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Terrified of what I know is about to happen, I huddle into myself. He walks towards me and starts to take off his clothes. He has a hairy chest that repulses me, and an abstract tattoo I don’t want to look at.
I feel sick.
I just want to die.
I object, crying, shaking my head, pleading, “No, please don’t, don’t touch me.”
I’m struck with a belt, the voice knocked out of me. The wind too. I retreat further into myself. Reasoning with him won’t help me. I remember I tried this before.
Throwing the sheets off my body, he grabs me by the ankles and pulls me towards him, the tight handcuffs at my wrist clinking.
He never removes his trousers, he just undoes them. He doesn’t wear underwear.
When he’s finished, he sits on a plain wooden chair in the corner and watches me recover, staring. He talks to me—as if I care what he has to say. As if I’m capable of existing in the present, aware and sentient.
I endure his assault twice more. I feel dead inside. Each time he tells me I’m his best girl. That I’ll make him rich. And as he leaves, he tells me, “Tonight you’ll earn me money; on your knees or on your back—I don’t fucking care. And in three days, you will be sold.”
CHAPTERSEVENTEEN
AVA
Dave’snew plant is still alive. I congratulate him on not killing it.
“We’ve lots to discuss,” he says by way of introduction. “There’s been more progress.” He holds his pen in readiness to record all the secrets of my brain.
Yesterday, I met with Paula at the police station. A male colleague, young and in training joined her, and together they quizzed me about my memory. There was further discussion around the depth of my attacker’s voice; questions regarding his distinguishing features such as the tattoo; they asked about any visible scars and the pattern of his chest hair; they were very keen to learn more about what he said to me, asking about names and places, and they asked if I knew the location of the sun, the moon, the stars.
I had scoffed—I was hardly on holiday, stargazing.
Paula asked me if anything else had come up since, either before then or after, such as the sale.
The answer is no.
I cast my mind back to Saturday afternoon when Max drove me back to Cambridge in his Porsche. The journey was quiet and reflective, much of it spent silently crying while Max held my hand. I was numb through, stunned, my brain feeling like it had been anaesthetised even though I was still aware, still conscious.
I exist from moment to moment, clawing myself forward.
And I miss Max, the ring on my finger a constant reminder of this man who has quickly become important to me. Who, just as he promised, is at my side as I go through this ordeal.
When I walked inside the house, Tilly almost had a heart attack when she saw my tear-stained face. After reading my notes which I had emailed to myself from Max’s computer, she knows what I know, and we tried not to speculate about what came before or after. Those memories will come, I’m more certain of that as each day arrives.
“Progress on the memories,” I respond to Dave, “but I feel inconsolable.”
He regards me gently before we spend some time talking about managing expectations. My memories were never going to be happy ones; the medical assessment of my injuries was a warning, he reminds me. And I know that, of course, I do, but knowing what I know is a completely different ball game tothinkingI knew what happened. It didn’t come packaged with all the vivid sensations, the heightened feelings and emotions. With the relentless, depressing thoughts and flashbacks.
I can’t escape what I know. It occupies every bit of space in my head. And I feel anxious all the time.
My memories won’t leave me alone.
“Your diagnosis means that when you remember something,” Dave begins, “or whenever something triggers you—a sound, a smell, a phrase, a situation, it will be like you’re reliving it.”
My insides cave. “Great.”
His lips curl at my wry attitude. “Negative self-perception is a by-product of what happened to you, and I think that might be why Jonas and you didn’t work. Perhaps you can tell me more about your new boyfriend. About why it’s different?”
“I’m not sure what we are,” I answer, even though Dave’s probably right. I have aboyfriend.
He nods, watching me. “Now that your memories are returning, are you less sure about him, or about intimacy in general?”
