I was 17 years old, had just left home, and all I knew was that I wanted to be a DJ. I’d had my decks for a few months, but really had no clue how to mix.

My friend from work’s boyfriend offered to show me some stuff. I promptly agreed. He was a 25 year old DJ from around my local city, a resident DJ at Marco Polo’s, a night spot I never went to but had some notoriety around town as being decent. He came over to mine one afternoon and he showed me some stuff on the decks, we played music and most likely talked about music. I was already obsessed with the idea of becoming a DJ. Not once did we flirt, or did I find him attractive. He was my friend’s boyfriend, it never crossed my mind once, and I was already seeing someone at the time.

Night came, and I remember saying he should leave as I needed to go to sleep. He told me he thought he was staying. It was awkward, I had a single bed in a a single room bedsit and I didn’t know what to say. I jokingly said he could top and tail, meaning he slept with his head at one end and mine at the other, only having to deal with each others feet for company. He chose not to do this and instead got in to my small bed the normal way. I turned my back to him. He was much bigger than I, over 6ft compared to my small 5ft frame.

This is when he started to beg me for sex. I said no repeatedly, “come on, it’s ok”, I said no over and over, he persisted. I didn’t know what to do. In the end I just lay there and let him do it in the hopes he would stop begging me and leave. There were no cuddles, kisses, desire or any of the things that would come with consensual foreplay, attraction and then the desire to make love. It was cold and brutal and I just wished it was over quickly. Thankfully it was. I fell asleep and hoped he would be gone in the morning. Unfortunately he didn’t leave and again in the morning did this to me again. Same routine, him begging, me refusing, him doing this to me for a second time.

Once it was over, I got dressed and left the bedsit with him still there. I freaked out and walked around my neighborhood trying to make sense of what had just happened to me. The shame washed over me like darkness. I phoned the guy I was actually seeing and told him parts of what had happened. I finally went back to my bedsit, where he’d left me a note telling me to calm down, that everything was ok.

This is the first time I have wrote this experience and thought about all the details. I wonder why I didn’t report it. I believe the fact I invited him over and that I was definitely to blame, the fact I knew him, it wasn’t a violent rape as such, I wasn’t really aware of what date rape meant at that time. This was the first ever male DJ I had met personally, my first experience of how someone could abuse their power and use music to manipulate a young and naive teenage girl who just wanted to learn DJing for their own needs.