Summary:
One girl's experience with rape, and her recovery.
Notes:
Author's Notes: Call this based on true events. This was based on something that upset me so much (with a site that I used to love) that I had to write something about it.
Work Text:
Getting drunk isn't a new occurrence for Amy Stone. She's only eighteen, but what started out as recreation spiraled into a vortex of hell pretty quickly. Now, she's at a convention, surrounded by people in costumes, playing games while she nurses her drink.
She's eighteen, and this is her life.
It's a yearly thing for the site that she's a fan of. Conventions. The contributors are there too, and they seem to be having a good time.
Bully for them, she thinks.
It's there that one of the contributors, Quentin Andrews, approaches her. He's a video game reviewer, reviewing the sorts of games one wouldn't have heard of before. "Hey," he says, and his voice is slurred even as he holds his Captain Kirk plushie that he's won. "Y'okay?"
He's drunk. He's in no state to go wandering around the convention like that. At all at all. Still, she supposes that she has nothing to worry about. Quentin's trustworthy enough. So she's seen.
"Fine."
"You wanna — y'know — ''
It doesn't take a translator to get what he's getting at, and Amy says, "You're married!"
A shrug. "No harm in having a little fun. I mean, c'mon..."
"Maybe after I play some games..."
Unfortunately, even when the night's wrapped up, Quentin won't stop following her. He wants to make sure she's okay, he says. That's all.
"Don' follow me," Amy says, gesturing behind her. " 'M okay..."
She trips over a table in that moment, and falls to the ground. Everything goes black, in that moment.
***
She wakes in a fuzzy, still drunken haze to the feeling of fingers in her vagina. Practically crammed in there, and for a moment, she's immobilized. She doesn't know what to think, what to say. It hurts, she knows that much, having these fingers inside her...
She cranes her head, towards the smell of stale alcohol, and it's there that she sees Quentin. Quentin, who's naked, disheveled, and —
"Get out." she says. "Get out before I scream."
He withdraws. There's blood on his fingers, which he quickly washes off. He's gone, and thank God —
Her legs are sore, especially between her legs. And they're bleeding. It's not a hemorrhage, but he's definitely broken something down here. She has to — she needs —
She collapses in that moment, and the darkness swallows her up along with her confused, foggy panic and fear.
***
It's getting to her feet the next morning that she feels the blood trickling down her legs, and the soreness between them. Her pants are down around her ankles, and everything hurts.
She hurts, everywhere. Even getting dressed, Amy can't help but wonder what exactly happened. She has faint memories, of course. The feeling of someone's fingers in her vagina, just to begin with. Fingers. The shooting pain. And —
Oh God.
It occurs to Amy in that moment that she's been effectively raped. By Quentin Andrews, someone you wouldn't even expect to do that to someone. He'd been drunk last night, but he wouldn't —
Amy collapses on the bed. What's she supposed to say now? His fans — they'll never believe her. He isn't the type, to them. He'd never actually digitally rape an eighteen year old girl.
Her skin...God, she wants to escape her skin.
She showers. Even so, she doesn't know how she's going to get this out of her. She can still see Quentin's face, distorted and horrifying. He's watching her in the shower, probably dissembling her body, piece by piece...
Amy shudders. She gets dressed, and the sight of her discarded pants and underwear are enough to make her want to vomit. She holds down her gag reflex and heads downstairs.
Breakfast is uncomfortable, to say the least. She can't bear to think of the idea of anyone touching her. Even seeing Quentin over at the other end with another contributor, a horror reviewer, trying to give a plausible alibi for why he was disheveled last night, he's already making excuses...the other contributor doesn't seem to be buying it, though.
It's after breakfast (where Amy eats very little. Even seeing Quentin is enough to make her lose her appetite) that she tries to talk to someone. The HR woman, Kim, to be more precise. She has to talk to somebody, at least. About the rape.
It's when they meet in Kim's room that Amy tells her what happened (and tries to keep down her nausea at the sight of the Star Trek plushie that Quentin had been carrying around), and she's shaking. Trembling like crazy.
"Breathe, Amy," Kim says. "Just breathe. What do you want me to do?"
Amy swallows. She can't come forward. The very thought of it...
She can picture the scenarios. Being possibly crucified by those fans of Quentin's, and the rest of the site. They refuse to hear anything bad about their video producers, even now.
"I'll have to think about it," she says.
***
She tells others. She has to tell others. She goes to a therapist, and she makes sure it's a she — she doesn't know if she can feel comfortable with a man after what Quentin did. Her genital area's healing, but the memories don't. God, if — the word "if" seems to replay in her mind so much like a horrible broken record. If she'd done this, if she'd done that...
The therapist, Doctor Price, disagrees with that. "There is no conceivable universe," she says, "Where this was your fault. You were drinking, and anyone worth their salt would have not taken advantage of you." Silence. "Amy...it wasn't your fault. You were eighteen, and he was, what..."
"He was in his forties."
"Exactly. Amy...there's no conceivable dimension where rape is the victim's fault. A lack of no is not a yes."
"Yes, but..." Logically, Amy knows that it's not her fault. And yet...
"I believe you, Amy. It's not your fault."
Amy swallows. She can feel a lump in her throat settling like a stone. The hotline she called said it wasn't her fault, the site admins practically cross-examined her...in this mix of different responses, she's at least relieved to find someone else who says it isn't her fault.
"Thank you," she says.
***
The nightmares don't stop. Therapy's just beginning, and Amy's still having nightmares of his naked body, his disheveled hair and fingers inside her. Sometimes she dreams of monsters on top of her, pinning her down, licking her, smashing their mouths against hers, clawing and groping and grasping.
And God willing, when Amy wakes in the night, shaking and shivering and trying not to scream, they seem so close.
She can feel it too. Fingers forcing their way in...it's remembering her breathing exercises and her grounding exercises that's a faint comfort, faint as it is.
She hasn't told her parents. She can't, really. Because her dad would just break down, and her mom...who knows how her mom will react?
It feels like she's told the story again and again. Half a dozen times? More than that? She's getting exhausted. But she has to keep going. It's the 2010s, and Amy Stone has to keep going.
***
When Quentin takes his own life (a year after he's let go from the site for reasons Amy doesn't know, if they're related to what he did to her or not), Amy wishes she knew what to feel. Suicide's never okay, but she can't be okay with him ignoring her nos, violating her body. She can't be okay with that. She doubts she ever will really be "okay", in the sense of getting better — it's a work in progress. It's getting up and going to her classes every day. It's learning how to calm herself, how to self-soothe, how to manage those places where she sees his face, distorted and horrifying and looming, in the waking and dreaming world.
She's nineteen now, and she's recovering. Even when she talks to Doctor Price about all of this, Doctor Price says, "Whatever you feel is valid, Amy. Don't forget that."
It's enough to make her feel better. At least somewhat. Better is a work in progress, and it doesn't mean that what happened to her was okay, but...there you go.
***
She's twenty three when the truth is accidentally exposed. The site Quentin was on is already becoming quite the dumpster fire, and now people know. There are some victim-blamers here and there, some people still in denial, but the majority of people are angry for her, shocked and sad. To think that she was so scared of backlash.
Of course there's still going to be trouble. The woman who created that document and the others who joined her (including Amy, and another victim of Quentin's; Amy wonders how many victims Quentin had. Probably more than she knows) just started a rebellion. The site's going down in flames. Amy knows that much.
Her parents are also in shock. Amy still remembers how her dad reacted, the sheer anger and horror in his voice as he took in the news. Mom, and her horror. Amy's still coming to grips with what happened. But she's getting better. Better is a work in progress, but she's getting better.
And that is something.
Series this work belongs to:Part 1 of For Catharsis