Imagine Being Loved By Me

Chapter 9

Of all the ways to describe Phatima as a person, determined would be an understatement, and naive would be a close second. 

The Pirate, Lieutenant Hannan, set a time limit for when she was supposed to stop drinking water. Her thirst won over her logic and she continued to drink past the cut-off time, so now she had to relieve herself earlier than he was due to come to get her. She always internally argued that she’d be able to hold her urine if it meant that he wouldn’t have to touch her again in the middle of the night when she was so delirious.

But now, she realized why he put a limit on her as she stared at the moon shining through the balcony windows.

She could tell by where it was in the sky that it wasn’t yet 2:00 am, so she’d have to wait longer for the man to assist her. 

The only problem was that she’d already been holding it for quite some time and now she knew for sure there was no way she would be able to wait for him to arrive.

Which meant her next move would be risky and painful, but not impossible.

As she struggled to get into a sitting position, she allowed the fact that she wasn’t completely winded to give her a false sense of encouragement. She used her weak arms to help move her weaker legs over the edge of the king-sized bed, all she had to do was slide from it and land on her feet. It was simple. She had completed many jumps, dives, and rolls from the same bed whenever she was trying to fight back against her captor, so sliding into a stand?

It was as easy as she was hoping it would be. 

As soon as her feet touched the floor, however, the weight of her frame rested solely on her ankles, knees, and hips. It took all she had to keep any of them from buckling and casting her down. But what she didn’t count on was the weight of the collar and the chain hanging around her neck to be the thing that tilted her off balance. The gold collar was never particularly heavy, but it had a noticeable weight.

At that moment, while she had no one to rely on to balance herself out but herself, it felt like the collar was the one gaining all the weight from each bite she took. Quickly, she cast her hand behind her, hoping to grab for something that would stop her from moving forward. As she tilted forward more and her legs began to move to keep up, her hands closed around the sheets. But without any strength in her hands and arms, all she managed to do was yank herself around from the force and fall into a backward run that ended with her flat on her back.

She groaned from the pain but was grateful that she didn’t land much harder. It could’ve been worse. She laid there only a minute longer before she threw her arm to her left side so she could use the force of it to roll onto her front. 

If she couldn’t walk, then she would crawl. 

The bones in her knees may not forgive her, but her bladder nor her dignity would forgive her either if she wet herself after falling from the bed. 

 As she lifted herself onto her knees, the collar and chain acted as a barrier again as it weighed her neck down, but she had to admit crawling was much easier than trying to walk after not having done so for almost a month. And to be quite frank, she was tired of being helped out in the bathroom. It was embarrassing, especially since she finally saw what she looked like. 

The first time he sat her on the sink’s counter to help brush her teeth, she stole a glance at her face and couldn’t stop crying afterward. She was hideous and completely unrecognizable. If her own parents saw her looking that way they wouldn’t even recognize her. 

It’s true, she was always a tall and lanky girl, knobby-kneed, with knobby elbows and straight hips. 

When she finally physically filled out, she still wasn’t anywhere near thick. 

She had finally gotten breasts that she was proud of and her hips rounded, but she was just a naturally slender person. Thinking about the thinness of both her parents made it obvious in hindsight that she wasn’t meant to be thicker. If anything, she was thankful she stopped getting taller after reaching 173 cm. 

But to be this thin, to not have any muscle to add texture, just her skin and bones, and organs? 

It was jolting and repulsive. 

She suddenly understood what that look was in the Lieutenant's eyes whenever he looked away from her. 

She knew that she hated the fact that his voice was always soothing, but it also bothered her that he was very mechanical when dealing with her. 

But now, she could clearly and easily say that he was repulsed by her. 

Even though it seemed obvious, it was still taking her a while to accept the fact that he wasn’t what most men were when dealing with her. 

She couldn’t trust what her experiences were with him because he was not someone she should trust.

Even though it was seemingly clear that he didn’t want her in any kind of s****l way. She couldn’t resist the embarrassed disgust she’d feel whenever she was exposed to him. He never alluded to the fact that he liked seeing her undressed. If anything, it was quite the opposite.

She was never the type of girl that enjoyed getting attention from men, that enjoyed the compliments or the wayward hands that followed after inappropriate comments. 

But, and it was a repulsive thought for her to have, but seeing a man as beautiful as he was not paying her any mind in that way was, well, dejecting, even if she wasn’t looking for attention. Even if that was the last thing she wanted.

Admitting that was hard at first, and it continued to plague her whenever she’d let her mind wander in that direction. 

She rejected the notion that she even noticed in the first place, but eventually she got tired of doing mental gymnastics with herself. 

It was simple. He didn’t find her attractive, and maybe that was a protection for her. Instead of feeling sad over something so ridiculous, she felt she should be thankful. 

Besides, he didn't seem to be having that same war within his own mind. Nothing about him seemed focused on pleasure of any kind. He was a stickler, as far as she could tell.

So there was nothing there to waste worry on. He didn’t seem to be confused or upset by her demeanor towards him, so why should she?

As she crawled to the toilet, she prepared herself for the task of pulling herself up and onto it, knowing it would take every ounce she had to give.

This is what she was reduced too. 

The lowest denominator of a woman, who wastes her thoughts worrying over a man not wanting her for vanity’s sake while simultaneously being unable to do even the basic things for herself.

Someone who escaped having to marry one of the old leaders within her clan for security. Someone who established their own business and made a living for herself. Someone who was knocked down, but got back up, just to end up chained to a wall. The slave of a man who only wanted her for her face, her body, a pretty thing to control. And now, she was a woman crawling to the toilet because she couldn’t walk. At least, not yet.

She was once again a woman knocked down, but she knew she could get back up.

She locked her bony fingers around the frame of the porcelain toilet and pulled until she was sliding up. All she had to do was flip her waist around and throw the momentum of her hips with it and she’d be on the toilet. She was exhausted and sweating, so she slid her arms from the robe and let it fall from her body before attempting her daring movement. She locked her fingers again, pushed with what little strength she had in her thighs, and swung her hips around. She felt like she had accomplished the movement of an acrobat, but she landed mostly on the toilet.

A quiet chuckle left her throat as she buried her face in her hands. She had to laugh at herself for having fallen so far yet making a comeback to this point. 

Once she was completely done, she slid as gently as possible back onto her knees. She wasn’t sure if she had enough energy to make it back to the bed, let alone climb up onto it, but she was happy that she accomplished the small task of taking herself to the toilet. Even if it meant sleeping on the rug by the bed, it would have been worth it. 

The rug was within her sights too. A small smile came across her face as if she was looking at the finish line. That is until a pair of pale feet and legs covered in black sweats blocked her view.

She didn’t have enough energy to look up, but she knew who it was from just the scent of him. He smelled similar to an herb she was very familiar with and used often in her tea brews, Chamomile. The scent was in his hair and on his skin, it was ingrained in all his clothes even when it was clear he washed because of the accompanying clean smell of soap and detergent that couldn’t help but be there. 

It was a soothing scent, much like the sound of his voice. 

But those two things only put her on edge more because while he was near, she had a harder time focusing and staying alert because the scent of him caused her to think about warmth and sleep.

She looked at the silk robe she had balled up in one fist and immediately regretted not taking the extra energy to shrug back into it, knowing that being bare and on her hands and knees in front of a man was just asking for trouble. At least the room was only cast with moonlight and not any brighter.

His silence as he squatted before her made the hair on her body stand on end as she desperately hoped he wouldn’t suddenly turn into some fiend seeing her that way. 

Instead, he slid the crumbled robe from her hand and threw it around her body before scooping her up effortlessly. She knew she was dead weight because she didn’t even have enough energy to tense up at the sudden lift and she could feel her arms trembling from exhaustion. 

She thought for sure that he would be taking her back to the bed, but when he turned around he went right past it to the other side of the room and sat her down on the couch. She didn’t know what to think, and the sleepiness behind her eyes was quickly replaced with an alertness to fight if she needed to.

Her eyes followed his frame as he walked to the curtains and opened them wider, causing the room to be full of glowing moonlight. 

He was still quiet even when he returned to her, only making the situation tenser for Phatima. Once he was before her, he stooped down again, helping her slide each arm into the sleeves of the robe and then tying it at her waist. She wouldn’t meet his eyes nor would she force herself to say ‘thank you’. As far as she was concerned, his kindness was deserved and she didn’t have to praise him for something his kind aided in befalling her in the first place.

His understanding of his quiet interactions with her was quite different, as he thought to himself that after a month of having seen her not only completely naked, but in some of the most awkward of conditions, she would grow to be less embarrassed around him. But she seemed to be even more nervous and fidgety now than she had any time prior. As hard as he thought about it, he couldn’t put his finger on what was different this time than any of the others. But she refused to look at him, and she kept her head down to even avoid the accident of it happening.

“How strange,” the words slipped from his mouth as he tilted his head to examine her, “innocence.”