The Raping of Ava DeSantis Read online

  Sebastian cautiously followed the dominatrix through the corridor to the very last stall, far away from the other patrons. Calm as any other seasoned sex worker, she casually drew back the curtain to reveal a small candlelit room rigged with medieval restraining devices.

  For the first time, he was able to see her face. It was long, classically beautiful and ethereal, almost as if she had escaped from an eighteenth-century painting. Her high cheekbones and narrow nose were dominated by a set of large, woodsy-green eyes that appeared miles deep with wisdom.

  “After you,” she said.

  Sebastian walked to the middle of the cell, smiling like a spoiled child on Christmas morning.

  “Take off your clothes.”

  Sebastian slowly removed his dress shirt and carefully placed it on the hook located ten steps away.

  “Faster, you piece of shit!”

  Sebastian’s smile quickly faded. He removed his undershirt, belt, and pants, throwing each item carelessly off to the side. He stood mildly fearful in the middle of the cell, wearing nothing but his monogramed blue boxer shorts.

  “Good. Now turn around. Put your face against the wall.”

  Sebastian complied. The dominatrix slowly shifted behind him, placing his ankles in floor-mounted shackles, then his wrists in wall-mounted handcuffs.

  He bent slightly backward to whisper into her ear: “Just want you to know, I like it a bit rough.”

  “I don’t care what you like.” She grabbed a dog collar hanging from the ceiling and placed it around Sebastian’s neck, pulling down on the chain. “You will like what I tell you to like.”

  The dominatrix immediately let go of the chain and walked over to a wooden armoire at the back of the cell. She opened the doors to reveal a variety of leather whips and tethers for her choosing. Without hesitation, she pulled out the most hardcore device: a large metal flogger with long, rusted chain-link straps.

  Sebastian remained helpless, chained to the wall.

  “Don’t you need my safe word?”

  Silence.

  “Oh, and please be careful with whatever you’re using ‘cause the last time I was here, I had a helluva time explaining the— “

  WHAAAP!!!

  “—marks to my wife.”

  Sebastian’s eyes screamed pure ecstasy.

  “Shut the fuck up. I don’t want to hear you talk. I only want to hear you beg.”

  “What should I beg for?”

  She moved in close behind him and grabbed his waist tightly. “Me.” She licked the base of his neck, rubbing the handle of the whip against his thigh, moving it towards his groin.

  Sebastian leaned backwards to whisper again, knowing quite well the walls enjoyed listening. “Let me fuck you. I’ll pay you whatever you want.”

  The dominatrix stepped back.

  WHAAAP!!!

  Sebastian savored the moment.

  She moved back in and continued to fondle him. “Then say my name, you worthless piece of shit.”

  Wait.

  Sebastian hesitated for a moment then cracked a smile. He screwed up the game.

  “I’m sorry. I totally forgot your name.”

  The dominatrix yanked his dog collar chain, jerking his head violently.

  “What. Is. My. Name?”

  Within seconds, Sebastian felt great pressure against his larynx. “Forgive me…my memory sucks…too many drugs in college.”

  The dominatrix let go of the chain and returned to the back of the cell.

  Sebastian coughed as he recovered, unable to see what she was doing. “You’re a serious one, aren’t you?”

  She opened the armoire doors, removed her biker cap and placed it over the security camera sitting directly behind the ornate keyhole.

  “If you tell me your name again, I promise I won’t forget it,” he pleaded, still facing the dark concrete wall before him.

  Silence.

  “Are you still here?”

  Suddenly, the dominatrix SPRUNG behind him, covered his mouth with a wide black strap, and tied it tightly behind his head. “No more talking.”

  She then unlocked his right hand from the cuff, manually guiding his masturbation. “You forgot my name, fat boy, didn’t you?”

  Sebastian nodded his head gently, now completely focused on the act of self-pleasure. Man, this woman is good.

  The dominatrix slowly pulled her hand out of his boxer shorts…

  Raised her painted red lips to his ear…

  And spoke without her well-rehearsed Russian accent: “I bet you do remember my name, Sebastian.”

  Wait, how does she…?

  “It’s Ava.”

  That voice.

  “Ava DeSantis.”

  Impossible.

  His pale blue eyes filled with surprise as she hurled a thick, clear plastic bag over his head…twisting and twisting and twisting the bottom of the bag clenched tightly in her grip.

  “MMMHHUUR!!! MMMHHUUR!!!”

  “Good to see you again.”

  “MMMHHUUR!!! MMMHHUUR!!!”

  “Looks like you put on a little weight, though. Not surprising.”

  Sebastian struggled to breathe for no less than three minutes…gulping air like a dying fish with soul-less eyes…until finally, his breath slowed with resolution that this was indeed his final moment.

  Let me live, Ava. I can make things right.

  But no words came out of his mouth…only his eyes spoke through the foggy bag…until those pale blue fish eyes filled with the glorious sound of silence.

  CHAPTER 2

  “Who The Fuck Is Ava DeSantis?”

  Friday, January 25, 1991

  1:32 P.M.

  Twenty-one-year-old Sebastian O’Connor stood like a river boulder in a stream of college students, reading aloud from a test results chart posted on a classroom door.

  “No really, who the fuck is that?”

  His best friend smiled and pointed to a plain girl in grunge clothing standing directly behind Sebastian. It was (you guessed it) eighteen-year-old Ava DeSantis.

  Sebastian’s best friend, Wesley Scarborough, was a well-bred Southern frat boy who wasn’t just handsome, he was A-list movie star handsome. He was tall and built with a commanding physique. His light golden was face framed by thick, surfer-blonde hair, long enough to cover his ears and kiss his enviable eyelashes. His strong, perfectly chiseled chin upstaged only by a pair of cerulean blue eyes made famous by the Viking clans of his ancestral home of Yorkshire, England.

  But what made Wesley an instant celebrity on campus weren’t his good looks, his famous father or his famous last name. It was his smile. A smile so authentic and disarming that it could peel the sweatpants off a gold star lesbian from ten feet away.

  Ava, on the other hand, was the complete opposite of Wesley—a perfect contradiction to the herds of beauty pageant girls attending this small, prestigious university. She was tall and lanky with light olive skin, large moss-green eyes and straight-as-glass, dark reddish-brown hair. She lacked any sense of modern style, dressing like a homeless librarian at a school where the term “label whore” was a compliment.

  She most certainly favored her deceased, mild-mannered (but tough-as-nails) Irish mother so much more than her dark, hot-tempered Greek father. She even inherited her mother’s Gaelic gaze: a casual, harmless, hypnotic stare that could send Steven King-style spine-chills without any maleficence behind it.

  Despite all of this, it was actually Ava’s voice that gave away her biggest social problem. Deep and disheveled, one knew in five seconds that Atlanta was not her native ground.

  Sebastian awkwardly turned to acknowledge her standing behind him.

  “Hey.”

  Ava said nothing. Instead, she pulled up the hood of her brown sweatshirt, shrank away from the crowd and headed towards the exit.

  Sebastian rolled his eyes as she left. “What a freak.”

  Wesley cocked his chiseled chin. “I thought Zindler didn’t give out A’s?”


  “That’s what I heard.”

  Wesley looked over to the door where Ava exited and immediately followed her outside.

  ***

  During the winter months, the campus of Anniston University had a Brothers Grimm fairytale feel to it. The main courtyard was vast and comprised of dead grass and barren trees surrounded by castle-like buildings made of varying shades of silver stone. Students were sparse, given the weather was cold for Atlanta, although most Northerners would deem it mild, considering it was the dead middle of winter. The slate gray sky watched over Ava as she walked with purpose down a straight concrete path that emptied into a packed parking lot in the distance.

  “Hey, Ava!” yelled Wesley from five yards behind. “Excuse me, Ava!”

  She stopped and turned around.

  “Your name is Ava, right?”

  She nodded.

  “Well, congratulations.”

  “For what?” she said shyly in her native New Jersey accent.

  “For getting the highest score on Zindler’s test. No one else even came close.”

  “Oh. Thank you.”

  Ava resumed walking. Wesley continued to follow.

  “I’m sorry. I don’t think we’ve been properly introduced. I’m Wesley Scar—”

  “I know who you are.”

  He flashed that million-dollar smile. “I guess I overdid it with the campaign posters.”

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t vote.”

  They continued walking towards the slush-filled parking lot a hundred yards away. Silence brewed between them.

  “Am I…is this a bad time?”

  “I’m late for work.”

  “I can see that.” Wesley carefully stepped over a pile of dog shit. “I’m just real curious about something, Ava. How did you get an A on that test?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, how did you do so well?”

  She stopped, hand on hip. “I studied.” At that moment, she launched her hypnotic gaze, head tilted at an angle that seemed almost offensive.

  “Well, I studied too and got a D.” Wesley was equally steadfast, not lowering a single eyelash to combat her formidable stare.

  After a few long seconds, Ava broke the connection. “I’m sorry. I’ve really got to run.”

  She hastened her pace until she broke free from Wesley, heart-beating, feeling as if she was under interrogation. Why is he talking to me? She was a second-semester freshman. A real nobody. No one at school ever spoke to her, except for the fat Mormon girl at the end of her dorm hallway who tried to befriend every living creature. What could Wesley Scarborough possibly want with me?

  Just as Ava was thinking this, he began yelling from behind her.

  “There’s rumors floatin’ around that Zindler gets graduate students to create tests for him. And sometimes those grad students have friends, female friends. Know what I mean?”

  Ava continued without breaking stride, “No. Sorry, I don’t!”

  Wesley quickly realized that a city-girl smart enough to coax the test answers out of a graduate student was surely too smart to reveal her sources up front. So, in perfect Southern fashion, he turned the Scarborough charm-laser on full blast.

  “Wait!” he hollered, vigorously jogging to catch up to her. “This is coming out all wrong.”

  Ava hesitated at first then gave him her full attention. “What do you whaant with me?”

  (My ears! That grating accent!)

  “I just wanted to ask you, nicely of course, if you would consider tutoring me. Like a part-time job or something.”

  “I already have a job.” She fought an impending yawn. “What I need is sleep.”

  “But what if I paid you twice what you’re making now?”

  Ava reacted. “Excuse me?”

  “Whatever it is, I’ll pay it.”

  Her expression said: you must be crazy.

  “I mean, how much do you make a week? A thousand? Two thousand?”

  Now she knew he was crazy. “Try two hundred.”

  “Okay. Double that.”

  What? Ava was even more suspicious of his intentions. She had studied just as hard as anyone else for that test and was surprised her classmates didn’t find Zindler’s questions one hundred percent predictable. However, unlike her peers, she had already read at least fifteen books on World War II prior to even stepping foot in his History of the Third Reich class.

  Unbeknownst to her, most of Ava’s privileged classmates treated reading as a forced-at-gunpoint-activity…like dying, voting liberal or paying taxes.

  “What would I have to do exactly?” she asked.

  “I don’t know. Just come by my house a couple of times a week and help me study.”

  Ava was doubtful.

  “You know, just tutor me. Tutor me in this boring Hitler shit.”

  Ava recoiled for a moment. “So you’re willing to pay me four hundred bucks a week?”

  “Yes.”

  “To come by your house?”

  “Yes.”

  “And help you study?”

  “Yes.”

  “That’s it?”

  “Yes!” Wesley smiled.

  Holy shit dude, how rich are you?

  Ava’s father had grown up poor in a tough section of Astoria, Queens, which prepared him well for his career in the Atlantic City gaming industry where he’d been working for the past thirty years. Among the many life lessons she sadly had to learn as a young girl, her father often warned her, Easy money always comes with a big price tag.

  “Thanks for the offer, but I’ll pass.”

  Wesley was visibly shocked by her answer. He drew a deep breath and then launched his final missile. “Look, I want to be totally honest with you. But I need to know this will stay between us,” he said in a mature and formal tone.

  “Okay.”

  “No, I’m serious as a dead skunk.”

  “Don’t worry. No one here even speaks to me anyways.”

  Wesley looked around the courtyard to see if anyone was close enough to listen. He leaned in, grabbed Ava by the shoulders, and whispered inches from the tip of her long, classical nose. “Ava, this is my second time taking Zindler’s class. If I don’t get at least a B this time, I won’t graduate this spring. And if I don’t graduate this spring, I won’t get into law school next year. And if I don’t get into law school next year, my father’s going to hang me up by my big toes, buck naked in our front yard, for the entire neighborhood to see!”

  Wesley erupted into juvenile laughter.

  Ava was oddly charmed by his corny Southern humor. Beneath all this hunkiness, he’s just a dork like me, she thought.

  “You’d be preventing murder, Ava! Now, how can you deny me knowing my grave situation?” He once again flashed that million-dollar smile (felt miles away by females everywhere).

  Ava returned a half-assed smile. Maybe this isn’t so bad, she thought. Maybe he’s just some rich kid willing to pay anything to pass this class.

  “Come on, Ava. What do you say?”

  Four hundred dollars. Crazy money! But my God…

  “Okay, I’ll think about it,” she said in a turn of heart.

  “Great! Perfect.”

  Still walking in tandem, they finally arrived at her car. It was a yellow, rusted-out ’79 Camaro, drowning in a sea of luxury vehicles.

  “You know, why don’t you come by the Zeta House tonight? We’re having a party to celebrate Hussein getting his ass kicked. We can finalize the details there.”

  “But I thought only sorority girls could get into frat parties?”

  “That would be true if you weren’t my special guest. Here,” Wesley pulled out a felt-tip pen from his leather bomber jacket, grabbed Ava’s hand and signed Wesley Scarborough above her knuckles. “Now, don’t wash that off. Show it to the guy at the front door and everything should be fine.”

  “Which house is it?”

  Wesley gleamed. He’d won her over. “It’s the second one on
the right. Zeta Omega. You can’t miss it.”

  Ava entered her car, shivering in the cold, black seat as she placed the key into the ignition and started it. The parking lot rumbled with the sound of her rusty, badass Camaro.

  “Come by around ten!” shouted Wesley.

  Ava’s car raced even louder as she pulled out of the parking spot. She rolled down the window, struggling to speak over the thunderous noise. “I get off of work at eleven!”

  “Come by after work then! And don’t forget to tell your boss that you quit!”

  Ava smiled wide as she drove off. Tickled to death to quit her shitty waitress job and make kick-ass money tutoring the hottest guy on campus.

  Yeah. Life. Is. Awesome.

  Wesley waved good-bye as he watched her leave the parking lot and turn onto a busy street. Suddenly, Sebastian popped up right beside him.

  “Hey, what was that all about?”

  “I invited her to the house tonight.”

  “What the hell you do that for? She’s a goddamn freak.”

  “Because she’s got Zindler’s tests, that’s why.”

  “She told you that?”

  “No, she’s not admitting anything yet. But I’m going to get my hands on those fucking tests. You watch and see.”

  “Cool.” Sebastian slapped Wesley on the back. “Just be willing to share, good buddy.”

  CHAPTER 3

  The Sperm Lottery

  Friday, January 25, 1991

  11:55 P.M.

  The temple of the Zeta Omega House was exactly what one would expect from a wealthy fraternal organization: a twelve thousand-square-foot, brick antebellum home with a white wrap-around porch and gleaming gold Zeta and Omega letters prominently displayed above the row of windows on the second floor. Instead of showcasing condoms and beer cans and other pre-pubescent litter of cinema folklore, the Zeta Omega House was freshly painted, exquisitely landscaped and always spotless—as in all-ways.

  During the warmer months, the house was adorned with the fraternal order’s colors of red and white: specifically, beautiful white magnolia tree blossoms in the yard and red hibiscus plants along the front walkway. The perpetually green lawn was made of AstroTurf and the perfectly manicured plants along the porch were made of the finest Chinese silk and perfect for winter. A dozen large wooden rocking chairs lined the porch, but that evening was one of the coldest of the season, keeping the majority of its fragile residents warmly inside.