I put a hand out and feel excited. The water is very warm. I step into it and sigh. The warmth of it is something I haven’t had in a long time. Not without heating it on a fire.
She watches me and feels the water running from my hand to hers. She puts a hand out and smiles at me. It's the first time I've seen her smile. Her teeth are gleaming white. It doesn’t suit the rest of her face. She steps into the water and lets it rain down on her.
"It feels great doesn’t it?"
I glance back at the lady watching us. It makes me uncomfortable she is there.
"I remember my first shower too."
Her voice is hollow. She hasn’t been here since the beginning. She works here because she was captured. Her dark eyes give me a knowing look when she smiles under the space suit.
"The soap is a special kind. It will wash anything off of you that you don’t want there. Do your hair too."
I cringe. I can't help but wonder if she was one of the ladies who got to stay behind in the truck for a bit when it arrived at the farm.
I pick up the bar of wrapped soap. I peel back the plastic. The girl watches me and does the same. I smell the soap and almost moan. It smells like lavender and tea tree. Of course it does. Natural cleaners for the body. Tea Tree became a hot commodity when everything stopped being produced.
I lather and scrub. At one point I sit on the floor and scrub my toes out. I don’t even care how bizarre I look. I scrub the wound on my leg trying not to cry out in pain.
Other women start to filter in. They cry with joy as the warm water washes them.
Space suit points to a hallway, "This way." I walk with the girl holding my hand. I look back at the shower and miss it already.
My nerves are shot. I need to find Anna. I need to protect the girl beside me. I need to find out how to get us all out without casualties. I might need one more shower before we escape.
I'm dripping wet as I pad along the cold cement floor. I shiver. She takes us to a stack of towels in plastic. She passes them to us. I tear the plastic and pull a white terry towel robe from it. I pull it on and instantly feel better. White terry towel slippers fall onto the cement floor. I turn them over with my toes and look at the girl. She has the robe and slippers on, but on her they are swimming.
She grins and hugs herself.
"Can she speak?"
I shake my head, "I don’t know."
"She isn’t yours?"
I shake my head again, "No." I grin at the girl, "We found each other in the dark."
Space suit walks through a weird shower. Her space suit is rinsed completely. She steps out and points, "Okay this way please." Space suit looks annoyed suddenly. We follow her through a huge white door and we are in the white rooms and hallways again. The cement and stainless steel is gone. We walk in our plush clothes to a waiting room, "The doctor will be with you in a moment."
I go and sit on the white plastic chair that looks formed. Everything sparkles. It feels sterile.
The girl sits in the chair next to me and space suit leaves us there.
There are no magazines like a real doctors office or windows.
"I'm scared."
I look at the little girl who apparently can talk, "Me too."
Two more ladies come and are seated next to us. I'd bet they're in their late twenties or early thirties if I had to guess.
A chubby one smiles at me and speaks with a bubbly voice, "Has anything happened since you got here?"
I shake my head.
She frowns, "God. I hope this doesn’t take all day. I'm exhausted. I heard we get our own beds and rooms and food at every meal."
The skinny mean looking lady next to her grimaces, "Did you see what they were doing to the women at the back of the truck? We aren’t here for a vacation. We're here to be raped and reproduce."
I scowl. "Don’t." My eyes dart to the little girl.
The mean looking lady rolls her eyes and crosses her arms.
The little girl smiles at me. I smile back.
A man comes holding something in his hands. He looks like a doctor. He is older and has glasses on.
He glances up at us and smiles, "You." He points at me.
I look around at the others. They all look frightened. The girl grips me.
"She wants to come with me." I say.
He looks at the little girl, "It's your choice. She should be with the other healthy children."
I hug her to me as I stand, "She comes with me."
He shrugs and turns and walks down the white hallway.
He walks to a room with a bed, just like my doctor back home had. There is another chair and a curtain and a small desk. Everything is white. I feel like I can't actually see the depth of things because of all of the white.He points a hand toward the bed, "Have a seat. Are you sure you want her to see this?"
I look up and frown, "See what?"
"I have to give you an internal to make sure you're healthy."
"Wasn’t that what the tube was for?"
He puts the thing in his hands on the desk and pushes his glasses up. He closes the door, "No."
I see the curtain, "Can you pull that around us so she can see my face." I don’t want her traumatized. It's bad enough one of us is about to be traumatized. I know what an internal is. I read about it.
I sit her on the chair across the room. I hold both of her shoulders, "It's going to be okay. Okay?"
She nods. She looks scared but I can see her being brave.
I walk to the bed and climb on. I lay back. He pulls the curtain around us so only my face is showing. I turn my head to her and smile. I'm dying inside but I can't show her.
I look back as he places my slippers into a pair of metal grips. He slides something and I feel the bottom part of the bed is gone. My butt feels like it's sitting on the edge. He puts gloves on and smiles at me, "Relax okay?"
I swallow hard and nod.
He pulls my knees apart. I feel a tear slip from my eye. I can't look at her. I look up at the white ceiling. I don’t feel anything. I close my eyes and I'm high in a tree. The wind is pushing and pulling me, swaying the tree and me. I feel the breeze on my face. I hear the birds and the sound the branches make when the wind plays with them.
Something stabs me sharp.
I try not to cry out but it hurts badly.
I look up at his face.
He looks hardened and distant from me, "Sorry. I didn’t realize you were virginal. Most girls your age, well you know."
I don’t know. Most girls what? My stomach hurts like a monthly cramp for a second. He steps back and removes bloody gloves and I see a glint of metal. "All done."
He slips some thick cotton white underwear into my hand, "You will need these. Go back to the waiting room."
I look at the padding in the center of them. They are like the rags I've made myself. I feel sick. He leaves the curtained area and then the room.
The girl looks worried. I shake my head, "It's okay." She isn’t fooled. The tears streaming down my face tell her otherwise.
I pull the underwear on over my slippers and lift my butt to get them underneath of me. They feel thick and heavy between my thighs. My chest is rising and falling rapidly. I don’t want to scare the little girl but I am a little girl too. In my heart I'm still the nine-year-old running through the woods. The nine-year-old who was lost and confused. I don't feel as though I've aged. I've grown cold and bitter but aged, no.
I push myself up and sit on the bed for a minute. I see half her face through the curtain from where I sit. She looks scared.
I step gingerly off the bed and walk around the curtain. My stomach hurts like I'm having my monthly. It's never hurt like this though.
She stands and takes my finger. We walk from the room and down the hallway. The other women in the waiting room look me over. I see relief on their faces when they don’t see a difference.
I am different.
I feel broken for the first time ever.
I sit back down and try to ignore the feeling of the warmth in my underwear. She snuggles into me. If we could join skin and become one person I think she would ask for me to do it. She is terrified.
"You can come with me now." I glance up at a woman in a white coat and matching pale blue pants and top. The other women want to ask me things. I can feel the tension in the air from it. I look at them. I can't smile and tell them it will be okay.
I stand. The girl follows and walks along in the crook of my arm.
"So now that that part is over with we will assign you a room. This is where you will stay for your duration with us." She has short brown hair that’s styled with big round curls. She is shiny and clean. I've never seen anyone like her. Her skin glows. There is no old dirt anywhere.
She is the whitest person I've ever seen.
"I'm Gloria. I'll be here with you guys. We do a rotation, four nights and then four days and then four off. If you don’t see me for four days don’t panic. It's just my days off."
I don’t know what she's talking about. Days off from what?
"So you'll be in the wing where the women who are younger stay until they give birth. How old are you sweetie?"
I look up. She is raising a perfect brown eyebrow at me.
"Nineteen." I mutter.
"Okay. So yeah the girls in your wing are anywhere from about sixteen to twenty eight." She lowers her gaze as she walks, "And how old are you honey?" The little girl ignores her and tightens her grip on me. The nurse shrugs.
I can't place her age. She is ageless. She acts like the older women in the towns but she looks my age.
I look down at the girl who is curled into me. "I think she's about twelve at the most."
Her eyes don’t rise to meet mine. They stay fixated on the girl, "You sure you wouldn’t be happy with the other younger girls? They all live together. They have TV's and video games over there."
I see her little head trembling.
Gloria's eyes meet mine again, "Give her a little time. She'll be begging to get away from the lot of you hormonal women."