Promise by Rachel Haimowitz

Author:Rachel Haimowitz [Haimowitz, Heidi Belleau;Rachel]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Riptide Publishing
Published: 2014-07-08T00:00:00+00:00

t the moment? For me?” Doug cast his gaze around the room. Twelve sets of eyes were looking back at him: some haunted, some confident, some peaceful. A couple months ago when the wounds from the trial and the witness stand were still fresh, having all this attention focused on him would have had him scrambling to perform. Now, he just took a deep breath and spoke on, from the heart. “Right now, celibacy feels good. I tried having sex, but it wasn’t healthy. It was with people who were exploiting my vulnerabilities. And then I met someone—a woman—who wouldn’t have sex with me specifically because she saw those vulnerabilities, and that kind of made me question whether maybe it might be better if I just took care of myself first.”

Lots of sympathetic nods. They’d all been in his shoes, to one degree or another. All had had their own vulnerabilities exploited.

“And then when I caught myself . . . you know, with Mat . . .” He nodded toward his brother, who nodded back. This was a truth he still had trouble facing, one that made the shame flare particularly bright, but the group knew the sordid details already anyway. And none of them judged him for it. “Well, that was when I really understood how deep my issues ran. And while I do feel like I’ve really worked through a lot of those issues—thanks to all of you, by the way—” he flashed a smile at the group, at Mat, at Beth “—I’m still not feeling any particular urge to rush back into things.”

Another round of nodding. Doug’s cheeks heated, and he rubbed at the back of his neck, chuckled nervously. “I mean, that’s not to say that I don’t have, you know, urges. Just . . . I dunno, maybe I don’t quite trust myself yet, you know?”

Ivan, a skinny young man sitting to his left, nodded especially fervently. “Do you think it . . . changed you? I mean, you were straight, and then . . .”

“And then being in captivity trained me to respond to men. I’ve thought about that a lot. Before we were taken, my brother was gay, and I’d always thought of myself as straight. But after everything, I started to wonder if maybe I hadn’t been bisexual all along. But now? My brother’s still gay, and even after everything, I still think I’m straight. I mean, yes, I look at men differently now, but that’s not a part of me the way being gay is a part of Mat. It’s something that was forced on me. And it’s a . . . a residue, I think. Part trained physical response, part trained mental one.” Just like he still got off on the idea of being dominated, being hurt, being used—the way so many of them here had rape fantasies now. But he knew it was normal and expected and could maybe even be healthy, all of it, and nothing to be ashamed of.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.