Dancing in Chains

It wasn't suppose to happen like this.

When I had stepped onto this campus, my intentions were to finally break free of my mothers relentless grasp, and escape into my sanctuary of music and dance. Instead, I tripped and fell right into the lap of a man who showed me a darker and more twisted world. I hadn't mean to catch his attention, but now that I had, there was no escaping his obsessive desires.

He was everywhere. No matter where I turned, he filled the space and soon he crept into every corner of my mind and soul, and eventually my heart. I hated the way I craved for his dangerous hands to claim me, or the low growl against my ear that I belong to him. But I did. Now all I can do is accept this as my new life. Accept that I was no longer my own person, but a possession for him to hold.

I knew it was wrong. God, I knew it was so wrong. But what could I do? The University bowed to his feet, he practically owned the entire town. Yet, was life with him so entirely bad? He made me feel seen, something I was a stranger to my whole life. He loved me. Didn't he? The flowers, the gifts, the sweet kisses all told me so.

He showed me a wildness I'd never known, a confidence my mother had beaten out of me years ago. He shielded me from the cruel words of others, from strangers who looked too long. But I couldn't ignore the other side of him. The rage, the violence, the way he hurt people simply because he could. I told myself I wasn't afraid. But as time passed I began to question how long will it be till that rage turned towards me. Would he ever hurt me? Like her hurt them?

Piece by piece, I slipped further under his control, watching the last traces of freedom stretch higher and higher out of reach, until I could only stare helplessly as the ground swallowed me whole.

I gave up hope. I told myself I was his, that there was no point in fighting. That pleasing the devil was the only way to survive.

At least, that's what I believed.

Until she came to town.