9 April 1980
10 miles ENE of Detroit, Oregon
Breitenbush Holistic Retreat
.
Breitenbush was perched atop one of the lowest hills of the Cascades Range in western Oregon. The incline to reach the resort itself stretched over four miles, flanked by a happily wooded area still thickly covered with snow and with an entrance that greeted more than ten miles of winding landscapes, gravel paths and a glacier-fed river—all within the panoramic view of the Range itself.
The resort was an idyllic nature-lovers' dream with its narrow canyons, cascading streams and wooded slopes. The hot springs were just the proverbial icing on the cake. The hot springs themselves were on site, created through a combination of volcanism and glaciation over hundreds of thousands of years—or at least that's what Penny had told Jackie upon her arrival.
All Jackie knew was that it was one hell of a trip to sit in a clear hot spring pool with temperatures ranging from one-hundred to one-hundred-and-nine degrees Fahrenheit while the outside air was just shy of thirty degrees and snowing.
The weather had been unseasonably cool this spring, especially in Portland and the surrounding areas. The higher the elevation, the colder the temperatures, and the hot springs did very little to heat the mountain air. In fact, they did nothing. Still, despite it being slightly colder here than it was in Wisconsin, which Jackie thought was impossible short of living in Alaska, the brisk air and impressive forest scenery were as invigorating as they were relaxing.
Jackie hadn't expected much from the place, which was little more than a co-op, other than the hope that she wouldn't be confined indoors. She would not be disappointed. If anything, the holistic retreat was sort of like a hippie convention, minus the smell and free love and the copious amounts of psychedelic drugs, although there was still a fair amount of weed. Most clients frequenting there were either rich New Agers or free-loving tree-huggers. Surprisingly, most were fairly young, in their early twenties and thirties.
The word going around was that they planned on turning the place into a business conference centre. But until then, Jackie planned to indulge in the retreat's less commercial aspects.
There were daily activities at the resort, aside from nature treks and soaking in the springs, which ranged from deep tissue massages to yoga to meditation—all derived from various cultures and techniques. Although the meal menu leaned towards vegetarian, it was surprisingly delicious. Jackie, however, wouldn't touch the eggplant soup—or, as she liked to call it, Gross Purple Soup (it wasn't that purple, but whatever). The retreat certainly wasn't a five-star spa resort you'd find in the Swiss Alps, but it had its rustic charms.
Most importantly, it had anonymity.
The staff was helpful and discreet, never pressuring her. They all lived on-site, which made servicing easier and twenty-four-seven. They were also very accommodating.
When Jackie first arrived, after impulsively hailing a taxi to drive her the ten miles to the resort from Detroit, she had asked the driver to stay, just in case there was no room or they turned her away for being so presumptuous to show up without booking. However, the staff had taken her in right on the spot (of course having money probably helped); thus began Jackie's adventures at Breitenbush Hot Springs.
The resort also hosted a wide range of educational and spiritual activities, but Jackie really appreciated the chance to escape and enjoy the solitude. Most of her time was spent reading in the library with its vast selection of classic novels, listening to music and even piling wood. Yes, Jackie Burkhart performed manual labour! But despite the small measures of inner peace she enjoyed at this spiritual resort tucked away in the middle of the forest, her dreams continued to persist.
She could never quite remember what they were about, only that the feelings that came over her upon waking were never pleasant. She had felt uneasy and apprehensive, like she was waiting for something terrible to happen. Sometimes she recalled a voice, though she couldn't place it, and that voice had become an albatross hanging around her neck, weighing her down.
Sometimes getting out of bed was a chore.
"Good morning, Ruby!" greeted Penny as she glided into the room, her footfalls as soft and silent as the hem of her dress swishing along the floor. She opened the curtains, allowing muted white light to flood the room, and Jackie groaned in protest. "How was your sleep?"
Jackie grumbled at Penny in response before rolling onto her stomach and hiding her head underneath the pillow. She had barely slept, which wasn't unusual. Her sleeping pills had long run out, along with her options for getting any sleep.
Penny had suggested yoga, which had helped a little, but with sleep came the nightmares and the voice. It was a win-lose scenario. She had also tried meditation, but all it did was bore her or send her into a sort of catatonic-like state, which apparently scared the hell out of the others, even herself.
"That restful, huh?" Penny snorted and sat down on Jackie's bed. "How about we take a trip into Salem this afternoon? I can get a friend of mine to write you up a prescription."
"Really?" Jackie removed her head from underneath the pillow and turned tired brown eyes up at the former nurse.
Penny was a petite but sturdy woman in her late twenties with a perpetually youthful face. Her complexion was similar to Jackie's but lighter. She had the most beautiful cornflower blue eyes Jackie'd ever seen and shoulder-length golden hair that was usually done up in a bun or some sort of twist. Best of all, she had the kind of dimpled smile that was nothing short of motherly.
She reminded her of a younger Mrs Forman.
"Yes, really," said Penny, placing a gentle hand on Jackie's and squeezing. "You need your sleep, hun. You look terrible."
"Oh my God!" Jackie wrenched her hand back and sat up in bed, instantly awake. "Get me a mirror and some makeup, quick!"
When Penny's eyes widened in surprise, Jackie smirked. She had been joking. Of course she was concerned about her looks—what teenager wasn't?—but not to the point of obsession. Yet a part of her did cringe at the idea of not looking perfectly put together. She pushed that voice deep down into her subconscious and told it to stay there.
"Want me to curl your hair before breakfast?" Penny twisted a lock of Jackie's raven hair around her middle and index fingers, eyeing Jackie like a little girl would eye a doll she'd really like to dress up.
Jackie shrugged her assent before peeling back the covers and swinging her legs over the side of the bed. Her bare feet made contact with the cold wooden floors and she hissed, raising her feet back up off the ground. She should have slept in socks—and she usually did—but she always ended up slipping them off her feet in the middle of the night.
"I'm going to check on Anne now," said Penny as she stood up, tucking a stray golden lock back into its bun. "I'll be back once you're done with your shower and we'll curl that beautiful hair of yours."
Jackie mumbled an incoherent goodbye and placed her feet back down on the floor with a wince. Her feet had gotten used to the cold, just like she had got used to Penny's persistent presence. Though Jackie had been determined not to make any friends when she got there, and to stay away from the hippies who mostly inhabited this retreat, Penny had become an exception. She was friendly, caring and just a touch nosy, but in the best motherly sort of way. Again, she reminded Jackie of a younger version of Mrs Forman.
In fact, Penny had told Jackie that she had once been a nurse at Oregon State Hospital, a state-run psychiatric hospital in Salem. The former nurse had seen gruesome things during her time there, and most of them hadn't included the morning vegetarian buffet of undercooked eggs and purple soups. Nothing had prepared her for that line of work, and there had been no option other than to fall into it and find out there was no way to quit it without the heart-wrenching scruples that followed.
During her tenure there, Penny had changed bandages and diapers, brought meals, administered drugs and opened curtains in the mornings with her usual check-ups. Of course the latter had just been a veiled excuse to see whether or not the patient had hurt herself in the night or to see if there was a dead body hanging from the rafters.
Penny had helped grown women to the toilets, watched them weep when they couldn't go, held steadfastly onto their arms when their legs wobbled and they threatened to fall. She had listened to them cry about their dead babies—some imaginary, some real—and watched the silent ones stare lifelessly out the windows.
At times, things had got a little crazy. People had got a little crazy too.
Then one day, the other nurses had found young Penny standing barefoot in the courtyard in January, knee-deep in the snow and sobbing violently. The warden had recommended she fill in for an open masseuse position at Breitenbush and she hadn't looked back since.
Jackie often wondered why Penny hadn't just quit. She could have declined the offer to move to a new clinic—albeit the holistic retreat was just that, a retreat, not a clinic—and said, 'Thanks but no thanks. I think I'm gonna go start a new stage in my life right about now.' But she hadn't. She packed her bags and moved on up to Breitenbush to deal with weirdos and hippies and a surprisingly large number of drug addicts, and became a masseuse and yoga instructor.
Penny had told Jackie that she didn't want to be a nurse again, at least not for a while, but she still wanted to help people because that was what she loved to do. Jackie didn't doubt the sincerity of her words. Still, her cynical side had suspected that Penny's determination to continue doing what she was doing had more to do with convenience than any sort of calling. It was much easier to continue with what you knew rather than branch off into the unknown. There would be no support system in that, no sense of familiarity. She would have been going in blind, unsure, insecure and alone. Doing something totally different would have made her feel lost, and Jackie could relate to that.
While Penny's position at the retreat was still considered to be in the vein of personal service care, the line of work was vastly different. Old habits, however, died hard and, because of that, there were three unusual things that Penny did at Breitenbush that no other employee did:
She supervised the daily walks to the river.
She made the guests compose a list titled, 'Reasons Why I Am Awesome'.
She always opened the curtains in the morning.
⋆ 𖤓 ⋆
Jackie had been gone for more than two weeks.
He shouldn't have felt her absence, but he did.
Everything was supposed to go back to normal with Jackie gone. Life was supposed to be easier, better. But was it?
Jackie was never supposed to get close to Hyde the way she had. She was never meant to get inside his head. It wasn't entirely her fault. He was supposed to keep his head his own, to keep that last iota of distance between them to protect her from himself. And to protect himself.
Sometimes he swore she had mystical voodoo powers—the way she could creep into his dreams, even his waking thoughts. It was like she was still holding onto some minuscule part of him and holding it hostage, and he never noticed her fingerprints on his mind and in his heart until it was too late.
She's stealing things you'll never get back.
He threw his head back against the pillow and sighed. Here he was in the prime of his life and he was lying in bed on a Friday night. Why? Because of Jackie, that's why.
His hand had finally healed after its round with the plywood in Red's garage and he figured he'd take it out for a spin. Maybe clock it against some loser's face this time. One that reminded him of himself.
He had been at the bar earlier that night, looking more for a fight or a drink than to cruise for chicks, but a leggy blonde at the end of the bar table had caught his eye. She'd been doing that thing with her lips that girls often did when they were trying to ensnare him. And so he thought, why not? Necking with some leggy blonde was bound to be better than busting up his hand again.
The girl had been ready, willing and able. Between the kissing and the groping, he had even discovered that she had a decent sense of humour, with her well-aimed burns at the local denizens who shuffled into the seedy tavern they found themselves ensconced in. She sort of reminded him of Donna, which was slightly off-putting if he really thought about it. But even with the blonde's lips latched onto the pulse of his neck, whispering dirty words he had rarely heard outside of pornos, Hyde's mind refused to budge from one thought.
Jackie.
An hour later, he was back in the basement, alone, lying on his back in his cot and cursing the brunette's name. He kicked the blankets off in a fit of frustration and glanced down his body to see the tip of his cock peeking out through the top of his boxers, facing him like the barrel of a gun.
He grimaced.
He was already hard at the mere thought of her.
It figured.
Normally an erection was something he only had to worry about in the morning, something he took care of within seconds upon waking. Jacking off at night wasn't something he regularly indulged. It was unsatisfying, and often his mind would drift to form the image of a certain petite brunette.
Then, as if on cue, the fog of his mind stirred with his nether regions, taking on the shape of a woman. Hyde's eyes narrowed, as if to help crystallise the vision and make it visceral. Yet it was nothing more than a pale reflection of the real thing.
Her.
His erection caught his attention again and he tried in vain to ignore it. The head had turned a rosy pink, the corded veins hiding just underneath the skin. His hand, of its own volition, began to trail down his chest and past his navel, over the small thatch of curly hair before wrapping around the length and gliding up and down the shaft.
Somehow, it didn't feel right doing this with thoughts of her, and the idea of satisfying himself all alone angered him. But his body was begging for stimulation and all he had was himself—a very important life lesson was embedded in there somewhere, he was sure.
He had memories of past conquests that he could retrieve at will to help with this moment or he could grab a nudie magazine from underneath his cot, but none of these options were good enough. Whenever he tried to focus on a single image, a blonde would become a brunette, blue eyes would become brown and pale skin would become olive-toned.
Fuck, just go with it! he ordered impatiently.
Slowly Jackie's image began to fill in the mould, but it was more than the visual. He could smell her, taste her, feel his tongue piercing through her soft folds and the weight of her ass in his hands as she bucked against his lips, grasping at his curls as she gushed into his mouth.
He swallowed at the memory and his hand moved up and down his shaft a little faster. He wanted to feel her on top of him, inside her. He wanted to feel her tongue lapping against his skin as she rode him, wanted to hear the sound of her breathing, softly moaning against his ear. He wanted to touch her all over, to relive the moment of feeling her body intimately possessed by his.
His back arched off the cot and he squeezed his eyes shut. A short series of grunts escaped his lips as he imagined himself pushing deep inside her and then retreating as his shaft glistened with a shimmering sheen of her arousal. How often he would find himself enthralled, watching her eagerly impale her tiny body on his cock.
He coated his bottom lip with a line of saliva, wishing someone else was here to lick it off. But even if Jackie were here with him now, touching her would be a forbidden act. She was taboo now, no longer his. But that didn't stop him from wanting her. And if he couldn't have her in reality, then he could touch himself while thinking of her.
That way he could be in control.
Only he wasn't.
His mouth fell open as he increased the pressure, his hand gliding up the length of his shaft before squeezing right underneath the circumcised hood and sliding over the sensitive head. He knew his body well. Sometimes he liked to take his time, and other times all it took was a few firm pumps and he was done.
He envisioned Jackie's small hand reaching back to cup his balls as she rode him, her long dark hair gliding over his chest as a wet tongue lapped at his nipple. The inferno was building inside him now, rushing to the surface to erupt. Tension built with every stroke and, with one hard tug and squeeze, he detonated.
A hoarse groan filled the air as his hips continued to thrust into the palm of his hand, coating it with semen. His euphoria lasted for a while, longer than usual, and his hand limply fell away, bouncing against the iron-sprung mattress.
He tried to regulate his breathing the best way he knew how and stared blankly at the ceiling.
He wasn't satisfied.
He wasn't satisfied at all.
⋆ 𖤓 ⋆
All rational thoughts slipped away in slumber until, gradually, there was no world for Jackie but the world of dreams. Jackie Burkhart, Ruby Tuesday—none of that mattered here.
Nothing mattered.
Her dreams had become a keyhole to a whole new world that was familiar yet foreign, revealing a shadowy maze lined with mirrors reflecting different versions of herself. Each face had become a mask and, within each dream, a new mask dropped to the floor, each more intricate than the last.
It was deception married to prevarication, giving birth to the bastard child of pride.
There were truths to her dreams, too, and discovery, but there was also great pain. Here, a menacing figure stalked her every movement, drawing closer and closer until he would have her. No matter how often she twisted, turned, darted through and doubled back, he would find her.
He... or she?
The concept of dreaming was known to the waking mind, but to the dreamer there was no waking, no sanity. There was only the fragmented reality and the bedlam of sleep. But what happened when that fragmented reality chose to leave the confines of the sleeping world to inhabit the waking one?
She had yet to dwell on such a frightening concept, for she was too busy fleeing from her tormentors, self-imposed or otherwise, waiting for Ruby to decide it was time to wake up to the light.
.
"Good morning, Ruby!"
Jackie jerked awake in time to see Penny thrusting open the curtains. The bubbly woman gazed down at the brunette with a dimpled smile before sitting on the edge of her bed.
"It's a lovely day out today," she said. "I was thinking about leading a group down to the river for some meditation. You wanna come?"
Jackie mumbled incoherently into her pillow before turning onto her side with a grunt. She drew the blanket over her head, and Penny respectfully took that as her cue to leave the room. Once the door was shut, Jackie rolled onto her back and closed her eyes, stretching her limbs to every corner of the bed like a starfish on the beach.
Five minutes passed and the birds became insistent with their songs, causing her to wrinkle her brow in annoyance. She blinked repeatedly to clear the sleep out of her eyes and absently ran her fingers through her hair. After a moment, she sat up, stretching her arms over her head as she tried to work the kinks out of her back.
Her bare feet made contact with the cold wooden floor and she hissed, again. She'd really have to get a throw rug in here or train herself to stop taking off her socks in the middle of the night.
After sorting herself in her private bathroom, Jackie padded over to the bureau and rummaged through the drawers until she found the clothes she would wear for the day. She then stacked the clothing neatly on the dresser and switched on the radio.
Steven Tyler's voice crackled through the speakers, and Jackie picked up her brush and began untangling the stray knots in her hair.
Every time that I look in the mirror
All these lines on my face getting clearer
The past is gone
It went by like dusk to dawn
The brush caught in her hair and she frowned. She was staring at the radio so intently that it looked as though she was trying to burn a hole through it with her vision.
Isn't that the way?
Everybody's got the dues in life to pay
"Shut your big fat mouth, Steven Tyler!"
She snapped off the radio dial with a click and gathered her clothes before stomping off to the showers. Her personal cabin was only equipped with a bed, bureau and a closet for a toilet and a sink. There was an entirely separate cabin for the showers: one for women and one for men. Luckily no one was in the women's showers this early in the morning, so Jackie could bathe in peace and soak up all the hot water.
She stood underneath the nozzle of the spray, feeling the water pound away at her heat-reddened skin, alleviating her stress. She let out a contented sigh and tilted her head back. One of the great things about this place was the unlimited hot water and how good it felt on her skin. She felt more relaxed now than, well, ever—at least according to her limited recollection.
She had even heard some good news from Point Place: her 'mother', Pam, had finally left. She had returned to Cuba or Mexico or whatever overpriced resort she had to slink her way back into to snag a rich man to fund her lavish lifestyle. Because she clearly realised that she wouldn't get a free ride from her daughter. Not with Ruby, anyway.
Everything was working out for Jackie now.
Well, maybe.
It still felt like there was a void in her life—a void that she couldn't name. It was like a gaping hole where all of her memories had tumbled into. Lost forever. She didn't feel connected to anyone or anything, and more than ever she had begun to feel disconnected.
Penny had suggested activities to help with her memory, aside from meditation. One of those activities was to start a diary, not just to record her current activities but to ask herself questions she often thought of but never vocalised aloud. Jackie had obliged the woman in secret and wrote a few pages here and there. They were mostly inquisitive and seemingly innocuous questions that would always come from odd moments of courage and self-loathing:
'Did I have any special talents? Was I a nice person? Did people like me? Was I ever in love? Did anyone really love me?'
The sentences were always erased within the next few minutes or, more often than not, drawn through with bold double lines. Two lines would become three, then four, then five—a myriad of verticals, diagonals, horizontals and even a few circles—until they all met together to form an indiscernible pattern.
Sometimes next to the smudge of ink she'd draw an arrow that pointed towards it and on the other end wrote, 'Word vomit!' But every time she'd rip the page out and crumple it in her fist before trying to sink it into the waste bin at the end of her bed. And she almost always missed. Then she'd turn her attention to her hands, staring intently at the ink stains on her fingers, imagining the blue smears as a sort of cancer—swelling and spreading, slowly breaking down her body until there was nothing left but bone.
And those were the good days.
"Hey! You'll prune up if you stay in there any longer!"
Penny rattled the shower door, scaring the hell out of Jackie. The brunette clutched at her chest like her heart was trying to escape its bone cage.
"Penny, you goober!" Jackie was huddled up against the side of the stall, trying to slow down her heart-rate. Her heart beat erratically for a few seconds, and she banged on the door after catching her breath. "Stop doing stuff like that! You're gonna give me a heart attack!"
Penny just laughed. "I thought you were trying to drown yourself."
Jackie wondered if Penny really believed that and if this was just an excuse to check up on her.
How long had she been in the shower, anyway? She glanced down at her hands and noted the puckered flesh with a grimace. Okay, so maybe she had been in there for too long.
"Coming for breakfast?" yelled Penny.
"Yeah, yeah." Jackie turned off the tap. "I'm coming! Hold your horses!"
After drying herself off and getting dressed, Jackie made her way to the main cabin to meet up with Penny. She meandered up the shovelled path, her boots crunching in the snow, when she glanced up to see a taxi waiting in the driveway.
A tall girl with long, straight honey-brown hair awkwardly stepped out of the vehicle. She was wearing what looked to be a cast boot on her right leg.
"Chloe?"
The tall girl turned around and a look of recognition sparked in her silver-grey eyes. "Hey!" She waved excitedly before hobbling towards Jackie. "Hey, how's it going, man?"
"Good." Jackie nodded slowly, tucking her hair behind her ears as the taxi slowly drove away. "I was wondering when you'd get here. I came here on my own, just like you suggested."
"That's awesome!" Chloe pumped an energetic fist in the air and grinned at Jackie before a nonplussed expression settled on her features. "Uhm, so who are you again?"
Jackie clucked her tongue along the roof of her mouth and nodded.
Yup, definitely Chloe.
⋆ 𖤓 ⋆
