“To cut yourself?”
“Yes. But more like scratch. It didn’t break the skin very much, but the pain helped. I needed the pain. Need,” I breathed out. “It’s so stupid.”
“It’s not stupid, slave. A lot of people need physical pain to cope. There’s nothing wrong with that if done the right way. It’s okay to experience pain. To like it. What those kids did was wrong. It hurt you, here,” he said, placing his hand over my heart. “Age makes no difference. Words hurt and people are cruel. The fact that they were adolescents doesn’t make it okay. It’s not.”
His hand slid up my chest the smallest amount before lifting to wipe away the new tears that were streaming free. I couldn’t stop myself from wanting to lean in. It made no sense. The man had lied to me, taken me against my will and brought me to this place, and now I was restrained to a bed while he was making me pour out everything I’d done so well locking away. He showed a little caring toward me and I softened to him? No. This wasn’t right.
“What would they say?”
I tried wiggling away from him, but he didn’t seem to care to move.
“The typical stuff—fat, ugly. I was overweight as a kid. I played sports, but the weight was always there. It wasn’t until the summer before my freshman year that I lost close to thirty pounds.”
“Thirty? Over the summer? That’s a bit excessive, don’t you think?”
The shock on Jaime’s face had me turning away. “I guess.”
“What happened?”
“Life. The divorce between my parents. Tony.”
Jaime’s head cocked to the side in my peripheral at the mention of the name.
“Start at the beginning of this.”
God, I didn’t want to. My life was only going to get worse. The more I talked through the years, the harder life had become. And this man was the reason I was having to experience it again.
“I’m getting tired.”
“Slave.”
“Lydia,” I snapped, throwing him a look. “I’m done for tonight. I don’t want to talk anymore. I think I’ve told you enough.”
The bed shifted as Jaime pushed to sit. Still, he was close, only inches away from the side of my breast.
“I say when you’re done. And you’re not. I know you think shutting down will deter me, but I have ways to make you speak. You really don’t want to find that out so soon.”
“Don’t threaten me. I’ve told you more than I’ve told most people. I said I’ve had enough. It’s getting late and I don’t want to talk about it anymore. I’m exhausted. Do you have any idea what I’ve gone through tonight? Do you even care?”
“What I care about is you getting better. You’re stalling. That’s not going to help. You have to get it out tonight. All of it.”
Did I argue? I wanted to, but I didn’t think it would make a difference. All I wanted was this over with. I wanted to leave. Maybe if I came clean, I could talk him out of these ridiculous four weeks. Or … if not, maybe he would let me out of these chains so I could escape.
“Fine. It was on a Friday night. I was going to walk with some friend up to the high school football game when I heard my parents arguing from their room. It was unlike them. They never fought. Or at least, where I could hear them. I can remember waving my friends to wait outside while I got closer to their bedroom door. I didn’t make it another few feet before I noticed my mother was crying. Hearing her… I couldn’t believe it. I’d never heard my mother so upset. She was the sweetest person. She took care of everyone but herself.”
I blinked my parents’ room away, not letting myself get in too deep with the memories. “Anyway, she asked why they couldn’t work it out. Why they had to get a divorce. She didn’t want one. That it was unfair to me.”
“My father said he didn’t love her anymore. That he’d met someone else. My mother only cried harder. That’s when I ran away for the first time. I went into my room and dumped out my backpack full of books, and I stuffed as many clothes as I could fit in there.”
Jaime reached over to the bedside table, pulling the drawer open. When he went for my hands, I was surprised when he unlocked one of my wrists.
“Continue, slave.”
He held to my hand, caringly, like a friend, making me hesitate for only a moment before I picked up where I had left off.
“I made it as far as the bus station before my dad pulled up. It didn’t matter that I was almost fourteen. He spanked my ass with the belt that night. He was crying the entire time, but he said he’d never been so scared. He wasn’t sure he’d make it to me in time, or that he’d even find me.”
“When I told him about what I had heard, things only got worse. I was angry. Hurt. My mom was still crying, although I think she was trying hard not to. It was one of the worst nights of my life. For hours we went at it, but it made no difference. In the end, my dad packed and left. Just … left after his breakdown from almost losing me. I didn’t understand it. How could he be so afraid for me and then just leave?”
My head shook as even now I didn’t understand.
“I ran away a handful of times after that. My mom started drinking real bad, and my dad didn’t come around unless I was screwing up, or needed to be found. I was essentially alone, even when I wasn’t running away. Everything was wrong. My cutting got worse. I went from inflicting pain to actual razors. My daydreams of slicing my wrists were no longer a fantasy, but a reality. I’d do it, just never deep enough. I truly didn’t want to die, then. I just wanted the pain to stop.”
“Who’s Tony?”
I frowned, ignoring the sickness that came with the thought of him. “My first boyfriend. I was barely sixteen. He was pushing twenty. Had I known what I do now, I would have run as far and as fast as I could have. The entire situation was bad news, but naivety will do that to you. It presents the ugliest packages in the prettiest wrapping. It seduces you, promises you forever, and knocks you up and nearly kills you.
“I thought I knew everything at that age. Looking back, I knew absolutely nothing about life. Even after all the shit I’d been through, I was clueless. I trusted this guy. I let my foolish, childish mind convince me that he was the best thing there ever was. That he was going to take care of me and he’d never do what my father had done. I was sixteen. What the hell was I thinking? I still, to this day, do not understand my own mind.”
Jaime squeezed my hand, sliding his thumb over mine. “What happened? How did things turn bad?”
“We were dating almost a year before I discovered I was pregnant. It was five days short of my seventeenth birthday. I was a senior in high school, close to graduating. Tony worked in the next town at a tire shop. We had our fights, but I never thought …”
Another gentle squeeze to my hand.
“The night I told him I was pregnant he flipped out. He started asking me who I was cheating on him with. When I wouldn’t give him a name like he wanted, he was all over me. He went crazy, holding my face, screaming at me. I think the bruising on my cheeks hurt forever. Anyway, he finally came back to my mother’s, begging for me to go back. He said he was sorry, that he wanted to get married and get us our own place. Stupid me, I ended up believing him. And he did get us a place. But things didn’t get better, they got worse.
“School became almost impossible to finish. Tony would come up there drunk out of his mind, yelling at me if he saw me looking at another guy. When the school banned him from coming on the property, I got to hear it even worse when I got home. I don’t know how I managed to graduate, but I did. It wasn’t a week later, though, that he lost it. That night.” I paused, lost in the remembered glow of the microwave as I stared at it. “It all seems so vivid when I look back. I can still remember the smell of popcorn like I’m standing back in my small kitchen. It’s popping, and I’m watching it spin around in a circle. I’m starving. We had no food or money because Tony spent it all on beer and who knows what else. It was the whole reason I’d put in applications the entire day.” I p
aused. “That was my mistake.”
Tears left me again and my vision faded as I tried to push the scene away.
“Don’t stop. You’re doing well.”
“I never heard him coming. One minute I’m staring into the microwave, the next, a stinging pain raced up my scalp and then I was flying—crashing into the cabinets behind me. By the time I knew what happened, Tony was on me, hitting, kicking. He kept yelling, saying how I didn’t think he could support us. About how I wanted a job to escape him and find someone else who could take care of me better.” I brought my free hand up, still holding Jaime’s as I wiped the tears away.
“Anyway, the neighbors heard my screaming. They called the police. I was a little over five months along. The baby didn’t make it. Neither did Tony.”
Chapter 9
Jaime
Had I thought I knew this woman and what she’d gone through? I had no idea. Looking into her past had told me nothing. Paper didn’t define a person, I knew that, but why hadn’t I come across anything on a baby? It would have been there and easily obtainable. Randle. I’d had him research most of the information. I had been wrapping up the last slave to get prepared for Lydia and trusted he would cover all bases. I was wrong. He was too new at this.
“I’m sorry for your loss and for what happened.”
Again, she brought up our hands to wipe her tears.
“I sometimes wonder how things would have been if Christian lived.” She paused. “Not sometimes. All the time. He was so tiny. So … beautiful.” Her eyes closed and she took a ragged breath. I couldn’t stop myself from stroking back her hair as she turned into our connected hands and sobbed. “I haven’t been to his grave in months. It hurts so much. I wanted him more than I ever wanted anything. How do things go so wrong?”
“I don’t know. I wish I had the answers.”
Lydia’s lids lifted and she stared toward the wall, slipping into the past again.
“Tony fled before the cops got there. He tried running, but they caught up with him. There was a chase, but he was wasted drunk. He wrecked his truck, rolled a few times. He wasn’t buckled.”
Again she got quiet. The tears were stopping and I knew she was trying to numb herself out.
“I left, then. Ran away to Los Angeles. I worked a few odd-end jobs, making enough money to put a roof over my head—sometimes. I was lost. I started drinking a lot. I made a few friends, but they were bad news. They did drugs and partied really hard. Nothing too hardcore, marijuana, sometimes cocaine, although I avoided that the majority of the time. It lasted a few months before I woke up in a stranger’s house. That’s when I came back home to Portland. I was out of control and knew it. I was drinking almost every day. I’d even go to work wasted, sometimes.
“My mother was happy to take me back. It took a little time, but I got my act together and went back to school. I met more friends. Good ones. They were my age, but I don’t think they’d been through a quarter of what I had. I pretended to be happy and I guess at moments I was, but the sadness, the pain and guilt, would always return. I fought depression, all the while, focusing on my classes. A year in, I met Fred. I don’t know why, but it’s like you meet one abusive man and a flock seems to follow. We dated for all of three weeks before he hit me for the first time. I dumped him. A few months later, Travis. Same pattern. Dating was the last thing I wanted when Phillip came into my life. He was different. He was older, around thirty and a business owner. He treated me like no man ever had. I thought he was the one. A new start, finally.”
Lydia turned to me, her red-rimmed eyes searching mine for something.
“Have you ever loved someone, Jaime?”
“Master,” I corrected. “And, yes, I have.”
“How much?”
I took in Lydia’s beautiful face, noticing my pulse spike at the truth that whispered into my mind. “I never do anything partially. It’s all or nothing. When I love, I love with everything I have.”
“Me too,” she whispered.
“And you loved Phillip?”
“I thought I did. I mean, at the time, yes. But a part of me was always waiting. For what, exactly, I wasn’t sure. I think when you go through so much pain, you come to expect more to follow. You prepare yourself for it to show up in the happiest places. And it did. It just waited for me to get comfortable enough in my new marriage to show its ugly face.”
“The pills.” My voice had her looking back at me.
“I never knew. The whole time we were dating, the first few months of marriage—I was married to a stranger. How does that happen? Had I learned nothing? Did I miss the signs? I think I’ve gone over my relationship with Phillip a million times and I never see it. I never remember him being any different, or acting suspiciously. He fooled me, and then he tried to trap me the only way he knew how. And for three years, I let him.”
My head shook. “The drugs let him. Tell me about the first time.”
Lydia’s brow creased in what appeared to be pain. “Please. Don’t make me talk about it. The withdrawals return just thinking about that period. It’ll make me sick. I can’t take anymore tonight.”
I slid my fingers through hers, holding tight. “Let’s just get it over with. I’m here for you.”
“Jesus. I’m not sure what’s going to be worse. Tonight, or the days to come. You know this isn’t making me better, right? You’re doing more damage than good.”
“Wrong.” I pulled our clasped hands closer to me, wrapping my free one around the back part of hers. I had her hand engulfed in both of mine. It was nothing more than to add comfort. To show her that I was here for whatever was to come. It worked. Lydia nodded, weakly, sighing.
“We got married while I was still in school. I began working for him as a receptionist while I finished up my degree. Everything was perfect until the night of the Christmas party. I was feeling down. It happens every holiday. It makes me think of my son.” She paused. “Phillip knew how hard I was taking it. He had always been supportive, but that night was different. He said he knew of a way to make things better. When he told me, I thought he was joking. Surely, I wasn’t talking to the same man I married. Then I realized he was serious. I blew up, of course. He tried for a good hour to convince me to try it. To take the pill and see if it made me feel better. The way he talked, I began believing him. I think he could tell I was on the fence.”
“Did you know what it was?”
“He said it was ecstasy, but no. I wasn’t aware what it truly was. I knew it was a drug, but I didn’t know what was in it.”
I nodded, growing quiet so she could continue.
“At one point I said okay. I took the pill and held it in my hand for a good few minutes, but I couldn’t do it. I just … couldn’t. Everything in me was saying it was a bad idea. Phillip kept going on about how it was the best thing ever. That I was worrying over nothing. I was so confused. He was my husband. I loved and trusted him. But I handed him back the pill and said no. For the first time, I saw him get mad. Really mad. He said I was overreacting and being dramatic. I went to turn away. That’s when he changed. He grabbed me hard and I can remember the shock I felt. The dread that this was happening all over again. I think my mouth may have been open because the next thing I knew he was pushing the pill passed my lips. It tasted … horrible. I tried to spit it out, but he kept pushing it back in. I could have fought him harder or bit his finger, but for some reason, I didn’t. I was weak. I gave in and swallowed what was left.”
Sweat was forming between our hands, but I held to Lydia as her breaths increased and she tried shifting her position.
“It wasn’t long before the pill made me throw up. I hated it for the first 10 minutes it was in my system. But once I got sick and that passed … I knew what the drug stood for. It was ecstasy. My pain, my heartbreak, it all melted away. Happiness flooded me and for the first time in as long as I could remember, I could breathe.
“‘I told you,’ he whispered to me, just as happily
. ‘I told you it was the best thing you’d ever feel.’ And he was right. We went to the party and I wasn’t worried about how I should appear, or what people thought about me. I was free. And I guess they all saw the difference. They were talking to me. Laughing and having just as good of a time as I was. I went from a quiet, shy woman to a social butterfly. My personality was like night and day. I can remember Phillip walking us to our group of friends and suddenly … it all made sense. He threw them a smile and the way they returned it, they knew. And I knew. We were all high as a fucking kite and at the time, I didn’t care. I finally fit in with them.”
Lydia’s face was pained as she stared at our hands. “The first few weeks it was just a weekend thing. I looked forward to Fridays for a whole new reason. We’d go out, or have BBQ’s, and our friends would come over. It didn’t take long before I started noticing the pull of wanting to do it more. Of needing to buffer the wait. I tried to ignore it for a while, but Phillip didn’t let me forget how good it felt. He’d drop hints, offer to make some calls if I didn’t want to wait. One day in particular was bad. My anxiety was high and I was starting to feel sick. I remember going into his office to tell him I wasn’t feeling well, that I was going home early. That’s when he threw me the oddest smile. In my mind, I knew how bad I was, but when he took the pill from his pocket, my care vanished. I was suddenly what I feared. The truth was before my very eyes and the nausea wouldn’t let me ignore it. I had become an addict. A junkie, desperate for my next fix.”
Silence had me angling my head so I could get her attention.
“I ran,” she said, looking at me. “I ran like hell and went home to pack. Phillip was right behind me. I didn’t get my clothes in the bag before he burst into our room. We fought for a few hours. I told him I didn’t want to do it anymore and he said fine. He didn’t try to force me to take it again. He didn’t have to. All he had to do was lay it on the mantle in our room and watch the fun begin. I failed,” Lydia said, sobbing. “That day, I failed. The moment I picked up the pill to throw it away, I didn’t make it a few steps before I popped it in my mouth. I was so sick at that point. So desperate to make the pain go away, and Phillip knew it.
Insufferable: A Dark Erotic Romance Page 6
