“Where you from?” she asked.
“I don’t want to talk to you,” the man said, and then he grinned. It was predatory, his teeth white and gleaming. “But there is something I would like to do.”
“Sorry, I don’t think so,” Jennifer said, and the man made her so uncomfortable that her heart started beating fast as adrenaline pumped through her.
“I don’t think I made myself clear,” the man said. “I wasn’t planning on giving you a fucking choice.”
“Why don’t you call it a night,” Jennifer said, backing up from the bar. The man leaned forward, darting like a coiled snake, and took hold of her arm. He wrenched her toward him, toward the bar, as she screamed. Her stomach hit the edge of the bar and the wind was knocked right out of her. Her scream fell short as she gasped for breath. He kept pulling, and before she could stop herself, Jennifer was on the bar, being dragged across it. Once across, the man forced her to the floor, and the petite girl could do nothing but cry.
When it was over, she was left bloody and crying on the floor, her shirt torn, her jeans down around her ankles. The man left after splashing his cum across her stomach. He threw the money he owed her for his beers on top of her, some of it falling into the salty mess. Jennifer didn’t move; she didn’t even watch him leave. After he was gone, she still didn’t dare move, even when her cell phone began ringing from the spot behind the bar where she always kept it. It was Barbara, she guessed. It was past time to pick Jaxson up. Finally, after gaining control of her tears, Jennifer got up.
4
Jennifer had called Barbara, told her what had happened. The old woman had told her to call the police, but Jennifer had something else in mind. At four in the morning, she was standing in front of a small house with a grungy, unkempt yard, knocking on the door. It took some time, but finally the door opened.
“What are you doing here?” Rocky asked her. She opened her mouth to speak, but instead she started crying again. The young biker took her inside, and she sat on his couch and told him everything.
“I’ll kill the asshole,” Rocky said. He reached over and pressed his hand to her knee. She flinched.
“Relax,” he said. “I’ll handle it.”
That was all he said, and Jennifer knew that he would handle it. She left, got her son, and went home. She didn’t know what Rocky was going to do, and she didn’t want to know.
She tried to put the situation out of her mind over the next week and a half, but she was assaulted by unending nightmares every night.
She took some time off from the bar, putting trust in her employees. One night she had just gotten her son to sleep when there was a sharp knock on her door. She opened it without thinking and was surprised to see her rapist standing there on her porch. He had a black eye and a cut on his forehead.
“You bitch,” he said. She didn’t let him finish; she slammed the door shut.
“Your boyfriend won’t save you now!” the man yelled, mistaking Rocky for her significant other. She ran for her phone as her son came out of his room.
“Mommy, what’s wrong?” he asked as the man outside began to pound on the door.
“Go into your room; lock the door!” Jennifer yelled at her poor confused child. He rushed to do as he was told, and she got Rocky on the phone. He only lived a few minutes away, and even as she was talking to him on his cell, she heard his bike roar to life.
She thought then of Ryan. She hadn’t been seeing him much, hadn’t been speaking to him. The sexual assault had changed her somehow. He wasn’t a man who could protect her. She liked him, but if she had gone to him, he never would have been able to help her. Not like Rocky could.
She heard Rocky’s bike roaring down the road, and the pounding on the door quit. Minutes later there was a knock, and Rocky was there. She told him about the man with the black eye, and Rocky searched her property. The man was gone.
Jennifer got her son back into bed to sleep, and when she returned to the living room, Rocky was still there.
“You don’t have to stay,” she said.
“I will,” he replied.
She nodded, and then they sat on her couch and she curled up beside him. He kept an arm around her the whole night.
When Jennifer awoke, light was filtering in through her living room windows and Rocky was looking down upon her. He smiled and kissed her suddenly.
“What the fuck are you doing?” Jennifer asked, pushing him away and standing up quickly.
“I stayed here all night!” Rocky said, surprised.
“So what, I should kiss you?”
“At least!” Rocky said.
“Do you know what that guy did to me?”
“That’s different,” Rocky said. “You want to fuck me.”
“Get out!” Jennifer yelled, trying not to wake up her son but unable to help it. Rocky stood.