"When do you think you'll be ready to tell Me?"
It was a simple question, ten words spoken innocently from a Man to His woman. The end of the question was, in a way, left hanging. Tell Him what, exactly?
But to ask that question of Him would have been a foolish waste of breath. I knew what He wanted to know, what things He needed to hear from my mouth that He could not know simply from what doctors had related and what blurred police reports had marked down.
I pulled away from His chest a bit and looked up into His eyes. I took a minute to study His face, almost as though I wanted to suss out the exact meaning behind this simple phrase. Etienne's gaze was calm, relaxed even, eyes gently probing into mine as He too sought for meaning there.
"I want to tell You everything, now, but..." I sighed, and slightly lowered my gaze, unsure if I wanted to press forward into this discussion. My skin was still tingling from the blows of His hand, and my body was still in that blissful post-orgasmic haze that I clung to longer than most. I wasn't sure I wanted this to end, and for the bitter reality of dealing with painful situations to come back in such a rush.
His fingers found the underside of my chin and gently lifted my face upward so that my eyes were ever-set on His.
"Look at Me, Isabeau."
The repeated words calmed my hummingbird heart and kept me from starting to spiral out of control even a little bit.
"I want you to tell Me everything. But only when You're ready. It's more than Me wanting to know, because in some respects, I honestly don't want to know. But I can't fix what I don't know is broken, and I can't help you heal if...Iz, I need to know, eventually."
He was right, I knew.
"You already blame Yourself, Etienne. I don't want to make it worse, to make things go backward any more than they already have. I don't want to push You over the edge, to make You hate Yourself for something that wasn't Your fault."
His fingers were still curled under my chin, but His thumb had come up while I was speaking and started to stroke down the length of my jaw in the tenderest, feather-light caress. His eyes, a soft and deep hazel colour now that His passion had slightly abated, were speaking wordless volumes to me.
I took a deep breath, and slowly began to fill in the gaps.
///
We had met at a party, he and I.
I hadn't wanted to go; in my heart, I was still grieving the loss of the Man who I was now convinced was dead and not coming back to me ever again. I wasn't in the mood to party, no more so than I had been for months on end. But my friends had pushed -- I needed to get out, I needed to meet people, and I needed to move on with my life. Isn't that what He would have wanted, they said.
In the end, their coaxing was too much to ignore. And so I'd put on my heels and my first lashings of mascara since the memorial, and gone out. Just a drink or two, they said.
He was nice, more than nice, actually, this man with the blue eyes and the floppy sandy hair that gave him an air of boyish charm.. He was sweet and caring and seemed genuinely interested in what I had to say. This gave him an automatic leg up over the other guys in the club who seemed far more interested in the two curving mounds on my chest than in hearing two words that left my mouth.
His name was Luca.
///
Here, I stopped.
"I hate saying his name. It's disgusting."
Etienne nodded and slid His arm around my shoulders, silent and comforting. It was almost as if He was afraid to speak, afraid of breaking the spell of confidence that was allowing me to speak like this, even in broken whispers. But He allowed Himself a soft, "you don't have to explain or rationalize to Me, little one. Just speak your heart, that's all."
I nodded and took another steadying breath before continuing.
///
Before long, there was talk of early morning coffee and phone numbers exchanged. Coffee turned into ice cream, ice cream turned into dinners and art gallery openings. And then he invited me to his home, just for a drink before we said goodnight.
As I was hailing a taxi on the curb outside his door, he leaned in and kissed me, soft hints of Cabernet and chocolate on his breath.
The taxi drove off. And I stayed until morning.
Soon I had the bottom drawer and a toothbrush on his sink. Conversations turned to sexual preferences, and flavours of D/s began to emerge. I found the handcuffs in the end table and the flogger in the closet. There were other things, he said. Did I want to see them?
I said yes.
"Luca" became Sir. I started to trust him.
And then, I started to see him. And Dorian Grey's picture began to change.
///
"You're shaking, Iz. Here..."
Etienne gently pressed a glass of water into my hands, and waited while I took a drink.
"We can stop, love. You don't have to do this..."
I looked into His eyes, tears starting to pool in mine and trickle down my face.
"No...You were right. You do need to know this."
He nodded, and pulled me close again; closer than before this time, so that both His arms were around my shoulders, loose but reassuring.
///
He had a bad night, and his fierce temper was already kindled from whatever had gone wrong He didn't tell me what happened, simply gripped my hair tight in his hand and led me down the hall to our bedroom. He lifted my skirt and pulled my panties to the side, not even bothering to undress me or himself. He unzipped his pants and pushed into me without ceremony. I wasn't wet; I wasn't anticipating this.
That made him more angry, and he slapped me. Hard. My cheek stung; he had never struck my face before, and I was started to get scared.
"Ow! Wait, Luca..."
I should have never said a word. He slapped me again, harder this time, so that the room spun and my teeth felt as though they could had flown across the room with the force of the strike. He started into me, fast, until I felt like he was scraping me raw with the force. I closed my eyes and desperately tried to think of something, anything, that would make me wet enough to bear this until he was done.
Nothing came to mind...nothing, that is, except His face. I reached out for it with my mind, grasping it for solace as the mindless, painful assault on my body continued.
Luca couldn't finish. He tried, oh, how he tried. I started to feel wetness in and around my pussy, but not of arousal; I was bleeding from the roughness. It had turned into a rape, and I wasn't sure when.
He was furious. He pulled out of me, his face twisting with disgust when he saw the blood on his cock. He slapped me again, and again, jerking off my panties and using them as a rag with which to clean himself.
"Stupid, worthless whore." The words bit into me, but I was too numb to register them until later. He shoved me hard off the bed, and I fell onto the floor, head hitting the bedsted with a little crack. It stunned me for a moment, and I laid there, unsure as to what to do.
After a few minutes, I achingly climbed back up onto the bed and laid there in terrified silence.
I felt the bed moving as his own hand did what my body could not.
There was a mantra in my head now, repeated phrases that I could not shake.
Worthless...stupid...worthless...stupid...worthless.
