Foreign Affair

“You call me, you deserve better.” Then he left, his mind still dazed by what he had just witnessed.

“Room service.” Sara went to open the door, Jose must have ordered her something to eat.

“Thank you.” Sara told the young man to place the tray on the table. He handed her the receipt to sign. She felt her hands shake and her eyes swelled with tears, as she signed Mrs. Van Dyne. She remembered the hours she spent at home in her room writing the name over and over until it looked respectable. She figured any wife of a college professor should have wonderful handwriting.

Sara left the food where it sat and climbed back on the bed. She was enjoying the trip back to the past. The memories helped her feel closer to David.

She recalled the first time she called him, her nose was surely broken this time and there was a stabbing pain in her chest every time she took a breath.

Her father received word he was losing the restaurant. His accountant told him there was nothing he could do. He had to file bankruptcy. Unfortunately, Sara had been working that day when her father’s world had come to a close.

By some miracle she made it to a phone booth a quarter mile from the restaurant. It was a crisp March night and the streets were congested with youths in their parent’s cars. The ebony darkness shielded her from the passing automobiles. Her lemon-colored uniform was now blemished with splattered blood from her nose and mouth. Her entire body throbbed with pain as she searched for a phone booth.

She would stop every few seconds to relieve the discomfort each step inflicted. She had never felt so helpless and desperate. Maybe because her father had never beaten her this badly before or because this time her father did more than just beat her--for that night he had forced himself on her. This time he raped his youngest daughter on the floor of his now failed business.

Maybe it was his way of taking back the control he felt life had taken away from him so unfairly. It was funny how she always found a reasonable explanation for why people hurt her. How she always seemed to blame herself.

The haunting memory ripped through her mind, like it was happening all over again. The rape resurfaced with all its overwhelming torment and shame of that day.

Feeling chilled and frightened, she curled up in the blankets and closed her eyes and proceeded with the painful reconstruction of her past.

Her feeble body lay pinned by his oversized girth and vengeance. The oxygen was being pressed from her lungs as he forced himself into her. The blood from her broken nose began to pool in her throat, causing her to choke and gasp.

She could remember vividly how she felt then, death by that time would have been acceptable. But each time she asked God to bring her to him her lungs received a brief dispense of life-giving oxygen. It was just enough to keep her conscious. Her heart now palpitated as it fought to keep the supply of blood flowing to the damaged vessels in her body. The absence of oxygen now brought on dizziness and a sensation of descending gradually into another world.

She now felt a sense of peace and an overwhelming feeling of disembodied transcendence. It was as if her soul had left her molested flesh.

Deep inside her there was a cry, a cry only God could hear. Would her cry be in vain, she asked. The humiliation and shame swallowed her as her father’s hideous face emerged.