"Remember when you and your freind raped me while I was passed out at a party?  Wow, what a night, huh? Just crazy teenagers." Is this what I should say if I run into him again?  I think I must have PTSD, like those guys who come back from military duty who have seen combat. Mine was combat on my body.  Yeah, it was self induced. I shouldn't have been drinking at 17 and especially so drunk to pass out.  I don't know why I drank so much; to fit in, to stop from remembering the pain of my homelife, because I was punishing myself for being me. 

I did drink a lot high school.  After my father moved out of the house during my junior year, my mother found a boyfriend He was 20 years older than she was.  She stayed at his house mostly. On nights she would come home, she would be tipsy stinking of wine, her clothes turned inside out and giggly, her mini-van parked haphazardly in the drive way. She had become sexual again.  She and I were experiencing sex, her after a loveless marriage, me for the first time with boys my age.  It confused me and made me nauseous to think of my mother doing the same  things I was doing.

My father, even though I had heard of all his sexual conqores from my mother, it was still disturbing to knock on his basement apartment door and have him yell "wait a minute".  I would stare at the unfamiliar car in his driveway as I heard muffled voices coming from behind the door. He had had to move into the damp, dark, nearly windowless apartment after the divorce because my mother had taken everything he had to support her lavish lifestyle of maids and unlimited shopping. She would never have thought about actually getting a job to help pay the bills. My father would step outside closing the door behind him with his hair messed up, familiar sex smell, clothing thrown on and always the basketball socks pulled up over the calves without  shoes to ask me what I needed.  Sex was going on all around me.  I drank.
 
I was at the party of my friend, Melissa's house, so wasted.  Her parents were out of town.  We were partying in her basement with the vintage red carpet and cheap couches. I had borrowed my girlfriend's white sweater with the low cut V in the front, with my acid wash tight jeans, I was looking good in the late 80's.  The boys were always filling my cup and making stong drinks for me. They asked me how I was so pretty and laughed when I blushed. I thought they liked talking to me, I was so dumb.

I guess I began to fall asleep from too much drinking in the middle of the party, Melissa helped me upstairs away from the other partiers to the dark living room onto the couch. The next thing I remember, I hear voices wake me from my alcoholic induced slumber, 2 guys, one I recognize, a college guy who had dated many of the girls I knew.  I had hung out with him before and never thought of him as a threat, a nice guy from a good family.  They were saying "get her leg, unzip her pants, move her over."  I couldn't see their faces in the dark room, but I could feel their hands all over me; up my shirt, kisses on my neck, hands down my pants. I remember saying "no, no" in my near passed out state, I think I said this, maybe I'm just screaming it in my head.
 
I hear footsteps coming up from the basement.  They boys say things like, "hurry up, someone's coming".  Melissa opens the door from the basement. She asks the guys what they are doing, they tell her they just came up to check on me and think I need to lie down.  She shows them where her parent's bedroom is and tells them to put me in there and come back to the party.  The boys help me up, mostly carrying me and lie me down on the bed, I'm out. 

I wake up to someone on me, kissing me, he is naked and so am I.  He is having rough sex with me, I feel sick.  I tell him I'm going to throw up and he gets off of me.  I stumble from the high bed onto the carpeted floor, I don't see very well in the dimly lit room, it's almost like I'm in a dream, I'm still very drunk.  There is a bathroom connected to the bedroom. He lets me go in there.  I remember being in the bathroom, the cold floor being under my bare feet, my hands with freshly manicured fingernails resting upon the cool rim, throwing up into the toilet. I don't know if he came into the bathroom to get me or I came out on my own. 

The next thing I remember is someone opeing the door to the bedroom. I see a dark silhouette with a  light from the hallway shining from behind. I'm on the bed on my stomach naked, one leg is off the bed so I am completely exposed.  It is one of the boys that took me into the bedroom. He turns on the bright overhead light, it hurts my eyes. I squint. He looks at me and says "get dressed" and shuts the door. 

I clumsily get up and slip back into my jeans and pretty sweater balled up on the floor. I walk out the bedroom door, its quiet, the party is over.  I know what just happened to me and I'm ashamed.  I don't know what to say, so I say nothing and hope no one noticed I was gone.  So much was still foggy, just snipets of sex, throwing up, and me not wanting to be there. The 2 guys are still at the house, most everyone else is gone, they ask me to drive them to their car. I agree, hoping if I am nice they won't tell what they did to me and if I act like everything is okay, then it won't raise suspicion. There was no such thing as date rape back then,  just a girl getting drunk, wearing revealing clothing which equaled, asking for it. 
 
I asked Melissa to ride with me, she sat in the front seat while I drove the boys that had just raped me to their car.  They sat smug in the backseat. It had been a good night for them. When they got out one leaned down to my open window and kissed me on the lips. I didn't respond and drove away. I stopped the car down the road and threw up again. My boyfriend at the time was stationed in California, in the Navy, what do I tell him? He will hate me for this. I will tell him nothing. If I forget about it, it didn't happen.

The next day, I went to Melissa's house to help clean up after the party. One of the girls found my bra in the bedroom.  I snatched it from her and laughed it off, like oh such the party girl. I didn't know what to say or do.  I kept this secret for 2 years. Finally, in a tearful confession at my mother's dinner table.  I told her between sobs what had happened to me that night.  She looked at me, turned her head sideways, smiled, clicked her tongue to her teeth and said "If you jump off a building, you're gonna break your leg."