by Lane Hart
Sam moans on each and every stroke, a little louder each time until she hits her crescendo and her pussy puts my cock in a tight vise. With the blood pounding in my ears with my own impending climax, I vaguely hear some sort of banging sound coming from outside. I ignore it because no one would be visiting me this late, and I’m too close to stop.
“Grant?” Sam says as my hips began pistoning faster, no longer in my control as I race toward my release.
“Oh, fuck!” I cry out as I empty into the condom, right before there’s a loud crash from the front of the house.
“Grant! What was that?” Sam exclaims.
“I don’t know,” I answer honestly while my heart begins to return to the normal rate.
Suddenly the bright, blinding overhead light is turned, and a herd of men come barging into my bedroom.
“What the fuck?” I shout as I scramble off Sam and to my feet, pulling the sheets up to cover her body. “Who the hell are you?” I turn back to the men now surrounding the bed on all sides. And then I see the shiny badges on each of their similar blue uniforms and know I’m fucked.
“Grant Matthews, you’re under arrest for the felony of having intercourse with a student,” one of them eventually says, confirming my suspicions.
I’m so fucked.
“Can you just give us a minute to get dressed?” I ask, first and foremost not because I care about my nudity, but because I’ve counted five strange men who I sure as fuck don’t want to see Sam naked.
“We’ve got an orange jumpsuit for you to wear,” another officer says.
“Fine, I’ll leave just as soon as I untie her so that she can get dressed without witnesses,” I tell them, trying to sound reasonable, even if I’m panicking inside.
“She’s a victim, and we have to take pictures of how we found her for evidence,” one of the younger cops says before he pulls out his phone as if to take a photo of Sam tied up and naked. Never gonna fucking happen.
“You’re not taking photos of her like this,” I warn him.
“Wanna bet?” he asks before he walks up to the opposite side of the bed and starts to jerk the covers off of her. Not letting that happen in a million years, I launch myself at him from across the room, slamming the asshole against the wall and ramming my fist into his face. One or more of the other four men quickly pull me off of him and slam me face first to the ground to handcuff my wrists behind my back. Hearing Sam screaming in the background, I keep fighting against them until pain radiates through my entire body and I feel like I’m being electrocuted.
…
Sam
“Please stop,” I beg the police officers through sobs as I watch them fighting with Grant. “Stop it! He didn’t do anything wrong!” I yell at them after I hear the sizzling sound of a Taser and then Grant’s grunts of pain from the floor.
“Actually, sugar, he broke the law,” one of the officers turns and says to me with a southern drawl while the others jerk Grant to his feet and drag him from the bedroom, still naked except for handcuffs. “You see, as an employee of the high school, he’s not allowed to have sex with you.”
“I’m nineteen; I’m not a child!” I tell him through the tears.
“No, you’re not,” the officer says when he pulls the sheets down my body, touching my skin the whole way. With my arms still restrained I have no way to hide myself other than pulling my knees to my chest.
“You could have sex with me or, say, the entire police department for that matter, and it wouldn’t be illegal,” the cop says while gawking at me. As if I wasn’t humiliated enough, he pulls out his phone and starts taking photos. “Sorry, doll. For evidence purposes only, of course,” he tells me with a lascivious wink.
“Please let me go,” I beg him as tears flood my cheeks.
“Sure, sweetheart, just as soon as my sergeant gives the approval,” he replies with a grin. “Shouldn’t be long now.”
The other cops come and go from the room, all of them ignoring my pleas to release me. I keep trying to loosen the satin, but my hands are tied too close together. Telling myself that this is all just a misunderstanding, that it’ll be over soon and not to panic doesn’t really work either.
Especially when one of the cops returns to the room and hands over a phone and some sort of dark fabric to the cop that took my pictures as “evidence” telling him, “Bag her and then record it all with this phone.”
“Man, I don’t know about all this,” the evidence taker says. “The photos are actual evidence. I don’t care how much money he’s got; this is pretty fucked up.”
“Then get the hell out, and I’ll take the 50K all for myself,” the younger one tells him.
“No, no. I’ll stay, just to make sure he doesn’t get too rough.”
“Whatever,” the young one says. Jerking the cloth from him, he comes over to the side of the bed.
“Please let me go. This is all a big mistake,” I plead with him.
“Soon, baby girl. We’re almost finished up here,” he tells me before he slips the dark material over my head.
“What are you doing?” I ask, nearly hyperventilating from the hot cloth over my nose and mouth and the continuous stream of tears.
“Let’s get this over with,” I hear someone say.
Silence fills the room as I wait for what feels like forever, trying to free my wrists and shrug the suffocating material from my face.
And then I feel it.
A man’s large, strong hands on each of my knees, wrenching them apart despite my resistance…
I start screaming at the top of my lungs until one of the hands presses the cloth over my nose and mouth while the other squeezes tightly around my neck, leaving me gasping for air until the nightmare begins to fade away.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Grant
After spending fourteen long days in the most disgusting place on earth, the county jail, I’m finally given a reprieve, a meeting with my attorney in a conference room. The worst part of the last two weeks has been not being able to see Sam, to tell her I’m so sorry about what happened and to ask if she’s okay.
“The DA claims he has evidence, but I just don’t see how that’s possible. Being…in bed with the girl doesn’t prove you had intercourse unless you had something on your phone?” Criminal defense attorney Bob Blakely asks me.
“No, just regular everyday chats on my phone,” I tell him as I think back over the weeks. “Nothing sexual.”
“That’s good,” he replies. “Then all they must have is a witness statement. We can win he said, she said. Are you sure the girl didn’t tell someone?”
“Absolutely sure,” I tell him. “Sam wouldn’t have said a word.”
“Okay, well, the DA wants to set up a meeting with us here tomorrow. Probably wants to offer you a plea, although I’m not sure why your presence is required. Typically, I’m just handed a plea arrangement to discuss with you alone.”
“It’s fine. I’ll meet with him,” I assure Bob since it will mean getting out of the cell again tomorrow for maybe a few minutes. “Will you be able to keep Sam out of this?” I ask him.
“Her initials, SE, are all that appear on the court paperwork for now. But if we go to trial, we’ll need her to get on the stand and testify to win.”
“I don’t want to drag her into this and have the whole damn town know.”
“So, you would rather rot in prison?” he asks.
“Not really,” I answer honestly. “How long would it take to go to trial?”
“A year or so,” Bob answers with a shrug like that’s an insignificant amount of time.
“And I’ll stay here that whole time?” I ask incredulously.
“The judge raised your bond to a million when I had the hearing to ask him to lower it from the five hundred thousand, which was already ridiculously high. The DA thinks you’re a flight risk and a danger to the community, convincing the judge that you may have seduced more ‘victims’ that haven’t come forward yet
. So, unless you or someone you know has a million-dollar asset to put up or a hundred thousand to pay to a bondsman and never see the money again, then yes, you’re gonna stay in here.”
“Fuck,” I grumble, slouching further in the seat in my itchy orange jumpsuit. My parents do well for themselves, but their estate is nowhere close to a million dollars. And I can’t ask them to throw away a hundred grand of their retirement fund on me.
“Let’s see what the DA has tomorrow, and we’ll go from there, okay?” Bob asks, and I nod.
“Can I see Sam?” I ask.
“Absolutely not!” he answers without hesitation. “She’s the victim in a pending criminal case, and you’re forbidden from having any contact with her. If you even try to call her or write her, it’ll make things that much worse for you.”
“Fine,” I grumble, disappointed that I can’t even apologize to Sam for getting us into this mess. She probably hates me. Hell, I hate myself for being so goddamn jealous and weak that I couldn’t wait just a few more weeks to be with her. It was stupid, and now I’ll have to suffer the consequences, whatever they may be.
…
The next day, the security guard leads me handcuffed into a bigger conference room where an older man sits in front of a laptop next to a middle-aged woman and my attorney seated across from them beside an empty chair.
“Dr. Matthews, come in and have a seat,” Bob says. “This is District Attorney Mark Williams and Assistant District Attorney Lori Blackwood.”
“Hi,” I say just to try and act cordial when I take my seat, resting my handcuffed wrists in my lap.
“Cutting to the chase, Dr. Matthews, we’re ready to offer you a plea to indecent liberties with a student, a Class I felony instead of the much more serious, Class F one you’re facing. If convicted of the F felony, you’re looking at anywhere from sixteen to twenty months. Our plea sets your sentence at ten months active,” the DA says in a rush.
“Ten months!” I exclaim. “No way. I’ll take my chances at trial.”
“We thought you might say that,” the DA replies with a nod. “That’s why I arranged to share our evidence with you and your attorney present at the same time so that you’ll both know our case is not merely hearsay or circumstantial. In fact, if you reject our plea offer, I have enough evidence to indict you on two more Class F felonies, which, if convicted, would put you at roughly four to five years’ active imprisonment at sentencing time.”
“Fine, let’s see this evidence of yours,” I say, curious as to what he thinks is so damn strong that it’ll convince me to go to prison for almost an entire year.
“All right, but I must warn you that what I’m about to show you is incredibly graphic. Rest assured that no one outside of the officers and my ADAs helping with this particular case has seen it. Yet.” He says the last word like a threat.
DA Williams hits a few buttons on the laptop before turning it around towards Bob and me where a dark movie is already playing. Based on the two white stripes on the sides of the screen I know it’s footage someone took vertically with a cell phone. The images are so dark that it takes several seconds before I recognize the scene.
It’s the garden outside of the country club.
And then I see us, Sam’s skin glowing in the darkness while I kiss her against the brick building.
Clearing his throat, Bob says, “This is by no means proof of the legal definition of intercourse.”
Oh, poor Bob. He’s just doing his job, standing up for me, his client. But he has no idea what’s about to happen.
As soon as Sam’s legs wrap around my waist and we start to move off into the darkness, I break.
“That’s enough,” I tell the DA.
“No. You and your attorney need to see all of the evidence so you can make an informed decision in your case,” Williams says blandly.
“He’s right, Grant. I have to know if they have proof of actual intercourse,” Bob tells me.
It’s too dark to clearly make out my and Sam’s faces on the bench, just our two forms before the me on the video can be heard saying, “I need you” and Sam asking me what I’m doing. And then, all hope is lost when she clearly moans my name. I cringe when I hear her obvious yet muffled cries of pleasure and slump a little further into my seat when I hear myself say, “Fuck, Sam. You feel so good.”
“That’s enough,” I tell the DA through clenched teeth while my attorney glares daggers at me. “Where did you get this?”
“An anonymous witness,” the DA replies smugly before spinning the laptop around.
“Let me guess, Hunter Bradshaw?” I ask since he’s the only person I can think of who would’ve come after Sam that night. Especially after he tried to kiss her and she rejected him. Angry and jealous, he must have videoed us from the shadows without us knowing and reported me to the police who showed up to find her still in my bed.
As if this day couldn’t get any worse, the DA clicks away on his laptop before spinning it around again, this time showing Samantha under the bright lights of my bedroom, not a scrap of fabric covering her with her wrists tied above her head and tears streaming down her incredibly sad, crimson face. It’s a horrible sight; and if I hadn’t been there, I would’ve assumed the poor girl had been kidnapped and raped.
“Jesus, Grant,” Bob says from beside me. “This is from his arrest?” he asks the DA.
“It is.”
“She wasn’t crying and upset until a room full of strange men showed up!” I clarify, even if it’s a weak argument.
“Nevertheless, this photo and the video will be shown at trial to prove to the jurors that you had sexual intercourse with a student on two occasions. And we have a witness who will state under oath that he saw the same girl in your hotel room during the state championship track meet which will prove our third felony. There’s no doubt in my mind that you will be found guilty on all counts,” the DA tells me confidently.
“I’ll take the plea,” I say through gritted teeth. “But I want the photos and video, along with Samantha’s name kept off the record and out of this. Not a word or scratch against her academic record either.”
“Grant, we need to discuss the plea alone first,” Bob says to me.
“Are the state prisons better than the jail here?” I ask my attorney.
“Well, yes, but –” he starts.
“Then I’ll sign the plea. I’m not gonna sit in this filthy shithole for a year, just to lose and go away for years,” I tell him, then turn back to the DA. “Provide me in writing a promise that this evidence won’t be shown and Samantha’s name will never be mentioned, and I’ll sign it.”
“Grant, just wait. If you plead to this felony, you’ll most certainly lose your therapist license, and you’ll be a convicted felon for the rest of your life! Not only that, you’ll have to register as a sex offender for at least ten years!” Bob informs me.
“I will get convicted, so what’s the point in fighting it?”
“The jury could find you innocent even if we admit you broke the law. They could side with love instead of the law,” he says.
“And to prove the love, Samantha would have to sit there and let everyone see her that way,” I remind him, gesturing to the laptop still showing her tied up. “Even if they buy that she was in love with me, I’ll look like a sexual deviant and get convicted. I don’t want to spend years in prison!”
“Let me just throw this out there as well,” the DA says as he reclines back in his chair, clearly proud of himself. “As a bonus for your…timely cooperation, if you’re willing to enter the guilty plea by next Friday, we’ll withhold the information from the state’s physical therapy board that the girl was also one of your patients. One less blow while you’re already down, right, Dr. Matthews?”
“What does it matter? They’ll take his license for the felony,” Bob snaps at him.
“One less black mark in case he wants to be a physical therapist assistant someday. With an ethical violation on top of a fel
ony, even that would be impossible.”
“We’ll do the plea next week,” I agree, wanting to salvage whatever I can for my future, even if that future won’t be with Sam.
How could I possibly ask her to wait ten months for me? That’s not fair for her. Besides, next week I’ll be a social leper, and I refuse to drag her future down with me.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Sam
THE PRESENT
"Hunter?" I ask my best friend when Grant’s side of the story comes to an end, my eyes and throat burning with unshed tears remembering the horrible details of that night that still haunt me, not just for Grant’s pain but my own secrets as well. “Were you the one who turned Grant into the police?”
“No, of course not,” Hunter answers right away, but he doesn’t meet my eyes. “I didn’t even know he was Adalyn’s father.”
Thinking back, Hunter never once asked me who knocked me up when I told him after graduation that I was pregnant. My normally protective best friend wouldn’t have let it go until he knew his name and threatened bodily harm. Hunter was almost too accepting of the fact that I was going to have the baby on my own and still go to school. I lost my scholarship, of course, since I couldn’t compete on the track team this spring when I was giving birth, but I was able to get a student loan, and Hunter was quick to offer and help me with tuition since he has a pretty large trust fund.
Hunter can’t deny that he’s never had less than platonic feelings for me after he kissed me at prom. I was so upset with everything that happened afterward with Grant that Hunter and I never talked about his confession again.
“You said you were in love with me,” I mutter. “When we were dancing at prom. You followed me outside and saw us together, didn’t you?” I ask.
“What? No?” Hunter exclaims. “Who are you going to believe, Sam? I’ve always been there for you when he was just screwing around with you.”
“I think you should leave,” I say, lowering my eyes from his.
“Who? Me?” Hunter asks.
