The first physical onslaught of this beautiful girl took place and then the unquestionable reality hit. Hard and relentless. Ever could instantly recognise it to be Lomita, she was so innocently breathtaking in her beauty. The events that followed he could barely watch, he kept looking at Lomita in an unspoken demand for it to stop. She returned, by gesture, his eyes to the screen.

It was sick-making.

Truly sick-making and Ever wanted to complete the physical act of vomiting. He was prone to a chunder. He kept his face turned to the screen, but Lomita was unable to see his eyes close at the parts that were unbearable to watch. Eventually the rape came to an end and Lomita stood, to put the lights on, and turn off the projector.

‘That was my film debut.’

She said.

And realised that she had never watched the film with anyone before and now it had reached her; because she had viewed it through the eyes of someone else, she had experienced someone else’s shock; she started to cry and all the pain that had never come out seemed to come in one torrent of tears. In the presence of Ever: the only person who had sat and watched the film with her.

Even though she was unaware that he had at moments been forced to close his eyes, unprepared to be an audience to the degradation. He didn’t want to carry those images in his head forever. Not in his head.

Afterwards he did not know what to do but sit and be a witness to this pain, this realised pain. She spoke through her sobs.

‘Do you think I was good? Should I have gone on to great things?’

Ever was white, at least he felt white, pallid, the blood had gone from him.

He got up to leave.

‘Please don’t go, my sweet.’

‘I’ll get you some tissues.’

He returned with a box from his bedroom, giving himself at least some oxygen to breathe, out of the airless confine of the screening room.

And to receive some different images on his retinas.

*

They sat and he wanted to hold her but felt that a physical action, even one of tenderness, would have no place, having seen what he had just seen.

He would have killed for her. He would have done that. He could understand what had been done. It made sense to him, but then that was the concern: his understanding.

She went through the process of a gentle blowing of the nose and a careful mopping of the eyes. He thought of the waterproof mascara on the shopping channel and wondered if that was what she was wearing.

There was no run.

After a time, she composed herself: they left to go and sit in the garden, catching something positive and natural from the sun.