"So I didn't say anything, because there was nothing to say and no one to say it to. He raped me twice more over the next month, before I got the nerve to run away again. Of course, they caught me. Maybe I'd wanted them to that time. I stayed in the home until I was eighteen. And when I got out, I knew no one was ever going to have that kind of control over me again. No one was ever going to make me feel like I was nothing ever again."
Unsure what to do, Colt reached up tentatively to brush a tear from her cheek. "You made your life into something, Althea."
"I made it into mine." She let out a breath, then briskly rubbed the tears from her cheeks. "I don't like to dwell on before, Colt."
"But it's there."
"It's there," she agreed. "Trying to make it go away only brings it closer to the surface. I learned that, too. Once you accept it's simply a part of what makes you what you are, it doesn't become as vital. It didn't make me hate men, it didn't make me hate myself. It did make me understand what it is to be a victim."
Nightshade
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By Jason clendenen - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0,
https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=76284275
What It's Like to Reclaim Your Sex Life After Sexual Assault
That focus on a better future, many survivors say, is part of what helps them form bonds with potential partners with whom they can have healthy relationships—and repair their relationships with themselves. “There is hope,” says Lindsay. “The physical pain, the emotional pain—all that stuff is passing clouds. Joy is the sky. It’s always there.”
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He plunged his hand into her hair, got a good grip to jerk her face up to his. “Pay up,” he
demanded, then closed his mouth over hers.
There it was, she thought, outrageously grateful. There was the instant thrill, the response,
the need. It had taken nothing from her. His body moved wet and hard
against hers, his mouth took from hers, and there was nothing, nothing but pleasure.
“Touch me.” She demanded it, using her teeth, her nails. Nothing fragile here,
nothing damaged or in need of tending. Touch me, she thought, take me.
Make me feel utterly, utterly human.
The Pagan Stone