My Story and My Mission

My story:

I was raped at midnight on December 5, 2011 at midnight by a man I met on an internet dating site known as OKCupid.com. This is the moment that changed my life forever. 

I was a freshman in college and had just gotten back from Thanksgiving break where family tensions had been running extraordinarily high. December 4, 2011, the first Sunday after break, had been merely a continuation of this tension.  I worked in a church nursery at the time, and there was a concert that night. It was perhaps, the worst night at work I had ever had. We had a 20'x30' room packed with about 30 children between the ages of 11 months and 11 years, and at one point all of them were screaming or making some sort of loud noise. My coworker was spreading gossip about one of us getting fired, (which I later found out to be a complete lie) and I knew that my boss had talked to me the day before because my burnout was starting to affect the kids, and this job, as little as it paid me, was my only source of income. To make it worse, I had a parent come in and get angry with me because we had too few adults, and I only aggravated her more by asking her to stay. The only thing that kept me going was that I was supposed to go to see my friend after work, but he cancelled.

I was frustrated beyond belief and exhausted as I went back to my dorm. I was grateful, however, that I managed to get a parking space on the 5th floor of the parking garage, one of the only two places residents were allowed to park, and the place that was closest to my dorm. The other lot we were allowed to park in was a mile away, and it was excruciatingly rare to get a spot in the parking garage, especially at the time of night I had arrived. It was a gift from God. I said a prayer of thanksgiving for the spot and walked to my dorm in the bitter cold, and windy night.

Once inside, I sat down at my computer and checked my profile on the dating site. There was a message from a guy. He was saying that I was "hot" and that he wanted to get to know me. I was absolutely ecstatic. No man had ever called me "hot" before, and I had been told many times in school that no one would ever want me, yet here was a man calling me "hot". He was online, so we chatted back and forth for a while, and he ended up giving me his phone number. I called him and we talked on the phone for about an hour. 

While on the phone, it came out that I was a virgin and had never been kissed. He latched onto this revelation like a tick in my neck. He then started trying to convince me to come to his house, saying that he did not want to have sex, just to kiss me and to hold me. He said he did not even really like sex all that much, or so he claimed. I resisted for quite some time, saying that it was cold and icy, and most importantly, that I did not want to give up my wonderful parking space. I was exhausted though, and remarkably lonely. I wanted nothing more at that moment than to be kissed and held, so I agreed to come over....on one condition: there would be absolutely no sex. Just "making out". (which I had believed was nothing more than kissing a lot.)

I got in my car at about 10:45 and began driving to the next town over where his house was. It was snowing and the roads were pure ice. I had my radio on the classic rock station, and I remember "Highway to Hell" by ACDC began to play when my car began to spin out. Luckily, there was no one on the road. I thought perhaps I ought to have turned around at that point, but the next point that I actually could was the exit I needed to take anyway, so I figured I would keep going. I had come all that way after all, and I still wanted to be held, especially since my adrenaline was now pumping. 

I drove up to his house, where he was waiting for me outside shirtless. I giggled at that, because he was so out of place. Here I was in my business suit with my hair and makeup done, donning the jacket I use for snowboarding, it was snowing, I had just spun out on ice...and here was this fool with a scraggly beard standing outside barefoot and shirtless, wearing no more than a pair of jeans and one of those tacky cowboy belt buckles. 

He took me inside the house and downstairs. He told me I best be quiet, because his mom was upstairs sleeping. Downstairs he had a futon that he used as a bed, and the fireplace was going. The air was thick with the smell of tobacco, a substance to which I am allergic. I became terrified as I surveyed the scene. I told him that I thought we weren't going to have sex. He assured me that we weren't, but then pushed me down onto the futon and got on top of me. I froze like a corpse as he started kissing me. It had already been feeling like a very strange dream, and at that point, I think I lost touch with reality. I did not really know what was going on, but I loosened some, and began kissing him back, and I found that I liked it. I liked being kissed. A man wanted me. He was holding me. He was kissing me. I knew it wasn't love since he was a stranger, but I enjoyed the illusion.

At one point, as he was kissing me, his phone rang he picked up the phone to look at the caller ID. I asked who it was, and he told me it was his mom. I guess he must have forgotten he told me she was upstairs, and I suppose I must have too, because I didn't think much of it. Soon after that though, he began to take off my clothes. At first I was confused, but I figured that is just what you did with the "making out". After all, the entire thing was nothing like I had pictured it, and I didn't think too much about nudity, since it was not unusual for my roommate and I to walk around shirtless in our dorm. At this point he started pushing me to sleep with him, relentlessly he pushed me. I resisted it for about an hour, when I became convinced that it didn't matter what I said, he would get what he wanted. Even then, he had started to get rougher than me, both in word and action, and he was an "ex-marine". I didn't really want this to happen, but more than anything else, I did NOT want to get pregnant. I had had a very poignant reminder of just how much I did not want to have children. It was after this realization that I made what was perhaps the only smart decision of the night, though it is the one I struggle most with. I uttered the words that I will always hate myself for, the words that will haunt me forever, the words that, I am sure, made him think that what he did to me was OK, and made me lose credibility with him: "OK, fine, but at least use a condom and you'd better damn well pull out too."

My head was fuzzy and I couldn't think clearly. Everything was blurry, and I noticed the strangest, and most insignificant things. He had scars on his wrist, and I remember thinking "You aren't ACTING like Jesus." It's funny the things we remember in times such as these. 

It didn't take me long to realize exactly what was happening, and I told him to stop, that I couldn't do this. As it turns out, I had been a pretty good judge of character when I had given in, because he got rather angry. He stopped momentarily and started calling me a whore. He accused me of not being a virgin, and asked how many hundreds of guys I'd been with. He told me to "just lay there and let [him] fuck [me]". He grabbed my ankles and held them above my head, and then continued while repeating "just lay there and let me fuck you, you little whore! You like that? That's right, just lay there and let me fuck you." I don't know why, but I didn't scream. I just lie there waiting for him to finish, as silent tears flowed down my cheeks.

When he finished, the room was spinning and hazy. Every word came to me as if it had be spoken from underwater. It was a strangely realistic dream. I went to the bathroom and when I washed my hands, the water started out clear, but then turned black. I remember thinking "that's it, I am stained; my soul is black." (Later I would come to believe that it was actually a very dark red, and I had been washed in the blood of Christ) At this point, I was convinced it must have been a dream, because the symbolism was too much for real life. I went out and asked him if he existed. He looked at me confused. He said he definitely did exist and that I "should be proud, because [I] moved the bed." I made him come into the bathroom, saying the water was black. I still wasn't convinced this had actually happened, and I wanted him to at least see the water, so that I wasn't the only one, but when he turned the faucet it was clear. I felt like I was going to pass out.

I walked out to the futon and sat on the corner of it. There was no way I could stay there, but I knew I couldn't drive. I was not drunk, but for as much of an altered state as my mind was in, I might as well have been. He began talking to me. He kept repeating the same phrase: "You didn't really sin, because all sins are equal in the eyes of God right? So you didn't do anything worse than cussing, that's it, you just cussed. This is natural. Nothing bad happened". In between repetitions of this phrase, he would say something about how "good" I had been, how many girls he had "slept with" (I'm guessing at least some of them, if not all had been under the same circumstances I was), and how much of a whore I was, but he always returned to that one phrase. I never said anything in return.

Eventually I got to the point to where I was at least clear enough that I thought I could get back to my dorm without killing myself or someone else on the way. It was about 2 am, and I was starving so I stopped at the McDonald's drive through (since it was the only thing open) to get a chicken club sandwich. As I drove back to school, I decided that I was going to park my car in the far lot, so that I would know for sure if this actually happened or if it had just been a bad dream.

My Mission:

The next morning, I had very few memories, but I had some evidence, his number, his address, the messages, and the car. They are coming back slowly, and I am in the process of healing. My name is Xiomara Renee. It means "battle-ready and reborn". I am made new in Christ, and I am ready to fight to take back my power and my dignity, and stop this once and for all, but I need your help. Please, share your story, and we can grow to understand one another and become stronger together.

PS. For your own protection, I encourage you not to use any real names if you can avoid it. If you would like to share your story, please leave it in a comment below or send it in an email to skeletonoftar@hotmail.com and I will put your story as a separate post.


-Xiomara Renee