>>63598105Clara lay completely still, watching him as he watched her. He could see her better from the light through the window and she knew what she must look like. Disheveled, wanton, vulnerable to a fault. But why then did he look so afraid of her? He climbed out her window, down the fire escape, without a word.
Clara knew that she should feel ashamed, scared, angry, helpless, or anything else victims of rape often feel. But the only helplessness she felt was in not knowing when she'd feel what he made her feel again.
It wasn't as though he were particularly skilled at sex, she'd had very considerate lovers before that were capable of bringing her to orgasm. But her rapist was just being a rapist, was just forcing himself onto her for his own pleasure, for his own gain. She felt a little victorious to have somehow outsmarted him, unknowingly using him for her own dark release.
She knew she was crazy. Who thought like this? Who fantasized this while they lay in their beds at night with the window open and a gloved hand pressing against their own clit and mouth? She was a sick person. She knew it. But why didn't she feel shame?
She was desperate for his return. Aching for him to finish the job. It was dangerous, she knew. He could have battered her, could have killed her, but he didn't. Ciara felt a strange affection for him because he did not harm her to the extent that he could have.
She waited for him many nights after that, leaving her window open wider than before. Believing that he could see her through her window, she undressed in front of it often, touched herself intimately often, and went to sleep without a nightgown or sheets to encumber him should he return to violate her once again. But it'd been months and there was no sign from him. She gave up hope that her beloved man would return soon, if at all.
