No question mark. Not a question.

  The request sounded harmless enough coming from a doctor, but, even in her disoriented state, Samantha felt a twitch of resistance.

  ‘It’s quite alright,’ the man called Robert said, sensing her discomfort. ‘I’ve seen it all before!’

  That smile again.

  He was handsome, of that there was no doubt. His eyes, like his tone of voice, suggested gentleness. They were dark brown — a common colour with an uncommon aura. He vaguely reminded her of a character from a movie she had seen, a character she could not altogether remember, an impotence that bothered her momentarily but was soon forgotten, her mind already sliding to other things.

  She took off her jeans first, pulling them down her thighs, over her knees and feet, kicking them away across the floor. Her top was next, then her bra, double D cups, and finally her briefs.

  ‘Thank you, Samantha.’

  Pulling a tailor’s tape measure from an inner pocket of his coat, he proceeded to measure her, his hands warm as they brushed against her naked skin. He began with her neck and then her shoulders, slowly moving down her body, pausing to record each measurement in the journal on the desk. Samantha simply stood, remarkably focused as she tried to stand straight. So close to the man in the white coat, and so very exposed, she was incredibly self-aware. She had never been so thoroughly naked in front of a stranger before.

  ‘Beautifully balanced,’ Robert said, seemingly more for his own ears than for hers, as he read the measurement for her underbust. Her breath wobbled in her throat and he was close enough to perceive the irregularity. He turned his face towards hers and smiled. ‘Have you ever been fitted for a dress before, Samantha?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Well, I would say that a tailor and I have much in common.’ He turned his back to her as he walked to the desk. She could hear the nib of the pen scratch against the paper as he wrote. ‘We both seek to understand the requirements of the individual and make sure they are,’ he paused to search for the right words, ‘well cared for.’

  Every conceivable measurement was taken and recorded in the journal. When the tape measure was returned to his inner pocket, he began his tactile examination, inspecting for inconsistencies, feeling the tone of her muscles, and palpating her bare skin for abnormalities. He worked without speaking. She had goosebumps despite the warmth of the room.

  Finally, he asked her to sit. From the examination couch he took her pulse, two warm fingers over her wrist, before returning, as was his habit, to the journal on the desk. He sat close to her, their noses very almost touching, as he inspected her eyes using a tool about the size of a small torch. His face was expressionless as he listened to the heavy lub-dubbing of her heart through a stethoscope.

  She had not had a pelvic examination before. His was her first.

  Neither said a word as he inserted a metal instrument that looked like a duck’s beak into her vagina. There was brief discomfort, but no pain. He slid two fingers inside, made his assessments, and then it was over.

  Standing at the desk, three strokes of the pen and the journal was closed.

  With his inspection of her body complete, he announced she was ‘structurally sound and correct’ and told her she could redress.

  She reached down to pick up her clothes from the floor.

  ‘No,’ he said, interrupting her movement. ‘I have something fresh for you to wear.’ He patted a folded piece of fabric next to him on the desk. Samantha walked over and took it from him.

  It was a simple white dress. Gathered at the chest, it fell to just below her knees and had telltale cotton creases. Her dad would have called it a smock, or something equally archaic, and she felt like a Victorian girl caught out of bed in her night clothes after she put it on. Robert didn’t offer her a change of underwear, and her shoes had been missing ever since she first woke in that room. By the time she was dressed, her old clothes had already been cleared away.

  He was sitting at the desk now. He smiled and drew her attention to a door in the corner of the room. She hadn’t noticed it before. ‘I’m sure you need a moment or two to use the facilities,’ he said.

  She did not, but his tone told her declining wasn’t an option. As she moved towards the door, passing close to the desk, he held something out to her. It was a small, clear container.

  ‘I will need a sample, please.’

  She simply nodded her head. Doctor stuff.

  She could hear Robert humming on the other side of the door as she forced herself to urinate. Burnt orange. She was dehydrated. She dabbed herself dry and flushed the tissue away.

  ‘You must feel terrible,’ he said when she handed him the container. ‘You really should have had the drink my wife gave you.’

  Blonde hair, blue cardigan.

  ‘Your wife works here too?’

  The words were like golf balls in her mouth. She returned to the examination couch to sit, her legs dangling over the edge, feet contacting the couch’s cool metal frame as they swung to and fro.

  ‘Yes,’ he answered, looking up from what he was doing to smile at her. ‘I’m almost done here.’

  She had to suppress a giggle as she watched him fiddle with her urine. He was poking the rancid liquid with something and all of a sudden everything seemed funny to Samantha. The man with the smile that matched his wife’s fiddling with another woman’s urine. She remembered how he had fingered her and wondered what his wife thought about it.

  Robert hadn’t said what he was doing. It was, however, clear to her that he was pleased with the results. His demeanour changed and he suddenly became urgent. Striding to the door, he apologised to Samantha, told her to wait in the room and excused himself, mumbling about there being a ‘window of opportunity’ as he locked the door behind him.

  A window of opportunity?

  She still had a terrible headache, but was starting to feel more herself.

  The room she now found herself alone in had very little in the way of furniture. Asides from the desk and examination couch, there was a tall chest of office drawers and an uncomfortable swivel stool. After trying the drawers, all locked, Samantha glided across the floor on the stool back towards the desk.

  The leather-bound journal was gone, Robert seemingly having taken it with him without her realising. There was nothing on the desk, its basic pine-effect laminate surface as bare as she had been only moments before. No framed family photographs. No personal knick-knacks of any variety. Boring bastard.

  Samantha immediately felt bad. Robert seemed nice enough, if somewhat serious, but seriousness was surely a trait of all doctors.

  A quick tilt of the ear told Samantha there was no sound coming from outside the door. She smoothed her hand down the front of the desk and selected a drawer. Second from bottom. This time there was no lock.

  There wasn’t much to see inside. A small plastic tray held three pens, a pencil sharpener and no pencils. Paper clips jangled against the back panel as she slid the drawer back in place.

  The next drawer was equally uninteresting. A box of latex gloves and two rolls of toilet paper.

  A niggling sensation and Samantha felt like she was doing something she shouldn’t be. She didn’t normally bother with such concerns, but on this occasion she felt compelled to look over her shoulder. The door was still closed and — shit.

  A familiar red light just above the door.

  She cursed again, this time aloud. But, then again, she was hardly doing anything wrong. She hadn’t found anything interesting enough to warrant a crime having been committed. And besides, what kind of doctor has a camera to record his patients?

  The unpleasant taste of bile saturated the back of her throat as she recalled, with terrible abruptness, the camera that had watched her as she lay, half-naked and deranged, on the floor of the other room.

  If anyone’s breaking the law it’s him.

  Samantha didn’t believe in secrets, or at least not ones other people kept from her. This distaste for hidden knowledge had in the past led her to believe, with a certainty that bordered on delusion, that she had an above average sensitivity to other people’s deceit. In reality, Samantha was rather slow to catch on to falsehood, having been cheated on by two different men with no less than seven other women. Mercifully, not all at the same time.

  Still no noise from outside.

  She quickly devoured the contents of the remaining two drawers — quite literally in the case of the chocolate bar she found in the top one. It was, however, a box of cards in the second drawer from the top that interested her most.

  The box was made of an opaque, brown plastic and inside, arranged horizontally, were at least, if she had to guess, one hundred record cards. They looked to be patient cards, the sort that doctors might have used before such information was computerised. All were handwritten in a scrawling variety of scripts stereotypically associated with doctors and mathematicians.

  Courtney Anderson. Tabitha Beeston. Alice Furlong. Each card bore a name.

  Realising they were arranged alphabetically, and for no reason other than self-absorption, Samantha flicked through the cards searching for her own name.

  Samantha Lawrence.

  Her address and date of birth were written at the top of the card, although she couldn’t remember having told Robert that information. Lower down, in the ‘past prescriptions’ section of the card, it had been written that she had stopped taking the contraceptive pill three years ago due to side effects. Below that, the words mifepristone and misoprostol had been scribbled, with the dates beside them barely legible. She certainly had not told him any of that. There was no mention of her local doctor’s surgery, but she could only assume that it was from there that Robert had got the information.

  She heard a key turn in the lock and shoved the box and the cards back into the drawer. She was sitting on the stool in the centre of the room by the time Robert opened the door. He wasn’t alone and introduced the young woman who was with him as Mary. Luxurious red curls wreathed her face and she had the most aristocratic cheekbones Samantha had ever seen. Straight-postured and sangfroid, she stood at Robert’s side like an equal, despite appearing to be no more than twenty years old. The two women nodded at each other by way of greeting.

  ‘Mary’s going to take you to where you’ll be staying,’ Robert said.

  Staying?

  ‘She’s going to make sure you’re looked after properly.’ He smiled and gestured from one woman to the other. Mary did not smile and neither did Samantha. After seeing the camera and reading her name on that card, the fog in her brain was beginning to dissipate.

  Still, she was uncertain. Uncertain as to where she was and uncertain as to who these people were. Part of her thought that Robert was a doctor and that this was a hospital, but another part of her — a part that was growing as the fog retracted — suspected him and everything he did and said.

  She had never been in a situation like this before, a situation that asked her to make a judgement call that went against everything everyone around her was doing and saying. Sure, she had rebelled, but she had always been led by someone else. Led by her dad, led by her friends, led by the television. Hell, she had even been led by that prick Ryan.

  And now she was being led again.

  Before she could think any further, Samantha was on her feet and following Mary out of the room.

  Three

  Samantha had never particularly liked being outdoors. Threadbare sofas that had belonged to too many people, television sets with lost remotes, and sticky, imitation leather bar stools held much more appeal. The Sun made her squint and she still had nothing on her feet.

  The path was well-maintained and there was lawn on either side. Bespeckled with red clover, the grass ran into trees and the trees into more trees beyond. From every direction, birds sang about the dark berries that were ripening on the brambles, about the bees that buzzed over the flowers, and about other lovely things. Before very long Samantha had to stop to dislodge several small stones that had gathered in the creases between her toes.

  Mary had walked ahead. There was an unspoken expectation that Samantha would follow, but now she stopped to wait for her, scowling.

  Samantha flicked the grit away and kept moving.

  ‘Thanks for waiting.’

  Mary was not one for conversation.

  Behind them was the building from which they had come. It lacked windows and the only opening Samantha could perceive was the thick metal door through which they had exited. The exterior wall, clad in some sort of plastic grey weatherboard, ran perpendicular to the path and away to the edge of Samantha’s vision. A high, chain-link fence could be seen jutting from its far corner. She still had no idea where she was.

  Four steps forward with another four between her and Mary. Samantha hesitated then spoke. ‘The doctor said I’m staying here.’

  The red-headed woman kept walking.

  ‘The man I was with last night—’ Samantha’s voice broke, which surprised her more than it did her silent companion. ‘Is my friend okay?’

  Mary stopped and turned to look back at her. Sunlight kissed her cheeks and enhanced her freckles. ‘Everything is alright,’ she said without a trace of compassion.

  Samantha couldn’t help but think of the blonde woman and the porridge. That’s exactly what she said.

  ‘I want to call my dad. Let him know I’m okay.’

  Mary paused before responding. ‘Once we’re inside.’

  Samantha looked ahead and saw a second building, smaller than where they had come from but equally dull and grey.

  ‘You’d better mean that,’ Samantha said, ready for a fight and disliking her companion more and more by the second. Mary merely turned on her heel and continued walking.

  She’d better mean it.

  As she approached the smaller building, Samantha’s whereabouts became no clearer. Mary flashed a keycard at a reader on the door. A metallic click and they were inside.

  The first thing which struck Samantha was the heat. Even in the thin dress, the air clung to her. It was a temperature that advocated lanquidity. Inactivity, however, wasn’t an option.

  Mary ushered Samantha deeper into the building, past closed doors and windowless walls. A stifling labyrinth of beige.

  ‘We’re here,’ she eventually announced, tapping her keycard against another reader.

  It was like an airlock, a transitional space flanked by two metal doors. More beige. Mary indicated Samantha should enter first. She was surprised when the door closed behind her, Mary on the other side, visible through the small, wired glass window in the door.

  ‘Hey!’

  Mary said nothing. Their eyes met through the window but there wasn’t anything there. Her expression was corpselike.

  She stepped away and all Samantha could see was the fear in her own reflection.

  The other door, the one behind her, had no window. It clicked, as if an electric lock had been released, and she knew she was supposed to go through it. It was still closed, if now unlocked, and so Samantha placed the palm of her hand against it and pushed.

  A man and a woman sat on a bed in the centre of the room. They had been talking when she entered. Cross-legged with their heads leaning together, the pair stopped and looked up at Samantha. The woman was wearing the same white cotton dress as her and the man had loose fitting, white trousers. His chest was bare and Samanatha felt like she was interrupting a peculiar, grown-up slumber party. A second woman, also wearing the same cotton smock, was sitting on the floor, her back against the corner of the room.

  The woman on the bed was the first to speak. ‘Hi,’ she said, slow and soft, half-smiling as she looked Samantha up and down. ‘You must be new.’

  Samantha didn’t know what to say, and no one else said anything so the woman on the bed continued.

  ‘I’m Jade,’ the woman said. She had curly brown hair that grazed her shoulders.

  ‘Samantha.’

  ‘Nice to meet you, Samantha.’

  No one had moved. Jade was no longer smiling and the man beside her had barely breathed since Samantha had opened the door. On the floor, the other woman was staring at the carpet, its deep red fibres as enchanting as mud.

  Samantha’s gut felt lumpy and she had the distinct feeling everyone else in the room knew something she didn’t.

  Where am I? She had lost track of how many times she had asked herself that question.

  ‘Why don’t you come over and sit with us?’ Jade patted the space on the bed between her and the man.

  ‘I’m okay,’ Samantha said. ‘I’ll just sit over there whilst I wait for the doctor.’ She nodded towards a wide, red velvet armchair positioned just a few short steps from the door. As she went to sit on it, she saw the fabric was stained in places.

  Laughter erupted from the bed. Jade’s palms were planted into the sheets, holding herself upright as she tipped her head to the ceiling and howled. Mrs. Doherty, the batty old woman who lived next door to Samantha’s dad, owned a parrot whose laughter sounded exactly the same. The man smirked as his companion flicked tears from her eyes. Still, the woman on the floor stared at the carpet.

  ‘No,’ Jade eventually said, ‘it would be better if you sat with us.’ Under the residual giggles there was a forcefulness to her voice that hadn’t been there before.

  ‘I’m fi—’

  ‘No,’ Jade interrupted. ‘No, you’re not.’

  With those few simple words, the light in the room transformed from a comfortable orange glow to one that was too dark and invited malevolence. The clouds rolled in and before Samantha had time to respond the man stood up and crossed the room to where she sat. She didn’t know his name, but his most intimate parts were there for her to see, his masculinity engorged and threatening to pierce his trousers. Then, his hands were on her, ripping her from the armchair, shoving her, pulling her, thrusting her towards the bed.

  She couldn’t resist. How could she? She was sixty-one kilograms and he must have weighed double. Pure angry muscle. Her hands bounced off him as though his flesh were armour-plated.