by G. D. Madsen
"Please, don't take too long..."
"Do you want me to stay the night?" he asks.
I shake my head. "It's okay. I'll be fine. If I freak out, I will paint. It usually helps."
Chapter 17
Kahina
Time becomes relevant when I hold a brush in my hand, no threat or deadline hanging over me like the sword of Damocles. I spend all the time filling one blank canvas with colors and shapes after another, stopping only when my stomach rumbles louder than birds chirping outside the window, or when my eyelids turn into heavy theater curtains, and I collapse right on the living room couch.
Sun and moon are my only references to the hours gone by, my whole focus on painting to push the longing ache aside. If only it worked.
I cannot stop replaying every moment shared with David in this house, and I am unable to escape the memory of those harsh words he spoke in this very room.
How could I? The evidence of what happened after I ran off, is everywhere.
I covered the wine-stained sofa with a soft white plaid from the balcony, and Bryan took care of the rest of the room, but I have not asked him to hide the smashed TV, unwilling to appear vulnerable.
The deep, gaping crack in the center of the screen is like a black void, sucking me in every time I look at it and forcing me to wonder how different that night could have been, if only...
I am so caught up in those thoughts that when the front door flies open I jump off the bar stool, paintbrush slipping from my fingers and landing on the floor, my eyes locked on a tall frame blocking most of the early morning light streaming through the doorway.
"David!"
He is in front of me faster than I can finish saying his name. His hands capture my face, and our lips collide like waves in the middle of a storm – wild, intense, and unpredictable. His tongue caressing mine assures me this is only the beginning of our story, and I kiss him back, my whole essence dissolving inside our kiss.
I have never felt more alive than I do now. If pain, surging through my still raw injuries, is the price to pay, I am willing to pay it, as long as I can continue kissing him, drinking in his coffee-like flavor with a hint of peppermint – the combination that will always remind me of our first kiss. Desire erupts deep inside my core, sending streaks of burning hot lava into my bloodstream, and the metallic taste of blood – the one linked to sex in the darkest corners of my brain – only adds to the need for more than a kiss; but it brings David to his senses.
He pulls his face away. "Fuck, I'm sorry..."
"Don't…" I hush him, my fingers on his lips. "Don't treat me like I'm made of glass." I slide my palm from his mouth to his cheek, and David leans into it. "The fragile Lavinia is dead. She was never alive to begin with. She was my prison tag, the invisible chains holding me down. I don't need your sympathy; I want your help in becoming the queen you described once."
"You already are! You are my queen, my warrior. I failed you once, and I am never repeating this mistake again. It was the worst decision of my life." David drops to his knees. "I swear I will never doubt you again. I will never abandon you again, and I will protect you for the rest of my life! Because I cannot imagine my life without you in it, Kahina!"
His image smudges. Tears, caused by the confession I did not foresee, flood my eyes and stream down my face.
I kneel too, only much slower. "And I don't want to live without you in mine. I think I got addicted to you the instant you made me laugh and forget my fears. Your voice became my refuge. And then, in the midst of my hell, I saw piercing blue eyes of a stranger I could not turn away from. I held on to the image of you looking back at me like the life vest keeping me above water. I held on to the memory the entire night after the auction, and for the first time, I was not crushed to dust by the end of it."
"I'm so fucking sorry for everything you had to go through. More so, I am so sorry I considered you one of those women who leave with the richest bastard in the room. But I promise, nobody will ever cause you pain for as long as I am around, and I don't intend to leave."
"Nobody, but…" I whisper, unsure if I should continue. "I don't know much about lovemaking. I'm afraid Silvio tainted my mind more than I could have predicted. My bleeding lip drove me mad with lust. David, he twisted me, and I am not sure I can suppress this side of me."
"Then don't." He caresses my face. "Take whatever you need from me. I will be what you need me to be. I will be rough if you want me to, but never when you don't. To be honest, I am not much of a gentle lovemaking type. And now, seeing your flushing face, your swollen lips, your glowing eyes, and these damn arousing short curls, I can hardly contain myself from pinning you down and fucking you like the animal I told you I was." David exhales loudly. "But I won't. Instead, I am going to help you stand, and we are going to talk while watching the sunrise."
"It doesn't really hurt," I lie, because it does, but Silvio trained me for years never to complain. I could take it. I would take it to please David.
"Don't lie to me. You should never be afraid to say no. You never have to ignore your needs with me."
"Then I want you to kiss me." I smile, pressing my lips to his. "Kiss me and feed me."
David bursts out laughing, before landing a soft peck on my forehead. "Did you empty the entire fridge?" He examines my pretentiously guilty face. "Lucky for you, I brought food for another week."
"Hey, I’m healing here," I say with a smile, but David's face turns grey. "No, don't. David, don't burden yourself with guilt. Yes, you sent me into the arms of my executioner earlier than I was hoping for, but the truth is I never expected to live after the weekend. When I agreed to go with you, I knew, this time, Silvio was going to kill me."
"What?" David stares at me, shock, or maybe horror in his eyes. "This time?"
Talking about what Silvio did to Mauro and me was a taboo I never dared to break. I fill my lungs with air, fighting the mute command for my mind to shut down, and exhale slowly. I refuse to remain locked inside the prison of silence and fear he crafted for me. Silvio took too much from me already.
"When I was fifteen, Mauro and I tried to run away, but we failed." The instant I speak those words aloud something shifts. Gears click into their designated places and begin to turn.
"What happened?" David asks, his tone hushed and soothing. He is probably afraid I would black out again, but I am sure I can continue now.
"We got captured. Silvio and his men dragged us back to his basement. I was ready to face another punishment, and so was Mauro, but neither of us could have predicted Silvio's macabre plan. He forced Mauro's hand. My only friend had to torture me."
"Fuck," David curses. "And he did?"
"Mauro had no other choice. He was as much of a victim as I was. Silvio kept blaming me for corrupting his son's mind, and while it was Mauro's idea to run away, his father convinced him somehow it wasn't. He tried not to hurt me at the beginning, but with my every cry, with every word Silvio whispered into his ear, Mauro was sinking deeper, turning into something I had never seen in him before. Something that was not entirely human."
"Bloody hell…" David presses me against his chest and cradles me until tears stop rolling down my cheeks.
Once my tears seize, David helps me stand up and guides me to the couch. He lies down and pulls me into his arms again, his warm hands stroking my back, easing the agony of reliving these moments.
"Mauro was never the same after that night," I speak again, my head resting on David's chest. "But it was not because of his father's orders to torture me, I think." I pause, collecting courage to proceed, because I am still afraid to pronounce that word.
"What was?" His embrace tightens. "Tell me, Kahina, what happened?"
This name on his lips – the title I have yet to earn – is like a balm to heal my invisible wounds. I slide my arms around David's body, holding on to him with all the fervor that remains in me.
"I still saw the remnants of my friend for a while, behind the face of the
newly-born monster. He still hesitated and hated himself for wanting to hurt me, but then Silvio..."
I shudder, freezing in a warm embrace of the man I love, because I am fifteen again, back in this cold basement, about to endure the worst agony.
"You don't have to continue," David says, stroking my back.
"I want to." I lift my head to meet his gaze. A shadow clouds his face and wet eyes, and somebody runs a nail through my heart. I have no right to burden him with my past. "No, you're right; I shouldn't have thrown you into the ugliness of—"
"No!" David sits upright, bringing me with him. "No, love, I want to hear everything. I want to share your burden, so you don't carry it alone. Because you are not alone anymore. Please, don't hide the truth from me, no matter how ugly it is."
I wipe my tears dry and look at him, directly into his deep blue eyes, searching for the courage to say one word. I have shielded myself from it for years, but now it is the one I crave to shout for the damn world to hear. "That night Silvio raped me, and then granted Mauro the permission to do the same."
David pulls me back into his arms, and I weep.
"That's how Lavinia became a woman..."
"I swear to you, he will pay for those seventeen years of hell you endured."
His words stun me. "How? How do you know this?"
"There is something I need to tell you." David breaks the embrace. "I know who you are."
Chapter 18
Kahina
The scent of the jasmine tea David prepared for me while I consumed every printed word about my past – about the life still alien to me – lures me back to here and now… to the man who hands me the cup and smiles, wiping another tear traveling down my cheek.
I did not cry, but tears kept pooling up, blurring the truth laid out on the sheets of paper in my trembling hands.
Seventeen years of hell with the man worse than the devil himself.
I had a life before him. I had a family before him – before I vanished from the face of the earth together with my father. My real father, who is still a hazy figure in the distance.
According to the papers, I was a seven-year-old art prodigy. They even put this on a missing person's poster as a distinctive feature. Not that it ever helped.
How was it ever going to? The art prodigy had not left Silvio's basement in years, and when she did, she was too terrified to disobey Father.
I hate this word.
I hate him for forcing me to use it. I hate Silvio Beltrani like I never imagined I could.
"I hate him," I whisper under my breath, but David, sitting beside me, inevitably hears me.
"Hate is good." He caresses my arm. "Hate is better than fear. He cannot control you if you are not afraid of him any longer."
"Doesn't he though?" I place the papers on the couch and my cup on top of the light brown folder holding the secrets of my past. I rise to my feet and walk to the open balcony door. A gentle breeze swirls through my short curls as I watch the lake, water gleaming in the bright morning sun. "Hate gives Silvio as much control over me as fear does, I'm afraid. I want to forget he exists, but this will never happen. He robbed me of my life. He turned me into a fearful creature frightened that her own shadow would betray her. I wish I could erase him like he erased Judith Orlova from the face of the earth. Like he erased my father from the face of the earth."
Strong arms circle my waist, and I lean back against David's chest, his breath mingling with the breeze in my hair. "Love, you cannot be sure. Your father might still be alive."
The police and the FBI immediately assumed my father kidnapped me. A domestic kidnapping due to custody issues.
I shake my head, the stinging in my throat stopping me from speaking. I may not remember my father, but I know Silvio. He made sure my father vanished.
"I wish I would recall how I ended up with him."
David turns me to face him, never fully releasing the embrace. "Remember, you once said he took you from the street."
"Because this is what Silvio told me." I press my face onto his chest, breathing in his perfume like a drug. "There is this image of a dark figure above me, but I cannot distinguish any features; only a sense of stomach-turning dread every time I think about it. I am not sure if this was real, or just another nightmare – one of the countless I endured in his basement."
David's eyes widen. "Basement? He kept you in a basement?"
I manage to curve my lips a little. "I grew up in the basement, yes, in a cell next to Mauro's." I cannot help but snort at the absurdity of it all. "Can you believe this? He kept his son locked up with the rest of us."
"The rest?"
"Yes, there were other children at the beginning. I never saw them; I only heard their cries. Soon they disappeared, and I remained there with Mauro. At first, I could not see him either, but we shared a small window with bars between our cells. If I stood on my tiptoes on my bed, I was able to reach just high enough to hold his hand. I also heard him cry almost every night and promised myself he would never have to listen to my sobs."
"Why?"
"I didn't want to burden him with my tears," I snort again. "See how well that turned out?"
"Your heart is pure gold, and those who tried to break it to pieces failed. It is still beating in your chest and shines brighter than ever. Do you realize you are actually talking to me? A week ago, on this very balcony you panicked like an ambushed prey, and today you don't even flinch at my questions."
He is right!
I am talking, and I do not want to stop until my soul is cleansed of all the ugliness. I want to continue because somebody, at last, wants to learn the ugly truth, not the sweet lies coating it.
The sealing layer of my fake life chipped off at the hospital when David sang to me, when Greg stood up for me, when Lea and Bryan helped me escape. Nothing is protecting the painting from decay now.
"You know what?" I loosen our tight embrace. "I’m done painting darkness with bright colors. It's time I strip this canvas to its original state and uncover Judith, still trapped under thick brush strokes of Lavinia's portrait. She deserves to breathe again.”
"Then speak, love," David murmurs before kissing my face. "Tell me everything. Rid yourself of every chain this monster constrained you with. Go, get comfortable on a sunbed, and I'll bring us our tea."
I nod, brushing my knuckles against the stub on his cheek. I step outside, inhaling the freshness of the breeze deep into my lungs and wrap myself in a blanket, getting comfortable on the same sunbed I sat the very first night in this house.
David returns with our cups. "Tell me, what do you remember from that basement?" he asks, handing me my tea.
Fear... Loneliness... Hunger... Cold... I could go on forever, but this is not what David is asking about.
I watch the steam dancing over the cup – fading away like my early years did. "My room was small and dark. Aside from the window to Mauro’s cell, there was another, also with bars, with the view to the sky and snowflakes falling outside. The room was freezing cold most of the time, but sometimes the temperature would grow scorching hot, snowflakes would swarm inside despite the glass on the window. They would circle around me, melting into a large puddle on the floor, and I would climb on my bed to avoid the pool trying to swallow me. The entire room would turn white with snowflakes and red underneath my bed. And I would scream... Then somebody would pull me closer, cradle me, and whisper something into my ear for hours, and I would drift away. The same would happen night after night."
"Bloody hell," David curses under his breath as he sits opposite from me. "Do you remember anything strange about your food or drinks?"
"I would only have food when it was dark outside. But first, somebody would give me a colorful paper with a smiley face. If I refused to put it in my mouth, I would eat nothing. I always took it because I was hungry." I look at David and feel like a total idiot now that I'd said it out loud. "Silvio drugged me. But why?"
"To keep you confused, to mani
pulate your mind, maybe even make you forget. This would explain the chaos inside your head. Fuck, this certainly explains your blackouts and inability to talk. Mind control at its best. Isolation, fear, loneliness, and drug-induced hallucinations – these are classical methods to keep somebody susceptible to brainwashing. And then the savior moment..."
"I am going to take care of you now," I repeat the menacing words. "Silvio told me this at the hospital. If it were not for Greg, I might have gone back to him. What if he never loses this control over me? What if he makes me return?"
David squats in front of me, puts his cup aside, and lifts my chin with his fingers. "Listen to me; you are never going back. For as long as I live, that monster will not touch you. We will figure it all out. Just look at yourself now. Kahina, you are breaking his hold as we speak."
Yes, I am… I am ready to claw my way through the layers of thick manipulations to break Silvio’s hold. I am going to destroy this forgery and do so by recounting every shameful and horrid memory out loud.
"I don't know how long the nightmares lasted. Felt like forever, but it was probably not too long. The snow was still falling outside when Silvio brought me canvases and paint. At first I was happy to paint again, and the nightmares stopped, but then the real nightmare began. He found out about my friendship with his son, and to reprimand my failures, he would drag me out of my room, chain me to the floor, and force me to witness Mauro being punished. Silvio threatened I would be next if I failed to copy the pictures he was bringing. He never failed to keep this promise. I don't believe I will ever forget the swoosh of his belt cutting through the air above me.
"He used the same sadistic methods whenever I failed other subjects too. He only stopped belting me when I got my first period. He wanted my skin to be flawless."
"Why?"
"For men to desire me. He taught me how to move my body, where to place my hand, when to smile and what to say in order to drive the ones he desired to control insane with lust. Silvio would then secretly film us and take incriminating photos to blackmail those men later. The first few times, he personally interfered before anything more than touches or kisses happened. But after Silvio raped me, he set it upon himself to destroy any remnants of my dignity by forcing me to have sex with those men."