Fallen Petals-Prologue

         Her pace was slow, thick with nervous trepidation. Hesitancy echoed soundly in the silent space between her steps, if one could not already see it in the pained expression on her beautiful face. All around her shadows danced in the candle light, an almost elate contradiction to the somber scene surrounding it. Head bowed as she led the strange man down the thin hallway, shoulders carrying as much dignity as her profession allowed, she came to a stop before her chamber. It was a room filled to each corner with her shame and degradation and so many horrid memories. Tonight, she was sure, would be no different.

         “Is this it?” asked the man whom she had led, breaking her thoughts. He was a thin man, wiry, her senior by at least twenty years, and he smelled strongly of fish. Just looking at him made her stomach lurch, but she hardened herself against the feeling of revulsion. Keeping her face soft and impassive she nodded her answer.  He sneered in his anticipation, “Well then? Open the door, quickly.”

         Feeling her heart sink with every breath, she reached a shaking hand towards the handle, pulling until it gave way and swung open.

         It opened into a finely decorated chamber, filled with elegance to add to the experience. Any decorations were wasted on the fish merchant, however, as his gaze fell immediately on the large canapé bed that lay in the center of the chamber. She shivered as she lat her eyes open the beautifully wrought piece of furniture. It’s just one night, she thought, one night, and I’ll never have to see him again…

         But that never made it any easier.

         To the right of the chamber tucked in a small little niche sat a tub, filled with already warm water, and it was to this she gestured as they entered the room.

         “Would you like a bath, my lord,” she muttered, her voice a lyrical whisper, and she turned her eyes, desperately hopeful, towards him. At least a bath would delay what was to come, “I would be glad to bathe you-”

         “I want what I paid for.” interrupted the man gruffly, “Take off  your gown.”

         Immediately her skin went cold… of course she knew it would come to this. Stalling meant nothing. In the end there was always this. Resolve steeling her, she lifted a shaking hand to the straps on her shoulders, sliding them slowly down the smooth even skin…

         “You move far too slowly,” the man whispered, the heat of wanting on his breath, and without delay he was on her, his lips hot upon her bare neck. She had barely any time to prepare herself as he forced her onto the bed, tearing her clothes impatiently from her body. He ignored her painful cries as he bit into her shoulder, growling with his lust. She tried to close her eyes against him, to imagine herself somewhere else, anywhere else as he fumbled with the drawstring of his trousers.

         He was not gentle. He was not kind. He was uncompromising and rough, and she could not take him. Before long she was drowning in a sea of pain, and yet he was unrelenting. As tears streamed down her eyes, she looked for any escape, and in finding there was none, she wept all the more. No woman should be treated this way…but then she wasn’t a woman, was she? She was a Rose….

         She was a whore.

         God, let me die, she thought, as the sounds of his grunts became louder and louder, please let me die…

Let me die…