Page 137 of Unorthodox
But after the first week, my brain gave me an escape.
The hours passed faster, and even the baths weren’t so bad.
It was as if I was merely an observer in my own life.
I didn’t have to feel anything.
It was all…detached.
The same way it was when I was able to watch documentaries as my father raped me.
And when this masked man shoves aside the cotton of my underwear and his fingers touch places he shouldn’t, I keep staring at the front door, the etched glass, the dark, polished wood, and I don’t feel him.
I don’t feel him, and I don’t hear his filthy words.
I block out Mamie’s anguished sobs, too.
Crying gets you nothing.
Crying gets you fucked.
I don’t cry.
I don’t feel.
I block it all out, and I don’t let myself go weak, like I did with Max after Ben.
Time seems to stand still like this, but it doesn’t matter, because I’m not in it. It isn’t real.
Even as the man uses a knife to cut my shirt, yanking the fabric from between the binds of my rope, and even when he cuts my shorts, too, until I’m in nothing but my underwear, I don’t exist in the moment.
It’s happening to someone else.
As the man stows his gun so he can use his hand, I’m somewhere else.
Someone else has a blade held to their chest, and someone else has a man’s fingers inside of them. Someone else is being told that they’re nothing, ruined, wreckage.
Someone else is enduring it all as the guard by the door watches, but it isn’t me.
I’m not here.
I wonder why I didn’t do this with Max. Is it because I was attracted to him? Is it because, at first, he was gentle? It is because I’m insane?
All I know is that now, I’m not here.
This isn’t my life.
And maybe no one will come for me, but it doesn’t matter.
I already left.
The man’s fingers are rough, his laughter loud, and I have to work harder to block it all out. Mamie’s cries are high pitched, and I grit my teeth around the rope, trying to disappear.
He grabs my face, tipping my head up, forcing me to look at him.
“You’re so wet,” he says with menace, “you disgusting little whore. You’re so fucking wet.”
I don’t listen.
