Roofies

There were four of them. I couldn’t move, and I had no idea how I got there. I remembered being at the Red Lion with Stephanie, and I remember the B-52s, think I had two of them with out pitcher of Bud Light. It was my 21st birthday, a Monday, and I'd only been back in town a couple of months. Most of my friends were still away at school, and I was at loose ends, not sure where I wanted to be or what I wanted to do. I don't even remember how Stephanie and I reconnected--we graduated from high school together, and all of this was before cell phones.

Stephanie wasn't there, and there were voices in another room. I couldn't move myself from the mattress on the floor, not even a proper bed, and my thirst was overwhelming. I couldn't make my voice work, couldn't move my arms, couldn't move my legs. It smelled like they smoked indoors. I could hear them in the other room.

The first one came into the room with me and there was an arc of light for a moment when the door opened, but it was gone almost as soon as it appeared, and I wanted to be alone or somewhere else, with someone else, and goddammit, I wanted my clothes. I could see them, but I couldn't reach them, and my body was not mine to control anymore.

He only took off his jeans to violate me. He was fast, thank God for that since I couldn't fight. I visualized my arm lifting my hand, curled into a fist and smashing it into his jaw, right there below his ear, but he was gone before I could finish imagining the sound of bone splintering or even fake-feel the pain in my knuckles from the force of the impact.

Still, I wasn't alone, and there was no water. Fuck you, Tom Eliot--where's a red rock I can crawl under (if I could crawl)? I felt the weight, smelled his adrenaline sweat, this asshole who robbed me of fight and flight while the moment curled back into itself like his beer breath in my face, skin on mine. I stopped wanting to die and started wanting to kill. If there had been sheets, maybe I could have strangled him with them, but the mattress was bare except for my body, and my arms didn't work.

Everything felt sticky and gloppy. My skin wasn't mine anymore, just my mind. My mind was the only thing I could control, and it was screaming at me, pushing against the chemicals immobilizing my body, which was drowning in filth and depravity, fear clinging to each individual hair on my head, my arms, my--

Why wouldn't they shut up in there? I couldn't make out what they were saying, but the arrogant ignorance flooded me, and the urge grew inside me. I wanted to slake my thirst with blood, theirs, then spit it back in their smug faces, grab them by their pathetic hairy testicles and squeeze until eyes smelled like pain. In the world behind my eyes, I rose like a phoenix, claws and sharp beak ready to rend.

In the world on the other side of my eyelids, my arm moved, slightly. I shrugged my shoulders and wiggled my toes. Whatever these predators dosed me with was wearing off. Yep, there's the headache marching into my brain like a jazz funeral. Get in line, headache. Sit down and shut up until it's your turn; I have to save myself before I disappear completely, dissolve into things not worth saying.

I gathered my strength, focused on the bare bulb lamp on the floor by the mattress. Charming. The metal framework around the bulb to hold the absent lampshade in place would make contact first. I wondered if the cheap metal would be flimsy and bend as I edged over and wrapped my hand around the base of the lamp, felt the weight of it strain against my arm as I lifted it, calling all of my rage to concentrate in my right arm, pushing the cheap ceramic lamp in forceful slow motion into his skull. As the lightbulb shattered into his skin, the light came from another direction and the bed was a real bed and he was gone but I was there, and I was alone.

The roadside motel smelled damp, felt grimy. My clothes were on the other bed. My purse was nowhere. My keys absent. Where the fuck was I? I picked up the phone and called the desk. Out near the Army base, miles away from where I began the night. She said I was really out of it when we checked in around two or three that morning. I asked her who I was with. Two men whose descriptions weren't familiar to me.

I had to get to class and to work, and there was only one person I could call to come get me--my dad. I did and he did. The police station was next--I'd been drugged, robbed, and probably raped. The mug books stretched on past the end of the world, and sometimes, I can still feel that headache. The cops treated me like it was my fault. No, I did not want a rape kit. The hatred in my eyes impaling the smug detective when I told him I'd be goddamned if they were going to put me on trial and convince a jury I was a whore who got what she deserved. I didn't spit in his face, even though I bit my lip until it bled and visualized it splattering his arrogant face. I've been a predator ever since, hunting those who prey.

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Author note: this is a work of nonfiction.