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However, at some point, Janet blacked out. At 9 a.m. the next morning, she rose to horror all around her.

“When I woke up, I felt like shit and I didn’t know where I was. I had no idea. I just woke up and felt awful and disgusting. As I looked around, I realized that I was also naked,” she said.
Information was coming to her fast, as Janet began to realize what had happened.

Reeking of vomit and wondering if it was hers, Janet’s attention shifted to her body.

“It felt like I had had sex. My whole body was sore,” she said. “I hurt for three days [afterward].”

In the bed alongside Janet was man she had never seen before. His back was covered in scratch marks from where her acrylic nails had dug into him.

Still in the bed, she sat up, and saw a bottle of lubricant between her legs.

“About that time I freaked out completely. I got up and grabbed as much of my stuff as I could find and put on my pants without underwear because I didn’t care enough. I was clothed enough to walk down the
street.”

While dressing Janet yelled at the still-sleeping man.

“He wouldn’t get up, and I kept telling him, ‘I don’t know where I am, I don’t know who you are.”

Before leaving, Janet asked for and got his name and phone number, which she programmed into her cell phone.

“I told him I’d call when the baby was his,” she said as she left.

One week before, Janet’s birth control prescription had expired, and she had not made it to a doctor to renew it. She said she didn’t notice any evidence that he used a condom.

Walking out of the nine-story building, she realized she was only a few blocks from the bar, and walked to her car.

Upon entering, she began to cry.

“I started to bawl. I cried for a decent while and I didn’t know who to call. I didn’t want to call my parents or roommates.” Instead, she called her ex-boyfriend, who lived a few miles away.

There she slept. After sleeping for three hours, she awoke for lunch, and still smelling of vomit, she decided to shower and put on clean clothes. She then slept for three more hours.

Later that evening, she went to the hospital.

At the front desk, she said to the receptionist, “I need the rape kit,” in her quietest voice possible.

After giving her information to the hospital and pleading not to contact her at her parents’ address, she was placed in a hospital robe, and brought into a room specially designated for Sexual Assault Recovery Services (SARS).

There she waited, with the door open, for a SARS nurse.

“We went though what happened,” Janet said, with the nurse asking questions pertaining to the event, trying to learn as much about the incident as possible.

The nurse asked her if she remembered his penis inside her, a question Janet couldn’t answer.

Not knowing the answers to the nurse’s questions, Janet was very upset. “I felt stupid. It was frustrating.”
At the hospital, Janet was given “Plan B,” also known as the morning-after pill, a form of emergency contraceptive. An initial pregnancy test came up negative. She also was given antibiotics to deter any bacterial sexually transmitted diseases. However, she was not tested for STDs, and to this day has not been tested.

The nurse continued to talk about how Janet should have had a sober cab (which she did) and that she shouldn’t drink so much, Janet said.

“It doesn’t matter what I should have done. It still doesn’t make it okay [to do] what they did. I didn’t make the bad choice to be raped,” she said.

Janet decided that she didn’t want to file a formal police report, much to the dismay of the nurse.

“I didn’t want to see him again. I didn’t want to testify. I didn’t want people to know,” she said. “That’s my choice. It’s easier for me.”

Throughout the evening, Janet became frustrated at how the nurse treated her.

“[I was] irritated because [the nurse] was someone who [I thought] was going to make me feel better and help take care of me, and she didn’t. She just tore me apart. I left the hospital feeling worse than when I got there,” she said.

“The system is not designed well for taking care of [rape victims].”

She also has not sought counseling, something she doesn’t think she needs. She said that not remembering the incident has helped her get through it. Despite her apparent ease, Janet has struggled to cope with the issue.

“I’m dealing with it pretty well. The first weekend was rough. I felt lonely [and had a] sick empty feeling in
the bottom of my stomach.”

One month later, Janet has no plans of telling her parents or filing a police report. She is simply going on with her life.

“It happens, and it happens to people you know. Being a victim is hard. I think about it a lot. The system is not designed well for taking care of us.”