“Life is a hideous thing, and from the background behind what we know of it peer daemoniacal hints of truth.” - H. P Lovecraft
Zorie
When I was sure the only sounds in the alley were those coming in from the road – passing cars, distant voices, and the tap of people walking, I lifted myself with my hands on the metal edge. I peered out. Nothing and no one, only the dim light from an aging fluorescent above a door to the left with STAFF ONLY written on it. This was behind the local supermarket.
I dressed in my panties and bra then used the dress to wipe myself down. The tears were coming now, silent, unheralded, as if the tears of someone else. If anyone saw me, it was going to be obvious that I was a wreck – that I’d been in an orgy or worse. This wasn’t me. Not my life.
All my questions were piled up in my head and I refused to think of them.
They could wait.
I’d get past this. Sneak in back home. My purse was here too, and inside were my house keys and my phone.
Ignore stares. Walk fast and get home. Just do this.
But it would happen again if I couldn’t shake loose from him.
Shut up. I steepled my fingers on my forehead.
Compartmentalizing, I was queen at that.
Terrifying myself by agonizing over ramifications could wait.
I draped my dress over the rim – couldn’t climb in that, then searched with my bare feet for the highest part of the cardboard stack. No shoes meant the occasional staple poked at my soles. My heart was pumping under high pressure. My systolic and diastolic readings would give my doc palpitations.
I tried to get a leg up and over only to have my shaking arms fail.
Fuck.
Sniffing back the clog of tears, I clung to the dumpster edge to regather myself. Gym clearly hadn’t worked. I could do this. Walking along the street covered in cum wasn’t as bad as being found trapped in an industrial bin.
Do this.
I straightened.
“Zorie? I can see you. It is you?”
Oh god. Grimm’s voice.
Unsure of what to do, I sank until my eyes were just above the rim.
He was silhouetted against the brighter lighting of the street and approaching.
He stopped when he reached a spot a yard away.
“You need me to call the cops? The text message said you’d be here. I’m guessing you didn’t send it, from what else it said.” He heaved out a breath but his face was in darkness.
Damn. Reuben must’ve set this up. What had he told Grimm? I rested my forehead on the metal and closed my eyes, feeling weakness sway in. “What...do you want?”
“To help you. They’ve left you in a bin with no clothes on?”
I almost giggled. So polite. He couldn’t say naked?
“Let me call the police.”
“No!” That answer had shot out before I could think, but it was right. He mustn’t.
“No?” The silence was long, painful.
“No.” Because I couldn’t say a word to them anyway.
It hit me then – the reason why Reuben had told Grimm. It was to show me how little control I had, and how rigid his was over me even when he was absent. The bastard.
“Help me out of here. Please?”
“Sure.”
After some wriggling and painful maneuvering over the edge, I dropped to the ground. Without saying more, I pulled the dress on, having to tug to get it to travel down my sticky body. I picked up my purse, clutching it as if by doing so I could make things be normal again.
Practicality was needed. No-nonsense behavior.
“I need to get to my house with as little fuss as possible.”
“I’ll help you get tidier and drive you back, but you’re letting me into your house, to talk.”
Was Grimm my babysitter? He was helping me, though. He was being nice. I needed nice, even if thinking about sharing what had happened to me, in any way, had the same effect on my stomach as screeching chalk. If anyone to do with the university board found out, it was possible I’d be censured for conduct unbecoming. I’d lose my job. All my life’s achievements would be gone.
I gnawed my lip.
The hurt behind my eyes intensified into pain.
No. Stop this...thinking. I ceased breathing for a few seconds and settled calmness into my mind.
“Just help me, please?” I met Grimm’s eyes for the first time, though his face was still mostly in darkness.
“I will. My condition stands.”
Whatever.
“Let me look at you.” He positioned me in the light then adjusted my dress, my hair, and even took his shirt off to wipe my face, before he redressed himself.
I couldn’t meet his eyes. This was all so caring.
He probably thought me a piece of shit and I couldn’t understand myself or what I’d allowed to be done, not at all.
“No shoes. Can’t fix that. That’s the best I can do. Come on, Zorie, let’s get this over with.”
The time was late, traffic was almost non-existent, and the street was empty of people. I felt awful sitting in his pristine Honda Prelude with my matted hair and sticky dress and body.
The keys rattled when I tried to unlock my front door. I was trembling. Inserting the key into the lock took so long Grimm asked if I needed help. I shook my head, making strands of my hair stick to my mouth, and then I had to pull them away. The key finally decided to go where it should. I let out a relieved breath.
Grimm followed in after me and shut the door. Getting him to leave would require yelling. I didn’t have the energy.
Showering brought back memories of doing the same in Darwin – washing away the dirt while the awful memories played in my mind. The bloodied, cum-and-dirt-stained dress drew my eye to where I’d left it on the bathroom mat. I couldn’t keep throwing away the clothes he fucked me in...they fucked me in.
Facing reality ramped up my fears because that meant I’d given in. Meant I knew it was going to keep happening until he said it had ended.
When I emerged from the shower, I stepped around the dress, but the pooled cloth was a gravestone erected on the remains of my life.
I will survive. I will stop this. I will.
There were no clothes in the bathroom so I traipsed out wrapped in a towel to rummage for a pair of tights and a long T-shirt in my antique chest of drawers. Summertime yet the night air made me shiver.
Grimm was standing in the open doorway. Seeing him made me halt and wonder. With my damp feet on the floor and only a towel around me, at any other time this would be insanely intrusive. Tonight, though, and when he had that little line of worry between his eyes?
“Want me to make coffee? Tea? Something mind-blowingly alcoholic? I can even do hugs.” He assessed me, not smiling, waiting.
Hugs? Male contact would make me shudder. I gulped. Saw him properly. He looked amazingly normal even in his rumpled shirt. Time, finally, slowed. This was now, not some chaotic horror movie.
Poor man. He was a saint, really.
I had to face this and he wanted to talk to me, so why not try? “Tea. Yes. Thanks.”
“I’ll bring it up here?”
I nodded. Why not? If I couldn’t trust Grimm, I was truly fucked. I needed someone true and honest. Tears threatened, but I refused to let them come.
I needed a cave of comfort and my bedroom had always been my safe zone.
After I dressed in the bathroom, I walked out and perched on the bed then slid up to the pillow area, wriggling, until my back and shoulders were against the pillows. My wet hair clung to my skin. For now, I could manage keeping my head up. The heat of the shower had ushered in exhaustion.
My thoughts clamored to be heard but, no, I needed to be alone to do that.
Years ago, as a young, shy, lecturer, I’d been scared to hell and back of speaking in public. Before that, during teenager times, there’d been the sexual assault and attempted abduction. I’d not sat still when that happened either. The fucker had paid for it, had found out I was no daisy ASAP. I dipped my head, sucking in a breath. Remembering that shit on top of this? A bad idea, perhaps.
Still, I’d not let my fear beat me, those times. I’d made myself change. I’d set aside my fears and doubts and pretended I was superwoman.
I needed that skill now, like never before. My hands shook. I willed my mind closer to serenity. I’d come through hell before and survived.
He wanted me back.
Focus on Grimm. Think of only now. Breathe.
He poured the tea and brought me a cup, placing it on the bedside table after I failed to reach for it. I said nothing, only twitching my lips as he sank into my one armchair.
“Zorina... Zorie. Why no police?”
Tell him nothing. Those words from him leaked from my memory.
I wanted so much to say everything. Couldn’t. They were so near to my tongue, so close to being vomited forth. Nothing came. Though I still couldn’t fathom my need to obey the words, I had to.
“Because I’m fine. What happened was fine.”
“Uh. What? Fine? You’re a successful woman and I know that doesn’t mean you can’t have a wild side but we talked for ages at the café. To want that sort of treatment you’d be a psychological mess. You...weren’t that.”
But I was now?
Tell him. Tell him.
“I’m fine.” A headache popped up, stuck a nail into my forehead. This wasn’t going to work. The more I tried to tell him, the sicker I felt. “I think you need to go.” I rubbed my temples. “Please.”
“I know the smell of cum. Tell me you like men coming on you, fucking you, throwing you away like rubbish. That man boasted about what he’d done to you in that text. Tell me that and I’ll go. We need to get the police involved but I need your words.”
As he’d kept going, the tension had built.
“Tell me that.”
“Stop,” I whispered.
“That dress and your word that this was rape. The text message. My evidence too. I can skew it so you’re clean. We can get him, them, charged. I can do that.”
My toes were so small down at the end of the bed.
Tell him nothing.
“Well? I think you need my help. It’s here. I’m happy to do this. I want to.”
I opened my mouth to reply, and had a fleeting glimpse of myself speaking honestly, for the first time.
Memories exploded into my head.
All the sex. His words, his unsaid commands, they were tangled up with the lust, woven in so they strangled any possibility of speaking the truth.
I needed to lie. I had to get Grimm out of my room and the only way was to be more in his face, to be normal. My need told me that answer.
I bounced to my feet and went to him, wearing a cheerful expression.
In that moment, his eyes matched his name – grim. Dissecting too, as if he was trying to learn what had happened by staring. Or maybe he didn’t believe me? Maybe he thought I was every bit a slut, after all?
Fuck this. He wasn’t much more than a stranger.
“I can see you won’t change what you think but I need you to go.” I stood, hands on hips, studying him from a yard away. “Go. Please. Thank you for your help, but you have to go.”
When he only regarded me warily, I went out the bedroom door and gestured at the stairs leading down.
“Go. Please.” The next words were going to kill me to say. “Or do I have to call the police to get you out of my house?”
If this took too long would I implode from the lies? The need compelled something so opposite to my real inner persona that it threatened to make me snap and fall in a heap.
Stern-faced, he rose to his feet like a judge leaving court then walked to me and past me, stopping when he reached the head of the stairs. “I don’t believe this. I’m a good judge of character. Am I really that wrong? Will you at least tell me who he is?”
Which part didn’t he believe? That I was a slut or that I was fine?
This man was so...so perfect. But I wasn’t for him. Not anymore.
“No. I can’t. Goodbye.”
“You will tell me. I don’t give up easily.”
Neither did I.
I didn’t follow but I watched as he walked down then went to the front door and left. He closed the door and it shut with a final clonck.
Now there was only me, and the shadows of my fears.