Brie understood his reasoning and despite her inner doubts, she felt as if he was a man she could trust and confide in. “Michael is there a way to tell if you are a virgin or not?” The question escaped before she could stop it. “I mean what if you were drugged or something, how could you tell if you had been raped or not?”
As he looked at her in shock, she found herself thinking of Greg, the person who had been her friend all her life. How that day when they had been sitting under the bleachers, drinking soda and eating pizza. He had been her friend; she had no way of knowing what he had been intending to do. As she tried to remember for the millionth time what had eluded her for two years, she felt that same urge to vomit. All she could ever remember was waking up and being under those bleachers in the dark, her shirt and jeans stripped away, and her body covered in all kinds of food. Food that had been smeared into her body and beside her, her cell phone, with a video recorded on it.
As he stood up she thought he was leaving her but instead; he held out a hand and looked back at her. “Hold that thought luv, which way to the bathroom?”
When he came back he picked up her cup of coffee and took a long drink before looking at her then sitting back on the bed with her. “Now tell me exactly why you asked me such a question? Was it hypothetical or are you hiding something that no one else knows Brie?” He was looking at her closely and she saw the concern in his eyes as he drew her close and held her tight. “Tell me who hurt you so badly Brie…you can trust me.”
She told him the story of the day and of the video on her phone. When he asked if she still had it, she directed him to her computer, and the file she kept it under. In the past two years, she had watched it enough to have memorized it and still didn’t know if it was a dream or a bad joke. Somehow Greg had suspended the phone and it showed him smearing her with the food and then moving on top of her. When it was over, he looked laughingly in the camera and told her words that haunted her still, and she began to vomit even as she heard Michael cursing and turning off the computer.
“Where is he Fire Queen, at least tell me he went to jail for that?” There was hardness in his voice that didn’t fit him somehow.
She shook her head. “I was so ashamed of it; I just went home and cleaned up. I never saw him again after that and he never called or tried to contact me so I just let it go. What else could I do, let him tell everyone what he had done? I don’t even know if he was actually in me or not. I know there’s supposed to be blood and pain but I didn’t feel any pain and I was on my period so how could I tell the difference?”
When Michael tried to pull her close again she resisted and began to cry. That gave him a chance to pull her to him and hold her until she was drained. “No one has seen that before now have they, not your family or anyone?” She thought how beautiful his voice sounded so full of concern and even a touch of fear for her, not for himself.