Accidental Surrogate

Sinclair

Don’t shift, don’t shift, don’t shift. I think manically Ella needs you.

Listening to Ella recount her childhood always makes me furious, but this time is

worse than all the others. I’ve suspected that Ella suffered terrible traumas for some

time now, but before this night l’d been able to pacify my outrage with the hope that

I’m wrong.

No longer.

As Ella speaks, I wonder how she could ever imagine herself weak. I can’t even stand

to listen to her story, but she actually lived it. She sacrificed herself for her sister, and

she survived things I can only imagine

“When the matron realized it was me, she smiled so cruelly that my stomach turnedshe was only too glad to take, me instead of Cora.” Ella continues, shuddering with

the memory. Her unease gives my wolf the push he needed to put aside his own rage

and comfort her. I finally manage a weak purr, and Ella presses her nose to my chest,

breathing in my scent.

“She took me to her own room and put me in her bed, and then she got in with me

and.. started touching me in ways I didn’t like or understand.

She made me touch her too, and she never stopped talking She told me how pretty I

was over and over, and kept asking me if I liked it. I said no, but she just insisted that

this was a special, secret game I was lucky to play. She said everything I was feeling

might be confusing, but it was good and right and natural. She said it took practice,

but that we’d have plenty of time.. Afterwards she took me back to the dorm with a

reminder not to share our secret. Cora asked me what happened but I didn’t know

how to explain.”

“The next day I went to the doctor in residence, and I told him what the matron had

done. I’d never liked him much, but in my heart I knew what had happened was

wrong, and I didn’t know who else to tell. I thought that since it was about my body,

the doctor was the one who could help. There was no such thing as sex ed at the

orphanage and no one else ever talked to us about our bodies. At first I was relieved

to tell someone. The doctor seemed very concerned, and agreed that it sounded

strange.”

he told me that he needed to examine

are coming in starts and stops now,

still steaming around us, so I know

my clothes and put me on the

important that you be

to, and if you move too much I could

she quotes the doctor, and it takes

wolf. “Then he said, T know little

so I have these nifty straps to help

down. and then he asked

he would touch me exactly how

and if I didn’t answer, if I cried or objected, he would only do it

demand I tell him”

out what he was

if I didn’t speak he

demonstrating them on my

I told him how to hurt

ferocious snarl, and she looks up at me for the first

Her eyes are overflowing, but she offers me a bitter smile and reaches

“It’s okay, big bad wolf, it’s almost

determinedy forges on.

those things, but I knew how it made

to happen again,

Cora who

she didn’t!I have a horrible sick feeling in my stomach, and

time and whisk Ella away from

could hurt her.

only would have meant other

brilliant

even if it meant

gave myself up so the

than I already was,

to be destroyed.” Ella shares, confirming my fears

her logic. “The matron came almost every night… and

would call me in for check ups every

sort of gentle, and

to inflict pain, she seemed determined to make me like

was different. He was a true sadist;

Ella hides her face in my neck as she concludes her

twelve he r*ped me, and that’s when Cora and

to run with us, but most were more afraid of living on

Luckily they didn’t know about the doctor,

who stayed behind to never confide

hands are clamped so tightly on Ella I’m afraid I must be

doesn’t complain.

still crying, but her muscles have unwound now that her story

and I can

everything she

there? The matron and the doctor?” I finally ask,

hiss.

replies. “Cora and I could only live outside during the summers, and

stay away through the first winter, but eventually

the orphanage.