I play a song for him. With words only he can hear. I sing him a song I’ve never sung out loud. With lyrics from my journal.The one that the world has never seen or heard before. And soon, the door opens again. This time, there is light.
It hurts my eyes.
It’s so beautiful, I cry because I can’t bear to look at it. To believe it’s real. But he’s there. And I don’t stop playing. I don’t dare.
I play him three more songs before he halts me. He comes to sit beside me on the bench. And he does something that I don’t expect. He pulls me into his arms and pets my cheek reverently. I burrow into his palm. Into his warmth and his touch and his scent, so comforting after so long in isolation. And I hate myself for it.
I want to die for feeling this way. For allowing him to break me. For turning me into this slave to human affection, even at the cost of reaping it from a monster.
He holds me. He soothes me. And it is so confusing. It feels like a trick from this man who has tortured me for so long.
He kisses my face. I am foul. But he doesn’t care. His lips are soft, and they feel good. I will do anything to feel good.
I tell him so.
“Good girl,” he answers. “You are learning, my Bella.”
I nod into his chest like a puppet. And then I cry. He rubs my back. Then he carries me from the room. Back to the conservatory. To the bathroom nestled into the far corner.
He deposits me in the bathtub. The cold porcelain bites into my skin and penetrates my bones. But I don’t even flinch this time. I’ve grown used to the cold. I’ve become one with the agony. And right now, the smallest of luxuries, even from him… feels like everything.
“Lay back, beauty,” he directs me. “It’s time to come clean.”
Chapter Ten
She lays backin the tub when I ask without protest.
And finally, the beauty is broken.
It took longer than I anticipated. She is stubborn. Strong.
Even now, when she looks up at me with misty eyes, it pains her to give in. To break down and need these things from me.
The monster.
The beast.
Her captor.
If I had any sympathy for the sweet girl, I would tell her she has no reason to be ashamed. It is a systematic destruction of the human psyche that anyone will succumb to, given the right amount of time and circumstances.
But I am not sympathetic to her plight, even as I wash her and she responds to my touch like a well-broken pet.
She is beautiful. Lovely. Even as messy and shattered and filthy as she is right now. But I won’t allow that to make me forget. She will pay. She has to.
It is the only way.
And so I wash her, but I do not comfort her anymore. Comforts must be earned. And right now, she still has much work to do.
“Why are you doing this to me?” she whispers so meekly as I wash her hair.
“To see if you are stronger than their words,” I tell her.
This is not the thing I should have said. But it is exactly the reason I chose the method that I did. And I must remember not to be so honest with her. Because now she looks at me differently.
She looks at me like I might care. Which I don’t. And she must never think otherwise.
“Bella,” I reply. “Do you remember what I said earlier about having a use for your mouth?”