Free Nine Minutes by Beth Flynn

would like me to take a nap in your room,
Grunt.”
          He looked
uncomfortable then, and I immediately sensed something was up, but I never imagined
how deplorable it was.
          “Please just sit
down. Actually, lay down. You can fall asleep here. It’ll be okay. I promise.”
          My senses were on
alert and adrenaline kicked in, temporarily killing the buzz.
          “What is this? Tell me what’s going on , Grunt . You
have to tell me. Oh!” My mind went into overdrive, and I started to panic. “You’re
going to kill me in my sleep, aren’t you? He’s decided he doesn’t want me, and
he can’t let me leave. I’m going to die tonight, aren’t I?”
          “Kit, I’m not
going to kill you. Grizz doesn’t want you dead. I
want you to sleep because I don’t want you to have an awful memory. Please don’t
ask me anymore, just sleep. Trust me. You’re not going to die.” Grunt fisted
his hands. “Fuck! I wish he’d handle this himself.”
          “Handle what?” I
blinked my eyes open, willing myself to stay coherent. “And no, I’m not laying
down. Not until you tell me. I’m going to make myself stay awake. You put
something in my drink, didn’t you? Well, I didn’t finish it and I’m not going
to. You have to tell me.”
          He sighed and
walked over to his dresser. He pulled out the bottom drawer and removed what
looked like some kind of stick. He told me it was an old billy -club . It was on the
smallish side and had a strap at one end so it could be held on one’s wrist.
          “You’re going to
beat me with that stick?” If he was going to kill me
it would take a lot of blows. I felt nausea rising in my stomach.
          “No Kit. Grizz wants you to lose your virginity tonight. He didn’t
want to do it. He told me to do it. With this.” He looked down at what he was
holding. His face was flushed.
          “And you have to
do everything he tells you?” My voice rose.
          “What do you
think? If you’d just fallen asleep you would’ve woken up a little sore. I would
have done my best not to hurt you.”
          I sat on the edge
of the bed and looked at the floor. He just stood in front of the dresser still
holding the offensive object. I wasn’t going to be able to stay awake forever.
I had to make a decision.
          “You do it.” I
said to him. “You personally, not with the stick. Please, Grunt. I can’t lose
my virginity to something so vile. You do it.”
          “He would kill us
both if he knew.”
          “He’ll never hear
it from me. I swear. Please, I can’t stand the thought of you sticking that in
me. It’s awful. Please. We’ll never talk about it again after tonight. Please,
Grunt.”
          He didn’t say
anything, so I added, “I’m on birth control so I won’t
get pregnant. He’ll never have to know.”
          Well, this was
certainly something I never expected. Here I was begging to be raped. I still
can’t get over the irony of how that happened, but it did.
          He walked over to
me then, and I stood up. Then he did something I never expected. He hugged me.
He held me close to him for almost a full minute. I was shaky on my feet, and
he eventually let go.
          I started to undo
my jeans and he undid his. I laid back on the bed and
struggled to pull my pants off. The adrenaline was wearing off, and I was
starting to get drowsy again. He helped me pull my jeans and panties down. I
knew he took his off too, but I didn’t look. He reached for some hand cream
that was on his nightstand and coated himself with it.
Again, I didn’t look, but I could tell by his movements.
          He was on top of
me now and gently spread my legs with his knee. I just looked at him. We made
eye contact then, and I said, “Can you call me by my name, just once? Can you
call me Ginny?”
          “I’ll try not to
hurt you,” and then after a pause,