Chapter 22: The Art Room Aftermath
The clay was a cold, dead weight in her hands. It refused to hold a shape. Every time she tried to form something—a bowl, a crude animal, even a simple sphere—it slumped into a formless mass, a grey brain sitting on the warped wooden board. The art therapy room was silent except for the scratch of charcoal on paper and the occasional wet squelch of clay from the other tables.
Susanna kept her eyes fixed on the failure in her hands. She could still feel the ghost of Daisy’s thumb on her knee, a fading brand of decency. She held onto that sensation, trying to use it as a talisman against the other memory, the one that made her skin feel two sizes too small. The metallic taste was back.
She heard the door open, but didn’t look up. A specific energy entered the room, a charged calm that made the hair on her arms rise. The squeak of a chair leg scraping linoleum. The scent of cheap hospital soap and underneath it, the faint, sharp smell of Lisa’s skin.
Lisa settled into the seat beside her, too close. Susanna’s whole body went rigid.
“What are we making?” Lisa’s voice was a low, conversational murmur. Her own board was empty.
“Nothing,” Susanna whispered, her throat tight.
“Looks like a sad little lump.” Lisa reached over and poked Susanna’s clay with a long finger. “No vision.”
Under the table, Lisa’s hand landed on Susanna’s thigh. Not a tentative touch. A claim. Susanna jerked, but Lisa’s grip tightened, fingernails biting through the thin cotton of her sweatpants. Her hand slid upward, deliberate, until her fingertips brushed the dampness at the crotch. Susanna froze, a wave of hot shame crashing over her. Her body had betrayed her, reacting to the proximity, the danger, the awful, familiar electricity.
Lisa’s mouth was at her ear, her breath warm. “You think that mouse can save you?” she whispered, the words barely audible. Her fingers curled, hooking into the waistband. “She gives you a little pep talk in the stacks and you get all weepy and brave.” She pushed her hand down, inside. Susanna sucked in a breath, her eyes staring blindly at her collapsed clay. Across the room, an older woman named Janet was meticulously painting a watercolor sky.
Lisa’s fingers were inside her. A slow, cruel mimicry of intimacy. Susanna’s muscles clenched, trying to reject it, but the friction was a dark, involuntary spark. She pressed her thighs together, trapping Lisa’s hand, but it only anchored her there.
“I own this cunt,” Lisa breathed, her voice a flat, matter-of-fact sting. “You can cry in the library all you want. You can let her play therapist. But this?” She moved her fingers, a slow, deep curl. “This is my property.”
Tears welled in Susanna’s eyes, blurring the grey lump on the board. She held herself perfectly still, a statue of humiliation. Her every sense was tuned to the violation under the table, while her face struggled to maintain a neutral blankness for the room. Janet dipped her brush in blue. The fluorescent light hummed.
Lisa adjusted her rhythm, her thumb finding a different pressure. It wasn’t about pleasure; it was about demonstration. A ruthless, precise proof of ownership. Susanna’s breath began to hitch in tiny, uncontrollable spasms. She bit down on the inside of her cheek until she tasted blood, trying to anchor herself to a cleaner pain. It was no use. The tension coiled, low and terrible, a wire pulled taut by hatred and fear and her own traitorous biology.
Her hips gave a minute, helpless jerk.
Lisa smiled against her temple. “That’s it.”
The orgasm, when it broke over her, was silent and devastating. A seismic collapse inside her with no outward sound. Her vision whited out for a second, her fingers crushing the clay into a solid, ruined fist. A single tear escaped, tracing a hot path to her jawline.
Lisa slowly withdrew her hand. She brought her fingers to her own mouth, licked them once, her eyes locked on Susanna’s pale, stunned face. Then she wiped her damp hand on Susanna’s thigh, a casual smearing of the evidence.
“Your clay’s a mess,” Lisa said aloud, her voice normal now, as if commenting on the weather. She leaned in one final time, her lips brushing the shell of Susanna’s ear. “Run to her again, and I won’t just remind you. I’ll make you beg to be mine. You’ll crawl.”
She stood up, pushing her chair back with a loud screech. She didn’t look at Susanna again. She walked out of the art room, leaving the door swinging slightly on its hinges.
Susanna sat. The wet patch on her thigh cooled in the room’s stagnant air. The clay was a hard, cold knot in her aching hand. Janet looked over and gave a sympathetic smile. “Frustrating, isn’t it? The medium just doesn’t cooperate sometimes.”
Susanna looked down at her board. At the ruined clay. At the faint, sticky sheen on her grey sweatpants.
She had chosen nothing. She had been chosen for. The crack Daisy had opened felt miles away, sealed over by a layer of permafrost. Lisa wasn’t just a chain. She was the lock, the key, and the hand that turned it. And the worst part, the part that felt like a death sentence, was the part of Susanna that still thrilled at the turning.
She unclenched her fist. The clay bore the deep, perfect imprint of her own fingernails.