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"Did it make you feel better when Lodge was arrested?" Dr. Robins asked.
"Sure it did," Jon said. "I hated that guy. I could barely stand being in the same room. I doubt that I could have remained in the fraternity if we hadn't gotten rid of Lodge."
"How much did other students know about the role you and Margeaux played in getting Lodge arrested?"
"Everybody knew everything," Jon said. "It blew up in a way that exposed all of it."
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For the two days, Lodge was the focus of one the biggest news stories in America. He ended up being accused of six counts of rape; the court sealed the videos so the public couldn't see the victims being assaulted, but the prosecutor told the press that Lodge taped himself raping coeds who cried out in pain and begged him to stop. The text messages and emails revealed that two of his fraternity brothers were fully aware of Lodge's predatory behavior. They'd participated in little parties where they made a bowl of popcorn and watched the videos together. Those two guys served sentences as accomplices.
None of the cases went to trial; Lodge and his two toadies knew they dared not risk having a jury view all the horrifying evidence. They plead guilty to multiple felony charges that guaranteed serious prison time. Lodge would spend a minimum of 45 years in prison. It's well known by experts in criminal justice that there's no way to rehabilitate sex offenders; if a person is aroused by suffering and violence, no amount of counseling and rehabilitation can change him. The only "cure" is to keep the predator locked up until he's so old his sexual urges diminish and he can't victimize anyone. If Lodge did live long enough to be paroled, he'd have to register as a sex offender for the rest of his life.
It was the top item of gossip in the Hamptons that year. The Lodge family had arrived on the Mayflower, and they were fixtures in the upper crust social scene. Their former friends were ruthless. "I always knew there was something wrong with that boy," claimed people who'd had no idea there was something wrong with that boy.
The police were very open about the fact that virtually all the evidence in the case came from Jon and Margeaux. They were media celebrities for three entire news cycles. By this time Jon was known nationally as The Dentist; Margeaux became The Dental Assistant.
"Isn't it kind of sexist to call you that?" Jon asked Margeaux. "You are nobody's assistant. You're the one who got that asshole arrested."
"You don't get to pick your own nickname," Margeaux said. "I would have preferred Batman and Catwoman, but nobody asked me. Batman is a particularly good nickname for you. Billionaire playboy by day, two-fisted crime fighter by night."
Everybody's first conclusion was that Delta Delta Delta would lose the right to operate as a fraternity. The fact that a student got away with being a serial rapist for more than a year triggered outrage on and off campus. The board of trustees demanded an outside investigator. The national news media looked at the college through a microscope, exposing multiple instances of campus officials ignoring signs of trouble because Lodge was a rich, privileged boy whose father made large donations to the college.
One dean and one assistant dean resigned rather than be fired. There were lots of public apologies. Jon thought that most of it was an attempt to escape liability; he didn't believe any of the spineless idiots running the college actually cared about the students. Jon's father got involved by hiring a ferocious attorney who sued the college on behalf of the six girls who'd been raped; the $17 million settlement didn't undo their trauma, but it was better than nothing.
Even Leah got involved. The media asked her what it was like dating a billionaire crime fighter who used his fists and his brains to rescue women from the clutches of evil. Really. That was the exact phrasing.
"I guess this is what it's like to date Bruce Wayne," she said. That was the best quote from anybody, and it was picked up by every media outlet that ran stories on the sordid affair.
In private, Leah "rewarded" her boyfriend with the hottest sex imaginable, and it turned out that she had quite an imagination. That last fact became increasingly puzzling to John. Supposedly, Jon had years of sexual experience and Leah had none. Pretty soon Jon realized that Leah must have lied about her supposed virginity.
One by one, Jon caught Leah in a series of lies about all kinds of things. Leah was a smart girl, but Jon was smarter, and when he started looking for lies he found them everywhere.
Jon found himself wrestling with all kinds of conflicting emotions he wasn't ready to share. He discovered that sex is different when you're making love to someone while you're upset with them. Leah was increasingly fond of rough sex, something that always challenged Jon. She liked being whipped harder than Jon liked. She wanted him to slap her face, and slap it hard. When Jon was angry, he found it easier to strip Leah naked, slap her around, throw her on the bed, whip her till she "begged" him to stop, then fuck her roughly in the ass. He never could have done this if he hadn't been genuinely upset. It was a strange discovery.
Things were getting increasingly disturbing when Margeaux called Jon and asked to talk to him. "I need to show you some things," she said. Margeaux sounded serious.
"I'll be right over," he said.
He'd become very fond of Margeaux. She was different from anyone he'd known. Margeaux was a girly girl, who knew so much about hair, fashion, and make-up that she was the leader of a clique of coeds who called themselves The Fashionistas. Her ambition was to be a model, and she'd transformed herself to look just like one. She'd become a certified fitness trainer mainly so she could learn enough about diet and exercise to mold and shape her body. She invited Jon to exercise with her, and she knew so much about weight lifting that he started doing what she told him, and pretty soon he saw results. He'd done plenty of strength training under the supervision of his high school boxing coaches, but Margo was an expert at producing beautiful symmetry in muscles. She was so beautiful and appealing that Jon found it difficult to concentrate while they exercised. But as he got to know her better, it became easier to think of her as a friend who just happened to be gorgeous.
Margeaux didn't look happy when he got to her room. "Close the door and sit down," she said. "I've got two things I want you to see." She opened her laptop and said, "You know that the girls as Sigma Rho hold you in high regard. A couple of the girls here are upset about something. They know you and I are friends, so they thought this would be easier if it came from me."
"I don't like where this is going," Jon said.
"I don't either," said Margeaux. "Here's the deal. One of the girls made a little video she wants you to see. Let's just watch it, OK? She has the room directly across from Leah. She left her door open, aimed her camera at Leah's door, and started shooting video. I'm going to show you a little excerpt."
Jon watched the video, which showed the door to Leah's room. "Let's fast forward," Margeaux said.
