Onus 03

He opened the door. I rested my head back, and was pleasantly surprised. There was a padded edge for me to rest against. It was so comfortable that I closed my eyes for a moment.

"That looks like it feels good."

I sleepily opened my eyes. I looked up at him.

"You can spend as long in there as you want. I'm just going to check on you every ten minutes or so, in case you need anything. Okay?"

I nodded. My chin touched the water on the downstroke. I already felt so tired.

He quietly shut the door behind him as he left.

---

If he really visited me every ten minutes, then I spent about three hours in the tub.

Sometimes it was dozing. Sometimes it was lazily cleaning my body and hair with the baby shampoo and gentle soap that he had provided. He brought me cold water to drink on one of the visits. On the second, he spontaneously brought a small radio, and I listened to a channel that played soft classical music. It had been so long since I had heard music, any music.

When he came back to find my eyes red and socketed from weeping, he timidly asked me if I was okay.

I pointed at the radio. My hand was steaming from being in the water. I tentatively touched my own chest, a little above the cluster of cigarette burns.

I repeated the motion. I was a little scared, but I wanted it so so so badly.

"You... You want to keep the radio in your room?"

I nodded, looking at him fearfully.

He nodded rapidly. "Yes, of course... Of course you can." He smiled tentatively, eager to please me.

I smiled back.

---

When I was done, I drained the tub and dried off and rested on the folded comforter. The soak in the tub had made my feet feel so much better, but the moment I put some weight on them, the fierce stabbing pain came back.

When Sam came back and saw me resting, he smiled a little. "Ready to go back?" I nodded up at him. I had the robe back on, and a fluffy towel over my hair.

He dragged me to the stairs, and I crawled up the stairs slowly, careful not to strain myself. My legs and genitals hurt less. The bath had made everything feel so much better. But by the time I was at the top, I had fresh drops of sweat on my forehead.

He dragged me to my room and I saw that he had a black leather case and some papers set up in the middle of the room.

"Are you still okay with receiving a checkup?" He asked quietly.

I crawled onto the carpet, and into a patch of sun. I crossed my legs and wrapped the towel tightly around my shoulders. I nodded and took a deep trembly breath.

The first thing he did was to give me four crayons and a piece of paper. On one side of the paper was a frontal view of the body. The back side had a back view. The body was featureless and anatomically correct. The crayons were in green, yellow, red, and purple.

"I just want to get a good idea of what to check up on right now." Sam said softly. "I want you to fill in the form with those colors. Green for areas where you don't have any pain. Yellow for areas that don't feel so well, or have mild pain. Red for places that hurt badly. If you have anything you're worried about, like you're hearing, vision, or if you think you have any broken bones or serious injuries, I'd like you to circle that area with the purple crayon."

I understood, and was grateful. Most checkups, doctors figured that out by asking lots of questions. He seemed to understand that I couldn't speak.

He was pulling some things from his doctor's bag as I started on the sketch. The sketch was mostly yellow, even after the bath. I was able to fill in the calves and a bit of the chest with the green crayon.

With the red crayon, I filled in the lower buttocks and inner thighs of the back sketch. I filled in the groin and neck and feet in the front sketch. I filled in a spot on the back of the head.

Now for the purple crayon. I picked it up and scratched at the paper casing with my fingernail. What was I worried about?

Well, my feet. My feet hurt so badly whenever I put any real weight on them. I circled the feet on the sketch. I was worried about the piercings. The ordinary man and his friend had made special locking rings couldn't be removed without special tools. I wanted to remove the piercings in my testes. They were horrible and infected and I hated them.

Thinking about the piercings made me think about something else. The piercing in my navel was the newest, but I couldn't remember how long ago it was. That made me think of all of the other piercings. I tried to remember the order.

Did I want to remember?

The hand with the crayon was trembling.

When I handed back the sheet of paper, I looked down at the soft carpet under my feet, ashamed. I didn't want to see the look in his kind brown eye.

I had lightly shaded the entire region above the neck, in purple.

*

*Do the dear sweet anonymouse who squeaked that I was taking too long.

I have come out with the third installment, and I may take longer with the fourth. I will always finish what I start.

For the rest of you, thank you for being patient and staying with me. I have recently been accepted into the nursing program at my college, and will be able to drop a class that I was taking (dropping me from 17 credits to 14). This may free up some writing time, it may not.

As far as likely projects...

I have a sequel for Firecracker that sheds some interesting light on Willem's mother. This is the most likely to come out soon.

Kisses and Spanks,

--Cruel*