Page 14 of Deserving Lara
Henley gave her a gentle smile. “If you don’t want to do this, you don’t have to,” she said.
“I don’t want him to win,” Lara blurted. She had no idea where that thought came from, but as soon as the words left her lips, she realized how true they were.
“How would he win?” Henley asked.
“He liked how scared I was,” Lara admitted out loud for the first time. “He reveled in it. At first, he liked how hard I fought. He handcuffed my wrists to the bed but left my legs free. I kicked at him whenever he got close. Helovedthat. He’d pull out his dick and jack off to my struggles.”
Lara was breathing way too fast, and she could feel her heart pounding in her chest. Just like it had back then.
“Did he talk while he was doing that?” Henley asked in a controlled, calm tone.
“He neverstoppedtalking,” Lara whispered. “He told me everything he was thinking. How much my fear turned him on. That he adored how red and blotchy my skin got when I was thrashing, how he loved seeing my breasts heave with every panicked breath, and the more my pupils dilated with panic, the more turned on he got.”
Lara squeezed her eyes shut but immediately opened them again when memories threatened to overwhelm her. She turned her head, not sure what she was looking for, but realizing what it was the second her gaze landed on Owl. He was sitting forward in his chair, his gaze pinned on hers…and just like that, she began to calm. She wasn’t in that basement. She was safe here. Owl wouldn’t let anyone get to her.
“When did he start drugging you?” Henley asked.
Lara inhaled and forced herself to study the other woman. She had one hand on her belly, slowly stroking, as if she didn’t even know she was doing it. Though Henley wasn’t really showing yet, Lara knew she was pregnant. She’d heard stories about what had happened to her daughter, how she’d been kidnapped by a local teenage ex-patient. That ordeal had to have been extremely distressing, and yet here she was, helping others. Moving on with her life.
Cora had live-streamed the wedding ceremony Henley and her husband, Tonka, had out in the barn just a few weeks ago. At that time, Lara wasn’t ready to leave Owl’s cabin. She remembered the look on Tonka’s face. He’d looked at Henley as if she was the most important person in his life. And when he’d looked at Jasna, his stepdaughter, his look was much the same.
Owl had told her a little about Tonka’s situation. What happened to him while he’d been in the Coast Guard. If he and Henley could move on with their lives after the horrible things they’d endured, it gave Lara hope that she could too.
“He didn’t like that I started spitting at him,” Lara admitted softly. “When I’d talk over him so I didn’t have to listen to what he was saying. At first, the drugs made everything worse. I was so lethargic, he could touch me while he…” Lara’s voice trailed off, and she used her hand to demonstrate a man jacking off. It was a crude gesture, but it seemed better than saying the words out loud.
“Did he rape you?”
Henley’s question was blunt and almost harsh-sounding, but Lara appreciated her candor.
She looked down at her lap. “No.”
“And you feel guilty about that.”
She looked up in surprise.
Henley gave her a small, tender smile. “Just because he didn’t penetrate you doesn’t mean you weren’t violated. You didn’t give him permission to touch you. What he did was perverted and sick. And many times, words can be just as painful as an actual physical touch.”
“He liked seeing his release on me. It itched. I can still feel it. It dried on my skin, and I can still smell him on me. It doesn’t feel as if I’ll ever get clean of it. Of him.”
Henley leaned forward then. “You will. I promise you, Lara, you will.”
“How?”
“Time. And the love and acceptance of your friends. You think Cora thinks less of you because of what you went through?”
“She doesn’t know,” Lara insisted.
“You think if she knew, she’d care?” Henley pressed.
Lara bit her lip. If she was honest with herself, yeah, she thought she’d care.
“She won’t,” Henley said firmly.
“When he came in with the drugs…eventually, I wanted them. I took them gladly. He taunted me with that too. Said I was an addict. Called me pathetic. But I didn’t care. If I could’ve taken double, triple, quadruple the number of pills he offered me, I would’ve. When he was…you know…I wasn’t there. I was somewhere else. Back in DC. On my couch. Watching TV.”
“Good for you for having a coping mechanism.”
Again, Lara blinked in surprise.
