Sofia Pt 06 In Sofias Diary

*This part of the story contains one character's recollections of sexual abuse and exploitation.*

I stepped out of the French windows. All the familiar features of the garden -- the beech hedge, the rose bush near the pool, the tall poplar trees -- were just vague shadows, different degrees of dark. There was barely any moon, but the stars were out. A few high clouds -- fast moving -- were drifting across the sky to shroud bits of one constellation after the other.

Where was Anabelle? Things were only growing stranger and more uncomfortable with Sofia. If I spent much more time alone with her, I'd end up doing something that would be impossible to undo. Even without meaning to I seemed to be escalating things. And the part of me that wanted that, that had every intention of escalating things, felt like it was growing more muscular all the time.

My wife had disappeared and rather than worrying about her I'd spent almost every moment thinking about Sofia. I had sat down at my desk to write up the results of an experiment on the impact of noradrenaline on time perception in rats. Three hours later I'd managed to write the title of the article, and that would need revising. My mind had kept looping back to those defining moments of the afternoon: looking through the window to see her quivering with pleasure on her bed, the touch of her hand on my chest in the kitchen.

And now I felt flooded with lust. It felt like it was sheer force of will keeping me standing out there in the dark, rather than storming back inside to fling Sofia against the wall and bury my face in her cunt. That image was a strong one at that moment; I saw myself on my knees in front of her, her dress ruined, my tongue inside her. I wasn't even totally sure that she would have resisted if I had done it. I'd been rude, unpredictable, a total prick, frankly. She should have detested me. Everything in me was twisted and contorted by my desire for her. Just then in the sitting room it was almost entirely out in the open - she was sitting inside now surrounded by the shards of the glass I'd smashed at her feet -- but the way she'd looked at me...I'd felt almost sure she wanted me to take that final step.

It was fucked up on every level. Of course, I was married. But it wasn't really that. Adultery - your common or garden variety adultery -- doesn't have the glamour it once did nor the same capacity to shock. I loved Anabelle and I'd never cheated on her, but if some well-meaning time traveller had turned up on our wedding day to inform me that he had it on good authority that I would one day violate the sixth commandment, it wouldn't have induced any deep existential crisis. But the fact that I'd spent most of the past few hours not just fantasising about but seriously contemplating fucking Anabelle's cousin, who was living in our house, who was fifteen years my junior, who was barely out of her teens? That gave more pause. That would be worm-like behaviour. Did I really have so few scruples that I was willing to fuck with everyone's lives to that extent, just to get my rocks off?

But, even then, I knew really that it couldn't be just some casual affair; once I started it, it wouldn't be some take-it-or-leave-it thing. For brief moments at my desk I'd let myself acknowledge that I could very easily fall in love with Sofia. She was a dangerous bundle of all the things I was most drawn to: fine, almost classical, beauty; the wide curiosity of a youthful intelligence; that strange play of carelessness and depth in her manner. Seeing her just then in the sitting room, just then, talking to her again, there had been moments when I'd been almost on the verge of acknowledging to myself that it was too late, that I had already fallen in love with her. Looking back, those were the moment when I'd been driven to real nastiness; so much easier to bury it all in arrogance and brutality.

And what was worst was that I knew Sofia's history. Or rather, I didn't. But I knew enough. I knew what I'd read in her diary. She was wounded. She was a very vulnerable person. She was a young woman who had not only recently lost both her parents but who had been through some more terrible, shadowy ordeal. Knowing all that I should have been stockading myself in my study until October, ordering drones to drop food parcels down the chimney so I wouldn't have to go anywhere near her. Someone who'd been through all she'd been through, it wouldn't be fair to pull them into the chaos that would be unleashed if anything really happened between us.

And it wouldn't be fair to start something with her knowing the way I wanted her, knowing my sexuality in the way that I did. It could never be ok to approach someone like her with all my hunger and my kinks. Sex and power -- love, tenderness and the urge to take and dominate -- are all wound up in one exquisite Gordian Knot in my psyche. The urge to worship her and to savage her -- to be brutal, demanding, domineering, to overpower her sexually -- were equally strong or -- rather -- were really all one impulse. For some women that kind of loving might be a gift. But for someone who'd been through what she'd experience it could only be an affliction, an endless salting of her wounds.

I'd walked down to the bottom of the garden and sat myself down on one of the raised roots at the base of the old weeping willow. I took out my phone. No messages from Anabelle.

I flicked across to my photo gallery, and brought up the snapshots that Anabelle had taken of those pages from Sofia's diary. Perhaps reading them again would do the trick? Surely re-reading those pages -- absorbing all the implications of those tortured memories -- would vaccinate me against desire for her. Inoculated against lust for her I could be what I should be; a caring, protective, friend, almost an uncle.

And so, for maybe the twentieth time, I read what she'd never meant anyone but herself to read.

**********************

12th May 2020

It's just after 4am. Another nightmare. I woke up about 15 minutes ago feeling like I was about to die. I was almost hyperventilating. A panic attack, I guess. It was pretty horrible. I'm calmer now, I guess. My breathing is almost back to normal, anyway.

It's the second time since I arrived at Anabelle's that I've had a nightmare that took me back to those times. I don't know why it's happening. Maybe being in a new place.

The other night -- not last night, but the night before -- I dreamt I was in some laboratory. They were trying to find a cure for some disease -- I'm not sure which one -- and I'd volunteered to be a subject. I was in some waiting room. All around the walls there were glass cabinets, they looked like fish tanks, but they all contained white mice with red eyes, who were running -- constantly running, they never stopped -- on their wheels. After a while a nurse came to fetch me, and I had to follow her down a long corridor. At the end there were large doors. They swung open and there was an operating room, but huge, more like an indoor stadium. And there was a crowd, like at a football match. We had to fight our way through the crowd, all the way to the centre of the room, which is where the operating table was.

There were doctors there waiting for me, three or four of them. I lay down on the table and there were clamps, like medical stirrups, for my legs. And there were loops so they could tie my wrists to the bed too. I didn't want them to do it, but they said that they had to do it. It was the procedure.

They tied me down and then I looked up at the lead doctor and noticed his face for the first time. It was Khalid. He looked as alive as he ever did, with those hollow cheeks and his weird deep-set eyes. But he was even taller than in real life, he was towering over me, he must have been 8 or 9 feet tall.

He recognised me, of course. He'd been waiting for me. He smiled that awful smile he always saved for when he had something truly horrible planned. He called me Sharmuta, like he used to. He said something filmy and melodramatic like: "we've been waiting for you for so long, Sharmuta." It was a shock to see him, but somehow I wasn't surprised that he was alive, even though I remembered perfectly how his rigid body had looked that morning with the early sun shining across it. I tried to tell him that my name wasn't Sharmuta, that it had never been Sharmuta. But when I moved my lips, no sound came out, and I realised that he'd done something to my throat, to my voice box, so that it wouldn't work anymore. I was mute. And when he saw me trying to talk, he just laughed.

And then he called out to the crowd, asking them if they were ready to see the show. They all cheered. I knew what the show was going to be. I was struggling against the hand and foot holds the bound me, but they got tighter the more I struggled. He went to stand between my legs. I remember I'd been wearing some kind of surgical dress before, a blue one, but now I was naked.

I looked around me for help. I thought maybe the other doctors who were there would help. But then I realised they weren't really doctors at all. I recognised their faces, all of them were from that time, though I don't remember all of their names. One was definitely Kerim. There were lots of them and they were all wearing the same dark suits. And then I realised that they all had their penises in their hands, sticking out through the zips in their suit trousers. All of them were huge, impossibly big. I thought -- they'll kill me, if they put those inside me, they'll rip me apart and I'll die. I started to scream, still soundlessly.

And that must have woken me up. I think I might have started screaming for real, but I stopped as soon as I realised I'd been dreaming. I was really worried that Anabelle and Toby might have heard and would come running and I'd have to explain it away somehow. But they must have been deeply asleep or maybe I wasn't that loud.

I didn't go back to sleep, I just sat up reading until daylight. I was exhausted at work, felt like I was dead. Luckily I was so tired that night that I didn't have any problem getting to sleep, and I don't think I had any dreams. At least there are none I can remember. But tonight, I was thinking about the nightmare whilst I was lying in bed, worrying that it would happen again, so it took me ages to get to sleep. And then it did happen.

I was at Brakespear, at the detention centre, in the big seminar room. I was talking to Sammy about football. Or rather he was talking at me. He kept asking if I supported Liverpool or Chelsea. I kept saying that I didn't support anyone, but he'd just laugh and a minute later he'd ask again. It started to get really annoying and somehow I decided that the only way to shut him up would be to kiss him. I did and it was actually really nice. And it made him so happy, it was really sweet. We were making out for a while and I felt myself getting quite turned on, and started to wonder if he'd try and have sex with me. I thought: I shouldn't, it wouldn't be very professional. But then I thought about how long it's been since I've had sex, and I decided I'd let him if he'd try.

But I realised that lots of other people had come into the room and were watching us. The Director, Gavin, was watching us, not saying anything, but looking disapproving and writing lots of notes in his notebook. I whispered in Sammy's ear that we should go somewhere else. I told him I wanted him inside me, but that we couldn't do it with everyone watching. And he was so excited that he started jumping around and shouting about it. He ran up to Kabir -- Kabir was dressed in his usual long cream shirt, with his beard even longer than it is in reality, hanging all the way over his pot-belly -- and grabbed him by the shoulder, shaking him, laughing, and shrieking that he was going to fuck me.

Sammy wasn't trying to be horrible, he was just excited. But now everyone was shouting and angry. I could hear people everywhere calling me filthy names. There was a group of the young Somali guys clustered at the top of the auditorium, right at the back, and one of them -- I think it was Sulaiman -- threw an empty coke bottle at me. It was just a plastic one, I think; it hit me on the head, but it didn't really hurt. But then everyone started throwing them, and I had to keep on dodging them.

I tried to run to the exit but someone grabbed me before I could get out. And then I was surrounded by the whole crowd of them. There were bodies pressed against me, all around me. I started to panic. I could feel hands reaching for me, touching me everywhere, grabbing my breasts and my bum. A hand reached between my legs and I could feel that the person, whoever it was, was trying to get their finger inside me.

There were also hands on my face. Somehow that was even worse. One of them put their fingers in my mouth. And I bit them. They crumbled between my teeth, like the bones were made of sawdust, but there was a scream, and that made me feel almost happy for a moment. But I'd made everyone even angrier, and they started pulling my clothes off. Soon I was naked. I remember thinking there was no stopping them now, they were crazed - just animals - and they were going to rape me.

I was calling out for help -- to Sammy, and then to Anabelle and to Toby. But I could still hear Sammy laughing and celebrating, he didn't seem to be able to hear me or to know what was going on. And I knew that Anabelle and Toby weren't there, of course, they were at home. And then I was calling out for Dad, calling out for him to make them stop. A gong rang out. It was very loud, the kind of sound that would announce dinner in a castle. And I thought: he can't be here, he's dead, he died in the crash, months ago. I thought: he'd be decomposing by now. Strange how it should have felt almost natural for Khalid to reappear from the dead, but with Dad it should seem so awful.

The crowd were still pressed around me, but they'd kind of stopped, like they were waiting for him, frightened what he might do. He came through the crowd and they all parted to let him through. He wasn't dead or decomposed or anything, he was totally alive, just normal looking. He looked like I remember him from the last time I saw him when he dropped me at Uni. I think he was even wearing the same suit and tie. He was smoking his cigar like always.

And for a moment I thought: yes, he's come, he's going to save me. He stopped just in front of me. He didn't look happy to see me or worried or upset, or anything like that. He just looked slightly contemptuous, and maybe a little bored. I could see his eyes taking in my body, my nakedness. With one finger he scooped the ash off the end of his cigar, like it wasn't hot at all, and smeared it on my chest, between my breasts. And then he nodded once and turned away.

And as soon as he turned, they were all back on me, and I was being dragged down, down to the floor, feeling myself being slowly submerged in a sea of hands and bodies, whilst a jumble of voices whispered insults and told me all the things they were about to do to me. And I knew now that there was really no hope and no escape. Not ever.

That was when I woke up.

Reading back over it, this dream sounds less bad than the first. But it was much worse. It wasn't just the fear, it was the hopelessness. The only time I've ever felt that hopeless was that last time at the hotel. I guess that's not an accident. The parallel between that day and the end of the nightmare is pretty clear.

I don't know whether I can write about that time.

I just went out into the garden and looked at the stars. I managed to find Orion again, using the technique Toby showed me the other night. They're incredibly bright tonight. Maybe it's true that they're clearer because there's less pollution during lockdown. The sky feels deeper and vaster than normal.

I realise that I feel better about the dreams now that I've written them out. They say it's cathartic, right? I'll try and write about that day. Maybe it will help to let it all go.

I was in the hotel, in the normal room. Khalid and Kerim were with me, both in dressing gowns. They'd decided they wanted to take me together - at the same time. There was lots of joking between them, most of it in Arabic, lots of name-calling at me.

"Sharmuta! Have you ever had both your holes filled, Sharmuta?"

"We're going to ruin her for ever, just one cock will never feel like enough again after this, hey?"

"Don't play games you little whore, you know you want it!"

Kerim lay on the bed on his back. I was scared, but in a very empty way, like there was very little of me to feel the fear. It was December and I felt almost shiveringly cold, though there was a radiator on full-blast. I would have been far too dry, but I'd used some gel -- I'd learnt by then how much worse it would be without that. I climbed onto him. He was very hard, so I knew he must have had a pill. He grabbed me, and pulled my head down, so I was lying pressed against his belly. His breath rushed in and out of my ear. I could smell him - he must have showered, but there was musk and body and food smells.

I felt Khalid climb onto the bed, positioning himself behind me. I felt his cock poking at me from behind, searching for the right angle to penetrate me. And then he did, all in a rush. It was searing, tearing. It was rough and painful, excruciatingly so at times. I think that was one of only two times when I cried during it. The other time was the first time.

After it was over I lay on the bed on my belly. To be honest I think I'd gone into a dissociative state, or something; I was barely there really. I heard Khalid talking to someone on the phone. Then a minute later I heard the door open. I raised my head for some reason. And there was Dad, standing in the doorway.

Of course, he'd always known. But some part of me had been pretending that he didn't really know, not fully, that he didn't really know what he was asking of me. But now that pretence wouldn't be possible any more. He could see me lying there uncovered and still naked, with their filth all over my body. I felt so ashamed. So ashamed. And -- the worst thing is -- the thing that really hurts is -- at that moment I wasn't feeling sad for myself or angry or anything like that. I was feeling so sorry for him, that they were humiliating him deliberately like that, by showing me in that state to him. I saw his eyes move over me -- no emotion on his face, no recognition, it was so blank, it was like I was invisible -- and return to Khalid. Khalid was asking him something trivial, it was transparent he'd just wanted to show off my degradation. He answered the question and left the room again.

And, just like in the dream, I was left with no hope. If he could see me like that, and not intervene, not attack them, not grab me and drag me from the room -- if he could see me like that and do nothing, then there would never be any escape. This would go on forever.

*********************

I stopped reading and put my phone back into my pocket. I'd been hunched in a little electronic bubble; with the glare of the phone gone, the space of the dark garden expanded around me again. I sighed. Vaccinated? Revolted. Revolted at humanity and at myself with it.

I heard a car approaching down the drive and caught a flash of headlights. Anabelle was back.