I woke the next morning, stiff, nauseous, and instantly in the grip of anxiety. Given the disorder of my bed and soaked then dried quality of my sheets, it seemed the Freedom had not gone quietly. However, as I took in deep gulps of air to calm myself, the intense need for sex, to fuck and be fucked, to humiliate myself and others did not come rolling back. The feeling of a passenger in my head urging me towards depravity was gone. I raced to the mirror and had my hopes confirmed: no extra ring of that eerie green in my eyes. The Freedom, whatever it was, had taken leave, I concluded.
After a moment of relief, the events of the night before rushed back over me. My queasiness exploded from the background, twisting my stomach in knots. I raced to the bathroom and dry heaved impotently, tears rushing from clenched tight eyelids. While I knew, logically, The Freedom had been in control, emotionally, I was stuck on the reality that was my body defiling my mother and being defiled by her.
As my stomach came to terms with the memories, I shoved my face underneath the bathroom sink water spout and slurped greedily. I could not think of a time I'd ever been as thirsty. Even when I felt sated, by the time I had dried my face, my mouth felt arid again. It was three sessions of guzzling before the thirst felt dealt with.
Slaked, I stared at myself in the mirror, noting that the changes The Freedom had enacted on me, such as the thinner thighs and the better hair, remained. Seeing my flesh only further reminded me of what I had done the night before. To suppress what felt like the beginnings of more dry heaves or a panic attack, I ran from the bathroom back to my room. I had to get dressed.
As I returned, I noticed for the first time the state of my room. If you told me it had been sacked by a task force hunting for drugs, I would not have questioned the truth of that. Drawers pulled out and cast aside, seemingly at random, a pile of hangers, many bent out of shape, sat in a haphazard pile in the closet. I paced the room, searching for any scraps of clothing and found almost nothing.
Somehow, after looking high and low I managed to assemble an outfit. Under normal circumstances, I would have deemed it too ridiculous to leave the house in, but I knew I had to make compromises in this case. Disconcertingly, I didn't recognize the pieces of it as my own. A short tartan skirt, argyle knee high socks, black spit polish saddle shoes, a light blue button shirt, dark blue varsity sweater, and a black, very lacy bra and thong set. My mother, I had reasoned, must have stolen all my clothes early on in the night last night, I reasoned. Sometime after I changed into my yoga clothes and before we... I stopped myself from completing the thought.
"Desperate times," I mumbled and began to put on the strange outfit. A quick glance in the bathroom mirror confirmed my expectations. After repeatedly complaining in my gender studies class about the kind of perverts that asked women to dress as schoolgirls or cheerleaders, I looked like their wet dreams given flesh.
"Only clothes I've got," I argued with my reflection and forced myself to stop staring. I had to admit that, for the first time, I could somewhat understand the appeal.
Grimly, I concluded I could no longer put off the last task on my list: checking in on my mom's state. I walked the first floor to find no sign of her. The vial of whatever she had injected me with still lay in the center of the hall, half full of the odd green liquid. I read the label, Dr. Grispo, her new therapist, was the apparent prescriber, and it was to be injected. Besides that, however, there was no mention of what the medication was called, what it treated, warnings about side effects, how often to take it and so on. Everything you'd expect to see on a prescription label was missing. I forced the vial into my bra, so the authorities could use it to arrest Grispo and figure out what the hell it was. Confident my mother was definitely not on the first floor, I resolved to move on.
Steeling myself, I crept down to the cellar, body tensed and ready to run, slutty schoolgirl costume or not. The basement was nearly silent, only the mechanical thrum of the water heat breaking the soundless monotony. Tension slid off me like water cascading down a waterfall.
"Mom?" I called out, "Mom? Are you there?"
I heard a mumble coming from the closet, weary and confused.
"Okay, Mom, just relax. I'll let you out and...I guess we can try to figure this out," I assured her, my voice shaky with a mix of guilt and thankfulness that my mother did not sound like the...creature she had been the night before.
The door to the storage closet, however, gave me pause. It was open slightly, splintered around where the padlock was latched. The lock now lay ineffectually on the floor nearby.
I froze, ready to flee. Again, the muffled moan sounded and I forced myself to find the source. What I found did little to alleviate my concerns.
Slumped in a chair, nasty bruise on his head, was our neighbor Mr. Barron. Forty-ish, athletic, and handsome with salt and pepper hair, I always figured he was a fantasy figure for most of the ladies of the neighborhood. His presence in my basement in that state was not a good sign.
I shook him until he roused, groggy and confused.
"Wendy?" he mumbled, eyes struggling to focus, "What are you wearing?"
"Hard to explain, sir," I said, gingerly touching the ugly purple mass on his forehead and seeing a matching egg jutting out on the back of his head.
He hissed in pain before asking, "Is your mom okay?"
"No, Mr. Barron...I don't think so."
As I helped him to his feet he began to relate how he ended up there, "I was walking the dog this morning and I saw your mother. She was in your front yard sort of stumbling around, babbling and naked. She seemed like she had escaped an attack or a torture session...I don't know how to describe it. Not good though.
"So I approached her and she seemed relieved to see me. She was practically begging for help. I told her I was there and I'd make sure she was safe and got help when Gordo just barking and snarling like crazy. I turned to calm him down and then I felt this really sharp pain in the back of my head. I tried to see who hit me, but before I got a glimpse the plank of wood hit me again. It must have knocked me out because I have no idea how I got here."
"Okay, we'll just get you out of here and get those bruises checked, make sure you don't have a concussion or anything," I said, rushing him toward the stairwell.
"Wait," he requested, "Your mom! Have you seen her? Whoever hit me might have attacked her too. Maybe that's why—"
I cut him off brusquely, "It's not but we really don't have time to talk about that now. I'll explain later."
I steadied/dragged him to the stairs just as the door eases open. Glimpsing my mother's bare leg I immediately turned Mr. Barron around and began to push him towards the hatchway.
"But Wendy, your mom? She was righ—"
"I told you, we'll talk about her when we get out of her!" I scolded, my face making it clear I was not screwing around.
I pushed him through the hatchway door and pull it closed behind us. Without thought, I grabbed a piece of splintered wood off the floor and shoved it under the base of the door, making a reverse door stop. I did not have to wonder for long where the wood came from. As I turned around, the answer was made obvious.
The staircase was, to be blunt, no more. Shards of wood were scattered through the small concrete room, the twin metal doors stood above us, just out of reach.
