Chapter 120
Their every single insult, their degrading remarks, and their dirty words resonated in my mind. I wanted to wash it all off, off my body, off my brain.
Every time they laughed. Every time they called me a useless gay. Every time they called me Alessandro’s slut.
Every time they forced their hands in my pants. Every time they groped my dick and ran their fingers around my asshole.
The resentment and the pain, the helplessness all crept up at once, making me lose control. I became a machine of frantic motion, my hands moving faster than my thoughts, the loofah tearing at my skin as if punishing it for not being able to protect me.
I winced every time I touched a swollen bone, a bruise, or a cut, but I didn’t stop. This physical pain was nothing compared to the mental pain I was feeling. The ache in my soul was louder than anything else. The ache of being used. Of being powerless.
The world around me disappeared. A fog formed all around me. My insides twisted with hate, I wanted to kill them, hurt them the way they did to me. I wanted them to feel as helpless as I did. I wanted them to beg at my feet for mercy. I
wanted them to feel violated. I wanted them to feel exploited.
Rage.
That’s all I could feel.
I was so lost in my own world, that I didn’t hear the heavy footsteps. I couldn’t feel someone’s presence behind me. The air
shifted, barely, and yet I missed it. I was buried too deep beneath the weight of my torment.
Someone flicked the light switch on, and I was startled out of my nightmare. My hands stopped scrubbing, and I clutched
the loofah like my life depended on it.
I felt someone standing right behind me. My back was facing him. I didn’t turn. I didn’t want to see. I didn’t want to be seen. I didn’t bother to check who it was. I resumed scrubbing my already reddened skin again, desperately trying to hold
onto the control I had left.
“Nikolai.”
It was Alessandro.
I stilled for a second again, my breath caught in my throat, then snapped out of it as I continued to scrub. I continued to scrape their touch off my skin. The loofah moved with mechanical rhythm, fierce and broken.
He crouched down beside the tub. I didn’t look at him. I didn’t say a word. My heavy breathing and the running water resonated all around me. It sounded like a storm. It felt like drowning.
“I told you, you shouldn’t have taken a/shower, your wounds-” he let out a defeated breath as he seemed to have given up. Like he didn’t know how to reach me. Like he was trying to speak to someone who had already drifted too far from shore,
Then his hand came around me and adjusted the water temperature. My eyes followed his hands, narrowing, and resentment burned hotter inside of me.
The burning water turned cold, soothing the burn off my skin. I shook my head, I didn’t want that. Their touch was still
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Chapter 120
there. It was still on my body. Cold water couldn’t erase it.
Then his hand was placed over mine as he tried to take the loofah out of my hand. I struggled to try to tear off his grip on the loofah but I failed. He took it out of my hand and tossed it aside.
“No…” I cried, the word falling from my lips like broken glass as my body started to violently shake.
“Shh…” he whispered in my ear.
He grabbed the shampoo bottle and shampooed my hair, slowly and gently as if he was trying hard not to hurt me. His fingers moved like feathers through my scalp, a strange and unfamiliar tenderness bleeding into the moment. He gently sprayed water, trying to keep it off the bandages on my head.
A flood of tears gushed down my cheeks, hot and fast, as he softly washed my hair with cold water. I couldn’t hold it in anymore. I couldn’t pretend.
He then washed off my body softly with his hands. He had never touched me with so much tenderness. It confused me. It broke me. Was it pity? Was he feeling sympathetic for stupid, little Nikolai, who was sold to him? Is that what it was?
“Why are you doing this?” I asked, my voice rough like I had been screaming for the past hour.
