As always, when threatened, she froze, trying to become invisible. It didn't work. It never did. She longed to protest, but the ability had long since been beaten out of her, and so she submitted in humiliated silence.
He opened the back of her dress, pulling it down around her waist, turning to
her laces. “Love, why on earth did you wear this thing if you're hurting?” he asked.
“Vanity.” Her voice caught again. “I wanted to be pretty for you.”
“You are pretty,” he reassured her tenderly. “Don't hurt yourself on my
account again. Promise me?”
She didn't respond. After several minutes of fumbling, the garment fell loose,
allowing him to remove it. As her compressed rib cage expanded, the spots swimming in Katerina's vision dissipated. She became suddenly aware of just how compromising their position had become. Mostly naked from the waist up
in the presence of a man she had met a mere two weeks ago. If anyone found them… the wedding would become inevitable.
She didn't realize that for Christopher, it already was.
Through the thin fabric of Katerina’s linen chemise, Christopher could already see something alarming. The skin of her back was uneven. The garment lay in ridges and furrows as though on newly plowed earth. Gently, he slid the fabric
down… or tried to. It stuck to her in several places. His fingers began to tremble
as he revealed her body.
Christopher had always adored a woman's back; from the broadest point at
the shoulders, narrowing to the waist, flaring at the buttocks, a long line of smooth unblemished skin, perfect for kissing.
Katerina's back resembled nothing he had seen before. She was marked from
her shoulder blades down, as low as he could see with her dress and chemise
tangled around her waist, with thick crossing scars. Some were clearly old; pale cords of ruined flesh. Others, though solid, bore the pink tone of newly-healed skin. Horror of horrors, some were fresh. Deep, terrible marks, cut open and scabbed, revealed a beating bordering on torture.
Low on her back, where he had embraced her, blood dribbled from an open
wound down her spine. Interspersed among the whip marks, deeper bruises
resembled long straight lines, some livid purple, others fading to yellow.
“Oh my God,” he said, nauseous with disgust and rage. “What did this?”
“He started with a horsewhip, but it broke.”
“And then?” he asked, not sure he wanted to know the answer.
“A walking stick.”
Christopher squeezed his eyes shut for a moment, trying to come to terms with what he had learned. Then he opened them and resumed his scrutiny of her
wounds.
One deeply bruised injury wrapped around her side. He gently rolled her,
following the line past her ribs, between which the undernourished flesh sank deeply, and onto her belly. There the black and blue bruises lay so thickly that individual impact marks could not be distinguished. Bad as her back looked, the
blows to her belly concerned him far more. She could have been killed. “How on earth could you play?” he asked, appalled.
“It was distracting,” she replied in a soft, flat tone. “It helped.”
“This can't go on,” he insisted.
“Nothing can be done to stop it!”
Such despair. No one has ever tried to help her. She has never known safety
for a day in her life. Resolve hardened in Christopher. “Can you try to trust me, love? I can make it all stop, for good.”
“It's too soon,” she choked out.
At least she understands what I'm implying. “I know. How often… does this
happen?” Even as he pronounced the words, he yearned to slap himself at their
stupidity. As though the heavy scarring doesn't answer the question for you.
“Often,” she admitted. Her breath sucked into her lungs, drawing her flesh even more deeply between her ribs.
