I hate the ache inside me that isn’t fear or anger or any emotion I can name.
I shuffle to the edge of the bed, every movement slow like the air’s turned to molasses, heavy and resistant, and I press the heels of my palms into my eyes hard enough to see stars. If I cry, I don’t want to feel it happening. If I scream, I want it to echo back and knock the breath out of me, to hurt me more than he has.
But I do neither.
Because that’s what he wants.
That’s what he’s waiting for on those monitors.
He wants the meltdown. The collapse. The soft girl who sobs into his hand and begs for kindness that doesn’t exist in his world.
He doesn’t get her from me.
I swing my legs off the mattress, bare feet hitting cold marble that sends a shock through my system, and that’s when I feel it properly.
Inside.
His cum still there.
The sick satisfaction of being marked from the inside out.
I grab the nearest thing I can find—his discarded tie from earlier, probably thrown there on purpose as some kind of test—and I throw it with all the force I can muster. Hard. It hits the mirror across the room with a quiet slap and slides down like even it doesn’t want to be here anymore.
I laugh at the absurdity.
It’s a hollow, cracked thing that scrapes my throat raw.
Then I stand on unsteady legs and walk to the ensuite, ignoring the bruises on my hips that are starting to bloom purple and the soreness that throbs like a brand between my legs. I turn the tap, expecting the relief of water.
The water doesn’t run.
I try again, turning the handle harder.
Nothing but the ghost of pipes that should be flowing.
My heart ticks once. Then faster.
He shut off the water.
No. No—he wouldn’t be that cruel.
Except he would.
Controlling my access to basic necessities is just another way to remind me who holds the power.
I laugh again, louder this time. Unhinged. Borderline manic.
He’s not just keeping me here.
He’s controlling how I bleed.
How I breathe.
How I wash him off my skin.
I sink to the tiled floor in front of the sink, my knees pulled to my chest, and I let my nails dig into my skin hard enough to leave crescent-shaped marks that will bruise by morning.
Then I whisper, not to him, not to the cameras, not even to myself really.
