outside

Molested by half-conscious friend. It was in Brighton, quite a long time ago. I was with an old cis male friend of mine. We had been at a party and we had agreed that I would be staying over at his on the sofa. Unfortunately for this story, he got incredibly wasted. I realised this on the way back to his. I wasn’t quite sure how out of it he was, he was still speaking, mildly, but it seemed that he was operating with basic motorised functions but not really himself for a number of hours. When we got to his house, he didn’t seem to have the keys. Later we found that his keys were in his pockets. Now I know to have checked them but he was still talking to me so I thought that he might have lost them on the way back or at the party. I can’t remember why but I also didn’t have money at the time either. This basically meant that we were on the street for a number of hours. I was quite unsure of what to do. I needed to look out for my friend, stay with them, until they were more themself. I waas holding his hand as we walked around near the lanes. It would have been seriously dangerous for him without my assistance. We were going to be on the streets for the rest of the night, morning, with basically nothing. I was worried about getting really cold. I used to get to know homemless people in Brighton quite a lot. In Brighton there is a lot more of a friendly atmosphere (than compared to, for example, central London which is where I moved to a few years later) and so it’s not uncommon for people to hang out with homeless people and talk to them there. I ended up spending time with a homeless person which at first was great. I thought company! & they offered me my and my friend a blanket. To my horror, whilst I was speaking to the homeless person, out of no-where my friend started to touch me inappropriately, the most sensitive, intimate and traumatised part of my body. Incredibly shocked by this, I moved away from him and within a few moments he had adjusted where he was at and he did it again. I don’t want to go into more detail about how horrible this felt. I said his name and told him to stop it not sure if he could hear me. Now, what was – amongst the obvious horrible ness of this – also disturbing was that I knew he was semi-conscious. He was reaching for the most sacred and intimate part of me when I hadn’t given any sign of consent in a semi-conscious state. Who the fuck was this? What’s going on?! Am I communicating with this persons subconscious?! Great. ‘Cause it’s freaky shit up in here and I do not know how to deal with molesting parts of people’s subconscious, at least at that specific point in time psychologically. Also – how did he know that’s where that part of me was? I mean, why wasn’t he going for my feet, or some part of me closer to him? It was very obviously direct and disturbing. What should I feel about this? Seriously…what the hell…my friend just molested me when he was semi conscious. Also! If he was in any way conscious, this was a friend of mine, I trusted him…I mean, he knows about my past about this stuff, I have told him about it to ask for support and help. Really quite angry. Really quite confused. Also simultaneously and still (rather ironically at this point) really concerned about his wellbeing. Also! How am I going to explain this to him the next day? I mean I have to… I have had so many uncomfortable conversations with people only out of necessity about such things. ​It’s pretty surreal and I really don’t mean in the dreamy sense. SO BASICALLY, I got up, moved us to the North Lanes – not really knowing how to process all this but knew I had to move as the homeless person started being creepy too and I was like BLAHHHH – I went just round the corner to the North Lanes. It was too early for people to be around much, but it felt safer and I found a great bench (outside the bagel store facing the on-foot path with loads of cafe and shops that were about to open) in the North Lanes which seemed like a good place whilst I meditated near. Someone from a cafe gave me a muffin for free but was also creepy – really spun me out and gave me a tiny glimpse (but obviously not a real representation as I am hugely privileged in various senses such as being white, I seem cisgender to others, having a home, usually having the option of a roof over my head from family and friends and so on) but a small idea of how dangerous is can be being female-bodied, vulnerable and on the street. I mean there were so many creeps and my friend sexually assaulted me when he was out of it. Really sucks. He was really sorry. I’m glad that he accepted it happened and was really sorry about it. It does help when people do that.