The Lapse

 

My thanks to Monica Rose and Portia Bennet for proofreading and helpful suggestions.

This is a work of adult fiction so that's a caution that covers everything. No resemblance to reality should be inferred or expected.

 

 

There was something wrong.  I didn’t know how much wrong but it was wrong.  It was late in the morning.  I usually woke up at four, which was twilight even in summer, while today the sun was well up.  I wasn’t in my room.  Most likely I was in the hospital.  I had not seen rooms painted with the same pale green as the one I was in.  It’s not a wrong color it just looked very cold.  I didn’t panic and that was really weird too.

First things first, I hurried to the bathroom and received a shock – my boy parts were gone!  I checked thoroughly – nothing boyish was left.  Not that I complained.  It’s just that I wanted to be in control over all changes my body underwent.

What about breasts?  Looking in the mirror I saw the same me.  Breasts were almost the same I’d remembered them.  But my hair was already almost two inches long and styled in something like a pixie cut.  Was I unconscious more than four months?  There were two simple studs in my ears.  What else?  Sure there was a single kanthi too.  I ended striking the poses and making faces and practicing puppy dog eyes in the bathroom mirror.

I went back to the room and looked out the windows.  I was right!  Trees were already with leaves and the ground was covered with elms’ samaras.  Apparently, it was late May or early June.

There was a clock on the nightstand showing half past five so it would probably be another thirty minutes till someone would come to my room.  Or I could go to lookup for someone.  I was in a hospital gown with my back bare.  No, I’d rather stay in the room.  I checked the nightstand.  There was nothing inside and just a clock on it.

What did I remember?  I did remember as I cut and donated my hair during the last week of January.  What more?  There was a counselor.  My name was Monica.  No, my name was Kurt.  At home and for my friends, I was Monica.  Later, Rudy was badly injured during their football team workout and ended up in the hospital… Stop!  What about Rudy?  I’d ask the nurses about him, they probably would know something.

Well…I could wait sitting on the bed in silence or I could… Sure, I went back to the bathroom and showered.  I examined myself once again and there were no injuries, no stitches, no swelling.  There were only bruises just above my elbows and nothing more.  Why I was here in the hospital then?  Because of some kind of amnesia or something else?  I patted myself dry and put the same gown on and went back to the room. 

Almost at the same moment I sat down on the bed, the nurse came in.

“Good morning honey!  How are you today?” she asked.

“Good morning and thank you, I’m fine,” I replied, “I just don’t remember a thing about why I’m here.”

“I can’t help you with your memory,” she said, “you have to remember yourself without my or someone else’s suggestion.”

“How long I’m here?”

“This is already the fourth day.”

“I’m awaking up every day with the same memory lapse?” I asked.

“Oh no!  This is the first day you have been conscious to such a level to wake up and to shower by yourself.”

“Why I am here?”

“Sorry, honey,” the nurse said, “I can’t help you.  Take those,” she handed me three pills.

“Can you give me something to read?”

“I’m sorry, I can’t,” she said.  “There will be your counselor after the breakfast, maybe your parents and maybe some of your friends and you’ll work through this.  I’m really sorry I can’t you tell more.”

“May I ask about one of your patients?”

“Sure, why not.”

“Rudolf Beren, he fractured his hand and his leg in late January.  Is he ok?”

“Oh yes, sure he is,” she said with a wide grin on her face.  “Well, take your medicine.  I’ll be back shortly with your breakfast.”  She watched me to make sure that I swallowed the pills before she bustled out of the room.

I expected her to come back an hour later, but she was back in almost fifteen minutes with a tray that held scrambled eggs with bacon and orange juice on it.

“Thank you,” I said to her, “I’m sorry but I’ll take only the juice because I’m vegetarian.”

“Yes, I know,” she said, smiling at me.  “I had to check how much you remember.  I’ll bring you some cereals if that is okay.”

“Oh sure that would be fine.  Thanks a lot.” I replied.  “May I change into something more decent?”

“That doesn’t depend on me,” nurse said, “but I’ll ask the doctor when I’ll see him.”

She was back shortly with a bowl and a selection of cereals and I enjoyed my usual meal.

Another hour later, my counselor came to my room and we talked a little.  Rather, I talked about what little I remembered and what I wanted to know.  Eventually, he explained that I had to remember by myself because his or someone else’s words could be treated as a suggestion and not my real memory.

“Have I done something illegal?” I asked.

“No comment,” he said, like officials were always saying to the press and I had a suspicion of something very bad.

“I’ve asked your friend Audra Larsen to come,” he said.  “I expect that talking with her will help you more than just trying to remember.”

That was good.  I mean that Audra was about to come.  It could be any other girl from our cheerleader squad but Audra was the best.  She was my BFF.  That’s “Best Friend Forever”.  We were friends for almost forever or rather already five years since we were in middle school.  I was friends with Willy too and our friendship lasted even more and we had that special blood oath to stand for each other no matter what.  Willy said once we were kind of siblings.  I could talk with Will too and it was okay to talk with him.  Talking with boys was sort of different from talking with girls.  There was a feeling that, sometimes, boys and we were talking different languages.

Wait a minute… Who “we”?  Was I a girl?  Maybe… I didn’t have the boys plumbing anymore that I remembered having few months ago.  So maybe I really was a girl now.  Thank God I didn’t need to choose who I am.  I didn’t have to pretend being a boy anymore.

It was almost noon when Audra came to my room.  After all the pleasantries and hugs, I asked her, “So what about Rudy?  The nurse just said he’s okay and nothing more.”

“What?  The first thing you ask is about Rudy.  Oh girl!  You really are Rudy’s…”

“… new bitch?” I said by surprise to myself.  We gasped both and I hid my face in my hands.  Then I started to tell her what I was suddenly remembering.

 

 

I saw myself passing the abandoned Miller’s storehouses.

“Monica!”  I heard someone calling from behind me.  I stopped and turned around.  There were three boys from our school.

“So you are Rudy’s new bitch?” one of the boys asked, I wasn’t sure though I guessed his name was Jake, he was a junior, the same grade as Rudy.  Other two were Ron and Sid, both of them were seniors.

“No, she isn’t,” Jake said, “she’s a boy, a fag, a sissy.”

Oh shit!  It was already too late to run away, I was surrounded by them and Sid was suddenly holding my arms tightly behind me.

“Aha!” Ron said, “let see what pissy this sissy has!”

They all laughed loudly.

“What a bad boy deceiving the school and the town!” Jake cried out.  “Let’s show his fraud to others.”

Jake was filming me on his smart phone while Ron tore my pants down.

“Please, stop it,” I begged, “let me go, please…”

That made them laugh even harder.

“Sure we will let you go,” Jake said, “just after we show the world your fraud and you serve us properly.  You have to atone for your guilt.”

Ron pulled my panties down and they all hushed.  They didn’t expect to see a girl’s pussy with no sign of a penis, the panties and a sanitary pad soaked in blood.

“Oh shit!” Jake exclaimed in a low voice, “the bitch is real and she’s on her period.”

“She has a head to serve us,” Sid said forcing me to kneel down while Ron unzipped his pants and pulled his already hardened penis out.  I dodged my face to avoid touching Ron’s penis.

“You’ve served the entire football team so why not serve us!” Jake snorted.  “We’re from the same school so be kind to us bitch.” He kicked me hard in the solar plexus and I gasped.

Then there was a scream I’d never heard before.  As I raised my eyes and through tears still welling over, I saw Harold, a kind of palsy had seized him.  A moment later, his dad was appearing from around the storehouse.  I fainted before Sid released me.

 

 

I was crying my eyes out while Audra tried to soothe me.  She had called the nurse who gave me another pill and a glass of water.  I felt the dirt on my face and on my arms where they had touched me.  I knew I had showered just a couple of hours ago but the only thing I wanted to do was to wash again and again.

 “Had I to remember THIS?” I asked my counselor after he came back almost an hour later.

“This too,” he said, “and everything that has happened to you in the past four months.  I guess the rest will come back smoother without such stress.”

He left me with Audra again and we talked about what I’d remembered.  Obviously, Audra must have been coached by the doctor about how to help me.

“You said them seeing you on your period,” Audra said.  “Try to focus on that.”

“There can’t be any,” I said, “if I was born a boy.  I was.  I remember my boy parts.”

“So what about it?” Audra urged me.

“I remember pushing something inside me… uh… how it to say properly…”

“Pushing a dilator into your vagina,” Audra said.

“How do you know?”

“You’ve whined to me about it a couple of times,” she replied with a smirk.

“Have I?  WHINED?!”

“Yes, you have.  You have become such a girl lately,” she said ‘girl’ like she was talking about little spoiled child.  “Ok, back to your memories.”

“Well.  It was Saturday…”

 

 

Today was Rudy’s youngest brother Harold’s birthday and I’d promised to help to arrange the feast.  That would be later, but now… The first thing to do was my weekly chore to dilate my vagina.  It was good that it was weekly not daily as it was just after the surgery.  I’d lubricated the stent and pushed it inside for almost a half an hour.  When the time came to pull the stent out I lubricated the edges of my vagina again and turned the stent a little and then gently pulled it out.

There it was again – the blood.  Not a lot of it but it was there anyway.  I had to turn the stent from time to time to avoid letting it stick.  My vagina was so sensitive that pushing the stent was a nightmare not to say turning it when it was inside.  Another problem was that bleeding wouldn’t to stop for a while.  It wasn’t the first time so I simply put a pad into my panties and made a mental note to put some pads into my purse.

 

 

“Yeah… I’ve remembered so much without any effort,” I said.

“Don’t digress,” Audra reminded me, “you haven’t remembered the full day yet.”

“Don’t push me, I’m trying,” I complained.

“And you say you aren’t such a GIRL?” Audra chuckled.

 

 

I dressed in my favorite colors – shamrock green and yolk yellow, that was yellow wide Aladdin pants with green cami and green flats.  My hair was already modeled into a pixie cut before so I simply brushed it neatly.  I wore no makeup as usually and from jewelry I had only diamond studs in my ears and a single kanthi.

Mummy had driven me to the Beren’s home at two so we had a plenty of time to make all the needed preparations.  Fortunately, the house was tidied up already by the squad before.

All those preparations and especially a pizza party was a great attraction for boys.  Every one of them had made his own pizza while we were expecting ten boys to attend Harold’s birthday party and Mr. Beren should be home any minute now.  We were ready exactly for the time of the first guests arriving.

 

 

“What’s next?” Audra asked after I paused.

“I feel something rotten will be next…”

“You have to go through it,” Audra said, “you have to.  I’ll be here with you.  Go on please.”

 

 

After all the guests had arrived and the boys were with their friends in the dining room and in the backyard all busy making their own pizzas, I’d served a tea for Rudy and me.  Mr. Beren came home while we were sipping our tea in the kitchen.

“Hey kids,” he greeted, “have you a cuppa for me?”

I made him a cup of earl grey tea, his favorite, as he suddenly turned to Rudy, “Leave us alone, please.”

We both were astonished while Rudy obeyed his Dad’s request and left the kitchen.

“How do I say this?…” Mr.  Beren started.  “I know you are a man, a young man.  Err… I see you as a very special person by the way, uh-hu…, err… but you have to understand me as a father too.  Err… I’m concerned about my boys.  Well… Rudy’s already big and he can take care of himself.  There are three youngsters… So… I don’t know your real motives and intentions.  Err… I don’t say you are molesting them while I haven’t caught you red handed.  But I’m not sure about you… ”

“I suppose you don’t expect me to set myself right,” I said.

Mr. Beren shrugged.

“You could have waited for Harold to blow out his candles but it’s your choice.  Please excuse the boys for me.”  I turned around and left the house.  I wanted run away and cry but I didn’t want to show the boys in the backyard that something was wrong.  I left the house, turned left to Miller’s storehouses and headed home.

What a weird ending for my friendship with the Beren’s family.  I was sorry for the boys but I was helpless to change things.  What could I do to prove otherwise – pull my pants down?  I’d never hidden that I was a boy when I had all my boys’ parts and even after that accident and the surgery I was sure I was rather androgynous than girly.

There were only two places when I was more girl than a boy and in both cases it was behind closed doors.  That’s dance and cheer practices.  Even at the pep rally when other girls presented their selves in new uniforms I was wearing tee and pants in school colors but not the uniform.  My underwear was rather girly but it’s UNDERwear.

Good things don’t last forever, both for boys and for me.  It was good thing that I’d showed them how to do everything I’d done so they…

“Monica!” I heard someone calling from behind me…

 

 

I’d remembered all that day as if it was today.  I mean everything, not only all details, but emotions too.  Fear, anger, scorn, indignity and disdain overwhelmed me.  Were all the other days of those four months the same?

The counselor came to my room again and he said it was enough memories for one day.  The good news was that he promised to let me go home the next day if everything went smoothly for the rest of the day and the night.

The day wasn’t over yet and I had another visitor – an officer from the police.  She wrote everything I’d remembered about what happened to me on Saturday.  She said the case would be most probably not about the rape attempt but rather about child pornography and that would prevent me from having to testify in court, which was usually the most unpleasant moment for rape victims.  Apparently, all three boys were over eighteen and Jake had sent the images and movie with me to his tumbler account.  Everything was deleted shortly by the staff, but they didn’t say if those images were downloaded or not.  I guessed it wasn’t a problem to find out while the staff cared about the privacy of their customers.

I was left alone at four o’clock.  No more visitors were planned while I was supposed to try to remember those four months by myself.  It was good that Audra had given me a notebook and a pen so that I could make notes about key moments I might remember.

The first key moment that I couldn’t remember the town I was born in.  Our family moved to Foxstone when I was less than a year old.  I could remember the town’s name started with a  ‘B’, but it wasn’t Boston.  I just remembered mummy and I were driving through this town and mummy had shown me the school where my physical parents met and it was kind of a modern white two storey building with large windows.  I remembered it very well ‘cause it was very different to my school – three storey red bricks building with relatively narrow while high windows.

Another thing I started to remember clearly was Easter or rather a few days before it.

 

 

I was at the Beren’s home dressed in plain leggings and tee and a bandana on my head.  I was wearing a pair of yellow rubber gloves too.  The younger boys were sorting out their winter clothes to go to the attic and bringing down the ones for spring and summer.  At exactly this moment, I’d caught Rudy trying to escape the house.

“So where are you heading now?” I tried hard to sound stern.

“I’m going to meet the boys for a workout.”

“On Easter Friday?  Are you kidding?”

“Why not?  We are leaving tomorrow to visit Aunt Melanie anyway.”

“Leaving your home a pigsty?”

“It’s almost clean after the squad managed the general maintenance two weeks ago,” Rudy whined.

“’Almost’ isn’t the word to talk about cleaning.  The home can’t be ‘almost clean’ – it’s dirty or it’s clean.  You know what your duty is, don’t you?”

“Yes I do ma’am,” Rudy said and started to vacuum his dad’s room.

 

 

Somehow I did know that while cleaning the Beren’s house I still was a boy or to be more correct, I still had my boy parts.  That wasn’t very important.  The most incredible moment of Holy Week were younger boys (Harold, Thomas and George) volunteering at the retirement home to help the residents to colour Easter eggs.  I’d solved two problems at once.  The residents were able to paint their eggs and they had an audience for their know-how.  The boys were able to learn to help and they had their own Easter eggs.  Both parties were extremely happy afterwards.

What I remembered very clearly was that I didn’t fancy Rudy.  He wasn’t my boyfriend.  I’d seen him as a kind of duty ’cause he was injured and needed help and there was no one who could take care of him.  Much more important than helping Rudy were his three younger brothers – Harold was nine, twins Thomas and George were eleven.  Their mom had gone when Harold was seven months old so the three boys didn’t remember their mom and they were really motherless kids.  The only woman in their lives was Aunt Melanie who lived near Chicago and they visited her once or twice a year.  Then Rudy was injured and there I was, definitely not a boy fancied by their elder bro.  No, I wasn’t a surrogate mom, I rather was an only non-male around them.

Trying to remember everything about Easter, I felt that there was something very special, very important.  After Daddy had had his health issues in winter, afterwards he arranged a kind of hippo therapy or in common words horse riding to improve his heart’s rhythm.  I was riding with him too.  I remembered his horse was an elder draft horse named Signal while mine was a retired police mare named Liberia.  We were riding three times a week on Tuesday, Thursdays and Saturdays.  The last time I remembered riding Liberia was on Saturday, the day before Easter.

 

 

I was on Liberia and daddy on Signal beside me.  We were riding on a walking pace.

“I’ll go to the left because I need a more stable ride,” daddy said.  “You go to the right.  The trees don’t have leaves yet so there will be no problems in the woods for you.”

I turned right and Liberia was passing some trees with low branches while I could clearly see them and avoid hitting my head.  I noticed something long black and shiny on the ground and Liberia suddenly jumped to the left and something bumped into my head.

I couldn’t say what it was later.  I was unconscious, most probably for some time, because the next thing I remembered I was in the car with trainer holding my head on her lap while the stable owner was driving the car.  Then I fainted again and then another moment that was similar but waiting in the hospital’s ER.

 

 

I definitely wasn’t at home for Easter.  I remembered the fact that I was injured, but my head was not the part that was wounded the most.  I didn’t remember what exactly happened after I was concussed while riding Liberia.

When I was in the hospital, the doctors’ main concern were damages in my groin.  I got to know this after the surgery was over while all the time before it I was unconscious.  Anyway, I left the hospital as Monica Ursula Magill.

There was the moment that stuck in my memory by the way.  My stay in the hospital didn’t last long and I was released just before the spring break ended.  As I was at home, afterwards I’d asked daddy when we would go horse riding again and he said, “You don’t need a lottery ticket after you’ve grabbed a jackpot.”

 

 

A day of remembrance was coming to the end.  There were a bunch of moments, events and emotions to recollect while the key moments were still in the back of my mind.  I did know who I was and who I wasn’t at least.

 

 

I was in the same hospital room as before and I knew why I was here now.  I was here to remember what had happened to me in the last four months.  So far I’d recalled few basic moments – I was injured while horse-riding the day before Easter which had resulted in loss of my boy parts.  Two months later, I was pronounced Persona non grata by Mr. Beren at his home and right after I had left the Beren's, I’d been assaulted by three bullies from my school and ended up in the hospital.  That’s what happened in general.

I didn't sleep as soundly as I was expected to do because various thoughts kept coming into my head again and again.  The day before that fateful Saturday, we had a pep rally in our school ‘cause the football game was planned for that Sunday.  The girls were wearing the new uniform which had been made by themselves and other girls in their Home Economics classes.  Our football team hadn’t won a single game in more than a year and the whole cheerleading squad idea was aimed to raise school spirit and help our boys to win.  Victory then would raise school spirit itself even more.  So… I was in the hospital now, a few days after the planned game and I still didn’t know how that game had ended.

Another no less important question was about Mr. Beren’s boys.  I didn’t know what Mr. Beren had said to them and how his words were taken.

The last question was how others had responded to my assault.  By ‘others’ I mean the squad and the football team, the Beren boys and Mr. Beren, students, and teachers.  I felt almost guilty for those boys that I had somehow ruined their lives.  If they had some plans for their future, those plans were gone after few minutes of stupidity.  And now their future didn’t even depend on me or my willingness to forgive them or not.

I fell asleep about dawn.

 

 

“Wake up sleepyhead,” someone gently shook my shoulder.  I ripped open my eyes.  Yeah, I was in the hospital and was being awakened by the nurse.  “Another day is waiting for you,” she said and left the room.

I jumped out of bed and hurried to the bathroom.  Boy or girl, a full bladder is a question to be answered first every morning.  The shower followed and, again, I used a bar soap for my hair ’cause there was no shampoo in the bathroom.  I didn’t complain while my hair was short and soap was fairly good for it.  When I finished, the nurse was already waiting for me in the room with my medicine and some cereals for my breakfast.  All nurses and this one too, would grin in my presence.  I remembered nurses as being no-nonsense while I would visit my daddy in this same hospital last winter.

“I have a feeling somehow that all the nurses I’ve met here are familiar with me,” I said.

“Sure we are,” the nurse replied, “you were attending your boyfriend everyday for almost two months.  You were feeding him and his brothers and warming their food in the microwave oven that’s in the nurses’ station.  So sure, you’re like one of us now.”

“He isn’t my boyfriend,” I said.

“Oh you poor little soul!  Most of men are that,” she said, “don’t worry, you’re young yet.  You’ll meet your prince one day.”

Sure Rudy wasn’t my boyfriend.  He wasn’t ‘that’ by the way.  I merely didn’t fancy him or anyone else.  I wasn’t sure I needed a prince at all.  The only fellow boy was Will but he said once we were kind of siblings.

The next person who came to see me was the doctor.  I was sure that she was not a visitor.

“I want to ascertain one thing,” she started, “I’m wondering about the blood on your panties.  There was no evidence of the rape on your lower body and no traces of semen on your pants and panties.”

“I have to dilate my vagina with the stent every week,” I said, “I was keeping the stent for almost thirty minutes and it adhered, so while removing it, I tore some skin off.  Every time I use the stent it happens the same way.”

“Haven’t your doctor told you to use a condom on the stent?” Doctor asked.  I shook my head.

“Buy ones that are labeled ‘Extended pleasure’ and they will not adhere,” she said.

“I’m curious about what you’ve said regarding rape.  Are there some evidences of the rape on my upper body?” I asked.

“Oh yes, there are some,” she said, “we’ve found multiple traces of semen on your tee and somewhere else...”

“Where else?”

“On your face.”

“That’s impossible!” I almost shrieked.

“Why not?”

“None one of them jerked off when I was still conscious and I fainted after rescue arrived and, later, I did remember waking up four days after it happened here in the hospital.”

“Did you tell this to the police officer who interviewed you?” doctor asked.

“No, I didn’t.  I just realized that I knew the answer to the question she asked,” I replied.

I was confused now.  Previously, I was sure that all legal actions would be pursued without my participation mainly ‘cause sexual assault couldn’t be implied.  Now the situation was different because there was semen as evidence.

The good news was that the doctor discharged me from the hospital and I would be free to go when mummy came with clothes for me.

After the doctor left, the next in line was my counselor.

“You don’t have to try to remember what happened after you fainted,” he said.  “I’m not a lawyer, but you have to say only what you have experienced while your thoughts and expectations can’t be used as testimony.”

After he left, mummy was there with Audra.

“I’ve signed all the papers,” mummy said, “so change quickly and we can go.”

“Oh girl, again those drab clothes,” whined Audra, looking at the clothing my mother had brought along.

“I’ve already paid for trying to be a girl,” I replied.  If I tried to look like the girl I was, I was just asking for more trouble.

“That’s not your fault hon,” mom said, hugging me.  “You haven’t paid and you haven’t been punished.  Assault is a crime no matter what or who the victim is.”

“Be the girl you are at least,” Audra said.  “It always pays to be yourself.”

“I am,” I said, “who will claim that I’m not me?”

“You know what I mean,” Audra complained, “I’m already sick of your tomboy phase.  It’s time for you to grow up, isn’t it?  By the way, I’m curious about you insisting upon a traditional shirt and skirt uniform.”

“Calm down,” I replied, “everything has its own time.  I promise I’ll put on my uniform for the next game.  Cheerleading is a social action not personal.”

“Not kidding?”

“I said that I promised.  When the next game will be?”

“Oh shit… I’m sorry Aunt Angela.  In August.  It’s not fair…”

“I didn’t know.  By the way, how did the last game end?”

There was no answer just two thumbs up and Audra’s grin from ear to ear.

“Vic-to-ry!  We won!  Can you imagine?  WE WON!”

I had mixed feelings.  We had won the game at least and it felt great.  It was really great.  It was a result of almost a year of hard work.  But I was not there as a cheerleader or a spectator.  I felt like I could cry.

“Willy has told some of the boys that they should ask you for a date,” Audra added, “and now that we’ve won a game you’re the team’s hero.”

“I even wasn’t at the game,” I said again sadly.

 

 

It was already four when we got home.  After few words with daddy, we separated each to their own spaces – daddy went to his garage, mummy had her yoga class in half an hour, while Audra and I went upstairs to my room.

“What did everyone else have to say in the school?” I asked.

“Most were shocked by the assault and not the fact you’re a girl.”

“How did they know about the girl part?  Those three are under arrest I guess.”

“Yes, they are,” Audra confirmed, “though Jake Sanders had recorded your rape on his smart phone and uploaded it on the fly to some social site...”

“Tumbler,” I said as I knew from the police officer.

“Yeah, and later the same day that movie was removed but some stills were around for a couple of days.”

“So everyone could see me dishonored?”  I was fighting back the tears.

“Settle down, it’s not so bad,” Audra soothed me.  “I can’t say who has seen those pictures,” she said.  “There was the rumor around school that someone somewhere has seen pictures with you and that you are no doubt real.  A girl I mean.”

My surgery at spring break had been relatively discrete.  I was back at school together with other students on Monday a week after Easter.  The fact that I was in the hospital was known only to my close friends and the girls from cheer squad while the knowledge of surgery itself shared with just Audra and Willy.

Speak of the devil and he’s sure to appear.  There was a knock on the door and Audra ushered Willy into my room.

“Why are you knocking?” I asked.  “You even have keys.”

“I was afraid of frightening you,” he said.

“You’re watching too much TV,” Audra chuckled.

“I don't think that a rape is an everyday experience,” he retorted.

“Calm down you two,” I said

“How are you?” Willy asked.  “I see you’re better since you’re at home.  When will you be back to the school?”

“I guess on Monday.  I have to go down to the police office tomorrow morning with mom.  Afterwards, I have a counselor appointment.”

“Haven’t the police questioned you already?” Willy asked with a frown.

“There was a police officer who talked with me and she asked a lot of questions.  But, after I’d talked with my doctor the next day, there was something police either didn’t know or didn’t want me to know.”

“What this all is about?” Will asked.

“I don’t think I can tell you,” I said, “maybe doctor said too much to me, I’m not sure.”

 

 

I did remember.  Everything.  I’d rather forget it again.  No one expected me to remember this so I’ll never remember it, at least officially.  When someone is punished he isn’t punished alone, there are parents, siblings, friends, lovers etc.  who take non-assigned part of the punishment and that’s informal, that’s very real and very painful.  So I’ll rather forget it forever.