“I think I’m ready to talk about the sex and blood.”
“Oh?”
Of course most of their sessions had evolved around one or the other, but Luke needed more from her. He needed the missing pieces.
One: Why did she have such a controlling attitude about sex?
Two: What made a vegetarian feel empowered by the taste of blood?
She had seemed as perplexed as him by those questions for a long time. Luke believed her because he loved her and trusted her. Dr. Jones, with his unbiased mental clarity, held a bit more skepticism. Jessica hid something or suppressed it so deep as to try and convince herself it hadn’t happened.
“So last night one of the students in my self-defense class pulled me aside after class to talk. Her boyfriend raped her, but it took her a long time to shed the guilt and acknowledge that it was, in fact, rape.”
“Because he was her boyfriend?”
“No, because he made her orgasm.”
Luke nodded, feeling uneasy about the direction of the conversation. Jessica had a way of disclosing her past with something that had recently triggered a memory.
“I know how she felt.”
Luke tried to keep his voice even as he spoke through clenched teeth. “You were raped?”
Jessica stared at her wine and shrugged. “I’m not sure.”
The reaction that stayed lodged in his throat was one of disbelief. How could she not be sure?
“It was three weeks after Claire died.”
“Wait, you told me you lost your virginity when you were nineteen with the guy from the jazz club. You were seventeen when Claire died.”
“Yes. I told you Pete claimed my hymen.”
He set his wine down to prevent his death-hold from shattering the glass.
“One of the men who trained me took it upon himself to make sure I hadn’t ‘lost my edge’ after Claire died. For the purpose of this story I’ll call him Mick. Anyway, I didn’t want to get out of bed or eat, let alone train for days afterward. All I wanted to do was plan Four’s death. It consumed me. So my father sent me with Mick to a remote location, one of their training facilities that wasn’t being used.
He pushed me hard for days. There wasn’t a part of my body that didn’t hurt. I could barely eat my face was so busted up, and one of my eyes had completely swelled shut. At first I didn’t fight back. It felt like a punishment for being so stupid to go with Claire in the first place. But Mick taunted me … he wanted me to make him bleed, and all I could think about was what a cathartic release it was for Four when he cut Claire. So I fought back and I made him bleed.”
Luke cleared his throat, praying to God that Dr. Jones would take over because the thought of Jessica’s father sending her off with some guy to get beat up, less than a month after her best friend was murdered, filled him with rage.
“How did that make you feel?”
She leaned her head against the back of the chair and closed her eyes. “Alive. It made me feel like a survivor.”
He let the silence settle over them, knowing she would soon confess something that would gut him. Just the feeling alone made it hard to breathe.
“He asked me if Four raped Claire, which was weird because I thought surely my dad had given him all the details. When I told him no, he asked me if I thought I had what it took to keep from being raped.”
Bile eased up Luke’s throat.
“I said yes. Then he asked if I wanted to bet on it.” Jessica shook her head. “I hated him so much. Mick always treated me like I was too young, weak, and naive. So I thought, fuck him, because I wasn’t the only one who looked like shit. His face had caught my fists, elbows, knees, and feet on more than one occasion. I could hold my own.
Anyway, he bet me that I wouldn’t be able to fight him off if he tried to fuck me. He didn’t say rape, but it was implied. I asked what I got if I won. He said he’d take me back home instead of finishing our last few days of ‘training,’ because I would have proven myself to him.”
“What was in it for him?” Luke asked.
Jessica locked her gaze to his. “He got to fuck me.”
He drew in a slow breath.
“After I agreed, he said there was just one stipulation … he wasn’t going to tell me when it would happen. That night I stayed up until three o’clock in the morning, standing guard over my virginity. He slept six feet away in a sleeping bag on the concrete floor. Eventually, I let go … I just couldn’t hold on any longer. I awoke to a tapping on my foot. He stood over me, completely naked. It was the first time I’d ever seen a grown man naked. I couldn’t move … I could barely breathe as he just stood there stroking himself. I’d been expecting him to come after me—clothed with wild eyes. But that wasn’t his game. He had a point to prove and it was that I was, in fact, young, weak, and naive. He asked if I was a virgin. I nodded. Then he said, “Run, bitch.”