A WOMAN and the Australian man who raped her as a teenager have appeared on stage together to tell their story.

Thordis Elva, from Iceland, was sexually assaulted by foreign exchange student, Tom Stranger in 1996.

At the time she was just 16 and he was 18, and the pair were dating, The Sun reports.

They have since come together to write a book about the experience, and shared the TED stage late last year to discuss the effect the incident had on each of them.

Ms Elva and Mr Stranger had been together for about a month when he raped her, meeting when he was on an exchange program in her home country.

The assault happened after the young couple had been to a school dance together, with Ms Elva explaining she was excited about showing their peers how happy they were. She celebrated by drinking rum for the first time.

“That was a bad idea,” she said in the TED talk.

“I became very ill, drifting in and out of consciousness in between spasms of convulsive vomiting and the security guards wanted to call me an ambulance but Tom acted as my knight in shining armour.

“He told them he’d take me home. It was like a fairy tale, his strong arms around me, laying me in the safety of my bed.”

But then her feelings of gratitude turned to “horror” as he removed her clothes and got on top of her.

“My head had cleared up, but my body was still too weak to fight back, and the pain was blinding. I thought I’d been severed in two,” she said.

“In order to stay sane, I silently counted the seconds on my alarm clock. And ever since that night, I’ve known that there are 7200 seconds in two hours.”

Ms Elva was left “limping for days” and crying for weeks, as she struggled to come to terms with what had happened to her.

It didn’t seem like “rape” as she’d previously thought of it, because the Aussie student was her boyfriend and it happened in her home.

By the time Ms Elva finally realised she wasn’t to blame and felt confident enough to call what happened to her rape, her attacker had gone back to Australia.

In the TED talk, Mr Stranger also discussed the attack, admitting at first he didn’t class it as rape.

“I have vague memories of the next day,” he said.

“The after effects of drinking, a certain hollowness that I tried to stifle. Nothing more. But I didn’t show up at Thordis’s door. It is important to now state that I didn’t see my deed for what it was.

“The word rape didn’t echo around my head as it should have and I wasn’t crucifying myself of memories of the night before. My definition of my actions completely refuted any recognition of the immense trauma I’d caused Thordis.

“I disavowed the truth by convincing myself it was sex and not rape. And this is a lie I’ve felt spine-bending guilt for.”

The couple broke up several days after the rape, with Mr Stranger admitting that deep down he knew he’d done something wrong.

Nine years after the dance, Ms Elva was on the verge of a nervous breakdown.

After a fight with a loved one she went to a cafe in tears, and started writing a letter to Mr Stranger.

She wrote: “I want to find forgiveness,” and realised she was done with feeling ashamed.

She was amazed when he not only replied, but sent her total confession and revealed how hard he’d found it to cope too.

The pair stayed in touch, eventually meeting up and talking about their lives. They have even written a book about what happened together, called South of Forgiveness, which comes out next month.

“Don’t underestimate the power of words,” Mr Stranger said.

“Saying to Thordis that I raped her changed my accord with myself, as well as with her.”

Mr Stranger lives in Sydney with his wife, Cat, while Ms Elva lives in Stockholm, Sweden with her partner Vidir and their son, according to the South of Forgiveness website.

If you or someone you know needs help, call the Sexual Assault & Domestic Violence National Help Line on 1800 Respect (1800 737 732) or visit the website at www.1800respect.org.au. If it’s urgent, call 000.

This story originally appeared in The Sun and has been republished here with permission.