Zeal arrived at my room. His hair was wet. He had showered before coming. I did not think anything of it at the time. I assumed he had been working out like he usually does and needed to clean up.
He entered the room saying “hey hey, it’s okay.. it’s okay.” He grabbed me immediately and lifted me into the air. I was crying loudly. He placed me gently onto the bed.
He held me, He put his face in my neck, I cried, I screamed, I vented everything. All the fears, all the pain, everything I had been unable to say in the lobby, everything I had tried to bring up over text and been deflected from. He held me through all of it.
During this, he kept shifting our positions; he moved our bodies in ways that I did not fully register at the time because I was too consumed by the emotional release to process what was physically happening. It was only over a month later that I recognized what those position changes were.
At one point, he wrapped us both inside a blanket like a burrito. I found this comforting. Being cozied up as I cried helped me feel safe. This was my favorite moment.
I screamed in Zeal’s ear: “You’re so safe, you’re so safe.” Until my voice gave out.
After a while, calming down, I asked about the others. Cyborg must be waiting for us. We were supposed to have dinner. Zeal told me not to worry about it. He texted Cyborg: “we’re ditching.” He chose to stay alone with me in my hotel room.
After approximately an hour and a half of constant screaming, venting, and crying, I was spent. Exhausted, I felt limp.
That is when it changed.
Zeal lifted my arms and pinned them above my head, slowly, gently. He put his lips on my chin and began breathing heavily.
He became feral. Without warning, he forced his tongue deep into my mouth. I did not understand what was happening, my body felt strange, I was confused. Before I could process, he put his hand inside my shirt and began touching my breast. He kept kissing me. He started undressing me. He flipped me over, he took my bra off. He touched my breasts with both hands, he took his own shirt off.
I remember clearly being scared and confused at that specific moment, seeing his bare chest, but there was no time to think, everything was happening too fast.
He pulled my pants and underwear off, he began fingering me aggressively. It hurt. I told him: “IT HURTS. IT HURTS.”
He stopped for a second. Then he immediately put his finger down my throat. I coughed and felt like I was going to vomit.
He then began fingering me again with the same finger he had just forced down my throat. It still hurts. I tried to endure it. I could not. I told him again: “It hurts, it hurts, it hurts.”
He stopped. He lied down and said: “welp... I’m tired. Guess we are just not into each other.”
When I expressed pain, he did not check on me. He did not ask if I was okay. He made me feel bad about his rejection. He framed my physical distress as a lack of desire for him, which forced me to choose between enduring what was happening or losing him. That is coercion.
I panicked. I began comforting him. I told him I liked him so much. That I had always liked him. That it was just me, that I was a little broken sometimes, that my body does not always work. I told him I was trying. I was trying.
He got up. He stood in front of the bed. He took his pants and boxers off, exposing himself.
I put my hand up and yelled: “NO NO NO DONT NO.”
He put them back on immediately.
I, terrified of making him feel rejected, immediately reversed: “NO NO NO I’M SORRY. YOU ALREADY TOOK IT OFF. I SAW IT. IT’S OKAY IT’S OKAY I DIDN’T MEAN IT.”
He took them off again. He lay in front of me and said something to the effect of: “Welp... this is my penis!”
I was naked in bed. I stared. I did not register what I was supposed to do. I asked: “You want me to touch it? What if it hurts you?” He reassured me it was fine, and I did.
He did not like it. He told me to try it with my mouth.
I listened, I obeyed, I was trying as hard as I could to appeal to him so he would not abandon me, so he would not tell me we did not work, so he would not say we were not in love.
I said "IT HURTS." He stopped for one second and then put his finger in my throat. I screamed "NOOO" when he exposed himself. He turned my pain into rejection. He used my fear of abandonment to make me comply. Every time I resisted, he made me feel like the problem.
The rest is a blur. I remember that he ejaculated on my stomach. I felt nothing, no release or satisfaction, only a constant fear that he did not like me back, and that I had to perform for him, and keep reassuring him, because he was a misunderstood autistic man. Something he referenced multiple times during the encounter as an explanation for his behavior.
After he ejaculated on me, he paused, and he realized what he had done.
He began shivering and shaking. He grabbed napkins and tried to wipe it off, but it was drying on my skin. He ran to the bathroom, wet a towel, and started wiping it off me. He did not like how it was going, so he grabbed me and put me under the shower. He began washing me with soap in his hand, scrubbing until he was satisfied that nothing was left. His hand was shaking the entire time.
I was terrified. Not of what had just happened to me, but of how scared he was, I stood under the water and told him: “Zeal it’s ok, it’s ok, you're okay. Zeal please, please listen to me. It’s okay. I love you. I love you Zeal. Please listen to me. It’s okay, really.”
He did not listen. Eventually, while putting his clothes back on, he appeared to calm down. But every time he looked at me from the bathroom door, still standing awkwardly under the running water, completely confused about what I was supposed to do next, he covered his eyes and refused to look at me.
He left me under the running shower. He went into the room and finished getting dressed.
While he was almost done, he said:
“Well, can’t wait for the Google Docs in five years!”
I screamed after him to listen to me, begging him to come back.
He did not come back. I noticed as he left that he was visibly aroused again, inside his shorts.
He ran out of my hotel room.
That was it.
He came to my room because I was crying and in an emotional crisis. He held me for an hour and a half while I screamed and vented. He waited until I was completely exhausted and limp. Then he assaulted me. When I expressed pain, he made me feel guilty. When I said no, he made me take it back. When it was over, he shook with fear. Not for me. For himself. He washed the evidence off my body. He made a joke about me coming forward. And he left.
