I am standing at the toaster waiting for an English muffin to toast when you approach me from behind and squeeze my hips. Your hands are on my hips and you lean over me, enveloping me, to say hello. I attempt a casual greeting as I begin to feel my body shake. And your hands haven’t left my body yet and eight seconds have passed. You dominate me as if you own me.

      I want to tell you to go to hell and to never touch me again. But I don’t. I imagine pushing your face into the hot grille of the toaster, but I don’t move. Eventually, you leave. I’m left to stand alone with your touch still radiating through me and reliving it again.
     You bullied me. You bullied me and I was trapped. I said no, no like I’m told. You’ll like it I promise. I say no again, but he doesn’t stop and I feel him force his way in anyway. You’ll like it I promise. You won’t regret it.
   Panic, panic in my chest. No, no I say stop.
     And eventually you do, but you won’t stop touching me. Your curious fingers raid my body and keep touching me trying to force your fingers inside of me.
   You don’t listen, do you , I say.
   I do, I do. And you press yourself closer to me. I’m like totally the most feministy man ever. You say.
   You are twice my size. I should leave but I’m stranded in town and its 2 am in a party dress meant to seduce someone else. But nothing on the street could be worse than this.
And he still doesn’t listen and I’m worried I’ll start crying.
      I feel myself losing. It becomes easier to stop fighting and let things happen with at least a condom. I just want it to be over quick, so I can roll up into a ball and die. But it lasts six lifetimes, the longest night of my life. A thousand images flash through my mind and I am everywhere but his mattress on the floor. I am anyone other than the victim I never thought I’d be.
     You insist on lying on top of my after you finish and kissing me as if we're some sort of lovers you fucker.
     I climb out the window in the morning.     
   I am tired of pretending to not feel awkward and angry, of saying hello when we inevitably bump into each other on this small campus. I’m tired of receiving vague invitations to dinner from you, in order for you to quell some sort of guilt. I don’t want to contemplate going in order to pretend that you didn’t cross a line with me. It is because I’m done denying what happened.
Is there a grey area of rape? A quick google search reveals conflicting opinions. They say, yes, rape is always rape. But what does that mean?
        I find solidarity and support from other women who have been in my shoes. But it is my word against his. They will say I didn’t say no enough to be truly persuasive. I didn’t pull a knife on him, I didn’t struggle hard enough they would say. Why did I go back to his place anyway? I am haunted by the Amherst case and wish I had the courage to speak up to identify my rapist. I don’t. I am haunted that when I went to get tested for sexually transmitted diseases after that night, that I answered that the sex was consensual. I wish things were different. I am not willing to go through the grueling investigation because what would they find? Besides, I eventually let it happen anyway. You forced the words out of my mouth. You manufactured consent where there was none. Why must we passively say no, instead of enthusiastically saying yes to the contact we want?