Composition of a Rape
Bruises
It has been a week and the bruises will disappear in a few days and no one will have a chance to stumble upon the yellowing marks, which would induce them to begin asking Rosemary what exactly happened. If someone flat-out asked, she would be forced to answer. She wouldn’t be allowed to keep this silence - worrying about the social impact of becoming labeled as rape victim. She wouldn’t be spending history class imagining her death bed would be where she finally revealed the life-long secret of a crime.
Rosemary’s mother was asleep with embarrassing snorts escaping her when Rosemary crept into the living room at around 4:00 AM that morning. She was five hours past her curfew and despite her good intentions Rosemary’s mother lacks the will power to keep herself awake once her eyelids start to droop. She also doesn’t have a husband to keep watch for their rebellious daughter with his face stern while she snores and drools on the hand-me-down floral couch in the cramped living room that often masquerades as the dining room. Belonging to a single parent makes winning battles so easy since the war party numbers are even.
On that specific morning, however, Rosemary really wanted her to be awake. Rosemary wanted her sitting cross-legged in her red fleece nightgown, her mouth stuck in a sucked-in frown as she tapped her foot on the dirty brown carpet with her hair ruffled and sticking up. She wanted to see the disappointment flooding her mother’s brown eyes and hear her low voice ask her just where the hell she’d been or if she knew what time it was - the cliché angry parent lines. Rosemary wanted to be given the opportunity to answer with feigned nonchalance “Oh, I was just out getting raped” so her mother could scurry over with the disappointment morphing into worry to wrap her in a too-tight hug where the smell of baby powder moisturizing lotion and faint beginnings of morning breathe would overwhelm her. And Rosemary would cry.
Instead Rosemary walked straight past her prone form and into the cluttered bathroom that was littered with a version of every new electronic toothbrush spilling over the small beige counter. She stared at her reflection and waited for some physical manifestation of her experience to appear on her face. She was certain there had to be some way of detecting that she was a different person than she was just a few hours before.
There was whole new set of labels to place on herself. Before she could be grouped under the adjectives of virgin, invincible and brave; now she was to be stuck forever among the “rape victims.” Rosemary thought that people would have to read instruction manuals on how to approach her. Caution: Wear a rain coat - there will be tears.
Since she could detect nothing new on her face - no sudden appearance of extra pimples or a pus-oozing sore - aside from the red-rims caused by an overabundance of tears surrounding her blue eyes and a bit of caked snot stuck just above her lip, she was overwhelmed by the crazy idea that it didn’t actually happen. Perhaps he hadn’t succeeded.
She sat on the toilet and took a deep breath. One little wipe of the single-ply toilet paper could rearrange her life back to the way it was before she walked into the party that night slightly tipsy and unaware.
But of course it had worked. The paper revealed the expected blood and with a stifled sob so as not to wake her mother, she flushed the toilet- mesmerized by the red paper swirling around furiously and disappearing.
There went her virginity. Right down the fucking drain.
Dying
Rosemary dyed her light brown hair a reddish, pinkish, purplish color and got it layered. Secretly, she believes this will stop the rapist from ever recognizing her. He will not be able to smirk smugly at her from his vantage point. It is only this thought that allows her to leave her apartment.
She imagined as she walked to the store that she would tell her ex-boyfriend. She knew he would be working. She imagined that as the crumpled bills left her cold fingers into his large, warm palm that he would ask me why she was dying my hair.
She would say casually, perhaps with a shrug - “Oh, I was raped the other night.”
She wondered if, for a brief second, his face would contort before he smoothed it back into his hapless, grinning idiot expression. Perhaps he would still feel a protective urge for her, telling her to call him whenever she wanted to go curb stomp the fucker. Maybe he would feel guilty for not giving her that awkward, giggling experience - for letting her lose her virginity so brutally instead of joining with her when he had the chance.
Instead they discussed which dye would stay better in unbleached hair. And when she handed him her twenty dollar bill, he asked me why Andrew Jackson was on the bill.
“He basically destroyed a whole race of people,” he informed her as though she was somehow ignorant of that fact.
“Yes, I know,” she said - vaguely annoyed at the reminder that her personal suffering was meaningless when compared to so much violence and misery.
If Jim and Rosemary were still together, they would deface every twenty dollar bill they found with dark Sharpie markers. They would cross out the line “In God We Trust” and would write in big, block letters across Andrew Jackson’s face: MURDERER, KILLER, RAPIST.
It has been a week and the bruises will disappear in a few days and no one will have a chance to stumble upon the yellowing marks, which would induce them to begin asking Rosemary what exactly happened. If someone flat-out asked, she would be forced to answer. She wouldn’t be allowed to keep this silence - worrying about the social impact of becoming labeled as rape victim. She wouldn’t be spending history class imagining her death bed would be where she finally revealed the life-long secret of a crime.
Rosemary’s mother was asleep with embarrassing snorts escaping her when Rosemary crept into the living room at around 4:00 AM that morning. She was five hours past her curfew and despite her good intentions Rosemary’s mother lacks the will power to keep herself awake once her eyelids start to droop. She also doesn’t have a husband to keep watch for their rebellious daughter with his face stern while she snores and drools on the hand-me-down floral couch in the cramped living room that often masquerades as the dining room. Belonging to a single parent makes winning battles so easy since the war party numbers are even.
On that specific morning, however, Rosemary really wanted her to be awake. Rosemary wanted her sitting cross-legged in her red fleece nightgown, her mouth stuck in a sucked-in frown as she tapped her foot on the dirty brown carpet with her hair ruffled and sticking up. She wanted to see the disappointment flooding her mother’s brown eyes and hear her low voice ask her just where the hell she’d been or if she knew what time it was - the cliché angry parent lines. Rosemary wanted to be given the opportunity to answer with feigned nonchalance “Oh, I was just out getting raped” so her mother could scurry over with the disappointment morphing into worry to wrap her in a too-tight hug where the smell of baby powder moisturizing lotion and faint beginnings of morning breathe would overwhelm her. And Rosemary would cry.
Instead Rosemary walked straight past her prone form and into the cluttered bathroom that was littered with a version of every new electronic toothbrush spilling over the small beige counter. She stared at her reflection and waited for some physical manifestation of her experience to appear on her face. She was certain there had to be some way of detecting that she was a different person than she was just a few hours before.
There was whole new set of labels to place on herself. Before she could be grouped under the adjectives of virgin, invincible and brave; now she was to be stuck forever among the “rape victims.” Rosemary thought that people would have to read instruction manuals on how to approach her. Caution: Wear a rain coat - there will be tears.
Since she could detect nothing new on her face - no sudden appearance of extra pimples or a pus-oozing sore - aside from the red-rims caused by an overabundance of tears surrounding her blue eyes and a bit of caked snot stuck just above her lip, she was overwhelmed by the crazy idea that it didn’t actually happen. Perhaps he hadn’t succeeded.
She sat on the toilet and took a deep breath. One little wipe of the single-ply toilet paper could rearrange her life back to the way it was before she walked into the party that night slightly tipsy and unaware.
But of course it had worked. The paper revealed the expected blood and with a stifled sob so as not to wake her mother, she flushed the toilet- mesmerized by the red paper swirling around furiously and disappearing.
There went her virginity. Right down the fucking drain.
Dying
Rosemary dyed her light brown hair a reddish, pinkish, purplish color and got it layered. Secretly, she believes this will stop the rapist from ever recognizing her. He will not be able to smirk smugly at her from his vantage point. It is only this thought that allows her to leave her apartment.
She imagined as she walked to the store that she would tell her ex-boyfriend. She knew he would be working. She imagined that as the crumpled bills left her cold fingers into his large, warm palm that he would ask me why she was dying my hair.
She would say casually, perhaps with a shrug - “Oh, I was raped the other night.”
She wondered if, for a brief second, his face would contort before he smoothed it back into his hapless, grinning idiot expression. Perhaps he would still feel a protective urge for her, telling her to call him whenever she wanted to go curb stomp the fucker. Maybe he would feel guilty for not giving her that awkward, giggling experience - for letting her lose her virginity so brutally instead of joining with her when he had the chance.
Instead they discussed which dye would stay better in unbleached hair. And when she handed him her twenty dollar bill, he asked me why Andrew Jackson was on the bill.
“He basically destroyed a whole race of people,” he informed her as though she was somehow ignorant of that fact.
“Yes, I know,” she said - vaguely annoyed at the reminder that her personal suffering was meaningless when compared to so much violence and misery.
If Jim and Rosemary were still together, they would deface every twenty dollar bill they found with dark Sharpie markers. They would cross out the line “In God We Trust” and would write in big, block letters across Andrew Jackson’s face: MURDERER, KILLER, RAPIST.