The redness in Rebecca's foot was slowly dissipating as I move her toes back to their rightful positions and she managed to calm herself down. The topic at hand is, clearly, something that she's not terribly comfortable talking about. I mean, how can it be? The woman doesn't have a whole lot of memory of her life, and most of what she does remember is being with this Melissa, whom she seems to have a great deal of discomfort and hated towards. She's trying so hard to talk to me about this, and I can tell it's a strain for her to speak about it. I have to find some way to help her with this.
I slow down my hand's movements and start massaging both of her feet at once, trying to make her as comfortable as possible. I have already told her to take her time with this story, and to make sure she talks when she's comfortable to talk. She may want me to know all of this, but that's no reason to force yourself into an uncomfortable situation and make yourself relive a lot of bad memories. I talk again, trying to calm her down, to the point where she can think things through and talk. As I do so, I take one hand off of her feet and place it on her left shoulder. I can feel the skin reacting to my tough, almost as if shivering. “It's alright. Like I said, take your time. I am happy that you want to share this information with me. Just, take it one step at a time, and don't rush yourself through it.”
Pulling both of her feet back, she bends her knees and lays them flat, her eyes on my shoulder, and then on me. Her right hand comes up and I can feel cold, icy fingertips come onto my own fingers, slightly trembling as they touch me. Taking my other hand, I reach to the back of the couch, where a small blanket hangs. It's the same one I put on her when we'd first met. Taking it down, I use that one hand to cover her legs up with it as she sits there. The two of us look at each other, and she simply nods towards me, her attitude getting less and less apparent from the situation.
Her hands then move back down coming together on her lap, and she looked at me. “The day I met her was, I thought, a good day. There were so many things I was seeing out in this place. Flowers, animals of all sorts of variety, but she was the only one that looked somewhat like me. She was the only other person out there. Sure, she was a great deal taller than me, like you were, but she was still a person. She took my hand and offered the words 'Come with me, little one. I have a place for you.' Her golden hair shone in the sunlight, and I was moved by her words. I didn't have anything else, so I took her hand and she took me home with her.”
“The woman acted so kind and gently with me. She wouldn't let me do things on my own that day, but she would very gently pick me up, put me in her car, walking me in the door, finding me a bed. Even though I'm a grown woman, that first day made me want to call her 'Mommy', for some reason. She was always taking care of me. At least, for awhile. That's when the changes started to happen...” Rebecca stops and looks at me, our eyes meeting, and I can tell that she is starting to get to the emotional sections of her story. Keeping my hand on her shoulder, I nod to her, enabling her to know that I understand. “What happened?” I ask, curiously.
Taking in a deep breath of air, she looks at me and then looks down towards one of the couch cushions, gripping onto her blanket. “Then, the changes happened. Then, I began to realize what she was really like. One morning, while we were eating breakfast, she props her feet up in front of me and tells me to rub them for her. Not seeing the harm in it, I did as she asked. Her face smiled, and smirked down towards me. I never knew what that meant, exactly, but I assumed that she just enjoyed what I was doing for her. So, smiling, I kept up what I did, trying to keep her happy.”
“I told her that I would do anything for her, because she treated me so nicely, and that's what opened the door even further...” One of her hands comes up to her shoulder, where mine is, and she grips onto it, tightly holding a couple of my fingers. “She asked me to do things, a lot of things. Rubbing her feet, helping her clean the house, and many other normal, little things. It was very tiring to work in the house and around her all day, but I didn't mind it. I really didn't! It was nice to give back to the person whom I thought had given me a lot.”
“Eventually, things started to differ, though. At one point, she stopped helping me with tasks, and she would expect me to do everything on my own. She would wake up and expect me to rub her feet as part of a wake-up call, she made me climb on top of her counter and fix her breakfast. I basically waited on her, hand and foot. I didn't really enjoy it, but I kept it up. I was living in her house, after all. I didn't have anywhere else to go, anyways. So, I put up with it, for as long as I could. As you could imagine, though...that didn't last forever.”
“My body is small and , although correctly proportioned, doesn't have as much energy as someone like you does. After about the 4th month, my body started running thin during the day. I barely got my 'chores' done one night, and Melissa was waiting for her evening back rub. So, I went in there and started rubbing, but in the middle of it, she turned. She never turned while she was getting a back rub. I was suddenly face to face with Melissa, naked, and she grabbed onto me and she...she...” Rebecca is started to break up in her speech, and I can see her cheeks blushing as she talks about it.
“Sh-She did...b-b-bad things to me...” The situation is escalating and I can see her having a breakdown already. I open my mouth, to tell her to calm down and that she doesn't have to talk about this, but she won't let me. “Rebeeca, you don--” I don't get a single statement out before she interrupts and continued on her own. “No, I...want to tell you...I need to tell you.” I put my other hand on her right shoulder and nod, blinking and feeling tingling coming through my own nose and cheeks, listening to where this story is going, and not liking it one bit...