A.K.A. Page 8

  “Don’t bother pulling them up.”

  I jump, knocking the flashlight from the rock. “What the hell?”

  Moonlight filters through the cracks in the cave ceiling, bathing him in a heavenly light. I blink. “Angel,” I whisper.

  He smirks. “That I am not.”

  Before I can reply, he disappears.

  What the hell? I don’t move or even breathe for several long beats. I know he’s still in the cave. I can feel him.

  Keeping my eyes forward, I reach for my pants and begin pulling them up.

  “I said don’t bother.”

  I bolt upright, my pants dropping back down to below my knees, the flashlight rolling further away.

  I turn in the direction of his voice.

  He steps out of the shadows into the moonlight.

  “What do you think you’re doing? You scared the crap—okay, not the crap. You scared the hell out of me.”

  He remains silent as he leans back against the cave wall, crossing his feet at the ankles. It reminds me of our encounter in the restroom. How he casually propped his backside on the sink, acting as if hanging in the ladies’ room was no biggie, an everyday occurrence.

  “Why are you here?”

  He straightens and walks toward me.

  I hold out my hand. “Stay back.”

  He continues to walk forward.

  I bend and tug at my pants.

  He slaps my hand away. “Leave them.”

  I push him away.

  He picks me up and sets me down next to the cave wall. I’m so taken aback I can’t seem to move or form words. When I find my voice, it doesn’t sound like mine. “Ethan? What the hell?”

  He shushes me as he leans over and whispers into my ear, “It’s okay, Bri. Let it happen.”

  My heart begins to beat like a drum in my ears. “You’re scaring me.”

  “Don’t fight me,” he whispers.

  Don’t fight him. Who the hell does he think he is? I push him with all I have. He doesn’t budge. Okay, calm down. You know what to do. Take a breath and think. Oh my God. Why can’t I think?

  I lower my head and go for his nose. He steps aside before I can connect. I stumble as my feet get caught up in my pants.

  He catches me. “I’ve got you.”

  I don’t want him to have me. I manage to get a foot loose, regaining my balance. I push him away. “Get the hell off me!”

  He laughs.

  I can’t believe it. I’m taken aback again. Does he think this is funny? Is this his idea of a joke?

  Before I can ask, his lips are pressed into mine, kissing me. I turn my head.

  “Don’t,” he scolds me as if I were a child.

  I’m not a child to be chastised. I bring my arms up between us and push. He doesn’t move an inch. He cradles my head between his strong hands. “Be good, Bri. Don’t fight me.”

  Tell someone not to fight, what do they do? They fight. But the more I struggle, the tighter the vise.

  Ethan devours me with his mouth. I feel as if I’m suffocating. Black specs dart across my corneas, and the drumbeat in my ears kicks up an octave, sounding more like cymbals.

  Oh my God. I’m going to pass out.

  The thought of losing consciousness kicks me into survival mode. My mind reconnects with my body, and I do the first thing that comes to me. I bend my knee and thrust up.

  He jolts back and laughs. “Nice try.”

  “You think this is a joke?”

  He continues to laugh.

  “Stop laughing!” I yell in that voice I don’t recognize. Whose voice is it? Is it Bri’s? Is it Morgan’s? What the hell is wrong with me?

  He stops laughing. I feel his warm breath on my cheek. “I’m sorry, Bri. I thought you were….”

  “What?”

  He leans into me. I feel his hard length. “Do you feel me?”

  I say nothing to his rhetorical question.

  “If you don’t want it, want me, tell me now. Say no, Bri. Say no.”

  His words sound like a plea to me. I’m confused.

  “Did you hear me? Say no!”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “What is it that you don’t understand? I want to fuck you. It’s that simple.”

  “You know that’s a lie. We’re not simple people, Ethan. And this, whatever this is, shouldn’t happen.”

  He sighs heavily. “You’re right, Bri, it shouldn’t happen. I’ve tried to—”

  “What?”

  “Say no and I’ll walk away. Tell me no, Bri, and it’ll never happen.”

  “No” is on the tip of my tongue, but I can’t say it. Why can’t I say it? I know this is wrong, but I… God help me. I want him.

  “Please, Bri,” he pleads. “Tell me you don’t want me.”

  “I’ve wanted you from the moment our eyes met,” I whisper.

  “Why?” he asks, his voice cracking.

  “I can’t explain something I don’t understand. You’re like my… gravity.”

  “Damn you,” he says and turns me around. He takes my hands and positions them over my head. “Put your hands on the wall.”

  I reach out, finding nothing but air. I panic. “The wall—I can’t see it. I can’t feel it.”

  He lifts me up, moving us closer to the wall. I reach out; my hands connect, and I run them down the cold, jagged rock. Relief washes over me when I find a ledge to hold on to.

  This is insanity. Why am I letting it happen? What’s wrong with me?

  His knee parts my thighs and a hand follows. He hisses. “Goddamn you, Bri. So wet for me,” he says, his voice sounding off. Sounding as if he’s in pain, as if he’s questioning his own sanity.

  The sound of his zipper is torture. It’s as if I can hear each tooth grind and separate. It’s too much. I want to cover my ears, but I know if I let go of the ledge, I’ll topple over.

  The crinkle and rip of plastic burn my ears. What’s wrong with my ears? My ears feel as if they’re on fire, and every sound is amplified by a billion.

  I feel his breath on my shoulder as he enters me. I cry out in pain and pleasure. It’s been years since I’ve had a man inside of me. It feels foreign and familiar, wonderful and awful.

  His thrusts are punishing and out of sync. He grunts out in frustration, or pain, I don’t know which.

  He pauses, and I bite my lip out of my own sexual frustration. I want this in a way that frightens me. I bite down harder to stop myself from begging. After what seems like hours, I can’t hold my words in. “Please, Ethan.”

  Without words, he finds his rhythm, and shortly after, I find mine.

  “So close,” I moan.

  “Not yet, baby. Not until I tell you.”

  “God, Ethan. You feel….”

  Light spots and then dark spots swim across my irises and then turn and begin a leisurely float over my pupils. I blink several times, not knowing if the flashlight has begun to flicker or if the moonlight that has been streaming through a crack in the cave ceiling is fading in and then out as clouds slowly pass by. I close my eyes, and they swim away. I open my eyes, and they swim back and are soon joined by a buzzing in my ears.

  Oh my God. I’m going to pass out or… “Ethan. I’m… I’m going to be sick.”

  He moans out as if he doesn’t want to hear me.

  “Ethan. Please stop!”

  He thrusts harder. “Almost. Stay with me.”

  “Ethan, please!” I cry out.

  He stops. “What’s wrong?”

  “Sick. I’m going to thr—” I can’t hold it in. Kat’s chili projects out of me, hitting the cave wall with a splat.

  He lifts me upright, removes himself from me, and then turns me around. “What the hell?”

  I shake my head as I wipe my mouth on the sleeve of my hoodie. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me. This isn’t—what we—what I just did.”

  He shakes me by the shoulders. “What the hell is wrong with you?”

  “I—I do
n’t know. Everything is foggy. I can’t think. Everything seems—”

  “Christ,” he curses and tucks himself in.

  A wave of lightheadedness and nausea creeps up my throat. I put my hands over my mouth and begin to slide down the rock wall.

  He grabs me, lifting me upright before pulling up my pants. “Stay,” he tells me as he walks toward the flashlight and picks it up. He returns and shines it into my eyes.

  His lips turn down as a wrinkle forms between his brows. “Christ, Bri.”

  “What is it? What’s wrong?”

  He shakes his head. “This never happened. Do you hear me?” he shouts, his words bouncing off the cave walls.

  “I don’t under—”

  “What is there not to understand?” He points to me. “You.” He points to himself. “Me. Never happened. Do you get me?”

  “Why? I don’t… It did happen.”

  “Look at me.”

  I do.

  “Tell me you understand. This. Never. Happened,” he enunciates each word as if I’m daft or English is my second language.

  I nod as humiliation and regret wash over me. I sink to the ground and hug my knees.

  I hear him sigh heavily.

  I look up at him and feel my lips move, but no words can break free. I swallow, not just bile, but tears. I haven’t cried in years, and the shock that I’m about to do so in front of him, shames me to my core.

  He closes his eyes and curses. “Christ,” he repeats. He opens his eyes. “You never cry. Don’t you dare start now.”

  “I don’t… How…? This is….” I rub my throbbing temple. “What is happening to me? I don’t understand. I can’t seem—”

  He crouches in front of me and hands me the flashlight. “You’re not who I…. I just—this never happened. Do you understand?”

  “Yes! Got it.”

  He shakes his head and stands.

  “Asshole,” I say under my breath.

  He laughs.

  I look back up at him. I don’t even try to hide my astonishment and hurt. “You’re laughing? This isn’t fun—”

  “I’m not laughing because this is funny. I’m laughing because this is insane.”

  “At least we agree on that.”

  He frowns as he takes a couple of steps back. Then with a sigh, he turns his back to me and walks toward to cave’s opening.

  “You’re going to just leave me here?” I yell, my words echoing off the cave walls.

  He stops and looks back at me. “I was never here.” And with that, he disappears into the shadows as if he was never here.

  I wake with a start. I blink several times as the world comes into focus. I look around. “What the hell?”

  I grab my flashlight and shine it around. I’m sitting in a cave. How? Why are you sitting in a cave?

  After a minute, it comes back to me. Hits me like a brick. “No, no, no,” I say over and over, as if saying it will make it go away, make it not real. I rub my aching temples, straining to think passed the fog. It can’t be true. Maybe it was a dream. But the burn between my legs tells me otherwise. Oh my God.

  I don’t want to remember anymore, but the memories begin to wash over me like waves. I remember Ethan asking me, no telling me, to say no. But I didn’t. I couldn’t. I told him I’d wanted him from the moment our eyes met. Why did I tell him that?

  I want Ethan more than I’ve ever wanted a man. But I never reveal my true feeling for anyone to anyone. I keep them locked up and buried so deeply only by… Oh my God. Something isn’t right. Maybe I’ve been living a lie for so long, I’m losing it. But I’m not losing it.

  I sit and slide every salacious detail together, as if putting together a puzzle. When the puzzle is complete, anger fills me and then seeps through every pore. There’s no other explanation. I was drugged. Ethan drugged me and waited until I was alone. He must have watched me go into the cave. I’d put myself on a silver platter and said come and get me.

  But why would Ethan drug me and then walk away before he finished what I would assume he wanted? Or maybe he did come, and I just can’t remember. God, did he use a condom? Yes. No. I can’t remember.

  None of it makes sense to me. Why would Ethan drug me? It just doesn’t fit. But then again, I don’t know him. He’s a mystery, one I’ve told myself I’m not going to solve.

  I think about what kind of man drugs a woman and why. Sex isn’t the only reason a man might drug you. Men use drugs because they get off on control, complete control over mind and body. Ethan is all about control.

  I’m startled out of my thoughts when I hear someone call my name and then, “Have you seen Bri?”

  “No. Why would I?”

  “I’m just asking. You don’t have to be such an ass.”

  “Fuck off, Tad.”

  “Whatever.”

  I hear water and footsteps.

  “Bri!”

  I look up.

  “Bri? What the hell?” Tad asks as he kneels next to me.

  “I…” I can’t tell him what happened. I can’t tell him Ethan drugged me and fucked me against the cave wall. I can’t tell anyone, or call the police, or file charges, or—

  “What’s wrong with you?”

  “Nothing.”

  He shines his flashlight over me, pausing the light over my hands. “What the hell happened?”

  I look at my scraped palms. “I… I fell. I came in here to pee, and I tripped over a rock or something. I think I might have hit my head,” I lie and rub the back of my head dramatically. “Everything is fuzzy,” I say truthfully.

  He frowns. “I went down the beach to the grove of trees looking for you. I must have looked for an hour.”

  “I started that way, but the rocks and downed trees… I decided to come in here instead.”

  “You don’t look so good.”

  “I don’t feel so good. I think I might have food poisoning or something.”

  He stands and holds out his hand.

  I take it and he pulls me up. “Thanks.”

  “No problem. Are you sure you’re all right?”

  I nod yes, but I’m everything but all right. I’ll never be all right again.

  A PAWN PIECE IS THE SMALLEST

  “We’d been at the party for about an hour. I was actually enjoying myself,” she said as a weak smile floated over her lips. “He’d been in a rare good mood before his boss asked him if he could have a word in private. They went into his office for about thirty minutes. When he came out of the office, he was angry. He told me to excuse myself and go into the bathroom. I did as he said. I always did what he told me to.”

  She paused and took a deep breath before she continued. “When he joined me, I knew what he wanted. I kneeled on the cold tile floor and opened my mouth, and he… When he was finished, he zipped up and told me to clean my face. Then he left, and I joined everyone a few minutes later at the dinner table.”

  She began to wring her hands as if saying ‘this is where the bad stuff starts.’ “This time it was different. He wasn’t hiding his anger or belittling behavior. He’d never hurt me in public or in front of anyone. Everyone at the dinner party heard his cruel words and taunts. When his boss told him to knock it off and get a hold of himself, he announced we were leaving. No one said a word as he grabbed my arm and pulled me toward the door.

  “We drove home in silence. I wanted to ask him what had set him off. What had his boss said in his office? But I didn’t dare speak. When we got home, he didn’t need to tell me what to do. I went to the bedroom, stripped, and stood at the end of the bed wearing only my heels. He kept me waiting for what seemed like hours. When he finally came in, he told me to look at him. I didn’t want to look at him. I was shaking. He cursed and backhanded me. I stumbled and fell back onto the bed. He pulled me up and told me to stand still. I stood while he removed his clothes.”

  She paused again, looking as if she was far away or wanted to be far away. “I wiped my bloody nose, taking my eyes off him
for just a second, and he punished me. The first blow connected with my right cheek, the second hit my nose again. I heard the bones crack and… I knew it was broken.

  “I watched through swollen eyes as he removed the belt from his pants. I knew what was coming. He hadn’t beaten me with his belt in months. I begged him not to do it, even though I knew it was futile. Even though I knew begging and screaming increased his pleasure and made my torture worse.

  “The first strike fell over my breasts. They had been tender for weeks. I found out I was pregnant… I had been working on how I was going to tell him for months.” She paused and looked back down at her hands. Realizing she’d dug her fingernails into her palms, she slid them under her thighs, sitting on them.

  “He was out of control. I’d never seen him so angry. I feared for my baby’s life. So I fought back. It was instinctive, I guess. I couldn’t stop myself. From there, it’s a blur. I remember him putting the belt around my neck and tightening it. I couldn’t breathe. I must have passed out. When I came to, he was in my ass.” She paused again and looked toward the windows. “He was raving that this was the only way from now on. I knew then he must have found out I was pregnant.

  “I don’t remember anything else. When I woke up… there was blood between my legs and I was covered with a sheet. A woman police officer was telling me it was going to be all right. I remember thinking it was never going to be all right.

  “I asked her why she was there, how did they know. She said they had gotten an anonymous call. It had to be someone from the party who’d called the police. To this day, I don’t know whom, but I wish I did. I’d thank that person for saving my life.

  She paused again and looked right at me. “It was a boy. A baby boy.”

  A door slamming brings me back to the present. I rub my arms in an effort to impede the emerging goose bumps.

  Jane’s story has me on edge. She’s new to the victims of abuse meetings. She’s shy and withdrawn, rarely looking up from her hands, which she is constantly wringing. She has an odd, nasally New York slash New Jersey twang that changes from one sentence to the next. She’s clearly faking her accent, and I believe her name is bogus as well. This isn’t unusual for victims like Jane. Her ex-husband is a sociopath who controlled every aspect of her life. She is clearly having trouble adjusting to a life without punishment and boundaries.