Chapter Five: Isabelle
I seriously wish I hadn’t been forced to wear a corset. They are notoriously difficult to be put on and to remove. Especially if you need to remove it yourself. Even more especially when you need to remove it yourself, with only the use of your non-dominant hand. They were also notoriously uncomfortable. And when your husband is out to torture you with every second of your breathing. He spares no expense in the devices to do so. So, no matter what I do now its going to be painful. The corset in question is full of boning, ten runs of it to be exact, forcing my back into a straight posture, and with the help of the two thick heavy lace in the back, it forces my stomach to be sucked in and crushing my ribs. That alone would make it hard to breathe properly, but that’s not the only way it prevents me a good breath. Oh no, the wire that is under my breast pushing them high up on my chest making them feel more like an elephant sitting on my chest. And yet even though it was not his intent, that is still not the reason I am panting short breaths trying desperately not to pass out. The pain is radiating through my arm and is now racking my left side. I can no longer numb the pain by falling into darkness. These damn laces that run along the back, one that starts at the top working down to the middle and the other from the bottom to the middle making it impossible to really reach, even on a good day alone. So loosening the corset, even slightly, with my left arm being render useless makes it impossible. Giving no form of relief from either the pain or the inability to fucking breathe. I know as the hours continue to pass it will only get worse. I need to figure out something.
I look around, nothing in here will be helpful, no pillow case or sheet, nothing. I look down at my dress. It is long. It has a train. Then I look to the heals. And an idea hits me. I slowly struggle to my feet. Once there I lean on the wall with my good arm and dig my heal into the train and drag it along the fabric till I hear a rip.
“Oh thank god.” I whisper to myself. It’s not like Alessandro can get anymore angry than he already is going to be. I sit back down and kick off my shoe and put my heal back down on the fabric using my right hand to grab and rip the rest of the dress clean off. It takes more force than I would have thought, and I jolt a little causing pain to shoot through me. I do my best, I swear I do, but still a small scream escapes my mouth. I quickly shut my mouth and freeze. I listen to make sure no one is coming this way. But I hear nothing beyond the door. Meaning either there is no one out there to hear or they don’t really care what I’m doing in here. Either way I am not concerned as long as they stay on that side.
Once I am sure I am in the clear, I continue to do what I’m planning. Bringing the piece of long fabric to my mouth and begin using my teeth and hand to fasten a knot into it. When I am satisfied it is strong enough to do what I want. I slip the knot over my head and to the back of my neck, taking as deep as a breath as I can I reach my right hand through the loop grabbing my left wrist. I start to lift it and feel a scream crawling its way up my vocal cords begging to be let out. Instead, I bite down, hard, on my lip till I taste my own blood coating my tongue. I keep moving my arm until its resting in the cradle of the make shift sling. My hand now resting across my chest versus hanging lifeless next to me. It offers some relief now that the weight of it is being held up. I let out the breath from my lungs slowly as I try my best to scoot myself back again the wall. I want to lay down, but I know getting up from there would be damn near impossible and there was a greater chance my arm would fall to the side. And I would really not have to feel it shifting under my skin or have to go through putting it back in the sling.
When I get to the best position, I am going to be able to get in, I lay my head back and stare at the water spotted ceiling and I start laughing. No, I haven’t lost my mind, though if anyone heard me, they might think I have. I’m laughing at the irony of the fact that five years ago I was in a room not much bigger than this, on a bed not much worse than this, with water spots not much different then these on my ceiling. I used to think I was going to wind up dead at the hand of one of my parents or their friends in that room of filth and depravity. But then I was whisked away for much nicer surroundings, but the same fear was there. Death at someone else’s hands. Now I have come full circle, someone else’s hand and in filth.
I start to cough as black dots start circling my vision. Fucking corsets. The room spins and spins. And now I know why in the times where these were a stable and mandatory for every women of high society to wear why they invented the fainting couch because that exactly what happens to me at the moment. The last thought I have before everything goes black and I lose consciousness is maybe I won’t have to wake back up.