rape
Rape
Where to begin?
When something like this happens where is there to begin?
Inside my head there are a lot of words and feelings and emotions all trying equally to get out, and barricade themselves in. I don't want to open the floodgates, so I simply uncover the keyhole, blow away the dust and let in a small chink of light. Then wait. I hope then these things will order themselves and come out one at a time, through this keyhole, this vortex, this passageway to the unknown. At least now, having plumbed the depths of humankind, having seen true depravity, at least now I know there is only so low I can go. That is what I've made myself believe, for when the bottom dropped out of my world, it made it easier for me to think that it would come to rest somewhere.
Where to begin?
I could start at birth, but my hazy recollections would neither be compelling reading, nor bring me any closer to the real story. I could start then when things first started to go wrong, but teenage angst is becoming old hat now. I feel all I can do is cut to the chase, and tell it, like it was.
The story of my rape.
It was a cold, still night. The air caught my breath and froze it before me, tiny ice droplets to cloud my vision. I was looking at the floor, trying hard to keep my balance on the uneven cobbled street. A quick glance up revealed two men ahead of me silhouetted in the sodium glare of the street light. I shivered, and watching them swagger on down the hill, took the short cut through the housing estate. The pavement was more even here, and I sped up, eager to get home to the warm sanctuary of my bed. On exiting the estate I had to negotiate a muddy path across a patch of grass with a few trees on. To my right, I saw a flash of light, moonlight reflected on metal, and then, before I could even think of being afraid, I felt a hand clamped firmly over my mouth and the cold blade held diagonally across my throat. His hand smelled of stale cigarettes, as did his breath, I soon discovered as he hissed angrily "if you say a word, I'll fucking cut you".
I didn't say anything.
He pushed me to the ground, and his companion took a step back. He was taller, thinner, more hunched, and apprehensive.
The first man raped me. I can't say in order what he did. I can't remember. I only remember the pain in my head where it was pressed into a rock, I remember trying to be calm and not to cry, knowing if I cried I would suffocate as it seemed he would never move his hand. I remember the searing pain as he pushed himself into me again and again, I remember the relief and disgust my whole taught body felt as I felt his orgasm, I remember his belt caught on my belly button ring and made it bleed. I remember falling into a black hole, my body stretched out across the event horizon, slowly slipping past the point from which there is no return.
I remember part of me died there and then.
I remember his friend had left by the time he had finished.
He slapped me round the face, zipped up his jeans, looked both ways, and walked off, in the guilty, masculine way I have seen men walk when they come out from the porn shops on Tottenham Court Road.
I remember knowing nothing could ever be the same again.
I stood up, shivering, shaking.
I remember nothing after this. Apparently, after trauma the human brain forgets things, to allow you to cope. Well mine left me with the act, and took away the journey to the police station. I remember sitting in a room that smelled of bleach, with a WPC who thought everything would go away if I would just let her touch me. I gave my statement, had my medical exam, had talk after talk, heard more clichés than I thought existed in the English language. And all this with no feeling. I was numb. 'In shock' the doctor said. It's been 2 years and I still feel the same. The doctor who examined me was nice. She cleaned me up and tactfully ignored the razor-blade scars on my arms, sigil of a misspent youth, sign to the initiated that I too found life unbearable.
They tried to convince me to press charges. I asked how many police women/ barristers/ solicitors had ever pressed charges for rape. I then asked how many of them had been virgins. I know the system, and through knowing it I hate it. I don't want to explain to a judge why I have had sex with 10 men in my life. I don't want to justify myself to a jury of old women and young businessmen. I don't want any of this.
For a long time I wanted retribution. Lock the fucker up for what he did to me, and throw away the key. I then learnt that castration was not allowed due to our commitment to human rights. I wanted him to suffer the way I did. He took sex from me, and I wanted to take it from him, I wanted to violate him. I knew if he went to prison, he would be raped too, but that wasn't enough. He took my life, and shattered it on the floor. The English legal system was prepared to offer him up to fifteen years accommodation, food and education, all at the expense of the taxpayer.
This wasn't enough.
I wanted him to be tied to the back of Cerberus and dragged through Hades, I wanted him to be hung drawn and quartered, I wanted him to be mounted on the end of the next Cruise Missile we fire at the Middle East. I wanted him to be put on a spaceship, blindfold, and then I wanted to press the button depressurising the cabin and let his body be ripped to shreds. I wanted to send him to the bottom of the Marianas trench in a tin submarine. I wanted him to know he'd fucked up my life and I wanted him to pay.
Now what hurts isn't any of this
What hurts now is that I don't care
I don't mind if he lives or dies, because I know out there there are hundreds like him, and nothing I do can make a difference. Every day women will be violated, every day someone will come to in a police station, blood and semen drying on her leg. Every day will be the same, whatever I do.
And through all this I have to get on with life. Now I have a counsellor. She is so full of shit. She keeps telling me that I will learn to trust men again. She won't understand that I never trusted ANYONE before this, so why should I now. She sees herself as my saviour, and bolsters her happy little life with the problems of others, which is fine. I haven't got the heart to tell her that the only reason I see her is because I get to take time off work.
I walk around as a zombie, the living dead. I feel as though a murder was committed that day, and I was dragged to Hell. My body was buried, 6 feet under, and he exhumed me, fucked me, dusted me off and left me to cope. His hands smelled of cigarettes. I now frown at all smokers.
How can words explain this, how can they convey to you how I feel. You will never understand how it feels to be scared of everyone, to sit inside because you are scared to go out, and then get on the phone hysterical because you are scared to be alone. You'll never know what it's like to need these pills. You will never know emptiness, you will not be able to comprehend this void, this blackness. If you look up at the sky, on a clear night, watch the stars - think of me, and try to comprehend your place in this universe - infinitesimally small. It's very difficult to do. If you finally get your head around it, go a step further, try to conceive of NOTHING. That is what I feel. The human brain cannot cope, we are not designed to understand nothingness, or infinity. I cannot understand it, but I feel it, like a cannonball passed though my chest. The wind whistles between my ribs, and all I can see is black.
You cannot touch me emotionally, that me is long gone. You cannot touch me physically, I won't let you. Sometimes I wish he'd completed what he started, taken a lighter, and burned my skin until he killed my nerve endings. Then I really would feel nothing. I cannot let you touch me.
You are wrong if you think feminists think all men are potential rapists. I have been a feminist all my life. I have only subscribed to the above statement in my capacity as a rape victim.
Now I am tired of this. I am tired of trying to combine these 26 letters in a way that makes sense, in a way that shows you how I feel.
If my feelings can be explained in 26 letters they can't mean much. I am tired, I hope I have helped you understand. I have to sleep now, and pray not to dream.
Copyright 1998 by _sPiDerBaBy_
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