Never in my life have I felt so naked, so vulnerable, so abused.
A man by the name of Doctor Lan sent his men to collect me earlier this afternoon. I'd been in the common room, talking happily with Elsie, while she tended to young Minnie like a beloved animal. It was the first time I'd felt any warmth in this place.
Doctor Lan's men were well-built with tanned, muscular bodies, assumedly because they had worked outdoors for most of their lives. When they came, they needn't bother with pleasantries, and instead gripped me firmly by my collar and dragged me out of the room, kicking and screaming like a child. When I wouldn't stop my disruption, one of them pulled back his fist and punched me in the eye, leaving the socket swollen and sore, then hoisted me to my feet and bound my wrists behind my back.
The fear was overwhelming. It seeped in through every crack, welling in the pit of my stomach with a consuming intensity, before swallowing me whole. I was a panicked, flailing mess when they strapped me to the chair and they strapped the wires to my manhood. It was only when they took a needle and pierced my skin with its tip did the fear begin to simmer. And when my heart had cooled to a steady rhythm, the doctor entered the room.
Doctor Lan has cold, malicious eyes that move in a curious way, as if he is always studying the world and all that is in it. There was simply something about him that tensed every nerve in my being, as if his wrongness had trickled into the air around him. I wish I could explain, but I'm afraid that there aren't any words.
With his hands behind his back, he sauntered around the room, smiling excitedly like a child awaiting a gift. He introduced himself before coming to leer over me.
"Thomas," he said. "I'm going to show you a series of pictures, and if the wrong picture takes your fancy, you will feel a slight... discomfort. Please understand that I'm doing this to help you. I'd no more enjoy hurting myself than hurting a fellow human being, but as my mother used to say, sometimes you must be cruel to be kind."
Something about the way he said the word 'cruel' made my stomach churn. His voice had plummeted into a deep and evil satisfaction on the syllable, as if he was hiding some twisted pleasure within his soul.
When the slides began, I closed my eyes. Lan politely coughed and I looked to him.
"Pay attention," he said, but there was a stern warning in his voice – one that strummed at my nerves with an iron touch.
I gulped and faced forward. A hollow grey picture filled the wall in front of me. There was a woman smiling cheekily, her left shoulder and the top curve of her breast showing. I looked to Doctor Lan, but he only smiled.
The next picture was a man, his scruffy blond hair in disarray and his toned, fit body on show. I gulped nervously, feeling a familiar sensation under my belt. There was long, excruciating electric shock that ran through my body, searing my most sensitive flesh and making me cry out in pain. It went on forever, that unbearable pain, until the tears welled in my eyes.
Then, it stopped as suddenly as it had begun.
I looked at Doctor Lan through bloodshot eyes. He stood in the corner wordlessly, emotionlessly, except for the sickening glimmer of pleasure in his cold eyes. There is no doubt in my mind that he enjoyed watching me suffer.
The torture lasted for hours. Picture after picture of naked flesh circled around my mind, followed by an endless stream of searing electricity, until I wept uncontrollably and screamed for Doctor Lan, who always remained silent and motionless, to finally let me go.
When he did, he had his men take me back to the common room, where they threw me to the cold, hard floor. I didn't move for several minutes. I simply wept into the tiles beneath me, feeling the stings of my burns and the emptiness of my soul.
I thought of Charlie. The way his thick hair felt between my fingers, the soft touch of his lips, and the thought of him left an unbearable ache in my chest. I became paralysed with terror at thought of him experiencing the same pain as I, and I've been like this ever since. But, I cling to the hope that I'll make it out of here, and that I will see Charlie again. And this hope is all I have left in the world.
© A.G. Travers 2016
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Burnington Asylum
Horror"The asylum was not a place where madmen went to become sane; it was a place where sane men went to become mad." The year is 1952, and Thomas Wright has been committed to Burnington Asylum. The reason? He fell in love with a man. Determined to escap...
