Couple of good friends in their twenties, dressed up for the girls night out, discussing their love lives, with me just half listening:
“And, how is it going with Josh? I feel like I haven’t seen you since you went on that second date with him.”
“This weekend his roommate was out of town and we barely even got out of bed. I am so into him. Which is hard to believe after what happened the Sunday before with Steven.”
“What happened with Steven? I thought you two were so over.”
“Sure, we were, so I went to get my stuff from his place.”
“What happened?”
“I wanted to get out of there as soon as I could, but he wanted to” —her hands fly up to make the quotation marks “—talk. I spelled it out for him that we were totally over, but he was like ‘baby one more time just to remember the good days’, and started rubbing himself on me, and I was like forget it, I am out of here. And he just wouldn’t take "no" for an answer.”
“What the fuck” says the friend
“What the fuck” I say, under my breath, suddenly at full attention, “please tell me this is not going where I think it is”
“And then he held me against the wall and started making out with me as I was trying to push him away” she continues.
“What bullshit” says the friend
“There is another word for this” I am thinking.
“And then he pushed me down and roll on top of me and just wouldn’t let me go”
“What? What a jerk” Says the friend.
“Oh there is definitely a word for this!” I am screaming in my head while trying to keep my eyes on the road, knuckles turning white.
“And then he just started having sex with me! I couldn’t get him off me! It was disgusting. I didn’t like it at all but I just couldn’t get him off me”
“There. Is. A. Word. For. This.” My head explodes as I lean on the horn refusing to share the lane with some surprised 18 wheeler used to getting his way, my usual driving-Zen casualty of the conversation in the back.
“And after it happened he pretended like nothing was the matter and tried to help me pack my stuff, the fucker, like we were good and all”
“What a fucking jerk!“ says the friend, with somewhat elevated voice.
“And now I just can’t get it out of my mind. I really shouldn’t be getting into another relationship, this was just so so so gross.. But one must move on right?”
“That’s brave of you” says the friend
“Yes” I am thinking, “one must move on, preferably with a police report and a rape kit” but that doesn’t seem to be on the table.
“So” says the friend “did you tell Jeff about this?” introducing another guy, apparently, a friend in common, into the conversation.
“Are you kidding? He would fucking kill him. He would kill him dead”
They get out. I turn the app off, pull over, push the seat back, close my eyes and let the traffic pass me by.