Tainted Bodies

by Sarah Robinson

  He had convinced himself that she had second thoughts on being in a relationship with him and was breaking it off. He couldn’t believe he had opened himself up to someone who would break his heart less than twenty four hours later. It had not even crossed his mind that she was in the hospital or that anything bad like that had happened. He reprimanded himself for automatically assuming the worst of Kate instead of wondering if anything had happened to her. He knew he should have gone to her apartment, should have checked on her, anything.

  But he did nothing.

  It had been very difficult for Derrick to open up his heart and be so vulnerable by becoming exclusive with Kate. He had once been in love, or at least he thought he was in love, with a woman in college named Rachel. Rachel and Derrick had been high school sweethearts and then decided to go to the same college so that they could stay together. He had never dated anyone before her, unless you count going to get ice cream with a girl in middle school who he had never even held hands with.

  Rachel was vibrant and exciting while he had been shy and introverted so he was drawn to her personality, exemplifying the idea of opposites attracting. She drew him out of his shell and taught him to be outgoing and they grew up into adults together. Well, he grew up into an adult while he was with her. He never had his wild college days or dated other women because he was certain that Rachel was the one he would spend the rest of his life with. He had loved her, he had been vulnerable with her.

  It was their senior year of college when things had changed between him and Rachel. She started to become more distant towards him and was always saying that she was too tired to do activities but she was always on her phone typing away to someone. He hadn’t thought much of it, they had been together for so long and so he had seen her through many periods of mood changes. He figured that she was stressed out about graduation coming up since it was only a few months away and everyone was buckling down in their classes.

  One night that spring, he was laying across the bed in her dorm room watching a baseball game on her television while she was bustling around, picking up things in her room and trying to straighten up. Rachel excused herself for a few minutes to go down the hall to the communal dorm bathrooms so Derrick was alone in the room when her phone beeped loudly and the screen lit up. Her phone was sitting on the bed next to him and he instinctively glanced over at it. He suddenly did a double take as his brain caught up and realized what his eyes had just seen. He grabbed up her phone to take a closer look to it but there was no doubt about what he was looking at.

  Someone named John had texted Rachel a very visual picture of his manhood, a seriously up close and personal photograph.

  Rachel walked back into the room while Derrick was still holding her phone. She realized that he had it and rushed over to him, grabbing her phone out of his hands.

  “Hey, that’s my phone. Don’t mess with it.” She scolded him, trying to act nonchalant about the whole situation.

  “Rachel, who the hell is John and why the hell is he sending you a giant, zoomed in picture of his miniature sized dick?” Derrick shouted at her, purposefully bashing the man from the photograph out of anger. Rachel looked startled and looked at her phone, quickly seeing what Derrick had just seen. She pushed the phone into her back pocket and tried to stall while she thought of an answer.

  “I don’t know, just some guy from work. He is just joking around.” Rachel fumbled her words as she played around with some papers on her desk, avoiding Derrick’s glare.

  “Rachel, a penis picture is not just joking around. I’m not an idiot, who the hell is this? Are you sleeping with him?” Derrick continued to shout, standing up and stomping over towards her. She ducked around him and went and sat on the bed.

  “Okay, okay! I’m sorry. I never meant for you to find out this way.” Rachel sighed and looked down at her hands, fidgeting. Derrick had turned around to look at her.

  “Well here is your chance. Tell me.” He said sternly, no longer yelling, putting his hands up in surrender and irritation.

  “It’s a guy at work, he is older than me though and married but he says he is going to leave his wife so that he and I can be together.” Rachel said, not sounding too sorry about the situation. In fact, she sounded like she didn’t really care at all that everything she had just said was the most devastating news he had ever received. He didn’t even recognize this cold-hearted person in front of him and he was shocked at how he could have been so blind to have ever thought of her in any other way.

  “So you can be together? With a married man? What the hell were you going to do with me? Just keep me around until he wanted you? Just use me so you wouldn’t be alone? Are you kidding me?” Derrick was yelling again, but he was disgusted now. He had always known she was insecure but he hadn’t realized the depths of her low self esteem until just now.

  “I don’t know! I hadn’t really thought it through! I really like him, it’s just harder to explain because he is older. I thought it looked better for me to be with you, my parents wouldn’t be okay with him.” Rachel stood up and started pacing the room.

  “So, I’m just for show now? Just to keep up appearances? Just a way to pretend to the world that you’re a decent person? How old is this married creep?” Derrick was livid now, he had never felt so used in his entire life.

  He couldn’t even believe the words coming out of her mouth and was still shocked that the woman he had known for so many years was capable of such evil and such depravity.

  “Hey! I am not a bad person!” Rachel yelled back at him, “It’s been boring with you lately, you had to know that! And he isn’t that old, he is only 53! He is mature and wise.”

  Derrick made a fake gagging motion, rolling his eyes and tossing his hands up in the air.

  “53? He is 53! Rachel you are only 21 years old! That is so disgusting! And he is married?” Derrick turned around and walked to the door, yanking it open. As he stepped into the hallway outside her door, he looked over his shoulder at her with his eyes in angry slits.

  “As you can probably guess, we are over. Don’t ever contact me again. You disgust me and I never want to be associated with someone as horrible as you ever again.” Derrick said in a low and calm voice, his anger seething through clenched jaws.

  With those final words, he walked out the door and slammed it behind him, never seeing her again.

  ~~~~

  Derrick knew that Kate was not the same as Rachel. No one he had ever met since then had ever been as diabolical and selfish as she had been. Derrick also knew that Kate’s heart was so much bigger, her laugh so much kinder, and her smile so much more beautiful than Rachel’s had ever been. He had never had as much fun with Rachel as he had with Kate and he had never felt as comfortable and safe.

  Until this past weekend, he had avoided commitment to women at all costs. He had committed seven years of his life to Rachel and that had ended with his heart being tacked up to a dart board and used as her personal toy to stab with each dart she threw at him. She had broken his trust in women and in the world, someone he thought he had known was actually the worse person he had ever met. He had felt tricked and fooled, so he made a promise that he would never allow himself to feel that way again.

  But Kate was worth breaking that promise for. There was something about her that he felt, down to his very core, was safe. He knew she was honest and true and that her heart overflowed with more love than any heart was capable of holding. Sometimes when he was with her, he would find himself just staring at her and wondering how a woman like this even gave a man like him the time of day.

  He had not lived a perfect life since college. Since Rachel, he had never done a committed relationship again until this last weekend with Kate. He had been flitting from one woman to the next until he was bored or until they pushed for something more. Usually the moment they started hinting at turning serious, he found an excuse to break things off and run for the hills. With Kate he had not done that, he had avoided the c
onversation for so long because he didn’t want it to trigger that panic button in him and cause him to follow his old pattern.

  However, here was the first woman he had trusted in years and she was hurting him. It wasn’t her fault, he knew that and he knew that he was being a jerk but he was terrified. He didn’t know if he could handle having his heart broken and this situation that they were in was completely foreign ground. He didn’t know how to help her, to heal her, or to even talk to her. The words rape kit were petrifying to him because he knew what those things meant. He knew the damage that had been done not just to her body, but to her soul and he knew that he couldn’t fix it. He was powerless.

  He had been here once before when he was a child and had been just as helpless then as he was now.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  “I don’t know what to say, man. That’s horrible. I wouldn’t know what to do in your situation either…” Brian, Derrick’s childhood friend, said to him as he picked up his beer off the bar and took a swig.

  Derrick just nodded, he had nothing left to say after telling Brian the whole story. Derrick had met Brian Aster on the first day of middle school when the two boys had been seated next to each other in their first class of the day. They had quickly bonded and had stayed close friends ever since their school age days. They went to colleges close by one another and Derrick had been Brian’s best man at his wedding only two years ago. Now they both lived in Washington, DC as Brian worked on Capital Hill in a government job and his wife worked as a school teacher in the district.

  “I shouldn’t have just left though.” Derrick said, signaling the bartender that he wanted a refill. He wasn’t having a beer like Brian, tonight was a hard liquor kind of day. After two days quarantined in his apartment, Brian had been the only one finally able to convince him to shower and go out to get some fresh air and a much needed drink.

  “Well, man, we have been best friends for a long time, so I feel like I can say this and you know that I only mean it out of love. But yeah, leaving like that was a shit move, man. I’m not sure she is going to take you back after something like that.” Brian shook his head and took another drink.

  Derrick looked at his friend seriously, then nodded in agreement. They were both silent for a few minutes, just sipping their drinks. Derrick knew his friend was right, he had been mentally beating himself up about it for days.

  “Do you want her back, Derrick?” Brian looked at him and asked, his brow furrowed in concern. Derrick didn’t answer him right away but instead took another gulp of his drink. Brian had asked him a question that had been plaguing Derrick for days. Derrick sighed and put down his glass, then leaned back in his tall bar seat.

  “Brian, man, I don’t know. I mean, you know what happened to my mom back then. Do you think I can even go through that again? Why would I even want to?” Derrick said, folding his arms across his chest, a tormented look on his face. Brian reached out and gave his shoulder a quick squeeze then went back to his drink.

  “Yeah, I remember.” They were silent again. The bartender came over to the two men, she was young and pretty and clearly interested in Derrick. She had been trying to make eye contact with him all night and had been bringing him a new drink as soon as he finished one.

  “Can I get you boys something more to drink? Looks like you are about out.” She said smiling at Brian and then at Derrick, lingering in her look toward him. Derrick didn’t notice since he was pretty distracted with his conversation.

  “Yeah, I’ll have another pale ale.” Brian told her, she nodded without taking her eyes off Derrick.

  “Another whiskey neat for me.” Derrick told her.

  “Coming right up, handsome.” She said, winking at him. He looked up at the girl and realized that she was flirting with him as she walked off with their empty glasses.

  “Looks like you could probably date the bartender if you are back in the market.” Brian chuckled, trying to make things a bit more lighthearted. Derrick gave him a halfhearted grin.

  “Yeah, probably.” He agreed with his friend. Then he looked down at the bar and sighed, a sudden wave of sadness washed over him. Brian looked at him.

  “But you want Kate back.” Brian said, no more questioning in his tone. Derrick looked at his friend and came to the same realization.

  “God, I do.” He hung his head, he knew he had messed everything up. He had no idea what he was going to do to fix it because this was just way more than he had ever experienced.

  “Derrick, it won’t be like your mom. Your mom was your caretaker, she was supposed to be there for you. It’s not going to be the same with Kate. Your mom let bad things that had happened to her change her relationship with you. From everything I have heard about Kate, I don’t think that she would be that kind of woman.” Brian explained to his friend as the bartender returned and slid their drinks in front of them, winking again at Derrick before she walked away.

  “She is so strong.” Derrick agreed, “When I did go visit her, she even made a joke.”

  “See? She is stronger than your mom and she isn’t going to take out her struggles on you.” Brian told Derrick. Brian had been there when Derrick was younger and Derrick’s mom had been mugged and beaten up. He was pretty sure there had been no sexual assault involved but his mother had lost her purse, her wedding ring, her jewelry and then had also been beaten up pretty good on top of that. She had completely checked out after that for over a year. She stopped being a mother and a wife and was just an angry shell of her former self. It was one of the worst years of his life until she started going to church and eventually found her way back to the mother she had once been.

  “She looked so happy to see me when I first walked into the hospital room, Brian. Then I just bailed and I could hear her crying. I can’t fix this, man. I messed it up too much.” Derrick picked up his whiskey and downed the rest of it in one gulp.

  “Gotta stay positive, Derrick. If she is as wonderful as you say she is, then maybe she will be more open minded than you think. It’s not going to be easy but with some massive effort, you can show her that you are not that guy who ran out of the hospital room.” Brian said, trying to encourage his friend, but knowing that his chances weren’t very good.

  “Brian, I have to go.” Derrick stood up from his bar stool and placed some cash down on the bar. The bartender looked over at him from across the bar and was clearly disappointed that he was leaving. She waved at him but Derrick wasn’t paying attention.

  “You’re going to go see Kate?” Brian asked him.

  “I have to. I have to make this right, Brian. I really screwed this whole situation up and I have to fix it.” Derrick told his friend and then he left the bar to go find Kate.

  ~~~~

  Kate had spent her first day without her sister keeping busy. On her way back from walking her sister to Union Station, she decided to make a stop about four blocks from her apartment at Harry’s Hardware, a small boutique hardware store that she had been to once or twice before when doing small renovations on her apartment over the years. The prices were a bit higher than the average hardware store, but they had a simpler selection and everything was made in America and local so she felt like she was doing her part as a citizen in helping out business like this one.

  Kate pushed the glass door open to enter the store in the early morning hours and couldn’t stop herself from jumping out of her skin when the entry bell rang. The cashier turned to look at her, surprised at her sudden movement. She sheepishly shrugged at the man, apologizing for her reaction to such a normal sound, then continuing down one of the aisles.

  The cashier was an elderly man who looked like he belonged on a farm rather than in the heart of Washington, DC. He had a bushy beard peppered with gray and white hair as well as a thick mustache that almost completely hid his lips. His eyes were hazel green and the wrinkles around the edges suggested he smiled often and had a pleasant demeanor.

  Kate slowly walked down a few of the aisles, looking
at different tools and wiring and other practical items. She finally came upon a section that looked promising for what she was looking for. In front of her were at least a dozen different types of locks, some for doors and some for windows. Kate picked up one and looked it over, but she wasn’t sure if it would fit her door. There were a lot of numbers on all the locks that gave different sizes and window types and she wasn’t really sure which one she should get. She put it back on the shelf and sighed, biting her lip in frustration.

  “The Ultralock C Series works great on apartment doors.” The gruff but soft voice of the cashier said, walking up to Kate in the aisle. She turned to look at him, her face showing that she was clearly out of her league. She was silent and looked at him for assistance. He smiled at her, nodding gently and pointing to the locks that he was talking about.

  “Now I am guessing that you want something for your front door, what about your windows? How many windows are in your apartment? Do they open by pulling them up or do they push open?” He asked her, pulling items off the shelf and glancing at the backs until he found the ones that he was looking for.

  “Uhm, they pull open.” Kate stuttered, trying to find her voice and blinking back the threat of tears. She didn’t know why this man was helping her but she felt that he knew what she needed and knew what she had gone through.

  “Okay, and how many?” He asked again.

  “Oh, sorry, uhm, let’s see, two in the bedroom and two in the living room. Oh and one in the kitchen.” Kate mentally counted the windows in her apartment. He nodded and grabbed several more items off of the shelf. Then he turned and walked back up front while Kate followed him. He walked behind the counter and laid the merchandise out for Kate to see.