(Taking a deep breath.) I would never have had the courage to
write, much less post this, if it weren't for Surfgirl who was
just as disturbed as I was by a certain scene in 'Victoria's Secret'.
It's good to know that I'm not alone. *g*
Note that this contains disturbing material. It's not really
all that graphic, but I know that most of you won't want to think of
Fraser acting the way he did in this piece. We are all entitled to our
own opinion.
Rated R for course language and (non-consensual) sex. More thoughts
will follow the story.
Standard disclaimer applies. Credit for all dialogue goes to
Paul Haggis.
Once Ben is out of sight, I leave the hotel, heading in the general
direction of the much seedier establishment that is all I can afford.
My thoughts are in turmoil.
The first stages of my plan are complete, but I am having second
thoughts. He was so happy to see me and he admitted more than once that
he 'owes' me.
But we never talked about what really mattered. I'm not so sure
that I want to carry through with my plan any more.
I change my course, heading back to his apartment. We will have
coffee and talk about what he did to me, all those years ago. We will
talk about how prison changed me and what I had planned for my life before
Jolly involved me in the robbery and made sure I had no way out. And
if he listens, if he admits he was wrong and that he should have let
me go, then I won't go on with the plan. I'll tell him everything.
Even if he doesn't, just so long as he listens... No one has listened
to me for so long.
My knuckles rap lightly on the cheap, peeling door. It takes
a moment for him to answer.
One look into those steel grey eyes and my composure melts. My
anger bubbles to the surface.
"Do you think we could just pretend that it didn't happen?! How
could you do it?! How could you do that to me, huh?!" I yell, raising
my hands to shove him against the wall which he hits with a satisfying
'thud'.
"How could you..." I ask again as he takes me into his arms.
This is not what I had planned for tonight. We need to talk.
Sex won't make our problems go away. One of us has to be rational.
"No!" I exclaim. His grip only tightens and he bends down to
kiss me.
"I'm sorry," he has the audacity to say as his lips meet mine.
So, that's how he wants to play it. Fine. I'll fuck him if that's
what he wants. I know he has plans for a future with me. Well, I'll
take those dreams with me when I'm done with my plan. Ha! If he can't
listen to my simple 'no' how can I expect him to listen to all the other
things I have to say?
Somewhere, in the back of my mind, I know that he is kissing me.
His kisses are brutal and bruise my lips. They are the kisses of a man
long celibate who has waited only for this moment, and who will not be
denied.
He pulls me onto the bed.
"I'm sorry," I say to him. Sorry that I will have to punish you
later.
"It's all right, I probably deserve it." Oh, you sonofabitch!
Doesn't 'no' mean anything to you?
"You do."
He laughs as though I would find that funny. He is kissing me
again. Finally he gives my lips a moment's rest to take my fingers into
his mouth. I know that he is trying to rekindle the drama of the night
we spent together, snowed in on the side of that mountain, watching the
northern lights. But he fails. All I know is that I don't want to be
doing this, but that he must be punished. That he must learn to listen
to what people say to him.
His hands start to tear at my clothes. I let him do all the work.
I want no part of this.
My mind blanks for a moment as I ignore what he is doing to my
body. I refuse to become involved emotionally. My plan is all that
matters, now.
His hands are all over me, groping and stroking and exploring
my most intimate part. He is hard, now, and ready, so I let him. Not
because I want to, but because I know he will anyway, and if it will
be easier for me if I am ready for it.
His shaft his hot and burns my core. It sears my soul with each
deep thrust.
I came here tonight to reclaim a past, to build a future, and
to heal wounds. Not to fuck him like this. Are all men alike, then?
Interested only in sex? Never listening to a woman's needs?
Once, a long time ago, I thought that Ben Fraser was different
from all the other men on this planet. That maybe, just maybe, he was
that knight in shining armour I cynically believed could not possibly
exist.
But as he climaxes, screaming my name savagely, still thrusting
furiously, I know that he is no different from any other men I have met,
or will meet. Like all men, he takes what he wants, never thinking that
there will be a price to pay.
He will pay. I will make certain of that. And when in prison,
or in whatever hell he'll find himself in once my plan is through, he'll
remember tonight, and any other night together that he'll have taken,
and he will know that it was all his own doing.
When he is done, I pretend to doze off. He quickly falls asleep.
What a bastard. No comforting words. No concern for my own pleasure.
Like all other men.
Once I am certain that he is dead to the world, I get up, pulling
on a shirt that stinks of him.
I can't hate him for doing what it is in his nature to do. But
that does not mean I will take it quietly.
While scrubbing his apartment clean of my presence, I concoct
stage two of my plan.
End.
I don't want to use 'rape' to describe what happened in that scene.
It's just too strong. Ben would have stopped, had she gone a step
further than 'No!' and said 'Hands off!!!" But the fact that he ignored
the initial 'No!' definitely makes it non-consentual sex. This view
has gotten me in such trouble, but I have found fortitude (*g*)
in a conversation with Surfgirl and I decided that I would no longer
be afraid of pointing out disturbing aspects of Fraser's personality.
This scene has bothered me since the first time I watched 'Victoria's
Secret' when it was the second episode of dueSouth I'd ever seen
and had nothing to base Fraser's character on, yet. So, this scene was
one of many that helped form my less than 'traditional' view of 'Saint
Fraser'.