Deep in the Act: Chapter 18

Fang Chi kept checking his watch. Gao Zhun’s appointment was getting closer and closer, and he was completely unprepared. In his left hand was a thick stack of case reports about male sexual assault. In his right hand was clinical data about women who developed PTSD after sexual violence. As he expected, no one in the country had ever combined these two fields. He was facing an entire academic blank space.

Rape… He had never connected this word with Gao Zhun. He had treated female patients who had been raped. He knew too well what this word meant. It did not only represent force, humiliation, and loss of virginity. It represented physical violence, genital damage, and infectious diseases much more. Of course there was also discrimination from the outside environment. Psychological trauma came last.

Gao Zhun had been raped. This sentence had a special power over him. It made him feel like his heart and lungs were starved of oxygen, his mind was numb, and even his hands were ice cold. That beautiful Gao Zhun. That proud Gao Zhun. Raped by a man using rough methods… He could not imagine it. He slammed his fist heavily on the desk. Now he understood those trembles, those tears, those words that were started but never finished. Gao Zhun had said he was afraid of being looked down on by him.

Fang Chi tore off his tie and went to the restroom to wash his face. Secretary Li knocked on the door. Gao Zhun had arrived. He told himself, treat him normally. Do not show pity, or excessive concern. The door opened. Gao Zhun stood there properly and correctly, still elegant and appropriate as always, just with his head lowered. He did not greet him politely, nor did he smile warmly.

Fang Chi went to take his hand, but Gao Zhun avoided it openly. Fang Chi could see that he was trembling. “Mr. Gao, shall we sit down first?”

Gao Zhun’s back was pressed tightly against the door panel. This defensive state of having nowhere to escape made Fang Chi’s heart ache. “You spoke up. I admire your courage very much,” he said firmly as he moved closer to him, ignoring his silent resistance, gripping his hand tightly. “I can help you.” Those hands were cold as ice and soft as snow. “As long as you are willing to put yourself in my hands.”

Gao Zhun could not resist his temptation. “What else do you want me to do?” he mumbled. “I told you everything. I laid myself bare for you to see!”

There was grievance in his words, and blame, and a strong desire for redemption. As long as these were there, Fang Chi knew he would obey. “It is not enough. I want you to tell me the whole process. Every detail. Every feeling.”

Gao Zhun looked at him with frightened eyes, his lips bitten tightly.

“What kind of person was he?”

Gao Zhun trembled violently. Fang Chi would not back down. “How old? Tall or short? Was he Chinese?”

Gao Zhun still would not soften. Fang Chi continued to ask. “Was it someone you knew? How many times?”

Gao Zhun finally could not bear it anymore and shouted like he was breaking down. “I didn’t know him. Only once!”

“Did he have a knife?” Fang Chi appeared very calm.

“No…” Fang Chi’s calmness made Gao Zhun quiet down, like a child telling on someone to a teacher, looking pitiful. “But he hit me.”

Fang Chi increased the pressure of his grip on his hand. “Shall we sit down and talk slowly?”

“Okay…” Gao Zhun cooperated completely, like every time before. He sat in his chair and watched Fang Chi sit diagonally across from him, holding paper and pen, looking very dependable.

“Let’s begin,” Fang Chi said. “From the start. No rush. Stop if it gets too hard, but don’t hide anything.”

Gao Zhun did not dare to look at him, his eyes fixed on his own toes. “That day… it was Friday. It was Linlin’s birthday. Eleven forty at night. I remember it very clearly. The company called. A batch of small Nepalese Buddha statues had arrived. I went down to the garage…” Speaking of the garage, he choked for a moment. “I have a Cayenne. Dark blue…”

The mystery of the car was solved. The incident happened in the underground parking lot, and very likely inside the car. Fang Chi recorded quickly.

“I had just opened the car door when someone pressed my neck from behind and pushed me into the car,” Gao Zhun gripped his collar tightly, his upper and lower teeth gently knocking together. “He was wearing a baseball cap and a hoodie. About twenty seven or eight years old. I thought it was a robbery, so I took out my wallet to give him, but he didn’t want it…” He began to shudder. “He was very strong. He held me firmly and punched me in the temple. Then…”

Fang Chi felt like his heart was about to stop beating. Cold sweat broke out on his palms. There was a tense feeling like sitting on pins and needles.

“Then he reclined the seat…” As he spoke, Gao Zhun shed tears.

Fang Chi gave him a tissue. He held it in his hand but did not wipe. “He pressed down on me and undid my belt… At that time I didn’t know what he was going to do,” his tears completely would not stop, sliding down his chin in strings into his collar. “He also took photos…”

Fang Chi was very sensitive. “…Of your body?”

Gao Zhun shook his head. “Only my face. He took many.”

Fang Chi felt sick just thinking about what that person might do with those photos. “When did you know he was going to… violate you?”

Gao Zhun’s voice was so small it was almost inaudible. “When he touched me.”

“Touched where?”

“Down there…” His voice was too small. Fang Chi had to pull his chair closer to him. “You mean your genitals?”

This word made Gao Zhun tremble. “Also my thighs. And he was pressing against me. His crotch was very hard,” he became agitated. “I started struggling, but the more I struggled, the more excited he got!”

“Did he say anything?”

“He said…” Gao Zhun opened his mouth several times but could not get the words out. “I can’t say it.”

“Was it insulting words?”

Gao Zhun nodded. “I felt like I had turned into a woman. I even hated myself. Why didn’t I have the strength to resist him!”

“Then what?” Fang Chi had filled a whole page with notes. “What else did he do?”

Gao Zhun finally looked up at him, his cheeks trembling, his eyelids swollen and red, as if blaming him, blaming him for knowing everything clearly yet forcing him to say it. “He tore my shirt, licked my face, and then hit me again…”

The atmosphere was tense, like a compressed can twisted to its limit, just waiting for the moment it would burst. Fang Chi knew they were about to reach the hardest part to speak of. Gao Zhun covered his face with his pale palm and said very weakly, “He probably spat, and then… and then…” Fang Chi watched tears flow out from beneath those slender hands. “He entered.”

Fang Chi looked calm, but his sweat soaked hand could not hold the pen. He wrote the character for “come” in “entered” several times over.

“It hurt. It burned. I thought I was going to die…” Gao Zhun was in so much pain that his back bent into a ball, curled up on the chair. “He kept asking me if it felt good. Then he twisted my chest and kissed my mouth.”

Fang Chi felt like he was not a doctor at all. He irritably pinched the pen shaft, drawn into Gao Zhun’s situation by him. This was countertransference toward a patient. “Why didn’t you call for help?”

“I didn’t dare to shout. Compared to what he was doing to me, I was more afraid of being seen with him riding on top of me…”

“So you chose to endure?” Fang Chi rarely showed anger during treatment. “Let him on top of you…” He forcibly stopped himself, adjusted his emotions, and wisely switched to another question. “At that time, were you face to face?”

Gao Zhun could not believe he actually asked such a thing. “Do you really want to help me?” From deep inside he felt a sense of humiliation, a sense of unwillingness to accept his misfortune. “Or are you curious about how I was raped by a man?”

“I just want to understand the details of the traumatic situation.”

“Fine!” Gao Zhun’s voice rose, unable to control his emotions. “He was on top of me face to face. I spread my legs like a woman. He put one of my legs on his shoulder. He kissed me while doing me. That string of hickeys didn’t disappear for more than half a month. Are you satisfied now!”

“I am not satisfied!” Fang Chi threw down the pen. The recording paper slid off his knee and scattered all over the floor. “I still want to know if you felt pleasure when you were raped, if you moaned, if you had an orgasm!”

Gao Zhun sprang up from the chair, looking at him in shock. “How did you know…” He covered his mouth, clearly panicked. “I didn’t want to. I…”

Fang Chi also stood up, hating his own recklessness. “Sorry, I was too impatient. Shall we go wash our faces first, okay?”

He supported Gao Zhun’s shoulder. Gao Zhun, in a daze, was pushed forward by him. After a few steps, he suddenly turned back and threw himself into his arms like a bird with broken wings, desperately pleading. “Don’t look down on me. Please, please…”

Fang Chi hugged him tightly, as if hugging a dew covered flower. Gao Zhun’s temple pressed against his cheek. He unintentionally turned his head and kissed it. He did not know why he did this. It was so natural, so effortless. Then he pulled the person into his embrace, using his tightly locked chest to trace out his form. “I won’t let you go.”

Fang Chi accompanied Gao Zhun to the restroom. Watching him wash his face while crying, it felt like a knife was gouging his heart. He pulled a hand towel from the rack, grabbed Gao Zhun’s arm and gently wiped his face for him. “Can we continue?”

Gao Zhun nodded, creased his delicate brows at him once, and hid in his embrace again. “At first it really hurt. He was very strong. Every thrust felt like it was hitting my heart. But slowly…” His voice was muffled. “I felt… it felt very good inside my butt. Really good. Completely different from being with a woman. I must be crazy!”

Fang Chi hesitantly hugged him. He felt that talking about this would be more appropriate back in the chairs, but after thinking it over, he did not want to interrupt. “Describe your feelings.”

“I could hear myself humming…” Gao Zhun pressed against him, both hands wrapped tightly around his back. “I was like those women in movies… I think I even hugged him, but I couldn’t control myself!”

Fang Chi felt the place on his chest where Gao Zhun pressed was burning hot, as if he wore no clothes. Every tiny movement between the two of them was strikingly vivid and deeply etched. “How long did he violate you?”

“I don’t know,” Gao Zhun rested his head on his shoulder. “At that time it was like I had turned into an animal.”

Fang Chi lifted his chin, forcing him to raise his face. “In the end?”

Gao Zhun avoided his gaze. “He came inside me…”

“What about you?” They were too close. Hot breath exchanged between them.

“I… came on myself. Am I very low?” he asked in panic.

Fang Chi stared at his crying red lips, not speaking for a long time. Gao Zhun waited for his verdict in fear, but he deliberately delayed. “Did you come by yourself?”

The bones on both sides of Gao Zhun’s cheeks turned red. “He helped me… with his hand.”

He used the word “helped.” Such a simple word, yet Fang Chi felt stung by it. “There are many records of men who experienced sexual assault obtaining pleasure, erections, or orgasms. First it is physiological structure. Second, perpetrators often intentionally stimulate the victim to achieve sexual conquest. By claiming the victim enjoyed the sexual process, they can also evade punishment.”

He explained dryly. Gao Zhun grabbed it like a drowning man grabbing a life preserver. “Really? So maybe I am not gay?”

“Have you ever doubted your sexual orientation?”

Gao Zhun had a moment of panic. He licked his lips in embarrassment. Fang Chi felt blood rushing up, using his thumb to guiltily rub his chin. “After it ended, what did you do?”

“I went to a hotel and got a room… The back was torn. Blood kept flowing. For several days I couldn’t go to the bathroom,” thinking of that experience, Gao Zhun still trembled all over. “I didn’t dare tell anyone. No one would sympathize with me. If my mother knew she would only curse me for not being a man. Linlin… what woman would be willing to live with a man who had been raped?”

Fang Chi leaned against the restroom wall, letting him lean more solidly against him, both hands loosely circling his waist. A little further down was his butt that had been bullied.

“The next day I had a fever, but I didn’t dare go to the hospital. Whether asleep or awake, those images would always suddenly appear. Every time I thought of them, it was like I was being raped all over again… I didn’t dare turn on the TV, afraid of hearing any news related to sex. I always held a fruit knife, stabbing wildly at him in my dreams!”

“Shh…” Fang Chi coaxed him like a child. “After the injuries healed, how did you deal with this pain?”

Gao Zhun smiled bitterly. “The pain is always there,” he pinched Fang Chi’s collar, neurotically rolling it with his fingers. “To go to the bathroom less, I didn’t eat much. Every few dozen minutes I would go wash… wash there. I felt very dirty. I always felt like he was still there, crudely going in and out… I started drinking. Only when drunk could I temporarily forget…”

Fang Chi combed his hair with his fingers. “How long did these symptoms last?”

Gao Zhun smiled. Because of the special nature of the sexual assault, this smile looked very seductive. “Before I met you…” His eyes rippled with light, his head slightly raised, looking like he was waiting to be kissed. “I was always like this.”

Before I met you, I was always like this.

A ball of fire exploded in Fang Chi’s chest. Something in his ears was buzzing sharply, like the restless agitation of being seventeen or eighteen years old. Gao Zhun’s lips, carrying a salty taste, he could kiss with just a lowering of his head, but he held back.