“How do the old scary stories start? It was a night not so unlike this one… Well, not the very beginning, but the night that changed me forever. There was a wicked thunderstorm storm, the worst the city had seen in years. About seven years ago, I was working in an interior design office. We got a new client, an international businessman, Anthony Maldono. He’d just purchased a home and was redecorating it. It was a huge deal. He was very attractive and charming so when he asked me out I said yes.” Her voice grew steadier as she talked.
She paused, lost in thought, and closed her eyes to continue. “The first couple of dates were what fairytales are made of. He had money and nothing was too expensive but we just didn’t click. It was almost as if he was too much. Too much of everything. While my family wasn’t poor, we weren’t rich, either, and I wasn’t used to that. I’ve always been more of a casual beer-and-pizza kind of girl, not caviar and champagne.” She looked over at Noah. “Do you know what I mean?” When Noah nodded, she continued. “We met for coffee and I told him we should just be friends.”
“What did he say to that?” Noah said from where he was leaning up against the piano his fingers griping the edge of it so she was able to see his knuckles were white.
“He seemed fine with it. In fact, he said I reminded him of someone he used to know and he was hoping for that connection he’d lost all those years ago. We parted ways and I thought that was it.” She paced over to the couch and sat down. “For a few weeks nothing was out of the ordinary, but I would see him everywhere I went. Sometimes in the same store, the same restaurant, across the street from where I lived. Then things started disappearing from my house or things were moved. I’d get hang-up calls all the time from blocked numbers. Or sometimes the person would say vile things on the other end of the phone.” She shook her head to get the words out.
“Did you go to the police?” He tried to keep his voice calm to mask the rage that was building in him.
“Yes, but there wasn’t much that they could do. They didn’t have enough to go on. He never threatened me face to face. Then one night it all changed. My parents had called me at work to invite me to dinner that night and I went home to change.” Standing up she started pacing around the room. “I had just come out of my bathroom when I felt something prick on my arm. I turned around and before everything went black I saw him. When I came to, I was tied to the bed and completely naked.” Pausing knowing the worst was to come; she looked up at Noah who had his hands clenched at his sides. Lexi turned back around to the fireplace and stared into the flames while she finished. She couldn’t look at him.
“It was very disorienting waking up and seeing him there with rage burning in his eyes. I started to panic, I couldn’t move. I wanted to scream but he was quick. He covered my mouth with his hand and brought the knife up so that I could see it. It was like he was trying to see if he could be quick enough to stop my scream. I didn’t want his naked body touching mine, but I couldn’t get away from it. My mind started to clear and I thought if I could somehow talk to him or at least not make him angrier, maybe I could somehow get out.” She spun the glass around and around in her hand while she talked.
“He told me that I was his, his to do with whatever he wanted. He couldn’t believe that I didn’t want him. That someone had actually walked away from him. He said I couldn’t leave him. He got angrier. He started to tell me everything he was going to do to me. He was going to make sure every inch of my body hurt and bled from the inside out. He showed me what he was going to use on me. The more he told me, the more excited he got. I tried to keep him talking, but it was useless. I tried to keep the images out of my head of what he said, but I couldn’t. I was so scared of the pain I knew was coming.” She felt the tears start and tried to hold them back.
She closed her eyes when she heard Noah growl deep in his throat.
“Then he raped me. It seemed the more I hurt, the more excited he got. I tried to just lay there with no reaction but nothing stopped his single-minded obsession with beating and raping me.” This time she didn’t stop them when the tears started falling down her checks.
“At some point, I thought I heard banging. It was probably only minutes after he started raping me, but it felt like hours. It was actually my parents at the door. I’d never showed up for dinner and they were worried. I cannot begin to tell you how lucky I am that they arrived when they did. It would have been much worse. He punched me and I blacked out.” She tried to tell the story like she had over and over to the police, counselors and other rape victims. It helped to think of telling other people and not Noah, someone whom she’d come to care for, but still the tears flowed.