Mercy (30 page)

“I don’t know! Because it hurts!”

“What does? What hurts?”

“Everything! Everything hurts, Matthew!”

“Oh, for Christ’s sake.” I took her in my arms. She cried weakly, her whole body pressed against mine, as if I could take the pain away.

“Lucy.” I held her, rocking her as she grieved. “You have to stop dancing. You have to stop. I know it’s hard. I know. But I’ll take care of you, I promise.”

“I don’t want to stop,” she whispered with a desperation that broke my heart.

“I know. But if you’re hurting...if you’re hurting enough to take drugs...”

“It’s just for my ankle. It never completely got better. It’s just not totally healed, that’s all.”

“Then why did you go back to work?”

“Because it’s my job!”

“Because you’re a fucking idiot. And now you’ve probably made it worse.”

“Matthew...”

“No, you fucking listen to me. If you ever, ever fucking take another
Vicodin
, I will personally beat you to unconsciousness.”

“I didn’t know what it would do.”

“Well, it’s fucking addictive and you are never to take it again, do you understand?”

“Yes, okay,” she said, holding her head.

“Or are you already on it?”

“No.”

“Tell the truth. What are you on?”

“Nothing. I’m not...nothing... I looked down at her hard but her eyes were starting to close. “I’m so tired. I just want to sleep.”

“Sleep then and get better, because when you’re better, we’re going to talk.”

I watched her fall asleep, holding her close. When her breathing slowed again, I pulled her closer into my arms and I whispered against her cheek, so quietly she never could have heard. “Lucy, you stupid little fuck. Why didn’t you tell me the truth?” Then I just watched her sleep, still and yearning, remembering how it felt to come inside her, finally, unsheathed.

* * *

She woke up again just after dark, looking much better than she had at noon. I’d given Mrs. Kemp the evening off, so I ordered sushi for her, which in hindsight was not the best idea. She sat in her chair and looked a little better when I took the raw fish away and gave her a dish of crackers and some milk.

“Eat it, Lucy,” I said, and she did, slowly, looking ashamed.

“Are you going to punish me?” she asked through a mouthful of crumbs.

“Yes.”

“Tonight?”

“Tomorrow.”

“What are you going to do?”

“I’m going to do my damndest not to kill you.”

She paled a little and looked apologetic. “I’m sorry. I know I must have worried you.”

“Worried me?” It was such an understatement, I was hard pressed not to laugh. “Reckless, Lucy. You’re so fucking reckless with your body. You forget that it’s mine. So yes, you’ll be punished. For lying and hiding things and endangering yourself. What do you think I should do to you?”

She looked down, unwilling to answer.

“You’ve broken every one of my most basic rules. Every one. Over a very long period of time.”

“Maybe you can just forgive me.”

“If I could just forgive you, this wouldn’t be so hard.”

She closed her eyes, pressed her fingers against them. “I hate when you’re angry with me.”

“Lucy, I’m so fucking furious with you. Do you have any idea how it felt, having Kevin rush in here and tell me he couldn’t wake you? Do you know what it felt like to watch you all night to be sure you took your next breath?”

“I’m sorry, Matthew.” She pushed her plate away, tears shining in her eyes.

“Eat.”

“I can’t.”

“At least drink the milk. All of it.”

I watched her drink it and I hated myself for wondering if she might already be growing our child. When she put the glass down, I leaned back and sighed.

“Now go upstairs, kneel on the bed, and fucking prepare yourself to be fucked.”

“Yes, sir.” I knew she’d be crying, full on sobbing, before she got to the stairs.

I cleaned up the kitchen, trying to hold on to my control. We had more to talk about, things I needed to hear her say. When I got upstairs she was as I’d ordered her, on all fours on the bed. I put a condom on and slathered it with lube. I put my hand on her back and pushed down her head so she arched open to me.

“Give me your hands.”

She reached them back to me and I held them hard in one hand, and with the other, I guided my cock to her ass. Roughly I thrust the head in. I felt her adjust with a jerk. I stayed still in her, just the head of my cock for a moment, letting her stretch for me, then I started to fuck her mechanically. She sobbed, not from pain, but because I was angry. She hated when I was angry. But I hated that she kept secrets from me.

I leaned down over her, reaming her ass, and I hissed in her ear, “Lucy. Answer something for me. Do you have any idea what it feels like to be raped?”

She turned her head away, burying it in the pillow, but I turned her back to me pulling by the roots of her hair.

“Answer me, Lucy. Have you ever been raped?”

She didn’t answer for a moment, then sobbed “yes.” Her eyes were screwed shut, closed up tight.

“And what did it feel like? Did it feel like this? Was that feeling of rape all you ever really wanted from me?”

“No!” she cried. And then “Stop,” and that one word,
stop
, was weighted with fear.

“Why didn’t you tell me? Why didn’t you? You want me to stop?” I fucked her harder still. “Do you really want me to stop, Lucy? Or do you want me to rape you? Just like him? That’s what you want, isn’t it? What you’ve always wanted? You’re a liar, you know. All I ever asked for was truth—”

“Stop!” she shouted, her voice hoarse with emotion. “Stop!” She struggled under me and pulled at my hands to get away. I pushed her down to the bed and I fucked her so I probably hurt her, and honestly, if she had said
mercy
then, I wouldn’t have let her go. I loved her hopelessly, but she was more beautiful and perfect than I could bear. I hurt her because she wanted me to hurt her, but it wasn’t for the reason I thought. It wasn’t because she genuinely loved me for me, that wonder of wonders that I had so foolishly believed.

“If you want fucking rape, you’ve got it.” She sobbed and fought me until I finished and let her up. The moment I let her go, she pulled away from me, ran away from me just as I knew she would. While Kevin drove her to
Grégoire’s
, I called him and told him to look after her. I told him it was possible that she might be carrying a child. He asked me
why? Why have you done this?
Not
why did you try to make her pregnant
, but
why are you sending her away
?

Why? God, how to explain it.

I tortured her because I hated her, and I hated her because I loved her. And because I loved her, I needed her to go away. I needed to send her running from me, for her own good and probably mine too. If she hadn’t left that night, I would have punished her the next morning until she did. I would have hurt her until she left, for lying, for not being who I thought she was, for keeping so many secrets from me. Which was ironic, because the biggest lie, the biggest secret, the biggest betrayal, of course, was my own.

Chapter Fourteen: Mercy

I fled from Matthew’s to Georges and
Grégoire’s
place, and they took me in without demanding any explanations. I stayed in bed for two days straight. I wanted to die, but instead all I did was sleep.
Grégoire
came and went, looking guilty and remorseful. I knew that he was the one who had told him about the rape, because, besides me, he was the only one who knew.

“I’m so sorry, Lucy. I’m so sorry that I told him. It just came up in conversation. It slipped.”

“It slipped? What the hell were you talking about to say something like that?”

“We were talking about you and why you’re so screwed up.”

I scowled at him. “Now he thinks the only reason I like him is because I got raped. Like I got imprinted on violence or something.”

Grégoire
looked at me. “Well, didn’t you?”

I didn’t have anything to say to that. I turned my back on him and ignored him until he left. Later that day, Kevin brought all of my things. Two small suitcases and a box of items, including the framed poem Matthew had given me. My entire life. I wanted to beg him to take me back to Matthew’s, but I didn’t because I was too afraid.

I understood why Matthew had been so angry with me. He had told me enough times about his obsession with truth. He had wanted truth and beauty, but gotten deep and encompassing lies. But to me it seemed the broad lies we told to one another were the only thing that kept our relationship alive. For him, it was the lie that he didn’t love me that protected him. For me, it was the lie that I’d always wanted what he gave. Taken together, those lies made up the foundation of our relationship, and now, without them, it had totally collapsed. Those lies we lived by kept our relationship on kilter, kept us frozen in a tableau like that of the Grecian Urn, beautiful and timeless and unable to be ruined. But everything was ruined now. The beautiful, unchanging urn had been broken by the ugliness of truth.

I had felt lost the last time we’d been apart, but this time, when it seemed a permanent break, I was so much more lost than before. I missed him horribly, thought of him obsessively. I wondered hourly if he could possibly forgive my lies, if I stopped taking pain pills, which I did; if I explained to him why I hadn’t told him about the rape. Surely if I just explained it all and said I was sorry, he would forgive me and we could go on again as before. But I was terrified of approaching him because if he sent me away, if he wouldn’t listen, then we would really be through. So instead, I waited in hope that he would come to me. But no, he didn’t, and days stretched into weeks.

My darling
Grégoire
was as true a friend to me as ever. I forgave him for ratting me out to Matthew because I know he hadn’t meant any harm. He weaned me off the pain pills and went with me to the gym and to a physical therapist to try to salvage my joints. And slowly, day by day, the pain did get better. My flexibility returned in part, and without the pills masking the pain, I knew when I pushed too far and could stop before it escalated.

He urged me to eat well too, and take vitamins and supplements, folic acid, and calcium, and protein. He kept me out of clubs where I’d breathe in smoke and be tempted to drink, and strong armed me to bed each night at a reasonable hour. I did as he prompted because I thought it might help me heal faster and stay strong, but all that good nutrition and healthy living after many years of half-assed habits actually made me feel more nauseous and tired, ironically enough.

But I danced through all of it as we entered the summer season because I thought, as always, that this season could be my last. And as it turned out, it was my last season, because the first week in June, my Achilles tendon snapped.

I had thought I’d known pain as a dancer. In fact, I had known pain of all kinds. But the pain of that tendon giving way was more excruciating, more debilitating and terrifying than any pain I’d ever known. The only mercy was that it gave out during practice. The indignity of collapsing onstage would have made it that much worse. I was carted off to the hospital, sobbing and pleading for someone to help me, but there was no one, nothing at all, that could fix this pain.