*This piece originally appeared in Cell Count*

By Timothy DuWhite

My intentions weren’t to have sex—though I could get the assumption. Or at least I could rationalize it. We were alone at dinner. I did invite him to my hotel room. There was a bed. He was white—with needs. I was Black—and appealing. I know it’s wrong to justify abuse, but the writer in me just cannot ignore significant plot points.

When he reached for my waist I should have anticipated the script. His trite comment, “I knew this is what you wanted!” came as no surprise. I could tell while hovering over our food that he was nothing but a two-dimensional character. Yet still. I unlocked the door with my key card. I fiddled with the TV remote. I opened up my mouth. I held back my tears. I laid on his chest afterwards. If there ever was God, or is a God currently, I pray that he/she/they were not at the LGBTQ Christian conference I attended in Washington D.C. in the Fall of 2015. I don’t think my faith would be able to withstand it.

I had been recently hired working with an “affirming” Christian network that aimed to bridge the gap between LGBTQ people and the Christian community when I was enlisted to attend the conference. This was my first “industry” outing, and I was determined to make a good impression. All the big names in Christian inclusivity were there. I smiled, laughed, head nodded, and pondered myself to and fro. It was a four day convening, and I prepared my body for the marathon—at least I thought I did.

On day two they held identity-based panel discussions in different designated rooms. They had a Latinx panel, an Asian Pacific Islander panel, a white “ally” panel, and so on and so on. Naturally, I was prepared to go wherever the niggas were (or African Americans, if you’re into that), but oddly the Black panel and the intersectionality panel were held at the same time in different rooms. I realized then that this conference was a farce, because what fruitful conversation about intersectionality does not include the Blacks? Needless to say, I did not stick around to find out, and just went to the Black room instead.

When I arrived, the four panelists seated behind a table in the front of the room all sported a different shade of brown that made my ears tingle with joy. Yet, I was quickly joined in the audience by a sea of whites that made my stomach turn. Big up to balance? The wax and wane of shit? The panel discussion centered around the Black church, and “what needs to be done” around it.

The remarks were typical of an “inclusive” crowd. Black folks need to stop pretending like their choir director ain’t gay. Black folks need to realize that we’re being discriminatory just like the white folks. Black folks need to do this. Black folks need to do that. Conversations I am used to (read: exhausted with) but generally willing to communally struggle over—as long the room is filled with my community.

The aforementioned white boy raises his hand to make an inquiry—and of course they call on him. He said something about some shit, I don’t remember, but I didn’t like it and I still don’t. The entire room nods as I shake. And I think this is some bullshit, so I say, “This is some bullshit,” to myself, but the white boy is listening. I would say eavesdropping but, to be honest, I was less inclined to paint a white boy as a villain those days. Though I def peeped game, I still hadn’t reached my “wits end” with white folks the way my baptist mother often spoke about reaching herself. That point would come after the conference.

The white boy catches my scent and agrees with me that this is some bullshit—starts trying to relate. He says things like, “This scope is so limited” and “Where’s the nuance?” I nod because, again, I was less honest back than. He asks me my name, I say Timothy, he looks surprised, like he expected something he could more confidently hang a durag off of. He tells me his, or I guess it, I can’t remember. It was something hella Tuesday though. Mad regular. Like lukewarm, monosyllabic, BillBillBillBillBobBobMike—something as white as the name my Black mother gave me.

He tells me about his job in Harlem, how our organizations’ missions are alike, how we should connect. I think networknetworknetworknetwork. I’ve ran out of my business cards so I give him my personal one, with my personal cell number because networknetworknetworknetwork. Yet, he took this to mean something differently, which explains his use of hands later. He texted me after the panel to meet him for dinner, and I said yes, because network? I’m not sure. Either way, here I am at dinner with this white boy talking about nothing really, but very much invested because of network? I’m no longer convinced, but what else could it be?

Hours after the incident in my hotel room, I called my then sort-of-kind-of boyfriend at the time, crying. I told him that my intentions were never to have sex. How I felt scared and small and guilty, like I did this to myself. He responded by saying that none of this was my fault. And that even if a part of me did want to go to the room for the possibility of something happening, if that desire changed once I got there, that is my right. But those words just made me cry harder. No part of me wanted this. I need him to believe me. I need everyone who hears (reads) this story to believe me. I didn’t want sex. I didn’t want sex. He was white. He was white. He was white. Right?

It begins to rain, we had been sitting at the dinner table for over an hour, it was time for us to make a decision on next moves. It could have been as simple as, “I’ll see you at the next break out session.” But it wasn’t, because we were still talking, and I enjoyed the talking. Mainly because it was my first time in DC, I didn’t know anyone at the conference and I was lonely. I wanted this to keep going so I suggested we go to my hotel room which was only a block away. My rationale was that it was both dry and quiet there. He agreed. We paid the bill and were off.

Usually when I tell this story (which I’ve only done a handful of times) I note that the implications of inviting a strange boy to my hotel room didn’t dawn on me until we were standing in front of my door. As I searched for my key card a warm current wafted over me. My body said wait, this feels familiar, like a movie, a scenario you’ve seen dozens of times, you are opening the door to your hotel room, this boy is behind you, he has just eaten but is clearly still hungry. What are you doing? What are you actually doing? But all the rising water receded as I remembered that he told me he was a pastor. What is there really to fear?

We get into the room and his eyes are scaling every dimension. He comments on the wallpaper, my jeans, the terrace, the gait of my walk. He is curious in a way that leaves a white boy’s hands bloody. It is as if I’m under anesthesia but can still feel the amputation. My body now running slow with the rigor of anxiety stifling each bone. I do not remember what television show we were watching when it happened—if it were a comedy or a true-crime investigation—either way there I was sprawled out on the bed. His red hands sopping up every inch of me as he pries my teeth open with his tongue. I begin to giggle, because maybe this could be a joke? I laugh, “Hey, ain’t you a pastor?” His whole body on top of me is a warm-damp-breathing-hum. He says, “Yeah, but you have no business being so fine,” or something to that effect.

He moves so quickly, from my lips to my neck, from my neck back to my lips. All I could do is giggle and stiffen. I think, if I am a stone surely he’ll notice—surely he’ll stop. He begins to unbuckle my belt and release me from pants. I grab his hand as he does it, but he snatches them off of me anyway. In this bed I am the weakest I have ever been. My body is limp—unable to respond. He licks his finger and begins to press circles into my asshole. I recoil at his touch but my resistance seems to only excite him. He says, “Oh, I got something for you.” He drops his pants and arches up his pink penis like a ladder. I manage to audibly say, “I don’t know,” at the sight of it, and I am the proudest I have ever been. He responds, “You can just suck it,” and pushes my head into his crotch.

This white boy’s penis is in my mouth, and I am terrified because I do not know what this all means. Am I experiencing rape? I know for sure my body, mind, and spirit do not want this, yet, I still have not fought. At least, not fought in the way I would be expected to. I feel completely responsible. I am twenty-something years old, surely I know the implications of bringing a strange boy to my hotel room—pastor or not.

His hand is on the top of my head navigating it like a faulty compass. Up, down, this way, that way, I assume he is searching for the warmest place to rest. Eventually he allows me up for air. I exaggerate my pant, try to make it seem like he broke something in me. Something physical and not spiritual, something that’ll make it less fun for him to continue. Instead he says, “Damn, you gonna need more training. But that’s for later.” He flips me over to my stomach, and begins to peck his penis towards the middle of my cheeks (again, searching for the warmest place). As I lay I think to myself this is going to happen, this is really going to happen, and there is nothing I can do to stop it. Finally, he finds where he is looking for and presses hard, but before he can enter I make a sound. I cannot tell you exactly what the sound was, or my intent while making it. I just remember opening my mouth as if to start a prayer, and suddenly he is off of me standing aside the bed. His eyes are bulging, and begins, “What the fuck’s wrong with you?”

I just start unloading. I didn’t mean to lead you on. I really thought we could just talk. I have a problem voicing discomfort when in these sort of situations. I really do think you’re nice. I just wasn’t trying to have sex. I’m sorry. I’m so dumb. I’m so fucking dumb. This is all my fault.

As he puts on his clothes I can see him wilting. He has shrunken two sizes smaller wearing the kind of hurt that makes a white boy lethal. He is looking over his body, taking in every inch, second by second his self-consciousness blooms into a plant splintering everything in the room. I can feel the heat fanning from his anger as he silently moves to and fro. And suddenly, while watching him from atop the bed it strikes me, “I never told him about my HIV status.” I didn’t think disclosure was necessary before because I didn’t plan on us being intimate.

But now, as I watch his anger I think about all the ways it could happen. Maybe he’ll be scrolling through Facebook and see a poem of me discussing my disease. Maybe he’ll stumble upon an article I have written. Maybe a mutual friend of ours in Harlem mentions the work I do. And then. And then. And then. He’ll have his chance. His revenge. He’ll claim reckless endangerment. He’ll say I fucked him and never said anything. He’ll say it’s a miracle that he didn’t contract—but I should still be taken off the streets. That I am a threat to public health. That I’m gonna need more training.

I heard stories that even an accusation of endangerment has the potential to land you in prison. And I am the perfect suspect—harboring all this sick blood like I do. So before he walks out I stop him. I put my hand on his chest, and say that I am sorry. That I’m just buggin. That I really do like him. That I want us to take this slow. After some coaxing finally he says, “Okay baby.” Lies back on the bed, and places my head on his chest. He kisses my forehead and softly whispers to me all the things he wants to do with me when we get back to New York. He wants to properly court me. I just nod, because I cannot be honest.

Now, years later I think about that time I spent on his chest. Smiling—while the most afraid I have ever been. I think about everything that brought me there: the law, God, his white skin. How they are all one in the same. All punitive in their affection. How in that room they all would have sooner seen me dead, than to have seen me free.

After the conference weekend I never responded to any of his texts like I promised I would. I spent the rest of that year waiting for the day the police would come to my door. Tell me of everything the white boy said, and escort me into my cage. When it comes to the criminalization of HIV, I am always the culprit, I am never the victim.

I should’ve known better.

Suggested Reading 

“All prisoners are political prisoners: The #vaughnuprising and how ignoring hostage strategy forgoes our freedom“— Jess Krug, RaceBaitR  (Feb 13, 2017)

“The girl who pushed Tyra Banks (and the internet) over the edge” — Michael Blackmon, Buzzfeed (January 26, 2017)

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Timothy DuWhite is a writer, poet, playwright, performance artist, and activist. A great deal of Timothy’s work and activism is around HIV/AIDS and related issues. Currently, Timothy is developing his one-man show entitled “Neptune” slated to debut in July 2018 at Dixon Place. Tickets can be purchased HERE. 

 

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