Violated (21 page)

Still, it was breaking Russ’s heart to see him sobbing on the other end of the couch, isolated and alone. “Would you like to be held?” he asked, feeling lame and powerless.

Derek gave out a bitter laugh. “Christ, I’m pathetic.”

“I think you’re awesome,” Russ said gently. “And I know you can take care of yourself. But you can lean on me, if you want to. That’s all I’m saying.”

Derek seemed to consider the idea for a long time. Then slowly, like a skittish wild animal cautiously approaching, Derek drew his legs up under his butt and slid his body along the couch until he was lying against Russ’s side. Russ was afraid to move, in case he’d startle Derek into jumping off the couch. Only when Derek’s face nestled against his side did Russ dare to lower his hand. He settled it gently on Derek’s hip, just barely touching, trying to make it clear he wasn’t pinning him down.

“Is this okay?” he asked quietly.

Derek didn’t speak, but he nodded. He was still crying. Not loudly, and his body wasn’t exactly racked with sobs, but Russ could feel the tears trickling down his bare side. He sat motionless while Derek cried himself out. Then he brushed his fingers lightly along Derek’s naked side, caressing and soothing him until he drifted off to sleep. Perhaps he’d wake up later, as he had the night Russ found him on the porch. It made sense now that he was doing that, waking in the middle of the night as he had when Victor crawled on top of him. But if he did, Russ would be there for him.

D
EREK
WAS
surprised to open his eyes and see sunlight outside the windows. He was wedged between the back of the couch and a man’s naked torso. There was also an arm cupping his shoulder, and the smell of underarm was… well, not overpowering, but pretty strong. He pulled away, disoriented and anxious. But the anxiety settled down when he saw the man’s face. Russ. They’d been sleeping together. Nothing more than that—they were both shirtless, but they were wearing sweatpants. He remembered now. Russ had held him while he cried like a baby.

Christ
.

Obviously they’d both fallen asleep at some point. The surprising thing was that Derek hadn’t felt anxious lying against him. He hadn’t thought he could feel comfortable being this close to a man—not anymore. He even had a morning hard-on again. But in the light of day, the anxiety came creeping back. Not in the same way it did when he woke up in the night, already terrified by something he couldn’t bring himself to name. But he knew he didn’t want to be lying against Russ when he awoke.

Russ was still sound asleep, his handsome features puffy and adorable. Derek slipped out from under his arm and managed to get off the couch without waking him. Both Gracie and Max jumped up the moment he began moving and were now pacing around anxiously by the door, so he quietly let them outside. He stood in the doorway, shivering, until both dogs had finished their business and trotted back inside. Then he went into the kitchenette, ignoring the depressing mess of damp books and other detritus of his life laid out on the bar, and set about making fresh coffee.

The sound of the coffee percolating woke Russ. He slowly poked his sleep-tousled head up over the back of the couch and said, “Coffee….”

“Give it a minute.”

Russ stood and stretched, then shuffled into the bathroom. Derek heard him swearing before he peed and flushed. He came back out into the kitchenette, muttering, “The floor’s got cold water all over it.”

“Great.”

“Looks like a big puddle seeped out of the Blu-Ray player.”

The player was probably toast, but Derek didn’t feel like dwelling on that at the moment. He poured coffee into a mug and handed it to Russ. “Thanks for babysitting me last night.”

Russ chuckled and took a sip of coffee before he responded. “How about if we just call it ‘being there for you’? And it was my pleasure.”

Derek couldn’t help but smile at that. They were silent for a while, drinking their coffee, each lost in his own thoughts, until he finally asked, “At this point, is it going to do any good for me to report it?”

Russ shrugged. “I think you should, yes. But I don’t know if it would ever go to court. You said you had a doctor examine you?”

“I did,” Derek said, embarrassed, “but he didn’t find anything. Some mild abrasions. I’m sure they’re healed by now. Besides, I told him I got them in a threesome with Tim and a friend.”

“Less embarrassing than the truth?”

“I guess so.” He grimaced. “I mean, everyone knows gay men like threesomes, right?”

“Certainly one of the guys I dated did.”

“Was that the guy you were telling me about?” Derek asked.

“Was I telling you about him?”

“You said he….” Derek fizzled out, not wanting to complete the sentence.

The light dawned in Russ’s eyes, and he grinned. “Oh yeah. I remember that conversation.
Butt sex
.” He rubbed his chin thoughtfully with his left hand and then said, “That’s why you had the panic attack, wasn’t it? Because what we were talking about that night reminded you of what Victor did.”

Derek felt a disturbing combination of discomfort and arousal at the thought of someone fucking Russ’s ass, so he pretended to shrug it off and brought the conversation back to the original topic. “If there isn’t any medical evidence, does that mean it’s pointless to file a report?”

“No. File the report. Even if it never goes to court, having it on record might help you in the future, especially if you feel the need to take out a protective order. And if Victor assaults someone else, having a previous report filed against him can help
that
person.”

A protective order?
Derek had been convinced being fired would end it. At least it would keep Victor away from him. But what if it didn’t? What if Victor kept trying to force his fucked-up brand of “friendship” on him?

On the other hand, the thought of talking about all this with a total stranger at the police station—a man, most likely—made Derek want to throw up.

“Can’t you just write up the report?” he asked. “I’ll give you permission to use whatever I told you last night.”

Russ frowned and leaned forward on his elbows, holding his coffee cup in both hands. “Derek, you need to know… if you do this, you’re going to have to tell your story to more than one person. And you’ll be asked to repeat parts of it to clarify details. You’ll have to be tough enough for that.”

Derek pressed his lips together tightly and exhaled through his nostrils. “You’re right. I’m acting—”

“You’re acting,” Russ interrupted before he could spiral off into more self-condemnation, “like any person who’s been raped and doesn’t want to keep reliving it would act. Okay? Being uncomfortable and nervous doesn’t make you a coward or unmanly. It makes you normal. Understand?”

It was hard for Derek to believe that. He’d stopped feeling “normal” months ago. But he forced himself to nod.

“I’ll see if I can sit in when you file the report,” Russ went on, “but I’ll ask Officer Chavez to interview you. She generally handles cases like this.”

“Cases like this?”

“Sexual assault.”

“Has she dealt with… men who were assaulted?”

Russ pressed his lips together and shook his head. “I don’t know. Most men are too embarrassed to report it.”

Derek snorted involuntarily. “No shit.”

R
USS
WASN
’
T
sure what he could say to reassure him. He couldn’t exactly hold Derek’s hand during the interview—not even metaphorically. He might be able to be there, but he’d have to act professionally, for both their sakes. No pats on the shoulder or coddling him in any other way. It was going to be hard enough for Derek without treating him as if he were helpless in front of another officer.

He decided to change the subject for now. “I have the day off,” he said. “I wanted some downtime at home before going back to work. Would you like some help getting your shit dried out and dealt with?”

Derek made a sour face. “Sure, that would be awesome.” He sipped his coffee and then licked his lips before asking, “So… just where
did
you go for your vacation?”

“Um… a clothing-optional gay bed and breakfast.” Then he hid his eyes behind his hand and added quickly, “Don’t judge.”

Derek laughed, which was nice to hear. “Oh, really?”

“It was actually very nice.”

“I’m sure it was.”

“Stop smirking at me.”

Derek made a show of wiping his smile off his face, but that just made
Russ
laugh.

“Look,” Russ said, “I just wanted to try something new. My dating track record the past few years has been shit. Did I tell you Ian got back together with his ex?”

“You said something about him wanting a threesome.”

“Yeah.” Russ shrugged. “I mean… I won’t lie. The thought of it did kind of turn me on. But after it was over, he would have crawled into bed with his boyfriend while I got dressed and drove home alone. How depressing is that?”

Derek smiled, but then he looked directly into Russ’s eyes as he asked, “What if you’d been the one crawling into bed with your boyfriend, and someone else was driving home? Would you want
that
?”

Russ knew what he was asking.
If we were dating, would you want to have threesomes then?
The answer was easy. “No,” he said. “It might be hot, but it would fuck with my head. I don’t want to watch the man I love make love to someone else.”

“Neither would I.”

The look they exchanged was intense. Derek’s eyes seemed to be burning into him, suggesting the possibility of something Russ had been carefully avoiding thinking about ever since that day they’d first met on the deck. But Derek had just broken up with Tim, and he was going through all this shit now, trying to find his bearings after what Victor had done to him. It was too soon to think about anything other than supporting him.

C
LEANING
UP
the mess that had once been Derek’s belongings didn’t take all that long with both of them working at it. The clothes would mostly have to be dry-cleaned before he could assess the extent of the damage. The iPad might have been beyond saving, but Russ suggested burying it in dry rice for a few days.

“It worked for my sister’s iPhone,” he said.

Derek searched through the cupboards and discovered a bag of brown rice Tim had stashed there. He dumped it into a cake pan and settled the iPad among the grains. He doubted it would work, but the alternative was to throw away an expensive piece of equipment he could no longer afford to replace.

They rinsed off the Blu-Ray discs and their cases. The paper liners would be warped when they dried, but the discs should be fine. The player was probably dead—Derek would give it a few days to see what happened when it dried out—but he could probably get another one cheap, if he had to. At the very least, his laptop could play them. Thank God he’d brought that with him when he came out to the cabin, along with his phone.

Gracie’s toys they just washed off and tossed on the floor. She didn’t seem too bothered by the fact that they were soggy.

Russ invited Derek and Gracie down to his cabin for lunch, and the day seemed to drift by from that point forward. It was the first time in months Derek felt relaxed and almost like his old self. They talked easily about whatever came to mind—goofy things Max and Gracie did, Russ’s sister and her family, movies they liked, movies they hated, Russ’s sexcapades at the farm….

“I only slept with one guy the whole weekend,” he insisted.

Derek gave him a smirk. “But several times?”

“Well, yeah. He was cool. And pretty good-looking.”

The feeling stirring in the back of Derek’s mind wasn’t jealousy. At least not entirely. He
was
jealous, but he knew he had no claim on Russ. He’d been thinking about it since he woke up in Russ’s arms that morning—the possibility they could end up together, now that they were both single—and he had to admit the thought filled him with a pleasant warmth. But he had no right to hope they could ever be more than friends. Russ had been dating guys and having wild sex since Derek met him. True, he hadn’t yet found a guy who was a good match for him, but what he was looking for was clearly a man who could satisfy him in bed, among other things. Derek wasn’t sure he’d ever be able to do that again for any man.

But he didn’t have to be a jerk about it. He forced himself to smile. “Did you get his phone number?”

“No,” Russ said, looking rueful. “I tried, but… I think he just wanted to have a fun weekend, nothing permanent.”

“That’s too bad.”

Russ shifted his position on the couch and took a sip of his beer. “It’s almost time for supper.”

Derek glanced at the digital display on the DVD player. “Oh. Maybe I should let you have some time to relax….”

“You like pizza?” Russ asked. “I’ve got a frozen one I can pop in the oven.”

“Sure.”

So they stayed together the rest of the evening, shooting the shit, chasing the dogs around the yard, and playing a bunch of board games Russ had stashed in his living room closet—Monopoly, Trivial Pursuit, Clue…. Derek didn’t want to leave, and Russ didn’t seem to want him to go, either. Whenever he made a comment about how late it was, Russ would come up with something else for them to do.

Finally, when they were both yawning and the clock showed it was past midnight, Derek said, “Well, that’s it. Time for bed.” Russ was watching him closely with an indecipherable expression on his face, so Derek asked, “What?” The fragile feeling of safety he’d been experiencing in Russ’s company evaporated. Anxiety and fear enveloped him like a cold, wet blanket.

“I’m sorry. Nothing.”