‘I was a virgin and they didn’t even use a condom,’ she sobs.
‘Oh Snow,’ I say, and feel tears start prickling my own eyes. The sensation is novel. I haven’t cried since the day I found out they slit my father’s throat. I blink the tears away quickly and gather her into my arms. At first she thrashes and hits out instinctively, but I hold her tight.
‘I got you,’ I tell her. I got you, babe. No one will ever hurt you again.’
‘Something terrible happened to me in that hotel room, and I cannot tell you about it because it was too horrible.’ Her body shakes with emotion.
I hold her tightly. ‘It’s not your fault this happened to you. Nothing you did made you responsible for your assault. Shhhh … Shhh … Shhhh’ I whisper in her ear until her struggles cease and she is limp in my arms.
I slip one hand under her knees and the other around her back and carry her back to my bed. I lay her down, and when I try to disengage myself she clings desperately to me, so I sit on the bed and hold her. After a while she starts sobbing.
‘Break open, Snow. Cry all you want. You deserve compassion from yourself. You are always being compassionate to others. Now be compassionate to yourself. You deserve this moment of grace. You’re OK. You’ll always be ok. You have nothing to be ashamed of. This world is a better place because you are in it.’
Then falteringly, with great shame in her beautiful eyes, she tells me what happened.
And my blood boils.
Twenty-four
SNOW
The first thing I saw when I came to that night was the ceiling. It was off-white and sort of fuzzy around the edges and I couldn’t understand why. And then it came back to me that I had been very unwell. And Kim and Andrew must have brought me here because they couldn’t take me to the YHA. My mouth felt numb, strange, and I was freezing cold. I realized almost immediately that I was so cold because I was completely naked.
That was when I heard voices. Men’s voices.
I tried to move my head to find the owners of the voices, but I couldn’t. My entire body was frozen. Not even my little finger could lift away from the bed. Desperately, I swung my eyes around. I was in a hotel room, not a good one, but not a grubby one either. It was one of those family rooms with a double bed and a single in it. I was lying on the double. The curtains were pulled shut, and I could see many bottles of alcohol on a desk in the corner of the room, and the men in different stages of undress were actually crowding around it and snorting lines from the table.
There were six of them. They had different accents. The only impression I had was that they were all excited. I could sense it in their voices and the air. It was like they were at a party. One, I could tell by his accent, was German. I’m not one hundred percent sure, but it was possible one of the men was Middle Eastern. Three were definitely European, but I was certain that none of them were English. There was an Indian man too.
When I first spotted him, I had the ridiculous idea that I could plead with him. Tell him I, too, was from India. Ask him for mercy.
Then they were on top of me until it felt as if they were thrusting hot metal rods. Burning. Burning. But I couldn’t scream. I couldn’t do a thing. Not one thing. They pinched my nipples. They were animals. Licking. Biting. Hurting. Their faces were alive with lust.
The whole time I could hear them talking to me; calling me a dirty little bitch. You like this don’t you. You want more. Take that, slut. Give it to the bitch. Fill her up. I was like a life-size doll that they could bend, twist, flip, and pull according to their wishes.
Months later when more and more memories came back and I researched it on the net, I found other women with the same story to tell. I pieced their memories with mine and a picture emerged. Strangers went onto the dark net and paid to gang rape a woman in a hotel in London. I even remembered that one of them said he had flown into London for the express purpose of raping a drugged woman. The others had presumably included it as part of their holiday experience.
For hours they used my body. Every orifice. Even though I could not move a single muscle I felt it all. Tears continuously flowed out of my eyes, but they didn’t care. They just carried on one at a time, two at a time, three at a time. For hours and hours. I was a human toilet.
I thought the night would never end.
But I won’t carry on with any more gory details, you can use your imagination.
I don’t know exactly when they left, but when I came back from the darkness I was alone. I wanted to get up and run away. I was afraid they would come back but I could not move. I didn’t give up. I just kept on trying to move my finger. I knew Andrew or Kim had spiked my drink and it would wear away.