He lifted me up onto my feet and shut off the water. When he reached for the buttons on my soaked shirt I had on, I saw another set of hands—evil hands—reaching for me, and a whimper escaped my lips. His fingers paused.
“I’m not going to hurt you. I’m just going to wrap a dry towel around you. OK?” He held my gaze, not looking at my body as he unfastened the buttons. When the shirt slipped to the floor, he reached for a towel from the shelf, but my eyes followed him and I caught sight of my reflection in the mirror.
My jaw dropped open, and the reflection in the mirror mimicked me. It was hideous. I was hideous. It was the first time I’d seen myself. There’d been no mirrors in hell, though that surprised me now. The bastard could have struck just as deep with a mirror as his whip. I was revolting.
My face was a swollen mixture of greens, blues, and yellows from old and new bruises, and the wound on my cheek had never healed. He’d forced me face down on the ground so many times, and each time had ripped it open again.
Bruises and bite marks marred my torso and peeked out from the bandage wrapped around my ribs.
I hadn’t realized I’d started to cry until a tear dripped off my chin and landed on my bruised breast. In sick curiosity, I started to turn to see my back in the mirror when the glass smashed into hundreds of pieces that clattered on the ground.
I blinked. It took my drug-addled mind a full minute to realize Derek had thrown something and smashed the mirror. That was a relief. At first, I’d worried I was so hideous-looking I’d broken the mirror.
“It doesn’t matter, Scar. You’ll heal, and all of it will fade,” he said through gritted teeth as he wrapped the towel around me and tucked the end under my arm instead of between my breasts.
He took my hand this time and guided me back to the bedroom. I hadn’t noticed the serving tray covered on the table by the bed. Had he ordered it while I’d been sleeping? Had he let someone in the room? Had they seen the hideous figure asleep on the bed?
“I had it sent up shortly after we arrived in case you were hungry. And I had them leave it outside the door,” he answered the frantic questions whirling in my head.
I eyed the tray for a moment. I should be hungry. I hadn’t eaten since the previous day. Two energy bars. That was what he’d fed me every day, just to give me enough energy to stay on my feet—that’s what he’d said. When I’d tried to reject the food, he’d spent a day and a half feeding me his penis and making me swallow so much ejaculate that it sloshed nauseatingly in my stomach.
No, I wasn’t hungry.
Ignoring the food, I sat down on the edge of the bed, using my core muscles as little as possible to avoid setting off my ribs. He didn’t stop me when I laid down and closed my eyes. Good—I didn’t think I could stand being awake another minute. Just before I drifted off though, I felt him there. He’d laid down behind me, and though he didn’t put his arms around me, I could feel the heat of his body radiating against my cold flesh. I didn’t resist the comfort his nearness offered. I let it wash over me and follow me down into oblivion.
The days that followed fell into a mundane routine that must have bordered on mind-numbing boredom for Derek. Maybe I was silent in hopes of pushing him away. Maybe I just had no idea what to say to him. He kept trying to talk to me or trying to get me to talk to him. He said I’d feel better if I talked about my time in hell. I didn’t believe him.
I slept—a lot. It took too much effort to stay awake for long. He woke me every four hours though, for pain medicine. And once a day, he helped me into the shower, changed my bandages and helped me back to bed.
When I couldn’t sleep, I just laid there, remembering. And when I could sleep, I did. Unfortunately, the memories had begun to follow me there. Derek had reduced my pain medication from two pills every four hours, to one, and my dark, dreamless refuge of sleep had vanished without the muddled cloudiness from the pills. And he’d started pushing me to eat more, staring me down with his intense, unwavering gaze until I capitulated and ate another bite, or took another spoonful.
He was staring at me with that gaze now, his arms crossed, standing over me while I sat in bed with a tray across my lap. For the first time, something pleasant flashed through my mind. I was kneeling between his thighs outside his car, and he was feeding me fast food. I’d chosen to be there, on my knees in front of him. I’d asked him for it. Despite the subservient position, I’d felt stronger. Grounded in a world that had been spinning wildly out of control.