“Why’s that?” People nearby in the hallway watched; the tension was palpable.
“Oh, sweetie, you’d really better hear it from her,” Lauren said, her voice full of condescension. She went to put a mockingly comforting hand on Taylor’s shoulder, but she batted it out of the way and shoved Lauren aside as she stormed down to the cheerleading coach’s office. She’d hoped to at least get an angry taunt or a grunt of pain as she retreated, but Lauren just laughed.
It was a short conversation. Lauren had told the coach about a hazing incident staged by Taylor during Friday night’s game, in which Taylor had made other squad members join her in performing sex acts on Lauren’s own brother. Lauren had even shown her part of the video, though Miss Nguyen had turned it off after only a few seconds.
Taylor insisted that’s now how it had been, she’d just been putting up with DJ, that Lauren had been the one filming the whole obscenity—but it was to no avail. Miss Nguyen said she didn’t want to make a big investigation out of this if she didn’t have to and risk a media fiasco that might result in the video getting out into the public and doing untold damage to Taylor’s and the other girls’ lives. Besides, none of the other girls involved had wanted to press charges against Taylor, thank goodness. Still, as the person who was clearly in a position of power, she held Taylor responsible, and was removing her from the squad.
(As runner up, that would make Lauren the new captain.)
Trembling with impotent rage and bottomless shame, Taylor made her way out to her car. Someone had attached the front bumper to the fence with a leash.
Her scream could be heard for a mile.
Emily felt lucky she had such an understanding manager.
“Start at the beginning,” Katja said. She was a Finnish national, and her accent was usually something Emily found soothing, though now, she was too strung-out to be consoled so easily.
“Well, I know you heard about those photos that got out—DJ and I on rounds last week…?”
“Ja,” she said. She really said “yeah,” but the accent made the monosyllable sound more Finnish than English. “I remember.”
“Yeah. And I appreciate you following up on that, too, verifying what I said and not firing me.”
Katja nodded. DJ had come to her, actually, a few days after the incident. He’d come to dump a lot of his shifts and rearrange the ones he kept to be with Abby and Emily. As she’d penciled in the changes, she asked why, and he replied that they were the two most attractive women on staff. Concerned, she had tried some gentle counseling that this might not be the most productive way to attract positive attention from women, or to secure a glowing recommendation from her, but he’d told her to mind her own business. DJ had, however, answered her brief inquiries about the incident with Emily and the VanDoren girl, saying it had all been his doing.
Anyone else on staff Katja would have fired for having intercourse with a student in the lounge and then forcing his naked colleague to parade through the building with his semen on her face, but teaching tolerance was one of her core passions, the real reason she’d gotten into this field. She considered it an excellent opportunity to put her principles into practice, and had promptly excused Emily for her part in things.
The young woman continued. “So, it’s been kind of rough, I guess, since the photos leaked. Lots of people in my classes, all my friends, saw them. Lots of people calling me a slut, hitting on me even after I try to tell them no. That kind of thing. I try to explain I was just indulging a co-worker, but they never understand. Honestly, I think explaining it makes things worse.”
“Ja, that can be difficult. Those of us who know DJ understand the need to treat him with a little extra discretion, but I’m sure to others, it must seem strange.”
“Yeah. At least one of my professors saw them; he kept looking at me through lecture, and I knew he was just seeing me naked and covered in DJ’s semen. I haven’t been able to go back. I… missed a test.”
The manager frowned. “Now Emily, you must keep up your grades. You’re a student first, and an employee second. Your work issues mustn’t be allowed to interfere with academics.”
Emily nodded. “I understand. It’s just… when my parents saw them…” She fought back tears, and slowly lost the battle as she continued. “They didn’t even contact me. I called home, just to check in, and… my mother told me she and my father had seen that their daughter was engaged in pornography, squandering her collegiate opportunities for cheap thrills. I tried to tell her how it had really been, but I couldn’t make her understand. She…” Emily choked back a sob. “She told me I was no longer her daughter. I called my father, but he won’t even answer the phone. They didn’t respond to my emails, unfriended me online…”
She was crying too hard to keep getting words out. Katja patted her shoulder softly, offering her tissues and letting her cry it out. It was some time before she could continue.
“My whole family, even my sister, won’t talk to me. My parents, they had to break their backs to pay for me to go here, and now everybody thinks I’m just abusing their trust, that I’m some kind of…” she shook her head, shifted to something she could manage to talk about.
“I don’t have anywhere to go for fall break,” she said in a whisper-quiet voice.
Katja warmly pulled the despondent young woman into a hug, and Emily returned it tightly. “You can stay here in the dorm,” she said. “You’ll be the only one here, but I won’t have you out on the streets.”
With those words, Emily first consciously realized that, when the school year ended, she was homeless.
Brittney Jenner had lost her virginity at the age of twelve at the hands of her step-father, Earl.
She’d been old enough then to know she was pretty, to have some idea that boys wanted to do things with her. Her presence often seemed to turn casual social situations into games of truth-or-dare, spin the bottle, seven minutes in heaven, or other juvenile means of getting a little experience in things sexual without getting too scary about them. Since childhood her mother, Heather, had entered young Brittney in child beauty pageants, where she’d done well—regional winner three years, and state champion when she was ten. Heather had been disappointed in her 32nd place at nationals; she’d been grounded from sweets for three months. The school psychologist who had diagnosed her with anorexia later that year had insisted Brittney stop participating in activities that valued her body above her mind as part of her treatment.
Of course, he couldn’t keep her from going into middle school or back home, so it was a fruitless sentiment.
Earl had married Heather when her daughter was eleven. He was a well-to-do lawyer in town, wealthy and connected, and the girls had needed the financial support and stability. Heather had been only fifteen when she’d had to drop out of school to give birth to Brittney, and while her parents had helped as best they could, things had always been tight. Brittney loved her mother fiercely for how much she worked and sacrificed for her. Heather would do anything for her daughter to have a better life. Even marrying Earl.
Earl offered stabilitity. He also offered a mean streak a mile wide and the alcoholism to keep it fresh at hand. Brittney had seen how he abused her mother, especially if he’d been drinking. They tried to hide it, but even Earl’s house was only so big, and noise carried. Heather always tried to protect her by lying about how bad it was, and Brittney protected her back by lying about believing it.
When Earl finally branched out into forcing himself on his young step-daughter, she just kept lying. She quickly learned that refusing him, souring the experience for him, only served to throw fuel on the fires of his rage, and it made it worse on Brittney, and also usually sent him laying into her mother, too. She could have handled the bruises and violations if they didn’t also lead the same for Heather. She wanted to tell someone, but Earl golfed with the sheriff and the county judge once a month; trying to turn him in would be suicide. Maybe literally. With nothing to be done about it, Brittney learned to do her best to keep him happy so he wouldn’t last out at her mother. As often, anyway.