Captive Girl (4 page)

And laughs.

She hears a motorized whine, and looks up to
see Jayna peering down at her. “There’s a bug in your
hair.”

She pats the grass next to her. “Come on down.
I’m sure there’s plenty to go around.”

Soon, they are released from the hospital and
are given their own apartment, where Alice thrills over being able
to do little things like prepare her own food, sleep in a bed,
bathe herself, walk. And every day, she and Jayna analyze unusual
data from the surveillance computers, doing their part to keep the
colony safe. It is so much more than she’s ever had. It should be
enough.

But she is lonely.

No one touches her anymore. No one whispers
endearments in her ear speakers. No one makes her tremble, makes
her head heavy with desire, makes her feel flush and warm all the
way down and fluttery in the middle.

No one calls her beautiful.

In fact, from the sidelong glances she gets
whenever she goes out, she knows she’s lucky that no one bothers to
comment on her looks at all.

“
Well, that was new,” Jayna says as
they wheel into their shared apartment. “I don’t think we’ve made a
little kid cry before.”

“
Maybe the chairs scared
him.”

Jayna shoots her a glare. “Face it, we’re
hideous. Freaks of science. It’s a life of spinsterhood for us. At
least for a while you had…well, whatever it was you
had.”

“
She won’t talk to me,” Alice
murmurs.

“
You don’t fit her fetish
anymore.”

“
It wasn’t a fetish.”

“
I’m not saying that fetishes are
bad things. Hell, I’d love to find someone whose kink I fit.
There’s got to be someone out there into scar tissue and
wheelchairs.” She wrinkles her mashed nose. “Then again, maybe I
should just put in for plastic surgery. Maybe they’ll give me
dating lessons too. ‘Hi, I just learned to pee all by myself again.
Wanna go out?’”

“
I don’t think that’ll work,” Alice
says. She levers herself out of her wheelchair and grabs her
crutches. She is determined to be walking unaided as soon as
possible.

“
You’re probably right. I could try,
though. I mean, what would it hurt?”

With a smile, Alice says, “You never know. You
could get lucky.”

Jayna laughs. “Yeah. I guess I need to find
just the right fetishist of my own—”

Alice whirls around, nearly losing her delicate
balance. “Will you stop calling her that?”

“
What do you care what I call her?
It’s not like she stuck by you or anything.”

Alice looks down at her feet. “I know. But I
still miss her.”

“
So do something about it
already.”

“
But she won’t see me.”

“
She’s fine with seeing you. She
just doesn’t want you to see her back.”

Alice’s head snaps up, her eyes focusing beyond
the room. That’s it. Why didn’t she see it sooner?

“
Thanks,” she whispers, and clops
down the hall on her crutches.

“
For what?” Jayna asks.

But Alice doesn’t answer. She hobbles into her
room, sits down heavily at the computer, and types out a
message.

“
Marika. I have a proposal. I think
we can make this work. Please come visit me. Bring a
mask.”

She gets an answer within moments. “I’ll be
there.”

*

Marika arrives the next day. Alice has asked
Jayna to answer the door for her and bring Alice the mask. It is a
white full-faced hood, and the eyes, ears, and mouth are taped
over. Sitting in her mechanized wheelchair, Alice pulls a keypad
onto her lap, tugs the mask over her head, lining up the nostril
holes so she can breathe, and freezes in sudden panic.

She is crippled again.

This won’t work. It can’t work. She can’t go
back to this. At least last time, it was for selfless reasons, but
now—

The muffled sound of approaching footsteps
snaps her mind out of its panicked spiral. Through the plastic and
the tape, she hears the bedroom door close, a body sink into a
chair.

She lets out a long breath. No. She has to try.
Besides, she can stop it at any time. She has that power
now.

Alice carefully positions her hands over the
keypad and types, “Can you look at me this way?”

There is a long pause, then through the tape,
she faintly hears Marika answer, “Yes…I…I think so.”

The panic screams at her from the animal parts
of her brain, but after ten years strapped helplessly into a chair,
she’s gotten good at ignoring her flight response. “Do you think
you can love me this way?” she asks.

She feels a shaking hand touch the plastic over
her face, then jerk away. “I don’t know. It’s not…it doesn’t look
like you.”

“
We can have a new mask built. It
can look just like the old one.”

“
But you…” The hand flutters to her
chest. “The tubes are gone.”

“
I know.”

“
And…the walker…”

“
I can stay in the wheelchair for
you.”

“
It’s not the same. You’re… I know
you’re whole under there. I know you can get out of that chair,
pull off that hood. You’re not my captive girl any
longer.”

“
I know. But I’m willing to pretend.
Isn’t that enough?”

She hears a sigh. “I don’t know.”

“
Well let’s find out.”

“
Alice, I…I’ve never felt this way
about anyone else. Never.”

“
I haven’t either.”

“
What if it’s because of the mask?
What if I can’t love you out of the chair? I’m terrified that we’ll
try and…”

Alice nods. “I know.”

“
At least if I walk away, I can’t be
disappointed.”

“
But it’ll still hurt.”

There’s silence, and she hopes she’s struck a
nerve.

Finally, Marika says, “This isn’t normal. You
deserve normal.”

Alice laughs behind the plastic. “Honestly, I
wouldn’t know what to do with normal. Not after…” Not after her
senses were hijacked. Not after she spent over half her life
crippled and strapped to a walker. Not after she sacrificed her
childhood so that other children wouldn’t have to. She lifts her
fingers from the keypad and clenches them into fists.

Gentle hands clasp her fists and massage them
until they relax.

“
You deserve someone who loves you
for what you are,” Marika says. “Not for what we made
you.”

Alice lays her hands back on the keypad and
types, “It’s too late for that. I am what you made me. And now I
need you to love me again. You can put me in the old mask, and the
old chair. I’ll be the old me for you, and the new me when you’re
not around.”

Marika clasps the mask and rests her forehead
on Alice’s. “God, I missed you.”

“
We’ll make this work,” Alice types.
“We have to.”

*

Marika’s doorbell rings four times. That’s the
signal.

Alice logs off of the work database and closes
her eyes, letting a deep breath out through her nose.

This is never easy. But these are the
rules.

She grabs her canes and limps over to the
walker. It’s a terrifying contraption — one that she’d never seen
with her own eyes for all the years she spent in it. Dull metal,
faded padding, straps and buckles, and that rail circling the
entire thing, trapping the occupant inside.

Trapping her inside.

But she doesn’t need to look at it for
long.

She pulls off her clothes, straddles the chair,
and carefully connects the seat/body interface until it is just
right. Then she pulls on the thin cotton gown, tying only the very
top tie, letting the rest hang loosely off of her still-thin
frame.

And then there’s the mask.

This is the hardest part.

It takes several deep breaths for her to work
up the courage. But she finally closes her eyes and pulls it over
her face, making sure the breathing tubes and ear plugs are
perfectly aligned before tightening the straps around her shaved
scalp, sealing her inside the sound- and light-proof
prison.

It’s always heavier on her face than in her
hands, and she sags forward, shuddering under the
weight.

She slides her hands into the thumbless mittens
that are now permanently strapped to the rail. Marika won’t walk in
until she uses their controls to type the all clear.

And she hesitates, just like she does every
day.

No. This is love. And love requires sacrifice.
Hers is just more tangible than most.

She steels herself, then types, “I’m
ready.”

She feels the air change as the door opens, and
there are hands strapping her into the mittens, trapping her in the
chair until morning.

And as always, panic grips her with that
realization.

But then hands and lips roam all over her, and
she’s lost.

Also by Jennifer Pelland

“Pelland handles difficult topics with
assured storytelling chops, bringing us to the brink of tears,
fear, desire, and beyond. Worth your time AND money AND sincere
attention.”
—Steven Gould, author of
Jumper

UNWELCOME BODIES

Seven short stories, three novelettes, and one
novella of dark science fiction including “Captive Girl,” from
multiple Nebula Award nominee Jennifer Pelland. Author commentary
is provided at the conclusion of each tale.

Pain. Pleasure. The sensation of touch.we feel
everything through our skin, that delicate membrane separating "I"
from "other," protecting the very essence of self.

Until it breaks. Or changes. Or
burns.

What would you do if you were the one called
on to save humanity, and the price you had to pay was becoming
something other than human? Or if healing your body meant losing
the only person you've ever loved?

Wander through worlds where a woman craves
even a poisonous touch, a man's deformities become a society's
fashion, genetic regeneration keeps the fires of Hell away, and
painted lovers risk everything to break the boundaries of their
caste system down.

Separate your mind from your flesh and come
in.

Welcome.

Find out more at
Apex
Publications
and other fine
bookstores.

MACHINE

Celia's body is not her own, but even her
conscious mind can barely tell the difference. Living on the
cutting edge of biomechanical science was supposed to allow her to
lead a normal life in a near-perfect copy of her physical self
while awaiting a cure for a rare and deadly genetic
disorder.

But a bioandroid isn’t a real person. Not
according to the protesters outside Celia’s house, her coworkers,
or even her wife. Not according to her own evolving view of
herself. As she begins to strip away the human affectations and
inhibitions programmed into her new body, the chasm between the
warm pains of flesh-and-blood life and the chilly comfort of the
machine begins to deepen. Love, passion, reality, and memory war
within Celia’s body until she must decide whether to betray old
friends or new ones in the choice between human and
machine.

Find out more at
Apex
Publications
and other fine
bookstores.