Happiness in Slavery

“When I came out of the shower, Dustin was gone. Shawn told me to come up with a story and to call you when I got down to the street, while he contacted Kendra to let you go,” Victoria explained, finishing the account of what happened in Lewis’ apartment. “That’s why I was surprised to see you. I was expecting the real Gavin, and not so quickly.”

“Yeah, though you would have figured it out soon enough when you tried to ring Gavin and he was, in fact, still at the cabin,” Kurt noted, leaning against a nearby wall.

“So, you believe me this time?” Victoria asked. “Are you satisfied that you now know everything that happened?”

Kurt watched her face carefully before admitting, “Yes. With a story like that…I don’t think you’d lie. Though I still find it difficult to believe that you just went along with this? Shawn must have done something to make you do this. What did he do to break you?”

“He didn't make me do anything. He didn't break me. Kurt,” Victoria stated staunchly. She shook her head, as much at herself as Kurt’s stubbornness. “I had so many chances to leave and I didn't. I told myself it was because I was scared, told myself to just go along with what he wanted so I could get out of there, but I didn't truly understand it until he was inside me, until he fucked me.”

“Yes, when he **** you,” Kurt insisted, seeing it completely black and white.

“No, it wasn't ****. I wanted it. I accepted it. It took some time for my body and my mind to align, but it's true,” Victoria tried to express how her body felt but it was a difficult feeling to put into words in order to convince someone who had never been in her body or even a situation like that one. “Kurt, I was ready to defy him, to storm out, and leave, just like I told you, but when he grabbed my arm, in that moment, I saw how much he wanted me. Not infatuation, or love, this was a gluttonous, greedy, all devouring desire. He destroyed his relationship with his brother for me. He demoted Kendra in his heart for me. He made himself a criminal for me. I have never in my life seen someone look at me before with so much need in their eyes.”

“Shawn is dishonest and despicable.” Kurt spat. “Are you really telling me you'd prefer him over Gavin, or even Dustin?”

“Yes. What did they do for me? They lied and tried to pass of their illicit activities as some sort of favour to me. Shawn was honest, his desire was genuine. All of my boyfriends have lied to me, put on smiling, polite masks to get close to me, until I closed my legs, and then the masks came off and the fangs came out,” Victoria paced the small enclosure, stamping and shaking her fists at hypothetical men from her memories. “They call me innocent, and sweet, like they're bad words. No one ever seems to think that I want to have sex, I just don't want to be lied to and mislead. And Shawn never did that. He was demeaning, and insulting, but I was never in any doubt about what he wanted and why he wanted it. It sounds strange, I'm aware, but there’s a clarity in that.”

“This...this is insane,” Kurt tugged at his short blonde hair. “Even if you wanted it, that once...what about all the stuff after? Lying to your friends? Manipulating us? Me? That wasn't all for Shawn.”

“It was, and it wasn't,” Victoria said, pausing in her steps and looking over her shoulder mournfully at Kurt. “Shawn wanted me, and being wanted like that was liberating, and I wanted him to keep wanting me, because when he wanted me, he fucked me, and it felt better than anyone else has ever fucked me. But I’d also only ever had sex twice before that; one was drunk, the other half asleep. So, I experimented, in essence, trying to find something or someone that gave me the same thrill, the same freedom and release. Nothing did it. Though I'll admit, you've come very close.”

“Geez thanks,” Kurt scoffed. “I guess I can understand testing your sexuality, that’s pretty natural, but it’s the lying that hurts the most. Couldn’t you have just told us what had happened.”

“Honestly, I think the story would have worked if it wasn’t for his 'homework'. But the truth is a hard thing to grasp, as this very conversation is demonstrative of,” Victoria noted. “And after I had given myself to him, it didn't feel like such a leap, to hide a few truths, to change a few facts. But seducing you was something I also did willingly, though for different reasons. Shawn wanted to humiliate you, but I really did just want to repay your kindness for being kidnapped for me, for thinking of me. I wasn't lying when I called you 'my hero'.”

Kurt vehemently shook his head. “I don't believe it. This isn't you.”

“I've just told you I did this willingly,” Victoria replied irritably. “Why don't you accept that maybe this is just who I am? That this is what I want?”

“Because, you never told him who I really was,” Kurt half shouted, rounding on her. “In all this time, he still thinks I'm Gavin, your boyfriend. I don't know if you're protecting me, or the real Gavin, but I know what it means. You're not all dark yet. There's part of you in there that's still looking out for your friends.”

“I…I…I…” she stammered.

“I understand how you could get twisted around on this. Shawn fucked you and you want it to mean something because then it wasn’t just some obnoxious jackass who **** himself on to you. It was destiny or fate helping you see who you really are. Except that’s not true. You’re a good person who just had something horrible happen to them,” Kurt said, stepping close and placing a compassionate hand on her shoulder. “I did the same, except I was the one who messed up, and instead of owning it, and mourning the meaning, I took the meaning away from it, told myself it was nothing, and fucked a lot of college girls until I realised that I wanted more. That I was worth more.”

She shrugged him off. “If that's true, then why did I like it?”

“What?”

“He called me a slut, he even slapped my breast, I should have hated him, and even still when he put it inside of me, it felt good. As good as Gavin or Zack or you ever felt,” Victoria raged defiantly, opening her arms and gesturing to herself. “My body should have shut him out, it should have fought back but it didn't, it opened to him, welcomed him, wanted him. I didn't want to, but he made me moan. He made me cum. This man abused me and used me, and I liked it. How is that possible? What does that tell you about me? I'll tell you what it means, it means exactly what he said about me is true. I am a slut.”

“You are not a slut,” Kurt told her, trying to maintain a balance between authoritative and empathetic but feeling that he was failing. “Your body, when you’re in that situation, it reacts, to protect itself, to protect you, it doesn’t mean you really wanted it. Even orgasming is just a natural bodily response to stimuli.”

“And when I walked into that bedroom and fucked him? Was that my body protecting me?” Victoria asked incredulous. “I fucked him, Kurt. And it wasn’t just him that I liked. Shawn and his games and his homework were a convenient excuse, but I found that I liked the freedom I had when let myself go. I was always so uptight and concerned about what I should do, what was the most efficient, proper method of doing something. When I was experimenting, when I was acting out Shawn’s orders, I was having fun. It was honestly the most I’ve enjoyed myself in a long time.”

“Acting out his orders?” Kurt repeated, tilting his head. “As in, the assignment he gave you last night wasn’t the only one?”

“Yeah, he gave me a new one this morning, to do something wild, my choice, so long as it included ‘Gavin’, so I choose the threesome at the beach,” Victoria revealed, smiling wistfully at the memory. “In fact, I hadn’t decided until Ashley pissed me off, and even then, it was hell trying to get Zack in just the right mind set to join us. But it was also a lot of fun.”

“That’s great, Vic. Seriously, no one wants you to be miserable but there must be some kind of balance between who you were and what you’ve become, one that doesn’t lie and fuck people and send Shawn pictures of your face covered in cum,” Kurt said, still hopeful he could save her. “I guarantee that if you continue down the path you’re on, you’ll drive away everyone. Your friends, your family, the people you love and who love you. No one will be able to trust a word you say, and they’ll doubt your every action because once people realise the person you’ve become you won’t be free anymore. You be just as imprisoned by people’s distrust as you were by your own morals.”

“There is no going back now. Dustin told me so, and he was right. The things I’ve done, to Gavin and Ashley, to you and Zack who did nothing wrong and were only trying to help me,” Victoria backed away, turning and wrapping her arms around herself. “The only thing I’m worthy of is contempt.”

“No, not yet anyways. The things you did weren’t good, there’s no turning that around, but you weren’t mindless about it. There were truths in your heart, like who I really was, that you held out of Shawn’s reach, no matter now much you claim to have submitted to him. I don’t care how free you felt or how much you enjoyed it, you protected that true identity, so I still have hope,” Kurt assured her, drawing up close behind her. He embraced her, laying his arms atop of hers and pressed his lips to her neck. “And I don’t hate you. My pride might be a little wounded, but it’ll heal.”

She reached down and lifted out her phone, holding it in front of her and staring at the screen. Kurt raised his head slightly, looking at her phone too over her shoulder. The home tab shone brightly with apps for emails and messages and her contacts. There were no new messages or calls or pictures. Nothing for her to look at, but he realised she wasn’t looking at something on the phone but at the phone itself, the phone she’d used to communicate with Shawn, to get new assignments, to send pictures of herself, the same phone Kurt had used to uncover her lies.

In a symbolic gesture, she dropped it to the floor, stamped on it with her heel, destroying it and her relationship with Shawn. She felt her nerves waver, remembering his warning. Remembering…

Her eyes went wide as she turned in Kurt’s arms, looking up into his face with terror and dread at the thing she’d done, so recent and so inconsequential compared to everything else, and yet potentially the worst thing that she had ever done.

Kurt looked at her questioningly, but she couldn’t even form the words to explain. What she had done was unforgivable. To speak it out now would be to undo all the faith that Kurt had placed in her. And yet, to not would be to commit to the darkness embedded deep within her soul.

“Oh my god!” She managed, looking up into Kurt’s trusting eyes, clamping her hands over her mouth as another, single muffled word slipped from her tongue. “Madison!”