The Beast and Me (28 page)

Day 88

I’ll try to stay away from Peter, because he torments Jay like that. It’s not fair. I wish I could say something about that yet I’m not supposed to know. So what else can I do?

It’s all I could think about as he brought me Breakfast. And now I keep asking myself if my reasoning is true, if it was him who had slashed up Jay, and I keep wondering why that happened in the first place. I didn’t ask Jay, I could ask Peter, but I won’t speak a single word to him anymore unless necessary, I won’t touch him, I won’t even look at him. It’s the last and only thing I can do for Jay.

When he checked on me, to get my tray, which I practically inhaled, Peter said something very strange to me. I didn’t expect him to say anything at all because seemingly we were back to ‘I-won’t-talk-until-you-start-talking’, but he looked straight at me, like I had paralyzed him, and I couldn’t help it but to glance up at him and stare back.

“You smell different.”

Probably he would have turned away and leave if my only reaction had been a confused, bewildered expression, but my heart jumped as if he sniffed out a secret. So he hesitated and I noticed that for a brief moment the tiny ring around his iris had expanded.

I really wonder if they read this or if White does, but I know better. It’s because of what Peter said. I just can’t... I can’t believe that he would report anything about me. And I know I should feel stupid for still believing that there is something good in him, that he has a reason for his behavior. God, it’s as if I know that there is something broken in him, which needs to be fixed. Like with Jay, but I am not the one, I can’t be, I won’t.

They took me to Doc, not to that room I had been in when Jay injured me that badly, no, the room I thought would be an interrogation room. Gray and Peter brought me there and Peter didn’t give me a single glance, stared straight ahead the whole way.

Somehow I guess I sensed that they wouldn’t get me to Jay. Maybe because it was the wrong time, maybe I have developed some sort of sixth sense, but most certainly it was because Peter was tensed differently, as if he was nervous.

I got a full examination.

The hours I spent there, with different doctors. Doc stayed with me the whole time, but she wasn’t the only one. Apart from the fact that she didn’t behave like we had met before, she was being all professional. Even though I didn’t want it to, that hurt.  Can you imagine: at first, when I saw her, I thought that I had been taken there to actually learn something that White had agreed. I cannot believe that I actually am that naïve still.

I don’t really want to go into any details. I don’t really want to remember it, or put it down into words. I know that’s not typical, because it usually helps me cope, but... I feel so sick, so dirty, so used.

No matter how hard I scrub my skin... I know I’m clean and I feel clean, but only on the outside.

Who is that girl in the mirror? She looks like me, but she is so different, on the inside. Everything about me is on the inside. For them. For him, White – Doctor Severin, the big boss. He was there.

It might be an interrogation room, but it’s a medical room as well. Maybe when torture becomes too messy, maybe when they need the subject to come back to consciousness or life, quickly... There’s everything there, everything that they need to do their examinations on me and on my insides.

How do I put this into words? It’s so different when someone forces that, like this guy in my cell, the one who maybe was ordered to do that, the one I still intend to kill. So different when you actually have to stay calm and silent and just get it over with. Take the yearly visit by the lady’s doctor and add being surprised by some creepy old guy and you might imagine what it felt like. Now replace that creeper with White.

I don’t care about needles, about blood and urine samples, about going on the treadmill. But again, that’s something on the outside of me. X-ray, fine. Ultrasound, sure. Again, just something on the outside. I can scrub that off. You know how it works when you go to the gynecologist. I doubt that he is one, yet he was still there and I can’t erase it, even though I closed my eyes. I wish I was good at acting.

I knew it. They all just want to get inside of me.

I showered so long. So long until the lights went out. I still don’t feel clean. Inside. And for the first time I hope that they don’t take me to Jay.

I just can’t. I barely keep it together right now. With him around I probably would break. And I cannot break. I have to be strong. Now more than ever.

White would never... I think I thought that. I doubt it now. But in the end, I’m just a subject, barely human in his eyes, worth less than what he has created. I’m Jay’s reward. Nothing more, nothing less. At least I was. What I am now, I can’t say. I mean... they didn’t tell me anything. What this was about, if they think what I think. If I am really...

Jay and I did it often enough that I have to be filthy and unclean for White and I hope, I pray and I beg that examining me was enough for him...

I hope that this won’t happen again soon. It’s been 88 days. That’s not three months. But it’s almost. Was it too early? Was it too late? I think they examined me when I was out after three weeks. So I have to go through this every two months?

No... Peter said that I smelled different.

And I feel different.

I try to tell myself that if I was pregnant, if that’s what it’s all about, which I am seemingly not, the examinations would be different. I know that they want me to be. I know that sooner or later I have to be. Or they would replace me. At least that’s what I reason from what White had said that night.

Then again, maybe I’m too important. But do I really have to be that important to White? I think if I continue to try to gain his affection it will become worse. I don’t want it to become worse. I know I wrote before that I am willing to accept his... ‘attention’ but now, somehow I can’t risk it, somehow I’m afraid.

It can’t be, can it?

I can’t concentrate on anything. Not even eating or workout. I force-fed myself Breakfast, forgot my Yoga and Tai Chi.

Jay... he told me not to visit every night and I really hope that he just thought I would stay true to that. I don’t want him to worry. I don’t want Peter to talk to him about it. I can only imagine what Jay’s going through and I don’t want to wonder about how often.

Why can’t we just share a room? Wouldn’t it make more sense? Do we have to earn it? Is that even possible? Or why does White keep us separate? I mean, he wants me to get pregnant. Isn’t the best way to lock us in together? Or doesn’t he trust Jay? Or me? Or we both combined? Is Jay that uncontrollable? Or... do they keep us separate so that they can play with our fears? He could still punish Jay by taking me away from him. Why does he separate us? I think it’s really that: controlling us through fear for each other.

Day 89

White came to visit me after Breakfast. Doctor Severin, still I prefer White. Giving him such a name degrades him just like he degrades Jay with calling him ‘Ten’.

I really try to keep up the facade, but it’s wearing me down, especially if I don’t know which reaction to expect. He’s freaking me out and honestly I would love to simply kill him.

Me. Thinking of actually killing someone, writing it down like that. It sounds so wrong, no one ever would believe it. I am the nice girl, the silent one, that doesn’t even step on a spider.

I had no idea what he wanted from me, and I got so tense that he could see my knuckles. My movements were robotic as he told me to sit down.

White ignored it.

“You have made some remarkable progress with Ten, I have to admit that”, he told me. “I am very proud of you.”

I think I thanked him for that, even though I felt like spitting my bile in his face.

As he placed his hands on my enfolded ones, with which I tried to keep myself together, I flinched. I flinched so hard that for a second I feared that my own muscles would break my bones. He definitely noticed this time, because his eyes moved to our hands, but didn’t react.

“You have promised to be a nice girl and – except for one time I had to remind – you have been true to this, and now your suggestion has kept me thinking. You know that I cannot trust you that easily. You must understand that. Apart from that there is enough staff around here. But there is a special task that is yours if you are willing.”

My mind, my reason, wanted to hesitate, pondering what kind of cruel, disgusting task, it might be, but I could hear my own voice telling him "Anything", almost in excitement.

And with that it was too late to take it back. He patted the back of my hand.

“So much enthusiasm”, he said. “Just to please me?”

I barely kept it together, barely held up my act, yet it was somehow enough to lower my eyelashes and look down, faking to blush.

“This can only happen if you can manage to behave 24-7 without me having to worry about your well-being and obedience.”

My ears rang: 24-7.

I felt my eyes wander up to his, questioning. I probably looked like a little girl that was promised to finally get her pony. And White looked back exactly like the kind of Dad who could afford it. Still, there was a glint of doubt left, but I didn’t dare ask for reassurance. I simply had to believe that he either was able to read minds or read my diary. Both theories are equally terrifying, but I convinced myself that this simply was coincidence.

“You will have to meet him no matter which state you both are in”, he continued and I turned back to staring at my table, trying to give his cryptic words some sort of sense, trying to find other possible interpretations.

“When we are sure that he won’t hurt you no matter what, and that you are able to endure this. You will have to stay with him."

My heart started beating that fast and wildly that I was sure that even White with his usual human hearing was able to hear it.

I’m not sure if I said anything or reacted in any way and I still don’t know what to think of this. Because now, after Lunch, I’m worried. This is too good to be true and, honestly, after almost three months, it seems like this doesn’t make any sense, does it? Because it makes perfect sense. I have proven that I am able to calm him down, bring him back to reason, no matter what. So putting us together would ensure that he would be reasonable 24-7. They still can play the fear-game with us, through threatening us with separation.

However, here comes the big, fat ‘but’:
BUT
if they know that I am pregnant...

White sincerely sounded like he wasn’t sure if Jay was really able to compose himself permanently. Yet, I still believe that those times he hurt me, that this hadn’t been him, and that there had been other influences destabilizing him. We hadn’t been together for that long; he didn’t know then how I would react, how I would feel for him. The second time definitely was an order by White and the first time... was the first time, right?

“Meghan”, White said my name and I don’t know where to begin explaining how much I hate it hearing him speak it out. “If I believe that it is possible for you to stay with him, you will have one task that is the most important of it all.”

I already knew it, so I didn’t need to prepare myself for what he said. I prepared myself to react the way he would expect of me.

“You will make sure that he will do everything for you”, White said and it wasn’t what I had expected.

I know that he wants me to become pregnant, to conceive a cross-species child. And here he was, telling me that I would have to do anything so that Jay would be fixated on me.

I must have stared blankly.

“You understand what I mean?”

Instinctively, I looked at him and it dawned on me. Severin only wrapped it into nice paper. He actually did tell me that I would have to have intercourse with Jay as often as possible without really telling me. I nodded.

I waited and waited and waited, but no one picked me up after Lunch. And I start to wonder if I got him wrong. Do I really expect that they will take me to him directly? I’m sure that White will do some more tests to make sure that I am safe during the night, or rather the time that I will spend with him. If he only knew that I already spend hours with him once and nothing happened. Or was he just fooling me? Trying to get my hopes up? To see my reaction? I wonder what will happen. If something is going to happen at all. I am sure that Severin has already made something up in his vicious and perverted mind.

I’m lying in bed now and somehow I know I shouldn’t visit Jay tonight. Yet, I want to,
SO
badly. Not for... no, not after that, but... he’s the only one I feel safe with, as crazy as it sounds.

He’s the only one I trust.

He might turn into a lethal creature, but...

Yes, I know I can’t say that he has never hurt me, but that was another time - even if it was less than three months ago. He recognizes me. Those times he was in chains, filled with rage. He still knew it was me. So what’s the point?

My body knows what it wants, apparently. It’s almost midnight, close to the first check up on me and I’m awake. I must have slept 1½ hours, but I guess I really need to see him so badly. I wonder if Peter will check on me. I’d better fake that I am sleeping. I can’t talk to him right now, even though I know he wants to. It would give me another opportunity. But I don’t want to. I think I can hear him, hear his steps. Are there more than one? I should...

He’s here. He’s actually here. Jay.

What... I don’t know how long he’ll stay here with me, but right now he is using MY shower. I told him he could take as long as he wants to. He’s here. He’s really here.

I couldn’t believe what I saw as the door opened. I first thought it was Peter, well actually it was Peter but he wasn’t alone and it wasn’t him, uncertainly saying my name. And I didn’t believe it, yet I answered.

"Yes?" and the lights were switched on.

"You’ve got a visitor", was all Peter said, as grumpy as possible, and the door was shut behind him.

Jay.

And there he was, standing in my room like a 14year old on his first date. I never thought that this man could be terrified by a room.

Okay, it’s all white on white apart from my books and the paintings. I blinked and I blinked heavily because I, Hell, I still don’t believe it!

Yes, I know that there is a camera in my room, but I really couldn’t think about it as he was still standing there after I pinched myself under the blanket.

So, I got up while he hadn’t moved an inch. I guess my heart was beating a waltz, I don’t know. I think nothing that I did was done out of reason. I just got over there, enfolded his face in my hands and kissed him and he wrapped his arms around me, pulling me closer like he couldn’t believe it himself. I just rested my head against his collarbone. I mean, that was all I wanted and he did nothing but simply hold me.

“You’ve got a nice room”, Jay murmured into my hair and his voice summoned goose bumps onto my skin.

I just hummed in agreement and inhaled deeply.

“Let’s give you a tour”, I joked and took his hand; instantly he interlaced his fingers with mine and I know I felt that I blushed.

So I showed him my table, my board with my books, the paintings on my wall, my bed and my bathroom. And that’s how it ended. I never ever experienced someone asking so shyly if he could take a shower. And I have to admit, despite everything, I really do want to join him.