The Florencia Lozano Homepage - Fan Fiction
AFFLICTION
BY TROG |
CHAPTER
54 |
CHAPTER 54
Todd’s plane wasn’t ready. His pilot couldn’t get a flight plan out of Greece until the following day and considering Tea‘s fragile state Todd thought she needed to rest for the night. Antonio had insisted on taking her to the hospital, but Tea had refused.
They had checked out of their modern hotel in Sparta and opted for a small, private hotel in Mistra where Jorgo helped them to check in under assumed names. Jorgo knew the owners and told them that they were cousins of his from Chicago.
The hotel was built into the ruins of an old castle that clung to the side of Mt. Taygetus complete with a sweeping view of the port. Todd watched the fishing boats bobbing softly in the moonlight in the old port of Gytheion as he peered through the pretty, scrolled wrought-iron grate that covered their window. Looking around the simple room with its heavy mahogany bed and armoire, its white-washed walls and pictures of classical Greece decorating them, he felt safe though Aaron Blackmoor was still out there...probably looking for them, but...he always felt safe with Tea. She was his Gytheion...his safe harbor.
Walking over to a small table, he stared at their dinner...cold and untouched. The woman who ran the place had been kind enough to provide it, Jorgo informing her that Tea had been mugged, but Tea had just moved it around her plate and not said a word since their arrival.
For hours after leaving the island she had held on to him, her fingers so forceful and desperate they had bruised his skin with their need, but she had barely spoken a word and the silence between them was becoming oppressive with unanswered questions and the darkest fears.
She had taken a long shower and lingered in the bathroom and as he leaned against the door listening for sounds of her, he finally knocked softly.
“Tea,” he said gently, “are you okay?”
There was a long silence, then some movement when suddenly he saw the doorknob turning and the door swung open as he stepped back. She stood there wearing a brown shirt that she had borrowed from him, her hair long and loose, her arms braced tightly around her chest protectively, looking around this strange room.
Todd noticed the dark bruises on her inner thighs and was filled with revulsion at the thought of what Aaron Blackmoor had done to her...his own dark memories rising slowly from that place where he kept them hidden. Rape. He was afraid to ask the question....and clearly she didn’t want to discuss it so it loomed around them like a dark shadow in this pretty room...threatening everything.
“I like this room,” she said, in a very odd, almost casual tone, fingering the delicate lace of the doily on the dresser by the bed.
“Yeah...it’s okay,” said Todd, not knowing how to respond. He noticed that she kept some distance from him where as a few hours ago she had clung to him desperately. “There’s some...uh...ice for your lip on the table.”
“No...it’s okay...I...put some cold water on it...the swelling is almost gone...it’s nothing really...not so bad.”
She walked to the window and looked out at the darkness....across the water...the water she swam in every day for weeks while she waited for him...water, a liquid barrier that had become as impenetrable as prison bars that kept her from her freedom...water...beautiful, terrifying...water. She began crying uncontrollably and Todd instinctively walked toward her but she put her hand out and stopped him from coming closer.
“NO! I’m okay...I hate myself for being like this....for being so weak...I don’t know what’s wrong with me,” she said, shaking her head, her arms around her waist as she rocked back and forth.
“I’m going to kill him...for this....for what he did to you,” said Todd bitterly, looking away from her and leaning against the wall helplessly.
Tea looked up and slowly walked over to him. As she stood before him she reached up and touched his face turning it towards hers and finally looking him in the eye.
“Todd...he didn’t rape me. Is that what you’re thinking?”
Todd stared down at her, surprised and relieved.
“But...the bruises...I thought...I was so sure he would...because of me,” he said.
“He...tried to...he threatened to...if you....hadn’t come when you did.... When you were walking around outside the closet...I thought you were him. I thought he’d come back to finish me off....make me his wife...that’s what he called it,” she gasped, remembering his words. “I was so scared, Todd...I’ve never felt such singular hatred, such focused rage from someone like when he was on top of me...like...I was nothing...a powerless, hated thing. His hatred neutralized me...nullified me. His words were so ugly....so humiliating...about you and me...like he was trying to turn my love for you into something depraved...vile. He wanted to rape something out of me...perhaps, my love for you... he wanted to crush my soul, the one he couldn’t control, couldn’t have...and he was going to rip my body apart in order to do it...MY BODY...the only thing thats mine...and...I was too fucking weak to even stop him,” said Tea, as she buried her face in her hands. “I don’t know what I’m saying...”
Todd watched her, wanting to hold her...but afraid to touch her...terrified of her rejection. Her words...they reminded him of someone else...of Marty.
“That’s what I did, Tea. That’s who I am. Is that why you’re so confused? Is that what you’re afraid to say? Did Aaron Blackmoor finally open your eyes to the real me...to the man you refuse to see...the man that makes you hate yourself for wanting to be with?”
Tea looked up at him as he turned away from her, avoiding her eyes.
“No...no...no, Todd! When he was...hurting me....humiliating me...I never once thought of you. Not once. I just can’t imagine you that way.”
‘WELL I AM THAT WAY! I’M WORSE THAN THAT...MAYBE IT’S TIME YOU SAW IT! STOP MAKING ME OUT TO BE SOME HERO, TEA...I’M A RAPIST...A RAPIST, TEA! THAT’S WHO I AM!” he shouted, walking away and leaning his head against the grate of the window. “You never asked me about it, Tea...about Marty. How come? Are you afraid to know who I really am?”
Todd suddenly turned and came toward her viciously, his face tight and angry...his eyes cold.
“I raped Marty Saybrook...and I enjoyed it. I loved hurting her...bruising her...humiliating her...breaking her under me. I laughed at her pain! It made me feel good...I felt like a fucking king! I WAS ON TOP! I WAS IN CHARGE! MADE HER BEG ME TO STOP! ME, TEA...I DID THAT TO SOMEONE,” he shouted pointing at himself. “Aaron Blackmoor is a fucking boyscout compared to me.”
‘STOP IT! STOP THIS!” she shouted back. “THIS ISN’T ABOUT YOU, TODD. THIS ASSAULT WAS ON ME! STOP COMPARING MY PAIN TO YOURS...DIMINISHING MY EXPERIENCE...WHAT HAPPENED TONIGHT...IT HAPPENED TO ME...NOT YOU! DAMN YOU! STOP USING MY PAIN TO FURTHER YOUR OWN SELF-PITYING AGENDA...OKAY? CAN YOU DO THAT FOR ONCE...FOR ME, TODD? CAN YOU?”
Todd was silenced by her sudden rage, her volatile resentment of his past. He watched her walk over to the bed and sit down...angry tears streaming down her face as her hands clutched the bedding nervously.
She was right. Even in this moment when she needed him he managed to turn everything around to focus back on him, as if his suffering was still more important...his infinitely superior suffering. After all this time he still needed her hatred...needed to be punished for what he did so long ago...even now. He had used Blair in this way...now, he was trying to use her, testing her...orchestrating the demise of his future with her...just like Dr. Woolf had predicted he would.
He walked over and sat beside her, staring down at the gashed, bruised knuckles of her hands, those hands that had pounded for hours on that closet door as she waited for a madman to rape her...while she waited for him...trusting him to save her.
“I’m such selfish bastard, Tea. I always put me first...even before you and my kids. And you’re right...I have aggrandized my crimes over the years and used them to manipulate everyone who’s had the misfortune to love me. But...I love you...more than anything, I love you...and...I never wanted that part of my life to touch you. You’re that one thing in my life that had nothing to do with that. I didn’t want you to look at me and see...that man...that man who did that to Marty...and to others...that man that I really am.”
Tea looked up at him.
“Todd....I’ve always seen that man. I know what you did...I know what your father did to you...what you did to me, to Blair...to your own child...I know it all, Todd! When I look at you I see all of that...but...I also see so much more. I see all the good parts you refuse to see...the parts that love me...that love your children and your family. How else could I love you? Why do you define yourself only by the bad things you’ve done? Why does their value merit so much more significance in your life then me...then your children? Do you think that your children are less important? Is loving me so trivial compared to the rape of Marty Saybrook?”
Tea stood up and walked to the window continuing in a trembling voice.
“Sometimes...I think you love your crimes more than anything else. Their stature has taken on such a grand and mythical dimension over the years, Todd...I don’t think I can compete with them for your attention. Sometimes...I don’t know if you value love as much as you value your own self-pity and self-hatred. I wish...I meant as much to you as that rape...I wish that loving me was as important to you, as epic and defining in proportion as that one incident. You see, mi amor...I‘m quite selfish too. So selfish that I find myself competing with a rape victim for the top spot in your life.”
Todd was astonished as he listened to her, his heart breaking with the pain of her words...and the truth inside their meaning. He had given so much power to his pain over the years that everything and everyone worthwhile had taken a backseat to it. Getting up slowly he walked over and stood behind her.
“You’re right, Tea. I have become...comfortable...with being Todd Manning the rapist. Comfortable pain. But you’re wrong....I mean you’re right and wrong. Raping Marty...it did define my whole existence...for a long time...and I never believed anything could take the pain of that away....nothing could make it right. But then it happened....I fell in love with you. And that became the most defining moment of my life...the most...frightening...the most torturous...the most difficult...the most rewarding...the most beautiful thing that’s ever happened in my life. You’ve taught me everything I know about love...something I never even believed in before. If it wasn’t for you, Tea...that rape would have darkened my whole life...because in that rape I proved to myself what I was. I was doomed to be the man my father was...but...then...with you...I wasn’t that man...I became the man that Tea Marissa Delgado loves....and...I that’s the man I want to be,” he said as tears filled his eyes. “There’s no competing for the top spot in my life...it’s yours. It will always be yours.”
Tea turned around and smiled up at his tear-stained face, wiping it gently with her hand. She leaned against him and he wrapped his arms around her.
“You are that man, querido...you have always been that man. Stop living in the past, you‘ve done your time, Todd...with your father...with Blair...enough punishment. Enough suffering. Let‘s start living, amor....let’s move on.”
Todd closed his eyes and nodded, nuzzling her face softly, resting his weary, battered soul against hers.
“I’m so tired, Tea...or carrying my past around with me. I want to let it go...for you...for me...for us,” he whispered. “Baby...let’s go to bed...you need to sleep. You look wiped...and me...I haven’t slept since you left. Come on, you need some rest,” he said as he lead her to the large, inviting mahogany bed with its lace coverlet and crisp cotton sheets.
She laid down on her side and he laid beside her, pulling off his shoes and letting them drop to the floor. Tea moved around a bit and finally settled beside him, her head nestled in the crook of his arm as he stroked her hair softly and watched her drowsy eyes close.
Looking down at her he touched her bruised lip gently with the tip of his finger causing Tea to open her eyes and look up at him, reading the worried expression in his hazel eyes.
“I’m okay, querido,” she said before closing her eyes again.
He watched her for awhile, listening as her breathing became soft and regular. When he was sure she was asleep, he finally closed his eyes and let himself drift away with her.
to be continued...
2002 Copyright by Trog
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