"She wants what?" the doctor asked, frowning.
"She wants to be sedated," the guard said, a little distracted. "She's...pretty worked up...it seems to be getting to her."
The doctor frowned. She'd seen plenty of obvious drug-seekers while working here, but they would try to get prescription opiates, not a directly-administered sedation. "Well, it's natural she'd be worked up," she said. "She's had quite a shock, after all. Still...is she that stressed?"
He shrugged. "No, um, worked up sexually. I mean, she is stressed, but it's a byproduct." He blushed slightly; it wasn't that he hadn't seen some pretty risqué things in this job, but when the devil-woman herself seemed so distraught by it, it felt a little embarassing to be discussing it.
The doctor laughed. "I see. She can't keep ahold of herself, and she wants me to do it for her..." She sighed. "All right. Give me a minute here and we'll go down and help her chill out a little."
Robert was wracked with countless unholy desires, unable to quell them. How could this happen? How could even thoughts of a child be shanghaied into thoughts of childbearing? How could thoughts of childbearing, the purpose for which the Lord had allowed sex to exist in the first place, be turned into something so...so...sexual? All she wanted was to cleanse herself of these feelings, as God wanted her to do! Why could she not do this? Please, please, make it stop! Make it go away! "Oh Gaaaaawwwwwd," she moaned, "h-help meee..." Her cellmate snickered.
She was briefly, blessedly distracted from her predicament when a woman she didn't recognize entered the cell block, but that was cut short when the guard re-entered after her. Suddenly everything, every single thing, came crashing back down upon her...she wanted to rush over, jump on him and knock him to the floor, and...and...oh God! It wasn't even that he was some kind of Adonis; handsome, sure, but no chiseled god. And she didn't even know him. But these feelings were just so...so...
She had to get her mind off this...she turned her attention to the doctor, her hands still clenching her wriggling tail. No such feelings with her, thank God... "P-please," she said, "I...I can't take this...I need to...I need to sleep..."
The doctor sighed. She hated these kinds of things...it wasn't at all healthy for this woman to be running away from her new feelings and using her for cover, but on the other hand, if there was an environment for her to healthily address her issues, this probably wasn't it. "All right," she said. "I'll sedate you - but only on the condition that you pay me a visit when you're up and around again. I want to talk to you about this."
Robert cringed - talk? About this? She didn't want to talk about it, she only wanted it to go away! But...she had no choice. She nodded, trying to keep her eyes from straying over to the...the man.
"Damn it, I'm being cheated!" the prostitute interjected. "Watching her seduce herself and pretend she didn't want it was gonna be the funniest thing I'd seen in years." The doctor shot her a withering glare, and she shut up, though her smirk said pretty much everything.
She rubbed down an area on Robert's shoulder with an alcohol swab and then picked up a syringe she'd brought. There was a brief resistance, and then the transformed pastor gasped softly as it penetrated her flesh. The doctor frowned; she'd heard some of this kind of transformee had a rubbery texture to the skin, but this was the first time she'd encountered it. She didn't like it; having to use force with an injection was something she preferred to avoid.
The fluid shot into her, and the doctor pulled out, setting the needle aside and placing a mini-bandaid on the site. She helped Robert sit down on the bench, then gently laid her down. Robert waited a while, impatiently...when was the...sedat...
Hiro had gotten away without Hitomi noticing; when she was engrossed in a book, she could spend hours without so much as registering the events around her. That was good; he didn't want her worrying about him getting involved in...this.
He didn't even want to be here, but...just this one last thing, and then it would be over...right?
Julian sauntered confidently over to the ATM where the cyborg was waiting. "Good to know you're not chicken after all," he said. "All right, let's get on with it."
"After this, no more," Hiro said flatly. "We're done. Even."
Julian frowned, raising a furry eyebrow. "I'll be the judge of that, dude. Handle this well and then we'll see."
Hiro paused, then took a deep breath. "N-no," he said. "I'm not compromising on this. Just this, no more."
The wolf-boy's teeth were slightly bared. "Get on with it."
The cyborg turned to the ATM, thinking of how best to go about this. It didn't have wireless, but it must have Ethernet, or perhaps dialup. But if he interrupted the connection to plug himself in, surely that would trip some kind of alarm...
He gasped, but not because of the ATM job. That signal...he felt a presence...the attacker! He had to get out of here, now!
"I-I gotta go," he said. "We'll do this another time."
Julian growled. "Where the hell do you think you're going?" he asked. "You've got a job to do."
Hiro frowned. "This is serious. Someone's after me, and they're in the area." He tried to push past the wolf-boy, but was blocked.
"Just remember, Hiro," Julian said, his muzzle in a full snarl now, "you're still flesh and blood under that pretty chrome."
Hiro scowled. This...no! He'd had enough of this. He wasn't going to let this asshole push him around all the time...
"Yeah," he said, limbering up for whatever would come next, "and you're all flesh and blood."
"Oh, you wanna go?" Julian sneered. "Let's go. Come on, we'll see what's left of you when I'm done."
The cyborg smirked. "We'll see what's left of you by the time you take out enough to stop me."
Cecilia frowned. She'd just been out having a look around, but...this presence on the network...it was the one from last night! Was it all right? She hadn't injured it badly, had she?
She had to find out...she set about trying to triangulate the signal.
Robert did not think it was possible for a human being to feel more mortified than she was right now. She wasn't even blushing; it wouldn't have sufficed anyway. She stared at the floor in front of her, her eyes only just barely turned up to where the doctor was sitting.
"Miss Douglas," she said, "I think we-"
"Father," Robert whispered.
"Miss Douglas," the doctor said, frowning, "I think we both know that you seem to be having some issues with keeping your sexual urges under control. Now, strictly speaking I'm only really here as a medic, not a GP, let alone a specialist in this area, but this kind of issue can cause serious life problems if not addressed. I have to ask, have you had any such issues before now?"
"No!" the devil-woman snapped. "I had mastered my flesh! I had purged myself of evil desires! Now this new body drives me into sin against my will! It is designed to do so!"
The doctor frowned. Cripes, this woman needed a psychologist, not a medic...but she was here and a psychologist wasn't, and there was no way the county would spring for bringing one in for some random arsonist. "Ms. Douglas," she said, "there is nothing about your body that is controlling or even influencing this behavior."
Robert stared at her. "That's not true!" she yelped. "That's a lie! I never felt any such things before! I did not lust after m-" She balked, stopping short, but the doctor nodded knowingly.
"That much has been known to change, yes," she said. "But as for the strength of these urges...some species of transformee do experience elevated hormonal levels, however, yours is not one of them. Whatever is driving this behavior, it is entirely within your mind."
She nearly choked. "No! No!" It couldn't be true! Had the evil invaded her spirit as well as her flesh? How could this have happened? Perhaps while she was asleep, she had...! All she had wanted, the only thing she had wanted, was that the Lord drive these feelings from her! If this were a temptation, how could He have set up something she could not surmount?
She groaned. God, why?
"Ms. Douglas," the doctor said, sighing, "perhaps...we'd better continue this another time, when you're ready to listen."
She arrived back at the cell to find that the prostitute had gone to sleep. Thank God! She was nothing but a nuisance, a distraction sent by the Enemy to drive her into sinful thoughts...
"Guard?" she said, making sure not to look directly at him. "Please...let me have my Scripture..." She needed comfort, she needed guidance...
He left briefly, and she felt a book pressed into her outstretched hands. She smiled; it was a Gideon Bible. She turned to thank him, but he was gone. ...probably just as well.
She turned to the book. She had never placed any stock in the idea of opening it to a random point for guidance - was that not divination? But she simply didn't have a preference at the moment. She could, she supposed, read of Paul's time in prison, but...she didn't feel like it at the moment. She opened the book, letting the pages fall where they would, and began to read.
Joshua, chapter two. The story of Rahab the harlot, who'd harbored the Israelite spies in Jericho. She knew the story; that the woman had put herself at risk to protect them from discovery, and been spared in exchange; that she had gone on to be one of the ancestors of Christ himself. But she'd never really considered before what Rahab was; it was only a brief mention in a short anecdote. She looked across at the woman in the other cell, and the cognitive dissonance began to give her a minor brain-crash. A...a harlot? A whore? A woman like this, part of the line of Jesus Christ? It couldn't be! It made no sense! Why her? Why not a truly righteous woman?
No, that couldn't be right. Rahab had repented, right? She must have, or they wouldn't have spared her. This woman, though...she was brazen, shameless, completely unrepentant. The Lord would have no use for someone like her.
This was hardly doing anything to cheer her up...she flipped to another passage. Somewhere in the Song of Solomon...
"Your stature is like a palm tree,
And your breasts are like its clusters.
"I said, 'I will climb the palm tree,
I will take hold of its fruit stalks.'
Oh, may your breasts be like clusters of the vine,
And the fragrance of your breath like apples,
And your mouth like the best wine!"
She flushed and shut the book.
