Read Online Violated by Jamie Fessenden - Free Book Online Page A

the core. Perhaps it was best that he’d vomited all he could.
    Derek found his clothes and dressed quietly, then sat in one of the hotel armchairs by the window, his legs and arms tucked in as though he were cold. He had no idea whether he was or not. He sat and listened to the icy silence before morning, staring at Victor and waiting. He didn’t know what he was waiting for, exactly. Eventually Victor would wake up. Eventually he would open his eyes and see the man who’d been his best friend for over twenty years. Would he see the damage he’d done? Would he call Derek his bitch? Throw him down, rip him open, and finish destroying him? Tell everyone at work, so they could laugh and sneer and draw lots for who would get to ride the faggot next?
    There, I’ve thought about the future. Bravo. The first step on the road to recovery.
    The gray light turned pink. Then Derek jerked painfully as the alarm clock on the bed table went off.
    It was 6:00 a.m. Time to go home.
    Victor snarled and rolled over, reached an arm out, and flailed at the clock until he found the button to shut it up. Then he stretched and farted. He lay there a minute, scratching his chest, and then slowly opened his eyes. He peered over at Derek’s empty bed. Then he sat up groggily.
    “You in the bathroom?” he called out. The door was open and the light was off, but maybe he thought Derek was sitting on the toilet in the dark.
    Derek couldn’t answer. He watched silently as Victor stood up, looked around the room, and finally saw him. Victor started.
    “Jesus! You scared the shit outta me!” When Derek still said nothing, he frowned, “Why are you acting all weird?”
    Christ! Is it possible he doesn’t remember?
    Derek looked back at him, but he couldn’t force himself to speak.
    “I gotta take a dump,” Victor muttered and turned away to go into the bathroom.
    Derek listened to the man do his business with the door open and then shower. It wasn’t until he heard the sound of the spray that Derek was able to make himself move from where he’d sat for the last hour or so. His legs were numb when he unfolded them, and he had to walk off the pins and needles for a minute. Then he went to his suitcase and found a clean shirt. The one he was wearing reeked of sweat.
    They had to get to the airport soon. But first he’d have to endure breakfast and a cab ride. Then he’d have to sit beside Victor on the plane.
    He has to remember! He’s full of shit if he says he doesn’t .
    The problem was, Victor didn’t say one word about it, either way. When he came out of the bathroom, stark naked as he toweled off, he acted as if everything was exactly as it had been yesterday—as if they were still best buds, as if he was the same straight, crude bastard he’d always been. If he noticed Derek’s robotic behavior as he packed up his suitcase, Victor didn’t say a word about it.
    He talked about the flight, about the shitty time they’d had there, about being slightly hungover. It was almost enough to convince Derek that Victor didn’t remember anything from last night—it had all happened during some kind of drunken blackout.
    Except for one thing.
    During all this, Derek’s sheets and blankets were lying on the bed, shoved down toward the bottom in a heap when he’d gotten up to go into the bathroom. The sheet underneath was clearly visible, soaked with piss that hadn’t quite dried yet and a faint brownish smear of what might have been blood, where his ass had dragged across it. Victor had to see it. But he didn’t rag on Derek for pissing the bed or ask him what the fuck had happened.
    He didn’t say a word about it.
     
     
    R USS WAS having trouble with the interview.
    Liz Sutton seemed oddly calm as she sat across from Russ at the police station. She sipped her coffee and talked about her garden, about needing to prune the holly bushes near the front porch before they grew so tall they obscured the view, about a new antifungal spray