Scandalous Desires

Prologue

Micah looked around the room. It took her a moment to focus or even remember what had happened.

Her head and body ached. Her wrists, which were also sore, were strapped tightly above her head to what looked like a hospital bed and her ankles were tied too.

How did she get here? She still had on her red sequence dress from the party, but she still couldn't remember the details of the night before… if it even had happened the night before. What day is it, she wondered? It was all still hazy in her mind. One thing she was sure of, she had been drugged. The cannula hanging from the back of her hand confirmed it.

She looked around her, the room was dark and empty except for sunlight beaming through a single window near the ceiling. Was she in a basement?

A single light hung from the center ceiling, the dusty bulb looked like it hadn't been changed for years. The entire room seemed filled with dust. She could see the various footprints of people, who had been in and out of the room at some point because of the dusty floors.

In the right corner near the bed there was what looked like a push cart with various unused surgical tools on it. There was also an empty IV bag hanging from a movable hook. It wasn't attached to her body, but she could bet whatever chemicals were in her body now had come from there.

Micah's head was numb, she felt like she was having a terrible hangover that kept her from even thinking straight. But what she did know was that she had to get out of there. She tugged at the straps. She could see her wrists were bruised. She pulled and tugged harder, almost feeling her right hand inching its way free.

"Uh, uh, uh, Ms. Rae, I wouldn't do that if I were you," said a woman, who suddenly opened the floor and stepped into the room. Her short blond hair was pulled back into a pigtail. She was wearing a white lab coat, with a stethoscope around her neck, and a clipboard in one hand. She was followed by two burly looking men, also in lab coats, but unlike the woman, they looked less like medical personnel and more like bouncers.

Micah watched as one of the burly men took a card and slid it through a card reader lock on the door near the handle and she heard the door beep as it blinked red. She instantly realized that she needed to get it in order to escape.

"How are you feeling today?" she said in a voice that was happily facetious. It was clear to everyone present that Micah was not in good condition.

"Who… who are you?" Micah struggled to say, realizing her throat was sore and raspy.

"I'm the doctor entrusted to your case...." she said.

Doctor? As soon as Micah heard the word "doctor" she was pulled into a flashback. It was a memory from the party. Her head ached as pieces came back in images and sounds….

She remembered seeing everyone standing there, the entire Daily Times news staff, they were watching her and whispering. She couldn't remember why, but it made her uncomfortable.

She remembered that she was with someone, it was her date, a very handsome man whose name was a blur. He wore a tux with a red bow tie to match her dress. He smiled at her, whispered something in her ear that made her laugh. He was someone she knew very well, but her mind wouldn't allow her to remember his name or even how she knew him. He wanted her to relax so he got her her favorite drink and after she took the first sip, it all went dark from there….

But just before the memory ended she could hear her boss' words echoing like a loudspeaker in her head. She repeated the words over and over, "Don't trust that doctor! Don't trust that doctor, don't trust…."

That doctor....

"Which Doc… doctor?" Micah asked herself out loud, as she came out of her memory.

"Oh dear. It seems you haven't fully recovered from that last dosage," said the woman in response, tapping the empty IV bag, she frowned. "Looks like I have to reintroduce myself!" she laughed sweetly.

"I'm a trained surgeon," said the woman, answering what she thought was Micah's question directed at her. "You can call me Dr. Fitzgerald," she added, "and these are my assistants." The woman pointed to the men behind her. "Boys, you remember Ms. Rae," she said. They nodded, but their faces maintained an unwavering grimace.

"Now, Ms. Rae," said the doctor, as she approached the bed. "To put it bluntly, you've been a bad, bad girl," the woman said in a Tweety Bird voice. Her hands caressed along the edge of the bed, slightly touching the length of Micah's body as she moved from her foot to her shoulder. Micah shivered at her touch.

"You put your little investigative journalist nose where it didn't belong, and you know way too much," she continued. She tapped her finger on Micah's nose and Micah moved her face so that she couldn't touch it any longer. The doctor laughed.

"But that seems to have worked in our favor… because we realize you're the one we needed all along." She gave a smile as she looked back to her assistants, "right boys?" The men stood still and quiet like mimes, and it unnerved Micah to the point where the doctor could sense her tension, and laughed again.

"Don't worry, Ms. Rae. They're harmless… if you cooperate. They are only here to assist me if you don't. But if you do, and trust me you really should," her hand caressed Micah's cheek, "I won't need their help."

"So here are your choices, again, if you don't remember from the last time we had this conversation…."

The last time? They'd done this before?

"Yes, we've done this before," she answered, as if she could read Micah's mind. "Had you made the right choice then, we all wouldn't be here now, you'd be at home, perhaps snuggled up with our Dr. Watson, no doubt?" she laughed.

Micah stared at her blankly. The name didn't ring a bell.

"Mmm, dreamy Dr. Watson," she moaned, "he's really good at what he does, isn't he?" She used her index finger to trace a line along Micah's jaw and down her neck suggestively.

"Don't touch me!" Micah shouted. Micah turned her head and struggled against the straps in defiance, as the woman laughed again.

It bothered Micah that she didn't even know who this Dr.Watson was, that her memory was so bad she didn't even know if this woman was just making things up or not.

Regardless, she knew that she was very crazy. I've really gotta get out of here, thought Micah. She tried not to stare too hard at the man who held the key card.

"Has the purple haze fizzed out your memory of him so easily?" she guessed.

Ok, she's crazy and a mind-reader, thought Micah.

"Wow…" she said, taking notes on medical papers in a beige folder… "doesn't remember current lover after 1 dose," she spoke what she wrote down out loud.

Current lover? Micah shut her eyes to try and remember. No images of him came to mind, only echoes of a deep throaty chuckle, a man's voice saying, "I love you" whispered softly, and then the same male voice shouting her name, as if trying to urgently get her attention, and telling her to wake up. She opened her eyes with anger and frustration.

She hated the women for taking control of her mind and invading her thoughts. She wanted to yell at her, to tell her that she was wrong, she did remember his face....that he must be the man with the red bow tie in her flashback, just to show she still had control of her memories. But, she also didn't want to reveal more than she should. Micah was very scared. If this crazy supposed doctor was willing to kidnap her, drug her, and erase her memories, what else could she try and do to her?

"So your choices are… either give us what we want and you get to go free, or we send you on another trip to lala land, where you lose more memories, and we try this again."

"How.. how can I trust that you… you'll let me go?" said Micah hoarsely.

"You're just gonna have to, dear. Wouldn't it be better to make the right choice and see what happens, rather than continuing to make the wrong choice?" she said with a frown.

Micah thought for a moment and then asked, "What do you want from me?"

"Wow…" she said opening the file again, "patient #032 has forgotten the purpose of the experiment after 1 dose?" she recorded. "Surely you're kidding!" She said.

The woman picked up a syringe from the trolly of surgical items. It had a clear liquid inside. She squeezed some of it so that it squirted out and then she knocked her finger against the vile to remove any bubbles. It made Micah flinch. She didn't know which was worse, the chemicals in the syringe or the woman holding it.

"We want the Aphenochrome, dear," she said. This time her voice was stern and her eyes were menacing. "Which will it be?" She tilted her head to the side and looked at Micah.

But Micah didn't hear the question, she was lost in her head again.

"Aphenochrome..." repeated Micah, talking out loud to herself, as if a secrete her mind had been keeping had been finally let out, and that word was the key that unlocked it all. Her head started to ache again as all the memories started to flood back….