Healing Inc. (17 page)

He slowly lowered the straps of her dress off her shoulders, placing light kisses where the left one had fallen from.  He undid her zipper and aided the fabric past her curvy hips, allowing the dress to cascade to the floor.  He found himself unable to resist caressing the sexy black lace panties that he found underneath before sliding them down her long brown legs.  With great effort, he was able to resist the urge to grab and squeeze her nicely rounded backside.

 “Okay, now look at me.” 

He gently turned her to face him.  Taking her hands, he stepped back allotting her room to step into the warm water.  He carefully turned her to face away from him as he gently pushed down on her shoulders, lowering them both into the tub. Returning to his original position, he pulled her back to him so that she rested between his legs with the back of her head on his broad shoulder. 

Evy was surprised that the water hadn’t cooled.  “How is it that the water is still hot after all this time?” she asked grasping at every last straw to prolong the inevitable.

“All the bathtubs as well as the marble floors in the building have radiant heat.”  His voice came warm and gentle, caressing her soul as he sat with his head resting against the tub pillow and his eyes closed.  He knew what she was doing but his patience had returned.  He was doing his best to create a nonvolatile environment for the difficult narration she was about to disclose. 

She closed her eyes as well and found herself relaxing into him, allowing the tempo of his heart to slow her wildly thumping one as she rested against his chest.  His manhood had gone soft and was not brushing against her lower back and bottom, the action of it further calming her.  They stayed like that, each enjoying the closeness of the other. 

After a while, Evy was ready.  “I met David when I was sixteen,” she began, starting with the earlier part of their relationship.  She played with his right hand while she told him everything up to the first beating she got for running away.  Tyler willed himself not to respond to the emotions building within him.

“About a year or so later, I made the mistake of winking at Miguel and Enrique who sat in the audience.  They had started spending more time at the club as a way to keep tabs on me and make sure I was okay.  David was terrified of Miguel so he usually behaved whenever he was around.  But that night the drugs had taken away that fear.  All I remember was hearing one of the backup singers yelling for help and trying to get him off of me as he held me up against the wall choking the life out of me.  I woke up in an ambulance, Enrique was over me crying. Miguel had been arrested for nearly killing David.  Apparently, he had come close to crushing my windpipe.  If Miguel and Enrique hadn’t heard her screaming I wouldn’t have survived the attack.”

 Tyler was glad she couldn’t see the emotions that played on his face no matter how hard he tried to force them back.  He kept his eyes closed, continuing to wrestle with staying calm.

“This time Miguel had me stay with him and Enrique, thinking David wouldn’t be foolish enough to come and get me.  That didn’t stop him; he came and got me from school.  He repeated the same pattern as last time, beating me then having sex with me when I was too incapacitated to refuse him.  A few weeks later it hit home that Miguel was right; I had to get out of there before he killed me.  They helped me come up with the plan to escape to Oklahoma and hide out with Nita.  The only thing I planned to take with me was my mother’s ring that her mother had passed on to her.  I kept it in his office safe…”

***

The Night of the Incident…

Evy tip toed into the small office located in the back of
David’s Juke Joint.
It was well after three in the morning.  Everyone else was gone. 
 
She made her way to the small safe hidden behind the nude painting on the far wall.  Her delicate fingers quickly worked the combination.  Retrieving the ring, she quietly closed the safe door replacing the painting over it.  She turned to find five other people in the room with her, David, Raheem, and three other men that she had never seen before.  David and Raheem were higher than ever.  They were so juiced they couldn’t stand still without jerking.  The other three men, all in black leather were unnervingly calm.

“David…hey, I was just checking on my mom’s ring.”  She was surprised that she didn’t sound panicked.  The way they were all looking at her put her on high alert.

“At three thirty in the morning Evy?”  David responded.  His right eye kept twitching as he stood opening and closing his fists.

“I told you her ass was uppity, didn’t I!”  Raheem gestured toward her with a quick jerk of his head.  “I think it’s about time we put the bitch in her place.”

Before she could blink, the largest of the three men and Raheem had snatched her up and pinned her to David’s desk.  She bucked and screamed trying with all her might to kick, hit and bite the two men.  Her actions only served to arouse them further.  She watched as the other two men grabbed and held David once he realized what was happening and tried to come forward to assist her.

“Get the fuck off me!  What the fuck you doing to my girl?” he shouted, trying to free himself from their vice like grip.

“You see man, that’s the problem.  She ain’t your girl!  Your stupid ass got this pussy up in here going all to waste and shit!”

Raheem managed to get this out while fighting to hold Evy down.  He roughly started ripping at her clothes causing a new wave of terror to pass over her.  She looked up through her tears to see an evil face grinning back at her belonging to the other man holding her down.

“David, please stop him!” She pleaded but to no avail.  David could only stare in disbelief at what his best friend was doing to his woman.

“You two always thought you were better than me.  Not tonight, bitch!  Not tonight!”  He claimed as he viciously violated her.  “Thought your fucking pussy was made of gold, huh… You ain’t shit!  Don’t fucking look at me bitch!”  Evy kept pleading for David’s help, hoping her sobbing would snap him out of it.  “Shut the fuck up!  You should be yelling my name and shit, not his!”  He reached up and slapped her causing her head to loll to the side.  That seemed to jolt David into action.

“Get the fuck off her Raheem.  I’m gonna kill your ass!” 

His struggle against the two men was futile.  They didn’t give but his threat had an effect on Raheem.  Evy felt him go soft.  He pulled out of her and clumsily tucked himself back into his pants.  He walked over to David, pulled a gun out of his pocket and aimed it at him.

 Bang!  The gun fired, making Evy jump as a high pitched “no” erupted from her throat.  Uncontrolled sobs started to rock her body.  The large man still held her on the desk, that sinister grin ever present on his face. 

It wasn’t clean like in the movies… There was blood everywhere, including on Raheem.  Without warning, he turned and aimed the gun at her.  All she could see was the dark hole that was the barrel of the gun, the route of her intended bullet.  She lay there, frozen in horror as he pulled the trigger.  Nothing happened.  He tried again but still, nothing.  Anger seized him.  He began beating her with the weapon.  She knew the large man no longer held her when she flew through the air, her back and head forcefully making contact with the wall on the opposite side of the room.  This beating was nothing like the attacks from David.   Raheem wanted her dead...

***

Present Night Italy…

“Then it occurred to me, ‘stop screaming… Play dead!’  It was the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life but it worked.  I actually had to force myself not to pass out so that my breathing wouldn’t regulate.”  Tyler marveled at her calmness.  It was as though she were relaying a tale about someone else, someone she had heard about in the news or somewhere else.  

“When I woke up in the hospital Nita was there.  She told me Raheem was in jail but the other three were nowhere to be found.  She stayed with me throughout the whole ordeal.  She and you are the only two people I’ve told about the rape.  The prosecutor suggested we not bother.  Apparently shaking your ass on stage to support your drug dealing boyfriend’s habit is the equivalent of prostitution.  He said the defense would use my stage life to make it look like I provoked Raheem.” 

Tyler couldn’t keep from clenching his jaw.  “Nita is also the only one who knows they shot David in front of me.  I couldn’t bring myself to tell her that the gun jamming is the only reason I lived.”  Evy was silent now but Tyler could feel that she had more to say.  He became aware that she was struggling with the next part of her story.  She started squeezing and releasing his hand nervously.

“Nita…” her voice broke, “Nita is also the only one who knows the real reason why I was so desperate to get away from David.”  Her hand was pumping harder now.  Tyler couldn’t see her face but he knew she was crying.  He waited patiently for her to continue. 

“You see, I found out that I was pregnant.”  Now Tyler was the one squeezing her hand.  “I told David, and he handed me a wad of cash, told me to go get an abortion.”  The tears were streaming faster now and her body started to tremble.  “I told him I would but instead called Nita to come get me as soon as I could.  The whole time Raheem was raping and beating me… he was killing my baby.”  She was sobbing now. 

Tyler positioned her on his lap and held her like a child.  His own tears were flowing.  He rubbed her back tenderly, kissing her forehead and temple to comfort her.  “Let it out, Evy.  Let it all out.”  His tone was caressing, soothing.

He held her that way until the shudders subsided and she rested quietly against him.  He carefully lifted her face from his neck and used the clear tub water to rinse her tears away.  Taking the sponge and her special soap, he began to wash the tension from her body.  Again, Evy felt herself relaxing into him.  She drew comfort from knowing she was in love with this man and that he loved her just as much.   

***

It was a little after midnight.  After washing himself and Evy they had moved to the bedroom where Tyler rubbed her down with lavender scented lotion.  She finally succumbed to the fatigue brought on by her emotional endeavor, granting him the opportunity to slip off to the gym down the hall and blow off some steam on the punching bag.  He showered after returning and was happy to find her still fast asleep.  She needed the rest.

He sat in the wingback chair watching the light from the fireplace dance off her beautiful features as she slept.   All she had told him that night kept playing out over and over again in his head.  So much had happened to her yet the one thing she couldn’t let go of was the loss of her child. 

One could only imagine the pain she had endured over the years, each anniversary of that night coming back to haunt her.  True, he could help her carry her baggage; he was more than sure she was ready to leave some of it here.   But, he would never be able to fill the void of the unborn child she had lost.  The baby would have been a few years younger than Cecile, may have even attended the same schools.  He could only wish he had been around to save her or him.

He was deeply concerned about the three strangers that had participated in the events of that night.  Having relations to a mafia king gave him insight into the world of hired thugs and muscle.  Those three sounded as professional as they come.  The fact that they disappeared added more substantiation to this summation.  Who had it in for Evy and what was taking them so long to finish what they had started?  There was the possibility that David had been their primary target but Tyler’s gut told him that wasn’t the case.  Feeling the sudden need to touch her, he transferred from the chair to the mattress.  He snuggled up behind her in the king sized bed, placing a protective arm over her waist.

“How long are you going to keep leaving the bed whenever my butt happens to rub you the right way?” Evy asked groggily.

“How long have you been awake?” he asked, a little surprised that she was.  Then something occurred to him.  “Have you been doing that on purpose all this time?”