Richard stayed quiet for a moment. Gathering his thoughts? Rehearsing his lies? Here’s what he said:
“Look, I know this is going to sound crazy, I know, but just…just listen. Last night…that…it was Meghan’s fault! She did this, I know she did.”
Ah, so the plot thickens, I thought to myself.
“Who’s Meghan?” I asked.
“Meghan is–was–my girlfriend. She found me after my psych 301 class yesterday and started screaming at me for cheating on her with someone else.”
“And were you?”
He waffled, before finally nodding, and kept talking, “Look, it was…an accident. But she told me, then, that she was going to get me back. She’d always been bragging that she came from this line of witches or something, and how she’s an expert at curses. This has to be what happened to me, it has to. I can’t think of any…any other reason why that would happen. Why they’d do that to me. Why I’d…change like that, like this,” he said, grabbing his hefty gut and giving it a jiggle. For some reason, watching him do that…I felt a tingle in my crotch, but I did my best to ignore it.
“Alright, and what exactly did they do to you? Your frat brothers, I mean. You were a member of the fraternity in question, right?”
Richard nodded. The two of us looked at each other, a bit doubtful, and he must have seen what we were thinking. “Look, I know…how I look right now, alright? But I didn’t look like this yesterday. I was buff, hell, I was one of the school’s football stars.”
“I don’t remember a Richard being announced at any of the games I’ve gone to,” I said.
“No, I mean, that’s all part of it. Look, I just…I just don’t want to sound like a crazy person.”
“And the two of us, we want to believe you, Richard,” Walker said, leaning over the table a bit, “But if we’re going to be able to help you, we have to understand what happened, and we’re going to need you to give us as much detail as possible,” I saw my partner’s…nose flare, suddenly. I don’t know why I noticed it at the time, but he seemed…eager, somehow. He always gets that way though, when he thinks he’s caught someone in a lie, but that just seemed so much more…hungry.
“I was…Meghan left me standing there in the hallway, and I went back to the frat house. Everything was fine that whole afternoon. The guys were all normal, I mean. Nothing changed until after dinner that evening, when I got back from the dining hall. Some of the guys were already drinking–I mean, we all drink on Friday, so that wasn’t strange, but…but some of the guys kept…giving me this strange look.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean…they were looking at me, like I’d see them look at the sorority girls at our parties. I saw them looking at me like…like they wanted me. It was really weird, but they wanted me to drink with them, but after one beer I was already blasted. Marco…I think he might have drugged it, I know he has a stash of roofies in his room–and they started yanking my clothes off me. I punched…one of them, and they…they tied me down, over the table, and they started…”
The waterworks were flowing again, but at that point, I have to be honest, neither of us were buying it, but he wasn’t likely to give us a straight story–besides, something else had been bugging me. “So they tied you down. This morning you must have still been tied up, so how did you escape this morning, when you couldn’t all last night? I also don’t see any rope burn on your wrists, which we usually see from someone struggling.”
He was quiet–guilty quiet. “That’s…that’s the worst part. I didn’t want to tell you, not yet. I mean, at first, I didn’t want them to do it, I mean, I was fighting them, but for some reason, I…I started to enjoy it. When…when they untied me, so they could…could use my…mouth, I didn’t even run. I didn’t want to have sex with them, but I also couldn’t…stop myself. I just felt like…like such a pig! I didn’t even notice it happening at the time, but when I woke up today, and I…I was fat, somehow. I mean, yesterday I was a star football player, and now I look like I haven’t worked out a day in my life! How does something like that even happen?”
Easy answer–it doesn’t.
“Alright, so…you enjoyed it?” Walker asked.
“I don’t…I mean, I’m straight! I’m not gay. I didn’t want to like it, but it was like something in my head wouldn’t let me say no.”
“So you never said no?”
“No! I said no at first, but then, I…” he looked at each of us, and the look in his eyes–it’s that first moment they realize they’ve been caught. “I should go,” he said quickly, “I think I need to get out of here.”
He stood up, but I positioned myself between him in the door, “No, why don’t you go ahead and sit back down. We need to sort out what exactly happened last night, I think.” I stepped closer to him, and…and something shivered in me, some strange…desire. I couldn’t even really process it, but I shoved him back into his seat. I wanted answers, and this pig wasn’t going anywhere until I got them.
Bracken's Corner 