THE ROUTINE OF THE CAGED
The days blurred.
Morning. Class. Pill. Return. Night.
Repeat.
Like clockwork.
She no longer asked questions. No longer wandered past the parlor. No longer dared to breathe deeply around Lelo, who had stopped speaking but never stopped watching.
The maids never made eye contact.
Not since she was moved to the locked room.
Not since her bedroom became a waiting box.
---
Roman visited almost every night.
Never the same time.
Sometimes early, when she was barely undressed.
Other times late, when the ceiling fan had lulled her halfway to sleep.
He'd come in without knocking.
Sit beside her. Touch her hair.
Call her wife like it was a sacred word.
Then he'd reach for her.
Always gently.
Always with a low voice.
> "I need to feel you again."
And Serene…
She never said yes.
She never said no.
She just let him.
Because she still had one thing left.
---
Each morning, she woke before the maids.
Pulled the bottle from beneath the mattress — the one she hid in the lining, where even the nosiest eyes couldn't find it.
One pill.
Pressed to her tongue.
Swallowed with dry spit and a quiet curse.
Sometimes her hands shook too hard to twist the cap.
Sometimes she gagged and had to try again.
But she took it.
Every morning.
Because her body might no longer belong to her —
but her womb still did.
---
Lelo stopped calling her mother aloud.
But she hovered in corners.
Waited outside the door.
Crept into the room during breakfast just to brush her fingers through Serene's hair.
> "You smell different now."
Serene didn't answer.
> "You don't love us yet," Lelo added one morning. "But you will."
---
That night, Roman didn't speak when he entered.
He just unbuttoned her blouse slowly, like peeling something soft he already owned.
He didn't hurt her.
Not with bruises.
But she bled somewhere else.
Somewhere deep.
---
The next morning, her pill nearly slipped from her fingers.
Her hand caught it just in time.
As she swallowed, a tear slid down her cheek.
Not from pain.
From fear that someday, she might forget why she ever wanted to take it.
---