men ... etc
trigger warning for sexual assault
“I hope you enjoyed that, baby”
From a veil, almost like I had passed to a new universe, I saw myself open my eyes. The physical me scanned the room, confused, like I was seeing my childhood home for the first time, despite a lifetime in its halls. I looked down, the blood covering my thighs normal, the hand marks imprinted on my wrist a birthmark, the blood gushing from my lip, as familiar a taste as popcorn.
“I did”
A voice I didn’t know answered a question I didn’t understand the meaning of. And behind my eyes, I saw a young girl, with chubby cheeks, brown hair, a cowlick, and little jeans fall deeper into a black hole. She was fading, with her little hand outstretched so I could almost catch her. I failed.
My physical body fell asleep, and the next morning I returned to one being, took a shower, and went to Starbucks. The blood on my thighs and strange white liquid that had dried on my vagina were gone with a quick stroke of Mrs. Meyer’s. The little girl I saw long gone from my memory, replaced instead by anxiety for finals and fears about going home.
Eight days later, I sat in the University student center, and my phone rang. It was Jacob, my crush, who I hadn’t seen since our date eight days earlier.
“Bergy. There’s a problem. And I need to ask if you’d be my girlfriend.”
“What do you mean?”
“There’s a girl, Molly. She was in the same club as me, and I took her on a date, and now she’s saying I raped her. And I need you to tell people the truth, and you’re hopefully gonna be my girlfriend at the end of this call.”
In July of that year, I was in the ocean with my cousin. We were ignoring what was behind us, instead, rapping Hamilton to our family on the beach. A wave, perhaps bigger than I’d ever seen, or the smallest in the world, suddenly crashed into us, and we were swept under its current. We stood up, the wind knocked out of us, and laughed.
I felt that wave again. The relief of standing up never came.
“Will you sit on my face.”
“No.”
“Please. You’ll like it.”
“No.”
“I’ll show you how much you’ll like it.”
My body suddenly no longer belonged to me. With the strongest hands I’d ever felt, I was tossed over, and my vagina pressed onto a face I thought hung the stars and moon. A handprint held my wrist above me, and another pressed onto my back. A fleeting thought – Caitlin, hide – came into my head, and left faster than it arrived. I exited my physical body, watching from beyond as the body I knew, so small, with chubby cheeks, long brown hair and an unfixable cowlick, was flipped over again. She was on her stomach now, two massive hands holding her down, as she became nothing more than a sex toy. I was screaming at her to be safe, to move, to wake up, to save herself, but my voice was held behind a window, a veil, a door.
“I hope you enjoyed that baby.”
“I did.”
I stood up and fell quickly against the wall. I hung up before I could answer, pressing ignore on the follow up calls. My physical and mental self again separated, this time fracturing into a million pieces. Remaining under my chubby cheeks was a desire, no, a need, no, a desperation to be safe. Floating above, around, outside, was everything else: My dreams, my laugh, my memories, my creativity, my Self.
I spent the next months of my life in an on-campus trial, repeating my story until it became as instinctual as the lyrics to the James Taylor songs my parents played in the kitchen, every night, for 18 years. My rape became as familiar to me as my childhood home. The blood on my thighs were my little, window-covered playroom, the cum dried on my vagina, my cedar closet, the hands on my back, the silver counter I sat on every night as my mom watched the top of the news. With every moment that I thought about December 2nd, another remaining part of my mental self separated from my body. I ripped the Broadway posters down from my walls, threw copies of Harry Potter at the doors, and dedicated myself to the safety of everyone around me. If I could make sure everyone was happy, safe, and alive, then no one would experience what I was. Everyone would be okay, and I would be the collateral damage which saved the rest of the world. I was dying for someone else’s sins.
—
I started looking for the parts of me that were scattered into a million pieces, the pieces of me that were screaming at me to just come back to myself, in others. I tried to find her in Eric, spending my nights in his arms until I got restless, and he got angry. I resolved to never sleep in bed with someone else again. If I didn’t, I’d never be hurt. I tried to find her in Myles, partying in basements like I was in high school, but I could never be cocaine. I resolved to never go out again. If I didn’t, I’d never be hurt. I tried to find her in John, and Dan, and Stephen, and Oliver, and Michael, and Alexander, and Charles, and Barry and Thomas and Isaac and Andrew and Liam and…
And then I decided to be alone. And when I felt some of those pieces of me return to my heart with each play of the Hedwig and the Angry Inch album, I met Kyle. He would call me a good girl. I had not been called a girl since I was in college. I was 24 now. I had not been a girl since I was nineteen. I was a victim, a survivor, a young woman, a young adult, a woman, a writer, a student, a graduate, a producer, a comedian, but I was not a girl.
I thought I was healed. I thought I had become one again, but part of me remained on the outside: The little girl who had fallen through that black hole. And she screamed at me to stop. With every moment I said yes to Kyle, thinking I was finally an adult, with the ability to fuck anyone and do anything, to say yes to threesomes and eating pussy and being tied up and being whipped and being put on display and being fucked by dildos and paddles and fingers and dicks, she continued to scream.
Because she knew that I didn’t mean yes. I meant, please don’t hurt me. She knew that when I did everything in my power to protect others, part of me was saying “Please don’t leave me. Please don’t hurt me.”