This is a guest post which has kindly been submitted by a friend of mine detailing some of her experiences with weed and alcohol, and sadly alcohol-related Rape. I'd just like to take a moment to say that this is the first time I have heard the full story of what happened to her that night, and I am very proud of her for surviving such a horrendous incident, as well as having the courage to share it so others do not have to go through what she went through.
Please be warned, some of what is written in this guest post deals with the serious crime of Rape, and is both very explicit and shocking.
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Weed, Alcohol and Rape
I’ve been friends with Christie since we were kids. I was about 12, she was 14. We met at a local youth club. Her friends all said I should find some friends my own age, instead of tagging around with them all the time, but Christie didn’t care about that, she liked me. I guess the fact that she and I are still friends, and neither of us can remember most of their names is testament to the fact that we were both right about each other. We spent many evenings keeping each other company in front of the telly there - she still recovering from the night before, me avoiding the youth workers because I hadn't brought them the projects I'd promised to show them.... Somehow, we managed to form a strong friendship, and I can honestly say that Christie is one of my closest friends.
I remember following Christie to one of the more remote corners of the club’s garden, so that she and her friends could have a sneaky fag. I kept telling her that smoking was bad for her - I was a very self-righteous child... Little did I know that four or five years later, I would be a smoker too.
Weed
I don’t want to give the wrong impression, it wasn’t Christie that got me smoking, it was a boyfriend of mine, eight years older than me, I at sweet sixteen, he at the ripe old age of 23. He smoked. He also smoked weed. He wanted to introduce me to the ‘finer’ things in life - I suspect, as much as anything, because he and his friends found it funny to see me coughing and spluttering after my first toke on a rolly. I started occasionally smoking weed with him, never a whole joint, just a few tokes here and there. I doubt it was even enough to get me truly stoned on most occasions. He had something called a chillum - a tapered stone tube and a little stone, with lines scored down the sides, that fitted in the top where the bud to be smoked is put. To take a draw, the smoker had to toke on the bottom end of the chillum, while lighting the bud at the top. ‘Blow backs’ were his speciality. He would light the bud at the top, then blow the smoke through from the top of the chillum, into my face. Supposedly this is a less harsh way of getting stoned if you’re not used to it. It’s also a good way to hot box a flat.
We were watching films - I can remember how funny everything was. ‘babe,’ he said, as we were watching Ice Age 3, ‘are you seeing what I’m seeing?!’ Neither of us could tell whether the multi coloured sloths were real or imagined...
I didn’t smoke weed very often, as I usually only saw him on weekends. He ended up being a contemptible person - the final straw was when he locked me out of his flat one night. I was 80 miles from home, and the last train had already left. To this day, I am still thankful that I was friends with the girl who lived a few doors up, and that she and her partner let me sleep on their sofa for the night. I don’t know what I would have done if it wasn’t for them.
The only thing that he left me with was an expensive smoking habit, which I only recently managed to kick, 5 years on.
I have gone out with several unsavoury characters in my time. One particularly Sleazy individual, 33 when I was 17, even tried to get me onto coke. Luckily I was sensible enough (just) not to even entertain the thought. Although the Sleaze did (without any consent from me) put some of the coke on my clit one night - he said it was supposed to make the sex feel great. I resent him for even that, I didn’t want anything to do with coke. I think I was still a good girl at heart. He also left a rucksack with several wraps of coke in it, at my parent’s house one night - he thought it was hilariously funny that my parents, both very religious people, had been storing drugs in their house without knowing it. The straw that finally broke the camel’s back was when I found out that, even though for the past 9 months the Sleaze had been driving me around in his car, he had lost his licence a year earlier to drink driving, and he’d never even applied for a licence for the motorcycle that he’d been riding me around on all that time. No licence means no insurance. No insurance means that, should he have had an accident (something I still cannot understand how he managed to avoid, he drove and rode like a maniac), and should I have been paralysed or otherwise maimed in that accident, I would have had no way to seek compensation. He cared that little about me, that he was willing to risk not only his own life, but mine, to ride a bloody machine. He tried for ages to get me back in his clasps. I said no. I hope I never lay eyes on him again.
Rape
The worst experience I have ever had involving any sort of narcotics was when the Sleaze left London to go to college miles away I was upset, and went to my friend’s house; a bottle of rosé in one hand, and one of sherry in the other. We got drunk. Very drunk. The last thing I remember, before everything goes blank, is rolling around on the grass in absolute hysterics. My friend is chucking cold water all over me, trying to sober me up.
The next thing I remember after that is waking up naked on the sofa, with a naked man fucking me. I know the man, he’s a friend of both my friend, my ex-boyfriend, and the Sleaze. I don’t like him, he drinks and drives. He’s holding my head up so he can shove his dick in my mouth. His Prince Albert piercing taps against my teeth. I cannot move. I am in that temporary state of paralysis that sometimes occurs when you wake up from a deep slumber. I cannot move to stop him. He takes his dick out of my mouth and shoves it back inside me. I am terrified. I don’t like what is happening to me, but I can’t stop it. He looks like he is enjoying himself. I lie there, motionless, legs akimbo, unable to stop him. My arms start behaving; I push him away. I start crying. He looks confused and slightly disgruntled. He tries to put an arm around me, but I push him away again. All I can say, over and over, between sobs, is ‘oh my god’. I look around for my clothes. I cannot find them. I hurry to the bathroom, hoping that no one will see my nakedness. I feel so utterly ashamed. I desperately want to be sick. Anything to get the taste of him out of my mouth. I pee, sitting on the toilet, sobbing my heart out, wringing my hands. I try to keep quiet, I don’t want to wake my friend or her husband. I wash my hands, and contemplate trying to wash my mouth out too - I think even soap will taste better than this taste in my mouth. I want to have a shower, but I don’t know where the towels are. I come to the conclusion that there is nothing left that I can do, except to look for my clothes. That means going back into the living room. Where he is. I go back and sit down on the floor, sobbing. I notice that there is a duvet on the sofa, and I wrap one corner of it around me to cover my nakedness. He is settling down to sleep. Apparently unaware that he has done anything wrong, he puts a hand on my shoulder to comfort me. The Cunt. I look up and notice, to my dismay, that my friend’s little sister - ten years old, a year younger than my little sister - has just woken up on the other sofa. I forgot that she was even staying that night. She looks at me, curled up in a bit of duvet on the end of the sofa, and asks if I’m ok. I can’t remember if I speak or not. She goes back to sleep. I don’t remember the Cunt being there earlier, he left as I arrived that afternoon. I don’t remember him coming back. I feel trapped. I don’t know where my clothes are. I can’t go home, I’m naked. And cold. My friend’s little sister is asleep on the other sofa. I have nowhere to go. The Cunt tells me to get back on the sofa to sleep. I feel like I have no other choice. It is about 3 in the morning. I don’t sleep.
As it gets light, I notice a t-shirt and my knickers, folded neatly on the floor by the sofa. In the corner by the hall door, in a crumpled pile, as if disposed of in a hurry, are the Cunt’s clothes. I put the t-shirt and knickers back on, and go back to the bathroom. I still cannot get that taste out of my mouth. When my friend wakes up, she lends me some clothes. Mine, she says, are in the washing machine. They got muddy when she threw the water at me, so she lent me her husband’s t-shirt to sleep in. She is as surprised as I am that the Cunt is there. Apparently he turned up after we had both passed out. The husband and the Cunt had a few beers together, then drew on us both with her best lippy. She is not impressed when she sees the broken stub on the kitchen counter. There are photographs of us both looking like clowns. I notice that my friend still has the tell-tale red marks on her cheeks and forehead. When I look again in the bathroom mirror, I have none. The Cunt gives me a peck on the cheek as he goes to leave. When he is gone, I break down on my friend’s shoulder. I try to explain what happened, but she doesn’t understand. She thinks it was a drunken mistake, not rape. I tell her I have a boyfriend. She laughs and then sighs. She still thinks I consented. I didn’t.
I call the Sleaze. I need to speak to him, hear his voice. I need comfort. He shouts at me, tells me it’s my fault, that I wanted it, how could I try to say I didn’t mean to? It must have been my fault. I break down again. I can barely stand I am crying so violently. I collect my things and walk home. It is the longest walk of my life. I call my eldest sister, a friendly voice at last. She comforts me and offers to tell mum for me. I consent. I go home and shower until the water runs cold. I scrub myself until my skin is red and raw. It doesn’t matter how hard I scrub, how often I clean my teeth, I can still smell him, still taste him in my mouth. I cry until I run out of tears, then keep on crying some more.
I have spent the last four and a half years blaming myself for this series of events. How can I know for sure that I didn’t consent to sleep with the Cunt, if I cannot remember it? But then, why were my clothes folded neatly, and his in a crumpled pile in the corner? Did he stand back to observe his handiwork? This thought makes me shudder. Why were there no traces of lipstick left on me, but there were on my friend? Did he decide that he couldn’t fuck someone that looked like a clown? Or did I rub it off, and not remember? And the bit that has haunted me the most: my friend’s sister, innocently asleep on the other sofa. How much had she seen or heard? Why did the Cunt think that it was acceptable to fuck someone in front of a child?? I would never sleep with someone when there was anyone - never mind a child - asleep in the same room. But did I consent to let that happen? Or did the Cunt just take advantage of me, when there happened to be a child in the room. The thought of someone - me - being raped in front of a child is even worse than any other alternative.
I have spent the last four and a half years wracked with guilt for what happened. What if I hadn’t been drunk? It probably wouldn’t have happened. I would have been aware enough of what was going on around me, not to let it happen. If I hadn’t been drunk, I would have been able to stop the Cunt from even getting as far as drawing on me. IF (and it is a very big IF) I did consent to have sex with the Cunt, it was only because I was drunk. I feel guilty that I might be a cheat. I would never cheat on someone. Would I?? Even if not being drunk didn’t make a difference, at least I would have known what happened. The scars from what happened to me run deep. I will probably have to live with it for the rest of my life. And I will have to live with the fact that, even if it wasn’t my fault, I could have prevented it so easily. By not being blind drunk.
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