Musings from Inmates of the Venus Asylum
Welcome to the Venus Asylum. Behind our ivy-covered walls and wrought-iron gates, the women who have been entrusted to our care are recuperating from various mental disturbances. Most are here because they have been judged dangerous to themselves and others.
Many of them claim supernatural or magical elements in their lives, but do not believe them. There is no magic here at the Venus Asylum. As the caretaker of the Asylum, I can assure you that the world behind these walls operates under the same natural laws as yours.
But as part of our risk management and liability policies, I will tell you now what I tell all our visitors.
Be warned. Enter the apartments of our inmates at your own risk.
~ Dr. Cachet Ancelline, Director of the Venus Asylum
Inmate Listing
Sincere
(Note: Sincere – or Lady Sincere Cavanagh, as she insists on calling herself – is the victim of head trauma and memory loss during the Jane Austen Fair that took place not too far from here almost a year ago. From the amazing detail of the costume she was wearing when she was found unconscious near the fairgrounds, we have concluded that she was an avid Janeite and cosplayer. Physically, she has recovered from the head injury she suffered sometime during the weekend, but psychologically, she is so entrenched in her admiration for the author that she firmly believes she belongs to Jane Austen’s time, and that she had somehow appeared in our time through means she cannot explain.)
So far, no one has come to claim Sincere, and steps to establish her identity have come up frustratingly empty. ~S.)
Dearest Victoria,
Oh, I do miss you, sweet sister! I do not care if they tell me that my letters to you can never be delivered. I have kept writing until I am certain they groan at the sight of one of my missives. Perhaps, by some miracle, one of them will reach you.
It has become intolerable. No one believes me still. Even the other inmates here think me to be utterly deranged. Liss fondly calls me one sandwich short of a picnic. Linnea tolerates me because she chose to be here, and although I find her appreciation for a good tea quite comforting, I can see the terror in her eyes that I will suddenly “snap” on her. Ceynwyn understands, I suppose, although I believe she is more demented than even Liss. Her secret proposal for us to escape this place, killing anyone who stands in our way, is a bit too drastic for me. I have no money, no knowledge of this world to survive outside these walls, and the sight of blood makes me squeamish.
I have only one solution. I have been patiently waiting this entire, unbearable year. Somehow, I arrived here in this time through that Jane Austen Fair that everyone insists that I had been attending before they found me. I do not even know this Jane Austen. Some author, they say, who wrote the most amazing novels. I have never heard of her. At any rate, I intend to make my way there the weekend it arrives. I am certain in my heart that the answer and the way back lies there.
And I have had this thought, a tiny suspicion that has grown over the past few months. It was at your birthday ball, just before I was transported to this time. A man, watching me. I do not know why I remember him. There was something about him that made me shiver…
Only a week left. I am determined to go home to you and Papa and Mama. I will not be stopped!
All my love,
Sincere
(Note: This is Sincere’s 358th letter to her “sister.” She has written faithfully since her arrival at the Venus Asylum. ~ S.)
(P.S. For Sincere’s Modern/Regency romp, I would love to write with either a male or female, playing either character, who also enjoys the Regency period (1811-1820). Light, bondage and/or non-con.)
Ceynwyn (TAKEN)
(Note: This eighteen-year-old female claims to be from an alternate universe where hellish, ravenous creatures called wights have returned to stalk and prey on humanity. She also believes that our world is a slightly better version of hell. In her world, as her story goes, she was an orphan who lived alone in an ancient forest, making her animated toys out of metal and her fire and her magic, and protected herself with metal warriors she had painstakingly crafted. When she found a cart with gold surrounded by dead bodies, she claimed the gold for her sculptures, but soon she finds that a sellsword has been sent by the gold’s owner to recover it. Of course, she blames the sellsword for getting her into this predicament, for after he destroyed her warriors, she was forced to leave the forest and finally set out on her quest for her true destiny…
She claims the sellsword is also trapped in our universe after they had stumbled upon the waygate in the forest, but that she has not seen him since they burst into our world. Like all delusional individuals, she earnestly believes her story to be true, and fiercely resists our doctors’ attempts to probe her dementia. The following are examples of attempts to encourage her to express her thoughts and emotions by writing or drawing.)
Session #1: Thank you for the paper. Should I write something? Oh look. There’s a little tear. Oops, I’m afraid it’s gotten bigger!
Session #2: Thank you for the paper. Very nice. Cotton, isn’t it? I hope you don’t mind if I use it to blot oil from Teva. (Proceeds to use the paper to clean her small metal toy that she calls Teva.)
Session #3: Thank you for the paper. Do you like French Fries? They have it for lunch. (Proceeds to tear up the paper in half, and drops the fries on both halves, pushing one towards me.) Here, have some.
Session #4: Thank you for the paper, but Teva says that writing things down will make me more vulnerable, and Liss says that I wouldn’t want to open up cans of disgusting worms. (At my explanation that it was sort of the point, she looked surprised.)
Session #5: Thank you for the paper— (I’m not exactly sure how it happened. Suddenly, the paper burst into flame in her hands, and I had to dump my coffee on it to put it out. Throughout all this, Ceynwyn looked on in wide-eyed innocence.)
(Note: Ceynwyn claims that Teva is an animated metal toy that functions as her familiar and guide. So far, we have not seen this metal guide move, for Ceynwyn proclaims that her sculptures will only move in the sight of those who believe. ~ S.)
(P.S. Modern/fantasy romp, maybe some non-con and/or some bondage. Your character can be a sellsword or knight who is coping as best he could in this world while hunting for Ceynwyn, who he believes to be a witch who put him in this predicament and can therefore take him out of it.)
Linnea
(Note: This case is rather straightforward. This woman sought sanctuary in the Venus Asylum, claiming her older brother has designs on her while attempting to consolidate her fortune and shares in the company with his.
She insists on her biweekly sessions with me. In the last one, I again explained to her that in order to stay in the Asylum, she must have a valid psychological need, and aside from her paranoia, the doctors have diagnosed her to be of sound mind. So, I told her, she has one week before she must be discharged. )
You don’t understand, Dr. Ancelline. She leans forward earnestly. There’s something about this place. It’s enough to make one crazy. I mean, what do you expect when you put me in the company of a – a nymphomaniac, a pyromaniac, and a cosplay fruitloop? Seriously? Did you think I would be unaffected by having psychopaths as neighbors, with whom you make me spend an inordinate amount of time? I admit that she had a point, but I tap her folder and tell her that all three of her doctors confirmed her normalcy. She shakes her head vigorously. I demand a fourth opinion. I am on the verge of a nervous breakdown, Dr. Ancelline. I—I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I think I’m beginning to believe Sincere. I mean, she has the most perfect manners, and she can describe in stunning detail the last ball she attended—in 1815. And she hasn’t attacked me yet so there’s that, right? I sigh and tell her that I would arrange for yet another examination.
(Note: I haven’t told Linnea yet, but if she continues to claim psychological incapacitation, her brother will move to take custody of her. ~S.)
(P.S. Brother/sister, bondage, non-con.)
Liss
(Note: This is an interesting case. This woman thinks that the words in her books move about like so many tiny ants, marching in precise rows in their proscribed little worlds on each page. However, this delusion is slightly less disturbing than her belief that a man haunts and dominates her, a spirit being invisible to us but whom she can describe with gorgeous detail. She claims that this incubus is the cause of so many of her erotic fantasies and behaviors, including her compulsive need to seduce men.)
Words. Words. So many pretty little words in a row! They’re all supposed to mean something together, I think. The people here say that stories are like that. (By the way, there are too many people here… too many voices making me want to do naughty things…)
I think of a word. Silk. What do you think when I say the word? Pretty word, yes? Aha, but what do you think when I say it?? Do you think of spider silk to make webs that tangle and tickle when you walk into them unaware? Do you think of the softest, sheerest fabric rubbing against your skin? Or do you think of the hot, throbbing kind stroking you? Yes, I mean the smooth silk there between a woman’s thighs. Or maybe you think of a porn queen’s nightstand and her favorite item on it?
What do I think when I say it? I don’t know. Silk by itself is sort of lonely. Silk needs other words to keep it company. Maybe something that rhymes? Like bilk. Ugh. It means to swindle or dupe (according to this book written by Merriam). Not very pretty. They don’t go together at all. But then, there’s this other word that rhymes with silk. Milk. What do you think of when I say that word?
Silk bilks milk. Mmm. Is there a story in that row of words? I don’t know... do you think it needs more words?
Do you have other words? *pats the seat on the garden bench next to her, smiling coaxingly* Don’t be scared. Maybe we can put our words together… yes?
(At present, I can confirm that Liss is seeking other words to flesh out her own little row. Caution above applies. She claims that to be free of this incubus, she must subject her victim to a complete seduction of the senses. ~ S.)
(P.S. For Liss’s game, the owner of new words can choose to be the incubus, a man she seduces, a man possessed by the incubus, or a psychiatrist who works at Venus Asylum, who may or may not be possessed by the incubus. Alternately, Liss can be the succubus, feeding on her victim’s pleasure. Can be Light, Bondage or Non-con)
Cachet (Taken)
Being Director of the Asylum has its consequences. One of them is the reputation for being rather odd. My practice does not conform to any known standards of psychological care. I have been accused of being unable to control my patients, but is total control truly the goal? I do care very much for the women in my charge, whether they care for me or not.
I have been accused of other things as well. One of them going the rounds is that I’m some sort of practitioner of magic. A witch. I would ask my accusers to provide hard evidence to support their theory for happenings for which there are perfectly good explanations without resorting to the supernatural. Natural events, for example, explain the rumors of ‘flying persons’ on the grounds of the Asylum. Some freak of climate has made the Asylum and its environs particularly susceptible to thick swirling fog, so these wild conjectures are understandable. We also have an unusually large population of oversize owls and bats, many of which live in the woods on the edge of the Asylum’s lawns. Flying creatures can thus be explained by these two natural phenomena together.
Perhaps the most pernicious rumors relate to the other strange phenomena that surround the Asylum. Many report ghostly lights, distortions of the atmosphere, lightning on clear nights, and other such nonsense. I believe the silliness of such gossip clearly speak of the apprehension and misunderstanding in which the inmates of the Asylum are held.
I will repeat my claim above as to the normalcy of the Asylum and hope someday to lay these misunderstandings to rest.
(P.S. Light, bondage, or non-con.)
