I heard him moaning even before I opened my eyes.
Those so familiar sounds that left no rock unturned in my body everytime I heard them. Am I only imagining it? I wasn't sure, because I couldn't feel him inside me nor his hands touching my skin and leaving traces of excitement on me with his fingers like buzzing electricity. I smiled and let out a soft gasp when I felt the bed under me rocking slowly.
It distracted me from my thoughts and I slowly opened my eyes. They had to adjust to the fluorescent lights it was too bright in the room, but in few short moments I could make out a figure in a dark blue night robe I have never seen him wear before.
It took me another moment to be able to focus on his face, his features looking soft and relaxed his mouth parted in panting and then the bewilderment of what I had just took a glance of made me not only to abruptly sit up but I jumped out of the bed as fast as I could. The chain on my ankle still restraining me so I couldn't move more than few feet from the bed.
He looked at me and smiled. I was trembling my whole body shaking on the cold tiles on the floor. He seemed to be enjoying himself the way I had never seen him before his genitals joined in the most intimate act with a woman who was lying on her stomach under him. Her skin pale white and bruised, her whole body covered in blue and purple marks, her hair brown and still soft looking and suddenly so familiar, but I couldn't see her face because it was facing the other direction. I couldn't understand what was I just witnessing.
"Lana do you want to join us?" he asked not breaking eye contact with me and still smiling before closing his eyes tightly, wrinkles forming on his face in grimace of arousal that seemed to affect his whole body. His fingers clenching the woman's hair tightly. I was still shaking when he looked at me again, my mouth opened in shock.
"It feels so...good." he uttered the last word slowly almost in a moan and closed his eyes again. Why was he doing it in a bed he chained me to and what had he expected me to do or feel? I coudn't feel anything but fear mixed with disgust and shock when he suddenly lifted the woman's head by her hair and turned her head towards so I could see her parted mouth almost all of her teeth missing and her widely opened eyes lacking any sign of life. And then it hit me with desperating that floated through my whole body up to my head burning through my nerves like the electroshock therapy threatments I had receieved at Briarcliff.
It was Wendy, dead and cold. Her chest sewn up with black thread from the post mortem examination.
"She's a little less lively than I'd want her to be, but then again she has no strength to protest or judge me." I heard him say, but my mind simply couldn't digest the sight of them or the enthusiasm and pleasure he was engaging in right before my eyes.
I reached for the chain on my ankle and wanted to yank it off, but it was still fastened to the hook under the bed. I started crying the horror of what I was also part of just now hitting me with the intensity of a meteor scattering me to trembling pieces.
"Come here." he ordered me to do, his voice soft and calm, but I knew deep inside he expected me to do as he says unless I wanted to be punished and see the bloody face mask with Wendy's teeth on his face. I had to obey otherwise he'd make me do it and the violence of it would be even more unpleasant than the sigh of him raping the lifeless body of my girlfriend. I slowly stood up and first placed my palm on the edge of the bed for supporting myself before climbing on the bed still weak in my knees. He reached out his hand, but I knew he couldn't force me to take it not even he had the power to make me touch him after his fingers had been tracing a cadaver's skin just moments ago.
"You can start by kissing her cold lips or you can kiss me." he said. I opened my mouth but I couldn't speak. He was pounding Wendy's body more furiously now and grabbed the hand I had laid on the mattress beside me.
I wanted to pull out but his grasp was too strong. He pulled me closer to him by my arm and I was sure he could hear my heart beating through my chest in abrupt movements. I swallowed hard closing my eyes before the tremendous horror.
In that moment I could feel his face next to mine, the hair that came lose from his usually perfect hairstyle softly brushed against my cheek like feathers. I could feel his hot breath on my neck sending tickles up my spine.
"I swear I'm already inside her womb I can feel it." he softly whispered into my ear as if telling a lover's sweet nothings and thrust forcefully even deeper inside her. "I will not be able to do it with you, but she doesn't feel anything so I'm not hurting her." his face was still pressed close to mine and I had to cover my mouth with my other hand because I couldn't take the shock anymore. I started sobbing. Why was he doing it to me? Seeing Wendy like this filled me with sadness, but he made me afraid. Afraid of what he might say or do next if he's capable of things like this.
"Don't cry, please." he stopped thrusting inside her "I won't hurt you Lana, I just want to feel the warm embrace of your body. I will be careful I promise."
He let go of my hand and before I could react to being released of his touch and move away, he caressed my cheek wiping off the traces of tears.
I could only stare at him with bewildered eyes and as if on my clue the moment when I closed my eyes he started pushing himself inside her and pulling back again in slow movements. I immediately opened my eye now already unable to cry. My hands ice cold as I clasped the hem of his robe with my fingers and leaned towards his face that was already inches away as he was kneeling over her.
I made sure to avoid getting my skin in contact with hers as I reached my other hand towards his face. He averted his gaze from Wendy to me almost surprised. I could see the excitement in his almond brown eyes. I pulled his face closer to mine feeling the perspiration on his neck with my fingers. He parted his lips and I closed my eyes. When our tongues touched I felt an immediate wave of strong pleasure running through my whole body leaving my muscles soft like jell-o and this arousal even strengthened as our tongues entangled so that I had to open my mouth and loudly moan into his. My voice echoing back from the basement's walls when I opened my eyes.
I was in a well known bed in my cell at Briarcliff. The sun was shining through the small barred window over my bed. I looked at the clock next to me at the nightstand. Half past ten.
The time didn't bother me, they let me sleep in since they've become aware of my pregnancy. My whole body and mind was perturbed by what I just witnessed moments ago. It felt so real, I could still feel his tongue in my mouth and hear the groaning sounds that were escaping his mouth when he was thrusting himself deep into Wendy.
I wiped the sweat from my forehead and swallowed hard. How could my subconscious show me images like that? Had I gone insane along with the residents of this asylum? I sat up on the bed and started to involuntary recall every detail of my dream. Her stiff body, ice melting from her hair into the pillow I had laid my head on every day and him finding pleasure inside the body of my dead girlfriend. The woman I killed I had to remind myself, was it a punishment my mind was doing because of all the guilt I felt more and more with the approaching birth of my little baby?
This time I was sure it had only been a dream, no memory or reality with Oliver I had experienced during my stay at Briarcliff could be like this. Taking advantage of Wendy's helpless body saddened me, but seeing Oliver in such enormous pleasure with somebody he could do anything with because she wasn't alive anymore. Somebody who wasn't me, made my stomach go funny all of a sudden and I remembered the kiss we parted with before I woke up here. Remembered the pleasure I felt not minding that his body was joined with Wendy inches close to me and suddenly I felt a contraction of my stomach muscle and I covered my mouth with my hand. But there was no food I could vomit, because I was famished and the last meal I had was my dinner last night.
As I moved out of the bed I could feel the wetness between my thighs and the clinging of my underwear to it. I recalled the morning when I wake up from my reality with Oliver just to realize I was heavily bleeding. The memory scared me as I moved my trembling hand inside my panties, but the liquid sticking to my fingers was clear, there was no trace of bloody just a proof of my twisted self I was disgusted with.
They had let me to have double portions of the meal we were getting in the asylum and the gynecologist Oliver had brought to examine me every other week has given me prenatal vitamins.
I was still counting the days, it has become my habit and today it had been exactly six months that Oliver had given me the best news of my life and right after told me pregnancy becomes me and I had already visible gained weight althought I couldn't notice it myself. I was scared and doubtfull at that time and he seemed to have mood swings just like the weather was changing in April, but with time our scheduled therapies became more stereotypical and he started to show interest in my health. Just one week after the blood tests proved that I'm pregnant he brought an elderly man into his office introducing him as his former professor from the university who still worked as an obstestrician at the local hospital. He has been coming ever since on Friday twice a month to examine me and make sure everything's alright with the baby.
It wasn't easy to convince sister Jude of approving especially when the doctor told her they'll have to immediately take me to the hospital once the labour pains will start because of my arrhythmia which could cause my death during the birth. Everytime I walked past her in the corridors she was giving me a look of someone preparing for revenge, but I wasn't afraif of her anymore. Everything that occupied my mind was right there for me, the little one inside my belly and Oliver daily taking care of me and the other patients.
Seeing him all the time made my heart flutter and filled me with genuine happiness. Only the dreams were giving me a hard time. I still couldn't explain them, whether they were dreams or some sort of alternate reality that could be seen in science fictions programs on television. I couldn't mention it to anyone, not even to him. I knew it was the only thing I have to face completely alone.
I knew I was doing right and my recovery was almost at my grasp now, even Oliver said so and I was looking forward to the moment when the little one is born so I could take care of it. And love it the way Oliver himself would have deserved. Of course it has only been an illusion. Just like the one in which I could be released from Briarcliff and start a family with him and at the same time dreading the moment when it would happen and we'd stay strangers to each other just as we were now. Just a doctor and one of his favourite patients who manipulated him into believing she's sane now while she was still having delusions about their love in another reality far away that occupied only her head.
These thoughts had taken me far away from the shrieks of insane inmates and the rustling of the wind in the beautifuly coloured leaves on trees in this warm October afternoon as I was walking past the benches in the park that surrounded Briarcliff. When a familiar voice called after me.
"Lana" he was rushing towards me as I turned around and saw him elegant as ever. His dark hair slicked back, his eyes piercing through his Ronsir glasses wearing a light grey coloured suit with a dark red tie. He slowed his steps down as he approached me and smiled.
"The guards just told me you were outside. I just came to let you know that our scheduled therapy for tomorrow will be canceled. I have some urgent business to take care of outside of town, but if you'd need anything I'm here today until the late hours, because I rescheduled the therapies with other patients for today." He gave me a reassuring smile I used to see on his face when I found myself in doubt and he patted my shoulder. I nodded the smile slowly fading from my face.
"Is everyting alright..." he asked still not letting go of my shoulder "with the baby?" he added.
"Yes of course." I answered calmly traces of a smile coming back to my cheeks, but I was still disappointed that I won't see him tomorrow and that he rescheduled every therapy but mine.
"I'll be inside if you need anything." He slowly removed his hand from my shoulder letting it slip down my arm until he pulled it back right when his fingers would come in touch with my skin at the hem of the sleeve of my sweater. My eyes were following him back to the building hurrying up the front steps. He's always been like this in this cruel insane world. Smiling at me and being a concerned doctor, but the next moment showing me that I'm no more than just a simple patient he cares about because he took an oath. And everytime I thought it will be okay. I had to be strong.
I'm finally starting to get used to it although the reality of his feelings pierce through my skin like a thick needle right into my heart sucking all the air from my arteries and leaving me anxious and empty.
I sat down on the nearest bench and closed my eyes. I tried to imagine what the world could look like outside this institution on other side of the high and thick fence that separate me from the life normal people were living.
I imagined Oliver's house at the end of the road in the woods, the glass wall of his living room, his car parking at the front door and me siting somewhere near on a bench breathing a clear and free air. The vision of it calmed me and as I placed my hand on my belly that was now visible even under the uncomfortable nightgown of pale blue colour I had to wear all the time.
When I opened my eyes I heard him breathing hard the bright light pinching my eyes so I had to force myself to blink several times before I could see clearly that I'm in the basement again.
Oliver's loins still connected to Wendy and my hand holding his neck as if I would have parted my lips from his kiss only a moment ago. Finding myself there again scared me. He seemed to notice and I saw the confusion in his eyes. How could this be happening again? I started to scream I couldn't stop my vocal chords from letting our a loud piercing sound.
His eyes widened he reached for me, but in that instant I pulled myself back and landed right on my back on the floor. I yanked my whole body as far from the bed as I could and suddenly I heard a sound of metal scratching into another surface and the chain that was going from my akle to the hook under the bed came loose. The cuf on my ankle still stable but the long chain lying on the floor as I abruptly stood up few links at the end falling to the floor with a loud thud.
It seemed like the time stopped because the surprise mixed with shock in both of us made everything seem to follow in slow motion. The only thing I could see now were the stairs as I climbed on them falling to my knees and trying hard to move up with the support of my hands scratching myself on their rough concrete surface. Panick filled my whole being and I could hear him screaming my name and I felt him running up the stair even if I was looking forward unable to turn aroud and lose precious time that for me was counted in milliseconds now. I pushed myself with every strength towards the door just to find it unlocked.
I was gasping for air as my lungs seemed heavy and I could see the living room before my eyes. Everything looked the same as I had seen it a long time ago before he locked me in the basement, I could even recognize the lamp shade made from human skin as I passed it running to the other part of the house where the kitchen seemed to be. I don't know why was my mind noticing irrelevant things slowing down my thinking when I suddenly fall down. My face hitting the carpet. The metal cuf on my ankle scratching my skin until blood ran from the scar as he was pulling the chain towards him on the floor. Grabbing my wrist when he was at an arm length. His eyes furious I couldn't look away from them. He lifted me not paying attention to anything else as I was screaming from him hurting me as my body ached already from falling to the floor and he let his robe to slide down. He pushed me down to the sofa's soft surface still holding my wrists as he lay on the top of my body weighting me down. I could feel his erection pressing against me.
"What were you thinking?" he yelled "You can't escape me in any way." He let go of my left hand and moved his hand under my nightgown.
I tried to stop him, but it seemed as if I was only stroking his forearm as he moved lower because I haven't had enough strength to stop his hand. He pulled my panties down in one violent movement and I knew I have no chance against him doing as he pleases with my body. I tried to sit up as he was trying to enter me, but his weight wouldn't let me to move so I punched him. My closed fist landing right under his right eye. I could instantly see the regret in his eyes that he had let go of my wrist. I thought he will punch me back or slap me hard, but he only grabbed me thigh and lifted it up pushing it against the back of the couch.
"You will enjoy it as much as I do." he smiled a flicker of insanity flashed through his eyes. "Just think about me being inside her just minutes ago, you'll be joined with her once again."
I couldn't scream and couldn't think. I wanted to close my eyes but it wouldn't keep me from feeling him inside me. I wanted to plead for him to stop and let me go, but I knew it would just be a waste of breath. As I felt him slowly pushing in he loudly moaned and I wasn't sure what the sound that escaped my lips meant.
I tried to forget Wendy naked in the basement and him inside me right now doing the same thing as he had been doing to her. He started caressing my cheek and I couldn't understand what he's doing, why is he suddenly gentle when I realized the wetness he's sliding himself in.
He was kissing my neck and the whole world was slowly fading. I couldn't make out the surroundings nor the room the only thing I could see and feel was him. He moved faster as he realized I'm not trying to escape his touch anymore. He lifted his head from my neck and started touching my breasts while not breaking eye contact with me. I grabbed his forearm but this time I couldn't make myself to push him away instead I just laid my fingers on the soft hair on his hand.
I looked up at him and I could tell from the expression on his face that he's close to the climax. His eyes rolling to the back of his head. He moved even faster now and just few moments after started calling out my name over and over in the waves of orgasm and finally his head collapsed on my chest.
I burried my face into his hair and inhaled the sweet musky scent deep into my lungs. Then he slowly started pulling out I could feel the warm semen sliding down my thigh.
"Don't." was the only thing I could force myself to say. He stopped and pushed himself back. I suddenly felt a violent movement inside me and I was unable to move from the pain.
I opened my eyes and I had seen the park layed out before me and the building of the asylum. The pain was almost unbearable and I had already forgotten the dream that was causing me so much confusion, disgust and pleasue at the same time. I could tell the baby was coming.
I cried out for help seeing only the heads of the insane turning towards me. I yelled at the top of my lungs when the guards appeared from the building, but I couldn't tell what they were doing because the pain was blinding me now. I was gasping for air and tried to keep my eyes open. It seemed like an eternity before Oliver appeared and sat down next to me holding me around my shoulders.
"It's okay Lana, the ambulance will be here any minute, just breathe." His words soothed me a bit, but they couldn't make the pain go away and the fear of the ambulance not arriving in time and me giving birth here while the child needed doctors to take care of it because the it was due next month.
"Just close your eyes and breathe." he told me pressing his cheek against my temple, if the circumstances wouldn't be paralyzing all my senses I would be ovewhelmed by such closeness, but then I could only feel the overwhelming pain. And all I could do was pray under my breath to all the saints to stand guard for my baby. The seconds blended into minutes and the minutes into hours. I wasn't sure of the time anymore, I couldn't focuse on anything. I could only see scattered images and hear hushed voices as they were putting me inside the ambulance car. The doors closed and I stayed alone with the two doctors while all I wanted was Oliver to hold my hand.
They said I can't go with her although they clearly knew I was a doctor too.
The watch on my wrist looked like it needed to be fixed because the minutes were dragging as if they had been hours.
All I could do was pacing up and down the corridors. They said they'll call when the baby is born and they wouldn't let me into the surgery anyway.
The young nun promised to tell me when they do and I believed her.
I didn't give a damn about what they might think, not anymore. She was more important, they both were.
I found myself standing in front of her cell. I don't even know how did I get there.
I entered to find a tidy bed as she would leave it in the morning and sat down. The air seemed thick here.
I put my hand on the pillow tracing its fabric with my finger. My gaze all of a sudden focused on the object that was sticking out from underneath it. It looked like a book.
I took it to see what it is. It was black and blank, no title was written on it. It seemed strange. I started turning the pages and then I saw half of it is empty the other half is filled with handwriting.
I narrowed my gaze on the letters on the first page. It's been 21 days since it started. Read the first line. It's always the same, except for the very first time. He was very angry after it happened.
My mind was working fast and hard to make out the meaning of these words. Obviously wrriten by her hand.
I started to play his game where he believed it was me who provoked him and deliberately turned him on. I covered my mouth with one hand. I couldn't believe the words I was just reading.
My eyes slid down the page in search for some explanation. I could tell that he was finally sorry for everything he'd done to me, but was it enough for me to forgive him? Right now was it enough not to hate him and feel compassion for his lost soul? I had no idea what I just started. What had I set sail to through this raging ocean that has become my life? Our lives. Our lives...I slowly said out loud.
I couldn't stop myself from going on although it seemed more private than anything I've ever read.
Because from that moment it started to be obvious that we' going to be connected in more ways than just physical.
My breathing was faster now and I knew I'm not calm enough to finish reading the whole diary, so I turned to the last page searching for something reasonable.
Her handwriting was messier and the pen changed to a pencil, but the last three words she scribbled on the paper in capitals were clear. I REMEMBER EVERYTHING. She had written.