‘No. He only raped me. Not even in a very imaginative way. Just plain old-fashioned choking, slapping and rape.’
‘Chassim,’ he said, shocked; almost rebuking her for how callously she dismissed it.
‘What?’ she demanded. Her mouth was swollen but her lip still curled in dismay. ‘Did you think it my first time? It was not. Or will you pretend to be surprised, and claim that this is not the way of your kind?’
She touched him kindly as she spoke so harshly, taking him by the shoulders and pulling him to a sitting position. He coughed again and was ashamed when she lifted the corner of her sleeve and wiped his mouth with it. When he could speak, he said, ‘Among my people, rape is not condoned.’
‘No? But I am sure it still happens all the same.’
‘It does,’ he had to admit. He gently pulled free of her. If she had not been watching, he would have crawled back to the divan. He could feel where Ellik had kicked him. Once in the ribs, once on the hip and once in the head. It hurt, but it could have been worse. Once, he had seen a man beaten down and then stamped upon. It had happened right outside his cage when he had first been put on display. The attackers had all been drunk, all mocking spectators, and he had not felt kindly toward any of them, but he had still screamed at them to stop and yelled for help, for anyone to come and intervene.
No one had.
‘I tried to make him stop,’ he said. Then he wondered why he had pointed out his own failure to her. He got himself to his feet and crossed the short space to the divan, catching at furniture as he went. When he reached it, he more fell than sat on it.
Chassim watched him accomplish this, then went to the hearth’s edge and added a stick or two of wood. In a few moments, flame woke and ran along the sticks. In the additional light, he could see her cheek starting to purple. ‘Yes. You did,’ she said, as if there had been no gap in their conversation. Then she turned to look at him directly. Sitting on the floor, with her braids falling down, her pale nightdress catching light and shadow from the fire, she looked more childish than ever. Like Malta, when she was a girl and he a small boy and they had sometimes crept down to the kitchen at night to see what treats the cook might have tucked away in the pantry. It had been a very long time ago, he suddenly realized. A tiny bit of a pampered childhood that had lasted only a short time before war and hardship had shattered it forever.
Chassim’s eyes were not a child’s as she asked him, ‘Why? Why did you do that? He might have killed you.’
‘He was hurting you. It was wrong. And you had been kind to me …’ He was shocked that she would ask him why he had tried to help her. Was it such a strange act? He reached deeper, pulled up a painful honesty. ‘It happened to me once.’ He blurted out the words and then was horrified. He had never intended to speak of it to anyone. Having someone else know about it made it real.
She stared at him, her blue eyes wide, and he wondered what she thought of him now. How much less human did it make him in her eyes?
‘How?’ she said at last, and he saw that she did not grasp what he was saying.
He spoke roughly and suddenly understood her own callousness when she had spoken of what Ellik had just done to her. ‘There was a man who wanted me. As a novelty, I think, as when some men mate with an animal, just to see what might be different. He paid the man who kept me captive well. My keeper let him into my cage and walked away. And … it was like he was insane. Like I was a thing, not even an animal. I defied him, and I fought him, and then, eventually, I pleaded, when I knew he was far stronger than I was. It didn’t help. He hurt me. Badly. And then he got off me and walked away. There is something about knowing that someone is taking pleasure in giving you incredible pain … with no remorse. It changes how you see yourself; it changes what you can believe of other people. It changes everything.’ His words ground to a halt.
‘I know,’ she said simply.
A silence fell. The fire crackled and he felt more naked than he had when he was displayed bare for all to see. ‘I was sick for days afterward. Really sick. I had so much pain. I bled and I had a fever. I don’t think I’ve been completely healthy since then.’ The words tumbled out of him. He lifted his hand, covered his own mouth to stop them. Tears he had not shed then nor since burned in his eyes. The tears of a torn and battered child, helpless against violence done to him. With his last shred of manhood, of dignity, he fought to hold them back.
‘Flesh rips when you are forced.’ She spoke the harsh fact quietly. ‘I have heard people, other women, make mock of it. As something that some women deserve, or as a fillip of excitement to the act. Something to pretend, for titillation. I cannot understand it. It makes me want to slap them and choke them until they understand.’ She stood up slowly and he could see the pain it cost her. She took a few breaths and then leaned over him to pull a blanket around him. ‘Go to sleep,’ she suggested.
