A/N: Sorry that this is late, it really hit the fan at work yesterday. Same deal if you like it please review I am open to suggestions on where the story should head too...
Cold rain soaked my clothing. Cold, wet material clung to my freezing frame. My legs ached, and my mind is raced. The few possessions left to my name were in a bag by my side. I shouldn't have complained. Sure it's stopped, but how wass this better? I always believed that I would rather be homeless and alone then the toy to a man's depraved desires. Though my mind and heart tell me that that is still the honourable and self respecting sentiment, the fatigue in my legs, lack of food in my stomach and the loss of feeling in my finger tips begged otherwise.
It's been 3 days since the confrontation, though the memory will forever be imprinted in my mind. It occurred only one short month after my wedding but the tensions were building from day one. It began with the bedroom. James made it clear night one that I was his wife and it was my duty to honour and respect him a task which included serving his every need and sexual desire. He said that it was his right as a husband. It was a right that he enforced on many occasions with or without my consent. It gradually got rougher and more painful until the point where I would wake the following morning with bruises on my arms and legs.
I did resist. Honestly, not as much as I could have. Any protest on my part was usually verbal. Never physical. I am sure that I could have put up more of a fight; in fact I know I could have. Against my mother's wishes I use to wrestle with my cousins and my older brother when I was younger. So I knew if I chose to I could do James some harm. Yet I felt that the repercussions of that action would be far worse than what I was currently enduring. Turns out that I was right.
It was about a month into our marriage when I received my, shall we call it, monthly gift. When James discovered that after a month of relentless attempts I was in fact not pregnant he flew into a blind rage and blamed me for denying him children. He screamed names, calling me a bad wife and told me I was as useless as a common whore. I snapped. I yelled back. I slapped him. If I was a whore it is because he literal forced me to become one. I refused to let any man talk to me like that. It wasn't my fault I wasn't pregnant. Perhaps it had something to do with the manner in which HE attempted to get me pregnant. I doubt God wants a rough and spiteful man who abuses and demeans his wife, a man who believes that a woman is nothing more than a bought and paid for sex toy, to have children! The words were not even out of my mouth when I hit the floor. I felt a pain radiating from my jaw and saw blood on the carpet. He had punched me. Oh how I wish that it had all stopped there. For the next hour he beat me. He yelled things at me, detailing how that I was the spiteful one. I was the one who refused to get pregnant. He even went as far as to accuse me of purposefully killing any child that did begin to grow in my womb. I would never admit it but at that moment I believed that death would have been a cheerier fate for a child then to spend even a moment in Count James Highbury's presence.
The following morning I was in so much pain that I could barely move it took 3 days before I was able to walk. But as soon as that moment arrived I packed a bag and was out the door. I never looked back. One more day in that horrid man's presence would surely kill me. I had been there for little over a month and I already felt I had aged years. I was no longer a child. My innocence had been stolen. I was a woman. A broken woman. There was only one place to go. I ran without stopping for hours until I reached my family home. My mother greeted me at the door with shock and horror. I collapsed forward and I told her everything, I begged for help. But my pleas fell upon deaf ears. She said that I was a bad wife, and that a wife should never leave her husband's side without permission. I felt confused and betrayed. How could my mother consider me the one at fault? What had I done that was so wrong? She told me to return. To return to him. To return to my tormentor. I couldn't. I wouldn't. Without a thought I ran, no direction, just running. When my legs finally gave out it was nearly dawn and I was 20 miles from any known landmark. I fell against a tree and closed my eyes and that was when it began to rain.
The rain flooded the streets of Paris as Erik walked through the darkened streets. Clad entirely in black he appeared more of a shadow then a man. If it were not for his golden eyes he would be invisible. That was his plan. If no one can see him, then no one can bother him. For years he was used for people's pleasure and torment. He was put on display for all their prying eyes. He hated them. All of them. He was better off alone with no one to stare at his face or scream in horror.
Being alone use to bother him, not anymore. The thin chance of finding someone who could bear his visage was not worth the pain and humiliation of watching a man recoil in terror or a woman fainting in fright. Besides he preferred to compose alone, and he was always composing or attempting to compose. So it was best that no one ever came around. They would just distract him.
Erik looked to the horizon as the sun began to rise in the distance. He turned and headed home, no more inspired then when he left. Yet he must be back before the streets fill with morning shoppers, for a shadow is not hidden in broad daylight