Page 7 of Exposed
At the center of her being, the parts of her she ignores and denies, Violetknowswho she is: a disgusting little freak desperate to be used. My goal is to help her find herself.
Then, I’ll fully transform her.
“But—” Violet begins, then stops short. Her gaze falls to the floor. She swallows, then rubs her hands down her leggings. “Dr. Ambrose,” she tries again. “Please. I’d prefer it if Benji were present for this. If he could?—”
This time, I can’t help it. A hint of a smile pulls at my lips.Please?She thinks she can simply be polite and agreeable to get what she wants?
“Right now, Benji is not my patient,” I say firmly. “You are, Miss Ward. And any activity from here on out will determine your treatment, and that includes your sexual behaviors as well as everything else.” Her cheeks darken, blush coloring her skin. I raise a brow. “You want to be good for me, don’t you?”
Her eyelids flutter. “Of course,” she whispers.
Good.
“Then you will do as I command,” I say in a low voice. I nod toward my assistant. “We’ll begin the physical examination at once. Please go to the exam room now.”
“Now?” I squeak. “Wait!”
My pulse races in my ears, each thump whooshing through me. I press my hands against my chest to calm my heart, but it’s no use.
This is it. If I don’t do this, I don’t know when I’ll get another chance to bethis closeto Dr. Ambrose. As long as my mother’s murderer dies, then everything will be worth it.
Right?
Tension fists my throat. Benji’s warning bursts through me.
Most people don’t leave the asylum alive,he had said.Most of them die there. And the ones that die? They’re probably better off. A lot of the doctors don’t care who you are; they do what they want to supposedly heal you. Your mom was probably lucky to die in childbirth.
My knees loosen as weakness flutters through me. I steady myself, lift my chin, and stare up at Dr. Ambrose. Most of the doctor is professional: his bleach-white lab coat, the staff badge hanging from his collar, his striped tie. The dirt stains are gone; he must have changed his clothes before meeting with me. But there are whitemarks, what look like old scars, patching his hands, with small black and brown spots dotting those scars. He’s older, between fifty and sixty. His receding hairline exposes his scalp in an M pattern, and the long, smooth strands are pulled into a low ponytail at the base of his neck. Tinged gray teeth fill his mouth, and his stature is tall, his shoulders wide, his stomach lean, like he doesn’t eat muchandhe works out. A scent, both dusty and wet, expels with his breath.
He raises his bulbous, hooked nose. Yellow circles burrow underneath his eyes, his blackish-brown irises inspecting me.
Shivers plow down my skin, an ache pinching my lower back. I fidget with my hair. He’s a horrible, unattractive man, but my brain works faster, seeing the things hecoulddo to me. My ex never did anything outside of the norm. When it comes to Benji, he’s even more gentle—besides the videos, that is—and after we recorded our sex, he always apologized profusely, as if he thought he would never be able to make it up to me, even though I was the one whoaskedhim to do it. As if he truly believed I was reluctant, a good girl who would never do those awful things on my own.
I have this gut instinct Dr. Ambrose willwantto explore the threshold of my boundaries.
And he may be my father.
Flashes of the past lock me into their downward spiral, a looping whirlpool threatening to drown me. My ex and I had a vanilla sex life where I faked orgasms. He always believed my moans were real.
Then one day we found my real birth certificate and my biological mother’s death certificate. According to the record, my mother didn’t die from an overdose like I hadbeen told by my foster parents; she died during childbirth at the Wellard Asylum, where she was being treated for sexual addiction.
That’s when we found out she was a deviant.
I couldn’t stop wondering ifthat’swhat was missing from my life. Being preoccupied by my ex and our lousy sex life was better than blaming myself for killing her during childbirth, so I asked him to hurt me, to use me, to treat me like shit, so I could experience pleasure and feel like she did.
I don’t know, Violet. That kind of shit is for freaks,he had said.
Freaks.
Freaks like my mom.
Freaks like me.
After years of trying to please him, his rejection detonated my resolve. No matter what I did for him, he would never truly accept me.
I faked every orgasm I had with you,I shouted.Even if we did that freaky shit, you couldn’t make me cum if you tried.
For a while, it didn’t register to me that we had broken up. I was so obsessed with daydreams of my mother and the asylum that I forgot about him. Then, one day at work, he showed up with his new girlfriend.
