Chapter Nine

       Brenda covered her nudity with a blanket, ashamed and disgusted. She told herself she had a choice, but it was a lie. There was no way she'd be able to defend herself from his unwanted advances. Then there was the idea she owed him something in return for providing her with food and shelter. After all she had no job or a place to call her own. Whether she liked it or not, it had to be done. In order to assure her survival she must submit.

She shivered as he leaned over her. His thick body repulsed her, made her stomach sour and Goosebumps to spring up across her limbs. It was like looking at a mountain of flesh covered with fine curly hair before it threatened to crush her. Then he was on top of her, all two hundred and fifty pounds of him and she thought for certain he would crush her. Thankfully he shifted his weight. Perhaps he had seen her face cringe in discomfort. Still, he was a giant and she knew he'd conquer his objective regardless of her unwilling attitude, as his needs overshadowed hers. After all, that male part of him needed satisfying. And she realized that specific part he thought with more so than his brain.

He was just like all the others. This didn't surprise her none. She almost expected it. Such an awful thing was known as the Curse. For it didn't just descend on her.

Brenda abruptly wrenched her face away before he managed a sloppy kiss. This act of defiance only excited him though and instead he lashed his tongue out at her cheek, something she despised. Sickened she tried to cease his crude game by covering his mouth with one small palm, but she underestimated his lust. He captured her hand and pulled it away by the slender wrist with one sinister smile. To him it was all just a game. To her it was rape.

His awful tongue prodded her ear, licking the small hole she needed for hearing, and anger overcame her. As the powerful image faded and the misery of her situation again enveloped her in darkness she somehow discovered strength she never imagines possible. She bit, hit and kicked, but again she only added fuel to his fire.

To think this was what her life had become made her resign to the fact there was nothing better for her out there. She lay limp as he continued to assault her, his body an instrument of pain, and as she stared up at the ceiling she felt the tears come. Surely there had to be a better life. This couldn't be it for her. She closed her eyes.

At the feel of his release inside her she finally felt two hundred and fifty pounds roll away and was finally able to move again, take a deep breath. She wasted no time. She bolted upright before his chunky hands found the small of her back or squeezed her breasts. Covered in his sweat and saliva, she hurried to the bathroom where she drew herself a hot bath. She sprinkled some bath salts into the steaming body of water after placing the stopper in the drain, returned them to the cabinet above the sink and quickly consulted the door as she hurt him knock.

"Can I join you?" His voice made her knees nearly buckle.

 "I rather have a bath alone," she said, trying to sound pleasant, but the edge in her voice suggested irritancy.

 Thankfully she had remembered to lock the door as she watched the knob turn one way and then the other.

"Are you sure," he asked and she recognized the tone in his voice. He was ready for her again.

 Brenda leaned against the sink and buried her face in her palms. Why couldn't he take a hint?

 "I am sure." She said it between her fingers as she lowered her hands. What use would a bath be if when she returned he would take her again? She turned and paused. Her reflection in the mirror resembled a fright of a woman whose young twenty-five years felt more like fifty-five. She crouched and opened the cabinet where a vast assortment of shower gels and soaps cluttered the small square space. She gathered the Japanese Cherry Blossom liquid gel body in the crook of her arm as she also retrieved a shower puff, bottle of shampoo and bottle of conditioner. She organized them on the ledge of the bone white tub and stepped into the searing bath water.

There was never water hot enough to wash off his scent, never soap powerful enough to get her clean. As she lay back and allowed it the surround her in a sea of tranquility she again prayed for a solution. Any solution would do. She didn't care anymore. Even death seemed a more suitable existence than living here with him. She closed her eyes and tried hard to convince herself there was a light at the end of the tunnel, but as her eyes opened and she again heard him knock and wiggle the doorknob she weighed her options one final time.

As long as she was here she would never be free. And if she left he would always try to find her. There was no escape, at least not one she could think of and as Brenda squirted a small amount of the sweet fragrance of Japanese Cherry Blossom in her hand she knew the only clear choice was death. She rubbed it over her shoulder as her eyes slid to the medicine cabinet. In it she knew where the razors were. She splashed water over her breasts, squirted this time a generous pool of shower gel into her palm and lathered herself with it. The only thing stopping her from stepping out and dripping water all over the floor in order to get to the blades was the need to wash away his body secretions. She couldn't die having him all over her.

She watched the berry tips of her breast disappear under the foam and moved the scrubbing puff lower. She leaned over to turn off the faucet realizing she had forgotten to and resumed her scrub.

 "Do you need any help," floated his voice from beyond the door.

She wanted to tell him to go to hell, to f**k off and die, but instead she spoke with a civil tongue and said, "I am fine. I will be done in a few minutes."

 A few minutes, she thought. Is that all it would take?

 She closed her eyes again, laid back and rested her head on the hard slant. She didn't know if it was a vivid daydream or perhaps a memory with a life of its own but slowly her mind filled with images. It started fuzzy but cleared as she concentrated.