Stories

(November 2004)

“You kids have fun,” she says as she pats my shoulder and gets out of bed. I hear it through a groggy haze. All I know is that my friend has left the room, 5 months pregnant and not in the mood for sex with her husband, who has just climbed on top of me. Before I know it, he’s inside of me and I don’t know what to do. I don’t say no, just let him have his way with me and hope he finishes soon. I found out years later that he lied to her and told her that he and I had talked about wanting to have a threesome. She was so abused and terrified that he would leave her that she let him do whatever he wanted.

I was 19 and had a few drinks that night. I couldn’t drive home to base because it was late and I didn’t want to get in trouble. Having had a back injury, I didn’t want to sleep on the floor and their bed was the only furniture in the apartment at the time. I chalked it all up to a big mistake that I made.

It wasn’t until a sexual assault briefing over a year later that I realized I had been raped. This was the first time.