Chapter 23
Seraphina
Idon’t know how long I wait like this, my hands in handcuffs, my bottom lifted by the pillows underneath me, the air from the open window drifting across my skin and making me fully aware of just how exposed I am.
It takes a while for reality to sink in.
At first, my mind is in a fog of pleasure and frustration as I revel in what just happened.
Even the lightest touch, coming from Damien, is enough to send sparks of electricity through me.
And he kept me in a state of frenzied need for I don’t know how long.
Touching me, filling me, sending me to the cusp of nirvana, then dragging me back each time.
I always wonder how he can possibly know me so well. How he understands exactly when to stop, when to start, where to touch me, how to drive me absolutely frantic.
Clearly someone who knows my body so well must care for me.
I allow myself to believe it, to fully believe it, to think back to every conversation we’ve had lately, to the feel of his arm around me, his chest beneath me while I fall asleep.
I ignore all the questions still unanswered that have made me imagine the worst in the past, and let myself sink into the pleasure of believing.
He cares. Maybe he… loves me. The word thrills me even as it scares me.
Could I really mean as much to him as he means to me?
No one who didn’t care for me could touch me so well.
My body hums with happiness. I can barely wrap my head around it.
I’m no longer alone. I’ve been chosen by someone, and not just anyone.
Someone I yearn for with every thread of my being.
All I can think of at first is how much I want to see him. How much I want him to do whatever it was he did, again. I stay as still as I can, hoping he’ll be proud of me when he finds me in the position he’s left me in, though I guess I don’t have much choice in the matter.
My ears strain for a sound that indicates he’s returned, any sound. But as the shadows lengthen outside my window, as the dusky sky turns black, my stomach sinks as the realization forces itself on me that he’s not coming back.
The intrusive thoughts return then, slowly at first, creeping back like the shadows outside my window, before engulfing me entirely.
It’s been a very long time since I’ve had those thoughts. So long I’d nearly forgotten them, and I’m no longer prepared to deal with them. They stifle me.
He’s probably handcuffed me like this for fun, touched me because he felt like it, then kept me bound because of some sadistic impulse to prove to me just how little he regards me.
The comfort I’ve allowed myself to sink into these past few weeks, the belief I’ve let myself cling to, dissolves, replaced by stabbing pain.
What the fuck is wrong with me?
How could I possibly have believed he had any feelings for me whatsoever?
I’m his captive. He comes to me when he’s bored.
He probably lied when he said he wouldn’t have kidnapped me if it had been up to him.
He sees me as an object, a fucktoy, to be played with when he feels like it, discarded when I become too cumbersome.
Mama told me that’s how I was conceived. Some asshole at her high school who took what he wanted. I wonder if she derived any pleasure from it, if she allowed herself to believe, as I did, that the asshole cared.
Or if she saw right through him from the beginning.
I know firsthand she let herself believe in the Monster. I remember how frustrated I felt, how stupid I thought she was for not seeing what was so obvious. And now, I’ve become just as stupid as her.
I choke down a sob and try to wrangle my wrists and ankles out of their restraints. But it’s pointless. Plus, there’s still a part of me that hesitates, wondering if, after all, he does plan on coming back, if all of this is just a test, if he’s turned on by the idea of me waiting for him.
After all, I know he likes to hurt me. Even more odd, I like being hurt by him too. As long as I can believe, under it all, that he cares.
I don’t know what to think anymore.
The tears fall, hot and heavy, as the room is plunged into absolute darkness.
Finally, exhausted by crying, and still utterly helpless, I fall asleep.
-
I’m startled awake some time later by the lights in my room turning on. My first thought is that it’s morning, but one glance out the window tells me it’s still pitch dark.
That means someone turned on the light.
I gasp and bury my face for a second in the sheets, trying to wipe away the evidence of my tears, then turn around, hoping to see Damien.
But of course, it’s Logan, because God wants to see me suffer. If he even exists.
It takes me a moment to remember the position I’m in. Wrists tied to the headboard, ankles tied to the base of the bed. My bottom lifted up by a pile of pillows. Stark-naked.
My face burns red, and I forget to be scared of him. I’m sure he has some new form of torture in mind for me, but right now, I’m so humiliated I can’t think of anything else.
A slight smirk plays around the edge of his lips, but it doesn’t travel to his eyes, which, after a single, sober glance at me, look away.
He crosses the room quickly, still averting his gaze, throws the bag he’s carrying onto the bed next to me, takes out a small key, and unshackles my wrists and ankles.
The moment I’m free, I scramble to the other side of the bed, hiding myself under the sheets. It takes me longer than I’d like, though, because my limbs are asleep from being in this position for so long.
I keep my eyes down, unable to keep myself from shaking as he takes a step toward me, chortling.
“Good old Damien,” he murmurs. “I see he hasn’t changed.”
The redness that had flared on my cheeks dies down, my chest constricting at the significance of those words.
I really am just one of a long line of conquests. The thought hurts. To mean nothing to the person who means everything to me is unbearable.
“You can relax,” he says, as he sits on the other side of the bed. “I won’t fuck with you anymore. I believe you’re innocent.”
It’s not much consolation. I would rather experience any amount of slimy Oakdale waters than to feel the way I do right now.
“Damien was detained,” he mutters. “He didn’t mean for this to happen. Trust me, this is the last thing he would have wanted. He had no choice. His hands were tied. I can’t tell you what’s going on, it would be dangerous to tell you, but you have to believe me. He had no choice.”
I keep my eyes down, refusing his stupid explanations. I don’t believe him, and I don’t believe Damien. I’ll never believe Damien again.
I want to…” begins Logan, then pauses, before saying gruffly, “There’s something for you in that bag. Thought you might want it.” Then he stands up and leaves, turning off the light once more and banging the door shut.
I exhale, thankful he’s left. Then I sit against the headboard for a while, my body rigid with all the emotions coursing through me. There’s no way to extinguish the pain and humiliation that have overtaken me.
I’m not sure how long I stay like this, frozen on one side of the bed, my arms wrapped around me, desperately trying, and failing, to comfort myself, but after a while, pink streaks fill the sky, illuminating the bag he’s left on the bed.
I reach for it gingerly. It feels like another trick of his, but I don’t see how he could hurt me with whatever’s inside.
I pull it toward me, and the contents spill out, catching the rays of the morning sun.
The gold locket. And… the dress.
I grab it and bury my head in it. Somehow, this cheap pink dress means more than all the designer garments Damien has purchased for me over the past months.
My fingers cling to the locket, letting the cold metal wrap itself around my heart.
No, this doesn’t compare to the fancy clothes and the luxury apartment.
It’s far better. This is childhood, no real childhood of mine, but an idealized one that’s always been just beyond my grasp.
I slip the cheap trinket around my neck and feel soothed by it.
Then I lie down and let myself fall into a deep, broken sleep, clutching the dress to my chest like a security blanket.
Bloody hands fill my dreams, but they don’t wake me. If anything, I embrace the polar bear inside me. I no longer wonder why I did. Only why I didn’t do it sooner.
-
Two days pass, and although, true to the masochist that I am, I had retained, deep inside me, some hope that he did care, that there was an explanation for all of this, his continued absence forces me to conclude that he really doesn’t give a shit about me.
If he did, he would have come running. He would have explained himself. Because this is the worst thing he’s ever done to me, and there’s no way he can’t be aware of that.
But he doesn’t come. In fact, apart from the quiet woman, no one comes. And she’s quieter than ever.
It’s as if he wants to see me suffer.
To see me suffer, to humiliate me, to make me feel once more like the jellyfish I was before I met him.
Tying me up to be discovered by his best friend.
He probably did tell Logan to push me into Oakdale River. He probably wishes I’d drowned there.
I’m starting to wish it, too.
The pain, the humiliation, the despair, are crushed under the rising weight of an almighty anger. Not the kind of passing anger I experience when I’m made fun of. Not even the deeper anger at the broken dinner promise. This is a much greater, nearly uncontrollable fury.
Losing control of myself used to scare me, but now I let myself sink into that feeling.
The jellyfish cut open, revealing a polar bear in its heart. Hot-blooded but ice cold to the touch. A hunter. A killer.
The only predator that hunts men for sport. I remember reading that once somewhere.
I never wanted to be a polar bear. I didn’t want to be a predator, I wanted to be Wendy, with a Peter Pan to protect me. The quiet, shy girl with the boy who can read her innermost desires and make them come true. Who can protect her from the monsters.
Not a monster herself.
When I realized I couldn’t be Wendy, I decided to be invisible. A tiny forgettable thing who didn’t take up space. A jellyfish.
Anything to keep the polar bear at bay.
But now, I welcome it. I’m sick and tired of it all, and I’m going to do something about it.
-
On the third day, I wake up, my heart lighter with my new resolution. For the first time since Damien left me handcuffed to the bed, I haven’t been haunted by a single image of what I did when I was fourteen years old.
I get up early, shower, and put on my nicest clothes. I decide to wear makeup because I know Damien doesn’t like it. Fuck him.
I brush out my hair until it’s perfectly bushy.
At last, I’m ready, and I stare at the door. It’s all very well to be determined, but I have no clue what to do now. So I wait.
10 a.m., 11 a.m., 12 p.m.
The hours pass, only punctuated by the quiet woman bringing in breakfast, lunch and dinner.
I need to do something else. Taunt him more. And then what? Let him punish me again? I don’t want that anymore. I don’t want him to touch me at all. Not because I don’t crave his touch—I do, with every fiber of my being—but because it would mean giving in. I’m done giving in.
But probably, he’s grown so indifferent he won’t come no matter how much I taunt him. And that would hurt more than any amount of giving in would.
However I look at it, there’s a risk. But I’m willing to take it. Anything is better than this inaction.
By the time the quiet woman returns in the evening to clean the apartment, I’m sitting on the floor, a razor beside me.
The choice to hurt myself was borne from wanting to hurt him, but when I brought the razor down on my wrists I realized I was the one who wanted to suffer.
There was a moment of euphoria as I sliced through the skin.
But now, seeing the blood on my wrists, I’m seized with sudden panic.
Damien still scares me, I guess.
When the quiet woman knocks and then enters, it’s too late to hide. Anyway, I’m sure he’s seen it, if he’s looking. Then again, he’s probably not looking anymore, or he would certainly have done something about this, no matter how little he cares about me.
The quiet woman takes in what I’ve done at a glance, her eyes widening. Then she cries out, “Stop!”
The second she does, I inhale sharply.
I’ve heard that word before, spoken by that very same voice.
I forget about the razor, my wrists, even Damien, as I try to remember where. But I come up blank.
Still, when my eyes meet hers, I see by the pallor of her face that she’s aware of what I’m thinking. She sets down the tray quickly.
“I won’t tell anyone,” she breathes. “Please never do it again.”
I understand by her urgent voice that what she’s offering isn’t a favor. It’s a deal.
I won’t tell if you don’t.
She doesn’t realize I still have no idea who she is. Her voice is only vaguely familiar, and try as I might, I can’t recall where or when I heard it. But I don’t tell her that. As long as she believes I know, she won’t tell them about this.
And now that I’m staring down at my bloody wrists, I realize I would do anything to keep Damien from knowing.
Because the awful thing is that, no matter what, I can’t break that last thread of hope. I keep returning to it, clinging to it, even though I know that when it finally snaps, as it inevitably will, I will come crashing down. And I won’t be able to get up again.
I nod to show the quiet woman that I accept her deal, and she quickly leaves the room, returning moments later with cotton and antiseptic. She puts some ointment on the cotton then dabs it on my wrists, before bandaging them.
Then she goes out, locking the door behind her. I’m left alone with my cuts, the mystery surrounding her already forgotten, obliterated by my crushing loneliness.