Disclaimer: For adults only, not to be read by
minors. This is a work of fiction, any similarity to anyone
living or deceased is purely coincidental.
A Greenhouse for Valerie
by Alex Streuth
1
Valerie Platter had been a college drop-out. She hadn't graduated
but she still had a large amount of student loans to pay off. She
filed for bankruptcy but the law said she still needed to pay back her
student loans.
She worked forty hours a week doing customer service over the
phone. Customers would call in and she'd help them fill out
paperwork. She made a living wage but her life wasn't going
anywhere. She felt adrift, helpless. She wanted out, and
she wanted someone to rescue her.
Valerie wasn't stupid but she wasn't very smart either. She was
diligent, and earnest. She wasn't shrewd and she was
trusting. When she saw the advertisement for a live-in companion
she considered it. She figured it would pay, or at least provide
room and board, and that would make it easier on her since her rent was
already over half of her monthly income.
Aside from going to the movies or getting fast food every once in
awhile she had very little disposable income. What was more, she
was still very much in debt.
Calling the number provided made her very nervous. She hung up before swallowing and calling again.
A few of the questions made her uncomfortable, but she figured it wasn't too weird to be asked about her looks.
“Um, I'm 5' 6”, 135lbs., I have brown hair, brown
eyes.” She clicked through some files on her computer,
checking her e-mail.
“Okay, I got it. I'm sending it to you now.”
She waited. She had sent a picture of herself to the person on
the phone. It was a man's voice, but he seemed very businesslike.
“Yes, may I ask, how much is the, I mean, what's the
salary? Mmmhmm. Oh, I see.” Apparently it paid
well. She checked her e-mail again.
“I see.” There was competition for the job, and did
she want it? “Yes, yes it pays very well, I would like the
job.” She was asked what she would be willing to do to
secure the position. She wondered what that meant.
“Well, I'd be willing to work hard, be diligent, follow
orders...” She nodded, listening. If she was willing
to change her appearance some the job could be hers. The other
applicants weren't willing to do that. She was told that to be
honest she wasn't the best looking but willingness to please and the
ability to change to accommodate her employer were more desirable
qualities.
She thought about it, wondering what life would be like. It
sounded exciting, but it also frightened her. Then she thought
about her current existence, about how she was without purpose or
direction in it, and stagnating.
“Okay, where should I go.” She checked her e-mail again. There was an address.
2
Valerie arrived at the scheduled time. She had packed a bag as
ordered, and put her things in storage. There weren't many of
them. She had canceled her lease and quit her job. She
wasn't stupid though, she had been faxed a contract and she had read
and signed it. She knew she'd have the job before she arrived.
She'd had time to read it over a couple of times as well, and there
were a few clauses that worried her, but she decided that it couldn't
be anything too over the top, since, it had to be, after all, legal.
She was trusting, and, as mentioned earlier, not too shrewd.
She was picked up by a man in a car, he didn't speak to her except to
have her put her bag in the trunk and then to lie down once she got in
the car. He had her put a blindfold on, “To help you
relax.” She laid back and listened on headphones to calming
music.
The car went over some bumps and stopped a few times. When they
reached their destination he helped her up. She reached for the
blindfold but he tapped her hand, not hard, but briskly, and she
withdrew it.
He helped her up a few steps and then inside.
Still blindfolded she was led to her employer and introduced. She
was made to hold her hand out, which he shook. He spent a few
minutes examining her. She felt him touching her hair, moving
around behind her, and running his hand over her curves. It made
her shiver, but it wasn't all in fear, some of it was in awe. She
had never felt both so completely lost and so completely in control
before. She wanted to lie down, to relax, to let all of her
stress melt away.
The contract had stipulated that at the end of her stay her debt would
be paid and she'd be paid a healthy sum. All she had to do was
model some for him and do what he said. Simple enough.
He touched her shoulder and she bent down under his gentle
pressure. He examined her from behind, touching her lightly on
her hindquarters, then ran his hand down her leg and touched the inside
of her knee.
Next she felt fingers at her lips and she parted them, letting him look
at her teeth and the inside of her mouth. Her headphones were
moved partially so that she could be instructed to say 'Ahh.'
She felt a little embarressed but she did so.
“Ahhh.” She said. He nodded.
The man who had picked her up took her arm in his hand and led her
away, her employer had agreed to keep her on as a companion. When
they reached a small room her blindfold and headphones were
removed. She was made to lie down on the clean bed and informed
of her success.
Despite not having seen the man nor actually met him yet, she was pleased to have been chosen.
She was left alone in the room and instructed to rest. After
looking around at the barren room for a little bit she did so.
Laying back she closed her eyes and relaxed.
3
A few hours later she awoke and it was dark. The light coming in
from the window had receded. She blinked, then put a hand to the
wall and got her bearings. She stood, shakily, and touched the
doorknob. It was smooth. Turning it in her hand she felt it
stay firm. She tried again but it didn't turn fully. She
pushed on it a bit and then tried again, harder, putting her shoulder
into it.
After a few minutes worth of trying she decided that she had been
locked in. She felt both trapped and tired. Maybe it would
be better if she just laid down again, she was almost certain the door
would open in the morning. Or maybe she was just being hopeful,
maybe she was a prisoner here. She hadn't told anyone about her
new job, she hadn't been sure what she was going to have to do...
It had been in the back of her mind that she might have to do... sexual things.
And she didn't want her parents or her sister asking her about the
work. She didn't want to have to explain, she just wanted out
from the debt that buried her and away from her humdrum life.
She sighed and swallowed. She was thirsty. She'd lay down
and if the door wasn't open in the morning she'd break it down.
She felt tired so she slept.
--
She awoke but she was not awake. In her dreams there was
whiteness, and lightness. She floated, under the watchful eyes of
men in white gowns, a man moving around her, touching her, putting
something inside her. She felt a gentle pressure on her mouth,
and then she floated again.
After an eternity where no time had passed she came down and
slept. Her teeth had all been removed neatly, her gums were
healing.
She awoke, briefly, in a cold sweat, her mouth dry from gauze, in the
room with the high window. She tried sitting up but her head
pounded and ached. She felt dizzy, so she lay back on her back
again.
She consulted her chest. She could swear there were two large
sacks on her, potatoes, or large rocks. Focusing for a moment she
realized that it was a mass of bandages and that her breasts had been
cut, operated on perhaps. She felt panic, her mind reeled and
then, still dizzy and lightheaded, she feinted, then slept.
Upon waking she was light and floating again, everything was real but
she was not... The men surrounded her, except this time they were
filling her with something, and she was soaring, she had wings and she
was trailing a long streamer of joyful colours...
Lying on the operating table the drugs in her system kept her tripping
while large parts of her body were restructured. Her right and
left arm had been neatly removed, the traces of their existence
carefully smoothed over.
Her lower half, from under her midriff, right where her pelvis met her
ribcage, had been transected. Careful surgeons were cutting
around major organs to remove her legs and waist from her body.
Everything from her vulva and anus inwards along her excretory tract
leading along other important connective strands to her digestive and
respiratory systems were carefully preserved.
A monitoring team of doctors observed the procedure, interceding where
the surgeons might have made a mistake, carefully holding and
moving the organs around the scalpels to preserve life.
“Valerie, in your contract you agreed to allow your employer to
make cosmetic changes to your body as long as the changes made you a
more valuable employee.” Valerie was given an oral solution
to increase her lucidity temporarily.
She struggled briefly to grasp her surroundings, then let her eyes
close. She was happy floating among the clouds, enjoying the
gentle pokes and prods of the crowd around her, they were cheering her
with adulation.
“Your employer has agreed that the surgery you are getting right
now will increase your value considerably and is willing to compensate
you generously for it. What we need from you is your consent to
the transaction.”
A lawyer stepped forward with an addendum to her work contract.
“Do you agree that the surgery you are getting is elective
cosmetic surgery, and that it is to increase your value as an
employee?” He asked. He held a tape recorder to her
mouth.
Valerie breathed, thinking, it was hard to hear what he was saying
around the trumpet bursts of the cherubs near her. She felt like
someone important was coming.
The tape recorder stopped for a moment. Someone leaned forward,
it was the man who had picked her up in the car. He whispered
something in her ear. She smiled, of course she wanted to please
her employer. He whispered to her, encouraging her to vocalize
her pleasure.
“Yes!” She cried out, wanting her employer to like her.
The recorder started again. The lawyer restated the question,
again the whispered inquiry. “Yes, I want,” she was
coached again, “I want it,” she said, clearly, with only a
hint of ecstasy in her voice. The tape recorder stopped, the
lawyer withdrew.
“I want it, I want it to come,” she was imagining her
employer pulling up on a chariot, or a coach, and sweeping her off her
feet.
Her feet were being deposited in the medical waste bin, along with her
legs and pelvis. The men operating on her were soon finished
removing from her body. There were many clamps and sutures
suspending blood flow temporarily while the surgery was open.
They focused on closing some of the cuts back up, on fusing some of the
exposed pieces to other bits that would make it sturdier.
The drugs started increasing in flow back into Valerie's system.
She was made to agree to a name change, and to become a ward of her
employer. Her eagerness to agree to extensive cosmetic surgery
for her job led her to be classified by an attending psychiatrist as
'at risk' and placed into the care of her employer. He was given
guardianship and as such became financially responsible for her as well.
Until such time as she was deemed fit to lead her own life again her
finances would be under her employer's purview, as well as her medical
and legal decisions. Within the space of a few hours Valerie's
life was neatly folded up and put under the stroking hand of her new
employer. A couple of documents kept on file would keep
busybodies at bay and keep Valerie in the private care she was now
receiving.
4
Upon waking Valerie was surprised to learn that her lower half was
gone, in its place sprouted the grotesque sight of her innards neatly
arranged like an orchestra of budding flowers. Her intestines and
fallopian tubes danced nimbly in pulsing rhythm under the sunlight
pouring in from above.
“Hello?” She said, but her head was encapsulated in a
clear bubble of plastic, not suffocating, but complete. No sound
would travel in or out. Breathing was through a tube that led
upwards... back down her body.
In fact, Valerie was inverted. She had been planted face-down
into the ground. From above all that the observer saw were here
stalks and stamen.
Underneath, if one bent, they could see, through the clear housing,
Valerie's head inside of its bubble. The outside of the bubble
was empty, but not for long.
A large bedfull of planter soil was being poured down through the
housing to fill the space. Valerie's eyes widened and she shouted
silently inside her bubble. The dirt poured in and rose up to
surround her head, filling in around her shoulders and then covering
her breasts. It stopped just below her navel, so that all that
remained shooting upwards were her proud fronds that swayed gently in
the warm breeze.
Lastly, a gardener picked up an orange pitcher with a gloved hand and
ceremoniously poured its contents around the dirt, moistening it.
A small sign on a stick was placed into the dirt, announcing to any who
drew near: