London, 1860 
 

His hair was hanging in his face again, in haphazard locks and ringlets, spilling across his collar and into his ice-blue eyes.  The gentle spring breeze sweeping through the alley lifted it off his shoulders, blowing the dark chocolate silk strands around his head like a dark halo. Maybe I should cut it off, he thought.  Not that it mattered.  He hadn't seen his reflection in nearly a decade.  He leaned against the wooden frame of the doorway, absorbing the pale moonlight and absentmindedly rolling a cigarette with one hand.  He ran the match along the brick facade of the London townhouse and lit the cigarette, exhaling slowly and trying to ignore the sounds coming from within. 

She didn't scream.  The first thing she had learned, after the cuts and cracked ribs had healed, was not to scream. 

Five weeks.  She's a quick learner. 

So you'd think that by this point I would've learned not to care about it one way or the other. 

She still wept, though more quietly now.  He could hear her in there, the soft, strangled sobs keeping an eerie rhythm with the clanking of the chains, the creaking of the bedsprings, the muffled groans of the figure that loomed over her.

//I'm surprised that he bothered with the bed this time.  Last time he took her on the floor. 

Last time she bled for days. //

She still wept.  In time, she would learn better than that, too. 

When the tears stop, then she will be truly dead.  He dreaded that day- the day when she would endure the humiliation of chains, the pain and agony of rape and torture, without even thinking to whimper. He suspected that the day was not long in coming. 

He had only seen her alive once, a few months past, through the window of a church.  "Come, look, my new treasure's inside."  But she was already half-dead then, victimized by his words, his mental torment.  He had taken her family sometime later that week, and the last of the light had faded from her eyes.  She was so beautiful when she was screaming in horror. 

She was so beautiful. 

He could hear her now, through the open doorway, whispering.  Quiet, so quiet, gentle, still an innocent after all these  weeks.  Even with his enhanced hearing he could barely make out her words. 

"Don't.  No more.  Please, it hurts." 

Oh, you stupid, senseless little bint- when will you learn?  Still, he flinched slightly when he heard the heavy thud of a fist connecting with the side of her head.  He couldn't help it. 

"Shut the hell up, you worthless little whore." 

//She wasn't always a whore.  Hell, once she was a saint.  Not that I endorse that sort of thing- sainthood never did much for me- but you have no one to blame but yourself for what she's become. //

By the third cigarette, the crying had stopped.  By the fourth, so had the creaking of the bed, the final breathless sigh of climax.  He heard the sound of trousers, shirt, waistcoat being slipped back on, of chains unlocked. 

"Can I have my clothes back?"  Her voice was soft, tremulous, more humiliated than afraid.  He could hear the angry growl as she was thrown across the room.  She cried out, once, as she hit a rickety 
wooden chair which shattered beneath her. 

Not very smart, he thought, stepping out of the way as the hulking figure pushed past him and disappeared down the dark alleyway.  One of these days she'll hit the furniture the wrong way, chair leg through the heart, and poof!  He'll be bloody furious.  And he'll probably take it out on me.  He waited until the cigarette was finished and then he went inside. 

She was sobbing quietly, huddled in the corner of the room, blood pooling into the fur rug.  Her bruises were already beginning to fade. 

There will be others, pet.  You can be sure of that. 

He entered the room quietly and stood by the door.  She caught his movement out of the corner of her eye and howled in terror, shrinking against the wall. 

"It's all right," he said softly.  "He's gone now." 

//We could leave, you know- you and I.  (God, you're so fucking beautiful.)  But we never will.  And I'll tell you why- because whether you're able to admit it yet or not, you're beginning to love what he does to you.  (You've got bloodstained strands of hair hanging in your eyes right now.  I want to brush them away so badly that it's making me ache.)  You're beginning to crave the pain, the humiliation.  And you'll be his until he pounds you into dust- while you still can't seem to remember my name. 

But that won't stop me from loving you until the day I die. //

She peered at him across the dim, candlelit room.  "Who's there?" she whispered. 

//And if I stay honest with myself for ten seconds running, I'll admit that I'm not going anywhere.  Not without you. 

I never was very good at being alone. //

"It's me," he replied.  "Will." 

        Finis