Call her ZADDY

Bitch slapped (trigger warning)

When Gabrielle got home later that morning she already had sixteen missed calls on her phone , which had incidentally been dead all morning. The thought caused her to stop to self reflect for a moment, feeling some self imposed guilt for her previous night's behavior.

She never drank that much...What the hell had she been thinking? In her altered state, without access to her phone, she could have been seriously taken advantage of , or worse, physically hurt. The more her mind went down dark avenues of what ifs, she actually started considering herself thankful that Mick was at least decent enough not to violate her in some way. Maybe he wasn't such a bad guy after all ?

As she thought about it, the perverseness of how low she had set her standards darkened her already glib mood. Nicks self restraint should have in way be considered the gold standard. The more Gabrielle thought about it the more she found herself feeling deeply upset.

It wasn't fair. Why were men allowed to enjoy years ... and years ... and years of binge drinking with zero ramifications,  yet for her it only took one wild night out having fun to start literally feeling fucking lucky to live to tell about it?

While Gabrielle liked to joke that her big nose served as a buffer against bad men and their predatory behaviors, the truth was she felt lucky that her face wasn't traditionally pretty. The majority of her super hot friends with perfect bone structure had been attacked by men for the very thing society celebrated in them - their looks.

What was she saying? It wasn't just the traditionally pretty ones who had been assaulted , or those that had luscious figures. She considered herself to have lots of diverse friends from all backgrounds, ages and body types and almost all carried at least one trauma based story based on some form of sexual assault. It was sick.

_____

"You had sex with him didn't you?" Johanna accused as soon as she got Gabrielle on the phone.

No. I didn't. Not even close," Gabrielle defended. We seriously just passed out. But... she paused dramatically, "We did have a three-way kiss..."

Surprised by how quickly her mood could change when she was on the right side of intrigue, Gabrielle let the words melt like butter on the palette of her tongue.  It felt amazing to finally be the one with something salacious to say. She could see how this could get addicting. As she noted the stunned silence on the other line she couldn't help but smile and sit up proudly. She was starting to get a feel for saying things for shock value. Mick's notorious flare for drama must have already started rubbing off on her. This was fun.

_______

But the excitement of the morning was short lived. An hour later Mick called and was furious. Apparently coconut wireless traveled fast and Johana had already called him to confirm Gabrielle's sexual claims.

Mick immediately started in on her, shouting, "Why the fuck did you tell Johanna about our night? That was our special moment. And now it's fucking ruined!"

Gabrielle didn't know what to say. She honestly wasn't used to such direct confrontation. Plus she never imagined Mick, of all people, would get so upset over something so insignificant. It was only a kiss.

For what seemed like at least ten minutes Mick rattled off his accusations with harsh language and attacks on her character. While Gabrielle felt terrible that she had done something to violate his trust , his reaction still didn't seem fair. He wasn't even giving her a chance to explain.

Then as quickly as his verbal assaults began Mick finished his tirade with an abrupt click , hanging up the phone on her mid sentence. After it was all over Gabrielle put her phone down, feeling silently bitch slapped, and sat on the couch trying to comprehend all that had just happened. Her heart was racing.

The part of her brain which processed shame immediately took the wheel, off roading into fear based territory with thoughts such as , "How far will he take this? What if he tries to retaliate in some way and turns everyone against me? Or worse,  what if he spins the  story of our night together to counter my claims and ends up telling everyone we had sex despite knowing we didn't? If so, how could she factually deny it didn't happen? She'd have zero proof.

Gabrielle next debated getting on the front end of the gossip and wondered if she should start calling friends to explain her side of the story. Just as she reached for her phone , at that very moment, it rang with a sinister shrill. 

Gabrielle hesitated, feeling a familiar mechanism play out in her mind as she debated answering. She'd seen this happen a million times in horror movies. In the movie, the phone rings , where the victim knows it's the killer but still answers , or in another scenario someone approaches a woman's car where the audience knows the lady shouldn't take the bait and roll down her window but does anyways. This scenario had most likely become such a familiar troupe because it actually rang true. Smart women like herself notoriously walked into dangerous traps every single day due to the fact that her generation had been taught at a very young age that being polite was more valued in society than the actual protection of a woman's body.

True to point,  here she was palms sweating, meekly answering her phone, "Hello?"

Mick identified himself with an aggressive clearing of his throat."Gabrielle...", he said with authority , "I just wanted to apologize for yelling at you earlier."

Silence traveled between the two phone lines for a few moments while Gabrielle regrouped.

"Anyway," Mick said clearing his throat once more. "I was in the wrong. Who am I to tell you what to do with your own body? If you want to tell someone about our kiss, you can. It's your body and you are allowed to do anything you want with it."

Taken by surprise, Gabrielle burst out  a dry little laugh despite herself. There was the old "captain save a ho" she knew so well. Apparently he was being dead serious.

"You know..." he said wistfully on the other line, "Hell, it's not as if I haven't been known to kiss and tell, so I'm the last one to judge."

At that Gabrielle had to put her hand over her mouth to block an involuntary giggle.

Mick sighed impatiently over her mumbled laughter as he continued his apology, explaining, "It's just that I felt like last night was ours and I wanted it belong to us and no one else. Anyways..," Mick said optimistically, "can I make it up to you tomorrow night?"

There was a long pause on the line before she finally spoke. "Okay, I-"

"Great. See you then" he said quickly before abruptly hanging up the phone for the second time this morning and essentially leaving her on read.

Hello?...."Are you still there?," she asked feeling irritated.

But it was no use. As always Mick was gone in just enough time to conveniently leave out any room for a female voice. Yet Regardless of his rude behavior, Gabrielle still felt mildly shook by this new turn of events. What had happened to the old  asshole Mick she thought she knew, and where had this new, virtue signaling guy taken him?

I intentionally used lots of consent related words that have been Floating around the last few years to give them context in a real life situation. Thank you for reading. stay safe friends and please continue to practice consent ❤️