He Always Gets All The Girls

An excerpt from Every Time I Didn’t Say No: A Memoir of Consent

Trigger warning: this story contains content related to sexual assault and pedophilia that might be troubling to some readers.

Santa Fe is a small town with a large city’s art scene and the crime rate to go with it. You are 71% more likely to be the victim of a crime in that town of eighty thousand people than the rest of the US, and New Mexico holds the title for the second-highest number of violent crimes in all fifty states. I was thirteen when I didn’t say no there, in my eighth-grade year at DeVargas Junior High School.

We sit in a circle at someone’s house. It’s a small adobe and we’re playing a drinking game. There are mostly males here. My brother, his friends including Steven and Jean-Paul, sit directly across from me. I don’t understand the rules of the game, and everything is already hazy. All I know is I’ve been drinking a lot, and the room is spinning. Tequila and beer bottles litter the center of our circle, and everyone is laughing, except my brother. I’m no longer his playmate, our childhood days of playing cars and swimming in a lake far behind us. Now, I’m encroaching on a life he wants separate, his friends’ interest in me making that separation impossible. I feel sorry about this, but Santa Fe is such a small town, it’s inevitable there would be an overlap in our friends.

Jean-Paul is the reason I came, the reason I didn’t go to a party in Diablo Canyon with my best friend Lavanya. He has paid no attention to me the entire time, and I wish I had gone to Diablo. I keep trying to get him to look at me, but there’s no recognition, it’s like I’m a plant stand and not even one with a fern on it or anything. “Come on,” he says, “next question.”

It is Steven’s turn. “Drink if you have ever taken acid,” he says, face red with harsh acne.

Everyone in the group picks up their beer or shots and takes a sip. I’m the only one not touching mine, and nervously make up for my slight of truth by downing another sip.

Jean-Paul leans over and refills my cup, still not making eye contact.

The game goes on, and whenever it’s my turn, I say something stupid which garners snickers and actual laughter from everyone but Andrew, whose glare deepens as he drinks to the point of swaying even though he’s seated. Everyone else ignores him and plays along. I am the youngest here, and it stings. I can’t get it right, and the room won’t stop spinning. It spins so much, I realize I am going to be sick for real and lean back while Andrew takes his turn.

“You okay?” Jean-Paul asks, looking at me for the first time.

I nod, another wave of nausea washing over me, and press myself to stand. Suddenly, I understand what drunk is. The world is so much hazier, so much more wobbly. Now I’m standing, I realize I’m going to fall. Jean-Paul rushes to me, catching me when I do. “Shit,” he says, laughing a little. “We need to get you to the bathroom.”

My brother, Steven, and someone else are next to Jean-Paul as he half-carries me there. He places me in front of the toilet, and since there are no girls here I know, no girls my age, no girls who’d have any reason to pull my hair behind my face as I vomit, he stands behind me, hand awkwardly on my upper back.

“Goddamnit,” I hear my brother say. He is at the door. There are others there, too. “Why’d she have to come? Why’s she always coming?”

“Don’t be so harsh, bro,” Steven’s voice replies. “You’re not the one dealing with it.”

“Let it out,” Jean-Paul says, rubbing my upper back.

The vomit is acid against my throat and keeps coming. It’s red and green and yellow and I realize I haven’t eaten anything in I don’t know how long. It’s all just alcohol and bile. Then everything goes black as I swirl down the drain with all I have left inside of me.

When I wake up, I am in a dark room next to a pile of blankets. There is a window beside me without blinds or curtains. I can see the moon outside behind the thin branches of a tall tree. I am naked, on all fours, and someone is pounding at me from behind. My thighs are chafed and every time he thrusts, a sharp pain causes my legs to buckle. He’s strong, though, and rights my hips when this happens, holding me up so he can continue.

My arms hurt, and I don’t know why I’m holding myself up. Everything swirls in reds and yellows and dark blues. There is nothing left inside, but nausea grips me and every movement threatens to bring on another wave. I gag, choking on a bit of phlegm that dislodges. The man’s pace quickens as he grasps my hips, hard, and squeezes. There will be bruises. I cry out since this pain corresponds to the pain that sears between my legs. His large palm slaps my mouth, buffering the scream.

“Shhhh,” he whispers in my ear as his liquid explodes inside of me. “It’s okay.”

His body is stiff for a moment, then he presses me into a fetal position on the pile of blankets. Jean-Paul’s face is haloed in the moonlight streaming through the glass. “Hey,” he says, softly, placing his hand on my shoulder like a lover.

I say nothing.

“Hey, hey,” he continues as if urging me not to cry. “Listen, you are the most beautiful thing.”

I don’t believe we’ve shared a sentence between the two of us, but he thinks I’m beautiful.

“I’ve always wanted to know you,” he says. “And whenever you’ve been around, I’ve asked about you.”

I don’t remember meeting him more than once, but maybe he’s been in the house when Steven’s been around. He asks about me. He wanted to know me. He thinks I’m beautiful.

He stretches his long body out, next to mine and lifts my head to place it beneath his shoulder. I lay there. Like a lover.

There is nothing I can say. I remember Steven’s stories about his brother, how he’s always got a girl, how he’s always the one to get the girl at every party, how much admiration and respect he generates for this. His hair is long, dark, and curly, and his face is clear of the acne that plagues Steven. The room is moving too much, still, for me to know whether he is actually attractive. He must be, I believe, if he’s always getting the girl.

The next day, I feel horrible. My first hangover makes me never want to smell anything remotely related to alcohol again. There’s this burning sensation at the back of my throat, where even when I try to drink water, it stings. My head pulsates, especially when I look out the window, which I’m trying as much as possible not to do.

My brother and I got a ride home the night before. No one talked to me, like I was diseased or something, contagious. I could tell they were all sorely disappointed, though I don’t know what they think I did behind that closed door. They probably know. Everyone probably knows. I’m that dumb drunk girl, the one who can’t hold it down, the one who got herself in a situation she shouldn’t have, who deserved it.

But my memory of Jean-Paul is pretty clear. He didn’t seem drunk. He’s almost twenty, has surely been drinking for many more years than I since this was my first time. Flashes of memory return as I replay the events over and over, wondering where the guilt started, what I did wrong, how I could have changed it. I recall him lying next to me, his head resting in his hand, staring down at me in that silver light. I was crying. Why was I crying? It hurt.

He shushed me, asking gently, “Were you a virgin?”

I wish my answer was yes, but it wasn’t. The truth feels worse. I chose sex before Jean-Paul, but I’m pretty sure I didn’t choose Jean-Paul.

He also told me he’d be, “pissed,” if he didn’t get to see me again soon. This isn’t true, and I know he won’t try to find my number. It’s hard to grasp, but I know the only thing he wanted was that terrible sex. I don’t know why. I wonder if he meant it when he told me I’m beautiful.

The phone rings and it’s Steven, who’s asking for Andrew. I call out to my brother, but no one answers. I am alone in the house.

“Good time last night?” Steven asks once I tell him Andrew is gone.

“I guess.” My stomach twists. This is all wrong. Everything is so wrong.

He laughs. “Jean-Paul told me all about it.”

“He did?” My voice cracks. I’m ashamed.

“I told you he always gets all the girls.”

I pause. “I didn’t know you meant it like that.”

“He won’t call you, you know,” he adds.

I don’t say anything.

He laughs again. “You know what he said?”

“What?”

“He told me you’re not a real redhead, that your hairs don’t match.”

Nausea grips me again, a full-force like last night. “What?”

“Like I said, he told me everything. You know what else?” his voice is low, conspiratorial.

“What?” I don’t want to know anything else. I want to be off the phone, under my covers, dead.

“You don’t even know what the guys were saying while you were in there with him, passed out.” He pauses.

As if there’s anything I can say to that.

“Things like, ‘I hope he fucks her and she gets pregnant so she’ll have to deal with it.’ Isn’t that crazy?”

I can almost see Steven shaking his head.

“Cold, man,” he says. “Cold.”

I feel a tear slip out of the corner of my eye and wipe it away. “I gotta go,” I say.

“Wait,” Steven says, quickly. “Hey — ah . . .,”

“What?” I squeeze the receiver, palm wet.

“Ah . . .,” he drones. “Hey, are you okay?”

“What do you mean?” Heat gathers in my stomach, this ball of shame and anger and regret and no mercy.

“I mean, you know, are you okay? Like . . .,” I hear him take a deep breath. “Did he hurt you? Or anything?”

I remember my tears, his hand over my mouth, muffling my scream, the searing pain between my legs. Mostly I remember not remembering how I got into that situation, the space between retching violently over the toilet and naked, on all fours. When did I get that way? How? I recall Lavanya’s invitation, Diablo Canyon, where I could have spent the evening with friends my age, chasing answers to why the universe exists, to our place in it. Where I could have been safe, clothed, un-sick.

“No,” I say. “I mean, I don’t . . . not really, I guess.”

“Good,” he says. “It’s just that, you know, there have been times he’s been kinda, you know . . .”

I don’t know and don’t respond.

“Just,” he continues. “Just let me know if you want to talk or anything, okay?”

“I gotta go.” Gently, I hang the phone back on the receiver, too conscious of the fact that I am now, too, one of the girls.