Bushra's birthday. 2018. She secured the whole of Fiction for her birthday party. I was there with a few friends and one of my lovers, watching the sunset from the Long Street balcony. Liquor flowed. We were dancing and dancing and there was your girlfriend on the dancefloor. Let's call her Dainah. I'm bi. She's bi. She had this huge halo of hair and we danced together. We kissed. It got saucy. At some point you joined us, tried to dance with us. I wasn't interested. She wasn't either. We ignored you made it clear you weren't wanted there. You backed off. We made out some more and agreed that we should take it to the bathroom.
She pulled me by my hand into the women's bathroom. We were in the stall kissing. I thought you had backed off but I was wrong. You followed suit. You joined us in the bathroom. Who invited you? How did you know we were going to the bathroom together in drunken lust if you were not on the other side of the dancefloor preying after we rejected you the first time?
In the stall we were making out and you were there inconsequential. Watching, hands wandering uninvited. It's like you didn't exist. You didn't exist. I don't even remember how or when but it happened. BUT YOU FELT YOU HAD THE RIGHT TO BE A PART OF WHAT WE WERE DOING. Two queer women having fun and you felt you had a right to that pleasure. I don't care if she was your girlfriend or not. You didn't have the right to be there. Uninvited.
It all happened so fast. I was drunk and confused and before I knew it you were behind me and had my pants down and penetrated me without protection and without my permission. It was so quick. I don't know what happened afterwards, I think she tried to stop you. I don't remember much but I remember how I felt. The terror.
I couldn't make sense of it. The next few days I tried to construct a narrative that it could have been a threesome. But I didn't sign up for that. I didn't give you consent at any point. Now, two and a half years later, I know what it was, though. Plain and simple: rape.
You two are still together. You have a kid. You probably didn't think twice about what happened that night. You thought you were entitled. You probably thought because I gave her my consent it automatically extended to you as her partner. You are wrong. You raped me that night and I need you to know that.
I don't care how much you meant well, you are a rapist. You penetrated me and violated me without my consent without invitation and without protection. I hope you read this and it sinks into your conscience that you took something from me that day and that I had to suppress the trauma for two and a half years before it surfaced.
I could give you a lesson in consent but I won't. All I hope is that you read this. And to Dainah I hope you know that you are married to a rapist.
