Twice

The first time I was sexually assaulted I was 17. I went to my friends house because that was where the people I hung out with usually were on an average day. There were several children that lived In the house so I was friends with a female and a male who were near the same age. Because they were different sexes but around the same age, we shared mutual friends.

On that particular day, I went down to see if my friend was coming outside and as I went in (which is what I usually did) a friend of her brother came in behind me. We were cool, but argued all of the time. When he came in behind me he pushed me to get passed. I hit him back and called out my friend’s name. As I called out my friend’s name, the boy pushed me again causing me to fall and as I did he took one of my shoes and tossed it in the dining room. I punched him as he went to walk away and told him he was playing too much. He laughed and headed toward the door.

I picked my shoe up and he came running over to me and took it out of my hand and threw it down the basement steps. We argued back and forth a couple of times because I was telling him he needed to get my shoe but he laughed and said no I needed to get it myself. Again he walked toward the door to leave.

As I went down into the basement and got to the bottom of the steps to pick up my shoe he started down the steps. I didn’t feel threatened or anything at the time because he always picked on me. When I picked up my shoe, he grabbed it but I wouldn’t let go at first until he yanked it very hard out of my hands. He threw it into he back part of the basement. I was yelling for him to go get it but he stated going up the steps to the first floor. I headed for the back part of the basement and when I got there he came in, grabbed me and threw me onto the couch that was in there.

I was trying to get up but he got on top of me and straddled me. I still wasn’t scared at that time because he was laughing and just thought he was being a pain as always. But then it took a turn for the worst because he tried to kiss me. I told him to stop and I tried to get up. He grabbed my hands and tried to pin them over my head so I started yelling for him to get off. Every time I opened my mouth to tell him to stop he kissed me and tried sticking his tongue in my mouth. I would get my hands loose and start hitting him. I tried calling out my friend’s name and he would cover my mouth with either his mouth or his hand. Once he realized that no one was home he pinned my hands against my sides with his legs.

He lifted my shirt up exposing my breast and started feeling me up. That is when I got scared. I was screaming my friend’s name and her mom’s name but no one came. He kept kissing me as he groped me and then he started sucking on my breast. I kept calling out hoping someone would hear me. The whole time he was laughing. This felt like it went in for about 15-20 minutes. He stopped and looked at me and then unbuttoned my jeans and I got very scared but at that moment someone knocked on the basement door and he jumped up and I froze. Once I realized that he got up, I got up grabbed my shoe and ran upstairs and out the door.

When I got home I didn’t say a word to my mom and I had the most upsetting feeling in my stomach. The next day I went to go to the store and he came running up to me and said “I know you wanted me to do that stuff to you yesterday ” I told him that I didn’t and he said” so what are you trying to say that I raped you.” I said “you said it not me,” and as I walked away he asked me if I was going to tell. I just kept on walking.

I would see him almost everyday because we went to the same school and we only lived six houses from each other. I felt like crying all of the time. I would be watching TV with my family and I would have a flashback and have to leave the room right away because I would start crying. This lasted for a while until everyone went wherever they went after we graduated.

Once he moved from the area, he came back every now and then to visit other people and one day I was sitting on my mom’s steps and he pulled up to the neighbor’s house. When he saw me, he came over and just like that said “when can we f**k, we are both consenting adults now so there is no excuse”. I couldn’t believe he said that so I got up and went into the house and that queasy feeling filled my body.

I was raped at the age of 24 by someone I was seeing at the time. I wasn’t quite sure at the time if it was considered rape because right before it happened we had just had sex. After we had consensual sex, we were chilling and all of a sudden he had my hands pinned down over my head and was inside me without any protection. I begged for him to stop and get off of me. I kept saying please stop and he wouldn’t. I felt queasy in my stomach and when I started to cry he finally stopped. I asked him how could he make me feel how I once felt before. I put on my clothes and left. I cried all the way home. He called my phone over 70 times and I had to pull over before I got home to get myself together because I couldn’t stop crying. I finally answered my phone and he just kept apologizing saying he didn’t mean to hurt me. He said that he forgot I went through something similar when I was younger. It came up in conversation once during a TV show we watched but didn’t go into detail about what exactly happened to me. We still have contact with each other to this day because we have a child together.

It took me a long time to actually tell my therapist that these things happened to me and even now she doesn’t know the entire story because I can’t bring myself to actually say it with my mouth. I watched Brave Miss World and I can’t believe those young girls from South Africa are brave enough to speak out about their rape in front of other people like that. I wish I was as brave as them.