Part 8 Of What Happened To Me

TRIGGER WARNING

It has been a little over four months since I sat down and wrote anymore of "My Story", the story of what happened to me during those 23 hours I was held against my will in my rapist's van. I'm not sure if I will be able to get much out this time but I am going to give it a try and see how far I get. As always, to the best of my recollection; this part of my story starts off where the previous part ended.

I guess it was around 8:00am September 3rd, 2011. It had been about an hour since he had untied me, and for that hour he hadn't spoken to me, touched me, or for all accounts did anything other than sit there on his cooler full of ice, drinks, and food and stare at me. I lay there on that crappy blow-up mattress and didn't really move at all. In all honesty I felt like I wasn't really there, I felt numb, and as if my mind was separated from my body. I can't remember if my back, legs, and everything else he beat was hurting. I don't really remember what my body felt like. I sort of felt like I was floating above myself and that my body was no longer part of me. Of course now I know why I felt that way. I was disassociating. From what I can tell it was my body's way of protecting me from what was going on. I think maybe I might have been semiconscious and phasing in and out of micro nap sleep cycles. After all I know I was exhausted both mentally and physically.

I felt a nudge or rather a shove against my hip and then some words I didn't understand. These nudges repeated several times and so did the words I was hearing. After several times I sort of became more aware and realized that he was pushing me with his foot in the manner as if he was trying to wake me up. I also realized what those words I was hearing were; it was him asking me if I was still alive. I didn't want to answer him, I just wanted to evaporate and disappear, but for some unknown reason I answered him. I don't remember what I said, but I think it was, "Yes".

He went into a ten to fifteen minute rant about how much fun we were having. He talked about how good I felt to him and how much enjoyment I was bringing him. He talked about all the things he always wanted to do with someone but he didn't have a chance to do it the way he has with me. He talked about all the things he still wanted to do with me and how much fun it was going to be for him. I hate that I gave him any kind of enjoyment. I hate that I was powerless to stop him and that I gave up fighting.

I guess I wasn't responding to him the way he wanted me to. I felt a sharp pain that felt like fire and in an instant it felt like I was back inside my body. I felt my bruised body and I realized what he just did. He splashed ice-water on me from his cooler. I scooted a few feet further away from him and off the mattress and sat on my knees and lower legs while I faced toward him. I could see him, but I didn't dare look at him directly. He began to throw things at me like his empty soup and beer cans, and then he tossed other things at me. I don't remember what all he threw at me but I do remember that it hurt physically and mentally. I felt so degraded and worthless, and that feeling was piled up on previous feelings of shame that he was making me feel.

He picked up some rope out of a duffle bag and walked over to me. My mind told me to fight, but I didn't have any fight left in me. Looking back at it now I realize that I had truly given up and I had really accepted that I was going to die. I think I wanted to die, I think I longed for anything that would bring all of that to an end. In so many ways that feeling of just wanting my pain to end, even through death, is still just below the surface of my skin. I wonder all the time if I should use a blade to set that death free. To cut into my flesh and let myself free, but I am far too worried about how it will affect my dad and little sister. Maybe I am using them as an excuse because I am too big of a coward. Maybe cowardice is living with the pain or maybe it is giving up. I really don't know, but I do know that my dad would be devastated.

He wrapped the rope around each of his hands and then looped the length of rope that was between his hands around my neck and lifted me to my feet. He was strangling me. He was standing behind me and lifting up on that rope and I stood on my toes just so that I could breathe. He walked me over to the center of the van, the same spot where he rapped me the first time while my hands were cuffed over my head. He tied the rope around my neck and tied the other end to something over my head. Again I had to stand on my toes to breathe. I kept trying to get my fingers underneath the rope, in between the rope and my throat so that I could breathe and swallow my own saliva. It is impossible to swallow while your windpipe is compressed. I couldn't even spit the excess out, all I could do was try and let it run out the corner of my mouth. I guess that was just more intentional degrading.

He then tied my wrists out to either side of me in an out stretched way. He did the same thing to my ankles and each time he tried to stretch them out I gagged because as my feet spread further apart my body lowered, causing the rope around my neck to tighten up. It got to the point at which my wrists and neck was supporting all my weight, my feet wasn't even touching the floor. At this point I wasn't breathing. It was impossible for me to even exhale. I was dying. My vision became very narrow and the sides, top, and bottom of my vision began to collapse in on its self and become black. It was tunnel vision as a result of me in the process of passing out. He eventually must have loosened the rope around my neck because I was able to breathe again.

As I hung from my wrists with my legs spread apart he began to push things inside of me. I couldn't see him pushing anything inside me, but I did feel it and how much it hurt. I don't remember what hurt more, me hanging from my wrist and feeling my bruised ribs being stretched, or him forcing things inside me. It all hurt, my entire body hurt, and I had no more tears. I had no more cries in me to release and expel any of my pain. It was like I had become my own tears, my own missing tears, I had become non-existent.

"You are a lose bitch now aren't you", he said to me several times.

He bit me, he made me bleed. To this day when I take a shower or change clothes I have to make sure I don't stand in front of a mirror where I can see his teeth marks that left a scar on my breast. It is a shameful reminder that will be there with me for a long time. I went to a cosmetic surgeon to see if it could be removed, but the doctor was more interested in telling me how minor the scar is and how anything they do will just leave another scar in its place. Of course they wanted to know what the story behind that scar is but I couldn't tell them. Any scar would be better than his teeth marks, but it will be another year before I will be able to legally choose an elective surgery without parental consent. Dad doesn't know about this scar, he already worries too much and he don't need more on his plate.

I bled from my breast. I could feel a slow trickle of blood run down my stomach. He told me that I tasted good and that he bets Dahmer would think I was good too. At the time he said that I didn't even really know who Dahmer was or what he did. I did know that he was a serial killer, but that's pretty much it. I didn't understand the significance of the comparison he made between himself and Jeffry Dahmer for another week when I was talking to one of the detectives and giving a more detailed account of what happened to me. Needless to say I became physically ill when the dots were connected.

He even used a water bottle to rinse me out. That's what he said, "RINSE YOU OUT".

He made me drink what was left in the bottle, but it was no longer just water. It had my blood and other fluids in it and whatever fluids were his that he left inside me. Looking back on this now I wonder if this was his attempt to try and prevent me from becoming pregnant. If that was the case, then that means that he knew he was going to let me go. I just don't know if I can believe that, but who in the world knows what was going on in his mind. At the time I just assumed he was being degrading to me. Who knows?

I hung there for about forty five minutes while he hurt me down there, and this wouldn't even be the worse thing he did to me down there. My hands, elbows, and shoulders ached. My lungs also burned because it was so much harder to inhale. In the last five minutes of this forty five minute ordeal he raped me yet again. Like so many times toward the end he wasn't able to finish. He just couldn't get excited enough until he hurt me even more. He got frustrated and stepped away and grabbed the belt he previously beat me with and began to beat me again. He tried to finish again but he had to step away unfinished and beat me some more. Right before he tried a third time he punched me in my stomach and I guess my gasps for air excited him enough and he was able to finish.

He leaned his weight against me and his breath saturated my neck and ear. I can still feel his breath. I can still hear him exhale. He stepped away for just a few seconds and then grabbed a knife. He raised the knife toward my face; I closed my eyes and prepared to be stabbed. Instead I felt the rope around my neck suddenly become slack and I realized he cut the rope attached to my neck. He then cut the rope that was holding each of my wrists and I fell to the floor. My ankles were still tied apart as I lay on my back. He also lay down between my legs and rested his head on stomach. I laid there tearless, unable to escape, unable to die, and unable to cry. I had become nothing more than an accessory, a pillow for him to rest his head.