n. this chapter is creepy. if you can't make it through this chapter because you feel triggered or uncomfortable, that's okay. There is NO graphic detail about r*pe. however it is a little tense. but just skip to the three dots in the middle of the chapter of you get too uncomfortable.
again, this chapter doesn't contain r*pe . a little creepy, yes.
There was a bitter taste in my mouth, my once glossed lips dried as I kept inhaling large intakes of air. I couldn't bare to look at the man that was touching me, his rough, almost scaly skin scratching against my own.
I grimaced and raised my shoulders in repulsion, wanting to move away but I couldn't. Not until he puts the gun down.
I feel his thin, wet lips kiss the corner of my lips. My eyes squeeze shut, nearly trembling while he gains the confidence to stroke a hand up and down my arm. My entire body loses its color.
"Can you please...put the gun down?" I ask cautiously, voice soft and wavering. "So I know...that you really care..."
Howard leans away from me. For a moment, I manage to look at him. I can see him in front of the classroom, speaking to an audience of students in my seminar class. His footsteps almost echo in the silence of the considerably large room. I can feel myself standing in the front again, fighting off Deborah with an argument that went back and forth. And to think all this time...
Harry watches, his demeanor dark and filled with rage as he restlessly tugs at the restraints on his wrists. I glance in his direction, urging him to stop with my widening eyes.
Oblivious and filled with a menacing relief, Howard nervously breaks out into a smile. The obvious irrationality of his thoughts and fluctuating mannerism makes me slightly nervous. I don't know when to expect him to explode.
But I feel my body release the tension inside when Howard places the gun on the bed. I can't keep the image of his ominous, perverse smile out of my head, even when I close my eyes again, feeling him get closer. This time, much more bold than before. Greedy hands skimming down my waist, gripping tightly my figure before moving to my hips. My hands squeeze into fight fists with flushed, paper white knuckles. I gaze up at him finally, letting my puffy, pink eyes meet his wrinkling, aging face. He's so close, I can smell the cigarettes off of him, the sweat. Again, I shudder, feeling goosebumps scatter across my paling skin.
Harry had stopped struggling, now in despair as he gulps down, pained face watching Howard's attentive touch on my body. Almost as if the roles were reversed. As if Harry had to suffer the pain of watching me with someone else. His green eyes fell low, grimace on his lips as he threw his head back, giving one last, fruitless tug at the ropes.
I keep my eyes on Howard, on his face and the way he sighs heavily in relief. Finally, touching me. The intense desire and the alleviation of his pain flooding through his dilating pupils.
My lips tremble, eyes averting to the gun on the bed. Howard is too busy letting his hands roam painstakingly across my figure, hands brushing the fabric of my tight red dress -- to notice my wondrous eyes.
"I want you t-to take it off," he says quietly, almost cowering behind his own disbelief. This all must be surreal for him up in his delusional mind. The fear of doing something wrong that will somehow make the moment disappear into thin air makes him so cautious, eyeing every single detail of me with an abnormal amount of focus.
His commands strike a fearful, repulsed cord in me. I feel my body tremble regardless of the courage I'm so desperately trying to pursue. My unstable hands find side zipper, swallowing harshly and croakily whispering, "Can I sit first?"
"No." Howard suddenly grabs my arm, softly. His touch sends a shudder down my spine in the form of an uncomfortable chill. He stands me right in front of Harry; he's seated with the most unforgiving pain he's ever expressed by any means. His eyes that were so furious and driven by disgust are now boring into mine, jaw clenched as they being to water. Howard speaks again, this time his voice at my ear, towering figure behind me, looming as a threat. He whispers there, "Take it off. And make sure he's watching."
I begin to unzip the dress, trembling too much to perform the action properly. But I go as slowly as I can, trying to delay it as much as possible. Harry shakes his head insistently, forcing out through the pain in his throat, "Don't. Please don't. Don't. Don't. Tara --"
"Stop," I snap, trying to sound as assertive as I could with a quaking body. But to Howard, the shaking is barely there as long as he's living out his fantasy.
I can hear Howard laughing, the ominous and sinister delight of his amusement forces me to shut my eyes. I can't look at Harry's glassy eyes, hopelessly watching me undress. The feeling of exposure and violation threatens to make me vomit in distress.
The zipper stops, the dress loosening around my bust and my waist. Howard sighs too loudly, the release of tension leaving his body. My eyes shoot back open when I feel his disgusting hands on my bare back, slipping between the opened slit of fabric. Fingertips brush against my clammy skin, overwhelming me with repulsion when they brush against the curve of my breast. I can't take it anymore.
My legs tremble and I move away quickly,
making sure to justify my actions as ones of care instead of disgust. I turn around to Howard, seeing the blight of confusion strewn against the freckles and aging details of his face.
"Can-Can I take off my heels first? My feet hurt really badly," I can manage a wavering, weary smile. Tear-stained cheeks lifting only slightly, puffy red eyes still swollen from the previous distressed episodes. Lacking so much genuineness anyone in their right mind would know it was artificial. But he wasn't, evidently.
I'm still shaking. Howard only nods. I can feel the fabric of my dress moving without my want, and so I try to fix it to cover more skin than it would have if I'd let it be. I sit back down at the edge of the bed, working on my heels painfully slow.
"I remember when Harry took off your shoes for you...That night after your family's party...," he comments gently. "You looked beautiful in that white dress. I kept wondering...how something so angelic would let such a...pitiful thing touch her. Especially the way he touched you...especially..." he rambles quietly to himself. I try and ignore every word he says. The way Harry gulps and squeezes his eyes shut, he is too. Trying and trying and trying--
Howard growls at my slow pace. He bends down, sitting on his calves and pressing his weight to his knees in front of me. He harshly begins to unclasp the belt around my ankles, spitting, "You're being too slow."
"I'm sorry," I choke out, and I don't know if it was meant to calm his perilous hysterics, or to apologize to my own morals when I lift my foot, and dig the pointed high heel of my shoe into his neck. An awful noise of flesh being stricken straight through and a gasp of disbelief through Howard's now slack jaw bolts through the tense, thick air.
I nearly choke, pulling my gouged heel away from his neck, hearing the ripped flesh again as the heel made its way out of his skin. Five inches gouged into his neck.
A yelp shoots from my clogged throat, body restless as it feverishly moves back and away from Howard, who is kneeling with his hand pressed tightly to his neck. Horror scattered across my stunned face, eyes wide and lips parted in utter shock. I see the crimson liquid spilling through his fingers even, and I get the sense that I hit a major artery. I feel so sick. It spills so effortlessly, uncontrollably. It pools against the wooden floorboards and its strong pigment stains his button up.
Harry is silent. Face blank and void of all emotion. Green eyes lost and tinted with lifelessness. He watches the scene before him, unable to even mutter a word as I'm the same. Howard is choking, unable to even turn his head as his eyes stay glued to the place I had been sitting on moments before.
My heart is beating so fast. So fast as the adrenaline courses sharply through my body. I force my heaving figure towards Harry, trembling hands and glassy eyes all focused on getting the tied ropes off of him. I can feel myself sinking lower and lower into an anxiety that I feel lightheaded, hearing Howard lose all of his blood and then pungent liquid fall eerily to the floors. Like a faucet turned on low. I gaze back at him for a second, seeing him drop to the floor. Body stilled. Blood still pouring from his neck.
I start crying when I'm just about done with the last rope. Harry is standing, arms rapidly finding their way around me, tightly wrapping themselves around my shaking figure. I gasp in almost relief, feeling his warm, breathing body against mine. His heavy, but healthy breaths against my neck. Not anything like Howard. Not anything like the fear and disgust. Just my Harry. Warm and safe and him.
He grips me so tightly, crushing me almost, but I don't care. The feeling keeps me from passing out as I cry like I never have into his chest. The reality that I just killed someone starts to gradually compress against my anxious brain. I cry harder every passing second, trembling and falling to nothing into his body.
"I think I killed him," I sniffle loudly, hiccuping half a second after. Harry hands stroke through my hair with a bit or force, desperate movements making them appear rough. But he gets me to look at him, urgent eyes gazing to mine.
"No. Okay. No. It was self-defense," he assures me quickly, breathing heavily. "Are you listening to me, baby?" He notices the mental distance and the shock coveting my face and numbing my body, my eyes nearly rolling into the back of my head. Harry shakes me, pulling at my hair a little, a hand cupping my cheek to keep me grounded. "You were protecting yourself. You protected me. Okay? Tara, please, listen to me. Listen to me, baby."
I grip his shirt, dried lips parted. Blinking away the cold tears on my wet eyelashes, I absentmindedly sputter, "I can't...I can't look at him. I-I.."
He pulls me back into him tightly, burying my face into his chest. I can feel him zipping my dress back up, warm, familiar and safe hands touching my chilled skin with an urgent need to care for me. I hear him sigh shakily, knowing he must be looking at the pooling mess of blood and Howard's paling body. Harry rubs me, almost like he's rubbing away the grime Howard left on me.
"We're leaving." And he means it. He takes his jacket off and wraps it around my shivering body. Sits me down while I'm silent, stilled and sitting at the edge of the bed while Harry carefully digs through Howard's pockets, finding a phone in his back pocket. I crouch into myself, wrapping Harry's coat tighter around myself. He stands me up again, and I see from the corner of my eyes when he contemplates taking the gun off the bed. And he does, making sure the safety is on when he shoves it into the waist of his pants, underneath his untucked button-up shirt. I don't say anything. Void of any energy, of any feeling.
. . .
We walk outside, a gush of cold wind hitting us. I feel my feet throb, and the reminder of the shoe in Howard's neck makes me stop mid tracks. Harry turns to look at me, eyes finding mine with concern, lips parting to say something. We've only gotten a mile away from the small cabin before I'm taking off my heels, then bending down to grab them. Harry takes them from me, the straps hanging from his fingers. He grips my cold hand, rubbing the skin with his to warm me. The gesture relaxes me, although now I've reached the point where I cannot feel myself being responsive to anything.
We follow the tracks on the dirt, the light Harry holds out from Howard's phone working in our favor. We're so quiet, and so is the night in response. I stumble every now and then, causing Harry to grip my hand tighter and whisper to me if I want to be carried. He will care for me, baby me even, to get me to respond. But I keep quiet, mindless eyes staring into the pit of darkness we seem to be on endlessly.
"I've got signal," Harry says quietly, stopping us to stand where he's got enough service to hopefully make a call. I find myself approaching him, my body ready to lean into his in search for composure. Harry accepts my approach, an arm around my body, placing a kiss to my forehead. In the darkness, we can hear ourselves breathing, our clothes rustling. The cold air is felt sharply, but it feels good. "I love you so much," I hear him whisper almost painfully. "So much."
I bite into my bottom lip, refusing to cry again as my head is pounding restlessly. "I love you, too," I croak out just above a whisper. "I just want to go somewhere. Away.."
"Where?" He asks. "Where do you want to go?"
Shrugging my shoulders, I reach a hand up to rub my cold cheek. "I don't want to see anyone. And home doesn't even feel like home anymore," I explain warily, voice gentle and wavering. I didn't know where I was going with this, but I knew there were certain things that are just too far out of reach. But at this point our lives have been violated and the comfort of our own homes have been destroyed. I didn't want to go back there. At least not now.
Harry understood that without having to ask me to elaborate. "We need to call someone, baby. We can't just disappear. Your mum's worried sick, I bet," he tries, but I shake my head into his chest, refusing to care. "It's unfair to her."
I move my head away from his chest. "I feel like we can't trust anyone. Like if we say anything, or do anything...she's going to be right there," I explain with a heaving chest, tired eyes looking up to him. His own mirroring mine, our thoughts the same. "Right now...we could be a step ahead."
Harry pauses in thought, staring right through me as his mind is elsewhere. We stand there, only the light provided by the device in Harry's hand functioning as a guide. We haven't even stopped to think about Katherine and her involvement in all of this, her possible involvement with Harry's sorrowful family life.
He sighs finally, glancing around the darkness in an aimless attempt to gather his thoughts. "Okay...We need to find somewhere to go. So we can figure things out from there," he suggests quietly, grasping my hand in his free one again, and leading me to walk the tire tracks Katherine had left behind when she drove here.
The bottoms of my bare feet graze the cold, dense grass. We've been walking for fifteen minutes, and although we're getting closer to the roadsides, where hopefully there are street lights and nearby civilization, our silence prevails in the midst of the slightest feeling of relief.
"There's an inn two miles from here." Harry's exhausted eyes glare at the bright screen of the phone. I lean towards him to look on with him, squinting my eyes to adjust to the light. For the most part, I've been letting Harry lead me through this dense forest. "We can stay there. Figure out what we're going to do." There's repetition and reassurance in his voice.
I don't disagree. The thought of warmth, solitude, and a hot shower eases my stress. Fractions of my mind bear the thought of my mother, the others about our own safety. At least in the forest, the apprehension of being watched slightly disperses. Not only that, but at this distance, deep into a very remote rural area, where even the slightest noise might scare someone off, I felt safer than I have these past few weeks.
We walk and we walk. The two miles over a desolate road are silent, with my hand held tightly in his, the grip clenching down like a vice. A drizzling rainfall begins not a minute later we've reached street lights and faint noise. Harry looks up from his phone to see the inn that he had expected. My eyes follow the road up until the inn.
It's small. Painted a forest green that almost blends entirely with the vines that protrude from the ground up -- against the walls as nature's decorative taste. Lights on, warm glow from the windows shadowing over the well-kept porch. A sign reads The Dayton's Inn. I follow close behind Harry, both of my hands cupping one of his. We both follow up the steps, bodies growing tense at the thought of interacting with someone else.
My eyes are wide, head constantly turning to gaze at my surroundings, nerve ends sparking with vigilance.
The air inside was heavenly warm. I felt my body relax when I saw that inside the Inn, the foyer was practically empty. Honey nut oak tree floorboards covered in floral printed rugs. We stand there, the bottoms of my bare feet against a soft, plush rug. Harry's wet shoes soaking into the welcome mat beneath the soles. I sigh heavily, wandering big eyes falling to an elderly woman who now approaches us.
Harry and I stand still, tensed. The elderly woman wears a pale, lime green cardigan with a golden, butterfly pin on the side. Her greying hair long past her shoulders, tucked behind her ears impressively neat. Her light lights wrinkle at their ends when she squints at us, nose scrunching only slightly. The examination doesn't last long, and I know we must look suspiciously disgusting. Grime from our long walk covering my bare feet, rain soaking through our dirty clothes. The blood stained heel that Harry slowly brings behind him.
"Can I help you?" The old lady questions softly, slowly as she folds her hands in front of herself. Her kindness is tinted with curiosity at our questionable appearances.
I look to Harry, silently urging him to speak. He blinks away his daze and says, "We'd like a room..."
"Of course," the old woman's lips curve into a faint smile. "One bed? Two beds?"
"Just one please," Harry gives her the information she asks for as we all go towards the front desk. I follow behind Harry, not having let go of his hand. Eventually, I do as he reaches into his back pocket for his wallet. They're talking about the room and certain accommodations, but I don't listen to a word.
My eyes travel the light blue walls, decorated with black and white pictures of unknown people, places, and events. I avert my eyes to my muddy bare feet, sighing heavily to myself. Harry taps his fingertips against my forearm to get my attention, whispering, "C'mon, baby."
The daze I seem to be falling into repeatedly snaps away with a blink, my gaze falling to Harry's, which is brief as he leads me up a few stairs behind the old woman -- Meredith. We're introduced to a sizeable room with a separate door leading to a bathroom. Coffee colored walls, low king-sized bed in the middle of the room. Floral curtains covering the windows and a dresser matching the wooden headboard of the bed. A desk, a chair. A bookshelf nearly empty.
Meredith kindly asks us if she can get us anything else, and Harry politely declines. Once she shuts the door, I stand there silently, staring at nothing particular. Harry places his wallet on the dresser, and places my heels at the corner beside it, an audible sigh escaping past his lips. Then he carefully pulls the gun out from underneath his shirt and waistband of his pants, setting it quietly into an empty drawer then closing it softly.
He doesn't say anything, only walks towards the bathroom, the door creaking as he pushes past it. Seconds later, I hear the water start running. His figure moves towards me, hand grabbing mine and pulling me towards the bathroom. I blink again, feeling the cold tiled floors beneath my feet. Feeling myself gain back some composure now that we're alone, enclosed in walls that are unfamiliar yet comforting. There's a peace in knowing we're on unfamiliar ground. The apprehension of before weakens.
I unzip my dress calmly, breathing deeply. It loosens and I push the red, soaked fabric away from my body. Down my chest and past my hips to the floor. I step out of it, never once looking up at Harry as he sits at the covered toilet, leaning over to rest his elbows on his thighs. Hands over his mouth as he shuts his eyes.
I pull the blue shower curtain aside, stepping into the tub. The second I get under the hot water, I squeeze my eyes shut. The water streams down my body, slowly washing away the grime and the feeling of strange hands groping me. Hot water relaxes my muscles. I open my eyes to find a bar of soap, gripping it tightly and letting it foam in my hands.
The dirt washes off, but not only the feeling of grime, but the unforgivable sensation of Howard's disgusting hands. I rub harshly against my skin, trying not to cry. A grimace tightens against my face, eyebrows furrowed as I scrub away the feelings of resentment. Suddenly the shower curtain gets pulled open, Harry standing there with exhausted eyes.
I barely care that he's standing there, continuing to scrub my arms. "I feel disgusting," I choke out with a shaky breath.
"Tara," Harry murmurs softly, pained.
"How could someone do that?" I suddenly get angry. "How can someone look me in the eye almost everyday, offer me advice on my papers...act so kindly and do...this!" The scrubbing turns harsher, and I don't realize the pinkish tint my skin is taking on.
Harry steps away only slightly, pulling at his shirt, and unbuttoning it. Pants following until he's naked. He steps inside with me, gripping my urgent arms to cease my movements. "Hey, hey," he whispers just as a hopeless sigh leaves my lips. "It's me, Tara. Just you and me, right now. We're ahead."
"I can still...I can still feel his hands...--" I stop talking, gulping harshly. "There was blood on my leg..."
His familiar, loving touch caresses my waist, nothing like the perverted and repulsive feelings evoked from Howard. His lips so close to my cheek, voice low as he insists, "Nobody is here but you and me. We're alone right now. Just you and me." My arms hang loosely by my sides, brushing against his arms that had wrapped themselves around my waist to pull me closer. "Me. Harry," he adds gently.
"I know," I reply firmly, my arms up against my chest, hands folding together. My forehead leans against his shoulder. "I know it's just us," I whisper, shutting my eyes. "I want your hands. Just yours. I hate even thinking--"
"Okay," he interrupts me softly, his hands gently rubbing off the soap buds against the bottom of my spine and all around hips. The feeling of his skin creating friction against mine surpasses the grime and memories the water managed to wash off.
We don't talk for a while. Feeling his hands wash my skin, my eyes staring at his soft touch. I pull my head away from his shoulder, the beams of hot water splashing against my back. My eyes look into his light, exhausted ones, both of us staring in silence, somehow silent yet loud at the same time.
His hands then cup my cheeks, brushing my soaked hair behind my ears with his fingers. "Do you feel bad? About leaving...him there?" I ask him quietly, the sound of the water just nearly drowning out my voice.
"I don't know," he replies just as quietly, green eyes searching my face. "I don't know."
"I don't," I mutter then, swallowing harshly and averting my eyes to the shower curtain for only a second, then back to his. "I was scared at first...but now...the things he's done and Katherine..."
Harry's thumb brushes past my lip. "I don't know," he repeats again. "I just love you. I love you and this thing...happening again, living it again a hundred times worse...I-I don't know what to feel."
"What do we do?" I whisper. "How do we fix this?"
He sighs.
"I avoided digging into my dad's past for a bit. But now that we're ahead, I might just have to."
n. more and more will be pieced together. thanks for reading! predictions? comments?