by Adore Ian
Each word is slimy and greasy, and it sets off a chain reaction inside me. Adrenaline trips the breaker on my fainting and my body comes back online like the power in Jurassic Park.
I’m a live wire of fear and blinding rage as Frank drags me into the darkness between two cars. Every self-defense move I’ve learned comes back to me and I don’t think. Just react.
I hook my leg around his and wrench his top thumb back as violently as possible. He loses his hold around my torso and I hit the ground running—but not before I elbow him in the goddamn face. Something crunches, Frank screeches.
I take off at a dead run. Eyes fixed on the complex door.
Most assailants won’t chase you, but Frank is in the slim percentage of predators that will give chase. I dart through the darkness, unable to spare breath enough to scream. Which is weird because I feel like the fucking Terminator. I’m powered up like Sailor Moon and as lethal as Michonne from The Walking Dead.
Halfway to the complex, Frank’s footsteps pound up behind me. He grabs a fistful of my hair and dress then yanks. My body halts violently and I tumble backward off my feet. The collar of my dress tears and I hit the ground. Hard.
At once every ounce of air is forced from my lungs. My vision blurs, stars pop. I don’t lose consciousness, but I’m momentarily stunned.
It’s all the opportunity Frank needs.
He pins my legs with his weight. His forearm comes at my neck to cut off my air, but I manage to tuck my chin before he presses down—just as Damian taught me.
Backlit by the street lamp, Frank’s nothing but an obscure, dark figure. He wipes blood from his broken nose onto the back of his shirt sleeve.
“This looks familiar. You know how hard it was to get you alone on Thanksgiving? Most I ever did to wet myself on a dumb whore like you.”
“Get off me, Asshole.”
“Keeping your mom away was easy, though. Just took the right amount of manipulation.” He grabs my chin hard enough to bruise. “Now stay still and be quiet, I’ll make sure you enjoy this, too.”
I don’t have space to process what he’s saying because his knees slide between my legs. I move. Hooking my left leg around his neck and locking that foot behind my right knee. I pull on his arm and he crashes to the side. I crush my legs together, choking him. He beats and pulls at my thighs to no avail. I only crush harder.
I’m pretty sure I’m screaming for Damian, cursing, maybe growling—anything to burn off the adrenaline sizzling my veins. It’s fight or flight and I’m fighting, strangling. I can’t stop it.
It’s a raw, primal kind of chemical surging through me, eating me alive from the inside out, commanding me to attack. I know it’s just adrenaline but it feels older than the universe, older than time and light and matter. Feels like a million years of evolution bearing down on me. It’s all-consuming and it’s everything I can do not to claw out Frank’s eyes, rip out his hair or pound my fists against his face.
One wrong move from him and I know I’ll do it. Without a thought.
Suddenly Damian is there. He wrenches Frank from my grasp and launches him across the asphalt. I scramble backward.
Damian spares one second to scan me for injury. His eyes are cold as ice and hard as steel. His gaze darts over my body, landing for a moment too long on my shoulder. His eyes flash like living flames before he turns back to Frank.
Panting, I take stock of the situation. My body is numb to pain, but I can see the damage. My pants are ripped and my knee is cut. I know my lip is split because I can feel warm blood running down my chin and neck. And my dress is torn, a triangle of fabric hangs awkwardly from my shoulder.
I lean back against a car I didn’t know was behind me and find Damian. He stands like a pillar—unmoving and steady. Balanced on a razor’s edge to protect me.
Just past him, Frank stands.
Damian
I install myself between Marrin and Frank like a brick fucking wall. I scan her once. Blood coats her from mouth to chest, her dress is torn at the shoulder. Pure, unadulterated fury crashes into me like an avalanche. I turn back to Asshole.
Echoes of Marrin screaming my name reverberate through me.
I check my breathing, my defensive stance. I examine Frank for injuries, weakness I can exploit.
He gets to his feet way too fast.
“Oh-ho, come to defend your whore, boy? She ain’t worth it.”
His eyes are too alert, too wild. His lips stick to his teeth and he’s twitchy. Asshole’s high on something. Something that’s making him energetic and over confident.
He circles wide and I match every step, keeping Marrin at my back. He’s got to be high as fuck if he thinks I’m going to let him anywhere near her.
I sense her behind me like an extension of my being. An innate awareness that both adrenaline and the situation are allowing me to pick up on. I don’t need to see her to know exactly where she is.
She’s mine.
Mine to protect, mine to keep safe.
Frank postures like a UFC champ. Only he’s not. He’s just a middle-aged man whose drug-induced high has convinced him he’s capable of mixed martial arts.
He rushes me, swinging at my face. I dodge easily, ramming my knee into his stomach. He staggers, recovers, then swings again. I sidestep the blow and use his forward momentum to send him careening to the asphalt with little more than a tug on his arm.
“Motherfucker,” he roars. He shoots to his feet, pointing at Marrin. “You better run, you white-trash whore, because when I’m done with him, I’m gonna fuck you in every hole you got.”
My jaw compresses to the point of pain as every threat and snarky remark imaginable wrestles for release. I hold them back, tracking Frank as he paces the edge of darkness cast by the street lamp above. I command my shoulders to ease, my body to react only to his movements and not his words. Losing your temper in a fight will make you sloppy. I am anything but a sloppy fighter. Frank on the other hand…
“You mean rape. Not fuck,” I taunt. “Those are two different things. Honest mistake for a meathead like you, Frankie.”
“What’d you call me, boy?”
“You heard me, Frankfurter.”
With a roar, he comes at me again. A predictable jab followed by a pathetic excuse for a right hook. He may have put on a pair of boxing gloves once in a while, but his movements are artless and untrained. His stance is laughable and he’s as out of shape as a wet sack of potatoes.
I block the hits and retaliate with a quick chop to his throat with the inside edge of my hand. He lists to the side and I grab his arm, chopping his exposed neck with the outside edge of my hand. I hit hard enough that he staggers back, dazed and holding his throat, but not hard enough to kill him.
He falls on his ass, choking.
But as any good stimulant drug can do, it’s got him on his feet again a second later, barreling toward me.
He aims to hit me around the waist, but I grab his arm and twist it in an attempt to dislocate the shoulder. He turns before I can, so I tackle him.
We go down.
Frank uses some wannabe wrestling move to briefly get on top of me and take a few swings. I barely register Marrin screaming. He attempts to wrestle me into a chokehold but doesn’t get far.
I excel at fighting on the ground because—fun fact—that’s where most fights end up. In a matter of seconds, I’m on top of him. I hit him twice in the face in quick succession.
“You done?” I shout.
He smiles through bloody teeth made bright by the harsh light of the street lamp. “Should’ve seen the look on her face first time I fucked her,” he says. “Priceless. Secret just between me and her.”
“LIAR,” Marrin screams.
“She was young, too. Fifteen or so. Completely untouched—”
The world slows down almost to the point of stopping. Frank is a pathetic, weak man, crafting ludicrous, disgusting fantasies at the expense of others because he has nothing better to do. I know he’s lying. I
do. My temper should remain on its leash. The fight is over. The threat neutralized…
But in the split second between the word untouched and whatever’s coming next, several things flicker through my mind, snapping the tether on my control.
The terror in Marrin’s voice when she’d screamed my name as she’d choked him.
The last thing Frank said to her before I pulled him off, “Now stay still and be quiet, I’ll make sure you enjoy this, too.”
The face of my abuser when he’d said nearly the exact same thing to me almost nine years ago.
The fact that Frank just bragged about assaulting a minor.
My arm snaps back and my fist collides with his face.
Again
and again
and again
and again.
He’s not Frank. He’s my abuser. He’s my dead father, my lousy mother. He’s the physical manifestation of Marrin’s pain as well as my own—
Footsteps pound down the road, echoing off the surrounding buildings.
—He’s every sick fuck who’s ever preyed on a child. Every sick fuck who’s ever sexually assaulted or manipulated another human being for gratification or power or control. He’s everything that’s wrong with society. Every person who ever told me to keep quiet, to be a man, not to cry, not to feel.
He’s the reason we tell women not to walk alone at night, not to get drunk, not to wear revealing clothing.
He’s the reason society sees women’s bodies as sexual objects too distracting to men not to be covered up in public.
He’s the reason we shift blame from assailants and heap it on victims for being assaulted.
“Damian—”
He’s the reason we teach women to defend themselves, teach children not to talk to strangers instead of teaching men not to rape, not to assault—not to behave as if they’re entitled to another person’s body.
“That’s enough, kid.”
He’s the reason we should teach everyone about consent and boundaries and respecting other human beings.
Muscled arms lasso my torso and rip me off Frank.
29
Marrin
Sirens wail in the distance. A security guard runs toward us. An SUV speeds into the parking lot and suddenly Gavin is pulling Damian off Frank.
I’m not sure where to look or what to do. I’m not sure I can move. I’m not sure I want to move. If I stand, I have to face what happened. Have to face what almost happened to me. And I’m not sure I’m ready.
I stare at Damian.
He glares at Frank. Gavin’s arms hold him back like a seatbelt in a head-on collision. His chest heaves and he’s shaking so violently I’m not sure if he’s standing on his own or if Gavin’s holding him up. His teeth are bared and a jagged, raw kind of instinct screams from every line of his body.
Kiley crouches next to Frank. He’s a swollen, bloody mess. But he’s moving.
“She’s safe, kid. You’re both safe. You did good,” Gavin says, eyes searching the darkness for me.
Damian’s eyes snap to mine like he knows exactly where I am. Because he does. My name forms on his lips but I can’t tell if he speaks or not. He pushes forward and Gavin releases him, following closely.
Damian staggers into the darkness, eyes flickering over me. A strangled sob leaves my throat. He wipes bloody knuckles on his pants as he moves toward me.
Exhaustion hits and relief fills my eyes.
He’s okay. I’m okay. We’re okay.
Damian drops to his knees before me, body still trembling with adrenaline. He’s at least an arm’s length away.
“What are you doing?” I half sob.
A new kind of fear bleaches his face. He backs up. “I’m sorry, what you saw, I just lost it—”
“No.” I shift forward, weakly grabbing a handful of his jacket.
Immediately he understands, closing the distance between us and pulling me into his lap. He blankets me in his arms and I can’t stop the tears. Neither can he.
“Are you okay?” He kisses the side of my head. “Please be okay, tell me you’re okay.”
“I’m okay.”
He pulls back to look at my face, my torn dress. Hysteria gutters in his eyes but he clamps down on it. He cups my chin like a wounded bird, but still I wince from pain. Immediately his hand retracts.
“No. Please,” I sob, grabbing his wrist and pressing his palm to my cheek. “Please touch me.”
That hand comes alive, threading into my hair and holding me to him. “I’m right here, baby. I’m right here. What happened? Did he hurt you?”
“No, j-just tackled me. I bit my lip when he grabbed me. I broke his nose. My n-neck hurts where he held me d-down.” My thoughts are muddled. I’m barely making sense.
“I’m sorry it hurts. Can I see?”
I tilt my head and open my mouth. Gavin crouches next to us and clicks on a little flashlight to examine my busted lip.
“Not deep enough for stitches,” he says. “But it’s gonna swell.”
“We’ll ice it,” Damian answers, smoothing my hair.
“Can I touch you?” Gavin asks. After I nod, he prods my neck. “Any of this hurt?”
“Not really. It’s just sore.”
“Any trouble breathing? Anything feel like it popped or shifted?”
“No. I tucked in my chin before he could really st-str-strangle me.”
“That was smart.” Gavin clicks off the flashlight just as blue police lights flood the parking lot. “Did he hurt you, Marrin?”
I cover the torn shoulder of my dress with a hand and shake my head. “No. I got away.”
Damian’s arms tighten around me and I sink into his chest, trying to hide. “Yeah you did. I’m so proud of you, Marrin. So fucking proud. When I saw him tackle you...” He buries his head in my hair. “Fuck, I was scared. But you got him. You stopped him without any help. You had him.”
Gavin leaves to meet the police.
“He lied,” I sob. “I didn’t even know him when I was fifteen. He never touched me that way—”
“I know, baby. I know, I believe you. I’m sorry. Jesus—I’m so fuckin’ sorry. I shouldn’t have left you in the parking lot, shouldn’t have accused you in the car. I didn’t mean it, I was stupid and angry—”
“It’s okay. I don’t want to talk about it now. I just need you to hold me. Please, keep holding me.”
“I’ve got you, baby. I’ve got you, you’re safe, we’re safe.”
He rocks us back and forth, buried in each other’s arms.
I ask if he’s hurt and he says no. We agree to talk about what happened later when we’re both calm. At some point he takes off his jacket and puts it around me.
An ambulance arrives and the EMTs get Frank on a stretcher. The cops ask for statements and I hear Gavin explain the restraining order I have on Frank and that he just got out of jail for violating it two months ago. He says that Damian is my boyfriend and that he’s had to get Frank away from me before.
Then Kiley explains how he and Gavin were together when the private company hired to watch Frank called and said they’d lost track of him. They immediately came here to watch the apartment and check on me. When they pulled up, they saw Damian and Frank fighting.
Our apartment’s security guard gives her statement next, saying she went to check on Damian when he didn’t reappear in the lobby. She says something about pulling security footage from the parking lot then heads toward the building with an officer.
Gavin comes to get us when it’s time for us to give our statements.
Damian and I huddle together when we explain what happened. It takes about twenty minutes but it feels like hours.
The female officer pulls me aside to take pictures of my injuries. Almost as soon as I slip off Damian’s jacket, tears want to slip from my eyes.
I blink them away.
It’s not the loss of the jacket, but what everyone can now see. The bruises rapidly blooming on my chest, neck a
nd face—the rip in my dress. A piece of fabric hangs awkwardly down the front exposing a thin slice of shoulder. I’m still completely covered, but it’s the way it looks that bothers me. The evidence of what Frank tried to do.
The officer photographs every inch of me. I feel exposed, on display, vulnerable. I want to hide in Damian’s jacket and arms. I feel ashamed and I don’t know why.
“Marrin,” the officer says when she’s done. “It wasn’t your fault.”
I almost burst into tears. But don’t. Instead, I nod my head because that’s exactly how I feel. Like this was all somehow my fault. Like I did something wrong. I feel like a non-person. A body to be exposed beneath a torn dress.
The unfairness of it claws at me. The knowledge that most men walking around are capable of overpowering me. It’s humiliating and infuriating in a way I can’t describe. To have that power taken. Stolen.
But Frank didn’t take anything from me because I won’t let him.
Two years ago after he attacked me, I lost my peace of mind and my sense of self. I was left broken and partial, damaged and scarred. I couldn’t see myself outside the boxes I’d allowed his attack to put me in: white trash, worthless, weak. Coupled with what happened with my mom, those labels defined me, made me unwilling to trust, unable to move on.
But after tonight, I realize I am not a non-person. I’m not just a body. I am a whole person who just kicked a grown man’s ass. I’m smart and strong. I am not the sum total of my body or what happens to it. I get to decide how I see myself and how I move on.
Tonight scared the hell out of me. I was once again confronted with the ugly truth about what it means to live in a patriarchal society without the privilege of having been born a cisgendered man. And as scary as that is, I also learned that I can take care of myself. I didn’t need anyone to save me.
I saved myself.
But I’m grateful Damian was there. He knows I didn’t need his help, but he offered it anyway. And I wanted it, I welcomed it. Letting Damian take care of me isn’t me handing over my power to him or showing weakness, it’s me choosing an ally. Choosing to trust someone enough to let them help me when I need it, and when I’m too broken or weary to do it myself.