voidtreckernet | Orchestra 31

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Orchestra 31 | Voice

[She wishes they could just post text but here they are with just voice and video. So. Voice it is]

Hi, um, I was wondering if anyone on the train is like. A therapist? Or a counselor or something like that? It's nothing to do with the whole thing that happened recently, it's more that... Well I promised a friend back home that I'd speak to someone about this--thing that happened back home. But there's not really been a way to do that here. And it keeps coming back to bother me.

I guess failing any professionals, maybe just someone to talk to about it.

Um, I don't want to talk about what incident was on here but maybe I could try to explain in private? [Why do you have to talk about things to actually talk about things, this is the worst.]

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[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.

That's not normal. [Bile's rising in his throat too, honestly; his fingers dig into his thighs and he has to look away, lest the disgust and anger he feels for Apollo show too obviously, lest she think it's directed at her.] Another violation.

[He forces a deep breath before he looks back at her.] I'm sorry.

Right. [She chokes on the word, some feeling rising up inside her. Rage or desperation or simple emotional exhaustion. Maybe all of them. Maybe none of them. Her power tingles at her fingertips like a sneeze, like all she has to do it let go and her emotion will spill over into power. When will the violations be done? When will she stop realizing new ones? She breathes in and out, slow.

A few more breathes and she seems so deathly calm and still. Her eyes stay shut. She's afraid they're red to be honest.]

I need to go. I'm going to throw up or lose control. Or both. And none of the options will be pretty.

[One of his big hands lights on her knee, giving a single supportive squeeze before he takes it back.] I understand.

[He stands and retreats to the other side of the room, giving her space. With soft encouragement:] Try to let it out somehow. It'll help, I promise.

If you want to talk again, just let me know, all right?

[She barely moves, aware of all the energy in her that needs to go somewhere, the pit roiling in her stomach and up into her throat.]

Right. I mean, I will. If I need to talk again, I will.

[She's up now, moving for the door] I'm sorry, I have to--[She rushes past him and down the stairs. It's a loud process, as she hits a wall on her way down, but he'll find no life sprouting in her wake, no walls torn down by vines, and no mess. She made it, bruised and bumped, to hole up somewhere]

[He tries to tell her it's okay, but she leaves in such a rush that he doubts she hears him. That's okay too. He listens to her bang away down the stairs, then turns away from the door with a faint sigh.

He finds himself face to face with a flower, one of the big ones that had opened up in response to Persephone's distress. He reaches up to cup the soft petals for a moment. Quietly:] I hope that helped. I hope she can... can find some measure of peace from this eventually.

[Another sigh. He drops his hand and his eyes.] I hope I can too.

[He collects the makeshift tea service he'd brought up with him, and quits the room.]

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Orchestra 31 | Voice

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