Feb 10, 2014 at 11:00am
"Oh my God. You think I'm raping you!"
My (now ex-) boyfriend Shawn* looked down at me. I stared back at
him, my eyes wide and bottom lip trembling. Only seconds before, he had
been thrusting into me while I cried and tried to focus all my attention
on the ceiling, too afraid to utter "No" or "Stop." I dared not protest
against him for several reasons.
For one, I was scared of what would happen if I didn’t have sex
with him. Prior to penetrating me, he had brought his palm to my cheek
in a slap that rendered me silent in disbelief. He told me I was a slut,
then pushed me onto my futon and held my chin as he forcefully kissed
me.
Second, after what I had done to make Shawn angry, I felt too
guilty to defend myself. At the time, I thought I deserved to be
punished. Lastly, I loved this boy. He had promised to marry me and he
had never hurt me before. I had betrayed the person closest to me and
ruined everything between us. Shawn was heartbroken and I was to blame.
Maybe he was doing this out of passion, I told myself; Maybe this
was like that angry make-up sex always featured in romantic comedies.
Summer came and Shawn returned to his home in a neighboring state.
Separated by about three hours worth of distance and an intimidating
bridge, we nursed our newfound love with plenty of Skype, Hallmark cards
and steamy texts. We were unstoppable, even talking about the
possibility of marriage and children after we both finished undergrad.
Everything was happening so fast, and I couldn’t have been more
thrilled.
And then Andrew* came along.
I'll spare you the details of my affair. All you need to know is
that I found myself attracted to Andrew, a professor who taught one of
my classes at a nearby community college. For reasons I still don't
understand, I acted on that attraction and cheated on Shawn. I like to
think that deep down I was intimidated by Shawn’s talk of our future
together, but honestly, I may have just been lustful. I wasn't very
careful about covering my tracks, instead saving messages from Andrew so
I could look at them later and revel in the memories of our "forbidden
romance."
One Friday afternoon, Shawn came to visit me for a few days. While
my friend Sara* and I sat outside on my back deck, Shawn went inside my
house. Sara was one of the few people I had told about Andrew, and we
took our moment of privacy to talk about my infidelity. After a few
minutes, we realized Shawn had yet to return to the deck. I went
downstairs to investigate, and found Shawn in my room. My laptop was
opened to a Facebook message from Andrew.
"I knew it!" Shawn yelled.
I said nothing. I couldn't justify being unfaithful.
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