06 December 2012 fiction, "Queen"

She closes her eyes, praying only for this moment to be over. Why it’s so hard for her to get a grip and embrace her surroundings, she will never know. As she feels his hot breath on her cheek, tears spring to her eyes. he wraps his arms around her, and she doesn’t understand why all she feels is disgust. All she wants is to get away.

She whispers something about getting some air, and slips quietly out of the room. She tiptoes through the hallway and finds her way to a door outside. It’s cold and dark and she isn’t sure who she will run into, but she slips outside and locks the door behind her anyway.

The night stars and the gentle air press on her firmly, screaming at her to face her thoughts. And as she does, she wishes she could forget. But she can’t. She brought this upon herself because she wasn’t strong enough to resist. She wasn’t strong enough to save herself, to give herself a life of love and not a life of acceptance, weariness, and submissiveness. And it’s too late now. Leaving him, being with someone else, that would make her the enemy. She would be the one in the wrong. No one would see it as her taking control of her own life, they would only see what they wanted to see. That he is innocent, and she consumed with evil. Malice, maybe. And guilty. Guilty as anything. His flaws perfectly invisible while her completely inescapable.

She sits down on the ground, her back pressed up against the door. She closes her eyes, and leans her head down on her knees. She hates him. Hates him for what he’s done to her, and hates herself for needing him this much. How easy it is for a man to manipulate a woman. To put a ring on her finger and whisper a promise in her ear, and all of a sudden she’s his. To keep. To blame, to manipulate, to abuse.

She clings frantically to the thought that she could leave if it got really bad. But she begins to realize that certain circumstances make that escape woefully unattainable. She has no money, no friends in this strange new place, and lord knows the world isn’t kind to single women with no employment and no pennies to their name.

Her future looks bleak. She has to stay with him, for the sake of civility, if nothing else. Every inch of her heart begs her to just run away now, while she can. While nobody is watching her. While she has the thought, the courage, and the chance. But her legs refuse to move, and she knows it will never happen.

She prays quickly, a prayer she makes up to teach her to learn to love him, and walks slowly and shamefully back to the bedroom. Afraid to rethink and balk, she climbs into the bed, and allows him to kiss her, but nothing more. “I’m tired.” She says flatly, and he listens and leaves her alone, because he’s kind to her. Little does she know he’s had two affairs today. And little will she know about the ones that happen tomorrow. But right now, he’s hers and she’s his. And neither of them really know what that means.

She opens her mouth and manages the words “George, I want—“ but she chokes on the last word, and can’t finish her sentence. He hasn’t heard her anyway, he’s fast asleep. She cries softly, and wonders what it will be like tomorrow, when she is to be queen of