Chapter 39 The Matrimony Method
Niklaus
Where have I heard that name before?
“Fairly simple guidelines here. Mrs. Valdawell, if you’re pulse and saliva production increase at these photographs of delicious meals, there will be very unpleasant consequences from this IV I’ve hooked you up to.
If not, your husband may pleasure you how I see fit,” Meridei explains, still holding her mother’s hand.
My stomach drops.
“What?” Sapphire’s dark, sleepy eyes widen.
“Don’t get too eager! Most patients have difficulty getting past the initial stage of correction from the excitement of food.”
What the fuck?!
My world is lagged from the days of sedatives Meridei has kept me on. I’ve slept so much, eaten very little, and fought endless to try and escape to find Sapphire. But I wasn’t prepared to see her look like this. And now Meridei wants me to do what to her? Pleasure her?
“This treatment…” Sapphire clears her throat, blinking as if her eyeballs are covered in glue. “This treatment is not necessary. I swear I will never eat those foods again.”
There’s a hint of truth to her statement. And there’s something agonizing about that.
Apple May chuckles pretentiously, patting her daughter’s shoulder with the back of her hand.
“Be that as it may, Mrs. Valdawell. But your lack of intimacy with your husband is a separate issue altogether. Your gluttonous ways have caused you to neglect your wifely duties. That alone has given both of you intense delusional disorders. We can’t let that go untreated.”
The fucking logic passing through her brain is comical!
Sapphire locks eyes with erratic nerves splintering her composure.
“I will be a good wife to him, I promise. I will perform all of my wifely duties. Won’t I, darling?” Sapphire’s eyes start to water as she looks to me for support.
I glare back at Meridei. “Sapphire is a wonderful wife. She—she already pleases me daily. This is pointless.”
Apple May clucks her tongue. “Look at him! He doesn’t know what he’s saying. Positively feverish. Probably built up with too much semen.”
Jesus Christ.
“This is all a misunderstanding,” I say to Meridei, ignoring her idiot mother.
Meridei shifts on her heels, considering my appeal. At first glance, she seems so level-headed, so well-balanced, but deep down—I know she feasts on our desperation like the manipulative, sadistic psychopath she really is.
My attempt was a losing battle. But I had to try, for Sapphire’s sake.
“Let’s begin.” Meridei grins.
Apple May takes a seat in the corner of the room as Meridei holds out a photograph with one hand and feels Sapphire’s pulse with the other.
Sapphire becomes a statue, lowering her eyes to the photograph without showing any kind of physical response.
Come on, Spitfire. You’ve got this.
“Pulse went up,” Meridei comments, then swiftly sticks her fingers in Sapphire’s mouth, index finger jabbing under her tongue. “Salivating.”
Sapphire squeezes her eyes shut in defeat and my heart twists in my chest.
“What an unreliable method,” I growl.
Meridei shoots her dark eyes to me. “Reliable enough.”
Well-rehearsed fingers inject a syringe into the IV tube, and I have to hold my breath. She said there will be unpleasant consequences. I’ve seen Sapphire suffer during our time with Absinthe and Albatross. I really don’t want to bear witness to this again. I don’t have the strength to see her cry.
“Oh god.” Sapphire doubles over in her chair, hands clutching her stomach as she winces in pain. Her whimpers are all I hear as they flow freely from her lips. “Make it stop. Please!”
“I want you to associate those intense stomach cramps with—”
Meridei is cut off as she rushes to place the metal pail in front of Sapphire as she heaves into it, emptying her stomach of the only meal she’s had. Raw eggs.
I look away and grind my teeth so hard, I almost crack into my enamel.
Two splashes hit the bottom of the bucket.
“There it is.” Meridei coos, holding Sapphire’s hair out of her face. “Get it out.”
Sapphire whines through a tearless sob.
“Wormwood concentrate. It’s not fun, is it, Mrs. Valdawell?” Meridei adds.
I’ll fucking slit her throat for this.
Apple May claps her hands from the corner of the room, bouncing off her seat. “Now for my favorite part!”
My rage eats through the sedatives coursing through my veins.
“Patient Three, you may please your wife now, and the pain will stop.” Meridei readies another syringe.
I blink three times with my mouth open. “What?”
“Finger her. Now.”
An orderly shoves me to my feet. I whip my head to look at him, shocked that I was unaware any men were in this room. He extends my shackles like an elongated leash for a dog.
I look down at Sapphire who is wincing in agony, possibly unaware that this command is even being made of me.
“No,” I respond, balling my fists in front of me. “She isn’t well.”
Meridei’s demented eyes light up from the challenge.
“She’ll be even worse for much longer if you refuse your marital obligations.”
I shoot my stare down to Sapphire, so small and frail in her chair, wrapping her thin arms around her stomach as she dry heaves again. For a few long seconds, I wait for her to tell me what to do. I wait for consent. For anything that tells me what the right thing is to do.
“Alrighty! Next dose of wormwood coming up!” Meridei fills another syringe from a glass vial.
“No!” I shout, fighting the vertigo caused by the sedatives that sways my standing position. “Okay. What do you want me to do?”
Apple May and Meridei laugh in unison. “Haven’t you ever fingered your wife?”
I’m going straight to hell.
With cautious steps toward the woman I grew up tormenting, I approach as if she’ll tell me to stop.
I pause between each movement toward her, hoping she’ll ease my indecisiveness.
I thought about what it would be like to touch her so many times.
I’ve fantasized about her against my better judgment.
I’ve hated myself for picturing what her body would look like without clothes.
And now? I can’t stomach doing this. But I also couldn’t forgive myself for letting her writhe in pain for God knows how long.
“Slide her panties down to her ankles first,” Meridei sing-songs condescendingly. Apple May giggles behind me.
What do you think, Spitfire? Would it turn you on more if I snapped Meridei’s neck in front of you?
Sapphire’s knuckles turn white as she bites her palms into the edge of the waste bucket. A thin layer of sweat glistens over her forehead, soaking into her strawberry-blonde hairline. Her groan echoes into the sloshing pail.
I feel like a monster for this.
I am so sorry, Spitfire.
My shackles clank to the floor as I kneel in front of her chair.
“I’m going to make the pain stop, okay?” I murmur to her gently, placing a warm hand over her chilled ankle to get her attention.
Those piercing heterochromatic eyes blink up at me through a wall of tears. Pleading. Begging. Praying for my words to be true. She nods her head.
I lean closer to whisper. “You can hate me for a lot of things, Spitfire, but please don’t hate me for this.”
Sapphire nods again, grasping her core as she writhes again.
Goddamn it.
My breath grows heavy and loud as I slide my hand up the inside of her thigh, my fingertips meeting her panties. Just do it. Don’t think about it. It’s a task you have to complete. It’s an assignment. That’s all.
With my knuckle, I shift the fabric to the side.
And not surprising in the slightest, I discover she isn’t anywhere close to being wet.
I sigh, feeling like a pig for what I’m about to do.
I push two fingers in my mouth, wetting the skin and returning them back between her legs.
I won’t do this to her dryly. It’ll hurt and be uncomfortable.
Regardless, I’m nauseated by the act. Doesn’t matter if I’m relieving her pain.
Doesn’t matter if she nodded her head. This is fucked up.
As I push my middle finger inside her, the warmth rushes around my skin, sending tingles up my arm. In my periphery, I watch Meridei slowly inject another syringe, to which Sapphire lowers her bucket to the floor, sliding it away from her chain.
Her entire body softens, and she drops her head back as I curl and uncurl my finger.
Sapphire permits a rush of air to leak from her lungs.
“Make her feel good or this happens again,” Meridei barks.
I clench my jaw, gazing up at Sapphire to tell her something with my eyes. Tell her I’m sorry for having to do this. Tell her to relax and enjoy what I’m about to do so Meridei refrains from giving her more of that wormwood concentrate crap.
She blinks once, tilting her hips up for me to get a better angle.
And I let my thumb slip over her clit, massaging in small circles until I hear a small, sweet whimper.
Her cunt clenches and unclenches around my knuckle.
A brief pulse, so I keep going, fighting the dark sensation of my own pleasure growing as her pulse hammers into my hand.
“Good. Let’s start again,” Meridei exclaims, snapping her fingers for the orderly to yank me back to my chair.
With my fingers still wet, I clench my hand into a fist and glare under lowered lids, trying to catch my breath.
Meridei props Sapphire’s weak body upright. “Another photograph. Then if you don’t have a reaction—”
“You said if I pleased her, she wouldn’t have to do that again!” I raise my voice, wrapping my hands around my restraints and jerking them in frustration. The chain leash claps the floor behind me, causing the orderly to stumble forward.
“I said no such thing.” Meridei glances over at her mother in amusement. And to my horror, Apple May has just finished touching herself.
“She’s had enough,” I growl.
Meridei watches me for several seconds, unearthing my patience with a twitch of her lips.
“And I think we are just getting started,” she says harmoniously.
I can’t watch her go through that again. I’ll lose my mind. I’ll get us both in trouble by having a meltdown and picking a fight in this drunken, sedated state with the orderlies. Think, Niklaus, think! You aren’t from this time. That has to be some kind of an advantage, right? Think!
I fumble through sluggish thoughts as she refills another syringe. And it hits me…
“You inject her again, and I’m going to have to tell Patient Thirteen what you’ve done,” I say in a low, threatening tone.
Meridei’s head snaps up, and she leans forward, wondering if she heard me right. That’s definitely a reaction I was looking for.
“I beg your pardon?”
“Patient Thirteen,” I repeat.
“You don’t know what your talking about. The current resident of that room is Skylenna Ambrose.” Meridei laughs humorlessly. “You know nothing about Patient Thirteen. No one does!”
“His name is Dessin. Did you know that?” I taunt.
Sapphire’s tired gaze bounces from me to Meridei, probably praying I can buy her more time with this bit.
“How could you possibly know that?” A vicious edge laces her words.
“I know more than you think. And unfortunately, I’m going to have to tell him if you make my wife sick again.”
Meridei lowers the syringe. “A pathetic bluff pretending like you know him personally.”
“You don’t think I do?” I raise an eyebrow. “Darling wife, hasn’t Dessin been saying how much he enjoyed poisoning Meridei at her dining party that one time?”
Sapphire’s eyes awaken slightly. She nods once.
“You remember that don’t you, Meridei? Spewing vomit across your dining room floor? Swimming in your fellow conformists’ bodily fluids all night?”
Apple May jumps to her feet. “Does he really know that awful, crazy man, Meridei?”
But Meridei is speechless. Meridei drops the glass vial of wormwood concentrate. Meridei looks from wall to wall of this gruesome treatment room for a solution to this current predicament she’s found herself in. Because I have found her nerve, exposed and isolated, and I have struck it.
“Even if this was all true, you are a patient now. You don’t have the capability to send Patient Thirteen a message!” Meridei shouts, stomping her foot with a face that’s pinched and flushing pink.
I mentally flip through the Emerald Lake Asylum textbooks we were assigned to read in my teenage years. I used to find the information so useless, so redundant. Now, I’m grateful for the knowledge I wield against this bitch.
“The orderly behind me? His name is Jeremiah. His wife calls him Jere-Jere. He can’t go more than an hour without sneaking a sip frrom his flask of vodka.
Two years ago, he caught you standing over a patient you drowned in a treatment, right?
He helped you resuscitate him and never told Suseas that you had no intention of bringing him back. ”
I stare at her as a cluster of emotions strengthens my voice.
“That patient’s name was Chekiss. How would I know that if I didn’t have an entire network of employees here that would happily give a message to Patient Thirteen for me? Go ahead. Call my bluff.”
“We have to continue—the treatment.” Meridei gulps.
“Hmm. You see, I don’t think we do. That unreasonable fear that’s been twisting around inside your head lately? That Patient Thirteen will do something this horrific all over again? That fear isn’t so unreasonable after all. Why? Because you and I both know that Dessin has escaped.”
I stand despite the orderlies clawing at my back to sit back down. But I can’t. I have to get this last part out. I have to plant the seed. I have to get Sapphire out of here.
“And. He. Knows. Where. You. Live.”
Meridei shudders before she slams her hands down on the tray of vials and syringes behind Sapphire’s head. “Fine! They sleep in here tonight. Think about the threats you’ve made and how it keeps you from a warm, comfortable bed tonight!” she screams at me.
With a furious swipe of her hands, the glass and needles hit the floor.
And they’re gone. No more orderlies. No more Apple May. No more Meridei.
It’s me and Sapphire.
We are finally alone.