He said he wanted to comfort me. He said I’d had such a hard
time, what with Darren and the restraining order and all that, and that I didn’t
deserve any of it. He was a few inches shorter than me and built like a
sparrow. Tiny ribcage. I thought “What makes you think you can protect me? And
where do your lungs go?” But there was a sweetness to him, and a gentleness.
What looked like one. I felt safe. I let him in.
He was a good listener. He had this way of tilting his head
a little to the side when I was talking. He said he didn’t even know he was
doing it. And his voice was soft and deep as he asked me questions about my
life, about how I felt. I mean, that’s a novelty in itself, isn’t it? Especially
after Darren. The only kind of questions he ever asked me were ‘What the FUCK
do you think you’re doing?’ and ‘Why are you such an idiot? Were you born that
way or did you get a fucking degree in it?” I did like that he was funny, even
though he was… you know… Everybody has
their good points.
Like Benoit. He was really clever. A vicious fucking monster
but clever with words, and he could control how much I laughed… and other
things too, but laughter is stronger than a love potion for me.
I knew I didn’t want to be his girlfriend from the start,
but… he had so much hair that the shower made rivulets in it… Looked like the
Amazon from Above. Who was that photographer? Gross. I mean… it really grossed
me out. That was after we'd...
I tossed a coin to decide. Heads I say no thank you, take my
bag and my dignity and leave. Tails I stay and get it over with. It was going
to happen at some point. I can’t resist a man that I don’t want to have sex
with. I was disappointed when it landed on tails. I tossed it again. I knew I
wanted to leave, really, and be out of there, in my own bed, with clothes
on.
But that would have meant being on my own and that’s always
a harder, kind of. Not just lonely. It’s an agitated kind of a place to be. Je suis mal dans ma peau. I used to say
that to myself a lot at the time. My skin doesn’t fit. That’s not quite how you’d
translate it, but that’s the feeling I always got – like I was wearing someone
else’s skin. It wasn’t too big or too small, it just wasn’t quite right. So I chose to go with tails. Nine months, I
spent with that one. He only hit me twice, properly, but he paved the way, I
suppose, for the others. For Darren, especially. Who was all fists and no
trousers. Probably why.
So here’s Simon, with his head tilted to one side and those
eyes – his dad was from Spain and he had those Mediterranean long lashes and
deep brown eyes full of promise – and I’m telling him things I’ve hardly even
told myself and it’s the first time we’ve hung out. I’m telling him the worst
things I’ve ever done, the things that make me shrivel with shame just to think
of them, and how I made bad things happen, and the fact that I’m scared rigid
that someone will find out what a nasty piece of work I am and why I did, in
fact, deserve every last punch, every slap, every bit of humiliation. Why I do.
And he’s just listening and making this deep rumble in his throat that kind of
soothed me and turned me on at the same time. He was...
And he didn’t touch me… he didn’t even reach out to me. He
was stroking me all the time with his words and his gentle-deep voice, gazing
into my eyes, but he didn’t try and touch me for weeks. And when he did, it
drove me crazy. Tantalising. He'd let a finger brush my hand as though he hadn’t
meant to. He'd stand close to me, so I could feel his breath and feel the heat of
him, but he wouldn’t make contact. It was electric. I was addicted. I felt like there
was nothing I wouldn’t do for that touch to take its full form, for him to hold
me in his arms and… nothing.
Looking back, it seems kind of obvious. All his kindness,
his gentleness, his listening… he… I told him everything he ever needed to know
about me. He knows who I love. He knows my secrets, all of them, and exactly
who to threaten to tell, because he knows I would rather die than face the
shame of them knowing. He knows how I like to be touched and when he wants to,
he can be the tenderest lover there has ever been. He can make me feel like a
newborn baby in its mother’s arms. There is nobody who can make me feel loved
like he can, and nobody who can make me feel as bereft, as desperate and as alone
as he does when he takes his love away. And I know – I KNOW – it’s not real. I
know it in my heart and in my body, but I fall again and again and again
because he …
He has never hit me,
though. He doesn’t need to. He has delved into the parts of me I didn’t even
know myself and unravelled them. And he has tied them to himself and walked away,
dragging me along the ground behind him. I feel like a caged dog. From time to
time, he’ll open the cage and tell me ‘go, go on then, leave’. And every time, I
get as far as the gate and I can’t… I .. I slip
my tail between my legs and slink back to my cage, cowering. I am his.
============================
Prompt: "I want you to be terrified" (thanks to Francesca Booth)
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