FORTY-ONE

Body Parts and Mind Pieces

As Catherine accompanies Tristan to the competing area for the next mini-contest, which will be held at 9 a.m., she must remind herself not to walk so very close to him. She must remind herself that she raised a wall.

What was his purpose, doing what he did? Because there was a purpose. Because it was so unlike him, because he’s always all about himself. And my body, it was just being a body, responding, not giving a damn about what truly matters, about not being a mere animal that just responds to stimulation. And now, now it just wants to be near the body that gave it that kick, because it’s a body and it’s stupid and it’s empty and just appalling. Wicked and shameful. It’s let me down before, over the last year, just for brief moments, shutting down my mind and shutting out the all-important why behind my physical entanglement with Tristan: his prisoner, on penalty of death. If his body were like most men’s, my body wouldn’t react to his this way. But you don’t get to win, body: I’m not a man. I’m stronger, not addicted to your whims. I’m finer art to your most petty and basic . . . I . . . I wonder if it’s a sunny day outside, she digresses, as she once again separates herself from Tristan, but not in an obvious manner, not with exaggerated spatial allowance, since that would anger him.

That he is not only not tremendously annoyed at the new obstacle that she has put up, which she sees as a different kind of wall than the one that has been within her since they met, but that it appears that he has not even noticed it, annoys Catherine tremendously. Tristan, however, has detected it, but the paper structure, as he sees it, just does not present an obstacle for him. It is truly not one of her stronger barriers.

The men who couldn’t stay away from me, who couldn’t stop themselves after they were around me for a while, the ones who ended up dead because Tristan saw their inappropriate behaviour towards me as a betrayal, well, what’s happening to me now? She considers. Am I now a victim of my own bad luck, in this way? After being around Tristan non-stop for this while, this weekend . . . He isn’t affected by it, but he’s affected me, here? What is this?! But I know what I don’t want, and I know what I do want: to get away. This is no world for me.

If Tristan were asked why he pleasured Catherine, either a master-dogma explanation would fall from his lips, or something referring to his boredom at that moment, and just looking for something to do. Simple.

The mention of applying his tongue’s delicate, most attentive embrace to her nether area, as well as his words about watching her pleasure herself in the future, were master-dogma at play in the sense that the words were meant to throw her off balance, exactly as they did, and as he knew that they would. Since Catherine is expected to trust her master and, therefore, to always accept more as she is commanded by him and gives up control of herself and of her life, limits have to be pushed, in order that she be tested. The dual slaps were a necessary show of force when she resisted, and further nurtured the imbalance, the creation of which, in a submissive, allows for her master to then be in a position to offer her balance and steadiness, which is a gifting that makes her naturally appreciative, thankful and grateful, which in turn leads to appreciation of her master himself, as the provider of that balance.

So many pages in the Dominant playbook, ways all tried, tested, and true, methods that masters have shared with each other and continue to, as in the case of breaking a woman who does not quite submit. Older masters use nicer words, younger ones not so much, but the message always gets through, is always spread around, reaching everywhere, since the male collective is expertly efficient in communicating with all the men of the world, and in keeping them all in line and working towards the same goal. Trends with the purpose of grooming women into accepting what men want consequently pop up simultaneously all over the world, and perceptive women notice them all around them, much to their chagrin, while other women are expertly played, fooled, much to the former women’s horror.

Master Tristan’s words and behaviour were thus typical, in his quest to have Catherine’s mind -- whatever that means to him -- and to therefore constructively keep her off balance. Purpose indeed. Discipline, after all, is restraint as well as mind over matter, over body, which is precisely what Catherine is demanding of herself, just as Tristan demands it of her for himself as well.

As she yet again steps closer to her master as they walk towards the contest area, as she once more finds herself right beside him, so close and step in step, Catherine yanks her own leash in order to tear her body away from his yet again, and not because she wishes to adhere to the rule of proper spacing between submissive and master, a rule that even masters themselves break.

This is madness. I’m completely nude, covered in come, surrounded by men who are fully dressed, and I’m a slave to everything. Maybe I’ve already gone mad. Lost all control to my body. To the ways of the masters.

Which isn’t new: he’s forced you all year to obey, to be and to do exactly what he’s wanted. He’s faced all your walls, broke right through them, and he’s been crossing in and out again through all those breaches, all year, healer cuts in.  

He can’t break  just any wall of mine. Are you saying that he can? That I might as well not even try? That this is to be my life? Nothing more? She asks, unsteadily.

Over a year ago, I worked hard to stop you from going over the rails. I built strong walls to help you, and they stand firm. But I don’t have much faith in your wall right now, because it’s built atop shifting ground.

I’m not shifting in any way. And . . .  build me a stronger one, then.

It’s not you. You’re being helped to shift this way and that. And I no longer have materials to build.

What help? You mean all the masters and all their words?  I can see right through it all. I remember what my friends said, my older friends, on the streets. So much about men that . . .

Even, Catherine, healer warns.

Silence within.

He’s not quite in the good mood that he was in, but he’s not in a foul mood either. Why can’t he sense my conviction? Is he dumb, or am I so insignificant? She wonders, refusing to let go, since her newest wall is most important to her. My punishments this weekend . . .

In the first instance, all that you had to do was take your clothes off.

My mind objected.

And then, you wiped him off you, healer reminds her.

His mind objected. Well, I’m not in a good mood.

That’s irrelevant. You have to do what you have to do to survive, to see another day. In his world, because this is his world. And, uh, how close are you standing to him right now?

Catherine realizes that she stopped right next to Tristan, when the two reached the gathering area, and she therefore once more discreetly steps away from her master, just as the host begins to describe the next mini-contest.

Even, Catherine. Check your moodiness. For everyone’s sake. Yours more than everyone else’s, right now.

They can all go to hell.

Catherine!

Tristan’s living-canvas sends a hand to her chest, and its fingers spread open between her breasts. They attempt to push into her, to her heart, but, failing, then close in towards themselves as if claws, until a fist rests nestled within the divide of her feminine treasure, treasure as seen by men, as seen without cause, without natural reason.

The host reveals that the competition at hand will not once more center on masters showing off their wondrous increased power of release, but that rounds of guessing games involving body parts will instead be undertaken by everyone participating in weekend play.

“I remember a movie where a masquerade had all the women naked, of course, and at the service of the dicks of the clothed men. It pissed me off, how they were all naked for men watching the movie to appreciate, but how all the men were covered up,” a non-refundable tells no one in particular. “Why aren’t the men here masked? Why aren’t they protecting their identity, after being the asses that they’ve been all weekend?”

Good question, Catherine replies in her mind.

“It’s a man’s fantasy world to see the boobs of all the women around him, at all times,” another replies.

“Not the old sagging ones. I’ve decided that I’m just getting mine surgically chopped off after they sag. Figure that’ll spare me breast cancer too.”

Catherine is not the only woman in the area who frowns at those words, and this frown is still on her face when the host reveals that the body part central to each guessing game will be the only visible part of a body for that round, that a black curtain will hide the rest.

“In the first round, females will stand on steps that equalize their height in order that their breasts, which will be the body part spotlighted during this first round of the contest, all line up evenly. Masters will then have to guess which breasts are their submissive’s, after looking at each pair in the collection before them. Play groups will consist of ten masters and their submissives. Many guessing rounds will therefore occur simultaneously, throughout the ballroom,” he adds.

The host next informs the women that each work station’s number is now attached to a description of the breasts of the living-canvas being designed there, thanks to contest attendants discreetly accomplishing that recording task for the purposes of this contest. The fleshy mounds of the professional females in the shows as well as those of the non-refundables in the extras pool were evaluated as well, in order that all competitive groupings be of breasts that are similar in shape and size, since guessing would otherwise be too easy. Submissive breasts left out of a grouping at the end of all the combining were therefore joined to a set of similar looking mounds chosen from the extras and the professionals, in order to allow for fair competition. Since contest attendants are so very efficient, lists of  the sets of similar breasts are in their hands as the host speaks, ready for quick use.

What horrible work that must have been, looking for breast matches, Catherine sarcastically comments, before the two submissives who most recently visited Tristan’s work area -- that is, the two with similar breasts to her own -- once again line up with her in her mind, as a set. She wonders if they will be in her grouping and doubts that Tristan could tell the three of them apart if they were. That thought does not improve her mood, not that anyone is aware of this frame of mind from looking at her, since she is presently in control of herself. Even of her eyes, which are always the first to betray her.

The recollection of the light touch of Tristan’s tools, as commanded by his careful hand, as well as of her skin feeling as if it is on fire attempts to fill her mind, but fails. Just enough of what could be remembered comes to her to allow her to be quite pleased with herself at this successful shutdown.

There. Take that.

Catherine, your own behaviour, your own mood are not helpful at all. To maintain a hold over yourself, over your mind, you . . .

Shut up, she snaps back at healer.

Not that I’m pushing for you to give in, to give up.

My behaviour is what it should be: I’m here, aren’t I? Just waiting to “play.”

When attendants call out the work station numbers that make up each collection of ten matched body parts, the women with similar breasts walk towards their grouping, and their masters follow. The number of Tristan’s work station, which is Catherine’s number in effect, is called out and interrupts her thoughts. She takes a deep breath as she turns her face towards her gathering area, and notices then that some of the weekend submissives do not know the number of their station, even though it is clearly displayed in each area on the divider wall behind the table, and even though they have returned to this station over and over again this weekend.

Didn’t they stare at it during the first master sleep cycle, when there was nothing else to do? They obviously just followed their master all weekend. Master knows best . . . She adds, restraining her eyes from a loop-to-loop as she walks ahead of Tristan, to her set. Take that, body, empty shell of a body, silly body, stupid body: I don’t need Tristan to tell me where to go. I have a brain. My own mind.

The words are still echoing in her mind when she is somewhat startled by black curtains ascending almost simultaneously in thirty areas within the grand room. The noise that they make as they do, as they displace the air around them, is first to reach her senses, but then, the sudden appearance of walls and the sudden darkness interspaced here and there through them are registered by her eyes, either head on, peripherally, or through angles in between, and their presence changes the room for her, the feel of it.

The cloth panels now added to the peculiar incarnation of the ballroom this weekend hang from ropes that reach up to rings attached to the high ceiling, with the curtain part stretching only seven or eight feet off the floor. The cables located higher than the material are made to do their thing through the easy and light work of fingers at the video capture and mixing board, from which the screens all over the room are now also once again brought to life. Catherine’s eyes register their flickering on, register their readiness to reveal the “goodies” of curtains everywhere in the grand room, since from no point within it can all competing areas be seen at once.

After taking in the effect of it all, Tristan’s submissive pushes away consideration of the room’s temporary makeover and, after a few more steps, pauses before the curtain that is hers. That is, that is her breasts’.

“Behind the curtain, please,” an attendant immediately orders her. No time to lose.

Once she and the nine other women of her set have stepped behind their group’s screen, attendants prepare the submissives’ breasts for show. As Catherine’s are being manipulated by cold male hands that she very much resents both for this coldness and for their disrespect -- just going at her like they are -- she hears the host reveal what body parts the following guessing games will focus on, his voice throughout the ballroom once more speaking things that Catherine continues to find quite odd to hear echoing in such a grand room.

The second guessing game will involve the women’s genital area, with competitive groupings once again decided by contest attendants’ careful comparison of all female nether regions, with their work documented in words and picture under the women’s individual work station number. Their master’s. Similarity at each curtain will thus continue to make guessing more challenging for the masters.

Behinds will come next, in the third guessing contest, and, lastly, lips, in the fourth. Those from the face. Thus, the four choicest parts of a female’s body -- parts that most certainly receive the most attention from men, that male eyes are most often upon and/or appreciative of -- will therefore in turn be focused upon during the rounds of the masters’ guessing portion of this mini-contest. Each round will be worth a point to a master who guesses correctly, who recognizes his female from her body part.

The submissives will then take their turn at guessing as well, and so, black curtains will first allow only manhoods to peep out, to fall out, and then, just rear-ends to be seen, followed by just lips, and, finally, by just eyes. The women’s four rounds of competing will also be worth a point each for the master/submissive team, if they recognize their master by his parts.

All about the body.

“So, did attendants go around writing down the look of dicks and balls by station number as well, then? But isn’t it just silly to think that packages look in any way different from each other?” A non-refundable ridicules. “Especially when not hard.”

“If they’re joined together by size, at a curtain, then what does make a dick look different? Guess hair colour down there’ll be the same too,” another adds.

“I think that masters would’ve noticed a man studying their package. Tends to annoy straight men.”

“But we, on the other hand, have ‘art’ for men to study, and we’re never, ever to be annoyed . . . ”

“Submissives should know their master’s dick and eyes very well, since they occupy a female’s line of sight the most, and since they’re the ones that must be pleased and obeyed, read and satisfied. Lips are on his face, so maybe, but as for his ass? When a submissive’s at her master’s ass, how much sight is even at play?” A master considers out loud.

“Is he for real? He thinks that his dick’ll stand out in a line-up of similar ones because, what, it has a personality that she should know?!” A non-refundable counters, from behind the curtain. All the women heard the man’s words. He is now walking away, heading towards the other masters of the guessing line.

“Well, if that’s so, then we have to reconsider the whole oral sex thing, because, if a dick has personality, and a man’s real head is empty and irrelevant -- God knows that it has no control -- then his shoving a woman’s face and all that she is down to his dick is actually meant to be a powwow of personalities. Who knew . . . ” Another woman sarcastically adds, inciting a rolling of the eyes or of some other facial expression along the same line to appear on every screened woman’s face within audible range.

“They don’t even use the women’s eyes for a guessing round,” a different non-refundable comments, shaking her head. She stands right next to Catherine, in line. Her hair is jet black and she has a mole on the right side of her face. “Because the masters just don’t look into their slave’s eyes, do they? And doesn’t that say it all? They don’t care who you are. I do all this s**t, but I get paid, and I’m not brainwashed. But I know that you, Tristan Maller’s property, you most definitely are brainwashed,” she adds to Catherine. “You’re much too calm. Much too accepting of all of this crap.”

The words infuriate Catherine, but she does not respond to them out loud. I’m not brainwashed. I believe in none of this. In none of this nonsense. And it is nonsense. But I still have to participate. I still have to do it all. Because of him, for him. Or else. Or else he hurts me. He rids himself of me. So what would be the point, then, in not being calm, when it just has to be? I can’t change the rules. I can’t make the rules. I’m just a female in his world.

“If all of you whores didn’t accept to get paid to do all this crap, if there were no women like you in the world, then this weekend couldn’t even be, wouldn’t even happen,” a true submissive points out. “Because without you, all the masters here would have had to have found a true submissive in order to participate in this weekend play, and in any play. And yes, there’s a lot in a master/submissive relationship that matters, that is real. And even if we females do a lot of what you do, you do it without rhyme nor reason, without sense about you, without anything more, and that you do spawns men who then seek nothing more and who are then never anything more. And what a lovely world, when men are nothing more. They are never masters. Never able to care, to empathize, to respect rules. To respect females. To want just one female. To want her content. Protected. To want that, because they find great satisfaction in it, in their abilities as men to see to it. To see to it all.”

“And what masters take as their right?! What you give up! That can’t be ignored! And that your master makes you a whore for his play, and for other men’s, that’s not love, and that’s not a man being more!” The non-refundable with jet black hair replies to the true submissive. “You’re brainwashed, spitting up those words to other women,” mole adds.

“Then so are you, being men’s play thing for money. Objectifying yourself that way. Being nothing more. And what words do you whores spit up to the rest of us women, uh, because you’re brainwashed? Oh, but someone cares about me. Is there every day, every night, with me. Includes me in his thoughts, in how our life together unfolds. Has to, since he has to make decisions that affect me. And, in affecting me, that affect him and what he wants, from a content and fulfilled submissive, not a shell of one.”

“He doesn’t care! Like no master throughout history ever cared what his slave thought or felt as long as the slave did what it was told!”

“You go home alone and clean off the soiling of how many men, a night? It’s not art that they leave on your body then. Do you ever feel clean? Oh, you just turn to drugs to make it go away, don’t you? The magic eraser. Or you desperately hold on to words that men have brainwashed you with to make what you do seem okay, just fine, because they want and need women like you, because those men can’t be masters, because they’re weak. Every night, you wash off that slime of men’s and you have to restrain thoughts that come to you that . . .”

“Shut the f**k up! I have it much better than you, slave! I can walk away!”

“And do what? Once a whore always a whore. Those markings of men can never be erased.”

Silence.

“Imagine if your masters had to identify their submissive by her thoughts, by words of hers, read out loud. By her dreams. Her beliefs. By more,” mole then returns. “They wouldn’t know a thing about you,” she reiterates. “Or, you’d be clever enough to say everything that he thinks and dreams of and believes in, to win. Slave.”

“That’s not true, but even if it were, better one man, one dick, than countless, every day. You’re a slave to deep, abusive, destructive needs. I’m not. I have a pedestal. You don’t.”

“Okay, so, we can all agree that dicks all look the same, especially when sorted by size, and that that guessing round will be one ginormous stupid one. Well, stupider,” a non-refundable all the way down the line cuts in. The attendant manipulating her breasts gave them quite the pulls, while mole spoke, and if no attendant will tell the women to drop their present subject, then this non-refundable will, because her breasts are not ready for their act yet, and so, that attendant’s hands may yet still be harsh at their task.

Contest attendants are not telling the women to be quiet because no master is present.

“They’d just all love to be naked,” another non-refundable offers. “Every man here. But instead of doing what they want, it matters more to masters to appear to be in control, when they’re obviously so not in control, screwing like they all are, all weekend-long, in this den of addiction and vice that they created. God, men are so the weaker sex. I mean, how hard is it to respect men when you know that they lose it over tits? Their kingdom for a pair of naked tits. Bet we can all agree about that too.”

“You’re the easily available drug that’s everywhere around men, weakening them by growing their addiction,” the true submissive who spoke before replies, in almost a whisper, not wanting to start up again, but the thought refusing to remain her own.

“Stop moving,” a contest attendant snaps at the non-refundable who is the true subservient’s sparring partner, and who, for her part, is indeed about to start up again. “Stop,” the man repeats to mole, as he pins back the black draping in order that just the right and equal amount of flesh and breast from her be on display, as it is from every woman.

This attendant is standing between two curtains: one in front of him, the one with the openings to be adjusted around the body part that is being showcased, and one behind him, the solid one that will drop when every woman is in place, and every part is set just right. The reveal to the masters of the line-up of disembodied components, of things seemingly just floating about in darkness, in space -- add scary music here, and stop -- will then occur.

Catherine manages to push out of her mind the words of a woman who defends a lifestyle that she so very much wants out of, since she wants to be free, and thinks instead of the two non-refundables who were most recently in her master’s work area for a combo hour, and who are obviously in her line-up now, in this grouping by similarity of breasts.

So, it wasn’t just in my head. What was Tristan thinking? Thinking. Right. As if he was thinking when he chose his play toys. Or did he set eyes on the list of breast descriptions by station number? Did he already know of the similarity when he went to the women? What was he thinking? And why? What does it mean? That replacements for me are easy to find? I know that! Was it a threat, then? Nine women here right now have breasts similar to mine . . . But he likes bigger ones!

Catherine, really? Quit it. The body thing.

It betrays me.

By its breast size or by enjoying Tristan’s body?! Healer returns.

If he replaces me, he kills me. Don’t make me sound shallow, superficial.

“True submissives are with the worst kind of addict, 24/7,” mole pipes up, when the attendant is no longer setting her breasts. “When you’re with an alcoholic, or a drug user, they only kill themselves, being addicted. Alkies and druggies don’t pour a drink down your throat or shoot you up without you even knowing it. But your masters spewing  . . .”

Sexual-germaphobe Catherine turns her face towards the speaker, towards her neighbour. “How can you speak that way of diseases and be a whore? Every man with you, every day!” She snaps at the woman, before regaining control of herself.  “I had a friend who was a prostitute and a writer, and who had a lot to say about men. A serial killer got to her. I try not think of her last moments because I know that they were horrific. She was convinced that she knew a lot about men, from being their whore for two decades. But they never told her exactly, and she never asked. So, how could she really know? How can we ever really know?” Catherine then finds herself asking.

“She didn’t have to ask them: men are not complex beings,” mole replies. “We know because a man isn’t difficult to understand. He’s so simple, in fact, that it’s embarrassing to him. So gullible. Sex, ego, power, control, and selfishness. Serve all five and you’ll survive. And that goes for us, for you, and for all women. The game.”

Survive. Yeah. Exactly. But so many injuries are sustained while playing that “game.” While dealing with being controlled and with male selfishness that leaves you with your jaw dropped and shaking your head in utter disbelief. Sex that’s just tricks and just for him. Ego that has him slapping you just for . . . That true submissive sees things in this lifestyle that just aren’t there, things about her master, and . . .

“Was the serial killer a man or a disease?” Mole asks Catherine.

“Hey, Maller’s bitch, who you planning to hit with those fists?” The non-refundable standing on Catherine’s other side enquires.

Tristan’s submissive realizes that both her hands are indeed clenched. She opens them up again. “I’m not saying that what my friend deduced about the men who went to her had to be wrong because they didn’t tell her, and because they were too complicated to be pinned down just by looking at them, and by seeing what they did to guess the why. The man who killed her, for example, that serial killer, he wasn’t complicated at all. He hated or he was afraid, and he was weaker than other men, so he did what he did,” Catherine replies.

Tristan had Nora killed, but he didn’t hate nor fear. He just wanted her out, gone, but she no doubt saw too much backstage, on the tour.  If there were nothing for his tour employees to know, then, he could just fire them, like normal people do. All those tour meetings . . .

“Or hated and was afraid,” mole brings forth. “I don’t know much about love, but I know that no man who truly loves allows his beloved to be f***ed by another man. Ever. Not like this, and not swinging either. Some men go berserk if their beloved is just even seen naked by another man,” she then spears Catherine and the other true submissive with, the vocal one. “If men were into women f***ing many men, then we whores would be cherished and married, wouldn’t we be? So, your masters turning you into whores for the weekend, for their play, they see you like they see us.”

“I’m sure that it turns some men on. Because anything and everything turns some men on,” another non-refundable gently disagrees.

“Grow up,” mole snaps at her.

“All women are whores, whether they get paid to be or not,” the former speaker insists, just as gentle in tone.

“I do know that masters are all about loving themselves and no one else. It’s clear and obvious because of everything that they do,” Catherine replies, voicing her disagreement with her peer who spoke before, and, therefore, with all master rhetoric spewed all weekend, while she looks straight ahead of her, into the black curtain that will soon drop and expose just one part of hers.       

“Men say that it doesn’t bother them because they want their woman to go along with them screwing other women, but when a man truly loves, just the thought of another man he knows, or just knows about, having screwed his beloved is enough for some men to leave her. So, imagine having all those personal, vivid images of other men screwing her here, this weekend, of having seen it clearly, and up close . . .” Mole takes pleasure in adding.

“Love’s not in the cards for women like me and you,” Catherine interrupts, softly, recalling Malika’s words on the subject. The latter had not wanted a boyfriend. The writer had not wanted a husband. So many factors had obviously played a role in those declarations being made: who the women were, availability of potential lover for them, who men are in themselves, what and how the world and society are. And more.

“And for what women is love in the cards for?” Mole replies, her tone somewhat softer, affected by Catherine’s. “It’s not a world of love that we live in. It’s just sex, and it’s everywhere. And you adapt, or you die. You make the choice. You take what you can. You get what you can. And you make sure that you find a way to survive on the junk without needing anything healthy, or otherwise, you just die.”

“I would just so love to be able to decide who touches me,” Catherine whispers, into the darkness before her eyes.

Catherine?

There’s something. I don’t know what it is. But you know what it is.

I have no idea.

All so calm, you are.

What? Do you, uh, think that you were marked like this before? Do you think that Tristan wasn’t just being ridiculous when he said that he had to mark you in this way so he’d know that you were his and . . .

The vault opening will make me lose my mind. But if I lose my mind first, will the vault then open? Catherine interrupts. That’s what madness is, right? Something sets it off, maybe something not so important, not so big, but then everything that is madness is unbound, and that’s huge. You haven’t healed me. You haven’t given me a cure. Just medication to keep me going. But I’m sick, diseased. And that will never change, will it? What was it that happened when I was younger, young? What infected me? When I didn’t have a chance. A choice. When I didn’t consent. Or maybe I was stupid. Maybe I did it to myself. I fear another infection so much --- I fear diseases so much -- because I’m already infected in a way that I can never be rid of, that I can never be healed of. It happened to me already. Once bitten, twice shy. Not that any blood test will ever pick it up. It’s not a physical disease. And not that having a reason why will take my phobia away, will it? No. Because I’m still so afraid to die.

Catherine, even.

I’m slipping . . .

It’s just a weekend. Not even one more day.

I don’t feel like myself. He’s dark. He has people killed. He doesn’t get them help when they need it, like those men who lost it, being around me. That was my fault, but I’m not dark. I know that I’m not. Not my true nature. I can’t blend it with his. He can’t blend his with mine. There’s black, and white. And blood. There can only be blood. Bloodshed. Something.

Catherine, enough.

Why am I thinking of blood?

It’s just one more day. You’ll feel better when you’re away from here, and when you’re not spending every minute with him.

Am I already insane? I see black feathers, and white ones, and blood! What the hell?! Why would I follow? I sometimes imagine myself bashing people’s heads in. You know that. I see myself spilling their blood . . . That’s not me!

Artistic temperament is catchy, healer replies.

Be afraid for me, like you used to be! It alone has to be madness, that I’ve lost some fear! But mad people don’t know to be afraid, do they? So when I stop being afraid altogether . . .

He forgot to give you one of your pills, before the contest. Before the combo hour too. You’re just jittery. You know that it happens. You can’t deny, now, that you couldn’t just quit those pills, Catherine. Not anymore.

Catherine pays no attention to those last words and concentrates instead on the fact that Tristan did forget. She wonders how she, however, forgot as well. How her body did.

Traitor body, times two! Distracting me! All your fault, then, this jumble of thoughts! And . . . did he really forget?

She closes her eyes and takes a deep breath before letting it out slowly. She is relieved that there is something tangible to blame for her present state of mind, that madness may not be the cause of it after all. With it off the table, however, anger with her body then returns in full force. Traitor, traitor, traitor!

“It’s not women’s drug that’s pushed everywhere in society, in every nook and cranny,” she remembers her writer friend pointing out. “And the drug that is is a poison to women, but they get injected with it anyway. Or they inject themselves with it, under pressure to fit in, thinking that it’ll make them feel great and give them a high, that it has to, because dealers tell them that it will. But the first signs of poisoning can be feeling flushed and warm and pleasantly feverish, with a kind of euphoria. And then, every woman needs her own drug after that to survive it. A little immunity to it at first doesn’t make it not be the poison that it is, in the end. There’s no lasting immunity.”

I just need one of my pills.