tent warningsdiscussion of rape

  [colpse]Tales from the Basement: Power2023 December 13WednesdayThe arm on his phone wakes him in the middle of a sleep cycle. It’s Taylor Swift again. It’s always Taylor fug Swift. It was bad enough when his “girlfriends” would try to make him listen, but now Serena was forcefully subjeg him to it every single m.

  Andrew smashes his finger into the phone s to get it to shut up, and he looks at the time. That ’t be right. It’s a whole hour earlier than he’d normally be woken up. The st time his arm was set oddly was the m of the medical exams.

  May as well go for a ssh, at least. Andrew rolls out of bed, groggily steps forward, and presses his finger against the sensor on the door.

  Nothing happens.

  After he tries a sed time to no success, he looks down ahe red light on the sensor is shining. He’s locked in for some reason.

  OK… well, there’s not much else to do anyway, so Andrew ys back down. He’s just about to drift off again, when he’s woken up by somebody knog on and then opening his door. It’s Serena and Tabby, and they have their tasers drawn.

  “Good m?” Andrew says.

  Serena doesn’t return the greeting and instead says, “e with us, Andrew.”

  Well, she’s in a mood.

  Serena and Tabby lead Andrew down the hallway and toward… the cell block? The three of them enter and stop halfway down the cell block hallway. Serena opens one of the doors, directs Ao ehe cell, and closes the door behind him.

  He hasn’t been in one of the cells sihe beginning of October.

  “Serena, what’s going on?” Andrew asks.

  “We believe there may have been some additional… is that we weren’t aware of before we brought you in. I need you to stay here until we know for sure if that’s the case.”

  Additional is?… No. Joe had been ag weird tely, even friendly with his sponsor—and not like how Andrew puts on a cheerful act even with the girl who kidnapped him—but the idea that Joe would turn oher guys seemed paranoid at best. Now it’s not even been a full day sindrew gave Joe some friendly advi how to do an easy pull, and Joe’s already snitched.

  Andrew will have to give his “friend” a very stern talking to.

  But first, he o get out of this cell.

  “Don’t bother looking into things,” Andrew says. “I just slipped a few girls some Rohypnol is all. No sting harm, right? Won’t do it again. I even used prote.”

  Serena looks shocked at what she hears, and then her expression slowly turns toward a quiet dread. Odd. Andrew just expihere’s nothing to worry about.

  Serena says, “Somebody will be by soon with breakfast. We o go for now.”

  “Sure,” says Andrew. “About how long do you think I’ll be in here, though?”

  “We still o look into some things, but you should be gone soon, I think.”

  The others leave, and Andrew realizes his bdder’s still full. He walks over to the metal squat toilet in his cell and finally relieves himself.

  2023 December 14ThursdayIt’s been a day now. A full day and they still haven’t told him when he’ll be let out of his cell. Do they thiually hurt any of those girls? Of course not. He just had his fun while avoiding a little drama is all. In spite of the informal name for what he did, it’s not like he actually rapedthose girls.

  He’s relieved to hear the sound of heels ing down the hallway. Lunch won’t be for another few hours at least, so it must be Serena e to let him back out.

  Instead of Serena, though, it’s a girl he doesn’t reize, and damn! She’s more stacked than even Angelica, and she has the frame to match.

  She stops in front of Andrew’s cell and looks iudies him. When Serena first arrived with her long-wioxic masity speech, she looked self-assured, like she was ready to take Andrew doeg. This girl looks unsure of herself, though. Like she entered into a situation she had not fully prepared for.

  She’s exactly Andrew’s type.

  “Hi there. I’m Andrew,” he says.

  “Diana,” she says, and then she’s quiet again.

  After another painful minute of silent study, Diana finally speaks. “We o talk about some things.”

  “OK?”

  “I uand what led to it. On a broad level, I mean. You’re taught your whole childhood and adolesce that you’re owed certain things… I guess the messages are much louder for men, but even womeaught that they’re owed by those lesser than them.”

  Serenas speech was a huge bore, but at least Serena sounded rehearsed. This girl sounds like she’s making it up as she goes along.

  “And your point?” Andrew asks.

  “The point is that these things don’t e as easily as you’re taught they should. And it’s frustrating. And you’re even judged by others for not getting the things you’re owed.

  “So you do what you’re taught. You make them give you what you’re owed. You raped those women, because you thought you were owed sex.”

  Wait, she actually does t what he did as rape?

  “Bollocks,” Andrew says. “I didn’t rape anyone. I just slipped something in their drinks so they were more pliable. No harm done. We’d both go back to our lives the m as if nothing happened. Hell, I probably saved those girls a lot of heartbreak or whatever. You would not believe how much drama is involved in even a short lived retionship.”

  “Besides,” he says. “How you be so sure you know what I’m thinking? You’ve been reading all the feminist junk they give us, also?”

  Diana closes her eyes and takes a deep breath.

  “Tracy,” Diana says. “I used to beat her. She’d try to leave, but she’d always e back. And if I was drunk or just in a certain mood, then I’d force myself on her. And it wasn’t just her, either, but mostly it was her.

  “You don’t think it’s the same thing, because you didn’t hit them and maybe they didn’t resist, but it’s not about the… the physical violence or even the sex. It’s about the power. I… raped Tracy, because I o exercise my power over her. To remihat I was in charge and she wasn’t. I didn’t even care that it was her. Or about her.

  “And it’s the same with yht? You could have made your iions known and still pulled. You could having effing paid for sex if you had to. But instead, you’d steal those girls’ opportuo make an informed choice or even any choice at all, and all because you could.

  “Heck, you even bragged about it to the other b—to others like I used to.”

  She stops talking for a bit and Andrew chimes in, “Even if it really was about power or whatever, I still wasn’t actually hurting them.”

  Diana starts to look upset. “You’re not listening! Physical pain fades. But you still used the power you held over them. Now they’re stuck with that reminder of how little they had of their own. How dangerous it is to be around people like… like us.

  “And the memories and things they learned from their experience e up any time. They ’t take a drink in public without thinking about whether they’ve ever taken their eyes off their gss. It affects their dreams. They… they…

  “You ’t eve intimate with your own girlfriend sometimes, because the memories of him keep cropping up.”

  Diana stops talking and starts wiping tears from her eyes. She stands still for a full miaking deep breaths to calm herself down.

  Andrew asks, “Diana, who were you talking about just then?”

  “Me. And…”

  “Listen, you don’t have to…”

  “I do,” she says. “This is too important. I need you to uand. I o tell you about Jake.”

  She takes one more deep breath and presses on.

  2023 December 15FridayAndrew lies on his cot, staring up at the lights in his cell. Another lunch has e and gone, but Serena is still o be seen.

  The inter clicks on, and Andres from his cot to face the door. Serena is standing outside, watg him with a ptive look on her face.

  “I didn’t know,” Andrew says. “…no, that’s nht. I should have known, but I refused every opportunity I’d been given to listen.”

  Serena doesn’t speak, looking like she’s waiting in case Andrew has more to say.

  “I deserve to be washed out, don’t I? That’s why you put me ba the cells. So you’d have time to decide if that was my fate. Aerday evening I was almost going to ask you to just get it over with.

  “But Diana wouldn’t have e talk to me if you’d already made up your minds. She wouldn’t have put herself through the pain of reliving her experiences with me if you didn’t both think there was something worth saving in this cell.

  “She expined how it’s all the same. What she did, what happeo her, and what I did. What happeo her sounds worse than what we both did, and it is it many ways, but it es from the same pd causes the same harm.”

  Andrew pauses as he thinks what to say.

  “I deserve to be washed out, but I ’t waste what Diana did in talking to me. I… I want to do better, Serena. I don’t want to hurt anybody else like that again. Like how Jake hurt Diana.”

  Serena says, “It’s going to be harder than you think, Andrew. We have a lot to work through and may o take some… drastic measures to get you where you o be. Are you sure you’re up for it?”

  “Yes.”

  Serena smiles and says, “Good. I o talk to somebody before I let you out of the cell. It should be one more night, alright?”

  “Alright.”

  Serena starts to walk away from the cell, but Andrew calls her back.

  “Serena, wait. That Jake guy Diana talked about. She never said how she got away from him. Is he still a danger? Is Diana safe?”

  Serena gives Andrew a reassuring half-smile.

  “Yes, Andrew. She’s safe. Jake won’t be hurting anyone anymore.”