Taina
THE LORE
Something about Dr. Greene finally knowing I know her secret makes me actually want to attend therapy now. She’s not as pristine as she attempts to seem, and once we let go of perfection, things start to get real.
She seems less than enthused about my presence in her doorway, rolling her eyes when she looks up and sees me from where she’s sitting at her desk.
“I figured I wouldn’t be graced with your presence again for a while.” She straightens, removing her glasses and setting them on her desk. “I see I’m not so lucky.”
“Oh, stop it. This is when the real fun begins.” I grin, holding my water bottle to my chest. To an outsider, I probably look bright-eyed and bushy-tailed.
Ha!
“What are you doing here, Taina?” Her question is slightly muffled by her hand as she pinches the bridge of her nose, her eyes closed.
Too many things to cross off my mental checklist.
“It feels nice to finally have someone to speak to openly about all of this,” I divulge, partly believing it. I’ve never spoken about the things that happened to me .
If I give my trauma a voice, will it whisper that it’s okay before slowly ebbing out of me? No, I don’t want that. I don’t want to heal.
I hold on dearly to the hatred that fuels me and wait for Dr. Greene.
She drops her hand and stares at me a moment before responding. I notice she isn’t wearing any makeup and the dark circles under her eyes aren’t doing her any favors. Part of me wants to ask if she’s still fucking her coworker, but that’s not what I’m focused on anymore.
“The fact that you had to blackmail me in order to feel comfortable speaking to me tells me that whatever you’re about to share could land us in prison,” she says before groaning.
As if I’d ever end up in prison.
“You thinking I’m ever going to get caught tells me how little you’ve gotten to know me in this time.
” I know I’m pretty and that’s gotten me better treatment than some, even though this face will eventually sag and age.
But they don’t expect me to be pretty and intelligent.
Clever, resourceful, vengeful, murderous.
And I’ll do it all in heels if I have to. But these days, my sneakers fit my lifestyle more. They’re easier to run for my life in.
“You were able to corner me into do your bidding,” she reminds herself, cutting through my thoughts.
“Most sessions you won’t see me. So you get paid to play candy crush or whatever it is you do with your free time besides fucking married men.
” I shoot a pointed glare. “ Or you could end up the laughingstock of the psychiatric field in greater Austin. You underestimate the way people love to gossip.”
I’m aware of how hard it is to be a woman in a professional setting. While I’ve never experienced it, I can empathize. And women like Dr. Greene make it hard for the ones who won’t fuck around.
She sighs as if she can hear my inner thoughts tearing her ass to shreds and waves me in to sit down.
Two bitches, once forced to deal with one another, now reaching some sort of amicable truce.
Without preamble, I set my water bottle down—on a coaster this time—and clear my throat. This could go on for our entire session.
“If I tell you everything, things I’ve never uttered to a living human being before, I need you to record every second of it,” I say, looking into her eyes so she knows I’m dead serious.
I watch as she tilts her head to the side, her brows drawn in confusion. She parts her lips, only to close her mouth again.
“Yes,” I continue with a nod. “I want you to have proof of everything I’m telling you, knowing full well that you could use all of this against me.”
“Why?”
“Don’t worry about that. You do your part, and no one will ever know that you know what your coworker’s dick tastes like.” Her grimace makes me grin. “Crass but true.”
After a momentary pause, she shrugs one shoulder, pulling a recorder from a drawer in her desk.
“ And if you ever release these recordings without my permission, you’ll lose your license for not notifying the authorities as a mandated reporter,” I remind her, picking lint off my black leggings and flicking it on the carpet. “So either way, you’re fucked.”
I say it without emotion, because this is simply fact. If this were to somehow get out there, she’d have to go down with me. And not only would she be in a jail cell beside me, she’d also not have a job or husband to come back to once she’s released.
What can I say? I’m thorough.
“I think you may be a psychopath. No one should be so paranoid,” she tells me before kicking off her shoes and crossing her legs on her wide chair.
“Ever since my assault, all I’ve had is time and an endless supply of rage. It’s nothing against you in the grand scheme of things. You could’ve been anyone, doctor.”
Please don’t think you’re that special. My parents picked you and then you ended up being a liar as well.
But I lie to live. For vengeance and because the world needs to be rid of monsters like him.
She lies for dick; fleeting attention and a quick fuck in a hotel room. We’re not the same.
“Don’t tell me if you’ve killed anyone. I can’t have that on my conscience,” she blurts out. Bitch, what?
“Oh, you’re so righteous now, Dr. Greene,” I mutter as I settle in, prepared to dive deep into the lore of how I became the formidable adversary I am now.
“One Friday night, after I’d just submitted a thesis on investigative genetic geology and the epidemic of solving cold cases?—”
“Impressive.”
Does she ever stop talking?
“Try not to interrupt me. Praise does nothing for me.”
She rolls her eyes and gestures for me to continue.
“I was invited out to a new club. I’d just turned twenty-one and was in my last semester of college.
I’m not…entirely sure what happened, I can only assume that I was drugged.
One moment I was with a group of friends, the next I was tied up in a dark room.
” I clear my throat to hide the way my voice shakes.
“I woke up to a man with his penis inside of me.”
It's disgusting, the idea that a near lifeless body could be taken for pleasure. That I was nowhere near consciousness, and my inability to consent was taken advantage of in such a brutal way.
I remember the cold cement against my face as I cried until I couldn’t anymore. How he’d tell me to cry louder because it just makes his dick harder.
How he’d punch me until I lost consciousness when I got too loud, and when I came to, he’d gloat about all the things he did to me, the ways he defiled me.
“I’d only slept with an ex-boyfriend before then,” I rush out as I swipe a tear before it can even reach my cheek. I can’t look her in her eyes as I say it, terrified of the pity I might see there. Scared that it’ll make me crumble. So I look through her like she isn’t even there and continue.
“The next few days, men came in and out, but…he was the only one who penetrated me. Sometimes there was an audience, sometimes not. And every time, he wore a condom.”
It was the only kindness he offered, as if he knew if I got pregnant, it could all come back to him.
Little did he know, nearly a year later, I’d be coming for him.
“And then I was dropped off on my front steps, as if these people knew exactly who I was and where to find me.”
“But you don’t think that, right?”
With my chin jutted forward I confess, “There’s destiny, and then there’s sabotage; doom at the hands of someone else. Was I destined to become this person? Or was it bestowed upon me like a curse?”
My watery gaze zeroes in on her blue eyes.
“But whatever the answer is, I’ll find it. One thing about the truth: it’s never evaded me.”