CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

"Can I talk to you?" Sophia was eating lunch with Jessie; and Meggan, from her peer-counseling group, had approached her at their table.

"Sure. Jess, this is Meggan. She’s from my group."

"Hiya, Meggan, nice to meet you. You want I should leave?" Meggan looked at Sophia.

"Jess will leave if you want, Meg, but she knows what I do down in Peer Counseling, lived through my nightmare with me, and knows how to keep a secret."

"OK. Then I don’t want her to leave. I feel bad enough interrupting your lunch anyhow." Sophia and Jessie just waved that off. "I need your help, Soph. I think I’ve got a Warren." Meggan smiled a little bit.

Sophie smiled back. "Tell me more."

"His name is Josh. We take the bus every day. He’s a junior." Meggan herself was a sophomore. "We usually sit with each other. He just moved to Oceanview this year, so I was like the first person he got to know, because we’re the first two stops on the bus route in the morning, and the last two off in the evening. It was natural that we started talking. So now we talk every day on the bus."

"Do you mind telling me his last name? If you want to keep that a secret, I don’t mind. I was wondering if I knew him."

"Blumberg. Josh Blumberg."

"Really?" Sophia exclaimed. "I actually know Josh well. One of my best friends, Karen Laskovich, is Josh’s cousin. When Josh first moved into town, Karen got him in with our crowd. I see him at parties all the time. He’s a good kid, I like him a lot. One of the things I really like about him is the way he handles himself at parties. He’s not much of a drinker and I’ve never seen him take a drug, but he can go to a party and have a good time—and he’s nice but firm about turning down chemicals, so everyone respects his choice. In that way, he’s exactly like Warren."

"That’s good information, Sophia, I forget that you know everybody." Sophia giggled. Meggan went on, "Anyhow, there have been some days that I’ve gone to school after—you know—had happened the previous night. He knows something’s wrong. He tries to get me to tell him. He’s not mean or anything about it, and he’s only persistent to a point, but he’s figured out that something’s wrong with me."

Jessie was listening to the conversation, but wasn’t sure what, exactly, Meggan was talking about.

"He’s done the old self-esteem-boost thing that Warren told us about—in fact, it hit me while Warren was talking about that that Josh does exactly the same thing."

"I want to tell him. I want to tell him what’s happening to me. But I don’t think I can get the words out, and I don’t know if I want to lay this on him."

Sophia took a deep breath. "First of all, don’t drop it on him on the bus. Do what I did—give him your phone number and ask him to call. Tell him you need a friend to talk to. He’ll call, I can almost guarantee it. Secondly, you need to lay this on someone. He’s almost begging you to. Third, if you don’t think you can get the words out, practice."

"What do you mean?"

"Tell Jessie, here. I can tell by her eyes darting back and forth that she’s trying to figure out what’s going on. Jessie knows I do peer counseling but I don’t discuss specifics, because it is your choice who to tell. However, she’s a great listener, her word is worth its weight in gold, and her confidence is solid."

"All true, and I’m cute, too." Jessie quipped, getting a laugh out of Meggan. "Listen, Meggan, do not feel compelled to tell me. But if you want to practice, I’m willing."

Meggan took a deep breath, and looked at Jessie. "My boyfriend rapes me at knifepoint." Jessie visibly paled. "And then tells me if I leave him or tell anyone he will cut me into little pieces."

"You got the words out. That’s a start. I remember when it took you 45 minutes to say those words to me." Sophia glanced at Jessie. "Jessie, are you alright?"

Jessie said, in a tone of barely restrained murderous fury, "If I ever find out who your boyfriend is, Meggan, I will bring a bigger knife, cut his balls and dick off, and stuff them down his fucking throat until he chokes to death on them." Meggan’s eyes just got wide. "You say the word, Meg, and I’ll have a posse on this guy’s ass so quick he won’t know what hit him. Soph, you think Crash, Warren, and Nicky would have a good time bouncing this scumbag off of a few walls? I do." Jessie took a deep breath.

Meggan’s eyes just got even wider. "You can’t do that. He’ll find out it came from me, and he’ll kill me."

Jessie exhaled. "I know, Meg, I know. I don’t know who he is, anyway. And I know if I were to act too rashly, you could be in danger. I’ve been through this, with Sophie." She shook her head. "But, I can’t help but want to do to him exactly what I said."

Meggan calmed down. "I know. I do, too. I’m just afraid I’m going to end up dead at his hands. I worry about it all the time. I don’t know how long I can live with that worry." She sighed. "I think of suicide more and more lately."

Jessie looked at her. "Maybe you need to be suicidal." Meggan just stared at her. Sophia gasped. Jessie just went on. "Get to the point where you’re going to do it. Get right to that point where you don’t care if you live or die. And, right when you get to that point—go after him. You’d have nothing to lose, right?"

Meggan looked at her. "She makes good points in a very roundabout kind of way, doesn’t she?"

"Always" Sophia agreed.

It happened again that night. The next morning, Josh noticed, but Meggan parried his queries as usual. She sat in class all day, barely aware of where she was. This one was brutal—he decided, after he was done with her pussy, he was going to rape her ass. She could barely sit down.

She was in agony all day. She had almost become numb to it, but having her anal virginity raped brought home again how brutal, degrading, and painful this all was.

She decided, it was either take a chance, or kill herself. She took a chance. When she saw Josh on the bus heading home, she waited until they were the only two people left on the bus. She slipped a piece of paper in his hands as she got off the bus. It said, "349-8712. Josh, that’s my phone number. I need to talk to a friend tonight. Please call. Love, Meggan."

He called, shortly after eight o’ clock. After they said hi, Meggan told him, "You know there’s something wrong with me, right?"

"Yeah, Meg, but I don’t know what. Some days you walk onto that bus and it’s like the night of the living dead. Today was particularly bad. But you won’t tell me what it is."

"I decided I want to tell you. I need to tell you. I need help. I’m in counseling, but that’s not the same." She hesitated a minute. "Josh, how do you feel about me?"

"I like you, a whole lot. I mean a lot. I care about you more than you know. If you hadn’t told me you had a boyfriend, I would have asked you out long ago."

"My suspicions are confirmed," Meggan said. Josh just laughed. Meggan got serious. "I want to tell you about me. I want to tell you. However, I don’t know if I can dump this one on you. It’s bad."

"If you need to tell me, than you need to tell me."

"OK" She took a deep breath. "My boyfriend has been raping me at knifepoint for six months. Last night, he added a new twist—he raped my ass. And he told me he would kill me if I ever left, or if I ever told anyone."

Dead silence at the other end of the phone.

"Josh?"

Another moment of silence. "Meggan, what’s your address?"

"45 Curran St. Why?"

"Will your parents get upset if you have a visitor at this time of night?"

"My parents don’t give a fuck what happens to me, Josh. That’s another long story, but, let’s just say that they had me because ‘everybody has kids’, and they just go on their merry way. They’re actually not here, they’re shopping or something.."

"Good. I’m coming over." And he abruptly hung up the phone.

Meggan didn’t know what to think. She had, at least, gotten the courage to tell him. And now he’s coming over? She’ll have to look him in the face? After what she told him? Oh, boy…….

Before she knew it, there was a knock on the door, and she opened it to find him. And before she knew it, she was in his arms, crying.

He steered her to the couch. After she had calmed down, Josh asked her, "Who knows?"

"I have a peer counselor at school, and I talk to the psychiatrist there. Other than them, just you. You don’t know how long I’ve wanted to tell you, because I knew you were a real friend."

Josh took a deep breath. "I have a car, Meg. You need to go to the police."

"NO!"

"You need to."

"Josh, he’ll kill me!"

"He’s going to, anyway, if this keeps up." Meggan looked at him, startled. "You know I’m right. Either that, or you’ll kill yourself."

Meggan looked at him. "You’re right."

"This can’t go on forever. He’s killing you, as it is, bit by bit. I can’t watch that happen, Meg. I care too much about you. I need to take you to the police."

Meggan sat, and thought about it. Just then, her parents walked in the door.

"Hi, Meg," her father said.

Her mother just looked at Josh. "So, who’s this? I thought your boyfriend was that reprobate from Salem? Sleeping around, Meg?"

Josh was shocked. He had his arm around Meg, and he felt her shoulder tighten. He squeezed it, for reassurance. Meg was saying, "This is Josh. He’s a friend, from school." She took a deep breath. "And Curtis isn’t my boyfriend, not the way any normal person would define it."

"Oh, yeah?" Her mother asked. "You certainly spend enough time with him. If he isn’t your boyfriend, what is he?"

Josh rubbed Meggan’s back, and took her hand in his and squeezed. He said to her, softly, "You have to start here, Meg."

"I know." She turned to her parents. "Curtis isn’t my boyfriend. I thought he was at first, but he’s not. He’s my abuser. And my own personal serial rapist. He’s been raping me at knifepoint for six months."

Her parents went ghost-white. "What?" her father managed to get out.

"Yup. And he threatens to kill me regularly." She shifted in her seat, and groaned, pain radiating out from her battered rear end. "Last night, he decided to add anal rape to the festivities. I’m in a considerable amount of pain right now." Her parents were in shock.

"Meg, why didn’t you tell us?" her father asked.

"I’ve had a hard time telling anyone. Because I feel dirty, and because he threatens to kill me if I tell. The only people I ever told were my Peer Counselor and the psychiatrist at school. Josh has been a good friend to me all year, and I finally decided to tell him, tonight. As for you guys, you don’t give a shit about me anyhow, so why should I tell you?"

"MEGGAN!" her father spat out.

"Oh, you don’t say it, but Mom does. Why did I ever have a kid, you’re more trouble than you’re worth, blah blah blah. I’ve always thought I was an accident, that you guys regretted not aborting."

Meg’s mother was looking at the floor, not saying anything. Her father looked at his wife, and then at Meggan. "You were an accident, Meg, I’m not going to lie to you about that. And we hadn’t ever planned on having children. But I, for one, never regretting having you."

"I have," her mother said. "But I tried to hide it from you, Meg. Obviously I wasn’t successful."

"No, you weren’t. I’ve felt resented and unwanted since I was seven. And I have been in my own private little hell for six months, and nobody notices, because nobody pays attention to Meggan. Well, Josh did. He didn’t know what was wrong, but he knew something was wrong."

Meggan’s mother was crying by now. "Meggan, I’m so sorry. I tried to be a good mother, I really did. I’m sorry I failed." She looked up at Meggan. "I do love you, you know. I just hate being your mother--*anybody’s* mother. I thought I could do it, that’s why we ended up having you instead of aborting you. I was wrong."

"I never knew any of this," her father said.

"That’s because all you care about is your work," her mother said.

"Hey, my work is important. My work pays for all these lovely things we have."

Meggan spoke up. "I, for one, would have traded all of these lovely things for a little attention. A hug once in a while, you know?" She took a deep breath. "Anyhow, that’s neither here nor there. Although I blame you for not making me feel loved enough to tell you what was happening to me, I do not blame you for what’s happening. That’s not your fault, and it’s not my fault. It’s Curtis’s fault. He sweet-talked me for two months, then, when I wasn’t ready to surrender my virginity to him, his true self surfaced. And he took it. I was being raped before I even knew what was happening. And the threats started from day one, so I was immediately terrified."

"Josh has convinced me to go to the police. It might not work. They might say they don’t have enough to prosecute. They might end up letting him go. And he may end up killing me." Her father gasped. "But, you know what? I can’t live like this anymore, no matter what happens. And instead of killing myself, which I have seriously been considering, I'm going to at least try to go after the cause of all this, which is him."

Her parents wanted to take her to the police, but she refused. Josh took her. After hearing her story, the police called in a doctor to examine her. Afterwards, the cops gathered with the doctor. Meggan, and Josh (who Meggan insisted stay with her), wanted to hear what the doctor had to say.

"OK," he started. "Meggan, you have vaginal bruises. Bad ones. Some old, some newer." He turned to the cops. "What I will say on the stand about them is this: yes, you can get those if you happen to like rough sex. However, very rarely that bad, and that kind of bruising usually only comes from systematic rape." The doctor took a deep breath. "Her rectum is ripped to shreds. She shows every sign of being anally raped within the last 48 hours. No doubt in my mind about it. Meggan, you need to go to the hospital. You’re bleeding out of your rectum, still."

"No doubt about the anal rape?"

"None."

"Call Salem police, get their cooperation, and nail the scumbag," he said to another officer.

Meggan insisted on waiting to see what happened, assuring the doctor she would go to the hospital later. The cops needed her to identify him, anyway.

They brought him in an hour later. "Meg?" one of the officers asked.

She looked up. "That’s him," was all she said.

Curtis looked up, and saw her there, and exploded. "YOU BITCH! I TOLD YOU! YOU FUCKING BITCH!" The officer at the desk hit the record button on his tape recorder almost immediately. Curtis was still bellowing. "When I get out of here, I will KILL YOU, you BITCH! I will take that knife that you know so well, and cut you into a million fucking PIECES! You think you got it bad now I will shove a hot poker up your cunt, you SLUT! I WILL KILL YOU FOR THIS!"

The sergeant asked the arresting officers, "Was he Mirandized?"

"Of course."

He looked at the desk officer. "You get that on tape?"

"Hit record right after he started."

"And everyone heard it, right?" They all nodded.

Meggan was crying, while Josh tried to calm her down by massaging her shoulders. "Oh, God, I’m dead, he’s going to kill me, I’m dead, I’m dead…."

"Meggan." The officer got her attention. "Meggan, we taped that."

"Huh?"

"Got it on tape. And he had been read his rights, so it’s useable. He just did a very very stupid thing. He gave us a glorious piece of evidence. We’re going to need you to testify when we get to court, but that tape, and the doctor, will help a lot. I’m going to call the prosecutor, and recommend that the scumbag get denied bail. And when the judge hears that tape, I think he’ll go along with it."

"OK. Let me know when the bail hearing is."

"You’d go?"

"Yeah."

"That would help. Judge sees you sitting there, that can only help. But now, go to the hospital."

A cop took her and Josh to the hospital, and made sure she got taken care of. Afterwards, Josh drove her home from the police station. She had a long talk with her parents, which helped a lot.

The bail hearing was two days later. Meggan sat and watched Curtis’s lawyer do all the lawyer doublespeak, trying to get bail set at a reasonable amount. The Sergeant brought the tape, and Curtis’s lawyer tried to object. The judge told him, "If he had been Mirandized, than this is useable. What do you think ‘anything you say can and will be held against you’ means, counselor?"

The tape was played. Even the judge paled. After it was played, he turned to the prosecutor. "Mr. Billings, is the alleged victim in the courtroom?’

"Yes, she is." He turned. "Stand up, Meggan."

The judge gasped. This little, tiny girl was the victim? "What’s your name, sweetheart?" he asked.

"Meggan Carruthers."

"How old are you?"

"Fifteen."

Oh my God, the judge thought to himself. What he said was, "What do you think will happen if I let Mr. Mickens out on bail?"

Meggan said, so matter-of-factly that it made the judge’s heart break, "I’ll be dead, sir."

"You’re convinced of that?"

"That’s why it took me six months to tell anyone about it. If he finds me, he’ll kill me. I’ve known that since the first time he did it."

"Why did you change your mind, and come forward?"

"Because I can’t live like this anymore. I’d rather be dead. If this had gone on much longer, I would have killed myself, anyway." The judge was shocked—Meggan’s tone of voice sounded like she had been discussing a TV show. "I don’t want to die, but I don’t want to be raped anymore. Before I killed myself, I decided, with the help of a friend, that I had to at least try this. If he gets out, I’m dead. But if he doesn’t get out, maybe I can have a real life."

The judge looked at Curtis, and his lawyer. "Bail denied. Lock him up."

Meggan arrived home from school the next day. Her mother smiled at her, and said, "Perfect timing. Phone’s for you."

She took it. "Hello?"

"Meggan? This is John Billings, from the prosecutor’s office."

"Hello, Mr. Billings. What can I do for you?"

"No, it’s what I can do for you. Did you see the coverage of your case in the TV and the newspapers?"

"Yeah, it was kind of embarrassing. It was a topic of conversation at school."

"I can understand why that would be uncomfortable. But it worked.":

"Worked?"

"Two more girls stepped forward, Meggan. You weren’t the only one. We’ve got this guy nailed."

"Oh my God."