Vivid

Twenty missed calls, sixteen messages, eight from Augustus and the rest she couldn't remember...

She is powerful. She knows she is. She is a powerful, attractive and vivacious woman full of energy and light. Her presence lights up a room, her essence illuminates the world brighter than the sun. When she speaks, her words draw attention and people care what she has to say. She is a privileged woman with a voice, an advocate for many oppressed, both young and old, male and female; black, white, purple, you name it.

So why is she lying in bed at 5PM, curtains drawn with not a shred of light piercing through the windows like a damsel in distress stuck in a tower? Why is she surrounded by empty bottles of vodka, rotting food and dirty laundry, and is that vomit that she tastes in her mouth? Her head is pounding, her throat feels like she spent a night drinking sand in a desert, and the room is spinning. The vibrations of her phone next to her limp body remind her of a lady screaming on top of her lungs at her naughty kids in a supermarket, and suddenly, she hates people. Nobody has knocked on her door in days and she likes it that way! Does anybody even know where she is?

She is not a victim. She is a fighter. She is a woman who bends occasionally but never breaks. Her resilience knows no bounds, whatever she sets her mind to, she conquers. She is a well respected member of society, and although some men fall at her feet, she gets down and pulls them back up with their dignity. So, of course she had to do what she did. She had to remind herself that she is not powerless, that he did not take anything away from her and that she had more strength than he could ever have in his entire existence.

Bile rose to her throat as she recollected that fateful morning when she woke up a victim having left her senses a warrior. Powerlessly laying there next to the spineless man who had seen an opportunity and seized it, and once again, she blamed herself for being too intoxicated to stop it.

"Was it at least enjoyable?" She found herself enquiring, twisting strands of her hair with her left hand, because if you're going to take advantage of her while she's too drunk to know her left from her right, then she might as well know if it was worth it. She nearly threw up in her mouth remembering how she tried to gain control over the situation, to make him feel like the spineless scum that he was by spinning the story so it didn't seem like it bothered her. Who was going to believe her, anyway? How was it going to look to the general public? A lot was at stake.

"You took me by surprise", was all he said in response, leaning against the wall with his arms folded and his legs crossed. He felt he'd do it again, given another chance. She felt disgusting, but you'd never know that because she laughed instead. Giggled, even. She was a powerful, attractive and vivacious woman who oozed confidence. Never mind the fact that she had been celibate until that fateful night, that boat had already sailed now, hadn't it? Why dwell on it...

Except, she couldn't stop herself from dwelling on it because she was having visions. Visions when her womanhood was compromised and she was too powerless to realise it. Her ego was bruised, on what planet did he imagine her ever being attracted to him, let alone give up her most treasured gift to him, of all men on earth?! She immediately started regretting the conversation they'd had. She should have confronted him and told him exactly how she felt. But was it really rape if she didn't remember it happening? It's not like he tied her down, at least she hoped not? Like, just because she was too drunk to remember, surely it doesn't mean he raped her?

Her tormented soul tossed and turned and spent many sleepless nights replaying the visions, trying to remember where it all started and what actually took place. Days turned into weeks and weeks into months, but it was like she suddenly had the memory of a goldfish. Perhaps her mind was trying to save her from the humiliation and the pain by erasing all memory of the act itself, leaving her with vivid visions, drabs of memories torn from a tattered cloth of shame in a twisted way to give her fragments of her reality. She was a victim. She called out his name, but was she moaning in pleasure or was she trying to tell him to stop?

He walked into her room as she got dressed. She quickly pulled her towel over her body to hide, and she found herself giggling like a teenager with a crush when all she really wanted to do was throw a glass bottle at his head. Why was she encouraging his behaviour by entertaining him? The deeper she went, the harder she saw her chances of redemption. She had fallen down the rabbit hole with no way out, much like Alice in Wonderland. He grabbed her bum. She giggled and found herself smacking his in return. She was no victim. She refused to be a victim. She wanted to feel powerful, she wanted to feel like she had control over the situation so he won't look at her like a gazelle on the plains of the Serengeti. Goodness knows he was no lion. But, surely he didn't mean to violate her? Surely he'd had a few too many drinks himself and couldn't be held accountable for his actions, surely? Right?

Blacking out is such a fascinating "phenomenon". One minute you're there, the next minute you're not. Yet everyone around you swears you're wide awake. They tell you that you danced the night away, and you even spoke to some stranger in a whole different language, and this all seems funny to you. Until you remember that night, that fateful night when everything changed.

She flirted with him. That was her revenge. She is no victim. She made sure she looked seductive the following night; she was going to dance the night away and act like she wasn't affected. They say offense is taken, not given, this was the right approach, right? Tequila was her new found love; her bank card bled in its rich, gold liquid as she swiped away mindlessly, letting it caress her tongue for a split second before scorching her throat, like a scorned lover sent on a shopping spree as an apology. Sucking on a lemon wedge is nothing attractive, yet she looked at him as she spat it out and grabbed another shot. He wore a sly smile on his face as he watched her. Seven shots down, eight more to go. She is a strong woman, remember? She can handle this.

She kissed him. She kissed him and giggled and danced with him all night, yet every fibre of her being resented his very existence and fantasised about strangling him, punching him and inflicting the same amount of pain he had inflicted on her. What he robbed her of, no matter the fact that she couldn't remember it, she could never get back, but she knew she'd probably derive temporary pleasures in seeing him squirm. She even fantasised about sleeping with him, showing him who's boss. She felt she had to. She needed to. Surely, she must have found him the least bit attractive to unconsciously decide to sleep with him? She had to take back her power, take back her womanhood and become that same powerful, attractive and vivacious woman all over again, damn it!

"Hi, this is nurse Sue. Please call me back as soon as possible, we've got your test results". She listened to that voice message three times and entered a state of panic. Sometimes she wonders if that's the day she cracked, the day she started spiralling downhill? But she's such a composed person, nothing really fazes her, and if it does, she never shows it. She just sweeps it under the rug and dies slowly inside. But what they failed to tell her was that, the more crap you shove under the rug, the more likely you'll be to trip over it and fall. This was her tripping moment.

"Right, you need to inform Spineless to make sure he gets treated too. Would you like us to call him?"

Call him? I hope it eats him away until his genitals fall off, she thought to herself.

"Oh, he's out of the country right now. I'll send him a text and make sure he gets that sorted as soon as he's back". She lied through her teeth.

An STI! Oh, it couldn't get any worse, could it? What had she done in some previous life to deserve this? She was a powerful, strong woman. Not a victim. Not a weak woman who can't handle her alcohol. Not a piece of meat for men to just grab on a whim and devour!

She craved being drunk so she'd not have to think about it. Being a non-virgin meant her credibility was questionable to the general public, you know how judgemental society can be. She probably asked for it by being drunk in the first place, and besides, he told her that she had initiated it. There was no one to tell, no one to talk to and so she spoke to herself and got into her own head. Vodka became her new best friend. She was spiralling, but that was ok. She had to forget about it somehow.

Which brings us back here, in this dark room that smelt of rotting pizza, alcohol and vomit. It was like a vortex was sucking her soul while she desperately tried to hang onto it. Her very life was dwindling before her eyes, and she had no power to step up and do anything about it. The will to live and all her motivation to be a world changer became but a distant memory, a fable she once told to children sitting around a fire roasting maize on a nice Zimbabwean evening.

Twenty missed calls, sixteen messages, nine from Augustus and the rest she couldn't remember. Help me...

Let's get educated for a moment:

Acquaintance rape: Rape committed by someone that the victim knows, such as an acquaintance, friend, co-worker, date, or spouse. Most rapes are acquaintance rapes.

Alcohol expectancies: A person's beliefs about the effects that alcohol consumption will have on himself or herself as well as on other people.

Alcohol-involved rape: Rape in which the perpetrator, the victim, or both are under the influence of alcohol at the time of the incident.

Attempted rape: An act that fits the definition of rape, in terms of the strategies used, but does not result in penetration.

Childhood sexual abuse: Sexual abuse that occurs to a child (the term "child" is generally defined as age 13 or younger).

Date rape: Rape committed by someone that the victim is dating. Among college students, approximately one-half of all rapes are committed by a date.

Marital rape: Rape committed by the victim's spouse. Marital rape often is committed in association with verbal and physical abuse.

Rape: A sexual assault involving some type of penetration (i.e., vaginal, oral, or anal) due to force or threat of force; lack of consent; or inability of the victim to provide consent due to age, intoxication, or mental status. Rape laws vary by State; however, the aforementioned description conforms to the definition used at the Federal level and by most States.

Sexual assault: The full range of forced sexual acts, including forced touching or kissing; verbally coerced intercourse; and vaginal, oral, and anal penetration. Researchers typically include in this category only acts of this nature that occur during adolescence or adulthood; in other words, childhood sexual abuse is defined separately. Both men and women can be sexually assaulted and can commit sexual assault. The vast majority of sexual assaults, however, involve male perpetrators and female victims.

Stranger rape: Rape committed by someone that the victim does not know. Less than 20 percent of rapes are committed by strangers, although most people believe that stranger rape is the prototypical rape.

A. Abbey et al, accessed 20 October 2017 (https://pubs.niaaa.nih.gov/publications/arh25-1/43-51.htm)