From: rauser@fraser.sfu.ca (Richard John Rauser)
Subject: Danielle  (REPOST)
Organization: Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, B.C., Canada
Date: Fri, 31 Jul 1992 05:48:14 GMT








                       Danielle     





a story by Rick J. Rauser
Copyright 1992 by WNI and RJ Rauser

A Who Needs Isabella Publication






      Danielle sat on the edge of the bed and watched her sister adjust   
her bra. Her breasts were much larger than Danielle's, something 
that had always made Danielle envious, since she knew exactly what it 
was the guys wanted, and her sister had it, and she didn't. Danielle 
was fifteen and didn't see much hope for improvement in the future,
and at seventeen, her sister didn't need any.   
      Yolanda turned and smiled at her younger sister. "What do you think?" 
      "About what?"
      She made a face. "Jeff Atkins. Aren't you listening?"  
      "Oh," Danielle said. "He's okay." The truth was that Danielle was
crazy about Jeff Atkins. But she didn't want to tell Yolanda that. 
Especially since Yolanda had spent the last year and a half hopping in and
out of every bed in the twelfth grade, including Jeff's. 
     "Just okay? Are you mad? He's gorgeous!" Yolanda smiled and did
a spin, modelling her perfect figure for the mirror.
     "I bet you know more than anyone," Danielle muttered quietly.
     "What?"
     "Nothing."
     Yolanda put on her tight-fitting skirt and t-shirt, then waved
to Danielle. "Don't wait up!"
     "I won't," Danielle said with a forced smile. 

     Danielle spent a lonely evening in her room listening to CDs.
All of her nights were like this - boring, lonely, leaving her feeling
abnormal and rejected. Sometimes she hated Yolanda, hated her with a
bitterness that surprised and repulsed her. But she recognized it for
what it was, jealousy, and she dealt with it. 
     The phone rang. It was Mary Ann, Danielle's best friend. "Hi!"
     "Hey, Mary Ann," Danielle said apathetically.
     "Want to come to a party?"
     Danielle brightened. "Where?"
     "At the Forbe's place. It's a grade twelve party!" Mary Ann was
excited because being at a grade twelve party was a major achievement
in her life. 
     Danielle considered. "Well..."
     "Oh come on! I bet your parents aren't even home, are they?"
     It was Friday night and Danielle's parents were at the bar. "Good 
guess."
     "Meet you there?"
     "Okay." 

     It was about a twenty minute walk to the Forbe's house from where
Danielle lived. The music was pounding through the night air like an
insane drum. There were tons of teenagers in the driveway, the lawn, 
the balcony, all  yelling and laughing. Danielle was amazed that the
police hadn't been called by now.
     She found Mary Ann outside the door talking to two grade twelvers.
"Hi!" she smiled. She had beer on her breath already.
     "Hi," Danielle said. The grade twelver - some beautiful cheerleader -
ignored her. 
     "Go on in, I think your sister's here too," Mary Ann smiled. She then
turned to the cheerleader and resumed a pointless discussion.
     Danielle felt like she had been slapped in the face. First her sister
flaunted her beauty in front of her, and now her best friend was ignoring
her in favour of some grade twelve bimbo who thinks she's something because
she swings a pom pom. Danielle stormed into the house, even though she
really wanted nothing more than to storm back home. But she was sick of
spending her weekends home alone. 
    The place was crowded and she really didn't know anybody, except a
few faces were familiar from school. She was pleasantly surprised when
a good-looking guy walked up to her and smiled. "Hi! Do I know?" He had
to be at least seventeen.
    Flustered, Danielle smiled. "Um..I don't think so."
    He grinned. "Hmm...that really bothers me. Let's try and change that.
I'm John." 
    "Danielle." She was blushing, she just knew it.
    "So you come to these things often?"
    "No, not really, I..."
    "Come on upstairs, it's not so noisy!" he yelled. It _was_ very noisy
in the house. Danielle couldn't understand why they had to turn the music
up so loud. 
    Upstairs it wasn't much better. Drunk teenagers staggered back and
forth, some half-dressed and groping at each other, others obviously
on the verge of being sick. John led her down the hallway and Danielle
wondered what the hell she was doing here in the first place. But then
she remembered her lonely room at home and felt better.
    "Here we go," John said with a smile as he found an empty bedroom.
"Come on in!" He held the door open for her.
    "I...why don't we just go back down?" she said nervously. He wasn't
thinking about sex, was he?
    "Oh, listen, don't get the wrong idea. I'd just like to talk, and 
I figure we can't have much of a conversation with our hearing impaired!"
He smiled at her.
    She laughed. "Good point." She went into the room and John closed the
door.
      "So what school do you go to?" he asked her.
      She sat down on the bed, still a little nervous. "West Side."
      He sat down beside her. "Hey, I went there for a year. But we moved
into a new district." He carelessly brushed a few of her long brown hairs
from her shoulder and let his hand rest there.
      "So...where do you go to school?" she said. She was uncomfortable
with his hand on her shoulder. She knew he was hitting on her, but then
she thought of how she looked in the mirror and wondered why any guy
would _want_ to hit on her. She decided not to flatter herself. He was
probably just being friendly.
      He laughed. "Come on, do you really think we came up here to talk
about school?" He moved close to her and slipped his arm around her waist.
"Let's talk with our bodies," he said, giggling at the stupid line. 
      Danielle swallowed nervously. "I really should go."
      "One kiss? I promise I won't bite." He smiled then kissed her. 
Danielle was shocked, and wanted to pull back, but the sensation was so
new and so unexpected that she hesitated. When he broke the kiss she 
came back to her senses.
      "Look...I..."
      He laughed. "Come on, relax!" He gently pushed her down to the bed 
and pulled himself on top of her.
      "No, don't, please!" she began to panic.
      John wasn't listening. He was pulling up her dress and his arm
was across her throat. He wasn't choking her, but she could barely move
without feeling the pressure on her windpipe. "John..."
      "Shhh, just relax," he urged her. She felt her panties going down.
      Danielle started kicking. John pressed his arm into her throat
so hard she thought she would pass out. 
      "STOP IT," he hissed, furious. His warm smile was gone and Danielle
saw only a brutal monster.
      Gasping for air, she stopped kicking. She felt a horrible, stabbing
pain in her vagina and realized he was penetrating her.
      "No...no...stop," she whispered, gasping and panting with fear.
      The door opened. She was dimly aware of hearing someone laughing.
It closed again. But there was someone else in the room now...a guy...
      "John, what you doing?" He sounded drunk.
      John grunted as he moved inside Danielle. The pain was tearing up
her insides. He was being horribly rough. "You're next," John said.
      Then he was off Danielle and someone else was on top of her, his
breath reeking of whiskey. Someone else was holding down her legs...how
many of them were there?
      She felt another one inside her, larger than John, but moving slower,
her vagina aching with the pain. She was crying bitterly, trying to catch
her breath. "Uh uh uh uh uh" was all she could manage to say, it yelped
out of her in small, short breaths.
     The drunken guy sighed heavily and rolled off her, then she heard
laughter, and they both left the room. 
     She lay there in shock, shivering and trembling. She was alone in the
room, she heard nothing except the noise of the music from downstairs and
the pounding of her heart in her ears.
     Her dress was torn. She reached down and tried to pull up her panties
but they were gone. She sat up and her head swam with dizziness and her
crotch ached horribly. 
     Blood was on the sheets and there was sticky semen on her thighs and
blood around her vagina. She cringed in horror and disgust and fell off
the bed as she tried to back away from herself. 
     Panties...panties...she crawled on the floor, searching for them
but couldn't find them anywhere. She looked back up to the bed but they
weren't there either.
     Did they take my panties? Why would they take my panties?
     Almost hysterical with fear and confusion, Danielle scrambled to
her feet and ran into the door. Then she shook her head and opened the
door and ran down the stairs, crying and gasping for air as she shoved
her way through the crowded bodies on the staircase, the kitchen, the
front steps. She ran past Mary Ann and stumbled on to the sidewaqlk
like a drunk. She ran all the way home and left the front door open
as she tore up the stairs for the bathroom.
     She vomited into the toilet then ran the shower as hot as she
could stand it. 
     She washed herself over and over, crying and trying to understand
what had happened.
     
     For hours she lay in bed staring at the ceiling. At 3 am she heard 
her mother come home and she heard a man's voice that wasn't her fathers.
Her father was probably out with some other woman. Her mother was drunk
out of her mind, singing crazily. 
     Yolanda still wasn't home. 

     Danielle screamed and kicked the covers off, trying to push the monster
away from her face when she realized it was a dream and she was awake in 
bed. The sun was peering through the window. Yolanda was sleeping soundly 
in her bed. 
     Then the events of the previous night came flooding back to her and  
Danielle broke down and cried into her pillow, thinking dark, violent
thoughts about the monsters that stole her virginity.    

     "Yeah?"
     "Hi...is, is this the Siegfried dorm?"
     "Yup. Who you want?"
     "Mark."
     "One sec."
     "Mark here."
     "Hi, this...this is Danielle, Mark."
     "Hey! How's my little sister?"
     "Good. How's l...law school going?" 
     "Fine, just fine. You okay? You sound kind of shaken up."
     "I'm okay. Listen, Mark, I'm doing a...a paper about...rape and I 
want to ask you a few questions."
     "Sure."
     "Umm...is it hard to...to get a rapist arrested?"
     "Oh, boy. You really come up with them, eh? Let me think. Well, if you
have physical evidence it's not too tough."
     "Physical evidence?"
     "Sure, you know, bruises, cuts, semen in the vagina."
     "What if...what if you don't? I mean, what if someone forced themselves
on a woman but didn't leave bruises?"
     "That's the worse kind of case, because it boils down to his word
against hers."
     "Do they get put in j...jail?"
     "Well, only if they're convicted, of course. The defense lawyers are
usually brutal on the woman, asking her all sorts of questions, did 
she know the accused, did she-"
     "Know him? If she knew him is it worse for her?"
     "Well, sure. Then the defense argues hey, she asked for it, they were
friends, you know."
     "Well what if there were...m...more than one guy attacking her?"
     "Like I said, it's still her word against his. Even if the jury
believes her and finds him guilty, rape doesn't carry a very harsh sentence."
     "What...what do you mean?"
     "Well, if it's a first time conviction, the guy would probably only
get a few years. And in rape cases, since they're so hard to win in the
first place, the lawyers will usually plea bargain it out."
     "What does...what does that mean?"
     "He'll agree to plead guilty to a lesser charge. That way the prosecution
gets a guaranteed conviction and the guy at least does a little jail time."
     "What kind of lesser charge?"
     "Oh, you know, assault, battery, stuff like that. He might get a
year or two in that case."
     "That...that helps a lot, thanks Mark."
     "No problem! Take it easy. I gotta run anyway. Bye Danielle!"
     "Bye, Mark."

     Monday morning Danielle entered her school office like a zombie,
her mind completely numb to the weekend. Yolanda had been teasingly
telling Danielle about how wonderful the sex with Jeff had been but
Danielle hadn't been listening. Yolanda's words echoed through Danielle's
head like bats flying around blind in a dark cavern.
     During the lunch hour she helped in the office and today she sat
there and stared at the papers in front of her, trying to concentrate
on organizing them. 
     "Hi."
     She looked up and saw an unfamiliar face. He was smiling uncertainly.
     "Uh...I'm Tom. Remember?" He looked at her nervously.
     She stared at him. 
     "The other night, at the party? You, me and John?" 
     Danielle felt her throat go dry. 
     "What's the matter?" he said, confused. "Look, if you were drunk,
I didn't realize, but..."
     She quickly looked down at the floor. His face was so normal,
so average, his hair brown, nicely combed...he didn't look like an animal,
like a drunk, stinking animal. 
     "Go...please..." she whispered.
     He didn't hear her. "It was kind of weird for me, too, you know,
getting John's sloppy seconds." He laughed pleasantly. 
     Danielle jumped up, knocking the chair aside, then fled from the office.
She ran blindly down the hallway, bumping into students and hearing
annoyed voices yelling after her. 
     She stumbled into the library and found a yearbook. Flipping clumsily
through it she finally found his picture. Tom Connel. Grade 11. Captain
of the Basketball team, no less. 
     The yearbook clattered to the floor as Danielle stumbled to the washroom
and hid in a stall. 

     She sat in her chem class and thought about John and Tom and whoever   
else had been there. She thought of her drunk father and her drunk mother
and her arrogant sister. She thought of what Mark had told her. She was
shaking with anger and frustration. What if she, a lowly grade ten student,
whom no one liked or paid much attention to, were to accuse the big basketball
Captain of rape? She almost laughed out loud. Sloppy seconds, he had
said...he had come up to her and tried to be friendly...her mother had
been singing...didn't anyone know what had happened? Where were her
panties? Are they on your trophy case, Tom? she asked herself. Up there
with all your medals and honour rolls and basketball trophies and...
    She stood up, her head spinning. She wasn't paying any attention to 
her chem lab. 
    "Come on, pay attention," Gary, her chem partner, said. He reached
over and helped her with the bunsen burner.
    Danielle saw a row of small bottles in the cupboard at the back 
of the room. She waited until class was over and everyone was milling
around, gathering their books. When Mr. Hobson was busy talking to a 
student she went back and took a bottle. 
    
    Her mother was waiting for her at home, to yell at her and accuse
her of being a common whore, and to angrily demand why she had let those
boys abuse her body. Danielle started to protest but her mother faded
away and turned into her sister, staring at her with a confused look.

    Danielle spent that night in a tent in the backyard because the walls
of the house were closing in around her. No one noticed or cared. She slept
with the bottle of chemicals against her chest. 
  
      At recess the next day she went into the office. 
      "Hi, Ms. Pollen." 
      The secretary smiled at Danielle. "Hello, Danielle."
      "Mr. Stacey wanted me to pick up the locker combination list. 
He's doing an inspection at lunch."
      "Certainly." Ms. Pollen walked over to the file cabinet and soon
produced the list. "Here you are."
      "Thank you." Danielle took the list and smiled, then left the office.

      At lunchtime she sat in the cafeteria and watched Tom sitting wiht
his jock and cheerleader friends. He opened his thermos. 
      Danielle felt her stomach quivering. She wanted to see him get sick
and throw up. 
      He drank some of the soup from his thermos, and recoiled at the taste.
Then he started to gag. Then he started to choke.
      "Tom, what is it?" Danielle heard the voice faintly, coming somewhere
from far outside her mind. 
      "Aaaaaaaa!" Tom kicked at the table and fell kicking to the floor.
He was surrounded by students, some trying to hold him down. He was
clutching at his throat, screaming in pain. 
      "Tom! Tom!" 
      "He's chokin', man!"
      "Get help!"
      "Call a doctor!"
      Amidst the wild confusion and the amazing orchestra of music and
sound, Danielle left the cafeteria. Outside in the parking lot she felt
a strange pressure in her stomach and leaned over and vomited all over
an expensive sportscar. 

      That evening there was a knocking at the door. 
      "Someone get that!" Danielle called out. She glanced around but
her house was empty. Only moments before her brother and mother and father
and sister had all been there, watching TV, but now there were all gone.
She noticed that the TV was gone too, and in its place was an army
helmet that had "Born to Kill" written on it.
      She got up from the bed and stepped over the fishtank and opened
the door. 
      Two police officers stood there, staring at her. "Danielle?"
      "Yes," Danielle said.
      "You are under arrest for the murder of Tom, the basketball Captain."
      They put handcuffs on her and led her into the car.

      On the highway, one of the officers turned back to Danielle and
said, "Who do you think you are?"
      She just looked at him blankly.
      "I said," he yelled, "WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE?"
      Danielle said nothing. 
      "You just don't go and poison a basketball Captain! This happens
to be Texas. You think you can pull that stuff in Texas? A bratty little
snot-nosed kid like you tries and pulls a bratty little snot-nosed stunt
like that? Who's supposed to lead the basketball team now that Tom
is dead?"
      "I don't know," Danielle said in a small voice. She felt terribly
guilty.
      "Pull over," the cop said to the other cop, who was driving.
      The cops pulled over.
      They took Danielle from the car and led her into the desert, past
a wooden sign with bright red letters that said TRUST. She looked up at
the sky but saw nothing there.
      "You can't kill a man, little lady," the cop said. He put his gun
to her head and pulled the trigger. Danielle's head was blown apart and
her body slumped to the sandy ground.
      The other cop started laughing. "That there little lady's got guts,
huh?"
       "Shut up, Marvin," the first cop said as he put his gun back in
the holster. "There's nothing funny about it."





--
Richard J. Rauser           Holli Would If She Could
rauser@sfu.ca
WNI                          And She Is...Right Now