I asked Dr. Ozera for the tapes when I saw her the next day after giving her the same explanation Tom had given me. She eagerly agreed and put them in an empty shoe box. They were all labeled with my name and the date they were recorded. Before I left, she suggested I listen to them with Tom; both to lessen the emotional stress and so he could hear me tell what happened while I was away. When we got home with all the tapes we went straight to the office and sat down on the sofa. I pulled out a tape that was dated a couple of weeks after I began seeing Dr. Ozera.
Dr. Ozera: Hello, Veronica.
Veronica: Hi.
Dr. Ozera: How have you been lately?
Veronica: Okay.
Dr. Ozera: How are you adjusting to being at home again?
Veronica: Alright, I guess.
Dr. Ozera: What do you mean by that?
Veronica: I still can't stand to have people too close to me.
Dr. Ozera: Including Tom?
Veronica: *sigh* Yes.
Dr. Ozera: Are you still sleeping in the other bed room?
Veronica: More like staring at the ceiling all night.
Dr. Ozera: Still afraid of the nightmares?
Veronica: Yeah.
Dr. Ozera: How often do you leave the apartment?
Veronica: Only when I have to.
Dr. Ozera: How often is that?
Veronica: Pretty much only when I come here, or go to the doctor again.
Dr. Ozera: Speaking of the doctor, how did it go this week?
Veronica: Not good.
Dr. Ozera: How so?
Veronica: They needed another blood sample.
Dr. Ozera: Describe it.
Veronica: They needed one person to sit on my legs, one for each arm, and another to give me the tranquilizer.
Dr. Ozera: Still on the tranquilizers?
Veronica: Yup.
Dr. Ozera: Why do you think you won't let people near you?
Veronica: Because I was raped so many times.
Dr. Ozera: About how many times?
Veronica: Hundreds, I guess.
Dr. Ozera: What were those encounters like?
Veronica: I try not to think about it.
Dr. Ozera: Try for me now.
Veronica: They were bad.
Dr. Ozera: Can you be more descriptive?
Veronica: Violent, painful, just awful.
Dr. Ozera: Can you describe a specific time that was particularly "bad"?
Veronica: I'd rather not.
Dr. Ozera: Try.
Veronica: *long pause* One night I had to go to some pharm party a bunch of guys were having. They were all high by the time I got there.
Dr. Ozera: What did they make you do?
Veronica: Take my clothes of in front of all of them and sit on a chair. It was rigged with restraints. They strapped me down.
Dr. Ozera: What happened next?
Veronica: They walked in a circle around me, looking at me. They said things like "That's a nice one."; "This'll be a fun night."
Dr. Ozera: What did they do then?
Veronica: One of them stood in front of me. He touched me all over. His hands were course. And he kept saying how rough he was going to be with me.
Dr. Ozera: Was he?
Veronica: *on the verge of tears* Very.
Dr. Ozera: What sort of things did he do?
Veronica: Shoved his hands in me, choked me, put various other things in me. *sniffle* He made me say that I liked it and that he was the best I'd ever had and that I was his dirty slut.
Dr. Ozera: Did any of the other people there touch you?
Veronica: Yes, they all did.
Dr. Ozera: Did they all do the same as the first man?
Veronica: Mm- hm. Some of them cut me with knives and injected me with stuff. One of them held a lighter to me skin while he was—yeah.
Dr. Ozera: What made this particular incident so memorable?
Veronica: One of them had a beaker of acid, I don't know why. They started splashing it on me. It hurt so much.
Dr. Ozera: It that how you got your big scar?
Veronica: One of the other guys bumped into him and spilled half of it on me. I felt like I was on fire.
Dr. Ozera: What did they do when that happened?
Veronica: They put ice on me. When I stopped screaming, they – well, they did other things with the ice.
Dr. Ozera: What happened when they were done?
Veronica: They let me out of the chair and told me to get dressed. Then He picked me up and brought me back to His apartment.
Dr. Ozera: What did He do when you got there?
Veronica: Beat me.
I turned off the tape and looked at Tom. His eyes were all watery. I'd never told him what sort of things happened to me while I was gone.
"I had no idea," he said weakly.
"I didn't want you to know."
He pulled me into him comfortingly. I could feel moisture on the side of my face, but it wasn't coming from me. His body shook lightly with sobs.
"There was nothing you could've done," I said reassuringly.
"Why didn't you want me to know?"
"It's complicated."
He wiped his eyes with his sleeve and put on a forced smile.
"I've got time."
I closed my eyes in shame.
"I thought you would be disgusted with me," I said decrepitly.
Again he pulled me close to him and tilted my face upwards toward his.
"I would blame the entire rest of the world twice before I even thought about blaming you for anything that happened," he said with a light kiss upon my lips. "Part of why I love you is because you were resilient enough to survive all that's happened to you. You are one of the strongest people I know, and I'll always admire that about you. I just can't believe I didn't think about giving you space after—well, after all that had happened."
"Speaking of which, there's part of another tape I want you to hear," I said as I dug through the box.
I found the one I was looking for and popped it in the tape player. It was from a couple of weeks before this whole confrontation.
Dr. Ozera: Good afternoon Veronica.
Veronica: Hello.
Dr. Ozera: How are you today?
Veronica: Good.
Dr. Ozera: You've shown a lot of improvement in the past few months.
Veronica: I know.
Dr. Ozera: How do you feel?
Veronica: Great.
Dr. Ozera: That's very good. Are you and tome still having any issues at home?
Veronica: Yeah, a few.
Dr. Ozera: Like what?
Veronica: Uhh, well—it's kind of—umm, embarrassing—
Dr. Ozera: Intimacy issues?
Veronica: *embarrassed chuckle* Yeah.
Dr. Ozera: Can you tell me what they are?
Veronica: We can't really get—uh, hands on like we used to.
Dr. Ozera: I thought you two never went "that far".
Veronica: Doesn't mean we didn't fool around.
Dr. Ozera: *light giggle* So, nothing really past a little nuzzling?
Veronica: Pretty much.
Dr. Ozera: When does it start to go sour?
Veronica: When it starts getting a little rowdy.
Dr. Ozera: What do you do when that happens?
Veronica: I start having flashbacks again.
Dr. Ozera: How does that make you feel?
Veronica: Like I'm letting him down.
Dr. Ozera: Why?
Veronica: Not counting while I was gone, we've been together for over a year; this is the longest relationship I've ever had. I love him—more than I thought I knew possible, and I know he feels the same way. When I was away, I missed him so much it physically hurt. I would wrap myself in heavy blankets and pretend it was him. I want to give him all of me, but I just can't get past the stupid flashbacks. It's not fair to Tom that I can never be romantic with him without have a breakdown.
Dr. Ozera: Well, what about those other men made you fear them?
Veronica: They were rough and forceful and inflicted pain and humiliation on me.
Dr. Ozera: What does Tom do that triggers those memories?
Veronica: He gets excited when it starts to heat up.
Dr. Ozera: Have you tried telling him to slow down?
Veronica: Like I said, it's embarrassing.
I stopped the tape there. When I looked up Tom's face was contorted with concentration.
"All those times, I was making you have flashbacks," he said to himself. He looked at me remorsefully. "I'm so sorry, I didn't even think-."
"It wasn't your fault," I cut him off.
"Yes it was; if I'd been able to keep it in my pants for a little longer, I wouldn't have made you freak out like you did."
He put his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands at the end of his sentence. He felt so guilty, and for once I couldn't argue with him. I hated to admit it, but his actions were the direct cause of my freak outs in this case. I hugged him around his chest and rested my chin on his shoulder.
"But now you know why."
He turned his head slightly to look at me.
"So?"
"We can try again."
I released my hold on him as he sat up. He put both hands on my shoulders and looked me square in the eye.
"Are you absolutely sure you want to?"
I could see the hope in his eyes behind his sincerity. I nodded my head slowly several times. Then I resumed my embrace on his body, now placing my head under his chin leaning it against his neck. He returned my gesture by cradling my shoulders with one arm and wrapping his other around my waist. We sat like that for some minutes in a comfortable stillness.
"Did you really mean it?" he asked softly.
"Mean what?"
"How you feel about me; do you really mean it like that?"
"Yes, I do Tomi. I love you more than I can possibly fathom."
"And you really want me to be your first?"
"Uhh—first?" I scoffed.
"When I say first, I mean your first time making love; your first time without pain; your first time that feels good, that feels right. I've wanted nothing more than to show you how incredible love can feel since the day I realized I was truly in love with you."
The phone began to ring in the kitchen, but neither of us wanted to get up.
"That phone is killing our moment," I said in a sarcastically annoyed tone.
"Yeah, let's go see who's trying to ruin our romantic confessions," Tom said as we stood up.
We walked over to the phone and looked at the caller id. It was the police station. Tom hit the speaker button.
"Hello?" he said.
"Tom, it's the chief of police. I have wonderful news!" the voice on the other end said.
"What? What is it?" I asked.
"We've caught the men who kidnapped you!"