Gawd - these chapters are getting shorter and shorter, but they keep coming. I hope that it will be better in the future and that I can update more quickly, because the last stressful event in my life - namely moving to Ireland in order to study - is now over. It was a busy year. The good news is that this will probably improve my English and thus also this story. So bear with me - it has only just begun. :) Thanks for being patient with me so far.
Chapter 7 - The hard way
Sex with Miles Quaritch was not as horrible as Grace had expected. Of course there were several shades of "horrible". Although he made sure that he didn't hurt her physically, she still despised him and what he did with her. It was exactly therefore that she hated it that much: he made her body betray her on every possible occasion; he pretended that what was happening was consensual although it was definitely not and he knew it.
Technically what he did to her was nothing less than sexual assault, if not rape. But nobody would believe that without proof. She had no physical signs of sexual abuse and her mental wounds were invisible to outside observers. Her body was not showing all the things he had told her, all the threats he had her blackmailed with. And thus her body also didn't show any traces of non-consensual sexual intercourse.
And even if it did? She enjoyed it, didn't she? How could it be rape? Those questions were inevitable should she tell any authority about this and only she knew the true answer.
Besides, the only law enforcement unit here was lead by nobody but Miles Quaritch himself.
She was trapped in his carefully laid-out net in which sex played a prominent, but not the only role.
He had taken his time before he had taken her for the first time and the memories of this evening and all the other evenings afterwards haunted her more than she liked to admit. When she was supposed to work her mind wandered back to his hands on her naked hips, pulling her on top of him, pulling her closer, feeling him inside…
It was no daydreaming that she saw these images before her inner eye; it was out of a feeling of dread and disgust. He violated her most intimate sphere just because he could and on a regular basis. Sometimes he came to her quarters, sometimes he ordered her to come to his, but never could she anticipate when he would call upon her. He didn't sleep with her each time she was forced to spend time with him. Sometimes he used his hands to "satisfy" her, sometimes he barely touched her and sometimes not at all. He was very moody in all he did, but also very, very careful not to leave visible traces.
When she saw into her colleagues' faces she sometimes wondered what they would think if they knew that she was sleeping with the outpost's chief of security in order to ensure that they could continue their work with the Na'Vi. What a twisted and stupid situation! And telling them still wouldn't have improved anything. Thus she kept quiet and performed as it was expected of her. And waited. Nothing could last forever and that included Quaritch and his little game.
One day she would be free from him. She just waited for this day.
In the meantime she kept convincing herself that it got easier as time passed, but the truth was that it didn't. It hurt as much as on the first night they slept together and he made sure that she wouldn't forget. When he had summoned her that night, shortly after he had assaulted her in the laboratory she already assumed that this was finally the day when he wanted to take their "relationship" to another level, but again it didn't prepare her for this encounter. In an encounter that must have looked totally random to anybody else but her he made her understand that he wanted to see her that evening and that she'd better obeyed.
And she did. Of course. She would remember this evening forever…