FREE FLYING HEARTS -- A collection of short stories from Tonig73

### 5 ###

Warning  --  Recollection of rape

While Avery was upstairs with his mother, Larry rubbed Laurent's back as he tried to keep up with him as he paced outside on the patio.

"Fuck !  Larry, what did I do ?  How could I.... how ..... "  Beth's revelation in the last few minutes, together with the cool night air was sobering, to say the least.  

"Open mouth, insert foot" he said.  Larry felt bad for his brother, because, after all, he was only playing Beth at her own game.  Did she not expect Laurent to react, retaliate ?  He only gave as good as he got, in Larry's eyes.  Beth was tarring all males of the species with the same brush.  Not all men, in fact, very few, were rapists, and he thought it unfair to lump Laurent in with those that were.  But, true to form, Laurent was now blaming himself.  

"What can I do, Larry ?  She'll never forgive me .... "

"What did you do that needs to be forgiven, Lau ?  She goaded you into getting mad, then she got mad at you herself.  All you did was smirk ... "  Larry tilted his head slightly, "Granted, not the best thing you couldda done .... "  Laurent stopped his pacing to hug his brother as Larry continued to rub his back.

"It was an awful thing, what happened to Beth.  What happens to a lot of women, but you didn't rape her, Lau.  It's not your fault, and she knows that.  She's just blaming you 'cos you here, and you a man.  She needed somewhere for all that hurt to go, and you gave her that place."  Laurent drew back to side eye his brother.

"Since when did you start talking so much sense ?"

"Avery ... "  they both echoed at the same time, smiling at one another.  As they still held each other, they heard the french doors sliding open behind them.

"She'd like to see you Lau."  

"Why, what have I done now ?  So she can yell at me some more, accuse me of something else I'm not guilty of ?"

"Lau, stop."  Larry told him.  He was doing it again, it just seemed a natural gut reaction now, to defend himself to her.  She brought out that part of him, the defensive, belligerent part of him that so desperately wanted her to see him differently.  But he brought out that part of her too.  They just rubbed each other up the wrong way.  What lay beneath this behaviour, was that each wanted, needed the other's respect.  They saw each other as strong, willful people, and, it seemed, each needed the others approval for some reason.  But, Larry thought, they needed to use their power for good, and not evil.  Otherwise, this could be a shit storm of astronomical proportions.  

"She want's to apologize."  

# # # # # # # # # # # # 

Beth sat in the middle of her huge bed, having calmed somewhat.  She was totally sober now it seemed.  She'd had a good cry, and had apologized to Avery.  What she had said to him, to anyone.  But especially about him.  Avery had to live with the knowledge that he was a product of rape, and that couldn't have been easy either.  That he would never know his father, and that his father was a rapist.  But what she had said to Laurent, her behaviour, was uncalled for, as Avery had told her at the time.  

All these years, and not one peep.  Not one confrontation, not one heart wrenching, gut twisting memory or recollection, not even when she pulled her fingertips across her throat every morning.  Her bitterness and her anger had all but disappeared, or so she thought.  Until this man appeared.  Why did he bring out this .... awfulness, this anger in her ?  And why at him ?  Did she recognize the same in him, only he was able to control it better ?  Did she need him to need her, did they need each other, for exactly the same reasons ?  Too many questions that couldn't be answered.  There was tentative knock on the door.