SCENES OF NO TOMORROW

I first heard of the term “Cafeteria Catholics” here on Kito Diaries on one of Dennis Macaulay’s Rant episodes. And it describes my family well. We are not a religious family, but even that laxity of my family members toward religious doctrines and practices does not extend to the Church’s views on homosexuality.

I discovered my attraction for the same sex at a very tender age but because of the kind of background I was growing up in, I fought the internal battle to silence this integral part of me for years – a period during which I felt very much like an abnormal being, like someone who was sick and needed to be cured.

When I was 18, I got admitted into the state university where my older siblings were schooling. But even this graduation of circumstance didn’t afford me any liberty to properly explore these feelings that had refused to go away, because I was constantly monitored by my siblings, especially my eldest brother who may have gotten an inkling about my sexuality despite my steady refuge in the form of a heavily-barricaded closet.

But of course, there was always a breakthrough experience. I was no longer the child whose only reaction to his homosexual feelings was fear. I was older and I was curious. And Fate guided me to the social network, 2go. 2go turned out to be the haven I never knew I needed. Finding out that I wasn’t the only one on earth who felt these things I felt for other males warmed my heart every time I logged on there. With every interaction I made with the guys on there, I felt something getting unfettered inside me, bit by bit. Knowledge, they say, is power, and the knowledge that I wasn’t alone empowered me gradually. Although, I couldn’t muster enough courage to hook up with my online acquaintances, that however, didn’t deter me from visiting the site.

Finally though, in the second semester of my second year, I decided to take the big step away from my books and church activities to hook up with these amazing fellows that I’d been chatting with – and that bold step became the beginning of a very big mistake.

While I was growing up, I was made to see sex as abominable, unless done under the confines of matrimony between a man and a woman. Sex, it was often preached to my impressionable mind, was for the sole aim of procreation and nothing else. These were the things I came to believe about sex from home videos, church teachings, and from eavesdropping on the heated conversations between adults who visited our home.

I held on to this precious knowledge even as an undergraduate, and while everyone around me saw the university as an opportunity to explore and get wild sexually, I held on to my virginity, because even though I’d come to break away from the belief that being with a fellow man is an abomination, I still didn’t think sex was something you simply bandied about like a cheap commodity. I believed it was meant to be a special thing you do with someone special. The friends I made on 2go did a good job of educating me on the issue of Homosexuality, but no matter how hard they tried to make me change my stance on the reverence for sex, I just wouldn’t budge. Perhaps on some deep level, I suspected they were sexual predators who were simply trying to use their reeducation of my views on sex to get into my pants.

And this turned out to be exactly correct.

The guy I decided, in my second year, to finally meet up with was a final year student I met on 2go. I’d earlier let on to him that as far as being gay went, I was still very naïve and he was the first gay person I’d be coming in contact with ever. He magnanimously offered to introduce me to others while impressing upon me the importance of being a part of a community. And so, on 2go, with my permission, he shared my ID with two of his friends, who also happened to be his roommates.

Eventually, we hung out at a bar, the four of us. At 19, I’d never taken alcohol before. I wasn’t forced to take it during the hangout, but I felt like I needed to prove myself. I mean, I was an adult so I should be able to do adult stuff like drink alcohol. The only experience I had with alcohol was sipping a small quantity from the beer my father kept in the fridge many years ago, and spitting for close to an hour because I couldn’t stand the bitter taste of it. When the attendant at the bar came to pick our orders, I ordered for yoghurt, and this prompted the other guys to burst out into laughter; even the attendant shared in the laughter. It was good natured laughter, but I felt mortified by it. And so, I didn’t object when one of my new friends offered to place an order on my behalf. Before long, the bar attendant was serving our drinks and I got calypso liquor, some coconut drink mixed with vodka. This tasted really good, and I was enjoying the drink. However, as the other guys were moving on to their second and third drinks, I was still nursing the one bottle. They laughed over this, and urged me to drink quicker, one of them stating that this was how big men drank. And so, I did. Two more bottles of Calypso were brought for me, the second which I downed with more speed than the first.

However, after the second bottle, I began to feel sick and waved away the guy who wanted to open the third bottle. He said I had to take it, since they’d already ordered for it. I refused still; I simply couldn’t imagine myself going through another bottle of liquor. I just felt too queasy for that. So one of them offered to help me with it, opened the bottle, and poured a generous amount of the drink into a glass for me, before sipping away at the rest in the bottle. In a bid to just get done with it, I gulped it all at once, and this act seemed to earn me points, as they were all cheering me.

A few minutes later, I felt sicker and I told them that I wanted to go home – theirs anyway. I just couldn’t imagine going back to my hostel in this state. They made me wait a while for them to finish their drinks, and with each passing minute I sat there, I felt like my brains were getting liquefied.

The journey back to their place was a blurred memory of me mumbling words I can’t now recall. I was in an odd place where I was both quietly conscious and yet greatly unconscious. I had no control over my state of mind, and even then, in such an inebriated state, I hated the feeling and kept vowing silently that I’d never get myself in such a state again.

We got home and the first thing I did was to drop into the bed one of them had pointed out to me, and I zoned out. And while asleep, I remember drifting off into a really beautiful dream: I was with a man, a man I’d never seen before but one who I just knew was the man of my, well, dreams. We were walking hand in hand under a huge rainbow, with unicorns and ponies bowing in an orderly manner on either sides of the golden pavement upon which we walked, the entire atmosphere rich with the scents of flowers blooming all around us.

And then suddenly, everything began to perish. The flowers wilted. The unicorns and ponies dropped dead. A stormy sky thundered and crashed and shrank the rainbow from sight. Everywhere was dark and terrifying. And when I reached out to grab hold of the man of my dreams, he was gone. And I was left all alone in the darkness and confusion and pain, the smell of flowers replaced by the smell of death…

And then, I was waking up early the next morning to more reality of darkness and confusion and pain. So much pain shooting up to my brain from my anus. It was like my bottom was on fire. Even moving about on the bed drew tears of hurt to my eyes. I was clad in my underwear and it was stained with blood. I love wearing white briefs, and the colour made the sight of blood starker.

The realization of what had most likely happened the previous night shattered me. These three guys were fast asleep in varying positions on the bed and didn’t even hear me crying as my new reality sank in. I remembered dropping into bed with my clothes on, but now, I’d woken up in just my underwear. I couldn’t feel my ass hole; it seemed to shoot out rivulets of pain with every pulse.

I quietly put my clothes back on and left the house without waking any one of them. That experience, the fact that I had had no say at all in my violation, that I had absolutely no idea what liberties had been taken with my body and who – if not all three of them – had done so, the fact that I’d been so wickedly used – it all sent my world crashing down around me. I was hurting both physically and psychologically and mentally; everywhere in and around me hurt.

Afterwards, they tried to contact me over and over, via calls, on 2go, text messages; apologizing and blaming what happened on the alcohol. But I was not having any of that. Due to their persistence, I was grateful that I hadn’t disclosed my hostel room details to any of them, because I suspected they would have located me all the way to my hostel just to make me accept their apologies. And I simply wasn’t in the mood to forgive them. I certainly couldn’t forget, not for a very long time, seeing as the pain in my ass didn’t go away for awhile.

So I felt safe always in my hostel. Going to class proved nerve-wracking because I feared I’d bump into any one of them. I skipped my classes for a week after the incident until I was able to pull myself together. I was hurting and yet I couldn’t share. I’d been raped and I couldn’t tell anyone about it.

All I could do was hurt in silence.

TO BE CONTINUED

Written by Q-Mara