His Memories Make Us
Chapter IV: Maybe Better Off
Knock. No answer. Knock knock. Just as I was about to knock a third time, the dorm room door opened, and Jack stood in front of me with his backpack hanging off one shoulder. I held out his pillow in a manner almost symbolic of a peace offering, or at least I wanted to think it was.
“Throw it on my bed,” he said coldly, “and then you can see yourself out.”
“Out?” I asked, feigning confusion.
“Yeah, out. You said you were here for the weekend, the weekend is over, and I have class. And you should go home.”
“Jack, can we please talk about—”
“Go home, Dani.” It wasn’t a suggestion, it was an order.
“Jack...”
“I said go home; or do I need to remind you why you should?”
I was taken aback. Just the day before, he was wallowing in guilt, calling his power a curse that he would never use again. Now he was using it as a threat. I’d wanted him to accept his ability, but this... He was either angrier than I’d ever seen him—a deep, quiet anger, more terrifying than overt fury—or my actions had truly broken him. There was the distinct possibility that both were true. I wasn’t about to poke the bear, though, so I just nodded, tossed the pillow on his bed through the door, then awkwardly shuffled past him to collect my things. He stayed to glare at me with that expression you get when you supervise someone precisely because you can’t trust them on their own. You know, the dark stare that, despite being imperceptibly different from a blank face, makes you hear the words “I swear if you fuck up I will murder you” rumble around in your head whenever you see it? After about 30 seconds, he left for class, leaving the door open behind him. I sighed, but I obeyed his order and headed home.
After the longest drive of my life, where every mile felt an hour long, I pulled up in front of my house. I sat and stared absently through the windshield at the front window, knowing the closed curtains meant Mom and Dad were going at it. I had never cared before, and honestly sometimes I’d watch them and masturbate, but now that I knew my complacency was all Jack’s work, I was reluctant to even enter the door. No, that was partially a lie: I wasn’t reluctant because Jack had made me okay with watching my parents fuck. I was scared that I couldn’t control how much I would enjoy it. Not that they would mind if I came while enjoying the show—as long as I cleaned the couch after, of course—but after the previous night, I was afraid I would still somehow cross a line again. I guess the “line” is a malleable concept, and it moves to wherever everyone involved agrees it should be. But Velma hadn’t agreed. Her line was drawn before I shoved my hands in her pants, and it certainly marked out a space far closer to her comfort zone than getting slapped across the face. I had ignored her line, sprinted past it and tried to take my trophy without any regard for the fact that she didn’t even want to run the race at all.
I sighed and figured if I was going to wallow, I should at least do it in the comfort of my own bedroom, so I exited the car and headed into the house. I was greeted with a cheery “hey, kiddo!” from my dad and a mumbled “hi honey” from Mom. Mumbled not out of apathy, but because her mouth was currently filled with Dad’s cock as she knelt in front of him by the living room coffee table. Dad was sitting on the couch and enjoying his blowjob, his hand behind Mom’s head so that she couldn’t lift off him to talk clearly, and of course neither of them had a stitch of clothing on. “How was your weekend with Jack?”
“Not great,” I answered honestly.
Mom tapped Dad’s arm and he let her up for air. “Oh, honey, I’m sorry. We hoped you two could make up.”
“Want to watch us and finger yourself? That always cheers you up.” Dad patted the sofa seat next to him.
“No, not really...” And then a thought occurred to me. “Well, maybe... Dad, can you fuck Mom’s ass? That might help.”
“Honey!” Dad said. “You know we don’t like when you use language like that. Besides, I know how much you love when Jack takes you anally, but your mom never has.”
“Yep,” Mom smiled proudly. “Back door is 100% a virgin, unless you count your father’s occasional wandering fingers.”
“What can I say? Your butt is amazing, dear.”
Mom smirked knowingly. But they didn’t realize what I was requesting, and I wished I didn’t, either; yet I continued. “I know, but... that would really help me feel better.”
“The answer is no, kiddo,” Dad said sternly, putting his foot down. “If you want anal, you’ll have to settle for your vibrator.”
“Fine,” I said moodily, and made my way upstairs. I heard Mom sigh and say to Dad, “I wish they would make up. She’s not even dating anyone anymore, so without Jack, you might just have to step in and sleep with her, Dan.” Dad chuckled, but said nothing to outright reject the idea.
Closing the bedroom door behind me, I plopped onto my bed face-first into a pillow. I wanted to scream, but I didn’t want my parents coming up to bother me asking if I was okay. Part of me hoped that if I lay there long enough, with my nose and mouth pressed into the linen-covered down, I would suffocate and slowly fade into the abyss. Which I know sounds like something from an emo teen band’s lyrical repertoire, but I think it’s appropriately existential and gloomy for someone who just discovered she’s a disgusting, horrifying human being. I knew Mom hated anal, and that’s why I’d asked Dad about it. I wanted to see her do something she hated, but grin and bear it. The monster I’d awoken the day before wanted to get off on someone else being forced into submission, and for a moment I’d rationalized it as being “okay” as long as it was Mom and Dad. I knew that didn’t make it better, but I hoped it did somehow. After hearing how insistently Dad had refused, it only confirmed what I already knew: it was fucked up to want that, and I was as fucked up as I’d ever been.
I thought again about Jack’s insistence that his reminders were a curse that could do only harm. Maybe he was right after all, and maybe unleashing the worst side of me that I didn’t even know existed was just its latest destruction. I took a deep breath, inhaling pillow with a faint scent of my vanilla perfume, and exhaled. I wondered if I had always had a deeply hidden fetish for extreme domination—no, I shouldn’t call it that. It’s too minimizing. It was a rape fetish, and I had been only a few seconds away from being a rapist. Had I always been one, deep down inside me? Or maybe Jack made me one when he messed with my memories. Maybe unlocking my love of incest, reminding me why I loved fucking him and watching our parents fuck... maybe that opened a door into a love of aberrant sexual fetishes and the worst of the bunch came rushing to the surface. It was nice to think that was the case, because then it was Jack’s fault and I wasn’t inherently a cruel sadist lacking enough empathy to even be called human. But I knew that I could never be sure, so I would always blame myself to some extent.
After hours of silent debate, I picked up my phone and opened a new text message with Jack. “Jack... can you fix me?”
After nearly an hour, I had assumed he was ignoring me entirely, but then my phone buzzed with his response. “WTF? What does that even mean?”
“I don’t want to be this way. I don’t want to cross the line with anyone else again. Remind me that I’m better, please...”
“It doesn’t work that way.”
“How do you know? We have to try. I don’t know what else to do.”
“Therapy?”
“Stfu this is beyond therapy and you know it.”
Another twenty minute gap between messages, and then, “Fine. Come visit next Saturday. I’ll see what I can do.”
“...thanks, Jack.” And no reply.
Over the next week, my parents grew concerned about how often I locked myself in my room. They worried I was depressed, and I guess in a way I was, but really I just didn’t want to see them fucking because I couldn’t stop myself from imagining Mom screaming in pain. I would eat my meals alone, covering my eyes on the way to the kitchen and back to my room. I could still hear them moaning and grunting, and that was bad enough, but at least I didn’t have to see their faces. I told them I was fine, just had a lot on my plate, and while I don’t think they bought it, they at least left me alone.
Saturday came and, eliciting parental optimism, I headed back out to Jack’s university. Knocking on his door, my stomach was in knots: I didn’t know whether I expected him to open the door and punch me or just completely ignore my existence. He opened the door and ushered me in, closing it behind me.
“Where’s Drew?” I asked.
“At some gaming convention or something. I don’t really know, I don’t pay attention to his hobbies.”
“Ah. I guess that gives us time to work.”
Jack sighed. “Work on what, Dani? What exactly do you think I can ‘fix’ about you?”
I gave him a pleading expression, looking deep into his eyes. “Everything. That night, I realized something in me was broken. What I did... I hated myself, but a part of me... a part of me loved it, Jack. And I had nightmares out in the common room, about you doing the same kind of thing to me...”
“Slapping you?” he asked, oblivious.
“A little. But more than that. I dreamed you were... raping me, Jack. While I screamed and cried and said no, you just took what you wanted from me anyway. I was terrified... but it also turned me on.” He grimaced, as though disgusted by what I was saying but unable to think of a response. “And then when I got home, Mom and Dad were fucking in the living room, and I... that same part of me started thinking about Dad raping Mom... I even asked Dad if he would fuck her in the ass, since she doesn’t like that, hoping I could watch her hate every second of it...”
“What the actual fuck, Dani?!”
“I know! Something is wrong with me, and there isn’t enough therapy in the world to fix it. But I don’t like this part of me. I wish I’d never discovered it. I know you can’t take away memories, but can you help me find something better? Something to make me better?”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know. Anything. Please.”
He stared at me for a few minutes, and I could see the cogs turning in his brain. Then he spoke up. “Fine. Do you remember how much you hated anything to do with rape?”
I waited a minute for something to happen. Something to change. Some memory to crop up that might help. “Nothing,” I said. “Why didn’t anything happen?”
“Maybe it’s the wording. You already hated rape before. Maybe I need to word it differently. Um... do you remember when you told me last week, in the dining hall, that you would never hurt anyone and would only sleep with someone using my power if they consented?”
I did. “Sure, but then I broke that promise!”
“Dani, work with me here. I’m still pissed off at you for what you did, but if you’re serious about trying to be better, you can’t resist this!”
“I’m not resisting anything! Your power sucks!”
“You didn’t think it sucked when you used it to get into a lonely girl’s pants!”
“AND LOOK HOW THAT TURNED OUT!” I shouted.
“Don’t you remember it turned out fine?!” he shouted back, still trying to find something that worked despite his anger rising to match my aggression towards him.
For the second time in my life, I had a serious brain-fuck. I remembered a lovely night with Velma, both of us into it and loving every second, and an amicable farewell at sunrise. But I also still remembered the truth, the painful reality of what I’d done to her, and I knew that I was angry because that was real and the serenity of love-making was an illusion. “I remember both now! Oh, God, I remember both, and that’s so much worse... that night could have been so nice...” Tears formed in my eyes, and though I held back from weeping, I didn’t wipe them away.
“I can’t remove memories, Dani... usually you just forget them on your own because the real memory wasn’t as important. But I guess this time...”
“There’s no way I could forget the truth on my own, is there? I’m stuck with this...” I sat on Jack’s bed and put my face in my hands.
He sat next to me, and after a few seconds put his hand on my back. “Maybe you’re better off that way.”
“How could you say that?” It seemed like such a cruel statement, but he’d said it so softly that I clearly had no idea what he really meant by it.
“Do you...recall...what I told you about Heather?”
“The girl you made think she asked you out?”
“Yeah. When I did that, and I saw how immediately unhappy she was... it reminded me of you. I remembered how heartbroken you were when I left for college, when I said I wasn’t in love with you. Seeing your heart break broke my heart as well, and that’s what stopped me from doing the same to Heather. So maybe it’s better that you remember what you did to Velma, so you’ll never make the same mistake again with anyone else.”
“So you’re saying if I don’t remember sexually assaulting Velma, then I would just go out and rape someone else again?”
“I mean, I wouldn’t put it like that...”
“But it’s true, isn’t it? This was just a part of me waiting for the chance to come out, and if I don’t know about it, it’ll find its way out again eventually.” We stared at each other for a few minutes, and all the anger I’d seen from him a week before was gone, replaced with concern, sadness, and love. A love that seemed a little more than brotherly, though not quite romantic. A love built on shared experiences that no other people in the world could ever understand.
I rested my head on his shoulder. “How is it you’re the one who can mess with people’s minds, but somehow I’m still the fucked up one?”
“Well... you were always the fucked up one, really,” he joked. I laughed through a falling tear, and without moving my head I looked up to see him smile. We stayed like that for a few minutes, then we crawled into bed and cuddled until I fell asleep.
I was awoken to a loud yell as the door swung open. “WOO! Guess who’s the new Fortnite champion?!”
“You?” Jack mumbled, clearly just waking up as well.
“No, Ninja,” Drew answered, shutting the door behind him. “But I got to watch him win, and it. Was. Epic.” He stopped and looked at us. “I see you lovebirds made up.”
“It’s not what you think,” I said, rolling my eyes.
“We’re not back together,” Jack confirmed. “Note the two fully clothed bodies in front of you.”
“Oh. Still, I’m sure the bed is more comfortable than the couch.”
“You do have a point there,” I said, hugging Jack’s arm before sitting up. I turned to Jack. “But hey, if we can’t do that thing I wanted to do, I may as well go home early. No point in me wasting your time.”
“You can stay,” he said, and I thought I detected a hint of pleading. “We can’t do the thing you wanted, but we can still... hang out or something.”
At this point, Drew, satisfied that he didn’t know what we were talking about and didn’t care to know, moved over to sit in front of his computer and ignored us.
“I really don’t need you babysitting me, Jack.”
“I’m not babysitting you. I just want to... look after you for a bit. Make sure you’re okay. And don’t say you’re fine, because we both know you’re not. I saw how much it hurt you when I left, and it’s got to be so much worse when it’s all... well, it’s just got to be worse.” I knew he was about to say “when it’s all your fault”, but I appreciated that he stopped himself. “I know what it’s like to feel like you’re a monster. To not trust yourself. It doesn’t just go away overnight.”
I smiled at him. “You know, with that kind of empathy and wisdom, it’s amazing you’re still single.” I leaned over and gave him a peck on the lips. No tongue, no lust or romance, just the sweet kind of peck that families who are very close afford each other.
“I’d need a pickup line that doesn’t include the R-word for that to change,” he said pensively.
“A pickup line? Have you tried ‘hi, I’m Jack, and you seem swell. Want to go out?’”
“’Swell’? What is this, 1940?”
“You’re the one that wanted a pickup line, Casanova. But seriously, just be yourself and be honest, and someone is bound to say yes. I did.”
“You didn’t, though.”
“Maybe not when I thought I did... but I did.”