Warning: Discretion is highly advised for this chapter. Rape, mentions of ableism, and underage compliant victimization. Although these don't go into great detail, if these things trigger you, I implore you to skip to the next chapter. Moving forward, per the chapter one preface, the non-consensual element will reoccur with increasing violence/detail. Warnings will continue to be given where necessary. Please take care of your well-being and stop reading if needed.

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DATE UNKNOWN | LOCATION UNKNOWN
The interaction with the woman left Spencer disturbed for hours into the following day. The vivid dream he had of that conversation with Maeve had done nothing to disquiet his thoughts but had rather filled him with an ache and a sense of dread.

That dread pooled in his belly as he thought over her words. He was failing on his end with manipulating his captors. He was losing himself to them.

He shrank back at the woman's every touch in the passing hours—when he was bathed, when he was fed and taken to the bathroom, and on his last bathroom excursion of the day. He couldn't sleep for hours after he was turned down to his right side.

The following morning, he awoke groggy and further withdrew into himself, and the woman noticed. Under the guise of still feeling unwell, no conversation was entertained. She fed him, kissed him, and left him to his devices.

Merely an hour after being fed again and taken on his second bathroom excursion, his stomach pinched. He'd been fed little this evening—a mere couple of sips of thick, delicious soup was all he was given before the woman took it away from him. He thought it might be punishment for some oversight, but he was reassured that such wasn't the case.

'That's enough for now,' he'd been told. 'Just to boost your energy.'

He didn't believe it. It was more punishment for rejecting her, he was sure. And not that he was starving, but he was accustomed now to having his belly full. He would have enjoyed more of it.

So he was lying on his back in the bed, fingers interlaced, ankles crossed and leaning against the corner walls, thinking. Thinking, thinking, thinking.

The air shifted.

Halfway into turning from his comfortable position, a hand fell upon him, gripped his sweater at the chest, and he was roughly pulled to sitting. It was the man. He wrung his hands, fearful of saying anything, for though he didn't smell alcohol on him, there was a tense electricity sparking the air that he couldn't explain.

A hand curled on his shoulder and twisted him to face the wall upon the bed, legs curled beneath him. The bed dipped from the man's weight, and his hands were wrestled in front of him. The chains' length was shortened, cuffs pressed together and locked to each other. Despite its fruitlessness, he tugged. A tremulous, anxious breath petered out, and his shoulders began to quake.

This was another break in the pattern of their behavior.

The weight lifted off the bed. As his hair was gripped and his blinded gaze was tilted upward, he tipped from the imbalance and had to shift back. He stretched his mouth with clenched teeth and a hiss, he lifted his hands to assuage the pain, but his arms stopped short in front of him, the chain gone taut.

And then something cool and smooth like glass was pressed against his bottom lip and tapped three times, urging him to drink.

He didn't unhinge his jaw but rather tilted his head away. Its scent was undeniably that of beer. Nothing good could come from urging one's victim to imbibe.

His hair was released, and his back was pressed to the man's chest as a spider-like, muscular hand clamped over his face, covering his nose. He gasped and the bottle was shoved into his mouth, the glass knocking at his teeth before hitting his hard palate. The body pressed against him, flush against his back, and his hair was gripped again as the beer was forced upon him. He sputtered, coughed, wheezed as it guzzled down his throat, splashing on his face and neck when he whipped from side to side to relieve himself of it. It went up his sinus and gushed from his nose.

He gasped, shuddered, breathed when the empty bottle was pulled from his mouth, clipping his teeth.

"Please," he voiced despite himself. He could do nothing with his hands. "What's this? What are yo—"

Another bottle of beer mashed against his mouth—teeth cutting into his inner lip—jutted against his palate again. It was on his face, in his hair, on his sweater, on the sheets, as he was forced to finish it all. When two fingers—the man's pinched forefinger and thumb—pressed against his lips and something small—what felt like a mere piece of a petite medicinal tablet—was scratched and forced into his mouth and then a third bottle was pressed at him, he twisted and jerked his whole body. His resistance was futile—his voiced objections ignored—as the hand moved from hair to nostrils, leaving him with no choice but to open his mouth and drink as another tablet was pressed to his lips and downed with the alcohol.

He knew. He knew well what this was to become.

'And then he would lower my inhibition with Helgeson wine.'

Derek . . .

He mewled.

The bottle was pulled away, and the hand covered his mouth to ensure he swallowed it all. He was left afterwards gaping through his swelling mouth. A towel was wiped with no delicacy over his face, cleaning it of the mucus and beer.

He was then wrenched from the bed by the clothes on his back. The links of the chain stretched his arms across the mattress as he was made to kneel on his haunches in front of the bed as if in obeisance—

'He called it his Jesus juice.'

—right cheek pressed against the edge of the mattress by habit. His right ankle was cuffed, and—testing it—he could barely move it except to kick it back or to shift it to his right. The cuff of his left ankle was jostled, too, and he resisted the urge to drive it behind him. Whatever was about to happen would happen; his retaliation might only serve to enrage the man.

With a tug, he noted that it was also tautened—to the leg of the foot frame it was chained. His knees and ankles could press together as he sat on his haunches, but he was otherwise immobilized. The only way he would be able to move now would be to stand, bend further over the bed, or spread his legs; it would be awkward, leaving him stooped over like a quadruped at best or inviting his captor to assault him at worst.

So his knees dug into the ground—

Noah's knees were also heavily abraded—another potential indicator of sexual assault.

—and he shook in trepidation. Maybe this wasn't going to happen. Maybe he was going to be whipped again with the belt as had been done to him days ago. Maybe he was overreacting. He couldn't—he couldn't—this wasn't going to happen.

And yet. He had done nothing wrong, nothing at all to warrant being whipped. His hands, limited in motion as they were, began to move over the sheets. "I haven't done anything. What is this? What have I done?"

As feared, his shirt was edged up and wedged between himself and the mattress, and then his sweatpants and boxers were both ripped down and scrunched below his folded knees.

"Oh god. Oh no, god, please . . ." He trembled, stomach quivering at the upcoming pain—of the lashing, of the rape, of whichever. He couldn't take another lashing like he'd endured, but it would be preferable. Let the man whip him. Let it be just that.

Days ago, he'd wished the rape would just happen so it could be over with, but in the face of its absolute imminence now, he was terrified.

Consuming this much alcohol on a near empty stomach was also worrisome: it seemed that underfeeding him had been deliberate, as the alcohol would metabolize faster, and he would feel its effects sooner and with greater potency. They weren't to know that he no longer drank; his tolerance for alcohol was low. These people took away his sobriety from drugs. Now, they took away his choice to avoid alcohol. Thinking about the unfairness of it all caused his eyes to prickle.

What were the drugs he'd been given? It left a vaguely familiar bitter taste behind.

Filled with ever-building anxiety and terror, he tugged again on the cuffs at his wrists despite knowing he couldn't free himself.

He had started experiencing the terribly euphoric buzz of the alcohol soon after consuming it, but it wasn't long before he became flush and tired.

For five, ten, fifteen minutes, nothing happened with his captor, and he knelt with his numbing, tautened arms, shifting his weight to alleviate the pressure on his knees, head unmoving upon the bed. But then a sharp headache followed by dizziness, nausea, and a strange medley of drowsy, antsy, irritable, and heated made him overall uncomfortable while a tingling sensation crawled from his chest to his stomach. He was overcome with shivers. None of this felt normal for being tipsy—or his version of tipsiness back when he used to drink—and he attributed this to the mixture of the alcohol and whatever drugs he'd been given.

"Mm'pl'se," he slurred, head lolling. He swallowed, breathed, untwisted his tongue. "Please, I . . ." He then hummed, unable to align his thoughts. "What've I . . . what's . . ."

He couldn't tell if he'd been left on his own. At one point he tried to lift himself up to at least standing on his knees to alleviate the pull, but a hand pressed down between his shoulder blades, and he was made to return to the kneeling position. His heart clamored in his chest.

He'd been watched this whole time. And from then on, the hand remained. He shifted under its warmth in the passing minutes.

Without warning, his face was grabbed and squeezed, and he gave an aborted cry from the strength of the grip. The calloused hands squeezed so harshly that he nearly vocalized a plea for the man to release him as his neck was twisted. He had to bite his lip to prevent the barrage of words, and his breaths whisked from his flared nostrils.

Warm puffs of air fell onto his face and—though he hadn't smelled it before—he could now smell alcohol on the man's breath, as if he, too, had consumed the same beer that had been forced into him. He was being spoken to—yelled at judging by the small spray of spittle landing on his scrunching face.

There was nothing else, then, no preamble: he was pushed forward so that his whole torso was atop the bed as he was made to stand on his knees, his body tensed in anticipation of that first strike across his exposed flesh. He nearly prayed for it.

Ten lashes and five. And five and five and

But when the man shifted and knelt behind him—the fabric of coarse jeans astride his naked knees and caging his legs, the body behind him pressing ever closer—painful surrender came over him in the fraction of a moment before two calloused, rough hands cupped his clenched buttocks and the thumbs dug into his cleft to wrench the muscles apart.

The heat that had swelled in him seemed to vaporize. He tried to lift his head. He couldn't capitulate.

"Don't do th—"

An indelicate press, a forceful push, and Spencer was breached. He tried to buck further forward and bleated—a loud and broken sound like that of a wounded and dying animal—as he was then wrenched backward and down to be fully seated into the lap of his rapist in one swift motion. He cried out again.

The pain and roughness, the initial brutal friction, and the immediate rending seared within. He was burdened, gored, impaled with a profound heaviness, and arms bore him down to keep him anchored.

The pungency of foreign sweat and leather were so strongly mixed with the beer that he could taste it all. And soon, a wetness seeped from the nexus of his pain as he tried again to leverage himself away, fingers skimming over the fabric, bent knees shifting and scratching.

He could barely fist his hands into the fabric, and his shoulders ached. If he could but tug himself forward, he could—

For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. Action. Reaction. Force transference. Tension force. Tension always acts opposite to the force applied—

His arms shook as he tried to leverage himself away. In return, the muscles in the arms that were snaked around him constricted.

Tension force. Tug of war. Tension—tension—opposite—please, work, please, please—

"—please, please, god, please—"

His jaws were clenched with a force that might crack his teeth. But the excruciating pain then settled into an uncomfortable, relentless, colonic pressure that pulsed and stretched as a confounding, unhurried rhythm was set.

He found his mind retreating—not to any state that brought him to a place of safety, but instead through rushing cascades of dreadful and disconcerting memories that he'd tried avoiding for months.

Lila Archer wasn't Spencer's first kiss, but his second. Diane Turner was his third, and it along with Maeve's murder undid him. But his first was when he was in college.

As a little child, Spencer's first, fully comprehensive book about human biology and anatomy was a rare, leather-bound British version of Gray's Anatomy, which he began reading at age four the summer before he began first grade. He was unaware of the owl eyes that followed him as he wheeled the large hard-cover brown book among many others from the bookstore using a small, red wagon, walking through the streets and to the park. He and his accompanying mother stopped there to play chess and to go on the swings as he taught her—again—about oscillation with whispers in her ear that she abided.

The book was one of the older published editions—sold beyond its original value due to its vintage nature, despite its crackling, frayed edges. It was leisure reading for him, but he devoured its thin, yellowed pages, small text, and rich illustrations in three weeks.

He touched and poked his small body in various places and used mirrors, comparing himself to what was in the book, trying to view his inner organs, sinews, and veins beyond the flesh that covered them. Or his parents laughed and let him play with their hands or toes so he could count the phalanges and confirm that they were all there; with a flashlight he peered into their ears, noses, and mouths to assess if they were whole.

The book ended with the reproductive organs. Naturally, he progressed to reading additional books on human reproduction, which in turn branched into interest in cellular biology.

He never had to ask his parents how babies were made, or how boys differed from girls. At school, he was scolded and put in time out when one of his first outspoken words were a mini-lecture to correct a fellow student who was now a big brother. He told the boy how his baby sister was really made and the detailed process that involved her parents with a Did-you-know, thus disenchanting him—and other mouth-agape boys and girls—of the charming stories of cranes, bees, or any other flying creatures. They tattled on him for his potty mouth.

His parents later explained to him why he couldn't always share what he read with his peers, and he cried, hurt. Why didn't they want to know?

The knowledge lingered, though, and he moved on to other studies. The school advanced him three grades—from first to fourth—which wasn't enough, but which his parents abided. Both were opposed to private school, as the closest one with an accelerated program that could meet his needs was out of state. Besides, they'd already just moved earlier that summer.

Cellular biology had progressed to biochemistry, which branched to other interests. He was always fascinated academically by the human body.

A year after he began high school, when he was now eleven, he was lured to see the prettiest girl in the whole school—a girl six years older than him. He was ambushed, stripped naked in front of a throng of students and the football team, and tied to a goal post. He had left the following detail out when he had recounted the event to Derek: the intense fear during the bullying caused him to tumesce, and he had to bend his knees to his chest to prevent his peers from seeing.

He knew human anatomy. He knew what it was and knew that this was physiologically sound. But it was the first time it had ever happened to him.

The effects of it and the fear besides were crippling. His brain puttered and he was unable to breathe, ill to the point of vomiting. It went away eventually—after they'd left in boredom when he could no longer speak, could no longer beg them to stop or to let him go, when all he could do was beat his head against the pole he was tied to, and after he'd urinated on himself, which they did see and which caused him to cry from the painful burning.

No one helped him. No one saved him.

He freed himself hours beyond sunset—after nightfall and after a sudden rainfall cleared—put on his wet clothes, and got home near midnight. His mother was having one of her episodes—oblivious to his late arrival—and he had to make sure she went to bed without being violent, which she was.

The hands that had ripped his clothes away and tied him down, his physical arousal despite the intense fear, the public urination, the jeering words, the laughter, the blistering heat of the sun that crested above before clouds blanketed the sky and it began to pour—it all caused Spencer to descend into severe bouts of self-stimulating behavior in the following days.

He rocked, scratched, rubbed his hands on his ribbed corduroy pants, rubbed his feet together, paced, bit his nails, rearranged his knight soldiers on his desk and shelves, and took apart and reconfigured his puzzles and human anatomy figurines. None of these were able to assuage him or make him forget the vivid memories. It took almost two weeks for the comforting motions and the brainless monotony of repetition to phase away—for him to fully find his voice again—and those days were punctuated by jeers from his classmates and schoolmates who then labeled him as a retard and a spaz and many other things when he was unable to quell some of these repetitive motions even at school.

It was also during those two weeks that—unable to concentrate on his tasks—he received his first in a series of C-letter grades during testing and marks against him for incomplete homework assignments. He had a mother and a livelihood to protect and knew his behavior might attract the attention of his teachers or guidance counselor and therefore the Child Protective Services. He spoke only when necessary—and with much difficulty—his voice but a whisper, waiting until he could find a quiet hallway or waiting until he went home to fulfill his absolute need to rub, rock, or pace.

After the anxiety dissipated to a numb aftershock wherein he accepted what had occurred, he sought to create and fulfill various extra credit assignments to bring his grades back up. The memory of this—seeking extra credit to overcompensate for his problems at home and at school—would later facilitate a break in a case.

Over a year later—and as a better-established senior—he was handed a note from a girl that never made fun of him and who was congenial to him whenever they spoke, which wasn't often. He developed inexplicable feelings for her. He was twelve, and she was eighteen.

Despite his eidetic memory, he read the note multiple times before he gathered the courage to meet her the next day after school, as instructed in the note. She professed that he was cute, and that she wanted to meet him at the bleachers but would only do so if he put on a blindfold when he arrived. Again, she was nice to him; there was no reason for him to distrust her.

She arrived and called out his name; he—blindfolded as told—perked to attention.

After she said a few words—'Have you started growing any hair yet? Let me see. I'll let you feel my boobs if you let me see your chest.'—her hands were on him. She began to unbutton his shirt, which he was uncomfortable with and which he asked her not to do. She removed it, and as he reached for his blindfold in discomfort, that was when he heard the laughter. His own peers of the senior class, nearly all of them, were there to mock him.

Again, the rocking, pacing, rubbing, repetition, the disappearing voice, the drop in his grades.

As he continued to go through the graduating stages of puberty while in his early college years, he became more ill at the manifestations of his physical maturity—to the point where he came to associate his nausea and acute anxiety directly with his rare but present partial-erections. The memories attached to the goalpost-tying and blindfolding events never left him. There was no enthusiasm at all that he was a man by any societal standards. There was only shame, humiliation, and anxiety.

He never became fully erect when he was in his unwelcomed states of arousal or when he would wake in the mornings to find that he was turgid, and he knew that that wasn't normal either, even when he then tried experimenting. It terrified him. Confounded as to what it meant, he had the awareness that his previous reactions to a normally maturing body were abnormal, and he knew that this was equally as abnormal. He thought himself broken.

He could never ask his mother why this was so, and he didn't have a father by this time to give him any guidance.

Yet, on a primal level, he sometimes yearned for intimate physical—not sexual—proximity as he grew older, for the camaraderie he saw his peers enjoying. He thought he might have been able to find his place among his intellectual peers at Caltech, but the disparity in age and—more importantly—the code of conduct regarding minors was so strict that it all built a wall. He was more equal to these people in intellect, but socially, he was almost as isolated as he had been in high school.

That besides, he feared that he would be pressured to conform to the societal norm of engaging in a more kinetic intimacy—having sex—and that he would fail to perform to standard. He would be mocked, and he couldn't face that kind of humiliation. He had no obsession with sex—he wasn't averse to it or the idea of it—but his past indifference and purely academic views morphed into fear and anxiety. He didn't pursue dating and spent most of his time in the library or in the labs pursuing more important things, namely his studies.

Besides, there wasn't anyone of his peers who he could date at his age.

He admitted the no dating part to a fellow chemistry major one day when a harmless conversation came up, and also admitted that he'd never been kissed. She was someone who he'd come to respect in the field for her incisiveness and who he became comfortable with over the two years he knew her.

Despite the Caltech rules of conduct regarding interactions with minors and despite the honor code, she seemed to skirt around them, and he'd been blind to her techniques, whether—in later retrospection—it was pure naiveté or it was because he was starved of that interaction and missed his own mother's doting affection. Or both.

About a year before, at barely fifteen, this student had helped him with a domestic issue that he refused to inform his counselor of. Had his counselor found out about it, she would have been obligated to address it, and CPS might have become involved.

Wanting to avoid this, he'd found this student's number in the phonebook, called her, and begged for her discretion and for her assistance due to her specific skill set. They had multiple classes together for two semesters; he felt he could trust her.

They had both been discreet about it, meeting at a Starbucks miles away. It was where she got him his first coffee. Together, they travelled to Las Vegas. He had often overheard her telling other peers how adept she had been in creating fake IDs in little time. This was where he needed her.

The previous evening, he'd pretended to be his aunt, Ethel, who was out of the country and checking in on her sister, Diana. He—Ethel, that was—hadn't heard from his mother in over a day and was worried, so he called local police to check on her. A budding detective took on the task and assured him—Ethel—that he would check on the home. He found her, but not at the home, and she was being kept in protective custody.

Ethel would be sending her daughter, Cassandra, to fetch her aunt. She would be accompanied by her cousin, Spencer, who had been away at school in a neighboring state.

Spencer's schoolmate pretended to be that non-existent cousin to get his mother from that protective custody, where she was kept after having been found wandering the streets of Las Vegas in nothing but slippers, pajamas, and a night robe.

He didn't know how they'd gotten away with it and was sure that the detective who looked at their identifications would see through them, but for the flick of a glance in Spencer's direction and a sigh, the detective apparently bought it.

She travelled back to California by herself, and Spencer by bus as soon as his mother was situated back home. Before she left, though, she handed him a few pamphlets the detective handling this case had given her.

"This Detective Hyde guy gave these to me so that I could consider discussing with my family the possibility of having my aunt placed in a local mental facility."

Spencer took them, numbed.

"By the way, you can trust me to be discreet about this, Spencer. I won't tell anyone."

He was grateful.

In the ensuing months, in taking many of the same courses, he and this student developed a familiarity. She even made him two fake IDs, the second of which he used just a few years later when he was eighteen.

She ruffled his hair or gave his shoulder a squeeze when no one saw; she said Oh Spencer, you're adorable when he seemed not to understand a breach of proper social etiquette or when he didn't understand a social norm.

After an article was published about him having graduated with a baccalaureate at sixteen—the first of a few—she praised him: "You're really special, Spencer. I don't doubt you're gonna do amazing things."

She asked him a few times how his mother was doing, and while he was cautious of that, he was also grateful.

When she became a teacher's assistant, she informed him of the slip of a decimal point that resulted in inaccurate data in one of his reports. He wasn't a great typist.

"I don't do this just for anyone, Spencer," she started, "but I'm gonna do you a huge favor."

She preemptively raised the grade from a 79.7 to an eighty to help him maintain his impeccable GPA: "Godfrey doesn't curve; you know this. I have to file this in three days. Resubmit your essay to me so that I can switch this mess out. You can deal with one B grade, but the C will hurt you. You can trust me to be discreet about this, Spencer. I won't tell anyone. It's ours to know."

He was grateful.

At that time, she also had the keys to the labs and on a few occasions let him slip in to see how an experiment was progressing so he could pen the data. She made sure to stay until he was done, unequivocally disallowing him to do anything that involved chemicals or potential combustibles of any sort despite his begging. He was to begin working on his doctorates this semester and had also begun work as a research assistant, but staff restricted his access to certain parts of the lab due to his age and due to the legalities involved, and he wasn't allowed to be there on his own, thus sneaking in with her, and thus why she couldn't let him do any experiments that might cause him to get hurt or destroy equipment.

"You can't tell anyone about this. I won't either—it's ours to know. If something happens, we might both get into trouble. They might open up an incident report and realize that this goes as far back as when I helped you with that mom problem. I'd have to tell them, and they'd find out about her. That could be problematic for you. You don't want them to find out about that, do you?"

He didn't, and he was grateful.

So, yes, he was convinced that she had his back multiple times.

On the fifth occasion of going through an experiment at the late hour in the lab, she went on about how she'd covered a kissing booth during the weekend for her family's fundraiser.

"What an asinine cause," she complained. And then she claimed that she didn't care about kissing multiple people—that wasn't a thing that bothered her at all. She herself stated multiple times that—anthropologically speaking—exclusive dating and monogamy were modern conventions that would be the eventual end of the human species. It was the actual cause for the kissing booth that grated at her.

"I'm neutral about the subject," Spencer responded evenly, readying the microscope for a new slide. "But I wouldn't really know." He finally looked at her, and—without changing his dry expression, lips straightened to a thin line—he stated, "I've never dated, let alone been kissed."

She barked in laughter, neared him, then pecked him right on the lips. In his shock, he almost crushed the microscope slide he was delicately holding.

He was two months shy of seventeen and she was 21; it was his first kiss.

He grew curious after, as it hadn't made him feel anxious, perhaps due to its suddenness and innocuity. Or maybe it was because he knew her well and was comfortable around her. Or—better yet—maybe he was fixed, better now, and if so, he'd just never quite noticed because he became so engrossed with his education and research.

So, naturally, he wanted to know what he could tolerate, and of course this required research, testing, experimenting.

A few days later, he called her and declared to her, "I'm curious about collecting some data on my physiological reaction to osculation." It was a safe place for him to start. "I'm also curious to know if this is something else in which I might gain proficiency."

He wasn't sure how to go about it, as he needed a constant subject to work along with, because he wanted to track data on their end as well.

"Obvious," she said. "Study it over a three-week period like you do with all of your new experiences. Isn't that how you're such a coffee aficionado now?"

It was indeed how he became so good at telling coffees apart: based on region; the light, medium, dark, or extra dark roasts; freshly ground, shelved ground, or instant coffees; the nuances of how it was brewed; the varying types of coffee drinks from an americano to café au lait, from iced coffee to Frappuccino; decaf—Yuck—to caffeinated. From his first taste of the astringent liquid and the amazing jolt it gave him, he had been purely addicted.

He learned it in a three-week span, yes, and had paid for it dearly most nights when he was sitting on a toilet bowl and making a mess, or urinating almost every hour, regardless of his high school training. Despite its initial adverse effects on him, he loved it; maybe the same would be so for kissing.

And so, yes, he thought it a fine idea.

It still raised the issue of having a like-minded peer who he could create data with or practice with. He mentioned that to her.

"Well, you trust me, right? I'll do it with you. For science!"

He realized years later that she'd been caustic. Sarcasm was a thing he'd never learned to read well on others, and it was lost on him when he was speaking on the phone.

But at that time, he thought that a fine idea, too. She was a like-minded scientist, and this was purely for research. Besides, she had, after all, let him try his first Irish coffee just a couple of weeks ago (which she'd told him to be discreet about, too, since it was theirs to know).

So, taking to the task, he wrote an opening hypothesis, created charts to fill in, and—thinking himself clever—penned a contract that she willingly signed days later. He didn't understand why she laughed as she did, but it became clearer years later.

Over the course of the next three weeks, they met far away from campus—'Because,' she'd said, 'it's probably better that your research be kept under wraps for a little while. It's a little unconventional and unorthodox.'

Unconventional, yes, and a bit transgressive, too; it was positively exciting. He wouldn't say that he was a rule-breaker, but he sometimes liked seeing how far he could push the tolerance of certain boundaries, like doing sleight of hand tricks during his exams and seeing if he could get caught. This one pushed beyond his own comfort, and he was curious what he might discover.

They took on a direct approach, wherein she would correct and guide him as he fumbled at the task in the beginning. So they kissed and she provided proper guidance:

"In a partnership, Spencer, whether it's an established relationship or a precursor to ease into a one-nighter, kissing can really belie the intent of your partner. It's formative. Obviously you can become so adept at it that you can lie successfully. But. If you want to kiss someone or at least convey that you're willingly participating, you won't lean away from it like you just did when I leaned forward. You'll lean into it. Meeting halfway or even pushing yourself into their space shows that you want this, that you're into them. That's your first and most important rule about kissing," she said on the first day.

So he leaned into it.

"Definitely don't purse your lips like that. Very unattractive," she added, laughing.

"Oh, I'm sorry," he apologized. "Please don't laugh at me."

"I recommend not keeping your eyes open except for an occasional glance," she said on the second day. "Otherwise it's creepy and awkward. Some people find it untrustworthy. It doesn't show that you're being swept into it at the moment. Of course, this isn't a hard and fast rule, so communication in your partnership is key."

He would pause to write things down in his preliminary graphs and charts when she told him what people did and didn't do when kissing, and sometimes it would make her huff.

"No talking while kissing. If you want to talk to your partner, you should pull away," she said the third day. "Watch out for your teeth. It's better to keep your mouth slightly ajar," she warned.

"You should use your tongue," she said the next day.

"Like this?"

After the kiss: "Just like that, yeah. Yes, yes. Good."

"Don't lock your lips, move them," she said another day. "Think of . . . Ah! Think Latin. You like thinking."

"You can grab my hair; people often do that," she said another day.

"Like this?"

After the motion: "Mm. Yep, just like that. Good."

"It's okay to touch my face and cup it in your hands; some people like that," she said another day.

"You can hold my hands when we kiss; I like that," she said another day.

"You can kiss other places, too; I love that," she sighed another day.

To this he balked. "I'm not sure if . . ."

"Don't worry that it's not my mouth; you don't have to like it; you'll have to think about your partner too. Think of what you can give. It's all for science. You like that," she convinced him. "And you'll learn to like the other things besides."

"Here?"

After the kiss: "Mm, yes. Try to use your tongue. Take an experimental lick. Suction."

"Here? Like this?"

"Yes, yes, oh god, yes. Do that again."

"Fascinating. I believe you just responded physiologically to stimulation of what is considered an erogenous zone. Here on campus and especially in high school, I've seen some peers go for this neck region. I didn't really make room for this in my thesis but in terms of my gaining skills in this area—"

"That's nice, good, yes, fine. Just do that again."

"You're a little sweaty. I'd prefer not to use my tongue like that again."

"Your partner might not be satisfied."

"Oh. Um, can I use just my lips?"

"Yes, that's fine. Hmm. The suctioning, or in a soft, brushing manner."

"So like this?"

"Mm, yes, yes, yes."

"Like this?"

"Hnn, yes, oh, god," she gasped. "Yes. So good, Spencer, yes."

As the many days progressed and their sessions were coming to a close, she moaned, "Don't talk at all; let's just kiss. I need that."

There was much data he collected to check for physiological reactions: he often would pause to check his heart rate as well as hers; with a mirror he measured the dilation in his own eyes every few minutes when his timer would beep as well as hers; he checked the moisture of his hands as well as hers; he checked the rate of his respiration as well as hers. He would check things off and ask her questions.

She would huff through these things too.

"Not much going on with you downstairs," she mentioned one day.

"Downstairs where? We're in your car."

"You're adorable. Just forget it."

"How do you find my progress, though?"

"You're doing okay, but you could definitely use some improvement with this or with that. It's what I'm here for. The better you get, the happier you're gonna make your partner. By the way, do you prefer girls or guys?"

"Oh . . . Um, I don't—I'm not sure. I—there's—I don't know. I think girls? But lately there's also a certain attraction to the male physique, too. It's—the figure drawing course I took last year for humanities credits, it really—I don't know. I've never really—the angle at which I was encouraged to view the human body was—well you're the first person I'm experiencing this all with and—"

"I just caused Spencer Reid to malfunction. Amazing. It doesn't matter, though. It's obvious you're a virgin."

"Please don't laugh at me."

"Not laughing at all. There's nothing wrong with waiting for the right person to explore with."

"Um . . . I'm not sure when or if I might be ready to take that—"

"Listen. You're in the present with me and I'm just here to help you improve. There are things you can do to girls—or guys—that will make them absolutely melt—things that don't necessarily involve you putting your dick anywhere—"

"Er—"

"And I can show you these things, too."

"I thought you had been."

"There are other areas that you can touch, that you can lick or suction."

"No. I know you're referring to cunnilingus and fellatio, and I draw the proverbial line at the cranial and neck regions."

"That might change."

"It might, yes, but I'm almost done collecting the data and I'd prefer to exclusively collect it under the set parameters stated within my thesis. I've already gone beyond them."

"Ah. The science."

"Of course, the science. What else is there?"

"The brain works better if the hand works, too, you know. And the mouth."

"Olive Schreiner. But I don't recall her mentioning anything about the mouth."

"Oh, a boy who knows his girls. There's hope for you yet. I made up that last part."

Spencer grew to like kissing and found it tolerable—fun, even—a challenge, a quest to receive praise and awe from her, even when there were things he hesitated to do.

After the end of their last experimental session, he thanked her, told her that he had enough data and would write his findings in his journal, complete his charts with his many findings. And he felt that—despite her claims—he was passable at the art of kissing. She said one thing, but the data presented undeniable physiological facts on her part. He could do that to her, and he was amazed at that capability.

On his part, however, things seemed unsatisfactory—the heart showed little fluctuation, the dilation of his eyes remained nearly unchanged, his palms weren't moistened, and other things besides. Curious.

"We can continue your research," she said. "We can try collecting data in other ways if you want. Experiment with other things. Or it doesn't have to be about the data. It could be to—you know—just have some fun. Maybe I'm that person you might be ready to take any step with. You can figure out if you prefer females or males. I have guy friends who can join—"

He staunchly refused with a firm No. He was keen on logging his findings, and he wasn't keen on taking any next steps yet, with any girl or any guy.

"Are you sure, Spencer? Not even to try?"

"I assure you, this is as far as things will be going. This is all we'll be doing. I've already gone beyond my desired parameters and—"

They were still at the park in a faraway and secluded lot—where she would always drive them after they would meet at their discrete Starbucks café precisely at quarter past seven in the evening—in the back-most seat of her old 1986 Chrysler Wagon. She pushed him down before climbing atop him, kissing, fondling, and rubbing him before gyrating her hips.

"Trust me, Spencer, you'll feel good soon if you would just get into it and let go. Trust me. You want this."

It didn't feel good, and he didn't want to. He just wasn't ready for this.

"I don't want this. Stop it." He didn't feel well as she rocked against him.

She didn't stop. "Trust me," she said again. She palmed her way down to his belt buckle.

In that moment, he lurched to his side, threw up on the floor, and only then did she stop. He breathed heavily, rubbed his hands over his face, and blinked rapidly. And then he couldn't stop rocking and rubbing his hands on his corduroy pants. He didn't know how long it took to come down from the comforting stimulation. But she'd patted his knee and rubbed his back to calm him, giving him napkins to wipe his face while murmuring Oh shit, oh shit. Fuck fuck fuck.

"Um, I'm sorry. I'm sorry." His voice was thin, weak, whispery. "I didn't mean to—all over your car—I'm sorry. I—I—I—"

She was patient with him—aside from the continued expletives—and he was grateful.

He, too, repeatedly apologized for his reaction, humiliated. "Please don't tell anyone about this."

The request was three-fold. He didn't want to be at the butt of more jeers. Over the years, he also heard rare whispers about how some of these things went—about claims of male students assaulting female students and being expelled from campus, a blight on its honor system. What if this happened to him? Was this what had happened? Or might she tell people that this was what happened?

Additionally, if the board heard of this, his counselor would have to open an incident report, other people would get involved, and he was still a minor from a legal standpoint. His mother would be contacted, and as she wasn't well, he couldn't possibly imagine what might happen to her or to him.

"What? Oh, yes. Um—I agree, we shouldn't tell anyone about this. It's ours to know."

He was relieved.

She began driving him to the Starbucks café. She told him on the way back there that he was very atypical, that he might need to have his head checked. The past jeers of retard, spaz, robot, dense, freak, and other pejoratives reared up again.

This time, the anxiety and horror of the event was overshadowed by crippling discouragement. For days, weeks, and months after, it left him so downhearted to realize that—after having taken so much effort to participate in something so seemingly normal—he was still, in fact, abnormal.

He needed understandable answers, but they could only be provided in psychology, which he never, ever cared to explore.

He considered psychology a soft science, a pseudoscience, and he preferred the absoluteness of correct and incorrect that he found in math and chemistry and physics. Then again, there was theoretical mathematics—Euclidean geometry—that he enjoyed as well. He enjoyed how some literature made him feel, though he attributed that to a longing for better times with his mother and father.

His mother had no love or respect for her own psychiatrist—'I'm my mind's master; no one else.'— or her physician—'He's a Neanderthal.' —or the medication she often refused to take and which he couldn't know with any assurance she was keeping up with, so why should he have any faith in their capabilities? Psychiatry dealt with the chemical imbalances of the mind, he knew, but it was invariably linked to psychology, as they had to assess and diagnose the problem before prescribing anything. His mother never got any better with any pseudoscience. He wanted to create the permanent cure for her disease rather than something temporary.

About a year later, however, and still plagued with these emotions, he delved in the unexplored field by participating as a volunteer subject for a trial experiment in a Psychology 201 course. He was eighteen by this time, and he'd had an emotionally harrowing four-day weekend. He used that fake ID, gambled successfully for a few days in various establishments back in Nevada that he was summarily banned from, and had used the money to have his mother admitted to Bennington Sanitarium with a few months' advance pay.

The premise of the experiment intrigued Spencer, and there was money involved, not that he was strapped for money. He was earning a decent wage as a tutor, editor, and research assistant. He participated, and it intrigued him. Soon after, he was buying books on psychology or borrowing books from the library, leisurely reading about it in his spare time, trying to find those answers and understand.

And he found that while he couldn't fully understand himself, he liked the many maybes that psychology proposed, and the branches of what-could-be's. Philosophy, which he had studied for one semester a few years before to fulfill some of his humanities requirements, had also intrigued him in the same manner. It would be a few years before he would study that with more fervor.

Those same studies also terrified him, though, shone a light on a corner of his mind that he steadfastly ignored.

While there were no Psychology degrees to be had at Caltech, as they only held a few courses for humanities fulfillment, he decided to take whatever courses were offered and transfer the credits elsewhere to receive a baccalaureate in this field, and perhaps one in sociology, too.

So when he began studying psychology formally in the spring, he realized what had gone wrong with that whole situation with his erstwhile lab partner, and how very inappropriate it had been of him in the first place to ask her to be a subject for his experiment. Not all things required an academic approach, he was coming to learn, and not all research and experimenting was ethical or socially acceptable. When they were in the lab together one day—she, again a research assistant for her second major, and he, working on an unrelated project—apologized to him, and he apologized again to her for having asked her to do such a thing.

"I hope that things can continue amicably between us," she said. "We're scientists of the same mind. You're a good person for keeping that night just between the two of us."

It wasn't right. He knew it wasn't right. But he was ready to move on. He would have if she'd have ended it there, but she didn't.

"Maybe you do prefer guys. Bit of a waste for the girls, but not the end of the world. You're filling out handsomely—becoming more chiseled and modelesque after those few fleshier years. Or maybe you like both? Like I said before, I have friends who could help you sort that out, and I could help too. If not, then you might just be a little broken. I feel sorry for you. Are you autistic?"

He hadn't known how to respond to all of it and was hurt and confused, so he didn't. He went on again trying to experiment sexually—not with people—but found it tedious, unengaging, and it left him with those long-forgotten tendrils of nausea and anxiety and a new horror that was finally catching up with him. He quickly lost interest. He didn't even become tumescent at this point. There were more important things to do, and he didn't want to dwell on the anxiety or lack of any reaction.

A summer course highlighted the truth of what had occurred, though. Yes, she had a distaste for modern societal norms regarding monogamy (which he was neutral about), but it became clear that she lacked the proper morals regarding illicit, under-age relationships (which did bother him).

It came with finding and reading a book at the local library that delved into the psychology of sexual violence.

She had preyed on him for the whole time that she had known him since he was fifteen: when he was vulnerable, his first approach to her for assistance had likely awakened something transgressive in her, a predisposition, and she nurtured that temptation slowly. She hadn't acted on it quickly, to her credit. But in the classic sense, his defenses had been lowered, he was made to feel special, she had encouraged secrecy, there were innocent physical brushes, she had done him favors and given him alcohol, and when the opportunity arose, she sprang to action. She even tried to convince him to let her involve other people in whatever this was in her mind.

It was that knowledge, that ill-intent—combined with the fact that on that last night she had tried to coerce him in sexual acts that he wasn't yet comfortable to breach—that had unhinged him this time.

He shredded and then burned all his three-week research and his thesis but the words, the data, the actions, the face—all of these were etched into his mind.

He blamed no one but himself in this case. And since she was a woman, her approach had been subtler than what he had been taught to look for when he had gone to orientation years before. Over the years, he had lowered his guard, he'd fostered the relationship, and he'd also craved acceptance—proximity—and had put those things as priority over his own comfort, levels of tolerance, and common sense.

The realization had crippling effects on him for weeks: he became nauseated and sometimes vomited when things passed his lips into his mouth and so developed an aversion to eating. Whatever fat had swelled and lingered on his bones began shedding away; his grades began to slip as he found it difficult to concentrate on anything as a fog settled in his mind; and he began obsessively drinking coffee to keep himself awake so that he couldn't fall asleep and see her behind his eyes—until he developed a tolerance for it.

And, of course, he couldn't stop the gentle tipping back and forth, or rubbing his hands over the corduroy-covered thighs until his hands were pleasantly numb and continued to rub rub rub; he couldn't stop the pacing, or the foot rubbing, or the face swiping. He could barely speak, either.

Two months later, in late November and weeks after turning nineteen, a man—an FBI agent named Jason Gideon—gave a guest lecture in his sole remaining psychology course.

Afterwards, a few hours later, Spencer was walking through the chess park with another cup of coffee and there he saw Agent Gideon again. The agent saw him. He was beckoned over.

He later came to learn that Agent Gideon had been approached by his professor regarding some promising students, one of whom was exceedingly bright but seemed to recently be sliding away.

He was invited to sit across from him.

"You play?" Agent Gideon asked.

Spencer blinked and then nodded.

They played for a few minutes without words to pass between them, and the agent checkmated him—twice. He wasn't used to losing in chess. On that note, he hadn't played with another person for a few months, and there was still that fog.

He would come to learn over the years, though, that Jason Gideon was just that damned good.

Spencer—who wasn't very good at reading facial expressions in the past but was gaining acuity in it with his extracurricular psychology studies in nonverbal, kinesics, and intuitive communications—wasn't able to read Agent Gideon's blanketed and piercing stare. It unsettled him and made him uncomfortable. What he couldn't read, he learned not to trust.

But then Agent Gideon pursed his lips, crinkled his chin, and sighed. He spoke just three simple words:

"You've been hurt."

Spencer wouldn't deny it: he had been saved that day from sliding any further down whatever path this was becoming, developing a slow and blossoming relationship with the agent over phone calls, in which they would play chess from across the country.

It began as just that—a call that opened with no introductions but a b2 to b4 and closed with a confounding Checkmate, Spencer. Hoping to engage again.

Or sometimes it was a Just got a new case, Spencer; we'll pick up this game when the case is solved.

But it eventually graduated to New case, gotta go Spencer, we'll pick this up when I get back. In the meantime, think on such-and-such scenario. When I get back, I want to hear your thoughts on it.

In the ensuing weeks and months, he rapidly picked up his grades, was granted extra credit work, and began to focus his potential career on something far more tangible and attainable.

Within the passing years and after earning his second doctorate at nineteen, he relocated to Cambridge, pursued a third doctorate while obtaining two baccalaureates, traveled south, attended the FBI Academy, and found permanent housing in Washington DC while working as a Special Agent of the NCAVC and BAU in Quantico.

All this activity afforded him no time or concentration to pursue anything. He had long stopped experimenting sexually. But within those years and, later, when he established himself and the pace of his life regulated, he began to unwrap enigmas in slow measures, with the people—women and men—he came to know in his life.

But Maeve came along. Things shifted and wavered in unimaginable ways. Passing conversations gave him an inner clarity on things that he had thought too confounding in the past—clarity about those whom he cherished, about intimacy, attraction, physicality, sensuality, sexuality.

Harsh grips, scratches across his torso and hips and shoulders, the painful stretch of his arms, and the cleaving within pulled Spencer back to his present grievance.

With a gasping breath, he tried again to escape the hold, jutting his body forward, reaching for the chains so he could wrench himself away. It did no good for him, for he remained with the other man locked in and around him. He wheezed in a high, keening pitch before his voice was released from his clenched teeth, long and pained, chattering, vibrating.

This was dispassionate, controlled, practiced, and excruciating; on his part there was only a relentless, fiery ache.

He didn't become erect, let alone tumesce.

Every outward breath was punctuated with a gritty roar of pain. A hand eventually unclenched from his side and gripped over his mouth, pressing his head back on the clothed shoulder. The fingers dug into the flesh of his face and the nails sank in as his cries were muffled. His heated breaths huffed from his nose onto the hand when he couldn't voice his stifled cries as the assault dragged on and on, hips below thumping upward. The hand returned to wrap over his abdomen and tightened the hold, pressed him down as the rape carried on.

Spencer counted and tried not to think or feel. He couldn't avoid the physicality of it all and was unable to maintain silence during a series of harsh stretches, gyrations, and thrusts that returned to the perfunctory pace that was set before.

When he was finally released, he bellowed as the man pushed him up and popped away from him. His body collapsed in a boneless, broken heap against the bed and on the floor. Its weight dragged him down, and his shoulders ached.

He was gasping, groaning, body twisting. When he could take shaking inhalations, the sweat, blood, alcohol, leather, and grease were still pungent, but at the heel of it all he was punched with the scent of his own feces.

A horrified, unintelligible cry shook past his lips as his splayed hands trembled.

The disgusting mixture of blood and a more solid matter squelched between his buttocks and on the back of his thighs. He was left to breathe the foul air while soreness pulsed from his posterior and pooled to the rest of his limbs. There was no warning before he retched on the side of the bed and down his chest. He moaned and wept in its aftermath at the rectal pain induced by the force of his tensing muscles.

Awareness fizzled and solidified as he moaned, as his head pulsed. Hands removed the restraints, stripped him, dragged him across the floor. He was lifted and then dunked into a tub of warmed water, where his wrists were then wrapped in the bath cuffs on a lengthened chain. His leg remained freed. A towel and a bar of soap was shoved into his hand for him to clean himself.

He didn't dwell at all on it; his hands feverishly moved across his skin with the towel, and he tried to excoriate his epidermis to remove every foreign cell from him.

When his hands reached his groin, he pulled them up and began clenching and unclenching them in the air. He needed . . . he had to rub his legs. He had to feel the comforting smoothness of flocked, ribbed corduroy tickling and then numbing the nerves beneath his skin. It was an itch that had to be fulfilled, otherwise his entrails would burst from his mouth until he was completely inside out.

It had to be fulfilled. It had to be. It had to be, and he was overwhelmed with the need.

In the passing seconds and minutes, the feeling grew, swelled, compounded, and no matter how much he rubbed and then scratched at his thighs with his nails with feral grunts, it just wasn't fulfilled.

He became nauseated. He took wheezing breaths to fill and expel air to and from his lungs. In his head, he heard the hum of a sputtering, grinding engine, and with a foreign understanding he knew he uttered the sounds.

This didn't happen. This didn't happen.

The towel had fallen, and he clenched his jaws and grabbed whatever roots of his hair he could so tightly as his whole body tensed. His body was seized with tremors, and he rubbed, grunting, moaning, teeth clenched and mouth spread.

The water cooled against his skin by the time he stopped at the slaps on his bare shoulder. He shrank away from the touch before he numbly found the towel and resumed cleaning himself. He keened when the rough fabric slid between his cleft before grasping the side of the tub and vomiting again over the edge.

"Shit. Shit . . ." he uttered as his stomach cramped. The tightening of his muscles reawakened the pain between his buttocks, and he gasped out again.

His rapist seemed displeased by this—the vomiting or the vocalizations or the time spent, he wasn't sure—especially as he inhaled the scent of cleaning products with each breath. Clearly, he'd cleaned up the mess made by and on the bed.

The chain was unlocked from his wrists, he was pulled out of the tub by the straps of leather and by the tender hairs, and then he was dropped onto the floor.

Left without a moment to recover, he jumped at the sudden lash on his torso, then roared and wailed as he was whipped with a belt with little left untouched. The wetness of his skin only proved to make the stings of each lash like tongues of fire. When he curled inward to protect his groin and pulled his arms over his head to protect his face, he was stomped on his back and bleeding buttocks and legs. He was forcefully uncurled, his hair grabbed, and he was slapped in the face once, twice, three times with blows so hard that light flashed before his eyes. Blood poured like a spigot from his nose and onto his lips, coursed down his throat when he unclenched his jaws and puffed out shallow breaths in utter pain.

He was left to breathe, just breathe, before the weight of his captor sat astride his naked pelvis, jeans scraping against his tenderized skin—on his groin and genitals—as the thighs squeezed his sides.

Panicking with the knowledge that he was going to be raped again, Spencer begged, voice cracking: "No. Don't do this again, please. Don't do this again. Please don't do this again."

The man didn't, though. Instead, Spencer's breathing increased into terrified, pained puffs when the large fingers wrapped around his throat. He let out a pitched whimper and his hands flew up.

"No, plea—"

Naked and wet, his body shuddered and writhed with his struggle for air, hips lifting to dislodge the man, fingers reaching, scratching to unhinge the hands. The tightened fingers released; he gasped and coughed.

And then it was done to him a second time when his coughing subsided. His fingers could move again to dislodge the hold. It didn't help. He desperately slapped and scratched and sobbed, wrenching his head, kicking his feet, scratching his heels against the gritty ground below. But it all weakened as the seconds passed.

He was going to die; everything was fading. He didn't want to go like this. He didn't want to die li—

By the time he was aware of his surroundings again, his naked body was being sprayed with warm water. He curled, arm stretching up to protect his face. The spray stopped, he was hefted up, and he was plopped in a jumbling heap back to the bed that no longer smelled of alcohol. He keened as the towel swiped over his raised skin before he was clothed, restrained, the brace along with the buds and cured molding were replaced, and then he was pushed down on his right side.

Again, he curled.

He ached everywhere, his skin raw and burning. His face and lips felt tenderized and swollen. Every nerve pulsed with each heartbeat whenever he moved and when the fabric shifted against his heated skin. And it hurt his posterior to shift anything below his pelvis.

His rapist then sat at the foot of the bed with his left hand loose over his victim's left ankle—just above the restraint—unmoving.

Spencer—like a prey in the maw of its predator—kept his breaths shallow, unshifting for the whole duration that the man remained. If he didn't move, he wouldn't be noticed; if he wasn't noticed, he wouldn't be attacked—raped—again. It was sound logic. It must be.

After nearly an hour of remaining in such a peaked state of vigilance and alarm, the hand rubbed above his ankle twice before patting it. The weight lifted from the bed, and he was left alone.

A long, shuddering breath petered out, and he could properly breathe. He remained in the same position, still motionless—now unthinking—as his senses began to grey around him.

No one came to have him relieve himself at the third shift of his daily rituals.

Hours seemed to have passed.

After Spencer emerged from the mind-numbing fog, he was able to evaluate what he'd endured.

His brain moved with a lingering fatigue.

Ever the intellectual, he endeavored to slot additional pieces into the profile that he was ever filling, desperate not only to engage his mind and try to analyze what he'd just suffered, but to distract himself from the pulsing ache he still felt in his anus and seated at the bottom of his bowels.

He knew this was coming. He saw Noah Turner's preliminary autopsy. The violation was inevitable.

But with each passing day that nothing happened, that they'd lulled him and that he remembered that Marion Knowles had at least not been violated, he thought that maybe he would go the way of Marion. That left a fifty percent chance that it would happen, so he was cautiously optimistic.

How that false hope had failed him.

He just didn't know what—after all this time, almost a month since he had been abducted—he had done to push his captor to this point. Until today, until he was attacked earlier, he hadn't spoken a word—had barely even dared to make a sound—since his punishment from many days ago. He'd been so careful to only use his hands to speak. He racked his brain, trying to work back to previous interactions that led to this because, logically, there had to be a causation. There just had to be.

However well he'd tried to ingratiate himself to the man, it obviously hadn't been enough, though. He'd violated him anyway. Was it because he was becoming more purified, cleaner in time? More undefiled, according to the woman? Or was it because he'd quailed from her in the passing hours?

It couldn't be that. There were the other things that happened during the violation. Or, rather, things that didn't happen:

He could conversely wonder why it had taken so long, nearly a month, to be raped while in captivity of a rapist. The man had touched him before non-violently—had clapped him, shaved him—and nothing had happened. But this event was telling.

Normally, sexual offenders—especially after holding back for as long as his captor had—were quickly slaked by their lust, and they needed to repeat the act almost immediately—possibly multiple times—to regain that first transgressive, orgasmic high. It was a physiological conquest riddled with psychological undertows.

Such was not the case here.

In general, sexual dysfunction was not considered a rarity, but to this severity of what had transpired, it could have pathological implications, such as a nervous system malfunction caused by an injury; or it could be due to psychological disorders, such as depression, or could stem from some type of trauma.

So maybe the man physically couldn't violate him all this time and he'd had to work up to it all these weeks.

This ordeal lasted the better part of an hour, ever inward pressing, as if it had been a quest for something. That quest had gone unfulfilled, for his captor had neither seemingly orgasmed, nor had he discharged inside of him; he just simply, abruptly stopped his cruel rape. Long before it had even ended, the man had gone flaccid inside of him before becoming erect again minutes later after stretching and grinding against him. As far as he knew, he hadn't used a condom as protection or to prevent his semen from entering his victim.

The man probably sought sexual release like an amputee trying to relieve a phantom itch that wouldn't ever truly be scratched. The beatings, the tooth extractions, and even the strangulation didn't sexually excite him, and if that didn't, perhaps sexual torture wouldn't excite him to a release either. Impotence had to be the answer.

His captor was difficult to pin down, and one of the main components that made it difficult to know what kind of rapist he was dealing with was not being able to hear or see him.

On one hand, he had the hallmarks of a power assertive rapist. These kinds of offenders used rape to restore their self-confidence or self-worth through physical or verbal aggression. It stemmed from an insecurity with oneself; rape restored that self-confidence, asserted their manhood. It was an expression of virility, a means to express mastery, strength, control, authority, and to restore identity to themselves.

Begging and crying to the man would be ineffectual. Fighting and resisting would escalate his anger. Attempts at escape weren't discouraged, as any punishment if caught wouldn't typically lead to death. Escape might be facilitated by good behavior, so one would have to be patient, smart.

But on the other hand, there were elements of a sadistic sexual predator, too, that took on a more psychological approach: inciting the victim to be culpable in their attack, as the man had done with the drugs and the alcohol; delaying the attack and riding out the anxiety. His captivity in general—the inability to speak without the threat of violence—was another way to torment the victim. Bondage—though not fetishizing—the sensory deprivation, and, now, the drawn-out rape all had sadistic underpinnings.

But he couldn't quantify this as an anger excitation offender. Noah hadn't been recently raped when he was murdered, so even the act of cutting out the tongue wasn't something that incited his captor to necrophilia, though he couldn't definitively assert this.

The rapes weren't in themselves lethal. So perhaps they served a practical purpose . . .

Maybe his captor was so self-involved with regaining something he had lost to his abuser—and Spencer was positive that he was abused—that it bypassed the complete amorality of enacting the very same savagery on someone else.

The subsequent violence—the beating, the whipping, the strangulation—probably came from a place of frustration due to his inability to complete the sexual act. Or it could have been what often followed when he had been abused.

If Spencer were to be raped again, the violence might continue to escalate, and he might have to reevaluate all of this. But after nearly a month, this had been . . . admittedly tame. It hurt, but it could have been far worse physically, far more degrading psychologically and sexually.

And then there was the remorse, the guilt—probably the extreme self-disgust and depression—that the man had displayed afterwards, sitting with him, with his offending hand on him for nearly an hour. This was the strongest indicator that he might have suffered abuse—the time spent may have been used to recall his own horrors.

He wasn't to know if it had been done with previous victims, and he didn't know what it meant for him. But the man was not whole. As had been suggested during the investigation, maybe psychodynamically this captor was violently avenging the grievances and abuses he'd suffered at the hands of his own abuser.

Or maybe this man physically and sexually abused his own son and there was guilt on his part. Or maybe he wanted to and had fought against the cruel and wrong tendencies.

Spencer's mind invariably retreated to the words he once told Derek when he had been convinced that his own father might have been involved in Riley Jenkins' assault and murder.

'This is textbook. Father reroutes compulsion to molest away from his own son to a surrogate.'

He had thought his own father was capable of having pedophilic, incestuous inclinations that he'd projected onto other boys. He was relieved at how wrong that theory had been.

Besides, his mother would have known. She wouldn't have urged William to take him when he was leaving if her own husband was physically or sexually abusive. She simply wouldn't. A mother knows, and she was often guided by strong inclinations—' We're animals, Spencer; we feel things.'—windows of clarity.

Maybe this man truly loved his son, and while he didn't share his wife's delusions, he missed him still, and Spencer was that perfect balance of replacing someone that he could love and someone he could also enact those assaults on.

So the affection would continue, as would the rape and beatings.

Probably, probably, probably. Maybe, maybe, maybe.

God . . .

He hated knowing all he knew about the depravity of the human mind. He wanted to unknow it all so that he didn't have to think, understand, reason on these things.

Spencer tucked his head into the crook of his elbow, face digging into the fabric of the mattress, and folded his hands—one over the other—as he grasped onto the roots of his hair and the leather of the brace on his head. His knees tucked toward his chest and he softly, barely swayed his body upon the mattress to comfort himself.

He tried for over an hour to repeat a mantra in his head, the one that said that his mind wasn't affected by this. He still had surprisingly suffered no lasting damage so far from these beatings. The rape he'd just endured was only physical.

It was transport. His body was transport. His mind was untouched and intact, and he was okay. He was okay. He wouldn't lose himself to this. Jason was right:

He cannot break you.

To prove this to himself—that his mind was still his—he thought over scientific equations, landing on that of Special Relativity. It categorized time and space—not as absolute concepts but rather as being relative depending on the speed of the observer. Its equation showed how time dilated the faster a person moved in any direction.

The numbers and letters of the equation danced before his eyes.

Fine. You're fine. Not broken. Still whole.

Recalling this equation grounded him, confirming that he was still sound of mind. "You're fine," he whispered.

And yet.

Within this directionless void, within his captivity—where time and space was a lost construct and where he could observe nothing—something pierced the silence and the darkness that he couldn't escape: sensation.

No!

"You're fine," he gasped, shaking, beating the heel of his right palm again and again on his left shoulder to forget what he'd endured.

Agony blazed like a white beacon in the dark expanse until it was all he could think of, all he could see, and with it he recalled every sensation—

"You're fine."

—every slow jolt—

"It's fine. You're . . . you're fine . . ."

—the small patch of the other man's skin on him—

"'s fine. Fine . . ."

—and in him.

"Hnn."

It wouldn't go away.