The Friendship Barrier

‘Umm… Not very communicative tonight, are you?’ He sounded more amused than annoyed, and, as always, Stephanie was aware of how much self-control he had. As she stared out of the car window the disturbing thought came to her that Jake would never allow anyone to see something of himself that he did not want them to, and that included her. She knew from the office gossip and from what she read in the papers that Jake dated several very beautiful women; women who were known to be choosy, not just about the wealth and looks of their lovers, but also about their sexual prowess, and yet, when he was with her, Jake projected an image so totally devoid of any sexual connotation that she found it hard to imagine that other side of him.

But it did exist… She shivered, not realising that Jake had noticed until he frowned. ‘Cold? I’ll turn the booster on. Autumn seems to have come early this year.’

It was only September, but it had been a particularly good summer. Even Stephanie’s fair skin had tanned, although, unlike the other girls in the office, her tan only extended as far as her arms and legs. The flat did possess a small private garden, but not even there had she been able to bring herself to put on even a swimsuit. She knew that her reluctance in that direction had caused raised eyebrows the last time she had gone with Jake to Florida. The wives of his business associates had hardly been able to believe that she didn’t want to take advantage of their hot sun. As always, Jake had been the one to come to her rescue.

‘Stephanie burns easily,’ he had said casually, and the matter had been dropped. Only they knew the reason she was so reluctant to expose any more of her body in public than she needed to. Physical pain, and even terror, could fade in time, but mental shame, that was something that never died. Jake had initially suggested a psychiatrist, but she had been so vehemently opposed to his suggestion that he had let it drop. What could talking to someone else tell her that she didn’t know already? That she had nothing to feel ashamed about? That she wasn’t to blame? That she wasn’t the only person to be sexually attacked? Quite unconsciously, she gave a small moan. Jake braked, and, despite the darkness of the car, Stephanie was conscious of him turning towards her.

‘Are you all right?’

‘Fine…’ Her voice was rawly husky, and she knew he had picked up on the hesitancy in it.

‘This wouldn’t be a ploy to get out of this première, would it?’ As always, he sounded lazily amused rather than annoyed… ‘You know that James Tavener expects us to be there.’

James Tavener was one of their wealthiest clients. He had engaged Jake’s firm to help him find a London apartment, and the American film producer had also invited Jake and herself to be his guests at tonight’s première.

‘Of course not. I’m quite looking forward to it.’

In the darkness of the car, she felt Jake tense, and wondered what on earth she had done to prompt such a reaction. The last time he had tensed like that had been… she frowned, remembering the incident. It had been when she had been reaching into a tall filing cabinet and had almost lost her balance. Jake had reached out to steady her, and she had gripped his arm instinctively, until, quite suddenly, the warm male smell of him and the physical reality of his masculinity had overwhelmed her in drowning waves of panic, and she had recoiled from him, shiveringly. But that had been six months ago, and Jake had been careful not to touch her since. She hadn’t needed to explain to him as she might have done to someone else. Jake knew exactly how she felt and why…

‘Have you read the advance press releases?’

‘No.’

‘Umm…’

They had to park some little distance away from the cinema. Jake, courteous as always, walked alongside her on the outer edge of the pavement. London was quite busy, and there were other première-goers heading in the same direction as them. A gang of youths walking towards them accidentally jostled Stephanie on the crowded pavement. A sensation not unlike that she had experienced when first learning to swim overtook her. She felt as though she were gasping for breath, fighting to stay alive, as waves of panic seized her, and then Jake’s voice, even and calm, subdued the waves, and the nightmare was gone.

‘All right?’ His voice sounded faintly tight as he looked into her pale face.

‘Fine,’ she lied. ‘Where are we meeting the Taveners?’

‘We’re to go straight up to their box. There’s going to be a VIP line-up which James will be part of. Apparently, we can go in this way,’ he added, indicating a small back door to the theatre.

Having shown the pass James Tavener had given him, they were shown up to a sumptuous box, with an excellent vew of the screen. Half an hour later they were joined by their hosts. The curtain went up.

‘Watch this boy,’ James Tavener instructed them, ‘he’s going places. He’s going to make Gere look very much yesterday’s man. We had a tussle getting some of the scenes past the censor… nothing smutty or vulgar in them—but…’

‘But they make your toes curl up and your insides melt,’ Livy Tavener laughed, smiling across at Stephanie. ‘At least, they do mine, for all that he’s at least twenty years my junior…’

The Taveners were laughing. Jake was smiling that cool, imperturbable smile he used whenever he didn’t want anyone to know what he was feeling, and Stephanie tried to smile in response, only her mouth felt stiff, refusing to respond to the commands of her brain. Fortunately, the lights had gone down, so no one else could see her expression, but Jake… As she forced herself to concentrate on the screen, Stephanie wondered if he had known the content of the film beforehand.

What on earth was the matter with her? Sex scenes were common nowadays; she could hardly switch on the television without seeing someone parading about in the nude. But she could always switch the television set off again, whereas here… She realised that James Tavener was talking to her and tried to concentrate.

‘We had a lot of problems with the rape scene…’ he told her. ‘I mean we wanted something realistic, but only to get across the girl’s anguish, so that the audience could appreciate what comes later with Blaize. You see, this girl avoids all contact with men, and then she meets this guy, and…’

‘Let her watch it for herself, James,’ Livy Tavener interrupted. ‘Honestly, this film’s his baby, and he’s crazy about it,’ she told Stephanie. ‘He’s hoping it will get an “Oscar”. It certainly deserves one. Laura Howard and Blaize play their parts so realistically. The emotion between them almost reaches out to enfold you…’

Stephanie tried to stand up. She had to get away. She couldn’t sit here and watch this film. Panic dashed over her in waves, her body alternately hot and then cold. Dimly, she was aware of Jake’s fingers curling round her wrist, lean and firm, imparting a steadying warmth to her frozen skin.

‘Sit down…’ The quiet command helped to steady her.

‘Jake, I can’t watch this…’ she pleaded huskily, ‘You know…’

‘Yes, I know,’ he broke in softly, ‘but you can’t keep on running for ever, Steph. Some time, you’re going to have to stop and turn round and confront your fears. Tonight might be as good a time as any.’

‘You brought me here deliberately,’ she whispered agonisedly. ‘You knew…’

‘Yes, I knew,’ he agreed emotionlessly. ‘Now sit down again unless you want the Taveners to get curious. I’m sure James would be thrilled to discover that he’s got the best critic of Laura Howard’s performance he could ever have sitting right next to him.’

Stephanie drew in a sharply painful breath at the cruelty of his comment. Never once before had Jake exhibited anything other than patience and consideration. Not since that night when he had taken her home to his flat, when he had washed her lacerated skin and talked to her in that soft comforting voice that had calmed her panic and fears, coaxing her to give him all the details of her attack, had he talked about what had happened to her. Oh, he had tried on several occasions, less frequently now, because on each occasion she had shied away from the subject, reacting with such emotional pain and distress that he had let it drop.

‘Jake, please, I can’t sit here and watch this…’ she pleaded in anguish. ‘Please…’

‘Stephanie, it’s been close on two years,’ he said quietly, ‘and it’s not getting any better If anything, it’s getting worse.’

‘No!’

‘No? Then tell me how many men you’ve dated in the last two years, and how many of them have you allowed to kiss or touch you? I can tell you how many,’ he said quietly when she sat frozen, unable to respond, ‘None. Don’t you think I know, Steph? I’ve only got to watch the way you recoil from me if I so much as brush against you accidentally. I practically have to chart a course across my office so that I keep out of your prescribed boundaries. Look, I know what happened to you…’

‘Nothing happened to me,’ she bit out the words sharply. On her lap her hands were folded into small fists, her nails biting into her palms. That Jake of all people should turn on her like this, and so unexpectedly. She couldn’t believe it. She couldn’t endure the pain ripping through her, pain like none she had ever known.

‘You were almost raped,’ Jake reminded her, ‘violated in the most brutal and unforgivable way by a gang of youths who had deliberately lain in wait for you, and attacked you and you would have been raped if I hadn’t happened to hear you scream.’ He broke off when she covered her ears, her voice strained and almost unrecognisable as her tortured throat managed to admit a husky, ‘No… no, you promised we would never have to talk about it… Jake…’

‘Hey you two, aren’t you interested in the film?’ James Tavener’s voice interrupted them, and Stephanie sank back into her seat, refusing to turn her face in Jake’s direction, her whole body trembling with reaction. Even now, she couldn’t believe what had happened. That Jake… She tried to keep her attention on the screen, but in her emotional state that was even worse. With morbid fascination, she watched Laura Howard enact what was almost a replay of what had happened to her, only her attackers had been a group of youths who caught the same bus home as her at night. Most evenings, they made comments as they waited for the bus, called out remarks, and generally tormented Stephanie with their presence, which was always faintly sexually threatening. And then, one night, she had worked late, and when she had emerged into the alleyway at the back of the office, they had been waiting for her. It had been December, and bitterly cold. She had been wearing boots and a thick coat which, she thought later, had helped to save her. How they had found out where she worked, she had never discovered, although Jake suspected that they must have followed her.

She had barely had time to do anything more than scream once before they attacked her. Even now, she had nightmares about those moments before Jake had arrived, alerted by her single scream. If he hadn’t been on the way downstairs… if she hadn’t screamed right at that moment… Their hands had seemed to be everywhere, tearing at her clothes, their obscene words and laughter almost as bad as their physical violation.

Jake’s unexpected appearance had given him an advantage over them, and he had soon dispersed them, but not before Stephanie had been almost stunned by a vicious slap across her face, her blouse and bra ripped in huge rents which revealed her breasts, long vicious weals along her arm where she had fought to prevent them pulling off her coat. But the worst of it had been her own memories vividly replayed over and over again as Jake bundled her into his car and drove her to his apartment. She had been almost incoherent with shock and fright, retreating like a terrified animal when he tried to come near her. In the end she had fainted through sheer terror, unable to recognise friend from foe, only knowing that the hands that touched her were male and that the scent reaching her nostrils was masculine and therefore to be feared.

When she came round, she was in Jake’s bathroom. She had never been in his apartment before and was in no condition to appreciate the masculine decor of marble and gold, and she had shuddered convulsively away from the touch of Jake’s fingers, only to discover that he had removed her torn clothes and she was wearing only her bra and panties.

‘Stephanie, you’re quite safe. I just want to clean those cuts. Then I’m going to give you a glass of brandy, and put you to bed in my spare bedroom. If you like, I’ll call a doctor for you… and tomorrow we can call the police.’

‘No… No police,’ she had made the plea in abject terror. There had been so much adverse publicity about the police’s handling of rape cases that she felt she couldn’t endure the humiliation she had read of other women’s suffering.

‘Stephanie…’

‘No… please…’

In the end, he had given way, and she had remained in his flat not for one night but for three, terrified by every single alien sound, her nervous system totally destroyed. Jake stayed with her, and on the third day he had made her talk; had made her re-live the trauma of her attack. She had cried and protested, hating him for what he was doing to her, and he had held her in his arms, soothing her, stroking her like a child… Stephanie frowned. This was the first time she had allowed herself to think back to the time of her attack, and she had forgotten that Jake had held her and touched her, and that she had welcomed his touch. Because it had been paternal, she told herself, because she had been so distraught that she had needed the comfort of physical contact more than she feared it.

Gradually she had recovered, or at least outwardly she had seemed to do so. Only she and Jake knew that, inwardly… inwardly she would never recover. When she dreamed, it was of hard male hands tearing at her clothes, her screams of panic suppressed until she felt she was suffocating on them. Only with Jake did she feel safe and that was because she knew he had no sexual interest in her whatsoever. Jake knew and understood about what had happened to her, but not even Jake knew about the guilt buried deep inside her soul; the hateful, destructive feeling that whispered treacherously that somehow she had been to blame; that somehow she had given them the impression that… that what? That she had wanted to be raped? She shuddered sickly. Ever since she had taken care that no one could ever accuse her of encouraging any man, however tenuously.

She knew that Annette was curious about her relationship with Jake, who she admitted she found sexually attractive. Stephanie also knew that Annette did not believe her when she said their relationship was strictly platonic, but she was immune to any sensation of physical attraction now. The thought of any man touching her made her feel acutely ill.

‘Now… just watch this scene…’

Stephanie came to at the sound of James Tavener’s voice to realise the film had progressed considerably. Her body froze as she realised that this was the ‘sex scene’ James had been discussing earlier. She didn’t want to watch, but her eyes seemed to be riveted to the screen against her will. Blaize Dartford was as dark as Jake and a similar age, his eyes blue where Jake’s were grey. Even his voice seemed to have the same husky timbre, and it seemed to Stephanie in her highly charged emotional state that it was Jake up there on the screen, that it was his hands, and mouth, his body that made slow and deliberately sensuous love to the girl on the bed with him. Stephanie wanted to deny the illusion, but it wouldn’t be denied, and her body burned hot and cold as she tried to shut out the images on the screen. Laura Howard had researched her part well, and no one watching could not be convinced of her anguish and uncertainty, although, unlike her, Laura wanted to make love, Stephanie thought. Laura wanted to overcome her fears, whereas she was revolted and terrified about the thought of physical intimacy with anyone. At last, she managed to close her eyes and blot out the final few moments of the film.