Sweet Revenge

Her lush breasts heaved as terror sent her heart racing. In the moonlight her pale skin glowed, already showing the shadow of bruises from his hands. Her hips were rounded. When passion filled her they could move like lightning, meeting aman thrust for thrust. Shameless. Desire was like a pain in him, like a devil clawing. A lamp crashed onto the table as they struggled, showering the floor with glass.
    Frozen in horror, Adrianne watched as he dug his fingers into Phoebe’s full white breasts. Her mother was pleading, struggling. A man had a right to beat his wife. She could not refuse him in the marital bed. That was the way. And yet … Adrianne pushed her hands hard against her ears to block out Phoebe’s screams as he rose over her, as he plunged into her violently, again and again.
    With her face wet with her own tears, Adrianne crawled under the bed. She pressed her hands against her ears until they hurt but still she could hear her father’s grunts, her mother’s desperate weeping. Above her the bed shook. She curled into a ball, trying to make herself small, so small she wouldn’t hear, wouldn’t even be.
    She had never heard the word
rape
, but after this night she would never have to have it defined for her.
    “You’re so quiet, Addy.” Phoebe brushed her daughter’s waist-length hair with long, slow strokes. Addy. Abdu despised the nickname and only tolerated the more formal Adrianne because his first born was a female of mixed blood. Even so, out of Muslim pride, he had decreed that his daughter be given a proper Arabic name. Therefore, on all official documents “Adrianne” was recorded as Ad Riyahd An, followed by a slew of Abdu’s family names. Phoebe repeated the nickname now and asked, “Don’t you like your presents?”
    “I like them very much.” Adrianne was wearing her new dress, but it no longer pleased her. In the mirror she could see her mother’s face behind her own. Phoebe had carefully covered the bruise with makeup, but Adrianne saw the shadow of it.
    “You look beautiful.” Phoebe turned her around to hold her. On another day Adrianne might not have noticed how tightly she was held, might not have recognized the notes of desperation in her mother’s voice. “My own little princess. I love you so much, Addy. More than anything in the world.”
    She smelled like flowers, like the warm, rich flowers in the garden just outside. Adrianne drew in her mother’s scent as she pressed her face to her breasts. She kissed them,remembering how cruelly her father had handled them the night before.
    “You won’t go away? You won’t leave me?”
    “Where would you get such an idea?” With a half laugh Phoebe pushed her an arm’s length away to look at her. When she saw the tears, her laughter stopped. “Oh, baby, what’s all this?”
    Miserably, Adrianne dropped her head on Phoebe’s shoulder. “I dreamed he sent you away. That you left and I never saw you again.”
    Phoebe’s hand hesitated, then continued to stroke. “Just a dream, baby. I’ll never leave you.”
    Adrianne crawled onto her mother’s lap, content to be rocked and soothed. Through the latticework at the windows, fingers of scented sunlight pushed across the room and into the pattern on the rug. “If I had been a boy, he would love us.”
    Anger filled her so quickly, Phoebe could taste it on her tongue. Almost immediately, it turned to despair. But she was still an actress. If she could use her talent for nothing else, she could use it to protect what was hers. “What silly talk, and on your birthday. What fun is a little boy? They don’t wear pretty dresses.”
    Adrianne giggled at that and snuggled closer. “If I put a dress on Fahid, he would look like a doll.”
    Phoebe pressed her lips together and tried to ignore the flash of pain. Fahid. The son Abdu’s second wife had borne after she had failed. Not failed, she told herself. She was beginning to think like a Muslim woman. How could she have failed when she had a beautiful child in her arms?
    You gave me nothing. A girl. Less than nothing.
    Everything, Phoebe thought savagely. I gave you everything.
    “Mama?”
    “I was thinking.” Phoebe smiled as she slid Adrianne from her lap. “I was thinking that you need one more present. A secret one.”
    “A secret?” Adrianne clapped her hands together, tears forgotten.
    “Sit, and close your eyes.”
    Delighted, Adrianne obeyed, squirming in the chair asshe tried to be patient. Phoebe had