The Housekeeper - Chapter 51 Part 1 of 3

The Housekeeper

By Karen Singer

Chapter 51 Part 1 of 3

The only light in Halifax’s cell came from a dim bulb at the far side of the larger room.  He didn’t know what time it was.  He didn’t even know what day… or month… or even what year it was for sure.  He had lost track of time somewhere.  And the only explanation he had for it was… that woman.  That woman who had raped his brain… and promised him a vacation.  But this was certainly not the vacation she had outlined for him.  This was a vacation in hell!

His legs hurt.  The burns from where the steel had been welded together were bad… but that wasn’t the worst hurt.  The worst hurt was the ache from his legs being held back so tightly.  His muscles screamed for release.  He fought constantly against the steel holding them folded, but that steel was impossibly thick.  He dared not even contemplate the fact that it would never come apart. 

Noise caught his attention as someone opened the outer door.  He blinked at the brightness as the main lights were turned on.  Three men entered – all Chinese he noted.  When they spoke, he couldn’t understand anything that they said.  “Help me!” he pleaded.  He saw them look at him, and then ignore him completely.  “Help me!” he cried again.  But this time, they never even bothered to look. 

The men set some large containers on a table at the side of the large room and walked out, but they left the lights on and the door open.  Ten minutes later, someone else walked in.  Another worker.  But this one came straight to his tiny cell.  “Help me,” Halifax pleaded.  But it was as if the man was deaf for all the attention he paid. 

The man set a bucket of water and a plastic container down just outside the cell and unlocked the cell door.  Halifax desperately crawled toward the opening.  But he was greeted by an angry string of Chinese from the man… who quickly shoved and kicked him brutally back into his cell… well away from the door. 

Hurting even more now, Halifax watched as the man brought the bucket of water into his cell, then took the plastic container and dumped it out next to the bucket… right onto the floor.  Food!  But for all Halifax could see, it looked like leftovers from someone’s dinner.  And it was all food that was almost unrecognizable.  But still, it was food… and water.  “Thank you,” he mumbled as the man walked out of his cell and locked the door again.  Halifax paid him no mind as he grabbed the food from the floor and began shoving it in his mouth.  As he ate, he saw men coming and going, delivering things and setting things up.  It all worried him… a lot.  But there was little he could do about it.

And then the woman was there again.  Susan Wu.  Along with the man that had ripped his nails out.  A minute later, four of her large guards were there as well, and Halifax felt a deathly chill of fear wash over him as they all headed for his cell.  He screamed as they dragged him out and across the hard concrete floor.  He screamed even louder as they bound his wrists and attached him to the winch hook again where he body was raised up in the air as it had been the day before. 

Xiang and Susan both closely examined the steel bands holding his legs together.  Fully satisfied, they nodded to a small man who had come in with the workers.  The man bowed slightly toward Susan and Xiang, then hurried over to Halifax.  He too examined Halifax’s bound legs… but only briefly.  At his command, Halifax was lowered toward the floor, but only part way.  With the help of two of the guards, the man fastened some rope around one of Halifax’s now stumpy legs.  Then the guards pushed Halifax’s body up sideways at an angle and fastened the rope so that he would stay at that odd angle – with one of his bound stumpy legs hanging vertically straight down. 

The man grabbed a large plastic container from the table by the wall and brought it back toward Halifax where he placed it directly underneath him.  When he was ready, he signaled to a guard who hit the switch for the winch holding Halifax in the air.  Halifax found himself being lowered, with his leg going straight into that container. 

“What are you doing?” Halifax screamed.  But as it had been the day before, nobody paid his questions the slightest notice.

The man left Halifax where he was and went back to the wall where he started removing the lids from several large containers.  He had a fairly good knowledge of what he was doing since Xiang had sent him out for training in just what he was about to mix.  He dumped part of the contents from those containers into another large container.  He grabbed a metal tool and began mixing the contents until he was satisfied.  Motioning to one of the guards for help, the two of them picked the container up and brought it back toward Halifax.

“What are you doing?” Halifax screamed again from his tilted position in the air.  He no longer expected any answer.

Together, the man and the guard poured the liquid urethane rubber compound into the container surrounding Halifax’s leg.  They filled the container until it was full and there was only two or three inches of exposed skin between the top of the rubber and the steel band holding his legs together.  When they were done, the men moved back and mostly just watched the container of rubber, one of them checking his watch frequently.  The man checked the rubber carefully and touched the top of it lightly with his finger, then looked back and shook his head.  Again they waited, and again he went back and touched the rubber lightly… then a bit harder.  He nodded.  “Ready,” he said in Chinese.

Halifax found himself being lifted in the air again, this time the entire heavy container and what was in it came off the ground with him.  His odd angle was untied and he was retied in the opposite direction, leaving his other leg extending straight down.  Another large container was placed under him and he was lowered so that his other leg was now in the second container.  The entire process was repeated until both legs were encased in the tubs of urethane rubber.

By the time Halifax was finally lowered to the floor he was barely conscious.  The plastic containers that held the rubber… and his legs… were left on him as he was dragged back into his cell to recover. 

Roger was amazed that he didn’t get any speeding tickets as he arrived at Doctor Parker’s office in Marietta.  Without Janice or Carol along, he had hoped to make this trip as Roger, but Janice wouldn’t hear of it… just as she wouldn’t hear of him not wearing his corset either.  So he had made the entire hour and a half drive from his home, through Atlanta, and up to Marietta, as Candy.  Except that as he checked the clock in his truck before he turned the engine off, he discovered that it had taken him only a little more than one hour.  He had shaved almost thirty minutes off the drive!  Maybe he shouldn’t have driven quite so fast.  It wasn’t like he had any reason to really want to see this doctor.  And he especially had no reason to want what he was sure the doctor was going to give him – hormones. 

Feeling more nervous than he had in a long while, he grabbed his purse and got out of his truck.  He was wearing slacks again, but they were nice slacks instead of the jeans he usually wore… and he had the legs of the slacks covering up the tops of his new boots that were again on his feet. 

The waiting room had a few customers in it as Roger nervously walked up to the receptionist’s window.  He didn’t even get a chance to ask before the nurse there looked up at him with a quizzical expression on her face and asked, “Brinkley?”

“Yes,” Roger replied, feeling somewhat humiliated just admitting that, and surprised that she would know him before he told her who he was.

The nurse grabbed a folder off of her desk and looked up again.  “Let me get the door for you and you can go right back.”

That surprised Roger.  No waiting at all?  And there were people waiting that had been there ahead of him.  A moment later, a door opened and the nurse appeared.  “Is it Candy today?” she asked as Roger approached.  Still embarrassed by everything, Roger only nodded as he followed her back to the exam rooms.  The nurse weighed him, took his blood pressure, then drew a vial of blood from his arm.  “I’ll tell the doctor you’re here,” she said just before she left.  “I’m sure she’ll be right with you.”

Knowing the way he usually had to wait for a doctor, Roger figured he had a good half hour… at least, so he was very surprised when the door opened less than five minutes later.

“I’m so sorry to make you wait this long,” Doctor Parker told him as she came in.  “I was with another patient when they told me you were here.”

“You didn’t leave him because of me, did you?”

“It was a she,” the doctor replied, “and no, I finished with her.  But yes, I did hurry.”  She had noted his voice.  Obviously he was doing his best to sound something like a woman.  She appreciated the effort, but as with most of them that came through her office, it would take a while.

Roger actually felt bad that she had skipped out early on someone else.  “You shouldn’t have,” he replied softly.

“I… had to,” she replied.

Roger looked her straight in the eye, and found her looking straight back at him the same way.  The two of them stared at each other like that for a moment.  Roger again wondered what Janice had done to make the doctor change her behavior towards him. 

Jessica stared into… her patient’s… eyes.  She remembered what that woman had said… that this man had endured many of those torture sessions with her.  And that he was far more under her conditioning than she could ever conceive.  She shivered a moment at remembering the one session she had endured.  How bad must it be for this… man if he had endured many of those sessions… only worse?  And the woman had said she was being lenient with him?  “Um…” she said as she lowered her eyes away from his.  “I really need to do a thorough examination of you.  I have to give you the best medical care I possibly can… and still move you forward toward being as much of a woman as possible, as fast as possible.

Something in what she said caught Roger by surprise.  “You have to do it?” he asked.

“Yes, I have to do it,” she replied.

Roger felt he had to dare asking.  “Doctor, the last time I was here, you threw us out.  What happened?”

Fear filled the doctor’s face.  Protect the woman!  Can’t tell what happened!  “I…”  She struggled to tell him, but she couldn’t get the words out of her mouth.  Instead she asked, “You… you… have to turn yourself from a man into a woman?”  She was surprised she had been able to ask it that way.

Her question caught Roger by surprise.  He was also surprised that he was able to tell her, “Yes.  I have no choice.  I have to!”

“You have no choice,” she repeated.  “I… too… have no choice,” she managed to tell him.

Roger realized the two of them where fumbling around trying to tell each other the same things.  He had to know more, but how could he ask?  The words just seemed to slip out of his mouth.  “Stand up…”

She stared at him for a moment with her jaw dropped in surprise.  She chanced saying, “Sit down.”  More than a hint of fear crossed her face. 

“Obey,” Roger said.

“Don’t think,” she replied as the fear in her grew.

Both of them now knew they had undergone the same treatment at Janice’s hands.  They were two people with something major in common.  Something major that each wanted to talk about… but it seemed that there were limits as to what they could say.

Frustrated and slightly flustered, the doctor looked away.  “I need… to examine you, but…”  She looked quickly up at him again.  “I know I have to treat you well and give you the best medical help I possibly can.  But can you please forgive me and let me leave you for a minute or two.  I… need to do something.”

“Of course,” Roger replied.  “I’m fine.  I didn’t expect to be treated so specially.”

“Thank you,” the doctor mumbled as she hurried out the door.  Her pacifier was out of her lab coat pocket and into her mouth before she even reached her office.  She was sucking on it desperately by the time she got her office door closed behind her.  She leaned against the door and just rested there… enjoying the relief that sucking on the damn thing gave her, while she contemplated the things she had just learned. 

Roger Brinkley… becoming Candy Brinkley.  And he had no choice in the matter.  How bad was it for him after enduring many of those sessions?  As she stood there, she felt her bladder emptying yet again.  She still had no earthly idea when it was going to happen.  And she knew how helpless she was going to be as soon as she got home again after work – all because of the will of that woman.  How bad was it for this Brinkley person?  She couldn’t even fathom how miserable he had to be.  And yet… he seemed to be surviving fairly well.