Chapter 3: Moral degeneration.
The silence that followed the bathroom incident was a new, brittle thing. Rose no longer wandered the house half-dressed. She wore oversize t-shirts and sweatpants even in the heat, her youthful form hidden behind a wall of cotton. She didn’t mention it. She just watched. Edith could feel her daughter’s eyes on her back as she washed dishes, a quiet, assessing gaze that made her skin prickle.
The treatment payments hit her bank account every two weeks. Each deposit was a cold comfort. The money was for Rose’s future, for security, for escape from the grinding fear of poverty. Now it felt like blood money, financing her own unraveling.
At the clinic, the changes were quantified. Dr. Reed measured her with calipers, his touch impersonal. “Remarkable tissue density. And your hormonal panels are… vigorous.” He didn’t meet her eyes when he said it. “The ancillary effects are still within projected parameters, Edith. Discomfort is temporary.”
“It’s not discomfort,” she said, her voice low. She was lying on the exam table, paper crinkling beneath her. “It’s a constant… presence. It’s demanding things.”
“Libido is a known side effect of the regenerative catalysts. It signifies a healthy systemic response.” He made a note. “We can prescribe a mild suppressant if it’s troubling you.”
She shook her head, a spike of panic cutting through her. A suppressant might dull the hunger, but what if it stalled the payment? The contract was clear: deviations from the protocol forfeited compensation. She was locked in. “No. It’s fine. I’ll manage.”
“Excellent.” He smiled. “Then we proceed. The next phase involves a slight increase in dosage. To cement the gains.”
The increased dosage was a poison and a sacrament. Within forty-eight hours, the low, constant hum of arousal became a roar. Her cock, as she was now forced to think of it, was rarely soft. It strained against the fly of her jeans, a thick, insistent weight. The need to touch it, to grip it and work it until the pressure broke, was a physical pain sharper than any headache. She was a slave to it.
She masturbated in the shower every morning, water sluicing over her as she fisted herself hard and fast, thinking of nothing, trying to achieve a blank, mechanical release. It barely took the edge off. By midday, the tension would coiling again, tight and feverish. She’d lock the bathroom door during her lunch break at a client’s house, perched on the edge of a stranger’s toilet, biting her own wrist to stay silent as she jerked off, her mind a static buzz.
But the static was coalescing into a single, devastating image: the curve of her daughter’s back, water on skin, the shadowed cleft between her legs from that fleeting, stolen moment. It was the fuel that fired the worst episodes.
One afternoon, the house was empty. Rose was out with friends. The repairman had fixed the AC, but Edith turned it off. She needed the heat, the sweat, something to match the fire inside. She went to her room, locked the door—the click was now the sound of her life dividing—and stripped.
She didn’t need a mirror. She could see it. It was bigger. Thicker. The veins stood in stark relief against the flushed skin. A clear bead of fluid welled at the tip. She lay back on her bed, the sheets rough against her back. She spit into her palm, not bothering with lotion, and wrapped her fingers around the shaft.
This time, she didn’t fight the thought. She let it in. She invited it.
She imagined it wasn’t her hand. She pictured Rose in the steamy bathroom, turning, not with surprise, but with a slow, knowing look. In her mind, Rose didn’t reach for a towel. She stepped closer. Edith’s breath hitched. Her thumb smeared the wetness over the head of her cock, spreading it, the sensation electric.
“Fuck,” she hissed to the empty room.
In the fantasy, Rose’s hands were on her. Small, cool hands guiding her. Edith pumped faster, her hips lifting off the bed. She imagined pushing her daughter back against the sink, the cold ceramic against Rose’s skin. She imagined dropping to her knees, the taste of her, but that wasn’t the hunger. The hunger was deeper, more violent.
She imagined flipping Rose around, bending her over, those perfect pale buttocks presented. She imagined the tight, virgin resistance giving way, the brutal, slick slide inside. Her own cunt, the original part of her, clenched emptily at the thought.
“God, yes, take it,” she grunted, her voice guttural, alien. She was fucking up into her own fist, imagining it was Rose’s tight, young pussy. “Take your mother’s fucking cock.”
The obscenity of it, spoken aloud, tipped her over. The orgasm tore through her like a seizure, a raw, clenching wave that emptied her balls in hot, sticky pulses onto her own stomach and chest. She cried out, a mangled sound of triumph and utter despair.
After, she lay in the mess, shaking. The shame was immediate, a nauseous flood. She had done it. She had fully pictured it. She had come to the thought of raping her own child. She was a monster. The money, the youth, none of it mattered. She was something broken and vile.
She cleaned herself with a cold washcloth, scrubbing at her skin. She dressed. The house was still quiet. The silence mocked her.
Later, Rose came home. The air between them was charged. Edith couldn’t look at her.
“Mom?” Rose asked, hovering in the kitchen doorway. She was holding a small, familiar box. The medication from the trial. Edith must have left it on the bathroom counter. “What are these? They don’t have a label.”
Ice flooded Edith’s veins. “Vitamins. For the trial. They’re just… special vitamins.”
Rose turned the box over. “It just says ‘Subject 731’ on it. That’s you?”
“It’s how they keep track. Give it here.” She reached for it, her movement too sharp.
Rose pulled it back slightly, her eyes narrowing. “You’ve been acting so weird. You jump if I come into a room. You’re locked in your bedroom all the time. And you look… different. Your face is different.”
“It’s the vitamins. They’re working. I feel younger.” The lie was ash.
“You don’t seem happier.” Rose’s voice was soft, hurt. “You seem scared. Or angry. All the time.”
“I’m tired, Rose!” Edith snapped, the guilt sharpening her words into weapons. “I’m tired from working so you can have a life! That’s all this is! Now give me my medicine.”
Rose flinched. She handed the box over, her expression closing off. “Fine. Sorry for caring.”
She turned and went upstairs. Edith listened to her footsteps, the soft click of her bedroom door. She looked down at the box. ‘Subject 731’. That’s all she was now. A number. A set of data. A walking, lusting experiment.
That night, the need returned, quicker, hungrier. It was a compulsion, a biological scream. She went into the bathroom, locking the door behind her. She couldn’t wait. She leaned over the sink, her reflection wild-eyed in the mirror. She unzipped her jeans, freeing the hard, aching weight of herself. She was rough, frantic, her hand a piston. The fantasy was darker now, more detailed. Rose struggling. Rose crying. The imagery sickened her and aroused her in equal, devastating measure. She was panting, groaning, her knees weak.
The old brass lock, fatigued from constant use, gave way.
With a sharp, metallic snap, the bolt slipped from the strike plate. The door shuddered and swung inward, just an inch, revealing a sliver of the dark hallway beyond.
Edith froze, her cock still in her hand, her body coiled for release. Her heart stopped. She stared at the open door, at that thin line of shadow.
From down the hall, she heard Rose’s door open. Footsteps. A pause.
Edith didn’t move. She couldn’t breathe. She was exposed, caught in a beam of light from the bathroom, her monstrous secret in her hand.
The footsteps didn’t approach. They retreated. Rose’s door closed again, quietly.
But it didn’t lock.
Edith remained paralyzed, listening to the hammering of her own heart. The door was broken. The last barrier was gone. And Rose knew it. The fragile pretense of privacy had shattered with the lock. Nothing was contained anymore. The thing in the bathroom was out in the open now, waiting in the silence between them.