Warning: violent rape
Saoirse closed her eyes and smiled contently, relishing the feel of strong arms wrapped around her waist. Tommy kissed her shoulder and nuzzled his chin against her neck, making her giggle as she felt the bristles of his stubble against her sensitive skin. His hands wandered the length of her waist, cupping her bottom before moving back up to play languidly with her breasts. She sighed when she felt him grow hard against her and when his hand slipped down to play with her already highly stimulated centre, she bit her lip and turned her head to kiss him. Smiling against her, his tongue snaked inside her mouth, dancing gently with her own as he slid himself inside her. Unlike their previous love making, which had been full of pent-up passion and the need to mark each other and finally be together, this was different. It was no less an expression of their feelings, but it was gentle and unhurried. It was the embers of their previous fire still burning out slowly. From this angle, Tommy could touch every part of her. Moving inside of her in an agonisingly delicious way, without speed or demand, Tommy caught sight of something in the gentle candlelight. His thumb traced along the reddened crisscross of a healing wound and he felt Saoirse stiffen against him. She turned her face away with shame, but he pulled it back towards him gently and kissed her so sweetly that she could have cried.
"I'm not gonna tell you this is wrong," he whispered against her mouth. " You do what you need to survive; we all do, but from now on I do the surviving for both of us. I take the pain for both of us. I'm never going to let you feel it again."
He took her arm and kissed the scar, as well as the others he could now see; the faint silver lines marring her skin. He kissed them as he moved inside of her, his lips touching everyone as though he could heal them and take them away. He remembered the day he heard her telling Arthur about them, but seeing them for himself made his throat clench tightly. He was never going to let her feel like that again. It didn't take very long for either of them to find their release and afterwards as they lay together, it felt as though this was the way it had always been.
"I need to go home," Saoirse spoke quietly sometime later.
Tommy leaned up on his elbow to peer down at her, and she could read the confusion and hurt on his face.
"Not forever," she smiled, cupping his cheek and rubbing her thumb along it. "I ' m going to pack up my stuff and tell Joe I ' m leaving. I ' ll find a room for a few nights and take it from there."
"You'll stay right here in this house, in this room with me, if you want to?" Tommy spoke with a firm gentleness. " And you ' re not going anywhere near that poor excuse of a man. I ' ll have Arthur go round for your stuff in the morning."
"No," she shook her head, sitting up with the sheet pulled up against her chest. "I don't expect you to understand or even like it, but I want to do it. I want to be the one to tell him. I need him to understand why I'm going, because while my feelings for him were gone some time ago, I don't want any other woman to experience this. Perhaps if he understands why I'm leaving, he will think about changing his ways?"
"After the life you've had, how is it you can still be so naive?" Tommy sat up and shook his head incredulously. " Men like him don ' t change, Saoirse. "
"Maybe they do, maybe they don't. But at least I'll know I've tried to spare someone else what he's done to me. It's funny," she let out a little humourless laugh. " I convinced myself that he really loved me, and I think in his own way he probably does. But no matter how much he ' s tried to show me he ' s changed, I can ' t forget. "
"If someone who said they loved me split open my lip, I don't think I'd forget either," Tommy murmured, his face suddenly enveloped in a cloud of smoke as he lit himself a cigarette.
Saoirse just looked at him but didn't say anything. She knew that Tommy had guessed the truth; that all the Shelbys had, but she still didn't want to confirm it out loud.
"It was only once," she found herself suddenly admitting. " That was the only time he ever hit me and he couldn ' t have been more sorry afterwards. "
"They always are," Tommy commented. " At first anyway. "
"You know I love you, don't you?" his father held out the red roses to his mother. All Tommy could think about was that the colour of the flowers was the same as the blood that had poured from his mother ' s nose only hours before. " And you know I don ' t mean to hurt you. I just can't stop myself."
"I know," his mother nodded, her eyes full of love for the man who made her cry more times than he ever made her smile. " I love you too. "
But the kind words and loving embraces didn't last. Neither did the empty promises wrapped up in bundles of crimson roses.
Saoirse's hand on his arm broke him out of his thoughts. Her beautiful face was like the sunshine through parting clouds.
"Sorry," he mumbled, clearing his throat. " Listen, I understand why you want to end things with him yourself, but do you really think he will react rationally when he finds out what we've done? "
"Who said I was going to tell him about us?" Saoirse frowned.
Tommy snarled and shook his head.
"I don't think you're being very fair," Saoirse looked at him sadly, climbing out of bed to begin dressing herself. " I don't have to tell him about us because it ' s none of his business. Once I leave that place, nothing I do will ever be his business again."
"You're right, I'm sorry," Tommy's eyes warmed upon hers. He swung his legs over the side of the bed and reached out for her, pulling her stand in between his legs. "I'm coming with you though. I'll wait outside, ok?"
"No, you won't," she shook her head firmly. " You're going to wait here and keep this bed warm for me. "
"I said I'm coming with you."
"Tommy," Saoirse put her hands on her hips and pursed her lips. "I fell out of love with Joe because he tried to control everything I did. If you think I'm going to allow you to do the same, then you're sorely mistaken."
Tommy sighed and rubbed his face wearily before putting his arms around her waist, nestling his face in the soft skin of her stomach.
"Alright," he agreed reluctantly. " One hour. If you're not back in one hour, I'm coming to get you. "
The flat was quiet as Saoirse carefully opened the door and she grimaced when it creaked loudly. She closed it shut behind her and kicked off her shoes to pad quietly down the hallway. Joe would be fast asleep in the bedroom and she wasn't entirely sure of the best way to go about this. Maybe she shouldn't have agreed to Tommy coming back in an hour. It perhaps would have been better for her to let Joe sleep and in the morning just come right out with it. Well, there was no going back now and no changing the plan. She decided to go into the bedroom and begin packing up her stuff as quickly as possible. Joe was a heavy sleeper so he wouldn't wake up anyway until she shook him awake. But before heading into the bedroom, she took a detour to the living room.
As she had kissed goodbye to Tommy at his front door, he had reassured her for the fifth time that she looked fine, but she was still completely paranoid that she looked like someone who had been having sex. She was completely paranoid that Joe would take one look at her and know immediately what she had been doing and with whom.
Standing in front of the living room mirror, she patted down her already smooth hair and peered at her face for any signs of, well, anything. However, there was nothing different about this reflection to the one that had stood in this same mirror only hours ago. Apart from the glint of happiness that had appeared in those green eyes once more; the glint that had been dull for weeks on end before now.
"This is a funny eleven o'clock."
"Joe," she gasped, putting a hand to her chest as his reflection suddenly appeared behind hers in the mirror. " What are you doing? "
"I was waitin' for you," he answered, his eyes boring into hers through the glass. "Did you have a good night?"
"Yeah," she nodded, feeling herself tremble slightly as the back of his hand ran lightly down her cheek, brushing the soft skin there. " It was alright. "
"Just alright?" his hand stilled. " I think we both know it was more than alright don't we?"
Without warning, his hand clamped around her face and he dragged across the room, flinging her onto the floor. She knocked her head on the corner of the coffee table and tried to scramble away from him but he grabbed her by the ankles and yanked her towards him.
"Joe, please," she sobbed as he ripped open the front of her dress, pawing at her slip and tearing at her underwear.
"Joe please," he mocked with a sneer, his fingers delving inside of her while she tried desperately to kick him away. She clawed at him, scratching his face but he easily subdued her with his free hand, restraining her wrists above her head and squeezing. "Is that what you said to that fucker when he had his hands all over you? Did you beg him like you the fuckin' slut you are?"
"No," she shook her head desperately. "We didn't… nothing happened, please."
"I saw you!" he roared, slapping her so hard around the face that she could see stars. Her head was spinning and she could hear the clunk of his belt as he pulled down his trousers. She thrashed her head from side to side, sobbing, screaming; praying with everything she had inside of her that he would stop. He pushed inside of her hard and she cried out in pain. "I. Saw. You." He punctuated each word with a thrust. " In that alleyway, kissing him. I saw you leave. So, don ' t you dare fuckin' lie to me, you little bitch."
Saoirse closed her eyes as he pounded into her mercilessly. She could feel bile rising in her throat. She had never felt so helpless in her life as she felt him rutting against her, his disgusting breath against her breasts, licking and sucking.
"Please," she let out a sob.
"Open your fuckin' eyes and look at me," Joe squeezed her face. " Look at me! "
She did. Even through the stream of tears falling from her eyes, she could see him angry and red on top of her; his hatred pouring out of him and into her.
"You look at me and you tell me how much you fuckin' want this you little whore," he spat in her face, the glob of saliva sitting on her cheek, mingling with her salty tears.
"Please," she choked out, swallowing the bile in her mouth as his skin slapped against her own with a sickening squelch.
"Yeah, you like that don't you?" he sneered in her face. " Oh, sweet little Saoirse, what a terrible life she ' s had. Such a terrible childhood. Would everyone feel so sorry for you now if they knew what a slut you really are, eh? Do you fuck everyone you work for darlin'? Or is it just him? Either way it doesn't matter cos he's not gonna want you now, is he? You're just a convenience for him; somethin' to sink his fuckin' cock into just like you are for me."
He grabbed her by the hair, tugging at it making her sob even more as he came inside her with a grunt. She could feel his hot seed spilling inside her and down her thighs and she leaned over and vomited.
"Look at the fuckin' state of you," Joe tutted, pulling up his trousers, kneeling down in front of her face. She was on her side, clutching at the tattered remains of her clothes. " Pathetic. " He pulled her up by the hair forcing her to meet his manically furious eyes.
When she didn't reply he chuckled; a sound that would haunt her for the rest of her days. It was unhinged. She felt cold metal against her throat and when she looked down in horror to see a penknife against her jugular, she began to struggle in Joe's grasp.
"Aw don't worry, love," Joe smirked evilly. " Death ' s far too good a punishment for you. "
He kissed her hard, forcing his tongue into her mouth before slicing her cheek with the knife in his hand; the sharp blade running from just underneath her eye and all the way down to her chin. Saoirse screamed and clutched at her face, which felt like it was burning. Blood dripped out from in between her fingers as Joe did nothing more than stand up to loom over her with a simultaneous delight and disgust upon his face.
"No one's gonna want you now, are they?" he smirked. " Especially not your fuckin' Shelby."
As Saoirse lay on the floor, trying to scramble up from the floor, her hands never left her face. It felt like she was on fire and her throat cracked from screaming. Suddenly Joe kicked her with his heavy boots in the stomach once, twice. And that was when everything turned black.