Page 53 of Reclaiming Love

Chapter 29

One time. One time only. Then never again. Ever. If she did this one thing, she would never have to worry about him posting those pictures of her anywhere. She’d never have to worry about them showing up suddenly on her computer at work, or being emailed to her on her phone, in a year, or five, ten or twenty years from now.

One time. She still hadn’t taken a step forward. One time.

“Come on, Mel. One last time. Give me a proper ‘goodbye’ ‘cos you know how much I’m going to miss you and that beautiful body of yours.”

Her mind scrambled to make meaning of his filthy request. She tried to convince herself it would just be sex. No different from most of the other times with him. It had only been sex then too. Two bodies rubbing together. No emotion, no feeling, nothing much in it for her.

One time.

One.

More.

Time.

She could do this. Nobody would ever find out what she had done. How she’d lowered herself.

“One time,” she said, surprising herself with her ability to suddenly find her voice.

“Really?” The way his eyebrows lifted told her he’d not been expecting this answer.

“I want all the photos. All of them. Put them on a memory stick now. And I want to see you delete them in front of me. Do you hear me?”

He ran his hands through his hair. “Yeah, sure.”

“Now.”

“Now?” He angled his head, looking at her closely with a mixture of surprise and urgency, as though she might change her mind suddenly.

“The photos first.”

“Yeah, sure. Okay.” He moved fast. Grabbed his phone. She moved over to watch him closely. “I want to see you delete them.” Her voice didn’t even sound like hers and she was already miles away in her head, in some far off distant place. But she watched him like a hawk. He came over to her and flicked through them, deleting each one before forwarding to the next one.

Jesus Christ. How many had he taken?There must have been about twenty or more. She’d never realized there were that many.

“Done,” he said, finally, looking a little shamefaced.

“Your PC.” She motioned over to this desk, and he started on that next. It had a password and she watched him type it in. Then he fiddled around with the different folders, pointing and clicking his mouse until he had located her images.

“Show me and then I want to see you delete them,” she ordered.

He showed her the thumbnails of files she recognized as hers and then he copied them over for her onto a memory stick. Then he hit the delete button on his computer.

“Here you go.” He removed the memory stick from the computer and handed it to her. “Why do you want them anyway? I thought you hated those pictures.”

“They’re mine.” She wasn’t sure, but something told her it made sense for her to have them. She took the USB and put it away safely into her bag, finding herself watching everything going on around her as if she had stepped outside her body. Time had slowed down. Opening her bag, dropping the USB stick inside it, zipping it shut again, seemed to take forever and all the while that beating drum she’d been hearing was the sound of her own frightened heart.

“You’ve got what you wanted.” His voice was hoarse.

She heard him and watched him walk over to lock the door, but felt rooted to the spot, unable to move. He sauntered back to her, raising his arms and tearing off his T-shirt.

Now.

She was filled with dread; acutely aware of her tongue sticking to the root of her mouth, of her shallow breaths that made her feel dizzy.

Shirtless, he approached her. “Taking this off would be a start.” He moved the strap of her handbag off her shoulder and her body started to shake at his touch.

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