The Incident: Part 3

(Breeder's note: Please see the ground rules before commenting. Thanks.)


A few years later, when I had a favorite student assistant move into the same building, I finally got to revisit what Tom’s apartment might have been like. I don’t have a lot of distinct memories of the place from that January night, either entering or leaving—just some impressions that I interpolate with my recollections of that move. But later, when I was struggling to get my student assistant’s mattress through up the stairs and front door, I was struck by how narrow were the staircases of the stately apartment building. It had been built in the nineteen-twenties, before air conditioning and electronics and oversized, plush furniture.

The stairwells were tight and awkward, and the hallway leading from the apartment entrance into the living room was also barely wide enough to squeeze through, much less navigate a queen-sized set of bedsprings around. But inside the spacious one-bedroom apartments, the ceilings were tall, the floors were wood, and the rooms were dark and cool from the shade of a knotty oak tree that overgrew the building. Tom was long gone by the time I helped my student assistant move, but I still had a shiver of recognition that day; it wasn’t even his apartment I was helping her inhabit, but it seemed to echo with malice.

So I don’t remember much about my approach to Tom’s place. My mind has steadily eroded that portion of the night from memory. I don’t remember what we talked about on the long walk back from the bar to his apartment building, south of campus, or even if we talked much at all. I do recall passing my own building, and answering a question about whether or not I enjoyed living there. And I remember looking around Tom’s place and marveling about how sparsely furnished it was. Even in the dim, white-blue light from the street lamps outside, I could tell it was less a living space and more a prison cell.

Here are some of the fleeting things I remember noticing: no rugs lay on the floors, and no photographs or poster hung on the walls. There was a cheap formica table with a single chair near the kitchen area, and a small table that held a telephone near the entrance. The phone itself was one of those old rotary-dial models that one used to lease from the phone company itself. It looked as if it weighed a ton. There was a single sofa in the living area, and a very small portable television rigged with a wire hanger in lieu of an antenna. Through an open door off the living room I could see a bathtub with no curtain in one small room, and a sleeping area in the other. The double bed was almost clinically made up with white sheets pulled so tight that they seemed as one with the mattress.

“So what about—?”

I'd meant to ask about the bottom guy that Tom had talked about summoning for us to share. “Sshh,” he said, putting a finger to his lips. I blinked several times at the urgency of his whisper. “I don’t want them to hear.” He pointed to various spots around the room.

For a moment I didn’t understand, until I remembered his paranoia about the FBI bugging his apartment. I am not sure I bought into it, but I remember having humor enough to play along. “Okay,” I said twice as softly, as I began turning around to face him. “Where’s this—?”

The last thing I remember for several minutes after that is seeing the metal base of the very heavy telephone swinging in an arc toward my face. It connected with my right cheek so hard that its bell sounded, a high-pitched ring that seemed to linger and never fade. Fireworks bloomed before my eyes at the impact, but I don’t remember it hurting at first. I staggered, too shocked and surprised to do much else. Then he swung out again with the phone and brought it down on my forehead, hard. I felt the curled cord snap across my face with a sharp sting, and remember watching the handset descend from above and stop at my face. I wondered to myself why it seemed to have been so high in the air. Then I realized that I was lying on the floor, Tom was still standing above me, and that the receiver had landed next to me. I still seemed to be hearing the bell. My body was vibrating at its exact frequency, so that the sound and I were one.

Then I blacked out for a while.

I came to on the bed. My head and body still seemed to be vibrating from the blows. I felt as if a great weight held me down, increasing my personal gravity by three times as much. Now my head hurt. My brain’s pounding was intense and almost unbearable. It was several moments before I was able to endure the pain enough to open my eyes. When I did, I wished I hadn’t. Something immediately began stinging at them. When I raised my head and a trickle of metallic-tasting fluid tricked down my cheek and into my mouth, I realized it was blood.

I made a noise. Immediately I heard a voice in my ear, and realized that the great weight upon me was Tom himself. “Shut the fuck up,” he snarled in my ear. I tried to speak again, not really understanding. “They better not hear this." He shoved my head down so hard that my nose almost snapped against the mattress. I felt fingers jabbing at my asshole, shoving themselves inside along with some kind of cold, cold lube. Much later, when I was cleaning myself up, I realized it had to be Vaseline.

His penetration of me was torturous and difficult. Instinctively I clamped down to prevent it. He, in the meantime, had no qualms about fucking his ugly dick in me anyway. If I yelled, I don’t remember it. I cried some, but even that was too painful for me to continue. When he was in, he fucked in an unvarying in-and-out pattern, stabbing me with his cock. I could feel little bites on my ass from his zipper, so either he’d only yanked them down partway or merely unzipped. “Jesus Christ,” he whispered after a while, still keeping his voice down. “Do something. Don’t just fucking lie there.”

He wasn’t challenging me to resist his assault—I was too hurt and stunned still to do that anyway. The fucker actually wanted me to fuck back, to make the sex better for him. I have always been stubborn to a fault; even when being assaulted I decided to sent the biggest fuck you to him I could by going completely limp. It wasn’t hard. I didn’t have much fight in me. I simply lay there and endured his clumsy, abrupt thrusting, and prayed for it to be over.

It wasn’t, not by a long shot. He seemed to fuck me for hours, shanking my hole in a non-varying rhythm, never growing softer, never seeming to get closer to his goal. From time to time he’d pause for a few seconds and rearrange my limbs or pull my hips higher, almost as if he was plumping up a pillow that wasn’t quite comfortable enough for him. Then he’d be off again, plunging in and out while some disembodied part of myself wondered for how long it could possibly go on.

I’d never been in such white-hot, ragged pain. My head hurt badly; my jaw was now aching with such fire that I wondered if it would ever work again. The act of breathing alone nearly killed me. My hole felt as if it was simultaneously burning and being fucked by a knife with every thrust. Whenever Tom moved his hands to rearrange me, it felt as if bruises blossomed where he touched. I was bleeding like I’d never bled before and never have since. The plain white sheets were crimson and sticky from my head wounds. Whenever I was brave enough to open my eyes, I’d see that the stains were growing bigger and bigger.

Mostly I kept my eyes shut.

“Christ,” Tom eventually said, still in that hushed voice. “You are the worst fucking lay I’ve ever had. I’d be better off fucking a corpse.” Somehow I knew that turning myself into a rag doll was prolonging the experience, and that it was making him savage me even more roughly to get some kind of a reaction, but I didn’t much care. I lay there, drifting in and out of pain and maybe even consciousness, until I felt a series of merciless bangs, accompanied by pauses in between. His dick felt as if it had barbs beneath the head when he yanked it out. It was over. The weight of him disappeared, and I heard him stomp off. I was left alone.

I don’t remember exactly how long I lay there until I was able to pull myself together. It probably wasn’t very long, but I was still so stunned and reeling that I had no objective view of time. When finally I sat up, I had a hard time of it because my feet were still tangled in my jeans and shorts. One sneaker was still on my foot. The other lay nearby, the laces still done. I’d been wearing a jacket, sweater, and shirt when I’d entered the apartment. I saw them on the floor by the front door, in a wad. When I stood up to adjust my pants, I nearly careened into the wall opposite.

The white sheets were covered in blood when I left. I was certain my face was covered with it, too. I could tell by the way I was sniffing that I'd sprung a nosebleed at some point. Out I stumbled to the living room, where Tom was hunched over on his sofa, hands dangling between his knees as he watched something on the little TV. The telephone was back on its stand. “Key-rist, are you still hanging around?” he asked. He made it sound as if I disgusted him. “Get the fuck out of here already. Go on. Get!” He stood up. When I bent over to retrieve the rest of my clothes, he shoved me toward the door. His voice dropped down to a whisper again, as he remembered the listening devices he thought were around the apartment. “You got a hell of a lot to learn about how to bottom.”

He shoved me so roughly that I went sprawling down the hallway toward the front door. The narrow passage kept me upright. He reached past me, opened the door, and pushed on my chest to force me out. Then he shook his head, and kicked out the remainder of my clothing after me. My coat and sweater ended on the landing; my shirt flew into the air and landed on the stair railing before it slipped off. I heard the door slam.

I had to finish dressing in the apartment hallway. I was fearful that someone would catch me there; already I was feeling shame about what had just happened. Once I was in my winter clothes, I managed to walk down the stairs and outdoors. Walking hurt, and my shorts were soaked with the semen dripping from my hole. Every step brought back vivid memories of the raping that my ass had just endured. It felt as if my insides would never again be the same. I’d never before felt so fragile, as if my body was jerry-rigged from second-hand Scotch tape and children’s paste and little bits of string.

Somehow I managed to get back to my apartment building without anyone noticing my bloody face and distressed state—no one was on campus, so that helped. The night manager of my apartment building was back in his office when I slunk through the lobby. My greatest fear, that someone would be either in the elevator or the hallway when I made my way to my apartment, was thankfully unrealized. I fumbled with my key, and let myself into my little home.

I remember not wanting to look at myself in the mirror, not wanting to see how much damage there was to my face. I didn’t want to shower, either, dirty as I felt—taking a shower would require getting naked, and once I was naked I’d have to assess exactly the extent of my injuries. I wanted to crawl into bed, but I didn’t want to dirty the sheets. I couldn’t lie down on the sofa, because it wasn’t mine and I didn’t want to bleed on it.

So at last, without much thought, I grabbed an extra blanket, wrapped it around my shoulders. I lay down in my little bathtub, and curled up into a ball. I didn’t cry. I couldn’t, really. I lay there and stared into the darkness.

After a long time, I fell asleep, and dreamed over and over of what had happened hours before.