"Did you fuck your sister?" Abbey asked.
"Nnnn..." AJ began sounding out the word, but something told him, deep down inside, that he shouldn't lie. Maybe it was Abbey's stark raving mad approach to the truth, or maybe it was the way she wore her sexuality on her sleeve. Maybe it was her insistence that it would happen, eventually, even if it hadn't already. Whatever the reason, AJ's word morphed into something ending with an "essss,"
"Ness? No-Yes? I knew it!" Abbey laughed.
"You're not mad?" AJ asked quietly, ashamedly.
"Why would I be mad?" Abbey said, but then she turned to him quickly. "She doesn't have STD does she?"
"No," AJ said. "I mean, I haven't asked her, but I would assume she doesn't."
"I'll ask her when we get there."
"Uhhh, that might be a bit difficult."
"Oh, she's at work?"
"No," AJ replied, his tone telling there was more to the story.
"No, she's not at work? Is she dead?"
"No!" AJ said, surprised she would go from the possibility of Candice being at work, straight to dead. "No, she's not dead. My parents sent her away."
"Sent her away? Like on a cruise? Come on AJ. Spill the beans here.
"Saint Margerine's Shelter for Mental Issues," AJ said.
"No fucking way," Abbey said, turning back around in her seat. "No fucking way. That fucking place is still open?"
"I guess so," AJ said.
"Everything online is taken down. They're probably running on private funding. Fucking insane asylum my ass," Abbey snarled.
"You know what it is?" AJ asked.
"Yeah, I've been there," Abbey said, and she elbowed the seat behind her as if fending off a mugger.
"Sorry," AJ said, seeing the subject had a devastating effect on her. "You wanna talk about it?"
"You my therapist?" Abbey asked, and then she sighed. "Yeah. I'll talk about it. A couple years ago, like right after I graduated, I went through a little bit of a wild streak. You know. 'I'm eighteen, you can't tell me what to do anymore, I'm an adult'. Yeah. Well, I found out some people have made it an art, keeping their thumb on the back of your neck."
"So your parents sent you there?"
"Yeah," Abbey said, nodding. "They said I needed to learn a lesson. How to be respectful, and how to appreciate all the things my parents do for me."
"I don't see how they can do that," AJ said. "Once you're eighteen, isn't that like kidnapping, body snatching, false imprisonment? Something like that?"
"Oh, on paper, it's all legal eagle. They have a psycho who asks you a bunch of questions when you get there, and then they use it against you, compounding it with what everyone else told them ahead of time, and they basically identify you as mentally unstable, and a danger to yourself, which gives them the legal authority to detain you, and imprison you, until you're 'cured'."
"So you were cured?" AJ asked. "What does that even mean?"
"It means, I played the game, I did what I had to, to get the fuck out of there." Abbey sat up, and AJ could tell she didn't like talking about it.
"I'm sorry that happened to you."
Abbey turned to him. "Stop saying your sorry. You didn't do it. Say it's fucked up or something. Just don't say you're sorry."
"That's fucked up," AJ said.
"It is."
"Do you still want to talk about it?"
"No. But go ahead and ask. I've got more questions for you anyway."
"Oh, okay. Uh, what was it like...in there?"
"It's basically a monastery that's been converted into this mock insane asylum. From the outside, It just looks like an old bank or something. Stone and cement. One set of doors. I was outside for maybe like, thirty seconds, so I can't even tell you where it's at. They never posted an address online, so I figure that's to prevent people from coming and picking up people if they escape, but you can't escape."
"Why not?" AJ asked.
"Because ninety percent of everythign happens on the third floor up, and above. The windows all have bars on them. You can't get out. There's no doors, one stairwell, no access to the roof."
"Sounds like a prison," AJ said.
"It is! It's fucking illegal prison, where your parents can just say you need to go, and they fucking come get you." AJ stopped himself from apologizing and instead said that it was fucked up. "It is. So basically, after you get kidnapped, drugged, and wake up in the psycho's office, he asks you a bunch of questions and then prescribes you medication. Basically, for the first week that you're there, you have no fucking clue what's going on. Slowly, you come around and realize, you're not in Kansas anymore."
"After that, like, week two, you're expected to start conforming. You gotta dress yourself, go to classes, all the usual bullshit."
"Like school?" AJ asked.
"Yeah, but it's a school for fucking psychopaths. Like, you sit and answer questions all day long, and you get rewarded for how many questions you get right. "Your mother says she's five dollars short on money for groceries. You have five dollars in your pocket. What do you do?" And then they give you answers like; Tell your mother to go to hell. Give your mother the five dollars and tell her she can pay you back, with interest. Give your mom the five dollars and tell her she doesn't have to pay it back, you're happy to do your share to help out. Or, slap the fuck outta your mom and tell her she needs to put back five dollars worth the groceries."
"I'd just give it to her," AJ said.
"Yeah, no shit. The answers are obvious. But some of these fucking idiots think the wrong answers are the right answers. Those...those bitches belong there."
"Well, if that's all that-"
"No. Are you fucking kidding me?" Abbey asked, turning in her seat to face him again.
"My bad. I thought that was it. Shit. I was hoping...is all."
"Fuck no. Let's see. Week two, the guards, sorry, 'custodians', start making passes at you. Depends on if you're pretty or not, but the reality is, they don't care. New pussy is reason enough. By week three, if you're not fucking one or more of them, you're hurting. They will fuck with you, to no end. They'll take your clothes. They'll humiliate you. They'll grab you up and make some shit up, send you to solitary, or stand you in the corner."
"Stand you in the corner?" AJ asked unable to believe they'd do some childish shit like that.
"For hours. Days if they have to. And the bitches you get housed with are no different. After a month of torture, you're reaching out to anyone you can. After two months, you've become one of the hive. You do whatever anyone else asks you to do, whenever they ask you to do it, no matter how fucked up or depraved."
