The|rapist

After thoroughly inspecting the "wall" that had previously been a door, a door that I had walked through the day before, I needed to lay down. The tightness was building in my chest and I felt dizzy. I was going to have a panic attack. I needed my Klonapin prescription. I rushed to the bedroom and rifled through my bedside table until I found them. The same bottle, still somehow prescribed to me. I struggled with the cap. I felt his hand on my shoulder.

"Lay down. You're going to spill them everywhere. Let me help you."

His voice was soothing. He was speaking to me like I was a little girl; fatherly. My heart ached for it. I just wanted everything to make sense again. I crawled into bed and he handed me a pill and a bottle of water. He held the bottle still for me so I didn't spill it. He climbed in bed with me, staying on top of the covers: close, but not oppressive.

"I need you to tell me everything. I need to know when I got here, how, why. I need to know everything. I can handle it. I just need to understand."

He nodded, his face solemn. He came closer, his head almost touching mine, his mouth close to my ear. He spoke softly and evenly, lacing his words with sedatives, carefully watching my face and my reactions.

"I was your drug counselor. You had been coming to me for a while, and telling me about these... vile... things that your father was doing to you. I-- I know that I'm supposed to maintain a professional distance with these things, and I know that there are processes in place to follow, but... you were special to me. You were destroying your body with all these chemicals, starving yourself, and he was destroying your soul. I couldn't let it continue. I couldn't lose you. I offered to let you come stay here. And... I just want to put it out there that I did not have any expectations of anything at all. I would never abuse your trust like that. I would never hurt you. I would never use you like that. Look at me. I need you to know that."

He gave my chin a very slight nudge to meet my eyes. I knew that he was right. He wouldn't hurt me. He couldn't.

"And then what happened?"

"You were happy. You were clean. We grew... closer. We fell in love. I would wake up with your beautiful face every morning and you'd be clinging to me so tightly, begging me to stay. And I can't help but feel guilty, I feel like I should have known. I don't know how you got your hands on the drugs. I don't know when. But you started to withdraw. God, it was so hard to watch. I did everything that I could for you. I thought if I could just keep you safe and loved..."

His voice cracked and my heart melted. I put my arms around him, idly playing with his hair, and I kissed his lips.

"I'm so sorry. I... I don't know what happened. I wish I did. It's obvious how much you love me. I'm so sorry that I disappointed you. I'm so sorry that I was afraid of you. You've been--"

He put a finger over my lips, shushing me.

"I don't understand that part either, to be honest, Anna. I think that maybe you were seeing how protective I was with you, and somewhere your silly brain connected that to what your father should have been for you. When you told me that your father loved you... he didn't, Anna. I love you. It makes sense, doesn't it?"

I nodded. It did make sense. But I had so many memories of my father being wonderful and supportive. How could I have made all that up? He thought to himself for a second, and then his eyes lit up with an idea. He grabbed my wrists passionately.

"OK. Let's set all this right. This could help. It would break my heart if you were afraid of me. I need you to tell me every memory that you have. Give me every single detail that you can remember. No matter how terrible. I'll help you fill in the details. We'll make sure that your brain starts making the correct associations. Now, I know that it will be difficult to have remember all those disgusting ways that he touched you, and I wouldn't put you through that if this wasn't important. I need you to trust me. You trust me, right Anna?"

"I remember that it was dark. The times in between his visits would just be darkness. So dark that you can't even tell the difference between when your eyes are closed or open. I couldn't tell if I was wearing a blindfold. Sometimes I would be tied up and couldn't use my hands, so I'd scrunch my nose and my eyes to see if I could feel any cloth moving on my face. Not that it mattered, it just was so disorienting. And it was so quiet. Every little movement that I made felt so loud. It took forever for my senses to adjust to the isolation. In a weird way, the pain between visits almost helped keep me grounded. Let me cling to something that reminded me that I was still in my body; that I wasn't just floating in a black hole.

I never knew how long it was in between visits. I'd kind of fade in between being awake and being asleep. He kept me drugged up so often that the hallucinations had a perfectly blank canvas to work with. I'd think I was falling.

Like, you know that feeling when you wake up thinking that you're falling? Imagine waking up and still feeling that. Forever. Falling through infinite space. But I couldn't just die, I had to live my entire lifetime in free fall.

And then I'd feel something near my toe. And I'd jolt awake and try to reach for it. Except my arms and legs are completely, hopelessly bound in whatever arrangement amused him that day. And I'd imagine every variation of what that feeling was. I'd imagine a monster that was going to bite my toe off at any moment. And my whole body would clench up in anticipation for a pain that never came, and when I'd finally start to relax, my muscles would ache from being tense for so long."

"You're doing great, Anna. Can you tell me about a specific instance that you remember him coming in? Tell me about a specific time that you father hurt you."

"When he'd come in, there would just be this burst of noise with nothing to prepare me. The room was soundproofed, so I wouldn't hear him coming down the stairs first, just this blinding bright light when the door opened and then slammed shut, then three loud clacks while he locked the door behind him. And then he'd pull the chain on the hanging light near the door, and I'd see him walk towards me. My eyes always took a while to adjust. I'd imagine that he was an alien coming to abduct me. I'd imagine that I had already been abducted and I was on some kind of space ship. But then he'd be right up next to me, and sometimes he'd turn on another light nearby so he could see me better. Then I'd get a real good look at him."

"And what about the smell? The stale cigarette smell on his shirt must have been overwhelming at first."

I made my memory sniff the air. I-- hadn't noticed before, but it did smell like cigarettes. My father was a prolific smoker. I remembered how it would smell when he'd hug me.

"Yeah... Yeah it did have a smell. It smelled like... how my dad's study would smell. That sickly sweet stale smell that would work its way into everything. He smelled so familiar. It was overpowering."

"It must have been difficult. Smell is very strongly linked to memories. You always would have associated the smell of cigarette smoke on clothes as your father holding you and caring for you as a child. And now you'd be overwhelmed with that same smell when he was here to hurt you. It must have been so confusing to your senses. It's no wonder you had repressed that part. Anna, think hard for a moment, do I smell like cigarettes?"

"No." I smiled, taking a deep whiff of his chest. He smelled clean, like a fresh bar of Irish Spring.

"Good girl. Keep going. You're tied up, your dad comes in the room, he turns on the light near you, and then what?"

"He... um... he unhooked me from the beam that my arms were attached to, and let me kind of slump down. He tried to get me to kneel in front of him, but my knees weren't working yet. My muscles would always be weak at first when he'd have me hanging. I... I slumped to the floor. My ankles were still tied to a spreader bar, so kneeling was really awkward and I wasn't strong enough to do it at first. He was taking his dick out, and yelled at me for being a stupid, clumsy bitch. He-- He kicked me in the stomach a few times, and then grabbed a fist full of my hair and dragged me across the floor to a wall, and leaned me against it."

"What about your legs? Were they still tied up?"

"Yes. It was a bit of an awkward angle to be against the wall with them spread like that."

"And how did that feel? To be exposed like that on your knees."

"I--I hated it. I never knew if he was going to fuck me with something, or put something in my mouth, or what was going to happen. Sometimes he would lower me onto this huge dildo, and it would kind of hold me in place. And it would hurt-- fuck..." I stopped talking for a moment to catch my breath, and he came over and wiped my eyes and kissed my face. He held me against his chest.

"Did it feel good at all? To have that deep inside you? Is that why you're crying Anna? Because you're embarrassed?"

"No! No I hated it! It would always hurt so badly, and I would be dry and he wouldn't care. Sometimes he would put lube on it at least, but then I hated the way it felt when it would slide inside me so effortlessly."

"Alright, we'll move on. You said that he was taking his dick out. What happened next? Did your daddy start to fuck your pussy?"

His arm was tense, it must have been so difficult to listen to the details of how someone that you loved was hurt.

"No. He left me spread open and started to fuck my mouth. No build up. Just right into my mouth and started to slam into my face right away. If I didn't cooperate, it would have pushed my head into the wall and knocked me out, or maybe even killed me. I had to cooperate and push back."

"Now-- this is important. What did your dad's cock feel like in your mouth, Anna? Imagine it clearly. How did it taste? Was it big?"

I wanted to throw up and I wanted to cry. My voice was small.

"I don't know. It was big enough that I had to learn how to take it without throwing up. If I gagged, I would get punched and kicked. I had to relax my throat and let it go all the way in. Sometimes he would pinch my nose and just hold my face there, pushing his balls into my mouth too, and there was all this drool coming out of my mouth and I'd be crying, but I couldn't gag. And I would start to panic from not being able to breath and he would let up for a moment."

My voice had gotten smaller and smaller until it was just above a whisper against his chest while he pet my hair. The more I talked, the tighter his arms got around me, making sure that I felt safe.

"Shh... you're such a good girl baby. You're doing so well. I don't want you to be embarrassed at all sweetie. Your body would have natural responses to him, so even if you were turned on when it happened, he was completely wrong, and it's not your fault at all."

"I wasn't--!"

"Shhh..... Come here baby, let's take a break."