I moved to New York on a typical muggy afternoon in late summer. Innocuous as the day was - to me, it was the biggest moment of my adult life. I wanted to live in NYC ever since I first visited as a young girl. I had spent the last year working three jobs (from 9 AM – 3 AM six nights a week) to save up enough money to promptly throw away on a tiny studio. I knew exactly one person in the city. I was 24 years old.
A week after I moved in, I went out dancing with my friend. I laugh to think of where we ended up, but at the time I knew nothing about the scene. Everything felt glamorous and thrilling. Sometimes, I miss that feeling.
We met two guys who offered to help us get in to a club. Once inside, my friend started dancing with one of the guys that got us in. I stayed near them, dancing by myself. I was completely sober that night – I had wanted to remember everything about my first big night out. Little did I know, it would soon become a night I could never forget.
Soon, a very tall man came up and started to dance with me. He wrapped his hand around my waist to pull me into him. I realized he was quite muscular and much taller than me. I gently moved his arm back – I didn’t want him that close – and he acquiesced. We kept dancing near my friend. She and I exchanged glances over their shoulders. He got too close again, and again I pushed him back a bit. I gave my friend a ‘save me!’ look and she came over and danced in between us until he got the hint and retreated.
Later in the evening, I went to ask the bartender, “Where’s the restroom?” He didn’t hear me, but someone behind me said, ‘Just upstairs.’ I threw a casual ‘thank you’ over my shoulder as I climbed the stairs. The second floor was a large balcony overlooking the dancefloor. Absolutely no one was up there. I realized I had forgotten to tell my friend where I was going.
Thinking nothing of it, I went into the private, single-person restroom and locked the door behind me. As I was reapplying my lipgloss, my friend texted asking where I was. I replied, “Bathroom!” snapped my cell phone shut and turned to leave.
As soon as I opened the door, I saw his imposing figure fill the entire doorframe. Without saying a word he pushed me into the bathroom and locked the door behind him. It was so fast I barely had time to think. He pulled me into the corner and started kissing and groping me. I tried to pull my head away and I felt him kissing all down my neck and face. I squirmed away but he pulled me back, and suddenly his hands were everywhere. He was pulling up my dress and grabbing at my breasts. He managed to push my bra to the side. He pulled my dress all the way up and grabbed my butt. I said “No” about a thousand times. He wouldn’t stop.
I tried to reach around him and unlock the door. I managed to get it open a few inches before he pulled it closed again. It was so effortless for him to pull it closed, when I had struggled for so long to get it open just that one crack. Staying focused, I tried again. I reached around him even as I felt his hand pulling at my underwear. I managed to crack open the door again. I felt the music get louder, saw the strobe lights, heard peoples laughter and happy chatter. I realized that no one would hear me scream. No one would find me up here. I finally stopped telling myself that I would be ok, that I could somehow convince him to stop. He wasn’t going to stop. I finally got it. The epiphany flooded my brain with images of the horrors I might endure. I knew that the absolute worst thing could happen to me in this tiny bathroom upstairs and no one would save me. My whole world became that bathroom door handle. I had to get out. I had to do anything to get out of this bathroom before it became a nightmare.
I gasped, “You’re scaring me!” and then I somehow managed to knee him in the groin. In that split second it took him to react to my move, I managed to rip the door open. I ran as fast as I could, my heels tripping me as I flew down the stairs. I grabbed my friend and with panic in my eyes said, “We have to get out of here immediately, someone attacked me in the bathroom.”
She ran out with me. The only thing I was thinking was escape. Thankfully, she stopped me once outside and told me to tell the bouncer. I went up to one guy and said, “Someone attacked me in the bathroom.” I half-expected him to completely brush me off, but he didn’t. He stayed with me, and within minutes, the police were on the scene. They managed to find him in the club and held him outside in cuffs. The police officers escorted me into a van, where we waited to be interviewed. I could hear his vituperative screams from the sidewalk.
She wanted it! She’s such a fucking whore! She’s lying!
I was driven to the police station where an officer filed my report. I remember him having the kindest demeanor. Soon, it was nearing dawn. I went back to my tiny apartment, all alone, way uptown. I walked into my room and fell down on my bed. But I couldn’t sleep.
I called my boyfriend, still in Philadelphia, and told him what happened. I was still in complete shock. He was not as comforting as I wanted him to be and he even told me that I shouldn’t have been out at a club, and asked me what I was thinking. Shocked and numb, I hung up.
I spent the next week in a daze. I completely broke down at my new job and had to fly upstate to recover with my mother at our summer place. I walked the quiet, empty tree-lined streets and tried to convince myself I was safe. But I wasn’t.
A reporter called me. I stupidly told them what happened. I had wanted to warn other women with my story. I didn’t even think about how it could affect me. A photographer showed up and took my picture. The next day I was on the front page. My boyfriend said, “Anything to get your name in the paper, huh?” My mother broke up with him for me. I couldn’t move.
Then the panic attacks started. The first one was in the shower. Suddenly I couldn’t breathe and I thought I was going to faint in the tub and die. I grasped for the curtain, barely making it out. I fumbled for my cell phone, dialing my best friend. I sputtered, “just talk to me about anything nice” and while he spoke, I balled-up naked on the wood floor in a big wet puddle and tried to get my heart to stop racing. I was worried that he would track me down because of the article. He could easily find out my name and where I lived. I stopped sleeping.
A few days later, I got a random phone call. It was someone pretending to be a friend of my friend. I answered a few questions until I realized that he was a private investigator hired by the defendant to terrify me in the hopes that I wouldn’t press charges. He told me that he had done background checks on me and that my friend had said I was very drunk that night. He told me that he had heard stories about me and that I was a prostitute. I hung up and changed my number. I took myself off Facebook. My world became even smaller.
I would dread the nighttime because I was terrified to go to sleep. I had the most horrifying nightmares and would wake up screaming several times each night. But I knew I wanted to go forward with my case. The fact that he’d hired someone to try to convince me otherwise only strengthened my resolve. My mother got me a shrink and I started taking Xanex.
I testified in front of the Grand Jury a few days before Christmas. It was a room of fifty people in stadium seating. I sat at a small table in the front. My ADA stood in the back and shouted questions down to me. “Where did he touch you?” “Was it inside or outside your underwear?” I did my best to remain calm, but I broke down sobbing a few times. Every pair of eyes was on me, wide and sympathetic. Within hour, I was informed that I had cleared the Grand Jury and I would be taking him to court.
I got Bells’ Palsy the next week. The entire right side of my face would not move. I had to tape my eye shut to sleep. Eating became nearly impossible because my lips would not close around my food. I resorted to kind of tossing sushi in my mouth as I tilted my head back. It was not cute. When I laughed, it was macabre. My world got smaller still.
After a few weeks of acupuncture the feeling returned to my face. I prepared for my court date. My friend and I had become quite close but we never spoke of that night. I didn’t want to tamper recollection of the events, and I didn’t want to put any pressure on her. She was amazed that I had even gone this far. She said she never would’ve done it.
The hearing was intense. He had absconded to Brazil, so I only had to fend off his lawyer, the prototypical scumbag. He even looked like one: greased back hair, bad teeth, ill-fitting suit. The judge banged her gavel several times at his completely inappropriate questions. She really stood up for me. My ADA was amazing… so kind and decent and he believed me. It made all the difference in the world. The last thing the defense said to me was, “This isn’t the first time you’ve solicited men for sex in bathrooms, is it? Isn’t it true that you’re a prostitute?!” The courtroom erupted. The jury was removed. The judge was screaming. I was escorted out. Not two minutes later, my ADA came into the room.
“We won,” he said. “I’ve never seen a jury come back that fast. It was unanimous. He got the full sentence – 5 years, and he’ll register as a sex offender for life. Since he’s in Brazil, he’s never allowed to return to America.” I cried. I was vindicated.
That day, almost exactly one year after the attack, the panic attacks stopped. The nightmares disappeared. I felt brand-new. That night, I went on my first date with a man who would become my first great love. Manhattan stretched out before me like the giant adventure I’d always hoped it could be.
I was free.
*scorpio*
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