Every single person in this building was a bastard; with the exception of the boys forced into working things that degraded them. Even the woman. She was a bastard too.
No matter how much they tried to make it up to him – through extra meals or bathing times – it would not make up for the betrayal he felt at being cooped up in here.
Though his body was screaming out in pain and his hips were still crying in agony every time they had pressure applied to them, the staffs was still wheeling him down the same blank corridor to the examination room. They could care less about how he was faring, though. No. They didn’t want to hear his complaints about the inch of flab bulging out of his stomach or the incessant pounding in his head that made it impossible to close his eyes without stirring pain. Key liked to think that his manager would call at any second and demand for everyone to cater to his needs to make his stay as comfortable as possible lest they be sued – something she had done for him without asking back in the day – but that was a different scenario in a different life. It would never carry on over to here…
Here, they only cared about getting him knocked up with another alien. Because they were bastards like that.
At least he was still granted the handicapped status to hitch a ride in the wheel chair. He preferred the stiff back of the chair to hanging off the arms of the workers that were escorting him. His blotched hips still groaned precariously beneath the extra inches of skin, not sure whether to buckle or not. They at least didn’t have to feel the constant abuse that came each time his heel touched with the floor.
When one thing went well, however, there was always something to counteract it and neutralize all the nice components that came with the bonus package. The wheelchair, for once, did not sustain his needs for comfort as they jumped over ridges in the floor and bumped along the path it had carved one too many times. The uneven wheels only contributed to the irritation Key felt every time he was buckled in for the haul down to wherever he was scheduled to go.
The best he could do was grit his teeth together as the chair knocked his back into the frame and sent balls of pain ricocheting around his torso and further down to his nether regions.
This needed to get done and over with already…
No sooner had Key thought of this did they enter the examination room. With the aid of the supervising workers he was perched onto the table where a bear-like man kept him propped with one of his hairy arms. The curly locks of dark hair tickled Key’s head where it lolled down, his neck unable to support its heavy weight. His thin veil of clothing that kept him hidden from the prying eyes of curious observers was removed, exposing every portion of his body that had once been his pride and joy. From the miniscule slit of a window his dipping eyes enabled to form Key caught sight of his thighs, once so toned but now mere sticks coated in a drooping layer of faded tan skin. His calves couldn’t have been in much better condition and he’d already assessed his stomach which he really, really feared examining too closely.
The woman in charge – the hell beast she was – barked out to the employees to act at a more efficient pace since she apparently had no precious time to waste. Key wondered if she was as impatient as she was because she had a coffee waiting for her at her desk, or maybe a magazine. There quite possibly could have been a new fashion statement declaring that lab coats were out and plain scrubs were in waiting to broach her eyes with its new designs and fabrics. It may as well have been a farfetched guess, but it was not an improbable one. He knew for a fact that she had access to filling meals and treats like coffee that he hadn’t been able to enjoy in…
Bastards.
He was braced for the insensitive touches that were approaching, but was surprised when a worker paused in the midst of copping a feel of his parts down there. “He’s menstruating,” he said, seeming a bit surprised with his own discovery.
Menstruating? Was that why he kept waking up to find splotches of red-brown staining his clothes and bed? The muddy smell of ripened fish must have been emanating from the dried blood then… Surely his artificial organs weren’t capable of giving him a period, though… That was like saying a Barbie’s boobs were capable of lactating.
His mind floated back to a health class he’d attended to in his high school back in his freshman years as he tried to make sense of his situation. In order to receive new eggs and what not the uterus needed to flush out all the fancy padding and lining it had built up in order to allow another egg in… If one didn’t receive a period than they would never be able to fertilize… Confusion was associated with everything else now. Key didn’t understand how he’d been able to last in this place if he’d never had a period before…
“He only gets a light flow. His records show that insemination has occurred even with the period,” the witch responded.
“This isn’t a light flow…” the worker tentatively contradicted.
The sharp tap of shoes against tile told Key that the witch was walking over in order to inspect the sullied opening first hand. Her eyes flitted over the genitalia of the boy, rarely blinking lest she miss something in the brief millisecond that she broke her contact. Her face contracted into an odd mixture of multiple expressions. Key was unable to discern what exactly it was that she was debating over in that wicked head of hers. The pen she held made some chaste, squiggling marks on the paper clipped to her board. With a couple more circles of her pen she tore her gaze away from Key and turned abruptly to the men under her command.
“The lesions from birth 1A and the surrounding area have been stained with the liquids of the uterus as you have stated. The disorganized hormones in the body of C27 are contributing to the heavier flow,” she said in a robot voice that lacked any and all forms of emotion. Oh no, that was a lie; she sounded annoyed by the nuance in her schedule. From the flare in her eye, too, it looked like she desperately wanted to give the go with the original procedure or whip him for being so prone to nature’s steroid natural procedure.
Bastards.
Tempted as he was to flinch back from the hand hovering above his behind, Key didn’t allow himself to give in. He wanted to stay as mentally aware of everything around him so he could listen to the witch and her henchmen exchange codes that somehow translated into the examination going awry.
Alas, finished with the odd words and phrases that jumbled in Key’s had, the witch said, “Clean him up. Wash everything well and sterilize the opening. You,” she pointed to the man acting as the pillar to Key’s sinking body, “prepare the syringe.” She retreated back to her looming position in the corner where she kept watch like a hawk awaiting prey.
When no one reacted as fast as she desired she gave a sharp slap to the counter with her clipboard and screeched something that was too high pitched for even Key to hear. Next thing he knew, though, a damp towel was dabbing his underside, wiping away the caked blood sticking to his cheeks and thighs. Another imperfection to the once fabulous self he had once been. Even the girls he’d modeled with had never let themselves get into such disarray. As much as the cleaning of his body should have felt invasive, though, Key found the methodic strokes of the towel and the heat that radiated from its spongy surface soothing in the oddest of ways. All the support he had managed to retain in his neck throughout the examination gave way with an imaginary pop and let Key’s head rest on the metal table. He was so ready to doze off… With his muscles relaxed and his pain ebbed away till it was not but a small paddam-paddam of a noise pushing at the far back of his mind.
Faint sounds of the fuzzy man that had held him preparing the syringe were the last thing on his mind…
His mother had bathed him once like this…
Could he have been happy bathing his alien like this…?
---
With the news of his period, Key had figured out a way to tell time. Every since discovering that he had the monthly cycle he started tallying the months he was kept in here. Like an invisible chart almost…
At first it had proved to be quite easy since his menstruation cycle had made promises to come like the full moon every month. Now, however, it was hard to even pick up a trickle. Key was straining himself just to feel the stream of red roll down his leg. There were times, when his strength hadn’t totally abandoned his body and he found the surrounding world fuzzy with whatever it was that was confounding him, he even reached his fingers down into the forbidden area. He clenched his jaw against the burn that came upon the skin to skin contact and felt around for the wet spot until he was satisfied with his groping. When his fingers came up damp with the natural fluids and lotions, though, he was left disappointed with himself. What had started off as a brilliant idea ended up confusing him when he misjudged his estimations and came up dry no matter how many times he searched his bottom.
When every day he searched still and all he met was the roughness of his cracking skin he began to fret over the impossible. Or what should have been the impossible.
What it was… He knew it was…
Lying on the metal table, embellishing in the sting of cold that embraced his sore hips, partially through his routine examination, he knew that the nausea was not over the lack of food in his tummy. And he knew that the lack of blood he’d been met with on his countless attempts at calculating time were not freak chances…
“Positive.”
Bastards.