Something Wicked 🏳️‍🌈 (bxb)

3: Bisexual shit-magnets unite

MERCEDES ASYLUM, September 28

My head itched like fucking crazy.

Mercedes Asylum wasn't exactly the horror movie I'd expected. While I was pleasantly surprised to hear that the handcuffs, straitjacket and padded cell were now the stuff of crazy-person legend, their modern patient treatment felt like a personal insult: I now had the worst haircut ever.

OK, so my face wasn't gonna launch no ships, but my hair? That was my fucking asset. Women loved running their fingers through it, cooing and gushing in delight at my shiny bouncy black curls. And it wasn't just for the ladies. Men would...groan enthusiastically into it. My hair was the ace up my sleeve. A flick of my waves and Leila was on me. I made it through high school thanks to those unruly black tufts. Even she complimented my curls once. Mashallah.

My Mercedes regulation buzz-cut had stripped me of my superpower; no longer could I tousle my hair to seduce people who'd never waste time with trash like me. Not that there was anyone in Mercedes to impress.

"Señor Torres." The door to the Inpatient Assessment Room creaked open and a skinny woman—who certainly wasn't a fucking doctor by any stretch of the imagination—tottered in.

A mane of black braids bobbed with her stride. Hideous Spring-Break-regret tattoos snaked out from her skull T-shirt's sleeves. She pulled at a black denim skirt so short that it probably made belts feel jealous.The safety pin in her nose winked under the office lights as she sat swinging her platform boots. This goth chica was seriously fucking loca.

I wracked my brains as to why the fuck the doctor had invited a Mercedes patient to sit through my assessment. Until I realized that her skull necklace was in fact a skull lanyard. It twisted on its axis to reveal her ID card.

Fuck. She was the doctor.

She opened her mouth to speak, then suddenly sat frozen, mouth agape, like an unseen hand had just pulled the plug on her. Then, like a clockwork doll—probably a haunted doll in an abuela's attic—she jerked into life.

"Doctor Carmen Rivera." She held out a pale hand adorned with black nail polish.

I didn't shake it, instead jabbing at my shaven head. "You're responsible for this."

Doctor Rivera shrugged. "Mercedes Asylum protocol. Cleanliness. Cost savings. All that mierda."

She retracted her hand and stuffed it down her skull T-shirt. It reappeared clutching a paper-wrapped brown disc. "Apple, Señor Torres?"

"Um, Doctor?" I peered closer. "I'm pretty sure that's a Reese's Cup."

Double-fuck. That was why they didn't bother with handcuffs or straightjackets. Even the doctors in Mercedes Asylum were nuttier than squirrel turds. I was not gonna survive a day in Mercedes if both patients and doctors were crazy.

Doctor Rivera gazed down at the candy, as if noticing it for the first time. "So long as cocoa beans grow on trees, chocolate is fruit to me, ese." She stuffed the Cup into her mouth, paper and all, before rummaging around under her T-shirt again. "You want one?"

"No!" I held my hands up, terrified at whatever melted vending-bra snacks she'd impose on me. "No! I'm not into candy, thanks."

"An Oreo a day keeps the sadness away," she replied. Then, more to herself than me, "An entire pack of Oreos a day brings it back."

"Um, listen. Doctor Rivera. Can we just get this inpatient assessment shit over with, then you can enrol me, or inter me, or whatever you do in asylums?"

As if in reply, the doctor held her palm flat then sent her other hand jerking in tight loops over it, as if scribbling on an imaginary clipboard. The wheel was spinning, but the hamster was most definitely dead.