My eyes darted off his face. I had fantasized about this guy, dreamed about him touching me. I had hungered for his eyes on my naked skin. Imagined his soft mouth on my breasts. And now here he was, touching me. It was nothing like I had imagined.
This was unlike any fantasy I’d ever had, even the really morbid ones. I admit, I’d dreamt of being ravaged by Anne Rice’s vampires. I’d seen it on the big screen in my head. It’s the eighteenth century, and I’m standing in an alley, the handsome, questionably evil Lestat is between my thighs. I’m a whore and he’s just another patron. I sense how dangerous he is, how predatory, but one kiss and I don’t give a damn. I know he’ll sink his fangs into me, but I throw myself at his mercy in the hopes that death won’t be the end of me.
This was nothing like my dreams. In a dream you can’t really feel. Every touch is subject to your imagination, what you think a kiss feels like, what you think being fucked feels like, what you think real fear feels like. If you’ve never truly felt it, then your mind can’t truly recreate it. I knew about kissing, had an inkling about petting, but I lacked all knowledge of intent. When my boyfriend touched me, I knew he’d stop the second I asked, conversely, I knew this man wouldn’t. Intent made all the difference. This was real. Real touching, real intimidation, real man, real fear.
He caressed my face, running his fingers over my earlobe, down the column of my throat, the back of his fingers brushing across my collarbone. My breathing became broken, heavy. This was wrong, and yet, it didn’t feel so bad. My fear sat heavy and low in my belly, but farther down a different kind of weight was taking shape. I made a sound of protest, begging him in my wordless way to stop. He paused long enough to breathe me in before he continued. I shook my head slowly, trying to pull back but he held my head firmly in his other hand.
“Look at me,” he said, his voice controlled, but wavering. I shut my eyes tight, slowly shaking my head again. He sighed. “I want you to look at me.”
I didn’t obey, frozen with trepidation. This can’t be happening. Not to me. But it was happening, and I was unable to stop it. I whined, pulling my head back against his hand. He grew further agitated when I drew my hands up, touching his wrists.
“No-o-o,” he said softly, as if reproving a child. My hands shook badly and my knees felt as though they might buckle. He tightened his grip in my hair, forcing my head up. I closed my eyes even tighter as soft, tearless sobs broke past my lips. I was treading the thin line of his patience while falling off the thin line of my sanity. He leaned in, kissed my cheek, then the nape of my neck. I sighed fretfully, pulled away, but I wasn’t getting anywhere. He touched my lips with his thumb, trying to hush my sobs and whimpers.
“Where is all your bravery now pet? No clawing, no hissing? Where’s my tough girl?”
My heart sank into my stomach. I had no idea where my bravery had gone. Had I ever really been brave? I don’t think so. I never had to be brave. I settled for being invisible, the person behind the camera. How I wished I could be invisible now.
My voice was gone, strangled by the magnitude of the moment. I was in the grips of a panic attack when he let me go. I slid to the floor, covering my face with my hands as I told myself repeatedly, I am not here. This is a dream, a horribly fantastic dream. Any moment now, I’m going to wake up. I brought my knees to my chest and rocked back and forth. The mantra just made it seem more real.
I didn’t cry when he picked me up. I knew it was coming. I felt hollow, as if my body were merely a shell holding my broken soul inside it. He carried me toward the bed, effortlessly standing me in front of it. Slowly, my eyes lost focus, as if my brain had begun shut down procedures. I simply stood, waiting. He swept my hair over my left shoulder, standing close behind me. I could feel his cock against me, hard, foreboding. He kissed my neck again.
“No,” I pleaded, voice cracking. So this was what I sounded like, completely desolate.
“Please…no.”
His soft laugh fluttered against my neck. “That’s the first polite thing you’ve said.” He wrapped his arms around me as he spoke in my ear, “It’s only a pity you haven’t learned to speak properly. Feel free to try again, this time say, ‘Please no, Master’. Can you do that?”
I wanted to cry, I wanted to scream, I wanted to do anything but what he asked. I stayed silent.
“Or maybe,” he licked my ear, “you need a push.”
He stepped away from me abruptly, leaving my back open to the chilled air. I sunk to the floor, balling the comforter into knots as I pressed my forehead against it. He crouched behind me, rubbing my back. The will to fight him swelled inside me and, although I knew what I was getting into, I couldn’t stop myself. I threw my elbow back, hitting him in the shins. Pain shot through my elbow, and I couldn’t move for a few seconds. Shins of steel.
“There’s my tough girl,” he said coldly. Grabbing a handful of my hair, he dragged me from the bed. I screamed wildly, digging my nails into his hand trying to get loose, but all my struggling was for naught. It was over before it began as he rolled me over onto my face and dug his knee between my shoulder blades. I was pinned. Defeated.
“I hate you!” I roared. “I hate you, you horrible son of a bitch!”
“I suppose it’s lucky for me that I don't care,” he said, pitilessly, “I’ll tell you what does bother me; you still haven’t learned any manners. You could’ve gone easy, pet, but I must confess…” I felt his breath on the side of my face, “I like it better this way.” He reached for something on the bed above us. I strained to see what it was, but his knee dug into me savagely.
He labored to grab hold of my wrists, but quickly caught them both firmly in his left hand as he tied them together with soft cord, almost like silk. I cried as I struggled under him, still trying vainly to get away.
I shut out any idea of the pain, of him tearing through my innocence, decimating my body.
The eventual degradation, the afterglow of shame. This was better I supposed. I preferred him sick, twisted, and sadistic. It made it easier to define how I felt toward him. Gone were the images of the gorgeous angel sent down to save me. I had no business dreaming of his blue-green eyes, or the way his golden hair would feel in my hands. Even the smell of him would make me sick now. At least this way we would both recognize this for what it was, rape, not seduction, not the fantasy. There was no confusion. He was only the monster now. Just another monster.
He pulled me off the floor by my wrists and in one quick movement hoisted my wrists over one of the bedposts until I stood precariously on tiptoe. I hung there on display; my body stretched tightly-everything exposed, my breath short. He grabbed my face roughly, “You know what your problem is pet? You haven’t learned to choose wisely. Dinner could have gone differently, but you chose this.”
I had some smart-ass comment on the tip of my tongue. Words that would make him as angry as I was terrified, but then he kissed me. The kiss was violent, possessive, meant to lay waste to that comment right where it lay. There was no tongue; he was too smart for that, just the hard press of his full lips against mine. It was over before I had a chance to react.
He went to the cart where the food had been and riffled through a black bag. My eyes widened. Where the hell did that come from? Nothing in life is as ominous as a black bag, a black bag means business. A black bag means planning, preparation, thoughtful packing. I suddenly felt very light headed.