My Dark Vanessa

It’s easy to pinpoint when it all started, that moment of walking into his sun-soaked classroom and feeling his eyes drink me in for the first time, but it’s harder to know when it ended, if it really ended at all.

I’m not a victim because I’ve never wanted to be, and if I don’t want to be, then I’m not. That’s how it works. The difference between rape and sex is state of mind. You can’t rape the willing, right? My freshman year roommate said that when I tried to stop her from going home drunk with some guy she met at a party. You can’t rape the willing. It’s a terrible joke, sure, but it makes sense.

My brain starts to skip, my bedroom suddenly seems lit by a strobe, so I take an Ativan, smoke a bowl, and lie back. I always let the pill sink in before I decide whether to do another lap. I never go overboard. I’m careful, which is how I know my problem is mild, if I even have a problem, which I maybe don’t.
It’s fine. The drinking, the pot, the Ativan, even Strane—it’s perfectly fine. It’s nothing. It’s normal. All interesting women had older lovers when they were young. It’s a rite of passage. You go in a girl and come out not quite a woman but closer, a girl more conscious of herself and her own power. Self-awareness is a good thing. It leads to confidence, knowing one’s place in the world. He made me see myself in a way a boy my own age never could. No one can convince me that I would have been better off if I’d been like the other girls at school, giving blow jobs and hand jobs, all that endless labor, before being deemed a slut and thrown away. At least Strane loved me. At least I knew how it felt to be worshipped. He fell at my feet before he even kissed me.
Another cycle