Glen Ransom - The experiment

"Give that bottle back to me and get dressed," Carl commanded impatiently as he took the bottle from her grip, "I'm taking you back to the dorm. We'll let that dumb bastard Pete try to figure out what happened to his car after he gets through screwing hell out of your roommate."

Picturing the bewildered look on Pete's face when he stumbled from the house to find his car sent Carl into spasms of laughter as he took a dime from his pocket to hot wire the ignition. What the hell, he reasoned, Pete and Kathy would get a lift home with someone from the party, and he could make it out as a big joke the next day. He didn't like Pete anyway and he was getting sick of all this fraternity crap and their holy Greek oaths. They could all go to hell. The only good he got from it was the cheat sheets for the exams and of course the handy file of names, identifying the easy lays from Fairmount.

On the way back Carl tormented her ceaselessly about what would happen to her if his attack on her were known. She'd be the talk of Fairmount, a freak. And Mark wouldn't even want to be seen with her anymore. People would stare at her and stories on the version of her rape would run rampant through the fraternity and sorority houses until she'd be forced to drop out of school and leave Mark. She would be the target of all the malicious gossip, not Carl. She was a woman being placed in defense of her honor, and she knew she would have none left when it was all over. Carl was right. As far as society was concerned she would be punished just as severely as him even though it was she who had been the helpless victim.

Carl pulled up to the dorm and leaned close to her ear, letting the motor idle as he popped the gear into neutral. "There could be a next time baby," he whispered lustfully, his voice barely audible over the hum of the engine.

Lisa stiffened in anger, no longer afraid of the monster sitting next to her in the car. "If you ever so much as look at me again, I'll kill you!" she hissed back at him. "Do you understand me?" her voice trembled with uncontrollable hatred. "I won't care what happens to me."

"Ah hell, get out of here you dumb broad," Carl said as he lifted his leg over her lap and kicked the door open with has foot. "You bore me."

Lisa ran from the car and up to her room, barely making it up the stairs, her tortured loins throbbing with each painful step. Later as she buried her head into her pillow to muffle the sobs racking her body she wondered if she would ever be able to erase the memory of the horrible nightmare that had befallen her tonight. She knew one thing, she could never in all her life tell Mark about what had happened. It would destroy him completely to know that someone of Carl's character had subjected her to these insuperable indignities. Much later, from exhaustion alone she fell into a deep but troubled sleep.

The huge iron bell atop the tower in the campus quad gonged ten o'clock as throngs of students criss-crossed the square on their way to class. Overhead, the Monday morning sky filled the day with a deep blueness, peculiar to the late fall season; the air was fresh here outside with a new crispness about it that made everything around seem new and exciting. But inside Miss Hendricks' office the atmosphere was like that of an old neglected library, musty and dry.

Thea Carter felt nervous and tense. She adjusted herself in the chair, making a determined effort to relax the area between her shoulder blades as she talked to Miss Hendricks about the accident.

"It all happened so suddenly that the funeral arrangements have already been set for Lisa's parents. The most difficult thing I face right now is breaking the news to her, and as her aunt, I'm here to see that she is spared as much shock as possible. In the mean time, I've made plans to take her back home until she is ready to return to school again." Thea paused and brought her right hand to her eyes in a gesture of despair. "I can still see the horrible mutilated bodies at the morgue when they called me in for the identification… They said their car lost control on a curve, hitting the stone pillar of the bridge." She brought her eyes back to face Miss Hendricks, "They were both killed instantly."

"Try not to dwell on the past," Miss Hendricks gently interrupted, "let me go get Lisa. You can talk to her in privacy here in my office while I make arrangements to temporarily check her out of her classes." She started to make her way for the door then hesitated and placed an understanding hand on Thea's shoulder in sympathetic condolence. "Is there anything I can get for you before I go get Lisa? You look exhausted."

"No, I'm fine… really. I guess I'm still not over the shock of the news yet," she responded as the older woman left the room.

Thea stood up and stretched her legs as the door closed behind her. Smiling a little, she moved to one of the tall narrow windows that framed the background behind Miss Hendricks' desk. At thirty-nine, Thea Carter was still a beautiful woman, as she had been a lovely girl. One large flaw, however, was the hard determined line of her mouth, unfeminine and bold. But Thea prided herself on being hard headed and it would be a necessity now if she were to carry out her plan successfully.

She had never married, though she had loved once. She could remember years back to the time when Lisa's father used to constantly badger her about finding a husband and settling down, but Thea had other plans. She spent most of her time caring for her invalid father, planning on the day when she would inherit the family estate. She had never been highly sexed to begin with. Men were not a necessity to her, at best they were unreliable, at worst devouring parasites sucking your emotions dry. The one affair she had been involved in had ended when her lover left her with a casual indifference. After that she avoided emotional situations of any kind, remembering the devastating breakdown she had suffered when he was gone. Gradually, slowly and steadily she lost her capacity for love or compassion. Although she had a few scattered sexual experiences, she had never had an orgasm, and if at times she felt a vague restlessness within her womb, she told herself sharply that it was not hunger for sex, but probably a nervous condition brought on by the deep sense of insecurity she had felt since her father's death.

On that bleak day when the will was read certifying that all the estate was to go to her brother with some money held in trust for her, she had completely lost control of herself. She could remember, even now, stumbling from the room in shocked disbelief thinking of all those years she had cared for her father. A man that was selfish and senile before death. A man she had grown to hate and despise. Perhaps he sensed her feelings through his withering mind for he stated in his will that her brother, who had done nothing for him, would control the estate… doling her out a meager allowance to live on until death.

"That ingrate! I hope that bastard knows he's rotting in the grave," she shrilled at her brother when he followed her from the lawyer's office into the hallway. Then she had burst into hysterical sobbing as she started to run to her car in the driveway. He ran after her and caught up with her at the front door, grabbing her by the shoulders and shaking her back and forth with his fingers digging deeply in her arms.

"Control yourself, for God's sake, Thea. Those people back there heard everything you said."

"For God's sake, hell," she sputtered back at him, "for your sake. Isn't that what you mean. For your sake… you're always so worried about the family image."

His face grew white with rage and his steel gray eyes smoldered threateningly down at her. She thought for a moment he was going to strike her.

"You've embarrassed me and my wife beyond belief with your unbelievable raving."