my first time

My first time was not my first choice.

My first time was going to be when I got married, or when I knew I was going to get married, or when I knew I was in love, or when I thought I was in love, or something semi-wholesome along those lines.

My first time was date rape in the back bedroom of a mountain house.

I still vividly sense every aspect of that house and of that night. The house was a small, somewhat reminiscent of a ranch style but with a raised front porch. There was orange and brown shag carpeting. The tiles in the kitchen were distinctly retro, but in good shape. The entire place smelled like a cedar chest. But as for him, I have blocked out as much detail as possible. My memory of his face is somewhat distorted, but I could recognize him instantly upon sight.

I met him through a friend from high school, a good friend whom I trusted a great deal. He was a youth ministry major at a college about 15 miles from mine. Doesn't this automatically make someone trustworthy and respectable? I had barely been at college for one month and it had not been a week since I celebrated my eighteenth birthday. I was blissfully naive.

He came with her one day to visit me and we all went out for coffee. She was not so discretely trying to set us up. And it worked. We watched the 2004 presidential debates together and snuggled. He brought me back to school and we decided to go to a party together on Friday. That was Wednesday.

Friday he came to get me and everything seemed so natural, like this is how college life was meant to be. We went to see a play here on campus at the Belk Theater, then headed to the party. It took us over an hour to get to the party near Spruce Pine. It should have taken about half that long.

When we arrived at the difficult to find house that was what felt like half the way up a small Mount Everest, we walked in. There were two guys there. Only two, and they were already three sheets to the wind.

He fixed me a drink, Captain and coke, and we watched some TV. It was suspicious that there were only two guys there, but he played it off as a misunderstanding and I was as naive as ever.

After our first drinks, we got annoyed with the other guys at the "party." Well, he got annoyed with the guys and got a second drink. I was still on my first. We went back to one of the downstairs bedrooms to hang out alone. I think that it quickly turned into us sitting on the bed and kissing, but I do remember it took him a long time to convince me to take off my pink sweater, tank top, bra, and denim skirt. I never did relent to him removing my panties. When the time came, he did that without regard for my objections.

He asked maybe a hundred times if we could have sex. I kept saying no and trying to get away from him. I tried getting dressed, tried leaving the room. I couldn't succeed. And I couldn't take his keys and run away because I had no idea where I was and I had had one drink.

It went on and on. Him asking, me refusing, and my fears escalating. Finally, he pushed me on to my back. I remember very feebly saying no. He did not acknowledge it. He raped me. It wasn't making love, it wasn't fucking. Making love is generally cheesy and quite rare. Fucking can be a hell of a lot of fun. He raped me. It was hard, but with rape hard or soft doesn't matter. It just hurts. It just hurts because it's your body and it's their will.

That was my first time.