Valerie
“You can’t rape the willing!” she yelled out at the TV above the bar. “Go Kobe!”
It was game five against the Pistons, and Kobe was at the free-throw line. I stood next to her — bent over with laughter. After 15 weeks studying abroad in buttfuck China aka Yunnan, Kunming there was no place I wanted to be more than stuck on the beer stained floor of a college sports bar listening to Val’s inappropriate shouts, while eyefucking a frat guy in a cowboy hat.
“I can’t believe we are loooosing!” Val said to us in her perfect Valley Girl accent. “I need a shot.” Val was larger than your average ABC (American born Chinese), and needed copious amounts of alcohol to get a buzz. At the end of the night she was usually still the most sober, and on more than one occasion, had to drive the two hour trip back from Tijuana with the rest of us passed out from cheap alcohol consumption (back when TJ was the only place we could legally drink aside from house parties).
Our friendship started senior year of high school and lasted until I left college. She came into my life at the right time. I had just parted ways with a similarly overweight and gregarious friend and was in need of a replacement. Val was not book-smart, but she was funny and fearless — which made her a terrific wing-woman. “You gonna fuck that guy?” she asked me after we finished our latest round of tequila shots she had purchased; she was also very generous. “Ummm, what are you talking about?” I bit the cuticle of my thumb and looked towards the bar, making eye contact with the blonde stallion I clocked when we first walked in. She flicked her greasy brassy orange hair over her shoulder and cackled, “Don’t be dumb. I see you.”
Her observational skills were spot on. By the fourth quarter I found myself on my knees in a supply closet blowing Mr. Cowboy as a means to get over my ex boyfriend. He left his cowboy hat and jeans on, silently cuming into my mouth with midwest stoicism. I rose to my feet, spit out his sour cum onto the concrete floor next to a filthy mop and wiped my mouth with the back of my hand. “Thanks” he muttered- zipping his fly and strolling out of the closet without a backwards glance.
As the last dick in my mouth had belonged to someone who had told me that he loved me, to be treated like — and let’s face it, to act like — a whore once again felt like a gut punch. I bent foward and struggled to breathe, my hands squeezing my thighs. Fuck. Not now. I had first experienced this soul crushing sensation six weeks prior in a Chinese bodega while cradling a blue plastic phone. He Who Must Not Be Named had just broken my heart on a long distance phone call that I had rushed to make after receiving an ominous, no subject, one line email which read, “We need to talk. Call me.”
He didn’t mince words: he couldn’t be in a long distance relationship with me anymore — a whole semester (3.5 whole months!) was just too long to wait. We were over half way to our eagerly anticipated romantic reunion and he had pulled the plug on my hopes and dreams. I thought once you said “I love you” that was all it took. Yet here I was, six weeks post breakup, doubled over struggling to breathe, feeling like I needed to throw up.
I willed myself to act normal and pulled my torso upright before scaling the narrow round wooden staircase to rejoin my friends at the bar.
As soon as she saw me a knowing smile spread across Val’s face, “What happened?? Did you fuck him?”
“Don’t worry about it.” I didn’t want her to know that actually Val you CAN rape the willing, because that was how I felt — like a dumb bitch who had consented to mouth rape. I let the cowboy lead me downstairs because I wanted a fun make out session. Instead I got ten seconds of kissing before he pushed my shoulders down firmly and insistently. Why didn’t I leave? Was I so afraid of offending this random subpar Matt Damon lookalike that it was worth putting a penis in my mouth? Why did I believe promiscuity was the antidote to heartbreak? What kind of person “requests” a blow job seconds into a hookup? What kind of person gives it? Rather than face these questions I started chanting, “Defense! Defense!” with the rest of the crowd and I grabbed Val’s half empty beer out of her hand and chugged its contents. I could still taste his cum.
