by S. L. Naeole
“And for a while I was. I really was. I was grateful because at least they were being punished. Franklyn and his buddies went to jail, tabloids started talking about actual celebrities again, and I was left alone.
“I honestly should have known better. One day someone showed up at Kara’s house, a guy wearing a strange uniform.. He looked like a sheriff or someone official and because of the death threats I’d received, I thought that’s why he was there. He asked Kara’s mom some questions and then she called me over. As soon as I confirmed who I was, he handed me a packet of papers and told me that I’d been served. Franklyn sued me.”
Mal uttered a curse, the first word he’d said in what felt like an eternity. I couldn’t help but smile at the word because it told me more than anything he felt what I felt.
“He sued me for the wrongful death of his uncle. I was gutted, Mal. I was absolutely gutted. His uncle had tried to rape me. I’d been trapped under that man’s body for a week because of something he did. Why would he have the right to sue me? Thankfully that lawsuit was tossed out, but it didn’t end with Franklyn. His father sued me for the wrongful death of his brother. The uncle’s wife sued me for the wrongful death of her husband. In total, five separate suits were filed against me, including one from his employee for lost revenue of projects he was working on. Each lawsuit was asking for damages upwards of ten million dollars. When I asked why the numbers for each of them were that high, I found out that someone had told Franklyn’s family that I’d signed a book and a movie deal for my story. They thought they could get that book money. The press called it a record-breaking contract, even though they had no confirmation from any publisher or production company, and the world latched onto the tabloid side of it instead of the fact that I was being sued by my admitted kidnapper and his family because I’d stopped his uncle from raping me—something that would have never been possible if he hadn’t kidnapped me in the first place.
“Truth was though, no one had approached me for anything. No book deal and definitely no movie or television deal. But even if they had I wouldn’t have been able to talk to them anyway. I was too upset, too scared. As soon as I could I left California and moved here. Vonne was working at MOAT by then and she spoke to Del about me. She didn’t tell him anything, but he knew who I was by my name and he’d looked me up.
“After talking with Vonne he gave me a job where I wouldn’t have to really be around anyone. He put me in the catacombs, where anytime I needed to hide in the darkness all I needed to do was turn off the light. He had the men avoid me because he noticed that I wouldn’t stop shaking around them. He had Elise teach me about restoration. I hid at MOAT for two years in the catacombs. In that time all but one of the lawsuits were thrown out, the one by the wife. The trial lasted only three days. The photos that Franklyn had taken were shown in court, just like at the criminal trial, and were used to support the argument that I’d been a willing participant. They had a doctor claim that my ‘assault’ on him had been too much on his heart, that if I had just laid there and let him rape me that he would still be alive and everything would be okay. It took the judge ten minutes to rule in favor of the wife.
“By then I didn’t have any money for an appeal. My parents’ life insurance paid for the attorney that defended me in all of the lawsuits. I had nothing of value except my car, not even that stupid book and movie deal they all claimed I had. The judgment was based on that, you know. That mysterious book deal that they had no proof actually existed. The court refused to believe that I had no plans to monetize what had happened to me because they had court transcripts where Franklyn had called me a prostitute and the tabloids and internet were plastered with photos of me calling me the Huntington Whore. I was just a money hungry whore to these people because they said I was. That’s all it took.
“So after everything, after they took every cent I had, after destroying my reputation, my self-respect, my dignity, my safety, my power, my control, I was ordered to pay restitution to the amount of over a quarter-million dollars. I was nineteen-years-old by then. I was still kind of a kid. Where the hell was I going to get a quarter-million million dollars? At that moment, I honestly and truly felt like my life was over.
“Thankfully, Del kept me on as an intern for two years so that the courts would see that I wasn’t making any money. Tobias had found out by then because I was gone so often for court dates and meetings with the lawyer, plus the trial was a pretty big deal at the time so he kinda put two and two together. He had Gladys in HR write up a special contract for me that would pay me just enough to live off of, no matter what my future employment status at MOAT was, with the remaining balance put in special savings accounts meant specifically for housing and retirement that couldn’t be used for asset forfeiture. I found out later that Tobias was a genius in that area because Del filed for the verdict in the lawsuit to be thrown out. Instead, the wife settled for half the amount initially awarded until such time that I prove myself capable of paying the original amount or the settled amount is paid in full, whichever comes first.
“So I started making payments to the wife of the man that tried to rape me, and I shared a couch with two of my best friends. I never bought a new car because I had the Clam and it wasn’t worth anything, really. I bought the apartment with my friends because partial stake in an apartment shared by three women wasn’t really considered an asset worth liquidating, according to her attorneys. I worked in the catacombs, avoided going out, avoided men. I did nothing to draw attention, went almost nowhere, and bought nothing I didn’t need.
“Now I’m trying to get the courts to allow me to change my name. Everyone calls me Ria, except Del. He calls me Ri. Do you know why?”
Mal shook his head. A small sad smile pulled at my mouth. “Because Franklyn’s uncle’s name is Victor. And the headlines when his wife won in court read ‘Victor McAvery’s widow victorious against Victoria Olsen in wrongful death suit’. They went absolutely gaga over using our names together. Everywhere I went, every time I heard someone say my name, all I heard was his name. All I saw was his bloated, dead face. Every time someone touched me, all I felt were his hands on me. His and the hands of all those boys.
“So I asked everyone to stop calling me by that name and they did. No one questioned it. Sometimes Vonne slips up, and Tobias is sometimes so uptight and a stickler to the rules that he’ll call me Victoria when he’s around others, but you’re the only one who doesn’t make me hate hearing it. The scary truth is that you’re the only person who’s made me feel the way I do. You’re the only person who doesn’t make me scream in a panic because of your touch. If I want to run from you, it’s not because I’m scared of you, but because I’m scared about how you make me feel. And sometimes I wonder…I wonder if I could let you do other things, because when I’m with you I feel so many wonderful things. But I’m damaged goods, Mal. I’m so screwed up in my head that it’s taken almost a decade just to get here to this point and I don’t know how much further I can go because you’re going to want that. You’re going to want more than I’m ready to give. You’re going to want to do things and go places where people will see us, and because you’re you, they’ll want to take pictures.
“And I’m afraid,” the sobs had returned, “I’m afraid that people will recognize me, remember me, and then it’ll all start up again. The death threats, the stalking, the cameras in my face of people throwing money at me to see if I’ll let them touch me, and then I’ll have to leave here. I’ll have to leave you.”
A firm, gentle hand lifted to cradle my cheek, a silent command pulling my face upward, urging my swollen eyes to open to look at him. “Why would you have to leave me, sweetheart?”
“Because you’ll want me to,” I hiccupped. “When people learn who I am they’ll use it against you, they’ll use it against MOAT. It’s a nightmare, Mal. It’s a nightmare. They never left me alone in California. They hounded me night and day. The press, freaks, people looking for a scapegoat for the
ir own feelings. And when all of that ends up on your doorstep and you become tangled up in it, it’ll ruin your reputation and you’ll hate me for it.”
He chuckled softly before leaning in to press featherlight kisses against my eyelids. “Baby, you do realize that my reputation can’t exactly be tarnished any more than it is, right? Besides, I know the truth and that’s all that matters.”
My head shook almost violently. “No. The truth doesn’t matter. The truth never matters. What matters is what people think and people think I’m a slut that deserved everything that happened, and by being seen with me they’ll associate you with all of it. I don’t want that to happen. Don’t make me make it happen."
He kissed my forehead, lined my brows with soft, ghostly kisses before sighing and squeezing me against his heart. “I’m a big boy, Victoria. Let me pick and choose my battles. I think if you can survive them then I can, too. You’ll never be a victim again.”
Lifting my head from the crook of his neck, I gazed up at him. “What?”
“Your mantra,” he said with a soft smile. “You are a survivor. More than that, you’re a goddamn warrior woman. My girlfriend is a fucking warrior.”
I don’t know why, but his words triggered another round of tears, and as he kissed each one away, my heart replaced each drop of moisture with a drop of something else, something firmer, something vital. The car was silent except for the rasping, gulping sounds of my hurt, my shame, my fear, and something foreign: my hope. I wept tears that had been welling up within me for years. I wept for the girl I’d been all those years ago that never stood a chance once my reputation was ruined. I wept for the future I’d never have because of one vindictive and malicious high school boy. I wept for the hope that had died the minute a judge had deemed me guilty of the crime of surviving an attempted rape.
And through it all, strong arms held me.
Through it all, comforting hands did nothing but stroke my fingers and hair.
Through it all, I laid in the embrace of a man and I felt safe.
Mal drove us to my apartment where he walked me to the door and followed me when I invited him in. My roommates said nothing, merely waved as we walked past them. Even Holly gave me a faint smile before turning to disappear into the kitchen.
He sat quietly on my bed as I walked around, grabbing clothes from my dresser and a towel from inside the linen closet in the bathroom. When I looked at him, there was no expectancy in his eyes, no fire of need to frighten me off. Instead, he simply smiled at me.
“Um, did you…did you want to take a shower?” I offered, shy and absolutely unsure of what I was supposed to do with a man in my bedroom. I didn’t think when I’d asked him inside. I didn’t think when I’d grabbed his hand and led him down the hallway to my back bedroom. I didn’t think when I’d kicked off my shoes and began unbuttoning my polo.
And now, seeing him sitting on my mother’s comforter, seeing how he filled the room with his presence, I knew that thinking wasn’t ever going to be successful around him. Surrounded by my sanctuary, my safe space, Michael Alan Lachlan was a vacuum of common sense and a generator of sensory exploration. He stole my breath, he ignited my desire, he filled my heart, and he kissed away my tears. This man was the pot of gold and the rainbow when it came to how he made me feel, and part of me wasn’t sure if he was real.
“Did you want to take a shower with me, sweetheart?”
I was almost twenty-six-years-old and those words had never been spoken to me in all those years. That ignorance left me speechless, which was dumb because I had asked him, hadn’t I? Or maybe I meant for him to take a shower first. Alone. While I sat on my bed thinking about him being naked in my shower. Alone.
“I’ve never…” I couldn’t finish the sentence. I couldn’t even look at him.
Slowly, cautiously, he stood and approached me in the bathroom doorway. He tugged at the hem of my shirt, his eyes locking on mine as he pulled the shirt out from the waistband of my skirt. His fingers skimmed my bare skin around my waist, his thumb just grazing below the edge of my skirt and dipping into my belly button, each stroke a dance of fire along my nerves.
His head lowered, lowered until it was at my ear. “You take your shower. I’ll wait here.”
I could do nothing but stare at him as he retreated, leaving me untouched and yet…touched. He sat on my bed once more and watched me. He wasn’t going to do anything, I realized. He’d always been sensitive to my obvious nervousness but now that he knew the truth, he was even more so. This awareness worked through me like white paint, erasing certain images so that I could start fresh, replacing parts of my life with those that fit better and didn’t leave me scarred.
Like Mal.
Standing in the doorway, still feeling his fingers moving over my belly, I placed my hands at the bottom of my shirt and, after taking a deep breath, lifted the shirt over my head, tossing it aside when it was off. Mal’s shoulders lifted as he inhaled, his eyes growing wider by fractions. Afraid that my sudden onset courage was fleeting, I set my hands to the button at my skirt. I slipped the button through its hole and slowly pulled down its zipper until the entire thing fell off my hips, settling on the floor at my feet.
My breathing quickened as the chill of the bathroom’s tile floor moved up my bare feet through my legs and into my partially nude body. I hadn’t been this naked in front of a man since…
Breathe.
“Victoria,” Mal whispered.
Shaking, my hands moved behind me to unclasp my bra. The sound of my heart thundered in my ears as I struggled with the deadly cocktail of doubt and fear that threatened to slip down my throat. And then my bra was unhooked and I dropped my hands, the straps at my shoulders understanding immediately what their purpose in life suddenly was as they slid down my arms. Only the cups remained, precariously perched on the slight swell of my breasts.
I saw Michael’s eyes lower from mine, heard the slight hitch in his breathing, and then saw all the air disappear from him completely as I twitched and my bra fell away, joining my skirt pooled on the floor.
“Perfect.”
It was one word, spoken like a prayer, an exaltation that I felt as heaviness in my breasts, his eyes magically turning their rosy brown tips from soft points into pearls of sensitivity that needed only his gaze to be fully affected. “Mal,” I whispered, my hands drifting to the cotton lace of my utilitarian panties. That’s when my eyes drifted down and I realized that this was one of those moments when I should be wearing something sexy, something appealing. Instead, I was wearing five-year-old white briefs that had thick eyelet lace at the waist for that special “touch” of femininity.
Even my bra was plain white cotton, evoking nothing sensuous or romantic. It simply covered my small breasts under my polo, something cheap that came in a pack of two from Target.
Mortified, I turned and hurried into the bathroom, my hands crossed over my chest. This was Michael Alan Lachlan. The Pussy Collector. If my friends were right, he’d seen enough beautiful women, beautiful bodies, and sexy underwear to know that what I wore was as close as you could get to diapers without the padding.
What was I thinking?
Was I really trying to seduce this man in granny panties and cotton slingshots? Did I actually think I stood a chance against the countless number of certified goddesses he’d had in his arms, in his bed? Me? My eyes lifted and I started, my eyes widening at the shirtless figure standing behind me in the mirror. His chest gave off such an enormous amount of heat, my back bowed away slightly. His large hands moved to cup my shoulders, sliding down my arms and gently pulling them away from my chest.
“Don’t hide yourself, sweetheart,” he said to my reflection. “Don’t ever hide who you are, especially not from me.”
His eyes were on mine, his focus solely on my face. But as his hands moved lower, to the waistband of my underwear, my eyes broke contact to stare in wonder at his fingers slipping beneath the hem and disappearing. The core of me began t
o pulse, each one radiating outward as if calling for the attention of the four corners of Victoria. Slowly, oh so slowly, his entire body began to lower, his eyes still focusing on mine in the mirror. Each inch my panties dipped lower, the tighter the sensations between my thighs grew.
I was near breathless, only able to take small sips of air as the top hem of my panties revealed crisp, dark curls of hair, and then, as my hips jerked forward from the light graze of his fingers on my outer thighs, I saw something. Something glistening. Something…wet.
I caught Mal’s gaze in the mirror, his eyes also noticing that glint of wetness, and his mouth opened at the sight, his tongue slipping out to lick his lips and coat them with a wetness all their own. I whimpered and he looked up at me, smiling softly before turning his head to press a soft kiss to my hip. Then he stood and left me standing in front of the mirror, his attention now focused on the shower. I watched his muscular back stretch and ripple as he fiddled with the knobs in my shower, adjusting the water until a billow of steam puffed out from the curtain.
Returning to me, he eyed the plastic bag and tape that I used to wrap my arm. Without asking me what they were for he placed the bag on my cast and sealed the edges with the tape. Smiling at me, he took my hand and led me inside, his body moving aside so that he never touched me with more than his hands. When I was behind the curtain, the water splashing on my skin, he pressed two of his fingers against his lips and then brought them to mine.
