Beast: A Hate Story, The Beginning

by Mary Catherine Gebhard

  I was still in bed when the Beast returned. The doctor had only just left and I was naked under the sheets. It had been quick; at least Dr. Wyatt hadn’t been lying about that. That didn’t mean I didn’t feel violated. I’d been poked and prodded by doctors in the past, but it had never felt so…wrong. At least in the hospital the sterility and routine had provided a sort of buffer; it was dehumanizing, to a certain extent. Here I was exposed. I had to feel everything. I held the covers up to my chin as the Beast studied me, praying he wouldn’t lift up the blanket.

  “Dinner is in one hour, dress appropriately.” With that, he pushed off the wall and left. I was alone in the extravagant bedroom. Dress appropriately? I’d left without saying goodbye, let alone packing evening wear.

  I waited a few moments before getting out of bed then quickly threw off the sheets and shimmied back into my jeans. I rubbed my fingers together, staring at the room. I felt icky. Only minutes prior I had been naked, poked at.

  Now I had to dress appropriately.

  I let out a sigh and walked to the window. The view was beautiful, at least. Christmas trees already lined the medians. I used to love walking in New York during Christmas. All the shops shone brightly with lights and the medians were festive with trees. I would imagine what fancy people lived in the buildings, eating turkey and smiling with their families.

  Now I knew. It was people like the Beast who lived in the buildings.

  With one last look at the merry view, I turned away. Dress appropriately, he said. On a hunch, I walked over to the frosted glass French doors. If I didn’t find something suitable, at least I could spit on one of his ties. I pulled the doors outward and…

  Holy mother fucking shit.

  It was practically packed to the brim with gorgeous evening dresses. Each one probably cost more than double our rent back in Jersey. I walked through the wardrobe, feet relishing the plush Tempur-Pedic-like carpet. I stroked the fabrics of the dresses, each one different but still soft. I rustled them, watching them fall away from the tips of my fingers like water, colors shimmering like a waterfall.

  I turned around in awe. Had he done all of this in the few hours before my arrival? Or—my mind stuttered over the horrible thought—what if this room used to belong to someone? I eyed the wardrobe, thinking about a girl like me living in this room, wearing these clothes. It was perfectly stocked for a woman, but there was no woman. The dress I was fingering fell from my grasp. I knew I was going to die. I knew that, but God, I didn’t need a Versace-clad skeleton reminder.

  I walked deeper into the closet, pulling open each of the drawers. Some were filled with shirts, the material soft and silky. Others were filled with socks, some with shorts.

  A few drawers were filled with lingerie and I snapped those shut immediately. I noticed the lingerie drawer was labeled bedtime but I quickly shoved that into the back of my brain, instead searching for more labels. Above the dresses was a small evening label, and when I glanced back to the shirt drawer, I found a daytime label. This must have been what he meant when he said to dress appropriately. I moved farther into the closet and…

  God. Walls were stacked top to bottom with shoes I could only have dreamed of owning. I pulled them out one at a time: Louboutins, Jimmy Choo, Chanel, Badgley Mischka, Manolo Blahnik. I stopped reading the designers, shoes surrounding me in a multicolored circle of satin, leather, and crystals on the floor.

  Seriously, what the fuck was going on? Had I fallen into hell or heaven?

  I stood up in a daze, but still picked up each and every pair of shoes (because seriously, even kidnapped, those shoes needed to be taken care of). The Beast said I had an hour before dinner and to dress appropriately; now that wasn’t so odd. In fact, the harder problem would be deciding what to wear.

  Running my fingers along the material, I landed on a gorgeous Dior chiffon number. I pulled it out and held it up to my body in the mirror. It went to my shins and was a pale yellow color with crystal beading on the bust that tapered off into the chiffon. Oh my, is this vintage? It was. It was vintage. My eyes went wide at the discovery. Vintage Dior? Seriously?

  When I put it on, I felt like a princess. I could even twirl in it. It made me feel less dirty and less like a woman waiting for the gallows. I walked back to the Shelf of Wonders AKA the shoe shelf and chose a pair of gold satin Badgley Mischka peep toes. As I was leaving, my eyes caught the reflection of another, semi-hidden drawer. I clicked it and it popped out of the wall. I thought I’d had all the surprises I could handle for one night, but holy shit.

  Diamonds. And rubies. And sapphires—at least that was what I assumed. I’d never really been around jewels—outside of an Indiana Jones movie, that is.

  I touched them as if they were fire, gently, as though they might burn my finger. The Beast said to get ready, dress appropriately; he hadn’t said play dress-up like a little girl. Still, there was a beautiful, diamond pendant that caught my eye. The diamond was carved impeccably and shaped like a rose. Compared to all the other pieces sitting on the blue velvet, it was practically insignificant. It was small and there was nothing spectacular about it, just a single rose-shaped pendant attached to a small gold thread.

  But it called to me.

  I picked it up, clasped it around my neck, and closed the drawer. I looked at the clock on the wall, trying to figure out how much time I had left. It was analog and there weren’t any numbers. The hands of the clock were branches and there was one long branch with a bird sitting on it. On the wall to the left of the clock, another bird was pinned. I stared at the clock, trying to imagine a man like Beast buying and pinning the little bird to the wall. I gave up. It did not compute, like trying to make two plus two equal five.

  Sighing, I looked from the clock to my door. He said dinner was in one hour, and it was five minutes past the hour. He never told me to wait, but he’d never expressly told me I shouldn’t leave either. When I’d first traded myself to the man, there hadn’t been any doubts in my mind that he was bad—clinically bad, the type of mean you need a thesaurus for to find a deeper, more suitable description for but still end up coming up dry because the type of badness, of meanness, of hard twisting fright you feel around him is just that—a feeling.

  But now, I wasn’t sure. Riding with him, alone, had unfurled other feelings within me and now I was in this dress, in this room, in a penthouse. The doctor had been inexplicable, but what kind of person would give me all of this if their intentions were bad? I curved my hand around the brassy doorknob.

  Later…later I would blame an aneurysm for that bold and insane decision.

  It felt sort of like I was attempting a jailbreak. Still, at that moment in time, I wasn’t even entirely sure I wanted to go home. I was in a penthouse, all dressed and dazzled. Life had told me this was what I was supposed to want, and now I had it. A distant thought floated through my mind as I turned the knob: it was like leaving Eden. If I left, I’d be faced with all the evils of the world. A part of me was worried if I didn’t leave the room, though, I would turn into a pumpkin.

  I had on vintage Dior, Badgley Mischka peep toes, and diamonds.

  I just wanted to explore. I had a pretty dress on and I wanted to walk around in it. Part of me was starting to think the Beast might not be so bad. Another part, though, thought the minute I opened the door, guys with guns would storm in and force me back into the bedroom.

  They didn’t. I opened the door and was greeted by the long white corridor I’d walked down when we’d arrived. I hadn’t paid much attention then because I’d been so nervous. Now I noticed the creepy abstract art dotting the walls. Red slashed with black splattered against white canvases along the hallway walls, almost as if the individual paintings were one large installation. It was the kind of art that while not exactly looking like anything, still reminded you of blood and sex.

  Hanging on to the doorframe, I looked down the hallway. I could run for my life, out of the apartment, and scream. Maybe the cops would come. I could
tell them my story, and maybe if by luck I found the one cop not on Beast’s payroll, the Beast would be arrested. I might even be able to keep the vintage Dior. That wouldn’t stop Papa’s murder though…or mine. It was surreal being a prisoner in the middle of a bustling metropolis.

  Swallowing, I stepped out into the hallway. The space was immaculate with white walls and sandy wood floors. Floor-to-ceiling windows were the theme of the penthouse. As I exited the hallway, I came to a room where more windows stretched even higher as the room’s ceiling rose. The windows reminded me of those I saw in magazines. White wood trimmed the latices and some even had Christmas lights. I paused, looking around. It was so nice, so…homey. I sniffed. Was that…gingerbread?

  It would have been so much easier if the moment I left the room everything was dark, ugly, and smelly.

  The way a beast’s lair should be.

  I came to a sitting room with a piano and tilted my head back. The place must have been three stories high. I wondered if he owned other floors than the ones I could see. My gaze shifted to the piano. Did the Beast play piano? Who was this man that took me captive, yet gave me nice clothes and a nice place to sleep? Maybe the Beast wasn’t so bad.

  I should have read more fairytales.

  As I walked by another sprawling window, I stopped and pressed my fingers against the cool glass, staring down at the sidewalk. How many other people were prisoners like me?

  Probably not many were so well dressed. I pressed my entire palm to the glass. I’d read thousands of stories about heroes and their heroines. So many of the men were tortured on the inside, their emotions a train wreck, and the heroine couldn’t see the beauty of their soul at first. Maybe the Beast was tortured. Maybe that’s why they called him the Beast. Bad men didn’t give their prisoners nice clothes and diamonds and a comfy bed.

  Right?

  I pressed my forehead against the glass.

  Maybe there was hope.

  It was as if at that moment fate herself heard me and didn’t want me getting any funny ideas. Within seconds of me wondering if there could be hope, a cold, unmistakable voice gripped my spine. “What are you doing out of your room?”

  I spun around. The Beast was leaning against a whitewashed, exposed brick column. I exhaled slightly because at first glance, he looked calm and collected, which ameliorated my fears. Then I saw his face and my gut refilled with ice. His earlier cruel impassivity had been replaced with sunless anger.

  Even though he was still a good few feet from me, it wasn’t enough. I attempted to step back, but I was already against the window. My heel bumped painfully against the wall.

  “Answer me,” he said quietly. I wished he would have yelled; his harsh whisper was like a toxic fog. I felt his anger more than heard it, and it was so much more powerful, more menacing, more dangerous.

  “Dinner?” I lifted the dress slightly. It was all I could do, the only tool in my belt. I was like a deer stuck in headlights as he closed the distance between us. He stole the shadows as he advanced, growing and growing until he was so close I felt I would die of suffocation.

  “Did I say you could come out?” he whispered in my ear. I closed my eyes like a little girl against a scary movie, hoping it would go away. Earlier that day when he’d whispered my name, I had seen my life, my hopes, and my dreams disappear.

  Now when he whispered to me, this time I was certain I would never see them again.

  “No, but…” I trailed off as the Beast pressed his massive hand against my chest, pushing me flat against the window. My entire body pressed against the glass and terror filled my veins like liquid nitrogen. I wondered if I would explode, like a rose frozen then broken, shattered into a billion pieces. I wondered if anybody below could see me.

  “I…” My voice came out pathetically high. “Thank you?” The words came out as a question. Was I seriously thanking him right now? What I wanted to say was I thought we had an agreement, I thought the nice things meant you were nice, I thought the clothes and the room and the little birdie clock meant something, but the words got jumbled in my brain as he pressed into me and forced me against the window.

  Funny thing is when terror takes hold, thoughts sometimes don’t come out the way they should. What you’re trying to say and what you actually say start to drown in the icy terror filling up your brain. Images and ideas flashed through me only to sink beneath the frigid water.

  He picked up the pendant from my neck and rolled it between his thumb and forefinger. “Pretty necklace.”

  Hope flashed inside me.

  Then it died forever when he ripped it from my neck and pushed up my yellow chiffon dress.

  “You go where I tell you to go,” he growled into my ear. “Frankie.” My eyes widened at the way he’d snarled my name. For a brief instant I tried to make eye contact. There was something in the way he’d said my name, something that belied his intent and had me hoping if I could just make eye contact, I might just stop this madness. I heard in his voice—briefly, fleetingly—not anger at me but at himself, some kind of wretched hopelessness, and I wanted to latch onto that—then he spun me around and lifted up my brown hair, biting at my neck.

  I screamed and that made him push me harder into the glass. I may have been crying, but I wasn’t sure—the terror had made me numb. My thoughts were nearly completely drowned.

  Later the moment would play on a loop, over and over and over again, like a resurfaced bloated body. For now, though, it was buried beneath a ton of ice-cold fear.

  “You are nothing,” he snarled, “except for what I give you.”

  Tears obscured the glass. I was definitely crying, but the sound was muffled. I was going numb. I was numb to everything around me. I could feel his rough, callused hands on my inner thighs, feeling the private flesh.

  I screamed out, though I knew no one heard me. I couldn’t focus on being strong. I couldn’t focus on anything. My worst nightmare was happening. That thing I’d watched on TV while thinking Oh, that won’t happen to me was happening. I always said I would fight back, would kick anyone’s ass who tried to hurt me, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t fight back. I just lay slumped against the window as he undid his pants behind me.

  When I realized my screams were doing nothing to dissuade him—if anything, they were pushing him harder—I froze. I resigned myself to my fate. I focused on the way my tears traveled down the glass and the way my heated, humid breath fogged the picture below. Then something terribly amazing happened.

  He stopped, but he didn’t move away. There was a horrible stillness between us.

  Afraid to move.

  Afraid to breathe.

  Afraid to blink.

  I just felt him behind me, his chest rising and falling heavily, up and down against my back. I could see the throbbing vein on his forearm just next to my head as his hand splayed out on the window, a promise of what was to come.

  “Go away,” I whispered. “Please.” My voice disappeared into the awful quiet engulfing us. I was so acutely aware of how terrified I was, how calm he was, and just had to listen to my heartbeat ratchet faster and faster in my ears. I thought it was going to burst from my chest.

  Then his lips came to my neck, slow and so miserably gentle. He kissed me over the spot where he’d just savagely bitten me, licking the skin, sucking it. Before, I had thought I couldn’t stand it—the savagery, the quiet—but I’d had no idea how much worse it could get. I tried to fight the wash of feelings that came over me, the wave of heat that consumed me.

  No was on the tip of my tongue, a whisper just ready to pass from my lips, when his grip on my hip tightened, his other hand weaving its way into my hair. He made a knot with the strands, pulling my head to the side so he could get a better angle on my neck. The No transformed into a sigh.

  I was starting to like it.

  I pushed myself back at him. I told myself it was to get him off and run away, but I knew I was just angling to get more of his lips on me. If I refused to say it
with words, then my body would for me. He continued to kiss the same spot, somehow driving me to madness with just one kiss on just one spot on my flesh. My lips parted, this time not in a scream, not in a sigh, but in a groan.

  His hand moved from my hip to between my thighs, and my breath hiccupped. Somewhere in my mind I thought I should fight it or scream, but his lips intoxicated me. He still hadn’t moved his mouth from that one spot and it was the most wonderful frustration. Then he pressed his palm between my thighs against me and the fabric of my underwear was too much separation between us.

  The heel of his palm moved in a strong, delirious rhythm. I pressed my face harder against the window until I felt pain, until I was sure the skin would be blanched, because something awful was happening. Moans were coming from my body without my warrant. My limbs were moving against him though I hadn’t given them permission to do so.

  My body had become a traitor.

  He made a low sound in his throat and spun me around just as he ripped the lace of my underwear—the only thing I’d still been wearing from home—and cool air licked my lips.

  “No,” I repeated as tears streamed down my face but I reached for him. I was crying uncontrollably now as he thrust his tongue into my mouth. So many emotions were flying through me. He’d stopped palming me and was stroking me. God I’d never felt anything like it before. Ever. It was magnificent and awful and so, so mind-bending.

  But I didn’t want my first time to be with him.

  I wanted champagne and rose petals—or hell, I’d even take an awkward prom scenario—anything but this. Still, my fingers were curling into his hair. One arm was pulling him into me, nails scything into his neck. The other hand splayed behind my back, fingernails scratching at the surface of the window. It was like there were two Frankies—one yelling stop and one pulling him closer.

  He entered me and it was rough and brutal and beautiful. I cried out, though it was possible I was already crying too hard. Exquisite and cruel, it was agony I never knew existed the way he twisted pleasure inside me. I wouldn’t wish it on the deepest of enemies. It was art the way he transformed my pain into lust.