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Aline doesn’t think to be worried until her fourth callout to Dr. Willoughby in as many weeks.
“Aline!” Dr. Willoughby throws her arms up in the air, twirling around in her spinning chair, as the receptionist lets Aline into the office. He leaves, and closes the door behind him. “I’m always so happy when it’s you! You’re the best of all of them.”
“Well, you know I’m the only techie on-call on Thursday evenings,” Aline says, setting her work bag down on a chair. It jangles the charms Dr. Willoughby has looped over the arms, but there’s no better place to leave her belongings when the entire room is covered in trinkets, spells, and decorative baubles. The light of the setting sun shines through the half-closed blinds and bounces off them to scatter around the room.
“And I’m the only doctor left in the building on Thursday evenings! Bruce is heading home now. He’s such a good receptionist.” She folds one leg over the other and spins to face Aline.
“What’s the problem today? Orb visuals still working?”
Last week, she’d inspected the doctor’s data orb, which Dr. Willoughby uses to confidentially store patient information, and found that Dr. Willoughby had accidentally stumbled upon the correct sequence of words to dim the display into incoherence. The walk over had taken longer than the fix itself.
Dr. Willoughby shrugs, folding her arms behind her head.
“Scales are off,” she says, and gently kicks at her desk where her herb-weighing scales sit. “But you’re so overdue for a checkup! Don’t you ever get time to yourself?”
“Oh, don’t worry about me, Doctor.” Aline rolls her sleeves up. “Can I see it? Sometimes the charm just needs to be updated.”
Dr. Willoughby drops her arms, and a pout spreads across her face. Aline suppresses a sigh. The doctor always wants to chat, to ask about Aline’s other jobs, to discuss the latest findings in the world of tech-magic—but Aline needs to wrap up before she has to clock in at her second job. Living in the city gets her closer to the cutting-edge magical developments, but her rent reflects that.
“I really am on a bit of a schedule,” Aline says, doing her best to force apology into her voice, and Dr. Willoughby pouts harder.
It’s not that she wouldn’t want to sit and chat in different circumstances: Dr. Willoughby has no shortage of interesting stories, and she was a godsend when Aline came to her with a bad case of witch knuckle last year. Her boundless energy catches, and Aline always finds herself leaving the office with a spring in her step—but apparently only when Aline is doing what the doctor wants. Now, Aline just needs to shake her off like she’s an overly attached puppy.
“But I can always make time for you,” Aline says, in the interest of speeding this meeting along. “C’mon, whatcha got for me?”
“Fine, but you have to at least call me by my name. We’re at that stage of our relationship, right?”
“Right,” Aline says, scanning the office for the doctor’s nameplate. “Meredy.”
Meredy sits up in her chair, smiling again.
“The scales aren’t weighing correctly.”
“Okay.” Aline waits for Meredy to scoot out the way so that she can take a look for herself, but Meredy doesn’t move. She leans over in front of Meredy, resting her elbows on the desk to drag the scales toward herself. If her deodorant spell hasn’t held up all day, well, that’s just going to have to be Meredy’s problem. She’s welcome to give Aline personal space whenever she likes.
She turns the scales around—an effort, as they’re made of intricately carved but heavy metal, with space to pack a variety of spells into the mechanisms.
“Is it just not working, or…?”
“Kind of,” Meredy says, resting her cheek against Aline’s shoulder. Aline’s eye twitches. Meredy smells nice, but Aline would prefer the space. “The numbers are off. I have to divide everything by three and subtract ten to get the real number in grams.”
“Huh,” Aline says, squinting at the spell seals. “That’s a new one.”
“Only the best for you!” Meredy turns her face, and Aline knows that if she looked, Meredy would be staring into her eyes. “Seriously though, do you ever get days off? You always seem to be working. I don’t think I’ve seen you have a checkup since…forever. We can do that today, if you like. Super quick!”
“That’s really kind of you,” Aline says, wondering if she can pry the spells apart with a regular conduit blocker ward, or whether she’ll need to take the entire thing to pieces to access all of them. Who enchanted this overspelled piece of shit?
Oh, wait, that’s her signature in the binding. Her bad.
Meredy’s grin burns into her peripheral vision.
“I’ll be so real with you, I have to get to my second job,” Aline says, losing her professional filter with most of her brainpower going toward unpicking problems she might have caused. Surely she doesn’t even possess enough arithmancy to enchant something into a computing device like this, accidental or not?
“But self care is so important!”
“So important,” Aline echoes, reaching into her pocket for her little book of lenses. She’ll try looking at this through a few different wards to see if that helps break it down.
Meredy moves first.
A prick in her shoulder, a knife at her throat, and Aline finally meets Meredy’s eyes.
“You deserve this,” Meredy says, with the air of someone convincing their friend to bunk off work.
“Oh,” Aline says, blood thrumming in her ears. Her knees feel cold. She can’t feel her fingers. “I’m sorry. Whatever I did to you, I’m really, really sorry.”
Meredy withdraws a syringe from Aline’s shoulder and cocks her head.
She might faint. She doesn’t know if it’s the drug or her nerves. She might actually be about to die, and this is so stupid. Aline never got to do any of the things she always said she would. She never got to see any of the nine wonders of the world. She never did that charity broom-race she kept telling herself she was going to train for. She never even tried all the dishes at that new dwarven brunch place on the corner!
“What? Everyone needs a break! And it isn't like you're going to give yourself one, so I'll have to do it.”
“Oh. I’m not going to die?” Her knees give way, but Meredy is there to catch her.
“Don’t be silly.” Meredy takes all her weight, picks her up under the shoulders and knees, and carries her across the room to the examination table.
“I really think I can manage,” Aline says.
Maybe it’s the drugs rather than her nerves, actually, because most of her body feels like static in a snowstorm. Meredy places her gently on the table, arranging her head and legs to a comfortable position before clicking a collar into place around her neck. It’s ice-cold against her skin.
“Just in case!” Meredy says, and a chain on the collar clips to something outside of Aline’s vision.
The table leeches the heat from her bones, but Meredy rests a hand on her arm, and it’s warmer than steaming soup on a winters’ day.
“In case?” Aline’s limbs are heavy, but she can still speak. She doesn’t know enough about medicine to guess what Meredy has done to her, and she doesn’t know enough about Meredy to guess what she will do to her, but she’s alive for the moment. She intends to keep herself that way. “What?” She looks up at Meredy’s beaming face.
This isn’t the smile of an evil woman. Meredy looks proud of herself, and pleased with her accomplishment, and fond of Aline. She wouldn’t believe Meredy capable of this if she weren’t drugged and collared to an exam table. What has she missed?
“Thank you, Dr. Willoughby,” Aline says, meekly. “You’re very kind. But I really have to go now.”
“Oh, you!” Meredy giggles. The laughter overtakes her and she dips, lowering her face to press her cheek to Aline’s thigh. “It’s Meredy, between us. We’re at that stage, trust me!”
Aline forces a chuckle. Her thigh burns, with every hair standing on end.
“What, um.” She wiggles her fingers, testing her grip strength against the edge of the table. Nothing. Just fuzz. “What are we doing? Meredy?”
“We’re taking time for you.” Meredy stands up again, leaving Aline’s leg ice-cold in the absence of her warmth. “Health comes first, after all!”
“Okay. And, uh. After?” Aline’s throat is dry. She wants to run, but can’t even move her legs. She watches Meredy cast a basic sanitising charm over her own hands.
“It’s really important in mindfulness to be present in the now, and not worry about the future.” Meredy raises her hands. “I’m going to start by checking your heart rate, okay?”
“I don’t want this,” Aline tries, overcome with how much she doesn’t want this, and will never want this again. She can’t be here. She has to get out, right now.
A small furrow appears between Meredy’s brows.
“You’ll thank me for this, after.”
A strangled whine echoes around Aline’s throat.
“How many?” It resolves into. She means: how many people have you done this to? How many times have people found themselves non-consensually drugged on your exam table?
“I take care of all my patients in need like this,” Meredy says, but she can see the lie in her eyes. “Well, look, you’re my favourite. But don’t tell the others! Pulse check now.”
There must be charms for this, but Meredy does it the old-fashioned way: skin-to-skin. She flips Aline’s wrist over and brushes her long sleeve aside to place two fingers over the delicate skin of Aline’s inner wrist.
Aline tenses, and thinks she’s readied herself for the touch, but she’s wrong. The pressure pins her entire arm to the table, and it feels like Meredy is reaching through her, into her. It has to be the drugs. It wouldn’t feel like this without them.
Right?
When was the last time Aline was touched so delicately?
“Your heartbeat is way too fast. Deep breaths!”
Aline wants to listen. Wants to slow her heart down. She also wants to force it higher out of spite. Caught between her impossible choice, she does neither. Meredy throws her hands up in frustration.
“Okay, so that doesn’t work for you. Let’s try something else!” Meredy places the pads of her fingers under Aline’s jaw, above the heavy collar, which is worse, because now the warmth of them travels down her neck and settles under her breastbone. Aline wants the hand to press down fully and warm her completely. Aline also wants to never be touched again.
“Ugh, I can’t get anything here! You need to relax!”
“Let me go home,” Aline begs. “I won’t tell anyone.”
“Shush, I’ll take care of you,” Meredy says, lifting her fingers and stepping further down the table.
Meredy lifts Aline’s leg by the ankle, hands wrapping around her boot, to place one foot in the stirrups at the end of the table.
“Meredy. Meredy, please,” Aline tries, but her voice only comes out in a strained whisper. She tries to draw her leg back, rock her body off the table, but all that happens is her dress slides up to bunch around her knee.
“I’ve got you, I’ve got you,” Meredy coos. Aline’s second leg follows the first, into a stirrup that holds them apart. “I’m going to make you feel so good and nice and relaxed, don’t worry!”
Aline has never been more worried. Meredy strokes her hands up Aline’s legs, brushing her dress aside and baring them to the air of the room. Sparks burn low in Aline’s abdomen. She doesn’t want this; can’t want this.
“I love you,” Meredy says, softly, and cups a hand between her legs, with only the thin barrier of her undergarments between them.
Her body is a traitor that has switched allegiance. It no longer takes orders from her, but lets Meredy play it like a rolling spell. It’s good. It’s so much better than her own touch, frantic and late at night and stolen time from pursuits she should be attending to.
There’s nowhere else she can be, now. She’s only here, underneath the heel of Meredy’s hand as it applies gentle pressure to her clit that makes her want to burn.
She’s still full of static, but now it’s an anticipatory, restless static. This touch is good. It could be going somewhere.
Aline cannot say this, obviously, so instead she closes her eyes.
“Tell me if you want it differently,” Meredy says, and nudges the cotton of her undergarments aside to prod at her folds. “Oh, look, you’re wet! I’m doing well!”
Aline does not want to look.
“See, you do need this. I told you so!”
Aline’s attempts to think about being anywhere but here are shattered when Meredy’s fingers press between her lips and delve inside her. The touch is a balm to her overheated skin. She swells to meet it, she knows she does, and she hates it. She thinks that Meredy must be able to feel her heartbeat through her insides.
Meredy’s fingers stretch her, and it’s satisfying in the same way as the first big yawn in the morning. She crooks her fingers, massaging, and the persistent buzz of arousal skyrockets as she strokes over a spot that has the back of Aline’s head tingling and a guttural moan reverberating in her chest.
She wants to escape, but she wants to see this feeling through to the end even more. She tenses against it, because of course she can’t want this. That would be disgusting. She has to fight it, she can’t let this win—
But her body won’t listen to her. It relaxes, until she’s less tense than she has been in months, and then the orgasm rips through her.
As it rumbles through her body in waves Meredy is there with her, stroking the blaze into an inferno until she feels so good she could die, she should die because she’ll never feel this good and happy and relaxed again, and then it’s over and she wants to die for entirely different reasons.
“Stop,” she says, through a sob, because tears are rolling down her cheeks.
“Oh, honey.” Meredy pulls her hand out from inside Aline, and presses her clean hand to Aline’s cheek. “There we go, wasn’t that so good? Isn’t that much better? Look, you’re finally relaxing.”
“I want to go home.”
Meredy strokes across Aline’s cheekbone with her thumb. Her other hand brings a syringe into her field of view.
“I’m going to put you to sleep properly now, okay? And when you wake up, you’ll be nice and safe in my home. You’ll never have to worry about anything again, because I’ll take such good care of you!”
“Don’t worry, Aline,” is the last thing that she hears before the doctor’s office fades.