A Safe Pair of Hands Ch. 03-04

"Rick... please!" Sadie gasped anxiously. "I never thought... I... I just..."

His slap across her face silenced her as she staggered back from the force of the blow.

The flowers fell to the floor, as she shook her head, trying to clear her vision.

"You're nothing but a lying, filthy, little slut!" Rick snarled.

He grabbed her wrist as his hand went back to land another open handed blow.

"It seemed that once he started hitting me, he couldn't or wouldn't stop!"

"But it did eventually?" Nick kept his voice cool and calm, even though his body burned with fury.

"Yes, he seemed to have run out of steam, with the hitting and the name calling... but then all he wanted to do was..." she looked away and the colour stained her pale cheeks.

Nick clenched his fist under the table, causing his knuckled to go white.

"Say it, Sadie... just once, say it out loud, tell me what he did next!"

She gave a little sob.

"Then..." she whispered hoarsely, "Then he dragged me up the stairs, and then he... he... raped me!"

The sobs began again and Sadie let them, she welcomed them, she embraced them, as Nick embraced her - she embraced the pain and anguish.

She visited it one last time, for a little while she simply wallowed in it. But then she buried it - she buried it for good this time!

*

It was very late... or rather very early in the morning before Nick was prepared to leave her.

He held her and comforted her through her emotional storms, and when it was over, he still waited; he made more tea, while Sadie popped upstairs to wash her tearstained face.

She entered the kitchen looking tired, rung out, but calm.

There was a serenity to her, which caught at his breath.

She sat down across from him, and cupped her hands around the steaming mug.

"Thank you," she whispered meeting his eyes squarely.

Nick nodded and smiled in acknowledgement, realising that she was thanking him for more than the tea.

"You are very welcome, Sadie," he said gruffly.

*

Sadie walked with Nick to the front door, feeling more than a little sad that this time with him was over. It reminded her of the first time that they'd met - before Rick had come storming in and ruined everything between them.

When she had first looked at Nick, and he had first looked at her.

She smiled sadly as she remembered.

No one had ever looked at her like that before - with such wonder, and yearning.

Their eyes had met, and locked with an; 'I know you - you are my soul mate!' sort of instant recognition.

She held her breath and watched as he walked across the room, to her.

This had been two years after her marriage to Rick. Sadie had left him and returned to her husband on several occasions - always under duress, emotional blackmail, and promises of change.

It never happened though. For a little while, he would be on his best behaviour, but it wouldn't take much to set him off; and it always ended with hurt and misery, and her fleeing him at the first opportunity.

In desperation, Sadie had left her home town. Her friends and family, and moved to London, to the anonymity of a larger strange city, and she tried to make a new life for herself. And as time moved on, she began to feel like it had worked.

That evening out with the girls from her office, had become a typical Friday night. With fun and laughter, and a few drinks and some dancing.

Just another Friday night out.

Then Nick had walked into that wonderful club...

"Can I buy you a drink?" he asked, and Sadie gave a little shiver, as the warmth of his voice tickled down her spine.

She smiled up at him shyly. "I... I'd like that."

He escorted her to a table, in a corner of the club and with some small degree of privacy.

He purchased their drinks and sat down in the chair across from her.

"My name is Nick, by the way," he smiled.

A small furrow marred her brow, as another name instantly came to mind.

"I'm Sadie," she introduced herself hesitantly.

He smiled a warm smile, and his eyes locked on to hers again. "It is so very nice to meet you, Sadie."

He could see that she was rather shy, and his heart which had almost gone into shock when he'd first spotted her, warmed even more towards her.

He talked lightly and amusingly, telling her how he was just visiting London on a 'work' trip, and had been struggling to find his way around.

He made her laugh as he told her about the grotty bedsit that he'd been staying in, and as he watched her face light up with humour, he vowed to himself that he would do everything in his power to make her smile, make her laugh - every single day for the rest of his life.

As they sat chatting, she slowly came out of her shell, and began to tell him about her first time in London, although he never did find out what had brought her to this cold impersonal city in the first place.

She was in the middle of a sentence, her expression lively and amused, when her gaze swept passed him suddenly, and her voice stumbled to a halt and her eyes darkened and died, and her face drained of colour.

Nick looked over his shoulder, desperate to know what had caused such a drastic - horrible change in her. He would later read that look as one of anger and hatred.

But not at first.

A man came striding over, looking pale and desperate.

"I've searched for so long," he muttered as he stood over her. "I thought that I would never find you again..."

"What do you want, Rick?" she whispered in a cold dispassionate tone.

"You... I want you... my wife!"

She didn't have to look at Nick to see how his shoulders went back.

He pulled back his chair and lurched to his feet.

Sadie stood up as well, and her eyes tried to lock on to his.

"Please, Nick!" she whispered in a desperate tone, "don't leave me..."

"Your... husband needs some time with you," he almost spat out the words, assuming that her husband had only been looking for her this evening, and not realising that he'd actually been hunting her for the past six months.

"I have nothing to say to him," she said thickly, thick he assumed with anger.

"I can't live without you babe, please come home with me..." Rick mouthed the usual garbage.

Nick turned to walk away, and Sadie realised that she would never see him again.

Her eyes filled with tears, but she blinked them back as she realised that Rick had once again ruined her life, before it had even begun this time.

"Go away Rick, I don't ever want to see you again!"

He reached out to her imploringly, "I mean it Sadie, I can't, I won't live without you... if you don't walk out of here, with me - right now... I swear I will kill myself!"

Again this was Rick's usual tactics for forcing her back, and Sadie realised that she just could not do it anymore.

"Go and do that then, Rick!" she spat out. "If you can't live without me, then just go away and end it!"

It seemed that Rick understood, as the colour drained from his face. That this time it really was over, and no amount of begging or pleading would win her round. He slumped down on the seat and began to sob.

She turned away from him, ready to march out of this horrendous place, but her gaze fell on Nick, who had stood listening to them.

He looked at the broken desolate man, and the beautiful, bitch.

He looked at her with such loathing, that Sadie thought she might throw up.

She fled the club, the men, and the nightmare, and she never stepped foot in that place again.