CHAPTER 3
The pale shades of the early morning light infiltrate the darkness, leaving the room in murky shades of gray when I finally break free from the paralysis. I still haven’t moved a finger except to remove the pillowcase after the intruders left. I haven’t even turned my head to check the clock.
Pushing up to sit on the edge of the bed, I place my feet flat on the cool floor and fumble for the switch on the nightstand. The lamp flickers on, and I blink against the soft light like it’s a wall full of fluorescents.
As I scan the room, I find no signs of someone having been here. For a moment, I think it was all a figment of my imagination. Maybe I’m going crazy. Maybe it was an unusually lifelike dream.
But then I gaze down at my body, and the evidence is everywhere on me. Rope marks on my ankles and wrists, an angry bruise that throbs on my right knee, and burn marks scattered across my hips and thighs from when they ripped my clothes off. My eyes flicker between my ankles and wrists, and I notice how different the rope marks are. My ankles itch from the sloppy red marks, while elegant, twisted patterns adorn my wrists with marks that might as well have been the result of a night with a skilled rigger at a BDSM club.
Shuddering at the thought, I dart up from the bed to rid myself of it and pull on an oversized T-shirt. I’m not sick for liking those things, I remind myself as I often do. But this time, the words do little to appease me as I remember how wet I was when those long fingers slid between my folds.
My stomach churns at the thought, and I try to convince myself it was just a defense mechanism. Getting wet can be a way for the body to protect itself. But deep down, I know that’s not what this is.
I make my way to the hall and come to an abrupt stop when I find the most disturbing evidence of all. The door chain hangs in two vertical lines. Cut in the middle. Mocking me for thinking such a brittle thing could ever protect me.
With shaky hands, I grab the two pieces of chain and stare at them. Then I open the door, and shivers burst through my body when I see the scratches around the lock.
I’m not insane. Someone didbreak in and assault me.
With my head frozen in numbness, I move back into the main room. Not knowing what to do with myself, I stop in the middle of the room and stare straight ahead without seeing anything. Once again, time drags on in a frozen stillness until thoughts begin to filter back in.
What now? What is the normal thing to do in this kind of situation? Go to the hospital? Call a friend? Reach out to family?
I don’t have any injuries that need medical attention, and a vaginal swab is pointless since I haven’t been raped. My family and friends are over six-hundred miles away, and even if they were here, it wouldn’t make a difference. They’d all say it was my own fault for being so perverted, knowing the things I’m into.
Maybe my big sister would lend a little support?
I gulp past a growing knot in my throat. No. Not even her. She might think she’s nothing like our parents, having left our oppressive hometown years ago, but she, too, would think I was partly to blame. I remember all too clearly how she tried, but failed to play the supportive sister after the incident that drove me away at long last and made me come to get a fresh start. I could see the judgment tightening her expression, and I’d surely hear it in her voice now too.
Racking my brain, I try to think of a friend I could call instead. Or maybe someone I know from the BDSM clubs I used to attend back in Denmark. But no. Whatever friends I had turned their backs on me like the rest of the town when I refused to accept their oh-so well-meaning “help.” And I always kept the men I met at the clubs at an arm’s distance, unable to let anyone in.
I drop onto my bed with a defeated sigh, then punch in the Hungarian emergency number on my phone. I’m not sure this classifies as an emergency anymore, but I don’t know what else to do. A Hungarian woman with rusty English picks up, and it’s not without difficulty that I explain to her that I’ve had a break-in.
Half an hour later, the police show up, snapping pictures of my door, wrists, and legs and dusting surfaces for fingerprints. They pick up a couple, which they seem confident will be a help.
When it’s time to give my statement, I tell them everything—not in detail, but enough to give them the whole picture. When one of the officers asks if the men raped me and I shake my head, he raises an eyebrow. I’m not sure if he doesn’t believe me or he’s just mystified by my most unusual story.
“Any other kind of penetration? Fingers, toys… glass bottle?”
I shudder at the question and shake my head once more while staring at my wringing hands in my lap.
“So, you say they tied you up, touched you a little, then left?” The officer glances at his partner with disbelief edged into his features.
“Yes,” I murmur in a barely audible voice and slump my shoulders. This is almost as humiliating as the attack.
The officers leave me with an assurance that they’ll get back to me in a few days.
Despite my statement being bizarre, they at least have enough evidence to know that a crime, indeed, was committed, and I didn’t make up the whole thing. So I allow myself to hope they’ll at least attempt to catch my perpetrators.
***
The following days, I’m constantly on edge, fighting an unwinnable battle against crushing anxiety.
When I get off work in the middle of the night, I take the fastest route home and half-run most of the two miles. I constantly glance over my shoulder as I clutch my phone, and adrenaline pumps through my system as my muscles tighten, preparing to flee.
Once I’m finally back inside my apartment, where I should feel safe, the anxiety builds to new heights that almost have me running back to the streets to be among people. But instead, I drag a dresser into the hall to barricade the door. It’s a hassle and probably as effective as the door chain, but it gives me a sense of security that I desperately need, so I keep doing it every night.
After having secured the door, I curl up under the comforter and lie stiffly in bed with the night light on for hours, unable to find a moment’s rest.
Several nights go by like this, and I’m more than embarrassed by my appearance when I show up at work in the afternoons.
I look wrecked—tired to the bone. Dark lines circle my otherwise clear, green eyes, my round cheeks have lost their glow, and my usually rosy, plump lips are colorless and drawn into a straight line.
When Elek asks if I’m okay, I write him off, saying there’s been a lot of noise from the streets at night.
In an attempt to cover up the weariness, I become more generous with my makeup, spending half an hour in front of the mirror until I look like many of the Hungarian women I see working the restaurants along the river.
The makeup only seems to make everything worse, though. When I enter the kitchen, I get a shrill whistle and a smack on my ass. “Someone has gotten dick all night.” Izsák’s sleazy voice makes my skin crawl like I’m covered in a thousand bugs.
He keeps going like this for the next couple of days until he shifts to a different kind of scorn. “Get some fucking sleep, will you? I can’t have my employees looking like hookers that have been working all night.” He doesn’t need to put the underlying threat into words. I’m well aware that he’s implicitly threatening to fire me if I don’t get my shit together.
I can’t do anything about the horrible anxiety that sneaks up on me in the darkness of the night and robs me of any and all rest, so I attempt to sleep during the day instead. Curtains open and window ajar so people in the street will hear if I scream for help. It’s difficult to sleep with all the noise and light, but I manage to get a few hours a day—which is more than I get at night. It gives me just enough energy to get me through my shifts, but I’m still tired and slow. I try to compensate by putting on a wide, soulless smile every time Izsák is near. He clearly doesn’t care that my smile is as fake as a Chinese Gucci bag because my strategy seems to work.
A week after the break-in, the police call as promised.
“Unfortunately, we don’t have enough evidence to make a case,” the man on the line tells me.
“What about the fingerprints and the scratched-up lock?” I ask, my voice tense with shock and outrage.
“I’m sorry, but we’re unable to make a case,” is all I get.
My voice gets shriller as I explain that they were here, taking pictures of both the lock and the marks on my body and picked up fingerprints, and it doesn’t make sense that they don’t have enough.
The officer doesn’t even try to argue. He only repeats the phrase, saying they’re unable to make a case, then apologizes and hangs up. I’m left with a feeling that it’s a bad excuse, covering up something else. What happened to me clearly isn’t severe enough for them to spend their precious time investigating it.
The rejection hurts and hits a little too close to home. My family wasn’t much different when they wrote me off after I refused to follow their advice and seek help for “my perversions,” like my mother so nicely put it.
The police’s odd explanation is like a shot of adrenaline to my paranoia. Suddenly, I see danger lurking everywhere. The people in the street all seem to be watching me with some hidden agenda, the noises outside my apartment all sound like someone trying to break in, and whenever I see a man in a black suit, I’m sure it’s one of my attackers.
The latter becomes particularly bad when a bulky, suit-clad man starts frequenting the restaurant. He always sits at a table in a corner in the back as if keeping to the shadows, and he never removes his black sunglasses despite the sun being unable to reach him through the room. Never seeing his eyes racks up my fear to an unbearable pounding. Actually, his mere presence does the same. There’s a certain commanding energy to him that has me heaving for air even as my body unintentionally clenches in sick anticipation whenever I’m close to him. So I try to keep my distance and let my coworkers handle the tables near him.
But keeping my distance doesn’t quell the prickling sensation of being watched whenever he’s here. I have to remind myself constantly that I can’t keep seeing my attacker every time I see a man in a suit. If I keep going like this, I’ll end up having a full-on panic attack just walking the streets. So I do my best to shove the anxiety aside and save my energy for things I truly need to worry about. Like getting the lock on my door fixed or consider moving.
The former is easy enough. Getting a new, safer lock that the next best thief can’t just pick costs more than I can afford to spend, but it’s worth it. It gives me a sense of safety that’s better than the dresser, and I’ll survive eating oatmeal for the next few weeks. The new lock isn’t enough to stop me from barricading the door every night, though, or sleeping with my phone in my hand, 112 on speed dial.
I even manage to get my hands on a can of pepper spray. It takes a trip to one of the shady parts of district nine with a reference from one of my coworker’s friends. I put on a large hoodie and a loose pair of jogging pants and stuff my hair up under a cap, and then I set off to go meet my coworker’s friend’s acquaintance on Szabadkai út. It’s one of those streets I promised myself I’d never be stupid enough to step foot in. Dirt and garbage pile up at the sides of the deteriorated road. Abandoned houses that are probably drug dens loom around me. And men drive by at a slow speed, checking out the women in six-inch heels, tiny skirts, and overdone makeup.
My entire body trembles as I walk down the road with my head held low and hands tucked into the hoodie pocket. It doesn’t get better when I find the man in a red Adidas hoodie and a tattoo above his left brow. He doesn’t utter a word, just sizes me up and discreetly hands me the can as I procure a wad of cash.
It’s only when I step off the tram in the city center, as sure as I can be that no one has followed me, that I can breathe normally again. I slip my hand into the hoodie pocket and wrap my fingers around the can, and I keep it there until I’m back in my apartment, having turned the new lock and pushed the dresser against the door.
But despite all these safety measures, nothing can quite alleviate the feeling of being a walking target. I have a persistent, sickening feeling that someone’s watching me, but even as I keep looking over my shoulder like a maniac, I never see anything suspicious.
Either I’m going mad with anxiety, or a frighteningly competent person is watching me.