I take a step towards the bath, the music, the candlelight, the perfume rising from the water and those hypnotic eyes dulling all of my senses. I drop to my knees, and the doctor holds out a flannel. My eyes leave his, just for a second, as I reach for it.

No!

The spell is broken, snapped like a dry twig. Feelings, emotions, life – they all come flooding back, releasing me from my catatonic stupor. In my head I am screaming, ‘No!’ over and over again. But I don’t make a sound. My tongue seems glued to the roof of my dry, stale mouth. I can feel the doctor waiting for me to take the flannel, to settle myself on the floor by his side, to listen to him talk as I wash his body, but the moment has gone. The perfume suddenly seems cloying, the music rasping. I might be drugged; I might have to spend years in prison for what I have done, but this is wrong.

I daren’t look at his eyes again, knowing he will draw me back in, so I fix my gaze on his chin as I push myself back to my feet and reverse towards the door. I see the hard, angry line of his mouth, but I don’t care what he thinks, or Thea either. My vision and hearing have both been distorted by the drugs, but I can still move. Perhaps adrenaline is more potent than their medications.

I reach the door, hoping and praying it’s not locked, and fumble behind me for the handle. I yank it open, turn and run. Behind me I hear frantic splashing, and I know that the doctor is getting out of the bath.

Thea is in the bedroom. She is between me and the door to the corridor, and I stop dead when she shouts, ‘We’re trying to help you, Judith! How can you be so ungrateful? Think of how we washed the blood off you after you had committed such a vile act! We didn’t complain. It was our way of showing our faith in you. Why can’t you do the same for the doctor?’

As she speaks, a flashback from that night in the bath hits me – the feeling that both of my arms were being held and washed at the same time. But when I opened my eyes Thea had only my right arm in her hands. A vague memory of a gruff voice speaking in a whisper and the click of a door closing comes to me, and I want to heave. He was there, with Thea, washing me.

Oh God, what have I fallen into? What is this?

‘Get out of my way, Thea,’ I say, and I can hear my voice, shrill and desperate. ‘I will hurt you if you don’t move.’