Bloody Kiss

“This…” Maisie doesn’t finish her words, and I am grateful for that, I am already embarrassed enough as I am without anyone addressing it.

“I will go get us more coffee…” she says while picking up the empty mugs, I just nod, still looking at my broken phone's screen and the thousands of messages I shared with my potential rapist. Just what the hell is this?

I scroll up and down in the conversation, between me and the so-called Nathaniel Williams, unable to believe my own eyes.

At first, they were all normal texts, work-related and professional, the very first ones were discussing some of the contract conditions, and I see that I have signed with him for two years. Now that was promising.

“You are late.”

“Impressive job with Father”

“You are late.”

“He is getting better with your care.”

“You are late.”

“We have many spare rooms that can save us all the tardiness, Miss Kings.”

These were all messages I have received from him, and call me paranoid but I’ve noticed this weird pattern, like he would send me a message every night to “evaluate” my service, at first I thought it was random but he kept on sending me such messages for a whole month, sometimes it was the only message of the day, and sometimes, something like, “You are late.” Or “You are slacking” would pop up during the day. Now that is one creepy bossy boss.

For that whole month the messages could still be considered as normal and straight up professional, however, in the months that followed, his messages became more frequent, and a little bit less related to work, he would send me texts asking how I was doing, if I ate, if I was feeling alright, I also noticed that he wasn’t addressing me with Miss Kings anymore but with Natalia.

We were still in a safe zone, I thought to myself while reading more into the conversation, there were some invitations to join him for lunch or dinner, some offers to give me rides once in a while, but it wasn’t strange since we were living in the same house, still normal, still in the green bit greyish zone…

“I can’t stop thinking about that kiss…” Now, this is definitely NOT normal, nor was my reply as I told him I couldn’t stop thinking about it either, and God, wasn’t that the green light he needed…

“Your lips were the softest thing I have ever kissed .”

“The way your lower lip trembled when I first kissed you, so innocent and so tempting.”

“I didn’t know you would look that cute after being kissed.”

“Your cheeks were as red as those swollen lips of yours.”

“You are so sweet, the after taste of your mouth is still on my tongue.”

“I want to kiss you again.”

“I want to kiss you again and again…”

I put the phone down for a minute to fan my face, I am feeling uncomfortable about the fact I have kissed my boss who is now my potential rapist, and even flirted about it as I have replied to every single one of those messages, but that is not the only thing I am feeling right now.

Heat, I am feeling so hot while thinking about that bloody kiss which I couldn’t even remember, I am frustrated but also so hot to the point where I unconsciously raised my hand to my mouth, trailing my fingers on my lips that opened on their own ever so slightly, and the feeling brought back another fragment of a memory.

His face, and that gorgeous beard of his, surprisingly though my sight was focused on his lower face, his lips, and how he licked them so slowly as if deliberately teasing me, luring me to reach out and taste them.

The sound of Maisie’s footsteps pulls me out of my thoughts, I look up at her and notice the steaming mugs she has in hand, even without my memories I know I love the black liquid, she sits next to me on the bed, handing me one of the cups as she sips from the other.

“Spit it out.” She says with a knowing look, that annoying one that came with a raised corner of her mouth.

“I, have been remembering some things, they are not clear memories, more like, few vague fragments.” I say while looking down at my mug.

“I have already guessed that much. Especially with the way you have been zoning out, not to mention your latest breakdown, what else?"

Seeing my perplexed expression, she starts explaining, “Your innate actions and behavior, Natalia, the ones you do on autopilot without even realizing you are to relieve your stress, in your case, you tend to avoid eye contact and play with whatever you can touch, your hair, your phone, your clothes, and right now, it is your mug you are molesting, as I said these are stress-relieving gestures with which one can somehow lighten up the pressure on a certain moment, for others, observers such as myself, it is a way to know you are stressed and about to tell, hide, or lie about something.”

Ah, so that was how she knew I had something to say, I nod at her awkwardly before taking a deep breath.

“All the things I have remembered are related to…him.” My voice became significantly small as I say the words, ashamed of myself and memories, ashamed of the fact that Maisie had seen those messages we shared and knew about my relationship with my boss which I apparently kept hidden for the past few months.

“That is perfectly understandable if we took into consideration that your latest memories were related to him, Natalia.”

“Do you think he did it?” I ask, hesitantly.

“To be honest, I don’t really know.” She shakes her head, and I see it in her eyes that she is having some kind of an inner turmoil, one that she puts to rest with a sigh “I mean, just like you, I find his behavior suspicious, we don’t even have enough clues to build up a case against him, but he has taken it way too far to prove his innocence, and make you impugn all the claims about him raping you, the texts show he has a slight…well not exactly slight, but still, a tendency to be rough and violent during sex.”

I look up, ashamed of all the dirty lines we read, the things he said he would do to me and the way I replied, it am utterly embarrassed and again, hot.

“But even with that fact in hand, you seemed aware and prepared, willing even to try things his way, you knew what was going to happen Natalia, and even if things were a bit too much, I don’t think it might have caused you this much damage.”

“What do you mean?” I ask, genuinely confused.

“You were not a virgin the day I examined you, Natalia, and you didn’t look like you just had your first intercourse, to be honest, you didn’t even look like you had intercourse, not in that night at least, and beside the few bruises here and there, mostly on your butt cheeks, there was no sign of forced penetration.”

“Are you sure?”

“This is not something I can be mistaken about, that and the fact that he took the time to pleasure the rest of your body with his mouth, where we have found the traces of his saliva, it just sounds too odd to be an act of rape, especially if the victim was unwilling and resisted him.”

“Maybe I was forced to, not physically, maybe I was threatened or intimidated.”

“That is possible, but babe, I doubt that would give you the amnesia you are now having. You see, dissociative amnesia is not something you see every day, and I wouldn’t have believed it if it was someone else or someone else’s diagnosis and not Dr. Jones, it is a rare case and the result of a big destructive trauma, one that has left you so shattered to the point where your mind couldn’t take it and crumbled on itself, a rape accident, where you have been forced so painfully and abruptly

could have been incriminated, but a slow-motion sex with so much spanking, licking, and eating your face and boobs, even if under intimidation, isn’t enough to cause such a serious shock.”

“Then what happened to me? If he didn’t hurt me then why did I lose my memory? and why did I get that terrifying flashback in the hearing when he tried to approach me?” I said almost crying, frustrated by the fact that I didn’t get any answers but more questions.

“I really don’t know, he may have not raped you, but he definitely hurt you, not in the way we think, but in a way that triggered something in you.”