Carl had me so confused, I didn’t know which end was up. And he had Jon furious. That night, the night he challenged Jon, wasn’t so bad. It was a few days after, when Jon saw me with Carl eating lunch out on the grass.

He didn’t say anything then. It was later that night. He knocked on the door to the house. I let him in.

"Is Colleen in your room?"

"Well, no..." I replied.

"Good. Let’s go up there. We need to have a talk." I followed him up, and, when we got there, he turned on me. "What the fuck kind of game do you think you’re playing?" he shouted.

"Jon, what? I’m not playing any games?"

"Oh, really? Cozying up to that Carl dweeb isn’t playing games? Coulda fooled me."

"We’re just friends," I maintained.

"He doesn’t see it that way."

"It’s not up to him! It’s up to me!" I said, getting tense. "I can’t control the way he feels about me, but there is nothing going on between us!"

"Well, I don’t want you hanging around him anymore," Jon demanded. "I don’t want you talking to him anymore."

"Jon! We’re friends!"

"Not any more you’re not. Do not talk to him."

That’s when I exploded. "Fine. Then who am I supposed to talk to? You? That’s a laugh. I go days without seeing you. You come to a party and ignore me and pal around with your friends until you decide you want to fuck! You don’t want me to talk to other guys, Jon, then show me some attention!"

This was a mistake. He threw me down on my bed. For a minute there, I thought he might hit me—but he didn’t. Instead, he started tearing my clothes off. "You want attention? I’ll give you attention!" He was pulling my pants down, then his own. I was so horrified I couldn’t move a muscle.

Then he was on top of me. "JON! NO!" I shrieked. "Please, Jon, not like this!"

"Yes, like this! You’ll take it any way I give it to you! You are mine, Wendy, it’s high time you got used to it!" And then he plunged into me.

It was horrific. It hurt, physically, first of all—but the mental hurt was worse. I think the worst thing is realizing that, at one time, I thought I was in love with this guy. The thought made me sick.

Finally, he was done. As a parting shot, he said, on his way out, "If I catch you talking to that Carl shit again, Wendy, you’re gonna get hurt. Understand me?" Then he left.

I didn’t know what to do. I just stayed there, on the bed, still naked, crying. Oh, yeah, it was rape, sure as sure can be. But how was I ever going to prove that? Claiming I’d been raped by a guy I’d had consensual sex with many times before? It wasn’t going to happen. I don’t have that kind of trust in the legal system. It’s too flimsy.

But I’d been raped, and I knew it—raped by someone who once claimed to love me. And I felt it—not just in my body, but deep in the pit of my soul.

And what made me laugh, bitterly, was Jon’s last threat—to hurt me if I talked to Carl ever again. Jesus. How on earth did he think he could ever hurt me worse than this?

I got up—lethargically—went through the motions of cleaning myself up, and crawled back into bed. Eventually, I fell asleep, haunted by nightmares.

--The End—

This is the third story in this story arc. The previous is You’re Gonna Lose That Girl. The next will be With A Little Help From My Friends