Trigger warning: depictions of sexual assault and rape.
We were all in the same room, on the same bed, where we watched movies he insisted on being dubbed. It was barbaric to me that he’d refuse to read the captions. They disappear too fast from the screen, he’d say. You had fallen asleep, too drunk and heavy, like an anchor deep-seated in sand during low tide. Do you remember the few times we escaped our dusty hometown to spend a weekend by the sea? We’d head to the nearest party beach and dance and sweat and drink and sleep in the same room with our friends. You don’t know this, but I could never sleep during these trips. I’ve often marveled at how women can rest their bodies and sleep soundly in front of others—a trust I don’t share. Something else you don’t know is I was molested before I knew what the word meant, or what sex meant, as a child. It happened during the day, and there was no liquor to cloud my senses or his. After a few years passed, once I understood what happened to me, and that men can take other bodies like the ocean erodes cliffs, I avoided getting blackout drunk. Getting drunk and not remembering what happened somehow seemed worse than remembering everything. I’d try not to get molested or assaulted or raped while drinking, although I knew I might not be able to escape another assault—whether it involved alcohol or not—simply because I was a girl, and now, because I am a woman.
When we went out to drink, I’d fake drinking after the first couple of beers. I chugged, and then spit, or threw liquor onto the floor without a splash. I had perfected it. I remembered what other friends had told me while I wasted liquor. How they only realized they had been raped when they woke up and bruises dotted their thighs, how it felt like dense waves had pummeled their torsos, and their vaginal lips singed like never before. They couldn’t recall anything, but their bodies didn’t lie while their minds tried to justify the aches. All I could say to them was It’s not your fault. It’s never your fault, but I knew how hard it is to believe this. You were never this friend; we never talked about this type of pain, at least, I don’t remember that we did. We talked about clandestine abortions in Guayaquil, fickle men, traveling to the U.S., getting pregnant, Miss Universe, your parents’ divorce, but somehow we never talked about men who stole bodies.
I vowed never to get too drunk with anyone, not even you—my best friend—and your boyfriend. Don’t take it personally; I learned early not to trust anybody. If anyone tried to touch me again in a way I didn’t want to, no matter who they were, I wanted a sharp recollection, to have the memory seared into me like my mind had once captured the dashing colors of a salmon sunset giving way to darkness. This might be why I remember tiny details from that night on the bed with you next to me. The way his plump fingers grazed my cheek. How he stuck his languid lips up and his eyelids almost cloaked all the white of his eyes. This is the part where I make excuses for him. I had never seen him so drunk. I don’t think he knew which body he was reaching for.
You think I’m (insert your name here), STOP.
My voice thundered like gale in a storm, but your face was splayed on the pillow and you didn’t budge. He reached for me again, and a thought crossed my mind: drunk men must weigh more than sober men. I guess this means when a man touches me in a way I don’t want, I’ll always remember the first one who did. Suddenly, I thought, what if your boyfriend doesn’t stop? What if you woke up with him pinning me down? What if you thought I wanted it too?
She’s right here next to you, I shouted.
I stumbled from the bed, looked at both of you from the bathroom, your boyfriend on a corner still reaching for a body and only grabbing air. I splashed my face with water, called a taxi, and left both of you spread out on the bed like bodies on sand.
Do you remember a week after we came back from the beach and you found a black plastic bag? We were listening to music in your room, and our cell phones still had traces of sand we couldn’t get out, but our tans were starting to fade. The beach was no longer a topic of conversation, only the next party we’d been invited to. You had no idea what was in the plastic bag, but it was thick and bulging and pleaded to be opened. When you tore the bag and looked up at me with eyes wide in shock, we started laughing. The turquoise dress you had worn instead of a bathing suit for a last-minute beach dip emerged, still heavy and wet, so tightly encased that the ocean’s soak hadn’t left it. Then the smell of the beach reached our noses like we were right back on the sand, sipping pilsners.
Don’t tell (insert your boyfriend’s name) or my mom, you said in between laughter.
You put the dress back in the same plastic bag and said you’d wash it later that day, so your mother wouldn’t see that you were destroying clothes your boyfriend had bought you.
The day after I left you with him on the bed, I pretended the night before was a drunken night like any other. As we laughed, and gossiped, and settled into the comfortable routine of friendship, I waited until you left us alone. I don’t know where you went, all I know is I was sure you were out of ear shot.
Do you remember what you tried to do last night?
No, eh, what… what happened?
I’m only going to talk about this once, and then never again, also, don’t worry, this will stay between us, but if you ever try to kiss me or touch me again, drunk or not, I will tell (insert your name here) and I know she’ll believe me and not you.
He didn’t look at me, and when his mouth opened, I only let him breathe.
I never said we’re going to talk about it. I just need you to understand. She’ll come back at any moment.
He nodded.
Silence reigned.
He never tried to touch me again. I promise.
Do you remember that time we were smashing crab pincers at a kiosk and suddenly two cockroaches the size of fists flew around us and one landed on my butt? How I screamed TAKE IT OFF, TAKE IT OFF, SOMEONE PLEASE. You screamed his name over and over because he sat on the red stool, looking at you and me, then again, at you and me, as if remembering words you had not had the privilege of hearing? Then he finally flicked the cockroach off after our screams made our consent clear? I thought about the secret he and I shared on that night. I thought about the secret a few years later, when you told me that you were pregnant. It came to mind the moments after I’d met your sweet baby boy. How maybe my confession would have thwarted the creation of the human being you made with him. I remembered the secret on the day I moved to another country and left you in our boring hometown. The secret hasn’t tarnished all the memories I have with you, but it’s a sudden riptide that muddles my mind on certain days more than a decade later.
I recently told my husband about your husband and that night. I said that I think of that night as a body of water. I had to decide which body of water the event would become. A puddle, a pond, a reservoir, a river, an ocean. A reservoir to keep it all in? I had already kept the secret of a man touching me without consent to myself, and I saw how over the years it became a puddle, a pond, and then turned into a ferocious sea. If I had told you what happened that night, it would have become a seething ocean, and maybe the trips you invited me on to the beach would have stopped. Plus, I lied to (insert your husband’s name here). I wasn’t sure if you would believe me or him. I created a tepid river with him, flowing quietly towards the sea, while your turquoise dress is a pond you and I can barely dip our feet in. I kept the truth from you, so when he says my name, the only memories it conjures for you are of the three of us lying on a hot beach.
Girl in a Red Dress by Jan Matson