by Gabi Moore
I backed away and opened the door.
“Whatever, fine. It’s just a drink. I have to go. I have a business to run, remember?”
I was already halfway down the hall when I heard him call out after me.
“Yeah, I remember, hop to it!”
My skin prickled as I picked up my pace and left, yanking the scarf tightly round myself against the cold.
Fuck him.
Fuck all of them.
I bet he’d have a nice little laugh about me later. Asshole. But it didn’t matter. If I could get a loan out of him, then that was all I cared about.
Chapter 4 - Felix
Do you know where the word ‘saboteur’ comes from?” I asked. “It’s from the French word for shoe, and it comes from factory workers who would throw their wooden shoes into the cogs of machinery to sabotage their employees as a form a resistance.”
She gently rolled my knee back down while maintaining a slight pinch on my patella tendon. Her hands were tender but firm as they pawed up and down my leg.
“Hm, is that so?” she said absentmindedly.
As the only female physiotherapist on a base of dozens and dozens of horny men, I was pretty sure she barely even registered me and my pathetic attempts at small talk. But she was nice to look at. And her small, white hands felt good against my skin. I hadn’t been touched in so long.
“You know, Felix, you’re doing really well. I have to say I’m impressed. And when you get back to Earth and see a more jacked up professional, you’re going to recover even more quickly,” she said, clapped her hands together and stood to look down at my purple leg with satisfaction.
A month ago, protestors had infiltrated the latest arrival to Mars and someone had rigged an explosive to one of the water filtration rooms, destroying all $3 billion worth of investor money and my entire left leg and hip in the process. Sabotage, you see.
“And as soon as I’m all better, I’ll come right back and they can get my other leg,” I said and laughed.
She didn’t laugh back. Fuck. It wasn’t even a joke, really. I don’t know, I was just trying the whole black-humor-to-deal-with-tragic-near-death-experience thing …but I didn’t seem to be pulling it off too well.
“What would colonel Wilson say if she heard you joking around like that?” she asked sharply. Her face was serious and hard. I felt like an ass. Colonel Wilson had probably already arrived back on Earth by now. In a body bag, though, and she’d be getting ready for a fancy military funeral to distract everyone from the fact that nobody up on this godforsaken planet knew what they were doing anymore.
I shrugged and looked away. Whatever.
I’m the kind of guy who pulls the band aid off all at once. It was a lot to take in but fuck it; I didn’t come out here to have a vacation. I had seen my file. I knew what was up. Unfit for further service. PTSD and idiopathic seizures. Some fruity bullshit about survivor guilt that if I’m honest didn’t quite fit right but hell, I already told you I was never any good at emotions, so who knows.
“Remind me when you’re scheduled to fly back home,” she said and peered down with interest at my folder.
“Three days, doc,” I said, and rolled down the hem of my trousers to cover the purple, mauled shape in the place where my leg used to be. She nodded, made some notes and closed the folder again.
“You got a lot of people back home?” she asked. It was usually a forbidden topic of conversation. But since I was already on my way out, it probably didn’t count.
“Well, you know, I got some family,” I said, shrugging off the question. I did have ‘some family’. I had a mom and a dad and a sister. But I also had a full suitcase of letters I had written Emily and never sent. I had her picture that I kept tucked into my pocket wherever I went on this base. And more than that, I carried her around in my head. I had tried to forget, but memories of her just burst through into my dreams instead. I imagined that I was chatting with her on free evenings, explaining all the Prometheus program politics and drama, gossiping with her about who had been seen doing what with whom after hours. I sometimes just imagined her curled up on the sofa while I worked.
On the isolation of this shitty red planet, she became my imaginary friend, my secret confidante. When the bomb went off and one entire wall of the water filtration room blew out and whipped off into space, my first thought was her. It’ll sound weird, I know, but I instantly felt worried for her. As I lay losing consciousness on the floor, the sirens blaring for the emergency personal, I remember telling her silently not to be afraid, and that they had protocols for this kind of thing, and it was OK, because I was there with her. Fucked up, huh?
Of course, I have no idea what the real Emily Warren was doing these days. I hadn’t spoken to her since that awful night I told her I was breaking her heart for her own good. Last I heard she dropped out of school but after all this time, anything could have happened to her. Part of me kept reminding myself that she was probably married with six kids by now or something, and that if I had any brains I’d stick to my imaginary Emily and remember that the old one probably hated my guts.
But another part of me, that same stupid part that liked to talk to her in my morning shower, well, that part of me ran free and unchecked. We’d get married. We’d buy a place and settle down. I’d say sorry. A million times over: I’m sorry. She’d cry and say it didn’t matter, that she was just glad I was back.
“They say it’s a big shock to the system when you return,” the physio continued. I snapped to attention.
“Yeah, no doubt.”
“Hey, so they tell me you’re not even that bothered? About leaving the mission? I mean, this far in,” she said.
I knew what she was getting at. With the experience and connections I had made here, I would easily be manning my own unit by next year and would have some serious clout when it came to the international Mars talks the year after that. Many people would have killed to go even part of the way on that career path, let alone as far as I had managed in these lonely few years. And all of that was over now. She wanted to know why I wasn’t more upset. To be honest, I didn’t know the answer myself.
I smiled at her and shrugged.
“Are you kidding? I don’t know if you read the news, but Earth is like the wild west these days. Plenty mischief for me to get up to over there!
She gave me a pitying smile. I hoisted myself up, grabbed my walker and inched my way out of the consulting room.
“Did you say you had a wife or something back home?”
I turned to see the physio looking kind of sheepish. Interesting.
“No,” I said slowly. “No wife.”
“Oh! Just wondering,” she said breezily and came to escort me out into the waiting room. Then she gave me the slightest squeeze on my arm and traced her hand over to my back and down, stroking nearly to my butt.
“If you experience any pain after the work we did today, just come over and I’ll get you some pain meds. Even after hours is OK, I don’t mind,” she said, and looked at me. Very interesting.
“Thanks,” I mumbled and scuttled off.
It was a tempting idea. Kind of. But in truth that part of me had switched off a long time ago. There had been nobody before Em and nobody since. How could there? She was singular. Unique. Unless it was her, why would I bother at all? Later that evening I lay myself out a glass of water and two pills, and pretended that it was her who had left them there for me. I thanked her profusely for being such a sweetheart, what with my leg being so fucked up and all. And then I played a few rounds of Death Ops V until I fell asleep. On the bright side, it might not be such a bad thing that I was heading home. It was time. Mars has a way of making it just that little bit harder to hold onto your sanity.
Chapter 5 - Emily
Had I gone mad?
I passed the mascara wand one more time through my lashes and wiggled out the clumps. I mean, if I had to go on a date with him, I might as well look good doing it, right? I fretted ove
r the lashes on the other side and gave my reflection one last look. Did I look like someone who had completely lost her mind?
Of course, the story I was going with was easy to buy into, provided I didn’t think about it too closely: I had simply endured an ill-advised but in retrospect mostly normal teenage lapse in good judgment, and ended up having my name and image dragged through dirty, dirty mud, but it was all OK now, because everyone was an adult now, and people had forgotten the video after all these years, and I certainly didn’t care, what with being a sophisticated, adult business owner type woman.
Right?
I sighed and scowled at my reflection. Maybe I had just gone mad.
I looked at the dress I had picked out. I had spent nearly every waking moment since the bank meeting deciding on this specific dress. It had to be confident and sexy but not inviting. Competent but not enough to suggest anything boring. Up-to-date but not trendy. Showing how poised I was in my body but not so much that I needed to flaunt anything.
Fuck. I didn’t know.
I tried to look at the swell of my hips, at my breasts, and see what Buck might see. A regular girl? A reformed slut? Current and practicing slut? I didn’t know. I stared hard at my reflection. I had been known for more than three years as fuck bunny. The words alone still had that poison in them, still had the ability to conjure up the past:
It’s hard to say what came first. Drugs, death, sadness, sex …they all seemed to be tightly knotted somewhere inside my stomach, and I had never had the strength to really unpick the details.
Maybe I was depressed because of my dad’s death, and that’s why I started with anti-anxiety medication, and that’s why, on that fateful night, my body reacted the way it did. Or maybe the slutty behavior was there all along, and that’s why I ended up being depressed, and taking all those pills, and doing what I did. Or maybe, and this is something I only allowed myself to think in my darkest moments, just maybe, my father’s death was because of my anxiety, because of my depression. Maybe, in some strange, invisible ways, I got everything I deserved.
I had started with one pill. Then I took another, just in case. I didn’t want to go. I was still sad. Still upset about Felix. But what did being sad helped? I swallowed back the entire bottle of pills with some vodka and wiped my mouth on the back of my forearm.
It didn’t matter.
Nothing mattered.
The Sigma Chi party could have been anywhere, and with anyone. But if it offered just a moment of relief, even the faintest promise of escaping from the pain, then I would have to go.
And as I laughed and flirted and threw back countless cups of beer and who knows what else, I felt that finally, finally I was beginning to bludgeon away the sharp edges of that pain. As they swarmed around me and laughed and cheered as I drank cup after cup, I found with a sick thrill that …I felt better. I felt dead inside, but for me, that was an improvement. I didn’t want to feel anything.
And as I wobbled dizzy and danced with strange people I had never met before, I fell deeper and deeper into that blankness. That sweet, merciful emptiness. At last I had found a precious quiet spot, a little hiding hole far away from the pain of my awful life… it didn’t matter to me that this little pit was filled with strange, drunk frat boys who were looking at me like they wanted to tear me to shreds. What did I care about my body anyway?
I tumbled down a strange rollercoaster of intoxication. I knew they were giving me things. I didn’t care. The knot in my stomach tightened but my head felt light and empty. Good. I flitted in and out of awareness, in and out of a numb, shimmery dream. I remember climbing unsteadily onto a table, my ankles wobbling violently on my high heels, and by some miracle standing up tall and raising my hands up to a crowd of cheers. They turned the music up. Some of them touched me. I let them. I danced. But I wasn’t really dancing. I was falling. I was dying.
I remember being on a sofa. A camera was thrust in my face; a hand went to the base of my neck to prop up my head and show me to the screen.
“Say it out loud. Say you want it,” said a jeering voice from somewhere behind me.
“Want what?” I mumbled, struggling to focus my eyes.
They erupted into laughter around me. Buck’s face appeared before mine like the atoms in the air had arranged of their own free will to form the contours of his stupid, brick-like head.
“We take our dares very seriously at Sigma Chi baby. No backsies. Say loud and clear that you want it” he said, leaning close to my face.
I could smell smoke on his breath. I suddenly became aware that I was no longer wearing my top, and that my breasts were exposed. Was I on somebody’s lap?
I dimly became aware that soon, they were going to fuck me. I couldn’t hold onto the thought for very long, and each time I tried to speak, it felt like the words were squirming away from me.
“I want it,” I whispered into the camera. “I want all of it.”
The room erupted into cheers again. What did I want? Who knows. I wanted my father back, I wanted Felix back. I wanted not to want that so badly anymore…
When the hands went to my skirt and yanked it off, I didn’t protest. In its own revolting way, it felt good. Maybe I wanted them to use me. Maybe I wanted to be obliterated once and for all, and to forget about hope and dignity.
Something bright and orange caught my eye, and I swiveled to see a boy marching over with an oversized …carrot? The image flickered and blurred in front of my eyes, so I just closed them.
“You want this, little fuck bunny? This is what you want, isn’t it?” I heard Buck’s voice say. Maybe I nodded. The chant of fuck bunny fuck bunny fuck bunny melted into the beat of the music and I felt my legs being spread open.
I allowed it.
My head fell back and they pressed the carrot into me. They were playing a game. I lifted my head and tried to focus on their conversation, but the vagaries of language seemed like magic to me. I caught only snippets. Only jeers and smiles and lewd gestures.
“Shit, guys, she’s actually really wet.”
“Loser eats the ass carrot.”
“Fucking whore.”
“Go for it, Buck, she wants your carrot too!”
I remember looking down and seeing what they were doing to me. It was as though I saw it all unfolding on a faraway cinema screen. It was happening to someone else, not to me. It didn’t matter. It wasn’t real. Then I remember Buck climbing onto me, his shirt still on but his shorts bunched around his ankles. His face was again close to mine, and all at once I felt a deep, strange pressure all through me, one that felt wildly dangerous. Forbidden. Like it wasn’t supposed to be happening. Then why was I pushing my hips up and into him? Why was I groaning and laughing as they cheered?
It had token me days to sober up. The aftermath took a while to process. Where was the ‘rape’ line, and which side did I fall? Where was the ‘consciousness’ line, and on what side of that line had I been on? In which exact parallel dimension did fuck bunny even exist?
Retrospectively, I had put the details together. One bottle of anxiety meds. More than a dozen bottles of beer. A frat party of at least fifty guys. A single carrot. An entire hellish landscape opening up to me as I showered myself the next morning and found countless finger-shaped bruises on my thighs and arms. A scratch on my lower belly. The feeling that my brain had liquefied and spilled out my ear. Dull, dirty aches in places I didn’t even want to look. My hair smelt of beer and cum. There was a bright pink, half-moon mark on my left breast. A bite mark. I had also been bitten.
I don’t know how I ever survived the days that followed. I don’t know how I didn’t literally die at my doctor’s appointment. My psychiatrist went pale and told me that it was a miracle I hadn’t killed myself. When I discovered that the video had been shared on the school bulletin board, and that most of the college had seen it and probably thousands of others too, I felt …nothing. I watched myself in jerky, dimly lit motion on the screen. I watched my loose, clumsy l
imbs moving over countless shoulders of men I didn’t recognize. I watched my mouth open to whatever was thrust at it. I watched my legs flop open, and my eyes roll back into my head. It was me …but it wasn’t me.
“You want this, little fuck bunny? Is this what you want?” Buck said and pulled a thumbs up at the camera.
I grinned and took my time mouthing the word yes. I paused the video and never looked at it again. But I felt calm. Something inside me had died. I had nothing left. I vaguely remember trying to think of legal action, of calling it an assault, of getting campus admin to intervene. But there I was. Fuck Bunny. And I was clearly, boldly, provocatively, asking for it.
And so I took what I asked for. All of it. I took the mountains of shame they heaped on me and the very next day I dropped out. Like giant spotlights had been shut off all at once, my world went dark and small very quickly. People snickered at me as I packed my things and left. People I thought were friends muttered “fuck bunny” under their breath as I walked past them in the dorms. I had already died. So I decided to take my ghost elsewhere. To my deceased father’s failing bakery business. Here I rolled cinnamon buns by hand until I forgot. Until the bruises faded and I no longer woke up screaming. Till even the biggest douches in town had gotten bored of leaving carrots on my mail box.
And then it was now. And I was putting on mascara for the boy that had orchestrated it all. For the boy who had not only kept his scholarship after the whole debacle, but who achieved something close to celebrity, a kind of attaboy infamy that was condoned silently by the professors and explicitly by the other frat boys. Clearly, I had gone mad. There was no other explanation.
