Cerberus
By Maggie Slepian
May 5, 2025
May 5, 2025
I have a perfect back. No blemishes, no tattoos, few freckles.
If me and my perfect back would like to proceed, the lab techs can bring me to the office for paperwork.
“Yes,” I say. “Of course. Thank you.”
I sign my name so many times my hand cramps into a claw and my tendons pulse with effort. The cash payout has so many zeros my hand shakes as I sign the final page.
The stack of pages commits me to six months—just six months—of check-ins, growth hormones, remembering to take my vitamins, and sleeping on my stomach.
The tall man with bronzed skin and teeth like a row of Chiclets is adamant about this last one, the stomach sleeping. He gathers my sheaf of papers and double-taps them on the table until the edges line up.
“If you think you might roll over at night, we can set up your bed with extra wedge braces.”
“No,” I assure him. “I’m a very quiet sleeper.”
They ask if I’d like to retrieve anything from the intake room. I shake my head. My possessions now amount to the photocopied contract and five sets of open-backed scrubs. I have a door that closes, a refrigerator with vitamins lined up on the shelf, and a bathroom with a mirror bolted to the wall. The bathroom also has a door that closes, and I shut myself inside and twist my neck to get a glimpse of my perfect back. I flex my shoulder blades and pull my arms over my head, but I still can’t see. I take their word for it and stack my scrubs on the bathroom shelf.
I sleep (on my stomach) on the soft bed, tucked between the top and bottom sheet. When I startle awake, it’s to a soft tap tap at the door.
I am led to a classroom that smells of antiseptic and something vaguely earthy and damp. Ten, fifteen other grow hosts are here, materializing from their own rooms up and down the hall. We are all in starchy matching scrubs, no one makes eye contact. Where did you all come from? I wonder. What will you do with your payout?
We shuffle into our seats and train our eyes on another tall, shiny man at the front of the room.
After we’re seated, a set of sliding doors glide open and a pixieish blonde girl enters the room. She walks slowly and has large eyes and a solemn stare. Her scrubs swish as she walks and I see the back falling open. I hold my breath. I know what’s coming, but I don’t know how I’ll react.
The doctor places his hand on her shoulder. Does he shudder, or do I imagine it? She stands motionless with her gaze fixed on a point above our heads.
“Show us what you’re growing,” the doctor says, smiling.
Her scrubs are backless like ours, tied loosely at the neck and hips. The top gapes as she turns and we can see between her shoulder blades. The face stretches from her skin, covered with a translucent layer of salamander-like flesh. It doesn’t erupt like I imagined, rather it rises gently in a fleshy mound that seems impossible to separate from the blonde grow host.
I stare, open-mouthed and gaping. I see the muted pink flush of lips, the delicate flare of a nose, twin shadows of closed eyes. This waifish girl is in the final stages of hosting; the face is almost formed and ready for transportation to its body. Some woman in a place I’ve never been, waiting on her custom symmetrical features and mathematically perfect proportions. When the face is transplanted, will she sense the blood vessels and nutrients tying her to the grow host? This girl’s payout is so close, and yet… seeing the face is more startling than I thought. Do the people who ordered these faces know where they come from?
The girl shifts her weight, but the face doesn’t move on its own, just rises and falls slightly with her breath.
The room is silent. A chair scrapes as someone pushes back, but no one leaves.
To distract myself, I imagine walking from a hot parking lot into an air-conditioned grocery store, blinking at the dimness. I peruse the produce, selecting a bunch of carrots still damp from the mister. I choose an apple from an impossibly balanced pyramid, then a glass bottle of juice from the cooler. I swipe my credit card and the cashier wishes me a good day.
I shake my head and push my ragged nails into my thigh. The doctor is still talking.
“The growth stimulants and steroids prevent your immune systems from rejecting the implant,” he continues. “This also means you might feel emotions associated with elevated hormone levels.”
He reminds us that our only job is to protect the fragile tissue until it can be transplanted. The removal is simple, he assures us, the skin graft barely perceptible after the first year. Our backs are critically important—the network of necessary vessels and hormones too complex for lab growth. Flawless backs to grow flawless faces.
“You might experience a hormonal imbalance. Some of you might begin to feel an attachment to the faces.”
This, he promises us, is normal.
If me and my perfect back would like to proceed, the lab techs can bring me to the office for paperwork.
“Yes,” I say. “Of course. Thank you.”
I sign my name so many times my hand cramps into a claw and my tendons pulse with effort. The cash payout has so many zeros my hand shakes as I sign the final page.
The stack of pages commits me to six months—just six months—of check-ins, growth hormones, remembering to take my vitamins, and sleeping on my stomach.
The tall man with bronzed skin and teeth like a row of Chiclets is adamant about this last one, the stomach sleeping. He gathers my sheaf of papers and double-taps them on the table until the edges line up.
“If you think you might roll over at night, we can set up your bed with extra wedge braces.”
“No,” I assure him. “I’m a very quiet sleeper.”
They ask if I’d like to retrieve anything from the intake room. I shake my head. My possessions now amount to the photocopied contract and five sets of open-backed scrubs. I have a door that closes, a refrigerator with vitamins lined up on the shelf, and a bathroom with a mirror bolted to the wall. The bathroom also has a door that closes, and I shut myself inside and twist my neck to get a glimpse of my perfect back. I flex my shoulder blades and pull my arms over my head, but I still can’t see. I take their word for it and stack my scrubs on the bathroom shelf.
I sleep (on my stomach) on the soft bed, tucked between the top and bottom sheet. When I startle awake, it’s to a soft tap tap at the door.
I am led to a classroom that smells of antiseptic and something vaguely earthy and damp. Ten, fifteen other grow hosts are here, materializing from their own rooms up and down the hall. We are all in starchy matching scrubs, no one makes eye contact. Where did you all come from? I wonder. What will you do with your payout?
We shuffle into our seats and train our eyes on another tall, shiny man at the front of the room.
After we’re seated, a set of sliding doors glide open and a pixieish blonde girl enters the room. She walks slowly and has large eyes and a solemn stare. Her scrubs swish as she walks and I see the back falling open. I hold my breath. I know what’s coming, but I don’t know how I’ll react.
The doctor places his hand on her shoulder. Does he shudder, or do I imagine it? She stands motionless with her gaze fixed on a point above our heads.
“Show us what you’re growing,” the doctor says, smiling.
Her scrubs are backless like ours, tied loosely at the neck and hips. The top gapes as she turns and we can see between her shoulder blades. The face stretches from her skin, covered with a translucent layer of salamander-like flesh. It doesn’t erupt like I imagined, rather it rises gently in a fleshy mound that seems impossible to separate from the blonde grow host.
I stare, open-mouthed and gaping. I see the muted pink flush of lips, the delicate flare of a nose, twin shadows of closed eyes. This waifish girl is in the final stages of hosting; the face is almost formed and ready for transportation to its body. Some woman in a place I’ve never been, waiting on her custom symmetrical features and mathematically perfect proportions. When the face is transplanted, will she sense the blood vessels and nutrients tying her to the grow host? This girl’s payout is so close, and yet… seeing the face is more startling than I thought. Do the people who ordered these faces know where they come from?
The girl shifts her weight, but the face doesn’t move on its own, just rises and falls slightly with her breath.
The room is silent. A chair scrapes as someone pushes back, but no one leaves.
To distract myself, I imagine walking from a hot parking lot into an air-conditioned grocery store, blinking at the dimness. I peruse the produce, selecting a bunch of carrots still damp from the mister. I choose an apple from an impossibly balanced pyramid, then a glass bottle of juice from the cooler. I swipe my credit card and the cashier wishes me a good day.
I shake my head and push my ragged nails into my thigh. The doctor is still talking.
“The growth stimulants and steroids prevent your immune systems from rejecting the implant,” he continues. “This also means you might feel emotions associated with elevated hormone levels.”
He reminds us that our only job is to protect the fragile tissue until it can be transplanted. The removal is simple, he assures us, the skin graft barely perceptible after the first year. Our backs are critically important—the network of necessary vessels and hormones too complex for lab growth. Flawless backs to grow flawless faces.
“You might experience a hormonal imbalance. Some of you might begin to feel an attachment to the faces.”
This, he promises us, is normal.
***
On implant day I produce a sickly dark urine sample. I’ve been too stressed to eat or drink. I am facedown on the same table from the intake process, where cool, dry hands ran their fingertips down my back and told me my skin was perfect. The hands are less gentle this time, the numbing injections fast and clinical. A rasping sound grates harshly and I watch the feet moving back and forth with autonomous precision. After one last strained suction I feel a tug across my upper back and then a release back onto the table. The implant is an invisible embryo, and in six months it will be gone.
That night I dream I’m at a cookout in a tidy backyard, holding a red plastic cup and weaving through a thicket of people. Someone lifts the lid off the grill and her hair falls forward to cover her face. She leans over to poke at something over the flame. The grill materializes the way things do in your dreams, no transition or scene change. A row of body parts lie neatly across the grill slats: a hand trimmed at the wrist, a foot seared with grill marks, sliced on a diagonal like a cut of steak. An skinned face with a pert nose and serenely closed eyes.
I wake with bile in my throat and run to the bathroom to retch.
That night I dream I’m at a cookout in a tidy backyard, holding a red plastic cup and weaving through a thicket of people. Someone lifts the lid off the grill and her hair falls forward to cover her face. She leans over to poke at something over the flame. The grill materializes the way things do in your dreams, no transition or scene change. A row of body parts lie neatly across the grill slats: a hand trimmed at the wrist, a foot seared with grill marks, sliced on a diagonal like a cut of steak. An skinned face with a pert nose and serenely closed eyes.
I wake with bile in my throat and run to the bathroom to retch.
***
The rules aren’t as straightforward as the paperwork made it seem. Our growth hormones are injected each morning at check-in, and the fold of skin at my waist grows discolored, a bruised patch of flesh around a livid welt. Our movements are limited, and I have the first set of rails installed on my bed to prevent any accidental roll-overs.
But the techs are kind and we begin to desensitize to the stages of growth. We are fed well, we sleep 12 hours each night, and the hallways are quiet. Our heart rates cannot get too high, our blood sugar and skin pH is closely monitored. Cool hands smooth back my damp hair when the hormones surge and I leak sour sweat from under my arms. As the face grows, tightness tugs across my back and I try to quell flashes of revulsion. It’s not permanent. In six months this will be over.
I fall into the rhythm of vitals, measurements, hormone injections, and group check-ins. My mood oscillates unpredictably. My hair is fuller, I gain weight. I begin to think of the face as her.
“The hormones are similar to being pregnant,” a supervisor says during a group check-in. “Mood swings are a side effect from the tissue-generation drugs.” She smiles widely, looking around the room without meeting our eyes. We shift uncomfortably, bloated and tired with sore injection sites.
“The faces are moving fast through their fetal stage,” she continues. “Only eight more weeks to go.”
I shudder at fetal.
The disgust flares and recedes at random. It might erupt upon hearing the knock on my door, harbinger of another painful injection. Or maybe at night, when I desperately want to roll over. Sometimes I gag on the vitamins and I want to slam my back into the doorframe until she is nothing but mutilated cartilage and snapped blood vessels. And yet. She asks little of me except nutrients and blood flow and that I protect her as she grows. My rage recedes. I feel a glimmer of affection. I slide open the nightstand drawer for a glimpse of the contract and flip the pages until I see my crabbed signature looping across the line over the payout. Four months down, two to go.
“It’s normal to feel an attachment to the face,” a check-in leader tells us one afternoon. I can tell from the suddenly muted room that we’ve all felt the stab of parental protection. Maybe everyone else has started to stand up more carefully, or felt guilt at the flashes of repulsion. I wonder if they’ve also imagined slamming their backs into door frames. Or if anyone else just really wants a bike.
But the techs are kind and we begin to desensitize to the stages of growth. We are fed well, we sleep 12 hours each night, and the hallways are quiet. Our heart rates cannot get too high, our blood sugar and skin pH is closely monitored. Cool hands smooth back my damp hair when the hormones surge and I leak sour sweat from under my arms. As the face grows, tightness tugs across my back and I try to quell flashes of revulsion. It’s not permanent. In six months this will be over.
I fall into the rhythm of vitals, measurements, hormone injections, and group check-ins. My mood oscillates unpredictably. My hair is fuller, I gain weight. I begin to think of the face as her.
“The hormones are similar to being pregnant,” a supervisor says during a group check-in. “Mood swings are a side effect from the tissue-generation drugs.” She smiles widely, looking around the room without meeting our eyes. We shift uncomfortably, bloated and tired with sore injection sites.
“The faces are moving fast through their fetal stage,” she continues. “Only eight more weeks to go.”
I shudder at fetal.
The disgust flares and recedes at random. It might erupt upon hearing the knock on my door, harbinger of another painful injection. Or maybe at night, when I desperately want to roll over. Sometimes I gag on the vitamins and I want to slam my back into the doorframe until she is nothing but mutilated cartilage and snapped blood vessels. And yet. She asks little of me except nutrients and blood flow and that I protect her as she grows. My rage recedes. I feel a glimmer of affection. I slide open the nightstand drawer for a glimpse of the contract and flip the pages until I see my crabbed signature looping across the line over the payout. Four months down, two to go.
“It’s normal to feel an attachment to the face,” a check-in leader tells us one afternoon. I can tell from the suddenly muted room that we’ve all felt the stab of parental protection. Maybe everyone else has started to stand up more carefully, or felt guilt at the flashes of repulsion. I wonder if they’ve also imagined slamming their backs into door frames. Or if anyone else just really wants a bike.
***
The skin on my back tightens as the face enters the next stage of growth. She feels like she’s pulling if I move too fast, and I am reminded to keep motion to a minimum and avoid turning too quickly. They install tighter wedges on my bed.
I would never admit it, but as she develops features and form, she feels less like a parasite and more like a companion. Sometimes I talk out loud and tell her about my future.
“I’m going to buy a bike,” I say. My words come out gravelly and I clear my throat. “I had one growing up.” I glance around my empty apartment, feeling ridiculous. She doesn’t respond.
I want to know what she looks like, but still the only mirror in my little apartment—in the entire building—is bolted to the wall, and no matter how I twist and contort, I can’t see more than the barest hint of outward-pressing form. It might be the shape of a cheek or nose, I can’t tell. Soft tissue, no bones, the cartilage just starting to thicken.
Slippery currents of gossip run beneath our day as the faces continue to take shape, staring sightless at each other when our scrubs fall open.
“The removals are damaging grow hosts’ skin,” a sallow-cheeked girl with oily hair mutters into her plastic cup of vitamins. “A girl in my group saw a body bag.”
I throw back my head to swallow my own handful of pills and don’t say anything.
No one else responds either. But instead of shutting up, the girl gets louder. “The removal is damaging the host's skin!” She repeats, almost shouting. I turn to see if any doctors or supervisors are in the room, but it’s just a handful of grow hosts.
She spins towards the girl on her left and her gown sags open. She is growing a face with wide-set eyes and high cheekbones. The bow lips are just starting to form, though the features still lack distinction. She must be on the same track as me, which means six weeks until removal. In the next month, the features will sharpen and set, the hair follicles will form, the translucent caul of skin will dry and peel, exposing the face to the air for the first time. I ignore her.
But the rumors continue as our removal dates grow closer.
The grafting is imperfect. We’ll be scarred for the rest of our lives. Two more people mention body bags. I shrug if I’m addressed directly, occupying myself with thoughts of a bicycle and a bank account, tapping glass bottles of juice. Each night I pull out my photocopied contract and run my thumb down the edge of the stack of papers, calming myself with the thiffffttt noise. The face pulls at my back. My skin cracks and peels. She wants out.
And then, it's my turn.
On removal day I lie facedown on the table and am given an injection that cleaves my mind and body in two. I can see, but I can’t tap a finger or make a sound. Shadows glide across the floor, reflections of the surgeons moving with calm, measured steps. She feels taut and pressurized, like she’s trying to crawl through my skin.
My eyes track the blue booties shuffling back and forth. I hear murmurs and the hydraulic whine of machinery. I sense pressure but no pain.
There is a hard pinch above my shoulder blades, like a cat being held in place by the nape of its neck. I try to open my mouth in case I need to say something, but the sedation has me completely frozen.
Sudden force pushes me into the table before jerking me back and forth. It’s rough, and I want to shout at them to slow down. The room blurs red around the edges and there is a darkening shift where the voices get louder and the feet vanish before stepping quickly back into view.
Then they are gone and all I see are fast-moving shadows. The table feels slippery beneath me. Save the face; I hear. Save face; saving face.
To save face is to retain respect, avoid humiliation. To blend in with the world. Saving face by existing with the means to get by.
A jolt knocks me against the side of the table and something clatters to the floor. I hear a suction followed by a wet tear as the hands pull away, leaving a gaping void and spots cluttering my vision. The speckled tile is blank and the voices fade away. The room goes quiet, a hollow echo of the chaos.
I feel faintly afraid, but keep my mind busy picturing my fingers twisting open a bike lock before tucking a wallet into my pocket. Wallet, bike, groceries. Wallet, bike, groceries. My vision blurs red and then gray and then spotted with black. I need to get my contract. I need to make sure it’s where I left it.
I try to lift my hand to tell them I need help getting off the table, but the shadows are gone. I just see tiles, blue and white with a smear of red. I open my mouth to speak, but I can’t translate thought to sound. I see my hand shaking as I sign my name below the final payout number, just six months from implant to removal. I blink furiously, waiting for someone to see me. I need someone to help me off the table so I can find my contract.
I would never admit it, but as she develops features and form, she feels less like a parasite and more like a companion. Sometimes I talk out loud and tell her about my future.
“I’m going to buy a bike,” I say. My words come out gravelly and I clear my throat. “I had one growing up.” I glance around my empty apartment, feeling ridiculous. She doesn’t respond.
I want to know what she looks like, but still the only mirror in my little apartment—in the entire building—is bolted to the wall, and no matter how I twist and contort, I can’t see more than the barest hint of outward-pressing form. It might be the shape of a cheek or nose, I can’t tell. Soft tissue, no bones, the cartilage just starting to thicken.
Slippery currents of gossip run beneath our day as the faces continue to take shape, staring sightless at each other when our scrubs fall open.
“The removals are damaging grow hosts’ skin,” a sallow-cheeked girl with oily hair mutters into her plastic cup of vitamins. “A girl in my group saw a body bag.”
I throw back my head to swallow my own handful of pills and don’t say anything.
No one else responds either. But instead of shutting up, the girl gets louder. “The removal is damaging the host's skin!” She repeats, almost shouting. I turn to see if any doctors or supervisors are in the room, but it’s just a handful of grow hosts.
She spins towards the girl on her left and her gown sags open. She is growing a face with wide-set eyes and high cheekbones. The bow lips are just starting to form, though the features still lack distinction. She must be on the same track as me, which means six weeks until removal. In the next month, the features will sharpen and set, the hair follicles will form, the translucent caul of skin will dry and peel, exposing the face to the air for the first time. I ignore her.
But the rumors continue as our removal dates grow closer.
The grafting is imperfect. We’ll be scarred for the rest of our lives. Two more people mention body bags. I shrug if I’m addressed directly, occupying myself with thoughts of a bicycle and a bank account, tapping glass bottles of juice. Each night I pull out my photocopied contract and run my thumb down the edge of the stack of papers, calming myself with the thiffffttt noise. The face pulls at my back. My skin cracks and peels. She wants out.
And then, it's my turn.
On removal day I lie facedown on the table and am given an injection that cleaves my mind and body in two. I can see, but I can’t tap a finger or make a sound. Shadows glide across the floor, reflections of the surgeons moving with calm, measured steps. She feels taut and pressurized, like she’s trying to crawl through my skin.
My eyes track the blue booties shuffling back and forth. I hear murmurs and the hydraulic whine of machinery. I sense pressure but no pain.
There is a hard pinch above my shoulder blades, like a cat being held in place by the nape of its neck. I try to open my mouth in case I need to say something, but the sedation has me completely frozen.
Sudden force pushes me into the table before jerking me back and forth. It’s rough, and I want to shout at them to slow down. The room blurs red around the edges and there is a darkening shift where the voices get louder and the feet vanish before stepping quickly back into view.
Then they are gone and all I see are fast-moving shadows. The table feels slippery beneath me. Save the face; I hear. Save face; saving face.
To save face is to retain respect, avoid humiliation. To blend in with the world. Saving face by existing with the means to get by.
A jolt knocks me against the side of the table and something clatters to the floor. I hear a suction followed by a wet tear as the hands pull away, leaving a gaping void and spots cluttering my vision. The speckled tile is blank and the voices fade away. The room goes quiet, a hollow echo of the chaos.
I feel faintly afraid, but keep my mind busy picturing my fingers twisting open a bike lock before tucking a wallet into my pocket. Wallet, bike, groceries. Wallet, bike, groceries. My vision blurs red and then gray and then spotted with black. I need to get my contract. I need to make sure it’s where I left it.
I try to lift my hand to tell them I need help getting off the table, but the shadows are gone. I just see tiles, blue and white with a smear of red. I open my mouth to speak, but I can’t translate thought to sound. I see my hand shaking as I sign my name below the final payout number, just six months from implant to removal. I blink furiously, waiting for someone to see me. I need someone to help me off the table so I can find my contract.
|
Maggie Slepian is a Montana-based writer whose work focuses on the intersection of the outdoors, culture, and mental health. Her writing has appeared in Adelaide, Barren Magazine, Longreads, The New York Times, Outside Magazine, and more.
|
|
Author’s Note:
Horror as it relates to our cultural and emotional experience has always fascinated me. “Cerberus” is a thought exercise in what we’ll agree to for the promise of a better future.