Grotto
Image Description: Against a blue background, a grainy illustration of a woman’s mouth and chin in profile, baring her teeth to take the first bite of an apple she holds in her hand. The woman’s face, hands, and hair are filled in with black, her teeth are white, and her manicured nails, her lips, and the apple are ruby-red.
Maya had left some minutes ago. Because their room didn’t have a clock, Reagan wasn’t sure the exact time, only that she’d started counting the seconds the instant she heard the latch on the door click into place. She knew it was night because it was dark out and she knew, because she was feeling quite serene now, that the meds had started working. So it had probably been at least a few minutes – give or take. She couldn’t be too sure because the meds were quite effective and every now and then she would lose count and restart from an arbitrary number, rendering the counting somewhat useless as anything more than a mindfulness activity. A few minutes ago – give or take – Reagan had dry-swallowed one, two, then three diazepam pills, and rolled onto her back to examine the knockdown troweled ceiling. In twenty more minutes, hungry flames would satisfy their appetites on Reagan’s still-breathing body, but she would be asleep then so she wouldn’t mind very much. The other Resident Ladies were not afforded the mercy of a similar warning.
Feeling the effects, Reagan let out a relieved sigh. She felt herself slipping further from her body, turning into a floating and impartial observer of the bony girl on the ground, happy to be almost-dead. A rustling noise followed by a sharp hiss came in from the window outside. The last thing Floating-Reagan saw of Real-Reagan was a faint smile crossing the woman’s face. The smell of a piping-hot apple tart taken out of the oven a few minutes too late wafted into the room.
“Resident Lady Maya, please come in for registration.” The shrill voice rang through the lobby of Shandley’s Grotto for Deviant Women. The voice found its target on Maya, a young woman in loungewear sitting perfectly upright with her hands placed in her lap, who rose and crossed the room with a practiced indifference.
Maya slid wordlessly into the upholstered armchair to face a woman not much older than she was. The woman spoke to Maya through a manila file folder that she held up with manicured fingers. Maya thought that her hair might have looked like a young Jackie Kennedy’s in the morning, though now it was suffering the consequences of an entire afternoon in the underfurnished office. The flipped bob was ridiculously outdated anyways, but she might look nice in an old Rockwell ad for oranges … no, raisins. She wouldn’t work for oranges.
Maya was still musing on this when the woman put her file folder down on the table.
“– and you are employed in the digital sales division, though currently on sabbatical. Can you verify that?”
“Pardon?”
“Is the biographical information we have on file correct, Resident Lady?”
At Shandley’s, every patient was a Resident Lady. Resident because the Grotto would become their home, Lady as a sign of respect and a pitiful attempt to appeal to their womanhood. An attempt the staff made constantly, as though repeating it enough times might make Maya forget that it was just three hours ago she’d been on a subway platform watching a group of teenagers livestream a gratingly mediocre indie-folk set. She wished she was hearing it now.
“Yes, that all sounds right,” Maya fibbed. She hadn’t been listening. “Also, just Maya is fine.”
The woman pressed her lips into a thin smile. “Let’s move on to what brings you to Shandley’s.”
A push had been made some years ago for the creation of programs, like Shandley’s, for deviant women. A “safe space” that these sex traitors could go for some time to reflect, heal, and finally, with the help of trained professionals, transform. And as a licentious homewrecking little cunt, Maya was a prized commodity for Treatment.
Off-Brand-Jackie-Kennedy’s overplucked eyebrows crept closer and closer to her hairline as she scanned through the next page in the file. She slowly met Maya’s steely gaze as her eyebrows crawled back down. Then, clearing her throat:
“Okay. I see… I’ll need you to fill in some blanks, if that’s okay.” Maya nodded.
“How long were you engaged in the affair?”
“About eight months.”
“And at what point did you learn about his fiancee?”
“I’d known them both for a year, so four months prior to the affair’s inception.”
Jackie Kennedy’s knuckles tightened on the folder, creating new creases. “Right. And how long had the engagement been going?”
“Three months, he proposed to her midway,” Maya answered, peering over at the exposed paper of the file. She placed one finger on the page where a note had been left in red pen. “Oh, and you’ve got this bit wrong. They’re still together.”
The woman balked. “Still? You mean the wedding is to continue?”
“Last time I checked. I mean, hardly anything to worry about now, right?” Maya gestured at herself facetiously. This seemed to bring some relief to Jackie Kennedy, who let out a small exhale, scribbled something on the paper, and finished up her line of questioning.
“Did you have ulterior motives for your participation that you would like Shandley’s to know about? Any kind of leverage against you, promises made for your participation?” She eyed the luggage Maya had dragged in behind her. They were two Stromburd bags – small, but sturdy and so, so divine. Out of Maya’s pay grade as a marketing assistant and even further for a rehab secretary. Which is why it thrilled Maya to her core to be able to answer:
“None at all. I did it for pleasure.”
As she watched contempt cement itself in the furrow of Jackie Kennedy’s offending eyebrows, Maya thought it worth mentioning, at least to herself, so did he. Quite a bit of pleasure, actually. Considerably more than her own. He’d be punished too, sure. It filled her with embarrassment. After the report, he’d be expected to take all his accounts off private and give a very teary-eyed apology on camera to the general populace. He’d denounce his actions, profess disgust with himself for giving into temptation, and reaffirm his support to his still-life-long partner. For a brief few days everyone would suddenly be very interested in the man who worked a mid-level managerial position at the company that specialized in biodegradable children’s toys and marvel at how such a noble man could stray so far off the course.
What a terrible way to be caught – sniveling, apologetic, on your knees. Even thinking about it made Maya’s throat fill with bile.
She and Jackie Kennedy were done. The woman stood up stiffly and extended a cordial hand across the table. “I am thrilled that you trust Shandley’s with your treatment, Lady, and wish you luck on your healing journey.”
Reagan was distracted by the vague scent of lilies before she heard the voices outside.
“… You’ll be staying with Resident Lady Reagan, a wonderful influence as she seems to have taken quite swimmingly to Treatment… and in such little time, too…” The nervous speaking pattern of the bellhop, a gaunt old lady who hardly had any business lifting anyone’s coffee mug, let alone their suitcases, intruded into her private, hazy paradise.
She heard a response, low and satiny, but couldn’t make out the words of the woman on the other side of the door. Reagan groaned into her blanket. A roommate already? She’d banked on at least two months in a single.
The sickly-sweet scent of lilies hit Reagan again, at several times the intensity. Stifling a gag, she pulled herself up to her elbows. She blinked the Lexapro out from her eyes until they focused on her new companion. The woman was kneeling at her bed facing away from Reagan, rolling the bedsheets between her forefingers and making huffing noises. Just from her palpable irritation and the way her tank top straps sat on her shoulders, Reagan knew the woman would be beautiful when she turned around. Already, Reagan wanted to ignore her, but the words of her Treatment Guide telling her make peace rang out in her head.
“I’m Reagan,” she said, reaching out a hand to the woman’s back.
The woman stood up and looked down at Reagan, confirming her suspicions. Her face was uncannily symmetrical. Her eyes flitted assertively across Reagan’s face, then body, then her bed, as though taking Reagan apart into bits and pieces then methodically filing them all into neat folders. Reagan did not enjoy the sensation.
“Maya,” she responded. She did not reach for Reagan’s hand, so Reagan dropped it.
“Are you excited for your Treatment?” Reagan tried again. It took a lot of effort to hold this conversation. Maybe if the woman had come in a few hours earlier…
Maya looked pointedly at the orange bottles pushed together on Reagan’s desk. “I’m probably not as excited as you are.”
Maya’s selected therapist was the first woman above 30 that she’d seen at the Grotto besides the octogenarian bellhop. She peered over red cat-eye goggles at Maya, who was sitting perfectly still on a chaise.
“Can you tell me why you’re here, Lady Maya?” she asked.
“I slept with a man who had a girlfriend.”
The therapist hummed approvingly and clicked her pen.“Good, good. Acknowledgment is always the first step.”
The real reason Maya was here was because of a girl named Bianca. The girlfriend, who had some reservations about the new facilities, hadn’t even wanted to report her, but it was her best friend, righteous, pure, upright Bianca, who insisted that they turn Maya in – “for the good of our sisters,” Bianca had said. Or so they’d told to Maya in the car ride on the way to Shandley’s. Silly bitch.
“And can you tell me,” the therapist said, “what you think you shall gain from being in this room with me?”
“I’ll learn to stop being such a terrible person.”
The therapist stopped clicking her pen and her nervous eyes started flying around the room, as if there were a hidden camera there. There probably was.
“Oh, we try not to use language like that.” She let out a strained giggle. “We prefer to say you’re undergoing philosophical recovery.”
The philosophical recovery in question was excruciatingly tedious for Maya, who had never had to act this much in her life. Every session, the therapist would end the hour asking Maya why she thought she did what she did. And every session, Maya would find a new way to weave new threads about her inner wounds, her lack of female friendship, her need for acceptance. It got to a point where she couldn’t keep track of every single lie she’d told, but could remember some tales about a neglectful mother and a childhood bully. The therapist thought this was all quite moving and would end with the same, often teary-eyed, speech:
“Maya, we’re so grateful you’ve chosen to heal with us at the Grotto, where women can learn to support women.” Then she would beam lovingly down at Maya and lead her back past the exit that was locked from the outside.
Maya initially made only the briefest eye contact with her roommate. Reagan was an unkempt-looking thing who, on a good day, Maya would generously describe as “cute”, the way you describe a friend’s crunchy white dog when it’s staring right at you. And Reagan was always staring, with big, brown, dilated eyes. Under normal circumstances Maya might have been disturbed, but because of the ungodly amount of serotonin being pumped into her system for most of her waking hours, Maya wasn’t sure if Reagan was actually processing anything Maya said or did.
If she had had any intentions of taking Treatment and the Grotto seriously, she might have been curious about Reagan, who administered all her own medication without any visits from the Grotto’s nurses. As far as Maya knew, it wasn’t the norm for Residents to reach the highly-medicated stage so early, and no Resident at that stage could expect any sort of impending release back to the real world. They, ditzy, stumbling, and damn-near braindead, would not be able to live up to the standards of the Healed Women.
The programs touted the Healed Women who got out as shocking success stories. They went on to be paragons of virtue, givers-back to the community, doting and devoted to spreading unconditional love everywhere they went. But the program had really only been in place for eighteen months – most people hadn’t had the chance to see a Healed Woman, and took all the news reports at face value. Maya didn’t.
An acquaintance of hers, Neti, had come back from a New Jersey facility a Healed Woman. Neti was said to now be doing wonderful work at the local children’s charity. The children adored Neti and would beg for her to be their weekly storytime performer, and every week she would graciously accept. Neti had been named the top donation-getter at this year’s holiday toy drive, and when they pinned the award to her chest, the picture of her grinning ear to ear had made the front page in the local paper. So yes, it was true that Neti was doing wonderful work at the local children’s charity, which would be fine only that before going to the facility in New Jersey she was set to take and surely pass the bar exam and was looking forward to going on to earn six figures, probably defending the worst kinds of people the world had to offer.
Maya didn’t know what Treatment plan Reagan was on and she also didn’t know what they did to the women at the facility in New Jersey. She only knew that Neti was now the hardest worker at the children’s toy drive. So she bit her tongue and widened her eyes and nodded where it seemed the most appropriate and hoped that people would be too proud of her progress to notice she was still the same girl she’d been, and she was stealing matches from the kitchen.
For a while, the two women barely spoke except to inform the other they were using the restroom or when Reagan remembered her manners and said a cordial “goodnight.” Mostly they heard each other’s voice in group Treatment with Dr. Jack Hold, which was more than enough for them.
Reagan did not want Maya as a roommate. Her initial judgment was that Maya was far too pretty and Reagan had it under strict suspicion that pretty girls were all evil. The ones who weren’t were just a few fluttering eyelashes away from discovering that they too, could be evil with much higher success rates – well at least they could, before they invented Treatment.
Treatment was going well for Reagan and she wanted to recommend it to her mother, from whom she inherited the same eye bags, addictive personality, and nearly-synced stretches of despondency. Her father said they were both sick.
Her mother would say if she was sick, then it was contagious. Reagan’s father drew to her mother like she was some kind of infectious disease, until just as quickly, he tired of her. Reagan remembered how he began to roll his eyes so often, grumble about nothing, throw in jabs about her mother’s performance in the kitchen and her skill, or lack thereof, in raising their gangly, moody daughter. Out of nowhere on what would have been a normal Christmas break, Reagan decided she couldn’t stand one more smug eye roll. Her father rang up Shandley’s with a black eye and a broken jaw.
It was her Treatment Guide who helped Reagan realize why she had acted so terribly. When they offered medication she had jumped at the chance, and then jumped at the second one, and the third one, and all the chances after. She would swear up and down to anyone that it was helping. Though deep down she knew she would likely not be released as a Healed Woman anytime soon, this had stopped bothering her as much. She was thriving in Treatment.
And even through her stupor, Reagan could tell Maya was refusing said Treatment. She was too prickly and hard-looking even two weeks in, when most of the girls started to appear softer around their edges. She was spending long evenings in private instruction with the woman who was hired from Outside to teach their crafts section and coming back sweaty, her hands filled with beautiful handmade wooden charms. She wore gold hoops to group Treatment and spoke as if she were reading from a script. And even though there were no secrets at Shandley’s, because as Reagan’s Guide had said, “successful Treatment requires vulnerability,” Maya still smiled as though she were holding one in. Reagan did not trust the girl across the room who seemed unwilling to go through her necessary, government-mandated moral transformation, so she kept a close eye on her.
Shandley’s was called the Grotto for its outdoor nature facilities, tended to by the many Resident Ladies as a part of daily duties and for many, a crucial part of Treatment intended to encourage nurturing, prosocial behavior. As roommates, Reagan and Maya would go together with the other Ladies of the C Wing three times a week. These were Reagan’s favorite parts of Treatment, so she would only take one Xanax before going into the labyrinthine garden. The feeling of dirt in her palm lines and under her nails combined with the bite of fresh air in her chest felt like three doses of Ritalin without any of the anxious shakes. It was not a scientific kind of love, the kind that makes a person write down genus names in a bound notebook, that she felt for the greenery, but rather a sacred one, something metaphysical, Beyond.
It was this sacred bond that had her cooing into the mouth of a daffodil one bright morning, while Maya wordlessly dug up weeds a ways away. When the typical sounds of Maya’s yanking and cursing under her breath suddenly stopped, Reagan turned to check on her.
Her roommate sat perfectly still in the dirt, a few yards away, staring up at the great apple tree that arced gracefully in front of her. One of its branches stooped low with the weight of what seemed to be a basket’s worth of fruit. Maya stood up and reached out at an apple that dangled inches above her nose.
“Stop!” Reagan squeaked, before Maya could touch the fruit. How could she do that? The tending of the Grotto was a task, a challenge, a moral imperative in selflessness and the denial of pleasure. The fruit was not to be consumed by the Resident Ladies. They all knew that.
Making direct eye contact with Reagan, Maya plucked the apple off the tree. It made a pop noise, causing Reagan to wince. She scanned for the familiar sound of the Treatment Guides coming to check on their progress.
“You can’t–” Reagan started, and then she lowered her voice to a whisper. “You can’t eat that.”
“Or what? I’ll catch fire?” Maya said. She sank her teeth decisively into the apple. It hissed as she took it apart.
Reagan had half-expected to see the woman’s body go up in flames for the transgression, and was surprised to find herself relieved when she didn’t. Instead, Maya was chewing on the fruit with her eyes closed, and it was making Reagan’s mouth water.
Maya turned the apple so that the bite-marks faced Reagan. “See? Nothing bad ever came from eating a piece of fucking fruit, Reagan.”
She sat down on the grass and continued to tear off chunks of the apple, jerking her neck around on each bite like a feral dog. Reagan watched her with a fearful sort of fascination.
“How come you don’t want to be Treated?” she asked.
“Do you? Seven uppers a day isn’t exactly the daily regimen of a Healed Woman.” Maya said.
Reagan crossed her arms. “My Guide says I’m a work-in-progress.”
Maya took her time swallowing one especially large chunk before asking, “Do you think I need Treatment?”
“Well… you’re kind of a bitch,” Reagan said. “And you don’t really seem like you want to change.”
Maya narrowed her eyes, and that same sensation of methodical disassembly crawled down Reagan’s shoulders.
“If all beautiful, intelligent women suddenly started being loving, and kind, and selfless, and the type of woman to want nothing more than to do this all day,” Maya gestured to the garden around them, “then the painfully average among us would have no evil witches to blame for their problems anymore and would have to be confronted with the reality that maybe, just maybe, they’d be this miserable even if pretty girls weren’t there to make them feel bad.”
Reagan didn’t know which was worse: if Maya only spat her venom out to sting, or if she actually believed the terrible things she was saying. Maya’s hawk-eyes traveled across Reagan’s face, searching for a reaction, but Reagan wouldn’t give her one. She watched Maya spit out seeds onto the ground.
“What then, if not Treatment? Are you going to spend your whole life in Shandley’s being mean to the other Residents?”
At this, Maya seemed to perk up. “No. I’m going to burn this place down. And I’m going to start with this stupid tree.”
As the days went on, Maya began to resent her time in the Grotto more and more. At Shandley’s, one of the telltale signs of when a Resident was almost ready to be released was when she had nurtured a tree in a full cycle, when its branches went from barren to fruit-bearing, a process that could take a year if not more. The women were supposed to become very, very passionate about their tree, and all the therapists would think, wow, look at Her, she is the type of girl who grows Trees, and when we let her go she’ll get a great thrill out of making low calorie salads with herbs from her own garden instead of fucking someone else’s husband in reverse cowgirl.
Maya didn’t want a useless hobby. Maya wanted to get the hell out of here and find someone’s husband to fuck in reverse cowgirl out of pure spite. Her weekly trysts with the crafts lecturer had earned her a good amount of dry wood, and her match collection was growing, aided by the staff who were getting sloppy about their smoke breaks. She couldn’t figure out a good time to make her exit until one day, the therapist had told her that though she’d been making good progress in session, “they were hoping for a more dramatic, holistic change” and so the guides had signed off on sending her to ElectroHealing™ the next morning. She couldn’t be sure, but she thought Neti had done ElectroHealing™.
That decided it, then. Tonight she would leave or she would die trying.
“You can come if you want to.”
Maya had one hand on the doorknob and was looking back at Reagan. It took Reagan a moment for her eyes to adjust to the dim light and process that she’d been given an invitation. The beautiful, putrid, evil girl who’d moved in three months ago was trying to offer her a lifeline.
“You want me to come?”
“That’s not what I said.”
Reagan asked, “Will there be running involved?”
“Probably.”
Reagan considered the offer. There was no question in her mind about whether Maya would pull it off. Something about her cruelty seemed inevitable. The question was only if Maya was serious, and if she was, Treatment would end tonight one way or another. Reagan was far too tired to run tonight.
She waved Maya off. “No, I’m okay. Thanks for the offer. Good luck being the worst for the rest of your life.”
“Thanks,” Maya responded. She gave Reagan a lazy salute, and closed the door softly behind her. Reagan fished in her pill drawer and took one, two, and then three diazepam pills. Then she clambered down to the floor, rolled over onto her back and started counting.
