She did not know which of them was the father. All four had been brutal with her. Three holding her down while the other had his way. And their violence had been devastating.
It had started as a fun day out. Four boys, three girls. Of the girls, Lucy had been the youngest. She was 17 that summer. She did not know any of them very well. They had met at a bar on the beach and someone had told about a private beach where they could smoke some weed and drink vodka. And so she had left with them. A seventeen year old girl looking for fun. That was all.
Summers in France are wonderful. Warm. And the air is full of perfumes from all sorts of different plants and herbs and flowers. They had been on the beach two hours, the older two girls topless, Lucy in her favourite bikini. They had eaten sandwiches bought from the beach bar, a bar of chocolate. One of the guys had a baguette, chicken with salad and mustard. The Vodka had not lasted long.
She remembers the warm water. The taste of salt. Then the warm sand on her back as she lays down. Sandra, the oldest girl says she is going for more vodka. It is 25 minutes to the beach bar, and Elodie decides to go with her because she needs to use the bathroom. Nobody is worried about leaving 17 year old Lucy with four strange Arab boys.
First she felt her legs being held, then immediately after that her hands. As her arms were pulled roughly back behind her head she knew. God she knew. She tried to kick out but they were too strong. She screamed. She screamed as loud as she could and later she would remember that she never stopped screaming. But it didn’t stop them.
Three held her down while the forth guy ripped of her top, then her bikini bottom. Then she felt her legs being pulled apart. She tried to kick. She did kick. She kicked and kicked but they were too strong.
The first one was rough but she remembers most the last one. How he had bitten her nipples and slapped her so hard that he had broken her ear drum.
Sandra found her an hour later, curled up in a ball in the sand. She had helped her to her feet, gone with her to the ocean to try to wash the filth out of her. Wrapped her in a towel and called the medics to the beach with her mobile.
Lucy spent three weeks in hospital. Stitches in her face and two broken ribs were the least of her problems. Internal bleeding from the punches were not her main problem. But she did not know that, yet. For the next 5 weeks she lived in a void. She could not face people. Not because she felt that the rape had been her fault, she knew it was her fault. She just hated being around people, now. She had always been exceptionally smart, and she knew that the rape was her fault. She should not have been on that beach with strangers. Arab boys. She should not have stayed alone. She should have gone with the other girls. She should not have been lying like that on her back, almost inviting them to touch her. They were Arabs. They did not understand her freedoms. Was she a racist? No. Was she? Her torment was endless and the tears fell and fell like a waterfall down her face.
As for the Arab boys? She wanted to cut them. She was not like their women. Covered. So, yes, she knew it was her fault. She was beautiful. She was seventeen. And she had been lying half naked on a beach with four strange young Arab men. Of course it was her fault. Of course they had raped her.
When they told her that that she was pregnant she immediately thought about abortion. She went totally cold inside. Kill the little bastard before he even gets here. He would be another little rapist just like one of the bastards who had raped her. But she had felt the growing. Perhaps it was the growing inside her that softened her. Perhaps it was the guilt. Perhaps it was to punish herself for being so fucking stupid in the first place that she decided to keep the child.
And 7 months later, the tiny thing had arrived and spent the first three weeks of it’s life in a plastic box in the hospital. Tubes up it’s nose. A light shining on it to stop the jaundice. It looked like a large red raisin with eyes.
She named her Lucy.