Rapture and Trespass - 06/14/08 02:08 AM

We Unitarians love our food.

As a (now formerly unofficial) member of the Unitarian Universalist church that Mike, Melissa, and I usually attend, Melissa and I did the cooking for a handful of Wednesday "Community Nights" over the winter and spring, where church members or any other folks could come in and have a large, decent meal for a suggested donation of five dollars.

As none of us drive, we liked to buy the ingredients and such at a certain local supermarket that offers delivery for a fee. This makes it possible to buy the large quantities needed and still shop for ourselves and not break our backs carrying it all home. The church would reimburse us, but we tried to ask for less than we spent unless money was particularly tight.

On the third anniversary of my starting hormone supplements (3/10/08), we bought all we needed and scheduled a delivery. A few hours later, a delivery man came by and carried everything upstairs for us.

Okay. *sigh* I think I'm ready to write about this now.

While Melissa was downstairs, outside on the sidewalk near his car, he carried a few plastic bags in through the apartment's front door, and saw me lying down on my bed through my door, exhausted. He greeted me and I came out of my room.

"Um, just leave them here," I said, both of us right by the front door.

He smiled at me. "Ooo.. muy bonita (very pretty)! Hablas Espaňol? Muy bonita!"

"Thank you," I replied, flattered, "No, no hablo mucho Espaňol." I only took two years of Spanish in high school.

He was cute, and he wanted to go out with me. As our relationship at Casa 3M is open, and I found him attractive and friendly, I agreed, and we exchanged phone numbers. He left.

I explained all this to M&M. They seemed surprised, but okay with it. He called me later on asking me in broken English (his English was slightly better than my Spanish) to call him at 10:15 because he got off work at 10. He called me again at 10:14 and said he was waiting outside. I grabbed my purse, said bye, and went downstairs and outside. I got in his car. It was dark out.

As soon as I closed the door he immediately got frisky with me. He started unbuttoning my long wool coat and grabbing my breasts, both through and then beneath my velvet blouse. I got really uneasy. I pulled his hand away. "No, no." After a failed attempt at communication, and another "no, I don't do that on the first date," (no means the same thing in either language), he started back up again and even started trying to stick his hand down the front of my jeans.

Fuck. I was afraid, especially of what might happen when he found something he wasn't expecting, however diminutive and nonfunctional. I wanted to run, but I was afraid of what he might have in the car, or what he might do. I was giving in.

There were people about in the neighborhood now, so he drove a short distance to a quieter, darker, more secluded area. He pulled my hand over to his lap and rubbed it. I pulled it away and looked at him. He started sticking his hand down my jeans again and I panicked. To reduce the risk of getting hurt or killed, I tried my best to explain to him in Spanish "yo soy transsexuale." Sure, that's not specific, or even entirely accurate, but that wasn't the point. He didn't understand, but didn't react much at all when he finally did come upon my Something Extra.

He pulled my hand back. He opened his pants, and put his hand behind my head and pulled it down towards his lap. After he was satisfied, he leaned back for a moment and starting driving again.

"Adonde vamos?" I asked, nervous and numb at the same time. (Where are we going?) "Do you want to go dance?"

He seemed amused I'd asked in Spanish. He said, "No, no." And without another word, drove back around the block and stopped at the apartment.

After some mild relationship drama before I told M&M what had really happened, and brief reactive psychosis on my part (including a good half hour bawl), I called a rape crisis line and they told me to go to a nearby ER. M&M went with me and made the whole ER experience a lot less horrible.

A rapekit was done by an obviously untrained nurse (with the constant verbal assistance of my advocate) and my blouse was taken for evidence. I was asked some questions by a cop and a detective, and six hours or so after checking in, around 6-7AM, we left the hospital and had "breakfast" at a diner and came home. My memory following this incident is very fuzzy, and I functioned very poorly for some time.

I didn't end up getting additional doses of prophylactic drugs either (as required by Illinois state law), but that's a story for another time. And happily, according to testing, I probably didn't catch anything from him anyway.

As a victim of violence, I'm receiving free intensive therapy (one hour twice a week) at a local LGBT clinic.

The investigation is still ongoing. My assailant gave me a false name. He tried to call me several times on two different occasions. The detective got a subpoena on his cell number. Right now I'm waiting to do a second line up, in person this time, and the DNA test could could take years.

As a gender variant woman, statistically speaking, I had an 80% chance of being the victim of assault at least once in my lifetime. I didn't expect it to be quite like that, though.

Posted in misc, news, relationships, sexuality by Milla | Comments (9)