by Loki Renard
“Cleaning?”
“We’ve got to get all this put back the way it was.”
“Why?”
“Well, because it’s better that way.”
“Why?”
“Because it is more hygienic and we’ll be able to think straight again.”
“I can think straight right now,” I say, sampling a bit more of my food. The black tastes bitter, but there's some raw stuff on the inside that is still squidgy.
“Well, I can’t. And it is a good skill to have. You might want to get away with a crime one day.”
“That’s true,” I say. “I might.”
I still have no idea what crimes and cleaning have to do with one another. I don’t even know what cleaning is, but I have had enough of asking questions for one day.
“Well, well, well…”
That fucking voice.
I swing around to see the Head standing in my kitchen. Until this very moment, I did not think of it as my kitchen, but now I see her, I feel a rush of territorial pride. These are my things. She is an invader, and I do not like the way she looks at Doctor Ares. Her eyes glitter like a predatory snake, running up and down the length of his bulky body.
“Looks like a mess has been made,” she observes.
“A little bit,” Tom agrees, wiping his hands on a tea towel, which is a towel not used for tea.
“Pleased you did not get the chance to take her home, Doctor Ares?”
“What is she doing here?” I hiss the question. I can’t believe that bitch has the balls to just walk in here. Does she think the doctor will keep her safe? Because nothing will.
The thing about cooking I like, aside from the fire, is the knives. I grab one and advance toward the Head. Tom grabs me before I can stab her, yanking me back kinda roughly.
“No,” he says firmly. “No stabbing.”
“I stab her and we’re all free,” I tell him. “You should let me.”
“It's not this woman that's keeping you from being free,” he tells me. “It’s your tendency to want to stab your way out of situations. I’m trying to teach you to be civilized so you can get out of here one day. But every time you try to stab someone, or hurt someone, you set yourself back. So relax, alright? You don’t have to like a person, but you do have to respect their right to keep breathing.”
I growl under my breath. I do not want the Head to keep breathing. She is a cruel woman.
“If you knew what she was really like, you wouldn’t stop me.”
“Go to your room, Electra,” he says, his voice stern and reminding me of all the goodness I felt over his thighs.
I grit my teeth. I don’t want to go to my room. I want to drive this knife into that woman’s chest and feel the warmth of her blood bathe my hands. I want to hear the rattle of her final breaths. I want to end her, and everything she has made.
“Give me the knife, and go to your room,” he repeats.
I look at Tom and the anger fades. As long as I don’t see that woman, I can be rational. When I look at her, I feel myself getting out of control again.
“You don’t know what she really is,” I hiss. “She’s an evil person. The things she has done to me. To others… she deserves to die.”
The Head says nothing, just stands there and watches me with her lips pressed together.
“She doesn’t even deny it,” I point out. “She knows what should happen to her. She should bleed, and then everybody would be free.”
“Give me the knife,” he repeats. “And go to your room.”
I don’t give him the knife. I don’t trust myself to hand it over. Instead, I throw it. Hard. Blade first against the wall so it sinks in deep. Then I turn and go back to my room, stomping all the way and slamming the door when I am there. With the door closed behind me, I look down and realize my mistake.
Dammit. This is the one with the pink bed.
Tom
“Impressive,” the Head says as I usher her toward the elevator doors. I’m trying to escort her out of what Electra clearly considers to be her territory. I don’t think the Head should be making appearances here, certainly not in the short term. It’s going to set Electra back every time she sees the woman.
“Are you throwing me out of a part of my own facility, Doctor Ares?” There is cool amusement in the Head’s tone.
“You shouldn’t be here. It’s not safe. She truly hates you.”
“I know.” The woman is unperturbed. “Truth be told, if she did manage to reach me, she would probably be owed a bounty of my blood.”
“One reckless woman is enough to handle,” I tell her. “I don’t need two of you acting out.”
The Head is in her fifties at the least, but I suspect she’s older. She is no impulsive young woman. She knows better than to put herself in harm’s way like this. She should be staying away. It has only been a matter of hours since Electra came out of what seems to be more or less a lifetime of solitary confinement. She knows it isn’t safe. So why is she here?
“Why are you here?” I ask the question bluntly.
“Doctor, you have a habit of speaking to me like one of your patients,” she says her voice taking on a terse edge. “I do not care for it.”
“Well, I’m sorry, ma’am, but I think Electra needs some space and some time to forget the circumstances of her incarceration. More than two hours, at least.”
“I will be keeping a close eye on this, Doctor Ares.”
“I hope so.”
It is hard to usher my boss out of the apartment without coming across as though I’m ordering her around.
“You’d like me to leave?”
“I would.”
“Careful, Doctor Ares. You are bordering on the insubordinate.”
“I’d rather be a little insubordinate now than have to reattach your jugular sometime in the next few minutes.”
The Head smiles and her expression lightens. “Well, that would be unfortunate, wouldn’t it.”
“It would be.”
I can hear thuds coming from the room Electra said wasn't hers.
“I will leave you to your charge,” she says. “Report to me tomorrow, Doctor Ares.”
I’m fairly certain that she has no need for me to report to her tomorrow, but we both know she cannot leave without giving an order.
“Absolutely, ma’am.”
She fixes me with that cool authoritarian glare, but I could swear there is a smile on her face as she steps onto the elevator.
I breathe a sigh of relief as the doors close. One feral woman is trouble. An alpha female like the Head sniffing around, riling her up, is more than I can take. The women in this facility are tough. These two might be the toughest of them all, and they seem to hate each other, or at least, Electra hates the Head. It’s impossible to tell what the Head feels about her. Feelings aren’t the woman’s forte.
“Electra?”
I enter the bedroom, expecting to be confronted with total chaos. Instead, all I see is a fabric burrito lying on the bed. She has wrapped herself in the pink duvet with only her feet poking out the bottom.
Electra
I hate that woman.
I can hear Tom nearby. He’s come into the room, no doubt to tell me that I should mind my manners and treat the woman with respect. But she doesn’t deserve respect. She deserves death.
“Are you alright there?”
“Go away.”
“I can leave you be,” he says. “Come out when or if you want to talk.”
He leaves me be. I don't know if he’s already sick of me, or if there’s something else going on. He works for the Head. That means he is on her side. That’s why he is taking care of her, telling me to go away, sending me to this room with its flimsy walls. I could punch through any one of them. I discovered that when I punched through one of them when I first entered. Tom didn’t seem to notice that. I don’t know if he’d care. This isn’t his place. This is a pretend shell of a home.
I do find it int
eresting, the way people seem to live. These little rooms that don’t truly contain anything that wants to get out - or in. What’s the point of that? Why even make a room if you know the walls mean nothing? I’m used to stone and steel, usually at the same time. A wall should be a wall. It shouldn’t be waiting to disintegrate.
I expect him to come for me, but he doesn’t and after a while, I become deeply bored, so I get out of bed and go and find the doctor. He is in the kitchen, putting soap and water on the walls.
“You’re making all the cooking go everywhere.”
“Mhm. Just cleaning up after dinner,” he says. “You did a lot of cooking today.”
“Looks like you’re trying to get rid of my food.”
“Well, it’s customary to clean up after eating. That way when you do more cooking, you’ll have clean surfaces to work on.”
“Why do I care about cleaning?”
“Germs.”
“Germs?
“Germs.”
He keeps saying that word as if I know what it means.
“Germs,” I nod. “Germs are… good?”
“Germs are not ideal in a kitchen,” he says. He has the warmest smile, and it almost makes it feel as though he’s not talking down to me, but I know he is. There’s an expression I already recognize that he gets on his face when I don’t know something I’m supposed to know.
“Well maybe I don’t give a fuck about that.”
“I bet you don’t,” he says, his brows drawing down. “But you’re going to have to watch your language.”
“Or what? You’re going to punish me again? You’re gonna spank me?”
“Are you taunting me?”
He has rubber gloves on his hands. They’re oversized and yellow and they look kind of funny in the way it makes it difficult for him to come across stern while he’s got them on.
“I’m not doing anything.”
“Seems to me like you’re trying to get a reaction,” he says, going back to scrubbing up a storm. He’s pulled his shirt sleeves up to do so, and I can see his forearms rippling above the gloves and below the rolled cuffs of that pale blue shirt. Mmm.
“Seems to me like you’re undoing everything I did. Seems to me like you’re a pawn for the Head.”
“I work for her, yes. We both do.”
“I don’t work for her. I’m kept captive by her. And you.”
“Mhm. It’s an unfortunate situation, but it’s improving, isn’t it.”
“Is it?”
“You’re not currently chained in a cell, so you have that going for you.”
“I guess I do.”
“Want to help me clean?” He offers a wet sponge to me. I’m not sure what I’m supposed to do with it, but I take it and do my best to approximate what he’s doing.
Tom
She just made everything ten times messier, but I don't have the heart to correct her as she slops soapy water over everything, including areas which aren’t even in the kitchen. She’s trying, and she’s interacting with me in a human way, and nobody is getting stabbed, which makes this a win.
I’m glad the Head insisted we stay on campus. Electra really is far too feral a creature to be allowed in public. She has much to learn, all the little things we take for granted having been socialized to the outside world.
It’s hard to remember sometimes. She’s adorable with her soft curls and her big blue eyes. I could easily slip into trusting her with things she’s not ready to be trusted with - like her own personal domestic safety.
“Why are you doing this?”
The question comes suddenly out of soapy silence.
“What do you mean? Cleaning?”
“No. I mean, why are you doing whatever it is you’re doing with me. It’s because she ordered you to, isn’t it. It’s because she owns you.”
“She does not own me,” I say, not entirely sure if that is true or not. I am one of the very few people who came to work at this facility of their own free will. However, having come here, I’m fairly certain that the retirement policy will largely be comprised of lead.
“She owns everyone.”
“It’s a big world outside these walls, Electra. The Head may appear to be all powerful in here, but I assure you, she does not own everyone.”
“How big is the world?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean literally, how big is it?”
“I don’t know off-hand, but it is large. There are many cities and countries and several continents. Almost eight billion people.”
“EIGHT BILLION!” She stares at me. “That’s a stupid number of people. That’s not possible. I think I’ve met maybe a hundred people in my entire life. There’s no way there are eight billion. Do you know how many people that is?”
“It is possible, though I’ll give you it being a stupid number of people.”
“Eight billion. That’s more than seven billion too many people. Wow. Eight billion.”
That number keeps her quiet for a good while. It even distracts her from the question she asked me. Why am I doing this? It’s become clear that out of almost nowhere, my life has been hijacked. I am one of the few people in this place who leaves and goes home practically every day. I have a normal house on the outskirts of the city, and I go there and I do normal things. I come here to work and patch up the wounded, then I go home.
But I’m not going home tonight. I can’t leave her on her own. I don't have backup, and I suspect she’d kill them if I did. Why did I agree to this so quickly and so easily? I know her well enough to know she is dangerous, but not well enough to be sure that she won’t turn on me. There’s just something about this woman. A strength in her soul. I have high hopes for her, and if I’m honest… for us.
Electra
Eight billion people. I can’t even begin to conceptualize that many people.
“So are people just, everywhere, out there? Are they on top of each other?”
“Some of them sometimes,” the doctor says, smiling one of those smiles that his dimples dimp.
He wrings out the sponge in the sink, which is a place where dirty water goes and also dirty plates, and somehow they come out clean, and this is already all very tedious. I feel as though my captive world has been opened up just a sliver, and out of the crack is coming cooking and cleaning, and also eight billion people. I wonder if I will meet all of them. Probably not. I’ll probably never get out of here. No matter what Tom does, I’m still the thing grown inside the plastic bag.
I never knew the inside of a woman. Apparently, according to things I have heard in my life, most people grow inside the flesh of another person, which sounds pretty disgusting to me. How does that even work? Does the baby stand up inside the woman? How does it get out?
“What are you thinking about?”
“I was wondering how babies come out of women.”
“You were? What made you think about that?”
“I don’t know. I think about a lot of things. I don’t know a lot of things, but I do think about them.”
“Uh huh,” he says, smiling. “Well, that’s something we can talk about another time, probably.”
“Not now?”
“Do you really want a lecture on the dilation of the cervix now?”
“I don’t think anyone has ever wanted that lecture. Not one of the eight billion people on the planet.”
He chuckles at what I guess was a joke I just made. Have I done that before? I’m not sure. I don’t know what a cervix is, but its sounds boring. Most of the time when I’m laughing, someone else is bleeding.
“I think we’re done cleaning,” he says. “What would you like to do now, take a shower, maybe?”
I do know what a shower is. I feel a rush of pride, which is ridiculous and might just be relief at not having to guess what he means from context for two minutes.
“Yeah, I wouldn’t mind a shower.”
The shower room is amazing. It is not a concrete box with a no
zzle sticking out of the wall. It is a big tile bay with multiple shower heads and when I turn the water handle, warm liquid flows out of all the heads at once.
I have died. I have gone to heaven. That is the only explanation for how amazing this feels. Bottles of smelly things are all around me. I suppose they’re to be used on your body. I’m used to a bar of soap, but there are no bars. Not knowing which of the bottles does what, I decide to make an in-hand concoction of all of the smelly liquids and then smear it over my hair and body.
When I emerge, I am pink and happy. I am also naked.
I pad out to the main area, where Tom glances at me, double takes and then stares. “You’re wet,” he says.
“You’re wet,” I reply, accusingly.
“No, I mean,” he chuckles. “There was a towel in there to dry yourself with, wasn’t there?”
“I didn’t see one.” Even if I had, I wouldn’t have used it. Nudity means very little to me. My clothes have been stripped from me more times than I can count in life. They can’t experiment on you with clothing in the way.
“You’re dripping everywhere,” he says, getting up and coming over to me. I arch myself toward him as he comes past, hoping he’ll touch me, but he moves past, grabs my hand and leads me back to the bathroom where there are a stack of towels.
“Here,” he says. “Get dry.”
I am disappointed. I never liked it when my handlers looked at me with lust, but I want Tom to look at me that way. I want to be desired, not talked down to. I don’t want to be told to dry myself. I want to be told to take my clothes off. I want to be attractive to him, and I am suddenly aware that he might not see me that way, even after my orgasmic experience over his thighs, I might be nothing but a job to him.
“Do you have a wife?”
“I…” he pauses. “No. Why do you ask?”
“Why do you hesitate?”
“I was married a while ago,” he says. “It didn’t work out.”
“Why not?”
“Well, she left me.”
“She must have been fucking insane.”
“Opinion varies,” he says with that calm smile of his. “But really, why do you ask?”
