Chapter 3

It was raining harder now and Kerri's reverie was momentarily broken as a semi passed her, spraying muddy water from its tires, obscuring her vision until the next cycle of the wipers cleared the windshield, allowing her to focus on the road and traffic ahead.

This nightmarish daydream had played itself out in her mind hundreds of times by now and, like now, she was still racked with guilt, not so much because of her actions that night which were bad enough even though forced, but, rather, because of what it had done to Kyle, to his feelings toward her. Yet to this day she remained unsure exactly what she could have done differently that would not have posed an even greater threat to Kyle's life.

The wipers continued their sing-song cadence and before she realized it,

Kerri was again revisiting that night four years ago.

She had awakened and staggered from the underpass just as the first streaks of daylight were appearing. Realizing she had been unconscious for more than four hours, she dressed, made a quick survey of the area and, not finding her son, hurried home as quickly as she could despite the severe cramping that would at times double her over with pain. Her total focus was upon Kyle, his injury and that he must have gone home, his only safe haven; home to the drunken father he adored.

As she finally mounted the front steps and opened the door, her first inclination was to turn and run. She was terror stricken to see their eyes. Never, in all the beatings she had endured had she seen such abject hatred on the face of her husband. Perhaps even more disturbing was that an identical look covered her son's face as well. Kyle had obviously told his father everything, no doubt emphasizing her actions of the night before while omitting any mention of her motives. Both had obviously been waiting for her. Kyle's face was bandaged; Allan had at least put down the bottle long enough to take his son to the emergency room. She would later learn it had taken almost one hundred stitches to close the wound that three plastic surgeries later was still quite evident, a scar Kyle would carry to the grave.

"Well, well, well, if it isn't the cock sucking, nigger loving, whore! What'd you do, go back for more?" sneered Allan as he rose from the chair.

"Allan, let me explain. Kyle, honey, are you all..."

Kerri went reeling from the blow. Allan had caught her with the back of his hand, sending her crashing back against the door, slamming it shut. He grabbed her by the hair with one hand while raining a series of slaps across her face.

"Allan, please, let me expla..."

The next blow was a fist to her stomach, driving the air from her lungs and doubling her over.

"Oh, Kyle explained everything !" he shouted as he lifted the gasping woman by her hair painfully grabbing her breast. She had, of course, known how abusive her husband could be from the very start of their relationship, but she had never known he was particularly racist until this moment when all his pent up anger and resentment for his own failings came spewing forth in a torrent of rage directed toward blacks and her.

"So you love black cocks in your mouth, eh?" he snarled, hitting her with his free hand splitting her upper lip. "Just can't wait to get black cock in your pussy!" he stood back and kicked her between her legs. As she crumpled to the floor, he pulled her by her hair into the living room where he unceremoniously dumped her near the sofa where Kyle was sitting. Hands clutching her nest, almost blinded by the pain, Kerri looked up to her son and pleaded through swelling lips.

"... Help... me!"

She wasn't asking her son to physically resist the older Akers. She only hoped he would implore his father that she had been hurt enough.

The look she received in return chilled her, as Kyle's face hardened and his words were icy, cold, steel weapons which hurt more deeply than any blows her husband could rain upon her.

"You deserve everything you're going to get... WHORE!" he said as Allan again dragged her by her hair. She had, at first, tried to fend off his blow, but the abuses of the night before, teamed with the telling blows her husband had delivered, left her exhausted, pain racked and near senseless and her arms simply dangled listlessly at her sides as he threw her over the back of the sofa, her head almost reaching the cushions while her legs dangled over the back leaving her folded at the waist with her rear atop the sofa back.

"So you like black dick in the ass, eh?"

Never, in all the years of abuse, had he spit out this kind of hatred.

"Please... I... had to," she whimpered, nearly unconscious.

"Not what I hear! I hear you told them you loved having his black cock in your ass! Did you? DID YOU?"

"Yes," she said weakly, "but..."

She had no way to see, and, therefore, to know, that Allan had brought a cola bottle from the kitchen. He savagely pushed it into her rear, completely ignoring her screams, pushing harder and harder, burying it deeper and deeper until he felt her fall limply into unconsciousness. Only then did he walk away leaving the bottle protruding obscenely from his wife's anus.

Never again had there been even the semblance of family life. When she had tried repeatedly to talk with Allan, explain her side, he would either silently walk away or insult her with a racist denigration; that is when he was sober. When drunk the beatings continued, but he never again had sex with her. She cooked, she cleaned, she washed his clothes, but for all practical purposes, she no longer existed. He wanted no more to do with her except as a punching bag upon whom he could take out his drunken frustrations. Kyle seemed to model himself after his father. He too refused to allow her to explain and avoided her whenever possible. She noticed Kyle trying to draw closer to his father, but despite the fact that they shared an intense hatred for her, Allan remained as self absorbed as always, spending no more time with Kyle than before, which was practically none. She had never told Kyle that Allan had wanted her to have an abortion when they found out she was pregnant. Being a good Catholic, she had refused and Allan had begrudgingly agreed to 'do the right thing'. Thus began a marriage consummated for all the wrong reasons. She would learn how wrong as Allan had drifted from job to job, barely paying the rent, always blaming others for his own shortcomings. The beatings had probably been both an outlet for his personal feelings of inadequacy teamed with resentment for feeling he was forced into the marriage.

For whatever the reasons, Kerri's life with Allan had been a living hell, the only redemption being the birth of their son. Yet, it was the drunken father he was drawn to, seemingly only tolerant of her. Perhaps he had learned the lesson from his father early, that women were but a means to gratify your own ego and an easy outlet for your repressed anger. They were possessions to be used how and when the man saw fit, then kept at arms length until they again had a use. Any show of affection toward them could be construed as weakness.

The boy had learned his lessons well. From childhood, while never actually hostile toward her, he regarded her with a cool detachment and was never the loving child she so hoped for. Her efforts to get closer to him failed repeatedly and, at times, seemed to actually generate resentment. She had never given up, trying new approaches, finding new ways to share her life with him and to become more a part of his. Their going to the movie that fateful night had been yet another means by which she hoped they could bond.

And now he despised her. While he hadn't actually struck her, his verbal abuse was practically as vehement as his father's and one of the few things they seemed to enjoy sharing was the hurling of insults toward Kerri. Words like "cunt", "bitch", "whore", and "cocksucker" were hurled at her daily. At first she had tried to persist in explaining but it soon became evident they had no intention of listening and no intent of slackening their denigration of her, so now she would silently stand and wait until the slurs were over. Yet even now, having heard them again and again, they cut through her, piercing her heart, bleeding away any vestige of self respect.

Slowly, her physical, if not emotional, wounds healed. When she had missed her first period, she was still recovering from the rapes and Allan's retaliation. Her periods had always been rather irregular anyway and so she attached little significance to it. But when she missed her second period she began agonizing with 'what ifs".

She bought a home pregnancy test and administered the test in the bathroom while Allan was at work and Kyle at school. Her heart skipped a beat when the indicator turned positive. What could she do. Her religious convictions would preclude abortion. Adoption was a possibility, but could she give up a child she had nurtured in her own womb, even if the father was black? Objectivity aside, she knew it was Kevin's'. What would Allan say? Do? What about Kyle? Her mind was a blur of thoughts when she heard the telephone.

She dropped the indicator into the wastebasket, she would hide it in the garbage out back later, and hurried to the phone.

"Hello."

She gasped as she heard the voice.

"Mrs. Akers? This is Kevin, Kevin Rollins. Please don't hang up. I know you have every reason to hate me, to never want to hear from me again, to call the police and have me arrested."