Poison

“Stop it.”

“I thought I was picking you up off the floor and leaving your filthy slut ways behind, but I wasn’t, was I? You kept hold of them the whole fucking time.”

I shook my head, because he was talking crap.

He rarely got like this, so spiteful and so bitter and so vile.

He was usually wrapping me up in cotton wool every second of the day, and making me promise to be good, and healthy, and take care in every little way he told me how.

“This is nothing to do with me and Lucas,” I told him. “This is about us, and starting again. I want to start again!”

There was a strength in my voice I hadn’t heard all night. I felt a flash of myself back in my veins, because I couldn’t let myself slip back into those same old shoes. Not for anything or anyone. I couldn’t let go of the very person I’d been so desperate to find in myself those past few months.

I thought he’d love that person.

I thought he’d love me.

I shrugged him off a whole load harder and looked him straight in the eyes.

“Let’s go to bed,” I said. “We’ll talk in the morning, when we can talk properly again. It’s been a long night.”

I pushed past him to find my nightdress from my overnight bag, and was leaning over to sort through my things when his arms wrapped around my waist, clenched tight, and spun me off my feet. I was unbalanced in a heartbeat, and he threw me down onto the bed, and I stared up at him open mouthed, because I didn’t get it. I didn’t understand.

“I tried to do everything for you!” he barked. “I sort your useless fucking brain out when you’re such a state you don’t even know your own name. I pick you up from the floor when you’re too fucked to take the most basic fucking care of your own piss, and this is how you repay me?! This is how you fucking repay me?!”

I’d heard this kind of rage from him before whenever he was in one of these dickhead moods over the years, but I thought we were done with it.

He’d apologised for his bullshit and I’d apologised back for mine, and we’d started over.

He’d said we’d started over.

“Please stop,” I said, and tried to get up, but he pushed me back down.

“Is that what you say to him when he’s trying to fuck you? Do you say stop?”

“What’s that got to do with anything?” I asked, and I was getting angry right back at him, even under my fucked up nerves.

“It’s got everything to do with fucking everything!” he raged. “Because I want to know. I asked you what is it you like so much about that piece of shit, Anna, and I want to fucking know!”

I shook my head. “It’s got nothing to do with us! I’m here because I want to give us another go!”

“And I’m telling you, I want to know why you want his fucking dick so much!”

I felt sick inside when I met his stare.

He thought I was disgusting.

He thought I was seedy, and useless, and a pitiful excuse for myself.

But it was more than that.

He hated me when I was like this and always had done.

He hated me ignoring his advice and making my own choices.

He hated me being me.

“This is about me having a prosecco, isn’t it?” I asked him. “Because I’ll have one if I want one, Sebastian. Thanks for your advice, but I’ll have one if I want one! You aren’t my childminder!”

I really did try to get up from the bed this time, and he really did push me back down hard. I squirmed, but he kept me in position, and his eyes filled with a whole fresh round of rage.

“Why do you want his fucking dick so much, Anna?” he sneered, and his hand pinned my wrists above my head.

I squirmed and bucked, but the bed was soft, and it was hard to get leverage. And then he moved. He moved fast and hard, and managed tug my dress up and yank my knickers down my legs, and I spat and cursed and told him to stop, just fucking stop! But he kept on going.

And then those knickers were up in my face. They were up in my face and he was rubbing them hard against my nose and shoving them into my mouth as I tried to fight him off.

“Does this make it better?!” he grunted. “Is this what he does with your filthy fucking knickers to make it so much fucking better?! Don’t think I don’t remember what that filthy cunt used to do to you!”

I hated that he knew. I hated that he knew everything.

I hated that I’d shared everything about my past, and my fears, and my dreams, and believed that he was going to be so fucking much to me.