And Now I Am on the Bathroom Floor
Does it alarm you more that it happened or that this happens every single day to women just like me?
How do I tell this story?
The story of a girl, no, a young woman, who was hurt by a man.
It started with flirting. And that was my first mistake. He was older, I was young, innocent, but longing. For a taste of adulthood.
I thought it would be my way. The realms of my imagination carried me far, far, beyond reality.
Dreams filled of fluff. A pounding you know where. Thoughts whirling, a man inside me. My breath hitches at night where I let myself escape to these imaginations.
Text messages, I am more of a tease and emboldened by the night. When things seem like a dream and are not quite real. From the safety of my bed, I let my thoughts wander.
He convinced me to come to him. I packed a bag, jumped in a car, went to a big city I’ve never been to before.
For what? For a walk on the dark side…temptations, feverish lust.
I texted him, “I’m here.”
He came outside and my heart was hammering its way out of my body. Adrenaline. It was coursing through my body.
Onto the elevator and my heart sunk. He’s old. Gray hairs. But I’m already here right?
He asked me if I’ve ever done this before, I hope you’re not too nervous. I laughed, avoided the question. Don’t want to give myself away. All the bravado is fake.
I’m a virgin.
In his apartment, I was shaking. I went to put my bag down and things happened so fast.
“Come here.”
What follows is a string of commands, all of which I obeyed immediately. I’m scared, I realized — my body was shaking.
“Take off your shoes. Now your pants. Now your shirt.”
He undid my bra and pulled off my panties.
“On your knees.”
Before I knew what was happening he was in my mouth.
I didn’t want this. I was just doing as he said. I was young. He was old. He was showing me what to do.
He stopped me and lifted me onto the kitchen counter. He tried to ram his dick inside me so forcefully and without any foreplay that I cried out in pain.
I was a virgin. I’ve never used tampons, I’ve never had anything up there before.
It felt like he was ripping me apart, but he still could not get inside. So he decided to change his strategy. A new type of pain, raw, sharp, brutal.
When he couldn’t get in one hole, he shoved it up the other.
He moved me to the bedroom, pushed me down, and entered me again. An arm around my throat choking me as he pounds into my ass.
Searing pain, unimaginable, indescribable.
I was crying out, could barely form words. Finally I find and cling to one, “NO” and I yelled it over and over. I managed to gasp “I need to go to the bathroom.”
He didn’t respond or acknowledge anything I was saying. He kept going, harder and harder, and I kept screaming out. I couldn’t move, his hand was clenching down on my throat and holding me in place.
I felt him relinquish me in a moment and I crumpled on the bed, defeated. But then I realized he was hovering over me and in a second there was hot steaming liquid in my eye, dripping over my face. I am blind.
“Now you can go to the bathroom.”
I staggered up, stumbled around until I found the bathroom. Locked the door, as if to prevent something worse than what just happened to me. I slumped onto the toilet, tried to pee but nothing came out but blood. I was shaking, I washed my face and tried to open my eye which was an angry red.
I didn’t know when I realized that I was crying.
What’s wrong? You just had sex for the first time! Isn’t that amazing?
I was a quivering mess. I wiped myself off, blood and shit and all. And I sat on the cool tiled floor and put my head in my hands, trying to get myself to stop crying.
I finally got myself together enough to go back into the other room. He barely glanced my way as I came back to the bed.
Where does it go from there?
We talked, I calmed down as I told him about myself. He was mystified that I was a virgin. “You’re nineteen? You’re like a child. Do you know how old I am? I’m almost double your age, 37. One day you’re going to tell your friends about how you got fucked by a Frenchman in Bordeaux and he came on your face.”
I should have punched him and left. What did I do? Laugh nervously and stay. Oh, Charlotte. What I would give to shake nineteen year-old you’s shoulders and yell to get your ass out of there!!!
We went out to dinner. He was nice. It was all so confusing. Because he was acting like a gentleman and seemed like he cared. I was alone in a city I didn’t know, it was late, I had nowhere else to stay. So I went home with him again.
Throughout the night he tried to have sex with me again, grabbing me and pushing his dick into me. I squirmed away each time.
As I am writing this, I think of all the things I would do differently starting from the very beginning.
It’s really hard not to beat myself up about this because I could have gotten out of there so many times but I stayed mostly out of fear and being absolutely paralyzed.
He was in control of the situation. I was just along for the ride. In the morning I had texted my friends about it and they all were telling me to leave. My body was exhausted, I fell back asleep. I awoke to a text from a friend saying she had called the police. I jumped out of bed, said I had to go. He kissed me goodbye and said, “see you later”.
Yep, you heard that right. See you later.
Just another day in the life of an established businessman.
I ran outside, texted my friend that I was ok, told her I didn’t need the police — I was fine, I had just fallen asleep. That’s why I hadn’t responded right away. She was beyond pissed.
I walked about an hour to the train station and booked a train back to the farm that I had been working on in rural France. This weekend “jaunt” was clearly at its end.
So I had let down my friend, I had let down the family I was staying with on the farm. When I arrived back at the farm, I explained where I had gone on my weekend trip to Bordeaux and what had happened to me.
“You know this is to some extent your fault? You were seeking sex with a stranger!”
“You could have been killed.”
What followed were trips to the hospital and the police station. My friends and family convinced me to report him to the police which required a rape kit from the hospital.
It was all a messy blur. Medications to treat an infection and to prevent HIV. Hours and hours in the hospital and the police station. Police not believing me and openly telling my farm hosts that they thought I was a liar.
They said they had medical proof that I wasn’t a virgin from the doctor.
My host dad was angry that his wife was helping me. “Charlotte should go to the hospital and police by herself. This is her problem, not ours.”
I tried to keep going about the farm routine between all of this madness. When I woke up in the morning I played Never Give Up by Sia as I put on my clothes and brushed my teeth. I stared at myself in the mirror and breathed the lyrics.
“No, I won’t never give up
And I won’t let you get me down
I’ll keep getting up when I hit the ground
No I never give up, no I never give up, no no
I’m finding my way, finding my way”
These words became my mantra for life. I would not let this event ruin me. Life was throwing everything at me and I felt like I had been struck down to the ground hard. But I just kept imagining myself jumping up off the ground and punching life in the face.
I was strong. I was a survivor. I would not let what this man did ruin me.
And so I began my slow journey towards healing. It has been three years, and after therapy, writing, and time, I have found peace.
Whenever I hear this song, I am brought back to that bathroom on the farm where I stared myself down every morning and dared myself to live. And to keep living. And to never give up.
