He knelt on my thighs. I could hear him undoing his pants. “Don’t move. Don’t fucking move,” he growled. I obeyed, because I didn’t want him to choke me again. I turned my thoughts inward, away from the hands and hips and cock shoving between my legs. The rape part barely registered. Of course it hurt, and it was terrifying and awful, but not as terrifying and awful as knowing he was probably going to suffocate me when he finished. I started to weep, moaning against the panties in my mouth.
He made a disgusted sound. “Crying like a fucking baby. Shut the fuck up.”
He ripped my blouse open, yanked down my bra and grasped my breasts as he thrust into me. It hurt so bad. My skirt was still up around my waist, a bundle of fabric between his hips and mine. In the midst of a hard thrust, he jerked the string of costume pearls and broke it. Pearls scattered everywhere. Cheap jewelry. I was going to die wearing cheap jewelry with my skirt up to my waist and my panties in my mouth. No. You can’t die. You have to fight him. I scratched frantically at his arms as he tugged off my blouse and bra and tossed them across the room. I screamed through the gag, praying someone passing by in the hall might hear me.
But no one came to my rescue, and he didn’t let me escape. He held me down by the arms and drove into me without mercy, until my frantic cries broke from the force of his thrusts. Oh, God, what happened when he finished? What happened when he came? Was that the moment he would kill me? All I could think was fight, Chere, fight, even though the fighting wasn’t getting me anywhere. Tears ran down my cheeks into my nose, into my ears.
He pulled out of me and I fought like hell to get away, to escape his grip. He only grasped me harder and forced me over onto my stomach. When I tried to head butt him, he held my face down into the covers. I couldn’t breathe. I was going to die. The edges of my vision went black again and I thought, this is it. So fast. So soon.
But no, I woke again from a virulent, scarlet-tinged dream I couldn’t remember. He was pounding into me from behind now. I tried to crawl away, to escape this violence, but he just dragged me back and made me submit. There was a ticking in my brain. Maybe it was the last remaining seconds of my life counting down.
I wondered where W was, if he’d left the hotel yet. I wondered how he would feel when Henry told him what had happened to me. He’d feel guilty. He’d blame himself. And Simon… Oh, Simon. He’d go off the deep end, go totally batshit and overdose on some drug.
No, I couldn’t die like this. It was wrong. It was horrible and wrong and impossible. I fought with all my strength, kicking, bucking, jerking my shoulders back and forth to try to dislodge his weight.
“Yeah, baby, fight me,” he chanted, fucking me harder. “The more you fight me, the harder I’m going to come. I’m going to come so fucking hard.”
I could feel pearls rolling around on the bed beneath me, under my breasts, under my cheek. I felt him jerk inside me, felt his fingers tighten on my shoulders as he came in a series of stuttering thrusts. I waited to feel those fingers close around my neck. Would he suffocate me like this, with my face in the sheets, or would he turn me over and watch my eyes as he choked the life out of me? I thought he’d probably want to watch me die, but he didn’t turn me over. He groaned instead, and collapsed on top of me.
Oh shit, there were the fingers on my neck. Holy shit. I was so scared. I didn’t want to die. I gave a long, low moan of agonized denial. This blond man was going to be my killer, and I didn’t want that. I hadn’t planned to die like this. It was so sordid, so violent.
“No, please,” I begged with the last of my breath, as his fingers tightened around my windpipe and cut off my air.
Then they loosened. The man kissed the back of my neck and laughed softly against my ear.
And I knew that laugh. It was W’s laugh.
I felt so many feelings in that moment. I felt such an explosion of angst and disbelief that I literally couldn’t cope. I couldn’t think or react. I felt rage, I felt humiliation, I felt confusion, I felt relief, I felt sadness. But mostly I felt rage. I started trembling, uncontrollable trembling that made the bed shake. He lifted me a little. The pearls rolled under me, pooling into groups on the sheets.