Chapter 8
The screen door creaked like a loud accusing burglar alarm and Ida froze where she stood, holding her breath and waiting for the faint footsteps that would clamber down the carpeted stairway to the back door of her house and catch her red-handed.
The seconds ticked by for what seemed like an eternity, but no movement stirred from within the two-story colonial house. She listened without twitching a single aching muscle, and heard the cool morning breeze blowing a light glaze over the refreshening dew on the grass and rippling tenderly over her exhausted legs. Then slowly she inserted her secret house key in the door and opened it soundlessly.
Her bedroom was a scant few feet from the back door, and three long steps took her to the familiar safety of her private domain. Inside at last, she exhaled a long sigh of relief, then suddenly heard the ringing of three alarm clocks blaring through the early morning stillness of the house. Seven o'clock.
by some miracle she'd made it by only seconds, but now there was no time to waste and her clothes quickly flew off while she messed up her bed and pillow and grabbed her housecoat.
She heard padding feet coming down the hallway toward her door, and quickly opened it, feigning a rested yawn as her father greeted her with a cheerful grin.
"Good morning, sweetheart. You look tired-didn't you get enough sleep?"
"Oh, I got plenty of rest, Papa," she said forcing a smile.
"I hope so," he said and patted her shoulder. "Why don't you fix some coffee to wake us up and I'll get the morning paper."
"O.K." she answered, relieved that he was going to the front door and leaving her alone with her thoughts. She had fallen asleep in the terrifying dark bedroom at Shirley's, waking much later to the advancing glow of the dawning sun to find herself completely naked on the rumpled satin bedspread. Dressing quickly and quietly she had left the tormenting house and walked the ten blocks to her own home and entered only moments before.
Now she stood over an electric coffee pot trying to decide how she should tell her parents that she had been raped.
Walking home Ida had convinced herself that her father should be the one to tell first, but when she saw him standing in his checkered robe, his greying hair tangled from sleep she couldn't even begin to find the right words.
How do you tell your father that your girlfriend's father and brother raped you, she thought. How do you soften the blow, and how in God's name do you tell him the whole story ... the party, Hank, the films ... everything? It would break his heart, yet she wanted to let him know that she was an innocent victim of foolish immature emotions that had led her to believe she had been in love with Hank Campbell-that's where it all began, but how could she tell him.
It all seemed like a horrible nightmare, but the dry soreness in her aching crotch told her that it had all been real. She was a victim of circumstance, of society, of passion-but none of these could relive the lost hours of yesterday for her and change one second of the horror she had faced.
She was a victim, and at the same time, a very guilty party-guilty of self-abuse in the darkened bedroom after Rod had left her, and guilty of enjoying the two brutal rapes, not to mention her voyeurism, conditioned by marijuana-another guilt-her sensuous responses to another couple copulating on a movie screen. Too much! Just too much guilt for one victim to erase and still plead for mercy.
What could she do? Nothing-the only answer-nothing that wouldn't hurt her parents and family, herself-nothing. There was no punishment worthy of the Thompson family's crimes, certainly not from Ida's viewpoint; and there was no punishment for the evil lies that Hank had told her for more than two months, trying to make her think he loved her. God, she prayed silently. How could I have been so stupid?
"Look who's here," Ida's father chimed from behind her. "We've got a guest for breakfast."
Hank!
"Aren't you going to say good morning?" he asked, trying not to look at the liquid hate that flared in her eyes.
"Good morning"-without feeling.
"What's the matter?" her father asked, genuinely concerned. "You two have a fight?"
"Oh nothing, really," Hank grinned at him and winked. "Just a little misunderstanding that we can iron out without any sweat."
"Well, that's good-by the way, Ida, look what was propped inside the screen door," he said holding a small eight-millimeter film cannister for her inspection.
No connection clicked in her mind and she asked absently, "I wonder where it came from."
"Dunno," her father answered. "But I'm going to take it to the studio and run it through a projector-after you fix us a big breakfast, of course. Make it ham and eggs and I'll leave you two alone to talk while I get your mother out of bed and dressed."
His slippered feet slapped up the stairs, leaving a pregnant silence in the kitchen as Ida tried to prepare breakfast, completely ignoring Hank as he sipped a cup of coffee at the counter.
"Ida, I've got to talk to you," he said softly to her.
"We've got nothing to talk about."
"Look, you've got to understand-those films-I knew nothing about them until Rod told me he had taken the pictures, and for some reason-I don't know what-I didn't make him give me the pictures. Honest, you've got to believe me. I had no idea he was going to show them to the fraternity."
"So what!" she turned and glared at him. "If you really loved me, you never would have let him get away with it. You're too selfish, thinking only about what Hank Campbell can get out of anyone or anything, to ever care enough about me or anyone else!"
"That's not so, Ida-don't cry, baby ... "
"I'm not your baby, and I'll cry if I want to," she hissed and wiped her tiny tears with a napkin. 'You've said enough, so finish your coffee and get out of here."
His head hung like a shamed child's and he whispered with regretful resignation, "O.K. I just thought I might be able to make you understand, but I can see it's no use. There's only one more thing."
"What's that?"
"The film cannister your father found on the porch-I saw Rod Thompson put it there when I drove up the street. I didn't know what it was until I got to the door and your father opened the screen to let me in. I'm afraid you've had it unless you can get the film away from him."
He stared at her terrified eyes and waited for the tears to stream over her cheeks, but none came. "Thank you," she said quietly, dismissing him from her immediate presence and from her life with the soft words, then walked to her room and began to pack two suitcases with the barest essentials.
"Ida!" her father called from the hallway an hour later. "Whatever happened to our breakfast
"I'm sorry, Papa," she answered through the closed door, afraid to see his face one last time. "I don't feel well."
"I'm sorry, baby. You just get some rest and your mother and I will eat out on the way to the studio."
"Goodbye, Papa," she called to him and covered her mouth to stifle the racking sob that rose in her chest.
In a short time he would see the horrible film, and nothing she could do or say would ever convince him that she was anything less than a cheap whore. It would break his heart-she was the favorite of his four children-but it was hopeless for her to try to reinstate herself in the family after he and her mother saw the horrid obscene movies. There was nothing to do but leave her home and no one would ever learn of her nightmarish orgy of sex and pot-recorded for history on film.
"Goddamnit!" came her father's thunderous voice as she heard his pounding footsteps re-enter the house.
Her face froze in fear as she spun around to face him. "Wh ... what is it?"
"The damned hoodlums in this town! They broke into my car, right in my own driveway! Stole everything and even snatched my hub caps. The glove compartment's empty, my registration and all my papers are gone."
She looked at his hands, then saw that nothing was tucked under his arm either. Her eyes lit up.
"And the film cannister too!" he shouted. "I put it on the back seat and it's gone too! I better call the police."
Ida smiled. She knew who had ransacked the car. He wasn't such a bad guy after all. But she'd tell him that personally the next time she saw him. And she no longer had the problem of who to tell about it all first, her mother or her father.
Neither.