Part 2

She can't remember how she got here. She can't remember how it all came to this. All the parts of the sum were as foreign to her as the long-forgotten concept of happiness.

He made her call him Daddy.

She wouldn't have minded quite so much, a word is a word is a word, if he hadn't actually strongly resembled the memory of her father. The same build and about the right height, and he sometimes too put on glasses. He wore a short stubbly beard all over his cheeks, rather than a moustache, but that was worse. It hurt when he pressed his cheek against hers from behind, his favourite way to threaten her, as if he were using the stubble to wipe off the menace onto her soft skin.

She tried often to think of outside, to remember concrete details, her family, the sea, dogs, a boy. The way it felt to make a little choice. It always swam into one fixed feature, as if the present had swallowed the past whole, lascivious like, licking its lips.

Every day, she was realising the complexity of the human nature, something she now truly believed existed. Before, she hadn't needed to doubt or to believe. To survive, you must do two things - believe, and trust your own senses. Sometimes, it seemed she really did have a spirit, that she let dwell quietly somewhere at her core, and it was at these moments that her consciousness swelled up, and it was then that simply being made her heart hurt. These were the not uncommon times when she was fully aware of it all being a pretence, the pointed drag of her pearly nailed toes up his trouser leg, the pouting and kissing up to his fine smell. She hated it all, begged silently for a final rejection. The exhausting need to anticipate every next hour's mood. Can I get away with a smidgen of cheekiness in my tone, will it be sexy or disrespectful? Will he let me cook, and if so, is it one of those unlucky days where everything I do cook tastes of shit? Is it alright to say 'fuck' today, will he laugh like I've said something inappropriate and misunderstood the meaning, will he rasp his cheeks against mine until I know that he'll always be there, right behind me?

The first time he let her go alone, unguarded, was for her the most confusing day of their life together so far. She couldn't anticipate anything and terrifyingly as a result, had no idea what to expect. He asked her to go to the local shop to fetch bread and milk, gave her steady and careful directions that were easier than she had imagined. Bread and milk. Somewhere in a dark and hidden part of her mind, she remembered, a trail of breadcrumbs, but couldn't follow this thought any further and soon it was lost.

To come back, reverse the directions I will give you. You can do it, honey pie.