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 th
e 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.
Captive Girl Page 3