Page 30 of Was I Ever Free

She reacts just like I thought she would, huffing and puffing loudly, lightly stomping her foot on the ground. “How is that fair? Why do you get all of the control?”

I smoke my cigarette coolly and lick my lips. “You get to use me, I get to choose how and when. Yes?”

Her breath hitches before answering, “Stop saying it that way.”

“It’s the truth, isn’t it?” I reply flatly.

Her hands fall to her side while she looks into the blackened night, her fingers playing anxiously against the fabric of her blue-washed jeans before her eyes slip back to mine.

“Deal,” she says.

“Deal?”

“I know you heard me the first time,” she mumbles. Then, while staring at the ground she adds, “So when does it start?”

I take another drag of my smoke before dropping it and crushing it with the tip of my shoe. “Now.” Reaching for the door, I step back into the strip club.

“Now?” I hear Lucy stutter out. This time, I do smile knowing she’s behind me and won’t witness the thrill I’m getting from our little interaction. Still, I lead her back to our seats in the dark corner of the club. Sitting down, I order another round of drinks as if I didn’t just agree to corrupt Lucy in ways she hasn’t even dared to conjure up yet. The added delight of knowing I’m keeping her on edge and in the dark until I decide it’s time for round one excites me more than most things in this shit life.

Maybe this road trip will be worth my time after all.

16

Bastian has not said a word since we started our way back to the motel. I do not bother coaxing him to speak even though the silence between us is… tantalizing.

Is he thinking about us?

About how he plans to show me all the things I cannot even begin to conceive from my limited experience. The thought of him teaching me what he likes, what makes himfeelis more than enough for me to get tongue-tied while we slowly walk on the deserted street. The intermittent street lights expose his shuttered expression, his left eye still slightly bruised, looking like some wayward gladiator as we slowly pass them one by one.

In turn, I would learn what I like. What I desire—what… turns me on. Realizing how foreign that sensation feels drifting inside of me leaves a small ache in its wake. I was taught to please men, in servitude and in faith. We were mere tools for their own needs.

The thought of finally focusing onmyneeds thrills me. I bite back a small huff, exasperated with my inability to even think about those words without the heat of embarrassment prickling my cheeks.

How am I going to navigate this new territory if I cannot even manage to think salacious thoughts, albeit modestly, without wanting to cringe?

I have long ways to go, but I am determined. Eventhough Bastian is a block of ice and it feels like I will never have any legitimate tools to chip at his walls. Maybe deep down, that is what I prefer—it is safer if he stays behind his armor.

I much prefer indifference to what I experienced with my husband.

Experiences I now have words for. Sometimes I wish I did not.

They seem to always leave an invisible mark on my skin anytime I force myself to say them out loud.

Violence. Degradation. Humiliation. Subservience.

Imogene is always so proud when I do.

“You’ve come such a long way, Lucy,” she told me the last time I saw her.

But how can I tell her it feels like taking a razor blade to my tongue?

The sound of a key sliding into a lock manages to snap me out of my drab thoughts.

How did I get here?

How did thinking about sex lead me tohim? To my past. It is a rhetorical question, one I do not bother to answer. Everything always leads me back to my past. Never free, even thousands of miles away and a dead husband buried six feet deep.

“You should get some sleep,” Bastian mutters while flicking the light switch on.

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