Page 11 of Writhe (Wellard Asylum)

P ower is a fragile thing. Some men wield it like a club—blunt, heavy, and predictable. But true dominance? True control? It’s an art. It’s patient. It’s precise. And right now, Theo is a piece of uncut marble, rough and resistant, unaware of the shape lurking beneath the surface.

I smile as he trembles before me, his breathing shallow, eyes darting between Eliza and the floor. Good. He’s still unsure. Still malleable.

“Theo,” I say smoothly, my voice like silk over steel. “You hesitate because you still believe control is cruel—that it is something taken—but that’s your first mistake.”

He’s a nervous little thing, still clinging to the illusion of selfhood. He doesn’t yet understand that I’m not here to strip it from him. I’m here to reshape it. To make him better.

“Take off your shirt.”

He flinches, that beautiful recoil of reluctance, and I smile.

“Did you think control was a one-way street, Theo? That you could give without learning how to take?” His fingers tremble as they find the hem of his shirt, hesitating.

I lean forward, dropping my voice to something darker, heavier.

“You want to know what it feels like, don’t you?

To understand? How can you ever truly own someone if you don’t know what it means to be owned? ”

Theo swallows hard, but he obeys. The fabric slides up, revealing pale, toned skin. He’s so delicate. So . . . breakable.

“Good boy,” I murmur, watching the way his breath catches. He doesn’t like that. Not yet. But his body . . . Ah, his body is already listening.

I walk around him, placing my hands on his shoulders, digging my thumbs in just enough to make him feel me. “Now, on your knees.” He shudders, then his jaw tightens as he slips down until he’s kneeling on the cold floor. Exquisite. “Tell me how it feels.”

Silence.

I slide a finger under his chin, tilting his face up. His eyes are defiant, but there’s something else beneath it now. A war raging inside him. Good.

“I . . .” His voice is hoarse. He swallows. “I don’t want this, doctor. I don’t feel it’s necessary. ”

I chuckle. “Your body says otherwise.” His blush is immediate, crawling up his throat like a confession and my smile widens.

I step closer, lowering my mouth near his ear.

“That’s the thing about submission, Theo.

It doesn’t ask for permission.” He shivers as I run my fingers through his hair, gripping just enough to make him aware of my strength—of how easily I could force him lower.

How easily he would go. “You’re hard, aren’t you? ”

His hands curl into fists. Shame is painted across his face, delicious and raw.

“Say it.”

His breath comes faster now, shallow and erratic, and his eyes dart away.

I grip his chin, forcing him to look at me. “Say. It.”

He exhales shakily. “Yes.” Ah, there it is, the moment of collapse. Beautiful.

I release him, brushing my fingers over his throat, feeling the frantic beat of his pulse. “Now, do you understand? Do you see?”

Stepping back, I see the slow rise and fall of his chest, the way his body leans toward me despite itself. I have him now. All I have to do is let go of the leash.

And watch him run wild.

I crouch down to his level, watching the war waging behind his eyes.

“You think I’m breaking you, Theo?” I tilt my head.

“No. I’m freeing you. You’ve spent your whole life afraid of what’s inside you, haven’t you?

” A twitch. A flicker of panic. Oh, yes.

I struck a nerve. “That hunger—that's what I want. You tell yourself it’s wrong, that good men don’t crave power.

” I brush my thumb over his bottom lip. “But you’re not a good man, Theo. You never were.”

His breathing stutters and his tongue darts out, wetting his lips. There it is. I release him suddenly, standing tall above him, looking down at his kneeling form. Making him feel small, so he craves the chance to feel big. “She’s waiting for you, you know.”

Theo flinches.

“Eliza.” I pace slowly, circling him like a predator. “She’s waiting for you to take her—to own her. Do you think she respects weakness, Theo? Do you think she wants a boy trembling at her feet? Or a man who will make her kneel at his?”

A slow, delicious shudder rolls down his spine.

“She pities you.” His body goes rigid. Ah, there’s the rage for which I was waiting.

“She feels sorry for you. You think she doesn’t see the way you hesitate?

The way you question every touch, every command?

She looks at you and sees a boy who wishes he could be a man.

And yet, she aches for you to claim her.

To ravage her. To make her into something else.

But right now, Theo? You are not that man. ”

He sucks in a sharp breath. His fists are clenched so tightly I wonder if he’ll split his own skin.

I smile. “You want to be, don’t you?” His silence is delicious.

“You want her to need you the way she fears you.” I stand, towering over him again.

“But fear requires power, Theo. And right now, you have none. ”

“Show me,” I say. “Show me that I haven’t wasted my time on a pathetic little boy.”

I watch as he stands like a man rising from the grave. His hands are still shaking, but there’s a new weight to them now. A decision made.

Good.

Now, the fun begins.

ELIZA

The first thing I notice is how red the water runs.

The second thing I notice is that no one really cares.

The girl—Sarah, maybe? Samantha?—is crumpled in the corner of the communal shower like a discarded rag, her wrist flayed open with a jagged toothbrush handle. A smart choice. The bristles may be for keeping teeth clean, but the plastic. That’s for carving. Multi-purpose.

She’s still alive—for now. Her eyes flicker to mine, and there’s no panic. No regret. Just a dull, glassy acceptance, like she’s watching something inevitable unfold.

The orderlies don’t rush, don’t gasp, don’t fumble, don’t so much as raise a brow.

They step in with all the urgency of janitors handling a clogged toilet.

One crouches, pressing gauze against the wound with lazy disinterest, barely trying to stop the blood.

The other loops an arm under hers and drags her up, her feet slipping through the crimson puddle she left behind.

No emergency alarms. No frantic attempts to save her.

Just another day at Wellard. She doesn’t argue, doesn’t fight, just lets herself be hauled away like a sack of wet laundry, head lolling, eyes rolling.

The trail of blood she leaves behind is thick, sluggish, streaking across the tile in arcs and handprints.

By dinner—if she’s lucky—she’ll be a sheet-draped shape in the basement.

By tomorrow night, someone else will be sleeping in her bed.

I stare at the mess they left behind.

Right. Cool.

This is my job now, apparently.

A drain gurgles nearby, working overtime to swallow her blood, but it’s too thick. Too much. It clings to the floor in sluggish rivers, catching the overhead lights, reflecting back at me in glistening streaks of garnet.

I should be used to this by now. Death lingers in places like this, curling into the walls, seeping into the floors. It doesn’t cause panic anymore, just mild annoyance. A mess to clean up before the next person tracks it through the halls.

I left the shower running in the chaos, and the spray bounces off the tile, mixing with the blood, thinning it out until the whole floor is streaked pink.

Pretty .

I crouch, dragging my fingers through the diluted red, watching the way it swirls.

It’s warm—not quite body temperature, but close enough to trick my brain into thinking it’s still part of her.

That she’s still here, melting away beneath my hands, inch by inch.

I press my palm to the tile, leaving a smeared handprint. Proof of life, I guess.

Or proof of death—depends on how you look at it.

Once upon a time, I wasn’t the girl washing someone else’s blood down a drain.

I was . . . What? A daughter? A sister? A fiancée?

Someone who smiled in photos and made promises about the future?

I try to picture it, but the image flickers—warps.

My mother’s face, there and gone. I should remember her better.

She loved me—that’s what she always said. Even when she was locking me in the closet so I wouldn’t embarrass her guests. Even when she shoved her fingers down my throat and told me to try again because I wasn’t thin enough. Even when she whispered, “No man wants a crazy girl, Eliza. Fix yourself.”

And then, he still proposed. Despite it all—despite me —he got down on one knee, slipped a ring on my finger, kissed me like I was worthy of it.

And his family? They adored me. Or at least, they pretended to.

His mother called me darling and asked if I wanted her to plan the wedding. His father poured me whiskey and said he hoped I’d settle his son down. His sister looped our arms together and said she couldn’t wait to have a new best friend .

All of it is so warm. So perfect. So fake.

Because the moment they thought I wasn’t looking, they studied me. Their eyes roamed—assessing—their smiles just a little too tight.

Is she normal? Is she stable? They thought I didn’t notice. They were wrong. I was always watching, and I saw everything.

I saw his father’s wandering hands. I saw his sister’s pills crushed into fine white dust. I saw the way his mother’s mask cracked when she thought no one was looking.

They weren’t a family. They were a collection of lies stitched together, parading around in pearls and linen, clinking glasses, and pretending they were better than the rest of the world.

And they thought they could fix me.

That was their mistake.

Because they forgot the most important rule: You can’t fix what isn’t broken.

Now I’m on my knees, scrubbing someone else’s blood from the floor, waiting for a man in a white coat to tell me what I am.

Session in ten minutes.

I should be thinking about that. About the doctor. About Theo. But instead, I’m thinking about how soap here doesn’t lather right—it's thin and waxy, barely doing its job. I scrub anyway, because I have to. Because the doctor said so.

Freshly showered . His words, not mine.

As if I could be made clean. As if all the filth is just sitting on the surface, waiting to be rinsed down the drain.

I scrape my nails against my skin, pressing hard enough to sting. It’s not like they give us razors here. Nothing sharp, nothing dangerous. Though that doesn’t stop people from finding creative ways to bleed.

Like the girl from earlier. She sat across from me at breakfast and she had this look. That glassy, hollow stare. The kind that says, I’m already dead. My body just hasn’t caught up yet. I should’ve known. And maybe I did.

Because when I found her in the showers, slumped against the tile, her wrists a mess of jagged, bloody ribbons, I wasn’t shocked.

I wasn’t even horrified. I just stood there, watching the red curl down the drain, hypnotized.

I rinse off my arms, staring at the last traces of her blood swirling at my feet.

What am I feeling right now? Envy? Jealousy?

I exhale. Get a grip, Eliza.

I finish scrubbing and shut off the water, standing there, dripping, watching my reflection in the polished metal above the sinks. I wrap myself in a thin, scratchy towel, but it doesn’t do much to warm me. My fingers tighten around the towel. What does the doctor want?

Control.

Obedience.

Submission.

My stomach twists. I shouldn’t care, but my body does. I press a hand to my chest, my fingers splayed over my racing pulse. It shouldn’t thrill me—the thought of what he’ll do next. Of what he’ll take. Of how much of me will be left when he’s done.

It shouldn’t.

And yet.

A breath shudders out of me, shaky and thin.

I lean closer to the mirror, taking myself in.

I see the same face I’ve always had, but it’s somehow different.

My lips are fuller, parted, my pupils blown wide.

I look like prey, or something worse. Something that wants to be caught.

The realization burns, shame crawling up my throat like a bile.

I rip my towel off and yank open my locker, my movements sharp, angry, desperate.

Get dressed. Go to the session. Don’t think about it. Simple. Except nothing is simple anymore. Because when I close my eyes, I still feel his hands, and I don’t know if I want to run.

Or if I want to kneel.