Pretty much everyone knows about Stockholm Syndrome - the name given to the condition that occurs when a hostage befriends or starts to feel compassion for his or her captor. I wonder if there is a similar syndrome for rape victims? I watched my wife being raped but she never told me about it and never reported it to the authorities. And even though I know she can't stand the asshole I know that she has seen him at least twice more.
Trisha and I have a cabin up in the mountains. It isn't much, just a place for weekend getaways. We get up there once every six weeks or so and when we are there Trisha usually lays out and soaks up the sun while I take our two boys and go rock climbing. We have a neighbor who is semi-retired and who lives on the mountain full time. Trisha can't stand Archie and I don't know why. I can only guess that it might have been because Archie is black
When we bought the property and were surveying to build Archie came over and introduced himself and started giving up pointers on what to avoid when building in the mountains. He was extremely helpful and put us in touch with all of the right people to get all of the necessary clearances and permits. During the construction phase Archie was the self appointed watchdog over our property and was twice able to stop the theft of our building materials. Even though the boys and I liked Archie and considered him a friend Trisha never did cotton to him. The trouble was that she didn't hide it.
It was the first weekend in October and the weather was unseasonably warm for that time of the year. The boys and I had packed a lunch, filled our canteens and had headed out for a rock outcropping that we wanted to try and climb. As we left Trisha was spreading her blanket and getting ready to catch some rays. I told her to be careful, "Don't forget what the sun can do to you at this altitude" and then I kissed her and the boys and I set out. We saw Archie sitting on his front porch and we waved as we passed by and he waved back.
It was about twenty-five minutes later when we topped a ridge that overlooked the site of our cabin and we sat down to take a break. I put my binoculars to my eyes and looked for our cabin and when I found it I focused in on it. Trisha was lying on her back on her blanket with her arm over her eyes to block the sun. I sat there drinking in the sight of my sexy wife in her bikini bathing suit. I was just about to put the binoculars down when I saw Trisha suddenly sit up and look to her left. I panned left with the glasses and saw Archie walking toward her. Trisha sat there and watched him approach and when he got to her they started talking to each other. After a minute or so I saw anger on Trisha's face and she scrambled to get up off the blanket. She said something to Archie and turned to walk away from him, but Archie's arm shot out and grabbed the back strap of Trisha's bikini top and he jerked her back. He spun her around and said something and Trisha slapped his face. Archie spun her around, forced her down on the blanket and then sat down on top of her.
Trisha was fighting to get out from under him and even though I couldn't hear her I could tell she was screaming, not that it would do any good, except for Archie our nearest neighbor was two miles away. Archie took out his pocketknife and cut Trisha's bikini bottoms off of her and tossed them aside and suddenly a cold fear gripped my heart as I realized what I was seeing and that there wasn't a damned thing that I could do about it. It was too far away to run back in time to stop anything and too far away for me to yell and have Archie hear me. If I jumped up and down, waved my arms and screamed to try and get his attention all I would accomplish would to bring the boys over and then they would use their binoculars to see what was going on. I didn't think that it would be a good thing for a twelve and a thirteen-year-old to see their mother being raped. All I could do was watch and observe everything possible so I could give the police an accurate statement.
