NO MENACE

I remember this day in detail from start to finish, the same way I remember most days, and I will share the facts with you here. The summary, because I feel it’s disrespectful to the severity of this subject to bring anyone through the stress of a long, detailed story without first cutting to the point, is that not only did I not assault this person or any person but I also did not endeavour to disregard their boundaries, needs or communications at any point. I never knowingly violated consent (that qualifying adverb necessary only because I intend to respectfully regard M’s account as a good-faith telling of their experience, just as I trust my own) but acted in what I believed was careful if heady responsiveness to my partner in an unexpected intimate encounter initiated by M. To hear that this was not their experience was shocking, vertiginous, nearly impossible to metabolise, especially as the language online morphed from the already patently false “assault” to “rape”; neither descriptor having any place in a retelling of this evening. Though I know that declarations of my own character have no way of being externally verified except through my actions, which I will endeavour to lay out for public scrutiny, I must here personally affirm the essential nature of autonomy and consent. The violence of knowing boundary-violation, the usurpation of commandment over your own body, these are unacceptable wrongs. In all intimate encounters that I am blessed to experience, I seek to proceed based on the signals I receive from my partner.

The Events of That Day

I fly into Denton, Texas early, around 2pm and loaded into the venue where I am greeted by the day staff. I eventually settled into the venue’s greenroom to plan my set and go over the managerial details involved with this first leg of the tour. I wind up making many trips up and down the stairs from the greenroom to the main room, handling various gear set up on stage and merch table business; the room is still sparsely attended with early-arrivers. By my 5th or so trip up and down I have become conspicuously aware that the person sitting at the table just at the foot of this stairwell is staring more consistently at me than anyone in the room; a fond smile on her face, seeming eager to engage. This is “M”. As the crowd grew and the proximity borne of limited space necessitating a polite acknowledgment of one’s fellow human looking directly at you with pleasantness, I say “Hello” to her and her entire table of friends. This leads to conversation with them; they invite me out to their car to smoke and I, fresh off a TSA search, agree. As the openers played their set inside, we engaged in high-minded small talk. I enjoyed their company; they were warm, clever and kept the pace of their amusing quips rapid. It was a positive connection. M and I exchanged numbers before we all parted ways.

The show itself went fine except for my own blundering of my tour manager duties, neglecting to coordinate properly with the person whose floor had been my intended bed for that night, leaving me stranded at 2am in a sunset town with no hotels. I texted M for some intel (because she seemed like the proverbial homie), explaining that my lodging plans had fallen through and inquiring about anything at all that could possibly be open in town at this hour (the internet having yielded nothing) where I could wait out the handful of hours until my flight. She volunteers that she lives near the airport and agrees to “adopt” me for a few hours, offering to pick me up as she was still out and about. The text exchange was 100% platonic and lightheartedly friendly, in no way leaning towards a suggestion of anything more than shelter for enough time to hopefully get a REM cycle in before the next leg of my journey to Canada in the morning. It wasn’t until she picked me up and I, along with my tour-bus-of-one (large, heavy bags of various metal music cubes, equipment, merchandise and luggage) were loaded up and driving towards her place that she let me know that her roommate or a friend might come by later (it was already almost 3am).

Assuming that I would be sleeping on a couch, I thought little of this announcement; thinking they would be doing their thing in their room/space and she was letting me know that people would be coming and going as I slept, no problem. Had I known explicitly what that would wind up meaning for our sleeping arrangement, I would have taken exception to the generous offer as I was thoroughly spent and desperately in need of sleep. Better to half-sleep in an airport like a mother bird over my equipment than to go knowingly into the space that it would later turn out had already been imagined for at that point.

I unloaded the car and squeezed in half-steps into the Denton flat. Exhausted and ready to power down, the first thing I do when I enter the door is put my stuff down next to the couch that I imagine I will be sleeping on; it is to the right of me. Here is where I got the key surprise of the evening… M says that I can’t stay in the living room as her friends would need the space buuut that there was room in her bedroom for me… I take 5 steps forward and find myself looking into a tiny bedroom, a bedroom so small and cluttered that I can not only not see the floor but can’t imagine that my stuff and two people could fit in such a space.

I regret not being more proactively inquisitive about the offer of shelter over text now of course, but at no point was it made clear to me that I would be sharing a small bed with this person in a room where sleeping on the floor was not an option.

…but I went with it because I am easy going and road-tested, even though I was not looking forward to being trapped in a box.

So I squeeze my one-man-band of bags and limbs into the space capsule of a room and find that the only place I can go, or put myself, is the bed. The door is shut behind me. This entire time, our conversation is being lead by her post-show euphoria and my subtle but increasing uneasiness, but still we are fully engaged and enjoying each other’s company. I can hear that multiple people are arriving and she continuously leaves the room and comes back, closing the door behind her everytime and not once inviting me out into the living room. I’m not sure who all is out there but I believe I spot one of the people we were sitting in the car with before the show during one of M’s trips in and out of the room. It’s uncomfortable but I’m going with it, grateful for the kindness and willing to follow her lead in her space without indulging in complaints or voicing my unease, fully aware that she has gone out of her way to help me out of a travel crisis. I have to go to the bathroom but somehow feel distinctly from her cues that it would be unwelcome for me to go into the living room, so I repress the urge. She offers me weed and then, as I sit on the edge of her bed smoking, fully clothed, she takes off her pants, now down to a blue street fighter tee and underwear. This surprises me, as I wasn’t planning on seeing her in any state of undress or exploring the option of a potential romantic entanglement. Another women at the show offered to take me home with her earlier in the evening in an explicitly sexual context but I politely declined; not even thinking about it twice, as I was just not interested in seeking out intimacy that night for multiple reasons. I point this out because I take deep exception to the sex-crazed demon I would read me as in M’s statement if I didn’t have the advantage of being there. I am merely single, compliant and open, my nature being more inclined towards going with the flow than not (this has always been the safer choice for me and thus has become my instinct) and this was a lovely person to boot(relative to the region) with whom I seemed to share sympathies and interests. I’m still sitting on the foot of the bed and she gets in next to me, laying down onto her stomach and rolling up against my body, draping her leg onto me. This is the first physical contact between us. I touch her and she leans into my hand in a slow gyration, pushing sensually into my palm; I move my hands up to her butt and she looks back at me grinning sweetly, smiling directly into my eyes. I continued to massage her legs, butt and lower back, never touching her genitals or chest at any point in our time together. At no point does she freeze or physically disengage. She continued to use body language to communicate her appreciation of the massage. She would later text me fond recollections of these moments and of the entire encounter. As we cuddled, she said that she has slept with a friend of mine, a confession that I interpreted as considerate, as maybe she thought I would be hurt if I were to find this out after we were any further intimate with each other. I would do the same thing. I paused for the conversation, assuring her that this did not bother me, thanking her for letting me know.

After this break in the intimacy for some adult conversation, she goes back out to the party with her friends again (all I can hear is music and laughing), returning shortly to climb back into bed in the same position she was in before and we continued cuddling. We are both touching each other when I moved to undress myself and the back of her hand brushes against my penis. She lets me know that she doesn’t want to escalate in this way by shaking her head and pulling her hand out from between our bodies. I apologise and immediately redress myself, and we return to the simple cuddling that we had already been consensually engaged in. We then settled into bed in a position for sleeping, touching still, both lamenting our super early mornings in conversation, speaking fondly to each other.

I fell asleep and awoke two hours later, making sure not to wake M as I left for the airport. We would discuss that moment of my tentative escalation over text the next day as well, me apologising for getting too excited in that moment. I believed I was acting in line with a mutual escalation of intimacy. The moment it was clear that she wanted things to remain at the level they were, I complied happily, responding to her and apologising for my assumption. I regret not discussing/getting confirmation for that assumption aloud first, for example by saying “Would you like me to get undressed / would you like to go further?”, etc.

This telling of the evening’s facts might be a rebuttal to any implication of my ill-intent, but I know that intent and perception/reception are often incongruous in human interaction and I do not wish to invalidate M’s perception or experience. I am deeply sorry that she experienced any negativity during time spent with me as I would never knowingly inflict that on another person or feel entitled to the exertion of my will at the expense of their discomfort.- There are things in her account that are objectively untrue and not subject to perception, but I don’t feel that they are all worth outlining here. She would later tell me over text that she had been drinking heavily that entire night, presumably every time she went out to the party in the living room with her friends? I had no idea at the time that she was in such a state as I didn’t see any of this drinking, nor did she mention it or seem anything other than sober. One example of the incongruity that I will mention is her specific claim that she offered me a “pillow and blanket for the couch”, suggesting that she was hinting that I go sleep on it. This is untrue and also impossible as the couch was my first desire and remained explicitly unavailable to me for all of the 2-3 hours of my time there; occupied as it was by people and circumstances that were never fully explained. She also indicates that she missed an appointment the next morning because of our encounter and an article on the matter said she couldn’t leave her room the next day but text messages she sent me show that she “bailed” on the event intentionally and that she “got other important things done instead”. Our text conversation after this evening was sweet and positive, characterised by M sending sexual pictures and selfies as well as fond recollections of the time we spent together. The only indication of anything even vaguely negative in our text exchange was my apology for my over-excitement in that fleeting moment, an apology to which her response was “I was excited too”.

Before this written telling of the perception of my ill-intent on this night were brought to me, my psychic limitations were already splintering this year (under the weight of unrelated forces that I have hinted at but will discuss at a later date) and I just didn’t have the spoons to know how to engage with this accusation of crimes that I did not commit. There are further aspects to this that I don’t feel are appropriate to go into in this statement but I will take this opportunity to apologise to my fans for taking so long to be able to tell my story. I wish I could have addressed your concerns sooner.