by Lily White
I moved with his powerful thrusts and when I couldn’t take anymore, when I thought my mind would shatter from the crushing ecstasy and my body would break apart beneath him, he allowed me to orgasm, pushing in impossibly deep to find his own release inside me.
We collapsed together in that bed, his strong arms reaching to pull me close to his chest, my head resting against his skin where I could listen to the beating of his heart.
Our breathing slowed eventually, the rhythm of our hearts finally calming to a normal beat. With one hand he pulled the blindfold from my face and looked at me with eyes that flaunted the love he had for me.
In that moment, in a place where I felt I belonged, I reconsidered the value of words and their meanings.
I never believed the definition of this place – this asylum.
However, in the end, it was a place where I could seek refuge.
A place of retreat and security.
A place where I was be kept safe because I’m sick.
But it wasn’t the walls of the building that made the definition true.
It was the arms of the man I found in this place…
…and the heart of a hero who had saved me from a nightmare and delivered me into a dream.
Epilogue
Show me a sane man and I will cure him for you.
- Carl Jung
Dr. Jeremy Hutchins, M.D., Ph.D.
“Are you ready to get out of here?”
She looked so tiny sitting in the light blue pajamas that were standard issue clothing for the patients at Statham. On her feet were the disposable flip flops that slapped the ground as the patients moved about, mindlessly wandering while their minds struggled to comprehend the difference between illusion and reality.
With minds that were dulled by low IQs or poisoned by emotions they couldn’t control or decipher, the patients were a sorry example of the breakdown of nature and biology.
I’d started this career with a belief that these people could be saved, that they could be returned to a state of normalcy if they found a doctor who cared enough to solve the puzzles and traps that had ensnared their minds and rendered them insane. However, what I’d found when I left the grandiose delusions that had been a part of my education was a simple rule that no person who worked in this field was willing to admit openly.
There was no hope for these people because, in truth, it was impossible to reason with crazy.
“I’m as ready as I’ll ever be.” Pushing the hair away from her face, Alex looked up at me with bright eyes filled with excitement and anticipation. This was a new step for her, a moment where she inched closer to the life I told her she could have.
“I’m going to miss the girls. I feel horrible leaving them in this place, but with Joe and Emerson gone, I guess they’re safer than they were when I first got here.”
I smiled to reassure her, not completely positive that things would change for her friends once we’d left the building for the last time. However, I would never let her know that. The bitter reality of the nature of the place would forever shadow her life if she knew it would never change.
She was such a beautiful girl, an innocent soul lost to a cruel and unforgiving world. She’d been used and abandoned, tormented to a point where she could only protect herself by forgetting the horrors that had been committed against her. With big blue eyes and light blonde hair that was starting to grow long, she was the poster child for the type of woman I desired. Despite her quirks, the scars she carried as a result of the life she’d lived, I couldn’t help but love her. Our meeting wasn’t by chance, it wasn’t a small hiccup in fate that could have been altered by a split second change in decision; it was intended, manipulated and coerced. It was something that was meant to be.
“The girls will miss you as well. But you’ll never recover by staying here.” Grabbing her hands, I pulled her up from the bed to set her on her feet. “I have to pick up a few more things from my office before we can leave. I figured you could use the time to say goodbye to the girls in the rec room. Terrie is watching one of the desks and she would kill me if we left without saying goodbye to her as well.
Alex grinned, the expression one of innocent trust and endless love. She was such a rare case, a woman who’d been shaped by violence and tragedy, by lies and bitter deception. It amazed me that she was still able to find a place inside herself where she could believe that light existed at the end of her tunnel and where she could find the ability to have faith in other people.
Most women who’d been through the traumas that she’d endured would have broken under the circumstances, their shattered pieces scattered so far that no person could possibly find them all and return them to a state where they’d once been whole.
Leading her into the hall, I walked her down the narrow hallways, the flashing lights above our heads reminding me why I hated this place. State institutions were the bottom of the psychiatric barrel. They were a place to throw away the unwanted reminders of the evil and illness that existed in our society. With barely enough funding and nowhere near enough staff to handle the amount of patients they housed, these institutions were ripe for abusive situations, for neglect, and for the horrors that most people would never want to imagine were possible.
It was a job that no doctor sought, a place where you agreed to work in the hopes that you could crawl out of the dirt to forge ahead towards a successful and fruitful career.
If it hadn’t been for Alex, there was no telling how much longer I would have had to scrape the bottom of the barrel in order to finally find my position in a respectable practice.
“Here you go. I’ll be back shortly with my white horse to carry you off to the new life that awaits you.”
She smiled and struggled to keep a safe distance from me. I knew how hard it was for her to hide what we had together, I could see it in her eyes and body language whenever we were in a public place. I’d taken a risk to allow her so close, but it was a risk that was well worth it in the end.
Our lives would be easy once all was said and done.
And Alex would be none the wiser of how I got her there.
Glancing into the rec room, her smile fell and worry creased the skin around her eyes. “The girls look like they’re going to cry. And Julianne is holding a cake.”
Her tone sounded odd and I asked, “You don’t sound very happy about that.”
She laughed. “Yeah, well, if Julianne’s been holding it for too long, there’s no telling what she shoved inside it.”
My lips thinned as I struggled to suppress a grin. Forcing my voice to remain steady, I suggested, “Well, just look for any holes in it before agreeing to eat it.”
Nodding, she took a deep breath. “I’ll see you when you get back, Doc.”
I watched her until she reached the table to sit down. Her friends circled around her, obscuring her from view.
The walk to my office wasn’t long and in no time at all, I was sitting at my desk, removing the final patient files from the drawers and placing them on the desk for the doctor who would be taking my position.
“Knock, knock.”
Looking up, I was met by the knowing smirk of my soon to be former colleague.
“Ali. It’s a bit late for you to be at the hospital.”
“Well, some of us aren’t as lucky as you to be starting a new job at a cushy institution.” Crossing the room with a few steps, she slid into one of the chairs in front of my desk. “Congrats on that, by the way. What you did was absolutely brilliant.”
“I couldn’t have done it without you.”
Dismissing my gratitude with a wave of her hand, she replied, “Please. A man of your caliber does not belong in some low-level desk job typing up the results of some other asshole’s work. I knew that since the minute I met you in school. You are too good at what you do to be chained down, so to say. I knew you wanted out of the dead end job you’d found and when the position opened up here, I knew it would be perfect for you. I just
gave you a boost. You were the genius that figured out how to bounce even higher. I mean, Dissociative Identity Disorder? Are you fucking kidding me? I’m surprised they bought that shit.”
“That wasn’t my only diagnosis. However, she has the common symptoms and delusions…”
“Don’t give me that crap and yes she does. Although, we both know who put them there.” Her mouth crooked into a wicked grin. “Doesn’t matter anyway. All of the bitches out there are lab mice for our amusement. This job would be so fucking boring if we actually tried to help them. We get our kicks by playing with the crazies. It’s an added bonus that nobody is watching who will do anything about it.”
“Why haven’t you every tried to get out and do something better than this? You’re sitting at the bottom of the fucking barrel.”
She laughed. “I’m having too much fun fucking with these people. Why would I go to a better place where I’d be forced to behave?”
I smiled and joined in her laughter. “They’re crazy. Nobody would believe them anyway, right?”
A tinkle of laughter before she said, “Exactly. Although, it’s a shame to lose Joe and Emerson. They were useful at times.”
“You’ll replace them in no time. There’s always somebody willing to do to the grunt work in these places. For some people, it’s just in their nature that they can’t help but take advantage. You still have Lisa and Terrie, so that’s fortunate. They’re just as useful as Joe and Emerson were, only in different ways. Terrie faking a heart attack to leave Alex alone with Joe was genius. Alex never questioned a thing, even after you freed the other patients to take care of Joe.”
“That’s true.” She laughed but then stared at me long and hard.
“Your work was the true stroke of brilliance. I would never have thought to have Joe dress up as her hooded man. It must have cost you a fortune to get him to kill Emerson like that. They were friends.”
“I never had to pay him. He didn’t last much longer.”
She laughed again, her eyes a storm of malevolent amusement.
Shrugging, I admitted, “I had to convince both her brother and her that she was still seeing her stalker. It was the only way to feign the symptoms necessary in order to formulate the diagnosis that would ultimately make me a famous man. I’ve already made a fortune on the therapies I developed in treating Alex.”
“Those therapies will never work for a person who actually suffers from the condition.”
An eyebrow cocked over my eye. “If they even have the condition. You saw for yourself how easy it is to suggest that a person has an alternate identity or personality. Most cases of dissociative identity disorder are nothing more than the result of the mistakes made by incompetent or untrained therapists. Either that or they are a mistaken diagnosis that could be easily explained by a different psychiatric condition. Convincing Alex she was crazy was the only way to get a leg up in this place. With the other issues she was already suffering from, she was the perfect candidate. Nobody has questioned the diagnosis and I’ll be famous once I cure her of it.”
More laughter burst from her lungs until she grew thoughtful and asked, “How did you know she actually had a stalker?”
I smiled. “I didn’t. At first I thought she’d been making up the whole thing. When her brother told me they located the stalker, it threw a wrench in my theories, so I winged it and claimed she carried the personality with her as a result of the trauma from the stalker. Either way, it worked out.”
“Wow, a better job AND a pretty girl who lets you control everything about her life. It also doesn’t hurt that she comes with a handsome trust fund that you’ll acquire once you marry her. It’s like a dream come true.”
Nodding my head, I attempted to appear humble, but I couldn’t help the arrogant grin that curved my lips. “Sometimes it’s too easy. Her brother was more than willing to feed me whatever information I needed in order to help his sister. If only he’d known that I would use that information to make her delusions appear accurate and true.”
Shaking her head in disbelief, she stood up and walked towards the door. Stopping in the doorway, she turned around and flashed me one last smile. “Good luck, Hutchins. If she finally does crack and you lose that cushy job, I can always make sure your position reopens here.”
Smiling at her offer, I said, “It won’t be necessary. Curing Alex will be easy because she was never truly crazy to begin with. She had some memory issues, yes, and thanks to Joe and Emerson and your love of the shock, it was easy to believe she really did suffer from amnesia for the first year she was in here. Luckily, the lack of record keeping in this place will keep others from knowing she’d had some assistance with her memory problems.”
“Very true.” Her tinkling laughter faded as she walked out the door and down the long hallway.
I was alone and left with my thoughts and with the torrent of emotions flooding every cell in my body. I’d achieved what I set out to achieve, regardless of the games I had to play to achieve it. I hated the bitter taste left in my mouth for having been forced to team up with people like Ali, but it worked and I had to be thankful for that.
I had a way out of this place.
I had the job I wanted.
But most importantly, I had Alex.
Thinking back to the day I met her, I remembered the way she’d moved into this office like a scared animal. Trembling in her seat, she looked at me with eyes that betrayed the fire burning inside her. There had been heat in those eyes and there had been nightmares – but the thing I never saw was madness. I knew at that first meeting that I had to take her away from this place – from this prison. Even with the mild conditions she suffered, she never belonged in a hellhole like this.
At first, I believed she was lying about her memory problems. I’d been foolish enough to assume that she’d killed those men and was guilty of the crimes of which she’d been accused. However, even her guilt wasn’t enough to sway me from my attraction to her. I wanted her and I was determined to have her.
What better way was there to free a criminal than to prove they’d been insane when the crimes had occurred?
Convincing Ali to play along had been easy. She enjoyed participating in the efforts to manipulate and shame. It didn’t matter who she hurt, just as long as she could feel power from the manipulation of others. Within hours, she had the rest of her staff signing up for the game, all of them believing it would serve to help me step up in life – none of them suspecting that my true motive was to free Alex.
I’d manipulated every person involved, each one believing something different from the others. I’d used the tricks and methods I learned in school to toy with the mentalities of everyone around me and I’d achieved my goal, even with the turn of events that proved what I didn’t believe was possible.
Alex hadn’t committed those crimes and she would have walked out of here a free woman, regardless of my efforts.
Either way, it worked out better than I imagined it could. Alex would follow me to my next institution and eventually she would be freed. She’d thank me for curing her of her trauma and that alone was worth the effort it took to make her believe she was truly insane.
Taking a deep breath, I stood from my chair and crossed the room to turn off the light of that disgusting office for the last time. I laughed at the flicker of the lights and traversed the long halls in search of the woman who would change my life forever.
I reached the rec room to find Alex waiting for me by Terrie’s desk. Lesley, Michelle, Sally and Julianne stood to her side, making room for me as I approached.
“Damn bitch, I guess this is it. We’ll miss you.” Lesley gave Alex a hug and Michelle stepped up to do the same. Sally sniffled while petting Alex’s hair and Julianne plucked an eye from her doll. Popping it in her mouth, she smirked and said, “Take care of yourself, Alex.”
Standing up from her chair, Terrie rounded the desk and walked Alex and I out to the hall. We reached the front doors and Terrie patted
Alex on the back before giving her a hug goodbye.
“Dr. Hutchins will take good care of you, Alex. You have only good things to look forward to from here.”
Alex wiped a tear from her cheek as I opened the door for her. Taking her first step out of the building, she turned back when Terrie commented, “Nobody ever escapes this place, Alex. You are such a lucky girl.”
The End
Author Note and Disclaimer:
Although this book is written with certain truthful elements of psychiatric symptomology and therapy methods, I’ve taken MANY liberties stretching the truth of both the conditions discussed and the methods used in the treatment of psychiatric patients.
Because….let’s be honest…
If I’d remained too realistic as to the symptoms, diagnosis and methods discussed, this book would have been boring.
State Institutions, although once deplorable environments for psychiatric patients, have greatly improved with time and with understanding of mental disorders. Additionally, it is not my intent to make light of the psychological conditions referenced in this story.
In no way was this book intended to be viewed as accurate regarding the subjects discussed. Although some parts are accurate, the truth of these conditions has been added to by my imagination.
The story is fiction and is intended for entertainment alone.
LILY WHITE
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Table of Contents
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two