[Author's note: Ok. For those of you who have been patiently reading in hopes of that long ago promised "R rated sex" ... you get a very little taste of it in this chapter. (More later. Promise.) You also get a lot more much less pleasant R rated stuff -- disturbing situations, you know ... Sorry. I know I said that this story would be much less intense than "Darkness". Well... I hadn't yet written this chapter at the time. For anyone who doesn't want to read that kind of stuff, I'll post a brief summary of the chapter at the start of 34. (Or, alternatively, the unpleasant stuff all comes in the second half of the chapter. You can read until it starts, then just stop reading. You won't miss anything critical after it.)]

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He had been lying awake for a long time. He WAS tired, he hadn't been lying to Susan about that. (He would never actually lie to her, even if he didn't tell her anywhere near the full truth about so many things ....) But he couldn't sleep. Too much pain today. Not physical pain. He was well enough.

When had it all gone wrong? Would anything ever be right again? And Susan ... she did deserve so much more. She wouldn't leave. She would stay with him no matter what. She loved him, and would willingly be hurt. Love was funny that way. But really, was it any more right to hurt someone just because they were willing? If he loved her, and he did, how could he go on hurting her? But the only way he would ever get her to leave would be to hurt her more ... and he couldn't do that either. Susan was the one person he could never drive away. He knew that much now.

Luka heard Susan's quiet footsteps come into the room. He closed his eyes, made his breathing quiet and even, pretended to be asleep. Under the fringe of his lashes he watched her ready herself for bed. She took a tee shirt from his drawer. She still slept in his tee shirts. "I don't OWN pajamas," she'd told him, when she'd begun moving her clothes over. But they both knew that she couldn't sleep naked in his bed with him. Not yet.

She was beautiful. Luka knew that. He loved her. Her body, as she undressed, was beautiful. Smooth, fair skin, glowing a little in the light. Not too thin, the round softness of her breasts appearing as she slipped off her shirt and bra, then disappearing again as she pulled the tee shirt over her head and smoothed it, unselfconsciously over her body. Of course she didn't know he was watching her, but even if she knew, she would be no more concerned. She went into the bathroom and shut the door, so the sound of the water running wouldn't disturb him.

Why couldn't he feel anything? He should feel something. She was beautiful. He loved her. He should feel desire ... feel something other than the vague, distant queasiness, or worse, the emotional deadness. He could try. Maybe if he tried ... he would feel something. He had promised her he would try. He just had to try a little harder.

Susan came out of the bathroom and turned on the small bedside lamp. (A compromise. She couldn't sleep with the overhead light on, he couldn't sleep in the dark.) She turned off the room light and got into bed beside him and very gently kissed his lips. "Good-night, sweetheart," she whispered, obviously still believing him to be asleep, and lay down and closed her eyes. And Luka opened his more fully to look at her. This close, even in the dim light, he could see that she had been crying. Soap and water hadn't removed the traces of tears from her cheeks, or the redness around her eyes. How long had she been crying? How many times was he going to have to make her cry ... couldn't he give her any happiness at all?

Luka raised up on one elbow, still looking at her thoughtfully, sadly, and the movement make Susan open her eyes. "Did I wake you?" she asked. "I tried to be quiet."

"No. I wasn't sleeping." He reached out slowly, traced the line of her jaw with his finger. She was beautiful. And surprised. Her eyes widened a little in surprise. It was so rarely that he touched her.

"You've been crying," he said, touching her lashes.

"A little," she admitted.

"A lot," Luka corrected firmly. "I don't want you to cry. It ... doesn't help ... it doesn't change anything. I don't want you to hurt for me. You can't take my pain away, and it doesn't do any good for you to be hurting too."

"I wasn't crying for you," Susan said quietly. "I was crying for me."

"You don't have to do that anymore either," Luka said. And he leaned forward and kissed her lips. Very gently. Her lips were soft. He parted them with his own, found her tongue. And he still felt nothing. Susan made a soft sound in her throat, and he felt her hand on the back of his neck. And couldn't keep himself from gasping.

Susan pulled her mouth away from his. "Luka, you don't have to do this. I wasn't trying to push you. If you're not ready ..."

"I need to try. I think I've just been afraid to try. I'll be ok. I can do this." Luka spoke the words almost desperately, like an incantation.

"Ok," Susan said, and he kissed her again. His hands moved to caress her face, her neck. Her skin was so soft. Down to her breasts, even softer beneath the shirt. Luka reached down to move the shirt out of the way. His movements were automatic, all the things he remembered doing in another life, another reality. He still felt nothing. Only a distant gladness that Susan seemed to be enjoying what he was doing. He could make her happy, if only in a small way. These were the things that women liked. He knew that.

She was responding to his touch, beginning to return his caresses. He felt her hands on his shoulders, his chest, his back, on the back of his head.

Suddenly cold sweat on his brow, on his neck. He felt nothing, as nausea overwhelmed his senses.

He remembered pushing the blanket away, trying to get out of the bed. Then he was lying on the bathroom floor. The tiles were cold under his cheek, his teeth were chattering, there was the sharp smell of vomit in the air. But none on the floor; he had, apparently, made it in time.

He wasn't hot, the sweltering heat of the Congo wasn't here with him now. He was cold, an icy chill in the pit of his stomach. He couldn't stop shaking. Susan was there, sitting on the floor beside him, fighting tears, wrapping her arms around herself, perhaps to keep from touching him, holding him -- knowing that it had been her touch that had done this.

"I'm cold," Luka whispered.

"Are you done throwing up?"

"I think so," Luka tried to sit up, then closed his eyes and lay down again quickly as the room swayed.

"You need to come back to bed. You'll be warmer there."

"Not yet." He couldn't stop shaking. Couldn't make his teeth stop chattering. It was like when he'd been so sick with malaria; chills, dizziness, nausea; but he was certain he didn't have a fever. He wasn't sick. He was just ... sick.

Susan left for a moment, then came back with the spare afghan from the linen cupboard and a pillow. She seemed to sense what Luka himself was beginning to realize. He couldn't go back to bed -- bring the horror that was still enveloping him back into their bed. If he did, it would never leave.

"I'm sorry, love," Susan said. "I went too fast. I was trying to let you set the pace,"

She gently slipped the pillow under his head and spread the blanket over him, taking great care not to touch him.

"Not your fault. Would've happened anyway. Eventually."

The pillow, raising his head up off the cold floor helped make him a little warmer. The afghan did little to melt the icy knot in his stomach. But his teeth gradually stopped chattering. He began to count the floor tiles, as far as he could see without moving his head. When he reached the edges of his vision, he started over, counting them again back in the other direction. It was something to do. It was better than screaming. Better than breaking things.

"Are you warm enough?" Susan asked after a few minutes.

Luka didn't answer. 23 ... 24 ... 25 ... 26 ... 27. He kept counting. 99% of his attention was focused on that task. And with the other 1%, he somehow formed words.

"They were making jokes. Laughing at me. I was in so much pain. They'd been beating me for such a long time. My ribs were broken. I could hardly breathe anymore. My lungs were full of blood. I think I was in shock. Everything was so strange. I could hear them talking. Sometimes I couldn't understand them. They were speaking French, of course. Sometimes it was like I couldn't remember any French at all. It was just nonsense. Then it would be clear again. But it was echoing. Like in a big room. Like in a church. But we were in ... a tent. It shouldn't have echoed at all.

"It hurt so much. I was crying. I couldn't stop crying. They were laughing at me. They were saying I wasn't ... a man ... maybe I wasn't really a man. They ... I was lying face down. I had to be. With my arms tied behind me, I couldn't lie any other way. Sometimes they'd turn me, for a second, so they could kick me, but mostly I was on my stomach. I'd ... roll back onto my stomach when they let me go. So I really couldn't see what was happening. Just the ground ... and their feet and legs. And it was already getting hard to see anything. My eyes ... everything was getting dark. I thought maybe ... I was dying. I wanted so much to be dying ... to be dead.

"They said they should find out. They ... pulled my pants down. They touched me. They were laughing. Said I didn't ... feel like a man. Since I was just ... a whore anyway ... they should treat me like one.

"Then they were ... arguing ... laughing ... joking ... about who would go first. I was hearing all this. It was like a dream ... a nightmare. I wanted to get away from it. I kept praying to die, so they wouldn't do it. I knew if I was dead ... or even unconscious ... they wouldn't do it. They just wanted to hurt me ... if they couldn't hurt me, there would be no point. But I couldn't die. I couldn't faint. I couldn't even stop crying.

"There was so much pain ... I hurt so much everywhere else ... my leg, my chest ... in a way I didn't really feel it so much. It was just one more pain ... a little more agony. But it did hurt. It hurt so much. I wanted to scream, but I couldn't scream. And I didn't want to scream, because I knew they wanted me to ... they were trying to make me scream. I just wanted to die, to go away from there. But I couldn't die. I just kept crying ... and praying ... and begging them to stop. And they would laugh at me. They would laugh even more, because I was crying. Because I couldn't stop crying.

"It seemed to last so long. Hours. It probably wasn't. I don't know how long it was. One of them would finish. I'd think it was over, they were done. Then another one of them would start. They were holding me down ... like I could have moved ... could have escaped. They were pushing my face into the dirt. Their hands were on me ... touching me ... I couldn't stand it. Every time one of them would ... finish ... it was like ... there was more dirt ... inside me ... not just where they were ... but all through me ... dirt that would never come clean. I'll never be clean again.

"When they were done ... I was lying there. There was blood ... and semen ... I could feel it. On my legs. My mouth was full of dirt. They'd been pushing my face into the dirt. When I'd try to breathe ... there would be dirt in my mouth. It was gritty in my teeth, and like mud, with all the blood. I was choking ... spitting out mud. I should have ... let myself choke on it ... but I couldn't. I thought they would kill me then. They had guns. They could have shot me. But they wouldn't do it. They wouldn't kill me. At least ... not that way ...."

14 ... 15 ... 16 ... 17 ...

Luka was still shaking. He gradually became aware that he had vomited again, a little bit, at least once, while talking. He couldn't remember having done it; wasn't sure when it had happened. He also knew that some of the things he'd remembered, some of the things he had told Susan, were things he had never remembered before, at least not while awake. If they had been in his dreams, he didn't know. He never really remembered his dreams.

Susan. He blinked, trying to clear his vision. She was still sitting close beside him on the floor, her face white. Her eyes were shut. She wasn't crying. She seemed to come aware, very slowly, that he had stopped talking. Her eyes opened slowly and -- she might have been sleep walking -- she got slowly to her feet, got a washcloth from the edge of the sink, and gently cleaned Luka's mouth and chin.

"Thank you." The two short words, very quiet, seemed loud in the eerily silent room. Luka knew he wouldn't have had the strength to have done it himself. He didn't know how he was going to get up, walk to the bed. He could sleep on the bathroom floor. He'd certainly slept in worse places. And he had to sleep. Now. The waves of exhaustion, so familiar from those horrible days, were starting to wash over him. He wasn't so cold anymore. He closed his eyes, let the blackness take him.

Susan's voice came through the darkness. "Let's get you back to bed now."

"Sleep here ..."

"You can't sleep on the floor. Let me help you walk. It isn't very far." A hesitation. "Is it ok if I touch you?"

Luka nodded. He didn't bother to open his eyes. He let Susan help him to his feet, support him as he struggled the mercifully few steps back to their bed ... and he was asleep again before his body hit the mattress.