"After breaking Reynold's arm and shooting one of his men, he's not going to let me have access to anything but a bed with restraints and headphones," I say, between bites of toast, "I don't think sending me in is a good idea. Seems like maybe you just need more time for Ben to collect evidence on Ray's end."
Rowan looks like she's actually listening to me, so I continue, "I'm the person you send in if you want everyone dead or dying. You can't just Loop me into being a detective."
Rowan nods, a thoughtful look on her face.
"You can send me," says Lucy, dabbing at the corners of her lips with a paper napkin.
"Abso-fucking-lutely not," I say around a mouthful of bacon. I try to tell myself to remain calm, but it doesn't work. Blood is rushing past my ears. I feel my heart speed up.
"Watch your language in front of my daughters," Rowan says. I glance at the girls. They're looking at me, little smiles of approval on their faces. They creep me out. I swallow the bacon and bare my teeth at them. They stop smiling.
"I'm already mind-fu-, I mean, I've already been brainwashed," Lucy says to Rowan, "You might as well use whatever you used on Rebecca on me, program me to be yours, not theirs, so I can focus on what you need me to do. If you tell them I don't need conditioning for another twenty-four hours, that gives me twenty-four hours to gather information for you."
"I can't let you put yourself in danger like that," I say. Lucy looks from Rowan to me, her eyes and body language deferential, soft. The muscles in my abdomen are clenching up. My whole body is keyed up, on edge.
"Whatever conditioning I listened to last night, it wasn't enough," she says, "My whole body is yearning to go back to the bar and serve the men there," her voice grows softer and she leans toward me, like sharing a secret. I struggle to focus on her words rather than my growing rage.
"However much I adore you, however often I keep telling myself I belong to you, sitting here is slowly driving me nuts," she says, a note of apology in the tone of her voice, "Ray obviously doesn't understand the brainwashing techniques he's using on women, if he thought he could just hand me over to you," she pauses, looking sad and resigned, "I'm not stupid, I'm just oversexed and overly willing. Going to Reynolds' is something I can do well. I won't need to act pliable because I already am."
"How do we get you back out?" Rowan asks Lucy.
I can't suppress my panic anymore.
"We're not having this discussion. You can't send her!" I say, my voice loud. They both look at me. "You can't! I just got her!"
"She's not yours," Rowan says flatly, her face neutral.
"She is! Ray gave her to me!" My nostrils flare. I am the monster that hides in the dark, come into the light. I am pitiful. I stand, sending the chair squeaking back, away from me. I sweep my plate off the table, the word "Mine!" lost in the clatter of the plate hitting the floor.
Lucy rises from her chair and takes a step toward me, face and hands placating. I backhand her across the cheek, repeating, "Mine!" She falls to kneel at my feet, her head bowed, her hands protecting the nape of her neck.
"See what you made me do!" I yell at Rowan. Her face is red; she looks like I struck her, too. "Telling me no violence against your family! You're the one I want to hit! Fuck you!" I pull out my gun and aim it at Lucy's head as I turn off the safety. "Tell me again that she's not mine and I'll shoot her! I'll fucking shoot her!"
"No!" scream Tilda and Reba. I barely hear them, but I do hear them. And in their screams I hear my brother, who said the same thing, his voice breaking with the force of it, when I saved him from our mother. And he was screaming it at me. At me! Not at the woman who was beating him to death.
I keep my piece trained on Lucy as I stare into Rowan's eyes. The girls' hysterical screams become background noise. The sound of blood fills my ears.
"Put the gun on the table." I read her lips more than I hear her words, but I put the gun on the table. The world recedes and there is only Rowan, who tells me what to do and I do it, whether I want to or not.
"Sit," she says. I sit. I am full of danger and contained energy and my entire body wants to explode with it. But I sit.
"Stay seated," Rowan says, "and do not speak. I'm going to clean up the mess you just made." She stands up and moves to Lucy's side. She bends down and gently touches my girl's elbow.
"You're safe now," she whispers. Lucy is silent but her lowers her hands from their protective place over her head. Rowan helps her stand. Lucy's cheek is bright red, her eyes soft and forgiving.
I blink back the tears. I will not cry in front of Rowan, the woman I'd happily murder, the woman who controls me.
After helping Lucy into her chair and looking at her cheek, Rowan gets an ice pack from the freezer, wraps it in an ugly, brown kitchen towel. For some reason, I'm offended that such an awful towel touches Lucy's skin. I wish I could speak, to demand a nicer towel.
The girls' screams have turned to hiccups and tears. I don't look at them. I'm not ashamed, I'm just acutely aware that I've broken a promise to myself.
Rowan picks up the plate, uses another, even uglier, kitchen towel to clean up the eggs and grease, then she quietly calls the girls to her and leaves the kitchen with them.
"It's going to be okay," Lucy says to me. And then I do cry, silent, motionless. I can't breathe, my chest is so tight. It really hurts.
I can't look at her. Instead, I look at the gun I set on the table. The image becomes blurry and streaked. Through my tears it becomes something else, a charred body, a blackbird with one wing, a knife.
Rowan comes back to the kitchen, alone, stands next to me and puts her hand on my shoulder. I flinch, but she keeps it there.
"I'm sorry," she says.
The kitchen is full of silence.
"Rebecca," Rowan says, "I've tried to do my best to limit The Loop's effect on you, to protect my family and that's it. If I hadn't, I'd be dead, Ben'd be dead, and Lucy here wouldn't be yours; your life as it was would just go on. Is there nothing, not even Lucy, that's a bright spot here for you?"
I'm silent, still under her command to not speak.
Lucy with the braid. Lucy, the honey pot I prefer to fuck when Ray lets me have a choice. I love Lucy, but not enough to trade her for my free will. I want Rowan to understand that without my having to say anything.
I keep my eyes on the gun.
"Even if having Lucy isn't enough, what about finally being able to put an end to women being abducted, tortured and brainwashed?"
Fuck them, I think, I killed their husbands and took Ray's money for it. What do I care about those whores?
"You told her not to speak," Lucy whispers.
Rowan sighs, "Yeah. I guess those were rhetorical questions, anyway. I'm not sure I trust her state of mind to the point I'm ready to tell her she can talk."
She moves back to her own chair and sits.
"If the first Loop didn't do it for you last night, we'll need to experiment with the second level. You willing to try it?" she asks Lucy.
"Whatever you think is best, Rowan," Lucy replies. I manage to snort derisively. They ignore me.
"We do the second level, I might even be able to rewire a few things, make you more of a lesbian, for example, so you don't feel the need to serve the men at the dairy."
"I was a lesbian before they kidnapped me, you know," Lucy says in a conversational voice. I stop looking at the gun to stare at her.
"Really?" says Rowan.
Lucy nods, "From what I remember, I was a lesbian and I wrote code and I had a pet cat but no girlfriend. The president of the tech startup I worked at kept coming on to me. I was the only woman in the office other than the girl at the front desk. He was a petty asshole. He paid Ray to turn me into a honey pot. For a long time he was the only one, other that Rebecca, who asked for me, specifically."
"Oh my God," breathes Rowan, "I'm so sorry about what happened to you."
Lucy grins and shrugs, says, "Don't be. The reconditioning is pretty thorough. I was always delighted to see my old boss whenever he came over to fuck me, though of course his victory boners never lasted long." She sighs and shifts a bit in her chair, "There's something very satisfying about being pansexual and being able to please almost anyone who uses me."
No comments:
Post a Comment