I nodded and swallowed, letting go of my hair to rub my hands back and forth on the smooth material of the chair I sat in. “About Stranger and Lover.” I called Taylor Lover, because that’s the first word that came to mind when I thought of him. He loved me too hard. To the point where it destroyed us both.
George sat a few feet away in a chair similar to mine. The yellow walls of his office surrounded us.
“She’d never really been afraid of Lover. Not until Lover’s son left that summer. You know, the one I told you about last time.”
He nodded.
“When Son left she was sad because she expected him to stay…” And then I was back there. I was alone in my bedroom staring at the blue digital clock on my nightstand. I’d been crying ever since I came up for bed. Rhett had left earlier in the day. He hadn’t even stayed twenty-four hours after I propositioned him, after I’d all but begged him to have sex with me. He’d declined my offer and stormed out of the living room. He hadn’t spoken to me, or so much as looked at me. Not even to say goodbye when he left.
Embarrassment threatened to suffocate me. Did he leave because of me? Am I that repulsive? The questions only made me cry harder.
Daddy hadn’t been up to see me either. Not since Rhett came home. It was the first time in years that I had gone more than three days without his dick inside me. I’d enjoyed it, the time away from him. It was space I never remembered having. But now that Rhett was gone it made me question everything. Had Daddy stayed away because he didn’t want me anymore either? Just the thought of that made something like panic well up inside me. What happened? What’s wrong with me?
But then I heard it. The creak of my door. The familiar footsteps Daddy always made. Now that he was here I wished he wasn’t. My panic of being unwanted was replaced with something else, something I hadn’t felt with him before. Dread. Not when my rejection from Rhett was still so fresh and raw.
I tried to mellow out my breathing. Maybe if he thought I was asleep he would just go.
“I know you’re awake. I could hear your pathetic crying down the hall.”
I sucked in a deep breath and rolled over to face him. Who was I kidding? I knew he wouldn’t just go. He didn’t have any qualms about waking me up. He got what he wanted regardless of when and where.
He’d taken me shopping just before our trip to Cancún a few months ago. We’d been looking for new bathing suits for me to wear. By the time I’d tried on my third one he’d had me bent over in the changing room pounding into me from behind. I hadn’t wanted to do it there. Someone could catch us…and then what would happen? I knew by then that our relationship was twisted and wrong. I wasn’t even fifteen yet, my birthday at the time had still been about a month away. But I didn’t tell him no. Telling him no would make him angry and I didn’t want that either. So I let him fuck me there in that changing room. The bikini top dangling loosely from my neck. His hands on my chest while he pumped into me.
Even though I didn’t want it like that, I still came. There was something about Daddy that made things different. It didn’t matter how he touched me or where. He always made me tremble with ecstasy, even if it was unwanted. He’d clamped his hand over my mouth while I convulsed against him. But it left me feeling dirty. Dirtier than I was used to.
“Why are you crying?” I jerked my eyes up to meet his. It was dark in my room, so I could barely see his eyes.
“I’m just tired.”
“Don’t lie to me.” He moved quickly his body caging mine against the bed.
“I’m not lying,” I whispered.
“Did he fuck you?”
I sucked in a breath as panic flooded my stomach. “What? Who?”
The sting of his palm against my cheek took my breath away. Daddy had never hit me before.
“Did he fuck you?” he shouted.
I shook my head back and forth frantically, gasping for air.
“You little bitch. Don’t lie to me.” He stood and started undoing his belt.
“Daddy, no—”
“You’re still lying.” The smooth leather slid out of his khaki pants with a whisper against the soft fabric.
I sat up against my headboard, the grooves of it pressing into my back. A sigh of relief came next. I knew he would drop his belt on the floor and then his pants would follow. His thick, erect cock would spring forth and I would wrap my lips around it like always. Things would be fine. They were always fine.
But the thud of the belt hitting the floor never came. Instead he wrapped the leather around his hand.
“W-what are you doing?”
He took a step toward me, popping the button on his pants.
“Tell me the truth.”
“The truth about what?” He couldn’t know about what I said to Rhett. He couldn’t know what I had asked him to do. He just couldn’t.
He undid the buttons on his shirt. His hands were methodical, slow, as he undid each one. The belt was still wrapped around his right hand. The buckle clinking against itself quietly.
It wasn’t long before he was naked, standing before me in all in his glory. But all I could see was the belt. My cheek still stung from him slapping me.
What is he going to do now?
“The truth about you and Rhett.” He was on top of me now pulling at my nightshirt until it was off, jerking my underwear down until, like him, I was bare and open.
“Nothing happened with Rhett, Daddy.”
He ran his hand up and down my face, the cool leather brushed against my skin, the buckle moving against my collarbone.
“I heard you. Last night.” He was only inches away from my face. “I heard you beg him to fuck you.”
“No.”
“Yes!” he shouted. The soft rub of his hand against my temple was gone. He pressed the belt against my cheek. The buckle digging into my neck. “I fucking heard it. I heard how badly you wanted it. How you wanted him to make love to you.” His breathing was erratic. “You never wanted me to make love to you. You never begged me.”
“Daddy, I—”
“Just shut the fuck up.” He jerked away from me. “Turn over.”
“But—”
“Now.”
My hands shook as I moved. This was bad. He’d never been angry. Not like this. Never with me.
“That’s it.” He slapped his free hand against my ass and I winced. “It’s going to be different tonight though.” He got behind me and I could feel his hard dick against the outside of my leg. “You’re going to beg me tonight.”
I opened my mouth to tell him what, I didn’t know. I would never know either because searing pain on my ass made me cry out. I tried to jump off the bed, but he stopped me, pressing his hand down in between my shoulders. Now I know what the belt is for.
“You’re mine, Faye baby. Do you understand?”
“Yes, yes, please Daddy, just don’t hit me again.”
He chuckled. It was the first time I heard that dry laugh from him, but it wouldn’t be the last. It would become the soundtrack to the horrors that happened to me over the next year of my life. It would play over and over while he abused me. He only had to hit me with the belt two more times that night before I started begging, saying, doing anything to get him to stop. I could feel the warm trickle of my blood sliding down the back of my legs.
But the begging didn’t matter. And my voice was hoarse, my eyes puffy, and my bottom raw and bloody before he finally stopped. Before he gave in and made love to me. But it wasn’t love, even though he claimed it was. Even though he kissed me after it was all over and told me all the ways he loved me. Even though he held me while I cried.
I cried for the pain, in disbelief that Daddy would do this to me. But I cried too because I was glad it was over. If things could go back to the way they had been before, I could accept it, as long as I didn’t have to endure that again.
But I was wrong. I had no idea where the next year would take me. I didn’t know that this was only the beginning. That
the hatred Daddy had for me and what I had done was something that could never be mended. Because some things were always broken, even with the tiny cracks glued together, some things could never be fixed no matter how much you wanted them to be. Time would wear away at the glue that kept up the farce on the outside until the cracks were bigger and more fucked up than before.
“And that’s what Stranger thought, that she couldn’t fix Lover, but she wanted to?”
I blinked, George’s voice jerking me out of the memory. We were still there in his office surrounded by yellow walls. “She wanted to fix him so he wouldn’t hurt her anymore,” I said.
“Not because she loved him?”
I frowned. Did she? Did I? “When love is bloody like that, it’s hard to remember what love really is.”
George typed quickly. “I like that, Faye. Very poetic.” He was silent for a moment. “But have you ever thought that maybe it wasn’t Stranger who broke Lover. That he was already broken long before she met him.”
“I don’t know,” I said quietly. Taylor had everything together and figured out. That was something else the clarity made even more apparent. Taylor would always win. It didn’t matter what I said or did, he would prevail. It made dread churn in my belly. I would be out of here one day soon. And one day I would have to face him. Just thinking about it made the craving for a hit of cocaine come rushing to the forefront of my mind. Something to coat me in the haze I had lived in for so long. I tapped my fingers against the chair arm. They moved methodically. The short pale nails clicking against the leather. They were clean underneath, not dirty like they used to be. If anyone saw them they would think they were the hands of a woman who didn’t care much for painting her nails. Her clicking fingers could mean anything. They wouldn’t know the hands belonged to a woman who craved a bump of blow just to escape the reality of her past.
“Will Stranger see him again?”
“Huh?” I jerked my head up, meeting his kind eyes.
“Will Stranger see him again, Lover? Is she still in danger because of him?”
He asked me this same question each day. And each day I wanted to tell him the truth. That Stranger wasn’t safe from him, I wasn’t safe. “No. He’s gone.” And each day I lied.
He nodded slowly. “You’ve done really well, Faye. That’s all for today.” He set his computer on the small table next to his chair.
I stood as he did, because that’s what we did each day.
He didn’t touch me. A strange new reality for me. No one touched me in here. It was a weird, yet refreshing part of my newfound clarity.
“It won’t be long now, Faye. You’re doing great.”
I’d been hearing similar words for about a week now and it only aided the dread. I pushed at the feeling, wanting it to go away. I brushed my hand against the thick scar on my left arm. They said it would look better as time went on, that would become less of an angry red color and blend in better, but I didn’t mind it. Not much. It reminded me that I had a choice. That if it came down to it, I could make it again.
And next time, I would lock the door and finish the job.
FIVE
Four weeks later
I was standing in front of the place that had been my home for the last four months. A mental institution for the psychotic and mentally unsound. I was leaving today, and the sense of loss that clung to my skin rivaled times I wished I could forget. When I was younger I would have been shocked when someone told me the only home I would miss at the age of nineteen would be a place like this. But now it was my bitter reality and I was sad.
“Ah, there he is.” George spoke from beside me and I let my gaze latch onto the black SUV pulling up the drive. The courtyard was green, in spite of the cold chill in the air. The leaves yellow and gold on the high, towering trees.
I saw Sarah first, when the car pulled to a stop. Her red hair was the color of some of the leaves that swirled around my feet. I had forgotten just how pretty she was. How could I forget that? Her hair was a little longer now, framing her heart-shaped face. A few freckles were spattered across her nose. How had I not seen those before? When her green eyes met mine they sparkled and a smile broke across her face.
“Faye, it’s so good to see you.” She approached me slowly, and I had the feeling she was forcing herself to approach me with caution, as if I was horse that was easily spooked, ready to slash away at myself at the simplest movement.
I wanted to smile at her. I really did. I didn’t hate Sarah. I couldn’t hate her. I didn’t think she had a mean bone in her body, but I didn’t like her. I couldn’t like her. Because her and Rhett having sex will always be burned into my memory.
She stopped a few feet in front of me, her arms hanging at her sides.
“You look beautiful.” She spoke the words just as Rhett came around from the driver’s side of the car and I flushed to my roots. I knew it wasn’t true. I wasn’t pretty. I was decent looking at best. I didn’t have bags under my eyes anymore, but the clarity brought with it reality. I didn’t look like a happy nineteen-year-old girl who had her whole life ahead of her. Instead I looked as if life had worn me down until I was nothing but a recovering addict and whore.
That’s exactly what I am.
Rhett looked different too. He didn’t say anything, barely even looked at me, as he grabbed my suitcase and loaded it into the back of the SUV. I didn’t say anything either. But I stared at him. He was crisper than I remembered, if that was even something someone could be. His light blue dress shirt was smooth and wrinkle free, each of the pearl-colored buttons glinting in the cold November sun. His khaki pants were equally as smooth. His blond hair flawless, like a model, and his short goatee perfectly trimmed.
“We’re going to miss you.” I glanced over at George who stood with two nurses and my doctor. I had grown to really enjoy them over the last four months.
“You take care of yourself okay now,” a nurse named Mindy said. Her eyes glistened with tears as she stepped up and pulled me into a quick hug. The other nurse did something similar. Both George and my doctor shook my hand, squeezing it, ushering words of encouragement.
And then I was in the car staring out of the back window at the large sprawling building I had come to call my home. The dread I’d had in my stomach since I woke up there four months ago seemed to fester and grow. It was over. I was out. I was clean. I should have been happy to ride away from this place, to close this chapter of my life. But I wasn’t. I knew where this would lead. Right back where I didn’t want to go. Back to Taylor.
The multi-colored leaves danced along the pavement as we pulled away and I closed my eyes, unable to look at them.
SIX
One week later
“Are you ready?”
I glanced at the door of my room, and knew Sarah was waiting on the other side. I looked down at the jeans and black t-shirt I’d put on, but I wasn’t ready. I didn’t want to go out into the world with her today. I had been fine this whole week confined to the apartment, to my room. And it was my room. I’d come from the hospital to find Rhett and Sarah’s guest bedroom completely redone. There was a new king-size bed inside. New sheets, a new flat screen TV hanging on the wall. A dresser full of clothes and a closet with even more. It was strange and comforting and crazily enough, it felt like home.
I opened the door slowly. “I don’t think I want to go.”
Sarah gave me one of her famous looks, it was the half-smile half-frown look that made her face twist in a funny way. I’d grown accustomed to it over the last week, as she had been home with me. She hadn’t gone to work at all and her presence was a constant. I would call it annoying, but I just couldn’t bring myself to feel that way. She had cooked me breakfast every morning. Cooked or ordered out for lunch, and had even forced me out into the living room to do marathons of The Office on Netflix. I acted put out, but I actually didn’t mind spending time with her. She seemed genuine in her concern and want to spend time with me. It was nice.
“But I don’t really want to go to that either.” I leaned against the doorframe.
“Oh, come on! It will be so much fun! Rhett really wants you to go.”
I highly doubted the truth in that statement. If Sarah’s presence was everlasting, then Rhett’s was non-existent. I’d hardly seen him all week except for a few minutes in the evening, if that, when he came home and walked from the front door to their bedroom and shut the door. He’d barely spoken to me, barely looked at me. It was disappointing. Though I don’t know what I expected. The last time I had seen him in the little yellow room at the psychiatric hospital he had seemed hurt, but concerned. He seemed to have genuinely wanted me to get better, to be better. But now he didn’t seem that way at all. He was distant, though the few times I did catch him looking at me, I didn’t see hate in his eyes anymore. Just sad curiosity and it was almost worse than the hate.
“Everyone from his office is going to be there. This is their big party of the year, in fact it’s even bigger than any of the other parties they’ve had. One of their big clients is throwing it for them at the Grand Ballroom of the Hilton downtown as a thank you for winning their case.”
I sighed even though a smile twerked at the corners of my lips. “I know, Sarah. You’ve told me this ten times.”
“I know, but I think it would be good for you to get out. I even called and talked to George about it, and he thinks it would be a good idea too. Myself or Rhett will be with you the whole time. We won’t just throw you to the wolves. I promise.”
I swallowed, panic flaring under my skin at the thought of being left alone. I hadn’t been alone, truly alone, in a long time. “Who all is going to be there?” I didn’t want to come out and say it, just ask if Taylor was going. I was afraid that would be too telling.
“Just people from his work and some of the big clients.” She paused eying me closely. “Taylor won’t be there.”
I flinched at the sound of his name. “Why would you tell me that?”
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