Dystopyum (The D-ot Hexalogy Book 1) (6 page)

Oh my God, what am I going to do?
Martha desperately thought to
herself.
I was ready. I was taking it — I was ready for another two weeks.
“I was ready for another two weeks!” she shouted out, hoping he
could hear — hoping anyone could hear.
I can’t do this for a whole year.
Her thoughts floated in and out of her awareness. She could not imagine
having a shred of sanity or identity with a year of this torture.
What can I
do?
she asked herself. “I was ready for another two weeks!” she yelled
again.
The hell with it,
she thought.
I have nothing to lose now.
Martha took
a deep breath.
“You know, you really suck! All you had to
do
was shock the living
shit out of me, and you couldn’t even do
that
right!” She paused, waiting
for a reaction.
Is he there? Is anyone there?
She tried again, sneering, “No
wonder you’re worried about productivity and failures. How many
females have you lost? Of all my luck, I have to get the loser of the
bunch. You fucking loooooooserrrrrrrrrrr!”
The torturer burst into the room. This was not the response he was
expecting. “I make them all pass!” He quickly regained his composure.
Good. He’s here.
“You’ve got to be able to do this!” Martha shouted,
fearless now. I’ll put up with anything, please!” She was looking at him,
pleading.
He stood there, staring back at her, waiting.
He’s thinking about it,
she thought. “I’ll do anything,” Martha
begged, looking directly at him. “Anything.”
He still stood there, studying her.
I think she’s ready,
he thought to
himself.
Yes, she is.
“There
is
something I can do,” he said. “You must sign a waiver for
it. It is extreme, but you should then pass. You
will
become like an
animal.” He paused, “Actually, less than one.”
“Anything! Anything! I’ll sign!”
Anything to see my son again.
“Don’t you want to know what it is?” he asked, surprised.
Martha paused.
What is it? What — it doesn’t matter! I’ve got no
choice!
She looked at him. “It doesn’t matter. I’ve got to pass.”
He pulled out a form that he had at the ready, and held it for Martha
to sign.
She signed the document and then, as her shoulders and head sagged
with resignation, her torturer said, “I’ll be right back.”
He left the room for what seemed to be about fifteen minutes. He
came back with a couple of other male guards. Her torturer began flashing
pictures of Jan up on the screen now. These were pictures of Jan’s SE’s,
from different angles. There were close ups and the most horrible scenes
of painful contortions of Jan’s face when in tetany. All the pictures shown
had bleeding from one spot or another. They started up the recording of
the female’s words of hate again, with her endless repetitions about the
heresy of love. Then they started the SE’s.
The three torturers stood there and watched as she received seven
SE’s in the period of a half hour. Then when she was an incoherent lump,
they unstrapped her from the toilet, and bound her on the sticky floor.
They then had their way with her in any and every way, and they took
their time about it.
When they had enough, they brought in a big, very heavy female. She
wore a black leather mask over her eyes, and was tightly strapped with
black leather strips over her body to the point of pain. Her fat flesh bulged
out from the tight leather restraints. She brought instruments of pain, and
used them to force Martha to pleasure her in any way she desired.
Sometimes her only pleasure was to cause Martha pain. Although there
was a death penalty in the NOV for homosexuality, there are always
exceptions, and she was one of them.
The rule was that Martha had to be bound such that she was always
facing the screen with the beastly images of her son’s torments. When
satiated, the leather female left Martha bound helplessly, laying there
sticking to the floor. Then the next guard came in for his turn. When they
ran out of rapist volunteers, they tied Martha back in place on the toilet
for her standard RSEs. The pictures on the screen went back to pictures of
other people in loving scenes. The female voice went on and on…
An hour went by. Then another hour, trailed by the next. Another day,
then another followed this, although Martha would not have known it, if it
were not for her torturer’s shift. He had never taken a day off. In between
his shifts, she was put on automatic RSE, with the occasional ‘visitor’.
Another and another followed another shift, and so it went. Minute-byminute, hour-by-hour, day-by-day this experience continued, and then her
torturer’s voice disappeared for a day or two. The other rapist volunteers
still came though.
A day came when her assigned torturer walked into the room, smiling. He had indeed taken a couple of days off, making sure there would be
replacements. He stood there, observing. The female voice was droning
on,
“Love did this to you. Love did this to you. Love did this to you. Love
will kill you. Love kills. Love kills everything. Repeat after me, ‘I hate
love. I hate love. I blame love for everything that has happened to me.
This is my vaccination for the prevention of love. This is my deserved
punishment for becoming infected with love.’ Repeat!”
Martha became vaguely aware that someone had entered the room
and started growling, low. Blood was seeping from her crotch, and her
throat was raw and bruised. Her genitalia were sticky and filled with the
stench of old blood and infection. Her mouth and face reeked of the
leather female’s unwashed scent. Her head was down, and her eyelids half
closed, but she was looking up in a savage way. She had not cleaned
herself in over a week, and just plain stank. She had not eaten either, and
so they had been using the tube with food paste to force-feed her.
The female in leather entered as her torturer was still standing there.
He looked at the leather female and dryly asked, in his detached way,
“You want to go first? You don’t leave a mess.”
The leather female replied, “No, she’s become a biter.” She paused,
and said, “I think we’re done.”
The torturer uncharacteristically started laughing in spite of himself,
“That’s what Dremo told me! Did you see that cut on her arm? He did
that when she took a bite out of his pride!” They both started laughing,
and then he said, “Well, let’s take a look.”
He changed the pictures on the screen to the latest ones of Jan being
tortured, and Martha looked at the pictures with absolute rage, and started
howling at the screen, “Kill him! Kill him! Kill him! Love must suffer!
No mercy! No mercy! Kill him!”
Martha’s torturer pressed a button on the device he was holding in his
hand.
GGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGRRRRRRRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAA
AAHAAAAAAAAAA AAHHHHHHHHhAAAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaa
aaaaaa!” That shock was one hundred and fifty percent higher than
average and lasted thirty seconds. Blood spurted out of both nostrils.
Martha spit it out of her mouth too, and growled like a sick, sick animal,
back to her catatonic gazing. The growling continued.
The torturer looked at the leather female and said, “What do you
think?”
She glanced at Martha with half bored eyes, and said, “I think she’s
cooked.”
Her torturer stared at Martha a bit longer. If she had not reeked so
badly, he may have had another go at her. He decided that she would
indeed graduate, one day early. “I told her I could do it,” the torturer said
proudly, gloating over his handiwork.

nock, Knock.
Griswolt took a deep breath, and then a sigh.
My stomach.
Well, she’s here,
he thought, as he rose to go upstairs to open
the entry door. He had been waiting since early morning, and
the day felt like it took forever. Now, it was evening, and Martha had
finally arrived. Griswolt felt the drag of gravity on his big frame along
with increasing anxiety as he pulled himself up the stairs. He opened the
door. There she was, along with an attendant, who looked too young.
“Does she belong here?” the attendant stupidly asked. His hat
matched his uniform, but it was too big for his head, which made him
look even younger.
“Yes, she does,” Griswolt said with a frown. He did not like incompetence, and this guy sure didn’t start off right. Griswolt had not looked at
Martha but for a glance when he first opened the door. He took a better
look at her now. She had a stuporous, starved appearance. Her gaze was
distant, and she looked and smelled horrible. She had been heavily
sedated and was in a straight jacket.
“I have some documents for you to sign,” the attendant said as he
reached into his satchel, and pulled them out with the release form. He
held them for Griswolt to sign.
Griswolt signed them, handed them back, and said to the attendant, “I
think I can take it from here.” He turned to Martha, and said, “Come on,
sweetie, let’s go inside — you’re home now.” With that, he turned
towards her and put his arm around her, ignoring a low growl that was
developing in her throat, as she was standing there, semi-crouched.
Martha instantly recoiled at his touch, and her growl became a raving
roar. The attendant was ready, and tased her, causing Martha to squat and
duck her head down in reflexive fear. For effectiveness, the taser had the
same frequency as the SEs used in love-deprogramming school, which
was thirty beats per second. This was highly effective at subduing these
subjects, as the “tone” would be forever burned into their physical
memories. It also emitted a loud, vibrating sound of precisely the same
wavelength. The amplified audible tone alone would often subdue these
subjects.
Griswolt was still recovering from the shock of this stranger’s response. That is what she was — a stranger. The overcast day accentuated
her pale looking scales.
Martha’s presence was certainly not there. He found himself wondering if the attendant would leave the taser there for a bribe. He took
another look at Martha. “What do we do now?’ Griswolt asked the
attendant.
The attendant looked at him with hardly hidden disapproval, and said,
“You didn’t read the manual, did you?”
Griswolt was taken aback by this young upstart’s question.
There should be a class for husbands for this,
Griswolt thought.
I
think I’ll bring it up at our next meeting.
“I did read the manual!” he
retorted to the attendant.
The attendant, remembering the high-scale neighborhood he was in,
backed down, and apologized. “I’m sorry sir, I didn’t mean to accuse —”
“Save it!” Griswolt snapped. “How do we get her inside?” Griswolt
asked as he stepped toward Martha again.
“Stop!” the attendant yelled, putting his hand in the way of Griswolt,
who was about to take Martha’s arm.
Griswolt stopped, and said “What? What now?”
The attendant looked at him, taking a breath to think of how to say it.
“I’m sure you have studied your manual. It’s kind of long, and sometimes
people miss important things there. One important thing is that you do not
touch the graduate upon arrival home. In a few days to a few weeks, she
will let you know when it is all right to do so, and even then, you will
have — issues. Secondly, you must be as quiet as possible. Move slowly
and gently around her.” He stopped, and looked at Griswolt. “You do
remember this, right?”
Griswolt barely remembered it. He had a hard time forcing himself to
read it, or face it for that matter. Suddenly, this kid seemed to know what
he was talking about. “Would you help me to bring her inside?” Griswolt
asked.
“Of course,” the attendant answered. He said, “Martha, we are going
inside now, you go first.” Then he motioned for her to move. She would
not. He pulled out the taser, and just turned the sound on. Martha jumped
at that. He said again, “Martha, please go inside your house, or I’ll have to
use this.”
Martha moved. She started for the stairs, and slowly descended them,
with the attendant and Griswolt following. When they made it downstairs,
they led her to the bedroom, where she just stood.
Griswolt and the attendant left her standing there and went back to the
kitchen. The attendant put a big bag of various bottles of sedatives and
pharmaceuticals on the kitchen table, along with a surprising supply of
antibiotics. Then he told Griswolt, “I can give you a loaner taser, if you
like.”
Griswolt looked at the taser. Although he had wanted it earlier, now
he had an unfathomable feeling of confidence, and changed his mind.
Martha looked so weak he no longer considered her a threat. “No,
thanks.”
The attendant shrugged his shoulders, said goodbye, and then quickly
left.
Griswolt went back into the bedroom. “Do you want anything Martha?” he asked. No response. She was gazing off a million miles away. He
could smell her from where she was standing.
I have to get her out of that
contraption,
he thought, looking at her straight jacket.
How can I do that
without touching her? I should look at that manual again.
He left her there, and went through the house and into the living
room. He picked the dark blue NOV Temple love-deprogramming manual
from the bookcase, had a seat on their old gray gendra-hide sofa, and
started reviewing it. He looked for when and how to remove the straight
jacket. He checked the FAQ’s and the flowcharts. Nothing
. What about
the medications — the sedatives that guy left with me? Nothing!
“What is this
bilgat
crap? Just like every fucking trouble-shooting
manual I have ever seen! They tell me everything except what I need to
know!” he shouted in exasperation, and then ducked, realizing that he was
not supposed to speak loudly. He then thought about the distance that she
was from him, even though the bedroom door was open.
She didn’t hear
me. I’ve got to get her out of that straight jacket! How is she supposed to
sleep with that thing on?
Griswolt spent the next hour or so listening to
the radio. He eventually got himself up, and walked back through the
house to the bedroom. He peeked in.
Martha had taken a seat in the chair near the right side of the bed. She
still had the same alien look. Griswolt slowly walked in. Martha fell into
another low-throated growl.
Griswolt stopped.
The growling stopped.
Now what?
he asked himself.
I’ll talk, really nice and low,
“Martha,
sweetheart. Would you like me to take that jacket off of you?”
Her facial expression changed. It became an expression of pain. Not
necessarily good, but a change.
She responded!
He took a slow breath and offered, “Martha dear, if
you stand up, I can take that thing off you.”
Martha lowered her distant stare, and instead focused it on their beige
and brown patterned carpet about six feet in front of her. Her face and
scales looked very dry. She slowly and weakly stood up, keeping her eyes
focused to the same point on the floor. She stood there for a moment,
winced, and said, “Go slow!”
She talked to me!
“You’re going to be all right, dear,” Griswolt said
with a smile. He slowly walked over to her, and Martha started growling
lowly again.
“Slower!” she hissed, starting to stoop in a guarded way. She was still
staring far through that same point on the floor, but also intensely focused
on the one coming closer to her.
Griswolt stopped and waited for her growling to stop again. Then
slowly, bending over so he would not look so large, Griswolt made his
way across the room to her. Every time she started growling, he stopped
and waited. In a few minutes, he eventually made it to her. Her breath was
fetid. With time and patience, Martha allowed him to get behind her. She
was shaking as if she were freezing to death. He slowly undid her
bindings. She continued to growl — but nothing came of it. She smelled
much worse with the jacket off.
Griswolt’s mind was racing with questions about why she was in this
state — they had to wait.
“Do you want to take a shower?” he asked, but she just stood there.
“Why don’t you lie down on the bed?” Griswolt suggested.
Martha’s stare was interrupted as she glanced at the bed. A look of
sadness passed for a moment. She did indeed make her way to the bed
slowly, sat, and then laid down on it.
Griswolt wanted to do more, but decided otherwise. “I should get out
of here while she’s calm.” He went into the living room and prepared for
sleep. He said to himself, “I’d better give her a sedative. I don’t want her
walking around here tonight.”
He went back to the kitchen to get the pills along with a glass of
water, and then returned to the bedroom, entering slowly. Martha was
lying there on the bed, staring at the ceiling. “Here Martha, will you take
these? They’ll help you to sleep,” he said, as he gradually came to the
bed.
Surprisingly, Martha went along with it. As if in slow motion, she sat
up, and took the pills. Then she lay back down.
Griswolt breathed a sigh of relief, and went back to the living room.
He got himself comfortable on the floor with a pillow and blanket, and
fell into a light and uneasy, guarded night’s sleep.
The next morning, Griswolt woke up and made one of Martha’s favorite breakfasts. It was a soft-boiled splint egg with toast. He was hoping
the smell of it would rouse her. He bought fresh splint eggs the day
before. Jan would be coming home tomorrow, and if the eggs got more
than five days old, they would become increasingly bitter. Jan didn’t like
that. When Griswolt was done cooking, he went to the bedroom to try to
wake Martha. She was still deeply asleep
.
“I guess that sedative really worked — oh well, let her sleep,” he said,
as he put her plate away for later. He went into the living room after
breakfast, and started on the manual for a second time. “Hmmm. They say
here that I shouldn’t try to touch her, even if she is talking, for at least
three days. Some take three months! Wow. It says that some may never
recover.” He stopped and thought about it.
No, she’s going to be all right
—
most of them do turn out OK.
He started thinking about the NOV.
Griswolt was sure that this was the right way to go. To confront with the
NOV leadership on this would be political suicide.
“I really do think I’ll recommend a special class for fathers, rather
than this lousy manual,” Griswolt said to himself. After climbing up
through the ranks, he was an NOV policy maker now, a bureaucrat.
It reminded him, “I’d better call the office.” Only the higher-level
officials of the NOV were entrusted with electronic communication. It
was wise to call in. He had to make his presence known. The bureaucracy
making up the higher ranks of the NOV was very competitive, and others
would try to take advantage of Griswolt’s absence from work.
He went into the living room, picked up the heavy green phone and
called his secretary, who connected him with others there. During the call,
Griswolt discovered that the NOV was nationalizing a nearby mining
conglomerate. After the phone call, he turned on the radio to hear the
latest news about it. It was the main story of the day. The conglomerate
had been threatening a strike because of the ever-increasing taxes
imposed upon it by the NOV. The NOV had just “solved” their problem
by eliminating all taxes on them. They did this by nationalizing the
conglomerate. Now, instead of taxes, all the profits would go directly into
the NOV’s treasury.
“Wow! This could be a good opportunity for Martha,” Griswolt said
to himself. Then he remembered, looked towards her room, and sighed.
After his second time through the manual, Griswolt changed his reading
material, and found himself going over the latest changes to the intraparty regulations of the NOV.
I have no life,
he thought to himself glumly
as he read the dry, mercilessly detailed information.
I’m reading
government regulations in my living room. Who does this?
He smiled to
himself.
Just then, he heard some movement. He looked up, and could hear
Martha exiting the bedroom and heading down the hall to the bathroom.
Griswolt sat up erectly — straining to hear, yet feeling like a weight had
lifted. He focused his ears on anything he could identify. He heard water
running. Slowly, he went over to the closed bathroom door.
She’s getting
in the shower
—
yes!
Griswolt cheered in his mind’s ear. He then got
control of himself, quietly turned, and went back to the living room. He
sat down, and resumed his review of the regulation changes.
She’s going
to be OK. She is.
It was a small thing, but at least it was
some
-thing.
After a while, it occurred to Griswolt that Martha had been in the
shower for quite a long time. He looked at his watch. He thought about
going back and listening again
.
I should have checked my watch when she went in. Maybe it hasn’t
really been that long.
He looked towards the kitchen again, listening for
sounds coming from the hallway on the other side.
Going over these
regulations sure makes time drag,
he thought to himself. He had his right
leg crossed over the other, with the report opened on his forty-five inch
thigh, and realized how much he was waggling his foot, which was a lot.
I’ll wait another fifteen minutes.
Just then, he heard a crash. He was
up like a shot, and ran to the bathroom. “The door’s locked,” he complained aloud, and then shouted through the door, “Martha, can you hear
me? Are you all right?” The water was still running. He ran to the kitchen,
grabbed a likely utensil, and ran back to the bathroom. He clumsily
picked the bathroom doorknob open, and was aghast at what he saw upon
opening the door.