Dawn's Tale Read online

  “You know that you could get busted for this, right?” Dawn said, trying yet again to say anything to discourage him from continuing this gross abuse of power. “You could go away for a long time.”

  “Sweetie,” he said back. “You’re not going to tell anyone, because you know that if you ever do, I will hurt you and your family. I have your file. I know where you live. I have your social security number. I know all I need to know about you. Besides, who do you think they’re going to believe?”

  Dawn put her nose to his droopy, hairy ass, and reluctantly stuck her tongue out in his rancid crack, while her hands were flat on the ground, and she tightly shut her eyes...as she pretended she was anywhere but there. It was significantly difficult to avoid getting his ass hairs entangled and entwined in the small, round, silver stud that she wore just below her left nostril.

  “No, no,” Nurse Carl stopped her. “Take your hands and spread my cheeks, so you can actually lap my butt hole with your tongue.”

  While Dawn remained knelt before her perverted elder, she had flashbacks of the sexual abuse she had endured from her evangelical father, who at least didn’t smell as rank as Carl did. As Dawn spread him apart, and did as she was instructed, Nurse Carl reminded her of the first rule, which he had clearly established in the beginning.

  “Oh, this is so wicked, man! That’s better...eat that shit, you naughty girl,” he said, showing his seal of approval of how she was doing. “Now remember, don’t you stop until I tell you it’s time,” he said.

  Then, as she regretfully cringed and continued to please him with the forced rim job, she felt his anus push outward, as he laid a gasser in her mouth. She immediately pulled away from him, disgusted, spitting on the floor, and wiping her tongue with her hand, which didn’t help, as her hand had touched the filthy floor, where she was alongside the bedpans and dustbins.

  “Please,” she begged him, “No more. That was raunchy.”

  Carl just tittered, amused with himself.

  “What do you expect from an old fart?” he said, laughing at her disparagingly. “Listen, bitch...I served this country. Now, you’re going to serve me.”

  Carl then turned around, and grabbed her by the hair, pulling her to him, so that her face was now in his bushy groin.

  “I thought I told you not to stop until I said it was okay?” he said. “I’m going to have to punish you now. Suck it,” he demanded, “and this time, deep throat it.”

  Again, she did as she was told, while this coerced undertaking killed her inside a little more each time.

  “That’s it. Suck it hard,” he said. “Yank my chain too, while you’re sucking it,” the crude RN told her, as he gyrated back and forth, as if humping her mouth.

  Without warning, Carl shoved his well-endowed manhood all the way in her mouth, and held her head in place, to keep her from letting up on it.

  “That’s it mama,” he said in his sinister voice, “In your face! Suck it to the bone.”

  Dawn frantically slapped, and pushed against, the side of his Neanderthal legs, trying everything she could to get him to let go of her head, but he refused to release her. She began choking, and her face started to turn blue. She had made herself relax her throat, but it didn’t help. She couldn’t breathe. Nurse Carl finally let her go, causing her to collapse on the floor, wheezing and gasping for air.

  “That’s a good doggy,” Nurse Carl told her, “Perhaps you’ll listen better next time.”

  Back in the ward’s cafe, William found it difficult to continue eating, while he genuinely feared for Dawn’s welfare.

  “He’s German, retard. Not all Germans are Nazis,” Kenneth corrected.

  “Yeah. They’re not like Muslims,” William chimed in, “There are such a thing as good Germans.”

  “There’s good Muslims,” Kenneth insisted, shocking the others that he had moments of marginal empathy, though he was usually known to be brutally prejudice and set in his ways.

  “Dig it, there’s different kinds of Muslims. They’re not all the same,” Chad agreed with the superior-acting heavyweight.

  “Yeah, the Moonies and the Shit-Tights,” Thomas said, being entirely mistaken but completely serious.

  “No, doofus, the Sunni and the Shiite,” Kenneth corrected yet again.

  “Oh,” Thomas said. “Hey, don’t touch my plate,” he told Kenneth, who happened to have his hand on the table, but nowhere near Thomas’s personal space. “I don’t want to catch your germs,” the neurotic hypochondriac stressed.

  “Dream on,” William cut in, “They have different branches, and each claim to have their own special creed, but the plain truth is, all Muslims follow the same manual. Have you ever read the Quran? There are verses on practically every page, about how the infidel should be treated. There is no such thing as radical Islam, when they all faithfully abide by the same hateful book. In the case of the Nazis, it was much different. The Nazis based their beliefs on more than one religion, and were, ironically enough, heavily influenced by Islam.”

  “Really?” Chad asked, never hearing that explained that way before, still looking behind him, as if he was seeing something, or someone only he could see.

  “Oh yeah,” William reiterated, “Hitler was a huge admirer of their pedophile prophet, Muhammad. Hitler was very much inspired by the Quran. Do your research. It’s historical fact.”

  “Aren’t all religions basically the same anyway, though?” Chad asked.

  “Really? Name one other religion that will butcher your entire family if you do so much as dare draw a picture of their prophet. Name one other religion that will behead you if you leave the faith,” William challenged.

  “They say that Islam is a religion of peace,” Thomas noted.

  “Sure,” William agreed. “There’s a piece of you over here, and a piece of you over there.”

  “You’re just racist,” Kenneth directly accused.

  “Seriously?” William challenged. “Tell me how exactly I am racist, for speaking out against a religion. Islam is a theology, not an ethnicity.”

  “I feel like scoring some dope,” Thomas said, changing the subject.

  “Me too,” Chad agreed, “I could dig getting stoned.”

  “If you two were Muslim brides, you would be,” William shared. “Muslims stone their women, and their daughters, sometimes to the death, for doing nothing more than disobeying or disagreeing with them, no matter how trivial or petty the offense.”

  “If you wake up and you don’t want to smile,” Chad began to bust out in spontaneous song, sensing that the topic, and direction of their heavy conversation had gotten way too deep for their collective, fragile state of mind.

  “If it takes just a little while,” Thomas jumped in, and began singing along with Chad, while moving and bouncing his head from side to side, shaking his fro hairstyle.

  “Open your eyes and look at the day, you’ll see things in a different way,” the two of them sang in unison.

  William noticed Dawn coming back to her empty seat, and saw that her hair had been messed up, and that the look on her face was less than far out. His troubled eyes watched her with sincere concern, certain that there was something wrong, that she just wasn’t confiding.

  “Don’t stop thinking about tomorrow,” Chad sang louder.

  “Don’t stop, it’ll soon be here,” one of the less masculine-looking female nurses sang, chiming in, as she strolled by their table. “It’ll be here, better than before.”

  “Yesterday’s gone, yesterday’s gone,” Chad and Thomas sang in sync.

  Joshua hears them singing the Fleetwood Mac song, and gets up from his table, and begins to dance with exuberance. He twirls around the room, as if he’s a human merry go round, flaying his arms about, and flapping his limp wrists in his prideful display of gayness.

  “Why not think about times to come,” William suddenly helped out, keeping the song going, and actually drumming on the table with his hands.

  “And not abo
ut the things that you’ve done,” Chad sang.

  “If your life was bad to you,” Thomas added.

  “Just think what tomorrow could do,” all three harmonized together.

  “Loving you, isn’t the right thing to do,” Kenneth started singing, not only poorly off tune, but singing the wrong song by the same band, rudely interrupting their tribute recital, and receiving a dirty look from the three of them, for doing so. Though no music had been playing right then, the psychiatric ward did have access to a LP record player, and had a modest selection of vinyl albums, which they kept handy behind the counter, mostly donated by the various staff members. Periodically, the RN on duty would put on a Bread album, or something equally soft and soothing, for the patients to enjoy.

  Chad looked over at the table where Bethany and Benjamin were eating alone together, and saw that they were staring at them, with a mutual look of silent insult on their faces. Their eyebrows were raised, chins lowered, and smiling out of the corner of their mouths. Bethany had a chronic phobia of other people, and only felt comfortable with Benjamin. Benjamin suffered from a vast lack of enthusiasm and eagerness to participate in any sort of activity. He was also quiet and a bit on the anorexic side.

  “What?” Chad asked, feeling he did the right thing by trying to change the unseen, yet highly noticeable, editorial mood ring in the room.

  Elsewhere in the asylum, Reuben came to, and discovered himself in the cramped, padded room. His dry eyes, as usual, were infected with the grittiness and burning, that he had learned to live with, but never quite got accustomed to.

  He finds himself in nothing but a diminutive hospital gown, which just barely covers his 41-year-old scrotum, which had shrunk some but fortunately not dropped yet. The gown was bleached white, like the room he was now confined in against his will. The gown appeared to be made of fabric, but was grossly thinner and somehow significantly more uncomfortable than a roach-motel, soiled bed sheet.

  The solid, untainted white blanketed everything in sight that is what little there was to actually see. The room looked more like a prison cell, than a hospice chamber. There is no mirror, which Reuben obviously didn’t miss. There was a small, square window, in the upper part of the door.

  In the higher corner of the wall, beside the door, was a small speaker, which was playing the song Have You Ever Been Mellow by Olivia Newton-John, on a repetitive loop. The documented theory was that the soothing music was to keep the new patient calm and collected, in a relaxed state. However, off the record, it was obvious that it was intended to be a nuisance, and even a trigger of sorts, to unofficially keep the patient unstable, and therefore selfishly secure the continued insurance and outrageous funding that they were criminally draining from the naive newcomer.

  Reuben begins to notice that someone comes by and glances in the window, with an obnoxiously bright flashlight, every fifteen minutes or so. It’s never the same person twice, and they consistently chose their checks to coincide with the precise moments when Reuben decided to look in that direction, thereby ensuring that their detrimental, battery-operated beacon hits him directly in the eyes each time.

  Reuben’s eyes were photosensitive, so he bawled in agony, as the hazardous lamp tormented him. There were no restraints or shackles on his wrists or ankles, but there was also nothing in the room which he could use to harm himself or others. He had been committed, and was now undergoing an initial observation period, yet had absolutely no recollection of how he got there.

  Reuben stares down at his scrawny forearms, which he had recently carved up with a partially rusted fillet knife. His self-inflicted lacerations had been effectively sterilized and stitched, but the red linear marks were still raucous, particularly against his pale, albino flesh. Reuben was in a psychiatric ward, which was a semi-heavily secured facility within a much larger hospital, in Falls Church, VA.

  Dawn lounged and slouched in the smoking room, deliberately isolating herself from the others, just to take a break from having to keep up her charade, hiding the burden she carried and buried inside. The designated room was enclosed by durable Plexiglas, and just adjacent to the solarium, where most of the patients were sedated on the long, 6-piece, floral-patterned sectional sofa, either aimlessly watching television, or dazed in deep personal reflection. Dawn took her time puffing on one Marlboro cigarette, but only until the coast was clear. Once she verified that nobody was close enough to catch her or narc on her, she sat back on the wooden bench, and pulled out a small, silver flask, which she kept concealed in a zippered fanny pack, that she had strapped around her waist. This was one of the many gifts and privileges she indulged, courtesy of the perverted, male staff members who coveted her. In exchange for sexual favors, these depraved, entrusted guardians provided her with a supply of illegal moonshine, which she kept tucked away in her room. Though her flirtatious, extrovert behavior would never show it, the dense liquor was for much more than simply taste. She was dispirited and forlorn, and it engulfed her very being, like a flood. She desperately needed something substantial and meaningful to fill her void, and not just her feminine cavities.

  Meanwhile, Reuben nearly rubbed his face raw, with his naturally chilled and clammy hands. His empty despair and absolute desolation overwhelmed his forsaken soul, but yet no tears flowed from his pitiful and dismal eyes. He had wept so much, and so often, that he had literally exhausted his reservoir. Reuben suffered from porphyria, a rare and incurable blood disease, which sadistically attacked his body in a myriad of ways. His debilitated teeth were yellowed, and jagged, as if they were all decaying incisors. His ulcer-gingivitis afflicted gums had retracted to the point where his teeth looked much longer than normal. Though it appeared that he had fangs, his enamel was actually eroding, and he only made it worse by his subconscious tendency to grind them. He didn’t remember signing into the hospital, or being asked questions about what had happened to him. He figured these things must have occurred, but that he had just blacked them out.

  Bethany was in the solarium, amusing herself by playing the theme music to Ryan’s Hope on her cherished bamboo flute, which she had found months ago in one of the common areas, and had developed an oddly emotional attachment to. While most in the room were off in their own imaginary worlds, and unbothered by her performance, there was one intolerant patient who found this to be incredibly annoying, as he was actually trying to watch the soap opera of the same name.

  “Will you shut the hell up?!” the obese, yet arrogant Kenneth said, infuriated with the rude interference.

  Dawn had walked in, just in time to overhear Kenneth verbally intimidating Bethany’s musical recital.

  “Buzz off, Kenny,” Dawn insisted.

  “Who’s going to make me?” Kenneth retorted in what he perceived to be justified retaliation to Bethany’s discourteous behavior.

  “Listen, Kenny. We all know you’re here because of anger issues, but you really need to learn to pick on someone at least half your own size,” Dawn said bravely.

  “You have a big mouth, Dawn,” he said in response, feeling insulted by who he viewed as inferior. “You must need to put something in it,” he added, referring to his tiny reproductive organ that he hadn’t actually seen in what felt like a lifetime.

  Dawn quickly brought her hand to her mouth, and when she neglected to respond immediately, Kenneth misinterpreted that as a victory.

  “What’s a matter, baby?” he asked, “Cat got your tongue?”

  “Sorry. No. I just threw up in my mouth a little,” Dawn responded.

  “That’s the last straw!” Kenneth said, wobbling up from the sofa, which had a permanent crater-sized indentation from where his blubber butt was parked. Waddling over to where Dawn was standing, behind the modular sofa, he now faced his attacker. “I’m going to teach you a lesson,” he said, clenching his fat fists, and panting for air.

  Dawn made a noise, under her breath that was faint but fierce, which sounded like a growling.

  “Look everybody,” K
enneth said in mirth, “this chick thinks she’s a wolf.”

  “Actually, the wolf is my animal totem,” Dawn said back, with a vivid death wish in her dangerous eyes.

  Just then, Nurse Claire stepped in, and broke it up.

  “That’s right,” Dawn called out to Kenneth, who was tottering back to his room, “Keep truckin!”

  Bethany still hadn’t budged an inch, deathly afraid of Kenneth’s hostile demeanor.

  “Are you okay, Bethany?” Dawn asked, walking up to her, to make sure she was alright.

  Just then, Benjamin came walking in, hearing the ruckus from the hallway. He walked over to where the two girls were standing.

  “What’s going on?” Benjamin asked Dawn, seeing that Bethany was temporarily paralyzed in fear. “Is she okay?” he asked again, in a panic. “Bethany, are you okay?” he asked his friend directly, no longer waiting for a response from Dawn.

  Dawn didn’t know how to answer Benjamin; so instead, she reached out to touch Bethany’s shoulder, as her way of communicating to her that she was safe.

  “No!” Benjamin stopped her, “Don’t. She doesn’t like to be touched.”

  Not wanting to make matters worse than they already were, Dawn put her hand down, being stopped just in time, before she had made physical contact.

  “It’s alright, Bethy,” Benjamin said, as he petted the back of Bethany’s hair, ever so gently, as if trying to calm her down. “Don’t trip out. Everything’s alright.”

  “T-t-thank you,” Bethany said, “Th-th-thank you, Dawn, for m-m-making him go away,” she stammered, as Dawn had already begun to leave the scene, missing out on Bethany’s verbal expression of gratitude.

  Reuben battled his inner demons, aggressively covering his ears with his hands, like a severely autistic child, as he struggled to force the evil images out of his troubled head. He blinked heavily and repeatedly, incapable of properly handling the stress and anxiety that came with being him. The brick walls, which had been painted solid white, only served as a blank page for the Devil to fill with unwanted, unwelcome thoughts of self-destruction. To his dismay, there was nothing at his current disposal that could assist him in harming himself. The bed had no wires or springs, no headboard to tie to, and no linens to form a noose. There was no ceiling fan or nightstand, telephone or television. There was no lamp, or light fixture. In fact, the only light source came from the little window on the securely fastened, heavily scrutinized door.