Promising Danielle Ch. 03

Mountains of gratitude to honeywldcat for her editing of this entire series.

*

I woke, for the first time, not wondering who it was sleeping in my arms. Remembering the past night, I opened my eyes slowly and looked down at Danielle. She didn't stir against me as I pulled back ever so slightly to examine her.

She was sleeping soundly, the closest thing to content that I had seen in a long time. Any redness that had remained from the previous night's tears was gone. Her lips even seemed to curl ever so slightly, as if she were lost in some wonderful dream.

To say that I was content would be an understatement. I've never really been one to cuddle, but my mind was changed in that instant. I was content to stay there with her until I starved to death. I could imagine myself lying there, either staring into her eyes, or watching her sleep, waiting for her eyes to open once more.

As if on cue, her eyes fluttered open, revealing those haunting turquoise halos. She didn't meet my gaze immediately. No, first she stared at my chest, or rather, let her eyes fall on my chest while she stared off into space, thinking. She nervously looked up at me.

"Hey." I whispered, somehow sure that hushed tones would be better.

"Hey." She whispered back, a twinge of sadness failing to stay on her tongue.

"You OK?"

"I'm...a lot better than I was last night, and a whole lot better than I would have been if you hadn't been here." She smiled shyly down at my chest, suddenly unable to meet my gaze.

"Do you want to talk about it?" Goddammit.

"No." She said. She seemed to steel herself before looking back up at me. "But I need to."

"Ok." I nodded. "Here and now, or do you want some coffee first?"

"Can we have coffee here?" She asked hopefully.

"Sure. You wait here and I'll go make some. Chances are the Two Old Dykes are up and I'm guessing you don't want to be fending them off right now." She smiled then, a true happy smile, something I wasn't sure she'd had in her. "I'll be right back."

I rose, and got out of bed, looking for my discarded robe. I found it somehow lodged beneath my bag and a large bottle of unknown origin. I pulled it on and turned to look at Danielle. She now lay on her back, looking over at me. I wanted to see that again: her just lying there in my bed, looking at me, waiting for me to bring her coffee.

I walked into the kitchen, finding it mercifully empty. I scooped out some grounds from the bag and started the maker. For some reason, the Coffee Machine Gods heard my prayer this morning, while ignoring me all others, and coffee was soon being dispensed into two mugs. I nearly dropped them both when Nikki walked by me in a strap-on and leather bustier. She must have mistaken the look on my face for "questioning" as opposed to "disturbed" as she simply answered my unasked question.

"Ice." Shaking my head, I returned to my room.

"Thank you so much." Danielle said, accepting a warm cup from me. She sat against one wall, her legs extending on the bed, thankfully encased in sweats. There was no way I was going to be able to think, let alone talk to her with those gorgeous legs exposed.

I carefully walked on the bed to sit next to her, pulling a pillow over to provide some cushioning against the wall. We sat, drinking coffee in silence. With her eyes seemingly lost in the brown liquid, I would have to wager that she was trying to piece together an explanation for me. I sat, watching her, in case she started talking and I missed it. Soon, the coffee was gone and we could no longer put off our discussion.

"So..." Such an inelegant thing to break both silence and tension with.

"This is not going to be easy." She said, setting her coffee cup down on the nightstand.

"I know." Nothing could be good if it made that noise from you last night.

"I might not be able to make it through in one shot." She warned. "I might just need to cry. This could take all day."

"I have all the time in the world." I really didn't, but there wasn't anything on the planet that could have made me leave her side right then.

"Ok." She took an incredibly deep breath, letting it out slowly. She rubbed her legs with her hands. She was clearly nervous."Hold my hand?" She asked, not meeting my gaze. I took her trembling hand in my own and gave it a squeeze.

"I was used." She said simply.

"Used? By who? And for what?" Careful, idiot. Tact is your friend.

"By my family: my father, my brother...even my mother. They all used me like I was just trash. Used me for their pleasure." Oh no. No nononono. Please tell me you're not saying what I think you're saying. Anything but that. In the name of all that is just and right in this world, please don't let her be talking about what I think she's talking about.

"It started right after middle school. My older brother and I shared a room. At night he would come over and touch me when he thought I was asleep. I wasn't." Please let these be lies. Please. "After a while, he just came over and did it while I was awake."

"He knew how to read my body, because I was soon having orgasms. Shortly after, Mom started me on birth control to 'regulate my period.' Penetration occurred soon after." Can't this be some sort of cruel joke? Will you please look at me after you finish and say, "just kidding," with that smile?

"I remember it all too well. The way he smelled, the way he made me taste him before. How much it hurt when he shoved himself inside me. The way he called me 'Dani.' How much I hated that name afterwards. How much of a slut I felt like." I am going to kill your brother and feast on his suffering.

"In 10th grade, I got my own room, giving my brother his. On the nights when my brother wasn't there, my father would come in and take his turn with me." Is she gripping my hand for comfort, or am I gripping hers? Who, really, is the one trembling?

"He introduced me mainly to oral pleasures, which my mother expounded upon. On the off chance that neither my brother nor my father was having their way with me, she would come in and sit on my face, or bury hers between my legs." Stop talking. I don't want to hear any more.

"To this day, I'm not sure if any of them knew about the other's interactions with me. It didn't happen every night, but I never went a solid week without getting off with some member of my family." Why are you telling me this? Are you trying to destroy me? I can't bear the pain you're unloading on me. It's too much for me to handle.

"My bed was never a happy place, so I made it a point to be happy at school. Always cheery, always happy. Make new friends, new family. A real family." Tears had started to fall. She didn't seem to have the energy to sob like she did last night. Oh, how naive a thought.

"Somehow, one of my friends found out. I have no idea how. She spread it around the school, right before graduation, saying that I fucked my father and my brother. All my old friends immediately abandoned me, cutting off all contact with me. I'm surprised that you didn't hear how much of a slut I was."

"I finally said 'enough' and escaped when I could no longer take it. I told my father I was done fucking him and packed my bags and literally sat there on the bench, trying to figure out who I could still call 'friend' and ask to stay with." She turned and looked up at me.

"Then you found me and gave me this wonderful house." She squeezed my hand frighteningly tightly. "Thank you so much."

"You're welcome." I smiled such a false smile then. "If I had known you had been raped-"

"Don't call it that!" She cried.

"But, that's what it was, wasn't it?" This could enter a whole new dimension of fucked up in about two seconds. You hear me brain? Watch the fuck out. The last thing you need is to freak out on her right now.

"Don't call it that." She repeated.

"Your father, mother, and brother-" There is no way that I will ever say anything more horrifying than what I'm saying now. "-forced themselves upon you didn't they?"

She looked away.

"Just because you came, doesn't make it ok. If they forced themselves on you against your will, that's rape." I said gently.

"Don't call it that!" She said in a somewhat hysterical tone. Be smart here genius. This is obviously a button, and you don't want to push buttons right now.

"Why?" Someone lock me up for my own good.

"Because that makes it sound like...Then it wouldn't be..." She looked away, gripping my hand, trying her best to imitate the crushing weight on her soul upon my hand, a physical manifestation of her pain that we could both share.

"What? It wouldn't be what?" You are standing in an emotional minefield. Be fucking careful.

"My fault," she nearly didn't get out, in the smallest voice I'd ever heard.

There are times when our perspectives are changed. Usually it's when we are told some fact or point, and out view of something is gently nudged one way or another. It's usually a very fluid, natural, and gentle process, like someone putting a finger under your chin and lifting your head.

With those two words, my perspective did indeed change, and it was far from a gentle thing. Something horribly violent happened inside my head, and a few things may very well have come unscrewed. Several terrible shocks ran through me and it took me a minute to process just what she had said.

"No." I pulled her into my arms and held her tight. "It was not your fault." Now the sobs came. "It was them, not you." Careful not to suffocate her, you insensitive prick.

I think something inside her may very well have broken when I told her that. Most of the poison that had been allowed to fester inside her and brew that sound last night poured from her eyes onto my chest. The flesh surrounding the poisonous reservoir was raw and infected. Touching it now would only hurt her more and wouldn't help all that much. Time would heal those wounds.

"All this time, you've blamed yourself. It is not your fault."

"I feel like such a monster!" She sobbed.

"They are the monsters, not you." That should have been punctuated by an affectionate term. God, I'm such a failure.

"But I let them keep doing it to me! I should have stopped them!"

"What you did, leaving, and telling me about it, took more courage than I could ever muster up." I stroked her hair, trying to do whatever I could to bring her some measure of comfort."And I promise you I won't let them hurt you again."

"Promise?" she looked up at me with the saddest, most hope filled eyes, puppies would be ashamed. I held her face in one hand, gently wiping a tear from her cheek with my thumb

"I swear I will protect you." How am I going to do that? I'm a spineless fool! I don't know how to fight! I don't know about protecting someone. I could have promised her that I would solve the Theory of Everything for how much I knew about it. I'm such a fool.

"Thank you." She melted against me, filling all those places that normally are empty when you lean against someone. This wasn't the friendly hug; she rally was leaning on me now.

"I'm tired." She sniffled.

Lady, if I had cried half as much as you had in the past 12 hours, I wouldn't have even made it out of bed to get coffee.

It was the first time in a long time that I could remember being emotionally weary, like I just wanted to rest my soul. I hadn't been awake for an hour, and I was ready to sleep like the dead, so I could only imagine how Danielle felt.

"Want to take a nap?" I asked. I really should have phrased that better.

"Will you stay with me?" Where do you get that look, woman? I hope you can't make that look on cue, because those kind of eyes can both start and end wars. I would drown puppies in burning kerosene with a smile on my face if you asked me to with those eyes.

"Of course." Oh, how well I will remember that moment for the rest of my life. I was not aware that a hand could have an orgasm. She smiled up at me, pressing her cheek into my hand before closing her eyes and kissing my palm.

She melted against me once more. Again I returned my arms to her back, holding her. I gently slid along the wall, letting us fall comfortably to the bed. What did she just do? Did she nuzzle my chest? Were those her lips? What have I gotten myself into?

I pulled the blankets up over us with a free hand, closing us off from the world.

"I feel safe with you." She whispered. In the silence surrounding us in the bedding, her whisper was almost too loud. "When your arms are around me, I feel like I have on a bullet proof vest, like nothing can touch me." If you keep saying those things, and touching me with your lips, you will waltz right on into my heart, Danielle.

"Thank you so much." God, her voice just went from a 2 to an 8 on the sexy scale, just by being nearly asleep. Please say no more, for I fear an erection if you do. Thankfully, she stayed silent in my arms and was soon asleep.

She felt different, lying there with me. Different from the times she fell asleep against me when we were watching movies. She was more comfortable, lighter almost, as if the weight she had just unloaded from her psyche had been a physical one. She looked, for the first time, truly content.

***

Looking back, that weekend was the turning point in our relationship. Quite suddenly, everything and anything was open for discussion. We grew closer, sharing more and more about ourselves with each other.

With our emotional closeness also came physical closeness. We ended up watching our Friday movies in my bed, as we would invariably fall asleep on the couch together and wake up the next morning none too comfortable. Why didn't we just open up Danielle's bed? Because it was fucking uncomfortable, or at least I found it to be, she never complained.

So we moved the TV so that we could watch it from my bed and fall asleep. Every Saturday morning I would wake up with Danielle pressed against me, sleeping soundly. If I woke up first, I would wrap and arm lightly around her, enjoying the feel of a woman in bed with me.

I could see on the horizon another precipice looming. There would be another turning point in our relationship, and half of me couldn't wait to get there. The other half, possibly the more rational half, feared it immensely. When I finally did get there, however, I didn't realize it until I was halfway over, as it seemed such a natural thing to do.

It had been a bad day for Danielle. Not a horrible day that you remembered for the rest of your life, but a bad day nonetheless. It was one of those days were you wake-up on the wrong side of the bed and every little thing that could go wrong does. She spilled her coffee and was late to class, sans coffee. She managed to tear her backpack, give herself a paper cut, and arrive to her last class late. To top it off she had forgotten her keys and had to wait for me to get home later, her cell phone having died.

Which is how I found her.

"What are you doing out here?" She was sitting on the ground, her knees pulled to her chest, resting her head on them, as if resigned to having the world shit on her for the rest of the day.

"I forgot my keys, and nobody was home."

"You should have called me! I could have left work early!"

"It's kind of hard when your cell phone dies on you." She sighed, standing and walking inside as I opened the door for her. She dropped her bag and fled to the bathroom. When she came out, she was dressed in her night clothes and walked right over to the collection of movies.

"I really need to just unwind." She said, picking a movie apparently at random and sticking it in.

I have no idea what the movie was; neither of us really watched it. We just lay in my bed and I listened to her describe, in a way that only a female can, the horrendousness of her day. She wore herself out and we lay together watching the last couple minutes of the movie.

I was spooned behind her looking over her head at the TV, one hand wrapped comfortably around her stomach. As the credits rolled, she turned over in my arms, facing me. Her eyes were closed and I could tell that she was worn out from her day.

"Thanks for being here for me, Toby." She said, softly. "I really needed that." She snuggled closer to me, her face inches from mine.

Without thinking, or rather, without realizing that I was doing it, I leaned down and kissed her forehead. It was a minute before either of us registered that I had done it. My heart filled with adrenaline, hoping that somehow she was asleep and hadn't noticed. Fool.

I felt the warmth of her lips on my collarbone. It was the gentlest thing I think I've ever felt. A quick, probative kiss, soft and slow. A test to see how far this would go.

I looked down at her. The sound of my head shifting on the pillow must have made her look up at me. Her eyes were half open, a small smile tugging at the corners of her mouth.

Slowly, carefully, my heart thundering in my chest, I brought my lips down to hers, and gently pressed them together. She didn't kiss back at first and upon realizing this, began to pull back. But I felt her somehow draw me in without our lips ever parting. She kissed me back, running a hand up to my face and tunneling into my hair.

The kiss seemed to go on forever. Time could have stopped for all I had known. Or cared. I was happy to stay comfortably warm in my bed with this gorgeous woman's lips pressed gently to mine for the rest of forever.

But alas, our kiss did break, she looking down ever so slightly to rest her nose beneath mine on the pillow. Neither of us opened our eyes to look at the other. I felt her smile, somehow, before I heard it in her voice.

"Goodnight, Toby."

"Goodnight, Danielle."

And that was the beginning of that.

***

After that weekend, Danielle and I became inseparable. Or rather, she suddenly was everywhere I was. I didn't know if this was by her design or not, but I was not going to object to it at all.

Overall, she was happier. She smiled more, her eyes twinkled more, she laughed with more mirth than I could recall seeing, even when she was "happy" in high school. Discovering just how happy she was now, showed me just how forced her high school happiness had been. Sure, I understood conceptually that she hadn't really been happy in high school, but to see the difference right before my eyes was something altogether different.

We grew closer to each other, as was inevitable. Not only did we hug and cuddle every Friday, every so often, she would grant me the pleasure of a kiss. We talked about anything and everything, becoming so close that I soon thought we should add our respective gender's as a prefix to the word "friend" when talking about each other.

Yes, despite my efforts not to, I developed feelings for the young beauty inhabiting my room. Perhaps it was the physical contact we shared when watching a movie, or the hug she always gave me when she first saw me after classes. Perhaps it was the way she looked at me, her eyes lighting up as if my presence itself were a cue for her spirits to lift.

Did I want a girlfriend? Yes, of course I did. Drunk sex and shallow one night stands are great to relieve one's sexual needs, but they do nothing except exacerbate the need for companionship. Did I want Danielle as a girlfriend, especially in light of what had happened to her? I wasn't sure.

I've never been unsure about a girl before. Either I wanted to be her boyfriend or I didn't; there wasn't much debate. But with Danielle, it was different. I wanted to be around her, that was for sure, but something was twisting inside of me, some new sensation that had me thoroughly confused, and mildly terrified.

I walked in through the side door at around 10, as was usual for a Friday night. Danielle was on the couch waiting for me in sweats and a T-shirt. There is something incredibly sexy about a girl in comfortable clothes.