“Somebody help me!” she cried. Overcome by the situation she sank onto the thick mattress, burying her face in her trembling hands. She couldn’t believe this was happening. She couldn’t believe this was happening to her, that someone could do this. He could do whatever he wanted with her. Struck again with panic, she began pulling and tugging at the chain, making violent efforts to disengage herself. “Fuck!” she screamed. “Somebody! Please! Help me!”
She stopped yelling after a few minutes. The silences in between were worse than if she stayed silent. She curled on the smelly mattress. Her mouth had puffed up and was numb where he had hit her. She shivered in a cold sweat, feeling vulnerable in her nakedness. She was so exhausted, she was almost going unconscious.
Chapter 3
She didn’t know she’d fallen asleep, until she heard a door close. She was alert in an instant. The room was newly dark, and she could just see the outlines of things. The lounge door opened and he came in. She lay absolutely still. He switched on a lamp, and sat down on the couch, as if he might have forgotten her. He was holding her handbag. He emptied all its contents on the floor between his boots. He bent forward as he went through it, lifting and dropping things uninterestedly.
He collected a few bits of her make up, and went to her. She huddled away from him. “Do you want to put some on?” he said, as if it was some kind of peace offering. When she made no movement, he dropped it all on the floor in front of her. He went away into the kitchen. After a minute, he came back with a can of beer.
“You can’t do this,” she said, brokenly.
He took off his boots and his clothes. He sat on the mattress with her.
“I’m not going to hurt you. You don’t have to cry,” he said. “I’m going to tell you something, Nicole. I was raped in prison.” He took a swing of beer and offered it to her, but she wouldn’t take it. “So I know what a woman feels when she’s raped. I know the feeling of helplessness, the shame, self-doubt, self-blame, the fear. It was a very sick, twisted, brutal thing. I kept getting kicked in the face and punched for no fucking reason.
“It’s pretty routine in jail. Young guys are sodomized and forced to suck dick while being nearly beaten to death. Once a guy gets owned he’s property, man. He can be rented out, sold or auctioned, told how to dress and talk, given a woman’s name. Half the guys end up dead, either by the cocksuckers forcing them, or it’s self inflicted. I almost became a statistic, several times over.
“I never tried to participate in any of it. I’m just not a mean, or hurtful person. But I got really violent after the prison experiences. It’s been ten years, and it’s still hard for me to confront. It’s rough in there, so fuck the people who will never understand what it takes to survive.
“When I told my wife she left me. Since then I haven’t gone looking for any counselling or help, which was pretty stupid of me, because all I’ve done is channel the pain and hurt in to rage. But I’m in a good place now. It’s very healing to talk about it.”
Nicole was silent, hugging her knees to her chest. She was afraid to look him in the eye, fearing what they might reveal.
“I was only twenty-two when I went in. Your age! But I was six-foot-tall and weighed about a hundred and ninety pounds. I figured I could pretty well take care of myself. My first night I was approached by three guys. They asked who I was and what I was in for. I told them and then one of them asked if I had ever been fucked.
“I said nope and I’m not planning on it, and he told me I was going to give them all head. I can tell you, I was filled with fear like I had never felt before. I couldn’t imagine sucking another man’s cock! I got my fist into him, but his partners knocked me to the floor and slammed my face into the concrete. Two of them sat on my legs and the other guy lay on my back. He was beating into me and said, I want you to feel this, bitch.
“Needless to say with Vaseline he fucked my ass. It hurt real bad. It seemed to go on forever. The way they were holding me, I knew they had done it before. They took turns, and all three raped me. After it was over, I was held in a headlock while they decided if they should kill me or not. I really thought I was gonna die. They said they would kill me if I said anything to anyone.
“I was still in shock the next day. I was numb and didn’t know what to do. My options were so limited. I had no one to talk too, or to help me. I wasn’t brought up to snitch. My father was a former penitentiary captain. He ran our household like he ran the prison. Growing up, he would knock me around, and told me if ever I ended up in prison I’d be fucked to death.
“The second night those same guys came back to my bunk, and tried their shit again. They told me it would do no good to fight, because they’d just take me down and hurt me worse than before. I did everything they wanted me to like a robot. Going along was better then getting beat or killed. So I got on my knees, and my head was forced down to the first guys cock. I did everything he instructed me to do. It was fucking disgusting. He grabbed me by the hair and forced his cock down my throat when he let go of his load. I thought he was going to gag me to death and I vomited on the floor after he let go. Then I was forced to do the other two.
“They kept coming to me. I didn’t know what to do. I even thought about killing myself. One of the guys always wanted my ass. Once I stopped fighting, it was a lot easier. He fucked me like he would probably fuck a woman and it wasn’t near as bad as the other times. After a while I started to kind of enjoy it. But I’m not gay. I’m not a homosexual. You do what you have to do to survive.
“You know, about half of the guys become willing participants. They start to like it. But only once they accept it. It’s weird that over time you start to develop feelings for the person beatin’ on you.
“I never initiated sex with anybody, but there were two guys I enjoyed having sex with. One would have everyone leave the room. He would bend me over the table and run his hands up and down my ass and legs as he grinded me just as if I was a woman. When I got hard he’d reach around and jack me off. We’d both usually come at the same time. The other guy would wake me up real late. He liked me on my back. I’d cover my balls with my hand to keep them from being smashed, and he’d keep his eyes closed pretending I was his wife. He’d call me baby and tell me he loved me.
“It was all so messed up. Rape is so fucked up, but we can make it pretty good. Hey?” He touched her thigh and made it twitch. “Some cruel pricks probably like to beat and force a screaming woman into submission, but I want you compliant, all right? I don’t want to torture you. There are some sick fucks out there who might enjoy mutilating you. I’m not like that. And I’m definitely not gay. I love your body,” he said, rubbing his hands up and down her thighs and over her arms. She was hugging her knees to her chest in a frozen sort of despair.
“Why do you have this chain here?” she asked. “Have you done this before, to other girls?”
“I have,” he said.
She bit her lip, looking at him tensely. “What happened to them?”
“I let them go. But first I taught them a few things. I haven’t met a woman yet I couldn’t help to become orgasmic. My favorite position is girl on top, or sixty-nine. Do you want to sit on me?” He moved closer and put his arm around her waist. She shivered violently and tried to move a little away from him.
“You know the other girls at the end of it liked it,” he said. “They said they loved me. If they didn’t mean it, why didn’t they call the cops after I let them go? I’ll let you go, too, when I’ve shown you a few things.”
“How long did you keep them here?” she asked, hardly able to keep her voice steady.