Captive Girl Read Online Free PDF Page A

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,