"Lynn [F]" By robblu (https://pastebin.com/u/robblu) URL: https://pastebin.com/umdRMuJ6 Created on: Thursday 20th of August 2020 12:21:03 AM CDT Retrieved on: Saturday 31 of October 2020 03:00:14 AM UTC Lynn [F] Submission Date: 2004-09-14By: Mandragora (nimue1967@yahoo.co.nz) [FemCirc] [General Warning]flag - Fiction Lynn wakes up knowing she's going to be cut. I can’t sleep. I lie on my side, knees drawn up. Relaxing seems impossible; I’m clenching every muscle in my body. Sighing, I stretch to lie on my back, blinking at the traffic lights playing on the ceiling. I rub my eyes until they hurt. My hands soon drop to the side of my face and after a while, I draw them back under the duvet. Cool now, I run them over the familiar planes of my body, causing my breasts to peak and my thighs to quiver. Horns get blown despite it being well past midnight. It’s another world out there. Tomorrow, I get cut. * * * Somehow, at some point, sleep did overtake me. I jolt awake as my Mother peeks in on me. ‘Did you catch a few winks?’ I nod. She wasn’t sure whether to tell me or not and she sort of wants confirmation that she did the right thing. ‘Yeah. I did sleep a bit. And I’ll be back here soon, won’t I?’ I tried to sound chipper there but failed miserably, with a voice still thick from sleep and nerves rapidly catching up with me. ‘Good. Come straight down after you have your shower, Lynn.’ She didn’t quite look me in the eye there and is already padding down the stairs. For fifteen seconds or so, I simply sit up, not moving. My heart is pounding. I better get a move on. Ann went willingly but they had to drag Jen down the stairs and they did. There’s just no point. I kick back the duvet. It’s 9.15 am. The hot water is soothing on my skin, almost lulling me to sleep on my feet. I washed myself all over and all trace of soap is gone by now but I’m having a last feel. My hand travels over the patch of curls and parts the silky, shaven lips. I feel around, taking stock. I realise I don’t even know what exactly they are going to cut. My elder sisters never spoke of it, never showed me. Water streams into my mouth and causes me to cough. I was breathing heavily, getting excited and the whole point is not to. That’s why this is necessary, that’s what they always said, what they wanted from the beginning. I dry off, erratically, I can’t trust my hands anymore. Just a T-shirt and the bathrobe Mother said last night. The stairs I’ve run down all my life – and occasionally tumbled down from – look steep and dizzying this morning. This is so unreal … Next thing I know, I’m in the kitchen where my parents are waiting expectantly. ‘You all right, love?’ my Father asks as per usual. I don’t know what to say. It’s a quarter to ten already. Mother takes my bathrobe. I clutch my hands before my crotch. Father motions to the chair he was just leaning on. It’s just one of our kitchen chairs I’ve sat a zillion times on. I just stare at it and he says, ‘Come on, then. Let’s get this over with.’ I want to sit down properly but he makes me straddle it backwards. It’s hard and forbidding. He makes me scoot forwards and the square batons of the open back bite into my inner thighs. ‘Spread them a little more still, Lynn,’ Father urges me on. I open my mouth to protest I can’t, but his knee against my tailbone stretches my legs out further. Bending over me from his position, Father picks my feet up one by one and hooks them over the side rungs between the legs of the chair. I’m dilated impossibly wide with my knees higher than my hips in this position. ‘I can’t hold this … ’ I gasp, clutching the back of the chair. ‘It’s only for a bit,’ Mother hushes me. The kitchen smells of Detol and only now do I realise she is disinfecting a few small, shiny instruments. I can’t take my eyes off what looks like a small scythe and another that may well be Gran’s silver sugar spoon. Father pries my fingers from the back of the chair and bends my arms behind my back, forcing my hands up as high as my shoulder blades. My chest is pressed painfully against the back of the chair. Mother bends down in front of me and I realise I can’t see what she’ll be doing. Panic sets in. ‘No … not yet,’ I whisper, testing my Father’s strength. I’m virtually incapacitated. ‘Huh?!’ I go, as Mother touches me. She’s slowly feeling me up. Breathing becomes a conscious effort, as I stare at the top of her head. I can’t see her hands or the blinking metal. A soaked wad of cotton against my inner folds makes me flinch and my Father tightens his grip on me even further. I have this enormous lump in my throat and another one in my stomach. Right now, I feel like I need the bathroom real bad. Mother looks up and smiles encouragingly. I don’t quite register what she says, though I instinctively know it’s to put me at ease. I just want to keep her gaze on me, on my face, I don’t want her to lower her head again. But she does. ‘Wh … What did you say?!’ I try to buy time. I fail. ‘I said it won’t take long now, Lynn,’ Mother repeats, never lifting her head, already concentrating elsewhere. ‘It’ll soon be over. Just a minute or two.’ ‘Try not to scream straight away’, she adds on reflection. ‘It only makes it seem worse; try to hold out a bit, yeah?’ On cue, I feel her make a cut and to my astonishment, I don’t holler even if the pain is of an intensity I’ve never experienced before. Instead I go rigid, fighting to draw in breath. I can but concentrate on the ache that seems to deepen with every passing second. It seems to go in a circle. ‘Shhh … ‘ Father whispers in the still wet hair above my ear. I’m keening, I realise. And my teeth are chattering but it barely registers with the agony down there. It drowns all the rest out. I get but a moment’s respite when the cutting ceases. Mother dabs the wound and it burns! Tears I never consciously shed blur my vision and my distorted mouth drools spit on my chin. When next a raw nerve is clasped in a metallic grip, sinews in my belly and thighs involuntarily spasm in sympathy. I can’t take this. ‘Don’t … No! Enough … Please?!’ I pant incoherently. My pleas aren’t headed. I wail distortedly when my Mother pulls on the tiny nerve. Why don’t I pass out?! I want to pass out … When she cuts again and severs whatever she was pulling it is almost relief, even it only lasts a split second. There is no getting used to this agony that keeps shifting in concentration. Now I get dabbed again with the stinging liquid that is steadily nauseating me. My body keeps fighting it, flinching, but there is no getting away from it, as it coats my tortured crevices like oil. Mother looks up, scrutinizing my stricken face; it must be over, it’s got to be. ‘Good girl,’ she praises. ‘Just a few stitches and we’re all done.’ I start crying and hiccupping. My tender flesh is pierced and I feel thread slither through before it’s being pulled tight. And again. Twice more. I’m drained. ‘You’re done, Sweetheart,’ Father shakes me out of my stupor. I look up at my parents, not knowing what comes next, what to expect. My arms hang limply by my side. Father removes my feet from between the rungs of the chair and I hiss at the pain this causes in my crotch. I hurt everywhere, actually. Every tendon is aching; I’m so, so sore. And tired beyond belief. I start snivelling again. Mother makes me get up but supports me as I sway on my numb legs and empty stomach. ‘Back to bed with you,’ she orders not unkindly. My robe is draped around my shoulders and I make it up there somehow. I’m cold and clammy as my sweat-soaked T-shirt sticks to my rump. Mother peels it off me and I’m handed a nightgown instead. I make a face but I’m reminded, ‘No shower for a few days, Lynn. And you might get a bit feverish later anyway. I’ll give you a sponge bath as soon as you feel up to it.’ I pull the duvet back over me. I’m throbbing with pain between my legs. It’s ten o’clock sharp. I can’t keep my eyes open anymore. I’m exhausted. ‘I’ll bring up your tea on a tray later, Lynn. Just rest, you’re fine now,’ Mother whispers before leaving the room. Father has already begun cleaning up downstairs and gets ticked off for making a racket. No more clanging metal or scraping chairs and soon slumber claims me. * * * I wake up. I lie on my back, legs stretched out. I’m relaxed, in spite of the residing hurt at the apex of my legs. Sighing, I try to curl up on my side but almost instantly I abandon the idea. Weekday morning traffic is peaking; the noise invades in spite of the double-glazing. I rub the crusts from my eyes before my hands travel lower, as per usual. I don’t go near my crotch. The sheer thought makes me tremble. Traffic comes to a screeching halt outside. It’s still the same world out there. Yesterday, I was cut. The End.