Then I remind myself that no one would have heard me. He was positioned between me and the door. Even if I had grabbed a knife, he had 50 pounds on me.

Then I remember what actually happened: I was pulled out of the chair by my ponytail and dragged to the desk, my shirt torn open and my belly pushed down onto the desktop. I remember him pulling my jeans down. I remember being turned back around and shoved to the floor, pinned against metal filing cabinets, one of my arms behind me, bent the wrong way. I remember how the drawer pulls clawed into my back, how he squeezed his left hand tightly around my neck. Then he forced himself into my mouth. My jaws locked, wide, in spasm.

I was crying. In my mind I was screaming, although I did not make a sound.

And then he just stopped. Apparently he was done with me. He backed away, buckled his pants, and said nothing. The noise in my head ceased and all I heard was the Christmas music, still being pumped into the office. I sang along in my head with “Deck the Halls” while he started shutting down the various systems in the building from a computer on the desk.

Eventually, he told me to get up. He put his arm around me and walked me to get my coat, and then to my car in the parking lot. I didn’t speak. He leaned his body on mine the whole way.

He followed me home in his car, his headlights in my rearview mirror. When I got to my driveway, his car idled in the empty street. I waited. He didn’t leave. I got out of my car, shaking in fear that he was going to follow me into my apartment.

When I got to my door, I looked behind me. He slowly drove away.

The next morning, I didn’t know what to do. I told the head manager of the diner, who told me the company would take action, that they would protect me. Nothing happened, and in January I went to the police and subsequently filed a criminal charge. It went nowhere. My boss did not deny what he did to me. But he said that it was consensual, that I was a liar and a slut. The prosecutor declined to pursue the case, citing lack of evidence. It was just my word against his.

Word got around work that I was trying to ruin my boss’s life by making up a rape charge. The company didn’t fire him. I quit, moved back home and tried to start over.