No Chains Shall Bind Me (The Good Doctor's Tales Folio Seven) Read online

  Not quite all around her. Mostly just on top of her and to the sides. Not really one glow, but more like three, all right next to each other.

  Her body ached as if someone had run her through Van’s parents’ dust-caked wringer washing machine, and she had a pounding headache. And she was hungry. Hungry in her stomach, but also hungry in another way that she couldn’t quite put her finger on. Hungry for something not quite food. She realized she pulled on the glow in her faux hunger, tugging on it somehow, she didn’t understand how, but somehow. Nothing was there to pull, though, and all she did was lick the cake batter from a clean beater.

  Something strange was happening here. Really strange.

  Gail opened her eyes and realized she lay flat on her back in what appeared to be a hospital bed. Three other women lay in bed with her, on top of her and beside her. All three as naked as Gail. She turned to the woman to her left, and right there, three inches from her own, was Sylvie’s tired, bedraggled, and very happy looking face. Sylvie didn’t respond when Gail looked at her, or even joggled her.

  The woman on top of her appeared to be about the same age as Sylvie. College age, like most of Gail’s acquaintances. Gail didn’t place her for a moment, but then she did. Melanie, the young clerk from the Lit, Arts and Sciences office.

  The third woman took much longer to place. She was an older woman, maybe in her fifties or so, and her face was lined and sagging. Her hair was a brilliant orange, except for the quarter inch of dark iron gray close to her scalp. Her hair lay flat around her head, filthy and stringy, and soaked with sweat.

  The orange hair tipped Gail off. That, and the presence of Melanie on top of her. Gail had never seen the woman on her right without thick pancake makeup and blue eye shadow, but she figured it out anyway. The witch bitch, Mrs. Grimm her ancient self, lay on a bed right next to her. Naked. As naked as Gail. Holy crap!

  She was lying stark naked in a bed with two other women and the witch bitch, and none of them seemed to care about being naked.

  None of the other three seemed to care about anything, as far as Gail could tell. All three of the women moved, groping, in a slow languid motion, rubbing themselves against her, up and down and around, lost in the sensations of their bodies, blissful expressions on their faces. All three of them looked like they wouldn’t care if the end of the world came marching through their room with blaring trumpets.

  Gail wanted out, but getting out wasn’t easy. The three others tried to cling to her, to continue their mindless sensual rubbing. Stoned, drunk, something, maybe just flat out crazy, but they continued rubbing their nude bodies against her, in some kind of mindless masturbation, completely lost to anything else and anything Gail did. Gail pulled away anyway. It was the worst, somehow, when the witch bitch tried to hold on to her, murmuring little sounds of pleasure and trying to stroke her even as Gail pulled loose. Gail would have lost her lunch right then, if she had any lunch left in her to lose. She scrambled out from under them and fell out of the bed, going over the bed rails head first, her legs still trapped under the pile of writhing women. She rolled to the floor and banged her left ankle on the windowsill, but she got herself loose, finally, shaking with reaction.

  The glow, thank heavens, stayed back in bed with the women.

  The world had gone crazy. She wanted out of here, away from these half-crazed women. All three of them, but somehow the witch bitch was the worst. The others were at least young, but the witch bitch was decrepit. Old, sagging, with blotched skin and baggy empty tits. Someone like that should never be seen naked, much less flushed with lust. Unnatural, some kind of abomination, like seeing her own mother in bed with a man. Yeah, old people still got it on and got naked, or so she had heard, but it was a different thing to see it in person. Yes, but ‘even in person’ would be better than seeing the old bag with two other women in a bed, all trying to do it to her.

  “What the hell is going on here?” Gail said. The women didn’t answer her. Their eyes just followed her from the bed, flush faced, blank and mindless, still writhing against each other. The three had been groping each other on top of her! While she was asleep! “Far freaking out,” Gail said.

  She realized, finally, that the women themselves gave off the glow. Even after her panicked escape, something in her mind still pulled futilely on the glow. The faces of the three groping women stayed flushed, lips parted and breathing heavy in the grip of their lust.

  Gail fled, gorge trying to come up once again. She edged around the hospital bed with the three women, nearly tripped over the rolling table and the big old cushioned chair behind the table. Then she was free on the other side. She stuck her head out the door and into a hall that reminded her more of a nursing home than a hospital.

  No, the place had to be a hospital hall, Gail decided. An antiseptic corridor with tile floors and wide doors every ten feet or so lay before her. Could this be some hospital’s long-term care wing? This certainly wasn’t University Hospital.

  “Hey! Anybody out there? What’s going on?” A sudden bustling of voices echoed from some kind of an open area to the left. She pulled her head back into the room and let the voices bustle over to her. She backed toward a far wall, suspicious that the madwomen might try to pull her back into the bed. The three hadn’t left the bed, though, and hadn’t tried to reach for her.

  She understood all this before she looked, because whatever the glow was, she still sensed it when she turned away. Somehow, she sensed what those women were doing. Or at least, she did if she trusted the glow. It might be a little while before she did that. This whole scene was too far out for her.

  Gail was still warily eying the three women when some man came through the door, just barged right on in without even knocking. She turned around again, stared at him, and noticed a tag on his white lab coat: Dr. Mendell. He had dark brown hair just beginning to go gray, and a small widow’s peak. He started a friendly smile, but Gail cut it off with a “Hey!” bark, at full Rickenbach volume. Her hands went to her naked crotch and her naked tits, and found she didn’t have enough hands to cover what needed to be covered.

  “Don’t you even knock? What are you doing just barging in here?”

  “Focus Rickenbach, I’m sure you have some questions, but I…”

  Gail cut him off again.

  “I’m not talking to anyone until I have some clothes on. Do you always barge into some woman’s bedroom without warning?” Gail said, her panic and her headache letting loose her well-practiced Rickenbach temper on the unwary doctor. Focus Rickenbach? His words didn’t make any sense to her.

  Dr. Mendell flushed and turned away. “Excuse me. I’ll see that you get some clothes immediately.” He backed out the door and snapped an order. “Nurse Dwight, get a robe for Focus Rickenbach, stat.”

  Focus Rickenbach. Who the hell was this Focus Rickenbach? Had he called her a Focus? Gail’s knees went wobbly underneath her. She let herself sink down in the cushioned chair, the three stoned women still glowing happily in her mind, their treacherous glow sneaking in past all her senses.

  Focus Rickenbach? He did mean her.

  The whole damn world had just gone south in a big hurry.

  Coping

  (3)

  Dr. Mendell’s office was a small room, completely filled by an oversized desk and two well-worn chairs. Gail glanced around, using what she liked to think were her reporter’s instincts. A bookcase held up a wall in the back corner next to the door, but she couldn’t find the usual collection of diplomas on any of the other walls. Gail guessed this wasn’t Dr. Mendell’s primary office. There was a normal black telephone on the desk, and an elegant pen and pencil stand, but little else. A single window overlooked a small enclosed courtyard, with a couple of benches and a brick patio.

  Gail sat all by herself, attempting to ignore the stinging bright lights. The place, overall, was the Detroit Transform Clinic. Upstairs, she still sensed the glow of Sylvie, Melanie, and the witch bitch. The nurses had come and drag
ged the three women off to separate rooms. Kurt came in to stay with Sylvie, and some older guy who seemed to be the witch’s husband stayed with her now. Gail sensed exactly what they were doing. If the page-a-day calendar on Dr. Mendell’s desk was correct, she had been unconscious for almost an entire week. No wonder she was famished.

  Being a Focus was disconcerting. Walls, doors and privacy didn’t seem to matter at all to her strange new sense. What’s more, her funny new sense seemed to be getting better. When she first woke up, all she could make out was a giant blur. Now she picked up details, enough to know the three women now did exactly what they so clearly wanted to do when they had been with her. Gail’s cheeks burned red. She wondered if Sylvie or the witch had any idea she could sense them so clearly.

  Or Melanie, for that matter. Melanie wasn’t married, and so they left her in a room by herself. What Melanie did in there was definitely not something a person did where someone else could see. Especially someone likely as conservative in her mores as Melanie.

  Damn it, where was Van? They let Kurt in with Sylvie, and Grimm’s husband in with her, but she wasn’t married to Van, so they stuck him outside in the waiting room. So here she was by herself in the doctor’s office, and even Dr. Mendell wasn’t here. Not that she was the least bit horny. She hurt, she had a headache, she was starving, and she had this other annoying hunger nagging in the back of her mind.

  If this was what being a Focus was all about, she didn’t want any part of it. Not that she had any say in the matter. Being a Focus wasn’t like anything she had read. Where were the fawning admirers? The people rushing to fulfill her every whim? Where was the exquisite beauty? And wasn’t the Focus mostly-hushed-up Transform telepathy trick supposed to only let her sense other Transforms?

  She studied herself. Still rail thin. Still no ass or boobs. Perhaps they had made a mistake. Perhaps she was a failed Focus! A mean nasty killer bitch Arm! Heh. With a headache like this, she could understand why those Arms became serial killers.

  She was still checking the titles on the books in the office, while trying to ignore the goings on upstairs and her pounding headache, when she heard familiar voices outside the door.

  “She didn’t mean to do it, dear,” a woman said. Gail pulled herself away from her extra sense, where she had been somehow, simultaneously! watching Kurt go at it with Sylvie, the witch bitch go at it with her man, and Melanie enjoy herself in supposed privacy.

  She really wanted a hug and some comfort from the one person who mattered, Van, but they wouldn’t let him near her because he wasn’t married to her.

  With a jolt Gail recognized the prim tones as her mother’s spring-loaded voice.

  “Well, she still could have waited until the semester was over. An entire term’s tuition, room and board wasted.” Her father’s voice, edgy and as always slightly unhappy with her. He had been unhappy with her for the last ten years, ever since she told him she didn’t plan on ever getting married, way back when she was twelve. He had fought her desire to go to college, because he thought college a waste for a mere girl. If not for her National Merit Scholarship and the money from her grandmother, she wouldn’t be here at all. Gail’s stomach clenched up just at the sound of his voice. He would try to take over. He always did.

  “Right in here, Mr. and Mrs. Rickenbach,” Dr. Mendell said, as he opened the door.

  “Gail!” her mother said, with a little shriek of delight. “Oh, are you all right? We were so worried about you.” She opened her arms, and Gail hugged her mother, a thin little woman with mouse brown hair and large caring brown eyes, three inches shorter than Gail.

  “I’m fine, mother,” she said. How long had they been here?

  After her mother’s real hug, her father leaned over and gave her his obligatory weak hug. Bob Rickenbach was a blocky man, a little under six feet tall, with a square German face and a small amount of light brown hair around the sides of his head. He had a limp that he got back in the War, when he had the misfortune to be a sailor stationed on the Arizona in December of 1941.

  “What kind of trouble have you gotten yourself into this time, Gail?” he said. “I’ve been away from the dealership too long already with this business. The spring sale season is starting and I have work to do.” The dealership was Jim Herndon Ford, in Flint, where he was the sales manager, and there was always something going on there. If it wasn’t the spring sales season, it would be time for the new models to come in, or some show, or something.

  “Hi, Dad,” she said, resigned.

  Gail took one chair. Her father took the other, leaving her mother standing in the back. Her father frowned at her.

  “What kind of manners have you been learning at this place? You don’t take a chair and leave your mother standing.”

  Gail’s stomach clenched up tighter, as she realized she would end up standing in the back while the doctor explained this Focus business to her parents rather than her.

  “Oh, I’m sorry. What was I thinking?” she said, and the sarcasm came through clearly. “Take my seat, mother. I’ll just stand in the back. Or better yet, I think I’ll just go take a walk while you two work this all out. You don’t need me for this, do you?”

  Dr. Mendell winced as if his head hurt.

  “Young lady, you behave yourself,” her father said, in his best commanding voice.

  “No, no. I can stand,” her mother said, trying to smooth things over, wearing her familiar drowned rat expression on her face.

  “I’ll send for a third chair,” Dr. Mendell said, on top of everyone’s voice, despite the fact his office didn’t have room for a third chair.

  “No, I don’t mind,” Gail’s mother said, a peacemaker in a way she had never been able to train Gail to be. Gail still sat, her father fumed, her mother fussed, and the doctor looked like he regretted having ever invited Gail’s parents within a mile of him.

  Gail didn’t have any sympathy. The doctor should have asked her opinion first. Such politeness didn’t occur to him. If she had been married, her husband would be in here. Since she wasn’t, her parents filled the spot. Gail wondered what he did with a widow. Maybe her oldest son?

  “I’m sorry I don’t have enough chairs,” Dr. Mendell said. “I’m glad you could be here to support your daughter, Mr. and Mrs. Rickenbach.” Nervous, he eased his way back to the chair behind his desk. “Focus Rickenbach, may I call you Gail?”

  “No,” Gail said, without thinking, using the same reflexes she used to deal with her father and any other obnoxious older man who got in her way. She immediately regretted her words. Focus Rickenbach. What a pompous sounding title. All she needed were the enslaved men in loincloths waving palm fronds to keep her cool, and she would be all set…

  “Ah, er, yes,” Dr. Mendell said. Gail changed her mind about regret. She didn’t trust the man, not a bit. Keeping the doctor off balance made her feel better.

  Dr. Mendell tried again. “Focus Rickenbach, then, Mr. and Mrs. Rickenbach.” Gail noted that she didn’t ask her parents if he could use their first names. She wished her head would stop pounding.

  “Focus Rickenbach, do you know much about Transform Sickness?” Dr. Mendell said.

  Gail opened her mouth to answer “yes,” but before she got the word out, her father stepped in and answered for her. “Of course she doesn’t. Why would she know about such a horrible thing?”

  He always tried to take over.

  She understood a fair amount about Transform Sickness and its history. She read newspapers voraciously, and knew as much as any layman. She had even seen and heard a couple of Transforms speak, once.

  She, however, didn’t matter.

  “Transform Sickness is indeed a terrifying illness,” Dr. Mendell said, focusing on her father. “Your daughter survived, and is a Focus.” Dr. Mendell’s calm voice oozed confidence and haughty strength. “I know of no cases of a Focus succumbing to the vagaries of their initial transformation after awakening, Mr. Rickenbach.”

  Her
father nodded, emotionally flat, but her mother sighed relief. Gail leaned back in her chair and took a deep breath, attempting to tune out her headache. “A Focus can move juice from woman Transforms, keeping them from turning into Monsters. She can take this juice and move it to Transform men, keeping them from going into withdrawal.” Yawn. Talk about the basics!

  “How is this possible?” her father asked.

  “Think of a Focus as a chemical engine,” Dr. Mendell said. “The quantities moved are significantly smaller than the sweat of minor exercise, barely able to be measured by the most sensitive scientific instruments. To power her chemical engine, the Focus uses up her own juice, juice produced by her transformed body, juice produced by her body in a perfectly scientific fashion, powered by the food she eats and the air she breathes.”

  Gail nodded. Focuses needed twice as many women as men, because their juice moving wasn’t at all efficient. The Transform Clinics, such as this one, easily placed women Transforms into Focus households, but regularly couldn’t place male Transforms, because of the numbers issue. Unfortunately, most Transforms never realized they had transformed until it was too late, and they began to turn into Monsters, if women, or Psychos, if men.

  “What about these other women who transformed with my daughter?” her father said, leaning forward. “Did they cause Gail to transform?” Gail heard ‘lawsuit’ in her father’s voice.

  “The opposite is true,” Dr. Mendell said. “These three women are called Focus Attendants, and their transformation happened, what we call induced, by your daughter’s Focus transformation.” Her father winced. Instead of suing, he now feared that they or their relatives would sue him. That might keep him in line, for at least a moment.

  Her father leaned back and whispered to Gail’s mother, and she whispered back, something about lawyers and private investigators. All the while, the witch bitch and her husband, and Sylvie and Kurt, kept on going and going and going. She couldn’t believe what still went on up there. Doggy position! The witch bitch did it doggy style. Someone was going to have to explain to these people about what her Transform telepathy showed her. She hoped to high heaven this wasn’t her job. Unfortunately, she suspected it probably was. She cringed inside at the thought of a conversation about sex with the witch bitch. Of any conversation with the witch bitch.