[It's harder to admit the extent to which her encounters with BOB had worsened over the years than it was to just give him the basic details, back in that field last summer. But there's still some distance. Even if there was no 'closure', like she'd gotten with Stanley. If that even counted as closure.]
[She sighs again and starts to speak, fully intending her tone to be disgusted, exasperated, but a high note in her voice betrays the emotions behind it.]
Oh, just... fucking... the reason I was so worked up when you said YOU'D seen him too is-- he fuckin' rapes people, it's just what he does. Goes after people, usually young people, usually women but not always-- [Because the way Cooper had said it, talked about it... made it seem like maybe there were exceptions. The more the years pass, the more it makes Heather's skin crawl to think about where her friend's subdued but very real fear may have been coming from.] -- fucks with them, breaks them down-- then... corrupts them somehow, or kills them if he can't.
I don't know how it works.
Like, he's not a person.
But somehow he...
[She lets her face drop into her hand.]
It didn't go that far.
He stopped showing up before it could.
But it still got... bad.
It got real bad.
It wasn't even sexual, but at the same time... like, I can't see how it could... not have been.
[She can still feel his fingernails raking against the roof of her mouth hard enough to draw blood, and a visible shudder grips her shoulders for a second...]
no subject
[It's harder to admit the extent to which her encounters with BOB had worsened over the years than it was to just give him the basic details, back in that field last summer. But there's still some distance. Even if there was no 'closure', like she'd gotten with Stanley. If that even counted as closure.]
[She sighs again and starts to speak, fully intending her tone to be disgusted, exasperated, but a high note in her voice betrays the emotions behind it.]
Oh, just... fucking... the reason I was so worked up when you said YOU'D seen him too is-- he fuckin' rapes people, it's just what he does. Goes after people, usually young people, usually women but not always-- [Because the way Cooper had said it, talked about it... made it seem like maybe there were exceptions. The more the years pass, the more it makes Heather's skin crawl to think about where her friend's subdued but very real fear may have been coming from.] -- fucks with them, breaks them down-- then... corrupts them somehow, or kills them if he can't.
I don't know how it works.
Like, he's not a person.
But somehow he...
[She lets her face drop into her hand.]
It didn't go that far.
He stopped showing up before it could.
But it still got... bad.
It got real bad.
It wasn't even sexual, but at the same time... like, I can't see how it could... not have been.
[She can still feel his fingernails raking against the roof of her mouth hard enough to draw blood, and a visible shudder grips her shoulders for a second...]