FicWad

Lured by our love of heat,
We young men came to your door
We kicked our boots in fuss,
'Til we could kick no more
I bleed boys, you smile soft
And we all swaggered off
We howl loud and smash tones
In place of any loss


Still.

Evenings in July, right before dusk settled in. The heat heavy on my face, my back. No breeze or wind coming to rescue me. The trees didn't shift and the grass was stiff and crunchy under my back.

Still.

Movement would only meant punishment. She'd known if I weren't sleeping, then I had that fleeting fear of whether I'd get the belt or the burning end of her lit cigarette.

Still.

His heart beat under my ear. We were blanketed in lust, satisfactory, consensual lust. Why would I ruin this mechanical symphony by shifting my body away from his? His heart sang a masterpiece. It sang for me.

Still.

He brood on top of me. His hands heavy on my back, pushing himself deep into me.

No rhythm acquired.

He did as his dick told him to. 'Just push yourself right in and it'll start feeling good, promise.' His lips curl over his snaggle tooth strategically as if he was going to arrive soon. Truth is, he arrived three times already. Once in his man shorts, and twice inside of me. I didn't dare move a muscle. He'd beaten me for breathing too heavy with the buckle of his belt. I could feel the sweat drop on the welts and sizzle like butter in a hot frying pan.

He was God awful.

I bet he was God awful at everything and the only way to get what he wanted was to do this--rape. I was always certain that Webster's Dictionary was wrong when they told me that it meant to take away, steal, burgle. But as I lie under him while he released in me once more, I realized I had nothing left. My eye was as big as my fist, some of the marks he left on my back broke skin and were sure to scar. He ruined my chances of ever being viewed as 'Baby Doll' again. He made sure I wasn't ever going back on stage. He made sure Gerard would look at me in a different light, now that another man had seen me indecently. He would think I was beyond redemption, some other man's stolen territory. I could see Karley rejoicing. I wasn't the desirable one anymore. I bet she set this whole thing up, it only made sense.

He stands up, out of breath and slightly out of touch. With one eye open, I watch him open the door and walk down the hall. I knew if I were to move, it would just become worse, as if it would get any better. I heard the taps run.

Fuck.

I knew what he was going to make me do. All of the evidence would be washed down the drain. All I would have is the memory of him destroying me.

Pillaging me.

"Come on," He hissed. My body burned. There was an uncomfortable heat in between my thighs. I tried moving my knees apart but everything hurt. My fingers slowly let go of the sheets. Being half-blind didn't make it much better. He seen me struggling and scoffed. "Come--the fuck--on!" He was becoming irritated with my pace. Maybe he should have thought twice about my mobility when he was treating me like a punching bag. He took me by my waste, pulling me up off the bed. It was like he made sure to apply the most pressure where the open wounds lie. He snatches me off of the bed and pushes me into the hallway. He was getting impatient.

I staggered into the bathroom as the steam enveloped me. He followed behind me so I couldn't make a run for it. He pushes the shower curtain back and I already know how scolding the water was. I stick my hand out to the running stream of water.

"Please, it's too hot," My throat cracks and my mouth can taste nothing but dry blood and fear. He glares at me, grabbing my arm while he turns the cold knob on. He shoves me in. He threw me a wash cloth.

"Here," He squirts me with raspberry shower gel. It seers the open wounds. I squeal, tremors run through my body and he just stands there and watches in pure delight. "Wash!" He commands. My shaking hands take the cloth and lather on the body wash. It felt like a million needles were penetrating one nerve that set off all the others. I couldn't help but howl out in pain. I wiped the streams of blood from the inside of my thighs. He comes closer to me. I wasn't going fast enough. My hand quickly, yet regretfully, began to scrub him out of me.

A million and one paper cuts on the most sensitive of areas.

Why wasn't I dead yet? Why hadn't he killed me?

I watched the blood run over my hands in disbelief.

I was ruined.



He made me wear just a bra and panties. My hands had been bound by his belt and my feet by bungee chords. I was much too weak to try and wiggle out and I wasn't about to receive anymore lashing. Though, I knew more was coming, I just didn't know what or when.

He looked to me with satisfaction in his eyes.

I was marred.

He often reminded me that if he did away with me, which consisted of dismembering me and sticking me in an old fridge thrown in a junk yard, no one would miss me. I disagreed, but he was never to know.

I hear the door open.

"Hello," Karley's voice rang out.

"In here," His face lit up with mischief and I knew this was only going to get worse. I heard her put her purse and keys down on the coffee table. She rushes in with amazement present on her face. You would have thought it was Christmas morning by her starry eyes and wide smile. "Look at her." He breathed a laugh. She comes around, examining me for herself. In her eyes I can see that she's upset she hadn't done it herself.

"Wow," She breathes. Her fingertips lightly run across my midsection. "Look at that eye!" She muses, looking back at Eric to commend him. "It's a real shame, Baby," Her hands travel up, cupping my breast. "We could have been very good friends." I hadn't known what she wanted from me. She was feeling dangerous and I could tell it by her touch. She bent down and gave me a deep look into my eyes. She closes hers as our lips touch. I could taste the revelry in her kiss. "She was so beautiful, so pure." I see her hand reach for her back pocket. My heart races at the site of a pocket knife.

"Please, Karley," She gave me an uncertain look. The cold tip of the knife dug itself under my ribs.

"Are you begging now?" I nodded like a fool. The pain was unspeakable. I was sure I was going to go into shock soon. She swiftly releases it and slices the underside of my arms, straight across. "All you've done is make my life a living hell!" She grimaced. "I gave you what I could and you just kept taking," She slices again. "And take," All of a sudden my feet began to tremor and my body went numb. My good eye was beginning to lose focus. My body slapped against the plastic trash bags he'd decorated the bed with.

"Shit, I think she's seizing!" Slightly in focus was a light. All I could hope was to see death at the end of it.



I had this one conversation with Gerard. We had been shooting the breeze at a bar up in Midtown. It was around 4AM when everyone began to stumble and stagger out. I think we had been the only lead bellies in there that night. We'd been keeping a curious eye on an older gentlemen who sat lonely at the bar. His eyes drew longingly into his Brandy sniffer. We sat there wondering what he was so deep in thought about.

Then Gerard asks me what I thought death would be like. I gave him my honest answer. I replied that I thought it was different for everyone because it all depends on how you go. He made the valid point that it all depended on how you accepted it. Welcomed it in.

My drunken lips had poured out how I saw her. He gave me the cutest questioning look. He asked me who I was referring to.

'The Angel,' I piped. Though, I was somewhat inebriated, my mouth wasn't shy enough to tell him that I'd seen her around my mother when she was in the ambulance. Those were her last seconds. I told him how I wished that she felt the all the mental and physical anguish she had put me through. He sat there with that sorrowful look in his eye. But he wasn't the one with all those scares to bear.

A small sober thought creeped into mind that his Grandmother had been ill for quite some time. I curse under my breath and apologize. He waves it off. Telling me he thought I was right. That it all depends what you make out of life, it's the same as what death makes out of you. I nod as my eyes had slowly looked back at the older man and his glass. And there she stood, noble and serene. My drunken eyes could have been fooling me, but she looked so familiar. She was veiled in all black with red painted lips. She relaxed her palm on his shoulder, but her full attention wasn't focused on him. She stared at me as if she knew I seen her before. She gave me a small hello with her eyes. I flicked my eyebrow up at her and she gave me a look that I swear I wasn't imagining. Let me say, it scared me sober.

Gerard snaps me out of it. He cackles at my stupor. He insists that we go back to his place. I nod, looking back again. She was still there. A wondrous smile played across her face. She slowly shakes her head as I gather my things. Gerard takes my hand and leads me out of the door.


It wasn't my time.



I was being loaded into an ambulance. My surroundings told me that I had been nowhere near Karley's apartment. It was dark and I didn't think I was in Brooklyn anymore. All I could wonder was what else had they done with me, and who found me that way.

I began to watch the EMT's rush around and strap me onto the gurney. The doors slammed shut. A woman dressed casually sat at my side. She was around thirty. Her dark hair was cut short but framed her tanned skin. She flashed me her badge, her lips moved but her voice fell on deaf ears. I was still too afraid to move, to speak or even whimper. She flashed me a sorrowful look, glancing at the driver. Her thumb hooked into my palm. I watched her nod as I was sure reassuring words left her lips.


I let them poke and prod me with needles and cotton swabs. The camera flashed on my body as they surveyed me with a UV light.

"Hold up your shirt, Ms. Hayward." The nurse's voice swept softly to my ears. She was truly sympathetic. Every time she glanced at me, she frowned. I hadn't known how they knew my name. I hadn't spoken to anyone.

I just cried.

Hell, I probably cried them my entire life story by this time. She noticed that my hands had been bandaged. "Okay, can you hold your arms up over your head for me?" I nod, still sobbing. Slowly my arms rose. "That's a good girl," She was so motherly. She lifted the hospital nightgown onto my elbows. She snapped more pictures. I hadn't yet seen how extensive the damage was. I knew by her sighs and grunts that it wasn't something that was going to heal overnight.

There was a knock at the door. She puts the camera down on the metal tray and goes to the door. She gives a nod and opens it wide. The woman from the ambulance walks in. I almost couldn't believe I let so many people see me like this. Then I thought how I hadn't much of a choice. She walks in slowly. I could hear her heeled boots click the tile of the hospital room. The nurse turns off the large UV light.

"Now Ms. Hayward, Detective Frost is going to ask you a couple of questions," I nod as she leaves the room.

I'd seen this all before on TV. I was watching this marathon of one of those Crime-Drama cop shows. I never thought I would ever have to live it.

The life of a victim. Flawed with memories and branded with pain and trust issues. The Angel had come for me, all right. With her she took all of the light out of my eyes. She packed up all of the hope I had left along with any contention I held and left into a suitcase and got on a Greyhound to nowhere.

She left me with this sobbing mess of a woman. Something so deep in grief, she couldn't even speak without weeping.

She left me with nothing.

"Ms. Hayward," She began. She felt sorry for me, that's all she really could have done.

"Victoria," I said in between sniffles. She had taken a seat in front of me on a stool.

"Victoria," She corrected herself. "What's the last thing you remember about your attacker?" I remembered everything. I could give her names, dates, places, times, you name it! But what good would that do once she found out I was a stripper? She would have told me how I deserved it. Somehow her voice, in my head, became my mother's.

"What good would it do?" I hadn't sobbed but you could hear the defeat present in my tone. She relaxes herself to me. Her eyes gaze at me in disappointment.

"Look, I don't care what you do for a living," She knew. Great. "No one deserves this to happen to them." Her voice, like a warm cup of tea. It calmed my chills.

"He made me," My sobs echoed through the room and bounced off the ceiling tiles. "He made me scrub until there was nothing left." I cradled myself and turned away from her.

"I know, but that doesn't mean we can't catch him," She spoke with such passion. "As long as you tell me the truth, we'll find him for you and we'll put him where he belongs." They couldn't put him where he belonged because they couldn't send him to Siberia. What was a couple decades in Riker's going to do to him compared to the life sentence I had to live out as a rape victim?

"My roommate and I had an argument that turned physical last night at the club…" I told her everything there was to tell. I didn't know how to describe how it felt, telling her in detail. I felt a little shame, but I was afraid to admit to myself that it helped me. I broke down a couple times and she had no problem getting me back to where I needed to be. She was a saint.

I wished there were more people like her in the world.

She listened intently when I finished telling her what I remember.

"A woman heard you whimper when she was walking out of a convenient store. She called 911 immediately and we got there as soon as we could." She also explained to me how I was dropped off in the alley between two apartment buildings in Washington Heights. Left aside a dumpster as rat food. "Now is there someone we can call that you can spend the night with?"

My heart broke.

The only person I knew to call, I didn't ever want him to see me like this. I didn't want to have to relive it all over again if he ever wanted to know. But he was all I had and I sure as hell wasn't going back to Karley's.

"My boyfriend," I breathed. She nods with a hopeful smile.

"Okay," I gave him his name and number. She jotted it down on the notepad she wrote everything else on. "Don't worry," She assures. "We'll find them." That was the least of my worries. She also instructed me to take a contraceptive. That was professionalism for "Morning After". That, in which, being my middle name.

I thanked her in between hopeful sobs. She gave me her card and told me not to hesitate to contact her. I remember her words before she left the room,

"This is far from the end, Victoria." I stuck by her words. Well, it was more like they stuck by me.



I came out of the hallway, seeing Gerard patiently wait for me to come out. His foot bounced up and down at a rapid pace. His hands were folded under his chin as he looked blankly ahead.

"Waiting for someone?" My lip stitched less than an inch, I infinitely winked his way. He looked up to me with the expression I hadn't imagined.

He was furious. Someone had gone and destroyed his masterpiece. He gave me the look Van Gogh would give Starry Night if it had been slashed up and the stretch canvas beveled. If I hadn't spent all of my tears earlier that day, I would have most definitely cried upon seeing his disposition.

He pulled me into a gentle hug. He let out a quaking breath. Tears threatened the rims of my eyelid.

"I'm not ever going to let this happy to you again." He declares in a whisper. The hospital happened all around us.

"You hadn't let it happened to me in the first place, Gee." He slowly pulled away, glancing at the damage done.

"I won't sleep until I know that they get what they deserve." He takes his thumb and wipes my last tear away. "Come on." He takes my hand as I limp down the hall to the exit. He gives my gait a glare and goes back to furiously shaking his head.

We got to his car as he pulled the door open for me and adjusted the seat. He helps me in as I squirm uncomfortably. It hurt to sit. Seeing as I couldn't buckle myself up, he had to do so, at last he tried. His car hadn't been big enough for him to comfortably hover over me and click the belt together. After a couple times of him accidentally putting his weight on me, he gave up and knelt beside me. His hands held his face as his shoulders shook. I hated seeing him like this more than he hated seeing my face all beat up. I began to hear faint sobs coming from the base of his hands. I didn't know what to do so I just let him release his emotions.

"Gee, it's not your fault." Really, all I wanted to do was go back to his apartment and sleep until everything healed, which was for a couple days.

"I hate seeing you like this," He urged. He really wasn't making this any better. I didn't want him crying because I was apparently injured.

"Gerard," I raised my voice the highest it went. He lifted his gaze to me. "I'm not dead, yet." I wished I could have wiped his tears. Instead, he got up, wiped his face on the sleeve of his hoody, and buckled me in.

We sat there in a heavy silence driving back to his apartment. I could hear the thoughts running through his head. He had taken all of his anger twisting and strangling the steering wheel. He grind his teeth and he never blinked.

"Is there any prescriptions you need?" He turns to me at a red light.

"The paper is in the pocket of these sweat pants," I found something humorous about not being able to use my hands. I felt like a robot.

"What's so funny?" Honestly, I hadn't known and I wasn't even on pain killers yet.

"I don't know," I shook my head. "But I know this doesn't make me a victim. I'm just not sure what it makes me." There was a moment of clarity that past through the two of us.

"It makes you a survivor." Damn him, for knowing exactly what I needed to hear.