Safe Place
Title: Safe Place
Author: jooles34
Fandom: Original
Genre: N/A
Rating: 15
Prompt: #12 - A meadow @ story_lottery
Summary: Sophie searches for her safe place
Warning(s): Includes description of sexual assault
Word Count: 1,002
Disclaimer: All characters and situations in this story are property of me.
A/N: At the end of the story
Sophie lay on her back in the meadow. Utterly alone she was completely at peace; relaxed in body and mind. If she had tried to move her limbs, which she had no inclination to do, she would have found them heavy, sluggish, blissfully slow to respond.
She lay with her eyes closed, allowing her surroundings to happily assault her senses.
The sun was warm upon her face, a slight breeze ruffled her hair. She could hear nothing but the dim call of birds in the distant trees and the chitter of crickets in the tall grasses around her.
Even with her eyes closed she could see the grasses and the flowers that surrounded her. They cocooned her, protected her, kept her hidden from view.
No-one would find her here. No-one could see her. She was safe.
The calm voice cut into her thoughts.
“Sophie? Are you there? Are you in your safe place?”
Sophie nodded languidly. The voice continued.
“You need to remember that while you are there you are completely safe. No-one can see you, no-one can touch you, no-one can hurt you. You are safe. You are completely relaxed and any fear you feel isn’t real. Not in your safe place. Do you understand me Sophie?”
Sophie nodded again. In her mind’s eye a butterfly danced in the air above her body. She smiled at it.
“Okay Sophie,” the voice said again “In a moment you’re going to go into your memories, and when the memories come to you, you might feel frightened, but that’s okay because you are safe. You are safe Sophie. You are safe here in this room with me and in your safe place, okay? The fear only exists in your memory. When you wake up you will leave the fear behind, okay? Are you ready Sophie?”
A breeze rustled through the grasses near her head and a second butterfly joined the first in its dance above her. The voice was right. There was no fear here. Sophie nodded. She was ready.
“Okay,” said the voice, “I want you to let your mind drift back there. Go back to that night. I want you to go back to that party; that room. I want you to remember what happened in that room. But you can leave the room whenever you want. Just turn around and you’ll be back in your safe place. Okay?”
Sophie nodded again, enjoying the warmth of the sun on her face.
The warmth left her then and the breeze ceased to play across her face. She was in a room. On a bed. She could feel it, sense it, more than she could see it.
She smelt the bitter scent of beer, smoke, sweat and vomit in the air. Was it her? Her sweat and vomit? Or was it him?
Him. She realised now. There was a man in the room with her. On the bed with her. On top of her. She could feel his weight heavy against her.
His hands were in her clothes; under her clothes; on her skin.
Her brain was struggling. She felt like it should have been fitting pieces of a puzzle together, but her brain just couldn’t join them to make the right picture.
Was this right? It didn’t seem right. No. It wasn’t right. It was wrong. Very wrong. She tried to tell her body to move. Tried to raise her arms, kick her legs. But her limbs were heavy, wouldn’t respond to her commands.
She was sending them all the right signals with her brain wasn’t she? Yes. Yes, she was. She was. She was… she…
She fought against the black numbness that had started to creep into her head, trying to claim her.
She knew with absolute certainty that she had to fight. Had to find a way to get her body to respond to the signals that her brain was desperately trying to send.
Her legs started to move.
But it wasn’t her that that was moving them.
Hands slid up the inside of her legs, spreading them. She felt hot fingers rubbing against the soft flesh of her thighs. Then hands were on her underwear. Tugging; pulling. Her mind roared as she tried to tell her body to move, respond, fight, stop it. Stop the hands. Stop the hands that had pulled her underwear from her body and were snaking up her legs again, spreading them further.
But her body refused to respond. It lay still; betraying her.
The fuzzy blackness started to wash over her again. She considered for a brief moment letting it take her. Letting it take her mind as well as her body. Letting the oblivion take her so she would no longer know what was going on.
But she didn’t. Part of her had to keep fighting. If her body wouldn’t then she would fight with her mind.
She regretted that decision a second later when the hot wandering fingers moved from squeezing the fleshy parts of her thighs and crept upwards.
A scream sounded loudly in her head, but stayed trapped in there along with the rest of her. Panic bubbled up inside her. Panic; panic and fear.
Wait.
Wasn’t there something she was supposed to do? Something she was supposed to do when she got frightened; when she panicked?
Another voice appeared in her head. An instruction. No; more like a suggestion. A softly spoken suggestion.
“Remember, you can go to the safe place any time.”
Yes; that was it. When the panic and fear came she could leave.
Sophie pulled herself away from the memory. Pulled herself away from the room; the smells; the man between her legs. Away from the fear.
The voice was there again. “Go back to your safe place Sophie. You’ve been further than you have before and you’re okay. You’re safe again. You’re safe.”
Safe, Sophie thought. Yes, she felt safe. She could feel the warm sun on her face and a gentle breeze ruffled her hair.
AN - This is based on a technique used in hypnotherapy. It is based on the idea that the emotions that you associate memories are the emotions that you feel when you recall the memories, not just the emotions you felt at the time. In a state of deep relaxation hypnosis, as described above, you cannot feel fear or anxiety. Once in you are in that state you can recall bad memories and then ‘store them away’ again in your mind. Because there is no fear or anxiety present when you ‘re-store’ the memories it can help an individual work through a traumatic time in their lives.