Girl Seduced (The Girl Interrupted Trilogy Book #1) (6 page)

             
“So you have no memory of any of who the people were in the room?  You had never seen or met them before?” 

             
“NO.  What are you asking me?  Dr., could you please tell me what happened?”

             
The doctor sighed.  “First, your arm is broken.  You have a slight concussion, as if your head hit something abruptly.  Apparently, you were either thrown or fell and broke your arm.”  He sighed. 

             
“There’s no easy way to say this, so I’m just going to tell you.  There was evidence that you had sex with at least seven people.  There were seven samples of semen found in your rectum and in your vagina.  There are tears in your mouth as well, which suggests that oral sex took place as well.  Do you have any memory of any of this?”

             
Sabrina felt like she was going to throw up. She couldn’t breathe and started to breathe quickly.

             
“What are you saying?  I didn’t have any sex with anybody last night…”

             
“That’s not all.  We drew blood after we gave you the “night after” pill to ensure that you didn’t get pregnant from this experience.  There was also methamphetamine in your bloodstream.  Do you routinely use drugs, Ms. Stanton? Do you drink or use any other recreational drugs?”

             
Sabrina started to hyperventilate again and started to cry. 

             
“Oh, my God.  Oh, my God.  I don’t drink at all.  I don’t even drink Champaign at New Year’s.  And, of course, I don’t smoke or do any drugs. ” She just kept repeating herself over and over.  Another knock on the door interrupted and a police officer came into the room along with a plain clothes detective. 

             
“Hello, Ms. Stanton.  Dr., is she up for answering questions at this point?  Is this a good time?”

             
Jasmine spoke up.  “Yes, this is a very good time.  I would be glad to answer any questions you have.  My name is Jasmine Stanton.  I am a freshman journalism student at the college, on the Dean’s list.  What would you like to know?”

             
The doctor asked them to step outside the hospital room for a moment.  The three men stepped outside the door and then the detective stepped back in.

             
“Ms. Stanton, forgive me for having to ask you sensitive questions when you are obviously distraught.  But, the longer we wait, the less evidence we can collect about what happened last night.  Can you answer a couple of questions?”

             
She started to cry.  All she could think about was what had happened to her.  How she had saved herself for her entire life and how someone had put something into her drink – a coffee – and how at least seven men had raped her.  They had robbed her of something she could never get back. 

             
“What?  I’m sorry.”  She wiped away her tears, as best she could, and tried to sit up.

             
“Can you please tell me what happened last night?  How did you get to this party and do you know anyone that was there?”  She thought for a minute.  She didn’t want Sabrina or Jonathan to get in trouble, but she wasn’t going to lie, either.

             
“I have a friend who has been trying for months to convince me to go to a college party.  She wanted me to have fun.  This is the first party I’ve been to since I got to college. Sabrina – my friend – got lost at the party and I was worried about her so I stayed to find her.  A group of people I don’t know offered to help me, but it was late and they offered me some coffee – ambrosia latte to be exact – to help me wake up and then we went upstairs to look for her.  The next thing I knew, I was locked in a room and I don’t remember very much except that I was being touched all over, then I started feeling pain, but I couldn’t see much of anything because there was only a candle lit in the room…”

             
“But you didn’t know who took you into the room?  Did they attack or grab you in any way?”

             
“Well, no.  We were going upstairs to look for my friend, Sabrina…”

             
“At two in the morning?  You went alone upstairs in a strange house with several young men that you didn’t know?”

             
“Yes, but they were helping me find Sabrina…”

             
“When did you take the meth?  With them?”

             
“I DIDN”T TAKE ANY DRUGS.  All I did was drink some coffee in the kitchen with them and some other girls before we went looking for Sabrina…”

             
“So you’re telling me you had no idea that there was meth in that coffee?  That they had given you something other than coffee?”

             
“My head felt swimmy, but it was two o’clock in the morning and I was exhausted.  I thought it was just a sudden rush from the caffeine, but then I started feeling not like myself.”

             
“When was your first memory of someone touching you?”

             
“On the staircase.  One of the guys put his hand on my back.”

             
“Who was it?”

             
“I don’t know his name.”

             
The officer looked at me and his left eyebrow raised.  “You let a guy you don’t know touch your back?”

             
I frowned. 

“It wasn’t like that.  He was just walking with me up the stairs.  I thought he was being polite.”
  But, the more he spoke with her, she knew exactly what it was like.  She had been taken advantage of by a bunch of very sly, manipulative and experienced college guys who purposefully gave her a drug that would make her cooperative and probably have no sensible memory of the event. 

             
“Do you go off with people you don’t know often?”  The officer’s tone began to sound accusatory. 

             
“Officer….what’s your name?  No, I don’t.  I don’t go anywhere with anyone I don’t know.  Like I told you, this was the first time I had even been to a party.  But I was worried about my friend.  And they gave me coffee with something in it that I didn’t know about.”

             
“But do you usually accept drinks or other things from people that you don’t know?”

             
“Of course not.”

             
“But you did last night?”  He looked down and began writing in his notepad.

             
“Look.  I was gang-raped last night by people I don’t know.”  It was the first time she had actually said it.  She felt like she was in a Lifetime movie.  “THEY are the criminals.  You have their blood types, I understand. Do you have fingerprints?  There had to be something in the room – have you looked?  Shouldn’t you be interviewing people who were at that party to find out who was there after two o’clock in the morning?”

             
“
You
were there after two o’clock in the morning.”   He shook his head and said, “thank you, Ms. Stanton.  I think I have everything for right now.  I’ll be back later, OK?  If we find out anything, we’ll let you know.  I hope you start feeling better.” 

             
“But what are you going to do?”

             
He stopped and looked at her.  “Look, Jasmine.  May I call you Jasmine?  You were at a party after two in the morning.  You willingly drank coffee that was given to you and have no proof that you didn’t know about the meth in the coffee.  You invited – ASKED – for their help and they went with you.  You walked into the room and you participated in this – incident, for lack of a better, less respectful word.” 

             
They both got silent.  “There really weren’t any perpetrators.”

             
“But what about my injuries?  Doesn’t that prove assault?  It’s OK for them to hurt me and injure me in the ways that I have been violated?”

             
“But they had your permission.  You didn’t fight back.  There’s no sign of anything in the room except for your clothes off of your body and no sign of struggle except for an exceptionally erotic party.  If I were you, I’m not so sure about how much of this I would want people to know about.  I’m sure the boys are doing a great job of that for you.”

             
He left the room and I felt completely alone.  He made it clear that what had happened to me was partly my fault and he almost made it sound like I had asked for it to happen.  My body and my head really hurt and I hit the nurse’s button.

             
She came in and I asked her to speak to the doctor once more.  He came in shortly after that.  I asked him to explain exactly what my injuries were and when I could expect to leave.

He asked if the police had explained everything to me.

“Yes, I know that I was gang-raped by seven different people.  What if I catch something or get pregnant?  How am I going to know what all has happened to me?”

He explained that my rectum had been torn and I had several stitches in both my rectum and in my vagina.  He explained that my left arm had been broken in two places and would require surgery at a later date, but had been set for the time being.  I asked if I could have anything for pain
which he quickly ordered.

             
I started crying again.  “I’m in terrible pain. I know I’ve already told you that, but my body is hurting all over. The police say there’s nothing they can do because I was a willing participant. Is that what you think?  Because of that drug, which clearly took my thoughts and turned me into someone I don’t even know, does that make me a willing participant?  Isn’t there some medical reasoning that would explain how something like this could remove your reasonability?  That I did this?”

             
He shook his head.  “At this point, I can give you something to help your pain and it will help you sleep a little more soundly.  As far as what happened…they will hopefully get to the bottom of it.  We have already taken several blood tests and we’ll continue to follow up with blood tests every six months for a year or two and make sure that you didn’t catch any type of diseases and as far as pregnancy, we have you a medication called the “night after pill”.  That’s why you were bleeding a little this morning, like a heavy period.  I’m so sorry that this is how the beginning of your college experience turned out.”  He was being so kind I wanted to hug him, but at this point, I was weird about touching anyone at all.  Especially anyone I don’t know.

             
I looked at him square.  “You do believe me don’t you?  I am a victim here.  I didn’t do anything wrong here.  I was taken advantage of last night by seven criminals that need to be put behind bars.”

             
He looked down at the bed.  “Jasmine, college is a hard time.  It’s hard to stay with the academics, much less make friends and maintain a social life.  There are always animals ready to take advantage of young, naïve women like yourself, and unfortunately, there isn’t a lot that the law is able to do.  No one coerced you to drink the latte or go into that room.  It was a sexual encounter that got out of hand.  For right now, the best thing we can do is make sure you are safe, free from disease and able to move forward.  Quite frankly, when you are discharged, I would like to see you referred to a therapist for post-traumatic disorder from this incident.  Some people have a really hard time moving forward after such a traumatic incident.  Would you be willing to talk with someone?”

             
I continued to cry uncontrollably.

             
“You seem like a nice girl.  Just rest for now and try to get better and we’ll sort out the rest a little at a time, OK?”

Chapter Nine

             
The next few days were a blur.  I stayed in the hospital, going from one room to another, having X-rays, blood tests and all kinds of tests including internal exams and X-rays, only to find out that my female organs – specifically my uterus – had been badly damaged.  Once I was stable, I was being referred to a therapist and to an obstetrical specialist to try and help my body to heal.  At this rate, the doctor didn’t know if I would ever be able to have children at all. 

             
People continued to visit, many of whom I had never met, probably to meet “the girl who had the orgy with seven guys at once”.  I had become “that girl” overnight, at no my fault of my own, except that I cared about Sabrina and waited to find her.  And what had happened to her? 

             
I started having nightmares at night and all I could see were grotesque images of male body parts, in my face, my body on the floor, upside down, sideways, several people invading me at once, and the nightmares became more and more vivid until I was being given a medication to sleep at night. Some of the nightmares were nonsensical, but full of horrid, vivid faces that would wake me screaming.