“Him”

Content Warning: Sex/sexual assault

The two of you are spending a fairly normal afternoon together, cuddled up on the couch of one of their high school teachers, for whom they’re house sitting. You’re watching netflix on the teacher’s account, eating the food that’s in the fridge, relaxing. They take their pants off underneath the blanket, and you put a hand on their thigh. You lean over to kiss their cheek and they turn towards you, deepening the kiss as it lands on their lips and pushing back against you. Your hands find their way up their thigh, brushing against their panties, and you relish the rush of air that escapes their mouth in a soft moan. Their arms encircle your torso, their fingers sliding up and then down your back. 

The two of you, not needing to use words, come to the conclusion just about simultaneously that it’s time to get moving to the bedroom and begin to stand, still intertwined. You fumble at the hem of their shirt, but they gently brush your hands away and say “wait till we’re in the bedroom”. They take your hand and begin to lead you from the living room through the kitchen. You overtake them, seeing the sturdy-looking wooden table as a perfect opportunity, and pick them up by the hips to put them up on it. They squirm a little, but keep kissing you and don’t resist as you slide their panties off. The table ends up being the wrong height for what you intended, but you figure out a way. 

Later on you do make it to the bedroom, and you cuddle with each other as you fall asleep. The next day their teacher comes back, so this is your last night alone in this apartment where you can pretend the two of you are actually, finally living together. You look back on that night fondly and fairly often, a brief respite from both of your parents’ nagging and disapproval of the relationship between the two of you. 

Months later, you’re breaking up- again. You ask them why, and they keep giving you a non-answer. There has to be a reason, something you can fix or change. Then, they say that you forced yourself on them. They say you raped them. But you didn’t! What are they even talking about? You would never do that, you care about them. Of course you haven’t had sex with them when they didn’t want you to, they initiated sex most of the time anyway and there was never a time they said no and you didn’t obey their wishes. They keep insisting, though. You ask them when, and they repeat back the story of that night- a fun, relaxing experience the two of you shared in a space with no one else, something that was so rare at the time. They don’t tell it that way, though. They tell it like they were suffering, like you did something terribly wrong. How could they have had such a different experience? Why didn’t they say anything before now? 

You can’t believe that that’s how they felt. Not the whole time. There’s no way you wouldn’t have known that, and if you’d known you never would have done it. You both had a good time, and they just… changed their mind, or something. You don’t understand why, and you’re hurt. You care about them, you would never hurt them, and they must know that. Do they think you’re a rapist?? That’s ridiculous. You’d never be violent like that. You didn’t hold them down, you didn’t force anything on them. Ever. That’s what rape is. They never said no to you, so how were you even supposed to know? You couldn’t have! You’ve had similar interactions with them before that, and since, and they’ve never said any of those were bad. Plus, they’ve totally pressured you into sex before, when you didn’t really feel like it but they did. So if you’re a rapist, so are they. Fuck this.