I returned her kisses, but slower, missing the timing. It put a stupid smile on my face and when she told me that she loved me I blinked, trying to raise a little but not getting far. “I love you too.” I opened and closed my fingers, working out the soreness. “We can do whatever you want. I’m not moving for a minute though.”
I wanted to tell her what she said she wanted to know. I realized it needed to be said before she heard it in front of other people. She wouldn’t want to break down there. Maybe if she knew what was coming. “I need to tell you before the meeting though.”
“Okay,” she said, sliding off to the side of me and pulling the extra blanket up over me to keep me warm.
“I was thinking that too,” she confessed. “You want me there and I don’t want to make things harder for you.”
I heard her reach for the wine bottle and drink some and then breathe.
She moved the blanket off me a bit and nipped at my breast, sucking a part of it into her mouth just to play.
“Okay, I’ll stop touching you,” she said. Rolling away.
“Don’t.” Little lightning bolts were still shaking me from every time she had touched me. I wanted her to stay, even though I was aching.
“Fine,” she said, rolling back. She pushed the blanket aside again and licked my nipple up into her mouth, sucking it with a fair amount of pressure and tugging it away. “You’ll never talk if I keep touching you,” she said, pushing away again.
I felt her thump down next to me and fiddle with the blanket so that it was over us both.
The record had stopped. I heard the airy looping of the needle skipping over and over nothing but static sound. It had been some strange album, all instrumental, all building until it was done. The complicated spinning nothing now was reminiscent of our past.
“Hold my hand?” I asked, wondering if that was like our conversation earlier. The sound of loops.
“Okay,” she said, taking it in hers.
It was time...
“The first time. It was normal. I mean… Pretty vanilla.” I adjusted so that I was closer to her. “Nothing I hadn’t done before. He treated me like I was special and good. He gave me compliments and told me that he felt more for me than he should. I just took it at face value. It didn’t excite me like I thought it should but he was paying attention, saying all the right things. He’d pursued me, beat down my resistance because at first I didn’t think he was serious and I told him it was stupid to risk his job like that but he kept insisting.”
I shifted onto my side, putting our joined hands on her stomach under the blanket. “Then the second time he said he wanted to try something if I was up for it. He showed me these leather cuffs and I laughed at him. That made him mad and he started to say that if I wasn’t going to take this seriously that I might as well go home and tell the school board because he wouldn’t be able to deal with me thinking he was a joke.”
I didn’t know how much detail to put into the story. I remembered the words and actions less and less as the days went on but the sex stayed pretty clear in my mind. I wished it wouldn’t.
“So, I let him use them on me and it was fine. It was a little more exciting. I thought I could do it but he kept adding things every time. If I didn’t like something he would just tell me he was sorry and that he was a horrible person and that he just wanted me to love him. He started to tell me that I just didn’t see what was great about this. How perfect we were. I don’t know what it was but I just went along, I let him trick me, manipulate me.”
“What didn’t you like,” she said, pushing me to answer with her words.
I stared straight ahead, looking into the fire. “The mask he put on me. It wasn’t anything but one of those ski masks. I felt like he was erasing me. The clamps. He liked those too.”
I stopped, wondering how it sounded to her. It was surreal to me, like it happened to someone else when I was saying it. It seemed preposterous.
“Did he always make you wear the mask?” She asked. I could feel her trying to be emotionless and cold to shut herself down. I knew Olivia better though. She was freaking out inside but being good.
“No, sometimes he just made me turn around. All the times he told me I was pretty and then he wouldn't look at my face.”
“He’s a fucking idiot,” she spat bitterly.
“He’s sick,” I said, flatly.
“Sick is a word for those who can’t control what they do,” she swallowed. “That’s not Ben. Ben knew,” she paused again before saying, “Go on.”
“He would tie my hands in really harsh ways. That’s why I learned to do it safely. I wouldn’t ever let that happen to anyone else or myself again. Sometimes when we were at school he would remind me that later all of his students would be sitting in front of him having no idea what he’d just done to me on his desk.”
“What’d he do to you on his desk,” she asked.
“Nothing extra. We mostly just had sex. It wasn’t somewhere that we could take time in case someone came in.”
“So was it normal then? Did you like it then?”
“I think the only reason I really liked it was that it was normal and he didn’t have time to be weird. I hadn’t had a real orgasm with him since toward the beginning. I was dead inside when I came.”
“So why’d you do it?” She asked. “I know that’s a weird question but you were alive still. You still had a say somewhat. Were you just curious? Did you feel anything? Were you hoping for it to get better or hoping for it to get worse? Was there anything there with you? Anything other than knowing that this person wants me here so I’m here?”
She had so many questions...
“There was fear. He told me that no one else would want me, which was stupid because people had before. I guess I felt like he was right since I let him do those things to me it was true. Everyone would find out that I wasn’t right and leave. I was used to people leaving or not being there for me. I felt things. I felt pain and shame, and occasionally I felt a ripple of something bordering on good.”
“When did you feel good,” she asked blankly. She was doing her best to become a drone.
“When I thought about other people. Mostly random people. Mostly girls. Anyone not him. He was obsessed with getting me to tell him that I loved him but I never would. I think that made him the maddest.”
“Which girls?” She asked, it was the first time she’d looked up at me.
“Ones I made up, the one from my dream.”
“Faceless?” She asked.
“Yeah, it saved me. I think I would have actually believed everything he said if I hadn’t escaped with her but she didn’t touch me when I was awake. She was just there.”
“What does that mean?” She asked. “What did she do?”
“I don’t know what it means. Maybe that when I was in those moments I felt she was too good to be sullied by what was happening. She was there, that’s all.”
“Was she watching you? Was she holding your hand? Did she do anything at all other than just be?”
“She comforted me, gave me hope and I felt like she was my future. I wouldn’t always be stuck in that place.”
“Was it like a dream then? When you were with him? Did you go somewhere else? Somewhere where she was real and with you, like you could touch her?”
“No, I couldn’t touch her. I wouldn’t. It was just like blocking out the world. I would close my eyes so tight that I could disappear.”
“What was the best?” She asked, swallowing. Trying to find a silver lining.
“When I dreamed her and I was finally happy. She loved me in my dreams but I couldn’t let her when I was awake.”
“What was the worst?”
I shifted, pushing my hair back and clearing my throat. “When he started to tie me up to this pull up bar he’d suspended to be low enough.” I sighed and rolled over onto my stomach. “Here,” I said, taking her hand and putting it on my back and then moving it over to feel next to my undera
rm. There were raised areas where scars had formed. “These were the worst. They’re in certain places that people wouldn’t usually look or feel.” I moved her hand down to just behind my knee where there were more. They were shallow and small, not conspicuous. “He used a straight blade. That’s when I said no and he tried to talk me into trying it some more. Instead we just had sex with me tied there. It was a compromise.”
I curled up, leaving her hand where it was and hoping she wouldn’t leave me. “I met you not too long after that and I never saw him like that again.”
“So he liked to cut you?” She asked. I could feel her finger tracing the scars lightly and with lots of care.
“Yeah.” Her touch felt cool and soothing. I liked it.
“Such an idiot,” she said. “Your body’s perfect.”
“Not anymore,” I rasped.
“Nope,” she said, still fingering the marks. “Still perfect.”
I turned over and looked at her, eyes brimming with tears. “It’s only for you. You’re the only one allowed to touch me. Promise you’ll never stop.”
“I promise,” she said sadly, holding tears in her eyes and trying to be strong and keep them there. It took me a long time to realize but that’s what she was doing she was trying to be strong.
“What aren’t you telling me?” She asked knowingly.
“Sometimes he called me different names and made me talk to him.” I couldn’t withhold from her.
“What names? What’d he make you say?”
“Things about how much I liked what he was doing and how much I wanted him and-” I couldn’t say the other things. I tried sputtering on them, trying to spit them out but they hung syllable by syllable in my head. “Just things. Some of them I said some I didn’t.”
“Have I ever said something on accident that triggered a memory or made you uncomfortable?” She asked.
“No,” I answered honestly. “The only time anything with you triggered anything was when I saw him all over you at the elevator.”
She nodded solemnly and laid her head back down.
“I feel like there are always going to be things you haven’t said,” she confessed.
“Just details that I can’t seem to say out loud,” I rested my head on the floor.
“He was wrong,” she said. Her hand came up and pushed my hair away from my face so that she could see me. “Nothing he could’ve done to you could make me not want you.”
“When you kissed me I felt more than I’d ever felt before from just a kiss and it scared the hell out of me. I felt like you’d been waiting for me and I wasn’t ready. I was still trying to get away from him and I wasn’t good enough.”
It had been the driving thought behind my retreat. It hurt to think about how my demons had put us on hold. “You were too strong for me though,” I smiled.
“I’m not strong,” she said, blushing sorrowfully. “But you were good enough and I was waiting. It wasn’t about being strong, it was about knowing what I felt and telling you, making sure you knew. All it took for me Avery was your eyes. That’s all it took. You were so quickly everything to me.”
“You could have run though and you didn’t. You stayed and you stuck it out.”
“Why would I want to run?” She asked. “You made me feel for you without even trying. I was hooked.”
“I’m just beyond happy that you didn’t.” I savored her eyes watching me. “You have more power than you think.”
“I was just sure of what I wanted,” she said. “I wasn’t going to let you pretend to think I didn’t want you.”
“I couldn’t deny that.”
“The weekend was the worst,” she said. “I’d no idea where you were in your head and then I found you at the lake and then you left me that day. I’d never felt so broken.”
“That was dumb of me,” I sighed. At the time I’d been so confused and conflicted. I knew what I felt but not what I should do.
“I had no way to know what you were going through,” she said.
“No, you didn’t and I didn’t want you to know me at that point. I figured it would scare you off and I liked that you wanted me.” Again the stupidity. “It seemed logical at the time.”
“What’d you think?” She sniffed through quiet tears. “If I knew I’d hate you? Be jealous? Be disturbed?” Her voice cracked. “The whole time I would’ve reacted this same way Avery. This whole time.”
I took her face in my hands. “Hey. I know that now. Then I was so mixed up after all that time of him telling me that I was dirty and that no one would want me and I wasn’t anyone else’s after him.” I smoothed the tears away. “You were too good to be true after all of that.”
“I want you more after him,” she said, anger coating her face. “He was something that never should’ve happened to you.”
“I know.” I held on tight to her. “He hurt you too through me. That’s just one more thing. I hope everyone knows what he is wherever they send him to prison.”
“I don’t want to think about that…” She said. “I’ll just be glad when he’s away from you for good, that’s all.”
“He won’t get near me,” I shivered. “God, I hope I don’t have to say all of this in court or anything.”
“It depends on where you want him to go,” Olivia said coldly. “Court isn’t fun. Decisions are made. Lives decided. I don’t know how my mom can do that all day. Not that I’d feel bad if Ben went to jail or anything. He belongs there. I just don’t like to think about it. Prison is sad.”
“I don’t know if I can say it in front of all of those people,” I struggled to imagine it, swallowing. “It’s going to be a big deal, Olivia. A Huntington teacher abusing a student is going to be in the news.”
“Well, you’ve told me everything,” she said, sitting up and pulling her legs into her chest. “I can do it for you if you want.”
“I love you for that,” I said, kissing her softly and then pulling away. “But I think this is something I’d have to do.” I didn’t want her having to get up there either. Better me with a first-hand account.
“This is going to kill your mom,” she said, looking up at me worried.
“I know. I hope dad can shield her some. I don’t want her to hear the whole story but she’ll want to.”
“She’s like me,” Olivia said, looking over at me. “She’s going to have to know. Not knowing will be worse.”
“True.” Sometimes I still wished it was all a secret but then I remembered that once we moved on he would have done it again. I had to deal with this. Not just for me but for every girl he could have taken advantage of after me. “I think of weird things sometimes. The stuff he said about you and it makes me really angry. I can still see how he looked at you.”
“What do you mean?” She asked, squinting her eyes. “Is this about the elevator or about other things?”
“All of it.”
“Did he talk about me a lot? I thought you didn’t really run into me before.”
“He didn’t say your name but it had to be you. I guess I didn’t put it together till later.”
“What are you talking about?” She asked.
“He mentioned that he really enjoyed spending time with one of his students. That she wasn’t like me and I could just tell from how he talked about it and the look he gave me.”
I shrugged. “I guess he was trying to make me jealous. Maybe he wasn't talking about you but since he told me later that he did want to try with you… Thank god your mom is who she is.”
“It wouldn’t have happened,” she said. “He’d have to kill me.”
I wasn’t going to say it. I’d seen it in my head a thousand times when I didn’t want to. The sight of him forcing himself on Olivia. She wasn’t as strong as I was physically and he could have gotten me down if it wasn’t for the knock on the door.
“Don’t look at me, like that,” she said. “I get it. I’m weak.”
“Yes, that’s the scary part.”
> “When you put me in your room…” She asked, trying to piece it together. “Was that because…”
“No. I honestly didn’t think he would try anything with you. Putting you in my room was about you and me. It was public and there were other students. I never thought he would be so messed up as to try anything and he thought he still had me. He was obsessed after I kept blowing him off for you.”
“Obsessed?”
“With getting me back. With finding out why I wasn't letting him in anymore.”
“I’m really glad your dad found out,” Olivia said. “Before I thought.. I dunno. I thought it wasn’t that bad. Like maybe you had a relationship with him, a normal one. You said somethings but you hadn’t said much. And with that journal entry it all changed. I realized how bad it was for you and how dangerous he was. Before I knew. When I saw you coming out of his room and heard you scream. I knew that was a certain situation and it was horrible and worthy of court. But the journal entry said so much more and now even this. Avery why? Why didn’t you just tell me? You waited for me to dig, to find out…”
Paper Dolls [Book Three] Page 11
