He’d gotten massage oil on his hands and now used them to stroke me, warm me up, and my God, I was responding to his touch. I wanted to tell him to wait. Was I ovulating? I wasn’t sure. And before I could protest, reach for protection, it was too late.
I loved him.
He was dying for me.
And the feeling was mutual.
CHAPTER 19
YUKI WAS ON the phone with Claire, both of them at their respective desks, two floors and three hundred yards apart.
Yuki said to Claire, “I’m pretty sure a juror is going to question how a man can have sex when he’s afraid of getting shot to death. You have any thoughts on that, Dr. Washburn?”
“You think I’m a sex therapist?”
“I think you may have a free and informed opinion.”
“Hmmm,” Claire said. “Well. My opinion may be worth what you pay for it, so by all means, talk to an expert. But here are my thoughts. There’s a wide spectrum of sexual response, and some men may actually find the threat of violence exciting. S and M, bondage, for instance. There’s an element of that in your case, right? Maybe the defendant knew or surmised that her victim might find rape a turn-on.”
“I see,” Yuki said. “That’s possible. Or maybe she didn’t care if he would like it, but she did and thought it would turn him on.”
Claire said, “Okay, so let’s say he wasn’t into it. At least, not consciously. So he was saying, ‘No, no, no,’ but his body, especially if he was responding to touch, was saying yes.”
Yuki said, “And therefore, if he told her, ‘No, no, no,’ and she didn’t stop, that’s not consent and that’s the definition of rape.”
“So there’s your answer. What else?” Claire asked.
“What do you mean?”
“I have a feeling you have something else on your mind.”
“Oh, you’re good,” Yuki said. “It’s Brady.”
Jackson Brady, Yuki’s husband, was lieutenant in charge of the homicide squad, one floor up from where Yuki was sitting at her desk. Brady was hot, but that was the least of what anyone would say about him. He had put himself in the way of danger many times, including the heroic save of too many lives to count when their honeymoon was interrupted by a terrorist attack.
Claire said, “What about Brady? Is he all right?”
“Oh, he’s fine. What worries me is that he’s working sixty hours a week, and I’m spending every working hour on the rape case prep by myself.
“When we’re at home together, he’s wiped out. I start talking about Marc Christopher because I can’t talk to anyone else about it—you know?”
“I know. I understand.”
“And he falls asleep while I’m talking.”
“Two-career family, this happens,” said Claire. “Speaking from experience, last thing my husband wants to hear about is dead people. It’s not dinner conversation. Not pillow talk, either.”
“So, what about sex?” Yuki asked.
“You just have to make time for it, that’s all,” said Claire.
“You’d think that sleeping in the same bed would do it,” Yuki said. “But it’s been a while. A month, anyway. And a month before that.”
“You’ve brought this up with him?”
“Hah. No. Neither one of us is into talk about squishy feelings.”
“Yuki, I know you can figure this out if you try. Maybe less talk, more see-through nighties?”
“Okay, Claire. Thanks for, you know, that.”
“Maybe this drought has nothing to do with you, sweetie. Could be he’s just bone tired. But listen. Do not bring a gun into the bedroom, hear me?”
Yuki let loose with a long peal of laughter. The idea of pulling a gun on Brady was just hilarious. He would pull his.
“You sound better,” said Claire, laughing, too. “As for Brady, you’re both working at the top of your careers, right? Don’t make yourself crazy. That man loves you to death.”
Yuki said good-bye to her friend and thought about what she hadn’t said to her, what she was afraid of most. That Brady had lost interest in her. She had to be wrong about that.
Just had to be.
She went back to her case file and turned her mind, as best she could, to The People v. Hill.
CHAPTER 20
CINDY WAS IN her office at the Chronicle, writing a short follow-up piece on the indictment of Briana Hill for the Criminal Justice Calendar section of the paper, when she got a Google Alert about Marc Christopher.
She clicked on the page and saw that the article she had written after yesterday’s lunch at MacBain’s had spawned countless other articles. As it got picked up, the story was doing a fast and good job of blanketing the internet. The first story on the Google list had a thumbnail of a previously unpublished photo of the alleged rape victim, Marc Christopher.
The photo of Christopher showed him in his prep-school football uniform, holding his helmet under his arm, grinning widely. It looked like a yearbook shot.
Cindy scrolled down the page, reading the lead paragraph of the new stories, thinking that this topic of woman-on-man rape was more explosive than she had expected. It had equal billing with a contentious election, a horrific category-four hurricane in Florida, and a devastating terrorist attack in the Middle East. It was as if they were celebrities.
Even as Cindy scrolled down the Google list, new stories about Marc Christopher were being added to the queue, crossing the country, jumping the pond.
The subject of female-on-male rape was controversial, for sure. She went back to the story she had posted on her crime blog and skimmed the new comments. Opinions ranged from the assertion that men couldn’t be raped, to the dismissal that women who were charged with rape were lying, to the outlier opinion that women had been raping men for centuries and the men had never been believed.
Cindy grabbed her phone and speed-dialed Yuki.
Yuki picked up, said, “Please only good news, Cindy. I’m swamped with phone calls, e-mails, interoffice mail. It’s just crazy.”
“I called to tell you that this Marc Christopher case has struck a nerve,” Cindy said. “I’m surprised.”
Yuki said, “Me, too. If this doesn’t die down, I wonder about finding an unbiased jury. I’m worried that the defense will ask for a change of venue.”
“Yeah,” said Cindy. “Calling all people who live under rocks.”
Yuki laughed and said, “That’s not funny.” She laughed again. “Thanks for giving me the redundant heads-up.”
The two friends said good-byes.
Cindy’s computer rang out with each new alert until she turned off the sound. She had scooped other media with the story, but now The People v. Hill was taking on a life of its own.
CHAPTER 21
YUKI OPENED CINDY’S crime blog and read the impassioned reactions to the case against Briana Hill, which hadn’t yet been brought to trial.
After that she googled Briana Hill.
When she had read enough articles and commentary to gather the points of view that would very likely be reflected in the future jury, she went down the hall to the cubicle belonging to Arthur Baron. Baron was about fifty, and he had just joined the DA’s office from the in-house legal department of BW&T, a huge utility company.
When Yuki was in her late twenties, she had made a similar move, leaving a cushy corporate job for a lower-paying job with the district attorney. She had worked harder and longer for less, but this work for the people of San Francisco made her feel that her time and labor were worthwhile.
Arthur had e-mailed her this morning, saying he wanted to talk to her about the Hill case. Now she knocked on a wall of his cubicle, and Art looked up from his computer. He was wiry, average height, gray at the temples. He wore wire-rimmed glasses, a plain blue shirt, a tie, and dark slacks, and his jacket was neatly hung over the back of his chair.
“Yuki. Come in.”
“Got a few minutes, Art?”
“Sure. Thanks for coming by.”
Yuki took a seat next to the desk in the small work space and asked Arthur what he knew about the case against Briana Hill.
“What I’ve read in the press and overheard in the hallway.”
“What do you think?”
“Congrats that you’re going to trial. I’m jealous.”
“Why?” she asked.