Saturday, April 2, 2011

rape isn't about sex, it's about power

Reading on another site this morning a memory came to mind, and I find that I can't get it out of my head without writing it down.  So here it is.  It's the story of the first of two times I was gang-raped, so don't continue reading any further if your stomach is weak.

The summer I turned thirteen is when I had my first consensual sexual experience, and to be perfectly honest, I have no regrets about it.  I enjoyed it, I wasn't coerced in any way, and I thought I was in love with my partner... I'm still pretty sure he loved me too, so I say it again, I have no regrets.

But what happened to me the next autumn... well, that's an entirely different story, and the one I will tell here.

I was quite a tom-boy when I was in my pre-teens and teens, and had many guy-friends who I hung out with... we rode bikes, and climbed trees, and basically just had a good time.
It was through these friends that I met my boyfriend.   He was an older guy, and his name was Darcy.  24 years old, he had a motorcycle, and his own place.  He used to invite the guys in to play video games, and watch TV when the weather was bad, but otherwise they mostly helped out with bike repairs by handing over tools as needed and sometimes running to the store for something Darcy might need.
It was during one of the supply runs that he invited me into the apartment... two of the guys had left just before I showed up and he told me that the guys I was looking for had gone, and suggested that I come inside for a soda.
So I did.
He was cute.  He was mature.  He was interested.  He told me how amazed he was that I was only 14... hard to believe he said, because I had such a nice figure and seemed so mature for my age.
I was smitten.
What girl doesn't want to hear that she's pretty and mature and smart and and and... he told me all the things I was dying inside to hear.  I was young, and as mature as I was due to the life I had led up to that point, I was still only 14...

We "dated" for a couple of months.  The sex was good... I enjoyed it as much as he did.
And there were drugs.  Marijuana, Magic Mushrooms, LSD... nothing too serious... nothing I hadn't tried before... Nothing I didn't know my own reactions to already.  At least, not until that last day.

During the time that I dated Darcy, I was kicked out of my mother's house, and moved in with my grandmother.  Darcy would come to see me, and take me places on his motorcycle, or in his truck.
I genuinely enjoyed the time I spent with him.  And as I mentioned, the sex was good.

We spent the better part of our last afternoon together in bed.
He told me he loved me.
He asked me to marry him.
I laughed, and told him he was crazy, I was only 14, why would I want to get married?!
He laughed too.
He agreed with me, it was a crazy idea, but he planned to ask me again in a couple of years...
He went out to the kitchen to get us some sodas, and the door bell rang.
It was a couple of his friends.
He came back upstairs, and gave me my soda, which I drank quickly, and he told me to take a nap, he was going to spend a few minutes with his friends, and then he'd be back.  He wanted me to be refreshed for more playtime in the bed with him.

I started feeling strange...
Kinda like I was already asleep, and it got harder and harder for me to move of my own accord...
I began to get nervous.  I didn't like feeling so unable to control myself.
After about 30 minutes, Darcy came back.
What I didn't realize at first, was he'd brought his friends with him.

I was laying face-down on the bed when they entered, and I was unable to roll over, or move anything but the tips of my fingers and my eyes.  I could move my lips too, but no sound came out of my mouth.

Someone tore the blankets and sheets away, leaving me naked and exposed.
There were comments of the type you'd expect from semi-drunken men faced with a naked teen aged girl, who wasn't making any obvious effort to hide, or re-cover herself.

"I told you I gave it to her." I heard from Darcy, and I suddenly realized what he'd done and was about to do...

The men started touching me then.

I still don't know how many there were.  At least 5, maybe six or seven... 
I only saw 4 faces other than Darcy's.  
I tried and tried to say no...
I moaned and cried, the tears running down my face, even as my mouth refused to cooperate with my mind.

They moved me to suit themselves, like some kind of living sex-doll.
I could not move under my own power.
I could not stop them.
I could not even say "no"

I was vaginally raped at least 15 times.
I was sodomized twice.
I choked on two different penises, but the drug Darcy gave me made it less than perfect for such acts, and after those two tries they stopped and concentrated on the rest of me.
I had bite marks on my thighs and breasts and neck, and finger-mark bruises all over my body.
One of the guys even went so far as to clean me up a little before he took another turn.

Needless to say, none of them used any kind of protection.

I don't know how long it lasted.
An hour.
Two hours.
Maybe 3...  I just don't know.  Time does funny things when you're in a situation like that...  it seems to race and to come to a complete stop at the same time... you can't trust your impressions, or even your memory about time

I almost pulled away from one of them...
Pulling my leg closer to my body in a sudden jerk that startled them all...

"She's coming out of it" someone said,
and they all started getting off the bed, and getting dressed like they finally realized they were doing something wrong...  It didn't take long for them to leave me alone in the bedroom...

Covered in crusting drying cum... spit... blood...

Crying, sobbing, trying desperately to cover myself, and wipe off some of their filth, but the drug was still too powerful in my system, and I could barely crawl to the head of the bed, to curl into fetal position... to hide from what had been done to me.

I had stopped crying before Darcy returned to the bedroom after he had seen his friends out.

"Did you enjoy your nap?" was the first thing I heard him say.

I can't even begin to express what I felt at that moment.
Did he really think I didn't remember?  Did he think I didn't know what he had done?
He sat down on the bed, and I had regained much of my ability to move under my own power by this time, and I skittered away from him instinctively.  There was no way I wanted him to touch me ever again, much less right then.  I felt so DIRTY.  So SOILED.  I felt like I was less than the filth that was crusting my body.
I felt so terribly ANGRY.  I couldn't look at him, couldn't bear the thought of what he had done to me, so soon after telling me he loved me.  I couldn't reconcile the two.

"why don't you take a shower" he said, finally starting to realize that the drug hadn't affected my memory of the events of that afternoon, as he'd been expecting.  He began to try to explain it away...  I don't remember the exact words, but the gist was this...

He DID love me, but his buddy offered him money, and the drug, and he needed the money for his rent, since he'd been spending so much on me lately. so he figured, since I wouldn't remember later, that it was worth it.  He told me he still wanted to marry me.  He didn't see me as dirty, or soiled, or ruined...  And then, he left me alone while he went to get some water.

I made my way to the bathroom after gathering up my clothing from the bedroom floor.
I couldn't find my underwear.
I took a quick shower, and then dressed, taking my time, and stopping several times to cry a little more.
When I was dressed, I left.
I walked the 20 or so miles to the subway station nearest to Darcy's place.
I snuck into the station, since I didn't have any money on me for a fare, and pan-handling was out of the question in the state I was in... I'm quite surprised, looking back, that I wasn't caught.  I certainly wasn't being very careful about it.

I made it back to my grandmother's in the wee hours, and got into my room without anyone seeing me.
I spent the next 3 hours in the shower, trying to wash off the filth that only I could still see, emerging only because my alarm went off and I knew that my grandmother would be wanting her usual morning shower, and would ask too many questions I was too ashamed to answer.

This is the first time I've told this story in detail.
I didn't press charges.  I never even confronted Darcy with what he had done... instead I just tried to bury my pain as I always did... as I was trained to... I refused his calls, and never saw him again.

It was years before I stopped being ashamed of what those men had done to me... years before I stopped blaming myself, and feeling dirty... unclean...
Years before I realized that I was a victim, and even more years before I decided I wasn't going to be a victim any more.
Years before I realized that those men had gotten off more on the fact that they could do anything they wanted with my body, than on my body itself.  I was just a thing that they could control for those hours that I had no control over myself.
Years before I could stop wishing I didn't remember, as Darcy had obviously expected to happen.

I still remember every detail as if it were yesterday...
But I am no longer ashamed.
Mostly I'm angry.
Angry at them.
Angry at ALL the monsters who take the innocence of a young person and kill it for their own pleasure.
Angry with those who try to call the excersize of physical power LOVE.