15 Years of Silence // Toronto Life
Luis Mora
Toronto Life
When I was 16, a friend raped me in his parents’ basement. They were having a party upstairs—a drunken din of Springsteen and raucous conversation. We’d retreated into the rec room. He shut the door, retrieved some beer he’d swiped from the party and took a purple condom out of his pocket. He tried to charm me into a sip of his beer, grinning hard even as I said no. Harder still when I told him to put the condom back in his pocket.
When he kissed me, he tasted like beer, hamburgers and barbecue potato chips. I enjoyed kissing him. It reminded me of the way I held Pop Rocks underneath my tongue when I was a kid, pressing hard against the candy’s zing. I liked the curved bow of his lips, the way his body made a question mark over his guitar, how his toes turned in like a pigeon’s when he walked. He was the first boy I allowed below the waistband of my Bluenotes, and underneath my fluorescent padded bra.