Chapter 7: The Operation

I open my eyes groggily and stretch out my jaw without thinking. The cotton balls are gone, and so are the bandages. I shoot straight upright and paw around my head. My tattoo no longer throbs, but when I peel my lip down and awkwardly tilt my eyes, I can see a smudge of black in my vision. My branding is still on my belly, too. I frown as I rub the skin.

Doctor Brockhoist was right. I really can’t tell that anything has changed in my mouth. I run my teeth along the back molar he replaced, but it feels as natural as ever. So weird. My clit throbs at the memory of the procedure, and I sink my hand beneath my blanket to ease its discomfort.

Before I get the chance to touch myself, there’s a soft knock at the door. The handle unlocks, and the person on the other side invites themselves in without my permission. I scoot to the back of my medical bed and watch Doctor Wentzler stride in, wearing a warm, gentlemanly smile. His hands are tucked into his lab coat pockets, and his small wire glasses sit on the edge of his nose.

“There she is,” he says. He props the door open just a smidge, but I don’t dare jump for freedom. There are guards crawling all over the place. “How do you feel today, Emma?”

“Fine,” I whisper. I hug my arms when he approaches.

He takes a penlight from his pocket and grabs a gentle hold of my chin. He tilts back my hand and says, “Say ‘ah’ for me.”

“Aaaaaaaahhh...”

I hold my mouth open for him to take a peek inside. My tongue wriggles uncomfortably. Wentzler examines my tooth, then my tattoo, before he peels away to lift my paper gown and look at my brand.

“Excellent work. You’ve got all the fixings of a LILLEE subject. Now it’s time to make you an orchid.”

I frown. “I thought I already was an orchid.”

Wentzler chuckles and shakes his head. “There’s one more pesky chore we have to take care of first. Don’t you worry, we’ll make it fun. I was thinking we’d play a game today. Are you interested?”

My stomach gurgles, tearing Wentzler’s eyes away to where my fingers trace my belly button.

“How about this,” he continues. He takes my hand off of my belly and uses it to pull me onto the floor beside him. “If you be a good girl today and play my game by all of its rules, I’ll let you have a dessert with your dinner.”

My eyes widen. Partially because the idea of something sweet sounds absolutely heavenly, but mostly because I don’t remember the last time I had anything to eat. My body is all shaky from hunger pains, and it’s really hard to get my head to focus.

“Okay,” I say, nodding. “I’ll be the best girl I can be.”

Wentzler chuckles. “I know you will. Shall we?”

He holds out his arm for me to grab onto. I take it with both of my hands, holding onto him close like a shy toddler might cling to its mother. He’s my savior, after all. I trust him with my life.

He leads me out into the hall. Right away, we’re nearly knocked to the ground by a gurney rushing past us. A man strapped down to it screams like his life depends on it. Blood spurts out of his private area, coating his naked body like a skin suit and trailing behind him on the floor. A frantic nurse follows the gurney, trying not to slip, as she clutches a blooded, severed cock in her hands. It isn’t until they’ve turned the corner that my eyes gleam with familiarity.

“Are you alright, dear?” Wentzler asks with a shudder. He pats my shoulder and studies my eyes.

“That was the man from the woods,” I say, following the blood trail back to its source. He was in a room close to me, and I didn’t even realize.

Wentzler lets out a short huff. “I’ve heard of him. He’s an unruly lotus; too strong for his own good. Sold to us by his mother and aunt for a decent sum of money. He’s ours forever, and it seems that news hasn’t sunk well in his head.”

“You know all that about him?”

“After he attacked you, it was my responsibility to research the troubled man. I need to make sure he didn’t try to hunt you down.”

I tremble and cling tighter to Wentzler’s arm as we avoid stepping on the blood. “He’ll do that?”

“Not anymore. That amputation job was done by his own hand, I’d wager. A subject should never purposefully injure themselves without expecting dire consequences. You’d be smart to remember that.”

“What do you think will happen to him?”

Wentzler lets out a sigh. He takes me into the stairwell, where his voice echoes up and down the steps. “This is already his third strike. That cock isn’t getting reattached, I’ll tell you that much. They’re either going to send him to become lunchmeat or they’ll enroll him in Doctor Becker’s insane ‘human water filter’ project.”

“And he won’t be a threat after that?”

Wentzler shakes his head. “He’ll be fully amputated down to his shoulders and hips. A system of tubes will be installed in his insides, pumping water through his rectum and out his throat. The problem with the experiment is that subjects tend to suffocate to death, so he won’t last long, I’m guessing. But you won’t ever have to worry about him again, darling. I can promise you that.”

The image of that man being stripped of his limbs and forced to pump water makes my stomach roll, but then I remember the way he ripped off my shorts and pinned me to a tree in the woods. How he shot Mom and hit Dad. Then I wish he’d suffer even worse.

When Wentzler leads me underground, my breath disappears. I still recall that horrible prison place where Dad tortured me with wax. I hesitate to follow, but Wentzler is already tugging me through a heavy metal door unlocked with a chip in his hand.

“It’s alright,” he says, patting my hand. “This way is faster.”

I’m relieved when we step into a room I don’t recognize. It looks like a small train station with two guard posts on either side of the room and a platform for the trains to come in. A screen overhead has a queue that reads out the train’s next destination. There’s two men standing by the tracks with a woman between them. She’s fully nude and seems to be proud of it. A lily is scorched onto her belly. Her skin is soft, and her hair is rich. Decorative makeup paints her face. It startles me when her sharpened glare glances my way. The suited man beside her urges her to pay me no mind while the man on her other side wraps his arms over her shoulders.

I shrink tighter against Wentzler when the train pulls up. I’m startled to see that it’s only one car, manually operated by a man in armor. The back of it is only big enough for a few people, and it seems to be exclusive to the woman and her handlers.

“Private shuttles,” Wentzler explains. He uses a screen to punch in our destination with a special code. He brings me to the platform as the shuttle takes off with a zipping noise. “It’s an efficient way to get around.”

“What does the lily mean?” I ask.

“She’s a concubine. A whore of the highest honor. That’s how this facility first got started, you know. We’ve existed since the twelve-hundreds, selling sluts and harlots to the highest bidders all over the globe. Do you know what L-I-L-L-E-E stands for?”

I shake my head.

“The Labyrinthian Institute of Lifelong Labor, Enslavement, and Eroticism. We make slaves, sluts, and servants of all types, darling. And it all started with the lilies.”

“Are lilies better?” I ask.

Wentzler lets out a quiet chuckle as our shuttle rolls up to the platform. He takes me inside and says, “Let’s save some of these questions for today’s session. It’s good that you’re inquisitive.”

The inside of the shuttle is familiar to me. Maybe I grew up in a city somewhere and got to ride a subway train. It’s set up similarly to a trolley, with benches lining its back wall and a bar overhead for people to hold on to. The only difference is that there’s a locked case with restraints on one side, and another with clamps and vibrators on the other. I’m thankful when Wentzler sits me down beside him without opening either. He holds me close, wrapping his arm around my shoulders and letting me rest my head against him. He takes his other hand and settles it on my thigh, giving me a reassuring squeeze when the shuttle jostles to life.

We’re shot through a pitch-black tunnel. The shuttle awakens with a soft blue glow inside. I can see in the darkness that the tracks snake out in multiple directions, but the driver is careful to lead us to our destination. Sometimes, one of the tracks is lit up with light from outside, but we never go down those ways. We remain underground for a while until the shuttle lulls to a stop and Wentzler stands me up.

“Not too much further,” he says.

I’m ushered then into an office-like building. There are fewer guards walking around, as most of them are posted outside of doors. Many men and women run around in suits, dresses, and lab coats. Sometimes they’re dragging a subject behind them. The lily is there. She stands in the lobby while two suited men feel her up. She looks proud. We breeze past her, head up a glass elevator, when our destination finally faces us, standing at the end of a long, boring-looking hallway. I swallow, seeing that there’s already a guard posted outside of the door Wentzler takes me through. He nods to the armored man, then locks us inside with a smile.

I frown when I get a look around. The room is brightly lit and painted grey, with large windows overlooking the lobby down below. The lily is being fingered, yet no one seems to care. There’s a plush arm chair by the window, sitting beside a cabinet of drawers fit for an office. Actually ... the room just looks like a normal space for a day-job, except for the medical-grade table beneath the overhead light.

“What is this place?” I ask, grabbing onto my arms.

Wentzler smiles and pats the table for me to sit. When I do, he pulls out the threads in my paper gown and leaves me nude. My dress is thrown away in a small wastebasket. I lay down before I am told to.

“This is a therapy space,” Wentzler says. I had forgotten that Doctor Brockhoist had already warned me I was going to a therapy session. I glance around the room as Wentzler opens up all the drawers.