My ex never did anything outside of the norm. When it comes to Benji, he’s even more gentle—besides the videos, that is—and after we recorded our sex, he always apologized profusely, as if he thought he would never be able to make it up to me, even though I was the one who asked him to do it. As if he truly believed I was reluctant, a good girl who would never do those awful things on my own.
I have this gut instinct Dr. Ambrose will want to explore the threshold of my boundaries.
And he may be my father.
Flashes of the past lock me into their downward spiral, a looping whirlpool threatening to drown me. My ex and I had a vanilla sex life where I faked orgasms. He always believed my moans were real.
Then one day we found my real birth certificate and my biological mother’s death certificate. According to the record, my mother didn’t die from an overdose like I had been told by my foster parents; she died during childbirth at the Ambrose Asylum, where she was being treated for sexual addiction.
That’s when we found out she was a deviant.
I couldn’t stop wondering if that’s what was missing from my life. Being preoccupied by my ex and our lousy sex life was better than blaming myself for killing her during childbirth, so I asked him to hurt me, to use me, to treat me like shit, so I could feel like she did.
I don’t know, Violet. That kind of shit is for freaks, he had said.
Freaks.
Freaks like my mom.
Freaks like me.
After years of trying to please him, his rejection detonated my resolve. No matter what I did for him, he would never truly accept me.
I faked every orgasm I had with you, I shouted. Even if we did that freaky shit, you couldn’t make me cum if you tried.
For a while, it didn’t register to me that we had broken up. I was so obsessed with daydreams of my mother and the asylum that I forgot about him. Then, one day at work, he showed up with his new girlfriend.
It’s sad, but she’s a pervert like her mother, the new girlfriend said quietly to my coworker. Like mother, like daughter.
That’s why I dumped her, my ex added. What a fucking freak.
Everyone, including the other customers and my coworkers, gawked at me.
I felt so alone.
I don’t remember how I reacted. What I do know is I went to my mother’s grave. Freak was graffitied in pink across her name. Had my ex and his new girlfriend marked her headstone? Or was it someone else? It seemed so unlikely that anyone else would know about my mother’s treatment, but what if they did? What if there were other people who were disgusted by her like they were disgusted by me?
I was twenty-two back then. I tried to suppress my obsession. I tried to pretend everything was fine, that I was normal, even if my coworkers wouldn’t look me in the eyes anymore, even if strangers whispered about me behind my back. But I couldn’t concentrate. Eventually, I lost my job, and my foster parents kicked me out. They had been charging me rent, but it was still better to live with them while I worked and saved for college.
I packed everything I had in a backpack and moved to the small town where my mother was buried, the town closest to the asylum. I had to be closer to her. There had to be more to her story.
Then, when I was twenty-three, I met Benji. He had been a foster kid like me, so he understood the need for parental closure like this, and for a while, I didn’t care if we had quiet, missionary sex in the dark. I was safe.
But desperation kept unfurling inside of me, wrapping its chains around my isolated heart. I had to figure out everything I could about my mother. Benji had grown up in the area and mentioned a rumor that a lot of the patients at the Ambrose Asylum died from abuse. After I turned twenty-four, I became restless for answers, and Benji knew he had to do something for me soon, otherwise, I would take it into my own hands. So, he promised he would look into my mother. He would steal her files. He would interview the doctors. He would investigate other patients. He would do anything I asked, as long as I stayed away from the asylum.
Once Benji stole my mother’s file and her records confirmed she died from abuse, not childbirth, I asked Benji to make a copy of the file, return it, and see if Dr. Ambrose would examine me in person. By then, Benji trusted me more, and he was comforted that he would be going to the asylum with me.
Then, shortly after I turned twenty-five, the video requests came, and when Benji saw how enthusiastic I was, he inched away from me, his eyes darting like I was a predator hunting him. He never said the word, and yet it was there, an apparition blocking us from truly connecting: Freak.
Even though the Ambrose Asylum has an unlawful reputation, there’s no doubt in my mind I need this. I need to kill Dr. Ambrose, but I also need to understand where I came from and who I am. In a way, being here brings me closer to my mother.
And possibly to my father.
Bile rises in my throat. I swallow it down and flex my fingers. Dr. Ambrose might be my father. I can’t change that.
But I can make him pay for what he’s done.
He needs to believe I belong here so I can be close to him. And once I kill him, I’ll be able to move on with my life.
