“I screamed rape, but that Arab bastard put his hand over my mouth. So I bit him. I bit his hand.”
“What happened then?”
“Then I looked back at the white guy and he had his cock completely out of his pants and was coming at me with it, so I grabbed it and tried to rip it off. Then he started punching me again, so I bit him. I tried to bite his nuts off.”
“You did,” the detective answered without looking up from his notepad where he was scribbling down my account of the assault.
“What?”
“The guy’s nuts, you bit them completely off. You almost tore his dick off. He’s gonna need reconstructive surgery. I doubt he’ll ever work right down there again.”
“Fuck that piece of shit. I hope he has to piss out his asshole,” I hissed, my years of education slipping away and my white trash origins reemerging.
Eileen, the victim’s advocate, nodded. Not in agreement but in understanding. I wasn’t sure whether she was patronizing me or not.
“Why were you wearing this to plow a field?” the detective said, holding up an oversized Ziploc bag with the leather corset and short shorts I’d been wearing.
I smirked and shook my head.
“I was wondering when you were going to ask. You know what kind of place it is. People go there to live out their sexual fantasies.”
The detective nodded then locked eyes with me.
“And wasn’t that just what these two guys were doing? Weren’t they just playing out their fantasies?”
I scowled and shook my head.
“No. There are rules. Everything has to be consensual. That policy is strictly enforced. We all sign a contract. You can’t just grab whoever you want and rape them just because they’re wearing a sexy outfit. That’s bullshit!”
The detective nodded again.
“And what exactly was your fantasy?”
I opened my mouth to speak then reconsidered. The truth wasn’t likely to help my case. It was more likely to further alienate the detective from me, convince him that I was a lunatic.
“It’s personal.”
The advocate sighed.
“We are only asking because, if you pursue charges against these two, and I think you should, they’re going to ask you all of this.”
“My fantasy wasn’t to be raped in the dirt by two yuppies, if that’s what you’re asking.”
Eileen blushed.
“I—no—that’s not what I meant.”
“What she means is that something like wanting to be part of a gang bang or even certain types of rough sex, might help them make the case that they were led on.”
“Led on? Like I wanted to be beaten up?”
“Where did you get the welts on your back? Some of those scars look pretty old.”
“Oh, so you’re saying that because I like to get whipped, I might like to get punched too? Maybe I was asking for it? Fuck you, detective! Get the fuck out of here!”
“We have to ask.”
That was all the detective said as he closed his notebook and stood.
“Get out! Both of you!”
Eileen smiled and placed her business card beside me on the nightstand.
“Call me if you need to talk.”
I snatched her card off the table, ripped it in half, and threw it at her. Then the phone rang. I snatched it up, hoping it was Kenyatta, ready to pour out my misery to him and have him make it all better with a few soothing words. For him to say he was on his way to rescue me, take me home. Love me. But it wasn’t him. It was an angry spiteful voice, the voice of the man who’d tried to fuck me against my will.
“You’d better tell them it wasn’t rape, bitch! You hear me? Do you know how much I’m worth? How much my family’s worth? I’ve got the best goddamn lawyers in the city and what the fuck have you got? You were at a fucking fetish farm! The jury is going to say you were asking for it because you were. You know you were, you fucking slut! You wanted it. Why the fuck else were you there? What did you expect? They’ll all call you a whore! Whores deserve to get raped. That’s what they’ll say.”
I don’t know why it took me so long to hang up the phone. My hand was shaking when I did and tears were streaming down my face. I should have told the police about the call. I should have had him rearrested, his bail revoked, but I just felt so exhausted and ashamed. Very ashamed. What the fuck was I doing there? Why had Kenyatta sent me there? Why was I doing any of this? I was thinking about what the asshole on the phone said. “They’ll all call you a whore. Whores deserve to get raped.” I was thinking about the trial ahead. And all I wanted to do was sleep. Where was Kenyatta? Where was my protector? I closed my eyes, and cried until the dreams faded to black.
XII
Kenyatta could not believe what he was hearing. Someone had dared to touch his woman, his property.
“Who are they? Where do they live? Are they regulars?”
“This was their first time at the farm.”
Kenyatta put both hands on Delia’s shoulders and squeezed gently, but firmly, compelling Delia to meet his stern gaze.
“Delia.” Kenyatta relaxed his features, letting the tension out of his expression, forcing a smile as he brushed the hair from her face and caressed her cheek with his palms and fingertips. He cradled her face in his hands, gently, like he was holding something delicate, precious, invaluable. He licked his lips. Then kissed her lightly on the mouth. He could feel Delia tremble in his grasp. Cruelty she could take. She was part of an industry of staged, consensual fantasy violence. In her world, violence was something passionate, even romantic, but she knew he could see it in her eyes, she knew that the cruelty in his eyes, though passionate, would be neither romantic nor consensual. “Tell me.”
“I-I don’t know what you want.”
“Yes you do. You wouldn’t let strangers stay at your home unless you checked them out.”
“I have their name and credit card on file as well as their billing address but—”
“Give it to me.”
“King...”
“Give it to me!”
XIII
Farrad Ali sat at the bar, the same bar he and his frat brothers used to frequent in college. A table on the other side of the room was filled with young kids from his old fraternity. He didn’t know any of them and they didn’t know him. The oldest of them was probably still in high school when Farrad had graduated. Still, he felt a kinship with them. He and his friends used to sit at that same table talking about the same teachers, classes, parties, what girls he’d fucked, would fuck, wished he could fuck, how much money he would make when he graduated, how he’d buy a condo with a view of the bay, and what kind of bad-ass bitch-magnet he would drive and all the high quality pussy he would get because of it. All the shit these fools were shouting loudly back and forth to each other. Farrad knocked back another shot of tequila.
On any other day, he might have gone over to that table and showed them the Greek letters branded on his bicep. He would have told them that he was the one who’d put the brass Buddha with “Fat Fuck” stenciled on his belly in “The Fat Room” and made it a tradition to stick it outside the door whenever you were in there fucking someone you normally wouldn’t be caught dead with. Then they would swap stories about the chicks they’d done in that room. But not today. Today he sat at the bar, head down, shoulders hunched, casting nervous glances at the TV behind the bar, hoping his picture wouldn’t suddenly flash on the screen with the caption: “Accused Rapist in Sex Farm Scandal” emblazoned on the screen below it.
I can’t believe I let Michael talk me into this shit, Farrad thought. My life is ruined! “Bartender! Line up another shot!”
There was a large black man sitting across the bar facing him. He was dressed all in black; black, buttoned-down, short-sleeved shirt, black jeans, even wearing black leather gloves and dark sunglasses that wrapped around his head like The Terminator. His muscles bulged through his shirt like Arnold Schwarzenegger, and the man appeared to be staring right through Farrad, but he couldn’t be certain because of the opaque sunglasses. Farrad tried to stare back, but when the man didn’t turn away, Farrad averted his eyes. He didn’t want to be the one to start shit with a guy that huge. He had enough trouble without getting his ass kicked in a bar fight.