Free Mud Vein by Tarryn Fisher Page A

water. I didn’t but I nodded. He announced that he was opening the back door to get it. He told me everything he did before he did it.
    I was taken to the hospital in an ambulance. Once there I was wheeled to a private room and handed a hospital gown by an orderly. A nurse came in a few minutes later. She looked harried and distracted, the hair above her ears sticking out in tufts. “We’re going to administer an SOEC kit, Ms. Richards,” she said, without looking at me. When I asked what that was, she told me it was Sexual Offense Evidence Collection.
    My humiliation was high as she pried my legs open. The SOEC kit was on a metal table that she’d wheeled next to the bed. I watched her unpack it, laying each item out on a tray. There were several small boxes, microscope slides and plastic bags, and two large white envelopes, which she slipped my clothes into. I started shaking when she took out a small blue comb, a nail pick and cotton swabs. That’s when I averted my eyes to the ceiling, squeezing them shut so tight I saw gold stars on the inside of my eyelids. Please no, God. Please no. I wondered if the words sexual assault made women feel less victimized. I hated it. I hated all the words people were using. The cop who had brought me in whispered the word raped to the nurse. But to me it had been sexual assault. They were off brands of the real deal.
     
    The kit took two hours. When she was finished, I was told to sit up. She handed me two white pills in a little paper cup. “For the discomfort,” she said. Discomfort. I repeated the word in my head as I dropped the pills on my tongue and took the paper cup of water she was now extending. I was too shocked to be offended. A female officer came in when the nurse was finished to talk to me about what happened. I gave her a description of the man: heavyset, mid-thirties, taller than me, but shorter than the officer, a skull cap pulled over his hair, which might have been brown. No tattoos that I could see … no scars. When the nurse was finished, she asked if there was anyone they could call. I said, No. An officer would give me a ride home. I stopped short when I saw the man at the nurses’ station. The jogger—the one who’d helped me—was wearing a white doctor’s coat over his sweatpants and t-shirt, and flipping through what I presumed was my chart. It’s not like he didn’t already know what happened to me, but I still didn’t want him to read it on my chart.
    “Ms. Richards,” he said. “I’m Doctor Asterholder. I was there when—”
    “I remember,” I said, cutting him off.
    He nodded. “I’m not on duty today,” he confessed. “I came in to check on you.”
    To check on me? I wondered what he saw when he looked at me. A woman? A soiled woman? Sorrow? A face to pin pity on?
    “I understand you need a ride home. The police can take you,” he glanced at the uniformed officer who was standing off to the side. “But I’d like to drive you if that’s okay.”
    Nothing was okay. But, I didn’t say that. Instead, I thought about the way he knew exactly what to do and what to say to keep me calm/ He was a doctor; in hindsight it all made sense. If I could choose my ride home, I choose not to ride in the back of a police cruiser.
    I nodded.
    He glanced at the cop who seemed more than happy to hand me off. A rape case on Christmas Day, who wanted to be reminded that there was evil in the world while Santa and his reindeer were still leaving contrails in the sky?
    Dr. Asterholder walked me out a side door and into a staff parking lot. He’d offered to pull around the front of the building to pick me up, but I’d shaken my head firmly. His car was nondescript. The unflashy hybrid. It looked a little self-righteous. He opened the door for me, waited until my feet were tucked in … closed it … walked around to his side. I stared out the window at the rain. I wanted to apologize for ruining his Christmas. For getting raped in the first