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“You awful girl!”
The tube is snaking back up my throat, slimy, gushing, stretching the walls of my throat. I blink furiously, trying to rid my eyes of the water. But Absinthe isn’t being gentle. She grunts in frustration as she tugs in sloppy movements, trying to avoid the egg and saliva coating the tube. I cough and choke and gag as the feeding machine is taken away from me. The ghost of the sensation still lingers. I want to sit up, to cough out the phlegm and whatever else remains. But my body is still bound to this table and I’m not going anywhere, anytime soon.
Scarlett? Why is this happening to me? Can you ask God to protect me?
A blazing sting like the back of a frying pan makes contact with my cheekbone. I yelp as the blow glides against the bone. Absinthe made true on her promise to strike me with her fist. Both the cold, aching feelings of fear and anger form in my chest.
My first assessment was wrong. I thought if I played along, responded to Albatross like he wanted, then I could survive this without torture. I was wrong. They’re going to keep hurting me no matter what I do.
“I would have willingly eaten whatever you wanted me to! You didn’t have to force it inside me!” I release dry sobs formed from anger and hate.
Albatross chuckles. “So would most women, Skylenna. Want to know a secret?”
“Sure!” The sarcasm I intended fails to saturate my scratchy throat.
“When a woman in Dementia gets a little extra skin, perhaps she has trouble losing the baby weight after giving birth, or maybe she doesn’t have self-control around sugary treats—she gets brought to the woman’s ward of the asylum for reconditioning. Force-feeding.”
“I know all of that,” I snap.
“Fine. But what you don’t know is that the women who never come back, get sent to me. For my own studies. And when I’m done with them, Demechnef uses them as fucking dolls for our soldiers.” His tone is suggestive, like I should be personally offended. “Including your travel companion.”
I may as well have been slapped across the face. Again. “You’re lying.”
“A fucking doll is a woman, near death, unable to move or speak. The soldiers bury their cocks into her so they can think clearly when their hormones start to dominate their thoughts. Barbaric, isn’t it? And to think, your travel companion was by far the most gruesome—”
“I don’t want to hear anymore!”
Dessin would never do that. He couldn’t. But—I remember the way he thrust into me, filling me like a madman. Is that because he no longer had access to these—fucking dolls?
No. This man is a liar.
I wish I could glare into his eyes. See the evil that is tucked away. Know the color of his hair so I could accurately visualize myself pulling it out of his head. Or perhaps I could visualize Dessin doing that for me. Where is he? I know he must have an idea of where I am and what’s going on, but then why hasn’t he come for me yet?
Strings of my saliva hang from my mouth, connecting me to Absinthe like a gooey spiderweb. She swats at them like they’re lethal, like they’ll cause her wilted skin to sprout boils.
I squeeze my eyes shut, smelling my own bile and the saltiness of my spit covering my mouth and chin. I hear Absinthe’s footsteps as she shuffles away to clean herself off. I’m cold again, wishing I were back in the asylum after the simulated drowning treatment, when Dessin made the orderly bring me lots of blankets. I imagine waking up again to his soothing, deep voice, those rich brown eyes. But I’m here, exposed on this table, my medical gown as thin as a baby’s eyelash. Trying to get warm in this position is like sleeping naked next to an open window in a blizzard. Goose bumps creep up my legs and arms, and once again, I shiver involuntarily.
“I would stop shaking if I were you,” Albatross warns. And I flinch, absentmindedly I forgot he was still here.
“Why?”
“If Absinthe sees that you’re cold, she’ll give you a reason to be cold.” A long slurp of what I would guess is from tea or hot soup. “You really wouldn’t want an ice bath so soon after being force-fed.”
Another shock of fear clamors inside of my nervous system. What is their goal here? At least at the asylum, they believed they were treating insanity.
“I’d suggest thinking of something nice and warm to get the cold sensation off your mind.” Albatross confuses me with his help. First, he makes me believe my collarbone was broken, then he instructs Absinthe to force-feed me in the most violent way, and now he tries to help me from being forcibly given an ice bath.
I try to nod my head but I’m still firmly strapped to the table. I remember the first winter I was living with Scarlett. We were snowed in, the ice hardening over our windows and door. I was sitting in the family room, pressed into the corner of the couch without a blanket. My body was shaking much like it is now. I was too scared to let her know I was in need of warmth because it wasn’t my house. I was just a visitor, a guest. I didn’t belong. It wasn’t my place to start a fire or go find a cozy blanket. I just had to sit and tremble, rubbing my hands against the back of my arms to soothe the bumps away. And I remember when Scarlett came in. She stared at me, watching me shake. She quickly ran out of the room and came back with the comforter from her bed. I could tell it was hand knitted. It made me wonder if our mother made it, because as far as I knew, Scarlett did not know how to sew. She draped it over my body and ran out once more. The second time she came back, it was with hot cabbage soup in a cup so I could hold it in one hand and drink it without a spoon. It was bland without any flavor, but the hot steam washed over my face, thawing the tip of my freezing nose, and the broth ignited a soft flame in my core as it traveled to my stomach. And if that wasn’t enough, she started throwing wood into the fireplace, and before I knew it, there were the yellow flames licking the tops of brick. And my body was surrounded by both the pulsing heat of the fireplace and the kindness Scarlett shared with me that day. She snuggled under the blanket with me that night. Our hands entwined and our toes tucked under our legs.
The memory of her thin body pressed into mine stops the trembling. I open my eyes and Absinthe is back, glowering down at me like a hawk getting ready to pick apart a field mouse. Staring back up at her, I notice she doesn’t have eyelashes or eyebrows. That must be why she looks wild and feral and withered down to the bone.
Thank you for saving me from the ice bath, Scarlett.
“Do you wish to sleep now, dearest?” Albatross speaks softly. Like he is a king granting a homeless man land and title. At least, that is how I feel. Because right now, there is nothing greater than sleep. Sleep to escape this madness. Sleep to shut the door on this putrid slice of hell. I make a sound to verbalize my gratitude and melt into a cloud of blackness.
32. Blind Me
As the shelter of sleep is slowly peeling off of my body like an oversized bandage, I try and pull it back. Becoming more and more aware of my surroundings. Feeling the bars of my cage making painful indentions in my skin. I beg for that sweet relief of sleep to stay longer, stay forever. That sweet, clouded oblivion of heavy eyelids, numb body parts, and dreams that whisk me far away from here.
