It was summer. I don’t really remember much else in the way of detail, just that it was warm as we wandered along the waterfront. The bunch of us, all male, all young, all pretty fucking stupid. Looking for that guy, the one who raped a friend of ours. The night is pretty much flashes for me now (I had had a few drinks by this point). Warm night air, street lights, a strong scent of salt in the air. The tarred pylons on the wharves stand out in my mind for some weird reason. A few hours earlier a friend of mine had showed up at my place. I was drinking with some friends (pretty much what I was doing every night back then) and she came in, looking pretty rough. She was a very attractive blonde with an impressive rack and a tiny waist, something she got from hours and hours spent dancing. She was quiet, rare from this girl, and when we asked about it, she finally broke down and admitted that she had been raped.

Now, the bunch of us were mostly young guys, full of testosterone and anger. We headed out to find the motherfucker who raped our friend. We were going to teach him that shit like that didn’t fly in our town, that we looked after our own.

She didn’t want us to do it, wanted us to let it go. She was upset by the whole thing, and wanted to put it behind her. Hell, if we hadn’t pushed so hard, she wouldn’t have admitted it.

You probably know where this goes. We found him, a whole group of us, and we beat the fuck out of him, all the while screaming to keep the rage going. It’s a great fantasy. It took me a long time to spot the issues with her story, a long time to figure out what had happened. Now, at my advanced age, I know that she lied to us. She had been drinking, and so had he. They hooked up, went further than she had planned to go. That is why she was upset (and yes, I know that this is the case, and no, I can’t tell you how without telling you who) and not because she was unwilling. I don’t know who was initiating things, but I do know now that everything was consensual. The guy we beat the fuck out of was us, some dumb drunk kid who had sex with some other dumb drunk kid who happened to be a girl, who happened to change her mind.

Fuck guilty until proven innocent, and fuck politically correct. He didn’t deserve to get beat, and maybe she did, because she fucked up his life a lot that night and in some ways that can’t be reversed.

Sorry pony tail guy, I believed her.