Awakening (6 page)

Bridget looked confused, but she relaxed back into her chair and quirked her head expectantly. Claire paused as nausea roiled her belly. She didn’t want to talk about this. Didn’t want to ruin what good opinion of her Bridget might have. She’d enjoyed Bridget’s company. Looked forward to it as much as the reading she did here. She wasn’t ready for it to end.

She didn’t really know how to explain her relationship with Charlie to Bridget. On the surface, any third party would think it was a typically abusive relationship. One where she’d been physically beaten repeatedly. The one other time she’d attempted to explain it to someone they had attempted to convince her she had battered woman syndrome because she kept insisting that it wasn’t Charlie’s fault.

The thing was it really wasn’t Charlie’s fault. He had done everything possible to get her to deal with her past when they’d met. Each and every time he’d start trying to get her to talk she’d pick a fight with him. At first, she hadn’t noticed the pattern, but eventually she did. She didn’t want to talk about her childhood or her family. It hurt too much and she felt overwhelmed with rage and pain. She wanted to fight; she didn’t want to hurt. Hiding in the anger, she would provoke him.

She knew each and every button to push. They’d been dating for nine months when he hit her for the first time. They’d argued over whether or not she was flirting with some guy on the street. She’d been so hateful to him throughout the argument. Then, after she’d told him to “fuck off”, he’d slapped her. He cried afterwards and vowed he’d never touch her again. And he’d stuck to it for several years. The crazy thing was that they’d had the best conversation they’d ever had after he hit her. She’d cried and had been self-righteous about him hitting her, but she hadn’t actually been mad at him at all. She’d just thought she was supposed to be mad, so she’d gone through the motions.

She’d spent every argument after that seeing how far she could push him. Would he snap? Would he hit her again? He was so good. Everything about him was so good. That was the word that summed him up … Good. He didn’t lie. He was courageous. Affectionate. Loving. Generous. She felt incredibly inferior next to him. She’d never been any of those things. She’d always felt dirty, less, unworthy, unlovable. She’d lied to everyone constantly, making herself out to be stronger, more dynamic. Anything other than what she really was. She’d even lied to Charlie to get him to date her.

After a while, their relationship was so bad that the arguments were relentless. Sometimes they’d literally go on all night long. He held firm, though. He didn’t touch her. Claire wouldn’t have been able to articulate why she needed to push him the way she did if a gun had been held to her head. It was almost a compulsion. They’d fight and she’d see the rage building inside him. See him struggle to control himself and all she wanted was to bring him down to her level. Force him to be fallible.

One day, she got her wish. The argument had been particularly vicious. He was convinced she was lying to him about being with another man. She’d never cheated on him, but she didn’t do anything to make him feel comfortable with this fact. She eventually got tired of arguing and admitted that, while she hadn’t cheated on him, she’d kept from him the fact that she had slept with an old friend from high school before they’d met. On the surface, that seemed trivial. The problem was that he’d asked her directly about her sexual partners and she’d lied and then maintained that lie for two years. Charlie had lost it. He’d hit her repeatedly and when she’d fallen to the floor he’d kicked her.

She’d cried and begged and pleaded for him to stop, but inside she’d felt at peace. She’d felt she was finally good enough because he wasn’t so perfect any more. She’d felt as if she could finally handle the pain raging through her, as if the tears were a release and she could finally breathe. The bruises healed quickly, and were easily forgotten, but now she had what she needed – the key to pushing him over the edge.

The sound of a book slapping the floor startled Claire out of her thoughts. Bridget sat patiently waiting, her green eyes alight with curiosity. Taking a deep breath, Claire set her coffee down and looked directly at Bridget. ‘Let me explain …’

Evan knelt to pick up the book he’d dropped and calm his racing heart. He moved slowly so as not to betray his presence. He’d come to the back of the store to re-shelve the books customers had left out over the course of the day. He tried to keep on top of the stack so that he could close out quickly each night. He also wasn’t a guy to sit around twiddling his thumbs. Mindy, his part-time helper, was off sick today and none of the morning’s books were put back.

He hadn’t meant to eavesdrop. Owning a bookstore, you learnt to tune out most people’s conversations. For whatever reason, people seemed to believe that because you were talking to someone specifically, everyone else around you didn’t exist. He’d heard a lot of crazy conversations until he’d acquired the selective hearing necessary to give his customers their privacy.

Evan had been tackling the New Age section when he’d heard Bridget talking with Claire. He’d been a bit surprised that she’d confessed her rape to Claire so soon after meeting her. Evan knew about it; he’d been friends with Bridget for years now. She’d been one of his very first customers after he’d opened the store. She and Marianne had clicked when they’d met and she’d been a good friend to him in the days after Marianne’s death. Evan knew that Bridget was very protective of that information. She didn’t like to be perceived as a victim. The fact that she’d told Claire meant she was feeling particularly simpatico with her.

No, what had shocked Evan and had him dropping books on the floor was Claire. Evan was having a hard time absorbing what she was saying. She seemed so fragile, so timid. Believing that she had provoked repeated beatings was like asking him to believe the sky was red. It flew in the face of his expectations. It also had him wondering if she’d ever heard of impact play. Given the fact she hid every title she read from his erotica section, he doubted highly that she did. She seemed to be completely new and naive to it all.

He’d noticed her selections the evenings she stayed to read. She was working her way through his Erotica section pretty quickly, but was focusing on light dominance and submission stories. She never bought any of the books either. She simply read them in the store and placed them back on the shelf before leaving.

The knee on which Evan was kneeling was beginning to protest his prolonged stay in that position. Shards of pain were spearing through his thighs and down his calf. Hardwood floors didn’t make for comfortable kneeling. Evan eased himself down onto the floor, doing his best to remain silent and praying no customers would come in. He wanted to hear what Claire was saying.

She spoke in a low voice, forcing him to strain to hear her words. She was telling Bridget about the beatings she provoked from her ex-boyfriend. Her words were clipped and strained, as if she was prying each one out of some dark recess in her brain. The staccato nature of her words let Evan know this was not something she spoke of often or with ease. Finally, she quieted and the silence drew out.

Evan found himself praying that Bridget would be compassionate with her. He was aware that while she’d never been judgmental of the life he and Marianne had chosen, she also wasn’t a practitioner. Her proclivities were as vanilla as they came. It was possible that what was so clear to Evan might not even occur to Bridget and, if she handled Claire incorrectly right now, Claire might never realise the truth of her situation.

The silence dragged on, stretching the air tight like a rubber band. The waiting was beginning to grate on Evan. He wanted to see what was going on, but decided against moving for fear of drawing Claire’s attention. Hell, he wanted to shout at Bridget to answer already. Just as he thought he’d explode from the anticipation, he heard rustling from the back. Someone was moving around, and then Bridget finally broke the silence.

‘Don’t cry, hon,’ she said. Evan’s body went rigid at her words. An insane urge to go comfort Claire swamped him. ‘Shh, darlin’, it’s clear you regret what you did to him, but I think you haven’t forgiven yourself.’

Evan managed to stay where he was, but he risked a quick glance around the stack. Bridget now sat on the coffee table, her back to him. She appeared to be holding Claire’s hand. Claire’s head was down and she was wiping frantically at her eyes. His heart clenched at the sight of her in pain. Claire began to raise her head and Evan ducked back behind the stacks.

‘How can I?’ Claire’s normally smoky voice was liquid with tears. ‘I damaged him. He has never been the same man. He eventually stopped hitting me no matter what I did to him, but by the end of our relationship, he hated me. He told me so.’

‘He probably did hate you, hon.’ Bridget spoke in a soothing tone, but Evan frowned at her words. They were less than sympathetic. ‘You manipulated him into doing something he didn’t want to do. That was abusive, you’re correct, but your real mistake was in not seeking to understand why you were doing it and, if you agreed with your rationale, finding someone willing to do it to you.’

Claire snorted in a derisive exhalation. ‘Who on earth is willing to beat a woman who isn’t some kind of axe murderer?’

‘You’d be surprised. You’re not the only person in the world who receives a physical or psychological benefit from being beaten. The key is to find a partner who is experienced and who knows how to do it without truly harming you.’

‘Isn’t the beating harming me by definition?’

‘No, darlin’, it’s not. The beating is the experience you’re looking for, and because of that it is a benefit to you. It’s only when mistakes happen or your partner goes too far that harm happens. Once it goes beyond the realm of what you negotiated …’ Bridget exhaled roughly. ‘Listen, hon, I’m really not the right person to instruct you in this. I don’t practice BDSM, but I’ve been exposed to it a little bit.’

‘BDSM? Are you talking about sadomasochism? I’m not into whips and chains and blood!’ Claire’s voice was shrill.

‘No, hon. I’m not,’ Bridget soothed. ‘There are people who get into a more extreme version of what I’m talking about, but I’m talking about beating play or something along that line. I don’t recall the name. I know Evan has an erotica section, you should see if you can find some books there. It will give you the info I don’t have.’

Ding.
The bell over the door snapped Evan’s attention away from the women. He stood as smoothly as possible and headed to the front of the store. The women’s conversation faded gently as he greeted the new arrival. Bridget was right. Claire needed to understand that while what she’d done was wrong, it was wrong because Charlie was an unwilling participant. Her underlying need was one many people had. She wasn’t crazy or deranged. The term Bridget had been looking for was “impact play” and Evan had just the book in mind for Claire. The problem was how to get it in her hands without giving away that he’d overheard.

Chapter Five – I Dream a Little Dream of You

‘Y
OU STAYING, HON
? ’Bridget asked as their reading group broke up for the evening. The group milled around them as they grabbed coffee and snacks before heading home.

‘Yup,’ she said around a mouthful of chocolate chip cookie. She needed to watch how many of these she ate. She was beginning to put on weight. ‘I don’t feel like going home just yet. It’s too nice to be home.’ Claire avoided looking at Bridget as she spoke, knowing the flimsiness of her excuse showed, given that she was just going to be sitting in a bookstore rather than sitting in her house, but she didn’t want to talk about it right then. Besides, Bridget already knew why she was staying at Bibliophile rather than going home.

Despite her confession about Charlie, Bridget hadn’t changed her demeanour with Claire. If anything, the shared confidences seemed to have opened a door that made it possible for them to talk candidly. For the first time in her life, Claire felt able to talk unreservedly with another human being and it made her grateful for Bridget’s presence in her life. That didn’t mean, however, that she wanted to pluck raw nerves again and again. Especially since two major things hadn’t changed and one had actually gotten worse.

The first was the fact she was still unable to purchase any of the erotica books that she read. Complicating that very fact was the very real circumstance of her addiction to the genre. After that first night, she devoured the books like a starving woman confronted with food. Every new story fed a previously unknown longing inside her. She absorbed each one, taking them deep into her, and she could feel something inside her changing, growing and becoming elastic. She hadn’t yet attempted to read any of the truly hardcore books, sticking instead to sexual submission, though recently she had read a few stories with bondage and spanking.

She was comforted to realise that she wasn’t the only person exploring the Erotica selections. Someone else was clearly going through the same process she was. She often found books sitting out on the coffee table waiting to be re-shelved. In fact, the last two books she’d read, she’d found already out. Whoever it was, though, had harder inclinations than she did. While she was picking out only light D/s stories, this person was going for harder elements. Enter the bondage and spanking.

She’d almost put the first book back down when the story had turned to bondage. She hated to feel helpless and the thought of allowing someone to tie her down so that she couldn’t protect herself frightened her. Her body had betrayed her, though, and, as she’d come to the end of the chapter, she was once again dripping wet. A state that was becoming a near constant for her.

When she examined her reaction, what she realised was that it wasn’t the bondage itself that frightened her, it was the reality of having to trust your partner with your physical safety. Trust was very hard for Claire. She didn’t trust anyone but Chester. Growing up, Claire’s parents had used every opportunity to humiliate and embarrass her. They weren’t physically abusive in any way; more neglectful, really. Claire began taking care of herself more or less at the age of ten, doing everything short of cooking her own meals – the one thing her father demanded of her mother. What they were was emotionally abusive, and it had devastated Claire’s self-confidence. She had learnt very young not to trust anyone with her deeper self because the only thing they would do is use it to hurt you.