"No!"
Holly strikes out blindly. Darkness, sheets tangling around her like ropes, someone near her – too near and too far away at once. She can only see the dream; her body doesn't seem to belong to her.
"Hey." Roger's voice shatters the dream, and reinforces it. "Holly. Wake up."
Although her eyes have been open for a while, her vision returns to her then: Roger, naked in her bed, face inches from hers.
"Nightmare?" he says.
Holly shoves herself out of bed so abruptly that she tumbles onto the floor; the impact hurts, but not enough to make her stop moving. When she tries to answer him, the only sound that comes out is closer to a sob than speech. She scuttles backwards like a crab until she pushes through the bathroom door.
Cold tile against her bare skin brings her further back to the here and now. More exhausted than she was before she went to bed, Holly stretches along the bathroom floor. If she just keeps breathing – slow and even – that's it. She'll be all right.
As her vision adjusts to wakefulness, she can distinguish the outlines of the room in the dark. The only light comes through the shades on her bedroom window, through the bathroom door, so there's little to see by. Instead, she listens – to the sound of Roger's feet on the carpet, the liquid slide of his silk robe as he shrugs it on – finally, his knees cracking slightly as he sits in the doorframe of the bathroom. His profile is blacker than the rest of the night. She doesn't sit up.
"Nightmare," he repeats, this time without making it a question.
Holly nods.
"About me."
"Yes."
Roger leans his head back against the door. "I thought so." Each word is heavy with guilt – no, with shame.
She knows he understood the nightmare even before she spoke; that was why he'd put on the robe before he came to her. Maybe he'd been expecting this eventually. She had too, but that doesn't make the dreams any easier to face now that they've returned.
More quietly, he says, "Would it be better if I left?"
"Left the room?"
"The room. The house." He makes a sound too bleak to be laughter. "The state, if that's what you need."
"It wouldn't help. The dreams didn't stop when I thought you were dead, Roger. They're definitely not going to stop just because I think you've driven over state lines."
Her small attempt at humor lifts the corners of his mouth, but Holly knows he isn't really smiling. He runs one hand through his gunmetal hair, which looks positively wild in the dead of night, particularly after they've made love.
Which they did, just a few hours ago. By her will, by her desire. And yet it didn't keep the nightmares at bay.
"I did this to you," he says. "I didn't just abuse your body. I broke your soul."
"Damaged. Not broke." Holly doesn't move from the bathroom floor, absurd as she now feels to be sprawled there naked and wide awake. The smallness of the room means any motion would bring her closer to Roger, and she isn't ready for that yet. "Trust me, damaged is bad enough."
"I trust you. But still you don't trust me."
"Roger. If I didn't trust you, would we be here?" By this she means many things: Living together in the same house again. Lovers again. Even speaking to each other again, given how dire their history has been at its worst.
Roger shakes his head. "Believe me, I know what a miracle your forgiveness is. It's more than I ever dared to hope for, and more than I deserve. But I also know that if we'd really put those horrors behind us, nights like this wouldn't happen."
"We don't get to erase the past." She decides she's ready to sit upright, and does. As he meets her eyes again, Holly continues, "We only get to redeem it. If we're lucky."
He holds out something soft, and she realizes he grabbed a coverlet off the bed and brought it with him for her. Gratefully, she wraps it around her body. The whole Catch-22 of their relationship is summed up perfectly in this blanket, she decides – she needs to be sheltered from Roger, and it's Roger who provides the shelter.
I probably need therapy, she thinks, not for the first time.
"How do I do that?" Roger asks as she snuggles into her blanket cocoon and leans her head against one wall. "How do I repair the most – vicious, destructive act of my life? How do I help you cast out those shadows?"
"That's what I'm telling you. We don't cast out the shadows. They're a part of me forever. I know you'd take it back if you could – I do know that – but you can't. Period."
The resignation on his face moves her as his raw pain did not. Roger's melodrama mostly entertains Roger, but when he gets past that – when he humbles himself – she can glimpse the man she loves. He says simply, "What can I do? Is there anything?"
"Stay in the shadows with me. It helps, not being alone."
Roger nods. Holly pushes herself to her feet and holds one hand out to him, the better to lead him back to bed. He keeps on his robe, and she doesn't let go of the coverlet, but all the same they lie next to one another, heads on their pillows just as they'd been half an hour before. Tentatively, he reaches one hand toward her face. She doesn't flinch. So he brushes an auburn lock away from her cheek, then strokes his fingers through her hair, soft and slow, a touch meant to soothe. It works, more or less.
He means for her to go back to sleep, she thinks, and perhaps that's the best thing to do. But Holly realizes she's ready to talk about this – really talk, for the first time in her life – and Roger is simultaneously the last person in the world she should tell and the only one who could ever fully understand.
She says, "The nightmares started immediately after you raped me."
His hand stills. His dark eyes meet hers, stricken. If her pity for him were stronger than her need to speak, Holly would drop it right there. But whatever it is Roger needs, it isn't pity. And she needs to talk.
"For months after that, I couldn't sleep through the night," she continues. "Sometimes I couldn't sleep through the hour. The first six months were the worst. Then, after Santo Domingo, they came back stronger than ever – but they tapered off slowly after you were … hmm. Let's say gone."
"You stopped having the dreams?"
"No. They never stopped. And of course, I dreamed about you in all kinds of ways. Not just the nightmare." Roger has been so many things to her that he could never be only her attacker, not even in the deepest recesses of her id. Sometimes she dreams of him helping to care for their daughter, singing Beatles songs to her as he helped give her a bath. Or dancing with her at a club they used to have in Springfield, one that closed in 1973 or so, with orange paper lanterns that painted the light around them. The old, recurring dream of searching for something nameless, something precious, and Roger asking her if he could help her find it. "But the nightmare became – rare. Once or twice a year, at most, and I started to think someday it would be gone. Then you wandered back in from the dead. I started thinking of you as Macbeth." When he stares at her, uncomprehending, she quotes the line: "'Macbeth hath murdered sleep.'"
"You and your Shakespeare." It's half-fond, half-exasperated – a comment so normal that it comforts her more than his gentleness. She edges closer to him, not quite resting on his shoulder, but very near it. Their eyes meet, and she can see how hard he's fighting to stay in this moment with her, not to defend himself or minimize what happened or any of the other dodges he's sometimes employed. It's moments like this, his occasional capacity for this kind of connection, that keep her hanging on.
Stay in the shadows with me, she thinks.
"I don't have the nightmare as often any more. As we got closer, and I forgave you, it almost went away entirely. I thought maybe I'd never – well. Obviously not."
Roger breathes out heavily. "Should I sleep in my own room? You could … lock the door, maybe. If it would help."
They keep separate bedrooms. It was one of the conditions she set when she asked him to move in, though from the beginning it's been a separation more in principle than in fact. Holly then thought she needed space from him; it turns out she needs the possibility of space from him. Two very different things.
She turns away from him, onto her other side, but before he can see it as rejection, she whispers, "Don't leave me."
"Never." Roger spoons around her, which is what she'd hoped he'd do.
For a while they lie there, curled against each other, Roger's flesh warm even through the blanket still wrapped around her. He kisses her hair once – that's how he always comforts her, always – but then seems to think better of it and simply leans his forehead against the back of her neck.
When she can let the silence last no longer without letting the subject go, she says, "I know we need to talk more about this, but I don't know where to begin."
There's a long pause before Roger whispers, "Tell me what you dream." It cost him to say that, Holly could tell. Good.
"The rape. Just – the rape. I relive it. Over, and over, and over."
"Oh, God."
"You do too, don't you? You told me that once. You told me you'd thought about it so much it had burned a hole in your brain." Holly can imagine it, as if the whole horrible experience were caught on film sizzling gold-brown-black on a projector's bulb, whiting out the images until they don't exist any longer. She wishes it really worked that way.
"Yeah. I do."
"Do you have your own nightmares?"
"Every once in a very long while. But when I dream about it, I always stop it from happening." His voice has become ragged. "You're leaving me, and I stop and think – it's all right. This is how it has to be. Let her go. And you walk out the door, and I know I ought to be furious, or crying, because you're leaving me and taking my Chrissie, but instead it's like this tremendous weight has been lifted. You're safe. Safe from me. It's … Holly, it's the happiest dream I've ever had. And I hate it. I hate it because I wake and then I have to remember what was a dream, and what was real."
Holly reaches toward the arm he has stretched around her waist and covers his hand with her own. He squeezes her fingers, and for a second the rape feels like something that happened to both of them, not just her.
Then she's angrier with him for that sick illusion than she's been about anything in years.
"That's all?" She can hear, in her voice, what Roger always calls the "cut-glass edges." Sharp and sparkling and ready to slice: They're her infallible weapons. "You never think about it in your waking hours? Not now, of course. You don't have to, now. But those months when you stalked me and harassed me and very nearly sent me off the edge of that cliff – you never daydreamed about how you proved to Holly who was really boss? On some level, you know you loved it."
"I didn't –"
"Be honest. You never got off on it, Roger? Not even once?"
There's a long, horrible pause, and Holly thinks he might get up and stalk out of this house. She thinks she might want him to. Instead, he finally says only one word: "Never."
Holly sucks in a deep breath and exhales. Every muscle in her body is tense, and she works to relax them, but it's hard.
After what seems like a very long while, Roger continues, "For years afterwards, I couldn't – well, I couldn't. Any sexual thought, or urge – they were all poisoned. It was a very long time before I had anything like a normal sex life again."
"Makes two of us. Years, you say? Roger the Chaste. Give me a while to wrap my mind around that one."
"Holly." There's something about the way he says her name that breaks through all those boundaries. He makes it an exhalation, a prayer. "If you want to hurt me, you have every right. But now you're hurting yourself too. Don't."
Is he saying that because he means it, or because he simply can't bear facing the truth one moment longer? Holly decides it doesn't matter, because – intentionally or accidentally – he's right. There's nothing to be gained in continuing down this path.
She grips his hand more tightly, and they lie together in the dark, victim and attacker, husband and wife, permanently each other's hostage and each other's love.
You're the shape around my silhouette, Holly thinks. You're my jail cell. You're my home.
"I love you," she says. "If I didn't love you, I wouldn't be here."
"I don't know how that's possible. But, oh, Holly, I'm so glad it is."
She turns back toward him and covers his mouth with hers. For a very long while they kiss, so desperately and raggedly that it's more like CPR than any erotic act.
And yet.
Her pulse is up. Her blood courses through her harder and faster than it should, and it feels like every nerve ending is awake and alive. She needs this. Needs him.
Holly had a good sex life with Roger before the assault, but neither that nor any other relationship she's enjoyed in the years between can compare with what they have today. It's seriously, deeply problematic that he now sets her off like a Roman candle, and yet he does. Her personal theory is that it's her conquering him, over and over – taking the man who hurt her and making him her possession – and that's what does it for her.
Plus, of course, the love and all that.
Tonight, she's going to take that conquest a step farther.
Holly's fingers find the loose belt of Roger's silk robe. She yanks it from its loops, twines the length of it around her hand. When Roger's startled eyes meet hers, she murmurs, "Put your hands above your head."
Oh, the dark fire she sees in his gaze as he does exactly what she wants.
She ropes the silk around his wrists, tight enough for him to feel it, and weaves the ends between the slats of the headboard before tying the ends tight. The robe is bunched around his shoulders, but his otherwise naked body, lean and muscular, is totally exposed. He's bound now – he's hers – and she's going to show him who's really boss.
Holly kisses him again, long and deep this time, as she shrugs away the blanket and slides her nude body against his. His neck strains as he lifts his face to meet hers, but he can only go so far. She traces her lips down his neck, along his chest, one nipple and then the next, working her way down. Roger's half-panting, half-groaning as her tongue dips into his navel and her palms find the hard angles of his pelvic bones.
He's hard for her before she even touches him – so hard she bets it hurts. She hopes it hurts.
"Oh, God," Roger breathes as she wraps one hand around the base of his cock, and there's no word that can express the sound he makes as she takes him into her mouth.
It's not like this is a complicated thing to do – suck, use your tongue, and 99% of men are thrilled – but there are a few subtle variations, man to man, and Holly knows exactly how to get Roger going. He's the first guy she ever did this with, after all. She twists her tongue around him in the way she knows he loves, but she keeps her fingers tight around him so that he can't possibly come. Stretch this out long enough, and it would be torture. As it is, she loves the way he bucks into her mouth, helplessly seeking climax, not getting it.
Her tongue tastes salt. She can feel his pulse against her forearms; she can feel her own along every inch of her body. Her cunt hurts for wanting him, like a fist clenched too long.
When her desire eclipses his, she pulls her head up. Roger gasps – from the cool air against his wet cock, from the lack of sensation, from understanding what happens next – all of it, none of it, Holly doesn't care. She crawls up the length of his body and straddles him. Once again she takes him in her hand, lifts herself up empty, sinks down, and moans as she fills herself with him. God, how he burns inside.
Roger starts to move – there's no stopping that now – but she's the one in control. Holly sets the pace, twisting atop him in slow spiraling movements that make him arch beneath her and strain against his silken ties. This is what she wants, what she's always wanted.
She slides her fingers down to touch herself. Half the fun is making Roger watch her get herself off. The other half is getting herself off.
"Holly, yes," he whispers.
She replies, "Shut up."
He shuts up.
Holly rubs deep, lets her head fall back, gives in to the sensations of it. She and Roger have found their rhythm now, and she knows he's loving every second of this. Why not? She loves it too. They rock against each other, her upper body loose as she concentrates only on her fingers, his cock, her cunt and her clit. Only on the pressure that's building inside her and begging for release.
"Dammit," she whispers, frustrated and yet eager, and she opens her eyes to look one more time at Roger, bound beneath her. Holly's thumb flicks just right, and he thrusts as deeply inside her as he can, and that's it – she's gone, she's done. Her hoarse cries ripple through her whole body as she rides that wave up, up and over.
"Yes," Roger breathes.
Holly can only nod. Yes, yes, he knows her. He knows this. As he pumps harder inside her, she settles onto him, gives in to his tempo, and rejoices in the way he shouts out only moments behind her, the warmth and wetness she feels flowing into her, trickling between them.
Afterwards, she leans her head onto his chest for a shaky moment to gather her breath before tracing her hands along each of his arms to find the belt of his robe. Holly unties the knot she made, and Roger uses his freedom to wrap her in his embrace.
"Your robe is still on," she murmurs. It seems almost funny.
He ignores the joke. "I love you."
"And I love you."
They're both wiped out now, and both as happy as it's possible to be, given some of the places they visited tonight. Holly buries her face in the curve of Roger's neck as he draws the blanket over them again. Within moments, they'll both be asleep again, and this time she knows she will not dream.
The cause is the cure.
As slumber settles over her, heavy and dark, Holly thinks, not for the last time, I probably need therapy.
And then she falls asleep in his arms.
END