Rock 4.4: Conversion 2

  Genesis

  Putting on makeup will help make you straight. Mrs. Rivers says so.

  Mrs. Rivers knows best. You know nothing but sin. You must listen to her if you wish to wash off the stain of homosexuality.

  It just… doesn’t make sense to you. Mother used to say that putting too much thought into makeup at your age was whorish. Mrs. Rivers insists it is a way to embrace your femininity and put your soul back into balance. To you it was always just an intriguing, dangerous decoration. It was more normal for your friends at school. Just a different type of clothing. Maribelle called it art.

  Once, when you let her into your bedroom, Lyra said that it was like armor.

  Purple light reflects off the mirror and your eyes widen in panic. A pulse of static rips up your leg and you hiss through clenched teeth. Even when the electricity fades you can feel the warm metal of the shock collar on your ankle.

  Mrs. Rivers closes her book, The Squire of Rust Lane, and clears her throat. You turn around slowly to look at her and Mother’s starmie. Any faster and you might fall between your tight heels and sore feet. “What brought it to mind?” she asks.

  It. Lyra. It is an it. A demon wearing human skin. You must not cede any humanity to it lest you be dragged into the cocoon. Mrs. Rivers knows best. You know nothing but sin. You must listen to her if you wish to wash off the stain of homosexuality.

  “Putting on eyeshadow,” you answer. “It taught me how to properly apply it.”

  It leaned in close to you and devoted all of her focus to your body as it gently moved a brush around your eye. Did it think about kissing you? Was that why it so diligently helped you with your makeup? To further its own perversions?

  “Then we’ll skip it next time.” She opens her book back up and you carefully turn around. You’ve been on your feet all day. First it was today’s screaming session. Your voice is still hoarse from that. Then she made you practice your walk with fifty laps around the room, starting again if you stumbled. You did. Thrice. All the while a sermon on fornication was playing through the radio.

  Xerneas loves the fornicators. The homosexuals. Even the adulterers. But that love must be accepted. You must purify yourself to accept it.

  She flips the page two more times as you apply the mascara and blush.

  You turn around to show her and she spares you a glance. “It looks fine. Take it off and apply again, this time without eyeshadow. See if you can get through it with no sinful thoughts.”

  As you finish wiping everything off she starts to talk again. “All of these books feel uncomfortably pagan, but I hate this one the most.” You don’t add anything. You are to refrain from speaking unless directly asked a question. To do otherwise would risk the sin of impetuousness. (You aren’t entirely sure what ‘the sin of impetuousness’ means, but you weren’t directly asked if you understood it so you can’t ask. “The lead feels too masculine. Rides a mudsdale over a rapidash, wears trousers (Mrs. Rivers had thrown a fit when she found out that you were allowed to wear pants instead of skirts), and speaks in too common a tongue. This one is going to require heavy rewrites.”

  What you can’t tell her is that rewriting it takes away the entire point. Madelyn is a farmer’s daughter who becomes a squire by chance. She doesn’t know etiquette, just ‘common’ things. And at the end of the story her mudsdale is sturdy enough to avoid pitfalls set for the rapidash, her knowledge of crops lets her avoid poisoning, and her clothes and speech let her blend into a crowd when being pursued. She’s different. It’s her whole character. How would you even rewrite it? The other rewrites, they made some sense. Change the female knights to male ones. Princess Wyren is kidnapped instead of her bethrowed. The swords are changed to spears and only the men wield them. This one will be weird. You’ll still nod along with her as she goes through the list of changes she made. You’ll tell her why the change is necessary. Why the original was sinful. Or you’ll try. Madelyn is poor, not homosexual. She gets a boyfriend in the later books. Is being poor sinful? Sure, the only two poor people you’ve spent much time with were both—

  Green light shines in the mirror. You don’t have time to brace yourself before the shock comes. Your foot clenches up and you stumble and fall. The tube of lipstick in your hand slides up your face and you just barely manage to close your eye in time to avoid getting jabbed.

  Mrs. Rivers sighs. She stays seated as you slowly pull yourself up onto your aching feet.

  “What made you think about it?”

  “I… I was wondering why being poor is sinful.”

  She looks at you with an unreadable expression. “I guess I should explain that to you. Wipe off your face and start applying it again.” You turn around and almost giggle at the sight of your face with a stripe of pink running from your eye to your scalp like girlish war paint. Thankfully you catch yourself. Giggling isn’t sinful, Mrs. Rivers says, but it shows a lack of composure. A true woman is always in charge of her emotions and not the other way around. “There is nothing innately sinful about being poor, but it is not something one should aspire to be. Xerneas rewards the righteous with money and power so that they can run His kingdom on Earth and set an example to the sinners. Glorifying poverty is glorifying sloth and wickedness. A noble poor person would manage their affairs in line with spiritual teachings and in time would rise to their proper place in the hierarchy.”

  You aren’t sure if you can ask a question. You decide to risk it after balancing better. If you get shocked at least it might not send you to the ground. “Madelyn does rise in the hierarchy for being a good person.”

  Mrs. Rivers tuts. “She is given a chance to join the elite and she balks. She values her rags over decent clothing and her vulgar ways over the more enlightened customs of those empowered by Xerneas to rule. This makes her a sinner, and a sinner sent by The Wicked One to corrupt the righteous at that.” She glances back at you and frowns. “Wipe that off your face. You look ridiculous. Three more times with no eyeshadow, then we can move on.”

  Once you’ve finished with that you finally earn a bathroom break. A supervised bathroom break. Mrs. Rivers is in the room glaring at you the whole time to make sure nothing improper happens. It makes you rush. By the time you have to get back onto your feet the brief respite makes the whole thing worse.

  She leads you to the kitchen. There’s a flight of stairs in the way. It feels a lot like walking down the mountains on Ula’Ula, constantly having to watch your aching feet so that they didn’t trip over a root so that you didn’t trip and fall down a hundred yards face-first.

  Then Cuicatl managed it blind, granted, there was a lot of—

  Oh shit.

  No shock comes. Mrs. Rivers scoffs behind you. “I’m not trying to kill you.” Good. That’s good. Just a few steps more and you can finally breathe on flat ground. Then the shock comes and knocks your right off your feet. It’s only sheer luck that you catch yourself with your hands before your head hits the stairs.

  “Now, tell me what made you think of the pagan whore.”

  “Tripping. It tripped a lot.”

  Mrs. Rivers sighs and shakes her head as you slowly pull yourself up. In addition to your feet your ankle is burning from the pain of repeated shocks. Will that scar? Is it vanity to be worried? You’re pretty sure that’s a sin.

  Even once you’re down the stairs the kitchen is still halfway across the house. You never realized how big this place was until every step hurt. You manage to get there by settling into a rhythm. An old marching cadence you heard in some movie or another. Focus on the words, not the feeling. Keep eyes straight ahead. Think, don’t feel.

  Left, left, left right left.

  There are a few ingredients and pieces of equipment laid out in the kitchen when you arrive. You know what half of the machines do and how to operate even fewer. On the trail there was really only a burner, some pots, and basic utensils. Sure, Cuicatl still—you brace your legs just in time to stay upright when the shock comes.

  “Again? Already?”

  You grit your teeth and steady yourself. You do not want to talk back. You must sound sweet, even if the pain is starting to get to you. “It handled the cooking in our group.”

  “Hmm.” Mrs. Rivers walks ahead of you and runs a hand along the counter. “Perhaps I can replace its influence with something better. There are some excellent cooking shows from a time when the world was as it should be. It’ll be good for you to watch some. It might replace the context of cooking in your head from something sinful to something wholesome. In the meantime, we’ll just be cooking bread. Try to keep yourself pure.”

  Making bread turns out to be easy enough. You just have to mix some things together, taking care not to kill the part of it that’s living. Part of it is living. You grab the flour to pour it into the bowl as Mrs. Rivers explains. Yeast is a fungus, like mushrooms. You vaguely remember that the paras mushrooms you got were used in cooking. They wouldn’t be alive, though. Or maybe they mushrooms are alive at the start but are killed in the process? Like clawitzer. When you were young your parents took you to a restaurant in a hotel that Eliza’s parent’s owned. They had a tank with clawitzer in it. Each had their larger claw removed. Your father picked out one. You were excited. Ariados were fun pets and clawitzer were pretty much just ariados in the water.

  They brought it out a while later. Dead. Cooked.

  You asked Mother the next day about being a vegetarian. She said yes. Even joined you a few years later, although Father still eats meat. Your brother does, too. He also wanted to be vegetarian like you once but Father told him that it would cut him out of too many business meetings where they ate steak or clawitzer or milotic eggs. Levi was mad about it. Insisted that it was unfair you got to do something while he didn’t. It’s just part of your roles. He’s the male heir. He gets the company. He has to do business things. You and Exodus don’t.

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  You’re fine with that. It means you get to decide what to do as long as it isn’t sinful.

  “Is killing the yeast bad?” you ask. The question slips out before you realize you broke a rule.

  “Don’t be ridiculous, child. Xerneas gave us dominion over nature.”

  At least she doesn’t punish you for speaking without being spoken to.

  You pour the flour in. The result is lumpy and white with powder here and there. It reminds you of the terrible potato salad from back on the trail. The one you’d had to eat twice your share of because you’d done… you don’t actually remember what you did to Cuicatl to deserve it.

  The starmie shines green. You’re too lost in your thoughts to react in time. When you tumble down to the floor a bag of flour comes with you. Your groans are interrupted by coughs as you have to hack it all our of your lungs. Stupid flour. Probably got all over the makeup you had to apply three times.

  Mrs. Rivers walks over while you lie on the ground. She towers over you with her arms crossed and a stern look. There’s flour staining her black skirt. You’re torn between being scared of her and laughing. Thankfully you don’t laugh. That would’ve made everything worse. “What brought that on?”

  “Something from the trail. She’s, um, it’s in a lot of memories from the trail.”

  She shakes her head and continues to stare down at you with disgust. Like you’re nothing more than mud on her shoes. “I understand that your parents don’t want proper reconstructive surgery, but a simple memory wipe of the last few months would do you a world of good.” What? Is that dangerous? And Father had said he was proud of what you did on your journey. Losing all of that would cancel that out. “I know a psychic who does that. He’s from Russia but speaks good Galarian. All the best psychics are Russian. Laws aren’t so overbearing there. They can actually practice without a mountain of paperwork. I personally recommend wiping everything after puberty in particularly stubborn cases like yours. Makes the child more obedient.”

  Losing everything? You shiver. Losing years of school and friendships and experiences. Would that affect your mind? Like, would you act like you were ten? Would Levi sort of be your older brother?

  “There’s so much red tape on that these days. Bunch of Yveltal-worshippers screaming that we’re the evil ones and the government listens to them. It’s a sign of the end times. All the more important that we get you in the right soon when Yveltal could return at any moment.” She walks away, her own heels clacking against the kitchen tile. “Get up. We have work to do.”

  Your parents wouldn’t do that. They love you and it wouldn’t make you straight. And it would be awkward to explain, right? You might embarrass them. They wouldn’t do it.

  It’s fine. You don’t have to worry about it. They already told you they wouldn’t do anything with psychics.

  No, they told you they wouldn’t do the reconstruction thing. But this is close enough.

  They wouldn’t do it. They love you.

  The tile is cold against your hand as you press yourself up and slowly, shakily stand. As soon as you have Mrs. Rivers pushes a dustpan into your hands. “If you can’t cook you can at least clean.”

  And that’s fine. Cleaning is fun. One of the not-Pokémon Centers on the trail taught you how to sweep and mop. You don’t actually just swish the broom back and forth like they do in cartoons. It’s more about pushing things towards one point. You spent a long time figuring out the most efficient way to do that. Hopefully Mrs. Rivers will be pleased.

  She doesn’t say anything as you sweep. You can just take the moment to breathe and focus on the flour on the floor. It’s a little awkward since some of it gets stuck in the little brown space between tiles and doesn’t come out as easy. You also try not to walk more than you have to, but that can also be a little game.

  Your mother walks in and stares at you. Then she puts her hands on her hips and turns towards Mrs. Rivers.

  “Why is she dirty?”

  “She fell while we were working with flour.”

  “Really?” she asks. She sounds exasperated and she looks so disappointed in you. “Come on, those shoes aren’t even—” Her attention whips back to Mrs. Rivers. “What’s that on her ankle?”

  “A shock bracelet. Negative reinforcement for when she thinks of her whores.”

  “And will it scar?”

  “Many of my clients find that the scar helps—”

  “Xerneas’s Abode, Joanne, we don’t need any marks! That bastard from the university already threatened to call the police. Take it off. Now.”

  There’s a strange pressure around your ankle and you can feel the metal fall away. The starmie must’ve done it. Somehow. Can psychic-types just undo locks? That seems dangerous.

  Between the memory wiping and lock picking you’re starting to get why Lyra hated the type.

  Starmie glows purple. No shock comes.

  Mrs. Rivers huffs. “See? One moment without it and her mind already wanders.”

  “Vespera, just replicate the shocks in her mind.” A bolt of energy tears up your spine and your eyes go wide. It hurt even more. Now it’s just… gone. No hot metal. No dull pain radiating away. “And stop having her cook and clean.”

  “It’s feminine,” Mrs. Rivers insists.

  “It’s beneath her.”

  “With all due—”

  Mother waves her hand and turns away. “Get her cleaned up. Now. I’ll have the help clean up her mess.”

  Mrs. Rivers face contorts into cold rage. “As you wish.”

  You get that reference!

  Wait, is that movie sinful? It’s straight. Probably fine, right?

  *

  Mrs. Rivers watches as you shower. The glass is filled with little distortions. Like pebbles at the bottom of a riverbed. You can really only see her silhouette through the pane. Making sure you don’t do anything you shouldn’t. At least the shower gives you a chance to check on things. There’s a small black mark where the bracelet was. Tiny forked paths flow out from it. And there are red spots along the sides of your outer toes. There’s a cut where the nail on your left pinky toe was pressed into the toe beside it. You could pull the loose skin away. Make things even so there’s aren’t any bumps or cuts. You shouldn’t. Even if it doesn’t hurt in the shower, it always starts to hurt when you dry off.

  Mrs. Rivers keeps watching as you dry yourself off enough to fit into new clothes. It’s awkward enough that you want to put the clothes on right away, even though you know your bra will feel weird if you put it on while you’re still wet.

  You hesitate when you get to the shoes. They’re too small. You can clearly see that they’re too small now that you’ve taken them off and you have the wounds to prove it. Mrs. Rivers notices your pause.

  “Well? Aren’t you going to put them on?”

  “They’re too small,” you tell her. Her eyes narrow. Is she asking for clarification? Asking you to shut up? Hopefully the former. Mother told her that she can’t hurt you if it leaves a mark and this leaves a mark. “I grew on the trail and they don’t fit anymore. They’re hurting me.”

  “I told you to put them on,” she says. Her face is still angry. You can’t tell what type of angry. “And what did I tell you to remember?”

  “Mrs. Rivers knows best. You know nothing but sin. You must listen to her if you want to wash off the stain of homosexuality,” you recite. “But—”

  “And if I know best and I told you to put them on, why aren’t you putting them on?”

  You take a deep breath. She wants you to surrender. It just doesn’t make any sense.

  “How is it supposed to help?” you ask. She crosses her arms but doesn’t answer. You think she’s asking you to continue. “Wearing shoes that are too small, learning to cook, walking in heels. I just don’t get it.”

  She relaxes. Her arms uncross. You breathe a sigh of relief.

  Your cheek flares up in pain. You startle and look at her open hands just in time for your other cheek to get smacked. “You don’t need to get it,” she says with a low and even voice. “You don’t need to think. I get it. I can think my way through this. Your mind isn’t ready yet.” Her dark eyes bore into yours. You want to look away. You can’t. She told you to always maintain eye contact. “I’m starting to wonder how serious you are about all of this.”

  “I-I am serious. I want to be straight.”

  She raises an eyebrow. “Do you? I don’t think so. Your mind keeps wandering to dangerous subjects. You can’t even take orders without rebelling. Oh, the Wicked One’s talons are buried deep in your heart. Deep enough that you no longer remember why you should remove them.”

  You do. You do. You desperately want to escape the cocoon and be good and pure. But you can’t tell her she’s wrong about you. That would break the rules about her knowing best. And you don’t want to get slapped again. That’s never happened before and it hurts enough you don’t want it to happen again.

  “Reform is possible, child. I should know. I was once a homosexual like you before I was shown a better way. It took effort. Commitment. But I did it. I’ve helped many others do it. They had will. Do you?”

  She turns around and walks out of the bathroom and then the room itself. The door slams shut behind her. You’re left alone to bask in your failure.

  *

  The sun set and rose again. Your stomach growled ferociously and then quieted. Now you don’t feel hungry. Just tired and weak. You can get water from the faucet by cupping your hands underneath. There’s no food in here. At least, none for you. Oliver has some seaweed submerged in a bowl of water. You aren’t sure if it would be edible for you even without his germs. He’s not exactly a clean eater and there are chewed up pieces of the grass floating in it.

  No. You can’t eat that. Now.

  …you’ll think about it again later. You remember that it takes a few days to die of starvation. You’re still in the clear.

  Cloudy hovers just out of reach. You can’t touch him. It would ruin your clothes. You want to hug him. Is that a sin? You must have messed up badly to be punished like this. Mrs. Rivers certainly thought you had. If this is what you have to do to be purified…

  Your stomach rumbles again. Ugh. Thinking about food must have woken it up. Maybe drinking more water would help?

  You do. It doesn’t.

  Oliver is sitting at the foot of your bed hugging an eevee plush. No Pixie around to scream at it. At least Ollie’s gotten closer to you over time. At first he refused to leave his corner of the closet. Then he’d walk to the door every now and then to check up on you. And now he’s even sitting on your bed. He’ll run away if you try to touch him, though.

  You don’t know why some people don’t like being touched. Hugs and cuddles are great. Allana you can sort of understand since she had her pride. It took Cuicatl weeks before she stopped flinching when you tapped her shoulder.

  You turn to look at the door. The starmie is still there keeping watching. Its light seems fainter. More like a nightlight than a flashlight. Is it dead? Sleeping? Did it just not notice that thought? Best not to risk it.

  Happier subjects that don’t involve your whores. Um. Well, the knights are sinful. Journey is too close to one of them. Same with school. Your team is one step removed from your journey but maybe that’s safe? You wonder how Bubbles is doing. It’s been at least a week since you saw him last. Is Fern out in the gardens? He’d like that. Lots of sunlight and plants. Does he think you left him like his last trainer did? You didn’t. Sort of. It’s complicated.

  Those aren’t happy thoughts.

  Levi. You haven’t heard from him lately. The guards must be doing a better job keeping him away from you. He can’t get your sickness. You know that. He’s the male heir and he’ll need a male heir of his own to keep the family going. You’re less important.

  A decoration. And if we don’t act the part they’ll throw us in the trash.

  How long has it been since you talked to Exodus on Thanksgiving? There’s a month between Thanksgiving and the Solstice and it was the day before the Solstice when the world fell apart. You never got to celebrate. Maybe another month in darkness afterwards. Then fifteen days of training after the light came back. That must mean its February.

  You missed your birthday.

  Have you also missed Levi’s?

  You sit against the headboard and pull the covers up around you. How many celebrations will you miss before you’re straight? How long will you go without seeing Fern and Bubbles? Is it because of you that it’s taking so long? Would a good person have finished already? Mrs. Rivers thinks so. She’s seen a lot of homosexuals.

  Your lower your head and close your eyes. Why are you like this?

  Ollie waddles to the staircase to get more food. That’s fine. You might as well take another nap. Not as if there’s anything else to do. Before you drift off you see Ollie walking back up the staircase of books you made him. There’s seaweed in his hand. Weird. He likes to eat that in water. Helps him swallow it or something. He walks closer to you until you could reach out and touch him. Then he holds the seaweed out.

  Oh.

  That’s sweet.

  You feel rude for declining but you don’t really want to eat psyduck spit. Not yet.

  You shake your head. “Thank you, but I can’t eat it.” He keeps holding it out. “No,” you say. He probably knows that word. You hope he doesn’t think you’re chastising him.

  He shoves the seaweed into his mouth and walks away.

  That’s not what you’ve heard psyduck are like. Most like to party. Which means they like to break things and hurt people. Was he just raised different? Are their instincts not like that? Or can they learn to overcome their instincts, to be better? Maybe Father was trying to encourage you when he gave you Ollie…

  You drift off to sleep and dream of falling farther, farther, farther into darkness. Just before you wake you see The Wicked One below.