Nightchild

Chapter 35

That night he made tender love to her. But the recent knowledge of what had happened to her so long ago left a strangeness between them, a difference in their lovemaking. Nate was fearful now of bringing on another horrible nightmare, causing Blythe to once again relive and endure the atrocities of her rape and torture.

 She sensed it. It was what she had feared would happen when he learned the truth and she was filled with an eerie sense of loss. She had, after all, been right...nothing stayed perfect forever. And with that sad thought, she finally slept from sheer emotional exhaustion.

Nate lay motionless in bed until he heard the sound of her steady even breathing then slipped quietly out and made himself comfortable in a chair across the room where he could watch her and wait. There was no way to sleep, not filled with remorse and anger as he was. That anyone could have been so cruel to the woman he loved, that she had been scarred even more deeply on the inside than out, emotionally, from the gross physical violence, consumed him with cringing waves of abhorrence.

Watching her sleep, so innocent, so peaceful, all the feelings culminated into a fiery determination to find the answers, to break the spell the past held over her. Nate had to know, in detail, what had occurred that night when Blythe was a guileless fourteen-year-old virgin. He had to know so he could drive away her fears, end the dreams that had haunted her life.

She had been cheated out of love, out of the joys and satisfaction of sensuous pleasures and in a way she had been cheated out of her youth. As Nate brooded, his determination grew. He wouldn't let this cheat and destroy them. He had to make her past die, as his had. Yes, dead was dead. But most importantly of all, he was determined never, ever to let her go.

Dozing off with these thoughts, the awaited screams broke into his torpid mind, jarring Nate awake. Immediately, he was at Blythe's side, rousing her to consciousness, tenderly soothing her until her eyes were lucid and she was calm.

"Sit up," he urged gently, plumping a pillow against the headboard.

The lights were on, the room bright and Blythe looked at him questioningly.

"Tell me what happened. What did you see in the dream?" he asked quickly, wanting her mind on nothing but the nightmare.

She frowned. "I'm not sure. It was like I told you...the fire, the silhouette, the feeling of his hands..."

"Did you see the flash? Was it a knife?"

Closing her eyes, she rested her head against the pillow. Nate was silent, sick with himself for forcing her back into the nightmare world she'd just escaped. But he was convinced he had to. He had to know everything.

When she looked back, her eyes were wide and luminous, as if not seeing him at all but looking through him to another dimension he could never enter.

"It was the knife. I'm sure of it. But...there...there was...something else... something red flashing from the same hand."

"This is the first time you've noticed it?"

She shook her head slowly. "No, it's been there but I didn't really pay attention. It's just a flashing. That's all I let myself remember."

Nate put his hands on her shoulders and held them firmly. "Think! Think real hard, darlin'. It's important. What do you mean something red? What was it?"

"Jewelry of some sort...a watch, a ring. Something on his hand or wrist." She raised her arm and made a fist as if she were holding a knife. "Like this, the backside of his hand to my face. I don't know. I think it was a ring. It reflected the light from the fire's embers into my eyes and I couldn't see it clearly. But whatever it was...I don't know. There was something through it."

"Something through it? Like what?"

"Like a...like a design slashed across it."

"Blythe, are you recalling the dream or what actually took place?"

Her eyes focused, looked into his and she became disconcerted. "I don't know, Nate. I really don't know."

"Is that all? Is that all you remember?"

"That's all!" she retorted, breaking loose from his hold and getting to her feet, dragging the sheet from the bed to wrap around her nude body. "I feel like a fucking laboratory animal, being watched, examined, studied. Was making love to me an experiment, a test so you could see my reaction, if I'd have the dream? My God, Nate, I'm a human being. Don't do this to me! Don't change towards me."

"We've got to get to the bottom of this for us. You can't go on like you have for the last twenty years...living in fear, afraid of sex, afraid of sleep, afraid of men! Let me help you. We'll work through this together."

"I'm doing fine!" she screamed. "You're the one that can't handle it! I'm not the same to you now. It was so simple when you thought I was rich and spoiled and unsullied...innocent. Now, it's all different. You see me with some creature on top of me...doing God only knows what, grunting and groaning as he slashes into my flesh, his filthy penis inside me. It makes me dirty now, doesn't it?"

Nate was stunned by her accusation and unable to believe her lack of faith in him, in his love and especially in herself.

"Doesn't it?!" she screeched again. "They say he did all sorts of things, Nate, vile things I don't want to remember...things you're better off not knowing."

He had no words strong enough to convince her of his love. All he wanted was to hold her but as he stood and went near her, she quickly moved away.

"Leave me alone, Nate. I mean it! I can't take anymore."

He followed her to the bathroom where she shuffled around in her closet for a robe and slippers. "What are you doing?" he asked, his face drawn into a dark scowl.

"What I do best," she replied, "running away. I'll sleep in the workroom tonight. That way neither of us need worry about being disturbed." Her eyes glinted cold shards of ice as she brushed past him and out the opposite door, closing it with a resounding bang and final click as she set the lock.

Cloistered safely away inside the cubicle, Blythe went to a window and gazed listlessly out into the blackness. She saw neither the rain nor the night but her own reflection instead as it stared hauntingly back at her with vague, empty sockets, blinded by the glare of a flashing red object as a hand, holding a knife, came swiftly down over and over, just as it had for years and she began to weep.