Wendy couldn't focus.

She was lying on the bed with her boyfriend, both on their sides as he hugged her from behind. Tanooki was leaving open-mouthed kisses on her neck and shoulder as his hands trailed over her naked body, and she could feel him ready against her lower back.

But she couldn't focus on him or his loving touches.

Ever since Toadette -Tanooki's assistant- kindly reminded her the appointments of the day, something showed up in the back of her mind, keeping her constantly on the edge but she didn't know what it was.

"You okay, baby?" He whispered from behind her.

Come on, babe. It'll be fun!

And just like that, it hit her.

The whole day she had been nervous and tense because exactly two years ago before Jessica was conceived. Three years ago, her dad got drunk and force her to sleep with him. Two years ago, her father hurt her for the first time.

Suddenly everything was too much.

Hands touching her, warm breaths against her, lips grazing her skin. Even if everything was made with love, she couldn't handle it.

"No, wait. Please stop." Wendy murmured, trying to disentangle herself from him.

She knew it was Tanooki behind her, just like she knew he wasn't going to hurt her, but she was unable to continue and not think back to that night.

He let go of her, and she sat on her side of the bed, her knees pulled up against her chest as she held her head in her trembling hands.

"Wendy?" He softly called her name in worry.

"I'm okay, I promise, but I need a few minutes. Can you give me that?" She whispered.

After a couple of seconds of hesitancy, she heard his quiet reply. "All the time you need."

She relaxed a little and concentrated on her breathing.

It's not your father. It's Tanooki. He loves you and will never hurt you.

She repeated the words in her head over and over again, like a mantra. She lost track of the time she just sat there calming down until Tanooki spoke from somewhere near her.

"Hey...I'll give you more time if you need that, but please put this on."

She opened her eyes and looked in his direction. He was wearing pants and a shirt, his grey hoodie in his hands.

"It's been twenty minutes and you're shaking." He explained pointing at her still naked body.

Twenty minutes. To her, it seemed like twenty seconds.

But she realized he was right, she was shaking from the cold, and with one look at his face she knew he was beyond worried. She sat up straighter and let him help her with the hoodie, she zipped it up as Tanooki put a blanket over her legs. Before he could move away, she wrapped her arms around his neck, making him sit next to her. He immediately hugged her back, and she buried her face in the crook of his neck.

"I'm okay." She repeated. "And you did nothing wrong, I promise. I just realized that..." She hesitated.

His hands soothingly ran over her back, making her relax and she relaxed even more in his embrace.

"Today Toadette reminded me of the date, but I didn't realize it at first. I just did, minutes ago. And you were behind me so I couldn't see you...I mean, I knew it was you and that you weren't going to hurt me, but I couldn't go on, and I...I freaked out a little. Sorry."

"Don't apologize, it's okay." He kissed her temple again making her sigh. "Tell me how I can help you."

She hesitated for a second before pulling away enough so she could look at him in the eyes. "I think I want to talk about it."

He studied her face. "Are you sure? I don't want you to make it worse by telling me."

She shook her head. "We avoided that topic for way too long. And when I talked to you about it, after we met, I skipped a few important parts." She admitted. "Back then I didn't know if I could really trust you, or if you were going to judge me. Now I know what kind of person you are, and I think you deserve to know."

He breathed deeply and nodded. "If you think it'll help you, I'll listen."

"I want to tell you, but only if you won't mind me talking about that. I mean, I know it's a weird talk and-"

His hands framed her face. "Wendy, you lived with that memory for two years. The least I can do is listen to it so I can support you and do everything in my power to not remind you of that experience again."

She nodded before scooting in the middle of the bed so he could lay next to her. She went to rest her head against his shoulder, her body pressed against his side with her left arm over his middle, his arms wrapped around her.

He kissed the top of her head. "Take all the time you need."

She sighed and decided to just start talking.

Flashback

After a 2 month pregnant Wendy coming back into the house, she saw her father drinking straight from a Brandy bottle. She shook her head as he continued to swig from the bottle.

She should have stopped him right then, but it wasn't her place in his eyes to tell him what to do.

Instead, She went up to her room like she always did. She'd rather work on her novels than clean up after her father. She was scribbling down in her notebook when her father burst through her door and staggered into her room.

"You know that…whore that is your mother?" he slurred as took another swig of his drink. He didn't wait for my response. "That's gonna be you in…tomorrow!" He laughed at his sick joke and I rolled my eyes.

"Can you just hit me and get it over with?" She spat. If I ever wanted anything, I wanted him to hit me. God knows what else he would do with alcohol in his system. He didn't look like he was passing out any time soon.

"You little whore," her father sneered. "What makes you think you can talk to me like that?" He started to walk toward her and Wendy quickly got off the bed. It shouldn't be too hard to escape an intoxicated man, but he wasn't as intoxicated as she thought. He threw the liquor bottle at her head, the glass cracked on the side of her forehead and knocked her to the ground. Alcohol seeped into the gashes that were created and she screamed in pain.

The next thing she knew, her father was on top of her. He must have tripped or something. She opened her mouth to say something, but his lips plummeted down onto her, preventing her from saying anything. Wendy protested in loud mumbles and he began to laugh as he 'kissed' me.

"You don't like that do you, whore?" he slurred. He laughed again. "Well you better get used to it, because it's all you'll ever be." He grabbed at the collar of her shirt and she weakly grabbed his wrist to stop him as he started to pull it.

"Don't," She mumbled in a daze.

He smacked her across the face, harder than he had ever before. "Don't tell me what to do, slut," he sneered.

"You give it away to that little piss-ant friend of yours; that's what whores do. At least hookers get paid." He ripped her shirt, exposing her black lace bra.

Her father smirked darkly. "Only whores wear this fancy shit," he told her. Wendy spit blood into his face and sneered at him; it was the most she could do, thanks to her head wound.

It was still enough to enrage him.

He punched her in the eye. It wasn't until he dug his putrid fingers into her head gash that she cried out in pain. And that gave him the leeway to jam his tongue down her throat. One boy did that when she was ten and she kicked him in the nuts. She couldn't think straight enough to find her knee or bring it up into his crotch, so she lay there and let him viciously poke her tongue with his. She thought about biting it off, but his finger was rolling around in her wound, and she hoped he would stop if she gave in and complied to his wishes.

She closed her eyes as he continued to attack my mouth, trying my damnedest to imagine Beck on top of me, kissing me lovingly. She found herself able to breathe when her father took his fingers from her gash, but she kept it to herself as he yanked at her bra. He pulled on it so monstrously that the hooks broke and scratched her deeply. Wendy sucked in her breath and Bowser chuckled darkly.

"Don't worry," he advised in a low, drunken voice, "Whores get used to this."

She tried to repress what happened after that. She didn't want to remember anything that happened after that. She couldn't—however—forget the feeling of him ripping her apart. He was rough and uncaring, which is something you can't repress, try as you might.

Before he left when it was over, he shot words that pierced my heart.

"You may be a whore, but you are mine and only mine."

She didn't cry until she heard him slam his bedroom door.

Wendy felt Tanooki's breathing change as if he was controlling his reaction. She looked up at him and his eyes found hers. They were full of rage and disbelief. She silently asked him what it was, and he sighed.

"No one should be treated like that."

"Yeah, well...You've met him. You saw what kind of a jerk he was." He nodded and she rested her head on his shoulder once again.

"Sorry for interrupting you." He said.

"No, that's okay. I actually want to know what goes through your head." She reassured him.

"Okay."

Wendy sighed. "He touched me, and I decided to take off my shirt, no need to keep that on anyway. He...His eyes lit up as if he just received the best news of his life. He took off his shirt too and started to unbuckle his belt." She took a deep breath. "He grabbed a condom from his nightstand, said to me 'Come on, babe. It'll be fun!'"

Her voice trembled and Tanooki ran soothing circles on her back. She stopped talking for a few minutes to gather her thoughts and the courage to continue. He didn't make her any pressure, just held her and silently supported her.

"I'll never forget the look he gave me when he saw me naked. It was something...so gross, that made me doubt my decision to go on. But once again I thought it was all in my head, so I ignored it."

Wendy closed her eyes and tightened her hold on her boyfriend. In response, he tightened his hold too.

"I didn't think it could hurt like that. Not even when he kicked me out of the house after finding out about the pregnancy, It was like something was ripping me from the inside and...I remember I let out a scream and he raised his hand. Looking back at it now, he probably wanted to slap me or something, instead, he covered my mouth and told me to be quiet or people nearby were going think something bad was happening.

"I tried to handle the pain and when he removed his hand, I bit my lip to prevent other screams."

Tanooki's hand cradled the back of her head, and he pressed a kiss on the top. She looked up at him and saw tears in his eyes. Her left hand cupped his cheek as she stared into his eyes. He breathed deeply, but from his look she knew he meant what he said. Deciding to go back to that another time, she continued.

"When he started to move the pain increased, and I put my hands on his waist to slow him down. I told him he was hurting me, and, at first, he did slow down. Then it was like a switch had been flipped and he didn't care about it, he said that it was going to pass soon, it was just for a moment. As if he could know how I was feeling." She said in disbelief.

"But I wanted to believe him, so we continued, and the pain got just a little better, but it still hurt like hell." A few tears escaped her eyes, and Wendy hastily wiped them away. "He...He grabbed my breast again and told me something about getting a boob job, so there was going to be more to enjoy in the future." She said, disgusted at the memory.

She felt Tanooki shake his head. "You don't have to change your body just because an asshole is so superficial and selfish. You are perfect the way you are."

She smiled against him. "Thank you. And I wasn't going to do that anyway, not even if he insisted. I learned to like my body and didn't want to change."

"Good. I love your body like it is." His words filled her with warmth.

She took a deep breath and continued. "He suggested that maybe we needed to change position. Hoping that it was going to feel good instead of painful I agreed. He made me stand and then...suddenly I was face down on the bed. I somehow managed to talk him out of anal sex, it was...it was already bad, and if we added that-" She shook her head. "Anyway, it hurt the same, so I just...I just waited until he finished, giving up any hope to stop hurting."

"Why you- I mean..." He started hesitantly.

"Ask whatever you're thinking about."

"Please don't take this as judging, because I'm absolutely not...But why didn't you try to stop him again?"

She shrugged. "I didn't want to disappoint him. At the time he was still the lovely father that loved me, that it was going to be just that the memories that hurt. That the next he was going to be gentle and caring."

Tanooki ran his hand through her hair. "If he really loved you, he would have stopped even before raping you, respecting your need for time."

"I know that now. I wish I realized it sooner." She shook her head. "But I...I just laid there, face down, until he finished. Neither of us noticed when the condom broke. When he pulled away, I sat on the floor, and he...he laid on the bed, the happiest grin I've ever seen on his face. He looked at me and said 'I know it was your first time, but you could have been more active. You have to step up your game because it was boring doing all the job myself.'"

Tanooki let out an irritated sigh. "Son of a bitch."

"Yeah and guess what happened next. He called me a whore." She felt tears running down her cheeks. "He made me feel used like an object. And I felt ashamed of myself. I was ashamed because I let him use me like that when I should have done something about it, like you said. But I was the one who decided I could go on, I was consensual, I know I was, I assure you that-"

"Just because you gave him your consent it doesn't mean he could treat you like that." Tanooki told her, running his hands over her back, trying to calm her down. "No one deserves to be treated like that, no one. And hearing all of this happened to you hurts me, because you deserve the best."

His words brought a wave of comfort, a feeling of love and safety that made her start to cry. He just held her, whispering soothing words in her ear and softly kissing the top of her head.

When Wendy was able to calm down again, she gathered the courage to finish her story so they could leave it behind once and for all.

"After he fell asleep, I finally realized that almost every part of my body was hurting and...and there was blood on my legs."

Tanooki's arms tightened around her. "Please tell me that you didn't have internal bleeding or something."

"No, it wasn't much, and it already stopped, but...It made me realize that I gave myself, my body and my heart, to someone that didn't give a damn about me. For years I lived my life alone, afraid of loving because of my abandonment issues, and when I thought I finally found someone who was going to be there for me..." She breathed deeply. "I was wrong. So wrong."

"He manipulated you, from the beginning. You couldn't have known." He tried to reassure her.

"Yeah. Now I know that, but back then I didn't see it." She shook her head. "Anyway, that's it. The whole story."

Tanooki kissed her forehead. "And the next day he kicked you out of the house."

"Yeah." Wendy's voice trembled, her hands clutched his shirt, as she tried to not break down again. "But, as much as I wish that never happened...I would do everything all over again, because in the end it gave me a lovely boyfriend and daughter."

He kissed the top of her head before his right hand cradled her cheek and made her look up at him. "I hope you know how strong you are. Back then and now, telling me all of this, facing every day without letting that consume you."

She didn't know how to respond to that. As Wendy looked up at him, she felt their strong connection, and on instinct, she placed her lips on his before moving to straddle him.

The moment she moved on top of him, Tanooki knew he needed to stop her. He didn't want her to have another panic attack, especially after just talking about what she went through. With gentle hands, he cradled her face and made her look at him.

"Maybe it's best if we stop here." He told her softly.

She smiled at him. "I love you. I love you for your thoughtfulness. I love you for your kindness. I love you for your understanding. I love you for your heart. I just love you."

He smiled back at her. "I love you too. For so many reasons."

Her smile widened before she turned serious again. "And I really appreciate you put my needs before your own. But I need to face this, I need to forget the bad memories. Replace them with good ones."

Her fingers caressed his cheeks, slightly raking her nails through his stubble as her eyes roamed over his face, lingering on his lips before stopping on his eyes again to hold his stare.

"I know you're the only one that will be able to make me feel safe again. Make me feel strong and confident."

He would have done anything she asked. So, he wrapped his arms around her and held her close. "Tell me how I can do that."

She sighed. "Make me feel loved."

His eyes searched for any signs of doubts, but he didn't find them. "Only if you're sure it's what you want and need." He whispered.

She smiled and nodded. "I want that. But maybe... you can let me stay on top this time?" She asked hopefully. "I love when you are on top of me, I really do, it's a comforting weight, but tonight-"

"Hey...You can stay on top any time you want. You just have to say it." He reassured her. "Anything else?"

"Don't...don't call me 'babe'?" She whispered. "'Baby' is okay, I like that, but 'babe' is what he always called me."

"Okay, I won't do that." He kissed her forehead. "I also won't make love to you from behind, so you don't-"

"No, I didn't mind that. It's okay if you stay behind. But I don't think I'd be comfortable with...with that other thing, that's weird, I just-"

"Then we won't do that. You don't have to worry about it." He reassured her. "Other things? Particular touches or words?"

She shook her head. As they talked, his hands had traveled on her hips, his fingertips rested on her naked skin under the hoodie. When he realized that, he made to remove them, but she took hold of his hands. She leaned back, sitting on his legs, she tugged his hands and silently told him to follow her, so he was sitting too, just a few inches separated their faces. With sure movements Wendy led his hands to the zip, silently telling him to undress her.

Tanooki did just that, then she helped him to get rid of his shirt and they made quick work to take off his pants too, but their rush came to a stop when she straddled him again. His arms wrapped around her body, her left hand rested against his cheek as her right hand ran over his chest.

For a moment they just stared at each other, no words needed. Then her hand traveled down his body and took a hold of him, guiding him at her entrance.

"I love you." He whispered sincerely, hoping she understood just how deep his feelings were for her.

She smiled and placed a soft kiss on his lips. "I love you too."

After a couple of minutes, Wendy turned her head to look at him. He smiled at her.

"Are you okay?"

She smiled back and slowly nodded. "Thank you."

"Anytime. But you don't need to thank me for loving you."

She smiled and closed her eyes, tired after everything. Tanooki carefully maneuvered her, so she was lying on the bed, he stood and retrieved her clothes. He helped her to put on her panties and his shirt, then slipped on his boxers and returned on the bed, covering them both with the bedsheets. As soon as he was lying next to her, Wendy went to rest her head on his shoulder, her arm around his waist and her leg on top of his. His arms held her close and she sighed. She moved even closer to him and her leg brushed against his still hard member. The hand she had on his waist reached down and rested on top of it.

"You didn't finish?" She asked him, sounding shocked for not realizing it sooner.

He grabbed her hand and placed it back on his chest. "It's alright, don't think about it."

"But...I didn't mind if you finished, you know."

"I assure you it's okay, Wendy. I don't care about my pleasure, not tonight." He kissed the top of her head.

He felt her hesitate. "Is it because you didn't-"

"I liked it, a lot." He reassured her in a firm voice.

"Even if you didn't do much?" She sounded unsure.

"Believe me, I enjoyed it very much, and I think we should do this again. But tonight, I didn't make love to you to get pleasure. I only wanted to take care of you." She sighed. "This is me loving you, Wendy. Always remember that everything I do is because I love you."

She took in a shaky breath. "I love you too."

They were silent for a few seconds, then he felt her grin against his shoulder.

"What?" He questioned.

"I was just thinking that I'll make sure to give you your release very soon and...differently than usual."

He frowned, not understanding. "What do you mean?"

"You'll see very soon." She promised.

He still didn't understand, and Wendy laughed against him.

As much as he was curious about what she was talking about, it didn't matter. She was laughing, completely at ease after how their night began. That was what mattered to him. That she was happy.