The Darkness Within Him: The Untwisted series (17 page)

Raising his glass, Nicholas took a shaky sip of his Coke. It really was very alarming to see his cool façade gone, replaced with a rattled half-version of the man I knew.
The man I loved.
Yep, that juicy little thought still kept popping up in my mind like a nagging ache.

‘My father was a classic dominant, probably a sadist too; I just didn’t realise it at the time,’ he summarised.

OK, so Nicholas had grown up to be like his father because he knew no different. This was starting to make sense but wasn’t easing my discomfort. If he was a classic dominant like his father, or God forbid, a true sadist, then he could snap at any time like he had three weeks ago, and if that was the case there was no way I could go back to him. No way I
would
go back to him, which officially made me sitting here pointless. Before I could state this fact, however, he continued.

‘It went on like this for years. As I got older, the punishments grew more severe. I was beaten daily, even if I’d been on my best behaviour and hadn’t done anything wrong. He just got his kicks from it, I think,’ Nicholas murmured, a look of disgust crossing his face. ‘On my 16th birthday it got even worse …’ He shook his head, his eyes now glassy and staring at the table. ‘Too much for me to take, really. He’d tied my wrists to a radiator and he beat me so badly with the cane that I passed out from the pain. When I woke up I was still on the floor tied up.’

Holy shit!
Gazing at him, I saw Nicholas looked nothing like the man I knew. He seemed incredibly distressed now, fidgeting in his seat and showing none of the proud self-confidence that I was used to. I found it very unnerving, especially as I was having to fight the urge of every cell in my body, which wanted to slide around the booth and comfort him.

Pausing, Nicholas looked at me with eyes wide and glassy from the terror of his relived memories. ‘Excuse me a moment,’ he murmured, then, standing up, he headed to the bar and returned moments later with two large glasses of an amber liquid that I assumed was whisky.

Pushing one toward me, he cradled the other one in his hands and I noticed the uncharacteristic tremble in his fingers had got even worse. Biting down on my lip and gripping the edge of the leather seat was the only way I managed to stop myself moving closer to him.

‘I tried to pull the rope from my wrists but I couldn’t. I managed to reach my school bag with my feet and pull it over to get my pencil case. I got out my scissors to cut myself free.’ Slinging his head back, Nicholas downed his whiskey in one go and pushed the empty glass away from himself before rubbing agitatedly at his left wrist.

‘I was going to cut myself free … but I didn’t.’ His voice was low and rough and I had to strain to hear him, leaning forward in my seat as I did so. ‘I’d had enough of his abuse, I didn’t want to take the beating any more so –’ he ran a hand through his hair again, leaving it spiky and messy ‘– so I slashed my wrist instead, cut myself with the scissors until there was blood everywhere. I only stopped because it got in my eyes and I was too weak to wipe it out.’ His words were spoken in a low, monotone rush but I heard them and they chilled me to the bone.

As he finished, a great, whooshing breath escaped my lungs and I felt an icy chill run under the entire surface of my skin. Holy fuck! He’d tried to kill himself. I stopped breathing for several seconds as I tried to absorb the enormity of what Nicholas had just told me; and the stunning similarity that his story held to that of my sister, Joanne. I couldn’t believe it; in fact, I was struggling to breathe. He was so strong, so confident, just like Joanne had been before that night … He just didn’t seem the type, if there was indeed a type, but then neither had my sister.

I realised my head was spinning almost painfully. I swallowed hard, closing my eyes for several seconds to try and get a grip on my thoughts. Now was not the time to bring up Joanne; this was about Nicholas, so I focused back on him and continued to try and take in steadying breaths to calm myself.

Nicholas looked so distraught by this point that I just had to comfort him somehow, but I couldn’t bring myself to move to his side just yet, so instead I pushed my untouched whiskey toward him. As he reached out for it, his fingers brushed mine, sending electricity shooting up my arm and causing me to gasp. Even now, in these traumatic circumstances and after three weeks apart, the chemistry between us was just phenomenal. Withdrawing my hand as if burned, I watched Nicholas slide the glass toward himself, a sad smile curling his lips downwards at my hasty movement.

It has to be said that maintaining a distance from him when he clearly needed comfort made me feel like a complete and utter bitch, and I chewed on my lip guiltily.

I realised his story explained the scar on his wrist, his one imperfection, and I now understood why he’d been rubbing at it so impatiently before. From the size of it, I had assumed it was a burn or the result of some accident. But no, teenage Nicholas had hacked at his arm to try to escape from his father’s abuse. I felt sick at the pain he must have endured. Again, images of Joanne flashed in my brain and I felt physically drained, needing to rest my head in my hands for a moment until my nausea subsided.

‘I thought about doing it again when you left,’ he murmured softly, causing my head to shoot up, my eyes wide, only to see Nicholas shaking his head. ‘I’m not saying that to get your sympathy, Rebecca. I don’t want pity, I’m telling you because after you left I realised I was better than that. Stronger than that. Regardless of whether you’ll take me back or not, I know now I am not a coward like my father … I am not my father at all, I’m better than that.
You made me better
,’ he finished in a determined whisper.

Once again, I found myself stunned into silence. He’s not like his father and he wants me back? My overwhelming urge was to pull Nicholas into my arms and kiss the scar on his wrist until his hurt went away, but I somehow refrained. This was all so monumentally screwed up; I needed to think before I gave him false hope and ended up hurting him, and me, even more.

‘Anyway, the reason Nathan is so important to me is because he’s the one who found me that day. I was unconscious in a pool of my own blood. He cut me free from the radiator and took me to the hospital. He literally saved my life that day.’

Shaking his head, Nicholas continued, ‘I’ve never understood it but even in spite of the abuse, Nathan worshipped dad. It was so hard for him to do it but we told the police everything and eventually my parents were put in prison for child abuse.’

His brother worshipped their abusive father?
Jeez
, my instincts about Nathan had been right. I definitely wanted to avoid him now. I tried to get my head around how someone could have any kind of respect for their abuser, but Nicholas continued talking so I switched my focus back to him.

‘I was 16. Nathan was 18, but he had no income so they were going to separate us and put me up for fostering. That’s when Nathan saved me again. He got himself on to a paid apprenticeship scheme with an architecture firm and begged them to give him custody of me. Eventually, the council agreed so we stayed together.’ There was warmth in his voice now; real affection for his brother. ‘He’s always looked out for me, Rebecca,’ Nicholas concluded, as if willing me to respond somehow.

Finally, I felt the need to speak. ‘This is starting to make sense, Nicholas. I’m so sorry for what happened to you.’ Which was such an immense understatement that I grimaced at my lack of eloquence. ‘So I guess the –’ I blushed and leant in closer so I could whisper ‘– control over sex, the cuffs and punishments, just developed in response to your father’s treatment? Your need to take back control?’

A small frown tweaked Nicholas’ forehead and he actually averted his eyes, something so rare for him until today. ‘Partly, but that came from Nathan too.’

What
? Nathan had introduced him to kinky sex? I grimaced at the visions in my head. God, did I even want to hear this? Seeing my horrified expression, Nicholas looked deflated again but began to explain.

‘It’s not like that, Rebecca,’ he replied quickly, looking almost as disgusted as I felt. ‘He’s older than me, and he’d put up with dad’s treatment for longer than me. He’d watched him in action, I suppose; learnt from him. Anyway, once we were free of my parents he started to date a girl. He’d never had a girlfriend before, neither of us had; we’d never been allowed to socialise.’

Nicholas sighed and ran a hand through his hair. In other circumstances, I might have laughed. He’d said in the past that touching my hair was my sign when I was nervous, but it was certainly becoming clear that it was Nicholas’ tell that he was anxious. ‘Apparently, she accused him of being too overbearing, yelled at him that he should get himself a submissive before she stormed out.’

He finished the second whisky and put his glass down. ‘Nathan had no idea what she was talking about, but looked it up when he got home. He found a surprisingly large number of websites on dominant and submissive relationships – an entire community of likeminded people used to discipline, who either enjoyed giving or receiving it.’

Cringing slightly, I recalled some of the websites I’d discovered when researching what a dominant was. They were eye-opening to say the least. As for the photographs and images the sites had shown … Jaw-dropping was more like it.

‘After years of living in Dad’s shadow, Nathan craved the control that being a dominant gave him. It suited him perfectly; he was able to get the power in life that he’d never had, but I actually think he likes the fact it allows him to be like dad in a small way,’ Nicholas explained with a shrug. ‘He got himself a submissive then and he’s never looked back.’

So Nicholas’ brother was a dominant too. What a family.

When he raised his eyes to mine, Nicholas looked thoroughly ashamed. ‘When I was 18, I was finally starting to come out of my shell. I’d been incredibly insular; Nathan had done the parent thing and tried his best to inform me about girls and relationships. He explained to me what he did and suggested it might suit me too so I tried it.’ Nicholas took a deep breath and once again ran a hand through his hair. ‘In a totally fucked-up way, it was his way of trying to show he loved me, I think.

‘This will all sound crazy to you, Rebecca, but you must remember I had no idea what was normal. I’d grown up seeing my parents’ screwed-up relationship and I thought that was what submission meant. It was all I knew; I had no idea what was usual, no clue what I wanted.’ Another helpless shrug. ‘It went from there but I never felt quite right with being a full dominant; having someone there 24/7 didn’t suit me. I knew I had a lot of suppressed anger and I lost my temper quickly, I knew I liked to control things because I’d never been able to before, but for me I only liked the girls with me for short periods of time.’

I grimly translated this to “I only wanted the girls there for sex”.

‘Nathan has always had a submissive who lives with him; they change occasionally. In truth, he’s probably more like Dad than he likes to believe. I could never do that: I never wanted someone living with me, not until …’ His sentence faded but the look in Nicholas’ eyes as he gazed across the table at me told me the final word. ‘You.’

Not that he’d ever officially asked me to move in with him, but after his declaration that he wanted to try a relationship I’d barely left his house, mostly at his insistence. It had felt so natural, so right, that I’d been more than happy with the arrangement.

Rubbing both hands vigorously over his face as if he could wash away the memories, Nicholas then sat back violently against the cushions. ‘So that’s it. My fucked-up life in a nutshell,’ he said with a grim twist of his mouth. ‘And now you know.’ He wriggled his intertwined fingers in front of him on the table.

Wow
. Just wow. My head was spinning as I sat in stunned silence, unable to think of one thing that was remotely comforting or reassuring enough for the enormity of what Nicholas had just told me. It wasn’t often that I was lost for words – usually the opposite, in fact, with my mouth in overdrive – but right now I had nothing. Nada. Zilch. The similarities to Joanne’s history made Nicholas’ story all the more painful for me to listen to, and my head was now too full of information to try and begin to sort through it all with him watching me like a hawk.

‘I’m seeing someone now,’ Nicholas said several seconds later, breaking the tense silence that hung between us.

What?
Nicholas was seeing someone else? A new submissive? If that was the case, why the hell had he just poured his heart out to me? I gripped the table edge and struggled to breathe, feeling distinctly like the world had just been ripped out from under me.

Obviously seeing my reaction, which was close to hyperventilating terror, Nicholas almost smiled at me. ‘A
counsellor
, Rebecca, just like you suggested. I’m seeing a counsellor for my condition and my anger. I went to him the day after you left me and paid for a three-hour session. Now I’m going weekly. I’ve told him everything,’ he explained with a simple shrug.

‘Everything?’ I asked, amazed that he was taking such a huge step toward his recovery but at the same time mortified that I would have been discussed with a complete stranger, let alone all the things we’d done together. A shudder of embarrassment ran through me.

‘Yes.’ Nicholas was solemn. ‘I hate myself for what I did to you. I can’t begin to tell you how much I regret my actions that day. After talking with Dr Philips, I at least think I understand why I did it now.’

I swallowed, forcing myself to ask the question I needed the answer to. ‘Why?’ I whispered, almost too scared to hear his response. Please don’t let him say, “because I wanted to hurt you”, I thought. If he said that, I just wouldn’t ever be able to go back to him; my self-preservation just wouldn’t allow it.

‘I was scared of the feelings I had for you and believed you deserved better than me, so to prove to myself that I was no good for you I regressed back to my childhood and beat you with a cane like my father used to beat me. Dr Phillips thinks I was trying to make you leave because I didn’t feel worthy of you.’ Nicholas leant forward, looking like he wanted to reach out for me, and I desperately wanted to let him. But again, I made myself refrain by keeping my arms firmly crossed over my chest and digging my nails painfully into my palms.