Something hurt his eyes.
An occasional flicker, something bright, far too bright, was passing over his eyes. He cracked one eye open, and could see lights passing by a small window.
It hurt. Too bright. The world was rumbling softly.
He closed his eye, but it still hurt. When he went to lift his hand to cover his eyes, it wouldn't come.
His lips felt tingly.
Sleep.
***
The whole world felt... fuzzy. Like he was stuck inside a giant pillow.
He felt as though he'd been run straight through.
It took him a few tries but, eventually, he was able to open his eyes. They teared up immediately, not just from sensitivity to the light, and everything was blurry. For a few long minutes he focused on just getting his eyes open and blinking away the tears.
The sun was coming up, and he could barely move his head. Every time he did, even slightly, it ached. It answered at least partly why things felt so fuzzy, his head was quite literally sandwiched into a stack of pillows which in turn pressed against his head, keeping it still.
A soft beeping could be heard from... somewhere. When he tried to figure out if it was coming from his left or his right he got queasy.
His vision blurred in and out, like he had eye-drops in, and occasionally he felt the creeping pull of exhaustion like a hand around his throat. Fighting to keep his hard-earned consciousness, he began to delicately explore. He tried to wiggle his toes, but they felt... sticky. No, more like he was wearing thick socks. His hands, too, felt very comfortable, but he could barely move his fingers. He could ball them slightly, but no more.
The edges of his nose and mouth itched a little, and his eyes focused enough to see a mask over it. An oxygen mask. It felt very soft, but he could feel moisture around it. He must have been wearing it for... however long he had been here, wherever this was. Was this a hospital room?
It wasn't like any hospital room he had ever seen. The walls were soft, muted pastels, with few features. Unlike the harsh LED lamps of an emergency room, this place had a small ceiling light. It wasn't even on, he realised, as there was light trickling in through the window under a low cut curtain.
There was a tube running beside him, in his peripheral vision, from a hanging clear bag of liquid down to his arm... and he felt the dull sting of a needle in the back of his hand.
His face still itched from the mask, but when he tried to reach to scratch it... his wrist barely moved.
He exhaled, and focused, but the sensation became a little clearer. His arm was moving... well, it was trying to. He tried his left arm instead, and felt the same distant, dull tugging sensation. It wasn't his muscles not responding, but they were stuck.
Bound.
Immediately, he felt himself sobering up at that realisation. Anxiety pierced his drowsiness as the room was brought into harsh focus.
Whatever had been beeping began to beep faster, which, of course, only made him more anxious.
As his breathing quickened, the mask caved in around his face, sticking to it.
That was all it took. He panicked. He was terrified.
A deep chirping noise now accompanied the rapid beeping which if anything made things worse.
Unable to move his wrists or, as he now discovered to his horror, his ankles either, he felt his breathing quicken and deepen, sucking the mask to his face more.
He had managed to rock his knees and elbows slightly, but the blanket over him felt like it was filled with lead shot it was so heavy.
Somewhere, dully, though the pillows muffling his ears and the headache-inducing electrical alarm coming from nearby, he could feel more than hear a door opening and footsteps approaching.
Fight or flight seemed rather moot, as his bonds made him capable of neither, but his body flooded with adrenaline regardless in anticipation of what was to come.
The door clicked several times, and he scanned it for a door knob... but there was none. No way of opening it.
When it opened, it swung soundlessly, or at least not with any noise loud enough for him to hear it.
His breathing stopped altogether as fear overtook him, the figure silhouetted against the light coming in from behind them as they leaned over him and began to frantically move their hand around his body.
Something, they said something, and reached over to stop the beeping, whatever it was.
An icy hand had risen up from his chest to strangle his throat, however, and he was beyond any kind of rationality.
“Breathe!”
He felt his gullet rise at that remark, what the hell did they think he was trying to do?
The mask, mercifully, came off, and he gulped.
“Just breathe, try to calm down.” Their voice was soft, but stern.
He coughed, struggling to get any air down, when he saw a shiny glint out of the corner of his eye. A syringe being inserted into a bottle, and the plunger drawn.
Now the machine wasn't just beeping, it sounded like the soundtrack to his own heart, screeching a medical alert.
“You're having a panic attack. The more you panic, the harder it will be to breathe. I need to help you relax.” They... she... flicked the needle, and squirted a tiny amount of liquid out to remove any air.
He felt his throat close entirely now with fear, as he moved to the opposite side of the bed what tiny bit he could, trying to get away from the needle. However, she simply injected it into the tube running to his hand, and he merely squirmed in utter desperation.
Feeling a deathly coolness spreading from his palm, he choked out tears as he was forced to accept there was nothing he could do. One by one, slowly, he felt the muscles in his arm, then his neck, then his chest, and soon the rest of his body un-tensing.
As breathing became mercifully easier, he couldn't tell if he was calming because he could breathe, or vice versa. However, like the thunder after lightning, he felt tiredness washing over him in the wake of whatever he had been injected with.
“That's it... just relax...” came her voice, which he could now hear clearly, the machine's noise having finally ceased.
He felt her hand, a warm comfort, gently massaging his aching chest as it rose and fell in steadily shallowing breaths.
“I'm right here, I promise. I won't leave you.”
His eyelids drooped, and it became hard to focus once more. His eyes followed her arm, though, and she moved in and out of focus as he fell unconscious once more.
For a moment, though, he saw her... eyes glinting... and her smiling.
***
He was floating. It felt like he was adrift in perfectly calm water. Cool, but not cold. Naked, but he didn't seem to care. There wasn't any source of light, but he could see. In every direction it was just darkness, in which he thought he could float forever.
***
The first thing he noticed was the smell. Something smelled good. His stomach knotted at the scent, a painful pang.
As he cracked open his eyes, he began to have flashbacks to a nightmare... This room looked just like the room where-
He tugged at his ankles and wrists and, to his surprise, found they moved. His hands were still cuffed, however, as he found thick mittens on them, and he could only bring them to about his chest before a stiff tug revealed a thin but powerful cord attaching them to the bed. The same, he felt, was true of his ankles, although the heavy blanket still obscured them.
Across his bed was a table on wheels, and on it was a small blue bowl that was giving off the delightful smell that had woken him.
For a moment, he remembered a glint, the flash of a needle... the flash of eyes... her eyes.
Movement out of the corner of his eye triggered a shock through him. A hand came to rest on his thigh through the blanket, and it set him scrambling back in his bed, as far as the restraints would allow, and he lifted his mittened hands in front of him in a pitiable defence.
“I'm glad you're awake.”
“STAY THE FUCK AWAY FROM ME!” he screamed, and kicked, trying to dislodge her hand, but she gently yet firmly kept it there.
“Calm down.”
“FUCK YOU! YOU DRUGGED ME! KIDNAPPED ME! HELP! SOMEONE HELP!”
For a while, she just sat there, seemingly content to patiently wait out his response.
He tired far quicker than he thought he would, feeling his body screaming an objection to his rapid movement. Scanning her, he slowly accepted that even if he had been free, he wouldn't have been a match for her anyway.
She towered over him. It felt both intimidating... yet... comforting. Even sitting, she seemed as tall as he would be standing. Long black hair hung straight over her pale face like drapes. Her shoulders were lithe yet wide, like the rest of her. She wore a tight black sweater which accentuated her prodigious curves in a way he tried to ignore.
However, he could not ignore the enormous swell that erupted from her chest. Practically begging to draw the eye's attention, her sweater cut revealed a truly immense set of breasts that, had he not been terrified, would have occupied the entirety of his attention. Her hips swelled out to meet thick thighs in tight relaxed wear, which spilled over the edges of her large chair yet upon which she still sat gracefully.
When he seemed to be calming, her hand not having left his thigh that entire time, she spoke again.
“You've had quite a shock. If you listen, I will explain everything.”
He felt his face burning with indignity.
“Why the fuck should I trust a single thing you say?”
“Because there is no one else here.”
Something about the cool way she said that simple sentiment, as if it were nothing, felt like ice water pouring down his spine, and he swallowed hard, trying not to give away just how much it had chilled him – but he wasn't doing a good job.
“That, and I have been working for hours every single day to save your life.”
Another flash. Lights. Rumbling. Pain.
“Wh-” he started, but stopped, not sure what it was he was going to say.
She waited a few moments before she continued.
“You were in an accident. I brought you here. This is my home. I'm a doctor.”
Her words were slow, careful and measured, as if she was explaining things to an upset and frightened child. Appropriate, given the situation.
“You... injected me.”
He felt a cool rush in his hand again, and he went to touch it, but the mittens just rubbed against each other.
“You were having a severe panic attack. Given your condition, it could have killed you. I administered a relaxant, which caused you to fall unconscious.”
“How...?” he asked, but felt his tongue swelling a little as he struggled to find the words he wanted to use.
He felt his shoulders rest against the pillow, too tired to remain upright and tense any longer. She smiled, and gently rubbed his thigh, but he pulled it away again. Still, she didn't remove it.
“How did you get here? I brought you here in my car. I didn't think you would make it.”
“No... um...”
She resumed rubbing his thigh, and he begrudgingly stopped trying to pull away from it.
“How long...” Pushing through the haze to form words was difficult. It was like trying to tug your finger through pillow stuffing, the harder you pulled the tighter it got.
“You fell asleep on wednesday. It's friday evening.”
Two days. He inhaled. He'd been unconscious around this woman for two days. What had she been doing?
“When was... the accident?”
She squeezed his thigh, and he jumped a little at the sudden change.
“You're fine now. You should make a full recovery. You should eat.”
His stomach groaned, and he bit his lip. How could he trust this woman? There was no proof for anything she was saying.
Again, his stomach groaned, and his head throbbed with the effort of trying to remember, causing him to wince.
“Eat up. You're hungry.”
“What's in it?”
“You want the recipe?” she giggled. It was the first time he'd seen her smile... no... was it?
Resigned, he pulled back, but couldn't take his eyes off the bowl.
“I know how hungry you are. I could hear your stomach growling from outside of the room. That's why I made you something, in case you came to. Eat it.”
A small tear came to his eye as a rush of feelings ran through him. Shame. Fear. Anger. Doubt. Hunger. A few others he didn't have a name for, and one he did but didn't want to acknowledge.
“You've been here for long enough that if I wanted to hurt you I could have. I've been trying to keep you alive. If you don't want the food, fine, but it would be a shame for you to starve to death after all that work.”
The tear became a flood as he began to put together his situation. The shock of it all hit him all at once.
“Oh, no, dear... don't cry.”
She reached over, and he recoiled, trying to protect himself, turning away... but she simply dabbed at his tears.
“I know. This is a lot to take in. I've been here this whole time. I haven't left your side.”
She pointed to a small bed – well, small by her standards – that had been made up in the corner of the room. Had she been here all this time? Caring for him?
He cried more, unable to process everything he was feeling, realising and being told.
“Look.”
She dipped a finger into the bowl and took it out, then slowly, almost sensually, sucked it off.
Arms and legs hugged as close to him as he could, he watched as she took the bowl and lifted it closer to him.
“It's getting cold.”
She took another fingerful and this time licked it off, casually, as if it were the most normal thing in the world to do, yet to his vulnerable mind was crossing multiple wires.
“See? I told you.” She looked him in the eye and squeezed gain. “You're safe here. I would never, ever dream of hurting you.”
He was naked, in front of a woman he didn't know. She claimed to be a doctor. However, he was also hungry. Perhaps simply resigned, or too overwhelmed to care, too weak and hungry to say no, or maybe perhaps feeling a moment of regret, he reached out for the bowl.
The sharp judder of the cords, however, were a reminder that set him back on edge.
“Why am I chained to the bed if you don't want to hurt me?” he spoke, waveringly, as if afraid of the answer.
She put the bowl down, slowly, as if disappointed, but didn't make any more of it.
“I didn't want to talk about this yet. I knew it would upset you further, but I won't lie to you.” She moved her hand to his arm. “It was very touch and go. I had to stop you from moving. You were on drugs when I found you. You were delirious. I had to prevent you from hurting yourself. I also had to perform some procedures which could have hurt you if you had moved. You were dead for two minutes, before I brought you back.”
Before he had cried. Now, as he listened to her, he broke down.
In moments, she was on him, and he felt her arm around his shoulder. Nothing mattered any more. He didn't want to feel any more. It was all just too much.
She just held him. Held him as the heaves came, as the sobs ached. It hurt to breathe.
He wasn't sure how long it took, but eventually the hiccups and jitters of over-worked nerves stopped. The tears stopped flowing.
Questions came and went as he couldn't bring himself to ask them. It was like trying to lift too much to ask such weighted questions.
She felt him thinking, and simply held on more, flooding his world with her as he slowly came back to his senses.
He couldn't remember anything from before. He remembered home, and... he was walking somewhere... a road. Everything felt like looking through frosted glass. The basic idea was there but the specifics seemed to run aside as he tried to focus.
'What happened to me?' He mouthed. It didn't come out.
“Who am I?”
The question took him by surprise as he heard himself say it.
She pulled back, and arm still on his shoulder, pulled a pen from her pocket. With a click, it turned into a light, and she ran it past his eyes.
She sighed, a sad smile on her lips.
“You're suffering from Retrograde Amnesia. Possibly Anterograde, given your drug use, but I would wager the former.”
Drug use? He... used drugs? He didn't... feel like he would. Not by choice.
“I'm... forgetting things?”
She shook her head, and held up two fingers, before lowering her hand.
“How many fingers did I show you?”
“Two...” he said, certain of the answer, but uncertain of the implications.
“What colour is the bowl the food is in?”
Her body blocked most of his vision, and the small bowl was easily dwarfed behind her. The light moved again past his eyes.
“B... blue.”
“What day is it?”
“You said friday. Am I-”
She
“What's my name?”
“I... don't know.”
She smiled, putting the light away at last.
“Your immediate and short term memory is unaffected. You're converting memory between the two.”
He felt himself smile. Maybe it was just relief. The idea of forgetting things was... terrifying.
“Tell me everything you remember before now.”
“You... had a needle.”
“No, sweet thing...” she corrected, and squeezed his shoulder a little too tight, “before that.”
At first, he couldn't remember anything. Then a few things surfaced, but he shied from them.
“Tell me. What do you remember?”
“I... I'm not...”
“Tell me. Just say what comes to your head, I'll help you put things together if I can.”
He felt her words weigh down on him like an order, and he bent under their weight. As the thoughts came, he voiced them.
Walking. Somewhere. 45. House 45. “That's home. I don't have a key. I need to get back.”
He felt her clench his arm, and he winced. Why?
“Wait...” he remembered. No, he remembered not remembering. “I don't... live at 45. That's something else.”
She petted his thigh approvingly at that, nodding. Did she know?
“What are you... not telling me?”
“I don't know anything about you. I know even less than you do. I have some suspicions, though. Keep going.”
The sun. Food. Hungry. “I'm... no, just hungry now,” he admitted, embarrassed.
“Walking.” He was supposed to meet someone. Wasn't he? “Coffee.”
His memories were fleeting, and trying to pull them to the front was like grabbing at smoke.
“P...” he stopped, and felt a pang of fear. “Police. Cop.”
“Were you on the run from the cops?” she asked, looking carefully into his eyes, as if trying to see if he was lying.
“No, I...”
“You would have been released on bail. Drug charges.”
He felt his heart sink. Was that what... had happened? Did he... he didn't want to go back. “I don't... want to go there.”
She simply nodded, even when his thoughts seemed to make no sense. Occasionally she would piece two things together that didn't seem to connect in his head, but... he was too tired to even try to argue. It was hard enough just trying to pull his thoughts together, let alone trying to defend them.
“Where are my... things...” he asked, cautiously.
Revealing his every thought to her had made him feel even more naked than before... and reminded him he wore nothing under the blanket. Tugging it up against himself, he failed at scrounging back even a modicum of dignity.
“Your clothes were... well, ruined. They were already quite damaged. You didn't have anything else on you.”
Coins. Why did he remember coins?
“I had... coins.”
“I didn't find any.” She sounded certain. “Or any identification. No wallet, or phone. No keys, which lines up.”
He swallowed. If he'd ever had those things, they were gone now.
She took his hands – or mittens at least – in hers.
“I don't think you have a home.”
He felt very hot behind the ears.
“I think you were on drugs. You didn't have anything to your name. I don't know how you got to where you were, but if I hadn't found you, you would be dead. Even without the accident, I don't think you would have survived for long without me.”
It was... hard to hear that. It didn't make sense. It just... felt wrong. Not wrong, but, wrong. Like he just knew that wasn't who he was... but it did make sense. Some of it, at least. It explained... some things. More than he wanted to admit, actually.
No, it just couldn't be right. He wasn't... that. Whoever the person she was describing was, whatever that person would be.
Was he?
“You've been through an awful lot. Not just the accident. There's signs of a hard life. Things I used to see working in the emergency room.”
Now he really pulled the sheet tight. He'd been naked this whole time. She had been... touching him?
“I'm a doctor. There's nothing I haven't seen before.”
He felt both meanings of her words playing in his mind.
“N... no.” He shook his head, but whether he was disagreeing with her, or the picture forming in his head, he wasn't sure.
“You were on drugs, you had an accident. I found you, I took you home. I treated you. Now you're here.”
He shook his head again, this time stronger, but only as the picture became a little clearer in his mind. The image wasn't clear, but the things he could see... well the gaps in between made a bit more sense now.
Drugs... he remembered something... about drugs.
It did make a low, base, cold sense.
She looked into his eyes, as if she could see the thoughts playing out, hearing the gears turn.
“You need a name.”
He blinked, looking at her like the lost child he felt like.
“That can wait, though,” she added, with a smile, observing his demeanour closely. “Your food's cold.”
It was a simple statement of fact.
“Want me to make you some more?”
Guilt ripped through him. How could he... ask her for more. She'd saved his life. Even if her theories were wrong about how he got there, it was obvious as he looked at the equipment around. She sounded like she knew what she was talking about...
He felt tears well up again.
“I'm sorry.”
“It's okay, sweet thing.”
“Not about the food-”
“I know.” She put her hand on his chest, and he could feel his heart hammering against his chest as she did so. “I'll make you some more.”
“Thank you...” he said, softly, but stopped.
“My name is Miss Sylvia. This is my home. From now on, it's your home as well. In this house... you call me Mistress.”