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But it wasn’t Pieter. It was him, Gregor. The dismissive, casual violence he did to me, as if I were nothing. Absolutely fucking nothing in this awful world. I was a piece of dirt to him, a piece of temporary enjoyment. Gregor would kill me as easily as he’d crack an egg.
I opened my eyes and put my palms on the white wall, leaned in.
As each blow of his had bruised me, the pain had hammered me down inside. Why did what Gregor did or thought matter? I despised him. I gave him power by letting anything he did to me hurt.
Pieter was different. Even when he’d killed that boy, he’d said it was his only option, that he did it for me. I hated the boy dying. Yet the why of it...it made Pieter more in my eyes. Even if he hurt me and did what Gregor asked with no protest at all, he was my warped hero.
Everything that happened in this place was dirtied.
The water was helping. Under it, with the roar in my ears, I felt protected in some weird way. Here was safety.
Of course, Pieter didn’t protest because that might make things worse for me. Everything he did here seemed aimed at me. He liked hurting me but the difference between his type of pain and Gregor’s was vast and puzzling. I didn’t really understand why he helped me. I didn’t understand why he liked hurting me. Worst of all, I didn’t understand how he made me like it.
When my shivering started again, I stirred.
Don’t stay long. It’d been ages, hadn’t it? My mind wasn’t functioning well.
Where had he gone?
I shut off the water and dripped dry, watching the droplets dribble down the strands of my hair, down my legs, then into the drain. Still, he didn’t come to me.
The towel was a gray-white but by the time I’d dried myself it’d become a mess of pink, red, and gray. My belly leaked blood. My legs too. Watery blood. My breasts were patched with blue and dark red bruises. Those were from Gregor. I stuffed my face in the towel and breathed there shaking. Everything about me might fall apart if I moved. I shouldn’t have turned off the water.
“Give me that.” From behind, he took the towel from me and wrapped me up. Warmth. His body gave me something solid to lean into.
All my head seemed to register was that here was security. Safe again. Though he said something to me, I’d lost the ability to concentrate.
We were moving and at some point, somehow, we reached the bed. Once I hit the sheets, my thinking shut down and I was gone.
When I woke it was light still. Or was it morning? From the pallid color of the wall next to the bed, it was early morning. I’d slept and now I hurt. So stiff. Places unstuck as I rolled over, my head ending up half off the bed. The sheet slipped away. I was still without clothes.
Last night in the Room had really happened. I shut away a sudden vision of Gregor hitting me.
Was Pieter here? Had they taken him away? I panicked, stupidly, focusing through sleep-glued eyes. There he was.
He sat on the floor, back against the wall near the door, head shaded by his hands. This glowering man, who scared me as much as attracted me, was lost in some reverie.
None of my lovers, few in number that they were, had ever seen me exposed as rawly as he had. If they had, I doubted they’d have cared for me. I’d become so dirty. Sullied was the word. If only I could get home again and curl up in bed. If no one saw me, it wouldn’t matter.
A dream but a good one.
I wanted to be alone as much as I wanted to be with someone. Just look at what had happened here – people had messed up my beautifully organized life. Fuck them all.
I pried myself from bed, set my feet on the floor.
I limped to him, hesitated when I reached his side. When had I ever hugged anyone voluntarily? Over-effusive boyfriends never stayed with me long. Family gatherings were a nightmare.
But I longed to touch him, this man who had wrapped me in barbed wire.
Yes? No? Touching him by myself made my stomach twist. I stretched out my arm, my forefinger an inch from his shoulder. He was unaware.
I lowered my arm, willing him to turn and see me, because that would be so much better.
A strand of my hair grazed his cheek.
Then he did turn, and he looked at me and nodded, then hauled himself to his feet. He raised his hands as if to draw me close, only to lower them.
A pang of disappointment saddened me.
