Ciara’s Story: to the man i will never meet

Dear Stranger,

I hope you remember me. I was 17, a virgin. You were in your thirties if I were to guess. You knew what you were doing. You were older, more experienced, and you had an agenda. You invited me and my friends to your VIP table at the club. As young pretty girls who couldn’t afford their own drinks, you knew we would bite your bait. You got me drunk but its what you did after that makes it so hard to think about you. You called the cab to your hotel, while my friends and I, drunk and naive, went with you and your friends. In your suite, you brought me to the bed. You took off my clothes. As you held my legs to the side with one hand, you had sex with me. Could you tell that I was scared? Did you ask me if I wanted this? No. You didn’t. Because you raped me, a girl who froze. For so long, I thought it was my fault. It wasn’t. You, an old man on his college reunion trip with your boys raped me, a 17-year-old high school virgin. Did you think about what it would do to me after? I certainly didn’t, because I convinced myself for three whole years that nothing was wrong with that night. I convinced myself it was a funny story that had no impact on my life. But in fact, you affected it in more ways than I will ever know. You took my ability to find intimacy in sex with anyone. And you make it impossible for me to want to be physical with anyone I actually like. Maybe one day, you’ll remember me. Because I know I’ll never forget you.