He tells me he loves me for the first time. Laying on his stomach as I work almond oil into his back, teasing the muscles into shape. Cooing them into submission, bending them with strong fingers to my will.
I see my pale hands against his pale back. Darkness lapping at the edges of us. Shadows of the ombres given life in the small hours.
Everything feels so much greater in the small hours.
How he expands with each breath.
The sharp tips of his hair beneath my fingers.
The curve of his lips with his face pressed to the pillow.
The guilt I harbour in sullying this mans bed with myself.
He tells me, as I preform my machinations, that he loves me. That it scares him. I dont think he can tell that I am afraid. That I am always afraid. Of the way I move, and the faces I wear, or the shape of my skin, and the weight of the world.
That loving him scares me too.
Not because he is not kind.
And he does not deserve the pain that comes with loving me. He is delicate, and my hands are heavy; I have always destroyed delicate things.
I want to tell him to run. To cast me from this place and salt the doors. To summon a priest to exorcise this mournful, wicked, spirit.
I tell him I love him too.
He breathes out. I dont think he noticed the pause in my hands. I pray he didnt notice how they stumbled.
I am thankful that it is dark.
He compliments the way I move. The way I tease knots from him. He says he feels guilt at making me do this. So I smile, tender, and tell him I never so anything I dont want to do.
Then, as he is beneath me, I tell him how I learned this. That i was born to please and trained to become. That this, massaging, was my favourite part. When I was safest.
That is when he tells me.
As though my pain is something worth loving.
Does he not know never to fall in love with a slave?
Our backgrounds are so different.
Once, he told me of the worst place he ever lived. A dirty house with dirty people. Where he was warm and dry and fed.
And I told him of a place I once lived. In a closet with a broken window. Where the walls peeled and my skin was always damp. Where there was no bathroom or kitchen or light. Where I only knew cold. Where the only clothes I owned were chef blacks, and I packed the holes in my shoes with paper that I coloured black.
I think he is shocked. Or ashamed.
I think I feel the shame because I know I have risen above my station. That one day I will have to return to that closet, where I was always cold and damp and hungry. Where my skin was still healing after my escape. Freshly whipped, freshly cut, freshly molested. Trying to heal this fragile body without water, or food, or a place to wash. Where I will have to grapple that being there is as much what I am as what I deserve.
I realise, in these moments, that we are different. That he was born in the light. That all his dark moments took place in the shadows, where the sun of his birth could not touch. Could not intervene.
But I was born in the dark. And the dark will always reach me. Nothing ever fights it back forever.
One day, the dark will claim me again. And I will return, back bent and head bowed, to reattach my shackles to my chains. Knowing that I tasted the sun. His sun. And knowing that I will forever be ruined by it.
That, as I shake in my fear. Waiting. Waiting. For the next man they bring to me. I will remember a moment beneath a tree in a park. Where I wear a blue dress and red lipstick, where he is shirtless. Whilst I massage a knot from his arm, and he picks leaves from my hair. Where we are laughing, sweating in the sun. And he tells me, as the light dances on his skin, highlighting his freckles, that he loves me.
Then the door to my closet will open. And someone will come in. And he will cut me. And use me. And I will forget another freckle. Or the right shade of his hair. And it will fade. As I lay in the dark. And wait for another.
And then, when his ghost haunts that room. When I see a shadow of his face in the mold and damp, I will know I have forgotten. The sun and the freckles and the scrunch of his eyes. His peat earth taste and delicate fingers. I will massage a thousand others, always looking for a mole to the left of his spine, nestled into his so proud shoulders.
And I will become a poltergeist. Tormented and wailing. Only knowing that something is gone. That he is missing from me. That it was worth it. For a single minute with him, telling me he loves me, under the sun.
That it all was worth it.
