Running Rings Page 2

  Rachel nodded, “Were you expecting to be rescued?”

  “I was hoping my dad would come. I didn’t want him to see me naked. He’s old fashioned and so was I, I never got naked. Not even for the man I loved. Never. I thought I could wear the sheet, just so Dad didn’t see me without my clothes.”

  “So you didn’t know he wasn’t coming back?” Lou asked.

  “What do you mean?” Verity asked, taking another tissue from the box.

  Rachel and Lou looked at each other. “Your father is deceased,” Lou said, looking back at Verity.

  “What?”

  “He had a heart attack in February. He was taken to hospital and he died,” Lou said.

  “No,” Verity said, “No, that can’t be true.”

  “I’m afraid it is,” Rachel said, “I’m very sorry.”

  Verity looked up at the ceiling and both her hands came to her face. “I don’t even know what month it is. I can’t add up. I’m so good with numbers, but I can’t figure out the date.”

  “It’s May fourteen. Your father died on February sixteen and notifications were made on February eighteen.”

  “The first time he raped me,” Verity whispered.

  “I’m sorry for your loss,” Rachel said, “Sounds like Farmer knew your father was dead. A notification was made to your address. We’re going to investigate those circumstances, and also see if he’s done anything fraudulent with your father’s bank accounts.”

  “We still haven’t found him, but we will,” Lou said, “He escaped on foot and everyone is looking for him. It’s a high priority.”

  Verity nodded. She was still trying to comprehend that her father was gone forever. She didn’t know if there had been a funeral or if he’d been buried somewhere or cremated. Her mother hadn’t tried to contact her. She didn’t even know where her mother was now. Maybe she was dead too. She was completely alone in the world. She made the shift from sad to determined, and folded her arms. “I don’t know how much detail you want about what happened. I don’t know what I’m supposed to say to you. I was so sore that it felt like I was being penetrated by broken glass. Sometimes he’d squeeze lubricant into me before he started, but it was for his benefit not for mine. I couldn’t feel anything sometimes. Some days I was so hungry I ate tissues or toilet paper just to have something to chew. I didn’t have anything to kill myself with otherwise I might have. I didn’t want to live like that.” Verity now felt hopeless and suicidal thoughts crept into her mind.

  “I’ve personally never dealt with such a severe case, Verity,” Rachel said, “I don’t know what we can do for you. I don’t know how we can help you heal and get through this, but there are a lot of people willing and able to support you and help you recover.”

  “Or I could just kill myself now and save everyone the trouble.”

  “The man that did this to you will be arrested,” Rachel said, “Are you going to let him win? Are you going to let him take more from you, Verity? Are you going to let him take your life, on top of everything else he’s taken from you?”

  Verity shook her head, “No.”

  “Good,” Rachel said, “I’m going to let you be for now. I didn’t know that you weren’t aware about your father’s passing. I’m sorry that you were advised the way you were. Here’s my card. I’m available night and day to talk about anything you want to talk about.”

  Verity nodded and folded her arms. “I’m sorry I’m not better company. I haven’t seen many people this year, and I don’t have any friends.”

  “Do you need a hug?” Rachel asked.

  Verity swallowed and nodded. Rachel moved to the top of the bed and put her arms out. Verity leaned forward into Rachel’s arms and put her head on her shoulder. She couldn’t help but cry. Rachel gently rubbed her back and told her she was okay now.

  “Rach, they got him,” Lou said, holding up his phone.

  “Who? They got who?” Rachel replied, still holding onto Verity.

  “Farmer, Ray Farmer, they’ve picked him up,” Lou said, “Here’s another one from Stokes, says ‘fat bastard in custody, happy he resisted’.”

  “Hey, hear that?” Rachel said, moving back and rubbing Verity’s shoulder, “They have him. He’s in custody. He’s ours now and he won’t get away with this. Are you consenting to releasing the photos and DNA evidence to us?”

  “Yes, yes, definitely,” Verity replied, “He’s locked up. Oh, that’s so good. I don’t want him to get the chance to do this to someone else. Don’t let him do that, don’t let him put anyone else through this, please?”

  “He won’t,” Lou said, “We’ll recommend that he’s remanded to custody while we investigate.”

  “Please, don’t let him get away with this, Rachel,” Verity said, taking Rachel’s hand and looking up at her, “Don’t let him out, and don’t let him tell you that it didn’t happen.”

  “We won’t. I can’t wait to see what you’re supposed to look like,” Rachel said, patting her hand.

  “I’m not supposed to be blonde. I didn’t want to be blonde.”

  “It’ll grow out,” Rachel said, “Maybe we can have the hospital arrange to dye it back for you, and make you feel better. I’m going to go to your home now and check it out. We had Officers waiting outside to see if he came back but no one has been in. I want to go in myself, because I heard your story and I believe every word you’ve said. I know that when I go there, everything is going to be exactly as you said it was.”

  “I’m sorry,” Verity said, looking down at herself.

  “For what?” Lou asked.

  “My room isn’t very nice. It’s usually a lot nicer than that. I think it smells bad because the window wouldn’t open and I didn’t get clean sheets. I couldn’t feel anything down there sometimes and I might have wet the bed. I’m sorry.”

  Rachel shook her head, “You have nothing to be sorry about. This is a heinous crime, Verity. We’re on your side. Is there anything I can do for you right now?”

  “I don’t want to live there anymore, but I want some things. I hope my pictures are still there. Those pictures mean everything to me. There are some special items that I hid in my room too and I hope they’re still there because I need them.”

  Chapter 2

  Verity walked slowly down to the room she had been directed to and didn’t know what to expect. There were no doubt going to be tears and ugly stories. She didn’t understand how this was supposed to make her feel better, and she had no idea what was going to be behind the door. She opened the door slowly and there were two other women sitting in there on chairs. She pulled her second hospital gown across herself, feeling self-conscious because they were looking at her. She sat down and felt obliged to speak. “I only came in a few days ago,” Verity said, “I’m sorry about my face. I don’t know what it looks like, but I hear it’s bad, and I don’t have any make-up to put on.” She felt the tears forming. Verity was surprised to see thighs appearing either side of hers. Both women had made it across the room to sit either side of her and put their arms around her. Their touch was making her flood gates wanted to breach and any minute now she might cry, a lot.

  The door opened and a woman came in, “I see you’ve met each other.”

  “Not really, but this poor girl’s face,” one woman said.

  “How old is she? Fifteen?” the other woman added.

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

  The woman who had come in the door walked over and stood in front of them, “Verity, I don’t think you should be here. I think it’s too soon for you. You still have medical issues that need attention.”

  “Dr Macarthur took my drips off and told me to come down,” Verity said.

  “Are you sure you’re okay to be here? If it’s too much, you can go at any time.”

  “I’ll see how I go,” Verity said. She’d seen groups like this on television drama shows and knew what she was supposed to do next. “Hi, I’m Verity and I was raped about a hu
ndred times.”

  “A hundred?” the woman next to her asked.

  “Hello, my name is Christine and I’m a rape counsellor. I wish that my job didn’t exist. I wish rape didn’t happen. But it does. Verity is an extreme case of abuse and neglect. I don’t want you, Zahra, or you, Nicole, to feel that what happened to you is any less significant because of what Verity has been through and how she currently looks.”

  Verity looked at her bony hands and broken nails. She hadn’t been brave enough to look in a mirror yet but three nurses had already told her how awful she looked today. “Hi Zahra, Hi Nicole,” Verity said, “And hi Christine.”

  They all said ‘hi’ and Christine sat down in a chair nearby “You’re all here because you’re victims of rape. You don’t want to be a victim, but you are. And the reason you’re here is to try to move beyond the victim mentality and to regain some control. Rape causes a loss of power and a loss of dignity, and sometimes you can develop an emotional numbness as you try to deny what’s happened. Sometimes you will have mood changes, mental health issues in the form of anxiety or fear or depression, and you may even feel angry or isolated. All of these are signs of trauma. They’re perfectly common in what you’ve experienced and with help they can hopefully improve. The first thing I want you to know is that I believe you. The second thing I want you to know is that you are not responsible for what happened to you. I’m not going to force you to tell your story, I’m not going to push you into anything, but I’m here. I’ve been through rape myself, so I know some of what you’re going through.”

  Verity looked at the two women beside her and they looked at her. No one seemed to want to start. There was at least a minute of silence.

  “Am I ever going to want to have sex again?”

  Everyone looked at the woman who had spoken. It was Zahra. Verity thought she was very attractive. She had black curly hair, brown skin and big brown eyes. Verity thought her full cheeks and lips were beautiful, and shook her head at the thought that someone had hurt her.

  “Yes, one day,” Christine said, “It took me about eight months. When you see sex as an act of aggression, of pain, of ugliness, it can be very hard to break that view. Enjoying sex with someone you care about can be difficult, because you may feel guilty for enjoying sex when you had such a horrible sexual experience. What helped me was to take the sex out of it. To remove the sex from the equation and focus on the fact that I was violated, assaulted, mistreated, and that I didn’t deserve it.”

  Verity watched Christine’s hand gestures and her conviction. She wanted to get to where Christine was, and to do that she had to talk this through. She took a deep breath and looked at Christine. “I already feel angry. I feel cheated and I find myself generalising to the whole male population. And I know that’s wrong, so wrong, but that’s how I feel. I was never afraid of men, never. I never walked around thinking I had to shield my girl parts from a sudden attack. This came out of nowhere. From someone I knew, someone my father knew, and he was a monster.”

  “It’s not wrong,” Christine said, handing her a box of tissues and sitting down again, “It’s not wrong at all. It’s a starting point. Generalising is a starting point and it shows that you don’t blame yourself and that you’re alert to the fact that danger does exist. Sometimes danger exists in the most unlikely places, but it’s there. So it’s not wrong. But if you can, tell me about your ideal man. Tell me about a man you trust.”

  “There’s no one,” Verity said, “There used to be someone but he abandoned me.”

  “Okay, that’s another issue we can work on together, but what was he like? What did you like about him? What made him ideal?” Christine asked.

  “We were in love with each other. We both lived on campus at the university together to do our degree interstate. It was a big move, but out of those thousands of people we found each other,” Verity said.

  “And did you have a sexual relationship?” Christine asked.

  Verity felt herself smiling inside, “Not straight away. We were best friends. We kissed and hugged and fooled around a little. We lost our virginity together on his eighteenth birthday and it was amazing. It was better than I thought it was going to be.”

  “My first time was lousy,” Nicole said, “It was over in two minutes and afterwards he left the room and told everyone we’d done it. I cried for like an hour. Not because it hurt. He only had a tiny penis. But I was fifteen and I was just so disappointed with sex that I saw no point in it. I’d lost my virginity and it was nothing. Then I found a man who had a lot of passion and he would serenade me and make sex a big deal every time.”

  “That’s good,” Christine nodded, “So you learned that sex was different with different people and that it wasn’t always going to be either good or bad.”

  Verity thought about her first time again. She closed her eyes and pictured him above her, nervously edging forward and making funny faces at the sensations. His messy brown hair and still wearing his singlet top. She was edging her nightdress only as high as it needed to be because she was nervous about him seeing her naked. They had no idea what they were doing. She laughed out loud and opened her eyes. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I was thinking about my first time.”

  “What else was good about that man?” Christine asked, “What makes him the ideal man in your view?”

  “As a man? I don’t know really. I always just saw him as who he was, not a man, just him. He was funny, and he wasn’t the least bit superficial, and he was kind. He’d open doors for people and pick up things people dropped even if he had to chase after them to give it back and he’d climb a tree to put a baby bird back in its nest. He was just a really nice person. He was someone who liked to laugh and never take things too seriously. I was panicking about deadlines and exams and he’d be laid back chewing on something, like the end of a pen or a blade of grass, like he didn’t have a care in the world.”

  “But he abandoned you,” Zahra said.

  “Maybe he has a reason,” Verity shrugged, “But the man I knew was someone who really understood me and who I eventually felt was a part of me, the missing part, and who I never thought I could live without.”

  “But you have lived without him,” Christine said, “So you know that you don’t need a man to feel alive.”

  Verity looked at her hands, “If he’d been here this wouldn’t have happened.”

  “You’re blaming him for your rape?” Christine asked.

  Verity folded her arms, “If he was here, it wouldn’t have happened. We would have been living together. That’s what we said we were going to do. If we were living together, I wouldn’t have been living with my dad, I would have been living with him, and this wouldn’t have happened. But he disappeared out of my life.”

  “This is interesting, and not uncommon. It’s encouraging to see that you don’t blame yourself for being assaulted, but your blame has now shifted from the man who attacked you to all men to your ideal man. You need to shift that blame back to the man who attacked you and not to your ideal man. He’s your beacon of hope and your reminder that there are good men in the world.”

  “I cried for him to come and save me, but he never came,” Verity said, “I looked at his picture, into his eyes and I told him I loved him and I missed him. I thought about things he said to me and things we did together and I laughed. So, yes, he was my beacon of hope.”

  “All the men I’ve been with are all about the sex. They think because of my body shape that I must like a lot of sex or because they have some kind of fantasy about women with African heritage, I don’t know. I’m dreading taking this to court and having all my details dragged out and being asked questions about my sex life. I think it sucks. I know they can’t just take my word for it but why would a woman claim to be raped if she wasn’t? I don’t want money or publicity or anything, I just want him to know that what he did was wrong and hope he never does it again,” Zahra said.

  “He filmed me,” Nicole said, “He film
ed himself raping me and shared it with all his friends. They’ve all seen me naked now. I’ll never be able to look at anyone the same way.”

  “Wasn’t it one of his friends who took the video to the Police?” Christine asked.

  Nicole nodded, “Yeah, so now the Police have seen it too. Everyone has seen it. I bet they got off on it too. I bet they liked seeing me crying and begging him to stop because he was hurting me.”

  “But there was a man amongst his friends who didn’t think it was okay. There was a man who knew it was wrong and he took it to the Police because he believed it was a criminal act.”

  Nicole nodded, “That’s true, Christine, but there were a lot who didn’t. And now that it’s on the worldwide web, it will be there forever.”

  Verity looked down at herself and back at Christine. “I’d really like some clothes. I didn’t have any clothes for three months. I feel naked. I’d really like some clothes,” she mumbled.

  “You were naked for three months?” Nicole asked, “I was naked for eight minutes in that video. Three months?”

  Verity nodded, “He took my clothes, and I was locked in my room.”

  “Fuck,” Nicole said, “What was he like? The man who did this, what was he like? Was he attractive like Tyson? Tyson is the man who raped me. I thought he liked me, but he didn’t. He just wanted to rape me and make a video. He was good looking, like super good looking, and I got sucked in. Was your attacker like that?”

  “No,” Verity said, “He was in his fifties and very average looking with a beer belly.” Verity’s hands began shaking as she put her arms across herself. “My arm still hurts.”

  Christine stood up and came to Verity, “Where does it hurt?”

  “Just here,” Verity said, looking at her bruised arms, “I didn’t know I had so many bruises. I didn’t look at myself in the mirror because I don’t know what to expect. I know I’m a lot thinner than I used to be, I can see that.”

  “I don’t think you should be here, Verity. I think you should take more time to heal physically before you try to deal with the emotional part,” Christine said, “Have you had x-rays?”