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It’s a dumb thing during gym class. It’s just one of those conversations that gets out of hand.
“You’ve never had sex?”
They’re sitting in a circle on the bleachers half-watching a basketball game that’s getting way too intense: Rey, Kaydel, and Bazine. Bazine and Kaydel convinced Rey to lie to Coach Tano and say she had her period, and somehow they got on this subject that Rey hates.
She fiddles with the hem of her red uniform shorts, and she blushes when Kaydel and Bazine giggle. Why does she even hang out with them?
“So what?” Rey mutters. “I’m not even fifteen.”
“I did it when I was thirteen,” Bazine says. She taps her fingers on her jaw and squints out at the basketball game. “Poe Dameron. I can ask him to help you out if you want.”
“Poe is with Finn, Baz,” Kaydel corrects. “And he’s eighteen now.”
“So?”
They laugh. Rey smiles hesitantly and her gaze wanders away to the squeaking on the basketball court. She spies a familiar face running around in the middle of the game: short, with black hair and huge goggles. Rose. Her tongue is sticking out. She’s in the zone, like she always is. Probably wouldn’t be teasing Rey about stuff like this if they were still talking.
Bazine puts her green flip flops up on the seat in front of her. “My mom just got this really gross guy out on probation last week. He’s on the sex offender registry now if you’re interested, Rey.”
“Ew,” Kaydel complains. “Show me.”
Rey watches Rose while Bazine and Kaydel huddle over a phone. She kinda misses Rose. She kinda regrets hanging out with Bazine and Kaydel.
“Rey, come see!”
She peels herself away from the game and leans back to look at Kaydel’s phone.
There’s a profile open with a picture and a name in big bold letters: SOLO, BENJAMIN O. He’s sort of staring into the camera, blank-faced and pale. His hair is black and shaggy and his eyes are dark. He looks sad. Empty.
“What is this?” Rey asks, glancing at Bazine.
“It’s the sex offender registry. You can see where they work and live and stuff so they don’t rape you or whatever.” Bazine scrolls down the screen and points. “See? He’s in Franklin. You could definitely meet up with him, Rey.”
“He’s kind of cute,” Kaydel adds.
They look at Rey at the same time. She blinks, and they laugh.
| | |
Rey still isn’t sure what happened with Rose. They fought, because she started hanging out with Bazine and Kaydel the summer before ninth grade began, and Rose said they were terrible, awful people. And they are, maybe—but it’s nice being noticed.
She thinks about being noticed as she drifts through the next week of school. She sits with her news friends at lunch and senior boys sit with them, but they put their arms around Bazine and Kaydel, and they just kind of ignore Rey. Maybe it’s because she doesn’t dress the way they do, or talk the way they do, or… do anything, the way they do.
It would be nice to be noticed, Rey thinks, slowly chewing her bologna sandwich, watching Poe Dameron tickle Bazine. She shrieks and her blue plastic chair scrapes across the floor and Poe scoops her into his arms and swings her around.
Rey watches and smiles along with everyone else. It feels like no one sees her anymore.
| | |
Two weeks after the teasing in the gym, Rey’s curiosity gets the better of her. Something else gets the better of her, too. Loneliness or whatever.
She waits until her foster dad falls asleep, then she tiptoes across their small apartment to the cracked Dell laptop on the kitchen counter. Rey gets on the internet and pretends not to notice all the porn in Unkar’s browsing history: stepdaughter, schoolgirl, barely legal.
Rey curls her toes over the ledge on the bottom of her kitchen stool. She opens an incognito tab and tries a couple things before finding the sex offender registry Bazine showed her.
Her hands feel heavy as she picks her county from the drop-down box—then she scrolls down and sees SOLO, BENJAMIN O., and a weird, queasy excitement oozes into her belly. Rey traces her index finger in a small circle on the touchpad and clicks.
His face comes up. Lots of other stuff comes up, too, and Rey doesn’t know what a lot of it means. Risk level two, and the designation is ‘predicate sex offender.’ It has his date of birth (he’s thirty-two) and his height and his weight and his address, and she keeps scrolling, curious to see what else she can find out. License plate numbers. Job addresses.
She pauses near the bottom of the page. There’s a big gray box with official-looking strings of numbers and letters. Below one it says PUBLIC INDECENCY, then FORCIBLE TOUCHING. The last one near the bottom is RAPE IN THE THIRD DEGREE.
Rey meanders back to Ben’s picture. She cocks her head. She doesn’t think he looks like a person who rapes people.
| | |
It’s weird and it’s dangerous and Rose would tell Rey it’s really dumb, but she does it anyway.
Ben works at an Ace Hardware on the other side of town. It’s a quick bus ride away, and Rey is there before she knows it, standing outside the crumbling old white building wedged kitty corner to an alley. It’s kind of isolated. There are only two cars in the pothole-puckered parking lot.
Bazine was just messing around when she told Rey she should hook up with this guy—just being Bazine. But it’s taken on a life if it’s own now. He’s interesting to Rey. Scary. As she peers through the filmy glass windows into the store, heart pounding, she thinks it feels like looking for the tigers at the zoo. They’re close. But there’s a fence.
Rey wanders inside with the chime of a bell. It’s cluttered and musty and there are old white box cameras up in the corners aimed in all directions. A big sign hanging over the checkout counter says SHOPLIFTERS WILL BE PROSECUTED in peeling red letters, and Rey wonders what people steal from hardware stores. She can’t think of anything she’d steal. Duct tape, maybe. That’s useful.
Soft music drones over the speakers, one of those old songs Rey recognizes but doesn’t know. She wrings her hands and shuffles down the first aisle she finds, and it’s all full of nails and screws and stuff, and she realizes that she has no idea what she’s doing. Why is she here? What should she be pretending to be buying? Should she talk to Ben? Will he get in trouble if she does?
A bell rings from the front of the store. Rey nearly jumps out of her skin.
“Hello?” snaps a woman. “I’d like to cash out.”
Something drops with a soft thud a couple aisles over. Rey peers from around the corner of her aisle, hidden by a hanging display of flashlights—and she sees a very big man walk up the the front counter.
“Sorry, sorry,” he apologizes.
Rey shrinks back at the sight of Ben. He’s taller and bigger than she thought he’d be, and he’s wearing round glasses that he has to push up the bridge of his nose. She watches him cash out the woman and wave when she leaves, and she doesn’t look away while he organizes the boxes of candy on the counter.
But he doesn’t look dangerous. He combines the candy into one box and turns and throws away the empty one, and he pushes his glasses up his nose and smiles when a man walks into the store. His picture on the website looks different. He looks kind of like a robot online, but in real life he’s… different. He’s wearing a blue polo and jeans. Ben is just a guy.
Rey screws up her courage and shuffles out from her hiding spot as Ben walks out from behind the counter. She’s a little dizzy. A little scared. A little curious.
She pretends to be interested in the pool chemicals on the end cap. It’s been a long time since she last swam in a pool, she thinks, heart hammering as Ben’s footsteps pause. Rey picks up a bottle of chlorine and turns it around in trembling hands, kind of reading the label, but not really. Rose has a pool. Last summer they swam all the time.
“You have to be eighteen to buy that.”
Rey looks up. She meets Ben’s eyes, and he’s looking at her—really looking at her. His Adam’s apple bobs, and when Rey doesn’t move, he raises his eyebrows expectantly the way adults do.
She puts the bottle back. “S-Sorry. Sorry.”
“It’s okay. Sorry.”
Rey nods. She looks away at the door, glancing at Ben one more time. He’s still standing there. Still watching.
“Thanks,” she says, and she hurries out the door.
| | |
It’s bad, but Rey can’t stop thinking about Ben.
He didn’t look bad. He smiled and was polite, even when he talked to her—he seemed nervous, kind of. He didn’t seem like someone who would rape another person. And he was a lot bigger than she expected. But he didn’t look bad, and she can’t stop thinking about that, and wondering about that. And about him. About what he’s like.
Rey goes back to the hardware store a few days later. It’s rainy and humid and this time there are three cars in the parking lot. She’s going to look at tools.
Someone else is behind the counter cashing people out—another guy, but he’s a lot older than Ben and is balding. Rey runs her thumbs under her backpack and meanders down the aisle towards the tools, slightly disappointed. This is weird and stupid anyway. She wore short shorts and a pink tank top and didn’t bother with a bra because she’s curious in the worst way possible.
Rey takes down a hammer and turns it over in her hands, then lightly smacks it on her palm. She thinks a lot about how Ben looked at her the other day.
“Are you planning on killing someone?”
She startles at the voice: Ben is there—at the other end of the aisle, carrying a box. Rey blinks at him and his smile falters, and he clears his throat, quickly putting down the box. He pushes his glasses up the bridge of his nose, hands settling on his hips.
“S-Sorry,” he says. He avoids her eyes. “Just a joke—because you were looking at the, uh… chlorine, the other day.”
Oh. Rey nods a little, and a weird, awkward pause follows. She’s never talked to a guy before. Sometimes, for a couple minutes, but this is different. Ben isn’t like the guys she sees at school.
And he’s dangerous, too. Or so they say.
“Third one this week,” Rey replies, soft and shy. She clears her throat and tries to speak up. “Um… third one this week.”
“Nowhere to bury the bodies, huh?”
“No, no, they found my spot.”
Ben smiles again and Rey smiles back. She curls her hair behind her ear. He’s staring. Really staring.
“…So, uh—” Ben rubs his jaw and looks behind himself. “Do you need help finding something?”
“My dad wants me to get him stuff. He randomly asks for something new every other day.”
“Oh, got it.”
“Yeah.”
“Did you walk here?”
His tone shifts slightly—it’s hard to place, but it makes Rey’s pulse quicken. It’s casual and curious and… odd. Calculating, maybe, and she has an idea of what he’s calculating in his head.
“I took the bus,” she says, “but I could walk. It would just take a long time.”
“Yeah, way easier to just take the bus. I drive.”
“Really?”
“It’s nothing fancy or anything, just a Toyota.”
“That’s cool.”
Ben nods. His gaze wanders down from her face and he pushes his glasses up the bridge of his nose again, and Rey knows, with profound satisfaction, that he’s looking at her boobs. It’s gross and creepy and she pretends not to notice; pretends to be too busy looking at the hammer. Is he going to think about her after she leaves? When he goes home? Does he have a girlfriend or is he just going to think about her?
He takes a step back. “Well, I’ll be… around, if you need help.” He touches the name tag on his chest. “I’m Ben.”
“Rey.”
“Rey,” he repeats.
He takes his box and waves before he goes. Rey waves back, and she buys a piece of candy and leaves herself.
| | |
Maybe Ben has kids. Maybe he’s really old, like thirty, and he has kids.
Maybe he made a mistake—sometimes sex is complicated in TV shows and movies, and sometimes people don’t know they’re doing something wrong. Maybe Ben just made a mistake. Maybe he has kids and a girlfriend and he’s a nice guy who just made a mistake.
Rey weaves a tale about Ben in her mind: where he’s from and what he’s done and what he’s like. She daydreams during class and drifts along with Bazine and Kaydel, and it keeps her from missing Rose and feeling bad. He probably loves his mom. He calls her all the time. They talk about work and how he’s making amends and how he made a mistake.
She visits the hardware store two more times and Ben isn’t there. He is on the third visit, when it’s raining again, and there aren’t any cars in the parking lot.
Bells chime as Rey steps inside, sweeping back her raincoat’s hood and looking around. Ben isn’t at the counter but she hardly takes three steps before he pops up from the end aisle. He smiles and she smiles back. Is there anybody else in the store?
“Hey,” he says. He looks over his shoulder and then back at her. “Haven’t seen you in a while.”
“Yeah. Sorry.”
“Oh, it’s okay. Sorry.”
“No, no, I’m sorry—I came at weird times.”
“It’s okay.” Ben rubs the back of his neck, hesitating, raising his eyebrows. “Do you… come after school?”
Rey plays with the hem of her raincoat and nods. “Yeah. I go to Harris.”
“Nice. Big one.”
“Yeah. I’m in ninth grade.”
Ben keeps rubbing his neck and nodding. He stares. And stares. Rey isn’t wearing a bra but it’s hard to see under her raincoat. She’s wearing her short shorts, though. Does he like her legs?
“Did you, uh…” His Adam’s apple bobs. “Need help with anything?”
“Um… do you have screwdrivers?”
Ben leads her down an aisle and all the way to the back. He motions to the rows of screwdrivers hanging up and Rey meanders close, arms crossed, wondering how close he’ll let her get.
Not very. He mutters something and walks off and Rey watches him disappear around the corner.
She doesn’t get a screwdriver. She hangs around the store for a while, looking at random stuff, and soon enough it’s nine PM and time to close. Ben finds her in the paint aisle and she apologizes and tries to summon up the courage to ask him to bring her home. He has a car. She’s never gotten into a stranger’s car.
“Is the bus still going?” Ben asks as they walk to the front of the store.
“I don’t think so but it’s okay. I can walk.”
“Really? Are you sure?”
They stop by the door. Rey nods and insists it’s okay, and Ben half-questions her and says he doesn’t think it is. It goes back and forth.
“Well…” He does that thing where he looks around. “I can bring you home, if you want.”
“Really?”
“If you want. But don’t tell anyone.”
“Okay.”
Ben finishes closing the store: he counts the registers and sweeps and organizes shelves, and when he comes from the back, he’s wearing a blue raincoat. He follows Rey out into the dark, rainy night, and he locks the front door behind them. They’re all alone.
Ben leads her to an old Toyota sedan in the back parking lot, where it’s even darker. He opens her door and she thinks he really does seem nice, and this whole thing was a waste of time. He’s weird. But nice. His car is clean and smells like Lysol. That’s a good sign.
He gets in the other side and turns on the car. He smiles at Rey and she smiles, too.
“Is your dad waiting for you?” Ben asks, putting on his seatbelt.
“No, he’s probably asleep.”
“Oh. Do you have any siblings or anything?”
“No, it’s just us.”
“Okay.” Ben turns on the radio and nudges his glasses. “Do you mind if I stop home quick? I just want to grab something.”
A strange feeling creeps into Rey’s veins. She’s heavy. Nervous. It’s like a big weight is tied around her heart and it’s sinking in her chest. It’s scary. But she doesn’t hate it. She doesn’t want to run away from it.
“Sure,” she says.
Rey looks straight out the windshield while they drive. Ben talks a little—he asks her about school and her friends and stuff like that, but he fiddles with the radio and air conditioning a lot, and Rey knows he’s nervous.
It’s not too late to bail. She could run when he stops the car. She can still get away.
“I had a falling out with my friend Poe,” Ben says, stopping at a red light. He glances at Rey and smiles ruefully, face bathed in blood. “A few years ago. It sucks when you lose your friends.”
“Yeah.” Rey studies her hands. “I miss her.”
“It’s okay. You’ll find new friends.”
They stop outside a row of crumbling brownstones. There are a few other old cars parked on the street but it’s mostly empty.
Ben doesn’t say anything for a long time. He cuts the engine and slowly takes out his keys, and Rey swears she sees the gears turning in his head. It’s not too late. She can run. He’s having second thoughts, or maybe he’s having no thoughts about her at all.
“Can I use your bathroom?” Rey blurts. He looks at her and she shrugs and smiles. “Please.”
Ben’s gaze lingers, and he swallows. He’s playing with his keys in his lap and now she knows what he’s thinking about, and it makes her belly liquefy.
“Uh… yeah,” he says. He touches his glasses and the orange streetlight reflects off them. “I guess.”
He opens the door for Rey and leads her to his apartment building. They go upstairs, and Ben starts asking her questions again. He’s behind her. Maybe he’s looking at her butt.
“Do you have any pets?” he asks. The stairs creak loud under his footsteps.
“No, my foster dad doesn’t like animals.”
Rey stops on the landing in front of a peeling brown door with a welcome mat. Ben pauses next to her, jangling his keys, and his jaw shifts from side to side. He’s thinking again. They said he was a bad guy online, but Rey still thinks he just made a mistake. He could’ve already raped her by now.
“I really want a rabbit,” Rey continues, tentative, watching him.
Ben swings his keys around his index finger. He half-coughs and nods and closes the space to the door, and he unlocks it, and holds it open for Rey. She slips past him into the apartment.
All the lights are off. Rey stops a couple steps inside, arms crossed, shivering with anticipation. Ben shuts the door behind them and turns the lock.
“Bathroom is down the hall on the right,” he says.
“Oh, right. Thanks.”
Rey walks through a neat, clean living room with a big TV, through a small dining room with a brown table, and she finds the bathroom door on the right. It smells nice in here. His bathroom is clean, too: towels are folded and there’s a hamper for the dirty ones, and when she peers into his bathtub she’s pleased by how clean it is. Do rapists clean this much? He’s neater than her.
She washes her hands when she’s done with lavender liquid soap. Rey stops at the bathroom door and closes her eyes and takes a steadying breath. She can still get out of this if she wants to. Ben isn’t going to do anything. He just made a mistake.
The door creaks as she closes it. Rey looks from side to side and spots Ben at the other end of the house, standing in the living room. It’s a big long tube.
She meanders that way. He’s staring at the blank TV and his hands are in his pockets, and Rey stares at the TV, too. It’s quiet.
“I’m all done,” Rey says. Ben looks down at her and she smiles. “Did you get what you needed?”
He half-smiles back. He searches her face.
“…No,” he finally says. “Can you help me?”
“Sure. Where is it?”
Ben leads her to an open doorway. Rey peers inside and her stomach does a flip: there’s a bed and a dresser and a bunch of those collectible dolls with big heads lined up on floating shelves. There are framed posters on the walls, too: Fight Club and American Psycho and The Boys. Rey looks around as she shuffles into the room. He has a lava lamp. It’s red.
“I love those,” she says over her shoulder. The door shuts. “I’m not allowed to have one.”
Ben slowly comes up behind her. She feels it—feels the warmth and the pressure of him and she smells his cologne. It’s strong. Axe, maybe.
Her head swims. Now she’s kind of nervous. Now she’s not so sure. She takes a small step back and bumps into Ben, and she swears and checks her feet. Her sneakers are bathed in red and so are Ben’s, and he grabs her upper arm.
“Careful,” he says. He squeezes, and she feels his hot breath on her scalp. He takes a deep breath. “Careful, honey.”
Rey peers up at him over her shoulder. He’s close, and she only leans on her tiptoes a little before Ben dips his head and kisses her hard on the lips.
His tongue pushes in her mouth and Rey pulls away, shaking her head and mumbling. He follows, wrapping his big arms around her middle, and when she turns her face away he kisses her neck instead. His stubble scratches her and he groans and that makes Rey’s hair stand on end.
“You taste so nice,” Ben whispers against her neck. He sucks her skin and rolls it through his teeth, and he groans again. “Oh—you taste so nice.”
He pushes her over the edge of the bed on her back. Rey rolls to her stomach and tries to pull away, but he drags her back by the hem of her shorts, and he shushes her and unbuttons them. They’re pulled down and off with her panties, very fast, faster than she thought it could happen. She’s half-naked.
She doesn’t know what to say. She can’t get away. Ben pushes her raincoat up and up and he pulls that off, too, and he smooths his hands under her tank top. He rubs her back while she trembles and stares at the shelf of dolls over the head of his bed. His pillows are all straight. His bed spread is light blue. His palms are smooth and warm and strong and they gently wrap underneath her and fondle her breasts.
“Pretty little tits,” Ben breathes. He circles her nipples with the tips of his fingers. “I’m gonna come on these pretty little tits.”
His hands slide away so he can unbuckle his belt. Rey scrambles forward onto the bed, twisting on her back when Ben climbs onto the mattress with her. He’s on top of her, heavy and whispering and still dressed except for his raincoat. Rey gasps as her head sinks into the soft pillows.
“Shh,” he soothes. His glasses press against her temple as pressure pushes between her legs, and Rey squirms and whines. “Oh, it’s okay. It’s okay.” Ben sucks in a sharp breath. “It’s okay, honey.”
It happens in one swift, brutal stroke—Rey shudders from the pain and shock of it, and she clings to Ben’s broad back, eyes wide. He swears, breathing hard on her cheek, then mouthing wetly at her skin. Her thighs squeeze tight around his hips, and Ben pants and grunts and his hips move fast and hard.
She can still get away, she thinks distantly. Ben tries to kiss her and she shies away, and he cups her face and kisses her anyway.
“Don’t be scared,” he murmurs against her lips. He kisses her. “It’s okay.”
Rey thought he would ask, and he would do other things before they had sex. She kisses him and he praises her and nuzzles her and she’s warm and scared and excited. Ben is inside her. He must have really liked her—he must have wanted her really bad. And he’s being nice. He’s talking to her. Soothing her.
“I’m gonna come,” he grunts. His hips slap against hers and he shudders and groans. “Gonna—gonna come inside your little pussy.”
“O-Okay.”
It seems inevitable—so Rey doesn’t bother saying no. Ben gasps into her hair and his hips push hard against hers, grinding in, and he pulses and throbs inside her. He roughly thrusts and pushes and then he lets out a long, low groan, and he stops moving.
He rolls off her. Ben breathes hard and rubs his face up under his glasses, and Rey lifts her head to look between her legs. It’s shiny and wet. Sore.
Quiet falls. Rey shakes and stares at the ceiling and tries to decide how she feels. Good. And bad. Does this mean Ben raped her? She secretly wanted it but she thinks she made it obvious that she didn’t, and he did it anyway, and he was really rough. But he talked to her. He wasn’t mean.
“Do you, um…” Ben croaks. He clears his throat. “Do you want a water? Or I have iced tea.”
“Water? Please?”
He gets up and fixes his jeans. He takes off his name tag before he leaves the bedroom and Rey goes back to staring at the ceiling. She’s mad, but in a weird, indistinct way, like it’s far away and she can’t quite grab onto it. It’s there. Kind of.
Ben comes back with a bottle of water. Rey drinks and he sits on the edge of the bed near her feet. He examines his hands.
“I’m a little tired,” he says. “Can I bring you home tomorrow morning, maybe?”
“Um… I don’t know.”
“I don’t have to work until eleven, so I can make breakfast and stuff if you want. And I have lots of movies to watch.”
He gives her a hopeful glance, and Rey feels bad for him. Does he know he did something wrong? He seems so lonely and sad.
“Okay,” she agrees.
Ben brightens.
He picks out clothes for bed and gets Rey a long t-shirt and a pair of shorts, too. They shower separately, and when she comes back from hers, he has the bed made up with clean sheets. Maybe he can clean her room.
It’s cool staying over at a guy’s house. Rey climbs into his bed under the covers and he gets in behind her, and he wraps an arm around her middle. It’s like they’re boyfriend and girlfriend. She closes her eyes. Maybe he really likes her.
They’re silent for a long time, just laying there listening to the soft flow of traffic outside. Then Ben’s hand slowly glides from her belly to the hem of her borrowed shorts.
His fingers slip underneath, touching Rey between her legs. She squirms and grabs his wrist but it doesn’t stop him. He rubs her where she sometimes has rubbed herself, and no amount of shifting around and pulling at his hand stops him. He rubs and rubs and Rey whimpers.
“Oh, honey,” Ben whispers, voice soft and almost condescending. “Are you going to make cummies?”
His tone is eerie and creepy and Rey doesn’t mind it. She nods, and he groans with her when she whines and comes, bucking against his fingers. He’s already pulling down her shorts before she catches her breath. Rey shakes her head as Ben pushes his weight forward, pinning her front to the bed.
“B-Ben,” she mumbles.
“Shh.” He pushes inside her from behind, and Rey reaches for the edge of the bed. He grabs her hand and brings it back to her side. “Don’t be scared. I’m just going to make cummies in your belly.”
Ben fucks her slower this time. He plays with her breasts with his thick, clumsy fingers, and his breath hitches softly when he comes inside her.
He doesn’t pull out or pull away. He nuzzles into her neck and sighs, and Rey falls asleep.