[The following could be an unhealthy trigger for anyone who is a survivor, please check-in with yourself before proceeding. The intention is to process and condemn an existing reality through fictionalized narrative, never to normalize or excuse. Coerced consent is not consent and a victim is never responsible. Stay well.]
___
By the time I walked down to the kitchen the following morning Rob had already gone for the day. In the adjacent living room surfaces were covered in late night clutter - empty beer cans, peanut shells, makeshift ashtrays. Still groggy from sleep I gathered the trash -- a familiar morning routing in Kaitlin's house.
I had just poured myself a cup of fresh coffee, hoping it will bring some desperately needed clarity to my mind, when I heard the driveway gravel rumbling under pressure. My heart sank at the flash of a familiar red behind curtains. Johnny's truck.
I froze, my first instinct to duck below the counter. I jumped at the sound of him honking and rushed towards my room. Johnny walked through the door as if it was his own home.
"Hello??" he barked loud enough that I stopped with one leg over the last step, coffee still in hand. "Leah - what the hell, why are you not dressed? Is Rob here?"
So much I wanted to say to him. Yell at him. Scream. Send the mug flying at his face.
"Uhm no, Rob left early."
"I see -- well at least someone in this house takes their job seriously," he chuckled at his own remark. "C'mon, it's almost 9, we gotta get going. I'll give you a lift."
"Uhm... I'm not... I thought I didn't work for you anymore?"
"And why is that?" He came up a few steps. "Listen to me -- what me and you do in our own time is separate business. Work is work," his tone cooled down from the upbeat "uncle Johnny" persona he pushed around. He crossed a few more steps. "Or did you think -- what -- you spread your legs and all of a sudden I'm supposed to be treating you all special? Should I pay you for lounging around with your coffee too?"
Special - how dare he?
"No..."
"Yeah? Well, last I checked you still owe me the money you took. So you can either give it back now, or I can take it off your paycheck."
"For the last time, Johnny -- I didn't take your money!" I snapped.
"Did you hear what I said?" He said sharply. "You're going to pay it back, one way or the other. So either write me a check or go get dressed and stop embarrassing yourself."
"I can't... I'm not gonna work for you after..."
"Grow up."
He was level with me now at the top of the stairs, staring me down like he was daring me to refuse. He had the energy of a drunk right before a bar fight -- all he was looking for was an excuse. I felt that chill in my bones. Johny was a man full of muscle and spite, and I... well, I was alone with him, in nothing but a long T-shirt and socks, still sore from his visit last night. I was in no position to argue.
"You have 5 minutes."
___
At work things felt a strange caricature of normal. I settled into the day, loosing myself in menial tasks and avoiding his poorly concealed ogling mainly by pretending it was not there. Drained from the non-stop emotional load, 6 o'clock couldn't come fast enough.
About an hour before closing time Johnny rolled out from under an old Chevy and called out to me.
"Hey -- Leah -- if you're done with the ordering you can go home."
I lit up.
"Just clean up the kitchen area before you go. And check the bathroom."
"Cool, thanks." I dropped awkwardly and rushed off to the back room.
"Hey boys -- it's Friday, you can call it early too. This thing ain't getting fixed tonight anyway," he nodded and the car behind him.
"Nice, thanks man!" The two younger mechanics nodded back at him.
Before long, it was just me and him again. Rushing, I dumped the trash outside and headed back in, determined to grab my jacked and immediately bounce.
"C'mon, I'll give you a ride home." Johnny stood with my jacket in hand.
"I'm in good spirits today," he winked at me with that slimy half-smile of his.
"I'm okay, thanks... I gotta meet some friends, they're waiting for me."
"Don't be ridiculous. I doubt Rob is letting you run around partying it up, given your behavior lately."
"I'm not partying anything up -- and Rob is fine. He can't like... ground me. I'm gonna just go, thanks."
He snapped me by the upper arm. "Don't play games with me. I know you're up to no good. Come on, lets's go."
I dragged my feet alongside him to his stupid, oversized truck. I told myself Rob should be home and that would offer some buffer, and then I could sneak out if I need to. I lied about anyone waiting for me, but I just needed to get away from this shop and my home, that's all I was thinking.
___
"Johnny-- my exit, we just missed it."
"We're making a stop."
That horrid feeling began to creep up my spine again. Breath, stuck in my throat, the corners of my vision suspended in a blur, the world slowly swallowed by a milky haze. My arms filled with lead, suddenly immovable, unreachable.
"I have to get home."
"Be quiet. I have to make a stop."
___
We pulled up to a run-down motel I recognized the name of. It's clientele was known to be primarily truckers and their by-the-hour guests. Our unusual coupling felt sickeningly appropriate here. Johnny opened the car door for me but I shook my head at his reached out hand.
"What now? Leah, I'm warning you, don't be difficult."
I shook my head again, and again.
I should cry, or yell. Could I yell? I should, I should call for help.
"Leah," he leaned over, "We're just going to talk. We need to have a serious talk about your future. If you want to have one."
As much as I knew he was lying, my mind clung to it as the only palatable way forward. Johnny wasn't lying about his cop cousin, I knew that, and I'd witnessed firsthand how swift and thoughtless justice in our crumbling, god-forsaken town could be. Prison terrified me. Prison was worse than death. Worse than Johnny, even.
He reached down to my hand and pulled me out from the car. Together we crossed the few steps to a door that Johnny already had a key to. He pushed me in lightly, took a quick scan behind him and stepped inside.
"Sit down. Enough with this shaking leaf bullshit."
I sat on a desk stool, the only other seating option in the room aside from the bed. He leaned on the table next to me, towering over, his large arms crossed.
"C'mon. You're gonna do this "innocent lamb" act every time or what?"
"Johnny please,
please
let me go home..." All the emotion I kept canned and frozen all day pushed to the surface now. "Please don't do this... I'll pay you back I swear -- please... just..."
He reached down and cupped my chin, lifting it up toward him.
"Shh... I know, I know..."
His other hand reached for his zipper. I shook my head in panic, to which his grip on my face tightened.
"No, no, I can't, not this, please... "
I would've thought I was crying, but there were no tears. All my tears were stuck solid inside, all my attention-- consumed by this unthinkable moment returning to me like a nightmare.
"It's okay. C'mon now... it's okay."
Eyes shut in a hopeless attempt to shut him out m, could hear the rustle of his jeans, the snap of unhooking a button, of a rubber band pulled down -- louder then my own voice, louder than his, our words circling and repeating, each in their own useless mantra.
"Please, Johny..."
"There you go... The-e-ere you... ooah... "
His flesh pushed at my lips at the same time as his fingers squeezed my jaw open.
I let him in.
All the racket of sensations suddenly dropped, flatlined, exploded into its own singularity. Any grey area I could cling to before -- was gone, and I felt myself in free fall again.
"C'mon... Just like that. Just... like... that..."
My lips stretched around him and any effort to push him out now amounted to a tighter grip. In small but unyielding thrusts his cock filled my mouth with his salty, disturbingly familiar taste. My hands pushing at his torso weakened. My eyes kept blinking on their own -- wide shut, wide open -- unable to choose between the darkness and the sight of his skin.
"Ugh, fuck... Yeah... There we go, just relax. Look at me.... So good... I said
look at me.
There, such pretty eyes... Don't look away..."
His words felt more nausiating, more violent even than his thick, pulsating member ramming against my throat. I could not escape their effect, I could not escape this beat everything was settling into. And at the center, his voice --
it's okay, it's okay --
rolling and rolling into my ears. Now, he wanted my eyes, an intimacy I could not stand with him but saw little point in fighting. His whole body tensed and tightened at the smallest signs of disobedience from me -- this man, always so effortlessly self-absorbed in his usual self, was now suddenly somehow attuned to every nuance of my experience. He pushed and pushed, in every possibly way, leaving no room for resistance but feeling for it tirelessly. This constant silent threat of escalation from him I could not stand anymore -- so I looked, and kept looking, feeling myself slowly absorbed by his enjoyment of me.
Lulled away from my own experience, my struggling subdued, dampened, until everything was still except for one singular rhythm, the last remaining focal point of my fading awareness.
"...such a good girl... stay still... eyes open..."
Eventually I settled into an empty, thoughtless space. My mind had a sense of strange peace to it, like an battlefield abandoned.
"You're such a special girl, Leah..."
If I could think, I would know to be outraged by his words. But all I could do was feel, as is.
