My dinner with Carter, followed by the charity function with Bennett is tonight. To say I’m nervous would be an understatement. The floor-length dress I bought is black lace, with a silk lining that covers my intimate areas. It’s got a low cut back. It’s elegant, understated, and sleek. Hugging my curves, but not showing too much skin.
I hold it up against my chin and glance at my appearance in the mirror. I haven’t worn something so risqué before because I’ve always felt self-conscious when people—men—look at me, but with Carter and Bennett it’s different. With them I feel safe.
Pulling my underwear drawer open, I grab a matching set of charcoal lingerie. A night of silk and lace seems to be the order of the day. It’s dark in the room with the moon being hidden behind some clouds. My heart leaps into my throat.
Fear grips me so suddenly, I lose my breath. A smell wafts into the apartment from the open terrace door, a familiar scent. My mind races with images I’d buried. My body shudders with revulsion and I’m transported to that fearful sixteen-year-old girl once again.
I’m strong. I’m strong. I’m strong.
The mantra doesn’t help because as I step into the main area of the bedroom, I find the terrace doors still open. My gaze settles on my bed. The sight assaults me, sending me into a black hole. In the dark, the vile monster is there, clawing his way toward me. It’s in my head. It’s not real. But it continues to drag me, like a hand gripping my ankle and pulling me along with the evil, the dark, and the sinister.
Dropping to my knees, I stare at the object. A non-descript shiny, sparkly object that looks just like I remember it. The only problem is… I don’t want to remember it.
* * *
“Do you like your present, Snowflake?” His cold gray eyes stare at me.
My mother is in the living room. If I scream she’ll hear me, but I know she won’t believe me. I’ve become a prisoner in my bedroom and all I want to do is escape. He leans in. Stale breath from his lunch fans over my face and my body convulses as I wretch.
“fu*king answer me, little whore.” Spittle sprays over my face as he hisses.
“Yes, yes, I do.” My hands are shaking and I’m scared that I’m about to drop the fu*king thing. It’s shiny, and when you shake it the white particles are meant to imitate snow. Small buildings within the globe, one I recognize as Buckingham Palace, and there’s a tiny red bus inside as well. I wonder if I could ever run away to another country where he couldn’t find me.
Before he can continue, my mother walks into my room, oblivious to the scene before her. It’s as if she’s drugged and can’t face reality. “I’m heading to bed, you two.” She leans in and kisses me on the forehead before giving her husband a kiss on the lips. His hands reach down and squeezes her against him, but when I glance up, his eyes are pinned on me.
“Good night, Snowflake.” They turn and leave me in my room.
Placing the globe on my nightstand, I get under the covers and face the window so I can drown in the dark outside. As I stare at the moon, I promise myself one day I’m going to fly away, to London, where he can’t find me. But will I ever be safe from him?
My eyes snap open and I feel him behind me. I must have fallen asleep. My hands are bound to the bed and I can’t see in the dark. It’s only when I move my head that I realize there’s something covering my eyes. He’s blindfolded me.
I’m strong, I’m strong. I’m strong.
“Look at my pretty Snowflake.”
I can feel the cold air on my skin which causes me to shiver. Rough, calloused hands grope me, pressing into my soft flesh. Tears burn behind the material and I whimper, begging through the material he’s stuffed in my mouth. I know what it is, but I don’t want the reality to set in just yet.
Suddenly, the blindfold is ripped away and I watch him use it to tie one ankle to the foot end of my bed. He uses a scarf to tie the other ankle and I’m now naked and spread open to his disgusting glare.
“Do you like your panties in your mouth, my sweet girl?”
My head lolls from side to side and I know he can see the fear in my eyes. It feeds his vile need. He reaches for something on my nightstand and when he kneels between my legs, I gasp into the material gagging me. His fingers plunge into my core, opening me painfully and I scream into the makeshift gag.
The pain is coming. The pain is coming. The pain is coming.
Without warning, his fingers are replaced by the round glass orb and I cry out, but my sounds are muffled. Pushing the snow globe into me, he twists it around. The sinister smile on his face has my body retching and my throat burns with bile that sits in my esophagus and I can’t swallow.
“Look how pretty you are, spread open wide. You like that, don’t you? Can you see what you do to me?” His hand wraps around his shaft, stroking it. Tears stream down the side of my face and onto the pillow below me.
He pulls out the object and pushes it back in, fu*king me with the present he bought. As he forces it into me I fear it may shatter while inside my body. His hand moves faster, both ramming the object into me and getting himself off.
He stops and his body locks, as he shoots thick white streams of cum all over my mound and stomach. When he finally relieves me of the object, I close my eyes, thankful that it’s over. “Open your fu*king eyes.”
I obey. It’s the only thing I can do. I don’t have a choice. I never have a choice.
“Watch me enjoy your sweetness.”
I’m forced to watch him lick the glass, tasting me, savoring what he’s just done.
“Broken little Snowflake. No man will want you. You’re filthy. A disgusting, tainted whore.”
* * *
Fear takes hold of my heart, and revulsion has me dry heaving as my body wracks with sobs. My stomach tightens with anxiety as my heart thuds in my ears like a drum. A warning.
“No, no, no… please,” I beg to nobody in particular. I don’t pray, because no God will save me from this nightmare. On my bed is the very object from the nightmare that’s haunted me most of my life.
My throat tightens, like it did every night for two years of hearing my bedroom door being pushed open and heavy footfalls making their way toward me. When my body was taken and used, I became nothing more than a fu*k toy for my stepfather to enjoy.
He was right. I can never move on.
I’ll never be able to be a normal girl.
No man on this earth would want someone like me.
I want to curl into a ball on the plush carpet and cry, but I’ve been strong for too long. So, I steel myself, take a deep breath, and push this emotion, this fear and anger into the back of my mind, into the box where I’ve kept the years of agony.
Rushing to the patio door, I shut it with a loud bang, locking it with trembling fingers. I don’t look at the bed. I can’t. The offending item sits there, taunting me.
I’ll always find you.
I race to the bathroom, opening the bottle of tablets I’ve been taking for the past four years. Swallowing two down, I close my eyes and breathe through the fear. I can’t let him win. It must be a hallucination. I’m so broken I see things. The doctors said it was part of the trauma I suffered.