69. Brynn
I t’s the only way.
I know it.
Even if I don’t like it.
He’s rejecting me, he doesn’t want me anymore. I can see it in his eyes, I can feel it in the way he washed me.
I’m tainted now. Ruined.
I never wanted this man’s love. I never wanted his attention, or his touch, or anything from him.
And yet, without it, what am I? What purpose do I have?
My own father proved I’m nothing but a thing to own. A thing to use. My maternal family despises me. I have no value beyond what my body can barter, and Conrad, my husband, he used to want that, he used to crave that.
I have to make him remember. I have to use the one thing I have left, the one option open to me, if I’m going to survive.
“Conrad.” I whisper his name. Not that he realises that’s what I’ve said, since it comes out in a jumble of noise.
But my hands are doing all the work here. All the enticing.
I run my fingers up, being so gentle, partly because it hurts too much to do otherwise and partly because that is how I like it, how I touch myself. My face heats when I realise that it’s a habit now, that I masturbate. I’m one of those people. Those sinners.
But this man here, he made me into this. He’s just as sinful as I am.
I stare back at him. He’s not looking at my face but the expression he has, it’s turning me on more. It’s making me continue, it’s proving everything I’m doing is right.
My body leaks out more arousal, my heart thumping loudly. I can feel myself literally throbbing as I work away.
And I’m moaning, moaning deep in my throat. Showing in every way that I can that I want this, that I’m submitting. That I can be what he wants me to be now, that I won’t fight him anymore.
My upper back arches, my breasts push out and I throw my head back as an explosion seems to go off behind my eyes. I scream, I push my fingers deep inside myself and I start thrusting, dragging this performance out.
“Fuck,” He groans, leaning in, planting a kiss on my useless left leg. “You’re so beautiful, so beautiful Brynn.”
Those words send me over the edge, they make me combust.
But I’m crying too, sobbing, hating the fact that this part of me was tainted, that it was ruined.
As I collapse back onto the bed he gets in beside me, pulling me up into his arms, and then drags the covers over us.
For so many months I hated the touch of him, the feel of him, the smell of him. And yet, now, I’m lying here, accepting it. I don’t know if this is peace I feel, or disgust at myself, at my surrender.
But I can’t keep fighting. I’m too tired now. Too broken.
Conrad can help me. Conrad can protect me. I just have to sacrifice the parts of me that don’t want him, the parts that whisper of freedom and a life outside the Brethren. I have to bury those words; I have to burn them from my memory.
Fix me.
I have to fix myself now, I have to do the work that no one else can.
I can hear his breathing; I can feel the warmth of it on my skin.
For a second I think he’s fallen asleep, but then he moves enough to tell me he’s definitely still awake.
His eyes narrow, and I see that same flash of anger that I saw back in the shower.
“How many?” He growls.
For a moment I don’t understand what he’s asking me, what the hell he’s talking about, and then it hits me.
He wants to know who else fucked me. Who else has had me.
I gulp, grateful for the lack of emotion in this instance because it spares me feeling the revulsion I know should be there.
“Just him.” I reply.
He doesn’t understand. Of course he doesn’t. This conversation is completely pointless because I can’t fucking speak in any way that makes actual sense.
And then it hits me, what to do, how to explain it.
I make a gesture with my hands, and he moves quickly out of the bed, rifling through the desk in the corner before he comes back with the notepad.
He passes it to me, and I take the pencil before I hesitate. Because on some level, writing it, seeing it there on paper, feels even worse than saying the truth out loud.
“Tell me who touched you.” He says more angrily, like he’s going to hunt them down and skin them alive.
I scrawl the words, but I can’t look at them. I can still barely process what happened.
He snatches the pad, then stares at what’s written there.
“…the fuck?” He says and I can hear the disbelief. I can hear it loudly. Does he think I’m lying, that I’d make something as abhorrent as that up?
I grab the pad back, adding to the line that reads ‘Xavier and my father’ and I write, I scrawl, I scramble to try and explain what it was, what he did, and why.
That my father didn’t see me, not his daughter. That he didn’t see his child, but the manifestation of the girl he loved and groomed years ago. That he was so obsessed with my mother that he couldn’t think beyond his own warped mind.
He stares back at the paper when I give it to him, and I can’t look at him. A voice in my head already tells me that this will be it, the final straw. I’m not just ruined; I’m disgusting on a level I’ll never come back from.
My hands curl into fists. My tears begin to stream down my face again.
The sound of the pad hitting the carpet reaches my ears and I look up to see Conrad staring back down at me.
“No one must know.” He states. “You tell no one else. Do you understand me?”
I nod so quickly that I think it rattles my brain.
But the warning in his voice, the threat, it’s loud enough for me to understand. If I tell anyone, then that will be it. That will be the end.
Apparently, there’s no comeback from that sin.