[CONTENT NOTE: Consider the source.]
My girlfriend had a plan.
It was the news that did it, that made her snap. She’d always been angry, defensive, and bitter, but never quite passionate. Clearly, she’d been lacking motivation.
“I can’t stand knowing that these scumbags, these men,” she said, the last word spat like venom, “are out there, just walking around, waiting for a chance to attack someone! Like sleeper agents or some shit, y’know? They don’t even know the others exist, but they’re programmed to watch for a sign, and when they see it…”
As she trailed off, she clenched her jaw and glared at the air in front of her face. It was her fourth time through this particular rant, and even she was losing interest in it. It would take her a few minutes of quiet consideration to wind herself up into a new fury, complete with original material.
She had been referring, of course, to a recent bit of headline news that had shocked and captivated the nation, and our small Midwestern city in particular. A group of some fourteen men were recorded “running a train” on a drunken co-ed who had been left chained to a fence in one of our many poorly-lit industrial districts, apparently as part of a sorority prank. But those facts alone weren’t what garnered everyone’s enduring attention.
The meat of the story was in the composition of the gang that had done the banging. After running facial recognition against the video and seeking help from the community, the local police had eventually identified and arrested all of the perpetrators, only to discover an oddly chilling fact.
They were strangers.
Despite extensive investigative effort, the authorities could find no evidence that any of the rapists had social, business, or family ties to one another. None of them knew the others’ names, and despite spending hours together using a young woman like an intoxicated toilet, most couldn’t pick their co-defendants out of a lineup.
Strangers. All of them.
And Sara was not pleased about it. Not in the slightest.
“What the fuck is wrong with you people?” she growled. “Are you even people at all? How do you fucking do it?”
“Phermones, maybe?” I offered.
“Oh fuck off, Darren!” She didn’t even look my way, accustomed as she was to my disappointing contributions. “Men aren’t butterflies, they’re human beings.”
“You just suggested we’re not peop–”
“I said they’re human beings. That doesn’t make them people.” She pulled her phone from her purse, glanced at it, and returned it from whence it came. “Fucking rape culture. And people act like it isn’t real! What else do you call it when men can do something like that, in public, and trust that anyone who passes will just– just join in?”
“It’s definitely a tragedy,” I offered. “Just a terrible thing.”
“Oh, is it? Is it just terrible?” She came to an abrupt halt in the middle of the sidewalk, arms stiff at her sides, hands balled into fists. “That’s all it is to you, isn’t it? Just another terrible thing? The world is full of terrible things, right? No big deal!”
“I don’t– I didn’t say that!”
“You should want to do something, Darren! How do you not get it? It’s– the whole thing is, like, pervasive! Don’t you see? It wasn’t just those guys!” She began jabbing my chest with one thin finger, using it like punctuation as she spoke. “You should want to change things. You should want to help.”
“Help how? With what?”
“Doesn’t it– not just this one instance, but all of it– doesn’t it drive you insane?” The finger became the flat of her hand, and the pokes became shoves. “I mean, I can– every time I close my eyes, it’s like I can see it. I can feel it. And maybe that’s what it is; maybe it’s just not ‘real enough’ for you.”
She stared up into my eyes for a moment, either in challenge or appraisal; I couldn’t be sure. Then she turned, lowered her head, and marched wordlessly toward home.
That’s when it started.
—-
I awakened in my bed at one in the morning to the absolute certainty I was being watched. My tired, drooping eyes struggled for focus, only to find hers staring back; like before on the street, as if she were taking my measure.
Sensing movement, I glanced down. She was nude, with one hand between her legs, working away.
“Have you ever choked someone? A woman?” she asked me, pausing for a ragged breath.
“What? What the fuck, Sara?!” I drew away from her slightly, felt a twinge of guilt, and forced myself to ease back in. We were in love, and that’s what you do when you’re in love. You ease back in.
Her fingers became more aggressive, and she spread her thighs lewdly. While she was by no means a prude, making a display of herself was something new. While I watched her urgent motions in the moonlight, she began to blink rapidly, as tears welled and spilled down her cheeks.
“They choked her. So much!” She began to sob, but never lost the rhythm with her clit. “Five sets. Of bruises. On her neck! She must have felt. Like she was dying. Over and over!”
I reached to touch her shoulder, but she shrugged me away. The rejection felt a bit pointed, but I was patient to a fault. “Sara, honey, you’ve got to calm down. This– this isn’t–!”
She cut me off.
“Stop trying to make it okay!” she wailed. The spell abruptly broken, she withdrew her hand from her hole, snatched the blankets up to her chin, and rolled away.
“Honey, it’s– I don’t know what’s wrong,” I said to the back of her head. “But whatever it is, if we can just sleep on it, I know we can work it out in the morning.”
“If you want to work it out,” she answered coldly, her voice muffled by her pillow. “Do it now.”
“What do you need?”
“To not– to not feel this way!” Her body shook as she wept through her frustration. “You don’t– you can’t see it. You’re a fucking man. You don’t get this– this gnawing, constant fear, and this creeping fucking certainty inside you!”
“We’re home, the door is locked– you’re safe!” I insisted.
“There. Right there,” she said flatly, rolling on to her back and gazing up at me. “Always fixing. Trying to put out the fire. Calm me down. Make me forget.
“How am I supposed to forget that they’re everywhere? How dare you ask me to? There’s no ‘safe’, Darren! Not when you’re born a target!”
“Do– do you want me to leave?” I asked.
To my surprise, she grasped my hand tightly.
“I want you to let me feel what I need to feel.” She looked up at the ceiling and drew a deep breath. “Make me feel it.”
“How?” I asked.
“Fuck me.” It wasn’t an order or a request, and I wasn’t even sure she said it to me. It sounded a little like a prayer.
Given the hour and the circumstances, I don’t know precisely why I moved on top of her; she would no doubt say that I simply did what men do. But in the moment, I was certain that I loved her. So I pulled down my shorts and eased in.
(To be continued.)
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