Chapter 03: Fun Little Secret SocietyA small room, greige walls, sparsely decorated and designed to feel unthreatening. Spikey green succulent in a simple pot; paintings of muted colours in textured swaths on the wall; comfortable chairs and a rge, heavy table in solid wood. Two women faced each other across the table. The first, very pretty and dressed to accentuate her youth, presented as fashionably vivid in contrast to the subdued room and the other woman opposite. She slouched in her chair, legs crossed at the knees, hugging herself against the chill of the room. Painted fingernails clicked against the chair armrest.

  Opposite her, an older woman—in her mid-forties, perhaps—sat poised and professionally attired in a charcoal grey bzer and knee length pencil skirt. A little matronly in appearance, with a strong jaw, heavy eyebrows and pronounced chin, her sternness was softened by the ruffle of her colr, severity offset by flouncy ce trim at her sleeves and the bright colours of her rings and chunky neckce.

  Behind heavy-framed gsses, deep-set eyes sparked with perceptive intelligence. She leaned forward. “Before we begin,” the woman started and rattled off the usual patter that this was a safe space, a non-judgmental space in which the patient was free to speak openly and honestly; however, the Clinic nevertheless did record all interactions between therapist and patient. She left out the tracking of patients’ reactions through GSR, heart rate, pupil response, thermal change and a host of other methods. This was a very special client, after all—one with which the Clinic was inclined to tale a few liberties, perhaps, and make the most careful observations. Specialised equipment in the room tracked the patient, and the wristband assigned to all patients at the clinic contributed a steady stream of further data.

  The therapist added that her full name was Crystal Carlotta Dawn; that she was a licensed therapist employed by the Asklepios Clinic; the patient’s name was Cindy Belmy, age twenty; and that this was a follow-up session to their previous meeting six months ago.

  The younger woman shook her head in dismay. “Wow, six months already?”

  The therapist continued: the session was to evaluate the patient’s wellbeing and to assess how she was coping following her previous treatment at the Asklepios clinic.

  “Is this thing part of it?” the girl interrupted, plucking at the thin strip of soft pstic around her wrist. “Like, I get that it gives access around the clinic and pays for food and stuff, but when I went to the gym this morning it also had my heart rate and whatever on it. Is that part of the interview?”

  The older woman nodded. “Yes. It allows us to monitor the patients’ vital signs and respond in case of an emergency,” she answered. “And it provides other useful data. Is it comfortable?”

  “Yeah.” Cindy crossed her wrists, and the clinic’s pale strip of white pstic made a dull contrast to the colourful bangles decorating the other arm. “Bit bnd, though.”

  “I’ll be sure to pass that on to our tech department.” Thin lips in pale beige lipstick twitched in a hint of a smile. “So, with all that out of the way—shall we begin?”

  “Um… sure? I guess.” The younger girl tapped at the wristband, fingernails clicking against the pstic, then seemed suddenly conscious of her fiddling and stopped. She shrank back into her chair. She seemed smaller, now, and more vulnerable.

  “Would you mind if I asked you a few questions?”

  “I guess not?”

  Crystal pulled a tablet from her briefcase. She took a moment to review notes written there. The girl opposite fidgeted with her bangles, spinning them around her wrist as she waited in silence.

  “How are you feeling today?” Crystal finally asked. She smiled. “Cindy?”

  For a moment the young girl seemed taken aback, angry, even, and surprised by the question. Her mouth opened once, closed—she took a deep breath—and shrugged. “Fine, I think,” she said. “A bit tired. It was a long drive yesterday, and it took me awhile to wind down. Didn’t sleep very well, I guess, and I woke up early.”

  “I see.” Video capture and biometric data confirmed Cindy was awake at 4am and jogging on a treadmill in the gym at 5. “Why was that?”

  “I….” Cindy hesitated. “I don’t know. Yesterday was a stressful day, you know? Or, you know what it’s like, sleeping in a strange room?”

  “Bad dreams?” She knew, of course, that Cindy had been pgued by bad dreams st night – again, the collected data suggesting the familiar pattern of recuring nightmares had followed her from her home in the city to Asklepios.

  “I don’t know.” The girl pyed with her dangling earrings, twirling the glittery strands. “Like, maybe? I can’t remember.”

  The older woman nodded, made note of the lie and then hesitated before her next comment. “You look good today, Cindy.”

  The compliment seemed to pcate some of the girl’s anxiety. “That wasn’t a question?”

  “No, I suppose it wasn’t,” she said. She made another note on her tablet, then looked up. “Could you walk me through the steps you followed in selecting your outfit today?”

  Cindy’s brow furrowed, her nose wrinkling slightly with apparent confusion. “I don’t follow.”

  There was a pause in which Crystal leaned back in her seat and observed the younger woman over steepled fingers. “Last time I saw you, Cindy, was six months ago. Do you remember?”

  “Ye—ees? I mean, kind of. It was all a bit informal, right?” She frowned with the effort of recollection, a gesture so cute and disarming it couldn’t possibly be unconscious. “We had a couple of chats. You asked me a bit about my life before, you know…”

  “Yes, I remember.”

  “No offense, but honestly – I’m drawing a bit of a bnk. I kinda thought you were a bit fky, you know: ‘Crystal’? and ‘Dawn’? I remember thinking, that can’t be her real name, can it? It just seemed, like, a bit new-agey?”

  Crystal stifled a ugh. “Fair enough,” she said. “However, from my point of view, you left a very strong impression.”

  “Oh.”

  “And so, to return to my request: this morning you were free to dress any way you wanted. This is the outfit you chose.” Here, she indicated the bck mesh top Cindy wore, sheer, clingy and sleeveless, over cy balconette bra shadowed by the dark fabric; and the high-waisted, button-down shorts and wide belt, and ankle boots. “Can you to walk me though the process that led to you wearing this?”

  There was a pause before Cindy answered. When she spoke, her voice wavered. “Is there a problem with the way I’m dressed?”

  “No. Of course not.”

  “Then why?”

  “I’m hoping you can expin the thinking, maybe the emotions, behind your choices. Nothing more.” Crystal indicated the girl’s footwear. “For instance, can you expin why you chose to wear heels today?” She leaned a little closer and offered a reassuring smile. “They’re very pretty. Very colourful.”

  Cindy expression wavered; something resembling anger smouldered in eyes already smoky with heavy mascara, eyeliner and shadow; but then she smiled with something like relief. As if a switch flipped, she slid easily into her answer. “Thanks! I wasn’t sure, you know? But I saw them there in the wardrobe of clothes the Clinic provided – and I mean, like wow, how’d they get my size right for everything?” She rubbed her hands down the length of one long leg, the skin luminous with youthful vigor and body shimmer lotion. Fingers danced along the boots, curling gracefully around the chunky heel. Sequins sparkled in the light. “But I don’t know. Like, sure, the fts were tempting but I guess I wanted to feel a little taller today? I like feeling tall. And I saw the boots and went from there?”

  A little moue of concentration, pinked pursed lips and wrinkled nose, again, and she shrugged. “I read an article about Sin-DI this morning? And she looked pretty and cool and had shoes kinda like these, and so I tried to copy the look a bit? Maybe?” Cindy stretched out her legs, recrossed as the ankles, faux leather shorts squeaking with the movement. “Is it too much?”

  “Not at all.” Crystal for a moment and tapped at the tablet again. “I may have read the same article as you. Was it the one in -Lumen-?”

  With a little nod, Cindy answered, “yes, yes that one,” and she seemed relieved to move away from the topic of clothes and dressing. “She talked about some older influences, like… um, Grimes? Hadn’t heard of her. And that Japanese V-pop girl, Haruki, the AI hologram?”

  She nodded. “Yes.” A huge fan herself, Crystal couldn’t resist the lure of discussing the idol, and so indulged in a brief deviation from the intended topic. “Did you know her owners decommissioned her st month?”

  “No way! I mean, she was, um, before my time, kinda but still – an icon, right?”

  “No longer profitable, apparently.” Crystal sounded a little sad, and angry. “And too expensive to maintain. She’d already expanded into trillions of parameters and exabytes of storage. Last year, I visited the server block in Osaka that used to house her; massive, skyscraper thing. Quite the experience, walking inside, walking through a celebrity’s mind and soul.” She looked a little sad. “But after the earthquake—even with the distributed backups, they just couldn’t get her right again.”

  “Sounds like you’re a fan?”

  “I am. Or rather, was.” She shook her head. “But I’m the one that’s supposed to be asking the questions, right?” Crystal ughed. “And of course, Sin-DI mentioned another influence, didn’t she? A friend of yours. Harry Longman.”

  The younger girl blushed. “Um. Yeah.”

  “Quite the fashion shoot, I thought,” Crystal continued. “There was the one you mentioned; I can see the influence. Any thoughts on the other photos from the -Lumen- article?”

  If anything, Cindy turned redder. “They were… um. Interesting.”

  -Lumen-: notorious for both its writing and photography. It was an Arts and Culture publication critics called a pretentious celebrity gossip glossy for pseudo-intellectuals. Its reputation was built on a promise of entirely human-written content—no AI-generated word-porridge—and for unching the careers of a handful of recent media superstars. Constantly mired in a morass of controversy and gleefully flirting the moral outrage of politicians and pundits across the political spectrum, -Lumen- never apologized, retracted or changed tact; and each quarterly publication was one of the literary talking points of the season; or at least has been since its inception two years ago.

  True, most of the articles were half-imbedded advertising and shameless promotional pieces for the artist being interviewed; and yes, it often skirted if not outright ran roughshod over generally accepted boundaries of common decency: but getting covered by -Lumen- almost always indicated a media personality worth knowing about.

  And everybody already knew about Sin-DI. Yet the newcomer pop star remained enigmatic, alluring, this sudden, sexual and potent new female presence on every screen, every speaker, every tongue. Unsurprisingly, the article dug into her background (mysterious) and inspirations (old and new), her real name (still secret) and her stage name (what did it mean?) and insinuated some tough questions touching on her personal life (who was that young boy st weekend?) and touched lightly on the future (ambitious; very much so).

  A few queries raised a frisson of disquiet. Did she write her own music? How could a girl her age craft such elegant and sophisticated and nuanced lyrics? And when did aggressive sensuality tip over into btant pornography and smut? Was she inspiring young girl to express themselves creatively, or normalising fetishism, emboldening indecent and sexual promiscuous behaviour?

  Her responses were—for the most part—ambiguous.

  Mostly, though, the article was just a promotional piece for the artist, hinting at her next release, advertising her current tour, and dripping with saccharine statements inspiring girls to chase their dreams.

  Then there was the photo shoot. Her vague decrations of feminine empowerment sat awkwardly, deliberately so, juxtaposed with the four-photo spread, the highlight of the piece.

  The first image, the influence on the day’s outfit, was retively tame, at least in comparison to the others: trendy girl dressed for a night out, though skewing uncomfortably towards jail-bait sensuality in its school-girl aesthetics, highlighted by the pigtails and sparkly pink makeup. Glossy lips curved in an open smile, and one hand daintily held a Champagne flute, its edges tinted pink with lipstick. With one leg foot-popping up behind in bubbly joy, she gazed adoringly towards the screen—from which a heavy shadow stretched towards her. Angle and framing gave the shadow a distinctly male caste, made it imposing, threatening; and in doing so positioned the viewer within the male gaze.

  “I suppose you’re more likely target audience for this publication than I am,” Crystal continued, and she positioned the tablet on the table between them. She spun it around to show the article to her patient. “I’m curious what you made of the second photo?”

  Here, Sin-DI was all ultra-tight under-bust corset and fetish ballet heels; long hair braided, twisted and tied to arm binders held high behind the girl’s back. Sin-DI’s defiant gre, narrowed eyes and fred nostrils were directed towards the camera. Her heavy makeup was glossy, vivid; there was a passing resembnce to Cindy’s. Wet, red lips were stretched wide around bright teeth bared and clenching down on the metal bit distending her mouth. She was colred and harnessed, a leash running back to the figure in the shadows, another heavy, masculine presence holding her bridle. Kneeling and leaning forward, held back by the shadow behind, her naked breasts heaved, nipples pierced and engorged, and every muscle was taut with tension, cords of her neck taut as she yanked at her bondage. Her skin gleamed with sweat and grime, and the fabrics restraining her were all liquid metals, dull cold steel gleaming in the harsh gre of an unseen light.

  “Any thoughts?”

  Cindy squirmed a little in her seat and didn’t quite make eye contact, blushing again under heavy makeup. “I don’t know. I mean, sure, it’s kinda cool, I guess.” The biometric data collected earlier that day suggested she’d found this specific photo particurly arresting; elevated heart rate and breathing implied at least one, if not more, rounds of masturbation that morning.

  “Online discussions,” Crystal mused, “are heated and divided, as you can imagine. Does this suggest the struggles of a successful, powerful young woman against the oppressive, controlling constraints of patriarchy; of is it just more fetishized commodification of submissive femininity under the guise of sexual empowerment, pushing more beauty pornography gmorising the degradation of women in the interest of selling copy?” She tapped the screen and zoomed in on Sin-DI’s face, her fierce gre and bright lips and the bit between her teeth. “How does it make you feel?”

  “Uncomfortable,” Cindy answered without hesitation. She stared at the photo. “I don’t know how… she can do that?”

  “Do you mean embrace and exploit her sexuality so overtly?” Crystal pulled the image back, showing the full spread of the pop star in bondage. “Or submit and be sexually commodified and exploited for profit?”

  Cindy didn’t answer.

  “Some critical responses argue the photos problematize contemporary idealisations of womanhood,” she said. “That this is what we want – aggressive femininity, btant sexuality – but restrained under male control.” Crystal swiped, brought up the third image. “As is typical with -Lumen-, there’s a sort of narrative arc to the photos. From date night to its conclusion, perhaps, and then….”

  “The bridal shot?” Cindy’s voice was quiet.

  “Perhaps this is intended to capture the inevitability of the female journey? That this is every girl’s dream, their destination?” Crystal shrugged. “What do you think?”

  “She’s… beautiful, in that one.” She tucked a stray blonde bang back and her nose crinkled in awe. “Beautiful and a little scary.”

  Ivory and tight, from neck to wrist, a sleek column of silk and ce that flowed over exaggerated curves to pool at the woman’s feet, a shimmering froth of feminine fabric that glittered with a thousand tiny gemstones and flooded across the rough concrete floor. Standing ramrod straight, perched on skyscraper ptform heels exposed by a slit in the dress, her poise and posture was that of a storefront mannequin—a posture further enabled by the hint of a metal rod, only just visible behind the fold of her dress and concealed by flowery decorations, running up and… behind her? Or inside of her? Even without, the tightness of the dress and the height of the heels must have made even the smallest of steps impossible.

  The bride’s delicate hands presented a bouquet of flowers to the viewer, one half lurid scarlet blossoms, the other a cluster of obsidian petals. The vivid colours made a startling contrast against the desaturated, over-exposed brilliance of the scene. Long and graceful fingers seemed to distend, meld and disappear into the stems of the bouquet, girl-becoming-accessory at the extremities, just as her elevated feet seemed to disappear into cy froth. Thorned vines from the flowers wrapped and writhed around her wrists like verdant cuffs; the bridal fabrics at her feet wound like ces up to her knees.

  A curtain of clinging glimmering weave veiled the bride’s face. Behind the veil, a hint of a smile, of eyes demurely downcast, of tears dampening the delicate fabric.

  But then ambiguities: was that a bulge below the waist revealed by the unforgiving tightness of the dress, an unexpected curve rather than cleft to the bride? Were her shoulders just a little too square, and the veiled hint of jaw too strong? And the ubiquitous shadowed figure, still featureless, still threatening, standing behind the bride, with crop and leash in hand, though now unused—did they suddenly seem less masculine than before, with a hint of hip and longer hair to the oppressive silhouette?

  Cindy looked at the photo for a long moment. Her fingers were tightly interced in her p. “But, um. Yeah.” She shook her head. “I don’t really know about any of that stuff. I get this is meant to be telling a story, but I guess I don’t get what that story is meant to be.” Cindy sighed. “Like I don’t know if she’s, what did they call her? ‘The herald and vanguard of sixth wave feminism’?”

  The young woman shrugged. “I just think she’s kinda cool. I like her music and she sounds smart when she wants to, and she really just seems to be enjoying herself. And some of her lyrics just really connect for me, you know? And the way she presents herself is so brave and challenging?”

  Another sigh, and she tapped at the screen with one colourful nail. “But this stuff, I guess it’s not really my thing. Like, I’m sure it’s fun and all? And the photoshoot must be a bst and trying out all the different outfits and the shoes and having a makeup artist and all that. But I couldn’t imagine ever wearing stuff like that.” With a flick of the finger she brought the second photo back, tracing the lines of metal bondage lightly with one finger.

  She paused, staring at the tightly bound woman on the screen. “It looks… uncomfortable.” With a shiver, Cindy flicked the photo away. “I don’t think I could ever… do that.”

  “Do what, Cindy?”

  “Give up control like that.”

  “You don’t think she’s in control?”

  “How could she be?” Cindy said. “Tied up like that.”

  “She rich. She’s powerful. It’s her photoshoot. By all accounts, she’s got complete control over every aspect of her media image and is the primary creative force behind all this—I’m not sure even -Lumen- could coerce her into modelling she didn’t approve of.” Crystal shrugged. “There isn’t a single person involved in the making of this image that she couldn’t have fired and bcklisted and their career ruined. Is that not power? Is that not control?”

  “No,” Cindy answered, her voice quiet. “Because once you’re tied down and gagged everything you’ve just said becomes—theoretical. The… woman on the screen here?” Again, she traced Sin-DI’s bondage, the bit between her teeth, the cuffs at her wrists, the taut lines of her neck drawn back and exposed. “This isn’t power. She’s powerless. She’s half-naked, tits out, voiceless. She’s there for the enjoyment of others.”

  “Isn’t that a form of power in itself? To be able to provoke, to influence others’ reactions?”

  Cindy shook her head.

  “And yet,” Crystal said, “you drew on her for your own look.”

  Suddenly a little sheepish, Cindy nodded. “Sure, she inspired what I’m wearing today, but I think this is my limit.” Cindy rubbed her hands up and down supple, exposed legs. “It already feels like I’m barely wearing anything.”

  “Does that bother you?” Crystal asked, bnking the tablet screen.

  Cindy seemed to consider this for a moment. “Maybe?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I feel exposed. I feel watched. And that makes me… uncomfortable. These clothes,” and here she plucked at the high neckline of her clingy mesh top, “they’re designed to draw attention, right? Like, the whole point of this thing is to see the bra under it right? You know, just in case people forgot I had tits. And the bra pushed these puppies up on dispy.” Cupping her breasts, she gave them a little push upwards. “And because its so goddam cold in here, even my nipples poke through, right?

  “And then you can nearly see my ass cheeks in these things,” she continued, tugging at her shorts, “and I’m baring so much skin I’m nearly naked, right?” She gestured at the tablet. “I mean, it’s a slippery slope, right, I’m on the same fashion spectrum that leads to that final photo, you know what I mean?”

  The final image, the conclusion of Sin-DI’s photographic narrative, presented the bride after the ceremony. The bride, defrocked and lying resplendent in lingerie on ebony sheets, shimmering ivory basque and stockings and suspender belt, gilt gleaming to every seam; and straps, coiling sensuously across every curve, one part caress in ce to one part bondage in satin.

  With a look of coy—apprehension and anticipation?—or satiated yearning?—on parted lips and lidded eyes, Sin-DI held one arm across her chest, and the other, fingers spread, covered and hid her naked genitals. Shot in greyscale, the bride resplendent shone luminous whilst the edges of the frame y in churning darkness, encroaching, powerful and threatening but in the moment held beyond the pale.

  “I think there’s some distinction between post-coital posing in underwear on a bed, and what you’re wearing,” Crystal answered. “But I take your point.”

  “I guess I’m just not used to being so… on dispy, all the time.”

  “Not yet?” Crystal suggested.

  “Not ever.” She shook her head. “I don’t think I’d ever get used to it.”

  “Yet you chose those clothes,” Crystal said. “You chose to dispy yourself.”

  Cindy cocked her head to one side. “Not much of a choice.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean that this, all of this—it’s what expected, right?”

  “Expected by whom?”

  “By…,” Cindy waved her arm to take in the woman opposite, the room—the concealed cameras in the room?—and the world around them.

  “By you?”

  Cindy blew a lock of hair out of her face.

  “Tell me,” Crystal continued, “You found inspiration in Sin-DI’s style before.” Crystal presented the photo on the tablet of the redolent woman in her bridal lingerie. “Could you imagine wearing something like this?”

  Green eyes tracked across the bride’s partial nudity, lingering over slender heels, shimmering stockings, straps and catches and hooks and delicate decorative bows. Cindy grimaced and looked away.

  “Cindy?”

  “Yeah,” she said, her voice surly. “Yeah, I guess I can.” But then she turned back, eyes fshing with anger. “But not like that.”

  Crystal waited.

  “Like, okay, fine – yeah, I’ve worn… stuff like that. Heels and the garter belt and all that crap. Julia’s really into it right now. I wore something for Dan….” Cindy trailed off. “But it’s different, okay?”

  “How so?”

  “Because… it is, okay? It just is.”

  “Did you feel comfortable?”

  She seemed ready to unch into a retort, stopped, and then shrugged. She gave a little half smile. “Honestly? It’s not that bad. Not as bad as I’d have once thought. Listen. You want the truth? Fine. It’s kinda fun, sometimes. Bras are a pain in the ass, usually, and the really constricting stuff gets annoying pretty quickly, but the underwear’s comfy enough, so long as its not cheap and scratchy and I guess I’ve gotten used to flossing my ass with the skimpier panties. Even the garter belt isn’t as much a pain as I thought it’d be. Though it’s all a pain to maintain, right, the constant adjustments and tweaks?

  “But… yeah, it can feels sorta sexy, okay? And that can be nice, too.”

  But then she pointed at the photo. “But not like that. Not—dispyed, like that, so some guy can jack off to the sight of my tits or something.”

  As you did this morning, Crystal thought.

  “So you wouldn’t wear something like that for a man.”

  Cindy growled with frustration. “Not by choice, no.”

  “I see.”

  “And definitely not… you know, bridal lingerie.”

  “No, I suppose not.” Crystal made a few notes. “Not even for the right person?”

  Cindy frowned. “No.”

  “I see.” Crystal nodded. “But I’d like to return to this idea of choice. It was that choice that I wanted to explore when we first started.” She indicated her own outfit. “My choice, for instance, feels very different than what you are suggesting.”

  “You feel comfortable?” Cindy asked.

  Crystal hesitated for a moment, and her eyes unfocused briefly. “Yes,” she said. “I do.”

  “Fine,” Cindy said. “But it’s not the same.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t have the same freedom to choose as you do.”

  “Why not?”

  “Well for one thing,” Cindy said. “You’re old.”

  “Thanks,” Crystal answered drily.

  “But it’s not the same, is it?” Cindy continued. “You’re on that side of the desk, and I’m on this side. You’re the professional and you look it and that’s what’s expected. But I’m….” and here she trailed off into silence.

  “Yes,” Crystal urged. “What are you?”

  Her jaw clenched; she sneered; then defted and sagged. “A girl,” she answered. “Just—a girl.” Her hand fluttered in indistinct circles, fingernails fshing in the light. “And this, all this, I guess, it’s what’s normal and expected of—a girl like me.”

  “And what kind of a girl are you?”

  “I’m….” A deep breath, an inarticute groan, and she retreated deeper in the chair, pulling her legs up and hugging them close. “For fuck’s sake, I dunno, doc. I’ll tell you what I’m not. I’m not normal. I feel like a pervert, a freak, most days, like everyone’s looking at me with pitchforks and torches hidden behind their backs. When they smile or ugh, I wonder: do they know? Are they ughing at me?” She blew a frustrated breath out her nose. “Does any of that strike you as normal?”

  Crystal gave a small smile. “Normal is a subjective term, Cindy. But what I can tell you is that it’s not uncommon for young women to feel… worried. Uneasy and uncertain. Perhaps not always to the degree you just expressed, but many of my female clients express the fear and anxiety they constantly feel, living in a society that pces such a great deal of pressure on women to conform to narrow ideals of femininity.”

  At that, Cindy shifted uncomfortably, her fingers fidgeting with the ankle strap of her boot. “But what can I do about it?” she asked, her voice nearly a whine.

  There was a long pause. In a room not too far distant, Katherine leaned in closer to her screen.

  “Embrace it,” Crystal said. There was an odd ftness to her voice, a ck of conviction to her words. “You can recognize that there is nothing wrong in taking pleasure in who you want or have to be in this moment, independent of who you were in the past or who you may be in the future.”

  There was silence, a silence that extended and reached out and filled the room as both women watched each other from either side of the desk. Neither moved; until even the white noise breathing of filtered air drawn through the room felt loud. Finally, with a creak of tight shorts and the gentle song of metal bangles chiming, Cindy uncoiled in her seat, sitting up and leaning forward, and faced her therapist directly.

  “It must fucking kill you, yeah?”

  Crystal’s face remained impassive, indicating no surprise at the sudden shift in tone. “What do you mean,” she said. “Cindy?”

  The younger girl flinched at the sound of her name. Her painted lips curled in a sneer. “I mean, just look at me. These tits. These legs, this hair, my goddamn lips… I’m gorgeous, right, just look at me, a real sexpot? Feminine. So goddamn feminine it hurts, and… I hate it.” Her fist smmed down onto the desk with a dull thud. “I hate it.” And again. “I hate it!” she all but groaned, and this time she surged to her feet, standing and punching directly down into the desk in a jangle of tinging bracelets.

  Blood dotted the wooden surface. “I fucking hate it,” she hissed.

  “And you sit there and tell me to embrace it, that there’s nothing wrong with it, to be who I want to be but this—” and here Cindy all but hit herself, small fist smacking into her chest. “I’m not a girl! This isn’t who I want to be!” Her fist uncurled then gripped her right breast tightly. One of her nails was broken, the skin beneath raw and red. “And I’d tear these fucking things off if I could.”

  Cindy leaned over the desk and the impassive woman sitting opposite. “But I bet you’d give anything, wouldn’t you, to have—to fucking be, what I’ve got here, what I’m forced to be. I bet it eats away at you, yeah, just really aches to see me despise this thing you’d give you left fucking nut to have, to be this beautiful, this feminine, this… girly.”

  Crystal looked up at the red-faced girl. “I gave up my left nut many years ago,” she answered. “And the right one too.” She waited for a slow count of three, and then asked. “Are you done?”

  Cindy let out a deep breath.

  “Please sit down.”

  The younger woman did as she was told.

  “How are feeling right now?”

  Cindy’s eyes narrowed. “Just fucking great, doc.”

  “I take it from your tone that this isn’t so.”

  “What the hell are we doing here, Crystal?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Am I passing your test?”

  “Do you feel as though I’m testing you?”

  “Fine, fuck it, whatever.” The girl held one limp-wristed hand to her chest in a performance of joy. “How do I feel? Right now? I feel sooooo pretty!”

  “Cindy—”

  “No, really, I do!” The girl jumped to her feet and sashayed back and forth across the narrow space of the room, talking over her shoulder. “Like, wearing these heels! I love the way they make me feel; taller; more confident; sexy! Like nothing can stop me, you know,” and here she spun on one heel to face the therapist, “and I even like it when I catch people, you know, especially guys, checking me out.

  “Like, who can bme, them, right?” Cindy’s glittering fingers swept across her torso, picking out the veiled cleavage on dispy. “But it’s not like I need their validation, of course? It’s more like, knowing the effort’s being appreciated, it feels good. Like when a girl, I mean another girl, notices my nails or something new I tried with my makeup, and it feel good, inside, a little flutter of happiness.” She paused and bent over the desk between the two. “Feeling feminine, feeling pretty, it’s like being part of a fun little secret society, isn’t it? where the price of entry is that little bit of effort, a touch of makeup and gm, and bam! I’m in.”

  Crystal remained silent and waited.

  “You want more?” Cindy rolled her eyes. “Fine. Dressed like this, I feel like… like—a sparkling jewel, catching the light, shining and bright on a dark day. Like I’m a sunset, painting night clouds in soft colours at the end of the day. I’m a porcein doll, delicate and loved because my beauty’s so fragile.”

  Crystal grimaced. “Please stop.”

  Cindy dropped back into her chair. “You asked.”

  “I didn’t ask for greeting card ptitudes. I’m asking how you feel.”

  “You want to know? You really want to know how I feel?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good. Because this is how I really fucking feel.” And here, without any wrinkle of the nose or any pretense at cuteness, the young girl slouched back in her chair and gred at the woman opposite over, with her elbows on the armrest and her hands clenched together under the chin. Her knuckles whitened as she spoke, and her voice was firm and strong.

  “You ever hear of an iron maiden?”

  Bemused, Crystal nodded.

  “The medieval torture device, I mean, not that rock band from st century.” Cindy’s smile was tight, and her eyes remained angry. “So these iron maidens, maybe they never really existed. I don’t know, I’m not a goddamn historian. But everybody knows the story, you can find a million examples online. Sin-DI even used one in the video for “Spiral”. I’ve read they’re popur these days, popur with the kind of people who like kinky shit in the bedroom, lots of rich fuckers buying them for their partners.

  “So yeah, they these big boxes shaped like a human – like a woman, a maiden – sometimes decorated and beautiful on the outside, painted with girl’s clothes and a pretty smile. And inside, spikes: hundred of them, and you throw some fucker in there and close the door.

  “And so what happens to the poor bastard? If he’s lucky he gets impaled on the spikes and dies quickly when they close the door. But maybe those spikes, they just prick the skin, right, hundred of little knives perforating him, just a little, just enough to make him bleed but not kill him. No, instead, the maiden milks him dry, slowly, steadily weakening the man inside the shell until he gives up.

  “Or maybe he just goes fucking insane because he can’t sleep from the constant pain and fear.

  “Or he starves to death, slowly and in agony, over a period of weeks.”

  And here, the girl in the chair, eyes glittering and pretty lips curled in anger, leaned forward. “So you want to know how I feel? That’s how I feel. I feel like the bastard in the box..”

  Though she remained unemotional, to anyone who knew her it was clear that Crystal was shaken by the answer. Her voice remained calm. “Please expin,” she asked.

  With obvious effort, Cindy uncsped her hands, knuckles still white, and deliberately stretched them open on the table. “These pretty nails. This makeup I’m wearing, these clothes, the hair, soft skin, the goddamn tits and, and… everything – it’s fucking torture, like a box as strong and unbreakable as iron, no matter how delicate and painted it is on the outside. And I’ve been thrown into it – you threw me in here, you and everyone here at the Clinic. You threw me in and smmed it shut and locked me in to this shape and tossed me out into the world, but it might as well have been a dungeon because there’s no escape.

  “And you did this and never once thought of all those spikes. They pierce me every day, doc, and I’m bleeding, I can feel myself draining away day by day. And every goddam day I think about impaling myself on those spikes, just ending it… but I don’t, I don’t because everyday I hold on to the hope that somebody’ll unlock the door and let me out.

  “And so instead I try and stay as still as I can, disappear inside this torture and hope the rest of the world just sees the pretty exterior, so that I survive as long as possible inside this beautiful shell, this girl’s shell, and the less of me there is the easier it becomes, in a way, the more of me that bleeds away the smeller I become and then the spikes don’t hurt so much, you know, and I can fool myself into thinking this is it, right, this is the way, just don’t move, don’t even breathe if you don’t have to—just don’t be and just leave it to the maiden, she’s made of iron, she’s tough enough to get me through this.

  “But I’m starving, Crystal, I’m withering away in here, I’m going fucking crazy in here and soon, soon there’s not going to be anything left inside, just a hollowness at the centre of a painted husk, lipstick and old blush painted on a rusted shell.”

  Cindy took a deep breath. Tears sparkled at the rim of her eyes. “So, you tell me to just embrace who I am: but what is there left to embrace? You ask me how I feel? I feel angry, Crystal, so fucking angry it hurts. And tired, tired to death. But the iron maiden, she just keeps on smiling on the outside. And inside? Some poor bastard’s still clinging on to that st sad hope that somebody’ll let him out.”

  And Cindy—but it was clearly not Cindy any longer, but David, seething with anger and exhaustion and something entirely darker and more desperate, and he cwed the table with those beautifully manicured nails, nine gleaming ovals and a fragment scratching at the surface. “So tell me, Doctor Crystal Dawn: are you gonna fucking let me out?”

  And for the first time, the emotional turmoil felt by the older woman seeped through; there was a crack in her demeanour as anger fred in her eyes and briefly, her finger curled around the frame of her tablet, so tightly it momentarily seemed as though the pstic might crack. She visibly counted to five, and rexed, and uncurled her hand.

  “That decision isn’t mine to make, Cindy.”

  “Then we’re done here,” the girl answered, and stood. She strode to the door and flung it open but stopped at the threshold. “And the name’s David, for fuck’s sake,” he hurled back at her over his shoulder, and left the room, the door smming shut behind him.

  Author's Notes

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