Page 23 of Acts of Contrition
She shakes her head so hard her hair flies.
I nudge the bag with the cosmetics closer. “Let’s cooperate here. It’s not anything you did wrong, is it?”
She shakes her head again.
I push the bag even closer to her. “I brought you something else from home.”
With a side-eyed glance, as if I’ll bite, she peers inside, her pretty mouth forming a little O shape.
“Tell me exactly what went on in your apartment, and you can have these, too.”
“You need to believe me…” She trails off for a second. “There’s nothing you can do.”
“Let me be the judge of that.”
“You don’t get it.” Her voice is hard, angry, hurt. “I tell you, you will go to the police. And they’ll pretend to investigate, and Rick will … no.No. I won’t make things any worse for them!”
“Diana. Look at me.”
She does, determination aflame in her eyes. I would never tell her, but I love that look. As much as I want to break her, I must do so carefully. This spark is one I will love in my wife. Ido not wish for meek and submissive always. Submissive to me in many ways, yes, but never meek in such a way as she has no personality.
Sometimes evenIlike to play with fire.
“Do you believe I would go to the police when they may come here to question me? I do not know this Rick person, but I am sure he would, as most other heathens, happily throw me to the wolves to save his own skin.” I gesture to her. “I know what I have done is not wrong. The law sees things in black and white, not shades of gray.”
She is silent, so I continue.
“It seems he has done horrible things; he should be punished. But only you can help me do that. Consider this part of your training. To trust in me, and to condemn those within your past.”
“I need you to make me a promise. You won’t let Whitney or her mom be hurt.” Her eyes soften. “Please.”
That word shocks me to my core. I have put her through three weeks of my restructural training for her body and soul, and never once has she begged for anything. Yet, on someone else’s behalf, she lowers herself to pleading.
“I promise.”
She sighs and sits back, so her back is against the bare stone wall, still clutching the bear for dear life.
“He is assigned to the public aid office and Section 8. For poor people,” she adds, as if I don’t know what that is. “He is marked as a safe space for young women and mothers. He’s not.”
Her eyes turn dull; so sudden, it startles me.
“When I moved in, it was about ten months ago now, I didn’t have much. And the leasesaidwe got three days leeway for late rent. Well … he wanted it that night, when he showed up at my apartment, letting himself in with his keys.” She glancesat me and then away. “I’m sure you can guess what happened next.”
My stomach churns. There is a reason aside from wanting her body and soul equally cleansed that I have not properly had sex with her. When I’m inside her, I need her to beg me for it first. I need her to want me as much as I want her, if not more. I have absolutely no interest in laying with a woman whose heart doesn’t feel the same, nor her body. Not anymore, anyway.
She will desire me first.
I nod at her words. “And the neighbors?”
“He beat Mrs. Thompson while Whitney was in school. He said next time, he’d … he’d rape Whitney. She’s twelve, for fuck’s sake!”
I ignore her curse for the moment over my own disgust. The Bible is very clear on one thing: harming a child is a direct insult to God.
“I took her to my apartment the next afternoon after Mrs. Thompson said she was short two hundred dollars so she would be safe. Lied that Whitney wasn’t going to be home until the next day. He said if she didn’t have the money within a day, there would be nowhere the kid could hide.”
She bends her knees and tucks her head, and the bear, into them. “That was the night you picked me up.”
“You were working to earn the two hundred dollars?” I ask.
