Chapter Text
"I can't believe the place actually exists. Like, it's straight out of a fuckin' horror movie!"
"It's not that bad, baby. It's just… quirky.”
Mal snorted and laughed, leaning forward in her passenger side seat and carding a hand through her electric blue undercut. "Quirky my left tit," She chuckled, shaking her head in disbelief regardless.
It really was straight out of a horror movie. A whole town where every house was built to exacting mid-century design, where every vehicle that drove past them was vintage. She more than half expected someone to turn and point at the moving truck and start screeching at them like a pod person. Why Jay wanted to move here for a job offer was anybody's guess. It gave her the creeps.
Luckily, Mal was used to the creeps. It came with being a tattoo artist, seeing all sorts walk in for appointments. She'd thrown her fair share of wannabe neo nazis out on their asses when they came in demanding swastikas on their pecs. But… well, River Falls didn't seem like the sort of town where anybody got their knuckles bruised. Or where anybody got any ink, which didn't bode well for her career.
It was all sunny and bright and pastel, with white picket fences and neatly clipped lawns. Not a single house was out of place, not a single yard was unkempt, not a single person displayed any social flaw or rough edge. The people she did see, as they drove slowly through the town, only served to further unnerve her.
"Christ, look at'em, they even dress like it's the fifties. Jay, seriously, look at this!" She bemoaned, pressing her fist against the window glass. There was a woman walking a stroller (with bassinet) down the sidewalk, all dolled up in a vintage 1950s sundress, straw hat, high heels, neat little gloves, the works. Hell, she even had her hair done up in a Marilyn Monroe-esque bouffant. The woman turned to look at the moving truck and waved.
Mal didn't wave back.
"I know it's kinda weird, but I think that's kinda the point, babe," Jay said with a shrug. He scratched at his short, dark beard and offered her a supportive smile. "It makes them stand out, gives people something to talk about. Local businesses probably get lots of extra cash from tourists."
Mal furrowed her brow. Yeah. Probably.
She hopped out of the truck and onto the lawn, her combat boots pressing the grass down without resistance. She put her hands on her hips, looked around the neighborhood, and frowned. Yeah, she definitely looked out of place here. They both did.
Jay, with his deep brown complexion, long locs and newly grown beard, not to mention his biking leathers. Mal, with her brightly dyed undercut, ripped fishnets, boots, crop top and genuine acid washed cutoffs. Hell, she didn't even see anybody else with tattoos. The whole town was in desperate need of some ink.
She put a hand on Jay's arm as he got out of the moving truck, and she locked eyes with the stroller-carting housewife, as if daring her to make something of their relationship. Thankfully, nobody did. They just smiled and waved, at her and at Jay, and chirped a quick "Welcome to the neighborhood!"
"I'm gonna go scope out the house, then I'll start moving the heavy stuff in," Jay told her, and she nodded slightly, being somewhat distracted still by their surroundings. She just couldn't get past it, how retro it all was.
Retro cars, retro clothing, retro houses, retro music playing on the local radio station in the truck… She just hoped, though she doubted, that their values weren't as outdated as their aesthetics. Looking at how many women seemed to be on the street or tending to their gardens in the middle of a weekday, caring for snot nosed children or pruning rose bushes, she didn't like the odds.
"Well golly, hello neighbor!"
Mal jumped, nearly leaping out of her skin, and whirled around to find herself face to eerily smiling face. It was that of a young woman, no older than her mid twenties, with naturally copper curls, ruby red lips, and a knit top which did nothing but draw the eye to her… gifted bosom.
"...Hi?" Mal said with a great deal of caution. She'd never exchanged pleasantries with neighbors before, and she was hoping to avoid it here too. But the woman, another housewife of course, stuck out her white-gloved hand to shake.
"I'm Ruthie Jean, Ruthie Jean Smith! Gosh, it's ever so swell to finally meet you! You're the talk of the neighborhood, you know! We always love new neighbors."
Right. Well, there were a few ways out of this particular entanglement. Physical combat was unwise, at least for now, and she doubted that cussing the overly chipper thing out would go over well either. The cold shoulder though, that could work.
"Mhm. Nice to meet you too, I guess," She said with as little emotion as she could not muster. She rounded the truck and unlocked the back, rolling up the door to get at her belongings inside. Ruthie Jean followed, standing with her hands folded in front of her lap as she watched passively.
"Oh my, that sure does seem heavy. You may want to wait for your hubby to help with-"
"I've got it. Besides, I'm not married," Mal huffed, dragging a wooden cabinet closer to the edge of the trailer. She shot a cold look at Ruthie Jean, then kept working on unloading their things.
"Not married? Goodness, but what about that handsome fella-"
"Boyfriend. Just my boyfriend," Mal grunted, as she eased the cabinet to the ground. She set her hands atop it and looked to see if Jay was coming back yet, while Ruthie Jean seemed to grow only further confused.
"Oh, but you two are going to-"
"Look, just drop it, okay?!" Mal snapped. "Christ, I'm used to getting this shit from my parents, I don't need it from a stranger. I'm not getting married, I'm not having kids, and I'm not playing Suzie Homemaker like you. Got that, Ruthie?"
Ruthie Jean blinked, and twisted her fingers. "...Are you sure?"
Mal glared daggers. "You got like fifteen seconds to leave me the hell alone. I'm busy."
Thankfully, that seemed to scare her off. Ruthie Jean scurried back home to check on her demented little spawn, and no doubt to tell her husband that their new neighbor was a godless heathen with delusions of equality, or whatever these women were tricked into believing about ordinary women like Mal.
That suited her just fine. Let them know they had an actually self aware woman on the block. Someone who knew her own worth, and who didn't just roll over and beg for the praise of some guy.
She didn't mention it to Jay though, knowing how excited he was to settle in here and take up this new gig. Some sort of local security job, working for the town government, with full federal employee benefits. Better by far than the museum security positions he'd had in the past. Better than any dive bar bouncer gig he'd worked at.
She sighed as they moved the couch and set it on the ground inside. The layout and decor of the house were extremely retro, with a vintage kitchen and a full fireplace in the den, but their furniture, she hoped, would play that down. Unlike Jay, she'd yet to get a new job offer in River Falls. Not a single tattoo parlor in the towns or villages surrounding it were hiring, and the only one she could even find in the creepy town had politely declined her application when she'd called over the phone. All full up, they said.
Still, she'd find something. Maybe set up a shop of her own to rival those assholes. And until then, she'd make an effort to avoid the neighbors.
While Jay took a break to crack open a bottle of beer, Mal found herself slipping upstairs to explore. There had been mention of a walk-in closet in the floor plans, and she was keenly interested in seeing how much space she had to work with. Altering her own clothes, hand stitching patches onto crust vests and the like, took plenty of space, time, and material.
But it wasn't empty space that Mal found in the closet when she opened the door.
"See? I wasn't joking, man. This shit is filled with, like, fuckin old ass dresses and shit," She complained, digging through the array of colorful vintage frocks with both arms. There had to be upwards of twenty different dresses, not to mention the rack of heels down below and the stacks of hat boxes overhead. "Last people who lived here must have left it all behind."
"So what do you wanna do with it?" Jay asked simply, taking a swig of his beer. Mal looked at him for a moment, then scoffed in disbelief.
"What do I wanna do with it? I wanna throw it out, or like- shit, donate it at least. I just want it out of our house. Ain't no way I'm ever wearing this shit."
"You sure?" He asked, innocently enough. He pulled out a hanger, from which hung a boat-necked sundress, with red and white stripes and a flared skirt. He held it up to her and she scowled, shoving it away.
"Just trash all of it, okay? I'm grabbing a beer."
She stomped down the steps, into the living room, only to hear a knock at the door. She frowned, expecting another nosy sitcom neighbor, a June Cleaver type, to be smiling at her on the other side. Someone who would spout off about good old fashioned family values, and making babies, and obeying the menfolk like good little girls.
Instead, she saw a Black woman, with natural dark brown curls framing her face. She was dressed like the other women Mal had seen in town, a blue gingham dress with full, poofy skirts and a frilly white apron, but there was something in her eyes that Ruthie Jean had lacked.
There was a spark in her eyes, and Mal had latched onto that immediately.
"Hey, I heard you lot were movin' in and figured I'd say hi," She said, in a smooth, English accented voice. Mal hung in the doorway, still somewhat suspicious, but she was quickly and gladly disarmed.
"Name's Mal," She said, and Mya grinned. A real grin, not the fake plastic one every other woman here wore.
"Wicked. I'm Mya. Gotta say, it's real refreshing finally seeing someone normal again. Started feelin' a bit lonely, honestly."
Mal grinned in return. "Shit girl, I'm just glad I got proof they aren't gonna kill and replace us with robots. You wanna drink?"
And drink they did. From the evening and well into the night, they shared a bottle of wine dug out from Mya's basement. She was a beautiful gal, straight from London, and her admiration for Mal's tattoos and self styled hair and clothes was a refreshing change of pace.
Mal kicked back on Mya's couch, one leg slung over the back, and a hand behind her head. Mya sat nearby, looking infinitely more elegant and composed, but not nearly so fake as Mal feared. She was a genuine one, and a bit of a spitfire too. She liked that. She liked that a lot.
"So this one time, me and my ex, Janine, we saw one of those cops with the fuckin' skull bumper stickers? So I threw a tampon at 'em."
"Shut it, you didn't!" Mya laughed, doubling over and wheezing. Mal cackled with glee, adding only slight embellishments to her tale as she went on, regaling Mya with stories of misconduct and moshing and general mayhem. If there was anybody in River Falls who she could get to thumb their nose at the system, it was Mya.
They talked, they commiserated, and they drank. Mostly Mal drank. She went through several glasses of wine, becoming increasingly open with each consecutive glass. Soon enough, she was venting her whole day's complaints.
"An' there was just- just a ton of these fuckin frou frou fifties housewife dresses in the closet! And I don't know if the last people left 'em or if one of these tradwives was trying to pull some shit, but like… Christ, I gotta ask, man… What's with all this 50s suburbia shit?"
“Oh, who knows,” Mya said with a wave of her hand and a roll of the eyes. “I don’t really get it either, but it’s got its charms. The clothes are a bit cute, yeah?”
“If you’re a brainwashed republican sex kitten,” Mal scoffed. “Present company not included. At least, I sure fuckin’ hope so.”
“Yeah, definitely not like that,” Mya said, much to Mal's relief.
For a brief moment, spurred on by the conversation, Mal tried to envision herself looking like that. Wearing the dress Jay had pulled out of the closet earlier. A poofy, retro sundress, with a pretty little striped pattern and fluffy petticoats, a ruffled white apron like Mya’s cinched tightly around her waist as she pranced about the kitchen with a wire whisk in hand…
Yeah, no. Not for her. Not now, not ever.
“Gonna be real honest with you, I thought the accent was fake at first,” Mal admitted with a small laugh. She ran a hand through her shorn blue hair and grinned, making herself even more comfortable on the sofa by sinking into it. She couldn't help it; it was just too comfy.
“Nope. London born, London raised,” Mya swore to her. “And married for six months,” She added with a strange little laugh of her own, though Mal wasn't certain why.
“Shit, girl, couldn’t be me,” She said. She shook her head and reached for the bottle so she could top up her own glass; steadily entering drunken fool territory as the conversation continued. “I ain’t never gettin’ married.”
“Really? Jay seems nice enough. Why not?” Mya asked, leaning over the armrest of her plush chair. She was stunningly beautiful, almost effortlessly classy in that mid century way. Where it seemed somehow uncanny on the other women, Mya wore vintage like a glove.
“Meh. He’s cool, love him to death, but marriage is a joke, y’know? Whole institution’s rotten,” Mal said. She bit her lip and looked towards the window, wondering if she could get away with smoking here. She hadn't had a cig in hours. “A guy brings up a wedding or kids, I’m out. That’s my rule.”
It was, and it was one she stuck to. It was why she'd left Janine, and why she'd dumped RJ. Jay, thank God, was wise enough to avoid pressing it past the first mention. But she was also telling the truth. She did love her boyfriend. She loved him more than most anyone else she'd ever dated. She'd been with him longer too. She was twenty five, he was twenty eight, and they'd been together since she was twenty two.
Maybe she didn't tell him she loved him as often as she could, she thought to herself with a sudden pang of sadness.
“Huh. Guess fair’s fair,” Mya mumbled, growing rather sleepy from all the drinking. She seemed a bit off all of a sudden, a bit distant, like her mind was elsewhere. “Gabe’s an alright mate, but I dunno. Not like I’m stickin’ around anyways.”
“Hm? What d’you mean?” Mal asked, catching note of the last part in particular.
“Oh, sorry? Just thinking out loud, that’s all," Mya said, waving it off with her hand. She smiled politely, and Mal was reminded of so many friends stuck in situations they wanted desperately to escape from.
“Thinkin’ about getting a divorce?” Mal smiled sympathetically at Mya, and set down her newly emptied wine glass. “Don’t worry, girl, I won’t tell. My lips… are… sealed,” She said slowly, while miming zipping her lips, locking them, and tossing away the key. For good measure, she added a little glass crashing sound, then giggled. Tipsy Mal was corny Mal, Jay always said.
“Not getting a divorce,” Mya said pointedly, and Mal shrugged her concession. “Honest. I just dunno if me an’ Gabe are gonna stick around here, that’s all. Like you said, River Falls is a bloody weird place, innit?”
“Truth! I’ll drink to that!” Mal laughed, vindicated in her immediate distaste for the town. They were of like minds, her and Mya. They each chafed under the oppressive boot of the patriarchy, and neither was ignorant to their own oppression, and so on.
She was, admittedly, too drunk to think coherently about praxis that night.
She went to drink, only to remember her glass was empty, and so too was the bottle. Oops. She laughed again, with her distinctive snort and giggle.
Mya chuckled, and helped pull the drunk punk to her feet, and then towards the door. Her hands were so soft, so warm. They were nice. “C’mon, love, let’s get you home.”
“M’kay,” Mal said, turning her head in to the crook of Mya’s neck. The younger of the two rebels purred as she staggered along, guided by Mya outside and across the street, up to her own front stoop. The “SOLD” sign was still stuck in the lawn, and she had dozens of boxes left to unpack, including her tattooing equipment.
"You're so hot," Mal slurred, barely conscious of what she was saying. Mya smelled nice. Like flowers.
"And you're sloshed; not to mention, attached. An' so am I, huh? Don't think Gabe wants me off snogging the neighbors."
"Meh. Boooriiing," Mal breathed against her skin. She rolled her head back and leaned in for a kiss, only to be held at bay by Mya. She mumbled a brief "sorry", then went to unlock the door.
She dropped the keys, then banged her head, and in the end needed Mya to carry her inside. It all got a bit fuzzy after that. She was laying on the couch, snuggling up with a pillow, and smiling to herself. How could she not? She had a new friend in a strange and uncomforting land. It was a great relief.
Then she woke up, and the illusion that everything was okay shattered in an instant.
– – – – – – – – – –
She was downstairs, sitting in the dark. Something thick, coarse and itchy was bound tightly around her wrists and ankles. She felt sick to her stomach, her head was throbbing with sharp pain, and everything was off kilter.
She could make out light behind her, coming from up the stairs. Beside that, she could discern the decorative stone walls of their basement; swinging mid century style that was fitted with shelves full of booze and liquor. She had actually been a little excited about having a bar down there.
She groaned, her voice muffled by something thick and bulbous, yet oddly soft, which was filling her mouth. She bit down on it, and found it somewhat giving, though firm at its core, and impossible to spit out when she tried.
Her head was splitting; this hangover one of the worst she had ever been subject to before.
Then the first figure came down the stairs, with several more trailing after. She wasn't sure how many there were, it hurt to focus and count, but there seemed to be a camaraderie among them. There was a fraternity of sorts, a brotherhood of men gathering around her, and instantly she assumed herself to be in a nightmare. She would wake up soon, in a cold sweat next to Jay in their new bed, and she'd forget all about it by lunch.
Still, it sent a chill down her spine when the seeming leader among them walked up to her and touched her hair. She jerked her head away, only for a few of the shadowed men to snicker. Their leader sighed, and reached out again to card his fingers through her electric blue undercut. She struggled against her rope restraints, and winced when the last figure hit the lights.
Her vision cleared, and she saw that it was Mya's husband, Gabriel, who was messing with her hair. And it was Jay, her Jay, who was standing with his finger on the light switch.
"Make sure you close the door behind you," Gabriel said, his voice oddly soft, chillingly gentle as he brushed his thumb across Mal's lips. "Darryl, prep the IV. Samir, get the first film reel ready. Jacob, you just stay put, alright? I know it won't be easy, but you've got to let us work. We'll take good care of her, no matter how painful it might be."
She really, really hoped this was a nightmare. But she was starting to doubt that that was the case.
She felt the sharp jab of a needle in her right forearm. She stirred, tried to wrench her arm away, but found herself too sluggish to do so. It was like wading through molasses, fighting against an all encompassing miasma which sapped her strength. She could hardly move her torso, let alone her arm. Her head lolled to one side; the total sum of her efforts.
Then she felt the jab of another needle into her left forearm. Her eyes rolled downwards then bulged, and she looked at the IV line with nothing short of terror. Cold dread flooded her veins, followed by a cold, pale blue liquid, like ice creeping through her arm. The other IV, the line feeding into her right arm, was a rush of warm, pale pink-red.
She let out a weak, strangled gargle, which was meant to be a scream. Gabriel sighed, and knelt down to look her in the eye.
"I know you're upset, and you're frightened, and probably more than a little mad. But please, believe me, this is for your own good. We're setting you right."
"Someone has to," The man called Darryl snorted derisively. "I mean, holy hell, just look at her. Can't believe she got it in her head to do that to her hair."
Gabriel sighed, and looked at Mal again, an apologetic look in his eye. "Ignore him. He's a bit lacking in tact, I know. I want you to understand that we're not doing this because we like hurting you. We're doing this because you need us to do it. You need us to save you from yourself, from your self destructive ways.
Working, thinking, protesting, voting… It's just not helpful. It's not your place. Now I know, I know you think I'm a pig for saying that, but it's the truth. Your place is in the home. Your constitution is too delicate for work. Your mind is too weak for complex matters. You've been pretending otherwise, maybe you've even convinced yourself that there's no difference between us, but there is. There is a difference, Mallory, and it's time you stopped pretending, and accepted the hard facts."
She let out another small, strangled little cry, and Gabriel sighed sadly. He brushed her hair back, tucking a messy lock of blue behind her pierced ear, and he offered her a reassuring smile.
"It's going to hurt, but you'll be thanking us when it's all said and done. So we won't hold your resistance now against you later."
He stood up, rising to his full height, and held out his hand. Darryl handed him an instrument, a sharp looking tool, while Samir gave a thumbs up. He'd set up a reel to reel film projector behind her, and aimed it at a screen on the wall. He started it up, and a countdown began on the screen.
She felt woozy from the drugs being pumped into her body. An old fashioned educational video started up on screen, with a paternal voice lecturing her on a woman's place as footage of fifties housewives began to play. Gabriel slipped behind her, and she felt a sharp pain at the base of her spine, as her whole world began to quake.
They stuck her with needles. They ran painful instruments along her skin, leaving behind no marks but intense pain. They filled her mouth with silicone members of steadily increasing lengths and girths, violating her throat without remorse. They plucked the piercings from her ears with spiteful little comments. They dragged her closer to the screen and demanded she look at what a real woman looked like, how a proper woman behaved.
The pain was torturous. Even the drugs hurt after a time. Her left arm felt frigid, her right a warm respite. Then the right seemed to burn from the inside out, while the left was a cool reprieve. They mingled together, and she worried her heart would burst from the agony, only for it to suddenly soothe.
She couldn't even keep track of how long it went on for. She couldn't see any timekeeper, couldn't speak to ask. Her jaw ached from the size of the dildo they forced her to suck upon. She'd always loathed the feeling of a dick in her mouth. At times, she'd gag, and Darryl would slap her across the face, then shout at her to suck. So she would. Just to make him stop yelling. Just to please him. Just to make him happy.
Eventually, she began to focus on the screen. If she focused on it, she could almost push the pain into the periphery, she could almost pretend it wasn't there. She strained to hear what was being said by the paternal voice, the folksy old fashioned sitcom father, just so she could ignore the sneering insults whispered by Darryl and Samir.
Gabriel liked that she was watching the screen. He leaned in over her shoulder, his breath hot against the skin of her ear, and he whispered to her.
"Good girl. Learn your lessons. Learn your purpose."
That struck her strangely. Her purpose? The film seemed to hammer it home as well. That idea. Having a purpose. Failing to fulfill it. What it meant to live up to it. How she still had time to make things right. How it wasn't too late to learn.
Her purpose. It hit her like a truck. What was her purpose? She didn't have one. She didn't need to have one. Why should someone have to have a purpose? Why couldn't they just exist? Why couldn't they just live for their own sake?
Purpose. She had a purpose, though, they told her. A purpose she was ignoring. She was failing, disappointing, and miserably so. It was shameful, the voice said. It brought shame to her family. It brought shame to the man in her life. What would his coworkers think? What would their neighbors think? Seeing her, so clearly failing to understand why she existed to begin with.
Was she truly so ignorant of her purpose?
She felt another sharp jab in her right arm, as the needle was replaced with another. Then again, in her left arm. Green and amber concoctions began to flood her veins. She began to sob uncontrollably.
Tears streaked her eyes and cheeks. They pulled her hair back taught so it would stop messily covering her eyes. Juices ran down her bare legs, while a dildo and plug were pressed inside of her. Red marks and welts decorated her skin, her breasts and her back. She gagged on the cock in her mouth, and someone slapped her again, then told her to stop screwing up and suck it properly.
She looked at the man through bleary, confused eyes, and she saw Jay. Jacob. Her man. He was so disappointed in her. He was so ashamed of her. How could he not be?
Whether it was really him, or just Darryl again, didn't matter. She saw him, she so clearly knew it was him, that the objective reality didn't matter. Subjective reality displaced it, now and throughout the night, to reaffirm what was being told to her, by the men and by the footage on screen. By the drugs and by the pain.
She was a failure. A miserable, pathetic, shameful little monster. But she could be better. She could improve. She could learn to be good. There was still time. There was still hope for her.
If she just learned what they needed to teach her.
Jacob watched from the stairwell as she broke, totally and completely, and began to laugh hysterically around the silicone cock-gag which filled her mouth.
New drugs came and went. Pink and blue. Green and gold. Violet and rose. Snowy white and inky black. Mixed and matched, swapped around, muddled together. They felt so awful, so wonderful. They made her sick. They made her well.
And when, after what could have been three hours or twelve, a figure of Jacob (they were all Jacob now) removed her gag, and massaged her throat as she gasped for air and sucked on nothing, she looked up at him with a beatific smile on her face, mascara running around her tearful eyes, a beautiful wreck. It was clear to anyone who spared a glance at the pitiful thing that she was well and truly broken by what she had been subjected to.
"Please… please… please…"
"What is it?" He asked her, whispering so kindly as she sobbed, smiling.
"P-please… please sh-show me how t-to be… h-how to be g-good…"
He smiled at her, and he nodded his head slowly, patting her on the head. It was so condescending. Good. She deserved to be condescended to. She wanted it. She needed it. To make up for lost time spent pretending she was his equal.
"You want to know your purpose?" He asked her, and she nodded desperately.
"Please please please please ple-"
He shoved the dildo down her throat again, and she began to suck. Jacob fastened the restraints again, and motioned for Jacob to prep the next round of injections, while Jacob loaded up the next reel.
"Don't worry, Mallory. We won't let you upstairs until you've learned everything you need to know."
Good. That's all she could think, as she slipped back beneath the surface of clarity. Good. Good. Good.
She understood now that she knew nothing. She was ready to learn the truth.
– – – – – – – – – –
She awoke with a start. Bolted upright, breathing heavily, in a cold sweat. She was in bed, next to Jacob. It was still dark out, just the faintest bit of daybreak showing through the window of their new bedroom. The analogue alarm clock read four in the morning. She didn't know how long she'd slept. She didn't know she'd even fallen asleep.
Was it the next morning? The morning after? She held a hand to her head, her stomach curdling. She remembered everything up to the point she blacked out somewhere, hours into the torture. The pain. The abuse. The corrections. The feeling of Jacob hugging her, the sound of him whispering in her ear that she'd done so well. The feeling of relief, of elation, at knowing he'd been pleased.
She shivered, curling up into a ball, her sheets falling off of her to reveal her nude figure. She still had the marks on her stomach, her back, her legs… her ears were still red and sore from where they'd removed her piercings. It was all real. Every last moment of it.
She looked at Jacob and a tear pricked her eye. She was scared. Not of him, but of everything else. Not knowing if they would "correct" her again tonight. Not knowing what constituted a mistake, a reversion to her old ways. Not knowing what to do.
No. No, they told her what to do. The video explained it all. A good housewife awoke every morning with a smile and a sunny disposition, ready to greet the day with vim and vigor.
She forced herself to smile, and crawled slowly out of bed. She had to be good. She had to be. She had to do as she was told, lest she be punished again. Smile. Greet the day. Shower and do her makeup, brush her hair (awful, dreadful, sickening blue mess that it was), and dress her finest. She had to always dress nicely. That's what the man in the film had told her. She had to.
She readied herself for the day, and dressed herself slowly. She'd never worn clothes like these before, and they confused her at first. Figuring out which way the garter belt was to be worn, and how to properly clip the seamed stockings to it. How to fasten the bullet bra, where the girdle went in relation to the other layers. Her closet was filled with these things, but she didn't know them as intimately as the women on the screen had.
Stupid, stupid of her. So awfully stupid.
Thank goodness she wasn't too stupid to misunderstand the last of the layers, she thought with a sigh of relief. She'd always hated wearing dresses, outright skipped her senior prom so as to avoid wearing one, but now she understood just how dumb and backwards she'd been. She was a woman. Dresses were for women. Pants were for men, not her. That was simple logic, but she'd convinced herself it was wrong, a pointless rule that needn't ever be followed.
How foolish she had been.
Hesitantly, she reached for a dress. It was rather nice out today, not too chilly and not too hot. Her fingers drifted towards a yellow dress, a sleeveless number with a white notched collar and a circle skirt. She picked it up off the hangar, held it against her breast, and trembled.
A small part of her didn't want to wear it. But she knew that part of her was just frightened of the truth, as they'd shown her so thoroughly. Listening to her own thoughts, her own opinions, had only led her down a bad path. She had to listen to the opinions, the demands, of the men. They knew better. They knew what was best for her. Their thoughts, not her own, were worth listening to.
So she took the dress, and a pair of matching heels, and began to put them on. She zipped up the dress slowly, her fingers trembling as she worked the shiny metal zipper. The canary yellow color was so girlish, so cloyingly feminine. But that was good, she reminded herself. She was a girl. She was meant to be feminine. She adjusted the notched collar, ensuring it laid right, and then twirled the skirt with a smile.
She thought back to the videos. She wasn't quite dressed yet. They'd said so, in painstaking detail. A housewife wasn't dressed without a stiff crinoline to fill out her dress. A lighter petticoat would do just fine for a light cotton dress, but she had spent so much of her life denying her place… she had to balance the scales.
There were so many fluffy, stiff petticoats in the back of the closet. Shades of white, pink, blue, red… She took the poofiest of the petticoats and began to pull it on, under her circle skirt. She felt a pang of guilt, an awful twisting in her stomach. This wasn't enough. She needed to prove that she understood. She took a second, lighter one, and layered it on top of the first.
There. There, she thought with great relief, as she regarded herself in the mirror. Putting aside the blue hair and tattoos, she looked the perfect picture of a housewife. Just like that woman the other day, her new nextdoor neighbor, who had shown such concern for her. If only she'd listened to that woman, Ruthie Jean, and accepted her guidance. She understood now, though, and she wept happy tears because of it.
Finally, Mal- No, Mallory, thought to herself. Finally, she was right. Finally, she was in her place.
She jumped at a small cough behind her, or rather, the clearing of a throat. She turned around, and swooned at the sight of Jacob sitting up in bed. His flannel pajama shirt had come unbuttoned in his sleep, and his barrel chest, his sizable stomach, caught her eye. She began to approach him slowly, her hands clasped in front of her lap, and he smiled at the sight of her.
"You look beautiful," He said, his voice low, punctuated with a yawn. Mallory flushed red, and held a hand to her cheek.
"O-oh gosh, do you really think?" She asked, casting her eyes low, then briefly glancing upwards at him. She couldn't curse anymore, as naturally as it came to her before. Just thinking such a word made her feel like she was going to hurl. Her knees were shaking, her legs jelly in his presence.
"Of course," Jacob promised her. He beckoned her closer, and shifted his position, setting his feet on the rug beneath their bed. He noticed the tears welling up in her eyes, and stood to wipe them away.
"Tell me what you're thinking," He ordered, and she instantly confessed, aghast now at the idea of ever denying his command.
"Am I good? Am I good now?" She asked, her voice a frightened whisper, her hands dancing across her outfit. She had done her best, she really had, to imitate the women in the films they'd shown her, to style herself like Ruthie Jean and the other women in town. "I-I want to be good for you. P-please, I need to be good for you."
He brushed her blue hair out of her eyes, and placed a kiss on her forehead, then on her painted lips, hushing her easily. "You are so good, baby. You look perfect. Remember, what we did last night…"
She shivered, her eyes darting downwards again. She could still feel the skin of her back crawling, could still see the marks the needles had left on her arms. He brought one of her arms up, and kissed it gently.
"It was for your own good. It was because I love you, okay? And I always will. That's why, if you ever need it, I'll help correct you again, and again, and again. So that you can always be perfect, like this."
She nodded her head, and slowly drew herself closer to him. He wrapped his arms around her, holding her against his chest tightly. His skin was warm, his scent powerful. With her head on his chest, she felt so weak, so submissive. It felt incredible. It felt right.
"Do you have any questions?" He asked her, whispering in her ear. She shook her head no.
"I would never question you, darling. You know what's best for me. I understand that now. You always did know best."
"Good. Now, I just have one question for you."
He smiled to himself, and gently pushed her away, taking care to show her he wasn't upset, still smiling fondly at her. He pulled open the bedside table drawer, and while his figure obscured whatever it was that he was taking from it, her mind raced with possibilities. A gag? Bindings? A needle full of those wonderful, awful drugs?
He turned to look at her, and slowly sank to one knee. He held up the small, velvet ring box, and flipped it open to reveal the simple gold band inside.
"Mallory Holmes, will you be my wife? To own, and to possess, for as long as you live?"
She couldn't say yes quickly enough.