Without a ban

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It’s been a week since I got back from Rio, and Arthur was arrested. The trial is today. And I’ll be very happy when I see his entire friendly family assembled. I walked into the courtroom with Michael and sat down on the bench.

“Honey,” he said to me.

“Michael, don’t call me that.”

Michael, since our return from Rio, has completely severed all relations with Emma. The trial is about to take place, and I see on the other side of me a handcuffed Arthur, his mother, and his beloved little sister, who looks at me with hatred as I sweetly take Michael’s hand. She looks at me in a way that makes her want to kill me. Her mother hates me for speaking up and defending the interests of Blanche’s mother’s side of the family instead of her once-best friend. Arthur is all pale and battered. It must have been hard for him to sit in a cell.

Now I would have to lie, a lot of lies, but I had been coming to this for too long, and now it was too late to back out. Did I feel sorry for Arthur? I don’t know, maybe I do.

“All rise, the court is now in session,” the judge said to us as he entered the courtroom. Michael and I acted as witnesses for Blanche, because it was Michael who introduced them, and I was a witness, because it was from my draft of the novel that Arthur allegedly committed this awful murder.

“So,” said Arthur’s lawyer, who invited Michael to testify.

“Michael, how long had you known Blanche Weddington?”

“She and I had known each other for over five years.”

“What was the relationship between the two of you?”

“Objection. What does that have to do with the case?” He was interrupted by Blanche’s mother’s attorney, Evelyn Adams.

“Objection overruled,” the judge said no, and Arthur’s lawyer continued.

“Please answer my question.”

“Blanche and I had only a friendly relationship, nothing more.”

“I don’t believe it, I don’t believe it! You slept with her, I’m sure of it, I’m sure of it,” Emma began to shout to the whole room, out of desperation.

“Emma, I didn’t sleep with her,” I lied honestly.

“You slept with everyone, you didn’t even let the bitch Alex pass you by,” she continued to make things clear with him, but that didn’t please the judge at all.

“Emma, stop acting like this or I’ll have to ask you to leave the courtroom,” he threatened her, after which, she did try to pull herself together.

“All right. Are you telling me there was only friendship between the two of you?”

“Yes. She was certainly a gorgeous girl, but I don’t sleep with my friends.”

“Of course you only sleep with your wife’s brother’s friend,” Emma continued to interject.

“Emma, Alex and I only recently started seeing each other in secret, I wasn’t cheating on you before that,” I lied to everyone again, trying to convince Emma otherwise.

“I don’t believe you, I don’t believe you!”She kept saying.

“Emma, calm down,” Arthur tried to reassure her, who was looking at me at the time.

“How is it that it was you who decided to introduce Arthur to Blanche?” The lawyer turned to Michael again.

“One day, Arthur decided to visit us, he was in no mood. I asked him at the time what was wrong with him. He said Alexa didn’t want to talk to him anymore because he had tried to turn their relationship from a friendship to an intimate one.”

“Michael, you’re lying! I never said that! I didn’t touch Alex unless she wanted me to. Alex, why won’t you tell the truth?” he yelled at me, demanding an answer.

“Michael is right, he tried to take me by force, but I turned him down. I saw that he started taking drugs, that’s why I stopped talking to him.”

“That’s a lie! I only started using coke after I met Blanche.”

“Silence in the courtroom!” The judge shouted, and everyone fell silent.

“What happened next?” The judge himself asked Michael.

Then I introduced him to Blanche and they met and started a relationship, she even put pictures of them on her Instagram, she fell in love with him. Why, he did that to her, I still don’t understand.

“What a scoundrel you are.” Аrthur was ready to tear him apart.

“You’re dismissed, Mr. Reynolds. You may step down. Alexa Neves is called to the stand,” the judge called.

“Alexa, tell us about your relationship with Arthur.”

“He and I were best friends for ten years.”

“In all those years, did he never once let you know that he didn’t exactly have friendly feelings for you?”

“No, that never even happened,” I answered with a look of great amazement.

“Then why did it happen?”

“She seduced him herself, look at her, she’s a whore,” cried Arthur’s mother, who had always had a bad opinion of me, and I didn’t care what she said.

“It all happened the moment I let him read my novel.”

“Are you a writer?” The judge asked.

“Yes, the book will be published soon,” I answered defeatedly and looked in Arthur’s direction.

“And what was it that made Arthur lose his head from you and do such things?”

“The novel is fiction, the fictional characters, actions and deeds in it. The intimate, unconventional scenes with physical violence got his attention. I couldn’t even think that he could seriously talk about bringing them into reality until he came to my house and offered money for it.”

“Did you offer her money?” The judge asked Arthur.

“Yes, but I was just joking, I told her that right away. Alexa, tell the truth!” he demanded of me.

“It’s the truth, Arthur. You wanted to make me a victim, to make fun of me. When you snuck into my house and attacked me, I didn’t say anything. You almost threw me off the twentieth floor, but I didn’t tell anyone, not even Michael.”

“You’re lying. You gave yourself to me voluntarily, voluntarily!” He shouted, not holding back anymore.

“You’re the one lying, trying to justify your behavior. Arthur, I didn’t become your victim because I was able to stand up to you, and Blanche didn’t, and you killed her. You don’t remember anything, you weren’t thinking when you took the drugs. I didn’t think you could turn into a real animal, a brutal killer.”

“Don’t you dare call my brother that, you scum,” Emma shouted as she rose from the bench.

” Silence in the courtroom!”

“Here are the materials attached,” the judge addressed everyone, and on the big screen he showed that passage I had printed from the novel that Arthur had circled with a pen.

“She resisted for so long, and yet I got mine. When she was out of breath, I taped her mouth shut, lifted her up, and sat her down in a chair. She was unconscious, so much the better,” he thought, and pulled a knife from his locker.

She won’t feel a thing anymore.

“How beautiful you are, it’s a pity you all only know how to spread your legs well, and don’t appreciate good treatment,” he said, and ran the blade of the knife through the veins in her left arm, then he did the same with her right arm.

“I think there’s no need to comment here,” the judge summed up and turned off the monitor.

“I didn’t kill Blanche, I swear to you. I was set up.”

“Arthur, when they found you in the apartment, you were drugged up and Blanche was sitting in a chair bleeding. Your fingerprints were on the knife. What more evidence do you need that you killed that poor girl?” Judge Patrick tried to restrain himself, but still he yelled at Arthur.

I didn’t kill her,” Arthur said faintly.

“My son is not a murderer,” his mother stood up for him. How predictable.

“All rise for sentencing.”

An hour later, the judge returned. He stood up and began announcing his decision.

“The court has decided to find Arthur Clark guilty! To impose on him a sentence of 15 years in a maximum security penal colony”The judge tapped his gavel and left the courtroom. All the sobs and tears from his mother and sister didn’t touch me one bit. Arthur was taken to his cell, but before he was sent to serve his sentence for a crime he hadn’t committed, I should have talked to him.

“We won, are you happy?” Michael turned to me, but I didn’t want to discuss it with him right now.

“You’ll burn in hell, you scum,” his mother shouted at me, but I didn’t care, I walked past them without feeling guilty.