I Fell in Love With My Rapist; to my shame
(Photo: 21 year old Nerra)
The second time I was raped was a year away from the first one. I had just hit 21 and was moving back home to Baltimore from North Carolina. I hadn’t secured a job yet, didn’t really have any money, so I hit up an old from who always looked out for me to go out for a night of fun.
Now before I go any further, this was a friend that I had known for years and had been alone with plenty of times. In fact, he was the friend I could call when I really needed assistance with anything, and never asked for anything in return. I knew that he had a little crush on me, but I had shut that down year’s prior.
“Slk, what are you getting into tonight, I’m so bored!”
“Aye Ty, you know me; make a couple of runs but my mans and I were talking about hitting up an after-hour spot.”
“Ohhhh, I want to come!”
“Ok Miss Lady, I’ll come through and scoop you up.”
Not wanting to be the only girl, I called up my girl Camya and asked her to come out with us so, after he picked me up, we went and picked her up.
True to what he said, we made a couple of runs with him before going to pick up his friend. When we got to his friend’s house, we kicked back for a few, smoked a couple of blunts and then headed to the spot. The night was going great, the Jamaican music was flowing, the guys bought us a bottle, and pretty soon we were fucked up.
But, I always sober up in the car.
With Camya knocked out in the back seat, he drove us to this rinky dink motel where all of the rooms were individual little, worn down buildings. He got out of the car and I was thinking that maybe he had one last stop to make, I mean this looks like a spot for drug dealers and rapists I thought.
Nope. This nigga came back to the car and told me I was staying there for the night. Needless to say, I cursed him out so badly that we both got back in the truck and left. I told him repeatedly to take me home. He kept saying that he had a stop to make that was way out of the way and that he didn’t have time to take me home, so he instead took me to a nice hotel and left me there.
First mistake, I didn’t have any money and I was far from the city. We didn’t have CashApp then. I knew something was up, he had time to take Camya home but not me, that didn’t make sense. But soon, my inebriated mind was tired, it was like 4am and that king bed looked so inviting.
He said he would be back in the morning to pick me up and for some stupid reason I trusted him. I took off my clothes, climbed into the bed and fell asleep.
I must have heard a noise. I woke but I had the blackout curtains closed because I knew the sun would come up soon. I must not have been asleep for long, maybe just the time it took for him to drop Camya off and yes, she made it home safely. I knew he wouldn’t harm her, I knew it was me he wanted and I wouldn’t have risked putting her in danger for me, but I wanted to trust him so badly.
So, in the dark, barely, I could see a figure. Then that figure was climbing up the covers from the bottom of the bed and had my ankles gripped in his strong hands. He climbed up and shushed me. I asked him what he was doing. Stop! I begged him to stop. I tried to push him off of me, I said please, I told him I didn’t want to. But he didn’t stop. He entered my dry vagina and soon I stopped fighting.
I became numb. I felt so stupid and ashamed. I was disgusted because he used to have a sexual relationship with a close cousin of mine. I had never been with any men that my girls had been with, that was a code I didn’t want to break.
The next morning, he got up and laid a towel on the floor. I asked him what he was doing and he said he was about to pray and asked me to join him. I knew he had lost his mind! And what the fuck, I was a Christian, I didn’t even know what he was saying, he spoke Arabic fluently.
Y’all, this next part is hard to explain. I’m embarrassed to say it but, after he raped me, he decided that I was his. He was going to marry me, he up and left the woman that was carrying his baby and for months she physically and cyber stalked and bullied me.
He was so charming. He was so smart, attentive, kept saying, “Ty, I did not rape you, I love you,” and he’d flash those dimples and pearly whites and somehow I was taken under his spell.
Of course, the fairy tale didn’t last long. First came the drinking, then the emotional abuse and the accusations. I was a whore, a ho, a bitch, I was dirty, he didn’t want me to touch him. He didn’t like the way that his friends looked at me or men period.
There were babymamas from out the wood work bullying me on social media. The one he left for me stole my phone and kept calling my mother and brother who lived in North Carolina. And soon, I was barely speaking to my family. They hated him of course! Always said he wasn’t good enough for me and he wasn’t but I kept thinking that he could have been.
Over the years I saw a side of him that I came to love, he was so intelligent, so strong, driven but his demons from childhood followed him everywhere he went. He had to endure abuse as a child at the hands of his stepfather and experienced homelessness at 14. I made up excuses for him.
I was lost. I was chopping up and bagging crack, sometimes selling it myself when he would disappear for a day or two and keep the money for myself.
As our problems began to mount more and more, I told him that if he didn’t give up drinking, that I was done. Like most men, he promised he would stop and when he didn’t the final straw was drawn.
We were at his friend’s house. Mostly everyone was gone, it was just him, Punch and me there when he pulled out a fresh bottle of Bacardi.
“I thought you said you weren’t drinking anymore.” He ignored me and kept talking to Punch.
“Yeah man, I just spent $400 on this watch,” he said.
Me, “Oh really! You have it like that!? Oh okay, so where is the $200 that you owe me for your half of the phone bill?”
He ignored me again. I grabbed his bottle of Bacardi and poured that shit out. He looked like he wanted to hit me but he didn’t so I walked into the house. I don’t remember what words were exchanged next but I pushed him.
He pushed me back and I fell on the couch. I got up again and pushed him again, next thing I know, we were fighting. I mean, fist fighting. I saw absolutely nothing in that moment, my body took over and all that bullshit he put me through came raging out of me. I kept thinking, “This bitch hit me!”
I had cut all of my hair off months prior so my wig wound up in a corner, y’all I looked CRAZY! At one point Punch broke us apart and placed me on the stairs, I jumped over him and back on Slk. My anger flooded through my veins!
He raped me, he belittled me, he controlled me, his exes stalked me, my family wasn’t speaking to me; that BITCH!
We were sore and a bit bloody. When it was all over I took a cigarette from him and I don’t even like cigarettes. I knew I was done with him then. I vowed to never let a man hit me and I didn’t! I had never felt so powerful before; seeing his lip bloody and those scratches on his neck and face. I did that.
About a week later he called to apologize and begged me to have a drink with him. I didn’t want to but I said to myself, “Let him say his little apology, you’re done with him anyway.”
So, we went to a bar not too far away and had a drink. I felt content after speaking with him. I looked into his eyes and saw sincerity. He said that he knew he could never and would never be good enough for me and I agreed.
I had already made up in my mind that I was done with him and that I was going back to my family and back to school. I didn’t even remotely recognize who I was from the moment he raped me.
We left the bar and he drove to a motel. Damn, he got me again but this time I didn’t fight. I said goodbye.
I cut him off, I got my own place and never let him know where I lived but he called me every so often to check on me (crazy I know, I can’t explain it).
I never reported him. I’m not a vindictive person because whenever I’ve wished bad things on people, literally since I was a kid, it happened. I knew that I had this special guardian angel to protect me and I always tell people, “You’ll get yours in the end and it won’t be from me.”
He was shot in the head right outside of that bar he took me to three years later. I just realized that it happened three years later, my favorite number. I had nothing to do with it, it was his drug dealer lifestyle that caught up to him I was told.
His funeral was held in New York. I left class at Morgan, rented a car and drove all the way to New York by myself and I got lost in Jamaica Queens, but I made it to his funeral. I don’t know why I went. Why I was sad that he died. He abused women in so many ways. He had 14 children by too many women, was pretty much a deadbeat father, beat on women, sold drugs, killed people and raped me and who knows who else.
And I was able to think I was in love with him. His power was so strong that even after everything that he had did to the children who bore children for him, the majority of them tried to get back with him!
I couldn’t believe it! I couldn’t believe myself but his death brought me closer. My relationship with him taught me a lot and it inevitably led to me meeting my husband, the love of my life.
After Slk I gave up on guys and sex. Once the new year hit, I vowed that the next man I was with would be my husband and he is.
I’m a stronger woman because of Slk and I thank God, I was able to get myself out of that situation before I ended up dead or in jail.
You can say that I was stupid; say that, that would have never happened to you, judge me all you want. It happened, I was 21 and I didn’t let it go on for even a year when grown women stay in abusive relationships for decades.
If I ever lose myself, I’ll find myself again and I did so through going back through my old poems and drawing.
I wrote an entire book during that year that I was with Slk, more than I have ever written in any other years, so be ready for it; 21& Over.
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