Uni Assignment Three - 1842

I can hear the screams still. Every blood curdling scream from fear and pain still echoes in my mind. Once you hear the screaming, it never stops.1

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The doctor came in to see me today. He called me into his pretty office. I have never been in his office before, I was very excited. There was a desk, it looked new and expensive. It was big and shiny with lions paws for feet. I thought it was going to get up and move.3

There was a very pretty chair, with pink silk and pretty dolls sitting on it, in a row. The clean glass of the window seemed to enhance the greens of the blades of grass. The doctor told me my eyes were as green as that grass, but he said they were emerald. The sun was between these two trees, as though the trees were hands holding it safe from the threatening ground. There was a bed in the corner, which I thought was strange at first...4

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The doctor did not notice me often, just told me to cut my hair. It was not my fault it grew too fast. I was just yet another servant to him, the one who dressed him for dinner and so on.6

I knew his ways. I knew what he done. I knew why matron came out of his office all flustered and red in the face. I knew more than the others. I told the girls, you see, and they were very happy with me for telling them. They let me be the doctor to them, so they could get used to it. I enjoyed it. I enjoyed it very much.7

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"Every day is the same thing, matron. Another two girls are admitted, just at the same moment as one girl leaves. Every day is the same routine, matron, but I would not have it any other way."9

The doctor loved talking to me; I was the only one he could trust with matters of business and of the heart. He trusted me with his fist sized heart and passion; and I gave him my gift of myself to use as he wished. I handled his business like only a true woman can, with a gentle and feminine touch; I was not the cold hearted joke that the foolish thought.10

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The never fading echoes of the disturbing screams resonate and repeat in my mind still to this very day. I admitted the girls into the asylum; I was their doctor, their figure of authority, their point of safety, their point of contact with the outside world. Still, I hear the screams come in waves of paranoia, as I still think the girls are waiting for me to walk into my old office and to make them... God above, I still shudder to think about it.12

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He sat me on the bed, and smiled. I liked his smile. It was warm and friendly, just like my uncle when he smiled. The doctor told me it was my birthday, that I was now fourteen years old, and that he wanted to give me a very special gift, just for me, and that I couldn't share it with anyone. He said he had to examine me first, to make sure I was suitable for it, he said.14

Just as before, I tried to unlace my corset, but I giggled, blushed and had to ask the doctor for help. He undone the knot for me, and I took off my skirt. This time was different. He looked for longer at me before touching. I have been in this hospital for long enough to know what it means, and even his servant has told us all. It means you have been chosen, you are special now, it was not just his manservant that could, the doctor could! I was bleeding for the first time, and it made me special. I was allowed to be free! The doctor was going to give me a gift!15

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The doctor only ever asked me to call the freshly bleeding ones; he preferred them in that state. If they had already began their monthly bleeding before being admitted to my asylum, he waited exactly one year before taking them into his office. Never did he wait for me, but waited for our time alone together, to make it special; he had chosen me. I was special; he loved me far above the girls. They were just patients, but I was his matron.17

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There was this one girl, I loved her and wanted to marry her. She was my Beatrice, and I was her Dante. The doctor often let me read in his office when he was busy.19

She was only twelve, but she was so mad the doctor told her she was older. She was admitted because her uncle did not like the noises she made, and said that the devil was inside her. She was very pretty. She had these big green eyes, like two giant leaves on the snow. Her screams even I heard, but she never screamed like that with me.20

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The matron always cleared up the dried rose petals of blood after the girls left the asylum. I remember the screams of one girl in particular, and her huge emerald eyes, coated with tears of silver. I told her it was her birthday, that she was to be given a gift by me. I was told later that she knew what it meant, so her screams that she forced out of such fushia pink lips, were not of pain and embarassment, or screams which were calling for help. Nay... Nay, her screams were of encouragement, beseeching me to do more to her, to let her have her personal release as I had mine. Her screams died quickly, she lost so much blood.22

Whatever did happen to the matron, and the manservant who spoke to the girls, I would like to know what happened to them both. I loved them as a husband loves a wife.