This is my fault. No one told me to drink a whole bottle of Jagermesiter. No one said, “Here, eat this handful of xanax.” I did this to myself. Why did I do this. Please stop.
“No.” I manage to say. “No, I don’t want to”. He hears me. He doesn’t care. He says to turn over; I turn over.
This dude has a gun. He has handcuffs and a badge. Do what he says. Don’t resist. Stop resisting. “No.” I manage to mumble. “Please stop, you’re hurting me”, I say quietly, as he flips my body over and forcibly fucks me until I feel numb. The physical pain is still there, but I feel so sick, so dead inside, that I can’t even bring myself to have feelings about what is happening. “Someone’s coming. You’re going to get up, and run across the hall to my roommate’s closet. Get up. Now.”
I’m terrified. Do I run for help? Make a bee -line to the front door, butt naked and so drunk I can’t remember my name, or do I follow his orders? Gun. Badge. Handcuffs. I go to the closet.
“This is fun, isn’t it?” He asks. Naked, grinning at me like some kind of fucking maniac, cross necklace tangled in his chest hair. “You like this, don’t you? You’re so sexy. Happy birthday to me.” Why is he still touching me? I don’t understand why we’re both in the closet or what is going on outside the slatted doors.
“Let’s go back to my room,” he says, me still not understanding why we left or what is happening, so fucked up I can barely speak or utter more than ok. “You can get dressed and leave now”, he says. It’s over. I can leave.
I wake my friend, who has been asleep on the couch in the front room, passed out from the type of binge drinking that 18 years old, fresh out of mom and dad’s house are wont to do. “Let’s go. Please, let’s go”. She grabs her keys and we head out. I can’t speak. I can’t say a word. I can barely fucking breathe.
We get back to our dorm at our Women’s College. He calls me.
“So about last night. I don’t have anything to worry about, right? Like, I shouldn’t expect to be called into my chief’s office should I?”
I sit and chain smoke on the front steps. Some dorm friends stop to talk and ask how my night was. I lose it.
“I met this guy online a few weeks ago, he’s a cop. What’s safer than going out with a cop? Last night was his friend’s birthday, and he invited us out. We went to a liquor store and he bought me a bottle of Jagermeister. They decided to go to a bar; we couldn’t go because we’re underage. He told me to drink the bottle and he’d be back for me later. I went in my dorm and drank the whole fucking thing. They called and came back to get me. His friend kept touching me and telling me I’m sexy. Telling me it’s his birthday and I’m so sexy and he’s so lucky. We went to the bar. I don’t remember much. I think we danced. He kept touching me. I wanted to go home. He took us back to his apartment. Said I was too drunk and he would help me lay down and sober up. He put me in his room and started taking my pants off. I said I didn’t want to do that. He said it was ok. I told him no. He climbed on top of me and I told him no. I cried and asked him to stop and he told me it was ok, that I liked it. I remember something about a closet and then leaving.”
I told them about this call that morning. He didn’t call to make sure I was safe. He didn’t call to apologize or try and make things right. He called to make sure that I wasn’t planning to tattle.
“You were raped.”
“No, it wasn’t violent. I told him no over and over, but he didn’t try to hurt me. He just wouldn’t stop.”
“You were raped”
“No, I was drunk, I must have said it was ok.”
“You were raped”
“He told me to suck his dick and I did. I could have not done that.”
“You were raped”
I was raped.
How did I not even realize that? Why did it take 8 of my friends, most of whom I barely even knew, hearing my story and telling me that I was raped for me to believe it. Because I could have fought harder and didn’t? Because he kissed me the next morning when I left?
At the insistence of my peers, we went to the emergency room. 8 freshman girls, who’d only known one another for a month, banded together to make sure I wasn’t alone. They made sure I had a hand to hold, a shoulder to cry on, encouragement, and support.
“I was raped” I told the triage manager at the Emergency Room.
“I want to report that I was assaulted, but I don’t want to name the person”
“I’m sorry,” they said, “we have to file a police report”.
I was stripped of all of my belongings. My new shirt, my pants, my underwear and belt. I was assigned a male doctor with cold hands, who questioned me about the attack, as if the sordid details were really any of his fucking business. I laid there, surrounded by new friends, but terrified because I felt like I was being violated all over again.
“This will be cold,” he said, as he inserted an unlubricated speculum into my vagina and jacked me open.
“You might feel a pinch,” he said, as he plucked pubic hairs one by one and placed them in a small bag.
“Try to shop shaking,” he said, as he examined my body for bruises and lacerations.
Next came the police. I told my story. Over and over. I cried. I called my mom. We had not spoken in three months.
Twelve hours later, I got to leave. I had to email my professors to let them know I would not be in class that day, that I’d just got out of the hospital. One had an exam scheduled. He let me know that I could put it off one day, but must come in the following day or fail his class. I must provide hospital documentation proving I was hospitalized. I cried. I didn’t leave my dorm. I COULDN’T leave my dorm.
The next day, armed with hospital discharge papers, embarrassed that I had to tell my professor that I was raped in order to be excused from missing a scheduled exam, I showed up to his office. He handed me my exam and I handed him my papers. I could not look him in the eye. He didn’t fucking care. He saw my pain, my tears, my sadness and unkempt appearance, and said, “Here’s your exam. You have two hours.” I sat in his office and filled the open ended questions with answers like, “Fuck you.” “I hate you” “You are an awful human being”. I don’t know if I was deflecting my hurt, my rage, my sadness towards my rapist on my professor, but it’s all I could write. I couldn’t see through my tears to form coherent sentences.
“Here. Fuck you.” I said and handed him my exam.
I never went back to his class.
I never went back to any of my classes.
I spent the next four weeks hiding. I would not go to the cafeteria. I would not leave campus. Fear gripped me and anxiety followed. What do you do when you’re raped by a cop? How do you show your face in town when every cop in the city sees you as a disgusting, lying slut?
I can no longer count how many times I was called to the police station to give my statement, which was honestly more of an interrogation and attempt to catch me in a lie. I gave my recorded statement at least half a dozen times, never wavering in my details.
“But you change positions how many times? If he was raping you, why would you switch positions 4-5 times during intercourse?”
He had a gun. He had a badge. He had handcuffs. I already knew he’d fuck me against my will. What would he do if I attempted more than the handful of No’s I’d already given?
“I just don’t understand this. Is this a cry for attention? You need to see a counselor, a preacher, someone. You have some serious psychological problems.”
“You know what happens to liars, right? You’re ruining this man’s life. Are you sure this is what happened?”
The questions. The accusations. I’d been violated and raped and hurt. But I’m a liar? I seek help because that’s what you’re supposed to do, but I have mental problems? Someone who has sworn to protect and serve, but instead uses his power over others has hurt me, and I need Jesus?
This is why I couldn’t leave my dorm. It hurt. My heart hurt. Valium helped, but it didn’t completely mask the pain of being violated and told I was making it all up. That I was seeking attention. That they knew I liked to sleep around and he must have done something to upset me so I accused him of rape. I was a whore, I’d slept with how many people?
I was made to feel like I was asking for it, in my sleeveless sweater and blue jeans.
Months passed, grand jury rolled around. You are hereby notified to be at the Lowndes County courthouse at 8 am on this day.
I went. My mom came with me. We sat from 8-3:30, when someone came out and let us know they did not get to our case that day, that we would need to come back the next day.
We came back the next day. We sat. Someone came out and told us that the jury had heard my case, my taped testimony had sufficed, and we were free to go. I was never allowed to tell my story.
On November 13, 2002, my 19th birthday, I got a call regarding my case. It was no bill.
There was not enough evidence to make an indictment.
My shirt, bra, underwear, jeans and shoes. Signs of notable forced entry bad enough to give me an infection for which I needed antibiotics. Witnesses who walked in on the act . Liquor store tapes showing the man buying the bottle of Jager that I drank. My word.
Not enough evidence. No trial. Nothing to see here, move it along.
