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The author of this story has read and accepted the rules for posting stories. They guarantee that the following story depicts none of the themes listed in the Forbidden Content section of the rules.
The following story is a work of fiction meant for entertainment purposes only. It depicts nonconsensual sexual acts between adults. It is in no way meant to be understood as an endorsement of nonconsensual sex in real life. Any similarities of the characters in the story to real people are purely coincidental.
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- This story ist part of the Used and Abused Tournament
- It competes against The woman in red SF-match
- Theme: Old Habits Die Hard
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History Repeating
"There is fashion, there is fad,
some is good, some is bad.
And the joke feels rather sad,
that it's all just a little bit of history repeating..."
-The Propellerheads, "History Repeating"
"I had my first real kiss, here."
The willowy redhead bit her lip as she stood at the corner of the pier, the ocean wind pulling her skirt against her hips, gazing out at the surf as the sun drained from an overcast sky.
Morgana stood nearby, arms folded, looking prim and professional in her charcoal jacket and matching slacks. Lily wished that she would nod, or shrug, or grunt, or offer something in return for her recollections. She supposed that came of being a psychoanalyst's assistant, rather than a psychoanalyst. She did speak up, from time to time, and it was often a bit startling after the long bouts of silence.
"I was fourteen. His name was Mitch. It was really very sweet. I realized that he wanted to kiss me, and I got really nervous, but he was as scared as I was..."
"A lot of formative memories were made, here," Morgana offered.
Lily sighed.
"When the fun-fair was running, my family would go here three or four times a year. I would ride on the carousel so many times in a row that I'd sway like a sailor when I finally got off. I would hear the jangle of the calliope and see the flash of the mirrors in my dreams. It's... lodged, in my mind."
The scaffolding of the roller coaster was still in place. The carousel had long since been taken apart, only a weathered square of concrete attesting to where it had once held court. Square holes, awaiting their pegs, would stand sentinel for the tents of the midway games to rise above them, until the developer finally followed through on their threat to tear the whole shebang down.
"I knew it was getting to be kind of a seedy area when I came back here during my freshman year at University," Lily said, her voice growing soft. "But I felt like my childhood was fading so fast, all of a sudden. I just wanted to... soak in it, one more time."
Morgana's flat scrutiny seemed to be waiting.
"I... had a bad corn dog," Lily said. "I wandered under the boardwalk, away from the fair, because I was looking for a discrete place to throw up, and I worried if I even got through the lines for the restrooms, they were so gross I might never stop throwing up."
"I understand that Thunderbird* may have also played a part?" Morgana interjected.
"Well... yes," Lily admitted, flushing. "I was trying all kinds of new things. It's why I went to the fair alone. I guess part of it was wanting to see how my 'old life' meshed with the new, 'grown up' me."
Lily thought she saw Morgana's lip quirk, and scowled. She didn't appreciate feeling that she was being laughed at. It was generous of Dr. Klein to offer her assistant to escort her through her trauma, but Morgana often seemed bereft of the doctor's reassuring empathy.
She forced herself to continue.
"I was glad that it was so dark, under the boardwalk. I was so embarrassed to be heaving up my guts. I could still hear the screaming coming from the roller coaster, and the jangle of the carousel, and the roar of the surf. I thought I was safe."
"And then... There were four of them. And I knew, I knew immediately, that I wasn't safe at all."
Lily looked in the direction of the boardwalk. Families used to push infants in strollers down the planks. You would look out on a summer evening and see thirty different balloons being dragged. Now many of the planks were chipped, or beginning to sag.
"Go on."
Silence stretched out. Lily's hands tangled and bunched in her skirt.
"We're here for you to do this, Lily," Morgana said, coolly. "You need to go on."
"I... squeaked. They laughed. I didn't even try to talk to them; it felt like pretending that we were just passing by, just happened to be in the same place at the same time, would just be playing their game, giving them more time to corner me. I think if I hadn't been drinking, I would have realized that they had been following me."
"Why didn't you scream? Call for help?"
"I don't know. I didn't think anyone would hear me, there, or come if they did. They'd think it was from the roller coaster, or just kids fooling around. I was embarrassed. I'd been drinking. I'd been throwing up."
"It sounds like you had a lot of... reasons."
Lily could almost hear the word "excuses" being stepped over.
"Did you feel a lot of guilt about what happened?"
"No... Yes. I don't know. It's all tangled up...!"
"Take a moment to breathe, but then, go on."
She did, forcing her hands out of her skirt and smoothing the soft linen print.
"I tried to run. I think I ran the wrong way, away from the fair, at first; the sound gets bounced around under there. Then I tried to run towards the ocean. I clipped my shoulder against one of the support columns, stumbled, and the biggest one caught me, grabbed my arm."
"You got their names."
"Oscar. That one was Oscar."
"Go on."
"They threw me, back and forth, laughing, like I was a rag doll. There was nothing joking or affectionate about it. They groped me... my breasts, my butt, my crotch... but no one tried to kiss me."
"Would it have been better if they did?"
Lily felt a flare of indignation, and decided to continue, rather than pursue it.
"Then they beat me up."
After a moment's pause, Morgana prompted, "How?"
"What do you mean, 'how?' With their fists! With their feet! One of them would hold me, and they... They boxed my ears, they punched my face, my ribs, my boobs, my stomach, my pelvis, my thighs... When I fell down, one them kicked me in the ass until I rolled over, and then he started kicking my ribs and stomach... At some point, one of them broke my nose, and I was struggling to breathe, blood was running down my throat...!"
She realized that she was now gripping handfuls of her own wavy red hair in place of her skirt, and her scalp hurt. Looking out at the ocean, she forced her hands down and took deep breaths.
"Then they made me suck their cocks," She said, flatly.
"Why didn't you bite them?"
"I thought they would kill me. With my nose broken, I could barely breathe as it was. They could have killed me so easily. I thought they might do it by accident, but I stole a few breaths while they were all jostling at each other for a chance to fuck my mouth."
The words fuck my mouth felt both raw and oddly vindicating. No kind, diplomatic euphemisms.
"While they were making me suck, George ripped off my t-shirt. Clothes don't rip easily, like they do in movies, and he choked me, several times, yanking the collar against my neck, but it finally started to tear, and he stripped it from my body, and then undid my bra and threw it away. And he squeezed my breasts, really hard, like he was trying to crush juice out of them, and wringing my nipples..."
"And through all that," Morgana murmured, "You never bit them."
"After that, someone was always pawing or pinching my chest from behind, while whoever had hold of my head jammed my mouth down on their cock. I didn't always know who. It was George at first, but at some point he was taking his turn, and it never stopped... Until..."
This time, Morgana didn't prompt.
"Until Max raped me."
Another long pause.
"Keep walking, Lily. It will keep the words coming."
Lily began to circle the cement pad that had once held the carousel.
"He jammed his hand down my shorts, and squeezed my vulva, pawed at it, forced two fingers inside of me. I kind of... squawked at him, and they threw me down in the sand. I'm guess I'm lucky I didn't end up with some junkie's syringe poking me. He pulled my shorts and underwear off, and when I tried to keep my legs together, he punched me in the stomach again. I puked in my mouth a little, and he said, 'You want some more?' And he forced my legs apart, and just... shoved himself inside of me."
Lily closed her eyes, stroking the front of her throat.
"I was a shy girl in school. It was part of why I was so eager to try drinking. It seemed to help a lot of girls talk to people. So... yes, I was a virgin."
Morgana didn't comment.
"I was crying, sobbing. Eric held my arms down; George went back to mauling my chest. Oscar just kind of stood back and watched, stroking his cock. I already knew from when he'd stuck it in my mouth that he was big, and I was terrified of just... splitting open, if he tried to rape me."
"Max kept saying that I was tight, oh so tight, and I don't think he was in me for very long before he spurted all over my crotch. Eric made fun of him for it, was making a joke about how my being tight was Max's excuse, but he raped me next, and he didn't last much longer. He came inside of me, and I started crying harder, and I said that he might have gotten me pregnant, and he started slapping me across the face, going 'You better not get pregnant, you fucking cunt! You hear me? You better not get pregnant!' And finally I was pleading, no, of course not, I wouldn't get pregnant, like it was up to me..."
Lily laughed shakily. Morgana clucked her tongue softly.
"Then it was George's turn. He was a little older, though I don't think any of them was probably older than their mid-twenties. He liked to go slow, but really hard. He liked to hear me cry out, and see my boobs bounce, when he thrust into me. He jerked my legs back to roll up my hips so he could really beat up my cervix, and before he was done, I was just gasping, sobbing, cramping up so hard that every time he drove into me, it was like he knocked the wind from my body. Then he pulled out and sat down astride my chest... I think that was when I realized one of my ribs was busted... And smacked his penis against my boobs, over and over, leaving sticky little patches all over the skin, until he finally came all over my breasts, and my neck, and my face..."
"I was in so much pain, and I just kept thinking, 'oh, god, this is so gross. This is the grossest thing I've ever experienced in my life.'"
"Grosser than puking up corn dog and Thunderbird?"
Lily's face twisted, looking incredulously at Morgana.
"Yes, thank you very much! I mean, I had thrown up, before! I'd had a stomach bug, like every kid has! I'd never had someone take sloppy thirds raping me, smack their penis on my breasts, and then spooge jizzum all over my face!"
Morgana held up her hands mollifyingly, though Lily noted that she rolled her eyes as she dropped them.
Silence reigned for several seconds, until Morgana prompted, "But what about Oscar?"
Lily's hand unconsciously slipped down to her abdomen, and she flinched.
After a moment, she said:
"Oscar sodomized me."
A moment later:
"There's... kind of a fence, at the edge of the underwalk, at the base of the cliff going down to the beach. They bent me over it, and Oscar climbed on top of the bottom rail, and put himself on top of me, and just... forced himself through my backside, slow, and hard, until his groin pushed against my rear. I was making this terrible keening noise, and I bit my hand because I was afraid it was going to make them angry. As soon as he got himself in deep, as soon as he knew he could make me take it that deep, he started to drive down into my rump as hard as he could. He said he didn't know if the rail was going to break, or my ass."
"I begged him to stop, but I could barely get a breath. Every time he slammed down, it all burst out of me in these awful, wet, hurting grunts. When Oscar said I was starting to bleed, they all just started chanting, 'harder!', over and over again. He bounced on me, crushing me into the rail, using all his weight to shove that big penis into my guts. I thought I was going to die. I wished, for a while, that I would die."
"Ouch."
"And then he squirted inside of my tummy. I just... hung there, draped over the rail, while he climbed off of me, while they congratulated him. I heard them giving each other high-fives. I could feel the blood dripping from my butt, oozing down my thighs, and this throbbing ache, this burning, and I hoped that if I didn't move, they would go away. That it would all go away, if I just lay there and refused to let it..."
Morgana tilted her head. "Let it... be real?"
"I don't know. Refused to let it in. Refused to accept that it had happened. Refused to believe it happened to a girl like me. And eventually, they did leave."
"I guess it worked, sort of." Morgana replied.
"I had to crawl around in the sand until I found my shorts, because they had my bus pass in them. The ride home was so surreal. There were, like, three people on the bus, and no one would look at me. I was all beaten up, and half-naked, and no one would talk to me. Not even the driver. It felt like I was imagining the whole thing."
"My Dad was so mad, and Mom had to reassure me that he wasn't mad at me. They called the police, and I had to go through this whole 'rape kit' thing, which was another kind of violation. I went to the hospital, and had some x-rays, and got tested for STDs. Small bandages on my face. Big bandages around my torso. I felt like a mummy."
"I had names, but it was dark under the board walk. I couldn't believe that I could have seen so much, that I could remember so much, but I couldn't describe them. Oscar was big. Might have been Latino. The others were smaller. Still pretty big. Much bigger than me. I could hear their voices, would hear their voices, for years, now, whenever I let my mind drift, sometimes when I was trying to get to sleep. Moles? Tattoos? I mean, I like to think I would have recognized them in a line-up, but I was never invited to identify from one."
"What do you do, after that, but try to pretend that it didn't happen? That you aren't all fucked up from it? I went back to school, and tried to put it behind me. But it was always there, whispering in my ear. I didn't want to talk to anyone about it, and yet it was like it wanted to be the most important thing in my life, the way I should identify myself, based on what those men had done to me. The rape victim."
"I drank a lot. I got quite a reputation as a 'party girl'. I wound up crying on the shoulder of some guy I slept with after I went home with him, and he, uh, kind of excised himself from my life, but he never told anyone anything I said to him, so I guess I should thank him for that... I managed to keep pulling 'B's and 'C's in my classes. I don't know if my professors could just tell that I was a mess, and kept me afloat out of pity... I just knew that I used to get 'A's and 'B's."
"So, this group called 'Take Back the Night' comes to campus. You've heard of them?"
Morgana's lip curled slightly. "Yes."
"Yeah. Their big thing was this idea that women should be able to go anywhere, unafraid. That the night belongs to them as much as anyone. It sounded good to me, at the time."
"Caught you at the right moment."
That the phrase 'caught you at the right moment' might also apply to her attackers collided in Lily's brain, and for a moment she went rigid, and shuddered violently.
"...Yes... So. I took some self-defense courses, and rattled around campus with my 'sisters', making a lot of noise, and I convinced myself that I wasn't going to let this terrible thing define me. I was going to go back to the fair, and refuse to be afraid, and take back all those good memories of being at the fair with my family, rather than let those men and what they did to me throw shadows over it all."
"You were twenty-one, this time."
"I was."
"Isn't the big thing about 'Take Back the Night" women going places, united, in groups?"
Despite the flat tone, Morgana's comment sounded snide to Lily's ears.
"I couldn't exactly bring a march along with me. I had to be able to be brave alone, if I was ever going to be brave. I couldn't go everywhere on 'the buddy system' for the rest of my life!"
"So, the boardwalk."
"Yes!"
Then, in a more muted voice:
"Yes. The fair was on its last legs, but I wasn't really there for it."
Then,
"They were waiting for me."
"It went differently, this time?"
Lily started to laugh, shrill, brittle.
"No! No, in fact, it went almost exactly the same! It was like they were going through the steps of a fucking dance!"
She shook her head, looking down at her hands.
"Do you know, in those fucking self-defense courses, they say, 'go for the eyes', or 'go for the balls' or 'kick them in the shins', but they never point out the obvious? It's like they're afraid to say the truth, that men are bigger than you, that they're stronger than you, that they have longer reach than you..."
She inhaled wetly, and sobbed, once.
"They've also been fighting, like, forever, especially if they have siblings. While girls are being taught to smile, and be polite, and that boys don't hit girls. And maybe you have half a chance if you have a weapon, or pepper spray, or something, but unless you're the reincarnation of Bruce Lee, your best chance is running, screaming your head off, or both!"
"I don't think that would sell a lot of self-defense lessons."
Lily laughed at that, still shaky.
"Yeah. I wasn't a random, unlucky grab. They remembered me. Max made a point, when he was pounding away at me, that I was 'still tight'."
"They threw me around, again. They beat the shit out of me, again, even after I'd stopped trying to fight them. They were rougher, because I'd tried to hit them, but it wasn't even about subduing me. They liked hurting me. They liked 'putting me in my place'. They liked how easy it was to demonstrate that they could, and would, dominate me. That they were strong, and I was weak. That they were hard, and I was soft, and hard could go into soft, and soft had better not go thinking it could stop hard."
"They went longer, this time. They'd had more experience. I don't want to think how much of that experience was on girls like me. But they took their time, figuring out how to make me make noises that told them they were making me feel it. George still had a thing for tits. God, the bruises... I couldn't wear a bra for three weeks. And Oscar..."
Lily took a long, slow, deep breath, and let it out.
"Let's just say that I was glad I had a cell with me, that time, because by the time Oscar had finished tearing up my ass, I literally couldn't stand up without blacking out. The paramedics carried me out from beneath the boardwalk on a stretcher."
The waves crashed against the shore, and the timbers of the pier creaked faintly. Morgana tipped her cupped palms back and forth, like she was pouring a liquid from one hand to the other.
"And on that note, Lily," she finally said, gesturing to the boardwalk, "It's time."
She took a couple of steps toward the planks, then looked back as Lily stood immobile.
"Look, Lily. You're twenty-four, now. You don't ever have to come back here, again, after this."
"I know. I wanted to do this. I still do! It's not about proving anything, any more. I don't know if I'll ever be able to get those good memories back without the taint of what happened here staining them. But I need... closure, to get on with my life."
"And you're not going to find resolution, standing up here. And in another year, two at most, the pier and the boardwalk are going to be a bunch of condominiums. This is your chance."
Lily remained paralyzed for a moment longer before visibly squaring her shoulders and steeling herself.
"Yes... And I'm going to make the most of it." Advancing, she put her hand on Morgana's shoulder. "Thank you, Morgana. And thank Doctor Klein, for me, when you get a chance."
Morgana just looked back at her, her face like that of a statue, until Lily withdrew her hand from her shoulder.
There were two stairways from the boardwalk to the beach, but Lily had heard that the farther one was hazardous. There were warning signs on the sidewalk next to the pier, "enter at your own risk", warning tape and fencing in some places, but the boardwalk was largely unscathed, for now. It was the same stairway she had taken six years ago, looking for a place to puke, now with more seagulls and surf and no roller coaster screaming or carousel calliope. Lily kept reminding herself to breathe as she moved from the open sand to the shadowed cavern beneath the boards.
"At least the police sweep under here, occasionally, now, so the construction firm doesn't have to worry they're going to bring everything down on a homeless camp. That's a plus," Morgana mused.
"Great. So we only have to worry about junkies looking for a quick fix..." Lily retorted.
"Better places for that, especially if you want to shoot up. Fumbling for a vein in the dark is no fun at all."
They walked on for a few minutes, when Lily abruptly froze, her heart pounding.
"This is where it happened."
"You're sure?"
Lily's breaths came in little whimpering gasps as she stammered.
"Yes... That's the fence they bent me over when... When Oscar..."
"And I'm sure you're still tight," A cold voice drawled.
When the silhouettes materialized from behind the columns, Lily sank to her knees, her head swimming, hoping that she would wake up with a start like she had so many times before.
"Morgana..." She whispered. "Run..."
"Hmm, I don't think so," Her escort replied, more feeling in her voice than she had displayed in the past hour. "I'd kind of like to watch."
As the man Lily knew as "Eric" came up to slide an arm around her shoulders, Morgana slipped a tiny cassette player out of the breast pocket of her jacket, thumbing the playback button.
"I need to go back there," Lily's voice came out of the device's speaker, tinny and distorted. "I can't let those men keep a hold over me. Unless I go back there and face my demons, they're going to have a hold over me for my entire life. It's already like they've written over every good thing that happened before..."
"That may be a useful step in overcoming your trauma, in time, Lily," Doctor Klein's reassuring voice replied. "But I think, as your therapist, perhaps we should be in agreement about when you're ready to face that particular challenge?"
Morgana stopped the recording.
"Doctor Klein really ought to keep her session recordings somewhere more secure," Morgana purred. "And, did you know, Lily, that just about anyone with access to cardstock can print out a business card that says 'assistant' on it?"
"Why...?" Lily whimpered. "Why go through all of this, to do this to me...?"
The men laughed, and Morgana laughed with them, and that started the tears spilling down Lily's cheeks.
"You'll be happy to know," Max gloated, "That you really are a tight fuck."
"More than that, though," Oscar's bass voice rattled something in Lily's spine, "You came back, like a challenge. Like you were pretending it was no big thing. Oh, I'm not saying that was so," He chuckled darkly, "but you wanted to make out like it was. Little girl, when we fuck someone... they stay fucked, you hear me?"
"And when we fuck someone up," George added, "the same. And you gave us such a opportunity to leave marks."
Untangling herself from Eric's arm, Morgana leaned back against one of the boardwalk's support pillars.
"You know, Max," Morgana said breezily, "Lily, here, didn't have a very favorable report on your stamina, on your first encounter."
"Oh, is that so..." Max smiled.
"Yours, either, Eric."
"Really. And have you found my stamina disappointing, babe?"
"Ha! I can only imagine you've been doing marathon training, since then."
"Well, I will try not to disappoint." Max retorted.
Peeling down her slacks to reveal a lacy black thong, Morgana slid her fingers beneath the waistband.
"No rush. We've got until sunrise to give Lily another set of memories. I won't deny that hearing about the business you used to get up to with this one got me pretty thirsty. Please... Start from the beginning..."
Lily began to wail as Oscar grabbed her forearm and wrenched her to her feet.
"You going to try and scratch us, kitten?" His voice rumbled in her ears.
"Please..."
The plea faded like a dying candle on her lips. Then, with a sob:
"Does it matter?"
Oscar laughed, lifting her up by her shoulders until she dangled an inch above the sand.
"No."
Her body flew through the air, into Max's hard, waiting arms.
It was barely noted, when the crew began drawing out plans for demolishing the pier, that the fence running along the underside of the boardwalk had its top rail busted in the middle at one, and only one, segment of the fencing.
Oscar knows why. Lily loses nights trying, and failing, not to remember.
* Culture note: For those outside the United States, and others blissfully unaware, "Thunderbird" is a brand of fortified wine, most popular in the 60s-70s but still sold today, renowned for being a cheap way for the undiscriminating to get intoxicated. Its reputation is such that almost anyone with access to something better would choose the other option, but it gained a certain popularity among teenagers and the down-on-their-luck.
