Chapter 61: Bathwater Amnesia
The first sensation was the light. Not morning light, but the deep, honeyed gold of late afternoon, slicing through a gap in the blackout curtains and painting a burning stripe across her closed eyelids. Ashley stirred, consciousness returning in a thick, syrupy trickle. Her body felt… foreign. A constellation of aches bloomed across her hips, her thighs, a deep, tender throbbing in her core and a sharper, more personal sting elsewhere. She shifted under the silken sheets, and every muscle protested with a soft, remembered violence.
She was alone. The other side of the vast bed was cold, undisturbed. The penthouse was silent, a tomb of polished concrete and designer furniture. She sat up, the sheet pooling around her waist. Her head was curiously light, empty. The events of the previous night existed as sensory fragments without a narrative: the smell of car leather, the glare of halogen lights on gravel, the cold press of Dominic’s seat against her bare back, the twin headlights of Carter’s car following them like eyes. After that… a blur. A warm, dark blur of hands and low voices and being moved, manipulated, positioned. No coherent scenes. No dialogue. Just a physical impression of use, profound and complete.
Swallowing against a dry throat, she swung her legs out of bed. The floor was cool under her feet. She stood, her body unfolding with a series of small, painful pops. She walked naked to the floor-to-ceiling window, pushing the curtain aside with a soft hiss. The city sprawled below, already curving into the early evening, rooftops glowing in the slanted sun. Late afternoon. She’d slept the entire day away.
Turning, she caught her reflection in the dark glass—a pale, ghostly outline against the urban panorama. She looked closer. Faint, shadowy bruises, like storm clouds under the skin, mottled the sharp curve of her hips. On her upper arms, the vague suggestion of fingerprints. She turned, looking over her shoulder at the reflection of her back. More discolorations, a painter’s careless palette of purples and yellows.
A strange calm settled over her. The marks were facts. Evidence. But of what, exactly? The memory was a cleared chalkboard, faint smudges where words had been.
She needed a bath.
The master bathroom was a monument to minimalistic luxury. Black marble floors, brushed gold fixtures, a freestanding tub so deep it was almost a pool. She turned the taps, and steaming water roared out, quickly fogging the massive mirror above the vanity. The scent of her favorite sandalwood and bergamot oil filled the air as she added a generous pour. She lit a single candle on the tub’s ledge, its amber flame immediately multiplying in the foggy glass.
While the tub filled, she stood before the mirror, using a towel to wipe a clear circle in the condensation. Her face looked back at her—clean, young, the green eyes slightly hollow, the blonde hair tangled. She looked… untethered. She leaned in, examining a faint, almost invisible mark on her neck. Not a bruise. A faint abrasion, like a rug burn. From the carpet? The car seat? She couldn’t place it.
Her body was a map of a country she couldn’t remember visiting.
She stepped into the bath, the water scaldingly perfect. She hissed as she sank down, the heat penetrating the deep muscular aches, a fierce consolation. She lay back, submerging up to her chin, letting the oils slick her skin. The ceiling was veined marble. She stared at it, waiting for memories to float to the surface like bubbles. Nothing substantial came. Just flashes: Carter’s voice saying “factory reset” with a dark pride. Dominic’s assessing blue eyes in the warehouse light. The feeling of gravel under her untied shoes.
Proof of purchase, Carter had said. She looked at the bruises on her hips, now submerged and distorted by the water. Yes. Here was the receipt.
She must have dozed, because the candle had burned lower when the sound of the penthouse elevator dinging startled her awake. Her heart thudded once, a hard, painful knock against her ribs. Footsteps, confident and familiar, moved through the living area. Not the careful, measured tread of Dominic. This was Carter.
The bathroom door opened without a knock. Steam rolled out into the cooler bedroom air. Carter stood in the doorway, backlit, still in the same clothes from last night, his dark hair messy. He looked tired, but his eyes were alert, burning with a satisfied energy.
“There you are,” he said, his voice a low rumble that vibrated in the tiled space. He leaned against the doorframe, watching her. “We were wondering if you’d hibernated for the winter.”
She said nothing, just watched him through the steam. He pushed off the frame and walked to the tub, kneeling beside it. He trailed his fingers through the water, then cupped her chin, tilting her face up. His thumb brushed over her lips. “How do you feel?”
“Sore,” she said, her voice raspy from disuse.
“Good.” He released her chin, his hand sliding down her neck, over her shoulder, to rest on the surface of the water, palm flat. “That’s the point. You look…” His gaze traveled over her submerged body. “…clean. Empty.”
“I don’t remember everything,” she admitted, the words feeling dangerous.
His smile was brief, triumphant. “I know. That’s also the point.” He swirled the water with his hand. “Dominic had some ideas last night. After the warehouse. A little chemical assistance to smooth the hard edges off the reset. Help the new firmware install properly.”
A cold trickle, unrelated to the bathwater, went down her spine. Chemical assistance. The gap in her memory wasn’t just exhaustion or trauma. It was engineered. “What did you give me?”
“Something gentle. Something that makes you… suggestible. Lets us talk to the Ashley underneath all the noise.” He leaned closer, his face inches from hers. The scent of him—cologne, night air, something metallic—cut through the sandalwood. “We had a long talk, you and I. And Dom. You told us everything you were thinking about in Hong Kong. Every little doubt. Every moment you felt… independent.” He said the word like it was a disease. “We dealt with it. Scrubbed your mental hard drive. You were very compliant.”
She stared at him, trying to find fear and finding only a deep, unsettling void. “What did I say?”
“Doesn’t matter now. It’s been deleted.” He stood, wiping his hand on his trousers. “Out. Let’s get you dried off. Dom’s ordering food. You need to eat.”
He held out a thick, black towel. She stood, water sluicing off her body, the map of bruises now fully visible in the clear air. He wrapped the towel around her, rubbing her arms briskily, a strangely pragmatic tenderness. As he guided her from the bathroom, he paused, nodding at her reflection in the clearing mirror. “Look.”
She looked. A clean, marked slate. A beautiful, hollowed-out vessel.
“Perfect,” he murmured into her damp hair. “My perfect girl. Welcome back.”
From the living room, she heard Dominic’s voice, calm and clear, ordering sushi from the speakerphone. “Yeah, the usual. And add that yellowtail jalapeño thing she likes.” He sounded normal, domestic. Lighthearted.
Carter led her toward the sound, a hand on the small of her back, steering her into the next moment, into the evening, into the waiting emptiness of her own reset mind. The narrative was gone. Only the facts remained: the soreness, the bruises, the empty penthouse, and their hands, already shaping what would come next.
Only the facts remained: the soreness, the bruises, the empty penthouse, and their hands, already shaping what would come next.
Dinner was a quiet, surreal affair. Dominic ordered enough sushi for a small party, the minimalist table laden with black lacquer boxes. Ashley sat wrapped in a silk robe, picking at a piece of yellowtail jalapeño. She could feel the chill of the marble floor through her soles. Carter and Dominic talked about market fluctuations, a planned building acquisition, their voices a low, normal hum that made the previous night feel like a fever dream. She watched their hands, Dominic’s precise gestures as he used his chopsticks, Carter’s broad palm resting casually on her thigh beneath the table. The contact was a brand.
“How’s the fish?” Dominic asked her, his blue eyes catching the candlelight.
“Good,” she said, the word tasting like ash.
“Eat more. You need your strength.” Carter squeezed her thigh, his fingers pressing just hard enough into her lingering bruises to make her flinch internally. She ate another piece, the wasabi clearing the chemical fog still clinging to the edges of her mind. She wondered what they had given her. She wondered what she had said.
Later, Dominic wiped his mouth with a linen napkin and stood. “I should head back. Sloane and Elara will be wondering where I’ve disappeared to.” He came around the table and placed a kiss on the top of Ashley’s head. It was a chaste, proprietary gesture that felt more invasive than anything that had happened in the warehouse. “Be good for Carter, Ash. He’s put a lot of work into you.”
The elevator door closed behind him with a soft sigh, leaving a new kind of silence. Carter looked at her across the ruins of the meal. “Bed,” he said, not asking. In the bedroom, he didn’t fuck her. He made love to her. It was slow, methodical, almost tender. He laid her back on the fresh sheets and kissed every bruise, every mark his and Dominic’s hands had made. He entered her with a sigh, rocking against her with a deep, possessive rhythm. “You’re mine here,” he whispered, pushing slowly into her, filling the aching, hollowed-out space. “You’re mine here,” he repeated, his thumb finding her clit, circling with just enough pressure to make her hips twitch. She came with a soft, broken sound, her body clasping around him, and he followed, spilling into her with a low groan, claiming her all over again from the inside. He held her afterward until her breathing evened out, until she slipped into a dreamless sleep.
When she woke, it was morning. She was alone. Carter was already gone, a note left on his pillow in sharp, slanted script: Gone to the office. Rest today. You’ll come back when you’ve healed up. Don’t touch the phone. -C
The penthouse was a cavern of quiet. Sunlight streamed in, harsh and revealing, showing every particle of dust in the air. Her body felt stiff, a catalog of dull pains. She moved through the rooms, a ghost in a luxurious shell. The silence was a presence. It pressed against her ears, filled with the echoes of things she couldn’t remember. Her mind felt clear, yes, but it was the clear of an empty gallery, white walls and polished floors with nothing hanging on them.
The compulsion started as a whisper, a itch in the base of her skull. There would be a record. Carter documented everything. His pride in his work, in his ‘training,’ was meticulous. A video. A photo. Something. He wouldn’t have been able to resist. It would be on his computer, synced from his phone. She knew the password. He’d given it to her once, an offhand sign of trust, or perhaps of sheer arrogance.
Her heart hammered against her ribs as she padded into his study. The computer was a sleek, black monolith on his desk. She woke it, the screen flaring to life. She typed in the password—the date of their first meeting, a narcissistic touch—and the desktop loaded. Her fingers hovered over the trackpad.
She found the folder labeled “MediaSync.” Inside, subfolders by date. She clicked on the most recent one. Yesterday. There were three video files, their thumbnails dark. She clicked the last one, timestamped late last night, after Dominic had left.
The video player opened. The scene was the penthouse living room, but distorted by the fish-eye lens of a phone propped on a shelf. Carter was in frame, sitting in an armchair, a drink in his hand. She saw herself enter, led by Dominic, wearing only the oversized hoodie. Her face was pale, her eyes wide and unfocused. The chemical assistance. She watched herself move with a puppet’s loose-limbed grace.
“Sit here, Ashley,” Dominic said, his voice calm on the audio. He guided her to the floor at Carter’s feet. Carter’s hand came down, stroking her hair absently, like she was a pet.
“What’s your name?” Carter asked the camera, his voice a low rumble.
“Ashley Shaw,” her recorded voice replied, flat and toneless.
“Who do you belong to?”
“You and Dominic.”
“What happened in Hong Kong?”
On screen, her face contorted, a flicker of something—shame, fear—breaking through the chemical blankness. “I was bad. I had drinks with a man. Leo.”
“Do you like making us angry, Ashley?”
“No.”
“Do you like being punished?”
A long pause. Her on-screen self looked down at her own hands, clenched in the fabric of the hoodie. “I… I need it,” she whispered, the confession ripped from somewhere deep. “I need to feel empty so you can fill me up again.”
Carter’s smile was a dark curve. “Good girl.” He looked past her, to Dominic, who was just out of frame. “She’s ready. Prime and porous.”
Then Dominic entered the shot. He knelt in front of her, a small, professional-looking case in his hand. He opened it. A syringe, a vial of clear liquid. Ashley on the video watched, pliant, as he took her arm, swabbed a spot in the crook of her elbow. She didn’t flinch. He inserted the needle. A slow press of the plunger.
“Count backwards from ten for me, sweetheart,” Dominic said, his voice gentle.
“Ten,” she mumbled, her eyes already losing focus. “Nine… eight…” Her voice slurred. “S’ven…”
The video jumped. A cut. The camera angle had changed. It was now lower, closer. She was on the large sectional sofa, lying on her back. The hoodie was gone. She was naked. Her body was a landscape of fresh bruises under the warm room light. Carter and Dominic were both there, now shirtless. They were speaking to her, their voices soft, probing.
“Tell us what you really want, Ashley,” Carter murmured, his hand stroking her inner thigh.
Her voice was a dreamy sigh. “I want to be… nothing. I want you to use me until I’m just a thing. A perfect thing for you.”
“And what do good things get?”
“They get kept.”
Dominic’s hand joined Carter’s, tracing patterns on her skin. “Such a good thing,” Dominic whispered. “Look how empty she is, Carter. She’s perfect.”
Then they moved. The video showed it all, raw and unflinching. Carter guided his cock into her mouth, holding her head, fucking her face with slow, deep thrusts until she gagged, tears streaming from her glazed eyes. Dominic moved behind her, pushing her onto her hands and knees. She watched her own body on screen, limp and compliant, as Dominic spat on his hand, slicked himself, and pushed into her ass in one long, brutal slide. Her back arched, a silent scream on her lips, but she took it, her body accepting the invasion with a shocking, drugged passivity.
The camera watched as they used her, switching places, filling every part of her. The audio was filled with their grunts, their filthy praise—“Such a good little cunt,” “Take that ass, you fucking empty thing,”—and her own choked, blissful sounds. It was a ballet of degradation, choreographed and recorded. They came on her, in her, marking her inside and out. The video ended with a close-up of her face, eyes closed, mouth slack, covered in their spend, a single tear cutting a clean track through the mess on her cheek.
The screen went black.
Ashley sat back in Carter’s chair, her body cold. The air in the study was too still. She could smell the sandalwood from her bath, the ghost of sushi, her own sweat. The facts were no longer just soreness and bruises. They were pixels and sound waves. They were her own voice, agreeing. Her own body, welcoming it.
She stared at the black screen, her reflection a pale, haunted outline over the void where the video had played. A clean, used slate. A perfect, empty vessel. The narrative was no longer missing. It was here, in high definition. And it was hers.
And it was hers.
The silence in the study was deafening, a thick velvet press against her eardrums after the digital noise of her own degradation. Ashley minimized the video player. The desktop wallpaper—a stark, abstract black and white image—returned, offering no solace. Her reflection in the dark monitor was a ghost of the girl on the screen. She stood up too quickly, the chair rolling back with a screech that jarred the quiet. She needed to move. To do something normal.
She retreated to her home office, a bright, airy space with a view of the city’s spire. Her laptop sat open on the white desk, an email draft half-written about a gallery showing. She stared at the blinking cursor. The words “curatorial vision” blurred. Her mind replayed a different scene: Carter’s hand fisting in her hair, the wet sound of him sliding into her mouth, the digital zoom on her tear-streaked cheek as she choked. Her fingers froze over the keys. She couldn’t remember the client’s name.
“Focus,” she whispered to the empty room. The city glittered, indifferent.
Abandoning the desk, she fetched cleaning supplies from the hall closet. The physical act of scrubbing, of imposing order on chaos, might scrape the images from her mind. She started in the kitchen, spraying the pristine marble counters with lemon-scented cleaner. The sharp, astringent smell was supposed to be clean. As she wiped in furious, circular motions, her brain supplied the memory of a different wetness—the cold, slick feel of lube, the hot rush of come on her skin. She saw Dominic’s detached, clinical expression as he held the camera, his low chuckle as he said, “Tilt her chin toward the light, Carter, I want to see her eyes.” She scrubbed harder, until the countertop squeaked.
The memory had a tactile texture. It stuck to her.
She moved to the living room, fluffing cushions on the sectional. The same sectional. Her skin crawled. She could almost feel the buttery leather against her back, the weight of Carter pinning her hips, Dominic’s hands guiding her legs apart for the camera. Their laughter hadn’t been cruel, but lighthearted, conspiratorial. Two friends sharing a favorite toy. “Look at her take it,” Carter had grinned, sweat gleaming on his temple. “Absolutely fucking empty.” She jerked her hands away from the cushions as if burned.
A shower. She needed another shower. She stood under a scalding jet until her skin was bright red, but the feeling of being covered in them—in their sweat, their spit, their release—lingered like a film. She dressed in soft, high-necked linen, covering the maps on her skin. The clothing felt like a disguise.
Evening approached, painting the penthouse in long, accusing shadows. Dinner. A normal task. She opened the fridge, its cool breath washing over her. The pristine, packaged ingredients seemed like artifacts from another life. She chose vegetables, chicken, began chopping an onion. The rhythmic thud of the knife on the board was a good sound, solid. But her mind drifted back to the video’s audio, to the slick, rhythmic sound of flesh on flesh, of Carter’s groan as he finished on her stomach while Dominic’s thrusts from behind shook her whole body. The laughter again. A shared joke she wasn’t in on. The knife slipped.
A sharp sting bloomed on her thumb. She stared at the bead of red welling up, fascinated by its clarity. It was real. This pain was simple, hers, and unrecorded. She sucked on the cut, the metallic taste anchoring her for a fleeting second.
She flinched violently at the memory of Dominic’s voice, calm and instructional. “Flip her over. I want a turn in that pretty mouth now.” The sizzle of chicken hitting the hot pan made her jump. She was staring at the sauté pan, watching the flesh sear and whiten, when the other memory ambushed her: Carter’s hand, smearing his come across her lips and chin, marking her before Dominic guided his cock past them.
“Ashley.”
The voice came from behind her, real and present. She didn’t hear it. She was watching, on the screen of her mind, her own drugged, pliant face being turned for a kiss, Carter’s tongue claiming his own taste from her mouth.
“Ashley.”
The chicken smoked. She blinked, seeing the present—the blue gas flame, the blackening meat. She reached for the pan handle.
“Ashley.”
Carter’s hand closed over hers on the handle, his touch sudden and solid. She gasped, jerking back as if electrocuted. The pan clattered against the stove, sending a piece of chicken over the edge onto the floor. She stared at him, her heart a trapped bird in her ribs. He stood in the doorway of the kitchen, still in his suit jacket, his tie loosened. How long had he been there?
“You were miles away,” he said, his brow slightly furrowed. He looked from her shocked face to the smoking pan, then to her injured thumb, which she still held pressed to her mouth. “And you’re bleeding.” He stepped closer, taking her hand gently to examine the cut. His touch was warm, practical. “What’s going on in that head of yours?”
His eyes, brown and intense, searched hers. He was looking for the vacancy, the clean slate he had worked so hard to create. He saw the tremor in her hand, the dilated pupils, the sheen of cold sweat on her upper lip. She saw the moment his curiosity sharpened into something else—a flicker of suspicion, then a slow, dawning comprehension. His gaze drifted past her, toward the hallway that led to his study.
The calm on his face didn’t change, but something behind his eyes hardened, crystallized. He dropped her hand.
“You’ve been in my study,” he said, his voice deceptively light. It wasn’t a question.