Chemicals of Recovery

By Rose Nichols

The Storm

The rain punished her. Merciless, horizontal sheets of water hammered her skin raw, and wind howled through the night, attempting to push her off course. Sophia staggered through it, soaked to the bone, every footstep a plea for mercy from a god that did not answer.

She didn’t know how long she had been running for. The minutes and hours blurred together as the muddy road wound left and right. Lightning forked the clouds, printing skeletal trees across the black, and she flinched from the sudden illumination and accompanying boom of thunder. The house was still a hundred yards away. Her house. From when she was little.

Her legs ached, but it was nothing compared to the ache between them. Her sex pulsed with a heat that contradicted the chill of the rain. She could feel strands of arousal running down her thighs with every stride, and each step caused a new jolt of pleasure to run through her body. But that was nothing new.

They had changed her.

It was the same storm that had caused the power outage at the lab. Sophia remembered only flashes; resting in her cell, her face pressed to the cold glass, then the panic as the backup batteries failed and all the doors unlocked at once. Machines screamed in erratic chorus, alarms blaring, drowning out the sounds of the other girls crying in their cells. And then someone was there, undoing the hood that covered Sophia’s eyes and ears.

The mask yanked free, and Sophia gasped. It was Claire, one of the researchers that had overseen her training, recognizable by a moon-shaped birthmark on her cheek. Claire’s face swam into focus, every line sharper than Sophia’s own name. The older woman worked quickly, hands trembling only slightly as she removed the mask, and then the rubber sleeves binding Sophia’s limbs together. “Don’t talk,” Claire hissed, “Put this on.” She pulled a large t-shirt over Sophia, who couldn’t hold back a whimper as the fabric scraped against her hypersensitive nipples. “Get a hold of yourself and follow me!” Claire reprimanded with exasperation.

The corridor outside was chaos, with sterile white walls reflecting red emergency lights as footsteps thundered in every direction. Sophia’s knees buckled. Claire caught her by the armpits, hiked her upright, and propelled her forward with the brute efficiency of someone used to handling livestock. Sophia staggered, her body betraying her with atrophied limbs that refused to coordinate.

They made it to an elevator, then a long hall, then a loading dock. At the back of the service lot, an old sedan waited, styled in the featureless, bureaucratic beige that camouflaged it perfectly amid the delivery vans and executive SUVs. Rain hammered the roof like a mob of angry fists as the two crouched behind the car. Claire searched her pockets, fumbling with the keys. She unlocked the trunk, numb fingers slipping on the latch. Finally, it popped open, empty and lined with dry felt.

“In you go,” Claire panted. Sophia hesitated, and Claire’s hand was suddenly at the small of her back, nails digging, and then Sophia was inside, curled up in the claustrophobic dark as the trunk slammed shut. Rain pelted the metal skin overhead, a ceaseless drumming that drowned her own stuttering breaths. It was a bit claustrophobic, but Sophia was used to darkness and small spaces from her time in the lab.

The car started moving. Sophia felt relief wash over her; anywhere was better than the monstrous place they were leaving. Under the engine’s vibration, Sophia’s body took over, her mind shuttling somewhere safe behind her eyes while her hands pressed, fists to knees, fighting the urge to touch herself, to do anything that might relieve the coil of need inside her. She could do nothing but listen to the rain beating on the trunk. They drove for a long time, and eventually the ride became much rougher as the car turned onto what Sophia imagined was a dirt road. As she bounced around in the trunk, nipples scraping against the floor, Sophia tried to keep herself under control.

The air had become stifling with humidity, both from the rain and the moisture constantly dripping from between her legs. The small space reeked of pussy, and humiliation thickened the air until it was a living, breathing thing, wrapping around Sophia’s face and filling her lungs with the unmistakable evidence of her own debasement. She wanted to scream, to claw at the velvet walls, but all she could do was shudder and writhe, fingers curling into the felt lining. Her body, so recently atrophied and starved, now burned with a need so raw it felt like violence.

After a long while, the car shuddered to a stop. Sophia waited, breathing in the stuffy air, until cautious footsteps circled to the rear bumper and the trunk popped open. Claire’s face hovered above her, etched with shadow from the moon and streaked with rain. They weren’t at the lab, or any hospital, but on the side of a county road bordered by dormant cornfields and black, bristling woods. A mile marker stood at the edge of a shallow ditch, the painted numbers blurred by mist.

Sophia struggled upright, every limb screaming protest. Claire reached in and hauled her by the armpits to her feet. “Look around. Do you know where we are?” Sophia stared, then blinked, as if the world would rearrange itself into a more plausible geography. But she did know this place, she realized. She recognized way the road curved just so, the wide-shouldered ditch, the gap in the line of cornstalks that led to the property her father had never fully tamed. She tried to speak, to say words that had long been trained out of her. She reached for Claire’s sleeve instead, fingers trembling, and nodded silently.

Claire shook her head, not unkindly, and wiped rain from her brow with the back of a hand. “You’re a mile out. You have an hour. Maybe less.” She suddenly gave Sophia a brief hug, surprising both of them. ”I can’t take you further— I’m sorry. I just—”

She turned away, and with another screech of tires, Sophia was alone.

The echo of Claire’s departure dissolved into rain and darkness. For a long moment Sophia just stood there, letting the cold soak through her bones, until the fear of being found overcame the terror of moving forward. She stumbled down the empty road, each step heavier than the last, the muddy gravel sucking at her shoes. The house seemed impossibly far, winking through sheets of water, but finally she reached the porch.

The storm gutter overflowed, water drumming the boards in a constant, arrhythmic chatter. Her legs refused to stop shaking. She gripped the railing, desperate to anchor herself in something real.

The door was in front of her. She hesitated, heart slamming, and pressed her forehead to the glass. “You can do this,” she told herself. “He’s your father. He’ll help you.”

She raised one hand, trembling, and knocked.

Mark Smith was not the patient man he used to be. Since his wife’s untimely death from cancer a decade ago, and his daughter’s more recent disappearance, he had stopped giving the world the benefit of the doubt. He had drowned his grief in whiskey and prevented it from propagating by isolating himself from society, and instead found solace in taking care of his garden and chickens. He did not take kindly to unexpected guests.

So when the doorbell rang an hour after midnight, Mark’s only reaction was the perfunctory irritation of a man awoken to a miserable reality far too early. He shuffled to the foyer in a white undershirt and sweatpants, rubbing at the sleep-dredged corners of his eyes, and peered through the peephole with the vague expectation of some drunk teenagers making trouble.

Instead, he saw her.

His brain refused to process it for the span of several heartbeats. It filtered the image, assumed some trick of the lens, and waited for his daughter to dissolve into the night like every other hallucination the dark had thrown at him these past months. But she didn’t disappear. She was real, slumped and shivering on the porch.

He opened the door.

“Jesus Christ,” he muttered softly, as if afraid the illusion would spook and flee. “Sophia?”

She looked up, her face caught in the ugly yellow spill of the porch light, and for a fleeting instant he saw the girl he remembered: standing shorter than most girls, with bright, curious eyes and dirty blond hair. Relief crashed into him; it was really her.

Then he saw the rest, and the relief was replaced by confused horror.

Sophia’s body was an exaggeration of sexual femininity. Her previously athletic form had been replaced by massive breasts that strained against her shirt, hard nipples clearly visible through the rain-soaked fabric. Her hips and ass were now wider, flared in an exaggerated hourglass, her cheeks were flushed pink despite the cold rain, and her lips were fuller, almost sultry.

“My god!” he exclaimed, louder than intended. “Sophia. What happened to you?”

She flinched at his tone, and suddenly collapsed, knees thudding to the porch planks, hands in front of her like she was presenting herself for judgment. She pressed her head to the floor, trembling. “Sorry, Daddy. I’m sorry.”

Mark dropped to her level, heedless of the cold and the puddling rain soaking through his sweats. “Hey. Hey. Sorry for what?” His voice more gentle and apologetic this time. “I’m so happy you’re alive, baby! Come inside and we’ll get you dry.”

He watched, stunned, as Sophia obeyed the command instantly, crawling forward on hands and knees, head still lowered. She made it over the threshold before he found his voice again. “Jesus, Sophia, just— stand up. Please. You can walk.”

Sophia made a valiant attempt to rise, but her knees rebelled and buckled so that she crashed into her father’s arms, nearly toppling him. He caught her by the ribs, the curve of her breasts slamming awkwardly into his forearm, and for an instant the heat of her skin and a musky, animal scent hit him like a punch. She sagged in his grip, breath coming in short, wounded gasps.

He hauled her upright, dragged her over the threshold, and kicked the door shut. He half-carried, half-pulled her down the hallway, leaving a trail of puddles in her wake.

He set her gently down on the living room couch. Sophia curled into herself, arms pinned across her chest, as if terrified that her body might burst or melt or simply cease to be contained. She was still shivering uncontrollably. Mark quickly fetched a towel from the laundry basket and draped it around her. Trying to stop his hands from shaking, he drew her into a tight, fatherly embrace.

“I missed you so much, Soph. I thought you were dead! But whatever happened, you’re safe now.”

He watched Sophia as she dared to look up and meet his eyes. Her lip quivered once, and then burst into tears, as everything that she had been through bubbled to the forefront of her mind.

Mark sat with her for a long time as she cried. He did not ask the questions that had been torturing him for months; his daughter was here and needed him now. Sophia bawled, buried in the towel, her body shaking from the cold and from her overwhelming emotions.

At some point the storm relented, and Sophia’s sobs petered out with it, leaving her wrung-out and hollow. He waited until she’d gone glassy and limp, then carefully peeled the towel away from her shoulders. “Let’s get you a shower. You need to warm up.”

Sophia nodded, mute and mechanical, and let him help her to her feet. Mark led her by the wrist, gentle but insistent, down the narrow hall lined with old family photos and the detritus of a life paused. He switched on the old vanity light and the bathroom flickered to life. As he reached for another towel, he looked back, and realized that his daughter was already ahead of him, grasping the hem of her oversized t-shirt with both hands and wrenching it up over her head. Her enormous breasts spilled free, pale and soft, accented by hard, pink nipples.

A wave of shock hit him, and Mark realized that she hadn’t been wearing any underwear either. She stood before him, completely naked, oblivious from exhaustion to her immodesty before her father. He shouldn’t have looked. It was his own child; he shouldn’t, but he did. Mark’s gaze caught, snagged, and finally became helpless, slaved to the impossible topography of his daughter’s altered body. He did not mean to stare, but when she bent over the tub reaching for the faucet, he saw the way her hips had been built for nothing but sex, the tapering of her waist giving way to pale, plump globes of ass. The curves were more than human, and he blinked in disbelief, noticing a shine of viscous, clear fluid that was slicking the insides of her pillowy thighs.

Between them, her vulva was completely bald, as if it had never seen hair, and the folds beneath were so red and swollen they almost looked infected. Even at a glance, Mark could see her outer lips, slick and parted, the inner ones so engorged they bulged almost obscenely, barely containing the glossy, clenching mouth of her sex. It pulsed, as if in time with her heartbeat, leaking a syrupy fluid that gleamed against the tile when it dripped, clear and stringy, toward the drain.

Sophia stepped into the shower, oblivious to her father’s shock. The trance broke. Mark averted his gaze, shame and guilt overwhelming him, and then the feelings redoubled as he realized he was hard. Not just a passing twitch, but fully erect, straining against the waistband of his sweatpants. The realization hit him like a slap. He turned away, desperate to cover himself, but knowing that would only draw attention.

“Sorry— Let me know if you need anything else…” He mumbled while hastily leaving the room.

When Sophia finally emerged from the bathroom, she was thankfully wearing a robe. Mark found that he was able to look at her again, but his horror at the changes to his daughter’s body persisted, sickening and hot in his throat. He tried to focus on the fact that a part of his life had been returned to him, and forced a smile.

“You feeling better?” he asked.

“A little. I…” She trailed off, biting her lip, then forced herself to nod. “Thank you Daddy.”

That was the second time she had called him that today; she hadn’t used that term since middle school. Maybe it was just an symptom of her traumatic experience. Mark decided not to push it.

“I made up your old room,” he said, changing the subject. “You should get some sleep; you look exhausted.” Sophia nodded, barely keeping her eyes open. He guided Sophia by the elbow, careful to keep his grip gentle, but there was a firmness that she responded to with automatic obedience. Mark did not look at her directly, but he could feel the gravity of her presence, every breath and awkward shuffle a needle in his nerves.

Up the stairs, the hallway was a diorama of their old life together. Lining the walls were snapshots of a life that might have belonged to a different family. Sophia as a girl, mud on her cheeks, the sun bright behind her, standing next to her mother and a much-younger Mark, all three smiling in happiness. There were high school band concerts, Halloween costumes, one blurry image from a trip to Florida, the three of them roasting in the sun, her mom’s hair still long and thick before the treatments began. Sophia barely glanced at the photos.

The door to her old room was ajar from Mark’s preparations, and he guided Sophia through while it creaked from disuse. The room was still littered with dusty old toys and books; largely untouched since she had left. “I put new sheets on,” he said, voice a little hoarse. “And I, uh, cleared out some of the boxes. It should be comfortable.”

He stepped back, arm extended in invitation, but Sophia ignored the bed entirely. Instead, she drifted to the far corner, where the old dog bed still lay slumped beneath the window, its previous occupant long gone from this world. She knelt, then curled into the oval with a practiced motion that was too fluid, too automatic, for Mark to dismiss as mere exhaustion. Her knees tucked up, her hands folded under her cheek, and the robe parted just enough to betray the inhuman slope of her breast resting against the edge of the cushion.

Mark stood in the doorway, confusion and dread creeping up his spine. "Soph," he said, clearing his throat. "What are you doing? The bed is over there." But there was no movement, just the slow, tidal rise and fall of her back as she breathed. She was already fast asleep.