Charlie and the Girl Factory
Copyright© 2025 by Charlie for now
Chapter 6
In a matter of six months, we’d seen separation, reparation, congregation, reiteration, and other -ations, the likes of which seven coming of age teenagers are not likely to share.
But we did.
School started back up after the Christmas vacation, and things went back to being as normal as they could be, considering the circumstances. Breaks and weekends included all of us, all the girls coming home, with the exception of one specific time. Donna stayed at school for a three-day weekend, saying she had a hot date with a basketball phenom that promised her the world. He was being picked up by the Denver Nuggets and had dollar signs in his eyes. Not that Donna was that kind of girl, but she must’ve seen the reflection in his eyes, or something. After a few drinks, evidently, she fell for the hoopla. It was a week before she was able to make it home and tell us what happened.
Naturally, Lofty, as we’ll call him, a six-foot six-inch dead aim from the three-point line, was a fraternity brother. He worked up enough courage to ask Donna out, then on the advisement of his frat brothers brought her to the house for a party. Two days later, she came to. She was in a strange room, in a strange house, in a strange part of town. She was naked, alone, and more afraid than she had ever been. She looked around the house and finally found a phone, called 911, and sat down to wait for help. Three more days in the hospital, an afternoon talking to police detectives, and she was finally released. Battered, bruised, afraid, unsure, and totally removed from any self-assured personality she once possessed.
She came home. To my house. To me. She spoke to my mother, privately. Mom called Cheryl in to talk with them, privately. Then, that afternoon, Donna dropped out of school, moved in with me, and didn’t venture out on her own for months. Donna had been drugged, at least twice, with at least two different rape drugs, raped by at least six different males, and left at the home of one of the party goers, not a fraternity member.
It took the police all of three weeks to find all six of the guys, two accomplices, and two girls that knew exactly what happened, but said and did nothing to stop it. Needless to say, Lofty will not be playing for the Nuggets, and two other fraternity brothers lost their selections in the NFL draft. And they say life isn’t fair. It was a huge embarrassment to the school, as well, so in an effort to calm things down, they offered Donna free tuition for life. All she had to do was find a place to stay and buy her books, and she could learn forever. No tuition costs or lab fees as long as she wanted to stay and learn there. It was a worthless offer, however, since there was no way Donna was going back to Columbia to attend school.
It took Cheryl and Trixie weeks to get Donna back to some semblance of normal. Although she didn’t leave my side very often, and slept with me, in my bed, we didn’t have sex, or make love, or any other form of physical affection, other than me holding her and kissing her good morning and good night. She slept on my shoulder some nights, and on others she was backed up into me in spoons, her hand holding mine over her tummy. Some nights she just lay next to me with her hand on my arm, but it seemed like she was always touching me. Cheryl once noted that I was the only male she ever spoke to. She didn’t even interact with her own father that much, and never spoke to him or approached him. That made me feel good, in one way. I was proud she thought of me as safe, but I was sorry for the fact she felt unsafe around every other man in the world, including her father, uncle, and even her younger cousin.
It was the night of my graduation, Trixie, Donna, Cheryl, and Mom being the only ones able to attend, when things changed. When we got home, Mom broke out a bottle of spumante, poured each of us a glass, and toasted to my eighteenth birthday and my graduation from high school.
Donna wrapped me up in her arms and kissed me. Then she pulled Trixie over to us, included her in the hug, kissed her, and told my mother, “Carol, excuse me for being so blunt, but I need to take your son upstairs and fix a problem I’ve been having. Trixie, please come help me.”
Mom nodded, smiled, and took a laughing Cheryl out for ice cream.
After she had me spend the better part of two hours fixing her problem, the three of us talked about the next year coming up. All of us were headed to Washington University, in St. Louis, save Susie, and she was transferring to the local community college. They had a well-known and respected three-year welding program she wanted to complete.