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Standing at the foot of her grave, I still couldn’t believe what was plainly happening right in front of me. The burial crew couldn’t care less about my disbelief, though. As inexorable as taxes, they began filling the pit that contained the mortal remains of the woman I loved.
I met Lily while attending one of those “orientation” things that all colleges hold for new students. She was a freshman, and I had just been accepted into the medical school. We hit it off and started dating, and with only a few side-trips, we dated pretty much throughout the next four years, becoming exclusive after that first year.
We both graduated on-time, and she took a job with a local business, while I went on to complete my internship and residencies at the University Hospital. Having graduated, she had to move off-campus. Being an “older” student, I already had an apartment, and so, naturally, she moved in with me.
We weren’t flush with cash, but money wasn’t a particular problem, so eventually we decided to make both sets of parents happy; we went ahead with a wedding. With me still in school, however, and her working full-time, we agreed that having children would have to wait.
It was during the last year of my last residency that something changed. It almost seemed as if the life went out of her, and I couldn’t get her to tell me what was wrong. She became moody and unresponsive, and over time became more and more withdrawn.
I finished my residencies, and although I liked the college town and had several nice offers with local group practices, I decided to take a position with a group in another city in hopes that the move might turn her around. For a while, it seemed to be working, but then her demons returned.
We had been married less than three years, and I was only four months into my new practice in plastic surgery. We were doing okay, financially, with prospects for a brighter future. None of that seemed effective in relieving her depression, though, and one evening I came home just to find her beautiful, cold, dead body lying on the floor in our apartment. She had taken an overdose of a prescription drug that I didn’t even know she possessed.
Her suicide had very nearly resulted in m own. At the time, I couldn’t see any way to continue my life without her, but my cowardice prevented me from following her into death.
Everyone drifted away from the grave, unwilling to watch as the body that was once vibrant with life became entombed in the earth. Everyone, that is, except me, and one other, who loved her almost as much as I did: Nadine Hurst - Lily’s “best female friend“.
Nadine had attended high school with Lily, and they were room-mates in college, until they graduated. She double-majored in Physics and Mathematics, and after finishing her BS, decided to continue on as a graduate student.
She didn’t date much (not for lack of looks - she was a knockout!) , preferring instead to concentrate on her studies and research; while she continued to live in the dorms while she earned her Ph.D. in some obscure branch of Astrophysics… or Cosmology… or something else for which I could never see the attraction.
Anyway, she and Lily continued their friendship even after our wedding, and beyond. Even after we moved away, there was the occasional visit - Nadine would come to stay with us, or Lily would visit her in the dorm. The two kept in almost daily contact, via telephone, although Lily seemed to want to cut me out of those communications, eventually becoming almost furtive about them.
No, it’s not what you’re thinking. Lily really was talking to Nadine. I know this because I pay the phone bill and I saw the long-distance charges It wasn’t that she didn’t want me to know to whom she was talking. It was more like… she had a problem that she felt only Nadine would understand. It did upset me though, that she was willing to confide in Nadine, but not in me.
The circumstances inevitably led me to conclude that I was somehow the crux of her problem, and that didn‘t sit well, either.
Nadine seemed to hang back from the retreating crowd, apparently waiting for me. I felt all cried-out, but I didn’t know whether I could face her without breaking down again. I couldn’t handle much more of the burial though, so I gave up and headed for my car.
In order to get there I had to walk right by her, and as I approached, she opened her arms to hug me. I didn’t really feel like a hug at the time, but it would have been rude to refuse. Besides, I’m a sucker for a woman shedding tears.
I took her in my arms, and held her as she sobbed. I’m ashamed to say that, even in the midst my grief for Lily, my “little soldier” rose to stand at attention. No surprise there. I hadn’t enjoyed “conjugal bliss” for quite a while, because of Lily’s depression, and even with runny makeup and eyes red from crying, Nadine was a beautiful woman.
I tried to separate from her, apologizing, but she would have none of it. Clinging to me, she began to speak.
“Ray, there are some things I have to tell you… things you need to know. She wanted to tell you herself, but could never bring herself to do it.”
This didn’t sound good.
“Nadine, I don’t want to hear anything that would make me think less of my wife. If that’s what you’ve got in mind, forget it.”
“No Ray, I’d never do that, I loved her too… but you need to know what happened, and why it had the effect that it did on her. It wasn’t your fault, and it wasn’t her fault, but bad things happen to good people.”
Both of us knew I’d never be able to rest until I knew the facts, but I still didn’t like where it seemed to be heading.
“All right,” I declared, “Say your piece, but if it even starts to look like a character assassination to me, I’ll leave immediately and we will never speak again!”
She dried her eyes and sniffed, then nodded her head. “We need to find someplace private,” she said. “The only place nearby that fits the bill is your apartment.”
I looked at her stonily, and she said, “We just need to talk. Or at least, I need to talk to you… I have nothing else in mind.” I nodded my agreement and told her to follow me home.
Our apartment lease included two reserved parking spaces in the covered garage. Since I commuted using public transit, we’d never needed a second car, so we had a spare parking space for guests, on those occasions when we had them. As she had often done before, Nadine parked right next to my car, and we entered the elevator lobby together.
While waiting for the elevator, I saw and acknowledged several of my neighbors. I couldn’t help but feel a bit of dark humor. Most of the other tenants in the building were elderly retired people who’d been there for years. They had all met Lily and me at one time or another, and they knew that her funeral was today. It must’ve caused quite a stir among them when they saw me ushering another beautiful young woman into my apartment on the very day I buried my wife!
Entering the apartment, I took her coat, and hung it in the closet. I loosened my tie, and removed and hung my own coat as well.
“Care for a brandy?” I asked. “I need one myself.”
“A small one, if you don’t mind,” she replied. “And help me remember not to drink it too fast, please? This could take a while, and I don’t want to turn into a blubbering mess before it’s done.”
“Okay…” I agreed, pouring her a single and my self a double. “Why don’t we move into the living room and get comfortable?” She followed me into the room and took a seat on the sofa. I gave her the single brandy, and took the chair closest to where she sat.
Settling in, I said, “So start talking.” It was abrupt, but I wasn’t feeling very charitable at the moment.
She nodded somberly, and took a sip of her brandy. “You probably suspect that I know why Lily did it… don’t you?”
“Well, yes. She did confide in you more than in me. It was a major thorn in my side for the last few months… if she‘d told me what was wrong, I might‘ve been able to fix it…”
Nadine shook her head violently, and the tears started up again. “No! There was absolutely nothing either of us could have done! That’s one of the reasons I’m here now… you need to know that you had no part in any blame for her depression!” Regaining control of herself, she went on.
“Let me tell you a story…”
If you can name a negative emotion, I experienced it that day.
Nadine began her tale:
“You already know that while you were in residency and often had to work odd hours, pulling the ‘graveyard shift,’ especially on weekends, Lily and I would usually spend time together. We stayed either at your apartment or, if we wanted to take part in some on- campus activity, in my dorm room. One of those situations occurred a few months before you finished your last residency.
“You had night-shift duty at the University hospital for the entire weekend, and the college Drama Club was doing a production of Romeo and Juliet. Lily wanted badly to see it, and was terribly disappointed that you couldn’t get free. We conferred by telephone, and since you knew she would probably spend the time with me, anyway, I suggested that the two of us go on to see the play. You agreed that it was an acceptable plan, and you gave Lily a lift to my dormitory while on your way to the hospital.
“Neither of us had had dinner, and the curtain was to open on the play a precisely 7:30 PM, so we didn’t have much time to dawdle. We rushed through showers and getting dressed, grabbed sandwiches and sodas at the cafeteria, and barely made it into our seats before the opening lines.
“We enjoyed the play immensely… I guess the Bard hadn’t lost any talent in the past 400- plus years… and chattered about it all the way back to the dorm, and into the late evening, finally settling down to go to sleep just before midnight.
“We hadn’t been asleep long when we were awakened by the sound of screaming girls and the crash of doors being forced open. It seems that on that very night there had been a party going on, not far away, in the dormitory where the varsity athletes were housed. One of the geniuses involved in the party noticed that the ratio of males to females was quite high, and decided that the situation was untenable… so they decided to target the nearby women’s dorm for a panty-raid.
“Now panty-raids come in a variety of flavors. In their most innocuous form, multiple idiots burst into the private rooms of women living in the dorm, rifle through drawers of clothing until they find the desired undergarments, then leave as fast as they can, in order to avoid repercussions. In this type of raid, the consequences to the female targets are usually limited to anger, aggravation, and inconvenience.
“Less commonly, the rules of the raid require that the target panties be removed, not from a drawer, but from a wearer. If that’s as far as it goes, the major additional consequences to the victims are embarrassment, and possible minor abrasions and perhaps bruises. The perpetrators rarely leave the scene unscathed, however, and usually display bruises and deep scratches of their own, or worse, long after the event.
“Rarely, things get really out of hand, and those conducting the raid decide that anything goes. In those cases, really heinous crimes are sometimes committed. My dorm was the target of such a raid.
“When we realized what was happening, we tried bracing the door with furniture from the room, but it wasn’t enough. We were trying to call the police when the door was kicked in, sending the furniture in front of it flying. Six members of the college basketball team came through the door and stared at us, cowering on the far side of the room.
“’Jackpot!’ the ring leader shouted, and his pronouncement was greeted with a chorus of ‘Yeah! White pussy!’ from the other members of the group. He waltzed toward us like he owned the place, and since I was closest to him, he grabbed me first. He pulled me up and pushed me backward into the rest of his group. They grabbed and held me in a standing position.”
I thought I could see where this was heading and I was already seething; ready to take names and kick ass, but Nadine shushed me and said, “There’s a whole lot more. You need to hear the whole thing before you go off half-cocked!”
“Anyway,” she continued flatly, “they raped me. I was wearing baby doll pajamas, and the leader simply tore them off my body. I tried to kick him, and he slapped me so hard I saw stars. The next thing I knew, I was lying on the floor with him between my legs. Two others were holding my arms and legs down so that I couldn’t fight him off. Fortunately, I was still unconscious when he broke my hymen, but that didn’t help me escape all of the pain.
“The next guy decided he didn’t want ‘sloppy seconds,’ and took my mouth instead. He wasn’t gentle. He pulled me up into a sitting position and forced himself down my throat so far, I thought I was going to hurl. It wouldn’t have mattered, though… his prick didn’t leave any room for the vomit to pass. I almost passed out from lack of oxygen before he finished, spurting his scum straight into my stomach.
“I was briefly hopeful that they were done with me. They weren’t. The last guy holding me down apparently hadn’t gotten his, yet. He pushed me over on my stomach, and while his buddies held me down, he lifted my ass and shoved his cock into my pussy from behind. I tried to relax, hoping he would finish up and leave, but, as it turned out, he was only interested in my pussy for lubrication. He didn’t want to hurt himself, when he shoved his cock into my virgin ass. Nobody had prepared me for that, and I wasn’t ready for it. It hurt worse than anything else they had done, and I did pass out again. Briefly.
“When I woke up again, the leader had apparently decided he wanted some of my ass, too. He was already in me, but either he was smaller than the other guy, or I had been stretched out already, because it didn’t hurt as much.
“I heard Lily crying, and I looked across the room. The other three guys were doing to her, pretty much the same things that had been done to me. The guy fucking her at that time had thrown her left leg over his shoulder, and was using his weight to force it almost all the way down to her chest. Meanwhile, he held her right leg down with his right arm, while his buddies kept her arms on the floor.
“From my vantage, I could see his cock pumping into her pussy. He was huge. He probably doesn’t get laid too often, because any normal woman would want nothing to do with him. I know it had to hurt her for him to push that log into her, and if seeing it weren’t enough, hearing her screams would have convinced anyone. Those shits, though, just laughed and kept right on. I tried to move to help her, but with three large guys holding me down, there wasn’t any way.
“We both screamed and cried, but with all the commotion going on as a result of the panty raid, no one outside the room paid us any attention. The guys pretty much just kept fucking both of us until they felt satisfied, then they left. The leader was the last one out the door, and on his way, he reached down to grab our discarded panties off the floor. When he got to the door, he turned around, and with a smirk, said ‘Thanks for the panties.’ Then he left too.”
I was shaking with rage by this time. Some gang of slime bags had violated my wife, not to mention her best friend. I demanded names.
“I’ll tell you everything you want to know, Ray, but you have to hear me out first,” she said calmly.
“I don’t understand how you can be so calm about this,” I asserted. “Even this long after the fact, I would expect that you’d be an emotional wreck. Why didn‘t either you or Lily see fit to tell me? I could have done something, anyway!”
“I was a wreck, for a long time,” she replied, “but I got all cried out. I did what I could do to put myself back together, and eventually it happened. Hold onto your patience, and we’ll get to the answers you want, okay?”
I reluctantly agreed, and she went on.
“After the men left, we eventually regained a small measure of composure. We discussed what we might be able to do. The basketball team was having a winning season, and we knew that it would be fruitless to try and have the school punish the athletes. The local police are pretty much in the Athletic Association’s pocket, so we couldn‘t expect any help from them. Any evidence that they might collect would quickly disappear, and the guys would get off scot-free anyway.
“We also had to consider whether we wanted our names spread all over campus, the town, and the state, in connection with rape. Lily had several other reasons for not wanting to tell you about it, too.” Nadine stopped for a moment, and gave me a sober look. “If I tell you about them, you have to promise me you won’t think badly of her,” she demanded.
“How could I think badly of her for being raped? She was my wife, for God’s sake! She should have told me anyway!”
“I told you she had her reasons,” Nadine replied. “First, and probably of least importance to you, she didn’t want you to do anything that would get you into trouble, and perhaps kill your chances at having your medical career. There was another reason, though, that cut at her very soul.
“You see, even while we were both being assaulted, crying, and fighting as best we could, those guys wouldn’t let up. They weren’t satisfied with violating our bodies - they had to soil our souls as well. The leader of the group apparently knew his way around the female body. He made sure that every time he came, I did too; and, he made sure that each of the other guys did the same thing. Even as she was fighting it, screaming in pain, and crying in rage, Lily came several times. I think the guys had the idea that if they could make us come, we couldn’t claim it was rape.”
“That’s stupid!” I retorted. “Orgasm is a physical response that few people can control. It doesn’t have any import in the question of rape!”
“We knew that, Ray, on an intellectual level. On an emotional level, though, it felt like we had somehow collaborated with our rapists! It was worse in Lily’s case, because it seemed to her that she had betrayed you! Tell me now that you wouldn’t have blamed her, even for a second! I dare you!”
I sat there silently, for a moment, before responding. “You want me to accept her orgasms with those… those slime bags… as normal, and not a betrayal… because she’s human… and yet you want me to ignore my human nature to feel betrayed? You are not being fair to me! Of course I would have been upset about it… but I also understand the facts, and would have gotten over it quickly enough!”
“I wouldn’t have expected anything else, Ray,” she replied. “Neither would Lily… however, it was she and not you who got raped! She was already feeling lower than dirt, and she didn’t need even a moment of hostility from you!
“Anyway, to continue on: we talked and talked and talked, and finally decided that probably the most important thing was to have ourselves checked for STD’s. I also had to be tested for pregnancy, since I wasn‘t on the pill. I was fortunate to have been in the right part of my cycle to avoid that.”
“That explains the dry spell, immediately following that weekend,” I observed, grimly. “I thought she was just pissed off that I’d missed the play; and her morose attitude just seemed to reinforce the idea. I see now that she was only trying to protect me.”
“Yes, she was; and if you’ll remember, it was just about that time that AIDS and HIV had become household words. We couldn’t go to the University Hospital, because you would have found out almost immediately, so we went to the hospital in the next county. She had to wait for tests to come back negative before she could let you love her again. That, and the fact that she could hardly bear the idea of letting you have sex with her, feeling as soiled as she did.
“With no prospect of retribution for those guys, and the rest of my life ahead of me, I decided to get help. I started seeing a therapist twice a week, and tapered off gradually. Now I only see her when I have a really bad relapse. She helped me internalize the fact that the rape wasn’t my fault, and helped me find my self-respect again. Someday, I may even look forward again, to having sex.”
“Why didn’t Lily do the same thing?” I asked.
“She was afraid you’d find out about it, and she felt she had to protect you from your own reactions, just as if she’d told you herself.”
“Any therapist who betrayed her confidence would have lost their license!”
“True, but file clerks, receptionists, and the like are all over the place. Someone would have recognized her, and you would have found out she was seeing a therapist. Don’t try to tell me you wouldn’t have browbeaten her to get the reason!”
“Why didn’t you tell me then? As her best friend, you should’ve wanted to get her help as quickly as possible!”
“I know. I failed her that way; but at the time, I wasn’t thinking clearly either. All I could see was that I would be betraying her confidence in me, and she had very little confidence in anyone at that point. It might have caused her to suicide even earlier. I just don’t know.”
“I guess you’re right. I just feel so impotent about this.”
“Both of us feel that way.”
“I suspect that the shared rape experience was the reason she started being so secretive about conversations between you two…”
“Yes, I suspect so. It seemed to dominate our time, whenever we were together, either in person or on the phone. In a way, I think I was trying to do for her what my therapist did for me. Obviously, I wasn’t very effective.”
We both sat silently for a while, looking at our fingers in order to avoid looking at each other. My mind was racing. I couldn’t let go of the fact that some bunch of assholes had placed so little value on the girls’ humanity, that they felt it was perfectly fine to commit rape. I was not only angry with the perpetrators, I was angry at the establishment that protected those slime bags at the expense of their victims. Outwardly, I remained calm, but I knew I had to even up the scales.
“The guest room is available,” I told Nadine, “if you don’t want to be alone tonight.”
“How would that look to your neighbors?” she queried with a sad little half-smile.
“Who gives a shit?” I shot back. “It’s none of their business. We’re still friends, aren’t we? In case it wasn’t clear, I didn’t ask you to share my bed, which is still warm from Lily’s body. There is another, perfectly good bed in the guest room, which you can have all to yourself for the night, or for as long as you need or want it.”
“Ray,” she said carefully, as she got up and walked over to me, “Sex wasn’t even on my mind. It’s a non-starter for a variety of reasons right now, not the least of which is, even if I could go through with it, I’d still feel like I was betraying Lily. I know you would too. As innocent as your offer is, I just don’t think that staying overnight would be such a great idea. Too many people that we know would have too much to say about it.
“Besides, you know I’ve always had a crush on you, and as much as I need to be held and comforted at this moment, I also fear the possibilities. I don’t want to feel that I’m taking advantage of you, if we ever develop a closer relationship, and I don’t want to simply become a replacement for Lily, either.”
I was shocked that the idea had even occurred to her. On the other hand, circumstances would lend themselves to the conclusions she pointed out. It wouldn’t do any good to argue the points, though, and it might cost me a friend, so I decided to ride it out.
“All right then,” I replied. “How about dinner? Surely two long-term friends can have a meal together without bringing down the moral outrage of everyone we know.” She agreed, and we left the apartment to have a nice quiet dinner at a somewhat posh restaurant.
While we were out, I suggested that we keep in touch, perhaps sharing a meal on a regular basis, in order to provide mutual support for each other. She agreed to that as well. When we returned to my apartment, I walked her to her car, and gave her a chaste kiss before sending her off, much as I had done many times when Lily was alive.
As she drove away, I realized that she hadn’t yet told me the names of the athletes involved in the rape. No matter. I would find out soon enough, and then I would collect my pound of flesh from each of them. I had much to do though, before that happened.