Her bath washed away the semen but it didn’t wash away the memories of when he forced her to get on her knees and suck his – so I cried as if I was his daughter because of that rage and that possible AIDS between my legs, it could never add up to her pain, her distortion as he licked my body up and down. I hope that he would ejaculate enough that in his own semen he would drown. He carved his name in my uterus so that my first born child could on be as cursed as….Inaudible…. Thinking that this only happened in movies, she was the main character in the (inaudible) when she cried and he opened her credits. Too scared of the night, that is why she wished for ongoing sunlight.

I had met Frank before my junior year. We had been talking for that whole year and felt like it was the best thing that happened to me. I never had a lot of boyfriends but I did have a lot of friends. Hell, I didn’t have my first kiss until I was a freshman in High School. So I thought it was pretty cool that I had a man who actually liked me.

When I finally told my parents about him I was 17, they didn’t have a problem with his age but more so of his race. Their exact words were we don’t want you dating him because he’s not black. Because Hispanic men beat their women. I remember thinking and telling them that it was the dumbest thing I have ever heard in my life and walking away from them. I knew that race had no part to play when it comes to abuse. So I was determined to see him.

That’s when I started to sneak out the house just to see him. We would go to the movies, the mall out to dinner all the time. At the time he had lived in Silver Spring so some days wed just go back to his apartment and watch movies. I was a virgin and was saving myself for marriage. So the only thing we did was kiss.



It was a Saturday I’d lost my virginity. My best friend and I had plans on going to the mall. Which we did do. My parents found out I was seeing him and made me stop so she would help me see him. I had curly tracks in my hair. My toes matched my nails. I had on a short black mini skirt with slits on the side. A yellow off the shoulders top that I had to wear a strapless bra with. My yellow old navy flip flops matched my head band.

We went to bath and body works. I remember buying warm vanilla sugar body spray and lotion. Frank met us in front of sears and we went back to his house. I was supposed to be back at the mall by 5:00 so she could take me home.

So we got into his car, he always drove a stick. I hate stick shifts because of him; he would drive like a crazy person and hit the brakes at the last minute. I swear I thought I would have a heart attack when he would drive.

It was maybe an hour drive and I kept looking down at my legs and it felt like my stomach had hit the floor. Frank holds my hand the whole drive up there. We have hung out at his house so many times before and for some reason this day I felt really uneasy about it.

So we get to his house and were just watching TV. It was Saturday so they were playing scary movies and action movies. We talked a little bit but was more focused on the movie. Frank was lying behind me and he’s holding me and running his fingertips up and down my legs and he kissed me. I kiss him back he climbs on top of me and we started kissing harder and I tell him I don’t want to have sex and that I’m scared. I was a virgin and the furthest I had gone with anyone was kissing (especially with a man). At this time my heart is beating out of my chest and he says ok and kisses me again. I keep kissing him back and he starts putting his fingers inside me. It hurts really bad and I start to push him off of me and in that second he just gets really mean.

Frank rips my underwear off and has his penis up to my mouth and makes give him oral sex. I started gagging and he presses the knife harder to my face and tells me if I bite him he was going to cut me. I tried so hard not to throw up but I couldn’t do it anymore. I can feel the knife cutting my cheek and his finished. I didn’t move, my body went numb and I feel him flip me over and his penis is near my butt and I laid there. I couldn’t see anything all I felt was a sharp pain and the tearing I felt. I screamed into the pillow but he didn’t care. He’s pushing my head into the pillow and I felt him ejaculate inside me.

I open my eyes and stare at the wall thinking that it’s over. I just wanted to go home and go to sleep. I turn over and all I see is blood on the sheets and he’s standing up putting on a condom. I can still see the knife and didn’t move. Frank raped me he raped me for an hour and I saw that tattoo on his back I stared at it the whole time. He keeps telling me stop moving, he asks me if I like it, how it feels. He leaned in to kiss me and I didn’t kiss him back. He’s finished and pulls out and tells me the condom came off.

That’s when reality hits me and I start to freak out because I didn’t want to get pregnant. I went to the bathroom and pulled it out. I sat on the toilet and cried. My hair was matted down and tangled, my face had a cut on it, my makeup was smeared and I could smell him coming off my skin. The dried up blood and semen wouldn’t come off with a paper towel. I didn’t know how to feel. I didn’t know what to do, I was embarrassed and scared.

I came out the bathroom and he’s standing near the window smoking as if nothing happened. I tell him I’m ready to go home. Frank tried to hold my hand on the way home. I was shaking the whole time and he looks at me and asks me what’s wrong? Why was I shaking like that?

I had to call my best friend and convince her to pick me up at a restaurant because Frank couldn’t take me home. My parents had forbid Frank to coming to my house. She came and picked me up and asked what happened to me and I said nothing we just fooled around. She asked me if we had sex and I said no.

I got home at 7:30pm that night. I could barely walk up the steps. I went into my bed room, pealed my clothes off of me, threw everything in the trash and put on stripped pj's from old navy. I sat outside for an hour, went back in the house and lay in bed. I didn’t do anything that weekend. When I had to go back to school Monday, walking was painful and sitting down was worse.

I covered up my scar with foundation and I kept wearing foundation to cover it up until last month. That scar is still on my face. I had to take my senior pictures with that and my mom wouldn’t let me put the foundation on that day.

My period was late 3 weeks later. I was scared and freaked out and end up telling my mom that I was raped, but I told her that I didn’t know who did it and that I might be pregnant. They still blamed me for walking out the house in a skirt but at least I didn’t get pregnant the first time.

I cried while thinking this isn’t the way I envisioned my first time but when I saw the blood pore from my legs, I thought if it wasn’t me the tears another girl would shed. I looked him in his eyes and realized that he was old enough to be someone’s father, so I cried as if I was his daughter, as I felt my insides being slaughtered.

I had a flash back that I’ve never ever had before.
 I was just lying there in bed in my bra and panties and I was starting to fall off to sleep until my mind just flashed back. I was lying in bed with Frank in just a bra and underwear on his bed with him beside me. I was seeing that I was having the flash back so I started using my breathing techniques and it worked for a little bit until the flash back started up again and I saw Franks hand reach up to stroke my back. I came back to reality for a quick second and the only thing I could remember saying to myself self was oh God don’t let him touch me that way. He did and my mind froze.
I talked myself down and I let the flash back happen. I felt like I saw myself over the bed while it was happening but I wasn’t freaking out or panicking.

After he raped me the first time. I was scared that he would hurt me again so I stayed with him for another 2 years. I saw myself in his room. I had on black sweat pants, a white nautica shirt, a white bra and white reeboks. He told me to take my clothes off and I did. I laid down on the bed while he climbed on top and was kissing my neck and my breasts and tried to kiss me on my lips but I’d never kiss him back. He didn’t say much but asking me if I liked it. I stared off into space. I would look at the TV if it was on, hoping it would make the time go by faster.

It never did. When he was done, he climbed off of me and has a cigarette. I would just roll over onto my side and lay there. It was such a sickening feeling. I knew it was wrong but the fear was so much greater than anything else. God it seems like it was forever until he took me home. He just wanted me around just in case he wanted another go around.

I let him rape me. I laid there every single time and let this monster rape me for 2 years. And now 10 years later it’s all coming out? Suck a fair trade…….

Making love, having sex, being intimate. Whatever you call it, it can be a wonderful thing. Don't let rape rob you of the chance to have genuine happiness in your life. Choose to reclaim your sexuality, without abusing it yourself, and move on with your life. Be happy, take time to love yourself, stay safe.

“Rape is about having your choices taken away. Being intimate with your partner is something you can choose to do or choose not to do. You can ask your partner to stop and he/she would stop. You may find that some positions may now seem frightening to you and you may feel you want to use positions where you feel more in control over what is happening. If you are with someone who cares about you, loves you, respects you that is entirely different from a man who is abusing you, who has no care or respect for you.”

So I’ve made some progress. After the break down last week I had let go of a lot of things I was holding on to. Like the rapes, abuse and being molested. When Justin molested me it took away my childhood innocence. I had lost that special place that no one was supposed to touch and I knew that no one was supposed to touch me there. But ever since Justin started to molest me, my privates would always hurt and I couldn’t explain it. After I had my daughter( I have a vaginal birth) I tore and needed stitched for the second time(I had stitches from a rape years ago) and I remember laying in the hospital on my side crying because my anal area had hurt so bad. It wasn’t from the stitches per se but I kept feeling like someone had put something in my rectum and I couldn’t get it out. It didn’t hit me until earlier this week that I was having body memories of Justin putting his finger in my rectum when I was 5. I never really understood that everything was connected to each other as far as emotions and feelings.

“Separating rape/abuse and sex
It is important to learn to separate rape/abuse and sex. Healthy sex is nothing like the violation you experienced, and in working on your sexual healing and rediscovering your likes and dislikes; you can learn to differentiate the two. The actual acts may be the same, but that is where the similarities end.

This task can become complicated, as many non-survivors connect rape and sex, so their perceptions become skewed. Survivors may worry that others are judging them for wanting to become sexually active, or that the assault must not have been “that bad” if they are able to enjoy sex again. Some people may even openly question a survivor’s desire to engage in sex after rape or abuse. As difficult and wounding as these types of comments can be, it is important not to let them interfere with your own views and desires. You are entitled to healthy sex, and no one can tell you how to feel.”

When it came to sex, I always felt dirty and nasty. I felt like I wasn’t deserving of anything but pain because that’s the only thing I was used to. After being raped and abused for so long, it’s so hard to get used to being treated with respect. I had no emotional connection with the act of sex but pain and Frank along with Banky and the other men. It’s a hard concept to grasp, knowing that you have the right to your body and no one else does. It was hard for me to accept that I can say no to sex now. That I don’t have to do anything that I don’t want to.  The Vaginismus makes it that much more difficult, especially when you do want to be intimate because the anxiety and fear of sex made my body go on danger mode and my vagina would close up.

So this is where my journey begins. I had to take back what Justin, Frank and Banky took from me. I am so determined to thrive from this instead of bouncing between victim and survivor. Right now I’m in Sex Therapy and working around the issues that makes me so anxious about sex. It’s going really well so far. I understand how my body is connected to my past but also to my mind.

I went and bough Ben Wa Balls for kegel exercises and so far its helping me relaxes a lot more. Ummmm…………. Sexually I feel so free right now. I don’t feel like I’m being pressured to do anything I’m way more open about what I want and what I like and what I’m willing to try. It’s like I have control over my body and I don’t feel like it’s in danger anymore.