Chapter 2
Two hours later, Madeline sat tucked up at the edge of her couch surfing through her new channels. She gently scooped layer after layer off a tub of Ben and Jerry’s new york super fudge chunk ice cream, leaving craters where the nuts and fudge chunks once were.
She had survived the mortifying embarrassment of her ordeal with the cable guy, but had had to suffer through 45 minutes of awkward tension as he sorted through the wires left tangled by previous tenants. He still looked visible shaken when he left, avoiding her outstretched hand at the end of their encounter and deciding instead to go with a nod and avoid touching her.
She had rummaged through her cupboards, but it was Friday and she was out of food, Saturday being grocery day. Generally health conscious and enjoyer of raw and vegetarian dishes, she could usually be found in a local veggie spot downtown on a Friday evening. She had gone back to the window after the cable guy had left, but it was dusk by then and she couldn’t make out the silhouettes standing in the street. Too nervous to risk a real confrontation with Aaron in the halls of her building and too jumpy still from the “front door episode” to have a delivery person put her in attack mode again, Madeline opted to raid the freezer, finding a 2 month old half bucket of ice cream, an emergency stash, of which she was now eating around the frost bitten areas and pretending it was as good as its original glory.
Madeline jumped when her doorknob rattled, then cursed herself for her cowardice.
“Hey! Why’s the door locked? Open up!” yelled Mani from the hallway. Madeline slid the deadbolt and let him in, locking up after him. “What’s with fort knox? You never lock your door.” Madeline’s closest friend, Mani’s very catholic parents had trouble conceiving their only child. His mother attributed his miraculous birth to her strong faith and the result was that he was named Emmanuel Abraham De Luca and was spoiled rotten. Once he entered the school system, only his mother still called him Emmanuel. He was either known as Mani by most people and De Luca by his male friends of the same age, his bros.
“Aaron’s in the building… I think.”
“Baby faced, woman molesting Aaron?”
“The one and only.”
“That dude’s crazy to come wandering around where you live… hey! You don’t have any food!” Mani’s head was peering deep into the empty crevices of Madeline’s fridge.
“Old ice cream?” she offered him the tub. He took it and sprawled out on her couch, feet up on the coffee table.
“So, is this guy harassing you? Is it serious? You tell me, I’ll rough him up.”
“No, no. I saw him from the window. He could have been here for a whole bunch of reasons. It’s a big building. But it shook me, you know. And so I nearly jumped the cable guy when he knocked on my door.”
“Jumped him? Ooooo… juicy!”
“You could say that” Madeline said as she recounted the embarrassing part where she spit in his face.
“Oh really?” Mani said, getting animated. “Was it straight out of a porno? Did he have a big schlong? Did he bang you on the coffee table?” Mani made hip thrust motions from his spot on the couch and contorted his face into a warped impression of someone having an orgasm.
“Oh Mani. Not only is that disgusting! It is also highly unlikely, see as I’m a lesbian!”
“Right, right. I always forget that. You’re just so like… not dykey”
“And you’re just so like… charming.” Madeline rolled her eyes and took the empty ice cream container to the kitchen.
“You didn’t answer my question,” Mani yelled from the couch. “You want me to rough him up?”
Madeline wandered back into the room and sat beside him before she answered. “Nah. It’s stupid. I just want it to go away” She stared at her intertwined hands. They fumbled with each other and didn’t make her feel comforted. When she looked back up at Mani, tears welled in her eyes. “When it was happening to someone else, I was full of all this rage. I had no problem imagining ripping his balls off and stuffing them down his throat. But then when it became about me, when what happened in the alley happened. I became the victim, instead of the protector. I just let him do that to me!”
Mani sat up and in a rare act of tenderness, held onto her hands. “Maddy, babe? What exactly happened in that alley?”
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The trouble with Aaron had started one night at a local bar that Mani and Madeline frequented most Thursday nights. Drunk, Madeline had taken a wrong turn on her way to the bathroom and ended up in the inactive coat check, it being July and there not being anyone needing a coat checked, where she came upon a groping couple in a dark corner.
Trying to back out of the room quietly, without notice, she heard a female voice giggling nervously and whispering no and stop. On closer inspection, Madeline made out a six foot, blonde, well built male figure hovering over the frame of a five foot two tiny woman with her arms pinned above her head. The male was kissing her neck roughly and passionately while she gently protested.
“Hey big guy,” Madeline had said, making her presence known in the room, “the lady’s saying no.” (Madeline in protective, assertive mode sounded like a female John Wayne.)
The male figure turned his head sharply, fixing her with a harsh stare that made her take a step back, even though it must have been subdued in the shadows. “Run along, little girl” he snarled “and mind your own business!” He turned back to the girl and with one hand still restraining her arms, he began to unbutton her shirt with the other. The girl squirmed and continued to giggle nervously, downplaying the helpless situation she found herself in.
Madeline was usually a peace keeper, however, strengthened by alcohol and fueled by the “little girl” insult, when the girl’s eyes met her from the darkness of the seedy corner, Madeline had uncharacteristically flown into action.
She had closed the gap between herself and the pair in three strides. She ripped the arm that was restraining the girl against the wall and pulled it behind the man that towered over her. She only succeeded in this move due to catching by complete surprise but now she had his arm in the perfect position to put pressure on his shoulder and elbow joints. This was the only move that she had learned from an aikido class that she had started one semester at school and dropped early when her academics got too heavy. She couldn’t hold it for long, but she hoped she could fake it long enough for him not to realize.
Turning to the girl, she said “Is this a situation that you want to be in? Are you consenting to this?”
The girl meekly shook her head in a feeble no.
“Then get out of here,” Madeline had instructed. The waif of a girl had grabbed her purse off the floor and had hastily made a retreat back to the crowded bar area. “Go near her again and I’ll rip your balls off” Madeline had threatened, puffing up to her full height of five foot one and trying to make her 120 pound frame look intimidating.
He had ripped his arm from her grasp easily, stared at her hard for a full minute and then stalked away.
Madeline had assumed that was the end of it. Yet, three weeks later at the same bar, while dancing on an elevated platform, she had caught sight of the blond douche bag from the coat check. It was late in the night and she had switched from amaretto sours to water and held a large glass of it in her hand. The light was angled in his direction and she got a good look at his face, while he was making his way through the crowded dance floor – chiseled chin, but high cheek bones and a fair complexion, making him look young and innocent. She nicknamed him ‘baby-face’ in that moment. She followed baby-face’s trajectory with her eyes to see where he was headed. She had to angle her body behind her and to the left to see his destination. She drew a gasp when she saw the waify girl from the night before sitting at a table. Baby-face’s course took him right past her spot on the platform and when she turned back to check his progress, he was almost directly in front of her. He was looking at the waify girl but then sharply turned in her direction, looking up at her from the crowd. He winked. It was a game to him. Cat and mouse. And now he was thrilled to have an audience.
Her body filled with calm rage. He was only a foot away from her, heading back on course to his target. Suddenly, Madeline knew what she had to do. Taking a deep breath, she reached out her arm with the glass of water in it and emptied the contents onto the top of his head.
The resulting mayhem was nothing she could have predicted. A girl in a purple shirt beside him started screaming, in a panic at being splashed by iced water. She backed into the platform and knocked the girl dancing beside Madeline off. That girl, off balance from the two foot drop, stumbled into a different guy, dancing obliviously. He turned and mistook the gesture as an aggressive act from another guy beside her, who he immediately shoved back. An all out brawl ensued in the immediate vicinity. A macho mayhem.
The bouncers stepped in and began ejecting all that they deemed involved out of the bar, baby-face included. Madeline somehow managed to escape detection, still standing on the platform, mouth agape, holding the empty water glass slack at her side. From the main stage, 20 feet away, Mani caught her eye and gave her a questioning thumbs-up. She responded with a thumbs-up of her own. He smiled and went back to dancing.
Madeline felt vindicated, but she’d had enough excitement for one night. The bar was hot and stuffy and suddenly felt more crowded than she could handle. She caught Mani’s attention, waved and pointed at the exit door, indicating that she was leaving. He waved goodbye and she made her way down the steps of the bar, examining the contents of her back pocket to determine if she had enough money for a pizza slice.
The door bouncers were sat inside the front lobby trading war stories, so when Madeline exited the building, she was on her own on the sidewalk. Which was why there were no witnesses when someone grabbed her wrist and dragged her into the adjacent alley.
Before Madeline had any idea what was happening, she was pressed against the hard brick exterior of the bar with her arms pinned above her head. Her shirt had ridden up in the process and the sharp edges of the brick surface bit into her skin. She felt breathe on her face and something wet on her forehead and for the first time, she realized that her eyes were firmly closed. She forced herself to open them and stared into the baby blue eyes of Baby-face.
He was so close that his wet hair dripped onto the surface of her forehead. “Well… hi there little girl” he purred, “Were you going somewhere?”
Madeline tried to wriggle free, but his grip was tight. He had his hip turned and was holding her feet against the wall with one of his own. She wasn’t going anywhere without his permission. “Oh little one, don’t try to struggle,” he whispered. “I’ll only hurt you more if you struggle.”
She froze. Something in his tone and his eyes told her he was serious. She’d underestimated this douche bag and now she was scared.
“That’s better,” he condescended. “Now, the way I see it, we have a score to settle. You owe me something that you’ve blocked me from getting twice now.” He switched his grip on her arms to one of his hands – still and impossibility for her to get out of – and held up two fingers to emphasize his point. “And I have to ask myself why, little girl, why would you do that? And then it occurred to me… you’re jealous!” He slid his free hand down her jaw, brought his mouth very close and whispered “You want me for yourself.” Madeline recoiled in disgust and he tilted his head back and laughed. “Problem is… darrrrling” he continued, “I’m not a one woman kind of man. But I can give you a little of what you want and take a little of what I deserve… of what you owe me.” He grabbed the buckle of her belt and pulled her body towards him. When she lost balance, he moved his foot between hers and kissed her hard. The force knocked her head back against the wall. He fumbled with her belt buckle and ripped open the fly of her jeans. She was pinned, there was nothing she could do. It was all happening so fast. He continued to rub his harsh lips on her as he jammed his right hand down her pants. He rubbed furiously over her underwear, pulling back from her face to lear at her “Feel good, little girl?” He pushed his hips into hers, pushing his and deeper between her legs. She tightened her face, kept her eyes clenched shut, praying for it to be over.
She felt his and pull out of her pants. She heard the buckle of his belt being undone. “And now, sweetheart, time for the prize…” She clenched every muscle in her body. She was held firmly, there was nowhere she could go. She pushed her mind out of her head. She detached her body from herself and prepared for the coming attach.
And then… drunk voice, streaming light, booming voices telling people to go home. The bar was closing. A mass exitus of people were emerging from the front door and spilling out onto the sidewalk.
Madeline suddenly realized that she was alone in the alley, her arms still above her head, her jeans halfway down her legs. She dropped to her knees and began throwing up violently. Grasping the wall when she was finished, she heaved herself to her feet and pulled up her jeans. The button was broken, so she fastened them closed with her belt and wiped her mouth on her shirt sleeve.
She staggered out of the alley just as Mani was passing it, arm around the waist of a pretty, young bar chick all dressed in pink. “Maddy, hiya. I thought you left,” he said as he caught sight of her. He then noticed her pale skin and her stumbling walk. He reached out to steady her with the arm that wasn’t around the bimbo. “Careful,” he said. “You okay? Too much to drink?”
“Home,” was all Madeline responded with.
Mani assessed the situation. As he turned to look at his catch of the night, he let out a subtle moan. She was biting her finger and looking up at him with big doe eyes that said she was down for anything. “Sorry, babe. Needed by a friend. I’ll call you tomorrow?”
Her face turned sour and her bottom lip popped out. “Are you serious?!?!” she screamed. “Don’t bother!!!” She turned on her heel and stomped away.
When merely supported Madeline while she walked stopped working, Mani had picked her up and carried her to a nearby cab. And then through her lobby and in the elevator, all the way to the seventh floor, down her hall and into her bed.
He had slept on the couch, woken up at six and called her in sick to work. He knew something very bad had happened to her. He didn’t know what and he didn’t ask. This was one of the fundamental reasons that they were such close friends.
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Mani sat looking at her stunned, once she had filled him in on the parts he didn’t already know – specifically everything that had taken place in the alley. He was still holding her hands. With a juxtaposition of rage and concern alternately moulding his facial expressions, he stuttered as he tried to think of an appropriate response. Aware of Madeline’s fiercely independent nature, he did not want to appear condescending by making suggestions or giving advice that she would have naturally already come to on her own. “Tell me… tell me what to do,” he stammered. “Really, Maddy, tell me anything. What can I do? Is there anything that I can do?”
She looked at him with her red rimmed eyes and responded very seriously, “Yes, there is something you can do. Go out and get me a pizza, I’m starving!”
Mani threw his head back and laughed sharply. “Only you, Mads, only you,” and got up to be her hero.
