Fight.
If I did nothing I would be raped in two minutes.
Survive!
My mind cranked into overdrive. The scared animal in me was pushed into a corner and chained tight. What emerged was a calm woman devoid of the ability to feel. Unable to succumb to fear. A woman enclosed in a bubble of her own devising, ready to fight her way out of this by any means possible.
The horror of his fingers feeling around my vagina, readying the way, and my desire to fall into helpless sobs, were pushed away. In this bubble I found an animal. I found my primal being. I knew in a heartbeat that I was capable of killing this maggot if it came to it. I would kill him, to save me.
I held still and did nothing for a second. I needed to take measurement of what was going on. I needed to think. I needed to find the path out. There was one. I just needed to find it.
He was working at his belt, metal jingles and the whine of leather. I had a fraction of time to do something to save myself. Time slowed down. Lump’s moves and advice flickered through my head like a slide show, faster than the speed of light.
I latched onto a couple things, settled on them, and got ready for action. No one was coming. No savior this time. Just me.
Step one: do what’s expected.
I began to cry.
Large, wracking sobs, begging to be let free. Pleading for him to stop. Willing him to believe I had given up.
His hand holding me relaxed a fraction, his other hand yanking his belt away. Now working at the buttons on his jeans. His head looking down, monitoring his efforts, looking between my gaping legs, at my half-visible vagina. He was not bothering about my face. He had no belief I would retaliate.
Good.
Step two: set the stage.
I leant my head back as far as it would go, pushing in the canvas. Making as much room as I could. Relaxing the muscles in my arms, but not forgetting how vital a tool they would be. Crying, all the while. Making him believe. Making him confident.
Fly open now. Zipper torn down. He worked at his erection. I didn’t have long.
My skin started to crawl. My bubble wobbled. Everything in me was screaming to run, to yell and scream in blind fear, to shatter my calm bubble completely.
I was a breath away from losing control. It had to be now.
Adrenaline fired within my brain like pistons. I felt him lowering his pants. His penis bobbed out, touching my inner thigh.
My vision crystallized, every detail registering. Rage welled up. My body now floating on the adrenaline, pushing past that beast of fear.
Action!
I head-butted him, hard, to his nose. I’d been a soccer player, I knew how to execute a nose shattering head-butt properly. The crack of cartilage rewarded me. Blood fountained from the center of his face.
His head jolted back, pain blooming, staggering him off balance. I freed my hands with a quick rip outward, like Lump taught me. He regained his footing quickly, bringing his fist up to strike. But I was ready. I swiped my fingers across his eyes, the softest, most vulnerable place in his body.
He howled, a bestial sound from the root of his person. One hand reached for his face, the other groping wilding for me.
I didn’t lose any time. I punched him in his throat, another sensitive spot, as I was leaning back to bring my knee up into his crotch as hard as I could. I heard a gross crunching as my solid knee met soft, exposed testicles.
His howl became a blood-curdling, high-pitched wail. I ran.
I was lame in heels, but I pushed on, as fast as I could, my panting fighting the pressure in my ears.
“FIRE!” I screamed, knowing that word statistically brought help faster than saying help. I repeated it two more times, loudly, wildly.
A man stepped out of the door in a hurry, surveyed the scene for two beats of my pounding heart, and then started running at me. Our bodies collided, both now heading toward the light. Toward safety.
More people popped out, heads slow and curious.
Then we were there. Glorious light. People. Hands grabbing and shuffling me along the wall. I think my shirt was ripped, and my skirt didn’t seem pulled down as far as it should have been, but none of this mattered to anyone, least of all me. I wanted safety.
I was passed with gentle hands to the side of the hall door and into a corner. Two people, men both, stood guard, shielding me from the crowd.
With trembling hands I tried to straighten myself as best I could. My shirt was ripped, showing too much skin. My skirt was durable material, but stained by his dirty hands. My hair was too big. Too teased. Painful at the top of my scalp. And I was cold. So cold my teeth were chattering.
But I was safe. It was all that mattered—safety.
The wall of man parted down the middle, revealing a long sleeved shirt with a familiar smell. My gaze flickered upward as the material draped over my shoulders. They met a familiar deep blue of my Golden God. With the light behind him, like it was, he seemed to radiate an ethereal glow. And like an angry God, the fury in his eyes as he looked over the damage done was terrible to behold.
Up until that point I hadn’t cried for real. Fake crying to throw Dusty off the scent wasn’t the same. I hadn’t let go a single real tear. I was in shock, I knew it, and I couldn’t feel. My brain wouldn’t completely comprehend. Wouldn’t let me.
When William leaned in close, a warm, comforting hand on my shoulder, his body shielding me from the crowd, from the curious eyes, and asked in a hoarse, though gentle whisper, “How bad did he hurt you? Did he..." When he was unable to finish that question, that horrible question, which had been so close to being a reality, it was like a light switch flipped. Everything that happened, that might have happened, that almost happened, was visible in lucid color when a second before it was hidden by darkness.
Saying I started crying was like saying the Grand Canyon was a ditch. I gasped out a “No!”, shook my head vehemently, and started balling.
He took hold of me savagely, smashing me protectively to his chest. I let it all go. My invaluable bubble shattered. I gasped for breath between body wracking sobs. He was safety. He was my rock in the vast ocean of emotion and fear I found myself.
When he moved, I clutched on to him with fearful claws. I wouldn’t let him leave me. I was shaking so badly I could barely stand.
“We’re going,” he said in my ear.
With my face buried deeply in his chest, I only registered sound. Yelling and shouting. William’s name.
We stopped for a second, teetering in the doorway. He exchanged angry words with someone, and we were moving again.
When the darkness greeted us, I bucked like I’d seen those animals do all afternoon. My eyes scanned the area wildly; worried Dusty was still out there. Terrified he’d try again. Sickened that he’d succeed. The bogyman was very real on this night. With a name.
“It’s okay,” William coo’d, bringing me in close. “I won’t let anything happen to you.”
Nestled into his body, I allowed him to lead, not caring where we were going. The sounds, the yelling, muted as we walked. The crunch of the dirt beneath our feet loud, my whimpering quiet. In the distance, getting closer, was Adam, Ty and Moose, arguing. Sounds only. I couldn’t decipher the wording. I was scared to try. As we approached, two people walking as one, the guys fell silent.
“We’re going back,” William said in a no-nonsense tone.
“I want a second with him." It was a strangled voice that sounded like a distant cousin of Adam.
I peered out from William’s protective frame. Adam was standing stock straight with every muscle in his body tense. He looked like the force of God about to be unleashed. His body was shaking in rage, fists balled, eyes a furnace. He looked formidable; danger flashing in his dark eyes.
Moose wasn’t much better. His jaw was firmly set and his eyes were wild. Tornados would be a welcome sign next to these two.
Adam looked down at me and jolted. Such a shock of pain washed over his face. I couldn’t help but stare. I’d even want to console him if I wasn’t busy clutching to William.
“What did he do to you, Jessica?” Adam said in a shaky growl, almost a whine.
Moose followed his gaze. His eyes widened.
“The hurt is not my face or hair. It is more my pride...” I said quietly.
They looked William.
“He didn’t...” Adam started and then faltered. William just shook his head.
They both relaxed a fraction, if a couple of boulders could relax.
Adam was looking at me like a thunderclap right before lightening rained down on the village. He straightened up and started walking toward the right, determination and war on his face.
If William was Apollo, then Adam was Mars, the God of War.
Moose lurched after him, grabbing his shoulders, trying to stop the other man. William yelled for his dad to grab Adam as we were washed in blue and red. The police had arrived.
Hopefully someone had managed to grab Dusty.
That thought had the last of my fight draining away. My adrenaline had finished seeping out of my now weary body. I clutched harder, my knees not wanting to hold me up. In one quick movement, William scooped me up into his arms and carried me the rest of the way to the trailer.
William set me down gently on the bed in the back of the trailer. He sat next to me with a wet cloth and slowly reached up to dab my face. Even though he was gentle, and careful, each time he touched me a bolt of pain pierced the center of my brain.
When he was done he stood me up, scanning my injuries with his eyes, lingering on those he suspected but weren't visible.
“You need to check yourself over,” he said softly, making ripples in the hush. “Make sure everything is okay, and then we’ll take you to the hospital.”
I nodded, thinking the last thing I was going to do was go to the hospital. No sense in having the argument now, however.
I bent to survey the damage. My shirt was ripped at the bottom, and therefore ruined. There were scratches between my legs where he forced them open, but the skin was intact. There was no cause to worry about H.I.V.. My arms were bruised, as was my throat, but nothing that wouldn’t mend with time. The ability to feel safe outside again, however, wouldn’t be so easy to get over.
“Here.” William held out a stack of folded clothes. “Sweats, shirt, socks—let me know if you need anything else.”
“Will--ie? Is that what you like to be called? Or William? Or Davies?” I asked timidly.
“Any of those are fine. Just preferably not Will.”
“Which do you prefer?”
“William, actually. But everyone calls me Willie, so it doesn’t matter.”
“William?” I asked, deciding I liked his full name best—especially because he liked it best as well.
“Yes Jessica?” he said in a gentle whisper.
“This is going to sound like a weird request, but...”
His expression was guarded.
“Well,” I continued, flustered, “he touched my panties.” William flinched, but didn’t look away. “I mean, he tried... well, he didn’t get them off or anything, but he touched them.” I shuddered a little. “Could I...” I sighed. I might just get out with it. “Could I have some of your undies so I can throw mine away?”
He tilted his head with a lopsided grin. “That’s a first,” he said as he went to a clothes drawer. He brought back a pair of boxer briefs. “A woman generally wants to give me her undies, not take mine.”
It was my turn to c**k my head. “Really?” I asked jokingly, “you wear women’s underwear?”
His smile lit up his face. “Well, only sometimes. Some feel good on my Pagonis, but most of them chafe!”
We both started laughing; trying to laugh away the drama we were both faced with. Seriousness rushed back in with the stern knock on the trailer door. William looked at me in trepidation before getting up to answer it.
A portly man with graying hair and large sideburns sat down on a couch three feet from the bed. His hard eyes assessed my appearance as he brought out a notepad and pen.
“Hello Jessica. I am Sgt. Jacobson. I need to ask you a few questions.”
Did all interrogations start like that?
Suddenly my body was shaking. A few more tears leaked out of my eyes. William, ever my protector, hugged me tighter.
Then the horrible questions started. “Why did you go outside?”
“I was hot. I tried to get my friends to go with me, but they didn’t want to. The ones that were there, anyway. I didn’t know where most of the boys were.”
“Why did you wander so far from the door?” the Sergeant asked.
“I didn’t. I was in sight of the door. It couldn’t have been more than ten feet. Just far enough to escape the heat coming out of the hall. I was still in the light. Dusty dragged me away. By my hair.”
“Were there any people outside or passing?”
“None.”
“And then what happened?”
Images and pain flashed through my mind. My head bowed, my body heaved with sobs. From that position, I recounted what happened next, in detail. I could tell neither of the men really wanted to know, but had to.
When I was through, the Sergeant nodded. “How did you know how to defend yourself? Why did you do to him...what you did?”
I took a deep breath. “I had a friend that did—has done martial arts since she was little. She often talked about what to do when a man, or woman, was confronting me. She went through some basics with us girls. Normally when I panic I forget everything. But when...” I gulped and almost gagged. “And earlier in the night when he was in the chair next to me, digging his hand into my shoulder, I did panic. I couldn’t react to save my life. But when...”
I paused and took a deep breath. I hated thinking about it. I hated that it almost happened to me. I hated that others weren’t as lucky as I to escape. William rubbed my thigh.