✅ A Dose of Humiliation

9. Adulthood

"Yeah. I mean, it's not like I hate it. I'll drink when everyone else is, but I don't know why everybody gets so excited about being old enough. It must be worse with those mad parties, right?" I knew she was a cheerleader; at school she hung around with the football team and the volleyball teams, the cool kids who thought everybody else worshipped them and acted like they were a whole separate society.

"There's pressure, but I've never been good at doing what I'm told. Even by the cool kids." She shrugged as if that was nothing special. I still had no idea what her life was like, but the designer clothes, lack of compliance with the uniform, and general don't-care attitude made me think that she had both more money and more freedom than I could dream of.

We changed the subject then, and spent the rest of the walk home talking about what might happen to me in the morning. My parents had even called in to book time off school for me, so there was no chance I could change my mind now. Serena apparently knew a lot of the different options they could give me; the original fifteen possibilities had been displayed on the website, until they realised that it could be more effective for some rebels to be punished with a surprise. She asked me how I would feel about having my hand-eye coordination impaired so I would have to look at my fingers in order to type anything; about bad breath and flatulence; about weight gain and lethargy; about lack of coordination; and about acne and rashes. There were others as well, and all of them felt pretty bad. But in every case, I guessed that my friends would try to stand by me, and that made everything feel a little better.

"How about oral fixation?" she came up with next. "Like, it's supposed to give you a little compulsion to put things in your mouth and chew on them without thinking. Not as embarrassing as some of the others. I mean one of Daddy's accountants always has his pen in his mouth, and he gets a new one every other week. How would that make you feel?"

"I don't know," I shrugged. "Not such a big deal, I guess. Might be embarrassing, and might end up wrecking stuff I actually care about if I'm not careful. But... ohh, I think I could keep laughing through that one." I thought about the number of manky, disgusting chewed-up pens sitting in a rack on Becker's desk. That was a problem he knew personally, so if he saddled me with it he would just be dragging me down to his own level; and that would too funny for me to really feel embarrassed.

"I guess that's the lucky spin for you. You're going for random, right?"

"Yeah, my folks might have been able to afford some of the upgrades, but they don't want to. Like they're trying to put me through a nightmare, but so long as they don't choose it they can pretend it's not their fault."

"I guess I can understand that. Like telling a maid to clean up something nasty, so you don't have to touch it yourself. So... what did you do to get this anyway? Don't they need to have proof of something beyond normal rebellion?"

"Broke a shop window," I grunted, kicking a stone across the road idly as I walked. "Well, took responsibility anyway. It was an accident, but... would have caused other problems if I gave the mall cops time to investigate properly. And with an unlawful act, there's no vague questions about intent, or if it's going to happen again, or anything like that. They can automatically give me the pill. Or, well, the shot."

"That sucks. Sorry I can't help more."

She nodded again, and I could still see there was something going on in her mind. Well, for a popular girl to come and hang out with our group I knew there had to be. At first I'd thought she might have a crush on Marcie, from the number of times she said that the lisp was endearing, cute, or charming. But then it seemed extremely unlikely Elspeth would have brought her along. Maybe she was just trying to see how the other half lives; and trying too hard to make friends. She was good at reassuring Marcie, anyhow. And now that the group had broken up, she was being extra friendly to me as we walked in the direction of our homes. It felt good to have someone unconditionally accepting my fears about the weeks ahead. It was like there was no judgement there at all, and I could say whatever I thought.

This new friend was so supportive that it was hard to believe, by the time I turned up the path to my own front door, that we hadn't been friends for years. And then there was only my Mum to deal with, stepping out of the lounge to talk to me as soon as I arrived.

"Your brother's already in bed," she said. "It's quite late."

"It's not fully dark yet. Still safe to walk home." I could have apologised, but I didn't feel like it today. They had chosen to do this, and after that it was harder to have any respect for them or their rules.

"Right. Well you better be up early tomorrow. We have your appointment booked. And we've thought about what you asked for. But Mr Becker was kind enough to tell us that you had legal trouble when you attempted to hide it from us, and that is a clear sign of integrity. He even offered your father a discount because he knows our situation. We are not in a position to pay those fees again at this point in your treatment."

It was just about what I had expected. I tried offering to pay for the difference myself, just to get out from under Becker's hands, but she laughed and said there was no way I could afford it. All I could do was go to bed, and try not to have nightmares about when I woke up.