Kendra Eager ‘s MeToo Stories Post #3 of 4
Right before leaving BU permanently, one of my childhood best friends came to visit, im only going to call him “R”. We grew up together, went on vacations together, our entire family are friends and even spent Christmas’s together. His dad is the one who gave me his cell number and looks like George Clooney, Rs cute too but I never saw him as more than a brother-figure so we had never hooked up.
Which is also why it seemed natural for him to stay in my bed. (& cuz it was the only place to sleep in my apartment). So that night we went to bed, but when I opened my eyes in the early AM I was shocked to feel R pressed up against me and hands moving around my body. I didn’t know what to do. I was shocked and it felt so awkward to say anything about what was happening and I thought maybe he’d quit if I moved away from him. So I moved and waited for R to come to his senses. I waited while he groped my beasts, and pushed his groin against my back. I stayed frozen silent & scared trying to think of something to say or do while he moved his hands from my chest down my stomach and started pulling down my underwear. He started to put his fingers in me so I rolled over onto my stomach thinking he wouldn’t be able to get to me that way and perhaps realize that what he was doing wasn’t worth our friendship if I “woke up” . He eventually quit, and took his hands outta my pants and went back to bed but I stayed up. He never said anything. And neither did I. and my already low self esteem suffered for it. Especially when I saw him afterwards, which was less often, only at family events, I was hurt that he chose violating my body over a lifelong friendship with me.
Looking back on it, I wish I had pushed him off the moment I felt him on me and yelled at him for violating our friendship and my body and my trust. And I should have kicked him out, especially cuz he could’ve raped me. I don’t blame myself for giving him the wrong idea or anything obviously since I was Asleep but I do feel ashamed of myself for not standing up for myself. Especially to a friend which shouldve made it easier.
That spring I left to travel around Asia. I started in Nepal went to Tibet than China. In China I found
the culture around women disgusting -I cannot begin to count how many times I had to knock men’s hands off my ass and even chest, even wearing baggy clothes and a bag covering my back. It was crazy to see how surprised they’d get that I defended myself, like they were entitled to what they were doing. That in mind, I travelled to Darjeeling, India where the group leader/translator told us to not go out after sunset because it wasn’t safe for women. But one night I got caught out at sunset in town alone waiting to meet up with one of the people I was traveling with. I saw it was getting dark, remembered the warning we got, though I ignorantly didn’t think it could be that serious, so I started heading back with my flashlight on to the family I was doing a home stay with about a half mile away. On the main road back, five Indian kids , only probably 14-15 years old, came outta nowhere walking behind me, and I had that sick knot in my stomach gut feeling and this time I trusted it. I saw them pointing at me, and then I saw they had knives so I ran. And they ran after me. I yelled for help while I ran hoping to scare them off or that someone would help me out but no one was interested in a helping a woman there so I luckily made it back and inside my home stay before them. I looked out the window to see them wandering off afterwards. And I didn’t go outside alone after dark again.
A few years later while I was finishing school at SUNY-Purchase and living in Pleasantville New York my friend and I found ourselves in a really bad situation. We were out dancing at one of our favorite NYC bars on the lower west side but it was dead so she got in touch with an outta-home based tattoo artist friend in brooklyn who said he was having people over and would hook us up with tattoos. So we drove over to his house, walked in the front door, and quickly got shuffled into the first room and told that this grown ass mans mother was actually also living there and that we had to be really quiet. The whole thing was suspect from the mom to the being quiet to there not being a party at all and only two guys there with the two of us and I felt incredibly uncomfortable from the minute we walked in. The promise of tattoos and the fact that my friend was into the artist was barely keeping me there especially as the night went on and it got clearer that we weren’t getting tattooed. It was only the four of us in a tiny bedroom with a twin bed where the tattoo guy and my girlfriend sat and we were all talking, The two guys were getting high but I stayed sober due to long & unfamiliar drive back. [Otherwise I probably would’ve cuz at that point in my life, getting high to the point of feeling numb was a daily priority and my only coping mechanism to keep the constant memories of my past from coming into my conscious mind and the thoughts of suicide on hold. ] so a few hours of uncomfortable awkward conversation passed and the crush went out to get us drinks. While he was out, his super creepy and way older friend stood up and went to stand over by my friend. Something felt weird about the way he was standing directly in front of her like looming over her and the way he was treating her and I didn’t like how he was talking to her either. I had been carrying a switchblade knife in my purse or pocket for years now as a means of self defense and I grabbed it outta instinct. My friend had one as well but her purse was outta reach. I forget what he was saying to her exactly, something like me and you right here right now type bs and she leaned over past him to look at me and mouthed “help me”. Still unsure of what to do I was sitting down, and I told him he should sit back down. But instead he started leaning into her on the bed and this six foot plus guy was surrounding my five foot nothing friend. he got on top of her on the bed pushing himself on her and I got up, switched the knife’s blade out, and in a wave of adrenaline & instinct got directly behind him so he couldn’t reach me and put the tip of the knife into his shirt enough so he knew I had it, and told him “I will make you bleed if you don’t back the fuck off of my friend, so don’t test me. What you’re going to do is stand up slowly and go back over to your chair and we’re going to leave now “.
It’s not in my personality typically to do or say anything like that but I think knowing what could’ve happened made me able to protect my friend. And she thanked me after and said how she couldn’t get to her own knife so she was glad I had mine. It sounds intense to carry a knife saying it now and I hate that this is how it is but it’s something all girls should do to protect themselves. When someone’s a foot taller than you or has a hundred or more pounds on you it’s one of the only effective weapons a woman has to defend herself, the only other being a gun, because there’s no such thing as a fair fight if it’s a man against a woman. So at least this helps to equal it out.
That same girlfriend, “T”, and I hung out a lot after and a year later, one night while staying over at her and her boyfriend “J”’s apartment,her and him got into this crazy fight over I don’t know what and she walked out the door. Knowing her drama queen style I figured she’d be back after cooling off and her boyfriend and I were relatively close, since we all hung out a lot together, so I stayed to play or video games. After awhile & a lotta unanswered calls I got worried she wasn’t coming back and if it was even appropriate for me to stay without her being there. J kept reassuring me that she’d be back and wouldn’t care so I kept drinking and he kept giving me pills while we played Grand Theft Auto. A few hours passed and it got to where I couldn’t keep my eyes open, so J asked me to just stay over, and said we should go to bed. They lived in a one bedroom and had a huge king size bed that I’d sleep in with them when there, on T’s side on the far edge. Now, J had always gone out of his way to be nice to me and make me feel at home but the fact that he was a corrections officer at a prison always made me feel weird & think of the stories I heard about them, tho that night I was more concerned with the pills he had to sell so we went into their room to get more valiums for me.
We talked over whether or not it was okay for me to stay, again, and he reassured me that T wouldn’t mind, again, and I called her to get her voicemail a few more times and left a message saying I was going to pass out there cuz I wasn’t up to driving and that I hoped she didn’t mind and to please come back.
So, I put my baggy sweats and tee on, took a few more pills with my last beer, and went to sleep on the chair in the living room . Jay came out and said to come sleep in the bed, that I was being ridiculous, and that I always slept there. So we argued over if it would piss T off for a little but I was shot and kinda loopy from the pills so I agreed even though I knew it wasnt right and that she would mind. So we went to bed. I stayed far on one side and made a pillow wall between us just to clearly draw the line so if T came back in she could see the separation and as uncomfortable as I was, still fell into a weird dazed & only barely asleep type sleep. I woke up in the middle of the night to J naked and laying on top of me. He was super built because of his job and used that strength against me. I told him to get off me but he kept shushing me and trying to kiss me. He was groping my chest while I tried pushing him off and realized I couldn’t move him at all which really scared me. What also scared me was that I knew I was weak and loopy from the pills and alcohol and didn’t have much strength. What scared me the most was the semi automatic handgun he had on the night table next to him. I kept telling him No and I’m not into you
and to get off of me. He kept putting his hands everywhere on me even though I’d push away wherever his arms went. So then he started pulling my clothes off and I stared screaming. I screamed then yelled for help but he put his hand over my mouth so I tried biting him which didn’t help and he used his other arm to hold my arms away from scratching at him. That’s when I felt this terrible pain and realized he was trying to rape me. I bit him and was screaming no and stop and he kept lying saying it was only his fingers, not that that would have been okay either, but I knew it wasn’t since he had both arms holding me down from getting away from him and because of the way he was moving on top of me. So I started crying hoping that would help him realize this was so fucked up and I didn’t want it to happen but he continued and even kissed me and acted like this was a consensual thing which was even more fucked up. So I tryed saying you have a girlfriend don’t do this but he kept on and said she wouldn’t mind.
He fell asleep after and I still felt stuck. I was crying too weak to move trying to think of how to get outta there & wanting to leave though I knew I couldn’t get up let alone drive. Ended up leaving after a few hours of that once I started sobering up and had stopped shaking from nerves and pain.
I hated myself for choosing to stay. I didn’t blame myself for J’s actions though. The greatest pain I felt was the loss of my friendship with T, a small rift of uncomfortableness grew and grew til we werent talking anymore. I didn’t want to tell her what happened because I was scared she’d hate me for what she’d assume was me getting with her boyfriend and then calling him a rapist. And I let that fear and shame take my best friend away.
A year later, and another move after, she came to visit me and I told her. But she wasn’t angry. He had raped her many times in their relationship so knew what he was capable of. That’s when I realized the tattoo of J on her lower stomach was a symbol of possession and not love. Luckily they were splitting up and she had found a new and decent guy to move on & in with.
At this point (2009) I was Waitressing at Friendlys and started taking classes to get my masters in mental health counseling still wanting to pursue my dreams of being an art therapist. But my self esteem and mental state and shitty coping mechanisms kept getting in the way of me really being present at classes and I was having a lot of trouble focusing on schoolwork.
I’m usually an introvert but the idea of being alone wax terrifying me so I stayed hanging with my
old friends from high school even if late on a work night or I could barely stay awake.
I was casually seeimg this guy Ken that I worked with and had gone to high school with and it was nice to have someone to stay over who i felt safe around & cuz I wasn’t ready for a full time relationship and he didn’t want that either.
We had a local bar that all of our friends hung out at so we were there with my sister from another mister oldest friend came to visit from her home Jersey. So when they closed and we weren’t done drinking we all went back to my apartment with some friends including a friend of Ken that I.had never met.
Once it started getting close to sunrise and everyone left, Molly went to sleep in her room and Ken asked if his friend could stay on the couch because he lived really far and couldn’t drive.I didn’t like a stranger in my home but agreed figuring Ken had vouched for his friend.
Ken and I were.undressd in my bed when his friend walked in completely naked. And tried crawling into bed with us.Ken didn’t do anything, not protect me, not defend my honor and demand respect, not punch his nasty friend, he didn’t even blink. So I grabbed a beer bottle, broke the neck off & stood up on my bed and screamed at him that I would fucking kill him if he didn’t get the hell outta my house this second. And I. chased him down the stairs pushing him down most of them. We got to my living room and Ken came down trying to convince me to let him stay and that he was harmless. His friend had curled up on my couch to sleep and I.tried moving him off it but his fake sleeping body wasn’t moving. So I gave in, even with my gut knowing better.m, and went back to bed. I was more upset with Kens lack of reaction than anything until M ran in crying and went to curl up on the closet floor door closed behind her. Through the door she yelled what happened and that the stranger had to go. Apparently while she was sleeping he had snuck back upstairs got naked again and got into her bed. I asked Ken to handle his friend and the situation he created but he kept whining about wanting to stay in bed. So I went downstairs, this time knife in pocket and determined and I grabbed the kids clothes from my living room floor and threw them outside in the snow. When he went to get
them I shut and locked the door behind him and then told him what I. thought of him But he had the balls to keep knocking in and asking to come back in to sleep. Cuz he couldnt drive like it was
somehow my problem n like nothing he did mattered. I still don’t get how he felt entitled to ask for help after violating me then my friend.
I went back upstairs Again and saw a light from my window and loud music to check n see he was drinking in his car in my parking spot and tossing empty bottles out his window at the tres.
I kept asking Ken to deal with it and said.that he’d wake my neighbors and they’d have the police showing up at my house. While he ignored me that’s exactly what happened. I went to the front door to speak to the office to hear about the noise complaints and concern over a public intoxication and I
tried explaining that I Thought he had already left after I kicked him out. So the cop asked me to let him back in to sleep it off. So I told the officer that I couldn’t do that for my safety as well as my girlfriends who this almost stranger had just assaulted and surprisingly but not, this asshole cop still asked me to let him stay on the couch , ( probably so he wasn’t his problem, and cuz he didn’t give a shit about the actual crime that happened. So no cuffs, questioning, report, nothing) So I told the officer that there was no possible way that guy was coming back into my house but if he wanted him to not dusturb the neighbors to give him a ride to the train station where he could sleep waiting for a train. So that’s what they did.
And I went upstairs and told Ken he had to go too after disrespecting me all night. And cuz I needed some peace and to sleep. I didn’t get a single apology, only an argument that it was too cold for the .2 mile walk. But I kept on til he finally huffed his way out.
I was so sick of keeping othr people’s secrets at that point that I tolda. few people who worked with us at friendlys what had happened.And to explain my attitude towards him. And also I think I wanted to make I. wasn’t being a ridiculous drama queen.
But no one cared. Or had comments.a few people even cut me off midstory and not because they had a customer.
I still knew I hadn’t overreacted. I didn’t know how little my friends and coworkers cared about this type of behavior and that really shocked me. Even after everything I’d gone thru, I still wanted people to be outraged against criminal behavior.
I wish I went to the police then
I wish I went to the police each time and reported it and got a DNA kit done at the one hospital in Westchester tha has the equipment and proper training. Just to hav it on hold if I ever wanted to press charges. I wouldn’t have known to not use insurance. Or my options. But I wouldn’t have felt as alone with my pain. I would’ve felt braver and less of a victim.
I have more regrets than I can list here and that is why I wrote out this blog -to say it
To speak my truth,& So that -you-the one reading this, if youre a victim of a sex crime too-can know YOU ARE NOT ALONE!
AND YOU ARE NOT TO BLAME
AND YOU HAVE OPTIONS !!
They may be hidden hard to find confusing
but there’s help out there That’s why I included the stories and all the links -these sites and organizations and hotlines and helplines WILL HELP YOU