Lying on her back, naked, Cat felt the warm stuff drip and seep on her crotch. She trembled at the thought of what was about to happen and questioned why she agreed to do it in the first place.
Before she could protest she wasn't a man anymore, Cat felt pressure against her crotch and the warm stuff spread to cover her entire left side. Without notice, a searing pain made her arch her back as she heard the sound of her skin being ripped off. Cat grunted and clenched her teeth.
[Fuck you, Catherine,] She mumbled while writhing in pain.
“AH!” This time, she screamed. An eternity of burning crotches later, Gerty applied the cool aloe gel, causing her to hiss with relief. Her modesty was covered with a clean towel and Gerty patted her stomach.
“All done, Miss Catherine! Now we only need to wax your armpits and legs,” the friendly beautician smiled.
She wished she was back at the hospital. At least there she had around-the-clock painkillers. Slathered in the aloe gel after getting all those pesky hairs out of her body, she was pulled a bit back to rest her hair on a washbasin.
“Do you want any highlights on your hair?” Gerty asked.
As the gel soothed the burning follicles, Cat relaxed under the scalp massage Gerty gave her. On the massage bed next to her, Mrs. Wallenstein was with her back bare as Myeong placed heated stones on a towel laid over her spine.
“This is heaven,” the woman, sober for one day, hissed with bliss.
One day. It was nothing in the greater scheme of things, but it was a start. For one moment she thought it was worth the swollen burning labia and not wearing panties for a day. Her blessed vitality would heal the issue in less than a third of the time. She still had a newborn baby’s healing ability to rely on.
Gerty threw a robe over her as she moved to a chair to get her hair dyed and cut.
The Beauty Wagon didn’t receive customers inside the van. Instead, they unloaded the equipment at the customer’s place. Cat took a good look at the weightlifter body of the beautician attending her. They had an all-female staff to avoid any awkward incidents so someone able to double as the porter saved on both money and space in the van. They converted the garage into a spa for the day. Jack and the security staff were instructed to keep the heck away from there, leaving them free to do their thing without bothering with modesty.
They had a small internal argument regarding hair length. Cat wanted to cut it at shoulder height, while Catherine demanded it should be kept as long as possible. Admitting she knew very little about a woman’s world, Cat gave up and the hair was trimmed at waist length. The light brown highlights looked almost natural and both were very happy with their new hairstyle. Cat felt proud of her new and mature look.
The rest of the day, Gerty and Myeong worked nonstop on the Wallenstein women. When they left at night, Cat felt light as a plume as if she went to heaven and back. Tugging on the sash holding her robe in place, she beamed at her mother.
“How are you feeling, mom?”
“Better,” she smiled back. “Much better, Cath… my daughter. Do you think we can talk about those documents you gave me yesterday? I didn’t have time to read them.”
Cat let out a relieved sigh. “Of course, mom! It’ll be my pleasure. Come, let’s get some clothes on and we can have tea while we discuss our financial future.”
While they walked to the living room, Catherine bemoaned.
[Why?]
[No. Mom has been opening up for months now. She’s not a psychopath or a sociopath. I believe deep inside she regrets not visiting us at the hospital. She just didn’t know how to act. All I did was to show her a path, she walked it on her own. And I wouldn’t have done that without your insight into the situation between you two. If anything, it was a team effort.]
[I’m glad--]
“Can I know why you’re mumbling so much?” Mrs. Wallenstein asked.
Cat found she had a really, really hard time lying to her mother. She attributed it to some deeply ingrained mental block or moral compass in the portion of Catherine’s subconscious she inherited along with the brain.
“Mom, who do you think I am?” She asked instead.
“I know you’re not Catherine. Not entirely. Do you have a split personality disorder?” Her mother candidly asked.
“Sort of?” It was the closest to falsehood she could get. “Catherine is here, and she sees and feels everything. I was talking to her. She said she felt stupid because I could get this close to you less than a week after I got out of the hospital but I told her she was mistaken.”
Mrs. Wallenstein stared with a puzzled look at the entity occupying her daughter’s body. “How so?”
Cat stopped and gently grasped her mother’s hand. “I’ll repeat exactly what I told her. You don’t seem like a psychopath or a sociopath, mom. I’m sure you wanted to visit us at the hospital and something kept you from doing it. I think you’ve been rethinking our relationship ever since my accident. And yes, Catherine was so distressed at the time she wasn’t in full control of herself. And no, it wasn’t me who made her jump. It is all on her, I came after she woke up in the hospital. We don’t resent you for anything you did, mom. Both of us truly love you. We just want to keep it like this in the future. Please?”
Ashamed, Mrs. Wallenstein tried to escape Cat’s grasp. Instead, the girl hugged her. “Don’t run away. Stay with me, mom,” Cat begged. The woman awkwardly flailed her arms but finally hugged her back. Rubbing her face on her mother’s robe, Cat opened the dam and let Catherine’s feelings flood.
“I’m sorry, my daughter. I was so angry at myself for losing you that I didn’t know what to do. Somehow I convinced myself to shift the blame on you. All the blame for my shortcomings on you. For years upon years. I should be watching you that day when you ran away to play in the snow. It’s all my fault. It’s all my fault.”
“It’s nobody’s fault, mom. It was a terrible accident, twisted and multiplied over all these years. Look, let’s sit down and talk over a cup of tea. I have so much to tell you,” Cat said, then added to the specter in her head, [It’s up to you now, buddy. I’m going to repeat all you say here, follow all your instructions. I’ll just drive the body. Enjoy.”
As she promised, Cat just parroted whatever Catherine wanted her to do and say. It added a bit of delay to her actions and words, stuttering between phrases but Mrs. Wallenstein didn’t comment on that. She was impressed the two women had so much to talk to one another and their chat went deep into the night. When they retired, Cat dragged Mrs. Wallenstein to her bed, claiming she was owed eleven years of cuddles with interest, and there was no chapter in the U.S. Bankruptcy Code that could save her from settling this debt.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.
She also wanted to keep an eye on her mother to stop her from escaping in the night for ‘just a drink”. But she knew better than to talk about that to her as it would only spike the desire to do so. Mrs. Wallenstein needed positive reinforcement, not someone nagging on her.
----------------------------------------
The next day, she took her mother to the backyard for a set of morning exercises. Just light stretching and some calisthenics. They sat down and discussed the bankruptcy plan they drafted for Mrs. Wallenstein. She had two options.
File for chapter 13 and spend years repaying the debts with the beneficiary distributions from the trust fund. This would put a black mark on her credit report for seven years, and she would spend decades with little money to her name repaying the debts.
Filing for chapter 7 would require some accounting gymnastics, would take more than a year to file, and could end up in court. It had a heavier impact on her credit score, a black hole instead of a black mark, but doing so would discharge most debts, meaning she would have an earlier restart, albeit at a lower station. Even after dumping all the household maintenance costs on her, she was still above the legal limit for chapter 7, the average household income of their district.
To lower her declared income, they’d have to wait for Cat to take over as the trustee of the dynasty fund. Only then she could lower down her mother’s share of the profits, allowing her to file for chapter 7. There was the problem of hiding their manipulation of the trust fund distributions. A shrewd creditor (they all were) could challenge that in court. To lessen that chance, they would need to wait at least a year to file, and the creditors would keep trying to collect in the meanwhile, harassing them.
“I can’t decide for you, mom. Either choice is pretty crappy, and they come with their own problems. For the sake of completeness, there’s chapter 11 bankruptcy but you don’t have a business you wish to keep open.”
Mrs. Wallenstein sifted through the papers, reading the reports over and over. “Did you make these?”
“I had help from a specialist from Sullivan & Rothman. But I’ve been studying to take over the family trust for years.”
“You or Catherine?” She asked, suspicious.
Cat raised her hand, “Catherine here. I wanted to get a major in Economics at college, mom. Now, we don’t need to make a decision on this right now. We should take our time and seek advice from specialists. We should hire a bankruptcy advisor. I’m going to ask for one after we are done here.”
“You need to see a therapist. This dual personality is not normal, daughter.”
Cat smiled. “Only if you come with me, mom. We both need counseling. Look, I’m calling doctor Coleman, the psychiatrist that helped me at the hospital. I’ll see if she makes home visits.”
Dr. Coleman didn’t have a private practice as her hospital contract was exclusive. But the hospital could dispatch one of its physicians for a home visit. Cat arranged for Dr. Coleman and a psychologist she recommended coming to their home for a joint appointment. Mother and daughter would take turns with both specialists, then wrap it up with a joint session to determine future steps. The appointment was two days from there, on a Friday.
The reporters camped outside still hadn't given up. On a self-imposed house arrest, they needed to fill their spare time. Cat learned that one of the security staff, by the name of Santiago, had worked as a personal trainer before joining Grendel Security, and she asked for his help to set up a spare room in the mansion as a gym. She ordered the equipment Santiago suggested online and hired a contractor to change the flooring and renovate the room, as it would need a better AC unit. In the meanwhile, they had Santiago help them with their morning and afternoon workout sessions.
Cat didn’t let her mother out of sight for too long, always finding things to do together. The fear she’d start drinking again was gnawing at the edges of her mind. Friday finally came and with it the appointment with Dr. Coleman. They split up in separate rooms, Mrs. Wallenstein with Dr. Coleman at her husband’s office and Cat with Dr. Ophelia Whitmann in the library. She chuckled at the arrangement because it reminded her of the game “Clue”.
Dr. Whitmann was excited at the prospect of working with Catherine, yet remained professional. They talked about the suicide attempt and the terrorist attack at the George Washington bridge for almost an hour before Cat could talk about her issues with her mother and what they did so far. Then it was time to switch. Dr. Coleman focused on her problems with her mother but also asked about the bridge incident. Cat reported she took the emergency medication and her experience with it.
The two specialists asked for time alone in the office to bounce ideas off one another, leaving mother and daughter free to talk to each other.
“How was it, mom?” She asked, afraid of the answer. Mrs. Wallenstein was detached as if reminiscing of the past.
They made eye contact and the older woman started to tear up. She bit her lips and finally asked, “may I talk to Catherine?”
“I’m sorry, daughter. I know I need help but you do too,” she apologized.
Confused, Cat asked, “What’s going on, mom? What are you regretting?”
Mrs. Wallenstein pulled away, “I told Dr. Coleman about your split personality disorder. You need help. I want my daughter back, healthy as the day she was born!” Cat smiled and giggled, disarming the tension in the air. “What?”
“You can’t be serious!” Mrs. Wallenstein rebutted. “If you are declared insane, all your plans to take over the family finances will go to ruin!”
Her grin didn’t even flinch.
Cat figured out the woman was testing to see if she’d react badly at the thought of being declared insane. But the two doctors had returned with their diagnosis so they shut up to listen.
“Catherine, Mrs. Wallenstein,” Victoria said, “We are very proud of your courage and of what you did already. We know you had a lot of baggage to unpack and many hidden wounds to heal but you already gave the first and most difficult step. You forgave each other and asked for help. And trust us, we’re here to help you to the best of our abilities.”
“Your workout schedule, watching movies at your home theater, the bonding during the day spa, it was all marvelous,” Ophelia added. “Keep doing that. You should spend a lot of time together and hold nothing back. No secrets between mother and daughter. Even if it’s about boys, Miss Wallenstein!” She teased.
“Too soon,” Cat snickered back. When Victoria glared at Ophelia and the younger doctor became apologetic, Cat burst out laughing. “Got ya!”
“Don’t stop taking the vortioxetine, Catherine,” Dr. Coleman said. “You still have enough pills for the rest of the month and we’ll see each other before that. I’ll renew your prescription then. Regarding the alprazolam, you used it right. I’m sorry you had such side effects but psychoactive medication has a profound effect on our brain chemistry. Keep the pills in your handbag at all times. If you feel a panic or anxiety attack, take it. As you so rightly said, it is better to feel like a zombie than lose control.”
Cat nodded.
“As for you, Mrs. Wallenstein,” Ophelia took the floor, “Congratulations on staying four days clean. I’d tell you to seek a support group but with the media outside, it is wise to stay at home. The AA has online meetings, you can find a group on their site. They have all-women meetings, discussion groups, and the best thing is, you can have Catherine by your side while you attend them. Catherine told me she doesn’t drink but the support of one’s family is paramount. Cultivate what you have.”
Cat grasped her mother’s hand and shared a glance with her.
“Now, regarding Catherine’s ‘split personality,” Victoria wiggled her fingers doing the air quotes, “There are exams we can do to check her neurological activity, but you need to go to the hospital as the machinery is not portable. She underwent severe psychological trauma several times and developing such disorders can happen. However, we didn’t see the usual signs of either dissociative or borderline personality disorders. She did an EEG recently at the hospital and I saw nothing wrong. Catherine, is there anything you want to share with us about that?”
She had rehearsed this part. “It is as I told you, Dr. Coleman. I don’t experience blackouts of blanks in my memory. I remember everything that happens around me clearly. I don’t have mood swings or periods of irritation and anger.”
“Do you still claim you have two personas within you?”
“Yes, but as the days pass, it is more like it’s just two facets of myself. The old Catherine that was always timid and afraid before I was assaulted and screwed up on that roof, and the new Catherine who needed to be strong for her family’s sake. You talked to both of us back at the hospital and are talking to them right now.”
Cat couldn’t hold back the tears. She covered her mouth and sub-vocalized, [I’m cheering on both of us.]
After a moment to recover their collective composure, Dr. Coleman said, “After the George Washington Bridge is open, would you mind going to the hospital for some tests? I want to do a CT scan and several tests to get to the bottom of that.”
“Then it is settled. I’ll schedule the exams back-to-back so we can do everything in one visit, and call you once the bridge is cleared for traffic.”
“Make sure to attend the AA meetings,” Ophelia reminded them as they said their goodbyes. “And keep up the good work!”