Dark Matter: SCIENCE FICTION ROMANCE

by Jessica Loft

  She changed her descent, bouncing up and down on his dick vertically. She stopped briefly grinding her clitoris into him. Seizing the opportunity, he sat up and flipped them over. He liked letting her top him but he would have to let her do that some other night. He wanted to possess her, to fuck her so thoroughly she didn’t know where she was anymore. He needed her to feel him as intimately as he needed to feel her. He kissed her as he drove quickly into her soaking entrance. Her thighs were spread wide giving him plenty of room. Bracing himself above her, he pounded into her. Reaching down, he resumed the action on her clitoris with his hand, making her come with a small cry of ecstasy. A couple more pumps were all he needed to empty himself into the condom. Getting rid of it quickly in the bathroom, he returned to her. They spooned holding each other as they drifted off to sleep.

  On one of their first nights living together, Heather and Katherine had made a deal. They would never bring drugs into the house. Katherine wasn't a user but Heather was still in college and she had more than a few friends who liked to partake in the occasional narcotic. The rule was not however generalized to narcotics already inside the bloodstream. Katherine had wrestled her way out of Aaron's grip and answered her phone at 2 in the morning. Too sleepy to brace herself for bad news; nothing good ever happens at 2 in the morning, she had nearly screamed the house down when she was told what had happened.

  "Heather's passed out, she overdosed," she had cried as she hurried to get her clothes on. Aaron, after pacifying her enough to get dressed and explain what was going on drove her straight to her house. There they found Heather passed out on the sofa. With no information about what she had taken or how much, Katherine was hysterical. Aaron called an ambulance and stood with her as they waited. He hugged her to his side and rubbed her arm trying to soothe.

  "I'm sorry our third date is ruined again," she said quietly when they arrived at the hospital. He laughed.

  "I'd say tonight was pretty great," he said alluding to everything that had happened before the phone call. She turned her body into his and hugged him; both as a thank you and because she wanted to feel him close to her.

  "She had an adverse reaction to ketamine," the doctor said shortly.

  "Ketamine? Isn't that-?"

  "Horse tranquilizer? Yes. Veterinary offices are usually burgled for this stuff. It's a popular recreational drug among young people. She didn't have very much in her system but drugs affect people in different ways. There isn't any permanent damage. She can go home. Maybe take the next couple days off of work and she'll be fine."

  "Heather, what the fuck were you thinking!?" Katherine yelled. Aaron had dropped both the girls off home. Promising to call her later. Katherine allowed her dueling anger and worry explode.

  "I didn't take anything, Katherine," Heather said calmly. Katherine was livid.

  "Do you know how it feels to hear that someone you care about is passed out on drugs? And ketamine? What were you thinking?"

  "Katherine, shit, I told you I didn't take anything. I don't do drugs, you know that!"

  Katherine took a deep breath.

  "Okay, tell me what happened." She said trying to calm herself down so she could listen.

  "I was with a few other people. We were hanging out in their house and this weird guy showed up. He was their drug man apparently because he brought party favors. I went to the kitchen to get something to drink. The place was filling up with smoke already, so I was ready to leave after I found a drink. I had a short conversation with the weird guy in the kitchen asking him whether there was anything to drink and he gave me a Red Bull. Talking to him is the last thing I remember doing before the hospital."

  "Then why were there recreational drugs in your bloodstream, Heather?"

  "I don't know! Someone must have drugged me. The kitchen guy. It must have been him. I can't remember anything after having that Red Bull."

  "With ketamine?"

  Heather shrugged.

  "Why would anyone drug you with a recreational drug?" Heather shrugged again.

  "If all a person needs is their victim to be impaired, nearly any drug will do that."

  Heather had a point. Shit, in the absence of anything pharmaceutical, alcohol was the most commonly used date rape drug. Ketamine apparently also had more sinister uses than helping large mammals sleep through surgery. Katherine spent the next day at home after calling in sick to work. Between taking care of Heather and heading down a dark Internet rabbit hole of date rape drug use, she came to the worrying conclusion that she and Heather had something in common. Bewilderment, disorientation, speech problems, feeling out of control of your own body... Heather had felt that way and so had she, the night Lorraine and Alexander had cornered her at the seminar.

  Aaron had said he would call but he had done one better and came over to check on them after work. He asked about Heather before retiring to Katherine's room. When Katherine walked in his large body was sprawled over the bed taking up the better part of it. He had undone the topmost button on his shirt and his shoes were off. Katherine walked in and crawled onto the bed next to him.

  "Comfortable?" she asked. He laughed and she felt it rumble in his chest. She had taken the day off of work so she couldn't share his feelings of exhaustion.

  "I am now," he said running his hand over her back.

  "Aaron?"

  "Hm?"

  "Do you know what the effects of ketamine are on the body?"

  "Confusion, impaired motor functions, memory problems..." Aaron trailed off.

  "Heather doesn't need to go back in does she?" He asked concerned.

  "No."

  "Then what's the matter?"

  Katherine took a deep breath in and out.

  "I think it happened to me."

  Aaron peered down at her. "When?"

  "At the seminar." Katherine sat up, tucking her legs underneath her. Aaron propped himself up on his elbows.

  "Lorraine and Alexander..." she trailed off thinking what he would do.

  "I asked Heather what happened and most of it she can't remember. She had a Red Bull and didn’t touch any of the drugs the others were doing. The night I got the call about her being in trouble, it was her friend Greg who made it. He told me she wasn't completely passed out when he dropped her off. She was having trouble walking and was talking though completely incoherent. Just mumbled nonsense about nothing in particular."

  "Did you pass out that night after talking to Lorraine and Alexander?"

  "When I met Alexander at the bar, he had a drink for me. It was a cocktail and I took and drank it out of nervousness. I know my hands shake when I get nervous but I don't become incoherent."

  "Heather had no memory of what happened after having the drink. Do you remember anything?"

  "It's patchy but I remember heading up to my hotel room...and then I woke up really early that morning."

  "Did they do anything to you? Did anyone else do anything to you?"

  Katherine shook her head.

  "I don't remember feeling out of sorts when I woke up. Just disoriented."

  “I saw you the night in the hotel, you seemed confused. It makes sense now, I asked you if anything was wrong and helped you walk to your room because you were wobbly and mumbling incoherently.”

  "Did you go to the hospital?"

  "I didn't see any reason to. I wasn't sore or bruised. I am sure I got away before they or anyone else had a chance to do anything."

  Aaron sighed.

  "You realize I have to kill this guy now, don't you?"

  "We don't know anything for sure."

  "If he, if both of them, used drugs on you that means they were going to have you in their hotel room whether you wanted to be there or not." She sighed and looked at him.

  “If they tried to hurt you, Katherine, they have a problem with me. They can’t be allowed to get away with any of this.”

  "Are you saying I should go to the police?"

  "I'm saying police or not, I am going to ki
ll him."

  She ran a hand through her hair.

  "What difference would it make anyway? He'd buy his way out of any real trouble. That's probably what he's done to other girls if there have been any other." Katherine froze as the realization hit her.

  "What's the matter?" He sat up and reached for her.

  "Oh my God, Meredith. There was another girl, Meredith. We both work in IT. We were talking about how we weren't sure why we had to be at the seminar. I left early and we sort of lost each other while there. Oh my, God, I need to find out what happened to her."

  "Have you seen her since getting back? How's she been?"

  "She's been her normal self but that doesn't mean nothing happened."

  "Talk to her tomorrow. See if they put the moves on her the way they did you."

  "Please don't do anything before we find out whether they actually did anything." Aaron nodded.

  "I won't kill him but I am not above using this information, if it is true, to ruin his reputation professionally."

  "Would he even get in legal trouble if he did do it?"

  "If you are asking whether he would go to jail, no, he wouldn't. Neither of them would. If they are together, he would likely have her covered with the same protection he has himself covered with. He doesn't need to go to jail, though. An arrest on those particular charges would be enough. Possession of a controlled substance. Attempted rape. It would be a PR disaster. He would either have to issue a public apology which incriminates him or deny, deny, deny. The public has a short memory but the damage will have been done. A lot of companies try not to associate themselves with sex offenders."

  Katherine cringed at the term. If Alexander and Lorraine were drugging women in order to get them to agree to threesomes, that was exactly what they were.

  "Let's say he wasn't an untouchable, powerful elite. What sort of criminal charges would they be looking at?"

  "Well, there would be some technicalities depending on who between them is in actual possession of the drugs and who exactly committed the act of drugging the drinks but at least possession of a controlled substance and probably attempted rape. If they drugged your friend Meredith and had sex with her, that would be the facilitation of a sex offense with a controlled substance."

  "I am thankful you know all this stuff but you can understand why it is slightly worrying that you know so much about date rape as a legal offense. Why do you know so much about the penal code?" Katherine asked suspiciously.

  "I was pre-law before my family lined me up to take over the business," he said.

  "Thanks for coming over to check on Heather." She smiled and kissed his cheek.

  "Don't tell Heather but I actually came to see you," he said slyly.

  "I was going to cook tonight for dinner. But if you want we could order in, instead." Aaron's brows raised.

  "I've never had a woman cook for me before."

  "Never?"

  "Well-" Aaron sat up.

  "Yeah, never, if you discount female housekeepers and cooks and any of my mothers."

  "You've never lived with a girlfriend who made you some toast sometimes?"

  Aaron smiled.

  "I've never had the pleasure."

  That night Katherine whipped up a pasta carbonara that was much easier to make than she let on whenever she cooked it. The dessert after was her and Aaron going at it hard enough to elicit angry door-banging from Heather on two separate occasions.

  Meredith popped up unbidden everywhere whenever she wasn't being pursued but looking for Meredith that day in the office, Katherine found herself stumped several times. She finally found her at her in a secluded lunch spot where she was reading a self-help book while eating soup without bread.

  "Meredith," Katherine said brightly as she sat across from her. Meredith jumped, obviously not expecting company.

  "Katherine, is there something wrong?"

  Katherine laughed, deepening the worry lines on Meredith's forehead.

  "No, I'm just glad to see you."

  "You are? Why?"

  "I have to talk to you, Meredith. There is something serious going on and I need to talk to you about it."

  "Alright. What's the matter?"

  Katherine dropped her voice to a whisper.

  "Do you remember the seminar we went to a little while back?" Meredith nodded.

  "What about it?"

  "Well, while we were there, our boss, Mr. Hendrickson, and Lorraine came onto me. They made me a proposition. A sexual one." Meredith's face wasn't giving away any clues. Katherine went on.

  "That is the first part. The important part is I think they put something in my drink while they were making it."

  Meredith maintained her stone-faced expression but she felt the color rise in her cheeks.

  "Did something happen to you during the seminar?" Katherine asked.

  Meredith rose suddenly, abandoning her half eaten soup and closing her book.

  "I have to go." She said shakily.

  Katherine sighed. She called Aaron, to telling him she had failed to get anything out of Meredith. While Katherine had been trying to get information out of her, Aaron had been seeking legal counsel and asking around. They met at his penthouse that night to discuss their findings.

  “Remember when I told you I had heard rumors about your boss and his girlfriend preying on women at seminars?” Katherine nodded.

  “Turns out you weren’t the first. Some girls who work at my company apparently have stories. Guess what all those stories have in common?”

  Katherine shuddered.

  “Disorientation, trouble speaking, loss of memory after the fact?”

  Aaron nodded grimly.

  “We don’t have evidence but we have testimonies.”

  Shaking off the creeping feeling, she let the news sink in. It was good to be right but on the other hand, it was terrible to be right about a thing like that. Her phone buzzing at her side stole her attention. She answered it.

  “Where are you? I need to talk to you.” A few moments passed before she recognized the voice as Meredith’s.

  “Meredith? Where are you calling from?”

  “My apartment. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you anything during the day when you asked me. I have to talk to you and I don’t want to do it over the phone. Where are you?” Katherine gave her the address of Aaron’s house and in half an hour there was a knock at the door. Meredith looked pointedly at Katherine after taking in her surroundings. Meredith had several questions but now was not the time to discuss how Katherine could possibly afford to live in the penthouse. After quickly introducing Aaron to her colleague they all sat down on the couch in the living room.

  “What you told me about Lorraine and Mr. Hendrickson. The same thing happened to me.” Meredith looked like a bereaved widow sitting there on Aaron’s leather couch. She was wringing her hands and her face was lined with stress.

  “It was really late, past midnight. I was in my hotel room and I heard a knock at the door. Lorraine was standing there with two cups of hot cocoa and this big smile on her face. She walked in and started on how she wanted to hang out with another girl and was hoping she would be able to bribe me with a hot drink. She wanted to watch TV and hang out together. It was a weird request but I didn’t think too much of it. She was nice. We laughed and talked until there was another knock. Mr. Hendrickson comes in like he’s been looking for Lorraine everywhere and he is so glad that he found her. By this point, I have had the whole drink. I start to feel a little out of it. I can’t remember what happened next but Lorraine had her hands on me. She is talking about how since we were all there together, we might as well have a little fun. They were both naked in my bed when I woke up. I had no idea what was going on. After about 45 minutes in the bathroom, I came out and they were just finishing up their room service. Lorraine kisses me and says they had a great time. I thought something weird had happened but I kept it to myself.”

  “Did you go to the hospital? The authorities
?” Meredith shook her head.

  “I don’t want to remember anything that happened that night. I just want to forget. Are you going to go to the police with this?”