“I want to kiss you,” I said with confidence, “but if I don’t tell you everything now, I fear I won’t have the strength or courage to tell you later.”
Tangaloa dipped his head and pressed his lips gently to mine. “To hold us both over,” he explained. “What happened after he made you watch him with the other women?”
I had to look away from him again, hating how the memories came flooding back. “It was horrible. I begged him to stop, but just like with my own punishments, he treated them worse the more I begged. I soon learned to keep my mouth shut.”
He ran his fingers through my loose hair. It was still a mess from our earlier nap. “You’re safe,” he reminded me. I hadn’t realized I’d stopped talking until he spoke up. “I’m right here, and he can’t hurt you ever again.”
But the memories could. They still had a tight hold over me. “I don’t know how to describe the guilt I felt. He would touch them with such cruelty, but he only touched me that one time. And I know that’s twisted. I didn’twanthim to touch me again, I didn’t want him to do those things to me, but I didn’t understand why he wasn’t. It couldn’t have just been because I was hiswife,right?” I shook my head, the question still haunting me to this day. “Dr. Akamu suggested that it might be a powerplay. Wanting me to feel superior over the other women. And at the same time, less than them because they had his attention. It was such a…”
“Mindfuck,” he offered when I struggled to find the right words.
“Yeah,” I agreed lamely. Cursing was still hard for me, though I was doing better with “That Bastard”. It seemed to fit him better than his birth name. “I tried to make sense of it. After what I’d seen on television and been taught by my tutors, I was his wife. I was the one he was supposed to be lying with.” I shook my head. “He made me stay in the basement with them, cleaning them and fixing up their hair and bodies for him when he got home from work. They hated me, not even realizing I was just as much a prisoner. Only my chains were mental, forced on me since I was a small child.”
“Can I ask you something?”
I nodded, dreading what I thought was coming.
“Other than your wedding night, did he touch you again?”
I had to take a deep breath before confessing. “Once. Do you remember Ayame?”
“The other woman who was in the basement with you and Nishi,” he responded automatically.
“She was one of the women in that basement when he brought me down that first time. There were two others as well, Mitsuko and Sayuri. Sayuri, well, she was awful towards me. Not that I can blame her. But that changed when she…” I closed my eyes. “She became pregnant.”
Tangaloa stiffened. “Samantha?”
I nodded, unable to look at him. I did not want to see his judgement as he learned she was not biologically mine.
I felt his lips on my head as his hand ran up my back. “I already knew she wasn’t yours, baby.”
I stiffened, my head lifting up so quickly that I clipped his chin. “Ow!” I cried out, clutching my head. “Wait, you knew?”
He rubbed his chin as he nodded. “I guessed in that basement,but I knew when her blood tests came back a few weeks ago and she wasn’t a genetic match for you.”
Fear coursed through me, but when I tried to scramble off him, he tightened his hold on me. “Let me up! I have to?—”
“You have to do nothing, because it changesnothing,” he corrected, not yielding. “You are her mother, Maisy. DNA does not change that.” He held my gaze, letting my fear rescind. “But I would like to know how she came into your life.”
I flinched. “We all had birth control implants. He had a doctor come to the house to…checkhis new purchases. Before we were married, he…did the same for me. Only, I did not know that was what he was doing. I was put to sleep for the procedure. They made it sound like it was normal, like every woman is knocked unconscious to have her virginity verified for marriage.” I was both angry and embarrassed by my ignorance, making my voice small as I added, “Dr. Akamu and I believe that is when he also gave me my tattoo.”
I felt his hand just above it on my back. “I guessed as much.”
I turned my face into his chest. “You must think me so foolish, not having known it was there.”
He flicked my ear. It didn’t hurt, but it did startle me into sitting upright. I came face to face with his scowl. “There’s not a damn thing that was done to you that I think you ‘foolish’ for. And don’t youeverlet me hear you say that again.”
I swallowed hard and nodded.
More gently, he said, “Now, tell me about Samantha please.”
“Sayuri became pregnant. Her implant failed. Dr. Akamu says it’s rare, but it can happen. It wasn’t obvious at first, but when it was…” I closed my eyes, the echoes of her cries still ringing in my head. “He tried to beat it out of her. The baby,” I clarified. “Samantha. He hit Sayuri, over and over and over and over again. Like it washerfault that she was repeatedly raped and becamepregnant.” The words tasted like ash, I was filled with such hatred. “I begged… For the first time in years, I begged. I told him that a baby was a blessing, that it would make his stance at work better. I told him anything and everything I could, remembering the proud fathers on TV whenever their wives announced they were pregnant. I knew it was a wife’s duty to conceive, but I did not know at the time that the implant was what kept me from getting pregnant.”
My body was shaking at this point. I couldn’t help it. I felt angry, hurt, and shame, but was also so sure in my knowledge that I had done the right thing. I hoped Tangaloa saw it the same way. If he was the man I believed him to be, he would.
“Mr. D—That Bastard,” I corrected. “He made me prove what I was saying. I didn’t understand. I was standing between a beaten Sayuri and him, and I had no idea how I was supposed to ‘prove’ that a baby was a blessing. He made me…”
“You don’t have to say it.” Tangaloa kissed my head again. “I don’t need to know the details unless you need to say it.”