companion--beautiful, intelligent, compassionate, desirable, and faithful. She would never leave her mate. Nor could she. She could also be taught whatever I fancied, so that she could communicate in the proper fashion for a woman to speak and behave. Yes, my work would be beyond the doubt of all skeptics; she would be the perfect wife.
Yes, she would indeed be a work of art beyond mortal conception if my hands would construct her and revive life yet again. I vowed to work faster, with more fervent attention to creating her than what I had given to the monster who demanded I make him a bride of his own so that I might have my Elizabeth and he might have a mate. This would be for the well-being of humanity, I assured myself while performing the task.
Her neck was bruised and rubbed raw from struggling and straining against the rope while she undoubtedly changed her mind about life and death, but I would give her a second chance at life very soon.
Despite the purplish color of her face, she was breathtaking indeed. Her hair dripped as blood from off the table, pooling down upon the floor. I was saddened with the knowledge that I would have to shave her head in order to properly go about examining her brain, but I prepared the blades nonetheless, and gingerly pressed the first blade against her scalp.
***
The mechanical process of how I went about reanimating dead tissue yet again shall not be divulged here, for fear that some unlucky man might attempt to continue my work, but upon several attempts to revive her without any notable reaction from the body, I became discouraged with my failed efforts.
I leaned my face close, listening for a breath. But all was silent. My beautiful creation--my woman--I had failed to bring life to her.
Why was it that I could bring into existence a dæmon fit only for Hell, but I could not conjure the ability to instantiate into the world a woman who would make even God Himself jealous of my capabilities?
Instead of falling into despair, I studied her. I could not blame the parts of the machine that did not work, but only the engineer who installed them. She was perfect; it was not her fault for my own incompetence. Damnation!
The bone structure of her face was sharp and angular and I found myself trailing the features slowly, down to the rope burns on her neck, where I rested my hands, fingers spread behind her shaved head, thumbs resting on her trachea gently. The tips of my fingers touched the stitches closing her rotting skin, but I did not recoil at the oozing, stinking substance that gathered around the openings and smeared thickly onto my flesh.
It was a shame that no one would have my creation--this woman. She would have been the perfect wife for any worthy man. Man. No monster could ever appreciate the dedication to detail. No other man would ever appreciate or understand the love that my woman-creature was capable of possessing. I was the only one who could possibly fathom everything that she could offer. My dear Elizabeth was even of no comparison to the intentions I had for my creature to hold in her delicate, dead hands. No one would understand more than I.
As I studied her, something brushed against my leg. I looked down and realized it was her fingers that twitched against my pant leg, causing me to hope that all my efforts were not in vain.
Suddenly, her eyelids disappeared into her skull, revealing bright, red orbs whose capillaries had all burst under the pressure of strangulation and had saturated blood throughout both eyes almost completely. Her mouth gaped open, greedily sucking down the air that she had been denied in her last moments of life.
What a wretched sound! What a horrifying sight!
I could feel her shallow breaths against my face and the acrid stench of death enflamed my nostrils and heightened my senses. There was not a quiver, breath, or heartbeat of hers of which I was not completely aware. As she gasped, her blood-filled eyes grew wider. The lavender hue of her face deepened to shades of blue as I realized my hands were constricting around her slender throat, which moved convulsively beneath the force of my weight.
Her eyelids began fluttering and her back arched painfully as she struggled against me. I drew in each of her acerbic, staccato breaths almost straight from her mouth, like God stealing back the breath He had given to Eve.
My hands held tight of their own accord. Her back arched violently beneath me as she desperately sought to retain the life I had placed in her. But I was unmoved. No one would fathom her capabilities as a being--as a woman--as much as I would, and no one would be accepting of her. She would be misunderstood, and my admiration of her perfection might be questioned.
But what was I saying? A reanimated corpse would be a better wife than a woman who had not experienced death, herself? Would my creature be more satisfying to me than my darling Elizabeth? The thought turned my stomach. Surely she must not live! It was not right to think such things!
The woman’s body did not struggle as violently now, though her eyes had rolled back into her skull as she thrashed about, no longer pleading with me in such an animalistic way.
I found a sickening thrill take my body over as I choked the life out of the being whom I had created so arduously and had felt ultimate desire for the existence of. No man or monster would have her, of this I would be sure!
Her hand pressed against my chest hard while her mouth searched desperately for breath. But shortly, her body shuddered one last time before relaxing into a second death.
My hands still held tightly onto her throat, although I was spent and perspiring heavily. I watched the sweat drip onto her asphyxiated face and roll down her cheek and neck while I composed myself.
My beautiful creation was to be the bride of the dæmon who brought me such anguish! I had done the right thing by killing her, but the monster might try to reanimate her himself, now that the body was prepared. I could not let that happen! She was formed by my hand, and it was by my hand only that she would be destroyed!
The limbs tore away from the ligaments easily enough, but I would have to saw off the bones and cut inside her to remove the organs. If the dæmon wanted a wife, he would have to make her himself! His threats and taunts no longer moved me. I would not be a slave to his murderous will!
The heart was the last thing I took from her body. I held it in my hand. The rancid stench of blood coated my skin and clothes, but I was unbothered by it. I had disposed of the other parts diligently, but I found it difficult to discard her heart with such ease. I would not want a man to be able to throw away the heart of my dear Elizabeth if it were her heart being held in his hand without conviction or contemplation.
I had a small purse in my belongings that would secure the organ until I found the proper way to dispose of it, or until I decided the time was right to create again.