Depravity
In some sense, I should've known better. But at the time, I knew there was little hope of thinking straight that evening.
I left University City at about seven o'clock that Saturday. Brad, my boyfriend, was at a weekend conference. To our friends and acquaintances, I had given the impression that I was turning in early for the evening for a quiet night at home and an early night to bed. What I actually did was sneak out my back window and, when no one was around, I climbed into my car, turned the ignition, and drove off in the direction of Port Stratton, making a stop at Brad's lab while I was on my way out.
Port Stratton was not an easy drive. To get there requires about an hour's drive on a backwoods state highway, followed by another hour and a half down the interstate. Port Stratton was hardly a prime destination at that, a small rust-belt city basically kept aloft these days by meds and eds - a large regional medical center and a large state university, uncreatively named Port Stratton State. I only knew Port Stratton because it was a feeder school for my high school. If I had gone to school there, it would've felt like 13th grade.
As a result of its "feeder school" status, many of my friends and classmates from the "glory days" of high school were attending college there. Which led into the reason why I was travelling up there, by some wrong-meaning twist of fate.
We all have moments where we're not well mentally. Something has happened, we snap, suddenly some anger flashes out, and most of the time, we calm back down, resolve the situation, regret the momentary loss of composure. But this was...different. It was premeditated in a sense, but I had never planned on acting on it. But when I got that phone call, I just couldn't bear it anymore. Unfortunately, my cards had been played such that my foray into insanity could be carried it to its potential.
I kept my eyes on the winding state road, not really processing anything outside of the confines of my car. It was barely enough for me to keep the old Impala within the speed limit. If I had been pulled over for any reason, I might have been in a compromising predicament. sitting on my passenger seat were some materials I'd need for the night - duct tape, chloroform, a hunting knife (a throwback to my backcountry upbringing, though I hoped it wouldn't be needed). I glanced at the green digits of the clock; it was 7:40. It looked like I would arrive on schedule.
I kept playing out different problems I might have to trouble-shoot during the course of the evening - unluckily, more than a couple ended with arrest or suicide as my best options. I kept saying to myself that what I was doing was stupid and crazy and wrong on a legal and moral level, but I didn't so much as let off the gas, let alone turn around. In my mentally distressed state, I had decided that what I was doing was the "right" thing to do.
Claire and I had been good friends throughout high school, and she was always there for me when I needed her. Even though we went to school 150 miles apart, we kept in touch with weekly phone calls or e-mails, and although I had drifted away from most of my high school friends as college buddies filled their respective niches, Claire and I had remained close. When I visited my family (albeit rare - being the gay son of your stereotypical Bible and gun-loving rural family had its strains), I visited Claire first. Claire had opted for Stratton because of her ailing mother, and because being a large state school, it was cheap and had plenty of options in case she changed her mind about her field...which I had maybe expected a little bit since she was a psych major, but she excelled, even going abroad to Ukraine last spring to do research on the long-term traumatic impacts experienced by those misplaced by the Chernobyl disaster in the 80s.Her mother had passed sophomore year, and when I went to pay my condolences, I and a few of her other friends stayed with Claire in her off-campus apartment to be the proverbial shoulders to cry on. Through bouts of tears, she told me how glad she was to have her friends there with her. It was then that Claire first displayed a strong interest in how people deal with grief and trauma, and her goal to be a grief counselor.
Claire was smart and motivated and a wonderful friend. Which is why it tore up my heart to get a sobbing phone call from her three weeks ago, telling me that she was raped by a classmate.
At that point, I turned the wheel a bit harder than I should to make the interstate on-ramp. I had to make a quick adjustment to avoid hitting the guardrail, and then continued down the highway. There was little traffic, thankfully.
Anyway, Claire told me how a junior guy in her major (therefore one year under us) offered to give her a ride home, and then proceeded to drive into a campus commuter lot and...it hurts to think about it...sexually abuse her repeatedly against her will. A more logical part of me wondered why he would do it. Claire was a reasonably attractive vixen, with high cheekbones and a lovely red-orange hue to her fur, but certainly there had to be more to it than that. I said to myself there had to be more to it. When he was done, he pushed her out of his car, poured beer onto her as she lay on the ground, and drove off. A passerby saw her in the lot about two hours later and called for an ambulance.
I was actually surprised at the lack of news coverage, but maybe not overly so. Claire had sustained mild to moderate physical injuries that would be recoverable. But the mental trauma threw her for a loop. She had called me the day after (a Friday), and I spent the weekend with her to be there for her comfort. She left the hospital that weekend, but she was in shock. Broken. Claire slipped into a deep depression. There was nothing I could do to help her, I felt, and I was so frustrated and angry, even more so that the perpetrator was someone I knew.
The guy who gave her a ride (and forced her to take a ride, I suppose) was a guy we went to high school named Jeff. I knew Jeff through the track team, and we were cordial to each other, but we were never good friends. Jeff disliked queers, scalies, ethnic groups, and anything that wasn't like him - a shortish but fairly muscular doberman. His family was fairly wealthy, and he had a brother who was a marginally more pleasant being, but Jeff, in high school, was one of our resident stereotypical jocks. He did track with me in the spring, and football in the fall. When I graduated, I did not miss him.
Jeff went to PSSU and became something of a token party boy. He was in a fraternity there known for being hard partiers, and through the joys of facebook, I knew before he had closed his account (and started a new one, sans anyone he knew in high school), he was sampling seemingly every drug and easy piece of ass under the sun. It was safe to surmise that Jeff's daily schedule likely consisted of partying, the gym, slacking in class, and basically being an All-American douchebag. But still, I would've never thought he would get so obnoxious and bold as to force himself onto a girl.
For being a drunk-ass party boy, he had his rape plan fairly well-planned. The car he used wasn't his, and I instantly knew when Claire told me about the beer that it was to make her seem less credible (it was refuted when it was revealed there was no alcohol actually in her system). But, his family had a lot of money for good lawyers, and he had a lot of friends who could make a "claim" that he was in his room at the time of incident. I felt that he was going to get off with a slap on the wrist. Maybe Claire felt that way too.
I told Brad about the whole thing, and although he was only vaguely familiar with Claire, he was deeply sympathetic and came up with me to the hospital that weekend. He was my voice of reason in not doing something rash in response, but since he was out of town, there was no restraining when I received a call earlier that day from a mutual friend of Claire and I's saying she had slit her wrists and was in intensive care. I didn't cry. I can't explain why. But I grabbed the duct tape and the knife, and took the chloroform from Brad's lab, and I left for Port Stratton.
I love Brad, even though I never thought I would. We met through friends freshman year, and we were friends for about a year. Brad was an unusually tall and slightly pudgy collie who was a brilliant biologist, and I was an otter boy pursuing geology. Brad spent a year building up the courage to ask me if I was interested in him, and in the meanwhile, since I had arrived at Ivy U., I had so many guests in my bedroom, it should've had a revolving door. I was a sucker for anything with a six-pack and loose morals. Brad asked me out, and while I wasn't particularly attracted to him, his earnest desire was a nice change from one-night stands and monthly STD testing. What he lacked in physical quality, he made up for in passion. So, I gave our relationship a try on a whim, and fell in love with him.
But I digress. I pulled off for the PSSU exit and used my GPS to locate the fraternity house where Jeff lived. I was able to recognize his car in the rear of the parking lot, a silver M3 with aftermarket rims. It amazed me how much this kid perpetuated a stereotype. I parked in the lot in a tucked-away corner. I grabbed a chamois I kept in the trunk, the duct tape and the chloroform. The October air was cool, crisp, and the sky was clear.
I felt a shiver run down my spine, but not from the cold. For a moment, panic tried to overtake me - what if something went wrong? What would I do? My stomach turned at the thought of being attacked by a bunch of angry frat boys. I swallowed the fear back down and walked up to his car. It was now or never. With a hard kick, I nailed the rear driver's-side fender. The alarm blared across the lot, more than enough for Jeff to hear from the house. While waiting, I soaked the chamois with the chloroform. The pungent sweetness made me slightly dizzy.
From a back door, I saw him come out in a tee and gym shorts. Jeff muttered some random string of curses as he crossed the lot to his car. I hid in the shadows of the car next to his. As he approached his car, I readied myself to sprint at him and cover his face with the chamois. Jeff was a strong guy, and the brawn of his forearms and calves told me that he hadn't slacked off on his workouts. While I had bulked up in the years following high school (a turn I happily pointed out to others, from a scrawny otter to a more muscular physique), I was still outsized. If I screwed up, I was in deep shit.
He turned off the alarm and started to open the car door. "Fucking fuck, piece of shit fucking goes the fuck off every time-". I dashed at him and lunged with the chloroform-soaked chamois with my left arm, my right reaching under his right arm to immobilize his movement. He collapsed at the sudden weight and I landed on top of his back. He yelled, but it was muffled by the rag. Holding on like a madman, I pressed the rag against his snout, as he tried to flip me over and elbow my chest repeatedly with his left arm. It was excruciating as he tried to break my grasp, but after a minute of struggling, his jabs weakened. His heavy panting quickened the absorption of the chloroform. After another minute, he laid perfectly still.
I held on for another minute. I was afraid someone might've heard the scuffle, and then I was afraid he'd wake up too early. When I finally removed the rag, I was afraid I might've left it on too long and killed him. As I held him on the ground, I notice he had a fairly unique scent of body spray with trace amounts of alcohol and sweat mixed in. When I was certain that I was in the clear, I quickly went back for the duct tape and bound his wrists, his ankles, his knees, and most importantly, I wrapped it around his head at mouth level. When I was satisfied, I hoisted him by his head towards the Impala and lifted him into the back seats. I turned on the car and with the best composure I could muster, drove out onto the road.
I wasn't sure I was going to make it this far, but since I had I was determined to enjoy it. If my memory seems a bit brief here, it was because the excitement of the moment limited my level of detail and awareness. I drove to the nearest quiet, discreet space I could find - ironically, a commuter parking lot near the campus. I parked my car on the edge of a wooded section and dragged him out from the rear seats. He was slowly regaining consciousness, and I knew if I didn't hurry he might try kicking my back door out. I threw him face-up onto the ground away from the road. There were maybe two or three other cars in the lot - I prayed their owners wouldn't show up.
As Jeff came to and began to role back and forth on the ground, I stood over him at the waist. I realized he might try to kick me, but there was little chance he could knock me off my feet. When he fully came to, the first sight he saw was me, back-lit by the sodium lamps of the parking lot light poles.
I was glib and I felt oddly confident. "Hi Jeff! You may, or may not, remember me. I sure remember you! So much so, I knew where to find you after you raped Claire." He tried to roll away, and I slammed my foot into his side. He winced and crumpled below me. "Oh, now I wouldn't try and get away if I were you. I have a knife Jeff, and I sure as fuck will use it if I have to." He tried to kick me and I grabbed his feet. I took the knife from its side holster and sliced the top of the toe of his white Adidas shoes. He struggled below and I kicked him with the back of the foot as hard as I could. While he paused from his struggling, I sliced the top of the toe of his shoe off entirely, exposing his sock. "That's a clue Jeff. Fuck with me and I start slicing off your toes, then your fingers, and I'll just keep going from there".
He stopped struggling and stared up at me with a mixture of anger and hate. He had a handsome face and expressive brown eyes. His ears were cropped and he had diamond studs in each lobe. I put the knife back and placed my knee down on his chest and grabbed his shirt by the collar. "So Jeff, you think you can fuck a girl against her will? Big man on campus?" I lifted him by his collar, lifting his head by an inch before dropping him back down onto the asphalt. "You destroyed her. Now, as a friend of hers, this doesn't sit well with me. Oh no. So tell you what I'm going to do. I'm going to show you what it feels like to get raped." His eyes widened and he tried to move out from under my knee. I clenched my hands around his neck and felt his veins bulge under my grip. I glared at him and clenched my teeth. "You're going to fucking cooperate of you're going to die."
To be honest, I wasn't quite sure how I was going to do that. I grabbed the knife and held it to his cheek. He stopped struggling. Tracing down his cheek and neck, I stopped at the collar of his tee. With a quick thrust, I cut the collar. He pressed against the ground in fear. With the knife still in hand, I gripped both ends in my hands and yanked hard. The shirt tore down the middle before getting caught on the hemline, which I sliced through. I stood up to stare at this bare upper body in the yellow light. His pecs were deliciously full and plump with muscle, and he had a fairly well-defined six-pack for someone who pounds back so much alcohol. I kneeled down again to slice the arms of his shirt, and threw the two pieces away. His triceps were nicely curved and a large vein ran down next to his biceps. Oh, that time in the gym had paid off quite well for him.
"I like what I see Jeff. How many girls, willing and unwilling, did you hold with those guns?" I ran my hands down the ridges of his body, savoring the firmness of each muscle. Admittedly, I was, and still am, a bit of a muscle whore. I grinned at him. "Let see what you're packing down south". I first checked his pockets. In the right was a set of keys and a smartphone. In the left pocket were a lighter and half a pack of Newports. "Oh, these are very bad for you Jeff. Very bad." With another slash of the knife, I had cut through his shorts and boxers and found a flaccid though still sizable doberman dick. "Darn. we'll save this for later".
I felt horny, confident. In a saner state, I knew what I was doing was wrong. But on an atavistic level, it was intoxicating. The power and the dominance...just thinking about it gave me a full erection. It was unusual, in that I considered myself versatile in bed, although since I had been with Brad I was usually the sexual "top". I stood up over him and pressed on his shoulders so he wouldn't move. "Sorry Jeff, I'm one of those fags you hate so much, but I just have to bust one out right now. Hope you understand." I began to stroke in earnest as I jerked off over him, my erect dick vertically level with his face. I grunted and bucked a little in my hand as I worked my seven inches, my balls aching for a release. Jeff squirmed but I wouldn't let him move. "Mmph....Jeff, it you try and move right now...umph...I'll shove the knife through your eyes and be done with it". I spit onto my cock for a bit of lubrication, and I spat into his face as well. He rolled his head to shake some of it off. "Fuck you...now you know how it feels....ah...I'm going...ah..." With a pleasure I've rarely felt so strongly, I shot one, two, three spurts of milky cum directly onto his face, The first one landing in his left eye, the second dribbling down his nose, and the third landing on the duct-taped portion. After a few seconds, it slowed to a trickle, and I purposely aimed to cover his face as he tried to shake it off. "Mmm...you're lucky your mouth is closed up."
I placed my knee on his chest and kneeled again as I rubbed my seed all over his face and into his fur. He was shaking, from fear or anger I don't know. He wasn't struggling nearly so much as before. I glanced down at his cock and saw he was aroused. "Oh, so you are a bit of a rump-ranger! Well, let's see if I can't force you to cum when I want you to." I tweaked his dark-colored nipples with my fingers over a minute or so, causing his cock to rise to full prominence. He was a little larger than I was, maybe around eight inches. It had also probably seen more pussy than a litter box. I turned around and gripped his cock and began to work it - it didn't seem classically rapist to make your victim cum, but nothing about me or this situation was a textbook rape, if there ever is one.
I saw the bulb of his knot work its way up as he came near to cumming. "Oh Jeff, did you leave it in Claire when you violated her?" He raised his head to look at me and then sank back down as he stared to shoot out. I pointed it away from my face as he shot several volleys of his dank cumwads onto the pavement. "Well, you're done...in more ways than one." I stood up and stomped my right foot onto his still-erect member.
Even through the duct tape, I could hear him howl in pain. I lifted my foot and turned away - I cared not to look at his smashed organ if I could help it. At this point, I did the very least of what I wanted to do. I thought anal rape might be counter-productive - I had a slight concern he might have soiled himself or could do so at any time, which for me, seeing as I'm a bit uptight about the back door, was not appealing. I decided I had had my fun. I readied another batch of chloroform.
"Jeffy, Jeff, Jeff. Why did you do it? The power of dominating over someone? Horny and convenient? She rejected previous advances and you wanted to make her pay?" Jeff glared at me, the anger shooting like darts from his watery eyes. "You shed a tear in pain. I shed a tear because Claire tried to kill herself and you ruined the life of one of my dearest friends. I'd like to forgive you, Jeff, but I can't find it within me. You're done, Jeff. Done as done can be." I looked at him grimly. I couldn't let him live. He knew it from the look I gave him. His eyes went wide with horror as he tried to roll, bounce away. But I caught up with him in a few paces and held the rag to his face. He shook, almost certainly from fear, as he lost consciousness over the next minute or two, I wonder what his last thoughts were; did he feel regret from his actions, or was he thinking about himself? I imagine the latter. I left the rag on his face.
My mind went numb at that point. My actions had begun to sink in with terrifying effect. I had raped someone against their will. I was no better than him. I had revenge-raped someone and now I was going to have to kill them. I stood there, a tear welling up and slowly rolling down my cheek. What had I done? What kind of monster was I? Still, I knew I might as well finish what I started. I chose, cowardly, to live with my guilt then go to jail. I loaded him into the trunk of my car, drove a couple minutes to a quiet part of town where the road rises parallel but above the canal. I turned on my hazards, and as they blinked coldly into the night, I grabbed Jeff, who may have already been dead from the chloroform, and rolled his virtually naked body into the canal. His body floated if but for a moment, and he slowly went below the surface, with a small ripple signifying the end of his time on this world.
After he sank beneath the water's surface, I was at a loss for words, thoughts. I took one of the cigarettes I had grabbed from his shorts and lit it, taking a long drag. The smoke hung in the night air. I didn't smoke usually, but I had done a lot of things this evening that were unusual for me. I glanced at the dashboard clock - it was only eight minutes after eleven. In just over four hours, I had driven 150 miles, kidnapped, sexually assaulted, and killed. I took another drag as the finality of Jeff's death continued to numb my senses, my thoughts. My side hurt from where he had managed to elbow me earlier. There would probably be a hefty bruise in the morning. Realizing that standing on the side of the road with my hazards on may attract some unneeded attention, I threw the cigarette away and started up the car. Before I drove away, I made sure to toss Jeff's belongings into the water after him.
Returning to some semblance of normality and setting the coordinates for home, I turned on my phone and saw I had multiple voicemails. The first was from Charlotte, a mutual friend of Claire and I's. My heart seemed to stop as Charlotte said, with a wavering voice that seemed liable to give out at any moment, that Claire had passed away. The next message was the same, and then the next message, and the next. Different people, same message. Claire was gone. It happened around ten o'clock, which was roughly coincident to my kidnapping of Jeff.
I drove in silence. The only noise I could hear was the click-clack of the tires moving between slabs of pavement as I got on the highway. Maybe her death was a punishment for my actions. Maybe there was a God and I had just really, really pissed him off and so He deemed it was appropriate to take her away. According to Christian faith, suicide means a one-way ticket to Hell. My actions certainly put me on the short-list for that as well.
I mused for a moment as I stared down the empty stretch of highway before me. Would I see her in Hell?