“Hello, my dear! I hear you had a couple of visitors today!” Nancy came waltzing in with a tray of something I couldn’t see. It didn’t look like food.
I had fallen asleep again. There was really nothing else to do and her entrance woke me up with a startle.
“Oh, sorry dear. Didn’t mean to scare you.” She laughed as he put the tray down on the dresser by the loveseat. “So, let’s get you up, we have some things to do!”
I sat there bleary eyed while Nancy set things up. She came over and unlocked my wrist so that I could use the washroom, which I really needed to do. When she unlocked the bathroom door and I returned to the room, I was told to sit on a straight back chair that Nancy pulled from a desk in the corner. I saw no harm in this so I didn’t put up a fight, though I was curious. She handed me computer tablet that had an app up called “Speechly Rhythms” It was interesting to say the least. The home screen had an illustration of Abraham Lincoln in modern hipster clothing and holding a craft beer, surrounded by a regular farm, except it had lions and zebras instead of cows and pigs.
“What kind of app is this?”
I was so engrossed in looking at the tablet and trying to figure out the app that I jumped when I felt her hands start to massage my shoulders. I looked back at her in surprise.
“What are you doing?”
“Don’t worry, nothing bad. You have been through a lot the last week or so and there is a lot of stress to deal with, I am just using a distressing massage pattern that I was taught in nursing school. I use it on my patients in the mental hospital all the time. It’s good, you’ll see.”
Her hands worked my shoulders in a way that immediately took out the tension. It was like they were melting into a sea of relaxation. My head rolled forward as the relaxation made it too hard to hold my head up anymore. Her skilled hands massaged down to my shoulder blades and I had never felt so much tension release. It was magical.
“Good, see? That’s very good. Now I want you to play the game on the tablet. It will relax your mind while I get you to relax physically.
“Oh god, I don’t think I can. This feels too good. Can’t I just enjoy this?”
“Just try the app, sweetie.”
I relented and pushed on the start button. What followed was a mismatch of a bunch of different famous speeches that were joined together so that they sounded like gibberish. The goal of the game was to push a button when you heard whatever word or phrase popped up in a square under hipster Lincoln who was the orator for all of these speeches.
I was lost in both the massage and listening to gibberish with a few phrases that were recognizable to me as well as the ones I was supposed to push the button for. I completely lost track of what I was doing. I did well in the game but I wasn’t paying attention to the actual words, just trying to match. It occurred to me that they wouldn’t be doing this with me if there weren’t some reason.
All of a sudden my body tensed and I sat up straight and stopped listening for the most recent phrase that I was supposed to hit the button for, which was “let it burn.” I felt Nancy’s hands tighten around my the back of my neck as she was trying to relax the tension that just went through me.
“What is it? What happened? I had all the tension completely worked out of your shoulders and now you’re all tense again. What do you do to yourself?” She chided me as she worked over my shoulders again.
I didn’t relax as easily this time as I realized what was happening and I needed to be in a relaxed state for it to work. The physical touch that caused a pleasurable feeling, the relaxation, the confused and garbled speech with a few phrases here and there that were recognizable…these were brainwashing tactics. Was this what they tried with Mac? He would definitely be able to resist this. Could I? I had to play it smart. I couldn’t just pretend I was brainwashed immediately, I would have to show resistance but maybe start pretending a little bit so that they would ease up and assume they have me like they seemed to do with Mac.
“Oh my god, honey. You need to relax.” Her hands shook my shoulders, which made my body gently shake a little and I couldn’t deny how good it felt and my body wanted to relax so badly but I couldn’t let this happen. “Sweetie, you are also getting behind on your game. Come on, your health is counting you letting go of this tension.”
I had to think fast. Her job was to get me to relax, if I didn’t she would work hard to make me or maybe switch brainwashing tactics. The next one might not be so pretty. I remembered this part of psychology well. I had always been fascinated with cults and how they got their members to be so rabid. I studied brainwashing techniques with particular interest because of how they could be used in negotiations and job interviews if you used them correctly.
This was how it started. That was Matthew’s plan. He was going to brainwash me and then send me back to trap Christopher. My brother and I were just pawns to him, of course. This was no surprise to me but I had to have a real talk with Mac. First, I needed to hold out and not fall prey to these techniques. I had awareness on my side. I may have been vulnerable but knowledge really does have so much power.
“Sorry, Nancy. I just had a bad memory pop up. Is it okay for me to be alone for a bit?” It tried to make my voice sound as sad as possible. I couldn’t let my determination to resist the brainwashing show in any way whatsoever. I had to play dumb with the whole thing.
“Oh sweetie, that’s not a good idea. Massage is so good for things like that. Here, put your game down for now and just lean back in the chair. I’ll give you a temple massage and we’ll work you through this.”
I put the tablet down and was grateful that I could at least take that out of the equation. I let her relax me again and mentally repeated my name and repeated my job and repeated my address. One vulnerability I was worriedabout was that my life had been so shaken up in every way lately. I didn’t have a lot of stability to hold onto at the moment. I tried to remind myself of how much Christopher had been a positive influence on me but the distrust I had been trained to have for him was still there somewhere. I tried to shake it off as my muscles turned to Jell-O from the massage.
“There. That’s much better. You are so stressed. That Christopher fellow does not know how to keep you safe and comfortable does he? He let a lot happen to you under his watch.”
Oh no, now she was going to bad talk Christopher while massaging me. This was not good. I had to resist. How? I tried to remember the mindset that was able to resist brainwashing. It had been so long since I had studied it, though. I chose to just focus on the fact that I was being tricked into being against Christopher and I was being kept on my toes. They were trying to unnerve me and then relax me and then scramble my brain with that speech app.
They are trying to trick me. They are trying to trick me. My name is Alison Bishop. I work at Smith & Ward. My name is Alison Bishop. My mother’s name was Anabelle Bishop Dunn. Christopher Ward is a stable and healthy influence. Christopher Ward wants to see me healthy and happy.
I just kept repeating facts about my life and reminding my brain I was being tricked. Over and over and over again, I said that in my head as Nancy massaged my shoulders and back while badmouthing Christopher and his company.
This is not working on me. This is not working on me. I trust..I trust…I am working on trusting Christopher.
I was having trouble saying that I trusted Christopher in my head. I told myself it was left over from the conditioning that Mac did on me throughout my life. I kept my thoughts going in that direction but it did get harder. I knew exactly what Nancy was trying to do and I was still losing my will to resist the relaxation mixed with the comfort of her voice. She was very good.
“Christopher has a whole team of security and yet you were able to be choked and kidnapped. Do you really think he cares what happens to you? You’ve seen the tabloids. You’re probably just a flavor of the month for him, you know.”
The words stung. I had thought thoughts like that before, even though I dismissed them, they still had an effect on me. I tried not to let her get in there. I tried not to let what she was saying penetrate me.
“Do you think I can talk to Mac one more time tonight?”
She sighed and immediately went deeper into the muscle with her fingers. My whole body shook from how deep the massage was and it felt so good I let a deep involuntary moan out. She obviously didn’t want me switching conversation paths. This was getting so difficult to resist. I really had been through a lot the last week and my brain was tired.
“It’s not a good idea. You need to get a good rest tonight. There is a lot to do tomorrow. I’m sure Christopher wasn’t at all worried bout how rested you were. He never really seemed to care about the health and well-being of any of the girlfriends du jour he was with in the tabloids.”
I rolled my eyes inwardly. Did she really think that was going to work on me? I let my head roll back as she started expertly pressing on my temples. My head seemed to melt in her hands and I had to admit that the feeling was heavenly. Pure heaven. I tried to just focus on how good it felt.
“Alison.” I heard her whisper my name and I opened my eyes to see her looking down at me. I jerked my head up and looked around. Had I fallen asleep? Had I been in a trance?
“Wha? What happened? Why do I feel like I slept for hours?” I was groggy and worried that I had been drugged again. I looked over at Nancy with an accusatory glare.
“Don’t look at me. I give great massages.” She laughed as she was putting the tablet into a leather case.
“Did you drug me again, Nancy? I swear to god, if you drugged me again.”
She held up her hands in an overly dramatic defensive posture and laughed.
“Not this time, sweetie. I promise. It was all just my magic fingers.” She wiggled her fingers in the air for effect.
I shook my head to clear it and took stock of how I was feeling in my body and my head. I looked at her suspiciously as I moved all of my limbs and did a roll of my neck. Everything seemed okay. The grogginess really did seem to be from falling asleep. I quickly did a mental check to see how my brain would respond to the facts of my life.
I am Alison Bishop. I work at Smith & Ward. My mother’s name was Anabelle Bishop Ward. I trust…Christopher Ward is…
I couldn’t make myself finish anything about Christopher. My eyes went wide. I was at least able to talk about how Christopher was good to me. I couldn’t even do that when I tried. Something inside of me resisted. I looked at Nancy. She saw the panicked look on my face but we both knew that there was nothing I could say. How could I tell her that my thoughts had changed and blame it on her without letting her know I have knowledge about brainwashing techniques?
“I think it’s time for me to go to bed. I am so exhausted. That massage was great and it made me ready to go to bed.”
Nancy smiled and grabbed her bag and the leather case with the tablet in it but the tray stayed. She left it right where it was.
“No problem. I understand. You do need your rest, sweetie. And I’m your nurse. I should know.” She gave me a little squeeze on my shoulder and kissed my forehead. I looked at her in surprise.
“Why did you do that?”
“I love all of my patients, Mrs. Ward. You know that.”
With that, she left and I sat there in a whirl of confusion as I tried to figure out exactly what just happened. Her voice, her calling me sweetie, the kiss on the forehead. That was all motherly stuff she was doing. She was trying to be a mother figure! She was trying to draw on my grief over my mother’s death. Oh my god. She was just as diabolical as Matthew but she was so much more covert about it.
I wondered if they were a couple or if they just got off sadistically controlling people together. Poor Maxine. Christopher’s mother may not necessarily be the vegetable he thought she was if my paralysis injection theory was true but I would put money on the fact that she wasn’t the same and probably had to work very hard to stay sane through this kind of treatment.
I stood up and noticed that my wrist wasn’t chained to the bed. It was a startling realization and I wondered if it was done on purpose. You couldn’t trust anything in this madhouse. I cautiously stood up and looked around. The cuff was still attached to the bed post. I looked up at the camera and thought for a second.
They are obviously testing me. Looking at the camera, I flipped it off in a moment of total bitterness and just being fed up with all of it. I walked to the door and tried to open it. It wasn’t surprising to me that it was locked. I rolled my eyes. Did they think they had me brainwashed already? I crawled into bed and was getting ready to lie down when I noticed the tray that Nancy had left behind.
I laid there for a second, trying not to be curious about it. Telling myself that I should just go to sleep. I got myself under the covers and laid my head down on the pillow in a way where my neck and head were supremely comfortable. It was a tactic I was hoping would work. I was hoping to be so comfortable that I wouldn’t want to get up to look at the tray. I closed my eyes tightly and tried to think of something nice and warm and peaceful.
Unfortunately, it became apparent that none of that was going to work and my curiosity would not leave me alone. I rolled my eyes again, this time at myself as I kicked the covers off in frustration and sat up to get a view of the tray. It was clear, I had to see what it was even though I knew it was some sort of trap or way to manipulate me. I sighed heavily and got up to sit on the loveseat next to it, taking the little cloth cover that had been put over it.
There, right in front of me was a stack of tabloids that had Christopher on the cover with different starlets, celebrities and society girls. I had only ever seen these in passing, so to have them at my fingertips to read was much too tempting.
Each article was worse than the last. Logically, I knew that tabloids were not pillars of journalism and their ability to tell the truth was shoddy at best but I couldn’t help but feel quite jealous and subpar as I read the exciting parties and events he would go to with these women. He hobnobbed with the most famous and beautiful people in the world.
I was nothing like any of these women. If he really didn’t like women like this and really didn’t like this kind of lifestyle, why did he date so many of them. Tears found their way to my eyes again and I felt them drop as my feelings of inadequacy compounded. There was no way he found me as exciting as these women. I was just a pawn to him.
I shook my head and tried to remind myself that this isn’t the kind of life Christopher wanted. He didn’t like all the paparazzi stories. They weren’t the real him and there was no reason to feel inadequate.
Then I looked at the issue I was holding. This one had Christopher at an Oscar party with the young, “it girl” that year. She had been plastered everywhere and it was big news that she was nominated for an Oscar as she was in her early twenties. She didn’t win but the look of contentment and happiness she had in the picture as Christopher had his arm around her said it all. She had the prize she wanted.
Christopher looked pretty happy too. It was a party packed with celebrities and there was montage of photos. There were several other photos of Christopher in conversation with a few other big celebrities. I couldn’t compete with that. How could I ever compete with that?
I started to wonder if he even cared if I was gone. Anything he had said to me about keeping me safe or me being important to him, it just didn’t seem to ring true right now. He was just trying to appease me. I knew how that went. I did that with people all the time.
What if he just wanted to use me as a pawn in this sick game with his father? Even though he might not have been in cahoots with his father, he was still just as bad. He used people just as much, he just wasn’t as overt about it. That made it so much more painful when the realization hits that he might not have ever cared.
I started sobbing as I felt more and more sorry for myself and remembered my mother. She cared about me. She loved me. She never used me in any games or to help her get anything. My mother was the most beautiful person in the world and she loved me for me. I didn’t have to do anything to prove myself to her. Christopher’s father killed her. Stole her out of my life. How could I think of Christopher as a viable option?
I fell into a deep state of wallowing and the tears seemed never ending. As I started to fall asleep from the emotional exhaustion, I had a faraway thought trying to get through to me. It was trying to remind me that this was how they wanted me to feel. This was what they were trying to do by leaving the tabloids and planting the seeds of Christopher not caring about me during Nancy’s massage.
I felt so horrible that I refused to let that thought have any traction. I didn’t care anymore. I just didn’t care. There was no point. I would just go along with anything anybody wanted until I was either killed or set free to run away and never talk to anybody again. It’s all I wanted in that moment.
** ** ** ** ** ** ** **
“Mrs. Ward. Wake up, Mrs. Ward.”
I woke up and immediately bristled at everything that was before me. Nancy sitting next to me on the bed, the fact that she was still calling me Mrs. Ward and all the conclusions I had come to the night before. My sleepy eyes noticed the colorful tabloids sitting on the chaise, the ripped up pages of one of the magazines evidence of my tantrum the night before.
I cringed when I saw that. I had really let myself get to a very low point the night before. I was exhausted and vulnerable. I had a lot of crazy information and activities to deal with yesterday. Not to mention the PTSD I had to battle with Matthew’s creepy visit.
Now that I had had a night’s sleep, I would be stronger. I would laugh in the face of these blackmailing techniques. On the inside, of course. On the outside, I would let them think that they had me. Oh but they wouldn’t have me and they weren’t ever going to get me. Yeah, maybe they might break through somewhat during my more vulnerable moments but I could bounce back from those easily. I was hoping that I would see Mac soon. I needed his presence to make me feel more restored and balanced.
I was annoyed at what I had facing me and how I would have to start acting as if they had me brainwashed to be on their side. How long would this last? Would I be here for weeks like Mac?
My name is Alison Bishop. I work at Smith & Ward. My name is Alison Bishop. My mother’s name was Anabelle Bishop Dunn. This is not working on me. This is not working on me.
I looked at Nancy and laid my head back down as I just wanted to keep sleeping. Why couldn’t everybody just leave me alone? I just wanted to sleep and let time pass until I found a way to escape or I was rescued. Of course, there was a third way I could leave. I shivered at the thought.
“Come on sleepy head. Let’s get you up and washed and ready for the day. There is a lot to do today.” She shook my shoulders and smoothed my hair away from my face. I wanted to claw her eyes out but I didn’t have the energy.
“Oh really? What do we have to do today? What is it that you need from me that’s so important?” I pulled the covers around me and twisted my face up in a scowl.
“Now, now grumpy. That’s no way to be. Come on. You’ll feel better if you get showered and dressed and accomplish something.” She looked over at the torn up magazine and smiled. “I see you enjoyed the reading material I left?”
I looked at her self satisfied smile and rolled my eyes. It was so obvious. They weren’t even trying to hide it and yet? It was definitely having an effect on me. I wondered just how much pretending I would have to do. They had me isolated and so far, the only time I had felt good was when Nancy was talking badly about Christopher.
“Come on, I’ll go get one of the guards to help me get you out of this bed. Do you want that?”
I felt like such a child and like a child, I wanted to throw a tantrum. I laughed, out loud. I didn’t care. If I was going to be treated like a child, I might as well act like one.
“Okay, Mrs. Ward. Just remember, this is your doing.” She got up to go to the door. I panicked. I didn’t want a strange man pulling me out of bed in whatever careless way he was going to.
“No, wait!” She didn’t stop, she kept going. My panic rose. I got out of bed and stood there ready to do anything she wanted. “I’m up, see?”
She turned around and saw me standing next to the bed. She smiled approvingly and motioned for me to go into the bathroom to start getting washed up. I stood there and stared at her for a minute until her eyes got stern and then I went. It was ridiculous but I had no choice unless I wanted to be manhandled. They were going to make me do what they wanted in one way or another.
After I got washed up and entered the room in my towel, I was led to the vanity by Nancy where I started to comb my wet hair. As I was combing, I looked at Nancy thoughtfully.
“Why do you call me Mrs. Ward?” I asked out of pure curiosity, the irritation it caused was still there but I wanted to know.
“Because you’re part of the family. You know this. Don’t play dumb, silly.” She smiled sweetly and went back to a notebook she was writing in. “I put your clothes on the bed. Get yourself dressed and let’s get the day started. We have so much to do before your dinner with Mr. Matthew Ward tonight!”
She clasped her hands together in excitement when she said Matthew’s name. As if he were some sort of king or celebrity. My stomach tightened and I didn’t know if it was her excitement having an effect on me or if I was nauseous and nervous. Maybe all of the above?
I nodded my head, feeling blank and numb. I had nothing to say in response. What could I say? Everything felt so surreal and life seemed to be on hold. It was like I was taken to a different dimension and everything else in the world stopped. They had me at such a disadvantage and I was human. I tried to remind myself that I was human. Oh God, I had such a hard time letting myself be human. My ego was not helping me in this situation.
I got dressed in a pair of blue hospital scrubs that was laid out on the bed. Nancy explained they would be most comfortable for what was planned for the day. I suspected because it made me feel more like a patient, which in turn would make me more subservient. The blander the clothes, the less unique you felt.
She started doing stretches that she wanted me to follow, which turned into jumping jacks and other calisthenics. Images of communist tapes of citizens doing calisthenics in stadiums while wearing bland clothing filled my mind; Russia, North Korea, China. They had to know I wasn’t stupid. They had to know I knew what they were doing.
My name is Alison Bishop. I work at Smith & Ward. My name is Alison Bishop. My mother’s name was Anabelle Bishop Dunn. This is not working on me. This is not working on me.
“Will I be able to see Mac today?” I was following Nancy’s lead during the cool down stretches and hoped that asking while we were both relaxed would give me a better outcome.
“We’ll see sweetie. Now, move your arms like this. Very good.” She had been cooing and giving me all kinds of condescending yet supportive feedback during the exercises. It made me feel both annoyed and cared for. I tried to resist the second part. After my breakdown last night where I felt like nobody cared about me, this was a nice feeling but I knew it was manufactured. I knew my brain was being manipulated.
My name is Alison Bishop. I work at Smith & Ward. My name is Alison Bishop. My mother’s name was Anabelle Bishop Dunn. This is not working on me. This is not working on me.
When we finished, Nancy texted something on her phone and I sat on the bed awaiting the next activity she had planned. She had said it would be a busy day. Yes, well brainwashing does take a lot of work.
“Okay. Our breakfast should be here in a minute. So, let’s set you up over at the desk.” She took my hand and led me like a child to the desk in the corner of the large bedroom. She was again treating me like a child and I had no choice but to follow obediently.
We both ate our breakfast in silence as every time I tried to speak, she would shush me and tell me to eat. My breakfast consisted of that fake orange juice, which should probably be called orange drink and a glazed donut. They were feeding me junk food so that I would be starved of nutrients. I would normally have a bowl of steel cut oats with berries and flaxseed meal. This breakfast had no nutrients, no fiber, nothing to feed my brain or my spirit.
I was hungry, though and I ate it. It wasn’t much and I would have loved to have more. I could already feel the sugar crash as I looked longingly at the scrambled eggs with tomato and toast that Nancy was eating. She noticed me looking at it and smiled at me as she ate the last few bites.
“I have a blood sugar problem, otherwise I would have had the same breakfast you had.”
Uh huh. Okay. Sure, Nancy. Tell me that as if I have no idea what’s going on here. The donut wasn’t going to do wonders for my blood sugar either. That’s okay, I told myself. I still had something left in me. Yeah, the starving of nutrients and the love bombing that Nancy was doing were going to have an effect but I had every confidence that I could get through this.
I sat there in the silence for a few seconds and soaked it in. I used that time to go over thoughts of resistance and tried to figure out any way of escape. When Nancy was completely finished with her breakfast and coffee, something I was salivating for, she pulled me out of my chair, instructing me to sit on the floor with my legs crossed.
“Good. Very good, Alison. Now, we are going to do a meditation that will help center you and be ready for your dinner with Matthew tonight.”
I opened my eyes. Why would I have to be ready for my dinner tonight? What the hell were they planning?
“Why do I have to prepare for that? I’m not sure I’m comfortable with this.”
“Oh, Alison, silly. Because he makes you nervous. And of course he does. Christopher let him get a hold of you and injure you. You have to overcome your nerves if you want to enjoy your time with him tonight. Christopher made it so much worse by constantly leaving you alone. Matthew isn’t doing that. He has me coming here to help you feel better.” She pushed on the tip of my nose when she called me “silly.”
“Um, just so you know. Matthew is the one who choked me.” I scrunched up my face at her screwy logic. My intelligence was really starting to feel insulted but also, I had to resist this smear campaign against Christopher. Didn’t I?
“Oh, sweetie, I know honey. He can’t help it. He’s got problems. As a matter of fact, I have him do the meditation I’m about to do with you often. It helps keep himself in control. When he took you off the street that day, I hadn’t been able to see him for a few days.”
“Wouldn’t, oh I don’t know, medication be a more stable and better way of dealing with that?”
Nancy looked at me with a very serious face for a minute and I had no idea if I had just crossed a line. My stomach tied itself in knots and I felt a feeling of dread that I might have set her off. She then twisted it into a smile.
“Which one of us is the nurse, again?” Her voice was very calm and contained. It scared me more than any yelling would have. This woman had a bite to her and I did not want to feel her teeth if I could help it.
“You are, of course. I’m sorry, it’s just that Matthew does make me nervous and I had to ask.” I tried to backpedal on my sarcasm and appease her. I knew how to do that but I also heard the fear in my voice, something I was usually able to control. She had gotten inside of me a little bit. I felt so helpless in that moment.
My name is Alison Bishop. I work at Smith & Ward. My name is Alison Bishop. My mother’s name was Anabelle Bishop Dunn. This is not working on me. This is not working on me.
Nancy tilted her head and looked thoughtful for a second. Then she crouched down, right in front of me in my cross legged position and got right in my face. Her eyes filled with a sadistic darkness and her mouth twisted in an evil smirk.
“That, is what the meditation is for. That is why I put it on the agenda. Perhaps some of us shouldn’t question this process so much, hmmm?” Her face was in a scowl but also a slight smirk as she noticed the fear in my eyes.
I felt like a child being scolded by a demon. Nodding my head, I tried to move back but there wasn’t much further I could go back the way I was sitting. She watched me find a more comfortable distance from her face and let out a little laugh.
“That’s good. That’s a very good girl. We are going to meditate now, yes?” She stood up and looked down at me with her arms crossed. I felt tears of frustration stinging my eyes but I held them back successfully this time. I nodded my head emphatically and closed my eyes immediately when she made a motion with her hand that was obvious that’s what she wanted me to do.
For the next few hours, Nancy had me meditate and chant and play word games. The meditations had me focus on feeling safe with Nancy. She said it was to help me relax and get rid of my fear. I knew it was to try to create a dependency on her.
The chants were a different language, I think Tibetan and they were lovely but I was supposed to think about Matthew as an eagle and Christopher as a vulture. This was the one thing she couldn’t control and I tried to think about other things. I tried to think about Christopher as a beautiful stallion but she kept repeating the imagery she wanted me to have and I eventually couldn’t help it. My mind just automatically pictured Matthew as an eagle and Christopher as a vulture. It was diabolical. She had me do it over and over and over again.
My name is Alison Bishop. I work at Smith & Ward. My name is Alison Bishop. My mother’s name was Anabelle Bishop Dunn. This is not working on me. This is not working on me.
We did another round of calisthenics after lunch. Lunch, by the way, consisted of ham and cheese on white bread with Doritos and a coke, food that I would never eat. Just like the donut at breakfast, it was food that had such little nutrition and that would spike my blood sugar levels and make me crash hard.
The sugar crash did happen, right after calisthenics and that’s when she chose to sit me down and give me another shoulder massage. I was a bit shaky but her fingers were definitely like magic on my shoulders. My head lolled around and she started in on Christopher again. I knew that as coming.
“So, tell me, what did you think about the tabloids? I can make an assumption or two based on the ripped up issue but I want to hear your thoughts.”
I sat there and wanted to be anywhere else, even with how good the massage felt. Maybe especially how good the massage felt.
I also didn’t want to tell Nancy that I had let myself feel insecure about his feelings for me and was feeling a bit used. That’s what she wanted to hear. I hated the idea of letting her know that her conditioning was having an effect.
My name is Alison Bishop. I work at Smith & Ward. My name is Alison Bishop. My mother’s name was Anabelle Bishop Dunn. This is not working on me. This is not working on me. I trust…I trust..YES, I trust Christopher Ward!
“I didn’t like the actress he was with in that issue. That’s all that was.”
“Oh, I see. What did you think about the rest of the issues? What did you think about the fact that he was with a different girl in every issue?”
I didn’t say anything. It upset me, of course it upset me. Why was she doing this. Well, I knew why but I just didn’t want to be doing any of this right now.
“Well?” She shook my shoulders, prying an answer out of me.
“I wasn’t exactly thrilled, Nancy.”
She laughed and moved her hands down the sides of my arms.
“Well, it’s good to know the truth, isn’t it?”
I let my head roll back as she kneaded my triceps.
“What truth is that?” I had become so relaxed; I was nearly slurring my words.
“Christopher doesn’t care about any of those women. If he did, he would have stayed with them for longer than a magazine issue.” She stopped as if she were expecting me to respond.
I opened my eyes to look up at her face with my head held back. As I thought, she was looking at me expectantly with a gleam in her eyes. She was excited for me to ask her to expand on this. She wanted me to be interactive in the conversation.
“Yeah? And?” I knew what she was getting at. I had had the thought myself but I didn’t want to say it.
“Well, those were beautiful and famous actresses. They have exciting lives and can introduce Christopher to other exciting people. What do you have? Who are you? Do you really think he would care about you over somebody like that? He’s using you, Alison.”
My name is Alison Bishop. I work at Smith & Ward. My name is Alison Bishop. My mother’s name was Anabelle Bishop Dunn. This is not working on me. This is not working on me.