Chapter 29: Julia’s GirlThe car hummed with sudden acceleration and looking outside again I saere merging onto the highway. Hugging the ramp, the car smoothly joihe rapid flow of traffibsp; It wasn’t clear where the car was bringing me: away from the city, obviously, but clearly not to the main Asklepios ic which was, as far as I knew, halfway across the try. Presumably we were heading to one of the smaller Asklepios campuses or retreats. There was a half-dozen of these dotted around the try: secluded, gated realms of therapy and research where the rich recovered their health and sanity, and hid for as long as they could afford from the real world.

  The m sun outside was only growing stronger, and I felt the heat against the tinted window. The view outside was dull, seemingly endless stretches of agricultural industrialisation glinting in the harsh light, a webwork of t blocks of crete and steel g the sky, interected, automated and yered, growing the fruit aables, fungus and fake meat required to feed the inexorable maw of the urbares. Later, a massive bank of disused fans, miles long and t high, an ambitious air capture projeow rusting due to cost; and then field after field of glinting sor panels, aowards the sky, cables snaking towards distant ste facilities.

  Drumming my fiips against the windht a series of clicks against the gss, anift of Julia’s: matg nail extensions in the current style, one of st weekend’s “girls’ day out” activities. There’s been a lot of “girls’ days out” over the past six weeks. As she took great pleasure in reminding me, I was Julia’s girl, and she liked showing me off in public.

  With humiliating predictability, Julia’s influence over my life only grew greater after that first m. She took both pleasure and a strange responsibility in dressing me. Not that I stayed over at hers every night, of course. In fact, after that first m she pletely withdrew—ignored my texts, and I didn’t see her at work. I checked in at her office a few floors up and discovered she’d cashed in a few of her holiday days. I wondered, briefly, if she’d ged her mind and decided against tormenting me; and couldn’t decide whether I was disappointed or not.

  But no: by Thursday m I’d received her first instru, and several more followed in the days that followed. Initially, she only dictated small details of dy’s fashion: a text message in the m pig a colour of lipstick, or a specific skirt she knew hung in my closet. When I stayed the night, she took particur pleasure in choosing and styling my hair for the day—a long, tight braid one day; ond most embarrassingly, twin pigtails for a Friday.

  By the sed week, items of clothing began arriving at my home, bought online by Julia and delivered to home or indiscreetly at work: the occasional raderthing, like the suspender belt and stogs I currently wore, but also smaller gifts: a delicate pair of earrings, or a particurly vivid colour of nail varnish, or a tight, midriff-baring t-shirt, pink and cute, with stylised design of an i cat she’d spotted one evening after work.

  I was her doll, and Julia delighted in pying with me.

  And you know, had she stopped at dressing me up it may have been bearable. It was, in a weird and twisted kind of way, fun spending time with her. Yes, she was a bitch; and half-mad with bitterness and hunger for revenge; and clearly twisted up ih guilt and remorse over her own vindictiveness; and dominating; and spiteful; and… a hell of a lot of fun, probably because she was su absolute train-wreck of a human being.

  She was alseous—which made being with her so much easier and the more time spent with her, the more I came to appreciate her beauty—aing, especially in bed and far more than she’d been a decade ago.

  Meticulous and attentive, she showed remarkable patien teag me all the finer points of female artistry that I really didn’t want to know. Under her tutege, I’d probably learned more about hair, makeup, nail and fashion in the past month than I’d mastered sihe start of this insane charade, despite the fact she didn’t seem all that bothered in applying those same skills to herself. I quickly became adept at everything she taught me. Julia was either an excellent teacher, or I an brilliant studeher way, after only a few tries I’d learn whatever frivolous femiistry she was teag me.

  And she’d gotten surprisingly good—discertingly so, especially in such a short time—at maniputi knowing how far to push and when to back down. I may have bristled under her grip, but also found fort in her careful trol. I enjoyed sharing my agonies with another human being. And she, iurn, came to uand the precariousness of her own dominanbsp;

  Push me too far, too hard, and I’d refuse and the illusion that bound us would shatter. For example, her threat to call the cops or hand me over to—someo was always a bit vague—didn’t hold up, and she k. She stopped using that particur threat. Hell, we both knew I robably more likely to give myself away than she was, in drunkenness er.

  The real threat, two months into this weird and renewed retionship, unsaid but uood, was either of us just walking away. These eight weeks with her had been, in their own way, a hell of a lot better than the first months as dy speirely alone, every night and weekend, stewing in my own impotent anger and loneliness. There was a strange symbiosis between us: I gained a coad a fidant, someoo guide me through the intricacies of my role. I got to share my agonies of frustration and anger. Ah got to have sex, lots of it.

  Julia gained… what? A sense of satisfa in revenge? It was obvious she derived great pleasure from my pain. And I clearly presented her with excitement and passion and a new pet project to occupy her time. But even after a month together it remained uo me what exactly Julia wanted from me—after all, the current situation couldn’t st forever, and she had to uand that, right?

  And so. If she’d stopped at pying dress up, with occasional bouts of humiliation or mockery—yeah, everything would’ve probably been fine. I could’ve pyed her games and waited out the time until the ic gave me back my life.

  But she didn’t stop there.

  Author's Notes

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