Chapter 7
As they drove to the Hampton Inn Janice sat string out of the window. The only words she spoke were short answers to any question that he asked. Without telling her why, he pulled his truck around the rear of the hotel. He didn't want to take a chance on the Beame brothers trying to find his truck.
As he came to a stop, Janice turned to him, "Look, why don't you just drop me off in Scranton. I'll call some friends and see if I can't bunk with them tonight."
He turned the truck off, "Janice, I'll take you into Scranton if that's what you really want. I promised you that we'll get separate rooms and I meant it. I'm just trying to help. It's time that you trusted someone. You need to get away from your troubles for at least one night. Now come on and let's get settled into our rooms."
Roger got out of the truck, locked his door and went to the back of the truck. He grabbed one of his suitcases and closed and locked the bed cover. He saw that Janice was sitting in her seat staring out of the windshield.
He walked to her door and opened it, "Come on and let's get our rooms."
Janice got out of the truck very slowly and they walked into the hotel and up to the front desk. Roger told the clerk that they needed two rooms, without knowing why he said that he would be staying for two days. The young man behind the desk slid the applications in front of them and Roger shoved one over to Janice. After the cards were filled out Roger paid for them with his credit card. The clerk gave Roger the keys for two adjoining rooms. Roger handed one to Janice and she took it and looked at it like she had never seen a key before. He took her arm and led her to the elevator.
Outside of their rooms Roger took her key and opened her door for her and handed the key back to her. She stood for a moment as if she was unsure what to do. He gave her a gentle nudge toward her door and went to his door and unlocked it.
He turned to her, as she was about to enter her room, "It's too early to go to sleep. Get settled and we'll go down to the lounge and talk for a while."
He walked into his room before she had a chance to answer. The room was excellent and had a king-sized bed. He looked out of the window and he saw that they were close to the Pennsylvania Turnpike. After cleaning up and shaving he picked up the phone and dialed Janice's room. It had been about thirty minutes since they had checked in.
"Are you ready yet or do you need a few minutes more?"
She told him that she was ready and that she would meet him in the hall. He hung up the phone and made sure that he had his keys and wallet and went into the hall. Janice was waiting for him outside of her door. He saw that she had reapplied her makeup and she looked as fresh as she had at the restaurant.
In the elevator he turned to her, "Janice, I promised you that I wasn't going to put the moves on you tonight. Relax and enjoy yourself for a while. I promise that I'll be the perfect gentleman."
She gave him a weak smile and took his arm and walked with him to the lounge. The lounge had a piano in one corner but no one was playing it. The lights were appropriately dim and the décor was tasteful. He suggested that they sit at a table instead of the bar and she nodded. Roger asked her what she wanted and she asked for a Margarita again. There was no waitress so he went to the bar and orders a Margarita for her and a bourbon and water for himself.
They talked for a while and Janice asked him what kind of company that he had started. He told her everything about the company and went into great detail about what it took to run a high-tech company. He began to feel that he was monopolizing the conversation and he asked her about her life in San Diego. He found out that she had left San Diego needing only one more year to get her degree and becoming a registered nurse. The way her eyes sparkled when she talked about nursing he knew that this was what she was born to do.
Roger looked at his watch and found that they had been talking for three hours, "We'd better get some sleep. Driving all day is just as hard as working an eight-hour day. I need some sleep."
She nodded and they walked out of the lounge and headed for their rooms. At the door to their rooms he thanked her for listening to his bragging and for telling him about San Diego. He gave her a quick hug and when he did he felt her go rigid in his arms. He released her and walked to his room. He smiled at her and went into his room.
He sat on the bed for a few minutes wondering what demons were eating away at her soul. He shook his head and went into the bathroom and stripped his clothes off and got in the shower. The warm water began to make him sleepy and he finished the shower and went back into the bedroom. He suddenly remembered that Janice didn't have anything to wear to bed and he picked up the phone and dialed her room.
"It just dawned on me that you don't have a nightgown or anything. I have a pajama shirt that you can use. It will fit you like a tent though. You're welcome to it if you want."
She agreed to the offer and he put his pants back on and got the pajama top out of his suitcase and went into the hall and knocked on her door. She opened the door about four inched and stuck her hand out the door. He put the pajama top in her hand and she withdrew her hand and the door slammed shut.
Roger shook his head and smiled and walked back to his room. He put his pajama bottoms on and crawled into bed. The mattress was firm; just the way he like. He began to think of the events of the days but didn't get very far before sleep overtook him.
A noise woke him up and he sat up in bed trying to figure out what had awakened him. The noise continued once and then again. He finally realized that it was the phone.
"Hello?" he said.
"Were you asleep?" Janice asked sheepishly.
"No," he lied, "I had trouble winding down."
"I have to talk to you," she said, "I'd like... I'll tell you when I get there. Open the door."
He heard the phone hit the cradle and the line went dead. He threw the covers back and went to the door and opened it. He looked down the hall toward her room but her door was still closed. Then her door opened a crack and she looked up and down the hall. She rushed out of her room and closed the door. She brushed by him and rushed into his room and jumped into his bed and pulled the covers up around her chin.
"Close the door and turn out the light," she hissed at him.
He did as he was told and walked over and got into bed, "What's going on..."
She put her hand on his lips to silence him, "Please don't talk. I have to tell someone. I haven't been able to talk to anyone about this before. If you say anything I'm afraid that I'll lose my nerve and not be able to say it."
He kept quiet, not telling her that she wasn't making any sense. He had an idea what she was going to say but he knew that it had to be in her own good time and in her own way.
Even in the dark he could hear the catch in her voice and he knew that she was crying, "I told you that Howard and Homer raped me for two days. That's true but that isn't all. They did everything to me that a man can do to a woman, over and over. For two days there was always one of them either raping me or forcing me to tell him that I liked what they were doing to me. Homer liked to keep jabbing me with his pen knife just enough that it would leave a little cut. After he got tired of that game he amused himself by sticking pins in my breasts. After they beat me up, Homer took a hunting knife and put it inside of me and cut me open... down there. He told me that he made me a useless whore. He said that no man would ever want me again. After they dumped me in front of the hospital, the doctor sewed me up. He said that he put me back together as good as new."
She started sobbing and he reached out and pulled her to him and held her with her head on his arm. The sobbing continued for several minutes and Roger just held her and caressed her hair.
"I don't know if I'll ever be as good as new. People say that they understand when a woman gets raped but they don't. Unless you're a woman that's been raped you don't understand. Those bastards stole my soul! I feel like I'm dead; I just haven't laid down yet. I feel so empty inside. I feel like I'm an empty shell of a human being and that I'll never be a woman again... Oh God."
Roger held her, hiding the rage inside of him that he felt for Homer and Howard Beame. As she began to sob again he held her as her sobs turned to silent tears that didn't seem to have an end. After about a half an hour it dawned on him that she wasn't crying anymore and he saw that she had cried herself to sleep. He eased her off of his arm and positioned her so that she could get a decent night's sleep. He pulled the covers up around her and leaned over and gently kissed her lips. Apparently, her crying had exhausted her so much that she didn't feel his kiss.
Roger lay back in bed and tried to digest what Janice had told him
tonight. He knew what courage she had to have to confide in him and he
was glad that she had picked him as the one to start her healing with.
She had bared her soul to him. He knew that it would be a long time
before she was completely healed, if ever. He looked over at her then
turned and stared at the ceiling again. In a while sleep overtook him.