Chapter 10 - Home
Mark was thrusting into Claire, one last time. After hours of silence, no touch, no words, he went for the final attempt to raise his orgasm counter from 13 to 14. Nothing had changed. His orgasm wouldn’t feel good, his load wouldn’t be large, nor was Claire responding to his frantic thrusts. She was just staring at the alarm clock counting down the final minutes of the day. But he needed to come one more time to prove he hadn’t kept her here for nothing after he broke his record.
He was close, he could feel it. The anticipation of his orgasm filled him with dread, there was no more pleasure to be had, but he would endure. He would endure and prove that…
“Time’s up.”
The calm voice of the girl he was raping for the final time stopped him cold in his tracks. He looked at the alarm clock:
00:00
The 24 hours were over. He was this close. He needed 20 more seconds, maybe 30, and he knew that she knew that, too. Did these 30 seconds really matter? He could just finish it and let her go then.
The look on her face pissed him off to no end. She was calm, unafraid, looking at him expectantly. She knew exactly what was going through his head and what he would do. If he stopped, he’d acknowledge her superiority, that she had him figured out completely and that he had no more power over her. But if he continued, he’d prove to her once and for all that this was all a thinly veiled farce, cheap theater to hide how ugly he truly was. He couldn’t win no matter what he did. The two competing impulses wrestled for dominance inside of him. He had to choose. Lose to her by relinquishing the power over her body back to her at the cost of his goal, or lose to her by admitting that it was all meaningless to begin with? She had made him do the latter once before. He made his choice.
Claire looked at him, steadfast in her resolve, her gaze holding him to his word and his precious rules he so desperately needed to uphold his self-image. She held her breath while she saw him looking at the alarm clock. With his cock still inside of her, his eyes narrowed and he was grinding his teeth. Then he forced his body to relax, exhaled, and slowly withdrew the penis that was just about to come a 14th time.
He had pulled out and was getting out of the bed. Claire began to breathe again, she shivered so much that she was almost shaking.
“Your clothes are on the chair over there and your phone is on the desk, fully charged.”
He hadn’t looked at her while he spoke. He sounded distant while he tried his best to seem calm as he began putting on clothes himself. Claire sat on the edge of the bed. She carefully put her feet onto the ground, then she tried to stand up.
She was wobbly on her feet. She felt dizzy and almost fell back onto the bed. Suddenly, she felt Mark grabbing her arm trying to help her stand.
“Slow dow…”
She yanked her arm out of his hold and almost jumped away from him. She just looked at him with a mixture of fear and anger. She never wanted to be touched by him again. He took a step back and left her be. He didn’t say a word. She was breathing heavily holding onto the desk where he had put her phone. She needed a moment for her exhausted body to get used to walking again.
She saw Mark gathering a few things out of the corner of her eye but forced herself to focus on her own clothes. After being naked for so long, she was eager to get dressed. She stumbled toward the chair with her clothes, careful not to tip over in the process. She started with the blue cotton panties she had put on when she left her apartment two days ago. Lacking confidence in her ability to stand on one leg in her current state, she sat down on the chair. Next, she put on the matching blue bralette. The soft fabric of her underwear on her skin felt more comforting than she remembered. She couldn’t recall what socks she had picked but apparently she had chosen black ones. They could have been two different colors, pink and yellow, and she wouldn’t have cared.
She took a brief look at Mark. She half expected him to watch her get dressed, to get a final look of her naked body before he’d never see her again. But he seemed to have little interest in what she was doing.
Usually she put on her pants before her top. But she didn’t need to stand up to pull the comfortable forest-green long-sleeved top over her head, so she started with that instead. Finally, she slid her legs as far as she could into her slim black jeans while still sitting on the chair and made sure to stand firmly on both feet before she pulled them over her butt. She groaned, reaching for the dark brown ankle boots and completed her outfit with the denim jacket that kept her warm even on cool fall evenings.
All that was left was to grab her purse and her phone. Looking at her purse, she stopped for a moment. It was a simple black crossbody purse with a print on it that said “Let there be light” followed by Maxwell’s equations. It was a gift from Emily for her last birthday. Eugene had broken the ice by complimenting her nerdy purse. His interest sounded genuine, not like a pickup line he had rehearsed. She couldn’t help but wonder whether there was any source of light left in her life.
Her phone alerted her to several unread messages from Emily, Eugene, and her parents. She didn’t have it in her to look at any of them. She put the phone into her purse, took another brief look at Mark who seemed to have no interest in stopping her, and then went with quick steps toward the door leading to the stairwell.
She didn’t know where to go exactly to reach the front door but even in her tired state it was obvious to her that the front door couldn’t possibly be in the basement. She was halfway up the stairs when she heard Mark’s voice from behind her.
“Claire… Claire! Wait a mo…”
“Don’t talk to me!”
Neither did she look back nor did she slow down. When she arrived upstairs, the front door was already in sight. She had no interest in any other door or room this house had to offer.
“Listen! The front door is locked! I’m not stopping you, but you’ll have to let me unlock the front door first.”
Ignoring him, she tried to open the door. It was locked just as he had said. She hated that she was still dependent on his good will in this moment. She took a few steps away from the door making room for Mark to open it. She didn’t want to stay too close to him. He walked just past her and she barely looked at him. The sound of the key turning was followed by the door opening and a draft of the cool night air hitting her face. She was almost free.
“The door is open now. Go.”
He opened the door wide, then took a step back. Claire didn’t wait for another second and rushed outside. On her way out, she grabbed the door and slammed it shut behind her, erecting a barrier between her and him and this hellhole she had been trapped in. Then she broke into a run, putting as much distance between her and the site of her torment as she could with the short dash that her exhausted body permitted her.
She was out of breath and her legs were shaking. She looked behind her, no sign of Mark. She leaned against the wall behind her, granting herself a moment of rest. Where was she? She didn’t recognize the street she was in. It was quiet, just past midnight. A car drove by. The driver paid her no mind. She checked her phone to see where she was. If possible, she wanted to avoid calling a cab or calling someone to pick her up. She didn’t want to see anyone. Mark had told her she’d be able to walk home. She hoped he was right.
Claire had trouble typing her address with her shaking hand. But once she managed to do so, she had an idea of where she was. Her way home was a mere 10-minute walk. She didn’t feel comfortable walking home alone late at night like this. But what else was she supposed to do? One more look behind her - she was alone - and she started walking guided by her phone. She was slow and quickly realized that it would likely take her a few minutes longer than what her phone had estimated. But she didn’t care. After all she had been through, she didn’t want to collapse on her way home from exhaustion because she overexerted herself.
Mark waited for a while after Claire had slammed the front door behind her. He grabbed his coat and the few things he had brought with him to this place. He had cleaned up the basement a little while Claire had dressed herself. But he knew that it was impossible for him to get rid of all of his DNA. But as long as the DNA they might find could not be linked to his name, he didn’t care. He doubted that Claire would call the police immediately after leaving but in case she did, staying there any longer was a much greater risk than leaving a bit of DNA behind.
But he had another much less rational reason for leaving. He wanted to follow Claire from a distance and watch her go home. He knew that it was the height of hypocrisy to make sure she got home safe after he had been the one to abduct her on her way home a little more than a day ago. But he couldn’t help himself. He had grown weirdly attached to her. He wanted to know that she made it home safely. Well, as safe as she could be after what he had done. He wasn’t making sense, he knew that.
He saw her from a distance. He quickly realized that she was walking slowly. He would catch up to her sooner than later if he didn’t lower his speed as well. What would he do if somebody attacked her while he was watching? Come save her? All would be forgiven if that actually happened? Yeah, right. He wouldn’t be surprised if she told him that she’d rather die than be saved by him. Still, he needed to know that she made it home safely.
“
You’re just a monster!”
He couldn’t get her voice out of his head. Following her, he felt relieved that she seemed to be steady on her feet now. She had looked like she was about to collapse at any point. She had been awake for almost two days now and had refused to eat anything while she had been in his care. ‘
His care,’ that sounded cynical even to him.
“
You think giving me a water bottle afterwards and not cutting me into pieces after you’re done makes you better somehow?! Better than who?!”
Better than who indeed. He didn’t know. It would be the last time he’d follow her like this, he realized. He had done this for weeks. Claire had been a constant part of his life for almost a month now. Maybe him following her was his way of saying goodbye to her?
“
There is NOTHING, absolutely NOTHING human about you!”
Wasn’t what he felt and thought now proof of his humanity? He had a tired smile on his face. He knew exactly what she meant when she called his humanity into question. It wasn’t that she doubted that the capacity for evil was a deeply human trait that he clearly possessed. She meant to say that his acts made him unworthy of compassion. He had trouble denying that.
“
Don’t you dare think for a second that you get to have a human conversation with me as if… as if you were an actual person!”
He couldn’t help but wonder… What if he had actually gotten to know her? Not just from his observations of her daily life but through actual conversations. Could he still have gone through with his plan if he did that? He was glad to see that she was walking in the right direction.
“
You are the worst of the worst! Just a pathetic man who can only escape the misery of his own sad, delusional life for a fleeting moment when he’s hurting a woman! That’s all you are and all you ever will be! And no act you come up with, no oh so ‘noble’ rule you make up for yourself will ever change th-!”
He wanted to believe that she was wrong. That would be so much easier if he hadn’t shut her up by hitting her. What was that if not an admission that she was right? He hadn’t thought of himself as sad, miserable and lonely. But it seemed that way to her. He was annoyed with himself. Why should he care what some 21 year old college girl thought of him? What did she know of real life? All she cared about was math. Still, he couldn’t dismiss what she said. If she didn’t understand something about him that was fundamentally true, then she wouldn’t have been able to rattle him so much.
She was almost home now. He stopped. He’d be able to see her for the rest of her way from where he stood now. And there was no more reason to keep watching her. She was as safe now as she would ever be from this point forward. Then he saw her trip. She almost fell, but she caught herself. She wasn’t the only one who was tired. His crotch hurt and his body was urging him to just sleep. He looked at Claire one last time not waiting for her to get inside. Then he turned around and walked away alone with his thoughts. He didn’t even notice that not one of them was about the record he had wanted to break so badly.
Claire finally arrived at the front door. She felt cold. Usually the cool night air wouldn’t have bothered her. But in her exhausted state she was more sensitive to the cold than usual. All she needed to do now was pick her keys out of her purse. She was about to reach for them when she hesitated a moment. What if her keys weren’t there? She hadn’t checked yet. Her fingers trembled as she reached into her purse. Her heart was beating faster. And then, relief washed over her when she found them. Why had she been so scared? Mark letting her go as he had promised but keeping her keys, what sense would that even make?
She stepped through the front door. Fortunately, her small apartment in the building was on the ground-floor, so she didn’t need to climb any stairs. Everything looked exactly as she remembered. A few letters were sticking out of her mailbox, but she didn’t bother to pick them up. She unlocked her apartment door, stepped inside and closed the door behind her.
Claire was home. She didn’t turn on the light. There was no need - she could find her way to her bedroom even in complete darkness. When she arrived at her destination, she just fell onto her bed. She was dead tired. Some distant part of her told her to take her clothes off, but she didn’t care, she couldn’t. She was willing to surrender herself to the sweet embrace of sleep then and there. Her eyes refused to stay open any longer.
Her mind was almost gone when she realized: Mark had been on top of her twice and come inside of her once since her last shower. She knew that his last orgasms had been mostly dry. But even disregarding his semen, she couldn’t help but wonder whether her body smelled of him and she just had gotten so used to it that she no longer recognized his stench on her. She took a whiff of herself. Nothing, she smelled nothing out of the ordinary. And yet, she was standing up again before she had made a conscious choice to do so.
She threw her clothes onto her desk chair as she undressed. She could put them away tomorrow. There she was, naked again in the dark. The pile of clothes on the chair unnerved her after all. Did she want to see these clothes ever again? She put them into the laundry.
She was in her bathroom now. The light was on, it was so bright. Just a quick shower, a good one, a warm one, one she could take alone. She ignored the mirror. She didn’t want to see what her face looked like. Almond scented shower gel, normally she liked that, but he had used that on her. Coincidence? Had he seen her buy it when he followed her? She threw the bottle into the trash can and chose the vanilla one instead.
The warm water felt nice on her skin. The water had been warm too when he fucked her in the shower. Was it the same temperature? She turned up the temperature a little more. Was it different now? She couldn’t say. She only remembered that the water was warm and didn’t hurt at the time. Turning the dial ever higher, she only stopped once the water felt too hot on her skin.
Claire washed her body. The vanilla scent spread throughout the entire room. She was clean now, of that she was sure. Except… except for inside of her. Should she check whether there was still some of his semen in her? It had been hours since his last orgasm. If there was any left, she would have felt it on her way home, she thought. She didn’t want to feel anything inside of her, not even her own finger.
She stepped out of the shower and dried herself with her favorite towel. It was large and soft. She forgot to bring clothes with her into the bathroom. It didn’t matter, she could get dressed in her bedroom. She wrapped the towel around her body, a little tighter than usual, and went to her closet.
The sheer number of options was overwhelming. She didn’t remember picking what to wear for sleep to be so difficult. Sleeping shorts, she had never had problem picking a pair before. The frilly blue ones with the tiny pink ribbon, she liked those. No, the panties she had worn were blue, too. Blue was out of the question. Yellow was fine. But the cloth felt kind of coarse in her hands. She was so sore between her legs, she needed something softer. She went through every pair of shorts in her closet, questioning each of it with her fingers whether it would feel comfortable on her irritable vulva. She chose the yellow pair after all.
Now all that was left was choosing a shirt. Thankfully, that was easy. Jason’s old shirt, he had given it to her when he was 12. He used to wear it when she slept over at his parent’s place when they were children. When he outgrew it in puberty, he had given it to her because she had thought that it was cute.
The shirt was more hole than shirt at this point, the cheap dinosaur print with the cute big eyes almost completely washed out, the fabric thinner than paper after all these years. But she had kept it anyway and occasionally wore it when she felt sad. She could use some dinosaur love right now, she decided.
Now she felt ready for her bed. Her face sank into the soft pillow. She pulled the blanket over her entire body like a cocoon. She didn’t know who the person would be that would hatch out of it the next day, but she didn’t care. She was home, she was safe, she was alone, her blanket an impenetrable barrier for the rest of the world.
Or so she had thought. She remembered Mark ripping the blanket off her body when it had all begun. Instinctively she held onto it a little tighter. She was okay, she just needed to sleep. Nobody would take her blanket from her. Nobody could get into her bedroom, the door was locked. Or was it? Did she lock the door again after entering her apartment? Of course she did, she always did. But still, it couldn’t hurt to check. She stood up, went to the apartment door and… it was locked. Just like she thought. She sighed and went back to bed.
It was really time to sleep now. Her body screamed at her to stop moving. She closed her eyes, then she remembered something.
“
After I first saw you, I started to follow you around for a bit and I overheard a phone call you had with one of your friends two weeks ago. From that, I knew that you are a virgin.”
That phone call must have been the one she had with Jason. She was home sitting at her desk at the time. So if he heard her talk to Jason then he must have been… She jumped out of her bed, ran to the window and opened it. There was nobody. She looked around for a bit, but there was nobody. She put her hand on her raging heart.
“Calm down, Claire. You’re alone…”
She closed the window and fell back onto her bed, her hand still clutched to her chest. She waited for her heartbeat to return to normal.
She was calm again, her mind slowly drifting away. Then she felt it. It didn’t matter, she was not getting up again. It could wait. She was lying on her side, her knees clutched to her chest. Annoyed with herself, she rolled onto her back.
“I have to pee…”
Even her own bladder was conspiring against her now. Reluctantly, she got up again and went to her bathroom. She pulled her shorts down and sat on the toilet. While she peed, she couldn’t help but remember. After her twelfth rape, he had taken her for a second shower. He had also let her use the toilet. He was desperate at the time to provoke any reaction out of her to help him with his 13th attempt, so he had watched her. An obvious provocation. She thought she had stopped caring, as if him watching her pee mattered after everything he had done to her already. But now it made her feel uncomfortable.
When she was done, she hesitated a moment before she went back to bed. What else might cause her to get up again? She didn’t have anything to drink since she left Mark’s place. So she should get some water. Also, it was a miracle that she didn’t feel hungry. Maybe her body had forgotten how to do that. She would eat something tomorrow even if she didn’t feel hungry, she decided. She took an apple with her after she had gone to the kitchen to fetch a water bottle, just something to nibble on in case she got hungry after all. What else was there? She could use something to cuddle with. Her mom had gotten her this Pi-plushie with the dumb googly eyes when she had moved out of her parent’s house for college three years ago. She had rolled her eyes at it at the time, but it had grown on her since.
And so she went back to bed, put the apple on her night stand, took a sip of water, and hugged the Pi-plushie to her chest. She liked Pi. The ratio of a circle’s circumference to its diameter. A transcendental number, infinitely many decimals never repeating, yet finite in size. It reminded her that the infinite needn’t be particularly large.
She let her finger trace the outline of the plushie, drawing the most famous of the irrational numbers onto her chest. She could sense how the motion calmed her down. She had been lying awake for two hours now, but finally, she was about to sleep.
“Sleep tight, Pi…”
She mumurmered to no one.
“
How many creampies will it take for little Claire to exceed the cum-carrying-capacity of her sweet little cunt?”
She bolted into an upright position and threw the fucking googly eyed abomination against the wall! She just wanted to scream. But she couldn’t. She couldn’t deal with worried neighbors coming knocking on her door in the middle of the night. She wanted to cry, but she was also so tired of crying.
7… her cum-carrying-capacity was 7. That’s when she had started leaking, over and over again. She didn’t want to know that, she never wanted to know that, ever. How could she ever forget that? With her legs clutched together and her entire body shaking, she buried her face in her hands not knowing what she was supposed to do. She just wanted to sleep.
She was lying on her back once more staring at the ceiling. Maybe it would have been better if the ceiling had collapsed on her back then. She remembered how her own heartbeat had calmed her before. Now it was racing, not matching the stillness of her body. A distraction, that’s what she needed. She grabbed her phone.
Unread messages from Emily, an unknown number and her dad. Maybe it was time for her to call someone? But what would she say to them? It didn’t matter, it couldn’t hurt to read what they wrote. She began with Emily’s message.
“Told you going out yesterday was the right thing to do! Please tell me you noticed that Eugene is totally into you…”
Emily sent another message after that one 10 hours later asking whether Claire was ok. Should she respond? She started typing.
“Not so sure whether going out on Saturday was a good idea anymore, got abducted by a serial rapist because of that.”
Her finger was hovering over the send-button. The idea to actually send this text had a strange allure she didn’t fully understand. She decided against it. It wasn’t Emily’s fault. If anything, if she had asked Emily to go with her because she didn’t feel ok walking home alone that night, she would have come with her. She’d figure out later how to respond to Emily after she had slept.
Next message, she knew who that unknown number was. Mark had told her about it. It was from Eugene, the cute freshman who was into her. Yes, even she had noticed that.
“Hey Claire, this is Eugene. If you could show me some time this week how I fucked up last week’s exercise sheet on compact sets, you’d be a life saver! That stuff makes 0 sense to me. Also, I really liked talking to you! If you ever feel like grabbing a coffee or just hanging out again, I’d love that.”
She could feel the nervous energy radiating from that text. Guys regularly hit on her, that was a given with men still being the clear majority in her field. But few exuded such earnest golden retriever puppy energy like Eugene. He was just adorable. Completely unashamed wearing his Babymetal band shirt but totally flustered when talking to her. She wanted to see him again.
“Hi Eugene, sorry that it took me so long to reply. Didn’t mean to ghost you. I couldn’t reply sooner because I got raped on my way home. I would love to hang out sometime and of course I’ll help you with your compact sets.
”
She was rereading what she wrote. Then she deleted it. She couldn’t send him that! She couldn’t do that to the poor guy. He wouldn’t know whether she was serious or whether this was some sick joke. He deserved better than that. She’d reply later.
The last message was from her dad.
“Hey sweetie, your mom’s assuming you’ll come over for Thanksgiving as usual but I wanted to at least check whether you have other plans maybe? Love you!”
That was so typical. She could imagine the conversation they must have had, her mother just assuming she had no other plans while her father suggested that maybe she had a boyfriend now and was invited to meet his parents on Thanksgiving.
“I’ll come over as usual. Btw, dad, you never thought about how easy it would be to rape me, right?”
She actually didn’t know what she would do on Thanksgiving. Would she want to see anybody? She couldn’t tell. Why was he asking her such difficult questions after he left her all alone with Mark? She couldn’t answer that message either.
No new message from Jason. The realization stung more than she liked to admit. The last time they talked was two weeks ago when he lost his virginity. Even before that, they had talked less and less since he got together with his girlfriend Nora. Claire thought that Nora didn’t like her. Jason hadn’t said anything, but she could just feel it. She didn’t want to be responsible for ruining his relationship with her. So she had taken a step back and was waiting for him to talk to her. The result was the longst silence between them since they got to know each other when they were 8. She reread their most recent messages:
“Guess what, looks like you won our bet after all!”
“Wait...so you and Nora...?”
“Yeah, we did…”
“Look at you, you dawg! <3”
“Lol, appreciate the frat boy energy… Can we talk?”
“I’m so happy for you! Just call me.”
Maybe she could try sending Jason a text? At least she didn’t need to respond to anything he wrote.
“Just lost my virginity, too.”
This was technically true but not so out of place as all the other truths she had wanted to send. For a moment, she seriously considered sending it. But then she stopped again. Who was she kidding? The truth? He’d call her all giddy and excited, asking her who, what, when.
They had known each other since forever. Did he need a reason to be there for her? Jason was the one who had always been there for her, and she for him. She wanted to believe that a few weeks of silence between them hadn’t changed that. She typed another message.
“Can you come over? Now? No questions asked?”
She had clicked send before she was able to doubt her decision.
Now she was just waiting. It was 3 a.m. now, three hours since she had escaped that basement, about two and a half since she had arrived home. Chances were that Jason wouldn’t see her message before he woke up in the morning. If she had to stay awake until then, so be it, she’d manage to survive that too somehow. Then she realized. It was Monday, she had classes and work today. She needed to call in sick. Maybe she should take the entire week off? She didn’t know what to do. This wasn’t like a cold. How was she supposed to estimate when she’d be in a functional state again? What did that even mean? If she did disappear for a while, what would she tell people? She was sure that Anthony Robertson, the professor she worked for, would ask about what’s wrong and whether he could help. Her thoughts were spiraling. She stopped herself. She forced herself to acknowledge the fact that she didn’t need to figure all of this out before she had slept.
She stared at the ceiling, unable to sleep, hoping for a reply from Jason she didn’t expect to get for a few more hours at least. Then her phone vibrated. She had no idea how much time had passed. 10 minutes apparently if she could trust her phone. One new message from Jason. There was no hesitation before she opened it.
“I’m on my way.”
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Okay, this chapter really got to me. Writing that entire last sequence when Claire is finally home again was rough. I know this isn't what people come here for but to me these chapters are as essential to the story as those that depict the rape. After working on this story for a year now or a least thinking about it regularly, I've become quite attached to Claire. I think I will lie down for a while and cry a bit... this was rough.
