S2/03. Convergence

3.4 Diana Foster
Summer 1998, SMU Clinic bus station, San Myshuno

Shit.

Diana forced herself back to consciousness.

What time was it?!

A look on her watch told her that she'd missed the bus by just few minutes. She'd been so tired after her night shift that she fell asleep on the station bench. The next bus would come only in about twenty minutes. 

Shit!

She'd barely make it home in time to pick up the girls and bring them to daycare; that was if Carys had dressed and prepared them already.

She'd be so mad that Diana'd be late!

Carys Park was Diana's next door neighbor. She was also a single parent and her daughter Kerri just a year older than Lana. The little girls clicked instantly, as did their mothers; so naturally they helped each other out with the kids. Thanks to Carys, Diana could occasionally take the better paid night shifts at the hospital. Her neighbor took Lana for the night, and in return Diana got the girls ready and brought them to daycare every morning, so Carys could open her café early and catch more of the working crowd.

The "Lunchbox Gallery" was a ground floor apartment-turned-shop right next to one of Easternrose Bay's busiest subway and bus station. It sold a few coffee specialties, take-away sandwiches and salads, as well as some daily newspapers; the perfect menu for the hungry and bored commuters.

In the evenings you could get a hot meal and often there'd be some local aspiring musicians or comedians performing, or writers hosting a reading.

The walls were plastered with all kinds of art, also made by yet unknown painters and sculptors.

Carys' first love had been an incredibly talented, but also unbelievably unsuccessful painter who'd invoked the love for art in her. They had had a passionate, rocky relationship until one day he disappeared from the face of earth. Carys got over the lost love, but never over his sudden disappearance. She still hoped that one day he might return, looking for a chance to display his art in her café as many others did already.

Carys would tell this story to all of her waiting customers and every time the story varied a little. Diana wasn't too sure how much of it was true or just a narrative to round up the whole concept of the shop. Either way, the café was a magnet for the creative, the edgy and the grungy, and occasionally some more or less legitimate talent hunters, and coincidentally also the "best coffee place in town" that Ben'd invited her when they'd met first time in the hospital.

The world was such a small place!

Especially here in the Bay, where everyone seemed to know everyone. Truly, it hadn't changed much from Diana's childhood memories of living here.

Now too, she had quickly found at least as much support and friendship as she'd had in her neighborhood in Oasis Springs.

Frank had been right, eventually everything fell into place for her.

Diana pulled his flannel tighter around her body and yawned. The first summer days were already hot, but so early in the morning it was still chilly. She stood up and walked around to shake off the daze.
It was hard to stay awake after a day and a night full of work, but the movement helped a little, even though she could do barely more than drag her feet along the ground.

Until there was no more ground; she stepped into the void.
Instantly she was wide awake.

She didn't fall – no! Someone took her, caught her from behind!

With an iron-tight grip, someone who was bigger, much stronger, wrapped one arm around her waist and pressed the other hand against her mouth, almost completely covering her nostrils too. Even if it weren't for the panic cutting of her breath, she choked on the impending lack of air.  

Through her blurring vision, the bus station shrank in the distance, and was replaced soon by grey and red, tall brick walls which enclosed around her and concealed the broad daylight and any potential curious spectator's view. They'd reached her abductor's destination: a tight and windowless backstreet between the tower houses.

"Thought you can bullshit me, Cookie, eh?"

Martin's raspy beer breath against her ear sent chills down her spine.

"You little bitch!" He spat. "Your man isn't here to look out for you, isn't he? Did he get enough of you, too, huh? Haven't seen that smug mug of 'is in a while around ya." He cackled nastily and clenched her body between the houses and himself, her front against the wall, the full force of his body pressed against her back.

"Can't blame him, you're really a piece of work..." he grunted. 

His tone'd changed slightly, his breath went slightly heavier. As if the appeal of insulting her was overshadowed by something else, something that more profoundly distracted, preoccupied his mind.

Something, Diana realized with horror, something that was hard and hot and pressed against her bum, while his cold fingers dragged on her skirt, trying to pull it up without losing hold of her.

His breath was very heavy.

No!

NO!

She winced and whimpered, but even though her arms were free, she couldn't move an inch of the rest of her body.

Still, her fighting hampered him; instead of simply satisfying his sick desires, he now had to shift his focus to keep her in check and position. 

"You–" Martin cawed under is breath, full of hatred and vitriol.

Dazzling, sharp pain unfurled in Diana's forehead, when he paused his work on their clothes to grab her by her hair and smash her head against the wall to stop her.

If her face weren't so close to the wall already, and his force restrained by his other hand still covering her mouth, he'd probably cracked her forehead open.

But while he'd raised his fiddling hand he'd also decreased a tiny bit of his pressure against her hips, which gave her lower body just enough space to move.

With the instinct of a cornered wild animal, she seized the tiny bit of new won freedom and lashed out, concentrating all her strength into her right leg.

With full force she rammed her heel into Martin's foot. For the first time in her life she wished she'd wear heels instead of regretting when she did; she'd loved to pierce a hole into his foot now!

He howled.

He'd lost hold over her, too.

It took her a moment Diana to realized it, but then she wrestled herself out to run. Just when she turned, she was suddenly pulled back.

She'd been half a second to late, he'd caught her wrist just before she could escape.

"You –!" His face was a grimace of wrath.

Anger flushed her too; at Martin's disgusting obsession with controlling her, at her failed attempt to escape, and generally at herself for ever allowing such a piece of shit like him into her life.

In the same moment when he pulled her back - violently, expecting her to move against his force - she instead channelled her rage forward and went with the flow of his force.

Before he realized, he'd pulled her angled knee full force right into his private parts.

He flopped to the ground like a wet noodle.

This time Diana didn't waste a second.

She ran.

She had no clear destination, she'd just have to get away from him as fast as she could – shit! He didn't follow her, after that, didn't he? He'd absolutely kill her if he'd catch her now!!

Frantically, Diana looked over her shoulder again and again; and exactly this lack of attention for her immediate surroundings was which brought her escape to an unexpected, abrupt halt.

She'd bumped right into another person, or better said, over them; as the momentum of her running speed dragged them both to the ground.

While falling, she registered a dull throb against her neck - caused by the other falling person's knee; a scratch against her thigh - their shoe - and a sharp, hot sting in her wrist and palms; from the rough concrete slabs when she hit the floor; and finally, the person themself.

"Ben!"

What a relief!

"Diana! What the hell's going on?"

"Good god! I'm so glad you're here!" Diana croaked. Even if Martin followed her, he wouldn't get close to her while Ben was here. She was safe!

"Woah! What happened to your face?!"

"Martin; he- he- he- oh god!"

She pressed her hand against her mouth when it hit her. Until now, she'd been so highly alerted that she hadn't fully grasped what just had happened. But now the whole weight of it crushed over her.

She choked, shaken by dry sobs and nausea.

"Oh shit-"

Ben turned pale as ash.

It shook her right out of her trance.

"No!" She exclaimed. "No, he didn't! He- he just tried! Tried to- to- to..." Diana stuttered, rushing to rectify a possible misunderstanding, but she didn't find quite the right word to describe what exactly it was that Martin'd tried to do. "Rape" was just too much of a word for what it'd really been, right?

She couldn't even be sure if he'd really go that far; maybe he just wanted to scare her! After all she had escaped him, she had no right to act as if she were a victim! Martin hadn't raped her! He'd just gotten a little angry again- 'No! Stop defending him!' Diana stopped her thought rush, 'even if he wouldn't really want to rape you, he hit you!'

"Whatever he tried, he will try it again," Ben said calmly, but with so much resolution that Diana instantly dropped her thought salad and fully paid attention to him.

"You got away now, but next time you might not. You should never be alone here again."

He got up and brushed the dust off his pants. Then he reached her his hand to get up too.

Oh no.

Only now it dawned on her that she hadn't escaped Martin for good yet.

Fear poured over her like an ice cold shower. She couldn't just avoid passing here, taking another bus or tram wouldn't get her home in time...

"I need to get to work- and home again..." she muttered.

"Look," Ben sighed, "now that we know what he's capable of, it's probably best if I stick to you here. Just for the near future, okay? I promise, I'm not gonna be a creep, okay?"

He smirked. "Though that's probably what a creep would say, too."

This took her by such surprise that she had to laugh. "What?! I never thought that!"

He grinned. "Good that we cleared that up."

Then it hit her.

"Oh! You thought that- No, I was serious! I really don't want to be a bother!"

He'd thought she'd made up excuses to avoid being alone with him- and that was probably why she hadn't seen him around here too often!

"Well, you're not a bother." He smiled, so warm that she couldn't believe for a second he didn't really, honestly mean it.

"Thank you," she said and tried to ignore the warm tingle in her cheeks.

"No biggie. You should go to the police and file a report, too. If he doesn't stop the stalking, they can take him off the street for good."

Again, Diana snorted. If it just were as easy like that! "They don't do shit."

She knew- better than she'd liked to.

The police was always late, always got only half of the story, and even that mostly wrong. And they didn't bring anyone back. Poor Jo still was dead; what did it help that Diana's ex gang-mates sat in prison for it?

"Fine, no cops then."

Diana'd expected she'd have to defend her experiences, but luckily he just accepted it.

"We gotta figure how to get him off your back, though."

It was then when the bus arrived, and instantly Carys, the girls and the day care Diana had to bring them to, crossed her mind.

"Later, I gotta go," she remarked breathlessly and jumped through the bus' front doors, as if she'd miss it again if she weren't fast enough.

"See ya," she turned around, he'd deserve at least a proper goodbye!

He waved. "Let's talk about it later at Nia's, okay?"

Martin wasn't out of the world, but for the time being, she'd be safe from him. Even if this wasn't a solution forever, she had time to find one.

Maybe she could find another public transport connection that could bring her home in time; or maybe she'd just save up and get a bike.

Diana was confident.