She yanks the dress off over her head and submerges it, scrubbing it against herself as the water produces black waves of filth. She rubs and rubs and rubs, refusing to give up until every inch is clean. Until even the individual stitches are free of filth. When satisfied, she lets go of the dress with a triumphant “Humph!” It lazily floats to the surface like a bloated carcass, releasing trapped bubbles of air with an ugly hiss.

She rubs down her arms and legs, her skin now an unnatural shade of bright red. Against the darkness of the water, her body looks ragingly violent. About to erupt. Alarmed, she scrubs harder and harder, but the red won’t go away. It only grows brighter, angrier.

She quickly steps out of the tub. Steam rises from her body in thick clouds. Her skin splits into blisters, sprouting across her arms and legs until they open in violent bursts, vomit water, and disappear. She leans into the mirror, watching as a bubble expands across her shoulder, pops with wet revulsion, leaving shreds of skin in its wake, and absorbs back into her, petals of pink shrinking away.

The reaction carries on with indignation until it slows, bubbles taking longer to form and shorter to heal. She grabs the towel off the sink and wraps it tightly around her ribcage, knotting the corners in front of her chest, exfoliating what’s left of the blisters. Steam no longer rises from her skin, now perfectly tamed, the color and texture having returned to normal. The distant pulsation of heat vanishes to nothing.

Nothing.

“Do you think I need fixing?”

Never, Daddy.

The water in the tub is dark red. Loose hairs and flakes of dirt whirl within. She fishes her dress out, a cascade of brown falling from the fabric, and twists it at both ends delicately. Once the last possible drop is mangled from the fabric, the dress still feels wet and heavy.

She sighs and carries the dress back to her room. It leaks, dripping water along the floor of the hallway. She can hear the droplets hit the concrete behind her like sharp echoes of each footstep. When she enters her room, she immediately shuts the door and snaps the lock. The sound of it—snap!—sends a pleasing chill down her body, making her groin weak.

“This lock is not for you to touch. Unless you want the creatures to get in.”

I think this is an exception, Daddy.

She tosses her dress onto the mattress and falls down next to it. From her impact, the lollipops shoot into the air in unison and collapse back down with hundreds of soft thuds. She crunches the last bit of candy in her mouth, tosses the stem onto the bedding, and picks up a new one. She unwraps it and places it on her tongue.

“A sweet for my sweet.”