Rome's Rape

It isn't as bad as it sounds.

Rei once asked Rome, innocently, about her virginity. Based upon the physical evidence, it appeared she was not a virgin when they first had sex yet everything Rei knew about the Vuduri and Rome in particular told him she had to be.

Shockingly, she told him he was not her first sexual partner. For a good Vuduri, this would be unthinkable. The story goes something like this:

When Rome was 18, she and Signola (who we met in Part 1 of Rome's Revolution) were working in a solvent factory several stories underground. A railing gave way and Rome fell into a vat of pure ethanol. Signola knew if he did not rescue her, she would die so he dove in and dragged her to the edge of the vat and threw her over the edge.

He climbed out as well. He knew that Rome had swallowed quite a bit of the alcohol and 100% alcohol is absorbed by the skin. So he stripped off her clothes, wiped her down, stripped off his own clothes and then passed out as had Rome.

Later, when they were found by other Vuduri, there was evidence that they had had sex. Neither Rome nor Signola nor the Overmind had any memory of such an encounter. There was video surveillance that did confirm the act.

Rome's explanation to Rei was as follows: "The nearest thing that we could figure out was that Signola absorbed just enough alcohol to deaden his reasoning centers, his connection to the Overmind and the only thing remaining was, let us call it his animal self and a naked female was lying next to him and that is what animals do."

Rome never held it against Signola and it did not really affect her psyche. She claimed that the whole incident was more like a story than a memory. She never brought it up again until the day Rei questioned her.