voidtreckernet | Orchestra 31

It's--kind of. It's more sacred for the mortal priestesses who follow the same path. They strive to live in our image, as virgins who live only for the service of others. We're supposed to be--an example to strive towards. [She gestures up and out]

I--I know he knew what I was training to be. Artemis is an eternal maiden, he knows I was staying with her because I was joining her in it. I told him--when he was--that I was going to be a sacred virgin. He--I kind of forgot he even said this. [She presses her hands against her eyes now, bent over.] He said I could make an exception for one so grand as he. I said that's not how this even works--

[And that's when she panicked. At the thought of eternity. At the thought of being this same small fragile village nobody virgin goddess for eternity. Living for others. Never for herself, for her wants, for her desires, her dreams. And she said okay.]

[Devero feels like he's going to be sick. He knows he should keep his hands to himself right now but he can't-- he can't help it, big sensitive idiot that he is. He reaches out after she bends over, setting his hand on the curve of her back.]

He knew exactly what he was doing. Oh Persephone, I'm so sorry he did that to you.

[There's still a part of it she's not touching. She's afraid to touch it, to ask about it. It sits there, a quiet deadly question, as she tries not to cry again. She barely feels the hand on her back, all her focus on what she remembers, the bits and pieces]

I-I knew I didn't want it almost immediately. But I couldn't do anything. I have powers, I have--I could have torn him off me. It was like--it was like I was there but I wasn't, stuck inside myself. Or outside myself--or--I don't know. I'm not helpless, so why...

[He starts to rub her back, little movements up and down her spine.]

I think in-- in moments like that, you forget you can fight back. I always did. My Madame-- my-- [He shakes his head and starts again.] Valdana always knew what to say to keep me... off-balance. Questioning myself, distracted, second-guessing how I felt about how she treated me. I outweigh her by a-- a hundred pounds, and she... [There's another one of those brief, humorless laughs of his. It's harder than he expected to admit this, but he makes himself finish for Persephone's sake.] She could drop me at her feet with a look.

[Persephone curls her fingers in the bottom of her shirt, twisting at the hem, eyes shut. She can't imagine him...someone doing that to him. It's not exactly the same. Part of why she was so scared was how intimidating Apollo was.]

It's...it's the opposite for me. I think. He doesn't scare me because of what he says. Mostly. Though sometimes it's infuriating how he just--he doesn't listen. He has an idea of how things will go and what I'll do and say and if I don't respond the way he wants, he...He's tall. He's tall and muscled and intimidating. He gets in my space and grabs me or looms over me and I just--I then I forget. I forget then that I can fight back.

[Persephone pauses] And I'm scared. To make a fuss. Artemis, I don't know if she'll believe me. I don't--I couldn't tell her because if he told her I was flirting with him and I said yes and we had a relationship, which he all thinks were true, then why would she believe me? I'm just her roommate. She barely knows me.

[Quietly:] He's doing that deliberately. Scaring you, so you'll go along with what he wants. That's--

[His free hand flexes into a fist, then relaxes. He tries so hard to never use his height and his muscles to intimidate other people like that; he was raised to be constantly aware of his physical power and to never, never use it to coerce someone else. That this Apollo has done exactly that to Persephone not only makes him sick, but it makes him personally angry.

He tries to leash that anger before he speaks again.] That's fucking monstrous of him to use his size that way.

[A deep breath in and then out again lets him bank that anger down into a smoldering coal.] That's something else people who commit acquaintance rapes take advantage of-- they rely on outside social pressures to keep their victims quiet. You don't want to be the one who rocks the boat, right? You don't want to risk your relationship with Artemis, so you don't say anything.

[Persephone curls in on herself a little tighter at that tightly held anger. She doesn't quite realize it and she'll feel horrible about it when she does]

I--you know it's worse that he acts like it was the start of something. If he had just done it and left and never come back, I think I could have...I could have handled it. If he didn't try to claim me, pretend this was a relationship, I could have just--pretended it was one awful night, like a nightmare. [She breathes out hard, lifting herself up a little, trying to pull herself back together.]

I-I'm sorry. I didn't come here to talk about everything to do with him. I don't even want to talk about him. I just wanted this to--to go away. To be normal with a normal relationship. And it hurts, that what I want and desire is being tainted by him.

[His hand stills on her back when she curls up tighter, then resumes its light rubbing when she straightens back again.

Gently, so gently:] I think you need to be able to talk about him. I think it's important for you to be able to-- to talk and process what he did to you, for you to be able to move past it. So that what you desire can be yours again.

I hate it. [Then Persephone winces] Not that you're not being...you're--thank you. I'm just...I wish I didn't have to talk about it. And everytime I think I've told you everything, I think of something else or--[A deep breath, in and out] The moments before I left, he was there. We were fighting. For a long time I was afraid to go back to that moment, if we went back. Now we don't and I'm afraid of what's happened to me, my body, if it's still there.

[She pauses] I'm sorry. I keep getting distracted. Off topic. Though I guess I'm not even sure what the topic is. [She fiddles with the cup in front of her] I'm not sure how much you want to know. Or if you want to know anything. Or--or you know, if it'll just make things worse to know everything. It feels a lot like it's worse the more I think about every little thing he's done. And how I keep having to face him here.

[Rust and ruin, Devero hadn't even thought about the body-left-behind aspect of it, and he shudders. Insticitively, protectively, he starts--] If anything has happened to your body--

[But then he seems to deflate, because what's he going to be able to do about it? Him, the least of them on this damn train?

He takes a deep breath, and redirects:] Know this'll be easier said than done, but right now there's nothing that can be done for or about your body. With everything else going on, try-- try not to worry about it?

[Except now he's going to be worrying about his. Fuck!

Taking another deep breath, he reaches past her to reclaim his teacup. He scoots away, giving them both a bit of space, and sips to give himself a moment to decide how to proceed. Finally:]

When I first started facing what Valdana did to me, it was awful. It felt like-- like she was haunting me, like I was seeing her face and hearing her words everywhere. 'Don't be so needy', 'take what you've been given and be grateful', 'be a good boy'. 'You're so pathetic.' 'You didn't earn this.' And-- and worse things. Every time I acknowledged that something she told me about myself or that I'd learned under her hand wasn't true, it seemed to open up a dozen more disorienting, terrifying realizations about her.

And the... [Deep breath.] The whole time, in the beginning, all I could think about what how much of her discipline I was earning. How upset she was going to be when I got back home, how harshly I was going to be, hah, punished for daring to tell other people about the reality of our relationship.

[He laughs again, a brief and bitter chuckle, and rakes his hair off his eyes before he continues.] But at some point, that fear... lessened. It got easier to confront, easier to talk about. Talking about it made what had happened true, but it also meant I wasn't fighting myself over it anymore, trying to diminish or deny the... the barbarity of what she did to me. I wasn't making it my fault, what happened, because it wasn't.

[He sets his teacup down again and looks over at her, reaching out to lay his big hand over her forearm.] Our situations may be very different, but what he did to you was barbaric too. It wasn't your fault, in any way. Only he is responsible for how he acted, and he knowingly chose violence.

And I-- I really do think getting it all out will help. Whether you talk to me or to someone else, I hope you'll tell somebody. I think you'll find that owning it will give you power over it, and once you have power over it, it'll be easier to move on.

[ Her hair is falling in a curtain around her face, obscuring her wince as he speaks about the awful things she said to him. How must his life had been to have accepted that? Seen it as normal. Good even.

But some things ring the same. His fear of the return, his fear of what they would think, do, if they knew what was said about them in their absence. Her nails dig into her palms, bruising the skin in perfect crescents. If they can't see what's not normal until they're out of it, until someone else is seeing it from the outside.]

I'm afraid. I'm afraid that--that people will see me differently. Treat me differently. Or because...because I said okay in the end, I...[She catches her breath, trying to firmly stop herself from dissolving back into tears. It takes a moment for her to speak again and even then there's a wobble in her voice] And the rest of it--sometimes I feel like--like did I lead him on? Was I not clear, was I--did he, did he really think I was into this, into him? And then he said stuff like he did when we were fighting and he...[She breathes out again, slow in and out] Do you ever feel like you have to give her the benefit of the doubt? That you have to tell both sides of it, because the way you feel might just be clouded or not right? That your feelings aren't...facts? So they don't really count?

For years I felt like that. [There's another one of those laughs-- they're a tic, really, because he doesn't find this funny at all, but it comes out of him regardless.] I think... I....

[Deep breath.] Koumyou told me, very early on, that there was a part of me that knew what Valdana and I had was wrong, and that he could hear it screaming to be heard.

I'd built up this whole-- story, in my head. To explain to myself why she was treating me the way she did. And it couldn't-- it couldn't be because she was doing something awful to me, so it had to be because of me.

[He looks at her through hooded eyes.] I consented, so it was okay. I was hers, so I had to do what she said. I broke the rules, so she had to hurt me. If I tried to tell anyone, they would tell me I deserved what I got because I was her sub.

Any time I had... doubts, any time I started to feel like maybe something wasn't right, like maybe I didn't like being her sub after all, she was right there to tell me I was wrong. I didn't know my own feelings, I didn't understand, I didn't know what I was saying.

Everything she ever said to me was-- was predicated on this idea that I had agreed to her-- her violence and her control of-- my whole fucking life and because of that what she did was okay--!

[He loses it a little there, twisting away from her and covering his mouth with one hand. He breathes hard through his nose, tears squeezing out of his eyes as he gets swamped with the anger and the self-loathing he still feels that he let her do that to him for so long.]

[One day she'll ask him what sub and kinky mean, the words he says that make her feel slightly out of her depth, not quite exactly following what he means. But she can pick through the rest, find a narrative in there that grows and grows in horror.

Persephone turns with him, hand on his shoulder, unsure if he even wants the touch, wants her to see.]

I-I'm sorry. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to...I didn't mean to bring up all of that for you. [Her voice cracks on her guilt, her sadness; a refection of his own anger and tears. No no, don't cry. She wipes at her eyes with furious pushes of her free hand. And it only happened to her once, this horrid violation of herself. Everything else was just reopening the same wound over and over. Not...Not this violation over and over, repeated yet fresh. She pulls back, forcing her hands to her lap, eyes pointed at the table but not seeing anything.]

I'm sorry.

It needs to come up. [His voice is low and raspy, but sincere.] I spent so long in denial, with this... festering inside of me, and I--

I...

[He blows out a breath, finally straightening back up and peeking back at her. What he sees make him shift back towards her; the hand she'd put on his shoulder gives him the courage to put his arm over hers now, though only lightly. (How conscious he always is of his weight and power, how careful to keep it in control.)]

I promised Koumyou that I wouldn't run from it anymore. Running from it means she still has... has this power over me. [Now it's his turn to dash tears out of his eyes as he speaks, wiping his cheeks un-self-consciously.]

Part of... part of the reason I told you this is because... from here, it looks like he still has the same power over you. Obviously our-- our situations were very different, the details and the scope of everything, but-- what you've told me about him just reminds me so so much of her and what she did to me. Took advantage of me, made me feel like it was my fault, kept me in-- in line by making me question myself all the fucking time-- rust and ruin.

[He has to switch from his palm to the sleeve of his shirt to mop his face off again.]

But you--you had it much worse!

[Can anyone stop themselves from the comparisons? She's told others not to, time after time, but here she is, doing it now, without even meaning to.]

He --I--[She wants to say that she gave in but he's neatly trapped her with that comparison. Her voice catches and then begins again] He hurt me once, really. You were... Much more. And I don't know what more to do than run from this. What am I supposed to do? I can't go after him, I can't stop thinking about him. I never want to think about him. Isn't part of taking about this so I stop thinking about him?

[Gently, but pointedly:] So because I had it worse, your experience wasn't traumatic?

[Devero releases her and slides off the seat to crouch in front of her. He puts both hands on her shoulders and tries to meet her eyes.] You may never be able to stop thinking about him entirely. I'm sorry.

The point of talking about this is to face it, so you can come to terms with what happened and heal. It's not-- it's not going to be easy. It's work. I've been working on it since I got here, and I-- I think I have a long way to go before I'm healed from what she did to me.

So-- heh, look at it this way, at least you have less to heal than me? [Believe it or not, he means that as encouragement, clumsy though it it.]

[True though it might be, it's not really what she wants to hear. It's honest and real and she'd known there would be no quick fix to this if she hadn't managed it on her own, but...One could hope.]

I don't know how to heal. I had kind of--I had kind of hoped it was like a poison, get it all out and you'll be fine. [Or what she imagines poisons are like as a being who has never worried about one] That it was just festering and telling someone would help get it out of my head.

It was festering. [He knows. He sits back into seiza, dropping his hands to his thighs. He's still looking up at her, though, still oh-so-earnest.] Telling me allowed you to open the wound and start it draining, but it will take time and work to flush it clean and heal it.

Well it sucks. [Eloquent] I just want to feel whole again. [She drops her head back against the wall] Not that I'm sure I've felt whole in years. But--more. More like myself. Whoever that is.

It does. [Wry.

He regards her for a moment, his expression thoughtful. After a moment or wrestling with himself, he finally says:] I think you need to figure out who that is before you can do anything else, love.

[Because everything she's told him in the span of their acquaintance, everything he knows about her and her mother and how she was raised makes him suspect that she didn't know that even before Apollo hurt her.]

[Deep breath. Isn't that just the story of her adolescence? And her adulthood for that matter.]

Easier said than done.

[This feels like enough, right? It's enough. She's spilled her guts, he's been so kind, it's enough. But something keeps clawing at her. A question that she's fairly sure she knows the answer to, but--it's important to get confirmation.]

Can I ask you one more thing?

Most important things are.

[He nods immediately.] Of course. Go ahead.

[While his response is immediate, her own takes a few moments.]

Is it. Is it normal to take pictures? [She really hopes the 'during sex' was implied because she can't bring herself to name the act]

[Is it normal to take pictures? He actually has no idea, his sense of what she might consider normal in a sexual relationship skewed by his own profound abuse.

Then again, where he comes from, 'normal' doesn't matter. Consent does.]

Did he-- [Take pictures of her? Obviously, or she wouldn't have asked.] --did he ask you, before he did?

[It's not is it? She hadn't been sure. No one had talked about it and maybe it was just another case of her being a stupid naive village girl, one who can't follow half of the conversation at times, one who--Bile starts to rise in her throat and she swallows hard]

[Her voice is small, choked as she replies] N-No. He didn't.

Orchestra 31 | Voice

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