Broken Dancers

~6~

I crawled to the edge of the pillow, letting my bare feet dangle over the silky fabric into the chilled air.

The piano played gracefully across the room.

Softly.

Peacefully.

I tried to let it invade my ears instead of the silence threatening to choke me.

My legs were still purple, they would be for a while yet.

I glanced at the untouched plate of food, inches away from me.

I wasn't hungry.

I looked at the closed door.

It had been shut for a while now.

I wanted it to open.

For him to come through and envelop me in his music again.

The memories of his nakedness this morning skipped across my eyes then, reminding me of the body he shared with the one who broke me . . .

I didn't want to be scared anymore.

I didn't want to fear him.

I wanted to be able to sink into the warmth of his skin and just listen to the surreal melody of his breath and his heart.

Let the music take control of my body . . .

No, no I couldn't do that.

The sudden break from almost complete silence to the loud thunder of voices, at which our bodies instantly tensed, until our cue to begin.

That heartbeat of hushed whispers . . .

Then the even more deafening trill of the first note.

The cold weight of the pole under my hands.

It was too soon to think about doing that.

Not when the bruises were still purple, and my limbs were still sore.

Not when the scent of that place still clung to some part of my body, despite the bath.

Maybe it was my mind it clung to.

A ghost that would haunt me forever. The music its moans, the vibrating beat its prescence, the blinding lights its vision.

But it hadn't. Not last night.

Was it traitorous to forget the pain?

I should feel the misery that the rest of my sisters were. That fear and that numbing anxiety that paralyzed the mind and made it hard to breathe.

I shouldn't be lounging on silk sheets with piano music softly dancing around the silent room.

There shouldn't be fresh fruit on a crystal platter next to me.

I shouldn't feel safe in the hands of a giant.

Should I be dead then?

Would my betrayal have lessened when my corpse was pinned to the corkboard backing of a stained wood showcase? When I was no longer alive to feel whatever kindness or cruelty would be brought upon me?

Or would I only avoid treachery if I was standing in pregnant silence with the eyes of many on my yet to be stripped body?

I never asked to be sold.

I never asked to be so brutally broken.

I never asked to be commissioned.

I never asked to be . . .