Free Escaping the Darkness by Sarah Preston Page B

just sat, putting her bag on the floor at the side of her. I wondered, for the few seconds before she spoke, why she hadn’t got all her usual things with her. I wanted to ask, but I knew that asking would have been nosy. I didn’t want to appear unduly curious. I was drifting off onto another train of thought when Bess’s voice nudged its way into my consciousness.
‘I thought today I’d do things differently,’ Bess explained. ‘I thought I’d just listen and not make notes. I know you’d probably feel more comfortable that way. What do you think?’
I wasn’t sure if this would help. She was still Bess, no different, even though she had no book to write in. She would still think about what I would tell her in the same way, nothing would change that. She was still the therapist. I still saw her in this light. Not having her notebook wouldn’t change that either.
‘All right let’s give it a go if you think it’ll be different,’ I suggested. ‘Do you really think it will make a difference to me and how I will tell you things?’
Bess replied to my query speaking quite softly, looking at me more intently with each word.
‘Not having my notebook should make a difference because you should be able to focus more on what you want to say, not be sitting there wondering all the time about what I may be scribbling down. You’ll also be drawn away from thinking why I wrote down one thing and not the next, when you may feel that the last thing you said was more important than the one before, yet I failed to note it down. Do you see what I mean Sarah?’
‘I think so but I’m not sure really.’
‘Shall we just give it a go and then we’ll see how far we get?’
‘Okay.’
Even though I told Bess I thought it was worth trying, inside I still felt very cynical about everything that she had said to me that morning. I honestly didn’t think what she was about to do could possibly work until I started talking. I took Bess on a journey, travelling back in my memories to the first moment Bill had taken me to the flat and washed me. I hated every second when he was touching me. Talking of it made me physically feel his touch once more, and this shocked me so much that I shivered. It felt as if I was going through that terrible experience for the very first time. I was so desperate to get away, yet I remember feeling as if I had been glued into place.
Unable to move.
Unable to speak.
Unable to run.
Unable to cry out.
And I was so alone, so afraid, so very much an unwilling prisoner.
I glanced at Bess to see what she was doing. She was just looking at me, an expression of sheer bewilderment on her face. Although she didn’t speak, it was as if her questions communicated to me telepathically and were darting around looking for answers.
‘Didn’t he stop at all when he realised you weren’t comfortable with what he was doing to you?’ I heard the unspoken words so clearly and gave her the answer she sought without saying a word.
A little while later I heard my voice, saying:
‘No. He just continued doing what he had planned and intended to do. Nothing I said changed his mind. He was driven by a purpose, his purpose. I wanted it to stop. It didn’t. It never did. He didn’t want it to.’
As I looked up, I thought I saw a tear in Bess’s eye but she didn’t actually cry, so maybe I only imagined it. As I continued to look deeply into her face, trying to read her thoughts, she asked me to tell her more about the events on that particular day. I certainly felt different. Bess was right: talking without the interruptions and presence of her notebook was having the desired effect. At least it was until I revealed my next recollection of that day:
‘Once he had washed me he sat, drying me for ages whilst he kept looking at me, telling me how lovely I was. I knew he didn’t mean me, by that I mean my face, because he was looking at my private parts.’ I sat uncomfortably,shifting and wriggling around on the chair,