“Thanks,” I say, waiting for her to answer my question once and for all.
Amanda gives a sip on her glass, keeping her posture just as straight and confident, while I start quietly glancing around her office, my patience vanishing almost instantly. “I’m not the enemy, Petra.” My attention goes back to her face, and I frown, a bit perplexed by her statement. “So you don’t need to be on your guard with me.” Wow. That’s not what I expected to hear from her. “Since you’re the fiancée of the man I was with for ten years, I just wanted to tell you…” She takes a deep breath before leaning forward and muttering, “You should run before it’s too late.”
My jaw drops at her warning, and I blink twice, barely believing what she told me. “Excuse me?”
“I know Alex is a very charming man. But he’s also very manipulative and a professional liar. Believe me, you don’t know him.”
I do a mental effort not to roll my eyes. After all, from my mom to Margaret, everyone has told me the same. “I’m sorry if he was like that with you, but with me he is different.”
To my surprise, Amanda chuckles at my reply, shaking her head while looking at me with some pity in her gaze. “You are so young…” She pauses, letting her words sink into me. “I spent ten years with him, Petra. And even me, after everything we went through, I didn’t know him.”
My jaw flexes, and I’m not sure what to tell her in return. Fortunately, Amanda stands up and goes to her desk where she opens a drawer and picks something from there. Then, she returns and hands me a few photographs printed in full resolution.
Oh my gosh! As I look at the first one, I can’t prevent the gasp that rolls off my mouth. The photo features Amanda lying naked on the bed, focusing on her back that is totally covered with scars and bleeding cuts from a session of flogging. This is so disturbing to look at that I have to turn my face away.
“Don’t look away,” she snaps. “Look at what he did to me.”
I don’t want to, but since she keeps insisting, I glance once more at the photo, before looking at the next one, which is just another angle with more visible cuts on her lower back and butt. “Those scars…” I swallow at the word, being too disgusted to even talk about them. “Are they gonna stay on your skin forever?” I look her in the eye, my heart racing as I wait for an answer.
“Yes.”
I inhale deeply before exhaling from my nose, trying to relax as much as possible, but this is so disturbing that my stomach quivers, leaving a sour taste in my mouth.
“I know it looks barbaric to you, which is why I’m telling you…” she lets her words trail off, gauging my expression, “you don’t know him.”
“Alex already told me he used to flog women in the past.” I put the stack of photos on her desk and try to chase these violent imageries from my head. “But he has never done it to me, and he will never do it.”
“I know he won’t.” There’s a hint of a smile playing on her lips, like she is genuinely glad he won’t do the same to me as he did to her. “You need so much more than a simple relationship to get to this level of trust, commitment, and intimacy.”
Interesting that she left the word submission aside, because to me, those pictures portrayed only one thing: total submission to him and a will to please him to a point I can’t even comprehend. It was one thing to play with sex toys or get a spanking, but getting marked for life? Hell, no! No matter how much I love him, this will always be beyond my boundaries.
“Getting flogged has nothing to do with trust or intimacy,” I snap back in defense. “It’s a sadist practice I have no interest in.”
“Of course it does,” Amanda ripostes. “Alex wanted me to have those scars for life as a reminder of him—of the Alex only I know.” She pauses for a beat, nostalgia laced in her gaze. “This is something only I have from him.” Her eyes alight on the photographs, and she looks at them with affection. “This is a gift that bonds us forever.”
I want to puke at her answer. I don’t think I have ever heard something so depraved in my entire life. He wanted to mark her for life, and she is proud of that? How can she be so blind, so stupid? And him? How can he be so cruel? A flux of mixed emotions runs through me, and tears start resting on my eyelids, but I push them back, not wanting to show any weakness in front of her. I feel disgusted. I feel angry at him for being such a despicable human and for manipulating her like that. And I feel something else I shouldn’t… envy. Why did he want to mark her for life in the first place? Why? Was it really a form of love as she said? Or was it just a sadist and selfish act devoid of any meaning? Despite my curiosity though, I will never ask her. After all, Alex is the only one who knows the truth.
“It’s not love, Amanda,” I tell her. “I might be young, but no man needs to mark a woman to show his love and commitment to her. How did you even accept it in the first place?” In fact, I’m shocked how such a beautiful and intelligent woman like her let a man do that to her.
“You don’t understand. Do you?”
“No, I don’t,” I admit without any shame. “I don’t understand at all.”
“This is who he is,” she says. “And I accepted him entirely.”
A loud chuckle escapes me at her words. “I’m sorry that you believed you were forever. I know you must feel terrible for what he did.”
“Don’t tell me how I feel,” she snaps, glaring at me with a menacing look. “You are not me.” Her voice is so cold that I shiver. “I spent ten years with him. How long have you been with him?”
Tired of so many unpleasant questions, I raise up from my seat, ready to leave. “I don’t owe you a reply.” But Amanda grabs my shoulder, and in a fraction of a second, pushes me back on my seat. Everything happens so fast that I barely have time to process what she does. “I want to leave,” I snap.
“How far would you go for him, Petra?”
One more question I don’t want to answer, but for the sake of finishing this discussion once and for all, I say, “I won’t go as far as getting marked for life, if that’s what you want to know.”
“Would you break up with him if that could save him from jail?”
“What?” I utter immediately, unable to prevent the shock in my tone. That’s a question I didn’t see coming. “What are you talking about?
“You know, with the permanent scars I have on my back, my attorney told me it’s a felony offense. He can get up to ten years in jail for that.”
Holy shit! She is threatening to report him to the police? “You wouldn’t do that, would you?” My heart is pounding so damn hard in my chest at her threats that it takes everything in me to keep my composure.
“Well, either he made those scars because he loved me or because he hated me.” The way she says it makes my heart aches for her. “Given the fact he broke up with me and is now engaged to you, I will bet on the latter.”
And here it is. The reason why she brought me here. Amanda still loves him and truly believes Alex loved her too given the fact he marked her for life. How betrayed she must feel at his lies is beyond anything I can imagine. “Amanda, I…” How can I ask her to forgive the man she spent ten years with, lied to her, and then left her? I can’t, I simply can’t. “I’m sorry…” I’m even ashamed to say those words, because I know they won’t mean anything to her. “But I won’t break up with him.” Despite not wanting to tell her the rest, she has to hear it. “Alex moved on with his life, and you have to do the same now.”