"Did you fuck your sister?" Abbey asked.
"Nnnn..." AJ began sounding out the word, but something told him, deep down inside, that he shouldn't lie. Maybe it was Abbey's stark raving mad approach to the truth, or maybe it was the way she wore her sexuality on her sleeve. Maybe it was her insistence that it would happen, eventually, even if it hadn't already. Whatever the reason, AJ's word morphed into something ending with an "essss,"
"Ness? No-Yes? I knew it!" Abbey laughed.
"You're not mad?" AJ asked quietly, ashamedly.
"Why would I be mad?" Abbey said, but then she turned to him quickly. "She doesn't have STD does she?"
"No," AJ said. "I mean, I haven't asked her, but I would assume she doesn't."
"I'll ask her when we get there."
"Uhhh, that might be a bit difficult."
"Oh, she's at work?"
"No," AJ replied, his tone telling there was more to the story.
"No, she's not at work? Is she dead?"
"No!" AJ said, surprised she would go from the possibility of Candice being at work, straight to dead. "No, she's not dead. My parents sent her away."
"Sent her away? Like on a cruise? Come on AJ. Spill the beans here.
"Saint Margerine's Shelter for Mental Issues," AJ said.
"No fucking way," Abbey said, turning back around in her seat. "No fucking way. That fucking place is still open?"
"I guess so," AJ said.
"Everything online is taken down. They're probably running on private funding. Fucking insane asylum my ass," Abbey snarled.
"You know what it is?" AJ asked.
"Yeah, I've been there," Abbey said, and she elbowed the seat behind her as if fending off a mugger.
"Sorry," AJ said, seeing the subject had a devastating effect on her. "You wanna talk about it?"
"You my therapist?" Abbey asked, and then she sighed. "Yeah. I'll talk about it. A couple years ago, like right after I graduated, I went through a little bit of a wild streak. You know. 'I'm eighteen, you can't tell me what to do anymore, I'm an adult'. Yeah. Well, I found out some people have made it an art, keeping their thumb on the back of your neck."
"So your parents sent you there?"
"Yeah," Abbey said, nodding. "They said I needed to learn a lesson. How to be respectful, and how to appreciate all the things my parents do for me."
"I don't see how they can do that," AJ said. "Once you're eighteen, isn't that like kidnapping, body snatching, false imprisonment? Something like that?"
"Oh, on paper, it's all legal eagle. They have a psycho who asks you a bunch of questions when you get there, and then they use it against you, compounding it with what everyone else told them ahead of time, and they basically identify you as mentally unstable, and a danger to yourself, which gives them the legal authority to detain you, and imprison you, until you're 'cured'."
"So you were cured?" AJ asked. "What does that even mean?"
"It means, I played the game, I did what I had to, to get the fuck out of there." Abbey sat up, and AJ could tell she didn't like talking about it.
"I'm sorry that happened to you."
Abbey turned to him. "Stop saying your sorry. You didn't do it. Say it's fucked up or something. Just don't say you're sorry."
"That's fucked up," AJ said.
"It is."
"Do you still want to talk about it?"
"No. But go ahead and ask. I've got more questions for you anyway."
"Oh, okay. Uh, what was it like...in there?"
"It's basically a monastery that's been converted into this mock insane asylum. From the outside, It just looks like an old bank or something. Stone and cement. One set of doors. I was outside for maybe like, thirty seconds, so I can't even tell you where it's at. They never posted an address online, so I figure that's to prevent people from coming and picking up people if they escape, but you can't escape."
"Why not?" AJ asked.
"Because ninety percent of everythign happens on the third floor up, and above. The windows all have bars on them. You can't get out. There's no doors, one stairwell, no access to the roof."
"Sounds like a prison," AJ said.
"It is! It's fucking illegal prison, where your parents can just say you need to go, and they fucking come get you." AJ stopped himself from apologizing and instead said that it was fucked up. "It is. So basically, after you get kidnapped, drugged, and wake up in the psycho's office, he asks you a bunch of questions and then prescribes you medication. Basically, for the first week that you're there, you have no fucking clue what's going on. Slowly, you come around and realize, you're not in Kansas anymore."
"After that, like, week two, you're expected to start conforming. You gotta dress yourself, go to classes, all the usual bullshit."
"Like school?" AJ asked.
"Yeah, but it's a school for fucking psychopaths. Like, you sit and answer questions all day long, and you get rewarded for how many questions you get right. "Your mother says she's five dollars short on money for groceries. You have five dollars in your pocket. What do you do?" And then they give you answers like; Tell your mother to go to hell. Give your mother the five dollars and tell her she can pay you back, with interest. Give your mom the five dollars and tell her she doesn't have to pay it back, you're happy to do your share to help out. Or, slap the fuck outta your mom and tell her she needs to put back five dollars worth the groceries."
"I'd just give it to her," AJ said.
"Yeah, no shit. The answers are obvious. But some of these fucking idiots think the wrong answers are the right answers. Those...those bitches belong there."
"Well, if that's all that-"
"No. Are you fucking kidding me?" Abbey asked, turning in her seat to face him again.
"My bad. I thought that was it. Shit. I was hoping...is all."
"Fuck no. Let's see. Week two, the guards, sorry, 'custodians', start making passes at you. Depends on if you're pretty or not, but the reality is, they don't care. New pussy is reason enough. By week three, if you're not fucking one or more of them, you're hurting. They will fuck with you, to no end. They'll take your clothes. They'll humiliate you. They'll grab you up and make some shit up, send you to solitary, or stand you in the corner."
"Stand you in the corner?" AJ asked unable to believe they'd do some childish shit like that.
"For hours. Days if they have to. And the bitches you get housed with are no different. After a month of torture, you're reaching out to anyone you can. After two months, you've become one of the hive. You do whatever anyone else asks you to do, whenever they ask you to do it, no matter how fucked up or depraved."
AJ shook his head, again feeling her frustration and her pain. He wanted to tell her he felt sorry for her, but he knew that would just get her pissed off again.
"So how did you get out?" AJ asked.
"I passed the test. I did whatever I had to do."
"Like a written exam?"
Abbey elbowed the seat three times, as hard as she could, which was pretty hard for such a woman of her petite size.
"No," Abbey said. "The head psycho, he sends one of the goons to fetch you. You never know when it's going to be, what he's going to ask, but you try and pull yourself together, right? You try to put on an innocent face and go in there like you're the perfect little angel. You're ready to confess all the bad shit you used to do, and tell the guy, everything, everything in life, is your fault. But, you're ready to make amends, as soon as you can."
Abbey swiped her phone and then pressed the button on the side, and then slipped it into her pocket. "Let's go. Just drive so I can talk. If you're driving, I can talk and kind of just space out."
"Okay," AJ said, and he started the car up and headed for the expressway.
"The goon who came to get me yanked me out of bed in the middle of the night. Three a.m. He uh...after he had his way with me, he dragged me through the hall, down the stairs, and then dropped me on the floor in the psycho's office. I thought...I thought there was no way I was getting out. Not in that condition. Naked...shit draining out of me on the floor."
"Jesus Christ," AJ said.
"Well, apparently, I answered all the questions correctly. I basically lied my ass off. He didn't even ask me to get up and sit in a chair. I was just, right where he wanted me to be. On the floor. Broken."
"And then they just let you go?"
"Yeah. Like, he literally said; 'You're free to go. Go get cleaned up. Get dressed. Get ready to go."
"That's crazy."
"That's fucked up," Abbey said. "And at seven a.m. my parents were in a car, waiting for me to leave. I walked out the doors, and someone opened the back door for me, I got in, and my parents drove away. When I got home, I took my uniform and I burned it."
"You burned it?"
"I burned that fucker. I changed my clothes, I went right out in the back yard where we have this little fire pit for special occasions, grilling, and shit, and I put my uniform in the pit, doused it with lighter fluid, and lit that shit on fire. My mom came running out, asking me what I was doing, and I just turned around and smiled at her, and I told her I was going to make hot dogs. Like it was nothing. And I did. I went and got some hot dogs and I made food for everyone. Cooked It over my burning clothes."
"Did you eat one?" AJ asked.
"Nope. That shit is made of polyester and nylon. Literally, everything melted and burned for so long. They thought the hot dogs were burned they were so black from the smoke."
"That's gross," AJ said.
"Uh huh," Abbey said. "And after that, I made everything black. It's my poison for everyone else."
"That's why you wear black?" AJ asked.
"Yup. And when my parents ask me, I tell them it's the only acceptable color for my uniform."
"You still wear-"
"No. My clothes. I call them a uniform. I try to remind my parents of what they put me through, every single day."
