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“Relax and enjoy.”The words echoed in my mind, triggering the memories I did not want to revisit. But with my defenses down, I could no longer hold them back. I couldn’t fight the darkness.

“If it happens, just lay back and enjoy.”

The words boomed through my brain like an explosion, flooding my mind with shame and horror.

“No.” I scrambled off his lap and crawled to the opposite end of the couch. “Don’t touch me. Don’t... Please.”

He sat back, lifting his hands up, his palms facing me, as if to show he meant no harm. I knew he didn’t. Yet I could no longer breathe with him in the room.

“Ari?” He stared at me in shock. “Did I do something wrong?”

“Not you, Salas. But everyone who’s come before you.”

I curled into myself. Tears welled in my eyes. I dreaded them spilling over. Hugging my arms, I tried in vain to hold on to my composure, hating to break down in front of him.

“Come here,” he pleaded. “Tell me what I can do to make it better?”

I trembled, torn between the need for comfort he offered and the instinct to run.

Run.

Always running. That was how I’d survived. Until I had nowhere to run anymore.

His erection pushed against the thin material of his sarong. He traced my terrified stare to it.

“Don’t worry about it,” he said firmly. “It’s just a physical reaction of my body. I can’t control it. But Icancontrol my actions. Nothing will happen unless you want it.”

His crestfallen expression devastated me. Salas had been kind to me. Patient and gentle. He’d done nothing wrong. I hated for him to blame himself for my past.

I wished to explain it to him, but I wasn’t sure how.

“You wanted to know how far I’ve come with a man...” I cleared my throat, struggling to put into words what I’d been trying so hard to forget. “I was thirteen. I ran away from the village where I was born. You see... My parents, the people who gave birth to me, drank a lot. They fought. My dad killed my mom, then tried to sell me to feed his addiction.”

The shock on Salas’s face should’ve stopped me, but I’d finally found the words for things I never spoke about, and it was impossible to hold them back now.

“I escaped and ran to the city.”

There wouldn’t have been a happy ending to my story if it wasn’t for Queen Anna, I firmly believed that. Happiness had stayed away from me, even as I’d searched for it with the desperation of a woman obsessed.

How naïve I’d been, thinking that life in the city would be better. Many changes had happened in the country at that time, and changes always meant someone came up on top and someone was left behind, unable to adapt. Desperation reigned among those on the very bottom.

“I had no place to go and ended up sleeping in an alley,” I recalled. “I had no money. During the day, I wandered the streets in search of something to eat. Grocery stores were harder to steal from. But in the open market, some merchants could beat people to death for shoplifting. Exhausted, I fell asleep on a park bench the first night, only to wake up a little while later to someone trying to climb on top of me while shoving his hands in my pants. I kicked him off me and ran, then hid in an alley behind a dumpster. I slept with one eye open, in a constant state of readiness to either fight or run.”

Dark shapes emerging from the street, like shadows peeling from the night...

I closed my eyes, but it proved harder that way. Seeing Salas’s face gave me strength to continue.

“A group of men found me. Someone always found me, no matter how much I tried to hide. They said it was their territory where I hid. They said I had to pay them for sleeping there. They beat me. Broke my ribs and twisted my arm...”

The pain had been excruciating. But blinding, paralyzing fear had dowsed the pain.

“I don’t know how many there were, but...” I drew in a breath, resolved to finish telling him what I’d started. “They were all going to rape me. I cried. I said I was only thirteen. That I had no parents or anyone to take care of me. No home. Their leader said they’d let me be if I... sucked him off every time he came by. He put a gun to my head...”

In his mind, the thug must’ve felt good about himself, noble even, offering me his protection in exchange for blow jobs. It was a shitty choice. But it was the only choice I had.

“I did it, Salas...”

I had not recalled this part in any detail since the night it happened and now, the disgusting images flooded my mind like filth from a backed-up sewer.