March the 10th was the day I arrived. It was a Friday. A pale, sunny day with a chill in the air. A washed-out landscape of pastel colours. Funny, the things you remember.
It hadn't been a sought-after destination when I started or even aspired to; it just evolved that way--shaped by events.
I took the drink from the waiter, thanked him with a big smile and then relaxed back on the sun lounger. I slurped on the straw; it was cold and tangy. I could feel it in my chest as it went down. I closed my eyes from the glare of the sun reflecting off the bright, blue sea and smiled contentedly.
Where was I? Oh, yes. March the 10th.
****
Jack Hare was the senior man in our small legal team. And by small, I mean me, Jack and his secretary slash financial officer, a thin woman in her forties, tidy brown hair, slightly too much makeup and a dress code that had a faint air of slut. Maggie was her name. Everyone called her Mags. Except Jack. To him, she was 'brainless cunt', a term he enjoyed using. It was kind of his thing. Claimed it built team ethos. Jack was full of shit.
Jack called me into his office that March afternoon. Mags was there. She was pouring champers into flute glasses. Three of them. He handed one to me and smiled.
"Well done! First for getting Matt off that sexual assault charge and second for leaving Matt free to enjoy himself. You should be proud!" His tone was partly mocking, looking for my reaction.
And that was the thing. What was my reaction? How did I, Belle Wariner, feel about my actions? How does any woman of 28 feel knowing she had put her legal talents to help a predator strike again? I mean, let's not be fooled by Jack's 'free to enjoy himself' jollity. We all knew what it meant.
The immediate reaction was all gut, a small knot tightening in my stomach. Disgust? A tiny part, maybe, I wasn't dead inside. Pride in my work, as Jack suggested? Yes. There was that. Mostly I guess it was indifference. My sense of morality had atrophied. How did I get here? Well, that is a tale. I raised my glass, knowing what was expected of me and what I expected of myself.
"Thank you," I replied.
Mags beamed. Jack laughed and patted me on the head. I knew he was thinking 'Brainless cunt' as he clinked my glass.
"Thank you." I said again, holding his gaze.
****
I graduated in law with a first. I was ambitious and bright. That was important to me. It was how I defined myself. Physically I was five feet of pure energy, with straight dark hair and brown eyes. I was ready to tackle the world, and I did. A top job in the City, handling in-house legal work for several major firms and knocking it out of the park. I loved it. Part of me did anyway.
The office politics, the sheer workload, the need to be at my best no matter what began taking a toll. I had little social life that didn't revolve around the office. I was strung out, tetchy and drinking too much. My mother tried to advise me, but I didn't listen. Why should I? What did she know of my situation?
It all hit the wall one Friday evening--yeah, Friday again. A rare date had fallen through, but I went out anyway. My life was grind, glare and glory. Fleeting glory usually and to cope, I anaesthetised myself. Drink, drugs and mindless sex. It was like I was lobotomising my emotional range. Emotions were a sign of weakness. I'm pretty sure it was in the Company handbook. So, I'm at a bar, any bar, it doesn't matter. I set the auto-destruct and sat at the counter with a fixed smile and a glaze over my eyes. I'm on my third wine, I feel like shit, and a guy hits on me. It's a toss-up between telling him to fuck off or letting him carry on. I let him carry on. Not sure I had the energy for anything else.
The guy was called Zack, or Zane or something like that. He was okay, amusing enough and even lifting my spirits a little. Maybe this was what I needed. So, we end up making out a little, I remember a taxi, then nothing.
A wooden floor is my next memory--a hazy, wobbly image. I was on a bed, and light was streaming in. A dull ache was next. My jaw, my arms, tops of my thighs. There was drool on the floor as I hung over the bed. I was naked. Alarm coursed through me. Then a slap on my bum.
"You need to get dressed and go." A male voice said.
I blinked and tried to focus on the voice. It wasn't Zack or Zane or whatever. It was a man I had never seen.
"You got railed, hun," he continued, pulling on boots.
I kept blinking.
"Bottled water by the bed."
I went for it, then stopped. The realisation I had been drugged and assaulted had finally registered. Drinking more potentially doctored water was a hard no.
He laughed, reading my hesitation. "Taxi will be here soon. Get your clothes on. Breath a word and the videos and pics will get released. Understood?"
On autopilot, I rose, winced and slowly got dressed. Next, I was bundled into a taxi and back home within thirty minutes. I was too numb to register anything. I slept for a bit, took some tablets for my headache and soaked in the bath. I could see the bruises on my breasts, arms, and even around my neck. That's when I cried, went back to bed and stayed there for the rest of the day.
Then I saw the video they had shot with my phone. It was me. Naked. Drooling on some guy's dick. There were at least three of them. I seemed to be responding to their encouragement. It even looked like I smiled.
I cried again.
Monday, I went to work. I wasn't better, but I wasn't worse. Besides, no one cried off sick. That was the culture. An unhealthy culture, yet the toxicity created by my work environment had evaporated. The nasty pettiness I inwardly smiled at and the work I breezed. My perspective had shifted. Priorities reordered. Funny what you can do when you stop caring.
And that not caring bothered me. To be honest, I was glad something bothered me. I had blanked the knowledge of 'the incident' -- we all rationalise, right? It wasn't like I was a stranger to mindless, emotionally stunted sex. I had been looking for it. Just to feel something, anything. And I got it. Just not how I intended, but no big deal, right? Wrong. It was a big deal. That was why I was on the net several days later, looking for something--anything that would help me.
That's when I stumbled on the support website. It said all the right things, offered counselling, advice--just what I needed, right? Except it was a front. A venue to prey on the vulnerable and seek pleasure from their misery. And to corrupt. That experience you had? Was it all that bad? It was subtle, though. It took me nearly two weeks to detect the hidden agenda. The woman I talked to was real. Not some guy pretending. She was happy to chat online face to face.
Despite this, the website served as an escape, distracting me from work, and I felt like a sleuth teasing out the real motives behind it. Also, it stopped me from replaying that video in my head. It had become an unhealthy obsession. Watching yourself, yet having no recollection is weird. It was me, but not me. It was a guilt-free experience, yet a disturbing and horrible one. The emotional conflict was twisting me up.
"You free to talk on cam?" I typed. My contact was Lauren.
There was a long pause, then. "Sure, but you have been questioning me hard."
I almost typed "I'm a lawyer" but didn't. "Just going through stuff since you know."
"Yes. The assault."
"Yeah." Lauren always zeroed in on calling it that. Wanting details, wanting to know what I remembered. It hadn't struck me at first, but now it seemed ghoulish. "Yeah. The assault. I need to talk about the assault." Instinctively I was baiting the hook. Lauren took it.
Her image appeared in the box on the right. It matched her profile pic. That surprised me at first. I guessed she was mid-thirties, with auburn hair, an open face and a wide smile. A face you could trust.
"Lovely to see you Elle. How can I help?" Elle was the name I had given.
I honestly had no idea what I was going to say, but it all tumbled out. Work. Stress. My toxic lifestyle. It all came out. I even cried.
Lauren looked at me intensely. "Have you thought about getting out? Another job?"
"No. I'm good at what I do."
"How has your assault impacted your work?"
"Badly." Not entirely true. I was still numbed to the environment, the culture, but it was wearing off. Or I was kidding myself. I wasn't sure anymore.
"Are you sure?"
No
. "Yes, why?"
"Just that our conversations a few weeks ago were more relaxed, open, now they are tense, almost confrontational. I sense a change and not a good one."
"Maybe."
"Have you given any more thought to the police?"
"No, that would be a waste of time. Don't you think?"
"We try and not give advice on that, it's up to the individual. But it is harrowing and often unproductive."
"That sounds like advice to me," I smiled weakly.
"Just an opinion. Not advice. Have you deleted the video?'"
"No."
"Why not?"
"It's evidence."
"Evidence? You don't intend going to the police."
"No, but--" I stopped, confused.
"It's evidence of what happened, you need that," suggested Lauren.
"Yes."
