Execution Style

by Lani Lynn Vale

  I was never even in league with a man like him before, and certainly not now.

  I was too plain. I had too many freckles. I was too skinny, and I didn’t have much to work with. Hell, but my dad still called me Scarecrow. I literally had no substance to my body. I was working with boobs the size of most twelve year olds, and feet that were so small they reminded me of elf feet.

  I was also introverted and a bookworm; I preferred a good book over a live person any day.

  Yeah, I’d been surprised when Mitch had asked me out, and was reluctant to accept.

  What I’d originally thought of as a challenge to myself to get out more, had turned into a relationship that I stayed in because I couldn’t figure out a nice way to get out of it.

  He’d been my first sexual encounter. My first bad sexual encounter, but an encounter nonetheless.

  He was sweet and boring, just like me.

  At first it’d been a breath of fresh air to spend time with someone that was so much like myself, but then it got to be really…predictable.

  We’d have dinner. Then we’d have missionary sex (if we had sex at all.) Then he’d go home. He’d call me the next day at lunch as a cursory ‘hello’ then he’d ignore me the rest of the day.

  He never once, in the year we were together, attempted to stay the night. He’d also never invited me to stay the night at his place, either.

  Not that I would’ve accepted since he still lived with his mother…or had when he’d been alive.

  All the while, I continued reading my romance novels. The ones where I’d dream of a domineering man who’d give me what I craved.

  Not that I’d ever tell him. Or, at least, hadn’t intended to.

  That one act of openness from me on the way to church had spawned something dark inside Mitch to let loose.

  Never in my dreams would I had believed that he had that in him.

  Hell, I’d never known that he even carried a gun, and I’d been with him for a freakin year!

  Then for Mitch to rape me, that wasn’t even something I ever contemplated him doing.

  There, I said it. Rape. Rape, rape, rape.

  God, that was such a simple word, yet I felt my throat seize up the more I repeated the word in my mind.

  It was like a hulking, pulsing mass of sickness that sent shivers down my spine the instant I even thought about it.

  And the man in front of me. The one who had a body of a God, and a smile that could make even old women melt, had saved me. Had witnessed my most embarrassing act.

  Then I laughed sharply. Fuck, but everybody had witnessed that act. Even my own parents.

  “Did you say you know her?” He asked, breaking me out of my dark thoughts and pointing at the unconscious Linda.

  That’s when the hilariousness of the situation finally took hold.

  I pulled my phone out and snapped a picture. “Oh yeah, I fucking know her. This is the slime ball’s mother. You know, the one who you witnessed raping me.”

  He ignored how I spat the word rape. Instead, still harping on the fact that she had a water gun pointed in my face.

  "I can't believe you just had a gun pointed at your face. I can't fucking believe it," Miller said after a long few moments of staring at me.

  I was still busy documenting the sight before me.

  If anybody in the world deserved to be sacked like that, it was Linda. She'd been truly horrible to me, and now this.

  It wasn't my fault that he'd died. In fact, that'd been his own fault. He'd been the one to fuck up. He'd been the one holding a gun to my head. He'd been the one who beat the hell out of me in fucking church.

  Now that I was thinking about it, I didn't find her predicament so funny anymore. And I was fairly sure I was going to puke.

  Maybe I was in shock.

  That’d explain why I was laughing only moments after having a gun pointed at my face.

  "It was a fake gun," I said lamely.

  He turned his angry eyes back toward me, spearing me in place.

  They really were a beautiful blue.

  Dark blue, nearly the color of midnight, but when the sun hit them just right, they looked nearly purple.

  "I didn't know it was a fake gun," he snapped. "What I knew was that you had a gun pointed at your face."

  I grimaced. "Linda thought her son walked on water. I'm sure she’s just distraught."

  The excuse was lame. He and I both knew it. But I really didn't want to have to press charges on her.

  Not after her only son had just died, anyway.

  He didn't seem to care, though.

  No, Miller was still just as pissed now as he had been when he'd arrived. Lucky for Linda, though, that a police car pulled into the driveway in the next moment, saving her from Miller’s wrath.

  My house was in a cul-de-sac. So it didn't surprise me in the least that the moment the police cruiser pulled into my driveway that nearly everyone in the circle was out on their front porch.

  My dad liked to call them 'rubberneckers.'

  They were the type of people that held up traffic while at the scene of an accident because they were looking instead of driving.

  Every last one of my neighbors were busy bodies.

  I was in the heart of Kilgore. My street consisted of two retired police officers. Two retired firemen. Three ex-military. Four old ladies that literally had nothing better to do than watch the neighborhood, and finally a retired CEO of Tactical Weapons of Kilgore.

  He had our whole street under surveillance because he had nothing better to do with his time.

  He also supplied the entire Ark-La-Tex police force with weapons.

  Needless to say, I lived on the nosiest block in Kilgore, Texas.

  I also loved it.

  Nobody cared about me more than them.

  Twenty minutes later, we were watching as they hauled Linda towards the police cruiser driven by Miller’s brother, Foster.

  “Make sure you rough her up some,” Miller growled.

  I elbowed Miller, who grinned evilly down at me.

  “The bitch deserves it. I can’t fucking believe she did that. She’s just as fuckin’ crazy as her kid was,” he seethed.

  I grimaced and turned away, but Miller stopped me and handed me a card.

  “I came over to give you this,” he said, holding out a card.

  I looked at it with trepidation.

  “What is it?” I asked warily.

  I read the plain white card as he said, nearly word for word, what the card did.

  “Rape crisis counseling. Bonita Dawes. She’s at the old hospital in the west wing,” Miller said softly.

  I looked up at him with fear in my eyes.

  “I didn’t think I was being that obvious about my fears,” I said tiredly.

  He shook his head. “You weren’t. I just got this from Rue, the woman who took the evidence when you were...you know.”

  There was that disgusting word again, right on the tip of my tongue.

  I didn’t say it though, and neither did he.

  “I don’t want it,” I tried lamely.

  He raised his eyebrow at me.

  “What if I go with you?” He offered.

  My heart sank.

  I didn’t want him there.

  Well, I did, but I didn’t.

  “Why?” I asked.

  He seemed to think about what he was going to say before he finally said it.

  “I’ve been responsible for making too many bad decisions in my life, and I can’t do it anymore,” Miller urged. “I know this is the right thing to do. I don’t know why, but I need to be there. I feel connected to you in some way, and I just know you need help. So, here I am, offering help.”

  The idea of him being there made me think that I might be able to get through talking it out, getting it all off my chest.

  Why had I latched onto him so tight?

  He didn’t d
eserve this.

  He shouldn’t have to take care of the woman he saved.

  Yet he was, and I was grateful.

  I was also selfish enough to take him up on the offer.

  “Okay,” I relented finally.

  Relief washed over his features at hearing my assent, and he smiled for the first time since he’d arrived fifteen minutes ago.

  I closed my eyes, and picked up the phone. If that was all it took to make him smile, then I’d make that appointment.

  Chapter 5

  True friends always tell you what you need to hear. For instance, today you needed to hear ‘fuck that bitch.’

  -Text from Miller to Mercy

  Mercy

  Two days later

  “I told him I wasn’t happy with our sex life, and that I didn’t love him anymore. I told him that I needed more. That there was nothing left for us to fix, and that after we left church, I was planning on packing what little I had at his place and leaving him,” I whispered sadly.

  Miller stared at me. I could feel his eyes narrowing on me.

  I shouldn’t have asked him to come, but he’d become my champion, and I found that I could do the things that I wouldn’t normally be able to do with him at my side.

  He didn’t deserve to hear everything that was wrong with my life. He didn’t need to hear about my inability to be happy with the man I’d been with for nearly a year. I was positive he didn’t want to hear about it, if the way his eye lids twitched at each mention of Mitch’s name was anything to go by.

  “So, from what I’m understanding, you feel like the rape was your fault,” the counselor asked for confirmation.

  “I didn’t mean to tell him exactly what came out of my mouth,” I hesitated. “It started out as just being a standard breakup. I hadn’t intended to tell him anything until we’d gotten home from church.”

  The counselor, Bonita, nodded.

  She was a short woman with her hair in a bob, just under her cheeks.

  She looked about two weeks over eighteen, yet she had her degree in psychology as well as counseling.

  She knew her shit.

  I knew that within the first fifteen minutes of our session.

  “I’m not saying it’s my fault, per say, but I am telling you that I’m the one that had asked for it,” I explained slowly.

  I heard Miller growl underneath his breath, and a wave of heat started to flush my face.

  “Did you tell him you didn’t want to do what you did?” Bonita asked.

  I nodded urgently. “Of course I told him to stop. I’m not a fan of public displays of affection, but I am a fan of spontaneity. I’d told him on the way to church, instead of when we’d arrive home, for one simple reason. He asked. He asked and I told. I’m horrible at keeping things inside.”

  “What else did you say that day?” Bonita asked.

  “I told him that I wanted someone that could overpower me. That could make me feel like I’m insignificant to their strength.”

  Bonita nodded, and I chanced a look at Miller. Could see his face trying to remain neutral, yet he was doing a horrible job at hiding his anger.

  “You’ve told me a lot about what you said to Mitch. How about what you were feeling during the actual act of the rape,” Bonita instructed.

  I thought about it for a moment.

  “It wasn’t ‘traumatizing,’” I decided on finally. “I mean, it was awful, don’t get me wrong. It didn’t hurt, though. Not the actual r-rape. It was the fact that I was scared, and the fact that he was doing it in front of so many people that really made it so awful.”

  I took a shaky breath and said what I had to say next, knowing that it was going to make Miller hate me.

  “I liked it though. I had an orgasm,” I said quietly. “I deserved to be treated that way after all of the depraved things I admitted to him in the car, on the way to church. I’m so fucking gross I can’t stand it. Then, here I am wanting to have sex four days after I was raped. What does that make me?” I didn’t wait for her to answer. I did it for her. “A slut, that’s what.”

  I could see Miller move out of the corner of my eye, and then he was on his knees in front of me. His big palms cupping either side of my face. “That’s just bullshit, and you know it. You didn’t deserve to be treated like that. The first time you said no, and we know you said no, because we could see you as well as hear you.” I flinched at the fact that they could all see me, but Miller continued as if he never even felt the flinch. “The first time you said no, that should’ve been it. No one deserves to lose that right. Everyone has the right to say no. Everyone. Man, woman, and child.”

  “As for liking stuff like that, who fucking doesn’t? Nobody wants a boring man in bed. You need chemistry to keep a relationship alive. It’s also possible to force an orgasm. To make a woman feel like she’s enjoying it. That’s just the body’s biological response to a stimulus. It’s what makes a rapist feel ten feet tall. Humiliating you was what he craved,” Miller snarled.

  I blinked at the vehemence in his voice. The power behind his words. The absolute truth in them.

  “He’s right, dear. Everything he’s said and more. That’s a way for the man to feel justified in doing what he did. If you enjoyed it, then he could say what he was doing wasn’t bad. He forced you to orgasm. And there’s nothing wrong with wanting to move on. Nothing at all. That’s called moving on. Not dwelling on the past, something you can’t change no matter how much you wish you could. Some people it takes months, or years. But the lucky ones…the ones that have the support of a man, like the one on his knees in front of you, or a loved one that’ll help them through, those are truly the fortunate ones. The ones that can get past their fears and have a good life again,” Bonita whispered fiercely.

  It was then that I realized that Bonita, too, had suffered at the hands of a man. That she’d been raped just like I’d been.

  She was right. Rape was rape.

  If I said no, than that constituted rape. In all fifty states.

  Then, I felt like something lifted from my chest. I wasn’t fixed, but I was on the way. All it would take was time.

  ***

  An hour later, as Miller and I walked into the local diner called Catfish Charlie’s, I wasn’t so sure about feeling better. In fact, I was worse. Much, much worse.

  I’d deliberately not gone out into public since everything had happened.

  After talking with the therapist for another hour, and then telling Miller that I was scared to go out by myself, he decided we should try it out.

  “No one will say a fucking word to you. I promise,” Miller declared as he held the door open for me to walk through.

  I went, albeit reluctantly, but he stayed close to my back.

  So close that I could feel his heat along my back.

  His hand was resting at the small of my back as we walked up to the hostess station where Jeaniene stood, looking at me with sympathy.

  I’d give her credit, though. She didn’t say a word as she seated Miller and me, then took our drink orders.

  Miller chose to take the seat beside me instead of on the opposite side.

  Effectively pinning me in, protecting me, and shielding me away from prying eyes all at the same time.

  “Smooth,” I said, patting his arm.

  He grinned down at me and asked, “So, what’s good at this place? I’ve never been before.”

  I blinked. “You’ve never been to Catfish Charlie’s before? It’s practically a historical marker in Kilgore. Even the out-of-towners know this place. How long have you been here again?”

  “A year,” he rumbled, perusing the menu with exuberance.

  I snorted. “Why haven’t you been here?”

  He shrugged. “They have a fishing bait that’s used for catfishing named Catfish Charlie. I didn’t think a restaurant could be very appealing, seeing as it’s named after that shit.”

  I smiled.
“It’s really good. Don’t let the name fool you.”

  He grunted. “Only for you, Mercy Me, will I risk my health to eat in a restaurant that’s named after something that uses ground up fish guts and blood to make their product.”

  I stuck my tongue out at him and looked down at my menu, even though I already knew what I wanted.

  The table in front of me shifted, and I looked up to see Brock, one of the men that worked for me, sitting down opposite us.

  He wasn’t alone, either. Porter and Maine were with him.

  Porter took a seat next to Brock, and Maine pulled up a chair from another table without asking the occupants.

  They gave him a look, but didn’t say a word. Mainly because Maine was about two inches shy of six and a half feet and built like a scary motherfucker.

  That’s what Porter and Brock said, at least.

  “Gentlemen,” Miller greeted the men.

  They didn’t spare him a glance, instead focusing all of their attention on me.

  Porter, Brock, and Maine had been with Second Chances for a little over seven months now.

  They were all from different branches of the military, and had all suffered life altering injuries that took them out of their military careers abruptly.

  Brock was the first to speak. “We’ve been waiting for you to come in.”

  I smiled slightly.

  “I wasn’t ready,” I admitted.

  He nodded, his head turning down to look at the table as if he really wanted to say something, but was telling himself he shouldn’t.

  And I was thankful. I didn’t really want to start that here and now. Not yet, anyway.

  There was going to be a time and a place to bring that up, but I wouldn’t be doing it after I just had a very exhausting first session with my therapist, and braving the public for the first time since the incident.

  Brock looked up, and I was struck speechless by the look in his eyes.

  Brock had become a great friend when he started on at Second Chances.

  He was tall with brown hair, muscular, and tanned. He was normal in every way.

  Or at least with all of his clothes on.

  Brock was missing a leg.

  He’d been shot in the leg over a year ago, and had caught an infection in his bone.