Without warning, Dr.Stone began poking around.Emily bit down hard to avoiding demanding what, exactly, the doctor was looking for, or doing.Other than occasional trips to her family doctor for a cough that persisted, a tetanus shot, or remedy for an earache, Emily had had very little experience with medical professionals.She’d heard her mother talk about how she’d been treated at the hospital when she gave birth to a stillborn at seven months, a couple of years before Emily and Eleanor arrived.The day after she laboured her dead child into the world, she’d been sitting up in her hospital bed, staring blankly at her own feet with swollen eyes when the resident and a gaggle of medical students that resembled a hockey team came through her ward on their rounds.
“That one aborted,” the resident had said, throwing a thumb in Bess’s direction before moving on to the next bed.They’d never even let her hold the baby, didn’t tell her what had gone wrong.It was a boy, was all they’d said.Don’t fret so, Mrs.Radcliffe.You’re young, you’ll have more.
She’d made Emily’s father drive her to a different hospital when she gave birth to Emily and Eleanor, but was still separated from her babies, where they were poked and prodded in the nursery by a similar group of medical students while she waited anxiously on the other side of the window, unable to hold her own children until the men had finished with them.
Without warning, a stinging sensation tore through Emily’s vulva.“Ouch!”
“You’re done, Radcliffe,” Dr.Stone said as, to Emily’s horror, she set a syringe down on the metal tray beside the bed.
“What was that?”Emily demanded, feeling the blood drain from her face.
Doctor is evil…
“I said you’re done.Get dressed.”Dr.Stone stood and walked back into her office without another word.Emily sat up and shot a look at the nurse standing by the door.
“What was that?What was in that syringe?”The nurse didn’t respond, wouldn’t look at her.“What was it?!”Emily shouted.
But the nurse was already rolling the tray away and opening the infirmary door for the next patient.
Two weeks later, Emily felt the sores.
“Good Christ,” Emily swore, closing her eyes against the burning pain and itching.She was lying on her bed, staring at the ceiling with her legs spread open for some relief.It was noisy in the corridor, as it always wasin the evening around this time, when the inmates had completed their work and were granted a bit of free time before lights out.
The previous day was Wednesday—her weekly bath night—and she’d been awkwardly semi-crouched beside the old copper tub, wiping herself dry, when she paused.A wave of cold came over her, though the bathroom was damp and stuffy from the bath and the summer heat.She fingered the bumps between her legs.There were at least six of them that she could feel, and as she let out a shaking breath, they began to burn, whether from the coal tar soap or the abrasion of the towel, she didn’t know.But she was certain that whatever these wart-like lesions were, they were the result of the injection by Dr.Stone.Had the syringe been contaminated with something?Was she having some sort of allergic reaction?
“Hey,” she heard from her cell doorway now, and turned to see Lizzie leaning casually against the frame, long dark hair falling over her shoulder.
Emily cleared her throat and sat up, wincing as she shifted her weight onto her bum, squashing the bumps.Tears threatened.
“Do you want to come play crib—what’s wrong?”Lizzie asked, suddenly concerned.
Emily met her friend’s eyes, unsure what to say.
“What is it?”Lizzie asked again, coming to sit beside her on the bed with a creaking of springs.Someone shouted out in the hallway, laughed.
“I…” Emily began.She knew Lizzie was a mother, and probably knew more about women’s bodies than she did, but one didn’t speak about such things.Then a shooting pain forced the words out.
“There’s something on my…my nethers.Bumps or something.”Her face burned with mortification.“They hurt, and itch.I don’t know what it is.It just started yesterday, and it’s getting worse.”
Lizzie made a face.“Sounds like VD, Em.”
Emily stared.“VD?”
“You gotta go see Dr.Stone to get it treated.”
A sickening swoop struck Emily as a memory crashed over her.
Venereal disease.
The Female Refuges Act…
“I can’t leave until it’s gone.”She was panicking, recalling the clause about inmate releases being delayed if they had VD.She’d wondered briefly how it would spread in a women’s-only prison, but hadn’t given it a second thought.How naive she’d been.“They can keep me here!”Her voice rose with her dread, cresting together like high tide.“By law, they can!”
Lizzie frowned.“I heard somethin’ about that.Some girl a few years ago said she got it off the tools in the infirmary, said she’d never been with anybody.Sounded a bit made-up to me, but the warden told her she couldn’t leave until Dr.Stone cleared her.I guess they claim we can contaminate the public or some shit,” Lizzie said, rolling her eyes.
“But I think I got it from Dr.Stone, too,” Emily hissed, fighting the tears.“She injected me with something a couple of weeks ago, wouldn’t tell me what it was.”Her cheeks burned to discuss such things, though Lizzie seemed at ease.“I’ve never—you know—been with a man, either.I didn’t come in with this.”
“Have you been with a woman?’Cause you can get it—”
