Come on, Justin, get in...you'll love it, I promise...be a good boy now...get in the swing...GET IN!

I jerked awake, a strangled cry tearing from my throat and breaking the silence of the morning.

Breathing heavily, I took in my surroundings and, slowly, I began to come back again.

Morning. Light streaming in through the windows. Comfort and warmth beneath and around me. Not dark or cold or scary. I took a deep breath.

I was safe.

There was a small groan from the space next to me, and I looked down to see Daphne shifting on the outside edge of her sofa. The tears already filling my eyes to the brim spilled over at that thought. That she had stayed here with me all night. In fact, I had woken up twice during the night, and she had been there both times, hugging me and holding me and soothing me until I fell back into another anguished fit of sleep. I didn't know what I would have done, if it hadn't been for her. Don't know where I'd have gone. This was the only place...the only real option.

Of course, there were the obvious choices. In truth, I had already been banging on her door for five minutes when I'd asked myself, why Daphne's?

Because I had nowhere else, when I really thought about it. If I'd have gone to Debbie's, that would've been it. She would have forced the truth out of me, and soon everyone would know, and I couldn't take that. Nor could I take her well-intentioned mothering. She'd smother me. And I couldn't handle that right now. She'd smother me herself, and then tell everyone else, Brian, my mother...

My mother's.

I had briefly considered there, too. But I knew I could hide the truth no better from my her than I could from Debbie, and I'd rather die than tell her what had happened. Because if I told my mom what had happened to her son, she'd die a little, too. And I just couldn't do that to her, couldn't force this into her life the way it had been forced into mine. And Brian...

Brian would see right through me. He'd know. Hadn't he warned me about that fucking party? Hadn't he told me? He would know immediately what had happened. And even worse than my mother knowing, was him knowing. I honestly didn't think I could take it if he knew.

I wasn't sure what he would do...probably become furious, at me or maybe the Sap...or both...yell and lecture and this hellish nightmare would become impossibly worse. I just knew I couldn't go home last night. I had panicked a little when Daphne had suggested to call Brian...I'd been scared to death she'd do it anyway, despite my pleads not to, but Brian wasn't here, so I was pretty sure she hadn't.

Not unless she'd called and he just hadn't wanted to come find me. What if that was what happened? What if Daphne had called and told Brian what was going on after I fell asleep and he just hadn't bothered to come and get me? What if he was simply too disgusted? What if he didn't want to see me like this? A filthy rape victim...who wouldn't be disgusted?

The ache in my heart intensified at that thought. The one person who I wanted, who I'd always wanted near me, might not want to be near me anymore. He probably wouldn't want to touch me. Not that I really wanted him to...something else that hurt beyond words.

On the other hand, what if Daphne hadn't told him? What if he didn't know, and still expected everything to be the same? I couldn't...there was no way I could have sex. The thought of being touched, or of touching someone else...made me want to vomit. It wasn't just that I wouldn't, but I really think that I couldn't. Just thinking about it made my skin crawl.

But how would he not get suspicious? Or what if he didn't care enough to be suspicious, and just tossed me out on my ass? He...I was almost definitely sure that he...well, I knew that he cared about me. Maybe even loved me. But did he love me enough to keep me around if we weren't having sex? Not that our entire relationship was about sex, but...it was a part of it. A big part. It's always been a form of expression with us. What we can't say in words, we say with our bodies. And if we didn't have that anymore, I didn't know what would happen.

I let out a trembling breath, wiping my eyes on the corner of the duvet Daphne had draped over us, and tried to push Brian out of my mind for now.

Unfortunately, without thoughts of Brian to occupy it, my mind had plenty of other things to concern itself with.

I thought about my dream, which had been one of those rare ones that seem so very vivid and real and that you remember long after you wake up. The type that leave you with that uneasy feeling in your stomach that won't go away for hours...then again, my stomach seemed to be twisted into a permanent sick knot, anyway, so I couldn't be certain it was just because of that.

In the dream, or nightmare might be a more accurate term..I remembered that swing. I could feel...fuck, I could feel the complete and total loss of control over my life just slipping away from me as at least a dozen hands forced me into it...I could feel them. All over me, still. Hands and fingers and lips and bodies where they had no right to be, doing things I didn't even allow tricks to do to me. Things I'd only ever let Brian do.

Could I ever let him do those things to me again? Would he give me the chance to let him? Would I ever even want to?

I sighed again and attempted to at least cry quietly, so as not to wake Daphne. I didn't want to have to...I knew she would be nothing but kind and gentle and sympathetic and generally a best friend...but right now I really just wanted to exist alone, far away from everything and everyone. I didn't want to be near anything...so far gone that I just wasn't there at all anymore. Devoid of all thought and feeling, I just...I wanted to be nothing.

I closed my eyes, but all I could fucking see was that face looming out at me from the darkness. So I just laid there and cried and tried so hard to let go of the dream and let reality fall into its place. I was here now. I was safe now. It was a dream, this was where I needed to be. I needed to live in the moment, in reality.

Only problem was, that dream now was my fucking reality.

Those words, those voices, those hands, those faces... all my reality. All a permanent part of my life now, etched into my mind forever, and I wanted to just claw it out of my skin, just scream and bleed it out. I just wanted it gone.

But it was stuck in me now. It was a part of me now. Inside me.

“Justin?”

I jumped.

She had just said my name, and I jumped. Pathetic.

“Morning, Daph,” I whispered, trying to smile. It didn't even come close.

I felt her hand on my arm, rubbing soothing circles into my skin.

Fingernails scratching at my arms and stomach, hands grabbing my thighs and fingers groping...

And suddenly, I had to move.

I sat up quickly, without warning, nearly knocking her off the couch but just needing space and air and not to be touched.

I moved without thinking, and when the frenzied panic died down and I could think relatively clearly again, I found that my body had deemed the other end of the sofa far enough away. I was hunched over the arm of the couch, gulping down air as though I'd just been drowning, my back to Daphne, eyes closed against the renewed tears pooling within them.

“Justin...” I heard a rustle and felt her behind me. Her voice was low and sympathetic, as I knew it would be, and she wasn't even touching me, but she was close. Too close for comfort. Too close for me to be to her right now, to be to anyone.

“I need a shower,” I stated.

There was a pause. “Okay. But Justin...well...do you think...I mean I know it's hard, but...” she stammered, her nerves at the prospect of saying whatever she needed to say evident in her voice.

“But what?”

She sighed. “Well...you know...evidence,” she said simply, quietly. I didn't move.

Evidence. Proof that he...proof that they—there was more than one, definitely more than one—had just...I don't know. I didn't even know what to call it, because 'rape' didn't seem to encompass it all. That one fucking word didn't seem to carry the weight it should.

“I'm sorry to bring it up, Justin, I am, but...”

“I need a shower,” I repeated firmly. Everything I've ever heard about...about this kind of thing...I understood it now. The need to be clean. To just wash it away, scrub it out of your skin. It was exactly what I felt now. I felt dirty. I needed to be clean. I needed to, because whatever this was had settled under the surface. Trapped inside the skin, inside me... and I needed to scrub it out again.

Evidence... could be washed away, too. And I wanted it gone. I wanted every last trace of this removed from my body. I knew where Daphne was coming from, I did, but... really, what was the point of preserving proof? The only reason would be so that I could go to the police...press charges...but that would involve...well, I couldn't do that. I couldn't, so there was no reason that I shouldn't scrub this out of me.

Besides, even if I did go to the authorities...what could possibly happen? Sap...his friends...they'd never get the justice they deserved. If Chris Hobbes was allowed to bash my brains in with a baseball bat, they sure as hell would not care if some disgusting faggot was raped at a party.

Sighing again, Daphne told me to wait while she got me some fresh towels. She returned a moment later, and let me go without another word. It wasn't until I got to the bathroom that I realized that the towels were right where she'd always kept them, on a rack next to the shower, but that her slender pink razor was gone.

I wasn't really sure what to think about that.

She thought I was that desperate. Did she really think I'd...?

Which sparked the question I had no answer for at the moment...did I want to?

I pushed the thought away, and slowly began to remove my clothing.

There wasn't much of it. A jacket and jeans. The jeans were mine...I'd found them a few feet from me when I'd woken up...which, I realized, must have meant I'd passed out at some point. I'd been on the floor, still in the same room, but no longer in the swing. I was alone, and I'd recognized my pants, and pulled them on. I was cold and there was an old jacket laying there, so I'd grabbed that, too.

All these thoughts kept flashing through my head. I'd known something wasn't right from the moment I'd woken up...I didn't know where I was or how I had gotten there or what had happened, but I knew something was wrong. I felt fear. Raw, undeniable fear. There was something, I knew...something was just not right, and I tried to grasp onto it but it kept slipping away.

That was when I finally took notice of where I was.

It was...I had been there before for...for something, but what? It was definitely familiar, I remembered this place...this place where something important had happened, but what?

I was so...I couldn't even remember what the last thing I remembered was. It was all a blur. A deathly terrifying blur that I could sense more than I could see. I could feel what I felt when it was happening, but I didn't know what it was that had happened. I could feel that gentle nudge at the back of my mind, struggling to force its way to the front. I could feel it the way you feel a sad song, one of those with violins and no lyrics and an achingly mournful melody, that you somehow just know is supposed to be sad without any words to define it for you and tell you so.

And still, I could feel that naked form of fear. I'd been scared before. I'd been frightened more times in my life, particularly after the bashing, than I cared to count or admit. But I had never known fear as I did right then. It was raw, and wild, and primal, and desperately human.

And I felt...I was dirty. It was like...my skin felt dirty and underneath my skin felt dirty, too, somehow.

I couldn't move. I'd barely had the energy to pull my clothes back on, and I laid, half-conscious, on the floor, until the first hint of a true memory made me shudder.

I was already scared...deep, gut-wrenching fear...but this brought on the panic. I just felt...tightness. Like the whole world was too tight, closing in, and trapping me inside. I felt it in my chest, and suddenly the sense or vision or memory or whatever the fuck it was of bodies pressing in on me flashed behind my eyes.

And I knew. I could feel it. The details were fuzzy, indistinct, but there nonetheless. I felt it, I felt them; I knew certain things had been done to me. And it wasn't necessarily that they were all sharp and clear in my mind, I just felt them and knew they were true, like whispers or shadows or something not quite real. And one by one, little flashes of emotion and recollection would come and go, trickling through my mind and slipping away, like the random thoughts you had right before you fell asleep.

The longer I laid there, the more intense the tug-of-war between the past and present became. It had eventually become a struggle to get myself to focus...fighting the pull of memories and vague sensations at the edges of my awareness...almost giving in...but then my body would throb with pain and I'd be forced back to the moment.

I knew I was scared, and cold, and I hurt all over. I knew that wasn't sweat that felt so sticky, and I knew that my wrists burned, and that I felt raw and filthy and sore in places that I shouldn't be. I knew that I could hear people talking...in another room, it must have been...so there were people still there and they could hurt me if I moved, if I showed them I was alive...

But I also knew I needed to get out, go somewhere else, anywhere else. Just get out and as far away from there as humanely possible, and the next thing I knew I was banging on Daphne's door and telling her I'd been raped and crying into her shoulder and waking up the day after.

Fuck, it was the day after...the day after I'd been raped. I was raped last night.

I hadn't looked at myself. I hadn't wanted to see what they'd left, what they'd done to me. I knew, it was impossible not to know, because I felt too much...that I was a mess. I knew there had to be bruises and welts and God knew what else, because I felt it, but I'd made it a point not to look and hadn't even let Daphne remove the jacket.

Now, though, carefully uncovering each inch of skin, I was forced to see. I couldn't not look. I had to know what they'd done, exactly how much damage, non-sexual damage, they had done to my body. Of course they couldn't just have sex with me...they'd never let it be just sex, and let me bleed emotionally, on the inside. No, they had to make me bleed physically, on the outside, too.

My eyes were closed as I moved to stand in front of Daphne's mirror, making sure I was far back enough to catch as much of my reflection as the mirror's position above the sink would allow. I took a deep breath, and opened my eyes.

A fresh wave of nausea hit me like a brick wall.

It was like...like a sick, twisted art project...all the colors...

There were bruises. Lots of black and blue and even a horrible yellow color in some places. And red. Some of that red seemed to be broken skin, but other areas looked as though they'd been slapped repeatedly, and hard. Like the type of pink tinge Brian would leave on my ass when he playfully spanked it, only far worse. There was even a hand-print near the top of my ass now, near the hip. My wrists, especially, were...why were they so red? And they still burned. Like the few times as a kid I'd gotten rug burn, from sliding across the carpet too fast. What was that from?

And these welts...who knew what they had used to make those... Twisting, I could see a few on the backs of my legs, and by the sting on my back, I was sure if I could see, I would find them there, as well.

And fuck, was that...? It was. It had to be. I had hopelessly prayed that the sticky substance had been sweat, but...

It wasn't.

Sweat wasn't red. Blood was red. And there shouldn't be blood there.

There should not be blood there.

But that wasn't the only substance I recognized...there wasn't only blood...there was...

Fuck... evidence.

I had their...

I had their DNA. I had them on me. They weren't even touching me anymore, but I still had them on me. And they needed to come off, right fucking now.

Only I couldn't quite make my legs move any closer toward the shower.

I wasn't sure if some type of this outward damage had been inflicted internally, as well, or if the sight of my body in this state coupled with the emotional trauma was enough to cause my insides to rebel against me. I couldn't breathe. I felt sick. I wanted to throw up, and suddenly I was able to move again as I hurled myself to the ground in front of the toilet.

I hadn't eaten since lunch yesterday, but whatever was left in my stomach was emptied into the toilet bowl. I continued to kneel in front of it for a few minutes after, doubled over and crying, wishing it was enough to get it out of me. I'd thrown up the contents of my stomach, but it was still in me. Just like I'd barely stopped crying since last night, but I could never cry enough for this. Could never cry this out. It was still there.

I could never let it just flow out with the tears, until I was cleansed. I was still sobbing, but this pain was beyond tears. No matter how much I screamed or cried or pleaded with the memories to just fucking stop... they wouldn't.

Just like no matter how much I had screamed and cried and pleaded with them to stop... they hadn't.

Eventually, I stood up and flushed the toilet, hoping Daphne hadn't heard me. I kicked my clothes into a pile in the corner. I had nothing else to change into here, but the idea of putting those clothes back on made me cringe on the inside. Maybe I would burn them. When I got back to the loft, and got a change of clothes, I would burn them.

My stomach dropped at the thought of returning to the loft. Not that I didn't want to go home...but he was there. How would I ever hide this from him? On the other hand, how would I ever deal if he found out?

Maybe I could just stay with Daphne. Go back home and get my stuff, then come back here. Maybe she would come with me and help.

It was a good idea, in theory, but...as scared as I was of returning home...I didn't want to stay here, either.

It was safe here. Not that it wasn't at the loft, but here Daphne knew. Here I didn't have to explain. I didn't have to worry about her reaction, or be forced to endure being smothered, or have to deal with trying to make her feel better about this...she'd give me my space. She'd give me whatever I said I needed without question. That's what best friends do. No expectations or explanations for things like this. She'd just let me be.

At home, I wasn't sure I could hide it from Brian. I wasn't sure I could hide, but I also didn't know if I could explain. I didn't know what to expect from him.

Also...I'd dragged Brian through enough crap in my life. The bashing...which, despite never actually saying it, (when did he ever?) I knew he still blamed himself for... it was enough. He didn't deserve to have to go through any more shit because of me.

And still, despite all of that...and maybe it was selfish but...I wanted to be home.

I loved Daphne. She was the best friend anyone could ask for. I knew she'd take care of me, would do anything for me. I could count on her. But here...I'd just exist.

But at home I had Brian. I had Brian's arms around me, and Brian's chest to sleep on, and Brian's comforting voice in my ear. There with him, I could begin to...the idea was almost more than I could comprehend at the moment, but...there with him, I could begin to heal. He had brought me back after I was bashed, and I didn't know how, but I knew if anyone could save me now, it would be him.

Even after the bashing, when I'd just started practicing walking in crowds with him...whenever I'd freak out half way across the street, and panic and cry and revert all the way back to square fucking one...he'd hold me, tell me it was okay and that I was doing great. I remembered thinking how out of character it was for Brian, especially when I knew perfectly well that I wasn't great, wasn't even okay, and had just fallen back more steps than I'd taken forward. Even when I wasn't going anywhere, he made me feel like I was. He gave me...he gave me hope. That was it. He made me feel hopeful again. Like maybe someday, somehow, things would be okay again.

Right now, though, seeing Brian, feeling that hopefulness...it seemed so far off, a pipe dream. I knew it could happen, if he saved me again, but...right now I didn't want to think beyond this moment. The far-too-near future was hazy, obscure...but right here and now was clear and precise. I still needed that shower. I still needed to wash the feel of their hands off me, wash away the filth inside me. I didn't know where that would put me, where I would be after that, but...I knew what I needed right now, and that was something I could handle.

I climbed slowly into the shower and started the water, gasping when it hit me...all the welts and cuts and whatever else was all over me burned like fire. My body was on fire.

Still, that didn't stop me from turning the water almost hotter than I could stand it. If washing it away didn't work, I could always burn it away. Scald it until it let go of me and gave me back my body, untainted and pure, as it had been before.

I would get rid of this. I would remove it from my body, whatever it took.

Daphne's bar of Dove was dangerously close to dissolving into nothing by the time I was finished. I'd even used her violently purple body sponge to scrub at my skin, which resulted in nothing but more raw, red irritation.

And still...it wouldn't...fucking...go...

It wouldn't come out. It was like a giant black stain on a clean white slate. Irremovable. Irrevocable. Permanent.

And there was a point, one terrible, horrifying moment when I realized this. When it really hit me, and I understood.

This had happened. This was there, in me, with me, forever. And there was nothing in the world I could do about it. I couldn't scrub or burn it away, couldn't erase it...I couldn't because essentially, I was trying to erase what had happened, and that was impossible.

No matter what I did, no matter how much I “healed” or how much time had passed, this was with me for the rest of my life.

My whole body gave a lurch in the sudden dry sob that I couldn't keep at bay. My tears mixed with the steaming water from the shower as I sank to my knees, which were suddenly too weak to support me.

That thing...that thing that had happened, that horrible incident, that rape...was now a part of me. For good.

And the thought made me cry harder than ever.