Note to readers: This chapter contains graphic sexual content, minimum 'M' rated chapter. Reader discretion is advised.
Time slowed to a crawl; her mouth hung open in shock and dismay, and she pressed her eyes closed, as though to shut out this awful desecration.
To dress her in servant's apparel was embarrassing, to force her to work as a maid in the household degrading, and to demand of her such service as would confound any lady of quality was worse still… but this? She dared not open her eyes, could not bear to look on the man who had so humiliated her.
Did she still love him, or was the fire that burned her body with yearning now borne, instead, of hate? The turmoil in her mind was disorienting, and the thought occurred to her that she might find her answer the moment she looked upon him once more. And yet still her eyes remained closed, even as her breath quickened: she did not think she was yet ready for that question to be answered…
She heard his footsteps as he moved past her, and for one terrible moment thought he was about to leave, to walk out and abandon her where she knelt in mortified disgrace.
But she was wrong: his hand rested upon her shoulder, his skin warm against her dress. It was strange, how reassuring it was to feel him there; it felt almost like finding a friend while lost and alone.
"Open your eyes," Heathcliff breathed in her ear, close enough for her to feel his breath tantalisingly against her face and neck. "Open them."
Isabella tensed, bracing herself; she felt sure, somehow, that the return of her vision would be an assault upon her senses: in truth, she felt near to fainting. She could feel him on her shoulder through her dress; she could smell the rose water he used for cologne; she could hear his voice in her ears; and could taste him still in her mouth: to open her eyes, and so perceive him through all her senses, she feared, might yet bring her out in a fever.
With an effort that seemed to take all her strength, she eased open her eyes at last, and her breath caught in her throat. "No…."
The devilish blackguard had planned this, there was no doubt in her mind. He had been standing between her and the full-length dressing mirror, and now that he had moved behind her, she was treated to the appalling sight of herself, Heathcliff's hand upon her shoulder, his face far too handsome for the malevolent smile that twisted his lips as he examined her image in the glass.
She scarcely recognised herself. The girl in the mirror was a wretch, her cheeks burning red with humiliation, the blush so strong as to shine through the shameful stuff that still caressed her left cheek. Her clothes were stained with sweat, and dirt, and far worse, and tears welled up in her eyes, as though by her own anguish, she might wash away the stain of Heathcliff's assault.
Heathcliff's hand was no longer at her shoulder. Instead, he slid it down across her body, gliding over her breast and along her corset. Her eyes widened as he continued inexorably downwards, finally slipping through the concealed openings in her dress, beneath her petticoat, to touch the tender skin of her legs.
She could see it all in the mirror, even as she felt him on her, and it was as though the two women were entirely divorced, one from the other: the Isabella that knelt, weeping with shame at her own unrelenting desire for him and doing everything she could to maintain some semblance of decency as Heathcliff's trickster's hand began to caress her, seemed a thing apart from the girl in the mirror, who gasped in anguished rapture and spread her thighs apart, the skirt of her dress flowing across the floor with the movement of her legs, as she opened herself to the invasion of her gypsy husband's diabolical touch.
His smile widened, as he gazed at her face in the mirror.
For her part, Isabella now knew, or could easily guess, what he planned to inflict upon her: she merely had to imagine the worst thing she could. And she could imagine little worse, now, than the awful humiliation of his forcing her pleasure from her, bringing her to the greatest heights of ecstasy even as she shrank from the terrible image the mirror presented to her.
And he would make her watch herself, at that.
Isabella began to wonder whether she had taken on too great a burden for herself, in forswearing her pride for the sake of this man's love. She had expected mortification, and pain, and many other things besides, but she had never contemplated the possibility of being forced to enjoy it all…
The thought came to her, unbidden and terrifying: What if she did? What if, as a result of his treatment of her, she found herself desiring the very things that cut so cruelly at her sense of self? Would the loss of her pride become, not a noble sacrifice in the name of love, but rather some depraved pleasure that she herself invited?
Tears fell across her face once more, for she could feel his nimble fingers exploring her, feeling her desire as she had witnessed his, and she could all too readily imagine her transformation at his hands as the bewitching sensations began to dance through her body, setting her skin aflame with anticipation, and filling her mind with shame and fear.
"No," she gasped, as his fingers caressed her still more deeply, "No, Heathcliff, I mustn't – please –"
He did not answer her in words, but bent his mouth to her neck from behind, and his lips brushed her nape, pushing aside her hair the better to taste her. The sensation was at once beautiful and unbearable; and worse, it brought her attention upward, forcing her to become still more conscious of the taint he had left upon her cheek, which now ran down her face and fell, glistening like pearls, upon her gown.
…
The girl in the mirror was gasping, her hands held fast against her apron, pressing against Heathcliff's unseen hand and welcoming his touch, as his searching fingers sought within her for the key to her ruin.
Even as Isabella protested, in the name of her innocence and purity, for him to stop, the girl within the glass would brook no such freedom; and she held his hand fast in place so as to deny the very possibility, all in the name of the filthy delights he was promising her.
…
Isabella could scarce contain herself: Heathcliff's lips had parted against her skin, and his tongue travelled lazily across the back of her neck, trailing down to the very top of her dress, and then back up, leaving kisses that burned like fire, sending tantalising shivers down her spine. He looked over her shoulder, and his expression made clear his malicious delight at her dreadful situation. He could see, and feel, her desperate need for him, and he responded with a passion she recognised from their honeymoon, when he had first discovered the joy of her pain.
His eyes were black once more, and tiny lights sparkled in the blackness like stars in the night sky, each one an inferno of illicit, sinful pleasures. His lips were wet from the kisses he had given her, and they turned up in a sneer as he manipulated her body: his fingers wet with her lust; her mind racing with pleasure and disgust until the two thoughts merged into one awful sensation.
She was a puppet, dangling helplessly on the strings he pulled; she could no more resist his effect on her than a single wildflower on the moors might hold back the coming of winter. Her hands had not moved from his: she could not bear to let him stop. The dreadful thought occurred to her that he might plan such a thing, the better to torture her; and she pressed her hands against him all the tighter, to keep him from cruelly denying her.
Even though she would fight against the intoxicating waves of hot, sweet sensation with all her will (for the last remnants of her dignity demanded nothing less) the thought that she might win this struggle, and so be denied the release she craved so violently, was one that suddenly appalled her.
She needed to lose to him. She needed him to force her to it, to wrench her pleasure from her, to violently overcome her resistance: she could not live with herself any other way.
And surely it would please him to win…?
…
Heathcliff's eyes glittered; and behind them, his mind relaxed. He knew how best to hurt her, for now; she would feel herself ruined at his touch, both her body and mind usurped by his rule when she lost herself in rapture on the cold, hard floor. He had no need of devising further torments yet: there would be plenty of time for that later.
And indeed, there were so many further torments he could enact upon her, none of which she might escape; for her own foolish love for him held her prisoner here, just as his for Cathy continued to inescapably damn his soul.
The thought of Cathy sparked new life into him: anger at Isabella for not being Cathy; fury at Edgar for taking Cathy away from him; and most of all (though he would never admit of it) an overpowering rage at Cathy herself for so forsaking him. His ire only fuelled his need to devastate the girl who knelt before him, and he brought his left hand across to run his nails across her spine, so firm and gentle as to make his all-too-willing victim gasp, and then begin, first to moan, and then to wail, with an unrestrained and horrified exaltation.
…
It was no longer a contest: Isabella's will had been broken long before Heathcliff's fingernails began to tease and torture her so deliciously. She no longer even tried to fight the onrushing sensations Heathcliff was bringing forth in her; rather, she welcomed his every assault upon her senses, and was just conscious that within her anguished wails were interspersed broken fragments of pleading, begging him at one moment to stop, and then at the very next, screaming for him to finish her.
The wanton, dirty girl in the mirror no longer seemed a remote dream, held at a safe distance from her own self: the image she saw in the glass, and the truth of her excruciating downfall, were coming together, too close to bear. She was the girl in the glass, and the girl was she.
How awful it was to see herself as she had become: lowly, filthy, debased and tortured, and yet begging her devil of a husband for her continued suffering! She despised the image she was being forced to witness, even as her body craved the hand that still despoiled her, and its wicked caress.
And every time her mind rebelled, wishing to reclaim her precious dignity, her eyes met his in the reflected surface that continued to shame her: and the glittering of his eyes, and the life in his expression, overwhelmed all such thoughts as she considered how mighty a change had been wrought in her husband.
How petty and small a need seemed her pride, in comparison with Heathcliff's cruel affections! What love could dignity attain? and what could be worth more than love?
And so she let her pride go, throwing restraint to the winds that howled across the moors, as Heathcliff's fingers coaxed forth her ruin, opening her up like a rosebud in summer, obliterating her every conscious thought and reducing her artfully to a breathless wreck.
Her eyes closed, the better to focus on every wondrous sensation: his breath and nails upon her neck; his hand within her; even the warm, wet caress that still slid across her cheek and devastated her image, for even that now seemed a rare and exotic pleasure, even as she railed still at the act that had so sullied her.
In the darkness behind her eyes, how she looked no longer mattered: the disgusting image of the girl in the mirror was gone, and Isabella could be simply a wife, enjoying the carnal pleasures of matrimony with her lawful husband, heedless of prideful concerns and abandoning herself to him.
But Heathcliff would not have her so easily blinded to the atrociousness of her true fate: his hand stopped within her, bringing a whimper of frustration from his wife. "Open your eyes, Isabella," his voice came sneering into her trembling ear, "Open them, for you shall have nothing more from me until you see yourself…"
Her eyes snapped open, almost without thought; and the reflection within the glass brought everything crashing back, even as Heathcliff moved again within her, firmer and faster, until she cried out once again.
Isabella cried, the girl in the mirror howled, Isabella was moaning and her reflection was gasping: everything about her blurred, and was it her tears or her passion that made her vision swim, until she could not distinguish one from the other? The two became one, Heathcliff's touch unlocked her and Isabella looked out from inside the glass at herself: she was the wanton, debauched reflection, she was the helpless, humiliated woman; she was everything and nothing; she was wailing and her tears reached the stain on her cheek just as Heathcliff finished her, and nothing would be the same ever again, never…
…
Heathcliff pulled his hand from her, lingering at her legs and her breast as he moved. Isabella knelt, broken and sobbing, on the floor, her hands still pressed against her front. He could not tell, for all his guile and talents, whether she sobbed for joy or anguish, and found to his horror that he almost hoped it was the former.
He bent forward, and planted a kiss upon her bare cheek, where her tears ran in a clear path across her face. They were sweet, and salty, and he found their taste better by far than he had even imagined.
He had thought only to taste those tears, but her skin was as soft as her eyes, and it was that that drew him forward again, to kiss her more sweetly, first upon her cheek again, and then, gently, upon the lips that had so yearned for him that first night they had spent together. It was too loving, he was not hurting her as he knew he should desire; and yet somehow, there was no pain caused in his heart by this display of affection, this gesture of comfort.
There would be time for her pain later. This kiss, this ritual, this warmth…
It would do, for now.
…
Isabella's hands were still clasped against her apron, though her petticoat was soaked with herself and she could feel it against her legs, a depraved sensation that at once repelled and excited her. She was spent, gasping and weeping, and despite the afterglow that warmed her through, she had never felt quite so alone as she did now: knelt on the cold stones in a cast-off dress that now bore shameful marks that she would never dare show to anyone; with Heathcliff so remote and distant now as his hand withdrew from her…
Her cheek burned. Not the left cheek, which he had sullied with his filth; but rather her right. The sensation deepened, and she finally distinguished his lips, pressed gently against her.
Where he had broken her, she felt the shards of her soul fly together once more: his kiss was healing her, renewing her: she was Isabella once more, though not the proud, jealous girl she had once been. Her pride was shattered, his kiss did nothing for that, but as his lips moved to her mouth and she felt his hand in her hair, drawing her to him…
She was reborn.