by A. Z. Green
{{~*~}}
Beasthood- The Hidden Blood Series- Book I
This book is a work of fiction; all names, places, events are from the author's imagination.
All rights reserved.
Cover design & photography by A.Z.Green
For Navdha (my MLCT) who helped edit my book, supported and encouraged me when I was at my lowest.
For Krystal who advised and criticized my novel in its earlier draft. And who thought of the series name. Thank you.
~Prologue – Lose~
Saturday January 16th, 2010, 3:13 a.m.
She screamed, holding up her hands that were smeared with the fresh blood gushing from between her legs.
The smell sickened her to her stomach. The fresh images of her nightmare that she had only moments ago awoken from, were branded to her eyeballs. She couldn’t escape it, not even now, when she was wide awake.
The blood, the pain, the soaked sheets, sweat and stench were real. The life that had once been growing inside her had fizzled away. Taken from her. Gone forever.
The nightmare had come to life.
With all that to absorb as she sat there panting in horror, her only natural reaction was to shriek again. The sound was a deafening, chilling, heart-wrenching cry of a mother grieving for the child she had lost. Though it had never been her child to lose.
~Chapter 1– Patronize~
Tuesday May 3rd, 2011, 10:00 a.m - Therapist's Office
Jaz's Diary
My name is Jaz. Or Jasmine if you are my parents and ONLY my parents.
Call me it on pain of death.
Though you won’t will you because you’re a diary? Yes, I’ve decided – surrendered would actually be more accurate- to join the journal crew and write everything down about my ‘wonderful’ life. So here we are.
Where should I start?
Well, I’m twenty-one. Just turned. My birthday was last month. April 1st. Don’t get me started on how April Fools has screwed up my hopes of getting any decent, none-joke presents for a change. I’ve long accepted that it’s a toss up of fate.
I’ve just finished university. Did psychology for three years. Kinda got bored of it after six months but stuck it out, and it paid off. I’m not smart but I’m good at stuffing random knowledge into my head even if I don’t have a clue what it all means. When it’s needed, I spit it back out like a walking, talking encyclopedia. People assume I’m smart and so far, I’ve managed to convince them I am.
I live with my mum and dad. They’re sweet and caring, though they can be –especially my mother- a little overprotective at times. More than most parents. And I’m not just saying that because I’m biased.
But I love them.
I’m only writing that because otherwise I’ll start scribbling how much I hate them right now. I’m not gonna go down that route. Not yet anyway.
I have friends. Several in fact, but only two who I can really call my best friends.
Lisa and Ellie.
I’ve known Lisa since I was in primary school. We clicked straight away when she let me borrow her sparkly pink pen.
She’s beautiful. Blonde straight hair, skinny, big tits. The kind that every guy does a 180 head spin and stares so long –even when they're walking/jogging- that they end up falling over or bashing into things. I've been a witness to it more than once.
I probably bring down her street cred, but no one would ever say that to her face. Anyone disses her best friend gets a black eye. Bethany Granger -who I managed to get stuck with through college and uni- is proof of that.
She’s always been a bitch to me but one day –in the first year of uni- she called me some pretty nasty words right in front of Lisa and has regretted it ever since. Lisa has a punch like a wrecking ball.
Ellie, I met in year 7 when I went to secondary school. She was in the same college as me and Lisa but then went to a different uni because it had better art facilities. Her drawings are amazing.
She’s always been pretty, even through the awkward early teenage years. Big brown eyes with long dark lashes, brown hair, olive skin, tall and boyish.
The one thing about her that you can always rely on is her- occasionally annoying- habit of telling the absolute truth, sometimes to her or somebody else's detriment. But she keeps a secret like it's her own. She never blabs to anyone. That’s why Lisa got on with her so much.
I was glad when I discovered my two best friends from different eras got on so well together.
Even through thick and thin.
Blah blah blah, who gives a CRAP?
She scribbled angrily.“Is this stuff really necessary?” she huffed, swatting the pen onto the desk.
Her therapist -also her mother’s sister- didn’t even glance up from the patient’s file she had been engrossed in moments ago as she replied, “Of course it is Jasmine.”
Jaz bit down on her lip at hearing her full name. Her aunt knew she hated it. She frowned at her just to emphasize how unhappy she was, though her aunt wasn’t looking.
“Why exactly do I have to write all this stuff about me? I don't even know what to write anymore, I'm just bloody babbling about random crap. You already know most of this anyway,” she retorted impatiently.
Her aunt slipped off her reading glasses from the edge of her long nose and placed them delicately onto her polished mahogany desk. She then closed the file of her schizophrenic patient and rested her hands on top, clasping them together.
“It helps me to understand exactly where your problems have stemmed from.”
“It’s a little obvious where they ‘stemmed’ from.” Jaz made speech marks with her fingers on the word she found too cold and clinical for her liking. She folded her arms and stared fixedly at her aunt.
Her aunt disliked the way her niece addressed her so unprofessionally. In this office she was her therapist first, her aunt second, and had only agreed to do it because her sister had practically begged her to. “Jasmine I-”
“Jaz,” her niece corrected icily.
Her aunt raised her eyebrows uncomfortably. Informal was not her strong suit.
“Jaz,” she said, as if it hurt to move her mouth muscles. “I do this with all my patients. You are no different and no exception. It helps me to get an understanding of your personality, to see if your problems may have stemmed from your past.”
Is her vocabulary that limited? Jaz thought, irritated.
Using dispassionate words like ‘stemmed’ to explain the situation she had gone through, and in the way her aunt said it, really annoyed her. She felt like she was a disease. She was a patient. ‘That’ patient. She may as well have been a number. This wasn’t working. “I don’t think this is for me.”
Her aunt gave her a disapproving look. She brushed a French manicured hand through her short, light-brown bob. Her green eyes focused on Jaz like a hawk. Jaz stared back at her. She was stubborn but her aunt was very persevering. “You’ve only just started,” her aunt argued.
“I know. But I already wrote about what happened and you told me to start over. I don’t plan on being here until I’m thirty.”
Her aunt’s facial muscles tightened in annoyance. Jaz thought how completely different she was from her mother. Her aunt gazed levelly at Jaz as she replied, “You can still put that page in. It will be a good comparison to your later entries and you can look back at it to see how far you’ve come. That page was for you, these pages, where you write how you see yourself, are more for my benefit. Writing down your feelings will help with your recovery. You can write out all your umm… grief.”
Jaz felt like her aunt was mocking her.
The dream had felt so real, like she really had lost that child. The
grief she had felt was real too. Just thinking about it made the claw of sorrow cling to her heart muscle. It may have been a whole year ago but she still couldn't sleep well at night. She was afraid she'd have to go through it all over again.
Her aunt didn’t understand that and clearly didn’t want to. Plus she thought Jaz was a liar. Even her parents did.
Jaz couldn't help but gaze at the woman with hard eyes. “If you’re expecting to find some evidence in my journal that I was lying about not being up the duff, prepare to be very disappointed, Doctor Fucking Hypocritical,” she rejoined in a low, harsh voice.
Her aunt’s smile dropped from her middle-aged, overly make-upped face and she stared at the intimidating child uneasily. She was a child after all. Her aunt was twice the girl’s age and had known her since birth but sometimes the girl terrified her. She would never admit it of course. But the girl had a darker side that sometimes came out in her voice or in a look. Something wasn’t quite right about her.
Though we all know why that is. The therapist thought sourly. The look in the girl’s eyes caused her thoughts to switch to a more careful tone. She’ll never hear it from me.
Though she had felt uneasy by her niece’s words it had angered her. Her hands grew hot and she could feel her temples pulsing. The child may as well have pissed on the floor like a dog wanting to mark her territory, or simply just to do it to get a reaction.
Well, it was working.
But the therapist was a controlled, respectable woman. She could beat this arrogant, stubborn brat, no problem.
Jaz hadn’t intended for the words to come out so abruptly, or to insult her like that. Even if it was true.
It wasn't her fault that her aunt seemed to be void of feelings. In fact she was pretty much insensitive most of the time that it made Jaz wonder why the hell she had ever gone into a career that's main objective was to help people.
Does she even care about them? Maybe that was harsh, she considered, but she wasn’t sorry for what she’d said. Her parents called her a liar, and she knew her aunt believed them over her.
Her aunt gazed at her for a moment longer before saying in her very firm, -almost exaggerated now she was trying too hard- professional speaking voice, “I want you to write in this journal everyday, or at least as often as you can. I will see you each week to discuss anything you wish, but will not read your diary. I only ask you to give me an extract, or a day from your journal to look over. You can ban me from certain ones if you wish but I strongly suggest you let me in Jasmi- I mean Jaz.”
The girl flashed a smile of victory but it was gone before her aunt was sure she’d seen it. “Fine.” She got up though she didn’t know –or care- if the session was over.
Her aunt didn’t stop her either way. “I’ll see you the same time next week.”
Jaz lifted up her handbag that was perched on the edge of the armchair and headed for the door. When she reached it she stopped and turned. “Despite what you might think, I didn’t lie.”
Her therapist became her aunt and gave her a skeptical and a slightly condescending smile. “But even the doctor confirmed it.”
“No he didn’t. There was no proof I’d ever had a baby. He never checked me out.”
“That should be standard procedure.” Jaz shrugged though inside she had been wondering the same thing. “Perhaps you were in too much shock to remember the tests?” There was just a hint of patronization in her aunt's voice.
Jaz watched her aunt intensely, trying to control her voice as she replied, “He just assumed the blood was from a miscarriage. It wasn’t.”
Her aunt leant back on her chair. “So what was it then?” she asked in a high even more condescending tone.
Jaz clenched her teeth. Her grip tightened around the strap of her bag. “I-don't-know,” she emphasized each word. Then added with a sigh, “but it wasn’t a period or a miscarriage. And the doctor could have seen that if they’d just listened to me for five seconds.”
“Oh, come on Jaz, what else could it have been?”
Jaz looked her square in the eye. Inside she was fuming. “It wasn’t a miscarriage, because I’m a virgin!” her whisper came out in a low hiss.
It wasn’t something she liked to admit out loud let alone to her patronizing aunt/therapist who wouldn’t know where her heart was even if it was ripped out of her chest and handed to her. Jaz pictured that satisfyingly bloody image as she watched her aunt’s reaction.
Her aunt didn’t take her seriously at first but the more sharply her niece glared at her the more she realized Jaz was telling the truth. The therapist’s eyes widened and her mouth dropped open. She held back the urge to say ‘oops’ and continued to stare at her.
“Really?” she asked doubtfully.
Jaz knew that if she stayed any longer she’d probably be convicted of murder. In a swift motion she opened the door, stormed out, slamming it behind her.
*
Original Copy
My name is Jaz and I’m crazy.
Well if having therapy because you had a dream where you were having a miscarriage and then woke up in a pool of your own blood- even though you’re not pregnant- never even had sex- and no one believes you- constitutes as losing your sanity then that’s my name and don’t wear it out.
It happened last year. January 16th. It was a Saturday morning. Even after a year I still haven’t gotten over it.
In the nightmare I was lying down, propped up on a hard pillow and the room was bright. So bright it hurt my eyes. There were at least four people in the room with me.
I couldn’t see their faces but I’m positive I didn’t know them. I’m sure. At least I think I’m sure.
A scent of a woman’s perfume - a mature woman- drifted into my nostrils. The scent seemed familiar but I still can't place it. That’s been bugging me a lot.
A man was holding my hand. His hand was firm, big and slightly rough on the inside of the thumb. He was speaking but the words didn’t make sense to me. Because of the pain.
My god I have never experienced so much pain in my life.
It was so vivid I could think of it now and it’d be like a very recent memory.
The smell of blood. Even now I want to be sick just thinking of it. It reeked of death though I couldn't imagine what that smelt like.
After the ripping, twisting pains in my stomach seemed to ease, I was screaming over and over ‘My baby, my baby!’ though it wasn’t me saying it. I couldn't NOT say it, like I was inside the mind of somebody else.
It wasn't even my voice. This voice was higher and sweeter even when it screamed.
Then the agony returned but it was a different kind of pain. I knew- she knew- it was all over for her. And then the pain climaxed to a point I felt like I was going to split apart and then suddenly faded like I’d been pumped full of morphine.
Then everything went black.
She -I, had died.
It was the most terrifying and yet relieving feeling I'd ever experienced in my life.
When I woke up I still had tears in my eyes. My arms and hands felt wet and I thought it was from a lot of sweat. The sheets were wet. The faint light from the early hours of dawn allowed my eyes to see what was really there. The sheets were blood red. They were drenched in my own blood.
1:40 p.m. At home.
After that, I was taken to hospital. The doctor examined me, discussed my symptoms and because I was still disorientated I said I thought I’d miscarried. Now they still won’t believe me when I say I wasn’t thinking straight then. But it doesn't matter.
After the examination, the doctor said he wanted to do some more tests. Thinking that the worst of it was over, the doctor then sat me down and told me that not only could he not prove I wasn't a virgin -I still have no idea what that means- but that I'm not able to have children.
I'm as barren as a wasteland.
He believed that I must have drank too much at a party, which I denied and he brought it down to distress, not pressin
g the issue further, adding that perhaps I got pregnant by accident, and this was the result.
And then I was sent home.
My parents didn't discuss it. In fact it was like they were avoiding the subject altogether. And I've never told Ellie and Lisa. I don't know why but even though we're so close, this was something I wanted to keep to myself. My burden to bear. Or not to bear. Yeah lame joke, I know.
And now I'm feeling more accepting of it, and less ashamed, I still can't bring myself to tell them about it. I wouldn't know how to drop that into a conversation.
The truth is though, I haven’t been myself since. You can try to hide that from your friends, your family... your therapist (mentally rolling my eyes)- but you can't hide it from yourself.
My parents, especially my dad, began to notice my downward spiral when my grades went from pretty good to below average within months. I'd been falling asleep in class because ever since that night, I have trouble sleeping.
My Head Teacher got complaints from my teachers, called my mum at home and voila! Therapy I went. Well... sort of. Skipped a few sessions but my Aunt Ruth is pretty serious about her job, and is a snitch too so I HAD to go to every session from then on.
So now every Tuesday, I have to go and talk about my feelings to a woman who doesn't even believe I've ever told the truth, probably about ANYTHING, so it kind of makes the whole thing pointless.
But seriously, I've spent a lot of those sleepless hours self-analyzing -trying to figure out this whole thing- and all I can say is HOW could it have even happened? How?
How can your body get tricked into believing you're pregnant and miscarry? All because of a dream? I mean is it even possible?
I couldn't have been pregnant. I’ve never gotten drunk and had sex with a random guy, AND forgotten about it. I rarely even drink for that matter. Last time I did was on November 13th at Ellie’s birthday party and I only had a glass of bubbly. I’m not THAT much of a light weight. And besides I'm practically glued to Lis and Ellie's ass whenever I do go out, which is very rare, so they would've known if I'd done any dirty deeds even if I somehow didn't. Believe me.
