“Good morning. Who am I speaking with this morning?” Locke asked. Adam pouted and did his best to avoid eye contact. “Ronnie,” he replied in a soft voice.
“We haven’t spoken in some time, Ronnie. It’s good to see you again.” Ronnie squirmed in his seat.
“How old are you, Ronnie?”
“Seven.”
Locke nodded, mostly to himself. Ronnie rarely surfaced, even in records by Adam’s previous doctors. He jotted a quick note on a Post-it, then pasted it onto the inside cover of his book.
“Ronnie, may I speak to Adam?”
Ronnie slowly shook his head.
“Why not?”
“Adam is angry with you. He doesn’t want to speak with you.”
“Why is Adam angry?”
“He hates it here. We
Locke sighed. “I’m sorry, Ronnie, but you can’t go home yet.”
Ronnie’s face crumpled, and he started to cry. “Why not? I don’t understand.”
“You’re still very ill, Ron—Mister Lewis. We have to be certain Jude will not harm anybody again.”
“Adam, he—he—” His breath came in hitches as he sobbed. “He says Jude is gone. That Jude won’t come around anymore.”
Locke shook his head. “I’m sorry, Mister Lewis. But we have to be sure. The book says you may still be very sick. Very dangerous. In our sessions with Jude, he’s failed to respond to various forms of behavior therapy. And now he’s...hiding, for lack of a better word. I’m afraid we can’t let you leave until Jude is rehabilitated.”
Ronnie cried harder. “No!” he shouted. “Stop it!”
“Stop what? What is it?” Locke asked. He leaned closer.
“It’s Jude. He’s laughing at you!”
A heavy weight came down on Adam’s back, startling him into wakefulness. He tried to push himself out of bed, but someone painfully twisted his arms behind his back. He cried out in pain, only to have his face shoved into his pillow to stifle him.
“Ssshhh...” The voice came harsh and hot in his ear. “The Dick is here...”
“What do you want?” Adam cried. “Get off me! Go back to your own fucking bed!”
Richard shoved his face back into the pillow, then used one hand to pin Adam’s wrists to the small of his back. Adam struggled and thrashed but could not break the hold.
“Fucking...yes, that is what the Dick wants.” Richard shifted his weight, and his free hand hooked into Adam’s waistband. A few quick tugs and his pants were down around his thighs. Adam shouted for help, but the pillow swallowed his pleas. Within seconds it became hard to breathe.
“Ssshh...” Richard said, attempting to soothe him. His saliva-moistened fingers explored the cleft in Adam’s rump. “Yes, so smooth...The Dick will be pleased.”
“No!
He felt a tentative probing at his anus, followed by swift penetration. His flesh tore and warm blood trickled between his legs. Richard’s hips bounced against his ass, making rhythmic slapping noises and sickening squelches.
Adam tried not to throw up as his personalities cycled through his brain. Dennis screamed and shouted. Steven begged for it to stop. Jack cursed and threatened, but the few that made it past the pillow were lost amongst the constant screams of the other inmates.
Richard shuddered and groaned, and “the other Adam” surfaced just in time to feel Richard climax into him. This time he did throw up, and thankfully Richard climbed off him before he could drown in the soaked pillow.
Richard returned to his bed and laid on his back, mumbling “the Dick is pleased, yes, the Dick is pleased” over and over.
Ronnie curled into a fetal position and cried through the rest of the night.
Two weeks following the assault, they brought Adam to Locke’s office for another evaluation. He placed his inflatable donut on the chair and winced as he sat down. He popped a few stitches once already, and did not want to deal with it again.
To his surprise, the orderlies did not shackle him to the chair.
“How are you today, Mister Lewis?” Locke asked, drumming his fingers on the DSM IV.
Adam was calm but unfocused. He stared through Locke and through the walls at some indeterminate point a thousand yards away.
“Mister Lewis?” Locke paused to wave a hand in front of Adam’s face. “Who am I speaking with, Mister Lewis?”
Adam blinked and made eye contact. “We’ve been thinking.”
“We? Who’s we?”
“All of us. We’ve been thinking about what you said. About behavior therapy.”
“And exactly what have you been thinking about it?”
“Quite a bit, actually. This whole ordeal has been a real learning experience. Very enlightening, in fact.”
Locke nodded slowly. “That’s great, Mister Lewis. I’m glad to see we’re making progress toward your rehabilitation.”
“Progress? Ha! It’s much better than that.”
“Mister Lewis, surely you can’t believe we’ve already cured you of your ills! Therapy is a very long process. We have to be sure you’re healthy before we release you into functional society!”
He grinned, a hideous leer instantly recognizable to Locke. “Jude says it worked. We’ve been rehabilitated.”
“Is that so.”
“Oh yeah. And he told us exactly how to thank you for him.”
