I wait in the dressing room until everyone else is long gone. I wipe the makeup off my face and reapply with a lighter hand. I want the ugly red mark on my cheek gone. I want him gone.

I hate what I’ve become. I can’t find my spine when that man is around. I cower, imagining what he’ll do to me. The cat claws were the worst. Most women with scars like mine get them during childbirth. I did not. I managed to heal. He did it twice more after that. Blood, sex, and semen are three things Mark likes to do to me.

He was my first. I thought it would be slow and loving, passion and pleasure mixing within us. I had high hopes, none of which turned out to be true. From day one, he hurt. I don’t know why, it just did. He got increasingly impatient until sex turned to rape. I was too stupid to know what to do, too scared to ask for help. He was a good man having a bad day. I’d convince myself that it wouldn’t happen again.

But it did.

He latched onto the pain and perverted it. He’d tie me down and then jam things inside me—sex toys, bottles, glass—until I passed out. I’d wake up covered in cum and dried blood. Sometimes, toward the end, he’d leave me tied in the basement with no water, nothing to eat for days. I’d scream, but no one ever heard me. When we first moved into that house, he told all the neighbors how amorous I was. ‘Insatiable,’ he’d say. I thought it was a strange pride at the time, but it wasn’t. It gave the neighbors a reason to look the other way when he locked me outside with no clothes, leaving me to freeze on the back porch.

‘Sex games,’ he’d tell them, ‘of course we enjoyed playing and teasing each other.’ The way the men looked at me made me afraid to go outside. They thought I’d do anything with anyone. It was so far from where I started, and I felt so incredibly forsaken that I ran away.

The first time I did it wrong. I took things with me and didn’t go far enough. He found me, beat me, dragged me home, and we resumed the daily terror that put a grin on his face. He had an iron mask fitted to my head and left me wearing it while he was at work. He used everything from hot wax, to metal claws, to electrified barbs on me. It was a dungeon made for fucking, and he wouldn’t let me out.

It never felt good. I never wanted any of it. The thought of going back there terrifies me day and night.

I'm lost in the possible horrors awaiting me and don’t see Jon standing in the doorway. His hip rests against the frame, arms folded across his muscular chest. Those blue eyes are dark as the night sky and filled with worry.

He clears his throat and steps into the room. “Are you ready?”

I nod and don’t trust myself to talk. What would I say to him? I can’t tell him all that. I don’t want to relive it. I want it to go away.

He sighs deeply and presses his lips together before finding a seat down the bench. He probably hates me right now. Tonight could have gone a lot worse, and I’m sure he knows it. He rubs his hands on his jeans and glances at me from the corner of his eyes. “I’m sorry.”

I can’t hide my shock. “For what?”

“For not keeping you safe. For letting that asshole inside. For not stopping him fast enough. For not realizing the extent of what he did to you.” His eyes are wide, earnest. He blinks, looks away, and runs his hand over his head and down his neck. “I almost lost you tonight, Cassie, and I was too pissed off about stupid shit.”

I look away. I shouldn’t have gone nuts on him. He’s been so sweet to me, so patient. “It’s not stupid to want to do her.” I sneer without meaning to when I think about Gretchen.

“Cassie—”

“No, I mean it. I’m sure you’re lonely. I would have flipped out less if it had been someone else. Gretchen isn’t my favorite person.”

Jon loved me that way once, but now he’s distant. I feel more like a sister than anything else. It makes me sick inside because I don’t feel that way about him. Even conflicted and batshit crazy, I know I want to be with him. I just don’t know how. One second it seems like I can handle it and the next it’s all I can do to escape.

Jon’s voice is deep, soft. “I didn’t want to, but I need certain things, Cass, things I can’t ask you for.”

Oh, God. It feels like he’s going to rip my heart out. I can’t take it tonight. I can’t hear him say those words. I need to make him stall, but there’s only one thing that comes to mind. Can I do it? Will he let me? “I understand. You don’t have to ask, Jon.”

His face scrunches together in confusion. “I don’t?”

“No.” I’m off the bench and pad to the spot where he sits. I place my hands on his knees and sit between them, facing him. My hands are shaking slightly thinking about it, feeling torn. Before I can change my mind, I reach for the waist of his jeans and undo the button.

“Cass? What are you doing?” He watches me but doesn’t stop me.

I don’t answer. Instead, I put my fingers on the zipper and pull. His snug black boxers hold his package close to his body. I trace the tip of my finger over the bulge on top of the fabric. Jon closes his eyes, tips back his head, and moans. His breathing seems louder, less controlled. I reach for the elastic band on his shorts to free him, while considering putting him in my mouth. I can do it. I have before. I don’t like it, but he needs it. I’m willing to do it for him, regardless.

That’s when he grabs my hand and stops me. “Cassie, don’t.” His voice is so soft, so incredibly careful.

I try to pull my hands back, but he holds on. “I thought you’d like it.”

“I don’t know what to say.” The way he looks at me destroys me. It’s like he has no interest in me that way, no matter what the bulge in his pants proclaims.

“Don’t say anything. Let me do it.” I chance looking up at him and instantly wish I hadn’t.

He lifts both my hands to his lips and kisses my fingertips. “I can’t. Not tonight.” He drops my hands, stands, and kisses the top of my head. As he walks away, he zips up. “Come on. I’ll take you home.”