The Raping of Ava DeSantis Read online

  “That’s it, boy. Keep going,” she said.

  “I had a terrible dream,” he whispered back.

  “Who cares, Wes, just keep going.” Emma’s caramel brown eyes stared back at him as her long, blonde hair overwhelmed his black satin pillowcase.

  Wesley thought Emma was the perfect long-distance girlfriend. She was rich, pretty and stupid as homemade West Virginian sin. So stupid in fact that while traveling with her family in France, she sent Wesley a postcard where she placed her address in the middle of the card and his information in the upper left-hand return address corner. It was upon receiving that postcard four months later that Wesley knew he could never marry her. He knew he would get bored of her too easily, just like he was bored of her now. But Wesley would never admit this fact to anyone, especially his mother. For it was her who had insisted he marry young and start a family, so that one day soon, like his famous father, he could sit on the bench and rule.

  Wesley finally gave in to Emma and started letting go. What the hell, he said to himself, grinding his angled hips into her perfectly tanned stomach.

  “That’s it, Wes…keep it up, just like that…” her brown eyes still looking directly into his. “Just ride the bitch, Wes…Ride that bitch like she deserves it.”

  “What?”

  “Fuck the bitch harder, Wes!” she screamed.

  Wesley was now totally perplexed. Usually, Emma was silent and moved like wet cardboard. She continued squirming with pleasure underneath him, but this time, Sebastian’s deep voice came out of her.

  “I wanna see you make her bleed, Wes. Make her bleed like a stuck pig.”

  Wesley stopped. He panicked. He leapt out of bed and looked around the room. On his right he saw Sebastian and David, sharing the overstuffed red chair, cheering him on.

  “Why’d you stop Wes? Get back in there!” howled Sebastian.

  Terrified, Wesley looked back into the bed. Emma was never there; it was Ava all along. Her mouth taped shut with silver duct tape. Her dark hair ripped out and scattered around the black pillowcase beneath her. Her scalp, cheek and vagina smeared with blood. Yet hauntingly, it was her large, empty eyes that destroyed Wesley from the inside out. Her eyes flickering between staying in this painful life or moving on to peaceful death…pleading, praying, screaming, calling, crying, begging, begging, begging…Why, Wesley? Why?

  Wesley’s face melted into pure horror.

  His head hit the floor hard.

  CHAPTER 7

  The Aftermath

  Saturday, January 26, 1991

  2:23 P.M.

  A car honked loudly outside. Five seconds later, it honked again.

  Wesley awoke on the floor, this time in front of his bright bedroom window. As he opened his eyes, he caught sight of the stereo clock ten feet away. Holy shit. He remembered he had promised his mother dinner this evening and realized he only had a few hours to get his shit together. He touched his long, greasy-gold hair, feeling that it was tangled in knots, especially at the back of his head. He gazed down at his body, relieved that he was at least wearing a pair of boxer shorts: the solid, dark red ones that his girlfriend gave him this past Christmas. Truth is, Wesley felt as if he had been run over a hundred times by a Tiananmen Square tank, yet somehow he was still alive and completely lucid.

  Now that he was fully awake, he caught wind of the horrific stink emanating from his body. What the hell happened last night?

  Wesley struggled to remember the details: dinner at Martoni, war party at Zeta House, hung out with history girl, partied hard with the guys. What else? In that moment, all he could feel was mega-hangover pain pulsating throughout his body. In response, he launched his Saturday morning mantra:

  I swear to you, Heavenly Father, if you get me through this day without repercussion, I will change my evil ways and never, ever touch drugs or alcohol again.

  Sure, Wesley. We’ll see about that.

  The car outside honked long and loud this third time around.

  Curious as to where the noise was coming from, Wesley managed to pull himself up the windowsill and peeked through the oak plantation blinds. Outside, he watched Mrs. Lipton power-hobble her way down to a running Mercedes-Benz in her circular driveway. “Please hurry, Mrs. Lipton,” he said softly. “Stop the honking. Please.”

  As Wesley moved his hand away from the window, he noticed something on the blinds. It was blood. He raised his hand up to his sunlit face, examining it closely: dried blood? He looked down his entire chest and body, zeroing in on his boxer shorts. Suddenly, he realized he wasn’t wearing his dark red boxer shorts after all. He was wearing his white ones, which had somehow stained red in the front overnight. Holy shit.

  Wesley turned to look down to the other end of the sun-filled room. There was no sound. No movement. Yet the image he saw on his bed caused his breath to nearly stop. His heart started beating out of his chest. His lower extremities cringed with fear, a fear that quickly climbed up Wesley’s spine, into the base of his neck and exploded onto his face.

  Oh my God!!!!

  Wesley’s hands trembled as he rushed to peel off the waistband of his stuck-to-his-skin red boxer shorts, throwing them down his legs and quickly stepping out of them. While nude, Wesley carefully inspected his larger than average penis. Holding it up high, twisting it, confirming there was no injury he could see despite being splattered with what looked like the remnants of a broken jar of rotten marinara sauce. He grabbed a pair of clean, gray boxer shorts off the floor. He continued shaking while changing, quickly replacing the dirty boxer shorts with the clean sinless ones.

  Once finished, Wesley walked in tight circles, holding his bloody boxer shorts in his hand. Where to hide them? The pressure emanating from brain to temple was excruciating. For the first time, Wesley felt real stress, the kind of stress soldiers feel when under live, aggressive attack versus the I’m stressed out because of traffic yuppie bullshit. This was real adrenaline, the fight or flight super-power that kept our ancestors alive when saber-toothed tigers wanted man-snack for breakfast. And Wesley needed it now to stay alive in this very moment.

  He finally decided to hide the bloody boxer shorts behind the right stereo speaker five steps in front of him. He then spotted a half-empty bottle of water on the floor. He rapidly opened it and dumped it on his hands, rubbing them together with all of his might. It was too late for that. The blood was so dried upon his skin it looked like it had been there for weeks. Now that it was wet again, it had a slightly coppery smell, like a public restroom trashcan filled with dirty tampons. For a moment, Wesley gazed at his blood-covered hands, still reeling from the initial shock of finding himself in such a pointless, grave situation. As soon as Wesley snapped out of it, he sprinted over to the other side of the room with the intention of waking the others.

  Sebastian lay asleep in Wesley’s overstuffed red chair, shirtless. His rolling folds of pale white fat rising and falling with each slumbering breath. Fortunately, he was wearing his half-zippered, perfectly pressed khaki dress pants, pristine and untainted with blood.

  “Sebastian, wake up. Sebastian!”

  Sebastian cracked a slit in his eye and realized who it was. “What’s up?” he said with a broken, phlegmy voice.

  “We’ve got a real fucking problem. Get up.”

  The look on Wesley’s face propped open Sebastian’s pale blue fish eyes like a springboard. “What’s going on?”

  Wesley turned his head and looked at the bed. Sebastian’s eyes followed.

  “What the…Holy shit.”

  “Yeah. Holy Mother of God fucking shit!”

  Sebastian straightened up, leaned back to zipper his pants then jetted straight out of his chair. He had gotten up so fast that he had become dizzy. “Where’s David?”

  “I don’t know.”

  They both looked around the room intently.

  Wesley noticed a large hump sleeping underneath the black and gold jacquard covers. “David!!!”

  He didn’t
move. Wesley rushed over to the side of the bed, pulled the comforter down and rattled him violently. “David, wake up!”

  “Get the fuck up, David!”

  David moved a quarter inch. His breath was warm and smelled like garbage. “C’mon y’all. Let me sleep,” he replied, without even opening his eyes.

  “Get your crackhead ass out of that bed and put some clothes on. Right. Fucking. Now!” commanded Sebastian from several feet away.

  David sluggishly opened his eyes and noticed Wesley’s panic-stricken face looking just beyond his shoulder. “What’s next to me?” he asked, fearful of the answer.

  “It’s that girl.” Wesley couldn’t even speak her given name.

  David reluctantly moved to see what was lying next to him, rolling over ever so slowly. Once he made eye contact with what shared his bed, he jumped to his feet, his dick and nut sack warped with blood, fully on display. David jittered so hard he looked like a kernel in oil, ready to jump through his skin. “Whaaah, whah, what are we gonna do?”

  “Fuck, David. We don’t know,” replied Wesley. “Put some clothes on.”

  Instead, all three men just stood there, staring at what was in the bed. Sebastian was repulsed, David was petrified and Wesley was worried beyond words.

  Wesley started to pace the room. His feet landed so hard they thudded with every step against the dark cherry wood floor. “Think y’all. Think!”

  “Think what, Wes?” Sebastian’s breathing was now deep and labored.

  “We’ve got to fucking think!”

  “What are we gonna do?” whimpered David.

  “I don’t fucking know yet! Can’t you see I’m still thinking?”

  Sebastian hesitated. “Is she dead?”

  “I don’t know.” Wesley gestured to David to go check.

  “Hell no, I ain’t going near that!”

  “Fucking do it, David!”

  “Do it!”

  David’s skinny, naked chest shivered even faster as he walked back over to the bed. When he arrived, he looked down and hesitated.

  “Take it off! We need to see her fucking face!” commanded Sebastian.

  “Do it!”

  Scrunching his eyes to avoid looking down, David struggled to pull something up from the bed. After a few hard tugs, he pulled up a white bloody pillowcase.

  “Oh my God.”

  “We’re fucked.”

  David began to cry.

  “Check to see if she’s breathing.”

  “She’s fucking dead, Wes!”

  “Fucking check!”

  David hesitated. He drew a deep breath, shivered it out and then drew a deeper breath, holding it before quickly bending down to the bed to listen. Seconds later, he popped back up. “I think she’s still breathing.”

  “Shit.”

  “Shit?”

  “I’m not going to jail, Wes!”

  “Well, you should’ve thought about that before you fucking did this!”

  “As I recall, you didn’t have a problem fucking her either.”

  Wesley reacted at first with confusion, then tremendous guilt. Suddenly small details of what happened the previous night began to emerge.

  He continued to pace the room…

  “Put some fucking clothes on, David. You’re embarrassing.”

  “I can’t. I’m too scared.”

  Wesley interrupted his pacing, marched over to his open closet, ripped a pair of acid wash jeans from the hanger and threw them at David, who was too weak to catch them.

  “Give me that pillow, David, will you?” asked Sebastian.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Throw me the fucking pillow!”

  David grabbed a large red fringe pillow from the bed and lobbed it to Sebastian.

  “What the hell are you doing?”

  “I’m not going to jail, Wes!”

  Sebastian moved toward the bed with pillow in hand, ready to use it as a murder weapon.

  “NOOOOOOO!!!”

  Wesley tackled Sebastian, wrestling him to the floor, best friends since childhood punching each other along the way. “You fucking did this!” exclaimed Sebastian in between punches.

  “Stop it, y’all! Stop it!” whimpered David. He ran over, naked and jiggling, managing to pull the much bigger Sebastian away from Wesley.

  “Get off of me, you prick.”

  After a few long breaths on the ground, Wesley raised himself from the floor. He wiped the blood from a cut on his chin. At the same time, Sebastian went to the bed and searched for the small black gun he’d left there overnight. He picked it up and aimed it directly at Wesley.

  “You should’ve never brought the damn bitch here, Wes.”

  David was terrified.

  “C’mon, Sebastian, we just got way too high, that’s all.”

  “It’s your fault we’re in this shit, Wes. Your fault!”

  “Now hold on, Sebastian. We’re all in this shit together,” he reasoned.

  “Fuck you!” His strawberry eyebrows crossed in rage. “How many times have I tried to stop you from chasing charity pussy, Wes? Tell me! How many fucking times?”

  David started crying. “Please, y’all. I can’t take this.”

  Sebastian pointed the gun at David. “Stop crying!”

  David quieted down. Sebastian returned his aim at Wesley.

  “Look, Sebastian…”

  “I knew something like this was bound to happen because of you. I just fucking knew it.”

  “Sebastian…See that gun right there, in your hands? You know it’s mine, right? Registered to me.”

  “So what?”

  “That’s my gun, this is my house and that’s my date dying on the fucking bed. Who do you think they’re gonna come after when they find her body? Huh? Not you, man. Not David. They’re gonna come after me. I’m the only one who’s in deep shit here!”

  Sebastian slowly started to get his point.

  “I swear to you on the lives of my fucking unborn children, I will get us all out of this. Just put the gun down and let me think. Please.”

  After a beat, Sebastian put the gun down.

  David started to cry.

  “Shut up, you’re not helping!”

  A slight groan came from the bed. They all turned and looked.

  “We need to get her to a hospital,” said Wesley.

  “What, call 911 and say we all gang-banged some chick last night and now she ain’t doing so hot? Wes, think about what you’re saying! We can’t take her to a fucking hospital.”

  Wesley continued to pace in his gray boxer shorts. David grabbed the acid wash jeans from the floor, sniffling quietly as he put them on.

  Suddenly, Wesley came up with an idea. “Someone else can take her. Let’s drop her off somewhere.”

  “Where?”

  “We’ll put her in the car and leave her downtown. Somewhere busy.”

  “Wes, people saw us at the Zeta House together. They saw us leave together. Our fucking neighbor even saw us walk in here with her last night.”

  “But who’s to say she stayed here all night?”

  Sebastian reacted as if he had a point. “But what about…our stuff?”

  “What stuff?”

  “Our sweat! Our cum! Our saliva!”

  “We’ll clean her up. Alcohol, peroxide, we’ll fix her up best we can. They won’t be able to find a damn thing on her body.”

  “And what about the inside?” Sebastian looked at the others with deep concern.

  After a loud sniffle, David finally spoke up. “My Momma left her turkey baster here at Thanksgiving.”

  Wesley and Sebastian immediately exchanged a look: what a damn good idea.

  ***

  In the kitchen, Sebastian rummaged through several cabinets. Nothing. He then combed through an overcrowded utensil drawer. He dug his hand deep into the back of the drawer, finally pulling out a foot-long, metal turkey baster with an orange rubber bulb.

  In the hallway, David ri
fled through a large storage closet. He pulled out towels, cotton, washcloths, alcohol, witch hazel, peroxide—as much as he could hold in his arms.

  In the laundry room, Sebastian swung open a cabinet over the washing machine. He whipped out a large, wide mouth bottle of chlorine bleach and slammed it on top of the dryer. He flipped the cap open, stuck the turkey baster inside and squeezed the orange bulb.

  In the bedroom, Wesley hurriedly laid down extra white sheets on the bed, keeping the body warm. “It’s going to be okay,” he whispered. “Just hang on, sweet girl. Please.”

  David burst through the bedroom door, throwing all of the items he was carrying onto the bed, right next to Wesley. “That’s everything.”

  “Where’s Sebastian?”

  Sebastian’s large silhouette stood in the doorway with the daunting foot-long metal turkey baster in hand. “I’m ready.” Just as he moved toward the bed, Wesley intervened.

  “Wait. What if it kills her?”

  “We’re running out of fucking time, Wes!”

  DING DONG DING.

  Holy shit. The doorbell rang.

  They froze in place and looked at one another. After a few seconds of silence, it rang again. “It’s my mother.” Wesley moved as if he were going to answer the door.

  “Don’t fucking answer it,” said Sebastian in a loud whisper.

  “She’s got keys to the front door,” replied Wesley in a louder whisper.

  David quietly crumbled. “What if it’s the police?”

  “Stop that shit now, David.”

  “Just stay calm. I’ll fucking handle this.”

  Wesley grabbed a black ZZ Top concert shirt from his middle dresser drawer and headed toward the living room.

  DING DONG DING.

  Wesley opened the front door. It was Miss Eloise, a large sixty-year-old black woman with a personality as big as her waistline. She stood on the porch wearing a traditional French maid uniform, holding a bucket of cleaning products in her hand.

  “Good Afternoon, Wesley.”

  “Miss Eloise? I’m sorry, I, I wasn’t expecting you.”

  “I hate to barge in, but your mother wanted me to swing by and clean up your house this afternoon. She said something about Maria getting deported last week?”