Sleep Eternal

I knew it was rape.

I tried to lie to myself because the truth was too difficult to acknowledge. But I knew.

He lied to me. He lied and told me he hadn’t had sex with anyone else, and so we didn’t need protection. He promised me he would ask me for consent more, and he didn’t. He promised he would try harder not to hurt me, but he didn’t. Promise after promise broken.

For the better part of a year, he raped me. Sometimes it was rape of the sort where I gave consent and mean it, but then it hurt and I couldn’t say anything to stop it. Other times it was rape because he lied to me about whether he was necessarily STI free. Or it was rape because I told him not to touch me and he did anyway. Or because he coerced me. Or because I was too high to stop it.

He hurt me when we had sex nearly every time. I didn’t always say something, but he could tell I was in pain... from my cries, my hands clenching the sheets, and my teeth biting the pillow to muffle my pain. I told him before and after that he was hurting me, and he professed to care, but never when we were actually having sex.

When I told him I didn’t want to be touched, he touched anyway and convinced and weedled until I gave in. He won when I believed it was easier to just have sex with him than to continue protesting and fighting a losing battle.

When I told him I was too high, and that I didn’t want to be touched, and I tried to fall asleep, and pretended to be asleep, he touched me anyway. He didn’t care that I was too high, he didn’t care about what I’d said, and he didn’t care whether I was asleep or not. He had sex with me anyway.

He convinced me that there was something wrong with me... that I shouldn’t be in pain, or unhappy. I was the problem, and he was doing nothing wrong.

I convinced myself that I was the problem, too. That it was my fault I was in pain. That it was my fault for saying no before and after, but only showing no and not saying no during sex. I believed that it was my fault for not stopping him.

For the longest times I thought it was my fault, because I kept on going back, and allowing it. So I didn’t report him—I didn’t do anything. And even now he walks around free to do the same thing to anyone else. I’ve left a monster to hurt more women while I confronted what he did to me. And now it’s too late for my words to make a difference.