Running Rings

  Running Rings

  Ruth G Juliano

  Author’s note

  All books in the Ruthless Beings World are rated 18+ and are intended to be read by adults. The books contain sexual content, and subject matter that some readers may find uncomfortable. This book in particular deals with sexual assault, which is not a ‘nice’ topic but it is unfortunately a common occurrence. Sexual assault is a crime. It is dealt with in the book as a crime. The main character in this book is seeking to regain power over her life and her body. It is a journey that for some sexual assault victims may never be complete. Compassion for your fellow humans can go a long way. Love. Always love.

  Ruth G Juliano

  © 2016 Ruth G Juliano. All rights reserved.

  Her hands were shaking so much that the flowers would start falling out of the bouquet soon. She took a deep breath and nodded to her father. He walked her down the aisle and she stared straight ahead looking at the finishing line. He was there and he turned to face her. He smiled, and he looked amazing, but it didn’t help. Her hands were still shaking. Her father lifted her veil and kissed her cheek and nodded to the Minister. She stood looking at the Minister as he opened his mouth and talked about marriage according to the Bible.

  “I don’t believe in God,” she uttered.

  The Minister stopped mid-word and looked at her. The crowd began muttering. She looked at her father. Her father looked at her mother. They both looked back at her. She threw the bouquet on the floor, hurried back down the aisle and pushed the church doors open. She breathed in the cool afternoon air and wanted to cry. She opened her eyes and he was standing there.

  “Where are you going, baby?”

  “I love you and I want to be with you forever, but this is ridiculous.”

  “We’ve been planning this for years. Why didn’t you say anything before?”

  “I want to commit to you, I do. I want to be your wife, but we don’t go to church. Half of the people here don’t go to church. Why do we have to declare our love in front of God if we don’t think we need His blessing? This is bullshit. It’s a big act. Why?”

  He laughed and put his top teeth into his bottom lip. He shook his head. “I want you to legally be my wife and I don’t care how it happens. If we can rustle up a celebrant right now, or catch up on the marriage part in a registry office on Monday, then fine. We have the reception centre ready and all our friends are here.”

  “Are you sure you want to marry me? I just made an arse of myself in front of a hundred of our closest friends and relatives.”

  “All the more reason to marry you,” he said.

  She laughed, “Okay, do you want to go back in and tell them to meet us at the reception joint?”

  “Just let me see if I can find a celebrant on really short notice. We can do it out here. It’s kind of nice out here, don’t you think?”

  “I like the shape of the church door,” she shrugged, “Not so sure about all the people peering at me through it, but I do like the door.”

  “Excellent, just give me a couple of minutes.”

  “What do you think of my dress?” she asked.

  “Gorgeous,” he replied with an approving nod.

  She laughed and put her hands over her face.

  * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

  Chapter 1

  Verity looked up at the hospital ceiling. It was off-white and the air conditioning vents were dirty. She was trying to look anywhere other than at the nurse who was attending to her and asking her how she felt.

  “We have counsellors available.”

  “I don’t want to see anyone,” Verity whispered. The tears started rolling down her cheeks and she swatted them away defiantly and folded her arms.

  “I know what you’ve been through.”

  Verity looked out the window, “No, you don’t. You don’t know anything. They think it was just one attack. This isn’t just one time.”

  “So you know who did this to you?”

  “Of course I do,” Verity said.

  “Sorry. I just came on shift. There’s a Police Officer outside who wants to speak with you,” the nurse said.

  “How do I look?” Verity asked.

  The nurse put her head down, “I’m sorry. Like I said, I know you were assaulted and I can’t imagine how terrified you must have been. If you’re up for making a statement, I can let the Officer in.”

  “Do you have any idea what yesterday was like for me? Do you know how I’ve been treated here? The photographing and the probing and the swabs and not even giving me clothes, do you know what that was like? Do you know what it’s like to be staring at bright lights overhead, and to have strange men and women talking at you and touching you? I know you all have a job to do, I know I was being assessed, but you don’t know what that was like unless you’ve had it happen to you. Offering to sedate me because I’m upset? Do you think that knocking me out so that people could do what they liked to me without my objections would be helpful? Then they did it anyway.”

  “You needed treatment and it couldn’t be done while you were awake. They were trying to look after you, but on behalf of the hospital, I’m sorry if it was traumatic,” the nurse said.

  “Me too,” Verity replied.

  The nurse left the room and a male and a female Police Officer entered the room. “Hi, Miss Sharpe, my name is Rachel, and this is Lou. We need to talk to you about what happened yesterday.”

  “I have to go through it again,” Verity said, “Relive it in detail.”

  “I understand that it’s extremely traumatic, but this was a serious crime and we need to get charges laid as soon as possible.”

  “Now it’s a crime?” Verity asked, folding her arms, “I reported this man to the Police already. I reported that he raped me in my own bed and they did nothing. They couldn’t tell me where I could go or what I could do or how to get him out of my home. That was my only chance. After that I was held prisoner in my bedroom, and I called the Police for help and you did nothing. It became a crime when someone finally heard my cries for help. The cries I’d been making for months.”

  “I’ll investigate your previous contact with the Police, but I can assure that I’ll be doing everything I can to get justice for you,” Rachel replied.

  “Where’s the justice? What justice? That animal abused my body for months, and I can’t get that time back, I can’t undo his horrible treatment of my body, I can’t say I’ve never been pregnant. There is no justice and there never will be. Treat him the same. Treat him how he treated me. Maybe there’s some fairness in that, but where is the justice for me?”

  “He’ll go to prison and have his liberties taken from him,” Rachel said, “He’ll have a permanent criminal record and go on a sex offender’s register.”

  “Or he’ll get off with nothing. I’ll get told it’s my own fault, and that I was wearing the wrong clothes or saying the wrong words or that I did this to myself.”

  “You have a very jaded view of justice,” Lou said.

  “Do you blame me? I walked into the Police Station and told them what he did to me the first time, and they started straight away with the whole was I drinking, what was I wearing, did I say no, and all that. They didn’t want to hear it. They didn’t want to do the paperwork probably, but if they’d done something then I wouldn’t have been held hostage.”

  “I know you’ve only been here about thirty hours,” Rachel said, “I know that you’re in desperate need of medical attention and a lot of things, but I want you to know that people do care about what happened to you. Mistakes were made, and they can’t be unmade.”

  “Nobody cares about me,” Verity replied, “I’ve got no one. No one cares.”

  “They do, Verity.
You were reported missing. Someone tried,” Rachel said.

  “I was?” Verity asked. She almost wanted to smile.

  Rachel nodded, “Do you answer to the name ‘Kate’?”

  “It’s my middle name.”

  “You were reported as absent from duty from a job in the Roads and Maritime Authority,” Rachel said, handing Verity a piece of paper, “Is this you?”

  Verity read the description and nodded, “Yes, it is. Someone cares. I don’t believe it.”

  “They were concerned about your wellbeing. You weren’t answering your phone for a week and you didn’t show up for your job,” Rachel said.

  “I didn’t get a chance to show up to my job. I’m surprised that they reported this,” Verity said, running her finger down the side of the paper, “It’s stupid how much this means to me, even if nothing happened with it.”

  “Actually, Lou, do you have something to say?” Rachel asked.

  “The Police did follow up the call, Miss,” Lou said, “I went to the address and spoke with a man who advised that you were fine and that you’d gone on holiday.”

  Verity nodded. There wasn’t anything else she could do. Someone had cared enough to contact the Police, the Police had cared enough to go there, but that’s where it ended. She was only metres away in Hell, and no one knew.

  Rachel moved closer, “I’d like to take a statement from you while it’s fresh. In your own words, could you please tell us about the circumstances leading up to yesterday morning when you were located by Mrs Rolands? With your permission I can record the conversation, so there is no doubt at all about what you said and what we asked.”

  Verity nodded. She took a sip of the water on the table in front of her and rested back on the pillow. She told the Police that her parents had divorced without telling her and she never got to go to her family home when she came home from residing at university in Victoria. She went instead to live with her father. Her father was travelling a lot to do training and sales, and it seemed like a good arrangement. He had purchased a large three bedroom apartment and it had nice views and she had her own bedroom and bathroom. Her father said that he was having a friend move in, a border, someone he knew from work who needed somewhere. When she met him he seemed nice. He was around her father’s age and very quiet. He spent a lot of time away from the apartment, and the rest of the time in his room. Verity had applied for work and done a few interviews and successfully obtained a position due to start in three weeks. Then her father went away. He said that he’d be back in six weeks. Verity was fine with it. Her father had always gone away for periods of time with his work, and he made a lot of money. She would go to work and go home and have her own television in her room, and she knew the man would be paying his own way.

  “So there were no concerns this man was dangerous, or he was someone you shouldn’t be alone with?” Rachel asked.

  “Not until about two weeks after my father left. Ray made me dinner and he set the table and he had wine. I declined red wine because it tastes furry to me, but we talked about current affairs. We had a friendly chat while I did the dishes and I went into my room to watch a movie. I turned it off when it finished and I went to sleep.”

  “Doesn’t sound like there were any issues,” Lou said.

  Verity gave a snort of contempt, “Not until I woke up with him pulling my underwear off.”

  “Please be as specific as you can about the circumstances,” Rachel said.

  “I was sleeping in the middle of my double bed, wearing a night dress and underwear, and there was someone in my room taking my underwear from me. As I opened my mouth to scream my underwear went into my mouth. Next thing I had a knee on my abdomen and one on my left arm and tape was going across my cheeks and over my mouth. Then he was on top of me holding my hands above my head and trying to force my legs apart. He was using his hand to try to get inside me and I was struggling and struggling but he was bigger than me and I couldn’t do anything.”

  “Did he say anything to you?”

  “He called me a ‘fat slut’ and told me to be grateful I was getting some.”

  “And did he penetrate you?” Rachel asked.

  Verity nodded.

  “That was a ‘yes’. Was he wearing protection?”

  Verity shook her head.

  “That was a ‘no.’ Do you know roughly how long the assault lasted?”

  “About twenty minutes,” Verity said.

  “And when it was over, did he say anything?”

  “He told me I was a lousy fuck and to do better next time,” Verity said, putting her head down.

  “What happened then?”

  “He left my room and I felt frozen. I wanted to take the gag off and I couldn’t even move my arms down from above my head. It took me a while to be able to move. When I could, I locked my door, and got my phone and took photos of the gag before I took it off. I went into my bathroom and took swabs with cotton buds and put them in a snap lock bag. Then I sat in the bottom of the shower crying.”

  “How old are you?” Lou asked.

  “I’m twenty two, I think,” Verity replied.

  “Why did you take swabs?” Lou asked.

  “That’s what they do in the movies,” Verity replied, “They always need DNA evidence. I tried to get it. It was a lot less invasive than what was done to me by the hospital.”

  “So what happened after you showered?”

  “I slept inside the bathroom in front of the locked door. I didn’t mean to fall asleep there, but I was tired. When the morning sun came in, I got dressed and went straight out the front door of the apartment to the nearest Police Station to report the incident.”

  “Did you return to your apartment?”

  “I tried calling my parents. I couldn’t get through to either of them. I sat at the bus stop for a long time and then I went home. I decided that I would just pack what I needed and go to a hotel. When I went home, I kept my mobile phone in my hand in case I needed to call the Police but there was no one there. I went into my room and locked the door to pack my bags. I didn’t want to be there. I had to go. I didn’t know if he’d fled or if he’d come back, but I just didn’t want to be there.”

  “So you were packing your bags?” Rachel asked.

  Verity shook her head. “I had the bag, and I put it on the bed and I opened my top drawer where my underwear was but the drawer was empty. I looked in all the other drawers and they were empty. My clothes were gone.”

  “What did you think about that?”

  “I didn’t understand why my clothes were gone, and then I heard a noise. I couldn’t understand what the noise was at first. Then I realised it was a drill and it sounded close by. I went to the door and it was louder. I didn’t know what the drill was doing. I thought maybe he’d come back and was trying to take off the door knob with the drill. The door knob wasn’t moving but I thought that’s what he was doing. I took my phone and went into the bathroom and locked the door. I sat against it and I phoned the Police. I told them that I was in my house and I was scared and to send someone. I gave them the address and they said they’d come over.”

  “Did you find out what he was doing with the drill?”

  “Yes, he told me he’d attached a latch to my door that he could put a padlock through. He told me it was now up to him where I went and what I did. I was still locked in the bathroom and wondering when the Police were coming but it was getting dark. I slowly opened the bathroom door and he was there, and he threatened me with the drill. He took my phone, and demanded the clothes I was wearing. He then broke the knob off my bathroom door and left. I tried opening the window but they’d been fixed shut with screws and nails. I got a towel from the bathroom and put it on, and I couldn’t understand what was happening. I just didn’t understand.”

  “When did you realise what was happening?”

  “He came back in later and I was lying on the bed, and he told me we were going to have sex. I told him ‘no’ and he began h
itting me and then I don’t remember. All the days became a blur but I marked them on the wall behind the bathroom door with lipstick. There were eighty four; I remember eighty four, because I just needed one more to make another gate. But the sex was more often than the days because it was every night without fail and sometimes mornings too.”

  Rachel sighed, “We were under the impression it was just one time. Just one really, really, bad time, that was right up until I saw you. I can see that it’s been a while. I can see how your hair and skin look. You weren’t looked after in between being assaulted, were you?”

  “I had no clothes, he took the towels too, and the sheets stayed on, the same sheets the whole time. I had to ask for food. I wrote down when I ate. That’s on the side of my dresser near the wall.”

  “How many times do you think it was?”

  “Two lines short of six gates.”

  “And there are five lines per gate?” Rachel asked.

  Verity nodded.

  “So you only ate twenty eight times in those three months?” Rachel asked, “How much do you weigh, Verity?”

  “Sixty kilograms,” Verity said.

  Rachel looked puzzled and took the chart from the end of the bed. “No, Verity, you weigh thirty two kilograms.”

  Verity looked at her hands, “That’s why I have so many bones.”

  Rachel sighed again, “Did he ever kiss you? Was he ever nice to you or gentle with you?”

  “No, he said I was a slut and I was only good for one thing. And he hit me a lot.”

  “How did you find out you were pregnant?”

  “I had morning sickness, and my period hadn’t come. I had nothing to vomit. It always came out thick and yellow and it burned. I was so tired but I fought him every time. I begged and I pleaded and I apologised, all day and all night, even when he wasn’t there. When the sun came up I went to the toilet and I made another mark. I wasn’t sure when my last sunrise would be, but I knew it was coming and I started hoping it would come soon.”