Page 11 of Fallen Petal

Chapter 5

Petal

Molten iron. That’s what it feels like. A thin line of blazing heat, joined in a very specific place as it leaves its bite on my behind. And then another one. An infliction so cruel that it brings tears to my eyes.

He doesn’t leave anything to chance, I can tell that much. Each one of his strikes is well thought out and meticulously placed. Alternating between sides, left, right, left, right, as he slowly moves downward, until he has covered the entire area from my lower back to the backside of my thighs. I can feel the lines where the cane meets my skin long after the impact happened. Not every stroke hurts the same. Some come with such agony that they blind me momentarily, making it impossible to think straight, let alone process the burn, before the next follows. The hit that follows such blindingly strong bites is usually a lot more gentle, almost pleasant as it heats my skin with its own kind of pain.

I’m sweating, panting and mewling, my exertion becoming more obvious with every blow—but I never scream. I never cry, I never beg or yell out for him to stop.

Until now.

Because just when I thought he’d be done with it, after leaving a last and particularly painful assault at the back of my left thigh, he moves the cane back up, grazing the wood along my sore skin, still prickling with a warm afterburn—before he begins anew.

I can’t suppress a shrill cry this time. It’s too much. The cane lands on the exact same spot it did when he first started, telling of his perfect aim when the attack is more than just an addition to its predecessors. It’s a memory just as much, a memory of the anguish that was unleashed before.

And it follows another, again, kissing skin that has been burned before. My shriek is so loud that I scare myself, jerking in fear of my own voice.

“No, no, no please!” I plead, unable to control the tone of my voice. It sounds foreign, like that of a stranger. “I can’t! Please stop!”

Swoosh.

The sound caused by the cane as it is swung through the air is more petrifying than the attack itself. It’s piercingly loud, drowning out everything else, even my own wailing I can no longer stop.

I continue pleading and begging, but my voice is so far away, so strange and distanced from myself that I’m not even sure it’s truly there. Am I still crying? Am I still begging for him to stop? Is that my voice out there, howling and wailing in between stifling sobs—or am I imagining things?

My vision blurs and I close my eyes, shielding myself from the outside world and the anguish that has become too much to bear.

Why is he doing this to me? What have I done to deserve this?

I’m dizzy, thrown back and forth between blinding pain and confusing warmth that embraces me like a soothing blanket. I don’t know what this warmth is, and I don’t understand how it’s possible that there’s anything pleasant within all of this. But there is. I’m sure of it now.

And there comes a point where it takes over. The pain of his continuing strokes is still there, but they’ve lost their meaning. Their anguish no longer controls me. Something else does.

I’m smiling, tasting salty liquid as my tears crawl down my cheeks and between my lips, mixing with sweat that pearls down my temples.

What is this? What am I feeling?

I’m happy.

How can I be happy?

All of a sudden, the blows stop coming, and my tortured skin remains untouched, out in the open but no longer receiving fiery bites from the cane.

No. Don’t stop. Not now!

The mewl that flees my mouth now is not one evoked by pain but sorrow. I’m floating, lost and confused but with a smile on my face, put there by insanity. His voice pierces through my hazy delirium, but I don’t catch the words. He’s closer now, leaning against my anguished back like he did before, and fiddling with the shackles around my wrists.

And a moment later, I’m falling. My limbs are no longer secured to the cross, providing no support when my legs give in and my vision darkens, despite my eyes being wide open now.

He catches me, his strong arms wrapping around me and lifting me up while my head falls back.

“No.” I can hear my protest, but I don’t understand it. Do I really want him to continue?

I think I do. The pain was more intense, more cruel and mind-numbing than any other he’s inflicted on me before—but it brought me here. It sent me to this paradise, this odd high that’s nothing but sheer bliss. He stopped just as I got here. Why did he stop now?

I’m scared that it will end any moment, scared that I will return to the puzzling reality that makes me question my own sanity, scared of the pain that awaits there. I’d rather have this. This ecstasy, this dream.

I hold on to it with such vigor that I don’t even realize I’m no longer in his arms until my body is already pressed against something else. Warm and neither soft nor hard. Leather. I’m lying on my stomach, on a bench so narrow that my arms and legs are falling to the sides, and while it wakes memories of the moment I woke up downstairs in the basement, it’s very different to then. The place is different, my physical position, and—most of all—the way I feel.

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