We all end up sleeping in that room together because we stay up so late talking.  I guess you could say I’ve been “trained” a little.  I must say, it was a lot to take in, but having three different women offering honest perspectives on the topic was a lot of help.  Eventually Gina joined in, probably as a way to cut her losses and try to ensure I had the best shot at success possible.

                We all awaken to the light coming on.  The familiar thing.  And I feel an odd, old feeling of dread filling me.  Images flashing back into my mind.  Except this time, it’s from a much different cause.

                When I first arrived here and Julia started training me to be content with sleeping in this dollhouse and then getting in to the elevator in the morning like a gerbil, I was frankly so scared and sick at the same time from everything that had happened, I would sort of resisting coming out.  And the earliest image I have was my first morning waking up here, when the lights came on and I just huddled in my plastic bedroom against the wall, praying to wake up from the nightmare.  I wasn’t in some teenager’s dollhouse.  I was back in my bed, and I was going to wake up for school soon. 

                And then I saw them.  Those gigantic, pink fingers curling slowly around the doorway, then lurching forward to enter the room, like a serpent crawling through some dank tunnel.  Her palm came into view, and she curled her fingers in like claws.  I realized she had opened the top of the dollhouse in the main hall and had stuck her arm in.  However, the roof over this room couldn’t lift, so she’d have to grab me. 

                Wake up, wake up, wake up.  It’s not real.  It’s not real.

                I instantly started creeping toward the corner of the room.  If she tried to look into the room, she might not find me.  You have to understand, at this time, I had yet to even begin accepting my fate for the long run.  I figured if I just hid for long enough, I could ride it out. 

                Somehow.  I would get out.

                Her hand then went flat on the plastic floor, patting it loudly, and she began to slide her hand across, making a swishing sound as the plastic brushed against her soft hand flesh, her fingers splaying out to cover more ground.  With no time to lose I vaulted over my matchbox bed.

                I remember the fear.  Seeing her forearm bending a little, her wrist twisting at different angles as her hand slid around the room.  Eventually, she shoved more of her arm in, and I could see her bicep.  She didn’t have particularly large arms, but at this size I could see her biceps flexing and unflexing as she adjusted her position.  The raw power she carried in that one arm was enough to crunch the life from me with such ease.  I nearly wet my pants at that alone, but I kept my cool.  I held my breath, pulling my legs to my chest to take up less room in the corner.

                “JAAAAAAAACK!” I heard her call loudly but not menacingly.  She was trying to get on my side instead of scaring me. 

                It occurred to me that this must have been a new method after failing to acquire trust through brute force. 

                “JAAAAACK!  IT’S TIME TO WAKE UP!” she called again.  I felt myself shivering, and I realized that my teeth were close to chattering.  She yanked her hand and arm back out, and I could tell she had pressed her face against the doorway, looking for me.  “Jack?  Are you there?  Come on out…” she said, trying to soften her voice.  A moment later, I saw it again.  The fingers creeping in.  Even when her arm went out, I felt safe again.  Like I was back in my bedroom.  It was so surreal, to have your mind revert back to normal again only to have a hand wider than you are tall to come crawling back inside, along the walls, reminding you that you were only yesterday transformed into an object meaning no more to your captor than a toy, to be grabbed up and played with whenever it pleases her. 

                Despite the situation, I couldn’t help but wonder if anyone else had ever experienced this. I felt a little like Alice in that goddamned Wonderland, trying to figure what the hell had happened.

                She curled her fingers up and began to tap them on the floor impatiently.  Suddenly, she flattened her fingers and began sliding over the ground again, looking for me.  It was at that point I realized I was trapped, as her hand came toward me.  It was now or never.  I hopped up, hoping to land in between her fingers and jump over her hand.  It didn’t work.  My foot caught in the crevice between her pointer finger and middle finger, and feeling my ankle, she instantly tightened her fingers together, tripping me. 

                “GOTCHA!” she squealed triumphantly.

                I tried to clamber away but her hand had readjusted in the blink of an eye, and her fingers were suddenly upon me, expertly pinning me to the ground before curling around my body like snakes, the heat suddenly being held in to me, the new feeling of softness as her palm clutched me firmly, her finger muscles contorting.  It was like having a wild animal bearing down on me, ready to eat me.  Surrendering control of my movements into those fingers, into the power of that gigantic bicep.  Placing my life right in her… hand.  Right in the palm of it, as a matter of fact, to do with whatever she wanted to.  To play with, if she felt like it. 

                The wave of fear coming again...

                I blinked and tried to focus, realizing I had to be in command of the moment at hand.  This was the time.  Julia had to go to school, since it was Monday, so this would be a good opportunity to just plant an idea in her head.  The others sat up and looked at me encouragingly.  “You can do it, Jack.  Just be calm and think natural, just like we talked about…” says Kelly, putting an arm around my shoulders.  I try to breathe and focus.  The cup comes down through the hole in the ceiling.  As the other four pile in to the cup one by one, they each whisper a word of encouragement to me.  Gina is last.  She looks at me, then pounces on me in a tight hug and rocks side to side.  I hug her back and for the first time start to realize how much I want this for her in particular.  “Good luck,” she says before letting go and hopping in to the cup.  It disappears, then returns empty a minute later.  I step in hesitantly, and rise up.

                It’s the same thing I see every morning, spinning around, Julia’s face coming into view.  She’s smiling cheerily today.  The cup stops spinning, and for a moment she just smirks at me, as if trying to decide something about me.  She’s already dressed for school, wearing pink sneakers, jeans, and a fluffy looking purple vest thing, her hair pulled back in a headband out of her face.  I try to make note of this.

                “Hi there, Jack,” she says happily.  This is sort of peculiar.  Normally, we come into view in the cup, she studies us for a moment, then just grabs us up dolls coming out of her dollhouse, ready for playtime.  But she’s just looking at me.  I must admit, it’s sort of nice to not have her just snatching me up into the air like normal, but it’s a little off-putting.  Why isn’t she picking me up.  I find my mind almost wishing she would pick me up to reassure me.  What a sad creature of habit I am.

                I get myself together, mentally.  “Hi, Julia,” I try to say with more gusto than usual, since I’m normally pretty tired.  She raises an eyebrow.

                “You sound pretty happy today,” she says, still in a good mood.

                “Uh, yeah, I guess I am…” I say, smiling sheepishly.  Did I overdo it?

                “Are you just ready for the day?” she says, her mouth opening in a near-laugh.

                “Yeah.  I’m just ready to learn!” I say, toning down the excitement a bit but trying to sound happy still.  She tilts her head, as she always does.  Almost as if making fun of me in her head.  It’s like her subtle way of reminding us of who’s in charge around here.

                “Well, I’m afraid it’ll have to wait for a little bit, since I have to leave, but I PROMISE you’ll do a lot of learning when I get back to you all,” she says.  Finally, I see her hand raising.  Her fingers unfurl, hungrily, as if about to grab me up, but she stops herself.  Instead, her hand stops just short of the elevator, just below my feet, and cups for me.  “Ready to get something to eat?” she says a little more gently, nodding at me to climb in.  I nod back, then take the little leap of faith off the cup and drop down into her hand.  I get myself adjusted and take a seat, leaning against her firm fingertips.  She puts the cup down and raises herself onto her haunches, holding herself up on the balls of her feet, and raises her cupped hand up to her face. 

                Time to get to work.