She clasped her hands behind her back as she spoke.
“There are rules,” she told me. “You only speak when you are spoken to, and you do whatever you are told. And you must always try your very best in your lessons.”
I nodded, but I didn’t take it seriously. Grown ups always said stuff like that.
“Good night, Elaine,” she said, and I heard the key click in the lock as she left.
I was locked in.
I tried the door handle, but it didn’t open. I banged on the door, but nobody came.
I’d never been locked in anywhere, and I was already scared of a night alone with no way out.
There was a nightgown in the wardrobe, but I didn’t want to wear it. There was a glass of water on the bedside table, but I didn’t want to drink it. I wanted to go home, to my own bed in my own room. I thought it was a nightmare as I stared up at the ceiling that night and tried to sleep in that bed. I was nearly crying like a little baby as I thought about more nights in here, and how Uncle Lionel had promised that I would learn so much. I didn’t want to learn. I wanted to go home.
I fell into an uneasy sleep. I was still exhausted when Margaret came through the door the next morning and swore at me for not putting on the nightgown.
I ate oatmeal for breakfast and tried to tell myself it was only one night, and I’m sure it would get a bit easier—meeting some other girls and not being so locked up when they knew I could behave enough not to run away.
I thought the first night was a nightmare. I thought it couldn’t get worse.
I was wrong.
Chapter Twenty
Lucian
I’d never heard of Reverend Lynch, but he made my hackles rise as soon as Elaine spoke his name. Her stance shifted, scared even after all these years.
“He touched you, didn’t he?”
She looked away from me as she answered with a nod of her head. It took her a few long seconds to speak again. “First, it was punishment. I had to write lines out for him in my best handwriting. He let the other girls leave when they were done, but he made me stay, saying I hadn’t done well enough.” She took a breath before she continued. “I was writing them until late, until I was falling asleep in my chair. That’s when he came up behind me.”
My heart was pounding as I waited for her to continue, and not in a good way.
Her voice was so gentle as she carried on talking. “He tore up the pages.”
“He spanked you, didn’t he?”
She nodded, and her cheeks were pinking up. “Yeah, he spanked me. He lifted my skirt up and spanked me over my panties. I was so embarrassed. Humiliated, really—tears streaming down my face. I begged him to stop but he told me to shut up. I didn’t know priests used words like that. Shut up. It was the worst word I knew at the time.”
I thought I would delight in her misery. Maybe that sounds fucked up, but when you’ve lived a life of jaded hedonism as long as I have, you are fucked up. I didn’t feel delighted. I felt deeply, starkly horrified at her quiet recounting. “And then what happened?”
“He called Margaret back. I tried to tell her that he’d hurt me. I told her I wanted to call my mother, but she wouldn’t listen to me. Reverend Lynch is a good man. A godly man. Spoiled little girls like you have no business making up lies about him.”
I tipped my head to the side and tried to act nonchalant, but it was hard. I felt anything but calm at her words. My fists clenched at my sides. “How often did he punish you?”
“I was sent there every weekend in the beginning, even though I begged not to go. Uncle Lionel told Mom it was good for me, and I think she was just relieved to have me out of the house.”
“Fuck,” I said, the word a sharp bark in the air.
“It was strange. Most of the time he was mean. But sometimes…sometimes he would smile at me as if he was proud. Sometimes he’d tell me that I was a good girl. That I was one of God’s beautiful angels. He told me those things, and the worst part is, I’d be so glad. I’d be glad that he thought I was a good girl. Even though I hated him.”
“He was a fucking predator. He wanted you to feel that way.”
“It was a few months in when I first tried to tell my mother what was happening. She said I’d already whined so much about going. She couldn’t believe me anymore, because she thought I was just trying to get out of going. She said I was lazy.”
I could imagine Caroline Constantine being an absolute cunt. “How long were you going to Reverend Lynch before his punishments got worse than spankings?”
She struggled with speaking, and I could see it in her eyes. She was shuffling, uncomfortable. It only made me more determined to hear her speak.
I was ready to push her, but I didn’t need to. She took another deep breath then carried on talking.
“A long time. So long that I was getting well used to the spankings.”
“And then?”
Her pause was profound as that little caterpillar lived through her memories. “He came into my room at night and asked me to thank him. I was already sore from a punishment. He told me to kiss his hand. That’s how it started. I had to kiss his hand and tell him thank you.”
I wanted to tell her to stop. It made me feel sick to even hear it, but then, she had to do more than listen. She had to live through it. “Elaine.”
“Every night I’d watch the bedroom door. Every night I’d pray that it wouldn’t open.” Her cheeks were pinked up so beautifully I couldn’t tear my eyes away from her.
Oh, the little Elaine Constantine kissing that bastard’s cock on her knees. I could have slit his throat right there and then, just by laying eyes on the piece of shit. “He was preparing you, you know that? Right from the beginning, he was preparing you.”
“I know,” she said. “It’s easy to see that when you get a bit older. I’m sure other people would have seen that if they’d have believed me.”
“Did you try to tell them again?”
“Yeah, I tried to tell them, but every time I did they’d say I was a liar.”
“And none of your sisters went to him?”
She shook her head. “No. I was always the naughty one who needed extra lessons. I felt like a bad person. And it made me act like one. If everyone already believed I was a liar, then what was the point of telling the truth? If everyone already believed I was bad, then I would act like it. Parties. Alcohol. Drugs. None of it matters.”
“You matter, little doll.”
Her eyes were tearful when they next met mine, and it hit me in the gut, just how beautiful and broken my little butterfly truly was.
Chapter Twenty-One
Elaine
I still couldn’t believe I was telling Lucian my past. I felt sick and vulnerable as I stood there, but it wasn’t because of the man who had promised to destroy me, it was because of the men who’d already destroyed me. The man before me was doing anything but laughing at me like I thought he would. He looked pissed off on my behalf, which I wouldn’t have expected at all.
The sickness was bubbling inside me as I carried on speaking. I lost track of my own train of thought as I let the words flow free. They just came, unbarred in a way they’d never been allowed to be.