conclusions, oh the devil of choice, no matter what, it's the great illusion believing a thought to be true, which is: ..to think to know..

but all the little truths form mind spider thought nets either black or golden threads a self-woven mind maze jest

a model of explanation loop holding back from exploring what can be

This post is a supplement to the Mastodon post.

A Pride Shield for two groups simultaneously; transgender people who work in medicine and people who provide gender affirming, medical care and services!

Argent an Asklepian its staff Sable and its snake lozengy Rose and Bleu Celeste.

A nice simple design, using the Asklepian symbol, or Rod of Asclepius, an ancient symbol for medicine. I’ve loosely based the snake on the Aesculapian snake (Zamenis longissimus), which is why it has that little smiley face.

I want to be very clear about this: This shield is NOT a transmed shield, it is a shield for;

Transgender people in the medical field; People who provide gender affirming care and other medical services for transgender people; Anyone who falls into both categories.

My understanding of the term “transmed” is that it is exclusionist which, as previously mentioned, is not what the ACP is for.

PULLING.

Skilled hands were pulling at something attached to her arm. It felt like tape or a band-aid. The sharp pang of soft hair being yanked out at the root by medical tape. More pulling. The gentle snip-snip of stainless steel scissors.

“Are you recording this?” She recognized the humming man's voice.

“Yes sir.” Came a wet response that was more a gasp than speech. It was a voice she did not recognize. Her eyes had been re-bandaged, and she could no longer see the room around her. By shifting her weight down, she could tell that her legs were no longer in stirrups, though they were bound to the table.

“Coagulation is consistent with a normal human specimen. White blood count has leveled off at nearly acceptable numbers and her vitals are both stable and consistent. She is awake and responds to physical stimulation. Tomorrow we will begin further sensory tests, followed by a battery of cognitive function and memory retention trials later in the week.”

A series of beeps and whirs came and went. She could almost make out the sound of the two men speaking softly in another part of the room. Eventually, she heard the rattle of keys.

“Can you clean up in here?” The humming man asked, sounding more frustrated than he had thus far.

“Yes sir,” said the wet voice. It sounded like the speaker had a mouth full of broken teeth.

“And make sure she's out for the night. We don't want her tossing and turning on the table.”

“Of course, sir.”

The door closed and then there was only the quiet rustle of papers being stacked. It was a sound that was strangely familiar and comforting.

FINGERS.

A hand was on her. She had fallen back to sleep. Being blindfolded and existing in transient, disconnected windows of awareness, left her with no sense of time. She was tired and cold and didn't think she had been asleep for long, if at all. The sound of rustling paper echoed around the room as a clumsy hand slid across her belly. She now understood that she was dressed in a paper hospital gown. It was tearing as the owner of the roaming hand moved his arm up her body and found her right breast. When she attempted to scoot as far out of the way as she could, she found that she couldn't move at all. Her arms and legs were paralyzed. Her head was unable to turn. Yet she could feel his rough, calloused hand as it wrapped around her breast and squeezed hard.

It hurt, more than she expected. The breast was tender, as though bruised. She could not cry out. Her lips and voice still refused to work. A hard tug at her nipple made her suck air in sharply through her nose and tighten her jaw. It was the closest she had to a scream.

More tearing paper. Her left breast hit the frigid air of the room and instantly broke out in goosebumps, her nipple became painfully hard. Wet warmth engulfed her breast and after a moment she realized that the owner of the hand had taken it into his mouth and was sucking in broad, hungry gulps. His tongue darted frantically around her nipple. Teeth dragged along the tender flesh. Her breathing became erratic as he sucked harder, painfully, on her breast. His hand slapped her right breast as he pulled at her nipple on the left with his teeth. She desperately wanted to scream out but could only breathe faster and heavier, nearly hyperventilating.

As his right hand slid down her belly toward her sex, she realized what was so strangely different about these hands. He wasn't wearing gloves. The Doctor (she assumed he was some sort of doctor) always wore latex gloves. Smooth but not sticky or uncomfortable. These hands were warm and scuffed and knobby. Where the doctor's hands were careful and deliberate and gentle, these hands were shaking and eager and clumsy.

Instinctual terror gripped her heart as she felt him pull away. Somehow having him not touch her was worse. Again, she tried to scream and failed as something cold and wet drizzled onto the smooth skin between her legs. It wasn't until just now that she realized that she was shaved. The disconcerting image of a doctor with a disposable razor kneeling between her legs entered her mind.

The hands were back, pushing the wet substance around on her skin and down between her legs and into the tender crevice there. Once the aroma of petroleum jelly wafted up, she realized that it was medical-grade lubrication. The two middle fingers of his hand slid easily into her, hooking upward and pulling her down the table slightly with each heavy thrust of his hand. The knuckles of his index and pinky fingers bit painfully into her as he shoved his digits deeper.

A rhythmic shaking sound crept into her awareness. It was hard for her to focus on any one sensation, as both her physical and emotional states were conflicted. Panicked, deep horror, and a strange feeling of resigned acceptance. Her awareness had been so confused and disassociated that this feeling, as awful as it was, was at least familiar. She'd felt this before. Perhaps not the fear, but the physicality of what was being done to her. She desperately wanted him to stop what he was doing, to go away and never come back. To let her drift away into the warm, dark sleep. But her body was responding. As much as it hurt and scared her, what he was doing also felt good in some dark, buried place inside her.

She was also aware that her body was responding to this invasion physically. She felt the moisture collecting on her thighs, spattering out onto the paper as his fingers worked in and out of her with increasing vigor.

The shaking was picking up. She understood what it was. Though she had no specific memory, she knew that she'd experienced it before. The rhythm of the movement and the steady clanking of his belt buckle against the metal bars of her bed frame. The padded table dipped beside her as she felt him climb up, the fingers of one hand still slipping in and out of her. He was on his knees beside her. Her body was convulsing. He was rubbing too hard and too fast. She desperately needed him to stop. To give her a moment to breathe. It was too much. Even if she had wanted him to do what he was doing, any pleasure she might have taken from it was buried under the pain of over-stimulation and plain old friction.

The shaking was coming faster, and she knew what it was. Thankfully, the hand that was attacking her slowed as the other picked up speed. She hoped it wouldn't be long now. The hand between her legs fell away as he finished the work he was doing on himself, the soft clinking of his belt buckle gathering speed.

Then with an unceremonious spatter of warmth, it was over. She felt his seed spurt across her belly and settle in her navel. She could hear him breathing in shallow, wet jags. He sounded like a big, slobbery dog. The weight of his knees next to her shifted as he climbed off the table. He was gone for a moment and for the first time since this had started, she felt embarrassed. Until that night, she hadn't felt violated or abused, she was only confused and knew that she didn't want it. But now she very badly wanted to be clean and covered. With her arms and legs bound, she had no way to cover herself, and she hoped that this person who had done what he'd done would at least have the decency to put her back the way he'd found her.

She was relieved to feel a warm, wet cloth scrub across her stomach and between her legs. It was heavenly warm in the cool air of the room. She heard scissors cutting paper and realized that he was removing the rest of her paper gown. He slipped a new one around her and snapped it into place. Then a blanket was pulled, gently, almost lovingly, under her chin. Thin, but warm enough to keep the chill of the room off her. Then he spoke.

“Thank you.” Was all he said in his sloshy, strange voice. It was the voice of someone with a cleft palate or perhaps a mouth full of unfortunate braces. Either way, it was both creepy and pathetic sounding. She heard him jostle her IV bag and she was suddenly, momentarily furious that he had the power to knock her out after doing what he’d done. That he could touch her and cum on her and do whatever he wanted to her, and she couldn’t even speak to say no.

She shuddered, ever so slightly, as the warm sensation spread up her arm again and washed her out to sea. As she floated off into the darkness, she thought of the beach. The smell of the ocean and coconut-scented suntan lotion and the feeling of warm sand between her toes. The sound of waves rolling in carried her away.

PINGING.

The distant sound of pinging was in her left ear. Her eyes were still covered, though in that loose gauze that allowed her to see vague shapes and lights. She tapped her left finger on the mechanism on the table in front of her. The pinging came again, and again she tapped her left finger. Then the right ear. Ping. Ping. Ping. Tap. Tap. Tap.

Though it hadn’t been explained to her, she understood perfectly what was happening. They were testing her hearing. She still didn’t know who they were. In fact, she didn’t know who she herself was, but she did know how a hearing test worked. A softer, more distant ping in her right ear. She tapped. A ping in both ears. She tapped both fingers.

This was the third day that she was fully aware of being awake. She had no real clear sense of time beyond those three days, but she knew that she had woken up and fallen asleep (or been put to sleep chemically) on three consecutive days. The only reason she knew they were consecutive is that the man she came to think of as The Doctor had begun telling her what the plan for the next day was. That day they were testing her hearing. Judging from the reaction from The Doctor, it seemed to be going well.

One thing she’d learned since The Doctor started speaking to her (in that empty way a lonely man might have a conversation with a dog) is that he was very excited about the work they were doing. Whatever work that it was. Even though her emotions seemed limited to vague curiosity and primal, reactionary fear, it was a little hard not to get a little excited along with him.

It’s a strange feeling to be alive, and to be aware that you exist, but also completely disinterested in who you are and where you came from. Though that’s exactly where she was on that third day. There was some loose idea that perhaps she’d had a life before all of this. Memories flitted about from time to time, fragile and fleeting, but nothing that gave her any sense of loss or displacement. She was exactly where she was supposed to be. How did she know that? Because that’s where she was. She was literally born again. Her previous life (whatever that was) was washed away forever, and she was a blank slate. A blank slate with decent hearing apparently. The Doctor was enthusiastically reading test results to The Other Man.

The Other Man she didn’t feel nearly as positive about. Though her memory was fuzzy, she knew enough that the man with the mushy mouth, who sounded like he drooled when he talked, was trouble. The sound of his voice made her skin crawl and unconsciously press her thighs together defensively. She knew there was something he had done that made her feel that way, but she couldn’t exactly pin down what that thing was.

The Doctor removed the earphones from her head and placed them on the table. Through the gauze, she could see The Doctor and The Other Man standing in front of her on the opposite side of the table. She was seated. Her wrists were strapped to the arms of her chair. She didn’t try to move them, but she was sure her ankles were also strapped down. It was a wheelchair, she knew, because they had pushed her out of her room, her IV trailing behind her on a rolling stand, down a corridor, and into the room where they were now. The index fingers of each of her hands were connected to an electrical device that responded when she tapped them down. It seemed like a bit of an overkill, but she didn’t (couldn’t) ask questions.

One thing she could do was nod and shake her head. The discovery of this had been quite an exciting event for The Doctor. He had asked, rhetorically, if she was ready for her hearing test. She had nodded “yes” in one small, even motion. He dropped his clipboard and grabbed The Other Man by the jacket, asking if the camera was recording yet. The Other Man said that it was not, and they had a heated discussion about whose responsibility it was to tend to the camera that ended with a series of slobbery, pitiful apologies from The Other Man.

Once that was through, The Doctor sat down at the table across from her and just stared for a long moment before speaking.

“We’d really like to get those bandages off your eyes. I know you can see, but I need to have a look at them before we can do that. That will be tomorrow. We needed to wait until you were fully awake before we could properly examine them. Would you like to have your eyes unwrapped soon?” She nodded in her short, definitive way. The Doctor clapped his hands together. She could see his grin through the gauze.

“Let’s get her back to bed and down for the night. She’s had enough activity for today.”

“Yes.” The Other Man said in his slobbery voice.

As her chair was pulled away from the table and rolled out of the room, she could hear The Doctor speaking either to the camera or into a recorder.

“Audiogram results indicate mostly normal hearing in all ranges, with mild flat-range hearing loss. Should not require stapedectomy. All things considered, this is far better results than we could have ever hoped for.”

RAISING.

She was being lifted out of the wheelchair. Strong arms carried her from the chair to her bed. It occurred to her that if she’d wanted to, she could have kicked and flopped and possibly even overpowered The Other Man as he gathered her out of the chair. The thought was there, but the impulse was not, nor the drive. She simply didn’t have any concept of where she could go. Everything she knew existed in two rooms, and she’d been in both of them within the hour.

So, there was no fighting. No kicking or lurching. She allowed her wrists to be bound and her ankles to be strapped at the foot of the bed. He carefully moved the IV line around the cuff and out of the way. She was in an actual bed now. She’d gone from the padded exam table she’d been on initially to a full-fledged hospital bed with blankets and a pillow. She counted this as a major victory in her strange, insulated little life. Still, she wouldn’t have minded if her legs could have been free. She didn’t even need her arms. Just her legs. She felt a natural impulse to draw them up beneath her. Muscle memory from an otherwise forgotten life pulled at her legs and wanted them folded up against her torso. But they were fixed to the bottom of the bed with padded, leather straps.

Another upgrade she’d received was a real hospital gown rather than the paper one she'd been wearing before. She didn’t know when it had been put on her, but the previous morning she’d woken up feeling moist all over and the clean-smelling linen clinging to her body.

The Other Man breathed his wet breaths as he finished tightening the strap around her leg. His hand lingered on her calf and sent uncomfortable shivers up her body. Foul-tasting little wisps of memory danced through her mind as he casually ran his hand up her leg and under the cloth of her hospital gown.

Again, she found herself wishing for her voice, though she had no idea what she would say. She had nothing to threaten him with. She couldn’t fight him, and she doubted she could talk him out of whatever he was planning to do to her.

“I’m sorry for the things I’ve done to you,” he said in his slobbery voice. “I wish I could explain how guilty I feel for putting you in the position I put you in.” He sounded close to tears. “But I think I’m in love with you, and there’s nothing I can do about it.”.

He sniffed long and hard and wet, his fingertips still lazily tracing invisible lines along the inside of her leg.

“I know it’s stupid. I know you’re going to be able to talk soon, and you’ll tell him what I done, and I’ll get in trouble and fired or worse. But you have to know that I only did what I did because I can’t help myself when I’m around you. You’re so beautiful and you’re right there. And he’s getting you all made up for HIM,” ‘HIM’ was spat out with such a venomous, hateful slant that it startled her. “And he isn’t going to appreciate you like I do. Nope. He’s a big, dumb animal.”

She sighed silently, resigned to what was happening, as he carefully pushed the hem of her gown up over her hips. The chill in the air felt oppressive and deep. The bed shifted slightly as he climbed onto it, kneeling in the open area between her legs. She closed her eyes, prepared to let whatever was going to happen, happen.

“He’s a big dummy. He doesn’t love you. He can’t love you like I love you.” The Other Man was muttering, more to himself than to her, as he leaned forward and brushed his lips against the sensitive skin at the side of her knee. She had no idea who or what he was babbling about.

“You’re so cold. Always so cold,” he muttered, chuckling a little bit. That chuckle was a terrible sound. He dropped a series of short, wet kisses in a line up the inside of her thigh, stopping halfway up. He turned and did the same along the inside of her other leg. His hands pushed against the bottom of her butt, and when she realized what he was trying to do, she shifted her weight to allow him to slip his hands under her and scoot her down the bed.

She didn’t know why she was helping him. Perhaps she simply found it easier to give him as much as she could, within her limited abilities. Not because she wanted to, but only because she wanted him gone. He lifted her waist up, forcing her to arch her back to accommodate him, and placed a soft, gentle kiss against the lips between her legs. Her teeth ground together in her mouth, making her jaw shudder. He kissed her there again, this time longer, pressing his lips against her.

Her back was getting sore and, thankfully, he lowered her back to the bed. Then he did something unexpected. He reached back and undid the binding on her left foot. The one closest to the wall. Taking her leg in his hand, he leaned forward, letting her calf rest comfortably on his shoulder. The relief of having her leg free was exhilarating. She extended it and pointed her toes in the air and was surprised to find that her leg felt strong and coordinated. She had expected it to be shaky and weak, even limp and useless, but it felt sturdy. She extended her leg again. The Other Man’s hand was still holding her just above the knee, and he pushed her leg back against her body, opening her up, and buried his mouth between her legs. Licking and sucking and slurping.

She had the sudden impulse to bring her leg down, hard, against the small of his back. But like before, it was an empty thought. She had no concept of what she could possibly do once she’d done that. Even if she could knock him out or hurt him bad enough that he left her alone, she would still be strapped to this bed. She would still be unable to speak and possibly unable to see.

So, she didn’t kick him. What she did was allow her leg to rest across his shoulder. It was a thick shoulder. Muscled and hard. Not athletic, but the muscles of someone who has spent a lifetime carrying heavy, uncomfortable loads, probably for other people and cheap pay. His fingers stroked up and down the outside of her opening as he probed her with his tongue. Though she couldn’t exactly remember the previous experience (or the time before that, or the time before that) she was aware that this was much gentler and considerate. She wouldn’t call it pleasurable, because the feeling of being violated was so strong and even worse, the feeling of helplessness. She didn’t even know what this man looked like. All she knew about him was that his shoulders were broad and thick, that he worked beneath The Doctor, and that there was apparently something wrong with his mouth that made him speak in that sloshing wet way.

Though, honestly, the way he was working between her thighs, she had to reconsider whether there really was something wrong with his mouth. It’s a precarious thing, trying to balance disgust and fear with physical stimulation and pleasure. Because whatever he was doing down there was working. Her leg squeezed harder against his shoulder as he pushed his face deeper into her. His nose pushed firmly against her clit as he slid his tongue and out of her and then up, looping around the top and back in again. His rough fingers gripped at her ass cheeks lifting her up against his face.

Both of her legs extended completely, and her toes curled. The free leg pointed up and pressed against the wall, the one in the strap dug hard into the metal plate of the footboard. Behind her eyes, white flowers bloomed and exploded as she let out heavy, shuddering breaths. She desperately wanted her hands free to grip his head and push his face deeper into her. She wanted to grind against his mouth and pull on his hair. Most of all she wanted to scream and scream. Not in terror or anger, but in pure animalistic pleasure. All thoughts of who she was and who he was and what was happening washed away as she came, hard and wet. Her free leg suddenly pulled up, against the back of his head as he lifted away from her. It was all she could do to shake her head no no no please no as her hips bucked up, involuntarily trying to get more of whatever had just happened.

He sat up and looked down at her. She was a sweaty, quivering mess. Her gown was bunched up around her stomach. A large wet spot had spread out under her ass. Her legs were shaking, and her head was rocking slowly back and forth.

When she got her senses about her (limited as they were) she could see him still kneeling there in front of her, between her legs. He gripped her ankle and pulled it down and strapped it into place. Carefully, he tugged her gown down and smoothed it out over her knees. Then he picked up her blanket and shook it out over her, letting it fall slowly and evenly across her body. Finally, standing over her bed, he leaned forward and gently placed a kiss on her lips and told her again that he loved her. She closed her eyes as the warmth spilled up her arm and into her body, her lips wet with a taste that was both bitter and comforting. It was a familiar taste.

LIGHT.

Shards of bright light pierced into her brain as The Doctor slowly unwound the gauze that was bound around her head. The only source of illumination in the room was from a lamp in the corner, but that alone was enough to send icy agony through her head when she tried to look at it. So instead she closed her eyes and let The Doctor finish stripping away the bandages.

When he stopped, she opened her eyes slowly.

“Not yet.” The Doctor said, stopping her. She closed her eyes again as he set something on her face. “Now. Open your eyes”

She did as she was told, tentatively. The light in the room was muted and glowed in a dark green hue. Everything was blurry and ill-defined. She could see the shape of The Doctor crouched in front of her.

“Focus on me,” he said with a gentle authority. As her eyes tried to adjust, she could make out the features of his face. Dark hair, tousled and chaotic, rioted above his face. He wore nearly invisible spectacles, the frames thin and expensive. His eyes were a wild blue under his furrowed brow. His lips were full and pursed as he watched her intently. His mustache and chin whiskers were groomed and neat.

“Do you see me?” He asked, his fingers absently rubbing at his chin. She nodded, and a smile lit his entire face. He stood up and turned to shake the hand of The Other Man, who was standing behind him, holding something to his face.

“She can see! She can see!” He shouted, seemingly to no one.

The Other Man stepped back and leaned against the wall, still holding whatever was over his face. The Doctor stepped forward and leaned down again. He held a pen out in front of her and moved it slowly to the left and then to the right. She followed the pen with her gaze and he nodded approvingly, still grinning. He stepped back, still holding the pen, and moved it. Stepped back again and disappeared into a blur. When he stepped forward again she could focus on the pen and found it held in his other hand. He nodded and dropped the pen into the pocket of his white lab coat.

“Hand me that stack of cards.” The Doctor said over his shoulder to The Other Man. He did as he was told. The Doctor held a card up in front of her face. On it was a series of characters in a language she didn’t understand or recognize.

“Can you read this?” The Doctor asked, peering over the card. She looked at it for another moment. A slight flicker of recognition danced across her mind but didn’t stick. She shook her head slowly. “This?” He asked holding up another card. She shook her head. Another card. Another shake. After five cards, The Doctor nodded and stood, pacing back and forth across the room briefly. Finally, he spoke, sounding frustrated.

“Take her back to her room. Re-bandage her eyes. We’ll try again in a few hours.”

The Other Man walked across the room, setting the object he was carrying on the table as he passed her. The Doctor picked the object up and repositioned it. The dots connected in her head and she realized that it was the camera. The Doctor now stood in front of it, watching as The Other Man wheeled her out of the room and into the hallway.

She closed her eyes as they passed through the door. The light of the hallway was bright and harsh and even with her eyes closed and the dark glasses on her face, still uncomfortable.

They entered her room and he turned off the light. The soft, yellow glow of a shaded bedside lamp was the only source of illumination. The Other Man rummaged in a drawer and came out with a couple of items. She tried to see him, but it became clear that her field of vision only extended about four feet in front of her face. Beyond that, things were blurred. The Other Man stepped behind her chair and removed the glasses from her face. Even the muted light of the bedside lamp was too much, and she closed her eyes as he wrapped the gauze around her head.

When that was finished, he knelt in front of her and unbuckled the straps at her ankles and wrists. “Take my hand,” he said in his sloppy voice. She slowly raised her right arm. It felt strange to be permitted to move her limbs around freely. She felt no impulse to run or fight. He slipped his hand around hers. It was large and hard. Touching it brought back a strange mixture of discomfort and confused arousal in the pit of her stomach. The feeling of his rough hand was familiar.

“Can you stand?” He asked. Slowly, she moved her feet from the metal plates at the bottom of her chair and allowed them to rest on the floor. The tile was cold and smooth. She raised her other hand for him to take and he did. With a focused push, she hoisted herself to her feet, unsure if her legs would even hold her.

For a brief, shaky moment, they did. But then her knees buckled, and he moved quickly to catch her. She didn’t fall. He hefted her up and she wrapped her arms around his neck. His shoulders were thick and awkwardly sloped, bulging in the wrong places. With his left arm, he scooped her off her feet and she was floating, her arms around his neck, his arms under her knees and back. He placed her gently in the bed. Part of her wanted to stay in his arms. She didn’t know how badly she needed a kind human touch until just then. The memory of what happened over the last few nights was foggy at best. She knew that something sexual had happened between the two of them, but it was hard to decipher what was memory and what was a confused dream. So much of her sleep was plagued with scattered random images and feelings.

When he pulled her wrists to the side of the bed to be strapped into the cuffs there, she shook her head “no”.

“I’m sorry. I have to.” He said softly. He gripped her wrist firmly but not unkindly and strapped her in. He did the same for her ankles. She didn’t understand why they felt the need to restrain her. It’s not like she could go anywhere.

The Other Man straightened her covers and then stood there for a long moment, silent. She waited, unsure of what to expect. Part of her wanted him to leave. Another part, a deeper, more desperate part of her, wanted him to touch her. To kiss her all over and probe her body with his fingers and tongue. “Goodnight.” He said, almost whispering. Then he turned the light off and left, the door clicking shut and rattling as he locked it.

Something was wrong. She didn’t quite know what it was, but something important was missing. They didn’t sedate her. This was the first time she’d been left awake in the room. That’s when it occurred to her that she no longer had the IV line branching up from her arm. She hadn’t had it all day. How had she not noticed that?

For the first time, she was alone with her thoughts. Though she couldn’t see, she rolled her head around in the darkness. Testing her bindings, she pulled up with her wrists and ankles. She wasn’t going anywhere.

Loneliness sank in. She felt scared and vulnerable. The easy escape of the sedative had provided her with a life where she rarely had to consider her predicament. The idea of being left to contemplate seemed dangerous and frightening to her. She didn’t want to think about who she was and what was happening to her. It was far easier to just drift in and out of consciousness when they needed her.

It occurred to her that it was strange that she didn’t know who she was. How old she was, even what she looked like. What her name was. Nothing. All she knew is what had happened since she woke up in this strange place with these two odd men. She had no idea how long she’d been there. It had to have been a few weeks, if not months.

Something bad had happened to her. She knew that. Something terrible. Her dreams were plagued with images of a bathtub full of blood and a razor. She understood that she was in some sort of hospital or doctor’s office and that The Doctor had saved her from an awful accident. But a hospital with a staff of only two people? The facts simply didn’t add up to anything she could make sense of. The tests he’d been running were rehabilitative tests. Her eyesight and hearing. Muscle responses and reflexes. Little pokes and shocks, some painful, some not. She knew he was planning a series of cognitive tests and memory tests. Whatever happened to her must have really messed her up. Perhaps she’d been in some sort of coma? She didn’t know what could have affected so many of her basic functions. Her body didn’t feel broken exactly. Simply confused and weak. Fragile.

Where was her family? Did she not have a family? Why was she here all alone? And why did she need to be restrained? So many questions and she couldn’t even speak to ask them.

Then there was The Other Man and his occasional nocturnal visits. Now that she’d been awake for a while and had a chance to really think about her situation, she was pretty sure that The Doctor’s assistant (she assumed that’s what he was. He sure didn’t seem like another doctor) who she’d come to think of as The Other Man, had been touching her at night. Perhaps more. She couldn’t remember exactly. Just flashes and tastes of memories. She remembered the feeling of his teeth digging into her breast. She remembered wrapping her leg around the back of his neck, pushing his face between her legs. That’s what was confusing about these memories. She felt that these experiences had been troubling and wrong, yet these little flashes of memory stirred up feelings of arousal and desire. Her hips rocked slowly inward, without her asking them to. She found herself pushing her ass against the bed, squeezing her thighs together, trying to create some sort of friction between her legs. She didn’t even notice she was doing it until her frustration with being unable to touch herself rose to the surface. She pulled hard at her wrist cuffs, desperately needing something between her legs. She sighed. It was going to be a long night.

WATER.

A moment of panic gripped her heart as she was lowered into the bathtub. Without fully understanding why, the feeling of being submerged in the water was terrifying. When she began thrashing about, the doctor gripped her legs around the knees. The Other Man had her under his arms and was straddling the tub as he lowered her down. Once she was settled at the bottom of the tub, her upper body still safely above water, she calmed slightly, though her heart still thudded in her chest.

It had been a long couple of days. Test after test. Pegs in boards, colored squares in need of organizing. Simple math and sorting from largest to smallest and from lightest to darkest. Hours and hours of these tests. The Doctor seemed pleased with the results. The only results he was unhappy with were the language flash cards. They all looked like gibberish to her. She understood now that the cards were written in English. She just couldn’t make sense of them. For whatever reason, her ability to read had been damaged somehow. It made communicating that much more difficult. At one point, The Doctor put a pen and paper in front of her and asked her to write something. She tried and managed only a series of meaningless scribbles.

That was a major blow. She’d been eager to get a pen and paper. She wanted answers and without a voice, she saw writing as the only avenue of communication for her. With that prospect gone, she felt depressed and even more alone.

Sitting in the lukewarm tub, naked in front of these two men in this dimly lit hospital room, the strangeness of her situation was loud and clear. Now that she was a few days out of her twilight sedation, her newly lucid brain began stacking up questions about what was going on here. Who was she? Who was she before this and who was she now? Why hasn’t someone, anyone, come to visit her? Family or a spouse or friends? Why are these two men the only people she’d seen in the time since she’d gone through whatever she’d gone through? What exactly HAD she gone through? Most importantly, she wanted to know when she could leave and where she would go once she could.

Her recovery had been intense and bizarre, but as far as she could tell she had no broken bones or particularly distressing aches or pains. Her eyes hurt when the light was too bright. Sometimes her arms and legs cramped in the straps they kept her in, and she occasionally got headaches. Ever since they’d taken her off the IV, she had eaten one small meal a day. Predictable hospital food. A tasteless slab of what she first thought was nondescript white meat with a side of warmed-up frozen vegetables, Jello for dessert, and vitamin-enriched slurry that tasted like imitation chocolate mixed with chalk in the evening. She later learned that the “meat” she was eating was tofu based. She ate eagerly and with each meal she felt herself growing stronger.

But for what? She didn’t know. So far, she’d been given no indication of what exactly she was healing for. She had no concept of a life outside of these walls. A life that didn’t include this doctor and his strange little sidekick.

That was another thing that had changed somewhat over the last few days. The role of the person she’d come to think of as “The Other Man” was becoming clearer. He was a lackey. While she didn’t think he was intellectually disabled, there was something wrong with him. He was short, for one thing. Not quite a little person, but he couldn’t have been taller than five feet two or three. He looked even shorter because his back was curved and in a bulky metal brace that pushed him forward awkwardly. He was strong, she knew from the nights he’d lifted her into bed, but it was hard to see that from the awkward way he held himself. He wore an orthopedic shoe on one foot that had a lift that was at least four inches tall and he walked in an unfortunate lunging wobble.

Sufficed to say, it didn’t make for an attractive package, and it left her scattered memories of their sexual encounters that much more conflicted and uncomfortable.

This was the second trip she’d taken to the bathtub that she was awake for. The first was a far more traumatic experience. It was before they removed the bandages from her eyes and she had no clue what was happening to her. When she hit the water, she immediately flashed back to being in the tube before she’d awakened and that feeling of drowning rose up inside her. There was a lot of thrashing and kicking until one of the two men popped a needle into her thigh and she fell into a deep sleep. She woke to find herself in bed, damp and clothed in a fresh hospital gown.

This second trip was decidedly smoother. The doctor asked her if she needed to be sedated and she shook her head no. Still, the impulse to panic and climb out was strong. She allowed them to bathe her. The Other Man scrubbed her down with a soapy sponge without interest. The Doctor asked her to extend her right leg. She did so and was surprised to find that he brought out shaving cream and a disposable plastic safety razor. The sight of the razor sent a momentary chill up her spine, but she had no idea why. The Doctor placed her foot on the edge of the tub and took off his lab coat. He wore a short-sleeved dress shirt with a simple black tie. Lathering up her leg with the foam, he began the process of shaving her with little passion.

“How are your eyes? Any better?” he asked, looking genuinely interested. She held her thumb and forefinger up a short distance apart to show “just a little”, tilting her head back and forth slightly. He nodded.

“Any progress is good progress. Is the light in here okay for you?”

She nodded yes. He smiled and nodded along with her as he gently pulled the razor down the length of her leg. She turned her leg slightly to give him room to carve another line in the white foam. It was odd that they felt the need to do this, considering that she had full use of her arms and legs. She may not be strong enough to walk on her own, but she could certainly manage to shave her legs. She suspected that they didn’t trust her with the razor, as tiny and useless as it would be as a weapon. The dimness of the room didn’t help either. She knew that they could see her better than she could see them. Perhaps that was it, she told herself. They were looking out for her safety. That seemed like a stretch, though for some reason she trusted The Doctor. He had an enthusiasm about her progress that was hard not to get caught up in. He was clearly very invested in her recovery from whatever had happened to her. It made her feel good to be able to report that her eyes were a little better and that her legs were a little stronger. That had to count for something.

He lowered her leg back into the tub and reached for the other leg. She propped it up on the edge of the tub. He went to work shaving. After a moment, she pointed at her leg and held her hands up, again indicating a question.

“Why are we shaving you?” He asked. She nodded. “I find there’s value in maintaining certain patterns and social habits. While you’re not interacting with many people or going out in public, I believe there’s benefit in feeling pampered and tidy. Keeping up with basic hygiene routines. Brushing your teeth, combing your hair, and so on. Don’t you think?”

She cautiously nodded in agreement, though she couldn’t shake the feeling that he was lying to her. It was true that they did all those things for her. Every morning The Other Man would come in with a toothbrush, toothpaste, and a glass of water and she would brush her teeth. Once a day he would turn her around and run a brush through her hair.

She didn’t think there was anything sexual about the bathing and shaving, though she couldn’t think of any other reason it could be that they would need to lie to her about it either. Especially since, as she expected he would, he asked her to spread her legs and raise her hips, so he could shave her pubic area as well. That had to go beyond just satisfying social grooming habits. But to what end? The doctor didn’t seem to be particularly interested in what he was doing beyond that it was a chore that needed doing. It didn't appear that they were videotaping her. The Other Man wasn’t off in the corner watching her or touching himself or anything like that. As far as she could tell, neither one of these guys seemed to be sexually interested in her at all at the moment. And that was fine with her. The bathing felt nice and she simply didn’t have the energy to process anything more complicated.

After shaving under her arms, he turned on the detachable shower head and rinsed her body, pulling the plug on the tub. The Other Man handed him a bottle and he squirted a small amount of fluid in his hand. She was slightly nervous about what that was for until he told her to lean forward and he turned the water to soak her hair and started scrubbing. The warmth running down her back and over her face was a strange moment of peace and privacy.

With her hair washed and rinsed, she wrung it out and wrapped it in the towel The Doctor handed her. Part of her wished that they would just shave her head along with the rest of her body. Shave her head and take away as much of her personality as they could. She didn't want it. The idea of trying to wrap her mind around the person she used to be and how she fits into this insane situation was daunting. It would be easier to just be a cog in the machine until they decided what they were going to do with her. She'd just about given up on understanding what was happening. She just wanted it over with, so she could move on to whatever the next stage of her existence was. It didn't feel as though she was in any danger, because they were working so hard to rehabilitate her. But it wasn’t comfortable either.

With her wet hair turbaned, she lifted her arms and allowed The Doctor to dry her body and wrap her in a large, fluffy white towel. The Other Man approached her, pushing the wheelchair. She turned to sit in it, but paused. The Doctor looked at her, interested.

“Yes?”

Placing her hand flat, at a right angle to her mouth, she moved her fingers away from her face and then shrugged.

“When will you be able to talk?”

She nodded. The Doctor looked at The Other Man and then back at her, smiling somewhat awkwardly. “We're not sure. It's going to require a complicated operation that could either fix you or permanently damage your vocal cords beyond repair. So, we've been waiting for you to regain your full health before we start exploring that. It will be a little while still. I'm sorry.” He put his hand on her shoulder. She nodded slowly, disappointed.

Plopping down into the chair, they didn't bother strapping her in. There wasn't any point anymore. She knew there was nowhere for her to go. They knew that she knew. She couldn't even roll through the hall with her eyes open. Her pupils refused to constrict. She could see short distances in dim light, but anything brighter than that sent blinding pain into her head that left her with a debilitating migraine for hours. When they rolled into her room she opened her eyes again. The bedside lamp was on its lowest setting and that was just enough light to see by, but not enough to hurt her eyes provided she didn’t stare directly at it. She hopped out of her wheelchair and sat on the bed. The Other Man stood there for a moment, looking at her.

“Did you need anything else before I go?” He asked, his voice, particularly moist sounding tonight. She thought about it momentarily and then held a finger up. She mimed brushing her hair. It took him a few minutes to work out what she wanted but he eventually got it. He nodded and went to a drawer and unlocked it with the keyring on his belt. After digging through it for a moment, he produced the round hairbrush with its polished wooden handle. The one he used on her in the mornings. He held it up for her to see and she nodded enthusiastically. He locked the drawer and brought her the brush. She immediately started the task of brushing her hair. It was comforting and being able to do it for herself gave her a sense of normalcy. The more she could do for herself, the closer she felt to being able to leave this strange place.

She also desperately wanted a mirror but didn't have a clue how to go about miming that out for The Other Man, who was quick to get flustered and frustrated when he couldn't work out what she was trying to say. So, she didn't bother. She casually put her fingertips to her lips and moved her hand forward and down in a straight arc away from her face. The Other Man looked at her for a second, stunned, and nodded.

“You're welcome.” He said, slowly. “Do I need to strap you in tonight?” he asked. Her heart jumped into her throat. She tried not to show it and did her best to casually shake her head. He nodded again and opened the door to the hallway.

Turning back to her, he did something with his hands. Brought one to his mouth and held the other across his chest in a series of motions. But he was beyond her field of vision and was barely more than a blur.

“Goodnight then.” He said, closing the door. As with every night, she heard him locking at least two different locks with his key-ring full of keys.

That whole last exchange was confusing to her. Why had he seemed so startled when she thanked him? And what was he doing standing there, waving his hands around? Then it occurred to her. She had signed “thank you.” Not just in a makeshift, impromptu sign, but in actual American Sign Language. She did the sign again, to herself. Fingertips to her lips, down in an arc. She then immediately rubbed her left shoulder with her right hand in a circle. “Please”. Then another thought occurred to her. He had signed back, before he left. He was so blurry, but now she understood. He had told her goodnight in sign language.

She could speak.

ALONE.

This was the first time she'd ever been left non-sedated and unshackled in her room. Even though she had no plan to try to escape, she fully intended on exploring every inch of that room.

It didn't take long to discover that there wasn't much to explore. Every drawer and every cabinet were locked. The room had a dresser (no mirror) with three large drawers, all locked. A bed and a bedside table (no drawer) which held her lamp and nothing else. The lamp was wired into the wall and bolted to the table She couldn't unplug it or move it, only switch it on and off. There was a toilet in the corner with a privacy curtain on one side. The toilet had no tank (or none that she could see) and was simply a bowl that extended from the wall with a foot pedal flushing mechanism. A roll of paper was recessed in the wall. Next to the toilet was a sink. It was small with water that came out in little more than a trickle. The water was clean and tasted good though, and she spent a long moment drinking from the shiny chrome tap.

What she had access to was the hospital gown she was wearing (they had yet to graduate her to pajamas. She hoped that was coming soon) and her one blanket and top sheet. She had two pillows in zippered pillowcases. The fitted sheet under the top sheet. The mattress was snapped to the frame of the bed. When she unsnapped it and lifted it up, she was disappointed to find absolutely nothing under the bed. There was an air vent above the door, and another on the opposite wall, but there was nothing to stand on, so she couldn't look into it. They were both too small for her to climb into, but she would've liked to have had a look anyway.

Once she'd looked at everything there was to look at in the room, she put her bed back together and sat down, not feeling particularly sleepy. She did have the hairbrush. That was something. She leaned back against the wall and absentmindedly brushed her hair. It was shoulder length and dark auburn, thick and easily knotted. It took her nearly twenty minutes (she guessed. She had no clock) to smooth her hair out completely. The Other Man did what he could in the mornings, but it felt good to really brush it thoroughly.

Curious, she stripped out of her hospital gown and stood next to her bed. The light was so dim. She knew she had scars, but she couldn't see well enough to get an idea of how bad they were. Climbing back onto the bed, she leaned over and closed her eyes. With a blind hand, she slowly turned the dimmer knob on the wall that adjusted the lamp. The light increased slightly, and she opened her eyes, cautious not to overextend herself. She couldn't look anywhere near the direction of the lamp, but she could see the room better. She looked down at her legs and arms.

Along both legs, she noticed that she had long, smooth lines running from the inside of her knees and her inner thighs. She had similar scars on the outside of her legs. They were so smooth and even, symmetrical with each other. She thought they must have been surgical rather than some sort of injury. She ran her fingertips along the scars and could barely feel where they were. Whoever had stitched her up did a damned fine job of it. She ran her fingers along her torso and hips. She found thin, fine scars running under her breasts, in the place where they connected to the tight skin above her ribs. She ran her fingers along these scars and noticed that they were still sensitive. She held her breasts in her hands and squeezed. They were somewhat sore.

Perhaps it had been cancer. Maybe she'd had a double mastectomy. She didn’t believe it would explain all the other problems she'd had, but she wasn't a doctor. Maybe it did. She gave herself another long, probing squeeze. It didn’t feel like there were implants in there. While, as far as she knew, she wasn’t experienced in squeezing breast implants, she was relatively certain the breasts she was feeling were natural. She ran a line around the outside of her areolas with her finger, feeling for more scars. There were none that she could find, though she noticed her nipples tighten and raise as her fingers brushed across them.

Laying back on the bed, she ran her fingers along her arms. For some reason, she expected to find long scars along the inside of her forearms, but they were smooth and unmarred. She found more thin, delicate scars near her armpits and on the back of her wrists, but that was all.

Tracing her fingertips around her neck, she discovered another series of fine scars, running across the front of her throat and two at the back of her neck, near the base of her skull. What could those have possibly been? She wondered if the two at her throat weren't the cause of her inability to speak. The one at the back of her neck though... she had no clue what that one was.

She settled down deeper into the bed, her head resting on her pillow as she ran her fingers over her stomach. She was skinny, but the slight looseness of the skin around her belly suggested that she hadn't always been as thin as she was then. It wasn't something she would have noticed if she weren't feeling around, but it was a clue. She ran her hands down the sides of her belly and discovered another scar, perhaps three inches long, running diagonal above her hip-bone. Following that down, she found a scar, this one not nearly as neat and tidy as the others, running across her lower belly. Perhaps five or six inches long. That was a scar that brought an old word to mind. Cesarean. She had no recollection of being pregnant, but then again, she had little recollection of any personal history at all.

But those were thoughts for another time. She wasn't prepared to start pondering the bigger questions just yet. Soon perhaps, but not that night. She followed her stomach down to the soft, smooth mound between her legs. She wasn’t surprised to find it warm and moist. The room was chilly most of the time, and her skin was always cold to the touch. Feeling this warmth radiating from her was comforting. It reminded her that she was alive in this cold place. She allowed her hand to slide across the folds of delicate skin, her middle finger dipping in slightly. Yes, definitely wet.

Breath shuddered out of her nose as she let a second finger slide between her lips. After having been restrained for so long, being able to do something so pleasurable and intensely personal felt unbelievably exciting. It wasn't just that she was horny (she had been, off and on over the last couple of days, but hadn't acted on it. Couldn't act on it) but that for the first time since this whole ordeal started, she felt a little bit of freedom, and it was amazing.

Pain radiated from her mouth as she bit her lower lip. Scooting up the bed, she made up her mind that this was happening, and it was happening right then. She propped her pillows up under her back and bent her knees, letting her legs fall apart. Leaning back against the pillows, she began rubbing her outer lips in broad, loose circles with her right hand. With her left hand, she put her thumb in her mouth and sucked, getting it wet, and then began stroking the nipple on her right breast.

Urgency built up in her and she realized that she was desperate to orgasm. Starving for it. She wanted that explosion. She needed to feel like she'd DONE something. Something real and something decisive. Something that served only her. Her hand picked up speed, the tips of her two middle fingers running circles around her clit as she tugged and twisted at her nipple with the other hand.

Growing frustrated, she reached out blindly to the bedside table and found the hairbrush. Without much thought, she pushed the handle of the brush into herself and began working it in and out with her right hand, her left hand taking over on her clit.

Her breaths came out in harsh jags, through gritted teeth as she pushed the brush deeper. Her eyes closed, tears brimming at the corners, because she so desperately wanted it done. Finally, she came in a hard, spasmodic jerk, her legs quivering and weak, her hands clenched into cramped fists, pressed between her legs.

It wasn't enough. She needed more. Immediately she began pumping the brush handle in and out again, as quickly and deep as she could manage, and came again, even harder. Fluid ran out over the brush and her hands, her face buried in the pillow. She rolled over onto her stomach and just lay there, breathing heavily into the cold air of the pillow, the brush prickly and awkward between her thighs.

After a long, breathy moment, she rolled onto her side. Slowly, carefully, she plucked the brush out from between her legs and rested it on the bedside table. Without looking, she reached up and twisted the knob for the lamp, turning the light all the way off. Then she pulled at her blanket and wrapped herself up as tightly as she could, and she cried, silently, into her pillow. She cried because she was confused and because she feared she was in danger. She cried because she knew there was a life out there, somewhere, that she was meant to be in, and because she didn't understand what was being done to her, or why. She cried because she wanted her voice. She cried because she wanted to see her own face, to know who she was. Most of all, she cried because she was utterly and completely alone, and it felt like she would be alone forever. And after crying for a long time, she fell asleep, on her hospital bed, in her locked room.

KNOCKING.

For the first time in as long as she’d been awake and aware, someone was knocking on the door to her room. She was laying in her bed, not asleep but without anything better to do. She pulled her blanket up over her breasts. She never bothered to change back into her hospital gown. After a moment, she heard the jangling of keys and the door unlocked. The Doctor entered, pushing the wheelchair.

“Good morning!” he said, chipper and smiling. Behind him, The Other Man followed, carrying the video camera but not filming.

“Are you feeling strong today?” He asked, eyes bright. She shrugged, not feeling particularly friendly and resenting his upbeat attitude. He frowned in an exaggerated, cartoony face that she wanted to claw off his skull. What had seemed like a standard doctor/patient tone before, now came across as condescending. She climbed out of bed and stood there, naked. The Other Man held out a clean hospital gown for her and she begrudgingly wrapped it around herself and turned around, allowing him to tie it at the back. With a huff, she plopped into the wheelchair, not hiding her pissiness. The Doctor walked around and knelt in front of her.

“I know this must be frustrating. Hell, I’d be angry if I were you too. I don’t fault you for that. Just know that we’re doing our best to get you into fighting shape. Just work with us for a little while longer and we’ll have you up and about and ready to conquer the world. Okay?”

It was incredibly difficult to get on board with any of it, but what choice did she have? That was the problem. She didn’t have any choice. She had to go along with whatever they wanted to put her through.

“How do you feel about swimming?” He asked, an eyebrow raised. She looked at him, confused, and shrugged. “We need to get your arms and legs strong again. That means physiotherapy. I’d like to put you in the pool. Do you think you can swim?”

She shook her head and shrugged. She genuinely didn’t know if she could swim or not. The idea of it scared her though. Quite a lot.

WARM.

The water in the small swimming pool was surprisingly warm. The pool itself wasn’t more than thirty-five feet long, perhaps fifteen feet wide, and only five feet at its deepest. She waded slowly to the center, unsure of her footing.

They had given her a simple black one-piece bathing suit and a white bathing cap for her hair. A rubber clip was fastened to her nose and she wore tinted goggles. They thought of everything.

Walking to the pool (or rolling, in her case) had been an interesting experience. So far, she'd been in three rooms that she was aware of. Her room, where she slept, the exam room where she'd been doing her tests, and the tub room, where they bathed her. All three were a short distance from each other, and all three were accessed through the same hallway. The hallway that she had never really seen because the light was too bright.

The pool, on the other hand, was much farther away. They had gone through at least three different doors and turned several times before reaching it. Once inside, The Doctor switched off all the lights. The only illumination in the room came from the lights at the bottom of the pool, which were muted and easy enough on her eyes, and the dim light from the frosted windows in the ceiling. It occurred to her that she had no idea if those windows led outside or were purely decorative. For as much as she knew, they could be a hundred feet underground.

The Doctor helped her out of her chair and The Other Man handed her a basket with the bathing suit and accessories in it. For some reason, they both turned while she changed from her gown into the bathing suit. That was strange. They’d both seen so much of her naked body, she was sure they were well past modesty by that point. Yet they gave her privacy to change.

Taking a breath, she allowed herself to sink in the water, her eyes closed. Slowly she let the air out of her lungs in a long, even series of bubbles. As she sank to the bottom, she listened to the soft hum and chug of the filter. It was peaceful down there and for a moment, she was able to forget where she was and what was expected of her. The routine of her baths had cured her of her fear of water.

Pushing back up, she launched herself forward and swam to the side of the pool, turned and kicked off the wall, and swam to the other side. That answered that question. Yes, she could swim. She swam the length of the pool four or five times before exhaustion overcame her and she was forced to hold onto the wall, her arms and legs singing out in anger.

When she looked up, she saw The Doctor standing at the side of the pool, smiling. He clapped. “You're full of surprises!” He said, with some dark edge she didn't quite understand. “Rest for as long as you need to, and then go again.”

She did.

DARKNESS

She was in water. That much she knew immediately. Though she could not move her body, she knew she was floating. There was no light, but her ears were filled with the distant sound of heavy machines thumping and chugging, and the deafening rush of water. At least she wasn't cold. She had been cold. Very cold.

Though it was a detached, disassociated memory, she could vaguely recall laying naked in a bathtub, the dull throb of pain in a long line down her forearm, staring dumbly at the water as red flowers bloomed out and stained the white porcelain finish of the tub.

Beyond that, everything was a muddled mess. She had a husband. It was her husband's old-fashioned razor that had done the cutting. The razor she bought for him years before. She searched for his face in her memory but could not find it. All that remained were notions of ideas. Concepts of a partner, a mother, a son, but no image or memory that might solidify into a cohesive history. Only these loose feelings.

Somewhere, far away, a man was screaming. Not fear or pain, but excitement. White, blinding light and a taste like pennies on her tongue exploded inside her and she was gone again.

FALLING

Somehow, she was falling and floating at once. The sound of machines and water roared in her ears. It occurred to her that even though she could feel water in her nose and mouth, she was not drowning. In fact, as near as she could tell, she was not breathing at all.

This did not panic her. What she found troubling was the feeling of being sucked downward. Her legs and arms were bound, and she could feel herself being pulled by the flow of liquid.

A surface, hard and dense, pressed against her back and she was suddenly certain that she was in some sort of tube, and that she had recently been delivered into a horizontal position. She felt gravity pulling her body down toward the bottom of this tube, against her back rather than toward her feet.

Those feet bumped a flat surface and the feeling of being sucked stopped abruptly. She was floating again, suspended in the warm, flavorless fluid. She tried to open her eyes but they refused. The lids felt taped or glued shut. At best, she could see a slight pinkish hue to the darkness.

Then, again, there was nothing.

PAIN

The bleating sound of an alarm somewhere close by was louder than anything she had ever heard in her life, such as it was. The sound was causing her excruciating pain. For the first time, she felt distress build inside her chest as she tried to raise her hands to cover her ears and was unable to. The sound was torture and she could do nothing to stave it off.

The noise wavered and was replaced by the sudden shift in pressure. The water was draining quickly. She could feel herself becoming denser and sinking. Her face breached the surface and the cold bite of air caused her skin to tighten and break out in gooseflesh.

Instinct told her that she should begin breathing when her face broke the surface of the water. Yet her lungs refused to work.

More panic swelled inside of her. She could feel her legs trying to kick, but they would not obey her command. Her arms wanted to raise and pull at whatever was covering her face, but they remained dead at her side.

With horror, she realized that she was not bound, but simply unable to command her body.

She was paralyzed.

Darkness took her again.

TUGGING.

Something was pulling at her face. It didn't hurt, but it felt strange. Not just at her face, but at her lips. It would have tickled if it hadn’t felt so strange, as though someone was removing dead skin from her lips in long strips. It didn’t hurt, it was just odd and seemed to scratch an itch she didn’t realize she had. With each tug, cool, delicious air briefly darted into her mouth.

When the tugging stopped momentarily, she became aware of the fact that her mouth was open, and she was breathing. Barely. It was hardly more than a mild breeze, but air was indeed passing in and out of her mouth. She felt it cooling her lips with each slow, even pull. The tugging resumed, this time at her neck.

This went on for hours.

The ticklish tugging and picking. It moved from spot to spot. Sometimes at a wrist, sometimes a thigh. Sometimes at her hairline.

Whoever was doing the tugging had gentle hands and smelled of oiled leather and shaving soap. They were also fond of humming Ave Maria.

LIGHT.

Blinding white light needled into her brain. The tugging had gone on for hours or days. It seemed to touch everywhere. Every joint and every opening had been tweaked and tickled and poked and explored until her entire body felt raw and new, as though it had been exposed to the air for the first time.

At long last came her eyelids.

With the final tug, she came to realize that what had once kept her eyes closed was now gone. She was free to open them if she wished. The will to do so did not come easy. The compounding sense of dread and simple exhaustion kept her in darkness. She was afraid of the light, afraid of seeing the shadowy person who had put her in this place and, worst of all, afraid of what she might see when she looked at her own body. After hours of denial and reflection she was eventually forced accept that the persistent tugging was a result of the somehow familiar sensation of stitches being removed from a healing wound.

That feeling had lighted onto nearly every inch of her body.

Rather than opening her eyes, she fell back into the abyss.

COLD.

Goosebumps rose along the length of her legs and arms. She could not see, but could feel the rippling sensation of her skin gathering as cold air wafted over her body. A hand gripped her ankle and her lips parted to cry out, but no voice came. She felt cold metal biting into her wrists and for the first time, she understood that her arms were restrained above her head. The hand on her ankle was binding her leg into a leather cuff.

The facts of her situation were gathering in her mind into a concept she could finally wrap her mind around. While she had no idea who or where she was, she now at least understood that she was on some sort of table and was restrained at the wrists and ankles… and she was naked. The chilly air stirred around her body. She could feel cold, smooth leather under her butt and back and thighs.

When she opened her eyes, she was disappointed to find she could see little. Something white and sheer covered her face. A veil or a gauze bandage perhaps. She could make out a halogen lamp on an adjustable arm, like one might find in a dentist's office, but otherwise the room was a blur. She suspected it was quite large though. The echoes of hard, sharp instruments clattering against a metal tabletop told her that.

When she opened her mouth to scream, again she found that she had no voice. Briefly she considered that perhaps she had gone deaf and was unable to hear her own shouts, but she realized that she could hear the unnerving sound of a man merrily humming a tune next to her.

Cold, latex clad hands gripped her jaw and tilted her head back. The murky shape of the man's face was barely visible through the fog of whatever was covering her eyes. Unable to focus, her eyeballs lolled dramatically back and forth, unseeing and unseen.

Then, a voice.

“Hand me those shears. No, the smaller ones. Thank you.”

The sensation of gentle tugging at something surrounding her midsection. Bandages. He was removing bandages. It was a familiar sensation, though only from a distance. A lost memory of some long-ago surgery or injury. That familiar but frightening feeling of gauze being cut away and unraveled.

The sucking sound of a vacuum hose startled her. She would have yelped if her voice had not abandoned her.

That cold, latex covered hand settled on her left breast. He seemed to be weighing it. He was gentle but indifferent. The feeling was uncomfortable, as though her breast was bruised. Though there was nothing particularly sexual about the maneuver, the confused sensations of fear, pain and bewildered arousal fluttered through her body. She tried to twist in her bindings, but was unable to direct the signals from her brain to the proper appendages. What was intended as a reactionary jerk away came out as little more than a twist of the hips, bringing her thighs together ever so slightly.

Inside her mind she was screaming, both in fear and frustration. She tried to clinch her fingers into fists but could only manage a slight twitch, pulling her hands into claws above her head. Something burned at her wrist, sending a river of fire up her arm and into her armpit. Just as abruptly as she had awakened, she dropped deep into sleep.

BITING.

Something was biting her. From the darkness she was swimming in, she was vaguely aware that some pesky creature was taking tiny bites from her body. Nipping in a tight, perfect line along the bottom of her breast. With each nibble, she heard the tiny plink of metal dropping onto metal. Then it stopped. Small bulbs of light drifted lazily around her like dandelion seeds in the dark. Each bulb contained a memory, like a little movie, and she casually peeked into them as they floated past. In one, she was eight years old, playing in a park with her brother. In another she was a student, passing a bottle of wine between three faceless friends. In yet another, she was in bed, a large, warm body pressed against her back, her dainty little hands clasped in thick, meaty fingers between her breasts. Male lips breathing hot promises against her neck.

The biting started up again. The other breast. Tiny little pecks along the sensitive skin between her breast and ribs. Trying to block it out, she reached for another bulb. Inside she saw herself, aged twelve, sitting in a bathroom stall crying. Blood on her fingertips, her panties in a wad on the floor. She pushed that memory aside and felt around for another. Her hands closed around larger bulb.

Inside that bulb, the lights of a movie screen flickered. She saw herself resting her head against a man's chest, burying her face in his shirt. The image on the screen showed a monster, half man, half insect, crawling across the ceiling of an industrial loft apartment. The woman who was her slid a hand down the front of the man's body, resting in his crotch. She squeezed and massaged him there. The man ran his hands through her hair, tangling it in his fingers as he pushed her head into his lap.

The biting gave way to cold momentarily, and then abruptly, agony. White hot pain exploded in the darkness and sent her falling into the depths. The last thought she had before slipping into unconsciousness was that her chest was on fire.

PRESSURE.

Hands pressing on her legs, pushing them back. Cold air against her bare skin. Frozen steel positioned under her knees, under her heels. She knew exactly what was happening. She was in stirrups. She was on a medical exam table and her legs were locked in stirrups. It was a place she had been dozens of times in her life.

Perhaps. Memories were tricky.

Whatever was wrapped around her eyes was thinner and looser than it was before. She could make out the hazy shapes around her. The walls were white and undecorated, and the fixtures were stainless steel. The humming man was back she could see the white rectangle of a lab coat and even the loosely defined features of his face. A beard perhaps. A mustache certainly. She could smell antiseptic cleaner and rubbing alcohol and latex. And something else. The peculiar, metallic taste of electricity. It weighed heavily in the air.

When she tried to move her arms, she was unsurprised to find that they were bound to the table at her sides.

“You're awake.” The humming man said, startling her. She didn't realize that he was watching her. She tried to respond, but her lips and throat refused. She pulled away as much as she could when he patted her lightly on the leg.

“You won't be able to speak. I haven't fixed that part of you yet. Soon,” The man said, his hand still on her calf. “We will have you up and about in no time. But right now, there's still plenty of work left to do. So, we're going to have to send you back to sleep again.”

As he spoke, she could feel him adjusting something that bit into her arm. An IV. The now familiar warm tingling sensation spread from her wrist, up her arm and into her chest. As she drifted off to sleep, she realized that at no point in any of this had she been particularly scared.

She'd taken it as her reality and never questioned it. Somehow, that realization is what sparked the first twinges of real fear in her.

This post is a supplement to the Mastodon Post.

On a field per bend sinister Gules and Sable a letter capital A circumscribed by an annulet issuing therefrom disjointed stems of all genders Argent.

Quite a brief blazon for what is otherwise a deceptively complicated design. I will try to explain it below.

The shield is divided diagonally red and black (Gules and Sable) as the flag or banner of anarchism. Over both and largely filling the shield is a complex glyph thus: At its centre the often used symbol for anarchism, a capital A circumscribed by a circle (sometimes described as an O). The circle also acts as that used in many symbols of gender identities, the stems of those symbols being also present and disjointed to achieve plural meanings.

Going clockwise around the glyph: At 12 o'clock a line indicating neutral genders. This is often pendant but here is to chief for clarity. It is framed by the semi-circle of gender fluidity, drawn from the symbol for the planet Mercury or the liquid metal of the same name, aka quicksilver.

At 2 o'clock the customary male arrow, disjointed to include demi-boys. At 4 o'clock the intergender stem unmodified. At 6 o'clock the female cross disjointed for demi-girls, in the same fashion as its male counterpart. At 8 o'clock a circle upon a stem, which I have seen cited as a symbol for other or indeterminate gender identities. Finally at 10 o'clock the stem symbolising transgender identities.

Use here of the term “disjointed” is something of a liberty. The style of rendition indicated is usually associated with heraldic beasts (notably lions) and blazoned dismembered but I did not care for the associations of that word applied to people and also consider it unfitting for an inanimate charge. Disjointed seems an appropriate substitute.

Hello! Time sure... times, alright. Here's some more of my collected microfiction from the past couple of months.

(CW: Horror, mentions of death, monsters)

— Radiation

From its hill, the tower sprayed a grand radiation into the night, a signal flare that hit in waves so dense that even the trees glittered and crackled with its passing.

Where once concrete laced the town with dull gray ribbons, rivers of quicksilver ran into the storm drains, trickled into the cairns and sewers, bringing the tower's mind electric message like an ignition sequence to the roots below.

— Shallow

He nudged the bundle into the river with the tip of his foot. No need to ruin his sneakers, not that it mattered. Not that he couldn't get new ones, go on playing house and pretending that they hadn't ruined a lot more than a pair of shoes.

Well, the less there was to remember the better, he supposed.

The river was shallow but it swallowed her body up with little more than a ripple.

— Warm

The lights flickered once, twice.

It was getting worse.

He pressed his face to the console, warm, almost hot to the touch and listened for a while to its rhythmic thrumming.

How many were still running the machines down there, toiling away with their minds blown out and their bodies soon to follow?

He let his thoughts pour through the metal, pushed down through the dirt and the miles and miles of cable.

Thirty-seven left. It wouldn't be enough.

— Radio

He never listened to the broadcast. The headphones lay discarded under piles of damp-ruined papers where the last of the radio operators left them decades before.

Why listen, when he could feel its delirious poison course through him, feel the trees crack and the hills shudder with the passing of the carrier wave.

Why bother, when the very air came alive with a hundred minds sparkling through the static, a hundred voices screaming out as they bent to the tyranny of his words.

— Thread

The asks started small. An edit here, a redaction there, the presence compelled him to ever bolder acts of vandalism.

At the time, he cared only for the euphoria filling his head, the kind that had once come from violent things done in secret. He spent his days grasping for that gilded thread of satisfaction, reasoned the texts in his care were a small sacrifice to make to placate the monster he'd let into his heart.

Of course, it would never be enough.

— Bone

The thing was leaking something on the floor, dark and tacky like molasses.

A sight he would always remember, broken legs curled around itself like a wounded spider, no flesh, no bone inside, merely endless black pitch bubbling from its mouth, its nose, its empty chest.

When it looked up at them from the table, its eyes were filled with such burning hatred that their bodies should immolate on the spot.

— Tome

There was salvation somewhere in the books, no doubt. Some tidbit of knowledge, yet overlooked, misunderstood, forgotten. Something that might have saved them all, or at least delayed the end.

But the time left for study was long past when the sky burned and the students fell upon themselves with cruel and gruesome fervor. In the end, the tomes were cast aside, left to rot in the quiet damp with the rest of them.

Autumn in a Foreign Country

by Tris Kerslake

I think of distance when the red sedum blossoms, tall gifts of summer.

Welcoming cool winds, fading flowers to golden, I hear your far voice.

The blossoms are gone now, in time and memory. You still call me home.

No Pips

by Tris Kerslake

Rummage through the little lives and try on several that we think might fit. An import clerk, a stripper in a lunchtime pub, a Vet. We ring the changes as we ring the days, looking for a better role.

Called on-stage we dance our steps sporting costumes that become us generally. A feather boa or a shirt-and-tie, and hats stiff with labelled fruit. I wish the grapes were mine, juicy-sweet, and with no pips.