CHAPTER 18
Someone calls for me. It’s persistent and loud. I struggle to ignore it, but it keeps pushing, threatening to break the veneer that keeps me safely tucked into darkness.
A thud rings out, and my cheek tingles. Like a fly in the morning. I swat in front of me, not wanting anything to pull me from this nothingness. But the thud returns, this time with a mild sting and a sharper sound. A voice accompanies it, dogged and intrusive, threatening to break my shield.
I try to turn away, but something stops me, and another sting blooms on my cheek. Then I hear the voice. “Rebecca,” it calls from a distance. It’s like two conspiring evils, the voice and the sting.
Someone hauls me up to sit on the edge of the bed. I try to fight it, but my attempt is feeble. Then the same person is shaking me.
It all seems far away, like it happens to another person. My cheek flares up, but the pain isn’t mine. But when a sharp sound brings another flare of pain, the sensation moves closer.
Someone is slapping me, I realize.
One more blow has my head flying to the side, but another hand catches it. This hand is gentle, unlike the one hitting me, but it’s just as big and warm, like it belongs to the same person. Again, nothing makes sense. Gentle and cruel don’t go together.
The cruel hand smacks me into the gentle one again, and this time, a sharper burn blossoms on my cheek, demanding a reaction. I bite down on my lips and groan, but refuse to open my eyes.
“Rebecca!” someone calls again. The sound is distant yet all too clear.
Shaking my head, I refuse to go to it.
A deep, familiar voice repeats my name, and now it’s closer, almost penetrating the fog. “Rebecca,” it demands while hands shake my body. “Look at me!” A loud smack makes my cheek flare up. This time, the pain is mine. Real and palpable, sharp and loud. But it’s not just in my cheek. It’s everywhere. My entire body is throbbing, my inner walls aching, my throat raw. And I’m bone-tired.
I want to curl up in a ball and sob. Disappear again.
“Look at me!” the voice demands.
I lift my heavy eyelids and stare into a pair of gray eyes. Thick brows, one dissected, enhance the familiar gaze, but the features I know as smooth and impassive are taut with deep furrows across the forehead and lips set in a straight line.
“Please, just let me be,” I beg, my voice barely audible.
“No!” Hands shake me. “Stay here!”
My eyes slide shut, and fingers gently wrap around my chin.
“Stay here with me,” the voice repeats, now almost a whisper. A plea.
Like with the hands, the rough voice and the imploring tone don’t go together. It can’t be right.
I open my eyes again, and the air whooshes from my lungs as I stare into a tender set of gray eyes—soft and almost afraid. The concern is so real that tears gather in my eyes. I can’t remember the last time anyone looked at me like this.
It’s not just my body that feels again. It’s my whole being. My throbbing muscles and my aching soul.
“Why couldn’t you just let me be?” I say with a trembling voice.
“Because I want you here,” Janos says with a grave earnestness that lingers in everything from his deep gaze to the way he clutches my hand. Yet I don’t believe it. I might have been far gone, but I haven’t forgotten his betrayal. It’s branded into me. I hardly remember what he did, but I know he betrayed me like the dirty little whore I am.
I shake my head, tears slipping onto my cheeks.
“Stay here,” he urges.
Slowly, memories seep into my mind. Ugly and brutal. Images, feelings, and sounds. Hurt, grief, longing, and loss. It’s one big jumbled mess. I break into heavy sobs as everything pushes to come out at once. My throat strains with the desperate sounds, my muscles constricting in painful spasms.
I fall off the bed—or someone pulls me down. I’m not sure. But strong arms catch me, and I land in a lap where I’m held with a tenderness so intense it hurts. At this very moment, I don’t care whether it’s real or fake. I just want more of it, and I cling to the man who offers it.
He lifts me back onto the bed, tucking me into his embrace as he lies beside me and pulls the comforter over us. I have no idea how long we stay there, but it’s for a long time. Sobs keep tearing at my throat and wrenching at my chest. When they finally stop, a violent fit of shaking seizes my body. Somewhere along the way, darkness takes the light, and we remain in the same embrace until I go still, breathing heavily against his neck.
Mere hours ago, I was paralyzed by the lack of emotion; now I’m paralyzed by too many. I don’t dare to move, afraid it will all slam back into me. Slowly, the fog of several days’ detachment clears, and everything comes back to me. The forced move, the week of settling in and gaining a sense of safety, and having Gabor shatter that safety in the blink of an eye as he defiled my body and reduced me to nothing.But most of all, I remember the breach of trust. I remember how these arms that I somehow had come to trust betrayed me. Suddenly, I can’t stand feeling them.
I pull out of them and push up to sit on the bed.
Janos reaches for me, and I move farther away. “I can’t do this anymore. I can’t pretend that you care,” I say in a trembling voice.
He watches me for a long moment, and even though his features are hidden in the darkness, his eyes stand out. I search them, hoping to find something to hold on to.
“I tried to stop him,” he says, voice thick with regret. It’s the first truly profound words he’s ever spoken to me, and I stare at him in shock as he continues with a defeated sigh. “I tried to tell him you weren’t ready, but he was hell-bent on going through with it. So I tried being there for you instead—ease the pain by holding you.”
Fresh tears gather in my eyes, and a few drops fall from my cheeks, disappearing into the darkness.
I should hold on to the hurt and keep hating him. Because he just sat there, watching as Gabor kicked me around on the floor and tore me apart from behind. Maybe he did try to stop Gabor, but he didn’t do it even though he easily could have.
Yet, this small new piece of information is enough to break through my pain. Knowing he tried means everything. Knowing he cares enough to ease my pain is more than I could hope for in this darkness that has consumed my world. So I cling to it with everything I have, letting that small sliver of warmth be my beacon of light.
***
Janos is here most of the time during the next few days. Whenever I think he has left, I find him on his laptop in the living room or filling the tub for me in the bathroom.
I could spend hours in that tub, and sometimes I think I do.
Janos always sits on the closed toilet behind me when I’m in the water, watching over me like a hawk. Even as I hear him tapping away on his laptop, I constantly feel his eyes prickling at the back of my neck. I think he’s worried I’ll slip into the water and stay there. I can’t blame him. The idea frequently pops into my head. But I don’t think I could go through with it. I’m not strong enough—or maybe I’m not weak enough.
When I’m not in the tub and I’m not sleeping, I’m crying. Janos often comes to lie with me in bed, letting me sob into his shoulder. At first, the grief only gets worse at the feeling of his strong arms closing around me with an empty promise of safety. But after some time, I stop caring about intentions and lean on his strength to carry the burden with me.
I’m constantly jumpy and anxious. The doorbell sends me into a full-fledged panic attack more than once. “It’s just the delivery guy,” Janos reassures and rushes out to get the food, so he can return and take me in his arms, where he holds me until the tears run dry and the food goes cold.
Eating is hard the first few days after I’ve left the coma-like state. Janos always places me on the edge of the bed and sits in front of me to feed me, never letting me control the food myself. Sometimes, a hard look is enough to make me open my mouth, but other days, I refuse and turn away from him or even fight him.
It doesn’t matter what I do; Janos is adamant about getting nourishment in me. So when I go belligerent, he simply sets the plate aside and carries me to the living room—crying and begging or kicking and screaming—and ties me to a chair.
The defeat of being physically subdued is often enough to make me cooperate, but one day, I’m stuck so deep in my own defiance I can’t give in despite the defeat of the ropes. I bite my lips together like a petulant child even as the tears keep trickling down my face.
Janos leans forward and presses his index finger into my stomach. “Maybe I should get someone to come insert a feeding tube, huh?”
I stare at him in horror, but there’s no flinch or hint of a bluff. He means it. And why wouldn’t he? Janos doesn’t care about my dignity. So I part my lips and let him shove a spoonful of stew inside.
It takes a few days for my senses to come back to life, and as they do, it gets easier to eat. Still, Janos keeps insisting on feeding me. I’m not sure if it’s a control thing or a fucked-up way to take care of me. I let myself believe it’s the latter and find comfort in the gesture. It’s deeply intimate having him control something as basic as my food, and one day when he sits in front of me, watching me intently as he feeds me, I find the courage to ask him something I have been aching to know.
“Why are you here all the time?”
Janos digs the spoon into the steaming bean stew and holds it up for me. “I have to make sure you’re good to go again on Friday.”
My stomach sinks, a heavy rock slamming into the empty pit. I don’t know what I hoped for. A confession of feelings or a promise to protect me? I want to hit myself over the head for being so na?ve. A small glimmer of something human doesn’t mean he’s suddenly a different person. He’s still the man who comes at night and prepares me to be raped. Being here is only part of his job. He comforts and holds me because I’m so brittle I’ll break if he doesn’t.
I’m seeing things I need to see, not things that are actually there. Survival, I guess. I’m losing my grasp on reality. Everything floats around in a chaotic mess, and I can’t tell the truth from what’s false, reality from fantasy. First, it was my body failing me when it made me orgasm at the hands of my perpetrator. Over and over. Now, it’s also my heart and my mind.
Nothing is mine anymore. I have no control or say in anything.
Suddenly, the spoon-feeding is a blaring symbol of my powerlessness. I can’t take it. “Please, can I eat on my own?” Pressing my lips together, I reach for the spoon in front of my mouth.
Janos shakes his head, and defeat gnaws deep in my belly as I part my lips to let the spoon in. But when he lowers it to the bowl, I throw my arm out and grab it from his hand. I have no idea what’s gotten into me, and I stare at him with startled eyes as I clutch the stolen item in my hand.
Slowly—too slowly—he sets the bowl aside and reaches for the spoon. I have every intention of giving it back since I don’t want to know the consequences of defying him again, yet I pull my arm back, out of his reach. Apparently, my body and mind won’t cooperate anymore.
Leaning over me, he grabs for the spoon, but a reckless need for control whirs inside me. I’m surprised at how fast I react as I roll across the bed and somehow manage to land upright on the floor.
I set off in a sprint toward the living room, and the annoyed growl behind me spurs me into a hazardous pace. Firm steps follow, but Janos is not in a hurry. He knows there’s nowhere for me to hide. And I realize the same when I end up in the farthest corner of the living room, staring at the giant man closing in.
Janos stops right in front of me, leaving only an inch of space between us. His impassive face gives nothing away. I can’t tell whether he’s angry, irritated, or simply impatient. My pulse rachets up as I wait to find out.
I lift the spoon as a peace offering, but Janos shoves it away with a flick of his hand. The same hand comes up to my throat, fingertips slipping over my skin with a sinister gentleness. Slowly, he wraps his hand around my neck, forcing my head up to make room for the massive size.
I don’t dare to swallow, don’t dare to breathe as I stare up at him. All I can do is plead with him through my eyes as he keeps tightening his grip until it feels like I’m breathing through a straw. He leaves me just enough air to stay conscious, and the world around me slips away as my focus hones in on him and his deadly power. He could snap my neck in an instant—press a little harder and snuff out my breath.
I should be scared, but I’m not. I don’t care what he does to me as long as he’s the one doing it. If he wants to kill me, so be it. Then I’ll escape this nightmare, and his touch will be the last thing I feel.
So I let go. I sink back against the wall and let his hand be the only thing holding me up.
Something flickers across his face. Maybe shock or surprise. Maybe approval. I don’t know. But when I hold the spoon up again—this time a symbol of resignation—it becomes clear. His eyes soften as he takes the spoon, then strokes the back of the same hand across my cheek.
He leans in, dangerously close. His lips hover before mine, his breath coming in long drags that tickle the corners of my mouth. I think he’s going to sneer cruel words as his eyes darken, but instead, he steals what little breath I have left as he crushes his lips against mine. He invades my mouth, his tongue dancing against mine with passionate, almost violent strokes.
I can’t think.
I can’t breathe.
All I can do is open and let him take. And God, I want him to. I want him to take everything I have left and consume me until I don’t exist beyond him.
The spoon drops to the floor with a clank as his arm shoots around my waist. Yanking me against him, he deepens the kiss and shoves his erection against my pelvis. He’s rock hard and huge, grinding his hips against me and pressing his cock into just the right place. My nerve endings flare alive, and my entire body buzzes with the need for more. I want to rip off the barriers—his jeans and my panties—feel him press against my opening, his cock sliding through my slickness. I want to feel the painful pleasure as he shoves into me, and I want the all-consuming ecstasy as he shoots his come inside me, claiming me in the most primal of ways.
He drives me into a frenetic state. I moan into his mouth and press my body against him. I lean my throat into his hand, wanting more however I can get it. His fingers dig into my waist, and I relish in the pain, letting it drive me higher and higher until I’m on the edge of an orgasm. My legs tense as my inner walls contract. It doesn’t matter that he’s not inside me. Just a little more of this and I’ll explode.
So close. And then everything stops. Janos breaks the kiss and pins my hips to the wall.
“No, no, no,” I beg, my pelvis pulsing painfully. “Please don’t stop. Please don’t.”
Janos furrows his brow in defeat as he watches me, and hopelessness spears my chest. He isn’t stopping because he wants to. He’s stopping because he has to.
My begging fades, and I slump against the wall. Janos stares off at the floor. When he returns his gaze to mine, a lost look has settled into his gray orbs.
Leaning in, he presses an achingly tender kiss to my forehead. Then he turns his back to me and leaves.
I stare after him breathlessly. He disappears through the hall and leaves the apartment. Even long after the door closes, I’m still staring, hoping he’ll come back.
But he doesn’t.