Vodka Yonic features a rotating cast of female writers from around the world sharing stories that are alternately humorous, sobering, intellectual, erotic, religious or painfully personal. You never know what you’ll find here each week, but we hope this potent mix of stories encourages conversation.

We weren’t close friends, but there was one summer when we’d regularly share a small table at a crowded Seattle coffee shop. He was a freelance tech reporter taking advantage of the free Wi-Fi, and I was a full-time writer at a weekly newspaper looking to get away from my nearby office, avoiding any editor looking for an overdue assignment. We’d shoot the shit about rock bands and movies and gossip about mutual friends. He’d tease me about not drinking, and I’d give him a hard time about liking Apple products as much as he did. More than once I was thankful to see his familiar face when I had to begrudgingly attend a work-sponsored happy hour at a neighborhood bar. I hated going to bars.

While I never felt unsafe around him, I always preferred when friends popped in to join our impromptu hangouts — there was something about him that gave me the creeps when we were alone. The way he talked about women was always … aggressive. He bragged more than most men I knew about who he made out with at parties, and he desperately insisted he was a chick magnet despite also being a self-proclaimed self-conscious dweeb. He was especially proud of the fact that he once scored a one-night stand only because a naive woman mistook him (unbeknownst to him, he later claimed) for the lead singer of a band that was in town for a show. He acted like he, too, was mortified when she learned the truth, but he still gleefully told the story to anyone who’d listen.

Still, it was his massive ego that eventually drove me away. He was always looking to win more respect or favors from “important” people in the scene, and his constant name-dropping and obnoxious bragging grew stale. And really, I probably wasn’t of much use to him, either. I wasn’t the gatekeeper to VIP tents at festivals and, as a non-drinker, I made for a shitty party pal.

But I kept hearing about him, even from a distance. A friend once told me about a mutual friend of theirs who claimed he took advantage of her when she was way too drunk to consent. Others — people who I thought were his friends — would roll their eyes when his name came up. They wouldn’t say exactly why they couldn’t stand him anymore, but their body language filled in the blanks.

Despite these rumors and red flags, I controlled the urge to yell “DANGER! STAY AWAY!” when I’d see his grinning face pop up in photos with other friends and acquaintances. “These stories aren’t my stories to tell,” I told myself. So I stayed quiet.

I regret that silence now.

Less than three months ago, several women accused him of rape. The story gained national attention. A (still growing) number of women say he used a fake social media profile as a way to urge young women to meet up with him and possibly do a provocative photoshoot. He’d pose as a trustworthy character, claiming to be his bubbly ex-girlfriend who works for a high-profile porn studio in Las Vegas. Once these young women showed up at his apartment, he’d allegedly ply them with booze and blurry details about his supposed connections, and then convince them to have sex with him as a kind of “audition.” As of right now, he hasn’t been charged with anything, but the police have investigated.

My rage hasn’t subsided for weeks. He was my friend. He was trusted and loved by some of my dearest pals. I still have his number in my cellphone, and I often consider how amazing it would feel to call him and scream into his ear until his brain starts to bleed. Other days I drown in guilt, because when the news broke via an extremely well-reported article in Seattle’s alt-weekly newspaper The Stranger (“The Audition,” June 8), I didn’t gasp in horror and mentally run through every single one of our past interactions while wondering how the hell this could’ve happened. Instead, I laughed. I was horrified — of course I was horrified — but I laughed due to pure shock of my own lack of surprise.

The signs and accusations were there, but I did nothing. I stayed quiet despite knowing better, despite knowing since junior high — when the kid who used to sit behind me in algebra would stick his pencil down the back of my pants so he could tell people he touched my butt crack, and was shrugged off by teachers as a “flirt” — that men like this, predators like this, can and do find safety in any community.

They’re standing next to us at rock shows and sitting behind us in math class. They’re not only taking advantage of our friendship and trust, they’re also taking advantage of a culture that works desperately to silence the women these people are preying on. And as long as I exist in the comfort that comes with staying out of the gossip — scared to rock the boat, worried I’d lose friends if I said what they didn’t want to hear — I’m participating in that culture, too. So I won’t anymore. I don’t want to live in a world where it’s not surprising that a friend might just be a serial rapist right under my nose.

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